Carinae Sector: 02 - Admiral's Fury - Part 1 - Purple Blood (35 page)

Altarebe now listened to radio transmissions and other data coming from the distant centre of the solar system, and his happy mood soon changed. The inner and central parts of human home system seethed with activity, and he began logging key broadcasts. Hopefully he could identify the military traffic and give their ships a wide berth as he attempted to secretly land in Earth’s oceans. Omerio had earlier been helpful by suggesting an incoming course well out of the elliptic.

Altarebe remembered his recent training and placed all his attention on the next phase of his journey. He now changed course and headed for the vicinity of Neptune, fortunately only two hundred million kilometres to one side of his best course to Earth. The ancient knew that he would have to approach as close as possible to Neptune without either being discovered or giving away the position of the Sspol colonists to the humans. He also knew that the Lagrange or L5 point behind Neptune held a small collection of icy asteroids, but fortunately they were all located on the elliptic plane. Soon he had taken a precise course that passed within one hundred million kilometres of Neptune over the planet’s South Pole and then angled away conveniently towards the inner planets.

After several hours Altarebe was at his closest approach, and he began using his tight beam transmitter to send a short encrypted message, courtesy of Drannep the Sspol envoy, down to Neptune. A terse low powered reply was broadcast directly back to him within the hour and Altarebe continued on into the inner part of the solar system. Ten more hours found the ancient crossing the orbit of the fourth planet Mars, but still well south in the elliptic, before he made yet another course change.

‘Now this is when it gets really interesting.’

Altarebe thought as he took the opportunity to further slow down the sled from its headlong charge into the system. The ancient knew that he would be vulnerable if he entered the Earth’s atmosphere at too high a speed, as he had avidly studied the Maveen reports of the Trader ship Illuria’s earlier landing. He noted that the humans had shifting patrols of corvettes that covered all approaches to their home world. He was about to commit to another course change when instinct made him stop, and he discovered more about the humans.

‘The corvettes and several satellites are sending short bursts of low powered microwaves at each other. So if I block a beam path during my approach I will then be discovered.’

Altarebe further slowed the sled down as he considered this important piece of information. After several long minutes of thought he noted that the microwave beams did not cover the direct path between the Earth and the Moon. He also could see that there was several microwave gaps at the geosynchronous zone, as the humans had scores of satellites in these zones. The ancient now launched his smallest probe at a low speed directly towards the moon with concise instructions.

Altarebe noted after an hour that the bait had been taken, for several groups of human ships were heading on intercept vectors towards the moon. He now altered course to enter the Earth’s atmosphere over the South Pole. After another two hours he was again slowing the sled down as he journeyed inside the orbits of several geosynchronous satellites and larger objects, including obvious patrol bases that he gave a wide berth. Fortunately most of the satellites seemed to be around the equator of the planet, and the human frigates were still moving further outwards towards the moon. He was just starting to feel relieved when the movement detector on the sled gave an audio proximity alarm.

‘Smart mines and they must have their own microwave detection network.’

Altarebe immediately tumbled the ship and decelerated, before doubling the sensitivity of his passive scanners yet again by shortening their range. The small blips around his ship told the full story about the presence of the smart proximity mines and he began to dance his sled around the converging mines. He was nearly through the minefield when he detected three mines converging on him dead ahead. By reflex Altarebe dropped half the attached wreckage around his sled and barrel rolled towards the south, even as he heavily increased power to all engines.

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Chapter 14

Lieutenant Jayne Sanders ensured the IFF identity beacon on her old scout ship was fully operational as she flew the scout towards the minefield. The second seat was occupied by Ensign John Watts, who made a nervous report.

‘The microwave sensors do not make any sense, for something went past them but it was hard to get a lock on the ship. It was larger than our ship and doing well over 10km per second, the course is highly inclined towards the equator. The speed is well above our training scenarios even if the ship appears to be decelerating heavily in the last scans.’

Jayne grinned wryly as she calculated out the speed the alien ship must have had before it was detected. She watched the series of blue dots representing the smart mines as they converged towards a location over Antarctica, even as John updated the vector information for the shadowy contact. A series of brief flashes followed by a long flash of light told her what she wanted to know, and she updated the ensign.

‘John, I just saw a manoeuvring tumble followed by a long braking burn. The contact will enter the atmosphere in two minutes though the smart mines are close.’

No sooner had she spoken, when a series of three brighter flashes occurred at the contact location, and the visor on the windshield of the scout ship darkened automatically. John sounded on edge as he confirmed the distance and number of explosions, though Jayne was relieved that he still had the presence of mind to follow his training.

‘Lieutenant, three explosions occurred at the contact location just over two hundred kilometres from our position. I am setting the safety switches on the nuclear satchel charges and the mines are moving back to their control points.’

The visor on the scout ship had already gone clear again as Jayne then reported that several pieces of wreckage had now entering the Earth’s atmosphere. She piloted the scout ship back to their patrol route a safe distance from the mine fields, even as John made a brief report to the patrol control centre some distance away in geosynchronous orbit. Soon after John finished his report, they began to speculate about the strange contact that had been destroyed, with both classing the incident as either a large probe or a small scout ship destroyed as it attempted to enter the atmosphere.

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Three sharp explosions erupted behind Altarebe within seconds and he was aware of blast fragments punching into the rear of the sled. Fortunately the cloak on the sled and his personal shields remained active, even as the sled signalled that it had lost engine power and its own stronger shields. The atmosphere of the planet loomed directly ahead as Altarebe flipped around on the sled and immediately applied braking thrust with his own engines. Altarebe regained his correct position on the sled, extended his own shields as much as possible, and within minutes he was riding the sled down through the Earth’s atmosphere at high velocity.

