Scout Expedition

by Stephen Brandon

  * * *

  It's been 42 years, but we finally have enough people convinced that a trip back to the colonies is worthwhile. One full crew of the warrior council volunteered to accompany us and were given a fully armed torch warship by their council. The observer council just informed us that they had 10 couples that volunteered to go with us. No contact with the colonies since setup because for some reason their communicators will not work within one diameter of a planet. Our transfer date to the old habitat is scheduled for 3 months from today. That will give us time to make one last pitch to the graduating classes this month.

  Departure date was yesterday, but we've been told that additional equipment has been designated for us to carry. Sixteen new weapons systems are being installed on the habitat. Internal modifications haven't been completed yet. Our departure date is now 4 months from today.

  Finally everything is complete. We broke orbit 5 hours ago and are under full gravity drive. FTL drive is being engaged as I write this. Travel time to the first colony will be three weeks.

  As we were approaching the colony system and the warrior class has informed the government council that we should approach just as we would any unknown star system. The warship took off a month ago and we received the Safe signal an hour ago. We should arrive in about 6 hours.

  We were ordered to stop on the far side of the star system from the colony planet. Something about the transmissions intercepted after initial contact has the warship's captain worried. There seems to be two governments and they were hostile to each other until contact was made. Now the intercepted transmissions indicate that they view us as a possible enemy or someone to plunder. They were launching a new space station as we entered the system and the high orbit satellite images show that it is armed to the teeth.

  The government council ordered a full report sent to all human habitat groups. The a small mining spacecraft to be modified and sent to the planet with a volunteer crew to make direct contact. I volunteered, but we turned down, not because of my age, but because I have to much knowledge about how the habitats and warships operate. The warrior council selected a farmer and his wife. I don't know how they are to evaluate the space station or conditions on the planet. I was just informed that I would be on the monitoring group. The observers installed a FTL communicator within the hull of the ship wired throughout to sensors and image recorders. We'll have a full view of everything the farmers see and hear unless they are taken off the mining ship.

  They also have been given a briefing book to present to the government giving all the information known about the unknown alien species that attacked Dirt and the start of the war with them. The fact that several human colonies have been attacked and devastated is listed as the reason we're coming back to check on them and give warning. Also is a section suggesting that they limit electromagnetic wavelength transmissions from their planet.

  We now have their military encryption completely figured out. Their leadership on the space station scanned and transmitted in code the entire briefing book, very stupid. In less than 8 hours all civilian transmissions stopped. Visually there are only a few scattered lights on the night side. All their cities are blacked out. We're still picking up radar frequencies from the oceans and aircraft.

  The farmers have been on the planet for two weeks now. We've receive two transmission from them the first week, but nothing since. The observers have been a finger away from destroying their transmitter on the mining ship three times. We've watched half a dozen crews dissembling and making recordings of the ships equipment. So far they haven't cut into the hull to trace the wiring. They even removed the cabin gravity plate decking. Two days later they replaced it.

  Week three, the farmers are back aboard the mining spacecraft and headed back to rendezvous with the warship at the asteroid belt. They spent the first six hours talking about their experience on the planet. From their description the planetary government was split into 4 sections to govern the four continents and then the four continental governments became more independent until the planetary government was just an administrative shadow with no power or authority.

  One of our high orbit satellites was plucked from orbit. We assume it's been reverse engineered and copied.

  Two spacecraft shadowed the farmers as they returned to the warship. The warrior council engineers tore the ship apart and found over 60 spy devices including three in the rocket engines. They reassembled the ship with the devices and launched it toward the shadow ships under automated control.

  They intercepted the mining ship and boarded it. Then the automated recording started informing them that spy devices were detected. Rather than waste a perfectly good mining ship, we were giving it to them for their use and suggesting that their government start building habitats and mining their asteroid belt. We informed them that we were going on to the first colony planet left and would check back in a few years when they reactivated their planetary government. The report sent back from the shadow spacecraft was pointed and abusive when referring to us. They received a reply to destroy the mining ship. We destroyed the FTL communicator as they started placing explosives on the fuel tanks and observed the mining ship explode.

  We are now only 4 hours out from the first colony and the warship hasn't sent any signal. The government council has decided to go in stealth to the Oort cloud around the star system.

  We've picked up weak transmissions, probably from spacesuit communicators. Five have been located and they're drifting out of the system toward the galactic south. From what we can understand the warship was attacked as it entered the system, but managed to inflict major damage on the attacking spacecraft. Several small scout ships are being sent to intercept the signals and 4 torch meteoroids have been launched into the inner system to attempt to located the enemy spacecraft. If one is found that matches the configuration of the spacecraft that attacked the Dirt system they will attack automatically and transmit all their sensor readings just before impact.

  It was an alien ship that attacked and disabled our torch warship on its first pass through the star system. As they moved in for the kill the remaining crew launched all weapons and abandoned ship in the remaining undamaged fighters. The three surviving crew members reported that the alien ship was almost completely destroyed and our weapons finished it off. The destruction of the colony was broadcast with a request for armed help.

  We then sent several mining ships to the planet to see if any of the colony survived. The main cities were melted slag. Radio beacons were dropped from orbit into all areas that weren't devastated.

  It's been six months and we've only had a few contacts from the planet. Three more habitats and twenty warship now are set up within the star system, because if the previous pattern is followed several of the alien spacecraft will come to see why their ship hasn't reported back. We're waiting for them. The system is armed to the teeth and every week more warships arrive.

  We received word that the Red Warrior Queen has located their empire and is setting up to attack. The distance is to far for any of our ships to get there in time, however we've also been informed that several alien fleets are roaming human space. The senior warrior council ordered several of our ships to the surface to broadcast on all radio frequencies just like a healthy planetary civilization. We have set the bait!

  Several dozen habitats dropped off people to started setting up another colony. The time seems to pass so slowly waiting for something to happen. A year and a half has passed and still no alien attack. The colony on the planet, renamed Earth II, is helping to furnish fresh vegetables to everyone in the star system. Those farmers sure work hard. The planet has warships all over the sky continuously. I'll bet it's the best defended planetary system in the galaxy.

  Several warships have been ordered back to their convoys. As of today count we're down to 50 warships, 9 established habitats, 4 new habitats under
construction, 4 space docks, 2 resource haulers that are bringing in ores from other star systems, and one SFMDF warship that stopped in to report what we were doing.

  Its captain, a Captain Tiffany Ballard, is a young woman. The warship is a cube about 3 kilometers per side. It was bigger than any warship anyone had ever seen. Stranger still, it has a crew made up of almost every member species in the Star Federation. The news she has as that the Red Warrior Queen had stomped on the Grrth even though her fleet had been decimated.

  She met personally with the government and observer councils because this was the largest congregation of habitat humans. When she informed them that the SFG requested a census, and they agreed. After all they represented about 3 1/2 million humans in this star system alone. The SFG also requested that all human habitats map the surrounding space and send their star maps and information about any colonies they had set up.

  She was informed that the census would take about a year because many habitats weren't even named, and their locations weren't reported to any central authority. Plus the fact that many centuries ago the government councils had ruled that convoy locations would only be reported when their convoys wanted to meet up with another convoy. The observer councils would inform all the government councils on all the habitats and institute a numbering system for them. However, the government of each habitat and colony would determine what information would be furnished.

  Captain Ballard then reminded them to inform the habitat and colony governments that the traders could only visit habitat convoys that they could locate. Of course the habitat governments could rendezvous with each other or traders like the old fur traders did back on earth in the nineteenth century.