Hunt for the Saiph (The Saiph Series Book 3) (29 page)

For a moment the commander at Tactical looked as though he was going to question his orders. The destroyers certainly had the legs to catch the fleeing cruisers, but there was only a half dozen of them against the three cruisers who’s weaponry outmatched them and still had their energy shields intact. The commander took one look at the determined face of his admiral and changed his mind.

The six destroyers of CSG Itus broke from their places alongside the hulking battleships, like the lithe greyhounds they were, eating up the distance between them and the fleeing Black Ships. Within minutes they had gained enough ground that they entered the effective range of their missiles but they held fire and closed further. In space battle terms they were in knife fighting reach.

As one, they flushed their missiles all aimed at a single fleeing cruiser while their energy fire battered its shielding. With a blinding flash the energy shielding failed and a twenty megaton missile detonated scant meters from the cruiser’s main drive. The resulting explosion ripped the entire stern from the Black Ship, the bow tumbled, bleeding atmosphere and flames.

Then the tactical officer’s fears came true.

The last two Black Ships suddenly slowed their headlong escape and maneuvered broad side on to pursuing destroyers. Energy armament opened fire and the destroyers were wracked by millions of ergs of laser and grazer fire. It was a one-sided fight. As John and the bridge crew watched the Black Ships’ fire laid waste to the pitiful armor of the destroyers. John steeled himself to watch the sacrifice of the brave ships’ crews, promising he would forever remember their unquestioned faith and obedience they had shown him.

“Mosquitos are re engaging, Admiral!” Shouted the CAG.

“The enemy are in missile range again, sir. Admiral Rowe has opened fire.”

The enemy commander had made a mistake by turning to fight the destroyers and it was one John intended to make him pay for. “All ships are to engage as they bear. Let’s finish this!”

#

The fight was over and John sat silently in his command chair. The subdued voice of the flag bridge reflected his own anguish at the costly victory. Four Black Ship cruisers destroyed, but he had lost two battleships, five cruisers, six destroyers and thirty eight fighters. The numbers said it more eloquently than he ever could.

Unless the Commonwealth found an answer to the enemy’s energy shielding soon, the outlook was bleak for any Commonwealth ship that took on a Black Ship fleet.

The Black Ships and their Saiph masters had shown their superiority in weapons and ships. They had devastated an Alonan colony, vanquished the Turak at Selene, wiped Dagger Station and its Garundan defenders from space. Now they had humbled the new jewel in the TDF’s crown. CSG Itus. The Saiph had shown that they controlled the most powerful units in space and John had a bad feeling that they were only flexing their muscles. 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Foram

              ASTEROID F815B - FORAM SYSTEM - 36 LIGHT YEARS FROM ALONA

Calan breathed heavily inside his helmet, despite the increased oxygen flow, and a bead of sweat rolled into his left eye. He blinked repeatedly in an attempt to clear his vision.

Not for the first time, since he and his mining team landed on this metal rich asteroid, he cursed the maintenance crew who failed to spot the faulty power unit on the equipment hauler. Calan and his team had been forced to maneuver the last of the survey units into position by hand. The one hour job had soon became three.

Calan had briefly considered abandoning the survey and returning to the yard to swap out the equipment hauler, but the six hours wasted on this round trip journey would put him well behind schedule and if there was one thing his boss, Major Dola, did not appreciate was falling behind schedule. Major Dola waxed lyrical about the importance of the raw materials the asteroid mining teams provided to the Empire’s classified research and construction yards secreted here, in the Foram system.

Calan’s mind’s eye conjured an image of the pretentious Dola standing on the gantry of the boat bay. Like some feudal lord he looked down, figuratively and literally, on the men and women of the mining teams and bored them to death with his nasal speech, outlining the mining sections and therefore his own, importance. No raw materials, no scientific experiments and the shipyards could not breathe life into the draftsperson’s and scientists’ vision of ships. Without the ships the Empire could never achieve parlance with the Commonwealth. Calan really couldn’t suffer the speech again, so he and his team used good old fashioned brute force to shift the final pieces of survey equipment into position.

“Lieutenant Calan, sir.” Harad’s tone over comms indicated a problem. Calan sighed deeply. To expedite the survey equipment deployment Calan had allocated one miner per location to run the set up procedures, freeing the others to move the remaining equipment and although Harad was one of the most inexperienced miners in his team, Calan had been confident enough to leave Harad unsupervised. Seemingly now a poor decision.

“Go ahead, Harad.”

“I think we’ve a fault with number four. Whenever it comes out of set up mode it indicates a massive concentration of refined metals a little way below the surface.”

