Serpents and Vipers

by Donald Nicklas

“Sly, if we wait to detach from the freighter until it reaches the station, can we outrun the serpent ships?”

  “Sss. Yes, captain. Serpent ships not faster than human when in system.”

  “Good. We will keep a watch until then. Allyson, how many outbound slipstreams are there?”

  “Two, Alaya. One goes back to Rubicon; the other is 5 hours beyond the station.”

  “Ok. We will detach from the freighter shortly before the station and use sails to reach the slipstream. Sly, keep us invisible until we enter the slipstream.”

  “Sss. Yes, captain.”

  “Sly, any idea what the next system is like?”

  “Sss. There is a mining base from my clan.”

  “Can we get help from them?”

  Sly gave the serpent equivalent of a shrug and turned back to her console. Alaya suspected they would have to wait until they get there for the answer. The freighter moved on and the invisible ships stayed guarding the inbound slipstream. Alaya was hoping their size might get them through the system without detection.

  When they finally reached the station, they could see that it was shut down. The freighter stopped and waited for permission to enter. None came and Alaya suspected none would come. Something was not right in serpent space and they were moving right into the middle of it.

  “Tavia, release us and raise the system sails.”

  “Yes, captain.” Tavia pressed a button and the clamps holding the Draco to the freighter opened and the scout vessel drifted slowly away as Tavia raised the sails to catch the star wind. “Captain, there will not be much wind from a carbon star. This will be a slow transit with sails.”

  “I know, but we can’t risk using the engines.”

  It took seven hours and not the predicted five to reach the outbound slipstream, but using only sails worked and the picket ships did not move from the inbound slipstream. The Draco entered the outbound slipstream and sped to the next system. They had escaped detection, thus far.

  “How long to the next system?” This time Christopher asked.

  Allyson did her calculations and stated, “Fortunately the next system is close, since the carbon star has a very slow slipstream. It will take us 5 hours and 12 minutes.”

  “Very well. Set the ship to rest mode.” Alaya ordered. All were relieved since the last 24 hours had been very tense trying to avoid detection. None of them slept but they relaxed as best they could. Lorenzo commended all aboard for their successful avoidance of the serpent ships.

  When the slipstream ended, all were once again at their posts and Sly made the ship invisible. This time the Consul also took a spot on the bridge. They exited the slipstream and Albert Claudian began scanning immediately.

  Lorenzo was the first to speak. “Anything on the scans?”

  “The system has two stars, the primary is a Class O dark blue giant and the partner is a Class M red dwarf. There are two rocky planets orbiting the dwarf and seven gas giants orbiting both stars. Telemetry from the second planet orbiting the dwarf indicates some kind of habitation. There are no visible ships in the system.”

  Now they all turned to Sly, who responded in the deliberate way of the serpents, “Sss. The habitation is my clan’s mining base. There are no invisible ships in the system. We should contact the base to see what is happening.”

  Lorenzo said, “Good idea, while we are still far enough away to run. Navigator, find the closest outbound slipstream and note its location, in case we have to make a dash.”

  “Yes, sir,” Allyson said.

  They let Sly send a tight beam transmission to the mining base and waited the hour lag time for a response. During this time, they maintained a heading towards the base, but only as long as the distance to the outbound slipstream also became shorter. When the time was up, the return message came in. The message was put up on the speakers and Sly listened to it, but the humans could not understand it. When the message ended, it was obvious that Sly was concerned.

  “What is it, Sly?” Tavia asked.

  “Sss. The mountain clan has taken over the government and has killed the World Mother, and all of the other clan mothers. I am the last clan mother and they are after me. My clan is waiting to fight, but not until I am with them. They are on the home world. We must stay in systems my clan controls to get there safe.”

  Lorenzo took a minute to mull over the news. “Did they say anything about the status of other clans? How many clans are there?”

