A hostile battle fleet approaching a planet.
CHAPTER 8 – A TENSE SITUATION
13:55 (Universal Time)
Friday, May 21, 2320
Command bridge of the KOSTROMA
Closing in on planet Gliese 581c
Amin Jamilian, on duty at one of the sensors station of the bridge, stiffened when something completely unexpected showed up on his display screens, making him speak up in alarm in his headset’s microphone.
‘’Captain, a number of ships have just appeared on my infrared scanners. They were previously masked by the bulk of Gliese 581c, which would explain why we couldn’t detect them before.’’
‘’Ships, rather than one ship?’’ asked a shocked Tina.
‘’Affirmative, Captain. I count 23 ships, all in low orbit over the single moon of the planet.’’
Made cautious by her past combat experience during the 2315 War against the now-defunct Terran Federation, Tina urgently gave orders around her.
‘’FRIDA, SHUT DOWN OUR ANTI-MATTER ENGINES AT ONCE! SWITCH TO GRAVITY SAIL PROPULSION ONLY. MISTER JAMILIAN, SWITCH OFF ALL ACTIVE SENSORS! OPERATE ONLY IN PASSIVE MODE. WE WILL STAY DISCRETE UNTIL WE KNOW WHAT WE ARE DEALING WITH. DANA, SHUT OFF ALL OF OUR EXTERIOR NAVIGATION LIGHTS!’’
Next, Tina switched her intercom to ship wide announcement mode and gave out a warning that she had hoped that she would never give during this mission.
‘’Attention all hands, this is the Captain. Battle stations! I say again, battle stations! We have just detected a space fleet of unknown origin around the moon of Gliese 581c. The passengers and the relatives of our crewmembers are to stay in their quarters until further notice and be prepared to put on their emergency pressure suits. All the airtight doors are to be closed and the damage control center to be fully manned at once. We may not yet be in immediate danger, but we will play the card of caution until we know who is out there and what it is doing. That’s all! Captain out!’’
With that done, Tina gave a concerned look at her bridge crew.
‘’Talk to me, people: I need to know what we are facing here.’’
Dana Durning was the first to speak out in response.
‘’While those ships are way too far to be examined in detail, I can say already that they could have come equally from the planet or from the moon. Both of them appear to have a thick atmosphere containing at least twenty percent of oxygen, while both also have liquid water oceans and visible continents.’’
‘’Our passive thermal sensors don’t show any rocket propulsion engine of any kind lit up right now, Captain.’’ Added Amin Jamilian. ‘’Either they are simply coasting in orbit with engines off or they use some form of electro-magnetic or gravity propulsion.’’
‘’I am now detecting some faint electronic signatures from these ships, Captain.’’ Said Patricia O’Neil. ‘’I have both radar waves and radio waves, but the radar waves are all in the medium to high frequency bands and are unsuitable for long range scanning across a solar system. They most probably can’t detect us at our present distance.’’
‘’What about their radio signals, Patricia? Can you actually process them and try to unscramble at least a few of them? That could give us a hint about their language and their appearances…if we could view a video feed.’’
‘’One moment, Captain… I think that I have isolated an audio signal of interest. I am now switching it on the bridge speakers.’’
A second later, Tina and the other crewmembers on the bridge started hearing a radio conversation distorted by the distance. It definitely was of alien origin, as the language was a guttural one they had never heard before. The voices themselves were low pitched and deep. Tina, after listening for a couple of seconds, pushed the button linking her with their central ship computer, Spirit, a very powerful artificial intelligence entity with its own personality.
‘’Spirit, could you please start listening to the electronic communications coming from those alien ships in orbit around the moon of Gliese 581c, to see if you could eventually build a language data base?’’
‘’Already on it, Tina.’’ Replied the soft female voice of Spirit. ‘’From the voices’ modulation, I can tell you that their speech apparatus is definitely quite different from that of Humans or of Koorivars… Tina, I believe that we are now intercepting a weak video link signal. I am recording it and transmitting it to the bridge’s duty stations and to your chair.’’
Before Tina could congratulate Spirit for this achievement, a video image of rather poor quality appeared as promised on one of the small viewing screens attached to swivel mounts fixed to the armrests of her command chair. The image was split in two, denoting a duplex communication link. Tina couldn’t help making a grimace on viewing the heads of the two alien creatures conversing together.
‘’Yuk! Not exactly what I would describe as handsome beings.’’
