Serpents and Vipers

by Donald Nicklas

  “This is quite impressive, Sly,” the Consul Lorenzo said. I had no idea you had so many ships here.”

  “Sss. We have more hangars in mountain. However, this one has ships you will use. When the eggs are gone, we will send the serpents that came to help from our colonies back into space. Then the Mountain Clan can keep the planet. They are not space faring and will stay in this system once we are gone.”

  “They do have ships, thought, Sly,” Slone said. “One of them shot us down.”

  “Sss. Yes and they could leave, but part of their genetics keep them here. They only have ships to guard system.”

  Alaya now realized there was a problem with Sly’s thinking. “Sly, if what you say is true, whose ships were waiting for us at the slipstream from Rubicon?”

  If Sly could look embarrassed, then Alaya could imagine she would have the appearance her face did now. “Sss. I must apologize to all of you. Those ships belonged to members of my clan who have defected to the Mountain Clan. We are very sad about this.”

  “Sly, it is not your fault. You knew nothing about this until we got here,” Lorenzo said. “We all fell into this situation. Do you have any idea how many of your people went over to the Mountain Clan?”

  “Sss. Most of my clan living on the home world joined the Mountain Clan. We in the mountain are all that are still loyal, and they are all from other systems. Most of the Sea Clan does not live on the home world”

  “Then why are they trying to destroy the hatchery?” Slone asked.

  “Sss. They are not, they want to take it. They do not know about the one on Nova Romae.”

  “Then they want to hold the future of the clan in their own hands. They think if they have the hatchery, you will all fall in line,” Slone said.

  “Sss. They think that but they are wrong. We have been off world too long to become prisoners. It is time for you to go. Are the Slones certain they want to stay?”

  Alaya answered for them both, “Yes Sly. You saved us on New Wales; we will not desert you now.”

  “Sss. Sly is grateful.”

  Centurion Marshal also indicated his continued desire to remain behind with the Slones. Consul Juan Lorenzo, Scout Tavia MacDougal, the hatchling as well as the wounded Scout Raul Cortega climbed a ladder into the waiting serpent ship. The ladder led to the bottom entrance to the ship and opened into a large entrance chamber in which the serpent Captain they had met earlier was waiting. “Sss. serpents welcome humans aboard. We have the ashes of your dead in our hold for return to Nova Romae.”

  “I thank you,” Consul Lorenzo said as the serpent captain ushered them into the bridge area. When they entered the bridge, they could see immediately that it was much different from their ship’s bridges. It was very spacious but only had five serpents, the captain and four others. The captain stood behind the others but none of them sat. There were no seats. Serpents stand for all of their activities. The humans have always felt that was because they used their tail as a necessary extremity. After the humans entered the bridge, the captain ignored them and the other serpents acted as if they never entered. The bridge window gave a view on all sides, since the bridge sat at the top of the front of the ship and was the highest point. This allowed them a 360 degree view with the roof of the bridge consisting of a solid oval of metal supported by three struts on each side dividing the transparent area into six windows with the largest forming the front and back views. They could see two ships rising up from the floor ahead of them and flying directly towards the stone wall of the hangar cavern. The humans watched in horror as the ships sped forward and were about to crash into the wall. However, they did not crash. On the contrary, they passed through the wall and out of sight. Raul turned to the others and said, “A hologram. Clever.” The others nodded.

  As soon as the decoy ships left, the bridge came to life. The serpents began to move their hands and tails across the consoles and a background melody was heard coming from each of the serpents. As the communication with the consoles started, the bridge filled with bubbles containing glyphs of the serpent language along with images of the planet, the system and the ships that had just left. As soon as the ships cleared the atmosphere, they were engaged by three ships in orbit. As the humans watched, the serpent ships began the familiar dance of a dogfight in space. Since the serpent ships were small and fast, the combat became increasingly intense. If the ships were not represented by different colors on the combat plot, they would have lost track of who is who. As the battle continued, the five ships began to move off and one of the enemy ships began to move out of the area and plunge into the atmosphere.

  Captain Artok of the serpent Vessel, Cold Death, was proud of being chosen to carry the human leader back to Nova Romae. She had never had any contact with humans, but she watched how they fearlessly offered their help to protect her Clan Mother and how they put themselves in harm’s way. She had also heard how the young female named Tavia had saved the Clan Mother from certain death at the hands of an assassin. She and her crew had the job to take them back to their home world to get help for her clan. She intended to do this and protect them to the death. As she watched the tactical screen, she could see her ships were doing their duty and had even shot down one of the enemy. It was her job to determine the best time to make her move and that time was now. Captain Artok barked and hissed an order, the bridge crew sprung to life, and the ship leapt off the hangar floor towards the wall where the hologram was. The change was so fast that the humans grabbed anything solid to hold onto. Just as they entered the holographic wall area and passed through, Captain Artok again barked a command and the ship went invisible.

  “Tavia, any idea what the captain is saying?” The Consul asked.

