She had to bring the shields up, even if doing so would drain the ship of power. “Shields up!” Sorry, old girl, she thought. But I have to protect you now, even if it means you’ll die later. “Get missiles ready for launch.”
“No energy beams?” her weapons office asked.
“No, we don’t want to take too much power away from the magnetic field.” Marjorie suspected that this was just a test of her power, and she would be more than willing to show Rulla Plooma her ship was no match for his, even in its crippled state.
“Captain, we can only get the shields at twenty percent.”
“That’s fine, should be more than enough to hold off any attack. Weapons, fire a warning shot across the ship’s bow. Let them know we mean business.”
A missile fired from one of its ports and toward the ship. Marjorie watched on her monitor as it streaked across space, over the ship, and into the great void.
The Jerrasic ship fired two weak energy blasts at the Arwen. She knew they could have been more powerful; the Rulla wanted to send a message that he wasn’t going to back down.
The ship pulled off from the attack, made a long arc, and stopped where it had been before. “Captain, the Rulla wants to talk to you.”
“No,” Marjorie replied. “I will not talk to him right now. Tell him that. I don’t care if it insults him. Lower the shields and go to yellow alert.”
Kel leaned in and whispered, “Captain, yellow alert will drain the batteries faster and—”
“You don’t have to tell me, Kel. I know. Now, go over to that comet and give me a report. The Arwen might not have much time left, and I don’t want to waste it, understood?”
“Yes sir,” Kel said, leaving Captain Cook on the bridge alone in her own thoughts.
~*~
Rulla Pullma sat in his chair, laughing. “Well played, Captain, well played!”
The communications officer stood. “Sir, she refuses to talk to you right now.”
“I should hope so! Although a Jerrasic would not fire a warning shot when threatened like that, it was still more than I expected. Tell me, what are her power levels like now?”
“I monitored them carefully, sir. They did not raise their shields until the last moment, then lowered them as soon as the threat was over. They also did not charge their energy weapons. ”
“Yes, interesting, very interesting,” Plooma said. “They are hiding something, and I want to know what it is.”
~*~.
Professor Ricter walked into his lab, grabbing as much as he could to take with him. It was a rush job, and he knew he would forget something. No matter. He could always have Thomas or the commander bring the stuff he needed over.
As he gathered the last of his things, he couldn’t help but feel excited. This was the chance of a lifetime, and something inside of him knew after this, Professor Theo Ricter would be famous. He decided he would put in a claim on the comet to have it called the Ricter Comet, assuming that the Arwen did not destroy it anytime soon. Well, even if they did, it would need a name and why not name it after him?
He was sure there was no life on board. His readings were accurate, and no magnetic field, no matter how powerful, could dispute that. If Thomas were correct, this ship could have come from a race far more advanced than their own. What knowledge could they glean from a long-dead race? What secrets of the universe could they tell him? The thoughts were so powerful and distracting, Ricter did not see the shadow from the corner of his room slowly come to life.
He heard it before anything happened: the crackle leather might make as someone moved on a cold day. Something reached around and grabbed him from behind. Its strength was unlike anything Ricter had ever encountered. He reached up just in time and grabbed an arm. Something sharp lightly touched the skin on his neck; someone was trying to slit his throat. To his own surprise, he didn’t panic. He managed to calm his screaming mind and controlled the sudden rush of adrenaline flowing through his system. The arm that had wrapped itself around his neck was cold and clammy. He knew this was not a human arm. His body revolted against an attack from an alien.
His martial arts training kicked in. He took a step back with his right foot which relived the pressure from his neck and gave him the superior leverage. He grabbed the alien by its arm, jammed his hip into the alien’s stomach, and bent over, flipping the creature onto the ground with a loud thud.
Ricter looked at his attacker and saw no details except for a moving outline that seemed just a bit off from the background. Then, the alien disappeared. “Oh no, you’re in here somewhere!” Ricter took the first thing he could find, a small beaker, and threw where he thought the creature might have been. It shattered on the ground, and Ricter heard what sounded like someone walking on glass. He grabbed a beaker of acid off a table and threw it in that general direction.
The alien screeched in pain as the beaker shattered onto its back. Ricter recoiled at the sizzling sound of the alien’s skin slowly dissolving and nearly vomited at the sour smell. The alien jumped into view as whatever gave him the camouflage powers malfunctioned.
It fell to the ground, writhing in pain as the acid ate through its skin. Ricter turned away from the sight. Running over to the door, he pressed the emergency call button.
~*~
“Well, that explains why we couldn’t find it,” Kel said, looking over the pile of liquid sludge that was the intruder. The acid has dissolved nearly all or part of its vital organs. It hadn’t been a very pleasant death. “I have to say, Professor, I’m impressed with what you did.”
“It was nothing, Commander,” Ricter replied. “You don’t get to be my age in this dangerous universe without knowing a trick or two. I just happen to be lucky this fellow was unfamiliar with judo or else he would have known how to brace himself for a flip. The acid was just a fortunate accident.”
“Not so fortunate for him,” Kel said, looking at the pile of sizzling goo on the floor.
“Why do you suppose he attacked me?” Ricter asked.
