T'aafhal Legacy 1: Ghosts of Orion

by Doug L. Hoffman

“Hai.”

  “After your people have an appreciation of the severity of the threat I want them to identify any remaining samples from the dead planet and destroy them. I want them turned to plasma, Doctor.”

  “Understood, Captain.”

  Billy Ray nodded once, turned and headed toward the bridge in pursuit of his officers. Mizuki headed back to the lounge to collect the rest of her scientists.

  Crew Lounge, Lower Deck

  The wailing sound of the bio-hazard warning caused everyone in the crew lounge to sit up and look about. It was not an alarm that required them to report to action stations, just to remain at their current positions or in quarters. Then there was a thump.

  “What the hell was that?” demanded Steve Hitch, jumping to his feet in reaction to the accompanying shudder that passed through the ship.

  “Did we hit something?” asked Tamara, an edge of fear in her voice. Outside of transitioning to and from alter-space, ships with deck gravity did not shudder or shake unless something was desperately wrong.

  While the others were still wondering what caused the disturbance, the raucous call of a klaxon replaced the higher pitch yowl of the bio-hazard alarm. The crew knew precisely what to do when that call sounded. Most were already in motion when the First Officer's voice announced:

  “All hands, man your Battle Stations. This is not a drill!”

  “Are we under attack?” Kato shouted to the Gunny, who emerged from her quarters in the goat locker only to dive out of Umky's way. His action station was on the bridge at the main fire control console and he was headed there at a run.

  “Move your ass, Marine!” was all the Gunny said as she picked herself up off the deck and headed for the port side torpedo station. The Marines, less Umky, crewed that position when the ship was rigged for combat.

  A mad scramble ensued as the Peggy Sue prepared for battle with foes unknown.

  Bridge, Peggy Sue

  “All stations manned and ready, Sir,” the First Officer reported.

  “Very good,” the Captain replied. “Under a minute and a half, not bad considering they were probably hoisting a few when the klaxon sounded.”

  Beth made a non-committal sound. She had drilled the crew on the passage out until they could assume their action stations in under a minute, even when roused from a sound sleep.

  “Mr. Umky, have you a track on the ejected lab module?”

  “Aye, Captain. It is ten kilometers off the port bow, 15 degrees above the ship's horizontal plane. It is moving away at roughly fifty kph.”

  “Helm, roll the ship to starboard until all portside lasers can come to bear on the target.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir,” Bobby replied.

  “Fire Control, target the module with all portside X-ray lasers, maximum power, continuous fire.”

  Along the sides of the sleek silver ship teardrop shapes emerged, the color of obsidian—the business ends of the ship's secondary battery of X-ray lasers.

  “Sir! The target is acquired.”

  “You may fire when ready, Umky.”

  “All portside lasers firing on the target, Captain.”

  There was no visible indication that the ship's weapons were firing until the torrent of X-ray energy reached their intended target. Then the twenty ton lab module became incandescent, ablaze with white-hot heat. Molecular bonds were broken, crystal latices shattered, and electrons stripped from their nuclei. In under ten seconds the ejected lab module was turned into a dispersing cloud of plasma—no non-elemental substance survived intact.

  “The target is destroyed, Captain,” reported Umky.

  “Very good. Secure the secondary battery, Mr. Umky.”

  “All done and well done, Sir,” commented Beth, finally allowing herself a hint of a smile. The crew had done their job, smartly and with no drama.

  “You may secure from general quarters, Number One.” Peggy Sue's previous captain had avoided using that term for the ship's first officer, deeming it too British and too TV SciFi, but Billy Ray had no such qualms regarding his first officer—after all, Beth was British.

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  “Your orders, Captain?” the Sailing Master asked from the helm.

  “Set a course back to the dead planet, maximum acceleration, Mr. Danner.” Billy Ray sat back in the commander's chair, tension from the brief engagement lifting.

  “Course set, Sir. It will take us three days and twenty-one hours to enter orbit around GJ667Cc.”

