Star Clusters: New Arrivals (8 page)

Zeshaira smiled. “I do not possess the schematics and I am uncertain as to whether I know how to repair it, but perhaps if we work together, we could succeed.” she proposed.

“Well, two heads are usually better than one, so… sure. My toolbox is your toolbox, I guess.”

“Or,” Lanis noted from the door, having overheard the entire conversation, “you could ask me, and I’d tell you I made sure I had schematics for every single piece of equipment we got, except for closely guarded Petran secrets.” He pressed a few buttons on his datapad’s screen and tossed it to Fanra. “Just try not to break anything,” he added as Fanra barely caught it.

“Uh, okay. By the way, when will we get to Daserus?”

“Well, with your upgrades, we’re going at a hyperspace factor of roughly 5.4, so… two hours, give or take a few minutes. At least I think so.”

‘Two hours, give or take a few minutes’ later, the Eagle emerged from hyperspace near Daserus Three. There seemed to be very little activity in the system as the ship entered a stable orbit over the lush, fertile - and largely uninhabited - world. Its crew met in the main hold to discuss what to do next.

“How come we haven’t landed yet?” Herrun asked.

“Because we can beam down to the surface - it’s safer,” Lanis explained. “Besides, I wanted to go down there with a plan.”

“What’s there to plan? We go down, we turn a bunch of rubble upside down, we figure out what links it to the one on Cartha Three,” he answered.

“If only it were that simple… Fanra, what do you think?”

“I think I should bring an environmental suit. Who knows what kind of alien germs I could pick up down there...?” she mused absently.

“Uhh… yeah. Okay. Not exactly what I was asking about, but whatever. Zeshaira?”

“I believe Herrun should remain aboard and hide the ship somewhere. Possibly on the planet surface. Of all of us, he is the one whose skills and abilities will probably be needed the least,” the Tarhedian noted.

“No argument there,” Herrun said, “and I might be able to find something to do while I wait.”

“Right. Drones?”

“Maybe we should bring all of them,” Fanra suggested, finally paying attention, “just in case we need them.”

“Well, that’ll make us more visible, but we
could
use the extra help,” Lanis answered. “I think that’s everything. Anybody else got anything?” Everyone was silent. “Let’s get to work.”

Within a few minutes, Lanis, Zeshaira, Kaa’nt and all the Tarhedian drones were in a thick jungle near a river. “The dig site shouldn’t be too far from here - I think it’s upstream,” Lanis said; and he was right, as they soon reached a small clearing where a facility similar to the one on Cartha used to be. There were very few ruins left, and most of what was left was overgrown and worn out beyond any hope of usability - the only reason there was a clearing in the first place was because of the archaeological expedition which arrived there fifteen years ago in an unsuccessful attempt to determine what the location had been.

When they performed a survey of their own, they soon discovered that they would have no more luck than the expedition had. Or so it seemed. “I think I found something!” Lanis cried out as the search neared its end, calling Zeshaira and Fanra to come take a look. “Take a look at this. This pillar’s fairly unremarkable in itself,” he said once they arrived, “but the inscription on this side looks like it’s Tarhedian.”

“It is an old dialect - it was fairly common during the centuries before the Tarhedian Civil War. I do not understand what it is doing here, though,” Zeshaira said.

“Can you read it?”

“Yes,” she answered, pausing to read the text, “Yes… How could I have forgotten...?” She trailed off; it was clear from her face that she was quite surprised as she walked away, visibly disturbed by what she had read.

“What’s wrong?” Lanis asked.

“What does it say?” Fanra asked immediately after Lanis.

“An… old memory. And a painful reminder,” Zeshaira answered.

“But what does it say?” Fanra repeated.

“It roughly translates into ‘If all else has failed and all is lost, take the stranger’s key, place it in the slot behind the waterfall and say his name,’” she said agitatedly.

“What’s the ‘stranger’s key’?” Lanis and Fanra asked almost simultaneously.

