Dreadnought (Lost Colonies Trilogy Book 2) (17 page)

-23-

We punched through the ER bridge exit with minimal velocity this time. We had little idea what we were going to encounter on the far side.

When we finally got there, I was struck by the beauty of the place.

“Three Earth-like jewels,” Yamada said, enchanted. “Sir, we’ve got no record of this system in our logs. The colonists must have discovered it on their own.”

The worlds were indeed lovely. The planet closest to the star had reddish landmasses and blue oceans that flowed like cool lava over a quarter of her surface. The second was a green planet that was vibrant with thick jungles and a steamy canopy of clouds.

The last inhabitable world captured my heart at first sight. Farther from the sun than Earth was, it was cooler than my home planet, but not frozen entirely. My eyes roved over sharp peaks, frosty slate oceans and green valleys like emeralds that dotted the equator. It was easily the most beautiful of the three.

We proceeded with great caution. Using only gentle power from our engines, we didn’t charge in, nor did we announce our presence via communications broadcasts. This time, I wanted to know what I was in for before I gave any possible enemies my address.

“Sensors are listening in full-passive mode,” Yamada said. “It would help if we could release a few probes and steer them on gentle arcs toward the inner planets.”

“No,” I said immediately.

She looked annoyed. “Sir, we need multiple points of reference for triangulation.”

I considered. “Dump them out one at a time as we drift closer. Don’t power them up. No transmissions of any kind. No engine signatures.”

She rolled her eyes at me. That was my confirmation that getting drunk with her the night before had been a mistake. Always, in these situations, people became more familiar with their superior officers after intimacy. We hadn’t had sex, but we’d certainly shared a few private moments.

Zye… I hadn’t dared meet her eyes yet.

How had
that
happened? I’d managed to evade Yamada, a woman who was at least from Earth. If I’d gone to bed with her, all would have been relatively well. She was a grown-up, an adult about sexual issues, as far as I could tell. I truly believed that we could have shrugged off a moment in the night, had we shared one.

But Zye? She was none of these things. I had no idea how she was going to react to the natural emotions everyone felt the day after they lost their virginity. Worse, she might have fallen in love with me. She’d already been devoted—I thought I might have made the situation worse.

It was the brandy. What a mistake. Even then, I could have switched on my implant and drained the effects from my system rather quickly.

But using the implant was always difficult. It was like swearing off the next drink. Easily done early-on, but after a dozen drinks, the thirteenth seems to have a mind of its own.

That’s how it was with the implant. Hell, I should have turned it on the moment Zye and I had retired to her cabin.

Giving my head a shake, I concentrated on the here and now again.

Yamada was eyeing me strangely. I suspected she’d asked me something, and I hadn’t responded.

“All right,” I said. “You can drop off probes, and after we’ve drifted a hundred thousand kilometers or so, give them a fast booster to push them sunward. We’ll manage.”

“Okay,” she said, “I can work with that.”

I felt I’d dodged a bullet. Things went smoothly for the next hour, until my aunt stepped onto the deck.

She was in a good mood today. That I could see immediately. I hastened to avoid thinking of possible reasons why—but I couldn’t stop myself from envisioning Rumbold and Lady Grantholm together.

Suppressing a visible reaction, I smiled at my aunt. “Hello, Lady. I trust you are well today?”

“Very well, thank you.”

“What brings you up here this morning?” I asked. “Perhaps you wish to see these three lovely worlds for yourself?”

She was looking at the forward screen, but at my words, she eyed me coldly. “They are lovely. Are they inhabited?”

“We don’t know yet. We’re drifting quietly, investigating and listening.”

She frowned. “How long will that take?”

“It’s difficult to say. We’ll map the system completely within the hour. But to detect technological presences takes a little longer. They don’t all announce themselves openly. These systems are dangerous and—”

“I want to play the recording,” she said decisively. “Yamada, begin the broadcast immediately.”

“Madam—” I began.

