Authors: Doug Farren
At first, Ken did not know what had happened. Then realization dawned on him. "The battleship is encased in some sort of ablative coating," Ken told the XO. "It boils away and dissipates the energy from our weapons. We'll have to burn our way through it."
"We have another problem sir," the XO responded. "We have detected hundreds of very small objects being dumped into space by the attackers. We just ran a detailed scan of one of these objects. They're fusion bombs and we're surrounded by them."
"Helm! Maximum drive — get us away from this area!" he ordered.
The Komodo Dragon had barely begun to move when all of the surrounding fusion bombs detonated. Several panels showed red warning lights and Stricklen's command console lit up with warning indicators. Their defense shield, as powerful as it was, had been partially breached. Ken listened to the damage reports as they flooded in.
"Fusion reactor one and four are off-line — Hull breach on deck six amidships — Sledgehammer three damaged — High radiation warning on all decks forward of frame 58 — Communications array damaged — sub-light engine off-line."
Theirs had not been the only ship damaged, however. As soon as the sensors had recovered from the overload, Stricklen saw that three of the Chroniech ships had been destroyed by their own bombs. Unaffected by all this activity, the Dragon's combat computer targeted one of the remaining ships and opened fire. The smaller ship ceased to exist with a single shot. All available weapons were then turned on the battleship. For two minutes the two ships battled it out. The superior firepower of the Komodo Dragon eventually resulted in the destruction of the last remaining enemy ship.
Stricklen quickly assessed their situation. Punching a button on his console he said, "CIC this is the captain — are there any more incoming?"
After a seconds delay the response came back. "Yes sir. Picking up at least nine more drive wakes from multiple vectors. First contact in three minutes."
Stricklen pressed another button and said, "Engineering — I need the stardrive back on-line in under two minutes or we're dead."
"Working on it sir!" a winded voice responded. "Give us another thirty seconds to reset the matrix field generator and clear up some power grid problems."
Confident in his engineering staff, Stricklen did not bother them when the thirty seconds went by with no word. At the forty second mark, the helm reported that the stardrive was available. Stricklen glanced at the tactical display, chose a course which would take them away from all incoming ships, and ordered the Komodo Dragon to exit the area at maximum speed. Within seconds, the Dragon was accelerating away from the Chroniech ships and out of danger.
It took three days to complete all the repairs they were capable of making while underway. Part of the ship remained at a vacuum because of a massive rupture in the Dragon's armor plating which was beyond the ability of the crew to repair while underway. Luckily, nothing vital had been seriously damaged.
Unfortunately, four of the crew had been killed and six others injured as a result of their encounter. Stricklen had immediately taken steps to prevent a re-occurrence of what had happened. He ordered the helm to change their course by at least five degrees in a random direction every three hours as long as their general heading was generally in the right direction.
For the next month and a half the Komodo Dragon zigzagged its way through Chroniech space. On only six occasions did the crew pick up the drive-wakes of Chroniech ships. Small course corrections allowed them to avoid contact. The newly aligned stardrive functioned flawlessly during the entire trip. Eventually, Stricklen was satisfied they had finally left Chroniech space far enough behind them and gave the order to set course for their actual destination.
Their first target was the planet which the Kyrra had been terraforming. Stricklen felt that since the terraforming project would still be going on, the Kyrra would be there to monitor its progress. This planet was the best place to begin their search and had the highest probability of allowing them to make contact with the Kyrra.
20 - The Search
"Entering the target system," the helm announced.
"Full scan," Ken ordered. After a few seconds, the tactical viewer began to display some information about the star system they were now entering. A total of seven planets had been located, all in a pretty much standard orbital configuration. According to the information obtained from the Hess, the Kyrra had been terraforming the third planet. The star appeared to be a very stable main sequence star near the middle of its expected life.
"Let's see the third planet," Stricklen said after looking at the data on the rest of the system for awhile.
The viewscreen shifted and displayed the image of a small world. From this distance, it appeared much like a bluish ball with small white dots at two ends. "We are still too far away to get any detailed readings at this time," the science station officer announced.
Several hours later, the Komodo Dragon was in a tight orbit around the planet. Several probes had been cruising through the atmosphere and others had been taking soil samples.
"The planet has obviously been terraformed," Sharon Carter, the ship's science officer addressed the small group that had gathered in the ship's conference room. "There are shallow impact craters where water-bearing asteroids or comets have impacted. This has resulted in the formation of several large bodies of water. However, it appears as if they abandoned the project at least a thousand years ago.
"The atmosphere currently consists of a combination of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and oxygen which is not yet capable of supporting oxygen dependent life. Several varieties of oxygen producing microbes have been found that have been slowly converting the atmosphere into what we currently see. These microbes could never have originated here and must have been part of the terraforming process. There are no higher life forms."
"Are you sure it's abandoned?" Scarboro asked. "It looks like the atmosphere is coming along just fine. Perhaps they are just waiting."
"At this point in the terraforming process," El'Narra, one of the Kyrra biologists said, "plant life should have been introduced into the ecological structure. This would have sped up the atmospheric conversion and laid the groundwork for the introduction of more advanced life at a later date. As it sits now, the planet will stabilize in another four or five thousand years but no life higher than a microbe will exist. For some reason, my people have abandoned this terraforming project."
"Any clues as to where they may have gone? Did they leave any monitoring stations behind?" Ken asked.
"No to both questions," Sharon replied. "We can see the results of their work but there is no evidence as to who started this process or where they are now."
"That's strike one," Stricklen said with finality. "Where to next?"
"I would suggest the storage planetoid," Norgoola finally said. "I have been there several times and therefore I am familiar with it. There should be some indication as to what happened to our people in the planetoid's monitoring system."
