THE FOREVER GENE (THE SCIONS OF EARTH Book 1) (41 page)

Katya looked at the others.

Hans nodded immediately.  "It makes sense to me," he said.

"Me too," said Vitaly.

Harry's face was a pale mask.  "My family was in London when…  I have nothing to stay here for.  You are my family now."

Hans put a hand on the Englishman's shoulder, silently offering his sorrow.  Carson and Vitaly did the same.  Even Katya went over to him and gave him a brief hug.

"Well," she said in a slightly hoarse voice.  "It is all very well to decide to go after the outcasts.  But how are we going to find them?"

"Oh, that's easy," said Hans.

"It is?" said Katya, genuinely surprised.  I never thought I'd hear those words from your lips, Hans.  You usually take great delight in telling us how complicated everything is."

"That is because most things are complicated," he replied haughtily.  "But, in this case, it is simple.  When they left, the Faerie Folk star ships opened scores of wormholes just outside our atmosphere.  The Allen Telescope Array will have recorded the precise dimensions of many of them.  All we have to do is ask Hat Creek to let us see the recordings so that we can replicate one of the wormholes.  It will take us exactly where the Faerie Folk ships went."

Katya gaped at him in astonishment.

"What's the matter now?" he asked, grumpily.

"Nothing," said Katya.  "I'm just surprised that I could understand every word you said.  It sounds like an excellent plan."

The other major issue they debated was whether they should invite others to board the ship before it left.  Earthworm's capacity was sixteen thousand, so they were in a position to give a significant number of people the choice of going into space.  The difficulty was that they could not guarantee anyone's safety.  In the end, they reasoned that it was equally life threatening to stay on Earth, so it was their duty to give as many people as possible the opportunity.

The following morning, Katya called the ship's crew together and gave them their options.  They could stay on the ship, or leave and find their way back to their homes.  Some of them volunteered on the spot.  Others asked for more time to find out what had become of family and friends.  She assured them that they would be given as much time as they needed.  Then, leaving Vitaly in command of the ship, she returned to Hat Creek and made the same offer to Clyde and his people.

"I must stay here," Clyde said, "although I would love to take up your offer.  My duty is to preserve the observatory for as long as possible and to monitor the transmissions we are sending.  But I will not stand in the way of anyone else who wishes to go with you."

David Herald was the first to sign up.  Edgar, Samantha, and most of their DOPE pals didn't hesitate to follow suit.  After consulting their families, many of whom stayed in Hat Creek or the nearby town of Burney, most of the people at the observatory elected to go.

After that, Katya began recruiting further afield.  On Clyde's advice, she avoided the cities and their gangs.  Over a period of two weeks, she and Vitaly flew shuttles to various small towns throughout California, Oregon and Washington State.  They even crossed the Canadian border into British Columbia.

People signed up in droves, often bringing extended families with them.  When the number on Earthworm reached the nine thousand mark, Katya decided that the ship was full enough.  Although it had another seven thousand berths, she was mindful of the fact that the voyage they were embarking upon would not necessarily be over in a hurry.  No-one knew what unknown factors they might encounter, and she decided it was more prudent to load the available space with extra provisions.

In the time it had taken to recruit 'the posse', as Carson and Vitaly had dubbed them, Hans and Harry had replicated the dimensions of three of the wormholes recorded by the telescope array.  The simulations of the paths of the three wormholes confirmed what they had hoped; that each one ended at the same destination.  They concluded that any of the three would take them exactly where they wanted to go; precisely where the Faerie Folk had taken the outcasts.

There was some debate about exactly what they would do when they got there.  Harry and Carson wanted to demand that the Faerie Folk return to Earth to repair the damage they had caused.  Hans thought that the important thing was to ensure that they kept their promise to resettle the outcasts on a habitable planet.

Katya favoured a wait and see attitude; they couldn't be sure what they would find when they emerged from the wormhole.  They could make as many contingency plans as they liked, but if there was one lesson her military career had taught her, it was to expect the unexpected.

Especially when about to land in the backyard of an alien race which had stolen millions of people from a planet they had carelessly reduced to a smoking ruin.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The day appointed for Earthworm's departure arrived and Katya, Hans, David, and Edgar made one last visit to Hat Creek to say their goodbyes.

Clyde shook their hands warmly.  "It has been a pleasure knowing you all.  I must say, before Earthworm arrived, I had begun to feel quite despondent.  Edgar's idea of sending a general call for help out into the stars was intriguing, but it was a very long shot.  And yet look what happened; the transmission had barely cleared our atmosphere when it brought you to us.

"You were not our intended target at all, but now we have some hope again.  Even though you are leaving, we know that you will be out there.  Please keep us in the loop if you can.  It will give us a massive lift to hear from you, especially if you are able to make contact with the outcasts and assure us that they are alright."

Katya regarded him gravely.  "Thank you for all you have done for us, Clyde. Your advice has been invaluable and we will do our best to maintain contact.  The Faerie Folk are able to send communications via miniature wormholes and I am sure that Hans will work on replicating that process as soon as he has the time."