  After a moment of preparation, Sly said, “Sss. There are four clans. The Mountain Clan hates humans and the other clans. The Valley Clan raise food and remains neutral, but their clan mother was also killed. The Hill Clan is where the World Mothers come from. The Sea Clan is Sly’s clan. I am the clan mother. The Hill Clan has many dead now, but they will stand with the Sea Clan. We must go to Home Planet quickly.”

  Sly had just finished saying more to the humans than most had ever heard her say. The mood aboard the Draco was solemn. It was obvious the serpents in the mining base had purposely stayed behind to warn their clan mother. Shortly after the conversation with Sly, they departed in a ship that went invisible. Lorenzo had hoped to catch a glimpse of a serpent ship, since no one in the past 300 years had seen one. However, they were too far away when it went invisible.

  “We need to get Sly to her home world as soon as possible,” Lorenzo said. “Sly can you tell us the fastest route to your home world and how long to get there?”

  “Sss. We were going to go the fastest route; it will take two human weeks.”

  “If there are enemy ships on the way, can we outrun them or avoid them?”

  “Sss. If we stay invisible, they can sense us but they cannot lock weapons, or know exact position,” Sly pointed out.

  “Good. Let’s make a run for it then,” Lorenzo said and looked at Alaya.

  Alaya looked at her copilot, “Tavia, take us on the plotted course to Primary Jungle.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  The Draco continued on her course. Most of the systems they passed through were free of ships. The mining and other bases they passed were all deserted. To Sly, this indicated that the serpents had all returned to the home world to fight in the pending civil war. They also learned from Sly that half of her clan was in human space. Indeed, the members of Sly’s Sea Clan were the only serpents who live off planet. Apparently, they are called the Sea Clan because theirs is a clan of explorers. They encountered two more picket ships, but were able to avoid them. After two weeks travel, they were finally in the last slipstream before arrival at Primary Jungle.

  Lorenzo was on the bridge of the Draco along with the crew. “After we enter the system, keep us invisible, Sly. Tavia, we will stay put after entering the system until we scan the area.”

  “Yes, Consul,” Tavia said immediately. “We have reached the end of the slipstream,” she added.

  “Sly, make us invisible,” Alaya said and then turned to her copilot, “Tavia depolarize the sails.”

  With the push of a button, the scout ship dropped out of light speed and the stars reappeared. As the sails retracted and the system sails came up, Albert Claudian started to scan the system and report, “There is a single primary star, Spectral class F, White main sequence. There are also five rocky planets and seven Gas Giants with multiple natural satellites, as well as three asteroid belts. It appears the fourth planet is covered in biomass, so I assume that is Primary Jungle. There are no visible ships in the system.”

  All attention was now directed towards Sly, who looked up and started to move her lips, “Sss. The fourth planet is home world. There are five invisible vessels between us and planet.”

  “Can we avoid them,” Christopher Slone asked.

  Sly responded, “Sss. We must go through them.”

  Everyone on the bridge looked at each other. The Draco was a minimally armed, scout vessel. It had a small missile launcher with only one missile as well as a small cannon, with an autoloader and only six shots. Both faced forwa
rd and they were meant for dire emergencies only. The ship could not stand up to a military vessel.

  “Is there any way to go around?” Lorenzo asked.

  “Sss. The closer we are, they will locate us,” Sly reported.

  “Can we communicate with your clan on the planet?” Alaya asked this question.

  “Sss. Yes, but ships will know we are here.”

  Consul Lorenzo replied, “We will have to risk it to know where to land. Send a tight beam message to the planet and move us away from this spot after we send the message.”

  “Yes, sir,” Tavia said as she opened a channel and told Sly to send her message. The serpent began to speak in her combination of hisses, clicks and barks. When she was finished, Tavia sent the message as a burst transmission on a tight beam to the planet. She then polarized the sails and moved away from the spot to try to hide the source of the transmission.

  “What is the transit time to Primary Jungle?” This time it was Christopher Slone asking.

  “11 hours, 12 minutes,” Allyson Cartwright responded.