“It is a device that was passed to Hatos along with some other instructions - including a recommendation that it remains with the rest of my people on our new homeworld. I do not wish to speak of it any further, but if you must know more, I suggest you ask Hatos when this is over - if he survives.” Having said that, she marched off to finish her part of the search and refused to say another word.

When they transported aboard, Zeshaira immediately retired to her cabin. “What’s with her?” Herrun asked.

Lanis shrugged. “We found a pillar with some old Tarhedian text written on one of its sides, and she just… changed,” he said.

“Something about a ‘stranger’s key’ and instructions on how to use it. Well, actually, just instructions,” Fanra explained, taking off her AEA suit. “Zeshaira says the person who gave it to the Tarhedians suggested that they keep it on their new homeworld, but she won’t tell us anything else.”

“We should probably leave her alone for now,” Lanis said.

Meanwhile, the Hippasrus emerged from hyperspace at the rendezvous coordinates. Most of the fleet had already arrived, but there were still a few ships whose location was still uncertain. “Contact the fleet,” Poteran ordered. “Request info about their newly acquired cargo and missing ships.”

After a few seconds, the communications officer started reporting: “Most of our group’s here, the signal repeater is in perfect condition, as is the rest of the stolen equipment. Piluams and Soscut are reporting the same, and the Meerte Manev hasn’t arrived yet. So far we have eleven ships unaccounted for - three in our group, one in Piluams’ group, and the remaining seven are the majority of the Manev’s group. No, wait; two more ships dropping out of hyperspace. One is from the Manev’s group, the other is with the Piluams.”

“Alright, we’ll hold position here for another thirty minutes. Hopefully the Manev’s just late.”

Unfortunately, only four more ships arrived within the thirty minutes they spent waiting at the rendezvous point. It became obvious that the Meerte Manev and four of its supporting ships had been intercepted. Several minutes later, Poteran and the captains of the Piluams and Soscut - along with their senior staff - met in the Hippasrus’ briefing room.

“Now what do we do?” the Piluams’ captain, Neel Boller, asked. Her concern - and that of the rest of the officers in the room - was palpable. “Vaanle’s signal repeaters were lightly guarded, and even that raid was dangerous.”

“Maybe we should reassess our tactics,” the somewhat older Captain Jalno Rotgen of the Soscut - an old acquaintance and friendly rival of Poteran’s - said. “We should consider helping stabilize the Terrans. Once that’s done, we would not need to raid Petran bases to get the equipment we need.”

“No,” Poteran firmly stated. “This entire operation depends on convincing enough people of the existence of the Xargan infiltration that the new government simply
has
to investigate it or be removed from power. If we ally ourselves with the Terrans, the prejudice caused by the Carthan Wars would dampen the effects of the broadcast, possibly to the point where we would cause a civil war rather than put pressure on the High Council.”

“Then where do we find more signal repeaters?” Rotgen demanded.

“The news network,” Boller suddenly said. “Think about it - with most of the fleet out there looking for us and guarding other potential targets, we can hit Petra. Obviously, we wouldn’t be able to take out the Council, but if we can capture and hold key structures in the Petran news network long enough to get our message out--”

“We won’t need the signal repeaters,” Poteran interrupted, finishing her sentence for her. “That’s brilliant! We may need to draw more attention or get more resources before we can attack Petra, though.”

“What about Lieproi? We could run a quick analysis of the ancient ruins there during the fight - two objectives with one strike,” Rotgen suggested.

“That sounds like a good idea. We should jump to another meeting site before the enemy arrives; once we’re there, we can prepare for the attack. Also, make sure the Ivory Eagle is informed of our plan to attack Lieproi.” Poteran decided. “We cannot discuss this plan with anyone outside this briefing room - if Jelon captures another one of our ships, we can’t afford to have any of our crew succumb to torture. Dismissed.”

