by Marc Stevens
“Engage our stealth systems, and let’s go meet them.”
“Affirmative, Commander. Reversing course now.”
Justice swung us around and headed back toward the Scrun ship we had disabled. Justice alerted us that the new target was hailing the doomed ship.
“Commander, I have decoded their transmissions. The new target is here to take on slaves.”
Unless the Scrun crew members were asleep at the wheel, their scanners would be painting them a bleak picture anytime now.
“Commander, the target’s shields have come online, and it is slowing.”
“Engage them when you are ready, Justice. Make it messy. I want the Scrun to easily figure out what happened.”
Justice launched a four-missile salvo that jumped to hyperspace. He then opened fire with our beam weapons. The Scrun ship’s forward shields flared brilliant white and then failed under the multiple shot barrage Justice hammered them with. The Scrun defensive systems attempted to lock onto our weapons discharges. They only managed a couple of shots that passed well aft of the Legacy. Our antimatter missiles transitioned back to normal space-time and made contact with the mothership’s hull. The front half of the ship disintegrated into a large glittering cloud of debris. The back half of the ship was spinning like a top and headed toward the planet. I was convinced it would end up sharing the same fate as the first Scrun ship and burn up in the atmosphere. I was proven wrong when a high-order detonation turned the remains into flying scrap. Justice confirmed the first target would receive a fatal peppering of debris just before making its final reentry. I had hopes that any Scrun ships coming to collect slaves would not stay after determining the nature of the space junk orbiting the planet. Justice recorded the discovery data so we could turn it over to the Principal Investigator. The Chaalt would see to it the planet got on the list for protected status.
I had Justice hang around the system for an additional four hours while the crew and I slept. When we awoke, Xul reported no additional Scrun activity. We jumped from the system to our next waypoints and all were vacant of any ship activity. The Legacy was now a single jump from the location of the Prule base. As a precaution, Justice was going to jump three-quarters of the way to the target area. We would cloak and use our stealth systems to make the rest of the journey. Our transition to the insertion point could be detected. We were gambling that the distance to the target would leave doubt as to our actual destination. We would be relying on the capabilities of our Oolaran systems to keep us hidden from any hostiles that might be in the area. As we closed with the system Justice gave us an ominous sitrep.
“Commander, my sensors are picking up a massive debris field. It appears to be the remains of several types of vessels. I can only speculate on the number but would put it at more than a hundred. None have power source or life readings that I can detect. The greatest concentration of wreckage is orbiting the small planetary body that is our destination coordinates.”
Justice put a magnified view up on the bridge dome. The sight was awe-inspiring and horrendous at the same time. The pieces large enough to identify as being from a starship had holes shot through them at every possible angle. The battle that took place here was incredible. I shook my head wondering what the original ship count must have been when the shooting started. Judging by the appearance of the wreckage, any ship disabled in the battle was shot to smithereens. It didn’t look like anyone involved in the conflict had the intention of taking prisoners. You were victorious or you died. It was the only explanation for what I was seeing. Justice had to start weaving the Legacy through the wreckage. It was thick enough we could not avoid colliding with the small stuff. Our forward shields were sparking from the impacts. The greater the number of impacts, the more likely we could be tracked. The disturbance created by our passage was setting things in motion that were once stationary. If someone or something was paying attention, it would not be hard to track our progress.
“Are you getting any readings that might indicate the Fury is on the surface somewhere?”
“Negative, I have been broadcast—Commander! I am detecting an energy spike on the surface!”
It was one of those times when I hated being right. An energy beam lanced up from the planet’s surface and plowed through the debris. It struck the Legacy’s shields amidships. It did not penetrate but did manage to weaken the shield to forty percent of capacity. Justice dove for the surface of the planet. Our forward shields were flaring from the constant collisions. We were now a target with a visible reference point. Another shot hit our aft shields. It was not degraded as much as the first and pulled our shields down to a dangerously low twenty-two percent. I no longer wondered if we would find Prule. Justice didn’t hesitate to use the biggest stick we had at our disposal. He fired our anomaly weapon down the vector of the hostile fire and followed it with a barrage of six full-yield antimatter missiles. We were now below the debris field and hugging the mountainous terrain on the surface. Our shields were regenerating and would be at full capacity in a couple of minutes. A bright corona came from the area we took the fire from. It flickered and then faded away.
“Commander, the hostile fire came from a derelict ship that appears to have crashed on the planet’s surface. The remains fit the description of a Prule resource gathering platform. It had no shield emanations, and our weapons made direct hits on that location. The chances that the weapon survived our attack are zero.”
“Did you detect other ships on the surface?”