Dana Durning, who also had the video link on one of her screens, nodded her head in approval: the aliens had a massive head with a pronounced snout, a large mouth lined with dozens of pointy teeth denoting a carnivorous regime rather than a vegetarian one, and a very short, thick neck coming out of a barrel-chested torso from which a pair of long, muscular arms were attached. In turn, those arms ended in six digits with claws at their extremities. While their upper bodies showed that they were wearing a sort of space suit, their uncovered heads showed a dark brown leathery skin with no visible hair.
‘’In view of their built and of their body proportions, I would say that they come from a high gravity world. That would thus make them possibly natives of Gliese 581c, as the planet has a radius more than twice that of Earth and has five times its mass, thus should have a felt gravity at its surface of about 1.6 G. As for the moon of Gliese 581c, it is nearly identical to Earth in terms of mean radius and mass. I would be ready to say that this fleet came from the planet and is now orbiting the moon for unknown reasons.’’
‘’I concur, Dana, but I doubt very much that this fleet went to the moon with peaceful intentions.’’
‘’Uh, why do you say so, Captain?’’ asked Gerald Holmes from his V.I.P. observer seat. Tina looked at him soberly, understanding why he wouldn’t know about such a matter.
‘’Because of the number and individual sizes of the ships in that fleet, Gerald. If those aliens only wanted to explore or map the moon for peaceful purposes, then we would be looking at most at two or three ship or, in most cases, at a single ship. Even if those aliens came to colonize their moon, a very possible scenario, they would then have brought in a more numerous fleet than just a couple of ships, but those ships would tend to be more homogenous in size, like in the case of a convoy of cargo ships. However, what we see here is one large ship surrounded by four medium-sized ships and by eighteen distinctly smaller ships. This looks to me a lot more like a military fleet on an expedition that a colonization or exploration fleet.’’
‘’Oh! I understand! Then, what do you intend to do next, Captain?’’
‘’Well, first, we have to remember that we are only visitors in this solar system. Furthermore, our actions will reflect on all of Humanity, while we have pledged to respect the values and ethics of the Spacers League. We are certainly not going to simply jump in and tell those alien ships to leave. What I intend to do is to approach Gliese 581c’s moon as discreetly as possible and to search for traces or indications of the passage or presence of the SHUNDAR on the moon. Then, if we see no traces of the Koorivar ship on the moon, we will check out the planet itself, again as discreetly as possible.’’
With that said, Tina turned her head towards Dana’s navigation station.
‘’Dana, let’s modify our approach path towards Gliese 581c and its moon. We will approach from the direction of Gliese 581, in order to hide in the glare of the star. That should complicate detection from the radar systems of these alien ships.’’
‘’Understood, Captain! Modifying now our approach trajectory. We should be closing in on the moon from the direction of its sun in approximately three hours.’’
‘’Then, let’s suspend our battle stations duty status for the moment. We will downgrade our status to ‘watch stations’ and allow our crew to rest a bit and have supper before returning to battle stations.’’
‘’Aye, Captain!’’
17:21 (Universal Time)
Command bridge of the KOSTROMA
On approach to the moon of Gliese 581c
‘’Captain, we are starting to see traces of organized life along the northern and southern latitudes of the moon, near the terminator line, where the mean temperature stands at around 31 degrees Celsius. Our main optical telescope has detected what appears to be a number of villages and small hamlets, along with a few dirt trails, on the northern continent. It has also seen a few sailing ships navigating near the coasts.’’
‘’Hum! That sounds like a pre-industrial society to me.’’ replied Tina, thoughtful. ‘’Hardly the kind of society capable of producing spaceships. Are you detecting any electronic emissions from those villages and hamlets, Patricia?’’
‘’Absolutely none, Captain! Furthermore, the villages nearest to or along the terminator line do not show artificial lighting other than ordinary campfires.’’
‘’Mister Jamilian, are your detectors seeing any traces of the SHUNDAR on the ground, or of its passage some eighty years earlier?’’
‘’Not yet, Captain! I am presently using both thermal, spectroscopic and magnetic sensors to look at the surface of… WAIT! I just detected a magnetic anomaly centered inside a small crater. I am now centering our main optical telescope on that anomaly and switching its view to the duty stations of the bridge.’’
Tina’s heart nearly sank on hearing the words ‘magnetic anomaly’ and ‘crater’ in the same sentence. They had detected the VEON SHOURIA on Eris thanks to the magnetic signature its steel hull created. Shanandar, who was also sitting in an observer’s seat next to Gerald Holmes, also felt his heart skip a beat. Both he, Tina, Holmes and Dana eyed carefully the picture now showing on their screens.