Calan forced the frustration from his voice. If number four really was faulty it meant unpacking the spare back on the shuttle, powering it up, running diagnostics, powering it down, hauling it to its designated location, setting it up, running another diagnostic in situ before, finally, dragging the faulty unit back to the shuttle. Would this day never end?

“Hang on, I’m on my way.” Calan set off with graceful bounces in the micro gravity of the asteroid, covering the distance quickly. Calan cleared the visible horizon and Harad came into view. He saw the young miner punching commands into the glowing green control panel, no doubt running yet another diagnostic on the errant machine. Well, at least he isn't standing around waiting for me to sort his problems!

Landing in a small puff of dust, Calan pointedly ignored Harad as he eyed the instrument display. The diagnostic cycle completed and reported the equipment was functioning properly.

“You see, sir,” said Harad, “the computer says every thing’s working properly but it can’t be. Refined metals don't occur in nature.”

Calan silently agreed while punching commands into the obviously faulty equipment. Maybe by changing modes he could identify the fault. With a final tap Calan activated the ground penetrating radar mode. Complying with Calan’s instructions the survey equipment sent a millimeter length radar pulse in a short arc deep into the asteroid before displaying the results on a small screen.

“Odd...” Calan mumbled, while Harad tried to peer over his superior’s taller  shoulder.

The radar showed a structure barely one meter under the surface. Calan adjusted the arc of the radar sweep to its maximum coverage before initiating another pulse. Moments later the return displayed on the small screen. Calan’s heart raced as his logic battled to make sense of the grainy image he saw - sleek lines interspersed with vertical and horizontal ones at regular intervals.

Calan stumbled back from the display, his eyes involuntarily scanned the surface of the asteroid as if his unaided eyes could see through the fine gray powder. His brain struggled to process what he knew to be true. A scant few meters below him was a spaceship.

#

Calan and his team stood silently alongside the fussing Major Dola, while Calan tried to tune out the major’s staccato orders, “... move that equipment... one meter to the left it looks untidy there! ... The general’s coming... clean up... I don’t care where… move it!”

              It had little effect on the miners who had descended en mass to the location of Calan’s discovery.

At first Major Dola was incredulous and dismissive.  Calan’s report was, “... no more than a junior officer blowing a malfunctioning equipment’s reading into something it isn’t!”

Until Calan’s team carefully excavated the area directly above where the alleged false image was taken. They had dug only a single meter before their tools struck the outer skin. Carefully, they exhumed it and revealed a smooth, silver surface which sparkled brightly in the blue of the portable work lights Callan had ordered to the site.

Unsurprisingly on receipt of Calan’s video of the dig, the usually disdainful Dola ordered a halt to proceedings and immediately departed from his shipyard office.  He proceeded to round up every available miner under his command, cram them and as much equipment as he could aboard shuttles and headed for the asteroid.

On reaching the asteroid, Dola quickly assumed command of the dig and ordered a complete survey using the extra ground penetrating radar he brought with him. The arduous work was worth the effort, for it revealed the assumption a ship was buried within the asteroid was wrong.

The ship was the asteroid! And it was massive - over 700 meters long, sixty at the beam and over forty from the keel to the tip of the single protuberance which broke its perfect lozenge shape. It was anyone’s guess which end was the bow and which the stern, for all Calan and his fellow miners knew they were looking at the ship from its side. They could only presume each end of the lozenge was the front and the back. Further investigation proved the ship was coated in a layer of asteroid material varying in depth from a couple to up to ten meters in places. Someone or something spent a great deal of time on this camouflage.

The quandary was: Who built the ship? And why did they hide it?

Calan noticed Dola finally halting his flapping movements as he stood to the best effort of attention his vacuum suit allowed. Following Dola’s line of sight Calan spotted a mob of suits were bouncing gracefully toward them. Calan put two and two together and stood to attention, as much as his semi rigid suit allowed, for the arrival of the general. Calan’s loyal team followed his lead.

The approaching group came to a halt. Dola tried but farcically failed to salute the lead figure. Calan smirked as he caught a chuckle on the open radio channel. Dola chose to ignore it as he spoke.

“Welcome General Lura, Chief Scientist Kilor. As you can see...” The chief scientist stepped right past Dola, giving him a taste of his own dismissiveness. As he teetered at the edge of the excavated area Kilor drank in the sight of the seamless and beautiful metal hull reflecting the artificial light.  Meanwhile Dola spluttered on “... Ah... Yes... Well... as you can see,” he cleared his throat, “I have revealed an area of what we believe to be the top half of the hull and have awaited your arrival before attempting to gain entry.”

The scientist finally spoke. “This is fascinating.” He turned towards the general and implored. “We must get inside, General, look!” He turned back to the shiny hull. “It’s impeccable... Untarnished… Undamaged... and there’s no clue as to how long it’s been here.”