She turned on me. “Nephew, you’re a masterful warrior. A gifted tactical genius, I’m beginning to believe. But let’s face facts, it takes risk to explore and entreat with new colonies. Try to put yourself in their shoes. Here we are, sneaking into this system like thieves.”

“I only want a few hours, Ambassador. I need to know if there are any fortifications to avoid—that sort of thing.”

“Have you found anything like that yet?” she asked.

“No, but—”

“You won’t. Any thinking colony would have placed sensors out here. I suspect they’re already observing us, sizing us up.”

“Pardon me, but that’s pure conjecture.”

She continued on as if I hadn’t spoken. “As the mission commander, I’ve decided to allow you six more hours. After that, we’re going to start broadcasting our recorded greeting. Let’s hope these people aren’t as anti-social as our previous hosts were.”

She swept off the deck leaving me standing in her wake. I gritted my teeth and vowed that the next time I went on such a mission I would be in command of my own ship without such constant interference.

“Well Captain?” Yamada asked. “Do I drop the probes or not?”

“Yes,” I said. “In fact, they give me an idea.”

The hours passed quickly. Before half of them had gone by, we’d learned that the system didn’t have any regular, normal traffic.

There were a few signals here and there. They knocked and twittered with unknown codes, and packets flying about. We couldn’t understand them, but they all seemed to be automated transmissions. The sort of things that satellites and communications systems relayed to one another when there was no other traffic to be had.

“I think this star system is dead,” Yamada said after a time. “I don’t understand it. These worlds were definitely colonized. There are a dozen signatures indicating that fact. We’ve spotted purified elements, indicating space mining. There are asteroids that are half-gone, in fact.”

“What about the planets?” I asked, going over the close-ups we’d managed to get from space. “Cities? Lights?”

“Nothing that grand. There are settlements, but they’re dark and quiet. It’s as if the colonists left these worlds and all their equipment behind. That’s what’s chirping in the background. Their computer systems, weather-predicative satellites and the like. But there’s no one here. No one I can detect, sir.”

Durris moved to my side. “There’s another possibility, besides the exodus of the colonists.”

“Yes?”

“They may have been exterminated, Captain. We can’t deny that possibility.”

I nodded. Secretly, I thought that was the more likely scenario. What colonist would abandon three planets, each more perfect than the last?

Sucking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly, I shrugged. “Activate the most distant probe,” I told Yamada. “The one we dropped first. Have it broadcast our message of peace and love. I doubt there’s anyone here to hear it, but you never know.”

She did as I asked. Sometime later when the ambassador returned to enforce her will, she was pleased to find we were already broadcasting her canned diplomatic words.

“Any response yet?” she asked.

I quickly enlightened her as to the nature of the system, and its mysteriously abandoned state.

Her disappointment was palpable. “Such lovely worlds,” she said wistfully. “If they’re all dead, then I’ll take the opportunity to name them.”

She looked around at me. “Unless you’ve already taken that liberty?”

“No madam. Do the honors.”

She eyed them. “The first one, the red one that boils close to the star—that’s Ruby. The second, the jungle-choked eye of green—that’s Jade.”

Everyone’s eyes fell upon the third world. The cool, blue marble shrouded in fluffy white clouds.

“That one is Sapphire,” she said decisively.

“Excellent names, Lady,” I said.

“I’m glad you approve. Now, fire up our main engines and take me to Sapphire, I want to stand on the surface of it and breathe that fresh, clean air. It is breathable, isn’t it?”

She turned to Yamada, who nodded.

“Aunt,” I said carefully. “Your request is a romantic one, but I must point out someone or something destroyed these colonies. We can’t do what you suggest safely.”

“Destroyed?” she asked, staring at Sapphire. “Are there blackened buildings? Broken towers? Crashed ships? Bodies frozen in the ice?”

“Not that we’ve seen so far, but that doesn’t mean—”

“Take me there, William. At least let us survey the place from near orbit. Don’t you want to investigate the situation?”

She had me there. I wanted to go almost as badly as she seemed to.

