NEBULAR Collection 4 - Second Reserve: Episodes 17 - 21

by Thomas Rabenstein

  ›This is a blessing in disguise!‹ Main thought. ›But it also makes it hard for us to find our way back.‹

  »This storm was probably caused by the spindles!« Bondifar yelled against the strong wind. »I hope it’ll get better. Thank the supply sergeant at Fleet HQ for his foresight, that he issued us these special suits, just look at the temp.«

  »Damn, minus sixty degrees Centigrade!« Hosch cursed. »If we don’t stop them, then it will not only have long lasting effects on Greenland, but also for the northern hemisphere!«

  A green shimmering light emitting from the top of the spindle which they had inspected before. Although, the snow storm was very heavy, the light was still visible, while the actual landing zone was hidden behind a wall of snow. The team stopped for a moment and observed the green light.

  Tiller Hosch wasn’t too happy about their sudden retreat and said, »We could try to sabotage the spindle. The entrance is still open! Maybe that’ll stop them.«

  Main shook his head.

  »We didn’t bring any explosives and the picobots are all used up. Needless to say that they didn’t work as expected. We need to get back. Our information is too important, including what we experienced with that woman.«

  »My passive scan indicates that the machines have recovered and are working again. Our attempt was useless. I think I have to puke …,« Bondifar said through dry heaves before being interrupted by Main.

  »… we didn’t have a good opportunity to rescue Uma Boos. I think she helped us escape. She still retained a Human personality. This gives us some hope. Even though it doesn’t look like it, we fulfilled our mission. Believe me guys!«

  Tiller Hosch wiped a hand across his visor.

  »What a shit weather! Let’s get out of here. I’m looking forward to minus twenty degrees!«

  Main grinned.

  »That’s the spirit!«

  On the same frequency

  As Nok Daralamai and her team returned to the meeting room about an hour and a half later, the base was suddenly shaken by a weak tremor.

  Nuri looked at Hassan who seemed to be listening inwardly.

  »I think one of the ships has left Triton!« he announced.

  Nok knit her eyebrows.

  »Possible ... the tremor was perhaps caused by the Reusus. The ship had landed close to the base. It seems that the Moxantans cracked our codes and swallowed the bait.«

  »Maybe,« Hassan replied. »We should leave our hiding spot and look around.«

  Nok waited for a couple of minutes before deciding, »We have to leave here sooner or later anyway. Let’s find out what’s going on.«

  When the doors to the meeting room opened, people were heard rejoicing. Nok stepped into the corridor and was embraced and kissed on the cheek by a young man, who froze as he recognized her.

  Nok frowned and looked at the young space soldier.

  »Thanks for the kiss, young man,« she said dryly and walked past the embarrassed soldier. »What’s the occasion?«

  As Hassan and Nuri also entered the corridor, the soldier almost fainted.

  »They took off!« Hassan replied instead, sending a devilish grin to the red-faced guy.

  »Are you sure?« Nok asked while looking around, more and more people arrived, surrounding Nok and her team.

  In the meantime, the young soldier had regained his composure and saluted Nok, »I’m dreadfully sorry Ma’am … but we’re all very excited. The Boodrum had left about two hours ago followed by the Reusus. The Moxantans cleared the base within minutes. If this isn’t good news …?«

  Nok looked at Hassan briefly.

  »Let’s go to the command central and get our information fist hand.«

  Swiftly, Nok, Hassan, Nuri and a handful of soldiers walked to the command central. They were met with many happy faces along the way. As the doors to command central pulled back a barrage of cheers greeted them. The moment didn’t last long as the crew noticed the seriousness on Nok’s face.

  »Is there anybody who can give me a solid report?« she yelled into the room.

  A high-ranking officer approached Nok, saluted and began his report, »Ma’am, I’m glad to see you! The Boodrum left Triton Base and the Neptune system about two hours ago. We tried to follow the ship with our scanners but lost it.«

  »They must have cracked our codes at that time,« Nok concluded.

  The officer seemed depressed as he continued, »I’m afraid they sucked all the data from the computer – we couldn’t prevent it. Minutes later, the Moxantans cleared the base very fast. A couple of minutes ago the Reusus took off for the Kuiper Belt.«

  Nok Daralamai took a deep breath.

  »Are all of the Moxantans gone?«

  »I’ve ordered our security forces to canvas the base. So far, we didn’t find any intruders,« the officer responded stiff.

  The sound of rejoicing crew could be heard from the corridor through the open door to the command central.

  »What happened to the third ship?« she inquired.

  The officer looked at the floor before he answered, »The Toxoma is still at her old position and converts the Despina debris into standardized building modules.

  Nok straightened.