Hans nodded enthusiastically.  ""You know, I have been thinking about that…"

"Not now, Hans."  She gave Clyde her best steely-eyed expression.  "I promise you this, Clyde; if we can make a difference out there, we will."

When she and Hans got back to the star ship, there was a palpable sense of excitement in the air.  Any fear of the potential dangers they faced seemed to have been swept away on a wave of euphoria.  Better that than a wave of despair, or hysteria, but Katya decided that a measured dose of reality would not go amiss.  While Vitaly set the ship's course for the wormhole acquisition quadrant the astrophysicists had selected, she settled herself into her console and flipped on the ship's internal com.

"Crew of the Earthworm, this is your commander.  Stop what you are doing for a moment."  She decided to steer clear of too much military jargon; most of the people on the ship were civilians and she knew that trying to ram orders down their throats would not be well received.  She would have to impose discipline at some stage, but now was not the time.

"You should be proud to be taking part in the most ambitious voyage in history.  No human ship has travelled further from Earth than this one is about to venture. I don't know most of you, but I am proud of you already.  Making the decision to leave your homes, not to mention your planet, shows great courage and I am honoured to be going into the unknown with some of the bravest people on Earth.

"I won't lie to you; we don't really know what we will find out there.  We are confident that the vector we have calculated will take us to an inhabited star system.  We have sent through advance probes which confirm that.  Whether it is the Faerie Folk's system or a system where they have re-settled the outcasts, we can't say."

She didn't voice the less appealing possibility that it was a system where they had imprisoned the outcasts, or worse.

"If we do find the Faerie Folk there, we are not certain what their reaction will be.  They may welcome us and invite us to join the outcasts, or they may want us to go back to where we came from.  It is unlikely that they will do us any harm; this is not a war ship and we are no threat to them.  All I can say is prepare yourselves, as best you can, for any eventuality.

"It will be a couple of hours before we are ready to jump.  Familiarise yourselves with the life-support cocoons.  Earthworm has made four wormhole jumps already and I can assure you that they will keep you safe.  Oh, by the way, do not eat anything before we go.  If you don't think that is good advice, speak to someone who has already been through a wormhole."

She flipped off the com and immersed herself in preparations for the coming jump.  It would be the longest they had experienced by far.  Hans had calculated that it would take the best part of an hour.  Whether people ate anything or not, there were going to be a lot of queasy stomachs on board by the time they came out the other side.

Thankfully, there was a lot to do and the time passed quickly.  Before she knew it, she was giving the orders that would send them on their way.

"Confirm all crew strapped in," she barked into the com, and waited until she had heard affirmative replies from the person in charge of each passenger cabin.

"Take us away, Harry."

She found herself holding her breath as she watched the celestial vortex forming.  Although she had seen it half a dozen times now, the spectacle had not lost its impact.  The wormhole opened and Vitaly took them in with practiced ease.  The ship accelerated into the void and Katya fought off the now familiar attack of nausea.  She flipped off the com from the passenger cabins, cutting off the cacophony of wailing, screaming, and retching which assailed her ears.

Strangely, she found the longer jump easier than the short ones she had experienced thus far.  Once her stomach got over the initial shock, it settled somewhat, and she was able to think and speak relatively clearly.  She checked with everyone else on the bridge and was relieved to see that they had remained conscious and functional, apart from one of the technicians who had passed out.

She was still mightily relieved when the ship shot out of the grey nothingness of the wormhole and out into the star speckled blackness of normal space.  Dizzy and disorientated, it was a few minutes before she was able to begin sorting through the data coming in from the ship's external feeds.

Almost immediately she found a distant planet which looked roughly the same size and shape as Earth.  Yells of excitement from some of the others told her that they had seen it too.  It was a promising sign; it could very well be one of the planets of the Faerie Folk's system.  While Hans was calculating their precise location, and everyone else was trying to see whether the planet exhibited any signs of life, she decided to see what other celestial objects might be in the vicinity.

She switched to a video feed from another direction and spotted an immobile dark sphere about a thousand kilometres away.  She magnified the feed so that she could get a better look at it.  Her eyes widened in surprise as she found herself looking at another star ship.  It was the size and shape of a Faerie Folk ship, but it looked slightly different to the ones she was familiar with.  It had additional fittings and protrusions she did not recognise.  Perhaps it was a different model, or had been modified for use as a trader or freighter.  Whatever the explanation was, she was now fairly certain that they had found the Faerie Folk's system.

She was about to order Vitaly to hail the other ship, when something in the background of the video feed caught her eye.  She magnified it further and found a second sphere.  It was another star ship, identical to the first.  Something made her widen the angle of the feed so that she could see a larger area of space.  She scowled at what it revealed.  Hanging motionless in space was a fleet of about a dozen star ships.

"Vitally, take a look at this," she said, sending him the feed.  His sudden intake of breath alerted the others to the fact that something was going on.

"What are they doing?" she heard Hans ask.  "Why are they all just sitting there?"

Katya swiped at her controls, pushing the video to a side screen and pulling up a graphic of all objects detected by Earthworm's sensors.  The graphic showed hundreds of star ships formed up in a massive stationary configuration.  Her scowl firmly in place, she shared the graphic with everyone else.

