Irene opened her mouth and quickly closed it. She had considered the possibility of sabotage or sloppy workmanship affecting her Buzzard, but she had given no thought to the drill rig itself. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Jarrett is in Hangar Four with Czajka and Colter, go take charge over there,” Perkins ordered.
“You’re not coming with us, Major?” Derek asked, surprised. Perkins was typically a hands-on leader.
“I’ll join you when I can. Right now, our liaison and I are going over to the Admin building, to assure there isn’t some unfortunate paperwork glitch in you and Striebich getting signed off for flight duty.”
Nert, listening to the translation in his zPhone earpiece, was puzzled. “Unlike humans, we do not use paper, Major Perkins. Our records are stored in-”
“I understand that, Cadet Dandurf. My meaning is that I intend to assure there are no unintended, or intentional, delays in getting their flight status officially logged into, whatever system stores that data.”
“Ah,” Nert nodded. “I understand. That would be wise.” He knew many of his fellow Ruhar were not happy that humans were being given another opportunity. Especially as the humans were taking the place of Ruhar who would love to be on projector reactivation team. “And I believe that I know the person we must speak with.”
“Great, Cadet. Lead the way.”
Irene and Derek assumed Shauna Jarrett, who somehow along the way had become their drill rig expert, would merely check the rig’s records, maybe look at the inspection tags, and roll it across the airfield to the waiting Buzzard. But no! Major Perkins had ordered Shauna to assure the drill rig was in perfect working order, and that is exactly what Shauna intended to do.
“Seriously?” Irene asked, eyes wide. “You want to drill into the airbase?”
“Irene, Lt. Striebich,” she remembered that her friend Irene was also an officer. “We won’t know for certain this thing works, unless we see it in action. Nert got us permission to drill into that stretch of grass over behind Hangar Five, there aren’t any buried pipes or cables in that area.”
“Oh,” Derek groaned, “this is going to take all day!”
“No, sir,” Jesse grinned. “We should be done in time for dinner.”
“Yeah,” Dave agreed. “Then we just need to get it over to the Buzzard, stowed away and secured. Oh, and all the spare parts have to get loaded and tied down. Shouldn’t take longer than, what do you think, Cornpone? Midnight?”
Jesse whistled. “That may be ambitious, but we can try. Welcome to the Army, sir,” He winked at Lt. Bonsu.
The pitifully few ships of Admiral Kekrando’s once mighty, conquering battlegroup hung motionless in deep space, far from the star which bathed the planet Pradassis with warm, life-giving light. That far out, the ships could only be seen by their blinking navigation lights. The star was a mere dot, and Pradassis could not be seen by the naked eye. No, he could not call the planet ‘Pradassis’, Kekrando told himself. With the Ruhar having stationed a battlegroup there, and in the process of constructing a strategic defense satellite network around the planet, it would never again be called ‘Pradassis’ by anyone who lived there. Gehtanu. The planet would now forever be known as Gehtanu.
“All ships in formation, Admiral,” said a voice behind Admiral Kekrando. The voice was quiet and hesitant, as it should be under such shameful circumstances. Shame did not belong directly to the speaker, being only the second in command of the destroyer, but the stench of Kekrando’s overwhelming failure infected everyone around that unfortunate senior warrior.
“Very well,” Kekrando acknowledged in a clear, strong voice. A voice accustomed to command. A voice unaccustomed to failure or shame. Until now. “Initiate compliance with Jeraptha docking requirements. All reactors in cold shutdown, except for the Auxiliary Power Units aboard each ship. Stealth and sensors fields deactivated, defensive energy shields on standby.” The Jeraptha would not allow the powerful defense shields of the Kristang ships to be active for the docking procedure, but they understood ships would need to protect themselves from being impacted by random space junk, even at the far outskirts of the star system. “All weapons safed,” he ordered, knowing even the defensive maser turrets were included in that category. Anything that might pose a threat to a massive Jeraptha star carrier had to be completely deactivated. The Jeraptha insisted maser cannons needed to have their exciters decoupled from their power supplies. All missiles must have detonators removed from warheads. “And, Kartow,” Kekrando turned to stare at the destroyer’s executive officer, “no cheating. Clan leadership had ordered me to deliver these ships back home in one piece. If the Jeraptha discover we are cheating, and if even one ship is cheating they will discover it, then consequences will be dire for all of us. Signal all ships,” all ships that remain, he thought bitterly. “I do not want anyone trying to be a hero, or to claim glory for themselves. Is that understood?”
