Carinae Sector: 01 - Traders' Scourge - Part 1 - Alien Flight (9 page)

Omerio once again considered the inventory of his ship’s hold with disbelief. He would stay low after this deal for awhile he decided, as he responded to the Trader’s farewell.

‘Captain, a safe journey to you and your crew, and hopefully you can visit a Barus station in the future once the political furor subsides. May the blessings of the revered ones protect your mighty ship and your crew.’

Captain Narindestat grunted in satisfaction as the Barus ship undocked and hurried out system. With his waldos now already back inside his own ship, he instructed one of his sneak ships docked on the hyper-drive module to undock and tail the Barus ship as agreed out of the system for several hours. To a new arrival into this system it would appear that the Barus trader was running for his very life from the larger sneak ship.

As Omerio directed his ship out of the system he took new sensor readings of the trail left by the earlier ship. Something about the sensor readings twigged his curiosity, but he was still unable to identify the strange ship. Omerio watched the trailing Trader sneak ship with approval, as the sneak ship was faster than most other frigates. He knew though that the sneak ship had nothing like the speed of his fast scout trader, especially now that the ship’s hold was now well less than half full. He angled his ship out of the system well away from his original vector near the asteroid he had parked behind earlier. He again increased power to the engines and he could imagine the consternation of the sneak ship commander.

Omerio prepared the ship for hyper-drive after three hours heading out system. He noted that the sneak ship had already given up the false chase and started directly back to the main trader ship and hyper-drive assembly. The Barus trader briefly flared a pulse from the ship’s engines as the standard hyper drive engaged and the ship vanished. Back in the star system, Captain Narindestat looked over the readings on his sensor monitor. The Barus trader was certainly true to his type he thought, as he made a mental note of this system as a possible hiding place for later forays into this part of the sector.

‘Now back to the business at hand…’ The Trader thought as gave very specific orders to his crew.

‘Weapons please drop all shields on every part of the main stack and for all sneak ships. Navigation, please verify that the auxiliary crew are in place on the hyper-drive module. Also get the module crew to run an idle diagnostic on the drive immediately. We will not await the return of the module’s sneak ship. Pilot, please separate the stack via safe mode, and give us a few ship lengths of separation.’

The Trader bridge crew looked back at the captain with some consternation at the premature and detailed set of orders. Captain Narindestat merely fixed each of the bridge crew with an inscrutable, but friendly stare until they went back to their duties. The shields were dropped on the stack, and the main Trader ship and hyper-drive module separated. The stealthy Barus probe several million kilometers away made detailed passive scans of the whole process, especially of the idling hyper-drive module.

                                                            ***

A remote binary star system near Jerecab space

The captain of the Jerecab lifter shifted his long otter like frame uneasily and again viewed his sensor screens with consternation. He had made an un-scheduled detour to this system after being hauled over and questioned by two Tilmud frigates that took their time checking over his ship. His unease had developed after he discovered that the frigates were now obviously tailing him through inter-galactic space. The Tilmud had gone at great lengths to study his ship, even to the point of bringing across their own large scanners to check the insides of the lifter thoroughly.

 The captain knew that this system was well away from the Tilmud patrol’s usual patrol route, and he hoped they would lose interest and go elsewhere. He also had not been able to obtain the balance of his cargo with the shadowy and little known suppliers as he had intended. The contract with the Trader captain had been specific, go to three specified star systems for two days each and look busy, then a ship with the required codes would be in contact. However the Tilmud patrol had shredded those plans to his considerable annoyance. Suddenly the freighters navigation officer gave a cough of alarm.

‘Captain a ship has de-cloaked behind one of the nearest asteroids and is signaling us in code.’

The Jerecab captain looked at his sensor screen with very mixed emotions of both awe and fear.  The sensor readings clearly showed an alien utility ship of moderate size that still dwarfed his own more primitive vessel. As he viewed the strange ship he knew that there was no mistaking the identity of the race that operated the ship. The Jerecab captain was well aware that Zronte edicts had specifically forbidden trade with these reclusive aliens under any circumstances. However the Trader captain had been explicit in stating that these aliens would then destroy his ship easily if he reneged on the deal.

The black alien ship effortlessly closed the distance between the ships and continued to signal the agreed trading code. Quickly the Jerecab captain responded with the expected signal code reply, lest the approaching ship considered him to be hostile. The alien ship slowed dramatically and appeared to split down one side, as a cargo bay door swung open and robotic waldo units were deployed. All the Jerecab captain now had to do was to stop his ship’s engines and open his own cargo hangar doors.

The waldo units had completed the cargo transfer with robotic precision after two anxious hours, and a small black ship together with six even smaller black torpedo shaped objects now filled the Jerecab lifter’s large cargo hold. The alien ship had recalled the waldo units and closed the cargo hold doors, even as it swung around and away from the Jerecab freighter. Without so much as a signal or farewell, the alien utility ship had raced away across the star system, as the Jerecab captain soberly considered the contents in his ship’s hold before issuing a set of orders.

‘Now would not be a good time to renew our acquaintance with that Tilmud patrol we encountered earlier. Engineering and security details to secure the main hold forthwith. The hold is off limits to all crew as those strange objects could well have their own protections against tampering. Navigation, plot a hyper drive course to our rendezvous with the Traders, make the distance as a single jump.’

As the alien ship went into hyper space in the distance, the Jerecab freighter now turned and accelerated heavily out of the binary star system. The crew efficiently completed their checks and cross checks, though they were very concerned that the captain had requested the whole distance as a single jump. However, at the minimum safe distance from the star system, and with the freighter still accelerating heavily, the hyper-drive system was engaged.

