They were now moving at a suicidal speed towards the tree tops of the planet when a loud scream from his helmsman cut across all this noise.
“We won`t stop in time brace yourselves we are going to hit hard.”
Somehow his helmsman managed to decrease their angle of approach to the ground rushing up at them, but they still hit hard, the helmsman giving the battle of a lifetime and earning his pay as he tried to miss the larger items dotted along their rough landing strip. The ship had bounced three times as it tore through the undergrowth and trees of the Planet Orion.
“Fire all breaking thrusters now.” screamed Divilio just a little too late, for his helmsman had already applied them.
Divilio saw parts of his flagship break off as they hit a gigantic tree, his helmsman choosing this direction rather than the granite hill that filled the rest of his view. The impact caused the ship to slew around hard and it began to spin, but only the once, for the mass of the ship pushed its nose deep into ground finally stopping it. Its stopping threw Divilio hard against the decking of his vessel, a jagged piece of his once proud ship tearing into his flesh. Smoke now began to fill the compartment from the numerous fires caused by the ships electrical systems being damaged. These were caused either by the one of the bone breaking bounces as the ship had skipped along the hard ground, or the force hitting them when the ship in turn hit something large, or maybe it was the G force when the ship was finally spun around like a child`s toy.
Generalissimo Divilio, self-appointed Emperor of the Universe, was some forty years old, almost six feet in height with dark curly hair and muscles on his muscles, the very picture of a pirate, which at heart he was. He commanded through fear, ruthlessness and success, just like any pirate that ever sailed the seven seas of planet Earth. His family had ruled on the planet Heliot for generations, and he was a product of such breeding, never had he been denied anything, and he was not about to start being denied the Planet of the Light and all of its riches now. However, all around him Divilio saw his ship broken, his crew hurled to the floor, some obviously dead. One killed by a broken joist that had crashed down from the bridge ceiling to crush him, another with a broken neck caused by being thrown around the bridge like so much flotsam, still another impaled on a jagged piece of bridge that had been torn from the wall. The rest all injured by various degrees, included his first officer Aswan, who had a broken arm, but who was still the first to help him get to his feet.
Without acknowledging his help Divilio snapped out an order to Aswan. “See how badly off the ship is Aswan, quickly now I need to know when we can kill every last peace loving slug on the Planet of the Light. When I have finished with that hole they will have to change its name to the planet of the dead.” However, then Divilio noticed that his first officer was wounded.
“But have the doctor look at your arm first Aswan; you`re no use to me like that. And have him come up here to tend to my wounds after he has done with you.” Blood was staining Divilio`s tunic at the spot where he had been stabbed by a piece of his beloved flagship.
Aswan, too was a pirate at heart. Thirty years of fending for himself ever since his parents had died had shaped Aswan into a hard independent man, one who would do anything to get what he wanted. He had been put into a workhouse to grow up, and grow up fast he did. His face bore the scars of this tough life, his eyes were hard and diamond blue, his hair long and curly, much as his leader`s hair was. No one except Aswan thought that Divilio cared for anyone or anything but himself, but Aswan knew that once there had been a real friendship between the two Heliots. That had been before Divilio had ordered the attack on the Planet of the Light. Aswan had warned against making an attack, without more information about what they would have to face when they launched their invasion, but Divilio wouldn`t listen to him and had ridiculed him in front of the other members of the fleet. From this moment on their friendship had finished, now Divilio had an enemy on his bridge, who would take his revenge when Divilio needed him most. Because of Divilio they were marooned on this god forsaken planet with their fleet almost destroyed, never again would they be the scourge of the universe, never again would he feel the touch of his woman`s hand upon his body.
Across the way from Aswan, Divilio let forth a scream of pure rage at the Fates, which rang down the corridors of his flagship. Then Divilio turned to Rada, his communications chief.
“Rada contact the other cruisers and find out how many men were lost on this pathetic planet.”
“Yes Generalissimo, to hear is to obey.”
Rada had anticipated his leader`s order, for he had already started to contact the other members of the fleet, to ascertain whether or not they were ok.
Divilio only waited a minute before demanding the information of his communications chief.
“Well Rada what is the situation out there?”
Rada looked up at his leader and with a look of abject dismay on his face, and he groaned out a sorrowful reply to his leader.
“The other battle cruisers that I have so far been able to get in contact with are all smashed up, nothing left of them except scrap metal. Most of their crews are more than likely dead as well, we were lucky.” He added rather rashly for Divilio nearly shot him with his Phaser pistol there and then, so engulfed was he by anger, as the truth of the situation became tragically clear. In fact Divilio`s face would have frozen the entire population of the Planet of the Light, had they seen it, thankfully for them however he was the length of a galaxy away plus fifty thousand years in time.
