by Greg Mutton
This last creature was small and stood on two very sturdy legs. It had four arms, each ending in a three fingered hand-like attachment; compound eyes were set to each side of its slightly domed head which was attached to his body by a thick, short neck. When he spoke they heard a series of clicks and whistles with their ears; but, thanks to the enhancements these sounds were translated and they could understand every word he said.
‘I am pleased to be in your presence though I would prefer if it was under better terms.’ Tocmal reached out one of those arms and Aaron took it as a gesture of greeting.
‘I too, am pleased to meet you and agree that the timing could be better.’ This seemed to be the correct response and everyone took their seats.
“What we are gathered to discuss is the breach that happened from your realm. We know that your vessel was in the vicinity and that it released an object in hyperspace. Fifteen minutes later, your time, there was an explosive release of energy that ruptured the very fabric of sub space causing immense damage to some other realms? We need understanding of why you did this.’ Tocmal’s words were translated but they gave no indication of any aggression.
All eyes were now on Aaron. ‘You are correct in that we were in the vicinity; also correct that we released a probe. But we did not initiate the explosion.’ He continued with his explanation, detailing the events that led up to that moment and why he had acted as he did. ‘It was our contention that if we transmitted a message from our ship, it would have been targeted. That is why we used a communication probe. Unfortunately, we cannot identify who launched the weapon — we have suspicions but no evidence.’
Mondrac spoke up. ‘A-Bra-Ham, who do you suspect is responsible?’
‘To be honest,’ Aaron answered, ‘all I have is suspicion. I have absolutely no evidence so I am reluctant to apportion blame when I can’t substantiate it,’ He was aware that he was, in essence, on trial; not just for the breach, but for his character.
Mondrac looked deeply into Aarons’ eyes as if scouring his soul. Finally he spoke again. ‘Good answer. We should all remember it is too easy to cast aspersions in the heat of the moment, only to find we were incorrect later. I thank A-Bra-Ham for his honesty.’
‘All the data from the incident is in the memory bank on my ship; I had it sent there when we reached Earth. I would appreciate you viewing it… maybe we missed something. In any case, a fresh analysis may be beneficial,’ Aaron suggested. Understanding the urgency, Petra went with Zal-Tar to retrieve the data.
‘A-Bra-Ham, when we reach my home planet, you will see first-hand the damage we have suffered. Tragically, there were many casualties, so be prepared for a less that friendly welcome,’ Tocmal stated sadly. ‘We are usually a very welcoming species but, under the circumstances, it may not be so.’
Zal-Tar and Petra returned with a data pad. They transferred the information to device beside Jok-Tar. The wall to their left began to display images and data, everyone watched intently. It was Tocmal who noticed a small aberration. ‘You believe it was one of these five ships that fired the weapon?’
‘That’s correct,’ Petra answered.
‘I do not believe so. If you examine the track they took when leaving, and impose the track of the weapon, then we must assume that they could not have delivered it; they were going in another direction.’
Aaron watched the simulation again and again till he was sure of what he saw. ‘You’re right… the difference in trajectory is too much! There must have been another ship… another cloaked ship.’
‘So we have another mystery; one you will need to solve when you return,’ Jok-Tar said. ‘We are now entering Reglaos territory and will assume orbit shortly. I would suggest you return to your ship and dress in more formal uniforms — from now on, appearances will be a key point.’
Fifteen minutes later, Aaron and Petra returned, now dressed in their best Freebooter dress uniforms, navy blue trousers and jackets buttoned to the neck. On their shoulders their rank insignia sparkled, gleaming black boots and white peaked caps with the name “Condor” emblazoned across the visor completed the uniform.
They were just in time to watch the Eldoran ship settle into a parking orbit above Reglaos. The sight was astounding. The planet was slightly larger than Earth, the standard most humans used, but it was astonishingly similar. It had a large area of ocean covering a little over half the planet. The land masses were very green and, except for obvious settlements, looked unspoilt.