After glancing around the room and seeing approving nods Stricklen announced, "It's settled then. We will set course for the stasis storage planetoid."
As the meeting broke up and the attendees filed out of the room Stricklen took one last look at the aborted terraforming project. This could have been their new home, he thought. Why did the Kyrra abandon it? Shaking his head, Stricklen left the conference room and headed for the bridge to give the helm their new destination.
* * * * *
It took the Komodo Dragon twelve days to make the trip from their first stop to the next target system. Norgoola was on the bridge as they made their approach. "In my time," he explained to the assembled team, "the planetoid orbited at a distance of roughly 330 million kilometers and had an orbit that was tilted about seventy degrees off the planetary plane. Your computer has the exact dimensions and characteristics of the planetoid so you should be able to locate it."
"You heard him," Scarboro said. "I want all detectors scanning the most probable area of space for a planetoid matching the pattern of our target. Because we are talking about such a large volume of space, this could take several days."
Stricklen turned to the helm and said, "Put the ship into an orbit which will allow us to scan the entire probable target area as quickly as possible. You have permission to alter course to the target as soon as it is located."
Stricklen watched the progress of the scanning for a moment and then walked over to Norgoola. "It's been a long time since you've seen this sun," he remarked.
"Actually no," Norgoola replied without turning from the viewport. "Subjectively, I was in this system only a few months ago, but that is only because I have been in stasis. It is different this time, because we do not know where the planetoid is located. When I was piloting the transfer ship, the exact location of the planetoid was known at all times and I would simply set the autonavigator to take me there."
"Do you think we will find any clues as to where your people are?"
Norgoola lowered his gaze from the stars briefly. Lifting his head back up and once again looking back out into space he said, "I can only hope. There is always the possibility that something may have been left behind.”
"My people are the only ones to know of the existence of this planetoid. It is conceivable that a message or a clue may have been purposefully left behind so that any Kyrra who did not go with the main group could find their way to wherever my people have gone. There is also the possibility that some information may be retrieved from the planetoid's monitoring system."
"If it is still operational," Ken added not wanting Norgoola to get his hopes set too high. "That reminds me," he continued. "The stasis chamber where we found you had been operating for over forty thousand years. I find it difficult to believe that anyone could build a device to run without maintenance for such a long time. How did you do it?"
"The stasis chamber itself was designed with many redundant components. Your scans did not pick them up but embedded within the outer shell of the chamber are millions of nanobot repair units. They are under the control of the monitor computer which in turn also has such an automatic repair mechanism."
Scarboro had been listening in. "Nanites! We've been trying to build such devices for decades. We've had partial success but nothing on the scale you just mentioned."
"Such devices are exceedingly difficult to build requiring an infrastructure that took us many many years to develop," Norgoola replied.
"I wonder why Falnath didn't detect them?" Stricklen wondered out loud.
"Most likely because they would appear to be part of the circuitry of the stasis generator when inactive," Norgoola replied.
"Your people continue to amaze me," Doug said shaking his head. He then wandered off to see how the search was progressing.
Norgoola looked at Doug's receding back then dropped his head. In a low voice he said, "My people… where are they?"
Stricklen then did something he had not done in the many weeks of being in close proximity to the Kyrra. He reached out and placed a reassuring hand on Norgoola's shoulder. The alien's fur felt soft and very fine under his touch. At first Ken feared he may have broken a racial taboo but Norgoola slowly turned around and returned the gesture. It was much harder for him, since he was considerably shorter than the captain.
"Thank you Ken. My people and I cannot thank you enough for what you are doing for us."
Stricklen thought he saw tears in the alien's eyes as Norgoola turned and walked away. Ken looked out at the vastness of space and discovered that he did not even know if the Kyrra could cry. "How little we know of them," he muttered under his breath.
Stricklen turned and headed back to the command chair. On the way he though, "We have lived and worked with them for several months and we still know next to nothing about them. Will we understand their people when and if we finally meet?"
It took two days to locate the planetoid. After a couple hours of maneuvering, the Komodo Dragon was alongside it. "It's an exact match with the one in the computer," Scarboro said. "But our readings indicate that it is nothing more than an ordinary chunk of rock. I can't detect any kind of an opening nor any tunnels; in fact — I can't find anything out of the ordinary at all about it. Are you sure it's the right one?"
"Norgoola has looked at the topological scans and assures me that this is the storage planetoid," Stricklen answered.
One of the Dragon's three shuttlecraft was prepared while a crew was assigned. In addition to the five Kyrra, the captain had chosen himself, the chief engineer, six marines, and (of course) Falnath (who had remained holed up in her quarters for most of the trip) to lead the initial exploration team. When he stepped into the shuttle, Stricklen was surprised to see Norgoola at the controls.
"He was there when I arrived," the chief engineer, whom Stricklen had assumed would pilot the craft, explained as soon as he saw the captain. "He claims he can pilot the shuttle and won't budge from the controls."
Norgoola cocked his head to one side and, while still running through the initial instrument setup, said, "I have read all of your piloting manuals and operation guides for this ship. I have also practiced with the ship in simulation mode. I was the pilot of the slaver ship in which you discovered us and I know the exact location of the entrance to the tunnel system, therefore, I should pilot the shuttle."
Taking a seat next to one of the other Kyrra Stricklen said, "I can't argue with that — proceed with departure."
Skip Bucannon looked as if he was about to say something but thought better of it. Instead he sat down heavily in the copilot's chair, crossed his arms on his chest, and closely watched every move which Norgoola made. After making several more adjustments Norgoola announced in a quiet voice, "Beginning departure."