As soon as they dropped down, the Saltic guards opened fire. The first shots hit the shields, and though the areas hit melted, none of the initial shots got through and the first group hit the deck and detached their cables, which rapidly retracted upwards. Centurion Marshal was with the first group and they took cover behind some equipment with their shields up. Since the Saltic were using energy weapons, the standard Romani shield wall was not going to work. They would have to use a combination of shields and cover. They were in a cavernous area, close to three hundred meters in diameter. This meant that a cross section of the base would look like a flask with a uniform neck and a much wider, bulbous base. A large number of Saltic were visible in the distance. Most of the population must have moved down here when the bombardment started. The area was well lit and suggested that the Saltic were not night vision beings. The light also allowed Bill Marshal look around as more legionaries rappelled down. In the center of the cavernous area was a large, spherical structure having almost the diameter of the thirty meters to the ceiling. It looked like a huge version of the wormhole drive they had aboard the ship. The third group of legionaries came down and unhooked just as the counter attack started. Suddenly hundreds of energy bolts came across the room from areas of cover. Most hit cover and shields but some connected with the Romani and three went down never to get up again. The Romani started returning fire and throwing smoke grenades to cover the additional troops coming down. A large chain was passed down and this allowed a continuous flow of legionaries down the links and allowed the serpent troops to come down. As soon as a serpent centurion was down, Marshal ordered her to take her serpents around the other way as the human Romani went forward. They would circle the large sphere in the center of the room and meet on the other side.
Marshal and his troops moved out and kept laying down fire. He had to admit, the Saltic did all they could do, however, despite their technology, they had no defense against projectile weapons. If they were ever part of their arsenal in the past, they had no knowledge of them now. Then the Romani were only just learning about energy weapons. Marshal had to chuckle as he realized one of the great things about war was the ability to learn new things. As the Romani started to fan out, the Saltic guards kept up a withering fire that wreaked havoc on the shields carried by the Romani. However, had they not been carrying the shields, things would have turned out much worse, since it took several hits on the shield to render its protection useless in a given spot. Some serpent, armored males finally were able to come down the chain and Marshal put them right to work. They opened fire across the room and by the time they emptied their ammo boxes, all Saltic resistance was over. Centurion Marshal had to admit though, the Saltic gave them a good fight and fully a fourth of the troops that made it into the combat were down, even though the final count of Romani engaged outnumbered the defenders. Had it not been for the Gatling guns of the serpent males, he had no doubt the Romani casualty count would have been much worse. As evil as the Saltic were to the human psyche, due to their use of human brains as control nodes, Bill Marshal had to admit they put up a worthy fight.
A second chain was let down to allow more Romani to quickly come down from the floor above. As soon as it was determined that all resistance was at an end, the engineering techs began to come down. The scout group also came down for a look. Repeaters were set on each floor of the bunker to maintain contact with the Tempestas. Diana, Alaya and Raul looked at the large sphere in the center of the room.
“This looks like a wormhole drive, but it’s huge,” Diana said. “I have no idea what one this large would be for.”
Alaya was looking at the huge sphere when Raul said, “Alaya, there are a large number of cables extending from the sphere to an opening in the wall, adjacent to some kind of door. The control mechanisms must be in there.” Raul indicated a door in the wall.
Alaya pointed it out to Bill Marshal who ordered several legionaries over to the door. Examination revealed it a simple door and not a blast door. Techs were called over and they outlined the door with blasting cord and set the detonator. An armored male serpent was called over in case there was resistance. Centurion Marshal nodded in the direction of the tech who set the charges and she pressed the button on the detonator. There was a uniform explosion surrounding the door and it blew outward. The room beyond was dark and Bill Marshal asked the serpent male in his own language if he could see anything. The serpent indicated there were no enemies in the room. Centurion Marshal ordered a squad to follow him in and they breached the room. As soon as they shined their lights into the room, they could see where the cables came through the wall and ended in clear cylinders, which housed human brains. The ends of the cables were attached to the brains. The humans were disgusted with what they saw. The serpents did not feel disgust as an emotion, but they did realize the magnitude of seeing a human brain attached to a machine, and knowing that brain was still conscious. The Saltic either didn’t know or didn’t care that the humans they were using remained conscious of their circumstances. This was also the first time the Romani had seen this arrangement, since the only other time humans had come across brains used as computers was with the loss of the Sinclair cruiser SS Hayden of which Alaya and Diana were survivors. Only the Slones had ever seen the brain collection on a Saltic ship and survived. Marshal activated his comlink, “Alaya, come into the side room please.”