  “Very good, Mr. Danner. All ahead full, if you please. As soon as Dr. Ogawa and her savants finish analyzing the recordings we will send a message to the Fortune. It appears that planet C may be more deadly than dead.”

  New Mecca, Paradise

  Shadi stared off into space, seeking a glimmer of horizon in the antelucan gloom. She was waiting on her sister to join her so they could take the sheep out to pasture, but Dorri had not yet appeared. The younger girl had finally managed to drop off into fitful sleep sometime past midnight, while Shadi had not slept at all.

  The sisters were both unsettled because they had finally learned their fates. Imam Mustafa had summoned them after the evening meal. Standing before them as head of the household, mother Manijeh by his side, he told them who they were to marry—Ahmed as expected for Dorri and Mohamed al Madi, an older man with several wives, for Shadi.

  They were to be married the next day until Shadi spoke up and said they were both menstruating. Given popular notions of menstrual synchrony in close female friends this coincidence was not questioned. And since women were considered unclean during their menstrual period the weddings were postponed by a week, allowing the girls to take the sheep out to the fields one last time. They planned on being gone for several days, sleeping under the stars with their wooly charges.

  “Good morning,” mumbled Dorri, arriving as the first sliver of light limned the eastern horizon. They would be heading west, away from the rising sun, up into the foot hills. The robot quadcopters that seeded the surrounding land had done their job well. A green carpet spread from the river in the east to the stony rise of the hills leading up to the mountains. The sisters' trek would take them miles from New Mecca, into shared solitude.

  “Let's get the sheep moving, little star. I want to be clear of town before the others awaken, before the morning call to prayer.”

  “Yes, I wish we never had to see anyone here again.” The bitterness that marked Dorri's comment caused Shadi to glance around nervously.

  “Shush. No complaining until we are well out of ear shot. These will be our last few days together, our last taste of freedom, and I want to enjoy them as much as possible.”

  “But we can still see each other after we are married, right?”

  “On occasion, but not like now. We will have to synchronize fetching water and other chores so we can meet. Though settling into our new households will probably take up most of our time once we are married.”

  There, she had said it, the dreaded word—married. Given to men they did not know in the middle of their adolescence, yet another cruel twist of fate. Shadi had once dreamed of going on a grand adventure, like something in the movies or literature, but this was not an adventure, it was a trip into hell. An empty planet, married to an old man, her sister taken from her. How could things get any worse, she wondered.

  Bridge, ESS Fortune

  The image of Peggy Sue's captain appeared on the large forward screen. As was usually the case, only Capt. Chakrabarti was on the bridge of the Fortune. The other members of his crew were busy hauling things to the planet's surface or occupied elsewhere within the ship. The message delivered in the other captain's recorded transmission made no sense to him.

  “Captain Chakrabarti, I urge you to get the settlers back on your ship and head for home. Or at least wait in orbit until a team of scientists can check more deeply into the conditions of GJ667Cc,” Capt. Vincent's image said. “I repeat, we have reason to believe that the colonists on the surface of th
e planet are in grave and immediate danger.”

  Sid paused the recording. He wished he could ask questions of Capt. Vincent, but there was a twenty minute transmission delay between their ships. What danger was he talking about? The planet was under observation for half a year. No life, threatening or otherwise, had been found. Even the Peggy Sue had reported the planet lifeless!

  He resumed the playback.

  “If what we suspect is true, the planet is a ticking time bomb. There is a virulent contagion hidden in the soil that can be triggered by the presence of carbon based life.”

  What does he mean? The settlers have been on the surface for more than a month. The settlements have been established, the surrounding fields have been seeded and their livestock put out to pasture. Nothing dangerous has been triggered by the presence of life.

  The Captain's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a doorway sliding open—one of the crew entering the bridge from below. Sid swiveled his chair around.

  “Oh, it's you Mr. Hoenig. Back from the surface so soon?”