The ancient knew that he was entering the atmosphere at too high a speed, so he angled his approach to skim across the upper atmosphere as much as possible. His shield temperatures started to rise, and the sled buckled underneath him like it had a mind of its own. He quickly released the remaining wreckage that now raced in front of him on a trajectory towards the equator of the planet. Altarebe used the increase in control of the sled to change course by executing a snap roll directly for his preferred landing site.

The air above the centre of the Indian Ocean resonated with a series of sonic booms as Altarebe manually deployed the sled’s landing cycle. Speed brakes deployed to rapidly slow the sled down to below the speed of sound. The ancient just had time to retract the speed brakes and brace for impact, before the still cloaked sled slid across the surface of the ocean. The cloak finally failed as the sled careered over several waves and came to rest in a trough. Altarebe held tightly onto the rapidly sinking sled and allowed himself a few seconds to savour the success of his landing.

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Captain Narindestat had left Garendestat at the end of the wing corridor with instructions to keep under cover with his blaster drawn. Their earlier search of the sneak ships docked to the hyper drive module had turned up nothing and both Traders were feeling frustrated. The captain then calmly strode down the corridor towards the mounting pylons for sneaks ships five and nine, mounted on the outermost port side pylons. He keyed the overrides on the door controls to both sneak ships and spoke as loudly and with as much authority as possible.

‘Now please come out commander and you as well lieutenant. We had detected your presence much earlier but it did not suit my objectives to seek you out. Please bring out all your team members with you as well. We will not attack you.’

Several moments silence greeted Captain Narindestat, before a resigned human voice called out in reply.

‘Captain, I am Commander Paul Burgess, with Lieutenants Rick Greene and Rebecca Dalton, and our three teams. We have a total of thirty people on the two sneak ships.’

After several minutes the commander has his three teams formed up along the side of the corridor as Garendestat now strode down to join his father after getting the all clear. The Trader captain ran a practiced eye over the disciplined humans and made an observation to Garendestat before he asked the commander a question.

‘These humans look like their SEF, Space Expedition Force, so this means covert ops, battle engineers, intelligence and pilots. Commander, do you have any frigate pilots and flight engineers among your team?’

Commander Burgess motioned Rick and nine others forward and Narindestat soon had a brief overview of their capabilities. His satisfaction was evident as he gave Commander Burgess a tight smile that the commander quietly returned, as the Trader spoke to the four pilots.

‘We are short on sneak ship crew this mission and your presence could be useful at a later stage. Pick your lead pilots and co-pilot, then each flight crew gets two engineers. Five crew members per sneak ship are light on, but the engineers and the co-pilots should be able to crew all the guns if required.’

Captain Narindestat knew that though he had the pick of several Trader ships, he had purposely kept the numbers of Trader crew he selected down because their current mission was regarded as very hazardous. Commander Burgess called his two lieutenants to one side but Narindestat was having none of it as he spoke again.

‘Commander Burgess, you will be disappointed if you think you can just take two of my sneak ships and disappear off towards Earth. We are already past our closest point of approach, and one hundred and fifty light years is a long journey by sneak ship. Also you will remain hidden during our meeting in a few days with the Cephrit.’

The commander gave no sign of disappointment, though Narindestat thought that Rick Greene looked deflated. The captain looked closer at Rick for a moment and gave a start as he spoke again.

‘Lieutenant, you look a lot like a human I knew a long time ago, and I heard your family name.’

If the lieutenant was nervous at being spoken to directly to by Captain Narindestat, a legend amongst the Barede colonists, he gave no sign as he replied.

‘Thank you Captain Narindestat, Governor Steve Greene was my great grandfather six generations back, and I am told I do resemble him.’

Narindestat flinched as he remembered the passing of Steve Greene, for like many Traders he had lately foresworn human friends due to their much shorter life spans. Commander Burgess brought the Trader captain’s attention back to their present circumstances as he spoke again.

‘Captain, we of course will comply with your orders, though I do admit we had orders to try and reach Earth if the opportunity presented itself.’

Captain Narindestat finally felt relaxed as he heard the human commander’s confirmation on what he had already surmised. He was soon leading the humans to the crew area of the Resuria. Soon either introductions or reunions occurred, as many of the Trader crew still provided training at the Barede space academy.

Lieutenant Garendestat waited until his father was alone, before he quietly spoke with him.

‘Sir, this changes our mission parameters as we cannot risk the Cephrit finding the humans. In any case we cannot dock at a Cephrit star base until we know what the current state of galactic politics is….’

The captain gave his sole son a grim reply, and observed to himself that Garendestat was well past his due and earned promotion to first lieutenant or even captain, before he gave a quiet comment of his own in reply.

‘The hidden card for this mission is the humans whereas on the Earth mission it is was the presence of the Maveen. Our next step is to confirm the information that the Barus told us with my Cephrit mentor.’

Lieutenant Garendestat had already thought about the situation and he voiced his agreement with the captain as he candidly spoke again.

‘Well the Resuria is a stock standard flying wing, so the humans must remain hidden so as not to invalidate this perception amongst the Cephrit and later the other vassals. Now unless we get tissue samples taken from us by other vassals I think our deception will work. However I feel disquiet that we have to mislead the Cephrit in any way about our problems, or even if we can successfully mislead them.’

Captain Narindestat avoided touching his painted on tattoos, as he thought about how the vassal races would quickly combine to hunt down the whole Trader race if they considered the Traders had gone rogue. He also knew that the Cephrit would be forced to take part in hunting his race down or risk extinction themselves. This was despite the fact that the Trader race’s birth rate was still not back anywhere near their fallow birth rates of many tens of thousands of years ago.