Alaya did so and pulled up short as she saw what was in the room. There were about 50 brains connected to the sphere in the main chamber. Alaya activated her come to the ship. “Chris, come down and bring Captain Shegai, Eugen Ebner and Commander Hammond with you.”
“We are on our way, is all secure down there or do we need more troops?”
“There are no Saltic left,” Alaya reported.
“See you shortly then.”
It took close to a half hour for the shuttle to come down and the group then worked their way to the sub-level. Since the former High Priest was not used to the physical exertion needed to come down the chain, he was lowered in a bosun’s chair. Once they were all down, Alaya led them into the brain room. Those who had never seen the brains on the Urk’Radi ships or the brain collections on the Saltic harvester ship, from the Hayden incident, were now shocked when they saw the brains hooked up to this machine. Alaya looked at Eugen Ebner, “This is the fate of your sacrifices and each of these brains is still alive and conscious. If we knew how to attach them to speakers we could have them speak with you, but I doubt you would want to hear what they had to say.”
The former High Priest was in shock as he realized the magnitude of the evil he had facilitated on his own people. Even if he did not know the final fate of those sacrificed, he had to know it was not good. By Romani standards, he was not old, but by the lifespan of the colony, without modern medicine, he was ancient. His age and his shock now caught up to him as a dull ache began to well up in his chest and radiate into his left jaw. He was not aware of the fact that he had had a heart attack a few years back. He thought it was only a toothache and it passed in time. However, part of his heart was compromised and now the blood vessel that brought life to the major part of his remaining heart muscle closed off. The heart of Eugen Ebner was full of the tragedy of his people and it stopped. Human medics ran to his aid as Christopher Slone caught him. Had he been back at his colony he would be dead, but the Romani knew how to deal with such problems and he was stabilized in the field and removed to the ship. They would hook him up to a heart bypass as they rapidly cloned a new heart for him. What they could not do, was remove the guilt that would plague him for the rest of his life.
Slone looked at one of the techs and told her to disconnect the brains and put them out of their misery. He thought when he lost the Hayden that would be the end of dealing with the Saltic and their brain collecting. Now they were in his galaxy and he had to get back and warn the humans that they had more to fear than each other. Slone now went back into the large chamber and looked at the great sphere. �
��What do you think this thing is, Diana?”
“Well, captain. This appears to be a wormhole drive but on a planetary scale.”
“Are you trying to tell me this thing is meant to move this planet?”
“I’m not sure if it could do that, but I think this might be meant to make and maintain a wormhole. Since it seems to be pulling its energy from the core of the planet, I think it is meant to make a permanent wormhole that can continue to be used.”
Slone gave that some thought. “Do you mean similar to the one from Bickle’s star to the Andromeda galaxy?”
“Could be, but we didn’t pick up any energy emissions from the planets in the Andromeda system. So unless this shields the emissions from detection, I can’t be sure.”
“Do we have any use for any of this?”
Diana thought for a moment, “Not that I know of. We have the drives we need aboard the Tempestas. This drive can only be trouble if it is meant to establish a permanent wormhole. There’s only one place for them to go if they want to conquer us.”
“We have to destroy it then and make sure nothing is left for them,” Slone said. “Everyone back to the ship. Centurion Marshal, order the troops back to the ship and evacuate the planet.”
“Yes, captain.”
Alaya and her group, along with the guests went up on the Mary Rose. Slone returned on the shuttles along with the troops, the wounded and the dead. When all were back aboard the Tempestas, Slone returned to the bridge. He activated his communicator, “Centurion Marshal, are all our forces back aboard?”
