The Curanian Dominance: The Linda Eccles Series - Volume Three

by Robert Woodard

  Peggy could detect the hostility in the Admiral’s tone. She knew that Admiral Litton and Admiral Ackerman were close, and his lashing out was part of that friendship. She felt he had a right to be upset for she was the one who pushed to get back to Kracks and get the ship. The Curanians tracking them over to Rapatine was a direct result of that action. She felt thankful that Admiral Litton had the foresight to prevent them from returning directly to Earth. Being a scientist, she hadn’t thought beyond the desires of getting her hands on something as valuable as alien technology. She felt thankful someone else had seen the bigger picture.

  “No one could have foreseen the Curanians sitting there waiting for us to show up,” Julian said, but Peggy felt the argument was weak.

  “Philip sure as hell saw it, Julian. Now he is trying to fend off the might of the Curanian forces in a losing cause, and all to save our butts here on Earth. Philip and I could accept the losses if this all had some meaning, but apparently all we’ll get out of the deal is the loss of our most important outpost.”

  Peggy could not have felt any worse. The Admiral was right, and no argument she or Julian could offer would justify the loss of Rapatine, and all those who would die protecting it. However, it wasn’t a total loss. She still had the ship, and the ship could travel. How could she use that to their advantage? A little idea slipped into her thoughts as a silent moment passed between the three of them.

  “Maybe we cannot decipher the code that is the basis for the technology of these creatures, but we can sure go directly to those who built it,” Peggy said. Her tone came out upbeat like a child trying to convince a cyber-Santa she’d been good.

  “What do you mean?” Ron asked. His eyes shifted over to Peggy and narrowed as if he was trying to focus his mind to set her afire.

  Peggy quickly elaborated. “If we tell the TR17 to take the ship home, it may lead us right back to the very planet of those that made that ship.”

  “What good will that do?” Ron asked, his voice none too inviting. His deepening frown made his already age-wrinkled face pull into even deeper crevices. The white wisps of hair that shot out of his eyebrows pulled down closer to his eyelids. Even his mostly grey mustache pulled up as if trying to join forces with his nose hairs.

  “Returning this lost ship to them might be a great first start in building a relationship with a culture that can teach us so much,” Peggy answered. “If the Curanians continue their quest to destroy all humankind, wouldn’t it be nice to have a big brother who can come to our defense. A culture this advanced has to have the technology to push the Curanians back to wherever they reside and keep them there.”

  Ron seemed to think that over for a few seconds. He then looked at Julian, and asked, “Do you think that would be something worth pursuing?”

  “I don’t see how it can hurt. While the Brontum is unarmed, as far as we can tell, there is always a possibility that they have other ships used for defensive purposes. A culture this advanced probably has the ability to disarm ships to make them useless. I suspect they will have moved past weapons of destruction and moved on to technology that disables.”

  Ron rubbed his clean-shaven face with his fingers as he thought it over. Peggy could almost see the gears rotating inside that tactical mind the Admiral kept hidden under a thinning spread of grey hair. He finally dropped his hand, and said, “I’m already working on a plan to deal with the Curanians that I can’t disclose right now but having a contingency plan would not be a bad idea. Okay, I’ll let you two run with this one. If you can convince one of our diplomats to take a ride in that ship, I recommend you take him or her along.”

  “Can I trust you’ll work out the logistics with the Governments to prevent us from bogging down in their bureaucracy, Ron?” Julian asked.

  “If we lose Rapatine, the Governments will be dying for the ESD to take action. This gives me a lot of freedom to make my own decisions. Run whatever you need through my office, and I’ll make sure it gets done. Time is of the essence, Julian, so don’t belabor this.”

  “Other than putting people and supplies aboard there really isn’t a whole lot of prep work needed. We can move fast on this one,” Julian responded.

  Peggy remained quiet as her boss and the Admiral worked out the logistics. Her mind was already flying over what she would need to prepare for taking the alien ship on a little ride. There was no way she wasn’t going, so all she needed was to figure out who her companions would be. Smiling to herself, she knew Linda would jump at the chance to pilot that ship again. The child-like joy Linda had shown when the ship pulled loose of the planet had been quite apparent. Now she only needed someone who could work on building a bond between the aliens and the humans. She would let Julian figure that one out.

  ◆◆◆

  Peggy walked into the Brontum through its opening and glanced around. The ship still presented a sterile appeal even after all the people that had been going over it, inch by inch. She wished she had this kind of technology in her personal cabin within the facility. It would save her a lot of cleaning whenever she found the time.

  “We are going to return the Brontum back to the Kuracks’ planet. Do you foresee any problems with this?” Peggy asked aloud.

  “No.” The answer came at her from all directions.

  The response from the TR17 was exactly what Peggy had expected. As long as a qualified pilot was aboard, the alien device would follow the commands to return home. A question suddenly popped into her head. “How long in Earth time would it take to travel from Earth to the Kuracks home planet?”

  “One thousand and twenty-eight Earth hours, nine minutes and fifty-seven seconds.”