As everyone left the briefing room, the Petran captain wondered for the first time if they were even remotely improving the situation.

Chapter 6

Incursion

Pain. Misery. Death. Those are some of the words that would best describe the scene Zeshaira now gazed upon. The world around her was burning as death rained from the sky and people ran in every direction, trying uselessly to escape their fate. Above her, the stars were obscured by endless swarms of monsters, interrupted by the occasional falling debris - and suddenly, it changed. The Tarhedian did not recognize the first planet, only that it was a Terran world and had once been home to many cities, but the next one was Petra.

Everything looked the same - the bombardment, the swarm in the sky, the terror - but the world it was happening to was no longer the same. Countless Petrans died with each passing moment as the background changed again and she found herself amidst the sands of Cartha Three, in the ancient subterranean facility on that world, and countless other planets, ships and buildings, all sharing one single trait: complete annihilation.

Finally, she saw various people dying - or perhaps being transformed, she couldn’t tell - in a sort of Xargan nest: Lanis, Hatos, Fanra, Herrun, Poteran, and many more that she did not recognize. Outside, she saw the new Tarhedian colony in ruin as they took her and tried to do to her what they had done to the others as an unfamiliar deep voice spoke. “Your efforts are in vain, Tarhedian,” it confidently stated, and then she woke up.

A few minutes later, Zeshaira left her cabin, planning on going into the cockpit. To her surprise, the lights in the main hold were on; Lanis was sitting in a chair in front of a chessboard. “Rough night?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered. She didn’t trust Lanis much - not after what she read on that pillar, anyway - but there didn’t seem to be any harm in talking to him. For now. “A bad dream.”

“Everything you know and a bunch of stuff you don’t know being wiped out by the Xargans while a creepy voice’s telling you you aren’t making a difference?”

Zeshaira looked at him in surprise. “How did you know?”

“I also had it. I’d bet a lot of important people did, too. If not that, then something else.”

“Are you worried?” she asked curiously.

“Not really - odds are they’re just trying to demoralize us, make us stop trying to stop them. It’s psychological warfare.” Lanis gently knocked over most of the black figures, one by one, and started moving the white ones. “The only problem is that enough people might be convinced,
especially
if their fleet’s big enough to look overwhelmingly powerful.”

Zeshaira looked at the formation he created on the board. A single black pawn sat surrounded by all the white figures, presumably as a representation of what he had just said. “And if it’s the truth?”

“Then we might as well go down fighting. And if we can’t win,” he started knocking down some of the white figures with the black pawn at that, finally dropping the pawn itself, “we’ll take as many of them down with us as we can.”

“Somehow,” Zeshaira said silently, “that does not sound encouraging at all.”

“It wasn’t meant to be,” Lanis simply said. “We should probably get some rest, though. Poteran’s men just informed me that they’ll be hitting Lieproi within the next forty-eight hours, so I had to turn us around - we’ll reach the Holsen system soon.”

“Yes, you are probably right,” she said, returning to her cabin.

Lanis stood there for a few more seconds, looking at his chessboard. “Go down fighting, indeed...” he said to himself before heading into his cabin.

Some four hours later, an alarm started beeping throughout the ship, waking everyone from their sleep - they were about to reach the Holsen system. Lanis ran into the cockpit, and when the Eagle dropped out of hyperspace near Holsen Seven, he flew it down to the ancient ruins on the night side of the planet. Just like they had done in orbit of Daserus Three, the crew met in the main hold to plan their excursion.

“Alright,” Lanis started, “Holsen Seven is, for all intents and purposes, a big, dead rock. There is
nothing
interesting down there - none of the minerals or chemicals down there are worth the effort it’d take to extract them. Now, because of this, very few people visit the planet - most ships proceed deeper into the system, so we
should
remain undetected so long as we’re gone by sunrise.”

“Unfortunately,” Fanra added, “the place is also extremely inhospitable. We’ll need environmental suits - it’s
very
cold down there, and I’m not even sure the planet
has
an atmosphere worth mentioning; even if it does, it isn’t anything we can breathe.”