“It will require me to make a more detailed scan of the planet. The surface is littered with debris. While the concentration is less than what is orbiting the planet, it is still considerable. The planet has no atmosphere but does have a gravity reading of point five G. Our passage through the debris field has sent wreckage falling from orbit and raining down on the surface. If the attack on the Legacy was an automated response, the falling debris should have triggered additional weapons fire. I have not detected any retaliatory fire. The chances of other weapons being hidden on the surface is high. Now that we are out of the debris field, our movements can no longer be predicted. Doing a thorough scan of the planet will expose any additional weapons sites if they exist. The probability is low that there is technology present that can actively track the Legacy while cloaked. Since I cannot completely rule out the possibility, I will take the precaution of staying close to the planet’s surface.”
“Do you think the Hivemind purposely sent us into a trap?” I asked the AI.
“A trap would not be an entirely accurate description. It did give us what it thought was information on an active Prule base. That would make any species other than Prule a target. The debris in orbit appear to be centuries old. The information from the Hivemind may be just as dated. I surmise on some level the Hivemind assumed we would be captured and subjugated, then it would subsequently be set free to have its revenge upon us.”
“Just before we were attacked, you started to tell me something related to finding the Fury.”
“Yes, I was telling you I am actively broadcasting a minimum power IST signal,” Justice explained. “The signal is well below the power threshold for hyperspace transmission. It should only be detectable inside of this system. If the Fury energizes its IST receivers, my subsystem will pick up the signal and respond. So far, I have nothing incoming on the system.”
“Okay. What is your take on the attack, and do you have a theory on who targeted us?”
“Our retaliatory strike most assuredly destroyed any evidence or remains of our attackers. I do, however, suspect it was active Prule forces. The energy beam used in the attack exactly matches the power profile of the weapons used against us by the Hivemind’s lifeboat.”
I was getting bent out of shape. The Hivemind sent us on a fool’s errand in hopes of us getting killed or captured. Justice had more or less warned me it was a possibility that was the bio machine’s intent from the beginning. I had let the thought of recovering the Fury cloud
my judgment.
Tria must have felt my anger mounting and came over and put her arm around me.
“Nathan, the discovery of this planet is not a total waste,” Tria said. “We now have proof that the Prule are still active in this galaxy. My people can take the evidence we have uncovered and present it to the Galactic Union. They will now be forced to take the threat seriously.”
“I don’t know if I am ready to get the Union involved just yet,” I said. “The level of Prule activity on this world is still questionable. For all we know, Justice wiped out any proof we might have had.”
“If that turns out to be the case, Nathan, we can still sell the salvage rights for all the scrap in this system to my people,” Tria said. “I would be guessing, but I would estimate the value at several hundred million credits.”
I had to admit that was an angle I had not thought of. The sheer volume of materials that could be harvested was staggering. If Justice was right and the wreckage was a couple of hundred years old, that would make us the owners of the discovery. A grim thought crossed my mind. We may not have been the first to make this discovery. We may be the only survivors able to capitalize on it. I pushed that thought from my mind. There still may be active Prule somewhere on the planet. They would have to be eradicated before we could let anyone near it.
“You have a point, Tria, but don’t you think it makes more sense to put it up for bids?”
A frown flashed across her face. She was probably thinking I wanted Tam Lin to get in on the action. I knew she would never admit it, but deep down, she was jealous of the Earth girl. I knew I was skating on thin ice and closed my mouth rather than justify my comment. She jumped on my hesitation and justified hers.
“Nathan, by revealing this discovery to my people, we will be showing any who have had doubts about our motives when we destroyed the research facility that we are staunch allies and supporters of the Chaalt.”
“The council should already know that.”
“I agree, but there was still a large number of forces that stood against us. The amount of salvage to be collected would create jobs that could last for years. Many of those same detractors could end up working on a project of this magnitude. What better way to show them they were misguided in their distrust?”
I threw my hands up in surrender. It would be hard to argue with someone who was right about things a hell of a lot more than I was. The smile that replaced her frown said this was a win-win situation for me.
“Okay, Tria, you are now officially in charge of the salvage negotiations once we are sure we have eliminated any remaining Prule.”
I felt like I had an abundance of brownie points that I would redeem on some future date. For now, I had bigger fish to fry. I had made up my mind the Hivemind intentionally lied to us. Even though we had no idea how many Prule were on the planet, I wasn’t going to let the remaining entity know that. It was not the only one who could stretch the truth. It would be the last thing the Prule entity would ever hear.
“Justice, have the Overseer tell the Hivemind we have reached the target coordinates. Inform it the Prule forces that once occupied this planet have all been destroyed. Make it known that it will perish here as well.”