Ignoring their gasps of surprise and muttered expletives, she tried to make sense of the strange situation.  As Hans had already observed, the ships were not moving.  If they were waiting to dock at the distant planet, why had they stopped so far away?  And if they had just left the planet, what were they waiting for?

Movement from the side-lined video feed caught her eye.  She moved the graphic aside and enlarged the video.  Four of the star ships nearest Earthworm had drifted noticeably closer.  As she watched, some of the protrusions she had noticed earlier adjusted themselves.  She shifted uncomfortably in her seat as she realised that they were now pointing directly at the human ship.

Two realisations hit her at once.  The first was that these were not Faerie Folk star ships.  They were based on the same design, but had been modified to suit whoever had built them.  The second was that the protrusions she was looking at were weapons.

"Hans, Vitaly," she said warningly.  "Those ships belong to someone else.  This is a war fleet."

Before anyone could respond, her conclusions were confirmed by a transmission which came in over the external com.  It was a voice message, delivered in a booming, guttural dialect of snarls, grunts, and hisses.

The language was totally incomprehensible and when the transmission ended, there was complete silence on the bridge.  No-one had any idea what had just been said.

Katya's military instincts kicked in.  If this was a war fleet waiting for a battle to begin, the sudden appearance of an unidentified ship would instantly be viewed with suspicion.  And if that ship did not respond to a demand to identify itself…

The message repeated; the voice louder and more insistent.  Katya saw more movement on her video feed.  The four nearest ships were bringing more weapons to bear on Earthworm.

"Commander…" said Vitaly.  He had seen what was happening too.

"I know," she said, her mind racing.  There must be something they could do; some means of escape, or at least some means of communication.  But there was nowhere to run; it would take far too long to acquire a wormhole.

"We must reply, commander," said Vitaly urgently.

She gritted her teeth.  Sending a reply the alien fleet wouldn't understand might delay the inevitable for a few moments.  But then what?

She flicked open a channel and considered what to say.  Something Edgar had said to her in conversation at Hat Creek suddenly came back to her; 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'.  If this was indeed the Faerie Folk's star system and the war fleet was here to attack...

"Vitaly", she snapped.  "Send them the binary transmission we picked up from Hat Creek."

He didn't hesitate and within seconds the coded message had been transmitted.

Katya held her breath.  For centuries it had been assumed that binary code would be easily understood by any intelligent race in the universe.  They were about to find out whether that theory was sound or not.

For a few minutes, nothing happened.  The ships targeting Earthworm did not open fire.  But they did not stand down either.  Katya could only hope that whoever was in command of the fleet was busy decoding the transmission.

She started involuntarily when another message came in over the external com.  This time it was in the form of binary code.  Vitaly ran it through his decoder and within seconds Katya and the others were reading it.

"WE ARE THE DREL.  YOU WILL RELINQUISH COMMAND OF YOUR VESSEL TO A DREL-ROG FROM OUR FLEET.  IF YOU DO NOT COMPLY, YOU WILL PERISH."

"They don't mince words, do they," said Hans laconically.

"Tell them we will comply, Vitaly," ordered Katya.

"Is that wise?" asked Harry.

"I don't see what other options we have," she replied.

"What is a Drel-Rog?" asked Vitaly of no-one in particular as he quickly coded and sent an affirmative reply.

"We are about to find out," said Katya.  "Look."

The video feed she had been monitoring showed a small shuttle leaving the nearest Drel star ship.  It headed straight towards Earthworm.  She used the opportunity to open the internal com.

"Crew of the Earthworm," she said in a clipped tone.  "We have made contact with another alien race."  She decided not to mention the massive war fleet just yet.  She didn't want wholesale panic greeting the Drel-Rog when he arrived.  "We do not believe they mean us any harm, but we are awaiting the arrival of their envoy.  The situation is delicate and I must ask you to remain in your berths for now.  I will give you a further update shortly."

She switched off the com, not wanting to be distracted by the inevitable stream of questions which was sure to follow her announcement.  The crew would have to be patient.

She contacted Carson on his 'link.  "Please report to docking bay one and escort the envoy to the bridge."

"Yes, ma'am," he said.

"And Carson, whatever he says or does, he is to be treated with respect.  Is that clear?"

Carson answered in the affirmative.

The shuttle reached Earthworm's docking bay without incident and Carson reported, in a somewhat shaky voice, that the envoy had arrived.

Katya and the others waited with bated breath.  They had no idea what the Drel-Rog would do when he got to the bridge.  The surveillance camera in the docking bay was dead; presumably knocked out in the wormhole jump.  The feeds from the cameras in the corridors were indistinct, showing nothing more than a hulking humanoid form which dwarfed Carson.

At least they had some idea of what he looked like, she thought.  She ordered Vitaly to stay where he was while she and the others climbed out of their consoles and formed what she hoped looked like a welcome party.  She composed herself, naturally adopting her ice queen persona.  Whatever this alien did, she was determined to remain poised.