“I was getting to that.”

“Right. Sorry.”

“So it’s basically a frozen wasteland,” Herrun said. “What are we waiting for again?”

Lanis looked at Herrun, trying to decide what to say to that. After a brief pause, he shrugged and went to put on his AEA suit; the others followed him. Within minutes, everyone was outside the Ivory Eagle and exploring the ruins.

Meanwhile, the Hippasrus and its fleet were moving through hyperspace towards the Lieproi system, their attack plan a simple and efficient one: while the main fleet, led by the Hippasrus and the Soscut, assaulted the military outpost near Lieproi Three in an attempt to seize their resources, a smaller group protected by the Piluams and a few lighter ships would head to Lieproi Five and conduct a detailed sweep of the ancient ruins on the planet surface.

“All ships, prepare to drop out of hyperspace. Weapons and shields to maximum, prepare attack shuttles for launch,” Poteran ordered. “Do not fire until I say so or we are fired upon; let’s try diplomacy first this time.” The main fleet dropped out of hyperspace at roughly the same time as the survey ships. “Looks like we’re evenly matched. Hail the station, let them know this doesn’t have to end in bloodshed.”

The communications officer pressed a few buttons on his console. After a brief delay, the crystalline viewscreen formed, displaying the control center of a typical Petran space station. “What do you want, traitor?” the outpost’s commander asked.

“I am not the traitor here,” Poteran bluntly stated, “but you might not be one either. The reason I’m fighting against the government is not because of some petty conflict or a lust for power, Commander; but a desire to expose the corruption within.”

“Just give me a good reason not to shoot you down, or open fire. I don’t have the time or the patience to argue with anyone right now.”

“I have reason to believe that the Petran High Council has been infiltrated by a new breed of Xargan. Is that good enough for you?”

“Alright,” the commander said in a suspicious tone, “how do I know you’re not one of them? How do I know you’re not the infiltrator?”

“How do I know
you’re
not one of them?” Poteran answered. The fact that the station commander hadn’t opened fire yet was a good sign - perhaps this could still be resolved. “We’ve devised a series of tests which we think can detect these new Xargans. If I could, I would test the Council - but that is rather hard to do when I’m considered a renegade.”

“I still don’t believe you.” The transmission ended, and the station - along with the ships near it - opened fire.

“I’d say expecting diplomacy to work here was a bit silly, Kellas,” Rotgen said on the fleet’s comm channel as they returned fire. “At least we bought Boller and her team some time.”

One of the enemy corvettes was destroyed by focused fire from the Hippasrus. “Yes, at least there’s that,” Poteran answered as some of the debris smashed into the ship’s shield bubble, bouncing off its smooth surface. “You think we can beat them?”

“Before their reinforcements get here? I doubt it. If we want to get any resources out of there, we’ll have to launch the shuttles while the station’s turrets are still active; we can keep most of the fleet from targeting them, but not the turrets.” Several hostile fighters attacked the Soscut, but were mostly obliterated by the ship’s own fighter squadrons.

“What about the drop pods? They’re fast enough to avoid getting shot down.”

“Well, that could work - but we could end up destroying the things we’re after. Not to mention the fact that they could get stuck there.”

“That’s not good enough, Jalno,” Poteran interrupted while several of the Hippasrus’ supporting corvettes lost shields.

“Yes, but you’re on the right track. We could launch a few empty pods into the turrets. Even the smaller ones should do it.”

“I guess we’re going to find out soon. All ships, focus fire on the enemy fleet. Soscut and Hippasrus will disable the station’s shield and commence boarding operations.”

While the Soscut and Hippasrus fired at comparably insignificant sections of the station to safely deplete its shields, all the other ships fought in a chaotic mess nearby. “Sir,” the Hippasrus’ tactical officer suddenly said, “I’m picking up a lot of hyperspace signatures, but they’re not coming from Petran space!”