  “Yes, Captain. Not like there's much down there to keep a man's interest. All the horses have been delivered and, with the exception of some odds and ends, we are done offloading.”

  “Good, another week and we may be able to head for home.”

  “Sounds like a great idea to me, Captain.” The shuttle pilot sat down in one of the bridge chairs without invitation. “You know, these folks may do alright here. As we were leaving New Mecca, I spied a flock of sheep with a couple of herders heading toward the mountains.”

  “Really? It sounds like the modified prairie grass has spread like weeds.”

  “Yeah, it's tenacious stuff. The flock of sheep was kilometers from the settlement with green fields all around. Hey, who's that on the screen?”

  “What?” Then Sid realized he had not removed Capt. Vincent's paused image from the forward display. “Just a message from the captain of the merchant ship. I think they are headed back this way.”

  “Did they find any trouble on the outer planets?”

  “No,” Sid said, clearing the display, “no, not really.”

  “I wonder if they have women on their ship?”

  “It hardly matters, as we will never meet them in person. You said there were a few more items to be ferried to the surface?”

  “Yeah,” said Hoenig, taking the hint. “I'm gonna grab some rack time and then finish hauling the supplies to the surface. Catch you later, Captain.”

  Sid just smiled. Impertinent lout. Still, no reason to spread panic among the crew or settlers. When the Peggy Sue gets close enough to have a real conversation, perhaps I can find out what its captain is so upset about.

  The Captain turned back to his console. Picking up his pad he resumed reading the adventure novel he had started a few days ago, his thoughts drifting far away from his ship and the empty planet below.

  Chapter 19

  New Mecca, Paradise

  Dorri and Shadi urged their flock onward, up the gently rising slope to where new grass grew. The sheep poked along, but the girls didn't mind, one patch of grass was much the same as any other. They merely wished to put enough distance between themselves and the settlement so that no one would be tempted to come and check up on them.

  It was a warm day, with white fluffy clouds dotting the cerulean blue sky. The red sun smiled brightly overhead, giving the world a rosy tint. She had overheard one of the men from the ship call the planet “Paradise.” Under different circumstances, Shadi thought, it could well be a paradise. Her thoughts were interrupted by Dorri's shout.

  “Look over there! There is something moving.”

  Shielding her eyes with the palm of her hand, Shadi looked in the direction Dorri was pointing. There did seem to be something moving through the grass. It was as though sticks kept popping up, flipping end over end through the air, and disappearing again into the tall grass.

  “What is it?” She yelled to her sister.

  “I don't know. It seems to be a collection of black rods, sort of tumbling along the ground.”

  Shadi hurried over to where her sister was standing, closer to the strange object.

  “Funny, the sticks don't seem to actually touch each other,” Dorri commented, as Shadi drew near. “And there seems to be some kind of box or container in the middle of them.”

  As they watched, the collection of sticks stopped rolling and the entire assemblage deformed, lifting the central box higher into the air. After standing in that position for almost a minute it shrank back down and rolled off in a different direction, parallel to the flock's path toward the hills. It swayed and tumbled up the hill at a speed faster than a walking pace.

  “Do you think it's alive?” asked Dorri.

  “I don't know, it sure doesn't look like any animal from back home. But it's traveling up hill against the wind so something is making it move. ”

  “True. And it is keeping its distance from us and the sheep. You don't think it's dangerous, do you?” Concern crept into Dorri's voice for the first time since the odd apparition was sighted.

  “I don't know. Wolves looking for strays might track a flock, moving in parallel with it.” For the first time since coming to this world, Shadi felt uneasy about being exposed far from the settlement. “Let's stay between it and the sheep, just in case.”

  “It's upwind but the sheep don't seem to notice it. If it was a predator you'd think they would react, wouldn't you?”

  “It doesn't look like any predator I've ever seen. But you are right, predators always try to stay downwind of their prey.”

  “What ever it is, it seems to be going away.”