“No!” screamed Divilio. “No! Not my magnificent fleet. Planet of the Light, I will turn your name into the Red Planet. All your people will die beneath my boots.”
Rada was fearful for his own life after his rash statement about their ship being lucky, and especially so when he had coupled it to the fact that he had been the bearer of such bad news, so he decided that some good news was required.
“The troop transports look to be in reasonable condition, my leader, we can easily revenge ourselves with what they carry.”
Divilio looked down again at Rada and seeing the fear on the other man`s eyes sneered.
“Don`t look so worried Rada, I only bite those who don`t obey my orders immediately.”
Rada was grateful then, for always obeying Divilio without so much of a moment`s hesitation. Rada was quite short, only five foot five inches with the same dark curly hair of his leader, and a disposition to match Divilio`s. He was twenty five years of age; all spent fighting and grasping for whatever he could get. Now though he had made it, for nothing could ever surpass his position as a bridge officer of Generalissimo Divilio.
The reason behind the troop transporters relatively good condition was that they were built to a different specification to the battle cruisers; they had been designed to land on rough terrain amidst heavy fire. They relied more on their heavy armour than their shields, and added to that the keels of the transport ships had extra reinforcement to protect their cargo`s. This meant that their landing may have been rough but they had been through landings almost as bad before. The battle cruisers on the other hand hardly ever landed, so their primary defence was their shields, and the shields had been damaged by the treatment the ships encountered within the time storm, and the extremely rough landing on the planet Orion had finished them off.
Reports were quickly coming into the bridge from the surrounding ships, the men and equipment aboard the troop transports would be ready by the planets nightfall. Already troops had set up a perimeter with defensive weapons at all key points around the damaged fleet. Aswan came back onto the bridge with his report, his broken arm felt a little better already after his visit to the doctor on board the Vega, one of the troop ships. The level of medical treatment aboard the Heliot ships was better than many a planet could hope to possess.
“This ship will never be operational ever again, even if we had a good many spare parts and a space dock, but we should be able to protect ourselves on this god forsak
en planet with the portable weapons Generalissimo. The hyperspace engines on our ship are just so much scrap metal, they have been smashed to smithereens, the interplanetary engines haven`t been found yet and the Phasers blew themselves up. She is finished.”
As if to prove the point the large view screen at the front of the bridge chose this moment to explode into a thousand pieces and crash down onto floor, covering it with even more wreckage. The only working piece of apparatus on the bridge was the radio, which Rada had fitted with surge protectors, backup batteries and anti-shock protection, had the other technicians …but no, nothing could have saved the gigantic warship from the moment that it appeared in the atmosphere of Orion.
Divilio turned to his first officer and snapped at him, anger taking over his mind completely now.
“How in hell`s name do you know what this hell hole is capable of, we have no idea as to where we are, or what technical level that they have on this planet.”
Divilio half turned away before turning back to his first officer for he needed him badly now, so he controlled his temper and spoke almost politely.
“We will have to move to one of the transports Aswan, the Vega is a good ship she will do. Take some men, go and see if you can get any useful parts from this ship, and the other cruisers, and turn the Vega into a warship as befits me. Also arrange for the other transports to be similarly fitted out. Oh and while you are there, ensure that you also arrange for any crew replacements that we will need for our new flagship, send any others along with any of our stores that are still in one piece over to the transport ships for use by the infantry commanders.”
Rada was busy talking to any of the surviving officers on the broken space cruisers that he could still communicate with; Aswan was hard at work with the initial stages of turning the transporters into space cruisers, or as near to as possible given the current situation. So Divilio instead looked across at his navigating officer Trajo, a woman who it was said could fight as good as the rest of the crew, and even better than those that weren`t part of the warrior compliment. Her auburn hair still looking as if she had just come from the hair dressers, her skin was as smooth and pale as that of a Victorian maid, added to this were her long legs and full figure. No wonder Divilio had made her his own. Back on Heliot he had a wife and a family, but when in space he had Trajo.
“Get onto one of the transport vessels and have them send up an unmanned drone to see just what is around us, and to find out if there are any space ports that we can use to repair our fleet.”
Trajo was soon speaking to the commander of the infantry, and she relayed Divilio`s orders regarding unmanned drones, and minutes later one small unmanned drone was soon seen by the Heliot`s to take to the skies of this alien planet. This was soon followed by a second, as the captain of the transport ship decided that one was not sufficient to get them the data, certainly not before the generalissimo demanded it. The drones flew completely around their position, with each completed circuit taking them further away. There later in the day aboard the transport ship Vega, Commander Vakas looked at the large view screen set on the forward walls of his bridge, and the planet of Orion opened up to him. The view from the first drone at first just showed the jungle, then some small villages that seemed to be just about out of the Stone Age. The second drone he sent down a steep sided valley that cut the mountain range, which they had landed alongside, in two. As the drone got further away from the space fleet he noticed something that appeared to be a little more modern appearing on the horizon. Sensors on the craft came awake as power readings began to appear. He turned to his second in command.