Petra was enthralled as Tocmal walked over to Aaron. ‘Man-Nix seems fascinated with our planet, and I can see why. It really is a beautiful sight, but I would ask something of you, A-Bra-Ham.’
‘Of course, ask away.’
‘We could use my shuttle to get down to the planet, but I was wondering if we could use your ship?’ The request came as a complete surprise, and Tocmal sensed this. ‘After meeting you, and analysing the data you have, I would rather you arrive on our planet by your own means, as a free being. Arriving in the company as we had planned may send the wrong message. Maybe I could accompany you, with your permission.’
‘I see your point. I’d be honoured if you would join us.’ Aaron replied.
‘Good, I’ll have the sensor data transmitted to our defence force so they know what is coming. I really don’t want some young flight officer trying to impress by shooting down an alien ship.’ He gave what passed for a chuckle and moved away to send his communication.
A wise decision human, Mondrac’s voice entered Aaron’s head. Now you will arrive as a guest and equal, not as a suspect… yes, a wise decision.
Tocmal returned. ‘It is all settled; I have an arrival trajectory that will allow us to tour some of the worst hit areas. While I know you are not responsible, I believe you need to see this so you can convey the seriousness to your peoples. Shall we go?’
Aaron agreed and the three left for the hangar. It amazed Aaron how the enhancements he and Petra had were now part of them. When they were moving about the ship alone they could, it seemed, simply visualise where they needed to be and almost magically, they were there. Now, with Tocmal, who didn’t have the same ability, they followed the path in their mind to the hangar, through doors and passageways.
They arrived at the hangar and Tocmal stood back, admiring the ship. ‘This is indeed a fine vessel; what is its designation?’
For a moment, Aaron didn’t understand, but finally it dawned, ‘Oh, you mean what, do we call it? Well, the truth is I haven’t actually named it yet. It’s my private shuttle and is part of a larger vessel we call Condor.’
Petra interrupted. ‘I call it Condor Junior. It looks the same only much smaller. The designation I have used is FTS Condor Junior, the FTS stands for Freebooter Trade Ship.’
‘An excellent designation, if you approve we shall use that for this trip.’ He looked to Aaron for approval. Aaron nodded. They walked round the ship, Tocmal enthralled by the construction. He ran his hands over the skin and turned to Aaron.
‘The surface coating, what is it?’
‘A composite we manufacture called Acrilan; very tough and easy to work with.’
‘I would like to show you a substance we use… I think it may be beneficial to coat your ships. Who knows, this may be the beginning of trade between our realms.’
Aaron hadn’t thought about trade but the little creature was right. After all, he was a trader… who knows where it could go? They walked up the entry gangway and Petra went to the pilot seat.
‘How many does it need to operate?’
Petra answered. ‘In reality, only one, she can accommodate ten, in comfort, but only one is needed to fly her.’
‘I noticed you assigned the ship a gender. Is it alive then?’
Aaron laughed. ‘No. It’s a just very old human custom to give ships female gender. I don’t know why… the reason’s been lost in time.’
While Tocmal and Aaron were talking, Petra had initialised the ships systems. The reactor and main gen
erator were now on line and the gravitron drive was at idle. ‘We’re ready Tocmal. Do you have a flight plan?’
‘Yes, I had Jok-Tar transmit it to the ship… it should be in your data bank.’ Petra interrogated the data bank, found the file and set the program into the nav system. She increased power to the antigrav and the ship floated off the deck, turned through 180 degrees and moved toward the wall. As they approached, a portal opened and Junior slipped out of the Eldoran cruiser.
Jok-Tar’s voice sounded in Aaron’s head. Enjoy the tour; it is indeed a beautiful planet. We will join you on the surface.
The flight path took them on a polar orbit. Both poles had large ice fields and the rest of the planet was almost familiar with continents, islands and oceans, some looking almost impenetrable, others open and green… everywhere was green.
They descended through the atmosphere, Tocmal impressed with the craft’s manoeuvrability. The clouds parted and they were greeted with the vision of a very lush, almost primordial forest.
Unidentified space craft please transmit your flight approval. The voice boomed around the bridge.