  Sure enough, the strange collections of sticks was receding, moving away from the flock and its two shepherds. A few minutes later the enigmatic visitor rolled over the next rise and disappeared from sight. Shadi felt the little knot of fear that had formed in her stomach ease.

  “Let's move the sheep off that direction, away from that thing's path. And keep an eye out for more of them, or for that one to come back.”

  “Sure,” Dorri agreed, still staring after the departed object. “Maybe this planet isn't as empty as they told us.”

  “Maybe indeed, little star. A planet is a big place, with a lot of places to hide. I don't care what they told us, I cannot believe they learned everything there is to know about this world in such a short time.”

  The sheep continued to placidly chew on the green shoots of grass while the sisters contemplated the meaning of what they had just witnessed. On the other side of the rise, the flexibot continued its survey. Having recognized the handful of creatures it discovered as Earth life, and therefore of little interest, the robot headed up slope toward the edge of the prairie grass.

  Armory, Peggy Sue

  “So let me get this straight,” said Kato, “the alert yesterday was all because someone ejected a Science Lab module?”

  “That's the scuttlebutt,” replied Jacobs.

  The Marines and the two petty officers were in the armory working on their suits. The time they spent on the metal moon was time spent in vacuum, which was actually less stressful on their armor than trudging around through grit and grime on a planet's surface. Regardless, when your suit is often the only thing keeping you alive, you learn not to scrimp on preventative maintenance.

  “More than that,” added Hitch, in a conspiratorial tone, “I heard from one of the snipes that Rogers, the climate guy from the science section, got himself killed by some contamination from the dead planet. The Chief saw the whole thing.”

  “The Chief was the one who ejected the Lab Module, Stevie!” exclaimed Jacobs.

  “You are kidding, da?” asked Bosco, looking up from his partly disassembled railgun.

  “Hell no. That's why the Captain had the module vaporized by the X-ray laser battery.”

  “He did, indeed,” rumbled Umky. “I was the one who did the targeting. I didn't know that Dr. Rogers had died inside at the t
ime, though.”

  “What's the straight skinny on what happened to the science guy?” asked the Gunny. “I heard the Science Section types and the officers are the only ones who know what really happened in the Lab.”

  “Yeah, Umky. What does your girl friend have to say about it?”

  Umky gave Vinny a predatory look, but answered anyway. “According to Ahnah, Rogers managed to awaken some kind of killer goo that was hibernating under the planet's surface. He messed with it until it came back to life and ate him.”

  “Holy crap! We were all down on the surface, running around for a week!”

  “Right, well Ahnah said this 'black goo' is triggered by the presence of life. We were safe down there because the Captain made us all wear armor.”

  “Yeah,” added the Gunny, “that's one lesson we learned the hard way—always go in heavy to start with because there's no telling what type of shit you're stepping into.”

  Those assembled took a moment to contemplate their good fortune in having officers that knew their asses from holes in the ground. This, they knew from experience, was not always the case. Then a thought occurred to Vinny.

  “Hey, what about all those settlers? They're all down there running around without armor or even pressure suits. Why ain't the black goo got to them? ”

  “I think that's why we are accelerating at 60G for the inner system, DeSilva. I expect we'll be briefed soon enough.”

  “Right, Gunny. You think we'll be safe in armor?”

  “I'm hoping we don't have to find out, Kato. But it might be wise to go over your armor twice.”

  Umky snorted. “It would be really humiliating to be eaten by something without claws or teeth.”

  “No kidding, Nanook,” quipped Kato. Nanook—polar bear in Inuit—was widely used by Marines to refer to any white bear in a casual way. Umky had given up on fighting its use. After all, it was better than being referred to as 'man' or 'dude'.

  “We may not have to go back to the surface, but I wouldn't count on it. The only way I can see to get those civilians out of harm's way is to evacuate them.” The Gunny gave her fellow warriors a meaningful look and went back to cleaning her armor.