Carinae Sector: 01 - Traders' Scourge - Part 1 - Alien Flight (19 page)

The station master also submitted a request for the local Cephrit naval commander to have dinner with him. It was time to place a sanitised copy of what he had learned and part surmised in front of Cephrit military commanders.

                                                            ***

Gindane evaluated the ramifications of what she had uncovered in several days of studying the artefacts at the former Dradfer colony. The wall carving had provided an entry point for a new line of research that was both highly contentious and confidential. Only the professor and Gindane was involved in the research, and by tacit agreement very little was being recorded onto formal documents.

As far as the rest of the research team was concerned, Gindane the disgraced former researcher was engaged in cataloguing mundane research artefacts in the secured tent. Gindane was now viewing another carving that the professor was not game to leave uncovered, even behind the looked door of the sealed tent. The senior Barus researcher called up her notes on the Dradfer language and peered again at the strange flowing test at the bottom of the ancient carving.

The carving over forty thousand years old, but only appeared slightly scoured and pitted. The work of art was made of a reinforced ceramic that was meant to tell the story for prosperity. Gindane now read two passages of the text slowly.

‘A time of mass death approaches as the beasts again fill the sky.’ ‘Our worlds guard the fountain of life for eternity.’

The researcher shivered as she looked at the carved images again, a legion of armoured Tilmud assaulted what looked like a Dradfer facility. To one side a pair of Vorinne knelt, as in almost cringed, at the feet of a fearsome and massive being that towered over them in rage. Tilmud was something Gindane could understand in this area of space, even Vorinne as the supposedly omnipotent senior vassal race. But what was a Zronte battle lord doing way out here so long ago?

                                                            ***

Chapter 9

Late January 2051AD.

Captain Narindestat felt worried as he viewed the star map, as he was concerned about being spotted crossing these star systems. So far they had travelled over seven hundred light years out of the galaxy in three long type two hyper drive jumps. The captain then had ordered his ship to make several smaller jumps to bypass star systems were the Barus scientific fleet were performing studies of the former Dradfer colonies.

Narindestat considered the fate of the Dradfer in stony silence. In ancient Trader history his own species had earlier nearly gone the way of the Dradfer. While these former Dradfer colonies were many hundreds of light years from the Trader’s original worlds, the Dradfer were not unknown to the Traders.

‘It would not do to have a vassal war fleet arrive while the ship is underwater on Earth dealing with the Voorde drones.’ Captain Narindestat considered quietly to himself.

The captain had recently ordered a weapon simulation, as he could not risk placing individual crew in isolated parts of the Illuria to actually crew the weapons. The main guns seemed adequate and his shields, apart from the ever troublesome shield over an aero spike engine, were all working. However he was well aware that the best advantage he had, apart from the long range type two hyper drive, was not to be cornered and so not to be brought to combat. Lieutenant Garendestat sat intently at the navigation console looking over the last passive scans of the star system they were transiting.

‘Captain, the sub-space detector and the passive sweeps look clear, and the system does not appear to have many ship traces at all.’

The captain considered the report from his son, and noted the critical appraisal of the other officers on the bridge as he replied.

‘Lieutenant, that does not exactly fill me with confidence either. But that is the best we can do without actively scanning the whole system and telling everyone for light years we are here.’

The two Traders looked at each other wryly, with Garendestat looking by habit at the sub-space detector for traces of active scans, before the captain brusquely continued.

‘Very well, charge the module for the last jump to the human system. We lost another crew member earlier this morning and I have had enough. I want these Voorde destroyed and my ship back.’

Narindestat gone back to the cargo hold again and had stated the same to the Maveen lead probe a few hours earlier. He was expecting the probe to protest about the change of plans. However the probe agreed readily enough and had then shut down again.

‘Damn inscrutable infernal device.’

Captain Narindestat had angrily thought to himself as he quickly made his way back to his bridge. He for one knew little of the original mission except that the Maveen were seeking two small ships. He was also finding that he cared very little now for either the probes themselves or their mission.

As the massive Trader ship flew out of the system, a cloaked probe recorded the passage of the ship from behind a large asteroid a few light minutes away. Within hours of the hyper space jump of the Trader ship being detected, the probe had de-cloaked and then jumped several star systems over to report to professor Elysius’s ship directly. As the Trader ship arrived in the Solar System, another probe detected the ship’s arrival. The second Barus probe then also moved several star systems back to rejoin other ships of the Barus research fleet at yet another nearby star system.

                                                            ***

Omerio considered the data from the fourth system he had visited in the days since he had fled the Tilmud ships. The trace from the strange ship had resumed in this system coming from the system he had fled. He wondered how the ship had got past the Tilmud squadrons being stopped and searched. From what he could tell the ship had kept on this course and had left for the next system along by hyper drive as recently as six hours ago. Interestingly the Jerecab freighter he had recorded in the same initial star system with the Trader ship, so long ago now had also passed though this same star system about three days ago.

Omerio gave a start and promptly reversed course back along the way he had entered the system and heavily increased the speed of his ship. For he was aware of a significant Tilmud military installation two systems over, and he knew it had been three days since the Jerecab passed. The Barus pilot thought about this detail further and came to a simple conclusion. He accelerated his ship to the maximum rating of the powerful engines, and he also cloaked the ship. For two hours he raced back to his entry point, and he would try to enter hyper space where he had earlier arrived. He was hopeful that this would obscure both his destination and his drive information.

On the third hour since his course change his star map detected a massive swarm of Tilmud ships arrive from hyper space very close to the jump point for the Jerecab freighter. Omerio paused and cursed under his breath. For the distant ships included larger ships he soon identified as light cruisers that the Tilmud were forbidden to operate by the Zronte edicts. He somberly evaluated that his ship would have taken in minutes if he had remained on his previous course.