‘May I respond?’ Tocmal asked. Aaron nodded.
‘This is Admiral Tocmal on board Freebooter Trade Ship Condor Junior,’ he began. ‘Who am I speaking with?’
Admiral, this is captain Sodrel, commanding a flight of three interceptors. Sir, we were sent to investigate reports of unidentified craft. Now we know who it is, may we accompany you?
‘That would be most welcome. Captain, form your flight up in front and flanking us. Make it a good show…we don’t want to give a bad impression. We are proceeding to Zeril to inspect the damage.’
The three sleek arrow shaped ships formed up as Tocmal requested, with the lead ship forward and slightly above them, the other two flanking Junior.
Suddenly Junior lurched, the nose dipping to an alarming angle. Sirens screamed; a huge vibration slammed the ship, followed by an unmistakable boom of an explosion, then another.
Petra fought hard to bring the ship under control. ‘Who’s firing on us?’
Tocmal grabbed the comms. ‘Captain, what is going on?’ As he spoke, the starboard interceptor exploded.
Ground fire… we are taking ground fire.
‘Then leave us… attack whoever is firing!’ Tocmal ordered.
Aaron was working the engineering station, trying to see what damage they had sustained. Junior lurched as another explosion reverberated through the hull!
‘Main power is out. Atmospheric drive is down,’ he cried as he frantically tried to get the power system back on line. Junior was falling fast, their altitude now only 3,000 metres and decreasing rapidly.
‘Antigrav is functional but no power. If I can re-route the battery…’ his voice trailed off. Seconds flew by, altitude fell away. ‘I can give you seven seconds of antigrav, but that’s all I can do.’
Petra was a study of concentration. ‘I think you two should strap yourselves in, this is going to be messy. What can she take?’
Aaron leapt into the second seat and initiated the safety straps. ‘Structurally six G’s, but I don’t want to hit that hard. What’s on your mind?’
‘No time. Just sit back and watch your life go by.’ She had managed to slow the ship slightly but at this speed they would still hit at 15 G’s, way too high to survive. 1500 metres flew by… 1000 metres; the ship was more stable now and under partial control, but still spinning slowly. Petra waited till they were at 250 metres before she hit the antigrav. The system energised and the ship started to respond. ‘This’s where it gets messy.’
With only seven seconds of power, she had no choice but to initialise the antigrav at full power. The result was like jumping off a ten story building. The sudden deceleration hit them with 12G force. The only thing that saved them was the inertial dampening system, but it couldn’t sustain the energy. It failed as they passed through the 70 metre mark, the full force of their deceleration now trying to crush them in their seats.
’Forty metres…nine G still,’ Petra lowered the landing struts, hoping they could absorb some of the impact. The ship hit the ground at 7G’s. The magnetic clamping system in the landing struts took a large part of the force, transferring the landing energy back to the battery, giving them a few milliseconds of power to the antigrav. That’s what saved them, a few thousandths of a second additional power.
Their seats had absorbed part of the energy and, considering they had just crashed on an alien planet, they had all survived. ‘Everyone ok?’ Aaron asked.
Tocmal and Petra both replied that they were.
Aaron removed his straps and moved to the sensor console; nothing was working. ‘Fuck,’ he swore. ‘We’re stuck now. No power, no sensors; we’re sitting ducks.’ He left the console, went to the rear of the bridge and opened a section of the wall revealing a weapons store.
‘I think we should be prepared. I don’t think whoever shot us down is just going to leave.’ He unclipped and handed a long disruptor to Petra and Tocmal as well as a blaster side arm.
Tocmal looked at the weapons as Petra gave him a quick instruction on their operation. He smiled and turned back to Aaron, ‘Do you have any more? I seem to have two appendages that have nothing to do.’
Aaron laughed and handed him two more blasters. ‘Now, shall we prepare to greet the fiends who shot at us?’ Tocmal left the bridge, striding purposefully towards the airlock, Petra just behind him.
Aaron shrugged and followed. ‘I don’t have anything better to do.’