“Yes, captain. The planet is totally evacuated.”
Slone then ordered the weapon’s tech to load a nuclear missile into the forward missile tube. When the missile was loaded, Slone nodded to Diana, who was also in charge of ordinance. The nuclear warhead had to be activated for the missile to work. This also prevented it from detonating if the munitions magazine was hit during combat. Humans had experimented with various ways to safely activate nuclear warheads and prevent unauthorized activation. They tried typed in codes and voice recognition, but in the end, the old fashioned, two-key method was the best. The captain and each of the bridge crew commanders had a key, but only two were needed. Slone took the key from around his neck and placed it in the keyhole on his panel. Diana did the same. “On my mark, Diana. Three, two, one, mark.” Both turned their keys and the warhead was activated. “Lock onto the science station and fire.”
Slone saw the missile fire and arc towards the planet. “Missile running hot and true,” Roger Umgabe said. The missile entered the atmosphere and the nose cone began to burn red from entry. When it was half way through the atmosphere, the nose cone opened and the warhead was released. It dropped the remaining distance to the station and detonated. The 10-megaton yield took out all levels of the base and the entire valley in which it was. The surrounding ground collapsed into the crater where the base had been and nothing was left of the base and its wormhole drive.
“Paul, move us to the gas giant. We will park there and see what develops or if we can, get the wormhole drive going. What’s the transit time to the planet?”
Paul looked at his panel, “Seven hours and twelve minutes to orbit.”
“Very well set the ship to transit mode but keep a double watch up.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Tempestas broke orbit and began its relocation to the gas giant. Slone returned to his quarters. It had been an eventful day as far as discovering what the Saltic were working on, but it got them no closer to home. Alaya joined her husband after she had seen to the securing of the Mary Rose. She poured herself a drink and sat with her husband in the living room. “Well, an exciting day, but we still aren’t any closer to home. How much did the incursion on the planet cost us?”
“We took one hundred and forty-seven casualties; ninety-three of them are dead. Those energy weapons the Saltic use render our shields useless after a few hits. I just hope our science and weapons techs can figure out how to reproduce the weapons and modify our shields. Knowing what I know now, I should have just dropped a nuke on them and not bothered with the incursion.”
“Chris, we thought it was just a science outpost. We had no way of knowing they were setting up a permanent wormhole drive.”
“We still don’t know for sure that’s what it was, but what else could it be. I see no reason why they would want to move planets around. I think all of us, the Romani and the Corporations are at risk here and we must find a way to warn them. We may have stopped whatever this was here, but you can bet we only delayed their plans.”
“Well, everything depends on us getting home. I hope they make some progress with the drives we have on the ship. We need to get some rest. I expect we’ll be getting visitors soon.”
The Slones put their daughter to bed. Olivia was now eight years old and becoming quite the young woman. She wore the normal military jumpsuit for children and had children’s armor along with her child sized short sword. She was also well advanced in her firearms training. Only grenade use would have to wait until she was thirteen. Not that the Romani thought an 8 year old could not use grenades, they just felt you had to be a teen in order to throw them far enough to prevent self injury. As they put her to bed, she was excited about how well she did at target practice. The Slones knew the children might need their combat skills if they had to stay in this part of the galaxy. Before Slone went to bed, he called over to Diana.
“Diana, do we have any boomerang probes aboard?”
“Let me check.” After a short time, Diana Gardner came back on and said, “We have five aboard. Do you want them prepped?”
“It can wait for the day watch, get some rest for now. We will launch them after we get to the gas giant.”
“Yes Captain.”
Boomerang probes were designed to explore unknown slipstreams. They were launched from a ship and programmed to remain fixed on the system star. They then entered a slipstream, whose endpoint was not known. They entered the new system, scanned and looked for slipstreams that led back to the original star system. They continued looking until they were out of fuel or returned to their point of origin. Slone knew they could not stay where they were, but they also needed an idea of where they were going. As the Slone’s slept, the Tempestas moved to the gas giant in the system.