We’d all been in space for some time. We’d visited Tranquility Station and been chased away from Beta. To stand on an unknown world… so far, that delight had been denied to all of us. The artificial station had been wondrous, but nothing like a truly wild planet of alien beauty.

“All right, Ambassador,” I said, quelling my better judgment. “We’ll fly closer, and see if we can find a safe place to land. I must insist you stay aboard
Defiant
, however, until we’re sure there’s no threat.”

“Fair enough, I suppose,” she said, relenting at last.

She smiled at me then, and I felt good about my decision. She was different today in that she hadn’t yet attempted to order me around like a puppet. She’d asked for my permission, even my approval. For some reason, that had made me want to give it.

I sincerely hoped it wouldn’t turn out to be a grave error.

-24-

As we got closer to the three inner planets, now dubbed Sapphire, Jade and sweltering Ruby, our disquiet grew.

Things were not as they should be. There had indeed been a civilization here, a small fledgling set of colonies. All three of these Earth-like worlds had been colonized.

There were settlements dotting the choicest regions of each planet. On Sapphire, the towns formed a thin belt around the equator where the climate was most temperate.

On Jade, they’d chosen offshore islands near the major continents. On those islands the jungles weren’t as thick, and the native animals were less fierce.

On Ruby, the hottest world, tiny towns had been placed in the cool zones around the poles. From space, they resembled dark pebbles embedded in the planetary surface.

All of this made sense—but what didn’t add up was the condition of the settlements. They were all empty, devoid of human life.

There were other things living on the worlds: animals, fish, insects... These planets fairly teemed with creatures we’d never seen before but which were somehow hauntingly familiar. Bird-like beasts that flapped wings underwater occasionally breached the surface of the seas on Jade. Living air-bladders that resembled jellyfish drifted in the skies over Ruby—but there were no humans in evidence anywhere.

“Sir,” Yamada said, looking up from her scopes, “I’m not finding anything. No colonists, anyway. They must have pulled up stakes and left.”

“Are there signs of battle?” I asked.

“Nothing obvious. Here and there, buildings are burned or collapsed. But that could have happened naturally if the colonists left many years ago.”

Stepping around the railing to the forward screens, I looked up at them. They were of such high resolution, it seemed as if I could reach out and touch the scene depicted. Right now, we were looking at a town along the equatorial belt of Sapphire. Nestled in a jewel-like valley of intense green, it was sheltered from the driving snows and winds of the towering peaks around it.

I touched the town on the screen. It magnified, but optics could only take our vision so far. The atmosphere of Sapphire was turbulent and full of streaky clouds. Even with AI interpolation techniques, I knew I couldn’t see the true state of affairs from space.

“We’ll land here,” I said. “Prepare a pinnace, Rumbold.”

He gawked at me.

“Me sir?” he asked. “I thought I was too—”

“You’re coming along. I know you can handle a pinnace like no other. Even if it breaks down—you’ll fix it.”

“Very well, Captain,” he said, swallowing hard. “Who else is going along on this… adventure?”

I turned to look at each of them in turn. “First Officer Durris, you’ll stay here and command the ship.”

“As my first act,” he said, “I’ll log my disapproval of this idea. It’s entirely too dangerous.”

I gave him a flickering smile. “Yes, that’s true. But it must be done. I have to know what happened down there. Did you think that exploring the colonies was going to be safe and relaxing?”

“It’s proven to be anything but,” he said ruefully.

“Zye,” I said, turning to her last, “you can come along as well.”

She stood up promptly. “I’ll see that the ship is prepared.”

She left, and I caught myself staring after her. It was hard to tell what she was thinking. Maybe to a Beta, the night before had been nothing but a bit of harmless fun. But I doubted that.

Rumbold hurried after her. “She’ll fill the entire ship with weapons if I don’t get down there to keep her in check!” he complained.

Next, I looked at Yamada. “I think you’d do best up here helping Durris.”

She cast her eyes downward. “I thought you might say that.”

I frowned. Was she jealous? Perhaps upset about last night? How much did she know about what had happened between Zye and myself?