“Patch this view over to the flagship, Generalissimo Divilio will want to see this.”
Divilio was sitting on his broken bridge, and he did want to see it, and the first command he gave to the commander of the troopship was to send out patrols, to leave first thing in the morning, they were to bring back some local natives to interrogate, so that they could find out more information about the seemingly odd mixture of people on this planet.
Chapter Nine
June 21st the Year 2494
The Planet of Orion
High above the planet of Orion, a large squat space ship was currently in orbit around the planet, it was shielded from the planets geostationary satellite due to its stealth technology, such technology was invaluable to a starship whose crew were no better than pirates. Aboard the ship all was far from well, for alarm klaxons blasted out their warnings as the space around the cruiser was suddenly lit by a luminous orange light. Strange as this was, this light was followed by a black thunderous cloud made out of chunks of ice that beat against the sides of the ship. These clouds in turn were lit by the most terrific electrical storm any of the spacemen could remember. The ship was the space cruiser Indefatigable, a craft owned by the Galaxy Mining Corporation, and used by it to solve any problems that may occur anywhere in the galaxy. It had been lucky not to have been torn from its orbit and dashed upon the surface of the planet, as had been all but done to the once powerful Heliot fleet. What saved them were the powerful subspace signals that filled the area of space around the planet Orion. The cruiser was already moving out of orbit when the foremost harbingers of the space storm arrived in their vicinity. Captain Kruger was commanding the cruiser.
“Helmsman we need to get away faster than our interplanetary engines are capable of, take us into Hyperspace immediately, I don`t care what damage we do to the planets stratosphere, get us away from here before we are damaged, please take the ship to the outermost planet of this system, now.”
Kruger now looked across the bridge to his first officer. “Raise our shields Karson.”
All of the crew were dressed in similar attire, an open necked shirt and trousers, in various colours, for the men were not obliged to wear more of a uniform than this.
Even as Kruger`s orders were being carried out, a mixture of rocks, metal and various other objects appeared suddenly above the planet, they had been torn from around the universe to be brought violently to the once quiet backwater of Orion. The large cruiser quickly responded to the helmsman`s instructions, but it was not quick enough. Just as the Captain thought that they were getting clear of this strange space storm, a large rock, one big enough to destroy the science complex below, appeared out of subspace without warning and smashed into the side of the Indefatigable. It strained everything that was fixed down, never mind those things that were not. Everyone who was not seated was thrown violently to the floor. Around the bridge delicate instruments were certainly strained to breaking point with fires breaking out, while crewmen were getting violent electric shocks from the damaged equipment. One serious result from the collision was that the hyperspace engines were knocked offline, along with the defence shields. This large rock was the last of the asteroids gathered up by the Time Platform, and for it to hit the cruiser showed that the Fates were still taking a hand in the drama that would make the planet of Orion a household name that would be remembered forever.
Together with the hyperspace engines the subspace engines also coughed and spluttered for a very long moment following the heavy impact, but they returned to their normal hum at last. Reports were coming in from all decks on the space cruiser of damage to crew and equipment. Engineering was the first of the departments to contact him.
“This is engineering Captain, the hyperspace engines will be offline for at least forty eight hours, at the moment we could be taken out by a rowing boat. It goes without saying Captain, that all our heavy weapons systems that operate via the hyperspace engines are out as well.”
“All right chief, just do your best.” Kruger replied. Ever since the android attack had been beaten off Kruger had felt that this operation could only get worse, and it was doing just that now.
Around him the ship was filled with crewmen already working hard on the repairs, on the bridge and in all the other vital departments. These key departments all reported in to give him their damage reports; there was har
dly any good news except from the medical department.
“You will be glad to know captain that we only lost one crewman, Jorgensen in engineering, it seems a beam crushed him, I am afraid that nothing could be done for him, he died instantly. Altogether the crew suffered ten other injuries, but none of them serious. I will be up to check the bridge crew over in twenty minutes, if you can wait that long?”
“Yes Doctor, we suffered a few knocks up here, along with a few electrical burns and such, but I think that we should be able to survive that long without your creams and lotions. The injured crewmen were all busy working, their damaged bodies being made to wait until later.
“Karson, put the aft cameras onto the main view screen, I must see what the hell is going on back on Orion, and turn those bloody Klaxons off someone.” The main view screen showed the chaos unfolding down on the planet surface; it also showed the Heliot space fleet crashing down upon the planet that was fast disappearing behind their ship. As they now appeared to be well outside of the hell that was behind them, Kruger ordered all engines to stop so that he and his officers could study the situation.
“What the hell sort of storm was that sir, I have never seen anything like it before?” Karson exclaimed loudly.
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