‘’Some vegetation has grown inside that crater.’’ remarked Dana. ‘’It is thus not recent. It however could date from around eighty years ago.’’
‘’Captain,’’ suddenly said Min Wa Hien, one of the sensors specialist on duty on the bridge, ‘’look just past the northern lip of the crater, among the trees surrounding it: I can see some kind of metallic debris.’’
Tina shifted at once the aim of their telescope and pushed its resolution to maximum. What they saw then made Shanandar swear loudly.
‘’By the stars! That is a section from a shuttle…a Koorivar shuttle!’’
‘’But, if it had crashed on the planet, wouldn’t that shuttle’s debris mostly stayed inside this crater?’’ asked Gerald Holmes, making Tina nod her head while clenching her teeth.
‘’Normally, yes, especially concerning a nose section, which that thing is. I can see only one explanation for this: that shuttle suffered an internal explosion…or was destroyed by someone.’’
‘’A Koorivar shuttle would not explode like this, Tina.’’ said somberly Shanandar. ‘’Our shuttles contain no volatile or explosive fuel or liquids and we had no weapons, thus no ammunition that could explode like this. That shuttle was struck by something while on the ground, a something that dismembered it and dug that crater.’’
‘’Tina, have you noticed that this crater is near a sizeable native village?’’ interjected Dana. ‘’If there were survivors from that explosion, then they would most probably have tried to find refuge and help in that village, no?’’
‘’Damn, you are right, Dana!’’ said excitedly Tina, who next looked at Shanandar. ‘’We have to go investigate this crash site and the village near it by sending a ground investigation team.’’
‘’I wholeheartedly agree, Tina! Furthermore, I would like to lead that team, since this concerns a Koorivar shuttle.’’
‘’That would make eminent sense, my friend, but you won’t go down without some protection. Michel and three of our security personnel will accompany you to the surface. I also want you to wear a set of body armor and a helmet. You may be a pacifist, but I believe that wearing protective gear will not go against your credos.’’
‘’That is correct. Uh, what do you intend to do if that alien space fleet shows up here while we are on the surface?’’
‘’First of, the shuttle that will land you will then return immediately to the KOSTROMA, so that it would not stay on the ground and betray your presence there. I will then withdraw our ship to a safe distance and wait for your report by radio. For that purpose, you will go down with anti-gravity scooters and a VLF directional transceiver, so that you will have some mobility and a communications means with you. Whenever it will be safe to do, the KOSTROMA will get back into low orbit above you in order to better communicate. The idea here is to investigate what happened to that Koorivar shuttle and its occupants, not to start a war. However, if you are attacked, don’t hesitate to defend yourselves and, please, follow Michel’s counsels once on the ground: he has plenty of experience about combat situations and will have a more informed judgment than yours on what to do if you are threatened or attacked.’’
‘’I can understand that and agree with you, Tina.’’ replied the Koorivar, sober. ‘’I may be a pacifist, but I am not a sheep either.’’
‘’Then, go organize quickly your investigation team, my friend. And good luck!’’
19:08 (Universal Time)
Light shuttle WANDERER, flying at treetop level
Approaching the crater of the destroyed Koorivar shuttle
Surface of the moon of Gliese 581c
‘’Thirty seconds to landing! Get ready to scoot out as soon as the ramp goes down.’’ said the pilot of their light shuttle, Valentina Suvarova, via the intercom. In the relatively small cabin of the shuttle, the three men, two women and two Koorivars of the investigation team, sitting inside four anti-gravity scooters, tensed up, ready to go. Their scooters, small but agile and fast vehicles, could seat up to three persons each and had sliding canopies which could protect its occupants from the elements, or even from vacuum. The minute that Michel had been told by Shanandar to prepare for a ground mission and why, he had ordered at once eight maintenance robots to immediately start applying a coat of camouflage pattern paint to the scooters, so that they would be more difficult to spot from the air. Michel and the three security specialists who were part of the team were heavily armed and wore armored vests and helmets, like the other members of the team, while Ingrid Holtz was armed with a pistol. To paraphrase an old military saying, Michel was not looking for a fight, but was ready for one, just in case. In this case, the destruction of an unarmed Koorivar shuttle was definitely pushing him towards the side of caution for this mission. The wide rear ramp of the shuttle then started lowering as the craft gently touched down at the bottom of the crater. Michel, who was at the controls of the lead scooter, then activated the anti-gravity field of his machine, making it rise from the floor, and pushed forward his control yoke. With only a slight humming noise being produced by their gravity sails, the four scooters emerged quickly from the shuttle, then flew up to the lips of the crater, where they landed. When they opened their cover canopies, the shuttle was already gone, climbing for a few meters before speeding at treetop altitude towards the nearby sea before it would climb to orbit, out of sight of the occupants of the nearby village. Stepping out of his scooter, Shanandar pointed at Kovar, the ex-assistant engineer of the VEON SHOURIA, and at Ahmed Jibril, one of the security specialists of the team.