Chapter 9 – The Return of the Saltic
The Tempestas spent a week in orbit around the gas giant. The wounded had time to recover and return to their units. Things were getting into a routine. However, even in orbit they were burning fuel and still had no way to get out. A week before they had sent out five boomerang probes. Three came back after exploring several systems nearby and none had a habitable planet. The remaining two had not come back yet. On the ninth day in orbit, Slone was an hour into his day shift duties when Roger Umgabe suddenly looked up from his console, “Captain, there is a power surge in system consistent with those we see when a wormhole is forming.”
“Hister, make us invisible,” Slone ordered. “Where is the power surge and how old is the information?”
“It is near the third planet and it is six hours old. They will pick up our telemetry from before we went invisible.”
“Paul, take us out of orbit and move us to the power surge. Whatever comes through that wormhole, we will have to fight it.”
“Yes, Captain.”
The invisible Tempestas broke orbit and headed to the source of the disturbance. As they continued to monitor the area of disturbance, a very large vessel began to exit the wormhole. The Romani were still six hours from the wormhole but on maximum magnification, they could identify the target as a ship and that meant it was huge. It would dwarf Tempestas and Slone had an idea that this was what they encountered in the Andromeda galaxy.
“Paul, take us to the enemy ship and keep us one hundred thousand kilometers behind her.”
“Yes, captain.”
“Alaya, take the Mary Rose and get me a full reading on that ship.”
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“On my way.” Alaya called down to Tavia to have the ship ready to deploy ahead of the Tempestas. As soon as all were aboard, they went invisible and left the flight deck. Tavia was in the pilot’s seat and Alaya was in the captain’s chair. By the time they were clear of the battleship, the Saltic vessel was out of the wormhole and moving towards the fourth planet to check on their science base. They would soon discover that it had been eradicated. Since the fourth planet was between the Saltic ship and the scout ship, they were both moving rapidly towards each other. Alaya was the only one aboard who had seen the harvester ship in the Andromeda galaxy and she recognized right away that this was similar. She only hoped they were not carrying any methane breathers. The Slones called these harvester ships, for want of a different name, but they seemed to match the function. That they were sending one to deal with the attack on the colony suggests these were also their capital ships. She knew they were armed with energy weapons, since she had seen them work. They were also armed with their EMP weapon. Since none of the smaller ships they dealt with or captured had anything identifiable as an EMP weapon, it must require a large ship to operate. She also knew it would disable not only the humans and their ships, but also the Saltic ship. The energy needed for it was so great that it took time for the electrical system of the Saltic ship to recover.
Captain Hek’Lok of the Sal’tic cruiser Ver’Tau had been relaxing at the edge of the Fal’Tran’Hok galaxy, facing the Trill’Verda’Hok galaxy, where there was a science base set up to harvest small numbers of human brains. They were also setting up a planetary-based wormhole drive. The hope was to open a stable wormhole near human space and then use ship wormholes to enter a human system, render the inhabitants of a village or ship unconscious and take them away for brain harvesting, a simple in and out mission. The permanent wormhole would remain open and new brains could be retrieved as needed. It was quite a coup when humans invaded the galaxy through the permanent wormhole that had just been set in place. Even better, that a leader of those humans was willing to sacrifice his own people to get a colony of Urk’Radi. None of the sentient or non-sentient species in the home galaxy had the brain structure that humans did. The best part was the fact that large areas of their brains remained unused. This meant the Saltic could keep the used parts alive and reprogram the unused parts to control their ships and large machines. The fact that the brain was in a tortured state and remained conscious, did not concern the Saltic, since all species were inferior to them. The problem with the operation to trade humans for Urk’Radi lay in the fact that it never took place. Worse than that, the cruiser sent to harvest the humans was never heard from again and the colony of Urk’Radi living in the system with the wormhole vanished. To make matters worse, the wormhole was permanently closed due to a massive surge of energy. To this day, high command still has no idea what happened. He had many thoughts passing through his mind as he sat bored on the bridge of his cruiser.
The Sakkara Page 17