  Shaking her head in disbelief, Peggy couldn’t comprehend how short the travel time would be. Could their planet really be that close to earth? It wasn’t all that much further than Rapatine, and she would have thought something that close would have been discovered long ago. Then, she realized she was limiting herself to the capability of Earth travel times. Curious, she asked, “How long would it take using standard Earth warp capabilities?”

  The response was instantaneous. “One hundred and twenty-seven years, two hundred sixteen days, fifteen hours, twelve minutes and thirteen seconds.”

  The response brought a smile to her face. Of course, the alien ship would have a much more efficient way to travel long distances. Earth was just a quick hop for them, but a lifetime and more for her. Peggy came to realize that humans would appear as mere children in the presence of the Kuracks. With any luck, they could be convinced to be guarding parents to help protect them from the Curanians.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Admiral Litton woke up after getting much-needed sleep. He had been so exhausted from all the long hours of preparation to face the Curanians, then the battle itself, and finally the preparation to face them again that he literally fell asleep before he could get his head on his pillow.

  Staring into the dark of his cabin, he let his mind come to grips with reality. The familiar sounds of the ship were missing. They sat idle now, so the steady vibration of the propulsion units no longer radiant throughout the ship. Whatever work was going on to repair damaged sections of the ship didn’t reach the location of his cabin. The red numbering on the ceiling told him the current Rapatine time. It carried no real meaning now since they were sitting and waiting for the Curanians to respond to their retreat.

  “Lights,” Philip said aloud.

  The computer brought up enough illumination for Philip to see. He continued to stare up at the ceiling where the time display began to fade. He rolled his head right to look at his wall monitor to see if any messages had come in while he slept. He could see several were awaiting his attention.

  Just before retiring he had shot a message off to Admiral Ackerman updating him on the battle, his retreat, and his current location. It had been a quick, cryptic message only. He recalled it vividly. Rapatine lost. Destruction of all facilities ordered. My fleet now stationed at S9 awaiting
second battle. Battle damage moderate but gave better than got. Lost two cruiser, one destroyer, and all six gunships, the latter due to scuttling. God help us all.

  In preparation of the Curanian fleet’s arrival, Philip played his ace by moving his entire fleet, including the support ships, into the thick nebula layers that existed within this system to avoid detection. His hope was that the ion and electrical disruption within the cloud would make it virtually impossible for the Curanian sensor technology to penetrate. If that proved to be true, then any battle that ensured would become an old-fashion hide and seek affair.

  His fleet was now in a long line with his two battle cruisers in the middle, his remaining cruisers to each side, and his destroyers beyond them. Each ship was close enough to the one next to it to keep line of sight since the electrical interference was disrupting their own communications. With probes sitting outside the nebula to act as eyes, he then positioned shuttles into a long string out from his fleet, so they could relay communications using lights to deliver Morse code. It was crude, but effective. Where electronic messages were bothered by the static, light penetrated through at long enough distances to make the string of contacts work. He had no doubt that the Curanians were going to find their laser targeting weapon less than ideal trying to shoot at him through that thick layer of clouds. However, he could fire all day from within the clouds without any problems as long as the probes were in place, and the shuttles provided targeting data.

  The idea was so simple that it was practically unbeatable. If a probe detected anything, the shuttle positioned outside the nebula would receive the tactical readings. The pilot would then activate his computerized external light controller to begin blinking letters in Morse Code, and it was a good thing the computers still carried Morse logic because none of the officers understood it.

  Once those lights started blinking out the warning, each shuttle in turn would receive and relay it along the line until it was picked up by the Conviction. While the Curanian commander would be blind to Philip’s ships, his ships could fire through the nebula to give the Curanians hell.

  “And unless you want to come in and get me, you will be powerless to do anything about it with that weapon of yours,” Philip mumbled while grinning.

  The laser light needed to deliver the Curanian’s weapon onto target would be useless in the nebula, but the plasma bolts would travel through and out of the nebula just fine. Philip had even tested the theory by having a destroyer fire a shot to see what would happen. Some thought the plasma bolt would explode within the nebula, but it stayed together and shot out of the dusty mass. In theory, his fleet could sit inside the nebula and fire out at the Curanian ships with zero risk of being hit by return fire.

  “You may have kicked me out of Rapatine, but I have the advantage here my friend. Come on in and test my metal,” Philip said. The bitterness of his tone dropped his smile. He was ready to seek some revenge, and he hoped the Curanian commander would oblige him.

  Getting up, Philip hit the comm icon to the outer office. It went unanswered, leading him to believe that Paula hadn’t emerged from her rest to return to her duties yet. Selecting the mess hall instead, he ordered for coffee to be brought up to him. If his foe did make an appearance, Philip would be ready for them.

  ◆◆◆

  Plon stared out at the mess that had once been a thriving shipping area. His opponent did a good job of obliterating anything useful. The debris field that now floated before him was almost as bad as what he had left behind when he destroyed the floating station and ships above the other alien planet.

  He had gotten lucky, and Plon knew that for sure. He had deliberately held off his boarding of the space station just in case the alien fleet jumped back into the system in some fly-by attack. If he hadn’t, a good number of his troopers may have been on or around that station when it exploded.