  “If I understand her correctly, she just ordered us invisible.”

  Captain Artok turned to the humans, “Sss. She is correct. I was told humans cannot master our language.”

  Lorenzo responded, “I thought so as well, but Scout Tavia is an exceptional young lady, as I am coming to realize.”

  The Cold Death flew out of the side of the mountain and the humans looked behind and could now see where they had come from. The volcano looked solid. Lorenzo had to admit, the serpents were masters at camouflage. The ship climbed out of the atmosphere and entered space. The combat plot showed only three ships engaged now. One of the Sea Clan ships was now missing and the last one was fighting both of the remaining ones. Captain Artok gave another command and the Sea Clan ship broke off and ran for the atmosphere and the safety of the volcano. Lorenzo could see that the serpents knew how to get things done. They were now moving at full speed towards the outbound slipstream. Lorenzo would have liked to know how long the transit would be, but did not want to distract the captain during such a tense situation. The guarding ships were still intent on pursuing the lone Sea Clan ship and thus missed the chance to stop the ship that mattered. At the rate they were speeding away from the planet, the Romani could tell the serpent ships were fast, faster than the Draco had been. There was suddenly some commotion on the bridge and Lorenzo looked at the threat board and saw the two guard ships change course and head towards the outbound slipstream. They must have discovered the invisible ship. The pursuit poured on the energy in an attempt to catch up.

  Tavia looked at the combat plot on the screen and could see the pursuing ships vanish. Their location was now only approximated by picking up slight emissions. They were closing the gap. “The serpent ships are very fast,” she said to no one in particular.

  Serpents not only have fast ships but also good ears. Captain Artok turned to Tavia and said, “Sss. Yes, they are fast but speed does not win battles, guile does. We will proceed slower than them.”

  The humans watched the plot and saw the estimated position of the pursuing ships catching up to them. When the pursuing ships were estimated to have closed half the distance to the Cold Death, Captain Artok hissed an order and they could hear machinery working and the external view changed to the rear of t
he ship. Of course, since they were invisible, even the external cameras could not see the rear of the ship but they could see the space behind them. As the humans watched, several spherical objects were propelled out of the back of the ship. They were moving too slow to be projectiles and they were too small to be effective mines, so the humans had no idea what they were. The Cold Death sped up now and this forced the following ships to increase their speed and increase the amount of electronic signatures that bled through the invisibility shield. The small spheres were visible on the plot and when they reached a position just ahead of the locations given for the pursuing ships, they suddenly burst open and released an expanding cloud of adhesive particles that reminded Juan Lorenzo of glitter he had seen young girls use. As the enemy ships passed through the glitter, it began to adhere to their surface and they became partially visible.

  Space is an interesting medium through which to travel. Since there is no friction, nothing slows you down or changes your course if you do not fire your engines. Captain Artok hissed and barked some orders and the Romani could see the front of the ship rotate towards the direction they came from. To do this, the forward starboard thrusters and the aft port thrusters fired at the same time. This had the effect of rotating the ship on its center axis like a pinwheel. As soon as it was facing backwards, the opposite thrusters were fired to stop the rotation. The net effect was to have the ship facing the enemy while maintaining its flight towards the outbound slipstream. Since the Cold Death never fired her main engines. Inertia alone kept her speeding away from the pursuit even as she turned to face them. Another order from Captain Artok, and two missiles, and three rail shots went flying towards the left enemy ship as that ship sped forward to meet them. The Romani could hear the machinery feeding the railguns and missile tubes working. Everything was automated on the serpent vessel. The rail shot reached the enemy sooner than the missiles and slammed into the nose of the vessel just as the enemy fired their missiles and railguns. As the Romani watched, one of the shots went into the just emptied missile tube. It must have damaged the missile storage racks. There was an explosion, the bottom forward part of the ship, under the bridge area was blown away, effectively removing the missile tubes, and the nose mounted railgun. The enemy shot reached the serpent ship about the same time. Since the Cold Death was invisible, the enemy shots went wide. It was at best a desperate attempt to hit them. The enemy missiles ran out of fuel without doing any damage, since the Cold Death was moving away. The Cold Death’s missiles reached the crippled ship and did something the Romani had never seen. The missile engines cut out and the front of the missiles opened. The enemy knew what was coming and tried to reverse direction and make a run for it. Unfortunately, the damage done by the rail shots must have also affected the flight electronics and the ship was slow to turn. After the front of the missiles opened, each missile fired a swarm of small projectiles in the direction of the enemy. As they neared the mass of the enemy ship, they sped up and then stuck to the surface of the ship. They acted as if the ship was drawing them in. As they were attaching, the side of the ship opened up and two escape capsules came out and made a beeline back towards the planet. It was apparent to the Romani that, whatever just adhered to the ship, the enemy wanted nothing to do with it. Another command from Captain Artok and the crippled enemy ship was enveloped in a massive explosion and vaporized.

  Raul turned to Tavia and said, with admiration, “Now that is a weapon.”