“That suit gave him the ability to spy on us. My guess is he heard someone talking about how you were going to go over to try and figure out how to move the comet. He figured if you were out of the way, then we couldn’t get the comet moved.”
“Well he chose the right target. Without me, this mission would not succeed. I suppose you are no longer needed over here to deal with this threat; you can help assist me on the comet and help me save a planet.”
Kel followed the professor out of the office, mumbling curses under his breath.
Chapter Eight
Kel walked between Fran and Professor Ricter as they made their way to the shuttle. “I want you two to stay in the shuttle until you hear from me,” Kel said. “I want to be sure it’s safe.”
“It will be safe,” Ricter replied. “That comet has to be empty. We’d have picked up some life forms by now. I think what you’ll see is nothing more than dust.”
“I’m in charge, and I say we go in armed and ready for a fight.”
“Is first contact always like this?” Fran asked.
“It is when the aliens we are trying to contact don’t answer our hails.”
Ricter looked over the marines who had crammed into the back of the shuttle. It seemed more than was needed. “Just make sure they don’t get in my way when I’m over there. We’ll have a lot of work to do in very little time, and I don’t want to waste any of it because you’re paranoid.”
Kel smiled and turned in his seat, ignoring the comments made by the professor. “All right, let’s get moving.”
The bay doors opened. The shuttle launched from the back of the Arwen. Glow from the engines lit up the cockpit like a campfire would light up the inside of a tent on a dark night. Kel tipped the shuttle to the right and moved around the Arwen. While he was out here, the captain asked him to check on the damage.
He banked the shuttle and turned it to face the Arwen. He still could not believe how large the ship was. It reminde
d him of a giant silver whale floating in space. The surface, while not as reflective as it once was, still had a gleam to it. Tiny, round, black splotches disfigured the mirrorlike surface. The damage didn’t look too bad, but he knew what damage was done on the inside.
The shuttle spun on its axis, turned 180 degrees, and faced the comet. It was the first chance he had to really see the comet ship. It was impressive. Its surface was obscured by a white mist falling off the back and into space. That should have been the first sign that there was something amiss. It was too far away from a sun to cause that large of a vapor trail. Beyond that he could see the Jerrasic battle cruiser. It had an ugly, dark red surface. Its hull had many panels slanted at odd angles to help deflect any missile or explosion away from the ship and into space. It was a sound design from a group of aliens who knew how to fight. He wondered if it could beat the Arwen in a one-on-one fight. Hopefully, he’d never find out.
Kel fired the shuttle’s engines and headed for the comet. “All right, we’re going to treat this like a raid,” he said. “Only I do not want any hostile actions while on the ship.”
“Won’t treating it like a raid be a hostile action?” Professor Ricter asked.
“We don’t have any choice since their captain isn’t responding to us.”
“Don’t you think that means there is no captain?” Ricter asked.
“I’m going ask you to stop asking me questions I don’t have time to answer.”
He heard the professor humph and say, “That’s what I thought.”
Kel never would admit it but Professor Ricter had a point. As far as he could remember, there was almost never a time when a crewed ship hadn’t responded to a hail. Most of the time they were empty or the crew had died somehow during the voyage. However, there had been times when pirate ships had acted like they were empty just to get a few crew members to hold as hostages.
Judging by the size of this ship, he doubted that was the case here. But he still needed to act from the side of caution and not speculation.
He piloted the shuttle into the comet’s debris field. The sound wasn’t unlike what he remembered from living on Mars during one of the many planet-wide dust storms. He vividly remembered one time when he and his family drove around in their airtight transport vehicle trying to get to the underground shelter while the storm pounded away. Millions of grains of tiny red sand struck the vehicle with such force that it nearly flipped over. What he recalled the most was the sound those grains of sand made as they pelted the outside. It was deafening. He’d clamped his hands over his ears to try and filter out the noise. To him it was more terrifying than seeing the red cloud envelop the car, making it almost impossible for his dad to see the blinking white light of the shelter.
He had no white light to guide him this time and only hoped that his piloting skills would prevent him from crashing onto the surface. He saw an opening, a thin layer of clear space between the comet and the white mist. He saw the white, barely visible specs as they flew past his window. He pointed the landing gear toward the surface and maneuvered the shuttle downward, aware if the engines clogged with white debris, he would be pushed off the comet and into space like an out of control raft down a raging waterfall.
The engines sputtered. The closer he approached the surface the less he heard the pounding and the more he could think. Gently, he landed on its surface. The pattering of the debris field went from a roar to a tinkle. “All right.” Kel stood from his chair. “It’s time to get moving. Professor, I want you to stay here until we give the all clear, okay?”
Ricter dismissed him with a wave.
“Time to go,” Kel said to his troops. He led them to the back where the battle suits were located. The battle suit was just a less ridged force field not unlike the shields that protected the outside of the Arwen.
He placed his helmet over his head and turned it on. The others did the same. “All weapons checked?”
He took his own energy rifle from his back and looked it over. The rifle was charged with a full load of both non-lethal and lethal grenades. One by one his men sounded off. It was time. “Let’s go.”