Giving my head a little shake, I did my best to erase these thoughts. I turned back to Durris.

“I’ll take along Marine Commander Morris as well. Have him choose two of his troops and send him down to meet us on the hangar deck in their full kit.”

“Will do, sir. Good luck.”

“Thank you.”

I exited the command deck and soon afterward, the ship itself. Like all starships,
Defiant
wasn’t built to land on planetary surfaces. We flew the pinnace down into the atmosphere.

As we plummeted like a whistling bomb from space, I told myself repeatedly that this was the best possible course of action. In order to really explore these worlds, we had to perform our investigations in person. We’d move as quickly as we could and then fly back up into the relative safety of space.

We landed in a gush of vapor and dust on the main street of the abandoned town I’d chosen. My three marines were the first to disembark, rushing to either side and seeking any possible enemies. They found none, but they stood tensely in their body-shells. Their automated cannons swiveled this way and that, tracking everything that moved.

I stepped out of the ship next and walked down the ramp more slowly.

“All clear on the plague factor, Captain,” stated Morris, looking up from a device designed to detect biological pathogens.

I nodded and opened my helmet.

Sapphire was a bright world. The air was clean and thin. It was also shockingly cold. After being trapped in ships breathing stale, recycled gases, it felt good to suck fresh oxygen into my lungs.

“Taste that air,” I said. “It’s glorious.”

Zye stepped down after me and stood at my side. She looked at me quizzically. “You like the air? It seems thin and cold to me.”

“Exactly. It’s frosty. I haven’t experienced anything like this since the last time I visited Lady Astra.”

Zye reacted with a flinch. I immediately regretted my words. After last night, she obviously didn’t want to hear about any other women I’d recently been visiting. I spoke up again to quickly cover any signs of embarrassment for both of us.

“Any life-readings?” I asked Marine Commander Morris.

He examined his detection equipment speculatively. “Nah. Nothing to speak of. A few odd birds in the trees, a dog or two. Nothing else on the scope—nothing human, anyway.”

“Dogs?” I asked. “You’ve found dogs on the tracking systems?”

Morris nodded and showed me the tiny screen of his handheld tracker. It listed identified contacts and displayed their descriptions in tiny print. The icons said it all—there were two, medium-sized dogs in the trees behind the pinnace.

I walked around the ship and surveyed the land on that side. If they
were
dogs, they were hiding well, and remarkably quiet. They certainly had no interest in barking at us.

“Over there,” Morris said, following me with his instrument in hand. “Between those two freaky trees.”

The streets were overgrown with twisted roots from the towering trees that grew in the region. The growths were indeed odd-looking, as he’d suggested. They were gnarly and uneven in every dimension. The trunks themselves seemed to lean randomly like drunken men staggering out of a bar.

The streets were equally strange. Why would there be dogs, of all things, somewhere in the middle of those trees…?

“Let’s check it out,” I said, and began walking toward the distorted trees.

“Whoa, hold on, Captain!” Morris cried, hurrying after me. “It’s not safe to leave the pinnace. We haven’t secured the area yet.”

I snorted at him. “We haven’t got all day. If you like, you can aim your chest cannons at the dogs in case they bark.”

Frowning, he marched beside me without further complaints. Zye and the marines walked cautiously in our wake. Rumbold stayed quietly in the pinnace’s pilot seat, and I let him.

I was the only member of the group who wasn’t heavily armed. I had my sidearm, a smart-pistol that had served me well over the years, and I openly wore my power-saber. But I’d left behind the body-shell and heavy, swiveling chest-cannon. After all, this was supposedly an exploratory mission. If we did meet colonists, appearing to be armed to the teeth probably wasn’t the best way to earn their confidence.

Stepping into the cold gloom under the trees, I suppressed a shiver. This world wasn’t warm and inviting. I still liked it, but it would take some getting used to.

The dogs converged on me suddenly, silently. They’d been hiding in the undergrowth watching us. Neither of them barked—they didn’t even whine.