“Is it Commonwealth, Kilor? Have they placed this ship here to spy on us?”

“No, General.” The scientist shook his head. “I’m fairly confident whoever built this is not Commonwealth. We chose the Foram system for its isolation from colonization routes. It has no habitable planets and there’s no reason for anyone to come here. Besides, I have certainly never heard of them disguising one of their ships as an asteroid, have you?”

“Can’t say I have, Kilor.” The general nodded. “Very well, we’ll treat this as an alien construction, until we know otherwise. Major Dola.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Have your teams assist Chief Scientist Kilor. He’s to get whatever he needs. You have full authority to requisition anything and anyone you feel necessary to fulfill his requirements. If anyone argues, refer them to my office.”

“Yes, sir.”

Calan involuntarily rolled his eyes, Oh God, that pompous ass has even more power now! That meant one thing, he would be even more insufferable.

“Lieutenant Calan.”

“Sir?” Calan stood straighter as he replied.

“Well done to you and your team. The Empire prides itself on rewarding good work and as such each of your team is promoted one grade. Congratulations, Captain Calan.”

Calan, dumbfounded by his sudden unexpected promotion stuttered, “Uh… Th… Tha… Thank you, sir.”

General Lura let out a short laugh. “And as you’ll soon discover, Captain, with promotion comes responsibility. You’re on detached duty with immediate effect. You will work directly for Chief Scientist Kilor and, when the time comes, you’ll have the honor of being the first to enter the ship.”

Calan beamed unseen within his helmet. He was almost bursting with pride.

“Sir, it will be my honor.”

“Don’t thank me yet, son. We’ve no idea what we’ll find inside there… Very well!” General Lura turned and headed to his ship, leaving Calan to stare at the glinting metal skin and wonder what awaited him inside.

#

Chief Scientist Kilor’s enthusiasm to enter the mysterious ship was tempered by caution. To minimize damage to the hull and protect its interior, Kilor had ordered another complete set of radar imagery before agreeing to the painstaking removal of the asteroid material.  To minimize further delays, Major Dola had organized the various mining teams into round-the-clock shifts. Though, in a rare moment of consideration, he had used his newly granted authority for the benefit of his hard pressed subordinates by requisitioning a large cargo hauler and converting the empty bays into reasonably comfortable ad hoc sleeping and catering areas. The growing number of scientists, technicians and the need for laboratories, soon forced Dola to requisition a second ship and Calan began to see a different side to Dola. He would always be a pompous ass but, it turned out, he was an efficient administrator and earned a modicum of respect from miners, scientists, and technicians alike.

Nevertheless, Kilor’s cautious approach proved its worth when, on removing a particularly stubborn section of asteroid material, the miners uncovered an airlock, but, instead of entering the ship, Kilor chose to continue the excavation of the outer covering and forced the miners, much to their frustration, to continue with their hard graft for a further week.  The result was a completely exposed, glittering ship of burnished silver metal. A smooth hull, which reflected distant stars, hovered freely in space for the first time in who knew how long and permission was finally granted to enter the mysterious ship.

#

Calan and his two man team floated beside the airlock door attached to the hull by magnetic tethers. All attempts to power up the door had proved unsuccessful and with no visible hinges or mechanisms on the outer door Calan had opted to use a thermal lance to cut his way inside.

Knowing everyone from General Lura down was listening to his transmissions, Calan swallowed and tried to wet his dry mouth and throat.

“Go ahead, Jara.”

Jara, the experienced ship worker brought in especially for this moment by Major Dora, activated the lance and with remarkable ease, rotated the bulky contraption to plant it against the airlock’s metal skin. Within seconds the superheated plasma began to slice through the airlock. Minutes later he deactivated the lance and secured it and its power pack to the hull before placing three magnetic clamps on the free-floating section he had cut. He attached one end of a tether to the coupling point on each clamp and the other to the front of his suit. When all three were fixed he used the thrusters on his maneuvering pack to pull the section of cut away airlock free. Spinning around, he gently placed the section on the hull and secured it in place. Jara gave Calan a nod.

Calan’s heart raced, “I’m entering the airlock now.” He called confidently over his suit radio. Calan passed through the hole, mindful of snagging his suit on the ragged metal and risking sudden decompression.

It was pitch black.

Calan illuminated the interior with his suit lamps. “Uh… it looks like a standard airlock, nothing much different to ours. Hold on, I’ll see if I can find a control panel...  Got it! I’ve a panel with a sequence of colored touch controls and… it looks like we may have a faint power reading…”

Without warning the airlock filled with a bright white light. Calan’s visor immediately darkened and he felt a thud through the magnetic boots holding him to the airlock floor. Spinning around, he saw a second door had closed behind him, isolating him from his team on the hull.