Kartow saluted. “Understood, Admiral,” he said, then almost scurried away to pass along the admiral’s commands. In truth, Kartow, like everyone else in the depleted battlegroup, wished to be as far away as possible from their disgraced admiral. Proximity carried the potential of Kekrando’s shame spreading to others. For certainly, with a failure of such epic proportions, there was more than enough disgrace and shame for more than one person.
Kekrando stood with uncharacteristic silence as the crew busied themselves around him, no one daring even glance at the admiral, for fear his shame and eventual fate were contagious. Kekrando listened as his orders were passed along to the other ships. No cheating, he heard. Left to himself, he would have liked to cheat, to do more than just cheat. He would have liked to wait for the Jeraptha star carriers to emerge from jump and approach, then Kekrando would have opened up on them with every weapon his ships had. The result would have been the certain destruction of all his remaining ships, but possibly he could have severely damaged, even destroyed, one or both star carriers. Striking such a blow against the patrons of the Ruhar would have been an immensely satisfying, if futile and even counterproductive gesture. But it was not to be. Clan leadership had ordered Kekrando to bring his remaining ships safely home, where they would be needed for a Kristang civil war that was now all but inevitable. Loss of the combat power of one battlegroup was bad enough, worse still was the enormous loss of prestige for the clan. Such shame made it difficult for the clan to keep existing allies and attract new clans to an alliance, even a temporary arrangement. Kekrando’s failure had made the entire clan appear weak. He could not blame other clans for their scorn; his had been a monumental failure, a disaster that would be studied for generations as an example of what not to do when in command of an isolated battlegroup. Kekrando knew the clan leaders had ordered his subordinate officers to relieve the admiral of command if he attempted to strike the Jeraptha, such relief would come in the form of a pistol round to the admiral’s skull.
Kekrando had appeared in the skies over Pradassis with overwhelming combat power, instantly establishing supremacy in space around the planet. Nothing then could move within twelve lightminutes of Pradassis without Kekrando knowing and approving; and everything and everyone on the surface existed because he had wished them to continue existing.
He could have been forgiven for the loss of the majority of his ships; no one could have foreseen the Ruhar’s use of unknown maser cannons. Even clan leadership, who of course would not be accepting any blame for themselves, would be reluctant to punish Kekrando for falling victim to a shocking, vicious, dishonorable sneak attack. What the clan leadership could not abide was what happened next. Even following the projector attack on Kekrando’s battlegroup, he had sufficient combat strength to prevent Commodore Ferlant’s Ruhar task force from effectively protecting the planet. And then Senior Captain Gerkaw’s pursuit squadron, which needed merely to keep Ferlant’s ships busy and away from the planet, had been foolishly lured into a trap by the wily Ruhar commander. The fact that the idiot Gerkaw had exceeded
his orders made no difference to clan leadership. The failure ultimately belonged to the commanding officer on the scene: Admiral Kekrando.
Even Kekrando had to admit a greater disaster, a greater failure, could hardly be imagined. Clan leadership had sent him to Pradassis, to secure the planet and its buried Elder treasures for the clan. The riches of Elder artifacts could vault the clan to the upper ranks of Kristang society. Instead, the planet was now firmly in the control of the hated Ruhar, who had discovered a priceless, fully functional Elder power tap, and a pair of working comm nodes! The fact that the incompetent Ruhar had screwed with, and destroyed, the Elder devices made no difference to clan leadership. Those items beyond value should have been the property of the clan, and Kekrando’s own stunning, monumental incompetence had given them away to the Ruhar.