  »I cannot see any reason for celebration. Tell the crew to maintain their posts, we’re still at Battle Stations!« she commanded sternly. »Comm-officer in Charge!«

  The officer straightened in his seat.

  »Commander, Ma’am?«

  Nok produced a thin smile, »Establish a conference link to Titan and Fleet HQ via Tachyon Bridge!«

  »Roger!«

  Nok gnawed on her lower lip. It wasn’t clear if Friedberg was able to reply as new information from Earth hadn’t been received in a while. She sighed with relief when the Fleet HQ banner appeared on the holo. Seconds later, Friedberg’s worried face was visible. His eyes flashed as he recognized Nok at the other end.

  »I’m glad to see you alive and well, Commander,« he greeted. »I wish, I could tell you that the danger has passed …«

  »I know, Admiral,« Nok replied calmly. »This is just a brief pause, Sir ...«

  »… which is now over … Ranguin just transmitted a help call and initiated Invasion Alert!« Friedberg interrupted. »The Boodrum has popped up near Saturn and approaches Titan … so much for this plan!«

  Nok closed and opened her eyes slowly. She had expected this.

  »The Quadranans possess superior technology. They tapped our memory banks before we had a chance to intervene. So far, we could only send the Moxantans into the boonies. The Reusus is on its way to the Kuiper Belt, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to talk now.«

  Friedberg’s eyes grew bolder as he replied, »Well … our action plan here on Earth didn’t work either. Regardless, the mission team yielded some important information. I’ll send you a copy in a moment.«

  Nok seemed depressed.

  »The Circle ships can return any minute, I’m slowly running out of ideas.«

  Friedberg nodded.

  »Apparently, these Frigonans have their own plans with us. They installed an atmospheric exchanger in Greenland and started to cool down the area. Our scientists are speculating this is the first step to terra forming. They theorize that the Frigonans want to turn Earth into an ice planet.«

  Nok was held her breath while Friedberg continued.

  »Commander, please read the information carefully. We’ve noticed that these Frigonan parasites also affect other Circle people. There’s still a big question mark looming above the situation.«

  »We made similar observations, Admiral,« acknowledged Nok. »There’re Moxantans who are under the command of Quadranans, in this case Circle General Mindbreaker. We detected some tension between these groups, internal conflicts. We didn’t know about this until recently. The commanders of the Circle ships are following their own agendas without telling the other Circle members. There’s a rivalry between them.«

  Nok ran her hand through her long hair and touched her co
mpletely healed shoulder. She marveled at the fact that there was no scar tissue at all.

  »We have to see the invasion in a different light. The Circle understands the function of the Dimensional Shield. Each and every group is trying to take advantage of it and is setting their own priorities,« Nok continued. »While one group goes after the octahedron information, another group is concocting other plans.«

  »You’re probably correct, Commander,« Friedberg suggested. »If this is the case then we can use it to our advantage, because if they don’t play along with each other then they give us ample time to devise a counter plan.«

  Nok seemed skeptical.

  »I don’t know how much time we have. Even though, the octahedron data is immensely important to us, we may need to erase it after all, before the Boodrum commander gets his hand on it. I think the data is essential for the Circle people. The Quadranans called it a treasure. We cannot allow them to capture the data!«

  Friedberg played with his white beard and seemed to reflect a moment.

  »I can see that both of us are on the same frequency.«

  ›He’s smiling and doesn’t seem too worried,‹ Nok thought. ›What is he planning?‹

  Nothing

  The Boodrum re-entered the Einstein continuum exactly above Titan and caused havoc to the base. Commander Ranguin had followed Nok’s advice and offered no resistance. Ranguin issued orders to ships, operating in the Titan sector, to leave.

  The Titan personal took a passive stand, as did the crews at the bases on the smaller moons. The base commander ordered non-essential personnel into the bunkers, but remained with a handful of officers and sergeants inside the command central. Minutes later, countless robots rained down from the ship. Ranguin transmitted the base’s surrender on all frequencies and opened the airlocks. Hundreds of robots stormed into the base. As they entered the command central, Ranguin was calm and resolute.

  The Quadranans had also deployed specialized robots, which were extracting the data from the base’s mainframe.

  After the Quadranans had received the first data blocks and decoded them – they found nothing!

  Nobel Prize

  After a short stop, the Paradise Bird continued her flight. Senitschko pushed Friese to put a couple of extra logs on the fire as the ship left the Saturn system, while remaining as long as possible in Saturn’s shadow on route to the Asteroid Belt. Viktor Senitschko, Banduk Oodergoo and Teun van Velzen were inside the ship’s techno-module, working like mad for hours. Upon setting course, Friese visited the techno-module, accompanied by Chopra.