  The same was true with the small ships they had left behind. One by one they blew themselves to pieces. He now had Jime coordinating the sweeping of the planet to see just what they did leave behind. Plon suspected this was only some outpost and not the actual home planet as he first thought it was.

  In a rare occurrence, Jime entered his control deck. Stopping before his wrap-around console, she said, “You were correct in your assumption that this was only an outpost. The planet contains one sizable village and what appears to be the start of another smaller one, and they were both destroyed with explosives. The rebounders have failed to detect any other signs of amassed life forms on this planet. Whatever this place once was has been wiped clean. There is nothing left worth sifting through.”

  Plon could understand the rationale of the face-to-face update. The battle here had been hard won, and they didn’t need the crew overhearing that it may have been for not. It was bad enough that he had to explain this all to Kold. He sure didn’t need his crews losing faith, too.

  Looking out at the floating debris, he sighed, and replied, “Well, if they fled back to their home planet, we’ll find them. Worse case, we can leave a remote rebounder here. I expect they will want this outpost back, and if they believe we have given up, they just might be foolish enough to return to rebuild it.”

  Jime pushed her lips to one side in disagreement, and said, “I wouldn’t count on it, Plon. These creatures don’t appear to be stupid. They made that mistake once already. I can’t see them falling for it again. Most likely, they will never return here for fear of discovery.”

  “You’re probably right. I have yet to underestimate these creatures, and I’m surely not going to do it now. They know we followed that ship to get here, so they must suspect we would do the same once they fled. They aren’t going to lead us to their home planet, no matter how much I wish for it. That fleet is sacrificing itself to save the rest of their kind. I can admire them for that.”

  Jime looked down, and Plon suspected she was eyeing what was happening on the command deck below. She slowly lifted her head and eyes to look at him. Up close, he found her uglier still. Not only was she too skinny by Curanian standards, but she had that large dip-beaked shaped nose that stood out prominently on her face. It was even worse when she turned her head to give a profile view of it. Her puffy lips seemed to be trying to compete with her nose, and her bushy eyebrows only added additional distraction to her overall features. As if all that were not bad enough, she had droopy eyelids that made her look like she was about to fall asleep. Trying not to shake his head at the sight, he decided nature had not been kind to this person.

  “What are you going to do now?” Jime asked.

  Plon turned his head to stare out at the ships that were positioned around the Ciat. He knew that Jime was trying to keep herself distanced from his decisions. Her emphasis on the word you had not been lost on him. He could almost read her mind. She would have been involved in two failed adventures to make good on defeating these creatures. She was clearly hoping to avoid Kold’s wrath by being able to say she was only following her orders.

  He wasn’t going to be so lucky, though. Kold had sent him out with all the resources he requested to do this job. Coming up short was not going to please her. While he hadn’t failed in his mission like Nage had, he hadn’t completed it either. He wouldn’t be returning home with some excuse about falling into a well-devised trap. No, Plon knew he’d outsmarted his opponent and forced him to give up territory, but it wasn’t the end goal that Kold so desperately wanted. That couldn’t be blamed on him. He had no way of knowing that this wouldn’t be their home planet. Who could have?

  Even though Kold wasn’t forgiving, she could at least distinguish between failure and bad luck. Plon had proven he could defeat his opponent in battle, something Nage failed at, but he still had not finished the job. It wasn’t over yet, though, as he had a fast attack out hunting for where his opponent fled. He just might turn that bad luck around and find what he was looking for anyway. If he could capture at least one ship, he could return to let Kold’s science team crawl all over it
for useful information.

  Realizing that Jime still stood by waiting for an answer, he looked up at her. “Have a remote rebounder set at the very edge of its range to keep an eye on this place. I’m going to form up the fleet to be ready to move the very moment we get word from the fast attack as to where our opponent now resides.”

  Jime nodded and turned to exit the control deck.

  ◆◆◆

  After getting a message out to one of the fast attacks to deposit the rebounder as Plon ordered, Jime plopped into the command chair. She could almost feel Plon’s eyes upon her as he stared down from his mighty perch. Jime hated the way Nage had designed the control deck for just that purpose. No commander like to be spied upon, and Jime was no different. She resisted the temptation to look up and see if he was paying any attention to her.

  Jime felt a slow burn rising within her. She tired of seeing her Ciat getting shot up in worthless ventures. She had been in a lot of battles in her career, but this was by far the deadliest opponent she ever faced. The Ciat should have been more than a match for any ship, but these dangerous creatures kept filling her ship full of holes. They were crafty and hard to kill, and that could lead to her getting blown to pieces before all was said and done.

  Looking out the forward view ports, she felt that the Curanians may have finally gotten themselves into something beyond their ability to subdue. Supreme might have pushed her greed one species too far. Jime supposed it had to happen someday. She just didn’t plan on being around when it did.

  “Have we finally found a species better at battle than we are?” Jime shook her head at her mumbled words.

  Knowing she didn’t have the desired looks to draw in the males, Jime had tried to bury herself into her career. While trying to convince herself that it was a fair trade, she knew she was only fooling herself. What woman did not want to feel the heat of the coupling?