Kekrando knew he likely faced death when he returned. Lesser commanders might have taken the easy way out, by using a pistol, a knife or even poison. Such cowardice was not for a proud warrior; Kekrando would face the clan leaders with his head held high, and offer whatever analysis and advice as he could, before meeting his fate. By retaining his dignity as a warrior, Kekrando hoped to save his ship captains from sharing his own fate.
“All ships acknowledge your orders, Admiral,” Kartow announced from his duty station, not wishing to come any closer to the symbol of disgrace. “The Ruhar transport ships are in position; their defensive systems are active.”
Kekrando answered only with a curt nod of his head. The presence of two Ruhar transport ships deeply puzzled him. Aboard those two ships were over six thousand, seven hundred humans who referred to themselves as ‘Keepers of the Faith’. The admiral could understand why the Ruhar had agreed to transport the troublesome Keepers away from their planet; sending those pesky humans away would reduce the security burden on the Ruhar. He could not yet understand why clan leadership had agreed to accept the humans; Kekrando could not see how such primitive, untrustworthy creatures could possibly be useful to the clan. Human soldiers, even the best of them, hardly offered enough of a challenge to make hunting them enjoyable sport. Perhaps the clan leadership intended the humans to be used for training young Kristang warriors to hunt with knives and bare hands. Or perhaps clan leadership planned to sell humans to other clans as curiosities, or for sport. No matter, that was not Kekrando’s concern.
No, what puzzled him most was why the ‘Keepers’ had volunteered to leave Pradassis with the Kristang. If they thought their continued display of loyalty impressed their patrons, they were greatly, fatally mistaken. Seeing humans divided between loyalty to the Ruhar and Kristang only reinforced the Kristang’s firmly-held opinion that humans were weak. Kekrando could only imagine that the ‘Keepers’ were the type of rigid-thinking creatures who could not accept reality when their beliefs were challenged; could not adapt as all living things must. Adapt, if they wished to continue living.
One thing Admiral Kekrando was certain of was, that the almost seven thousand Keepers would not continue living very long.
CHAPTER SEVEN
39 Commando’s Jawkuar altered course to fly into a rain squall. Such brief, intense rain storms were common over the tropical ocean, but the Jawkuar crew had found squalls frustratingly sparse that day. The heat sinks in the belly of the dropship had been approaching critical temperature, and need to be ejected soon, or the all-important stealth would be compromised. As the dropship flew into the storm, the pilots allowed it to be buffeted by the gusty winds, for using power to stabilize the Jawkuar’s flight path might be detected.
Once the dropship was fully within the squall cloud, its skin pelted by fat raindrops, the copilot activated controls to eject the heat sinks. A door briefly opened on the belly of the dropship, and two objects dropped out. After falling a few meters, parachutes opened to slow their descent, because a speedy fall of such heavy objects might be detected. Each heatsink was surrounded by a thermal insulation shell, trapping the heat inside. Within the shell, the heatsinks were far beyond their melting point, and the shells would not survive long. They did not have to. Within a few minutes, the heatsinks hit the ocean surface with a gentle splash, the parachutes retracted, and the heatsinks began falling toward the bottom of the sea. The two shells failed around the same time, within seconds of each other. Cracks appeared, and when the contents of the shells leaked out, the ocean water flashed into steam. By then, the heatsinks were safely deep enough that the event was not noticed by the Ruhar sensor network.
Above the waves, the Jawkuar flew smoothly out of the rail squall into clear air. If any Ruhar had been close by, they would have wondered why water was falling from a clear patch of sky, as water dripped off the Jawkuar’s surface. Satisfied the heatsink ejection had not detected, the pilots turned back to their original course and increased speed slightly. Excess heat was now being dumped into two new heatsinks, and the pilots watched the instruments carefully. The Jawkuar had only a limited number of heatsinks, which could not be reused. Luck would have to be with them on this mission.
Ruhar personnel at the airbase watched with curiosity, or disdain, or a mixture of both as the odd human creatures drove the drill rig behind a hangar. The humans not only practiced setting up and taking down the drill, they actually fitted a bit to the drill and began chewing down into the soil. Every Ruhar on the base knew this group of humans had a mission to reactivate one of the last projectors. The humans might be crude, they might be paranoid, but no one could say they were not taking their mission very seriously. The humans were absolutely thorough about making certain the rig was ready for the mission, even the Ruhar who hated humans as occupier lackeys of the Kristang had to admit this particular team of humans was admirably professional. The drill was operating normally for the first twenty feet, then Shauna began tapping the display on her zPhone with concern.