Instead they stared, and as they got closer, they sniffed.

With a frown of concern, I extended a hand toward each of the dogs.

“Careful, sir,” Morris said. “They might be starving.”

“I doubt it. Look at their coats, their paws, their red lolling tongues. These animals are well cared-for.”

The dogs snuffled my fingers at length then withdrew as silently as they’d come.

Abruptly, a patch of leaves and sticks pushed up from the ground nearby. A man’s dirty, unkempt head appeared. Their foxholes had been camouflaged in the brush, I realized immediately.

All around us, more men did the same. They held weapons: Crossbows, worn rifles and a plasma blaster or two.

My hands lifted into the air. My marines circled around me. Their cannons swiveled automatically, aiming at one target after another like the beaks of nervous birds.

“Careful,” I said to the marines. “Remember why we’re here, gentlemen. Stand down.”

With obvious reluctance, the three marines directed their weapons skyward. Zye scowled fiercely, but she didn’t say a word or draw her gun.

“Hello colonists,” I said, “we’re human explorers from a neighboring system. We’ve come to talk to you, to trade with you.”

“We know who you are, Sparhawk,” said the leader, a man with a shock of red hair and a torn shirt of woven flax. “We heard your transmissions. Did you notice we made no response? What we want to know is why you won’t leave us alone?”

I smiled. “You certainly have taken great pains to hide yourselves,” I said. “We thought this planet was abandoned.”

“You can’t claim Sapphire,” the red-headed leader said quickly. “It’s ours. Nothing here is for sale, either. Not our women, or our dogs—not even our children. You’d best pack up your trade goods and go back to your ship while you can.”

His words surprised me. Not because he was so unfriendly, but because he’d referred to this planet as Sapphire. It had been my impression, up until that moment, that Lady Grantholm had recently named these worlds upon seeing them for the first time.

It made me wonder about her motivations. Had I been duped into coming here? What was she really up to? For all I knew, she was misbehaving aboard
Defiant
right now, perhaps sending further unauthorized transmissions.

That was a mystery for another time, however. At the moment, I had other considerations to contend with.

“We’re here to talk,” I said. “If you have nothing physical to trade, we might as well share information. That’s free.”

He looked me up and down speculatively. “All right. We can’t stay here, though. This place isn’t safe.”

“Perhaps you can take us to your living quarters,” I said.

“We’ll go somewhere secure. Follow us into the tunnels.”

Bracing myself, I did as he asked. The troops behind me grumbled, but they didn’t openly object.

As we moved through what amounted to cramped, dirty holes, I soon learned the colonists were a tough, primitive lot. They were highly suspicious as well. Their leader was named Jkal, and I found that I liked the man, despite his faults.

“Jkal,” I said, “you haven’t yet explained to me why your people are hiding underground.”

“You’re the visitor. You will explain things first, Earthman.”

Nodding, I had to admit there was a certain logic to that statement. I followed Jkal and his group farther and farther from the source of gray sunlight behind us, I found the tunnels oppressive. Worse, they became muddy as we passed under the village and continued onward.

At last, several hundred meters along, the tunnels opened out into a more wholesome region of thick concrete pipe.

“This must be their sewer system,” Morris said to me. “But they don’t seem to use it that way now.”

Looking down, I saw a trickle of dark water that looked like melting ice from the surface. Morris was right, there was no sewage here. My nose wasn’t as happy as it had been on the surface, but it wasn’t rebelling, either.

“Tell me, Jkal,” I called. “Why haven’t you taken our weapons?”

Jkal stopped and turned. He had a startled look on his face.

“Would you have allowed such a thing?”

“No,” I admitted, “probably not.”

“Good,” he said. “I’m relieved to hear you’re sane.”

“What do you mean?”

“No sane warrior would give another his weapon. Not without dying first. Even then, a death grip can be hard to dislodge.”

“I see.”

We pressed onward. When we reached a major junction in the sewer system, I expected to find some sort of habitation. Instead, we were turned in another direction and headed down a longer, darker tunnel.