‘’Kovar, go with Mister Jibril and examine the debris in the crater. Try to establish how our shuttle was destroyed. As for me, I will go inspect the nose section lying nearby.’’
‘’On my way, Captain!’’ replied Kovar before climbing down the slopes of the crater with Jibril, who was an expert on explosives. While three other team members stayed with the scooters, Shanandar then walked through the long grass and brush surrounding the crater, Michel Koniev at his back. While the local temperature was quite high, at 31 degrees Celsius, the air was dry, making the heat a lot more bearable. Shanandar arrived at the broken nose section after only a few seconds and critically examined the debris while turning around them.
‘’Definitely the remains of a Kamaz-Class shuttle similar to the shuttles embarked aboard our three refugee ships.’’ said Shanandar before climbing inside what had been the cockpit, where he noted down a few serial numbers and compared them with a list loaded on his computer pad. His expression then turned from somber to grim.
‘’This shuttle was definitely one of the shuttles of the SHUNDAR. We now know for certain that it at least got as far as this solar system. Whether the SHUNDAR is still somewhere to be found on this moon or inside this solar system, or departed it after the destruction of its shuttle, remains to be established.’’
‘’I see no traces or remains of the crew of your shuttle, Shanandar.’’ remarked Michel Koniev, his impulse rifle at the ready. ‘’Hopefully, this could mean that it was outside the shuttle when it exploded.’’
‘’Or it could mean that the local inhabitants retrieved their bodies and buried them.’’
‘’Damn! You could be right about that, Shanandar. Now, the way the fuselage aft of the cockpit was ripped and peeled off suggests to me that a powerful explosion aft dismembered this shuttle and dug this crater. Hopefully, Ahmed will be able to tell us whether traces of explosives remain on these debris.’’
They got an answer on that when Kovar and Jibril, looking rather glum, climbed up from the bottom of the crater and joined the rest of the team near the scooters.
‘’So?’’ asked Shanandar, anxious. Jibril took on him to answer him.
‘’I found strong traces of explosives on various pieces of debris, along with multiple holes created by fragments from a warhead. Your shuttle was destroyed by a probable missile armed with a fragmentation warhead filled with a chemical explosive with a formula close to that of HMX. However, that explosive is definitely not of Human manufacture.’’
Shanandar and Michel exchanged a knowing glance, with Michel then looking at Ingrid Holtz, their communication specialist.
‘’Ingrid, contact at once the KOSTROMA, using directional transmission mode, and tell the Captain that the destroyed shuttle has been formally identified as a craft carried by the SHUNDAR. Tell her also that it was destroyed by an explosive fragmentation warhead of alien manufacture. That last point is very important. Tell her that we are now going to visit the village to see if we could learn what happened to the crew of the Koorivar shuttle. Confirm to me once you get an acknowledge.’’
‘’Will do!’’ replied the blonde before going inside her scooter, in which their VLF transceiver was carried. Michel had to wait less than three minutes before she returned to his side.
‘’Message passed and acknowledged, Michel.’’
‘’Excellent! Let’s go back in our scooters and take off. We will fly slow and low as we approach the village, both to take the time to observe it first and also to try not to scare the locals away.’’
The seven members of the team went back into their scooters and took off, heading towards the local village and with Michel’s scooter in the lead. As they were flying at treetop level at low speed, Shanandar took the time to admire the forest they were overflying.
‘’Those trees and plants may be alien to me, but this world is still an attractive one. The people of the SHUNDAR would have been happy here…if the local inhabitants would have accepted them.’’
‘’That would be a pertinent factor indeed, Shanandar. To my shame as a Human, too many of my people would have ignored the locals’ opinion and simply grabbed the lands and resources they wanted. Unfortunately for those locals, it seems that the inhabitants of Gliese 581c may be doing just that. The village is now less than one kilometer away. We will now go down to near the ground and continue slowly between the trees: I want to observe the village from up close while still hiding, before we reveal ourselves. By the way, I never asked you how old a Koorivar could live, Shanandar. Could any survivor from your shuttle still be alive after eighty years?’’