I headed to the brig to take care of some long overdue business. Coonts and Klutch decided they would join me. Tria acted like she had better things to do and waved me on. On the way to the lifts, I heard Klutch make a wager with Coonts. It involved the amount of urine it would take to kill the Hivemind. Their discussion turned into an argument that I wanted no part of. That freaking Tibor! There would be no pissing involved in the Prule’s demise. The Overseer’s awareness would be evacuated from the containment vessel, and it would go out the hangar door. Our defensive beam weapons would turn it to dust. I would wait until we were almost to the brig before I burst Klutch’s bubble. There was a good chance Coonts would claim to be the winner by default. The close quarters of the brig would be no place I wanted to be right after that happened. In the time it took us to get to the down tube, the Hivemind’s survival instincts must have kicked into overdrive.
“Commander, the Hivemind has offered to give us the exact coordinates of a subterranean facility,” Justice said. “It states that if the biologicals who attempted to manipulate it survived to make it to this location, they had the access codes to give them safe entry into the site.”
I stopped in my tracks so suddenly that Klutch and Coonts, who were still arguing, bowled me over. I went headfirst into the down tube. I righted myself and stepped on to the hangar deck, frowning. My two crewmates stepped out a moment later, apologizing for the collision. My stare silenced them.
“I take it the Hivemind will give us the access codes if we continue its existence?” I asked Justice.
“Yes.”
“I want specifics or no deal. What kind of facility is it?”
“The facility was designed to repair battle damaged assets. Hunters, to be exact. It is also a biological materials storage area.”
“Are there active Hunters?”
“The Hivemind claims its queries to this facility are more than two hundred years old. At that time, the active unit count was ninety-seven.”
I gritted my teeth and slowly shook my head. I wondered when it would finally dangle a carrot in front of our faces. The blatant hint that there were other secret facilities was now out on the table as a bargaining chip. I didn’t doubt for a minute that this one was just the tip of the iceberg. My instincts were telling me to doubt the Prule’s reason for leading us here. This was feeling more and more like it was the Hivemind’s last-ditch effort for revenge.
“Justice, what are the odds of this being another trap of some kind?”
“Fifty-fifty.”
Well shit! I didn’t need a super intelligence to tell me that. My simple mind had already come to that conclusion. The Hivemind admitting there was at least ninety-seven Hunters roaming the planet reinforced Justice’s theory that they were behind the attack on the Legacy. It was also leading me to believe the Hivemind was playing us for suckers. If the attack on the Legacy would have been successful, it would have died along with the rest of us. It really didn’t care if it lived or died. This was all about getting back at the first biologicals able to capture it. Coonts and Klutch were both waiting for me to come to a decision.
“Change of plans,” I said. “I am headed back to the bridge.”
As I suspected, Coonts claimed to be the winner of the wager. Another heated argument broke out. Coonts’s new physique must have come complete with a reinforced spine and an even bigger set of nads. He was in the Troop Master’s face and poking at his chest. I was at the lifts, and the smell was already eyewatering. How Coonts could stand it was beyond me. I had not heard any threats yet, but it was time to shut them both down.
“Hey!” I yelled at them. “Knock that scat off and make sure your battle kit is ready. We are going to investigate the Prule facility!”
That did the trick, and they both ran to the ready room. When I returned to the bridge, I was surprised to find Tria on the IST talking to the Principal Investigator. She must have taken my words to heart and got right on the deal. Even though I had said nothing about contacting Sael, she took it upon herself to do it. I caught the last of their conversation and heard Sael say that her best containment teams would be on their way within five hours and the salvage fleets would follow once the planet was cleared. I sat in my command chair and hoped I would hear a good explanation.
“Nathan, it is time that we started sharing the risks we have been taking,” Tria said when her call with Sael finished. “Sael has stated the Chaalt people owe us a huge debt of gratitude, so I am giving them a chance to prove it. I want this to be one less possible threat that we have to face alone. They are now aware this was a Prule stronghold and will come prepared to deal with whatever they may find. Sael will also be bringing several of our best salvage experts to assess the extent of our find and establish a reasonable valu
e.”
I had a lot of reasons to be mad but could find no fault in Tria’s decisions. Everything she had done was in the best interest of us all. It didn’t change the fact I still had plans that I intended to move on a lot sooner than five hours from now. I was also questioning why she would call Sael so quickly.
“I was planning on taking a look inside the Prule base, and it didn’t include waiting for Sael,” I said.
“I know. I will see you in the ready room.”
She gave me a dazzling smile and went to the down tubes. That was interesting to say the least. It had always been my experience to hear some less than friendly exchanges between Tria and the Operative. Apparently, that was not the case this time around. That in itself was a strange occurrence. Then, not a word about the dangers of going into the Prule base alone, just “I know, let’s go.”
“It’s probably a trap!” I yelled after her.
She stood waiting at the lifts until I caught up with her.
“It’s never mattered before. Why should it now?”