  The scientists greeted them warmly and invited the two to come closer.

  »It was tight like a virgin on her wedding night, but we made it,« Chopra explained with a grin under the scientists muted laughter.

  Friese took a look around.

  »You brought all of this with the Hawk and then installed it in the meantime?« he wondered as he saw the equipment.

  »Yep, piece of cake,« Senitschko replied, waving his hand over the different modules. »Virtual displays, analysis equipment, an extra peripheral motherboard with processor for the neuronal computer and plenty of memory. This was needed. Technology has advanced since the Paradise Bird had been put into service. Consider the upgrade a Fleet courtesy.«

  »I understand,« Friese nodded perplexed. »I wish, though, that you’d tell us the truth and explain this mysterious data transfer between the ship and Titan Base.«

  Senitschko squinted at Oodergoo, who faintly nodded with approval.

  »Commander, you mentioned a couple of hours ago, that this ship is not adequately equipped for space warfare … you were correct, but it also depends on the point of view.«

  »Okay … enlighten me,« Friese invited him to continue with a hand movement. »Tell me your point of view.«

  Senitschko smiled as he continued, »The Paradise Bird is one of the oldest Fleet units still in service and distinguishes herself from all other ships. I have to admit, that it took us a while to find a ship like yours for our mission.«

  »I like what I hear so far …,« Friese encouraged him.

  »Well, yes, the Paradise Bird is an old bucket, better an old relay ship, which interconnects the bases and outposts with Earth and the colonies. The amount of data exchanged on an hourly basis is massive. To prevent any data loss due to solar interferences, the Paradise Bird is equipped with specially shielded, expanded memory banks to store the received data and transmit them later after the interferences subside ...«

  »… that’s not new to me, what else?« interrupted Friese.

  Banduk Oodergoo stood up from his seat.

  »This was exactly what we were looking for. We just needed to tweak the systems a bit. We restructured the memory buffers and use them now as a data vault. The octahedron data retrieved from Titan is now on board this ship! You and your ship insured that the data, possibly the most important data Humanity ever possessed, wasn’t falling into the wrong hands.«

  Friese’s face hid his emotions.

  »Most important data?« Friese inquired. »I don’t quite understand.«

  »It was too risky to distribute the octahedron information via the neuronal computer network, because we didn’t know if any Trojan horses or viruses were contained and embedded in the data blocks. By the way: this risk is still not resolved! Transmitting the data blocks to Earth is out of the question due to the Circle people on Earth. They might be able to intercept our data streams.«

  Friese thought a moment before exchanging glances with Chopra.

  »Okay, what’s next? The data is on board my ship and if they find us then we serve the information to our enemy on a silver platter? You could have deployed a more modern ship for this mission,« Friese threw in.

  Van Velzen shook his head vigorously.

  »No, we didn’t have enough time to outfit a modern unit. Please, consider the Frigonan threat. Friedberg gambled against high odds as he sent out a team to Greenland, keeping the Frigonans occupied, otherwise we would have not been able to leave Earth with a Hawk.

  Friese nodded.

  »According to the course vectors, we’re flying directly into the Asteroid Belt. This is a very dangerous endeavor and we might lose the ship and the data,« he warned.

  »Huh … we trust your navigation skills, Commander. We need to take higher risks nowadays or we won’t survive. Friedberg trusts you too,« Senitschko grinned. »We’ll remain on board and look through the data. The task is massive, fortunately, it can be read clearly. We don’t exactly know what we’re looking for, but it must be very important to the Circle people.«

  »Now, I know why the elite, the brightest scientists on Earth, were sent to me,« Friese mocked lamely. »Well, get going before the ship collides with an asteroid. You know what they say: If you fly here on purpose, you never make it back!«

  Friese turned and walked to the airlock. He looked back over his shoulder before he left the module and said, »You know what? Since the information isn’t coded and clearly intelligible, why don’t you query for the word: Circle? If you find something then you can nominate me for the Nobel Prize …«

  Friese and Chopra nodded to each other and left the room, leaving the scientists laughing in the background.

  When the laughter subsided, they jumped on their terminals and began a frantic search.

  END

  The story continues with our fifth ebook.

  Panic in the Galaxy!

  Written by Thomas Rabenstein,

  Translated by Michael Koeckritz and team.

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  About the author

  Thomas Rabenstein, born on 15.03.1963 in Hof on the banks of the Saale, was excited by Science Fiction from his early years on.

  Active in the Fantastic-Fandom, he’s inspired by classic movies, TV-series and novels. In the 80s, using the new medium known as the Internet, he published his first short stories.

  Highly interested in Astronomy and Space Technology, he integrates this knowledge into his novels.