Even a cloaking device would do him no good if one of the Tilmud cruisers had released an active scan of the system. As he added this new data to his report, he wondered how the Tilmud came to possess these larger ships undetected by the other vassal races. Before the Tilmud swarm of ships could begin to intercept, let alone begin to reach his position well outside the star system, Omerio had engaged the hyper drive and his ship fled the now hostile star system.

                                                            ***

Steve stood on the bridge of the Aurora Discovery the morning after the informal inquiry at the Garden Island navy base had concluded. The ship had sailed two hours previously and was leading the Lotus Marai back up the coast to Geraldton. The world seemed stranger today for what he had learnt, but he could tell no one, not even Samantha. He had met the four US scientists and had gotten along well of them, even after they had insisted on speaking with his crew and himself one at a time.

Due to his former military rank, Steve had eventually been taken into confidence by the scientists as they went through his story over the discovery of the strange panels. Steve had mentioned that the covers looked like coming from a missile or an aircraft, and the scientists had shared a look between each other. The Americans had then gone off to speak to in a corner for a few minutes. The senior scientist, an astrophysicist called Douglas Stoneham, finally came over to speak with Steve.

‘Look commander.’ He started before Steve held up a hand and responded.

‘Doug, I left the RAN several months ago.’

Douglas raised a hand to rub the back of his neck in exasperation and continued.

‘Steve, we can and will enforce as allies the secrecy provisions in your former career, but I think you are way to smart for it to come to that.’

He paused and gave Steve a reassuring look, before opening his briefcase and taking out a classified folder of photographs and reports.

‘Look Steve, just keep this strictly secret please.’

The American then handed the folder to Steve, and he leaned against the table with his arms folded watching Steve read through the information. Steve sat down at the table and read the reports; he looked through the folder and recognized the panels in the photographs. He looked over to Douglas, who nodded for him to continue. Steve continued looking at the folder, one photo showed a long black torpedo shaped object that appeared to be damaged on one side. The caption read it had been trawled up in the Sea of Japan. He looked at other photos of panels with captions that showed locations like Spain, South Africa and Florida.

Steve now looked at another photo with four of the panels arrayed around the larger object, and it took four panels to enclose the larger object as he had surmised. As Steve read the short two page final report he felt the hackles on the back of his neck rise. The black object and associated aero shield was some type of probe with advanced materials and engine design. He noted that certain parts of the strange probe, relating to the engine design was not included in the report.

‘Trust only goes so far.’ He thought to himself.

Steve then gave a serious pause to the next paragraph of the report, especially the crisp sentence.

‘The object is a probe of unknown description and function. The probe is not of human manufacture due to the unknown technology used in the engines and frame of the object.’

Steve had then retorted to Douglas. ‘You cannot be serious.’

But Douglas raised his hand again and replied.

‘Actually Steve we are deadly serious, we have found six groupings of these panels worldwide, but only one probe. This in turn leads to a lot of questions. So where are the other probes? And is there more than five or six of these things? What is the relevance, if any, to the pandemic?’

Wordlessly Steve had finished reading the report and had handed it back to Douglas. After another round of questions, the informal enquiry ended, and Steve rejoined Samantha, Dan and Rebecca out in the waiting area. The four Americans then had taken the two Australian couples out to dinner to thank them for their time and they had enjoyed a good meal together.

Steve was brought back to the present moment as his satellite phone rang, John Robertson was on the line, the two men conversed about the state of the two ships and the expected weather forecast for loading the live fish as the two ships sailed north. Once in Geraldton they would need four days to load all the fish into the Lotus Marai.

                                                            ***

In the depths of two planets, two very different life forms detect the approaching Trader ship. One continues to quietly work in their vast facilities; the other goes stealthily silent but ready to spring forth with fearsome technology.

Deep in the hold of the Trader Ship, the lead Maveen probe briefly activated and it registered the details of the latest star system from a supplied data feed through the Trader ship. If it could have done so the lead probe would have exclaimed in surprise.

                                                            ***

Captain Narindestat quickly perused the incoming sensor data with quiet satisfaction, as around him on the bridge his crew went about their duties with patient efficiency. Apart from four armed guards the bridge appeared normal, even if the captain knew for a fact that one of original bridge crew had already been killed since they had destroyed the first Voorde queen.

Additional research and the occasional loss of a crew member indicated that a second queen had since become active. This view was borne out by the crew witnessing Voorde drones killing each other. The captain knew that sooner or later the second Voorde queen and her drones would gain enough strength to kill the Trader crew. He was totally fed up of the Voorde and what they were doing to the crew and his ship.

Narindestat again looked a sensor data and checked the ship’s time as they crossed the orbit of the system’s largest gas giant well away from the actual planet itself.

The Maveen lead probe had earlier requested access to the Trader’s sensor data of the Solar system. The probes had avidly checked specifics of the Sol star, all the planets and their masses. The probe spent a long time considering the details of the second, third and fourth planets of the star system, but they would not divulge what interested the Maveen. The larger size of the third terrestrial planet was briefly remarked upon by the Maveen lead probe specifically before Narindestat broke off communications.

‘Captain I estimate that the escape velocity from this world will be a factor….’

Narindestat was already well aware of this issue and had stated so to the probe. For now he wanted the Voorde dealt with by landing his ship. At the moment the Maveen probes were all still in conference in his ship’s cargo hold. The blue laser beams between the probes remained steady as from time to time they would again access the sensor data. He hoped the obdurate probes would remain quietly in the cargo hold and not bother him, as he had plenty to do for the foreseeable future.