‘’They could, but they would then be near their end by now: the average life expectancy for a Koorivar is 120 of your years.’’
Michel nodded his head at that but didn’t reply, concentrated on finding an opening in the thick forest top foliage. Seeing one, he slowed down to a near hover, then flew down to just over the long grass and bushes covering the ground between the trees, followed by the three other scooters. Keeping his speed at ten kilometers per hour or less, Michel zigzagged his way through the forest, covering the last 700 meters before the village. He however stopped and lowered his scooter to the ground when about fifty meters from breaking out of the forest and shut down his machine.
‘’Time to advance on foot, Shanandar: we want to observe and examine that village from a hiding position before we emerge and scare away the locals as the big bad aliens that we are.’’
That made Shanandar smile in amusement as he stepped out of the scooter with Michel.
‘’Well, I was most happy to see you big bad aliens when you helped us wake up on Eris, Michel.’’
‘’And it certainly has been a pleasure to help save your crew and passengers, Shanandar. I will now ask you to walk as silently as you can and not to speak: we are now going forward in tactical mode.’’
‘’You Humans certainly have plenty of experience in those ‘tactical’ matters. I will be right behind you.’’
With his companions following him in single file through the forest, Michel cautiously advanced towards the village, his pulse rifle at the ready. After a couple of minutes, he started to see the first houses of the village through the trees and slowed down further his pace while crouching down. He finally stopped behind one of the last trees of the forest and took out his binoculars as his companions deployed on both sides of him to hide and observe from behind other trees and bushes. He already could see a few of the local inhabitants of the village and they certainly were nothing like Humans or Koorivars: they actually looked very much like mythical Centaurs, with a four-legged horse-like body, a torso rising over its forward legs, two arms ending in five-fingered hands and a head that looked nearly human, save for a flat nose and long, pointy ears. The creatures were however much smaller than Earth horses, being more like pony-sized and with the top of their head reaching a maximum height of about 175 centimeters. Michel actually found the aliens to be quite elegant creatures, with their long blond mane running from the top of their head, Mohawk style, down to their rear end, where it became a long and dense blond tail. Their body was a lustrous, shiny reddish-brown color that actually blended well with the predominant color of the local vegetation. As for their faces, Michel found them quite attractive, with their soft features and large yellow eyes. Most of the local aliens he saw didn’t wear any clothes, so he was able to see that the local race was divided into male and female genders, with the female centaurs having a pair of breasts on their chest. The locals who wore anything actually wore what looked like tool bags or haversacks rather than clothes. The only concession to clothing was the wearing of sorts of boots made of soft leather covering their large, round hoofs. He was still observing what looked like a child centaur when he heard Shanandar exclaim himself in excitement.
‘’I see a Koorivar over there!’’
Stunned, Michel turned his binoculars in the direction pointed at by Shanandar. He then effectively saw a young teenage Koorivar playing with two centaur children in front of one of the wooden houses of the village.
‘’My god, you’re right! There were survivors from your shuttle and they have produced a few children while living in harmony with the locals. I really hope that we will find one or more actual surviving crewmember of your shuttle still alive.’’
‘’Well, there is only one way to find out. Stay here and keep hiding: I will go out in the open and go speak with that Koorivar child. Since those locals live with a few Koorivar in their midst, I shouldn’t attract a hostile reaction. You and your Human friends however could scare those aliens away.’’
Before Michel could protest, Shanandar walked out of the forest, accompanied by Kovar, and calmly went towards the little Koorivar while walking down one of the streets of the village. At first, the passing centaurs didn’t pay much attention to the pair of Koorivars, thus proving to Michel that a number of Koorivars lived in the village. However, a pair of male centaurs armed with bows and knives did notice the body armor and helmets worn by Shanandar and Kovar and approached them. With Shanandar’s helmet microphone and camera retransmitting what he heard and saw, the rest of the team was able to follow what happened next as the pair of armed centaurs cut the path of the Koorivars and spoke to them. Their tone was however polite and respectful, even though their language was incomprehensible. In response, Shanandar stopped and raised one hand high while speaking in Koorivarese.
‘’I am sorry, but I don’t speak your language. Maybe you could use that Koorivar child over there as a translator.’’
Looking in the direction pointed at by Shanandar and seeing the Koorivar child, who had by now stopped playing and stared with disbelief at the two adult Koorivars, one of the two armed centaurs signaled to the child to approach. The latter did so timidly and listened to what the centaur told him before looking up and Shanandar and speaking to him in Koorivarese.