  Apparently, the other ship thought the same, it reversed course rapidly and ran in the other direction. Captain Artok then turned her ship around again and continued on course to the outbound slipstream. The chase and the combat had taken enough time to bring them within an hour of entering the slipstream. The serpents did not mind if the Romani walked around the bridge, so they tried to understand how the vessel was controlled. The humans had noticed in all of their work with the serpents that the reptiles acted as if the humans didn’t even exist. Sometimes the Romani felt the reptiles just viewed them as local creatures that were underfoot.

  When they finally reached the slipstream, the Romani expected the ship to come to a stop and deploy sails, as human ships did. Instead, they maintained course and speed. Tavia and the others could identify the location of the slipstream on the monitor bubbles projected over their heads. The Cold Death had entered the slipstream but showed no sign of firing retrorockets to stop forward movement and deploy. Captain Artok again hissed, clicked and barked an order. The ship became visible, allowing the cameras to see what was happening. The Romani could hear machinery activating in the ship and they looked behind them to see if sails would come out. Instead, they saw the wings rotate 90 degrees on the long axis, with the flat, top surface facing backwards and the railguns now pointing upwards. They could also see the tail stabilizers rotate up to form a rear sail. Without stopping the forward momentum, the ship began to move faster and enter light speed. Raul Cortega remarked, “They must have polarized the wings and they function as sails.” The engines finally shut down and they were sailing the slipstream.

  Raul Cortega said, to no one in particular, “I wonder if they can achieve two light years per hour with this type of sail arrangement?”

  Captain Artok left her position, as did the other serpents on the bridge. She came over to the Romani and her lips began to quiver, “We travel three light years in one human hour. Come I show you where you live.”

  The serpent moved rapidly off the bridge and the Romani followed. They went down a ramp and into a corridor. On each side, there were round openings with bedding on the floors of the rooms beyond. There were five such rooms, which the Romani assumed were for the crew, since serpent ships only carried a crew of five, though they were a little larger than a scout ship. The captain’s quarters were twice as large as the other four and were on the starboard side, just behind the bridge. The corridor then lead into a hold that was spacious and occupied the entire width of the ship with doors on either side opening onto the wings for exiting the ship, either in space or on land, when the bridge ladder was not being used. The hold contained serpent weapons, projectile and melee, as well as serpent armor and hard vacuum suits. There was nothing in the hold designed for humans, so the Romani had to hope there would be no hull breaches on the trip. The circular door at the rear of the hold opened onto another corridor with thirteen circular room openings on each side and behind each opening was bedding on the floor and some shelves for personal items. Each room also had a waste disposal system that was built for serpents and there would be some amusing incidents on the trip as the humans tried to figure out how best to use it. Fortunately, the hatchling knew how everything worked; it was the anatomic differences that led to the humor of it all. Eating presented yet another problem and only Tavia seemed content to eat live worms. She explained she had tried them several times in her dealings with Sly, and it never ceased to amuse the serpent to watch her eat them.

  Chapter 5 – Return to Rubicon

  Three systems and four days out from the serpent home world, the serpent ship carrying the Romani back to Nova Romae to plead for help for the Sea Clan, arrived in a complex, quaternary system. Three of the stars are in a tight orbit and consist of a Class O and two Class M main sequence stars. The fourth star of the system is a class L, non-main sequence, dwarf. It is in a wide orbit around the cluster of three. Any planets that formed in the system were torn apart, in the early life of the system, due to the gravity of the stellar bodies. A large number of asteroids and planetoids orbit between the middle three and the distant fourth star. On one of the larger planetoids, there was a serpent mining base they intended to visit for refueling and resupply. When they left the planet, they were not prepared for the long trip back to Nova Romae, and they needed more supplies to make it all the way to human space. There would also be a stop at the Rubicon station. Captain Artok told Consul Lorenzo the transit time to the mining base was eleven hours, 32 minutes human time measure. The humans returned to their quarters
while messages were exchanged between the ship and the base, to make sure what they needed would be ready to load. They did not want to stay longer than they had to.

  Before they got some more rest, the Consul called them to a meeting in the hold. They sat on some crates and the hatchling joined them, since she never left Tavia’s side. Lorenzo began, without preamble, “I’m uneasy about visiting this mining base. We know from Sly that some of her clan, those who live on the home world, has gone over to the rebels. She also indicated that all of the mining bases are run by her clan. I think we should make sure we check all of our weapons and wear body armor when we go down to the base. I also want us to stay on the ship. Let Captain Artok and her crew handle everything. If we fall into a trap, I want to make sure we are on this ship.”

  Everyone agreed to the wisdom of this decision. Lorenzo then continued, “Tavia, are you able to read their language as well as understand it.”

  “Consul, I am not sure I would say I understand it completely, but I can gather what they say. I cannot read it at all. Their symbols are completely alien to us and I have no idea if they are alphabetical, phonetic or both. All of my cipher training for the scout service is of no help. We need a linguist.”