“Cut! Jesse! Cut the power! Now!” Shauna shouted frantically, waving her arms.
Jesse complied. “Ok! Done. What’s the problem?” All the instruments on the console in front of him were showing green. Not green, exactly, because the Ruhar used the color blue instead of green to indicate things were working properly. Both humans and Ruhar used red to indicate a problem, and there was no red on the console in front of Jesse. “Everything shows normal here.”
“Normal now, it wouldn’t be normal if we’d kept going,” Shauna insisted. “Look at the temperature of the upper coupling.”
Jesse checked it, looked at Dave for confirmation, and Dave nodded. “It’s running a little hot,” Jesse admitted. “Still within normal limits.”
“Run the instrument data back,” Shauna walked over to the console and ran the instrument data backward, then let it display forward. “See?” She stabbed a fingertip on the display. “It starts perfectly normal, then here, right here, it spikes. And keeps going.”
Dave’s eyes grew wide. “Sorry, Shauna, I was only looking for trouble. My attention was on the drill head.”
Jesse hung his head. Shauna was right, the coupling temperature had spiked, and he hadn’t noticed it on the console. Shauna had been monitoring the drill rig’s sensors through her zPhone, and she had seen it. Even now, with the rig’s power cut off, the coupling temperature was still increasing. “Hey, this is screwy,” he noticed. “The temperature gauge of the coupling shows it’s fine, we’re getting a high temperature reading from the housing itself. I don’t get it.”
“Me neither,” Shauna replied, her jaw set. “This drill rig is supposed to have been completely refurbished for us. The chief mechanic signed off that it was ready.”
Irene exhaled in exasperation. “Jarrett, it’s a good thing you insisted on an operational test.” She hated to admit it, but making the drill rig crawl behind the hangar, and setting it up to drill into the ground had been well worth the time and effort. They had drilled barely thirty feet down before Shauna had detected the problem.
“Lt. Striebich, I’d like to look inside,” Shauna said hopefully.
“I don’t
know, Jarrett,” Irene said uncertainly. A group of Ruhar had been watching the drill rig from the back door of a hangar; now one of them was headed in their direction. “We’re not supposed to screw with Ruhar equipment.”
“It was the freakin’ Ruhar who told us this thing was in perfect condition,” Shauna pointed out. “We can’t trust them.”
“She’s right about that,” Derek agreed.
“Oh, hell,” Irene muttered. “How much more trouble could we get into? Jarrett, pop this thing open.”
Shauna moved quickly. She had Jesse and Dave lower the rig horizontally so she could access the upper coupling. Even before it had completed lowering itself, she hopped onto a grating and turned two levers to open an inspection hatch. Seeing that, the Ruhar coming from the hangar broke into a run. “Damn it!” Shauna shouted, her left arm inside the rig up to her shoulder. She pushed hoses out of the way, until she had a good view of the lubricant reservoir.
Just as the Ruhar stomped across the grass, angrily waving his arms and shouting at Shauna, a car roared up to the drill rig, and Major Perkins and Nert got out. “What is the problem here?”
“I am a mechanic,” the angry Ruhar explained through a zPhone translator. “Your people have interfered with-”
“We had to shut down the rig around thirty feet, Major,” Irene reported. “Jarrett noticed a problem, a coupling was overheating.”
“This is bullshit. Total bullshit!” Shauna spat angrily.
“What is the problem?” Major Perkins repeated, peering over Shauna’s shoulder.
“This,” Shauna tapped a clear bottle that was barely visible behind a complicated array of pipes and hoses. “I noticed the upper coupling gearbox was running hot, but the instruments said there was plenty of this lubricating fluid being sprayed onto this coupling here, see this?”
Trouble on Paradise: an ExForce novella (ExForce novellas Book 1) Page 11