                                                            ***

Steve Greene laid asleep, still and pale, in the sick bay as HMAS Perth sailed through the Sunda Strait in Indonesia on the way back to the HMAS Stirling naval base. Samantha looked through his chart with care, it was obviously a strain of the Asian flu, but she was not unduly concerned given his level of fitness and relative youth. Several other crew members had come down with the illness after shore leave, even if the epidemic had burnt itself out five years previously. She was not surprised by this as she knew that a significant risk of illness still existed.

Samantha again glanced over at the commander, and before leaving she left an additional instruction for duty nurse. The ship had spent five days in Singapore for emergency repairs, and the commander and his officers had to front Malaysian Naval authorities to report their actions in destroying the militant boats in Malaysian waters.

The formalities endured, and the Malaysian authorities were more than happy with both the outcome and the intelligence provided. The officers and selected guests had then had three days of hospitality from Steve’s friends in the Malaysian Navy.

During several of these meals Samantha had seen a more personal side to the man she still thought of as commander, and basically she was at the point of making a choice. Samantha later stood at the quarter deck railing and stared at the horizon for several minutes, and she considered her future career versus the man she would like to know a whole lot better.

                                                            ***

Captain Narindestat seethed with impatience and annoyance. The second part of the transaction was not going to plan, as the Jerecab lifter was running very late. The Trader had spent the last week ordering ship maintenance and then going over the specifications of his recently acquired cargo with his engineering staff. The chief engineer, Halbindestat, had enthusiastically pointed out that the new smaller shields included a variant that could be readily adapted for use by the sneak-ships. The new shield was roughly the same size and power drain, but offered nearly three times the shielding performance.

Halbindestat had also expressed satisfaction with the cruiser gun, as a sneak ship could easily mount the weapon in a fixed spinal mount. He noted though that the power drain of the weapon was a cause for concern. Also he pointed out that a larger version of the same gun would be ideal for arming up the main Trader ship at a later stage. As the chief engineer continued to go through his reverse engineering plans with vigor, the captain still fumed about the delay caused by the tardy Jerecab captain.

Captain Narindestat knew that he had to use the Jerecab as intermediaries for this trading deal, as they would attract less suspicion in this part of the sector. He knew that his own Trader ship was a long way away from his home base, plus he had also needed to avoid trading openly with the Barus race. The captain was well aware that the risks to his own crew and ship increased dramatically the longer they were stationary in the one system.

Captain Narindestat’s crew detected his agitation and wisely kept their focus strictly on their duties. The communications officer announced that he had received a signal from a ship just outside the star system. Shortly afterwards the navigation officer confirming that the new ship was indeed the much delayed Jerecab freighter.

‘Finally, the Jerecab have arrived, I was thinking of searching nearby systems for them in case they got lost.’ Captain Narindestat muttered in annoyance.

The bridge crew suppressed snickers at the Trader captain’s wit. As the Jerecab freighter came closer at a modest sub-light speed, a communications channel was established between the two ships. Captain Narindestat now composed himself and sat down in his command chair to speak with the Jerecab captain.

‘Captain Narindestat to Jerecab captain, you are very late in reaching us.’

The visibly nervous Jerecab captain looked around his bridge, as a background wave of chatter and shouted Jerecab orders now erupted from the view screen on the Trader Ship. Obviously the Jerecab were rattled, as they wrinkled their noses and smoothed their green stained fur too much.

‘A handy trait to know about the devious Jerecab...’ The Trader captain thought to himself wryly.

‘Captain Narindestat, sorry for the delay as we were stopped by a Tilmud patrol who boarded our ship and detained us for several days. They wanted to know in depth if we had seen any strange ships. We later managed the agreed transfer of cargo from our mutual friends. Also we have done a single jump of five hundred light years to make the rendezvous, and our hyper-drive system is now offline for repairs.’

Captain Narindestat felt further agitation, as surely even this relatively new race was well aware of the limitations of the standard type one hyper-drive that they had on their ship. The Jerecab captain had obviously panicked and done the whole distance on one jump. He was lucky that he had not lost his ship in deep space to a hyper-drive failure. The Trader captain suppressed the urge to berate the Jerecab captain before he replied.

‘Captain, first we will do the trade transfer at my location as the cargo we are supplying you is lighter than the one you are supplying to us. We will then assist you in making repairs to your ship, though we leave at the first sign of trouble. We don’t want our cargo hold scanned after we conclude our trade arrangement.’

The Jerecab captain considered his own options for several minutes, including listening to reports from his own engineering chief, before replying.

‘Captain Narindestat, we follow your directions and will be at the transfer point in six hours. Note that along with the pulse generator we have also lost an energy generator. We will have to land on the second planet to affect repairs to both the generator and damaged power couplings.’

Captain Narindestat acknowledged the reply before he agreed to further details of the cargo transfer. As the Jerecab ship would take several hours to cross the star system, he left his command chair to sleep. He requested that Halbindestat later provide options for assisting in the repairs of the Jerecab lifter after that time.

                                                            ***

Steve looked out over the ocean for several moments as he walked slowly along the beach at Rockingham. It was now early September, and the first of the warmer weather was coming to southern Western Australia five weeks after the return home. Samantha walked slowly alongside him as they enjoyed the fine weather and each other’s company. Steve was still recovering from the Asian flu, and had been unwell for another fortnight after HMAS Perth had returned home. As he walked Steve thought on recent events, as he had quite a bit to think about in the last three weeks, apart from his command.

For one thing Samantha had already resigned her reserve commission and left the army. She was considering her options but seemed to be in no hurry. Samantha had given him a long and considering look when he voiced his view that he may not stay much longer in the navy either. The moment of pique for Steve had occurred last week after the formal naval inquiry. The inquiry, while clearing the Steve and his officers of command errors, had suggested that an alternative approach to dealing with the militant boats possibly would have saved lives.