The back door opened. He led his men onto the surface of the comet. The sky above him was unlike anything he’d seen before. White steams of matter flowed above him as if he were at the bottom of an ocean looking up at the currents. It was beautiful and dangerous at the same time. If something shifted and those high speed streams somehow came to the surface, there would be no way he could get back onto the shuttle in time. They could all get blasted off.
Kel found the surface looked like rock. In fact, if they hadn’t done a scan of the inside there would be no way to tell that it was a ship. He bent over and broke off a piece of the surface. Examining it carefully, he found no way to determine its makeup.
“All right,” he said dropping the rock, “time to open this tin can up.”
His communication line beeped; it was Professor Ricter trying to contact him. He had no time to talk to the professor. However, he knew he had no choice but to answer. “What is it, Professor?”
“Commander, don’t you find it odd that we have so much gravity on the surface?”
Kel hadn’t thought about that. The gravity on the comet did seem strong, but it didn’t seem to be that unusual for a body of this size. “I don’t see your point, Professor.”
“The comet is hollow,” Ricter said, talking to him slowly to be sure he understood what he was saying. “It’s also not nearly as dense as it should be. If this were a normal comet, I’d say it wasn’t that strange, but since it’s not and it doesn’t have much mass, we shouldn’t have this much gravity. In fact, we really should be almost weightless.”
The thought of being weightless and floating up into the stream of white debris being thrown off the comet did not appeal to Kel. “Artificial gravity?”
“I think so. These people are just as advanced as we are if they’ve discovered how to create gravity. So, if there is a fight, you might want to think about what else they’ve accomplished.”
“Thank you, Professor Ricter; I’ll keep that in mind. Kel out.”
One of his men pulled out a small handheld energy gun, pointed it toward the surface, and fired.
The tip of the beam sliced through the rock easily, and within a few moments they had a large hole. The man who fired the beam picked the round rock up and tossed it aside where it gently fell to the ground. Kel looked at the hole the man created and saw a silver ship’s hull. “What do you think?” he asked his man.
“Torch setting should do it. That setting slices through almost anything.”
“I agree. Be careful. We don’t know what’s on the other side.”
The man reset the gun and fired it at the surface again. Normally, when a hull was breached, white steams of air escaped into space. Nothing happened when the white hot beam sliced through the hull. The ship had no atmosphere. It was becoming more likely that this was an empty ship.
The man turned the beam off. “It’s dark down there,” he said. “I don’t see any light.”
“No power,” Kel said. “Activate that dark vision view.” The helmet visors of the crew glowed with an eerie green light. The darkness faded to a dull gray. “Guns ready, let’s go. I’m in first. Everyone else follow behind me.”
Kel slung his rifle from his shoulder and pointed it ahead of him. He took a deep breath, and then jumped into the hole.
He slowly drifted to the floor. His visor quickly adjusted itself to the dark and turned it into a clear view of an empty hallway. The first thing he noticed was the absence of gravity, which was odd, since they had gravity on the surface. “Careful. We don’t have any gravity here. The hallway is clear. Come on down.”
~*~
Ricter paced inside the shuttle, waiting for news. He wanted to be the first man to step on its floor. He wanted to be the first one to see what was down there. He wanted that honor all to himself.
“Calm down,” Fran said. “Y
ou’re making me nervous.”
“I will not calm down. I want to be on the comet. I need to be there; without me they won’t know what to do.”
“And you do?” Fran asked.
Ricter sneered. “I do not need to justify anything to you.”
“I suppose not,” Fran replied, standing up. “You look at me like a helper, not a coworker. Well, Professor Ricter, you better start changing that really soon.”
“You haven’t done anything to be seen as anything more than my helper. You need me more than I need you, Doctor Mercury, so I suggest you sit down and stop talking.”
“But—”
“Stop!” he yelled. “If you want me to treat you as an equal, then you need to earn that honor. Respect is given out too easily. There is nothing wrong with working for it.”
“Why should I work for your respect?” she asked.
“If you need to ask, you won’t understand the answer.”
“But I—”
“Professor.” It was Kel’s voice in shuttle’s radio.
“Yes, Commander.”
“You can put your suits on and come on over. This ship is empty.”
“Ah, just as I told you it was.” Professor Ricter walked into the back of the shuttle. He turned to Fran and said, “Come on, we don’t have any time to waste.”
~*~
Professor Ricter found he did not like the suit, and his first order of business would be to get the life support up and running. The force field that surrounded him invoked a sensation of claustrophobia unlike anything he’d felt before.
Kel’s men managed to place a portable force field around the hole they had created, effectively sealing it. They needed to lower it for a brief moment while Ricter and Fran floated down toward the floor.
Kel met them with several of his troops floating about the corridor waiting for the next order. “Professor Ricter, what’s our next step?”
The inside of the comet, while still dark, didn’t seem to hide any real danger. According to his readings the air was sterile, which would make sense in a ship that hadn’t had any oxygen in it for who knows how many years. He turned to Fran and said, “Doctor Mercury, what do you think the odds are that we can find a power source and turn it on?”
The Arwen Book one: Defender Page 6