  Christopher turned to Sly, “Sly, what kind of weapons do the serpent ships carry?”

  The serpent’s mouth began to quiver as she started to speak, “Sss. serpent ships have three railguns underneath, they can swivel, and two missile ports.”

  “How many serpents are there aboard?”

  “Sss. Five.”

  “Do they have to become visible to fire their weapons?”

  Sly again looked at Christopher, who asked the question, “Sss. No.”

  By the time this conversation was finished, the return message came into the Draco. Tavia informed Sly and opened the channel. There was the unintelligible serpent language. The message was quite lengthy and when ended, Sly turned to the group on the bridge, “Sss. My Clan is in the swamps on one of the smaller landmasses. They are together with what remains of the Hill Clan. They are safe, since the Mountain Clan is still in the main city. They are waiting for me to join them, before they return to the big landmass.

  “Then we need to get you on that planet,” Lorenzo said. “Alaya head to the planet.”

  “Yes, Consul.”

  Alaya changed course for the planet and no one took the usual rest period. The only event that happened while they were in transit was Tavia asking permission to take the cast off the hatchling’s leg. It was healed now and they may have to make a run for it on the planet. Sly was fascinated that the hatchling would let a human do all this for her, but Tavia seemed to have that effect on the serpents. She removed the cast and the hatching spent the transit time limbering up and testing her healed leg. Sly’s wounds had also healed during the travel time.

  The Draco was now an hour from the planet and Sly informed them that the serpent ships were changing position and moving in a line abreast towards them. There was nothing to see either visually or on sensors, so they had to take Sly’s word for it. The crew knew if they were going to reach the surface, they would have to run as fast as possible through the ships. Alaya was all business now. “Everyone find a seat and hang on. Sly, keep us invisible. Tavia, drop the system sails and give me a maximum engine burn for 5 minutes after the sails are down.”

  “Yes, Captain.” The bridge was fully occupied in the task.

  When the sails were down, the engines came to life and for the next 5 minutes, the ship accelerated at a continuous rate. As soon as the time was up, the engines cut out and the ship remained at the final speed in the vacuum of space. Once the engines were out, there was no telltale energy spike. Had they been against any other enemy, they would have been completely safe in their invisibility, but not against serpents, since they could detect their own technology. Alaya ordered everyone into hard vacuum suits. If there is a breach in the hull, the Draco was too small to carry force field, hull patches. There was also no armor around the bridge windows.

  “Sly, what is the range of serpent weapons?”

  Sly turned to look at Alaya, “Sss. Same as human cannon, but no explosion. Missiles cannot lock on invisible ship.”

  So then, Alaya thought, only solid shot from railguns. Still kinetic energy is just as powerful on impact as an explosion. They would be in range of the serpent ships in 3 minutes and all were now in their space suits with helmets on, but visor up. As the last three minutes passed, they wondered if the serpents would fire on them. Tavia and Alaya had decided they would accelerate as soon as they detected any weapons fire and not return that fire. When the time was up, they no longer needed to question if the serpents would fire.

  “Incoming,” Albert Claudian shouted as the sensors detected three railgun shots heading towards them.

  Alaya immediately fired the engines and they rushed forward before the shots reached their location. Since their missiles can’t lock on them as long as they are invisible, the key thing is to avoid the projectiles. Humans had experimented with railguns early on but they have two major drawbacks. Firstly, since they work on accelerating a projectile from a dead stop to an exit velocity in the length of the barrel, the projectile must be small. The larger the projectile, the longer the barrel required to fire it. This meant no explosives in the shot to self-destruct. The shot became high-speed space debris if it missed its target. Secondly, it also traveled slower than cannon shot, which came out of the barrel at a fixed speed every time. This allowed the target to move out of the way if not fired at close range.

  The three projectiles missed. Sly now informed the crew that the other four vessels have moved and come into range, but they were starting to fall behind the Draco, which was moving much faster. Alaya risked another burn to put more distance past them, but this also gave a detectable energy spike. Since serpent railguns were outside the vessel, there was no port to open or detect. To the Draco they were invisible when they fired, but the Draco was visible to them when it used its engines. Alaya had no idea what kind of propulsion they used, but it too was undetectable.