Petra and Tocmal stopped, ‘Yes you do.’ Petra said. ‘You know this ship better than anyone. You need to figure out how to get power back. Tocmal and I can be the welcoming party.’
Aaron was about to speak when Tocmal interrupted. ‘She is correct A-Bra-Ham. We have no power, no communications and an unknown number of unfriendly creatures out there. You must do what you can to restore some power.’
Aaron knew Tocmal was right, but it still irked him. He opened another section of the wall and pulled out three small portable comm units. ‘OK, I don’t like it, but I’ll see what I can do. These will give you comms out there; limited range… probably no more than a couple of thousand metres… so stay close.’
They took the units; Tocmal having some difficulty as the ear pieces were designed for humans not Reglaons. It took a few minutes but they finally jerry-rigged a way for him to use one.
Aaron strapped on his blaster and they walked to the airlock. The ship was listing heavily to port, indicating the port landing strut had either collapsed or sunk into the ground. Petra and Tocmal opened the airlock and jumped the two metres to the ground. Pieces of the strut were strewn under the port wing confirming it had collapsed. Petra moved quickly to the rear of the ship as Tocmal headed forward.
‘Captain, I’m at the rear of the ship. There’s a large hole where the atmospheric drive should be; it’s totally gone. The Gravitron drive seems intact but the power couplings and conduits are a mess; we need a dock to fix this. I don’t think Junior is going anywhere right now.’ As she finished, the two remaining Reglaon interceptors descended to inspect the damage.
Tocmal moved out from the relative cover of the ship and began waving to them. ‘A-Bra-Ham, I think you should make communications your main objective; I think they are trying to tell us something.’
‘OK you two…back inside.’ Aaron called as he dropped an emergency ladder out of the airlock. He left it for the others to climb aboard and went further aft, opened another storage area and pulled out a couple of items. He took these to the bridge and began pulling access panels apart.
As Tocmal and Petra entered the bridge they found him attaching two cables to the internals of the comm console. He stood, checked his work and flicked a switch on each of the units he had brought in. The comm console lit up and Aaron punched the air with a huge smile on his face. ‘A couple of emergency power units; they should give us comms… for a while at least.’ He motioned Tocmal to contac
t his ships.
‘Captain Sodrel, this is Admiral Tocmal… can you hear me?’ They waited for a few seconds then Tocmal repeated his call. ‘Captain Sodrel…can you hear me?’ Again they waited but this time Sodrel replied.
Admiral, we hear you. What is your situation?
‘Captain, we have survived but the ship is badly damaged, we may need assistance to leave,’ Tocmal replied.
Admiral, I suggest you leave as soon as possible. There are about twenty individuals approaching your position from the south… they do not look friendly. I estimate you have 15 minutes before they arrive.
‘Then, Captain, I suggest you do something to delay them. Destroy them if you must!’ Tocmal was clearly angry.
But Sir, do you know where you are?
Tocmal began talking quickly, too quickly for Aaron and Petra to accurately translate. The discussion went back and forth but finally Tocmal turned back to his companions. ‘We have a huge problem. It appears we have crashed nearly 3,000 metres into Lasdrik, a forest that has huge religious significance for Reglaos. I won’t go into details now but we usually don’t even fly over it; it is ancient and part of our culture. Sodrel only followed us after he received an official pardon from the Palace. Unfortunately, he cannot assist us as no Reglaon would ever do anything to cause damage to this place. Only the religiously devout come here on pilgrimage, or the conservators to make sure it is well. That tells us something.’
‘What, that we’re screwed?’ Aaron quipped.
‘No, that we are not facing twenty Reglaons, which is a good thing.’ Tocmal’s tone left no doubt that facing twenty natives was far worse than any other option.
Admiral, I have royal permission to bring in a recovery team… they can be here within the hour.
‘One more thing Captain… has the Eldoran delegation been informed of what has happened?’ Tocmal asked.
I do not know Sir, but I will find out and inform them if it has not been done. Sorry I cannot do more, Sir.