As he said that, a large amount of hyperspace windows opened. A large swarm of Xargan ships of various sizes emerged from hyperspace and started firing at the Petrans fighting over Lieproi Three.

”Hail the station again!” Poteran commanded. The station’s commander appeared on the viewscreen. “Commander, tell your men to cease fire and engage the Xargans! Board shuttles, load them with whatever equipment you can - we can’t win this fight!”

The suspicious Petran hesitated for a moment. “Do it,” he finally said to his crew, and the transmission ended. The station’s defense fleet moved into the Hippasrus’ formation; the real battle for Lieproi had begun.

“All ships, move in to attack! Do not let the Xargans destroy the station or the evacuation shuttles! Piluams, what’s your status?”

“We’re still working here - thankfully, we’re on the other side of the system, or they’d have taken us out by now,” Boller reported. “I’d say this’ll be done by the time the station’s evacuated, but I can’t be certain.”

“Soscut here - our shields are down to seventy percent and weakening rapidly. I don’t know what tricks you have up your sleeves, Kellas, but it looks like we won’t last long enough.”

“We
have to
last long enough!”

“There’s simply too many of them!”

“Can’t we take the station with us?” Boller suggested as a Petran frigate was overpowered and destroyed by the Xargan swarm. “Split it into manageable pieces, jump into hyperspace with them attached to our hulls?”

“That could work,” the station commander said, having tapped into their communications. “I’ll see what we can do.”

“We still have the issue of the ruins on Lieproi Five to solve,” Poteran reminded them. “We can’t take a planet into hyperspace, remember?”

“I’ll try to rush it,” Boller said, “but Captain Rotgen’s right - holding them off long enough to evacuate the station isn’t going to work. We have to get out of here.”

“Soscut’s shields are now down to forty percent. Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast.”

“Our shields are down to twenty percent,” the station commander reported. “We think we’re ready, though.”

“Alright - all ships bigger than a frigate, move to secure the station components. Once that’s done, jump to Lieproi Five.” The station fell apart - the fleet used tractor beams and clever maneuvering to collect the various modules before the Xargans could destroy them, then jumped into hyperspace to reach Lieproi Five. A couple of seconds later, the fleet dropped out of hyperspace again, maneuvering into a defensive formation.

“We’re almost done here,” Boller said.

“Good; they’re coming,” Poteran responded. Indeed, the first Xargans were emerging from hyperspace after conducting an in-system jump of their own and starting to engage the Petrans as he said that.

“Shuttles are coming back. Give me thirty more seconds.”

“We’ll try. All ships, scatter into hyperspace once the Piluams’ shuttles are aboard; rendezvous at these coordinates.”

Several smaller Xargan flyers went through the blockade and attacked the shuttles. “Shuttles are under fire!” Boller said.

“Soscut, send your fighters to protect the shuttles!”

A squadron of fighters broke away from the main battle and engaged the Xargan raiders. “Fighters are already en route,” Rotgen said. “We’re losing shields!”

“The first wave of shuttles is aboard. Fifteen seconds.”

“Shields are out! Hull breaches on decks ten and eleven!”

“Ten seconds! Soscut, recall your fighters - we can manage, but you need to get out as soon as possible!” Boller said.

The fighters were already flying back to their mothership - by the time the shuttles were aboard, the Soscut was ready to jump to hyperspace, and promptly did so. The rest of the fleet followed suit.

In the meantime, on Holsen Seven, Lanis and the others finished their survey. Unfortunately, as with Daserus Three, there seemed to be very little of interest. This time, however, there were no old Tarhedian texts to be found, either.

As they headed back to the ship, Fanra tripped over a rock and fell - as Lanis helped her up, she inadvertently looked up into the sky. “Uhh, guys? I think we have company,” she said, pointing at a medium-sized Xargan fleet approaching the planet.