  “Incoming, I count 15 rail shot in a scatter pattern,” Albert Claudian reported.

  Alaya turn the ship hard to starboard and then suddenly hard to port to make a zigzag pattern. However, serpents are also very intelligent and they know how to deal with invisible ships. The scatter pattern of shots they used was unavoidable. Of the 15 railgun shots, most missed but two slammed into the lightly armored scout ship. The shots hit in rapid succession with the first entering the hull at the level of the conference room and just missing one of the Romani bodyguards. It lodged against the far wall of the room, doing no damage, but the Draco began to bleed atmosphere and all aboard put down their visors. It was the second shot that did fatal damage to the ship. The shot hit at the rear of the ship near the engine room and severed the fuel lines to the engines. This caused the Draco to leak fuel. Fortunately, the fuel was leaking to the outside, so the risk of fire was diminished.

  “We’re leaking fuel,” Alaya said and Raul Cortega left the bridge and headed to engineering to check damage. When he got there, he could see one of the fuel hoses was partially severed. He was able to patch the leak with hose binding patches, but these would not hold long if the pressure were not reduced. The problem with that is it would slow the ship just when more speed was needed to get out of danger.

  Raul pressed the communicator on his helmet, “Captain, I have patched the breach of the fuel line but it will not hold with the present pressure and if we decrease the pressure we will slow. I estimate the patch will hold for about a half hour.”

  Alaya acknowledged the report and turned to Sly, “How long to the land mass your clan is on.”

  “Sss. 40 human minutes.”

  “Then it will be close,”

  “Incoming,” Albert Claudian again announced. “15 rail shot, most are going to miss us aft. Looks like one will hit.”

  The third shot again hit the aft of the vessel at an angle and damaged the hydraulics needed for landing. Hydraulic fluid was leaking into the ship and polluting the electronics in the engine room. While she
still had control, Alaya fired the engines and sped towards the atmosphere. “Sly, can serpent ships enter the atmosphere?”

  “Sss. Yes.”

  “Not good,” Alaya said, more to herself than to the others. “We are entering the atmosphere now.”

  The Draco entered the high atmosphere, which started to heat up the outer hull. Alaya brought the ship to a shallower angle and this slowed it down as it moved deeper into the atmosphere. She could see the main land mass and the smaller one past it. There was an ocean gap of what looked like close to a thousand kilometers separating them. She had to drift over the main continent and move across that ocean, but with a fuel line patch and leaking hydraulic fluid, it was going to be touch and go. There were also developing glitches in the electrical system, which made invisibility difficult for Sly to maintain. Only one ship followed them into the atmosphere. Alaya assumed the other four stayed on watch incase other human ships were coming. In their damaged state, they didn’t even need one on their tail.

  “Incoming,” Albert Claudian announce yet again. “Three rail shot and two missiles. They did not take the gravity in account and the rail shot has been pulled down. They won’t make that mistake again. The missiles are locked.

  “Releasing flairs. I hope they are heat seeking,” Raul Cortega reported. “Are they, Sly?”

  “Sss. Yes, like human missiles.”

  Both missiles exploded on the flairs, but one was close enough to rock the ship and loosen the patch on the fuel line. “We are losing fuel again,” Alaya reported. The words were hardly out of her mouth when the fuel caught fire and flames came out of the side of the ship. This caused more drag on one side and made the ship hard to keep on course. Just then, the next set of rail shots came in and this time they compensated for gravity. The shots hit the rear of the ship, however, the taper of the vessel caused them all to glace off the hull; but the passengers felt it.

  As they got deeper into the atmosphere, Tavia opened the air intakes and they could take off the cumbersome space suits, all but the pilots who were trying to keep control of a ship that was streaking through the atmosphere trailing smoke and flames.