Kire frowned. “So what could cause that type of destruction?”
“I don’t know. I’ve worked with necrotic plant remains before, but I’ve never seen anything like this. However, it’s unlikely it’s a naturally occurring phenomenon.”
“Meaning something, or someone, did this,” Kire said.
Aurora turned to Jonarel. “Did the images we gathered yield anything?”
He nodded, his tension as palpable as Celia’s. He touched the control panel and the video from their approach to the RC headquarters began playing. “The destruction to the vegetation is so complete that it is difficult to detect any patterns. This is particularly true in areas with predominantly low-lying plants.”
He shifted the image, slowing it down. “However, in areas where the plants were taller, the borders and roadways revealed that the plants in a given area all died lying in the same direction, as if they were pushed down as they died, leaving a darker mark in the non-vegetated areas.”
He switched the image to a close up from one of the fields and panned along several lines marked in red. “And there is something else.”
A chill trickled down Aurora’s spine. More footprints. Multiple sets, located at different points in one of the images. They appeared from nowhere, followed a broken path, and then disappeared just as abruptly, like a ghost that had temporarily gained substance.
“These prints look humanoid, but judging from the twisted shape, it is unlikely they are actually human. What species they might be, I cannot say.” Jonarel’s gaze locked with hers. “Most of the prints show up exactly like this, in the middle of the debris with no line going in or out. Star scanned all the images, and she located prints in nearly every one.” His eyes flashed with anger, though his voice remained calm. “The destruction on Gaia is neither natural, nor random.”
Celia tapped a staccato beat on the table with her fingers. “So this is a deliberate attack. But what’s the motivation? This has been a peaceful colony for a hundred years, and no one seems to be profiting from this destruction.”
“It could be Setarips,” Kelly said. “They’re certainly known for sudden violence against peaceful planetary systems.”
“True,” Celia agreed. “But Setarips are thieves and opportunists, not conquerors. Destruction follows them, but only because they want to obtain or protect something they value for their civil war. If they were involved, I would expect the crops to be taken, not destroyed, or somehow held for ransom. Since no one has contacted the Gaians and no demands have been made, it seems unlikely they’re involved.”
Kire nodded. “Prolonged secrecy isn’t their strong suit, either. It’s hard to imagine they would go to such lengths to cloak their actions without an obvious motivation for visible gain.”
“Secrecy is only their pattern until the attack begins. Then they become pretty damn visible,” Celia muttered.
Aurora glanced at Kelly. The discussion might have hit a little too close to home. However, Kelly didn’t give off even a flicker of emotion. That was a little disconcerting.
“So we still don’t have any idea who we’re dealing with.” Kire interlaced his fingers, rubbing the pads of his thumbs against each other as he gazed at Aurora. “Do you think we need to bring the Fleet in on this?” His voice indicated yes, but his eyes said no.
His internal conflict matched her own. It wasn’t an easy question with a simple answer. “I’ve considered that. However, I don’t think that’s what we need right now.” She gestured to the images. “These are guerrilla tactics we’re dealing with, and if the Fleet moves in, the aggressors may just go to ground, then redouble their attacks when the coast is clear.”
Kelly and Celia nodded.
“Right now, we’re under the radar almost as much as they are, since we don’t have to follow Fleet procedure and we don’t have a set pattern they can predict. And, we’ve been designated as a science team. Very non-threatening. It’s safe to assume they know we’re here, but they shouldn’t have any idea how we’ll proceed.”
Kire leaned forward. “So what’s our next move?”
“First, we need to ferret out their hiding place. No ships have left the system since we arrived, so most likely they’re still planetside. Our best bet is to monitor the area surrounding the most recent attack site and see if they show themselves. Then maybe we’ll be able to figure out how they’re destroying the plants.”
“So you’re thinking of an orbital surveillance?” Celia asked.
“For now. But we may not be able to get the answers we need that way.” She felt a flare of concern from Jonarel, and glanced at him.
“And if we cannot?” His expression indicated he’d figured out where she was going with this, and he didn’t like it.
“We’ll arrange a surface surveillance.”
Kire’s voice held a note of disapproval. “And by we, I hope you mean us, not you.”
She didn’t agree with his conclusion. “I have no intention of staying on the ship.” She held up her hand before anyone could raise an objection. “I spent most of the last hour down in the lab with Mya, and I handled every sample she tested. Nothing happened.”
“So if you’re not affected by the plants, why did you pass out?” Kire’s face reflected the emotions that rolled off of him, his respect for her as his captain at war with his fear for her safety.
“I have a theory on that.” She chose her words carefully, since each member of the crew had a different level of understanding of her unique skills. She glanced at Kelly. “I have a strong empathic ability that allows me to sense emotions in others.” The comment elicited no emotional reaction from the younger woman. They were quite the pair—the empath and the blank page.
She sat back in her chair so that she could look at Kire and Jonarel as she spoke. “What I experienced was an intense emotional overload, triggered most likely by the strongly negative vibrations embedded into the affected area by the attacking force and the residents who suffered from the destruction.”
Jonarel shook his head, his hair brushing his broad shoulders. “But you have been in places before that suffered destruction. The aftermath of Setarip attacks in particular, and you have never had a problem. Why now?”
Good question. And the only way to find out for certain would be to go back down to the planet’s surface. “Maybe because I have a personal bond to Gaia as our sister planet, which heightened my emotional involvement. Or because my defenses were low as a result of our quick departure and a lack of rest.” She laid her hands on the table, palms up. “I don’t know. But that’s not the point. Whatever triggered it, the main problem was my lack of awareness. Now that I know what to expect, I can control it.”
“Are you sure about that?” Kire asked.
She kept her gaze steady. “As sure as I can be. But it’s a moot point at the moment. First, we have to locate our targets.”
19
Kire set up a crew rotation while Kelly moved them into a geosynchronous orbit over the community that had been hit the previous night. He’d scheduled off-duty time for everyone during the long night, with the exception of Star, whose requirements for rest were minimal. Despite his objections, Roe had insisted on working the first shift while she ordered him off the bridge, but he’d relieved her a few hours later.
“Six hours to sunrise.”
He glanced up at the sound of Star’s melodious voice. A muscle in his neck twinged. Apparently he’d been focusing a bit too intently on the monitor in front of him. The captain’s chair was comfortable, but his body still protested the prolonged lack of movement.
He rolled his shoulders and tipped his head from side to side, working the kinks out. Star had counted out each hour of the surveillance, and his optimism had faded in direct proportion to the passing time. Their prey still hadn’t shown themselves. He really didn’t want to end the long night empty-handed.
Leaning back, he gazed at the aerial image on the bridgescreen. Not that there was much to see. The
y were on the night side, and unlike Earth, Gaia didn’t have an abundance of light sources marking the outlines of the populated areas.
They’d divided the target community into four quadrants. At the moment Cardiff, Jon and Kelly were on rotation with him, each watching a different section while Roe and Mya rested in their cabins. Star was overseeing the outlying areas as well as keeping watch for any incoming or outgoing vessels in the system.
So far, they’d located the decomposing hulk of a century-old transport, a group of teenagers breaking curfew on the outskirts of the community hub, and a herd of deer-like creatures headed for a large lake in an open valley surrounded by several large farms. But no sign of an attacking force of humanoids. He was beginning to feel like they were searching through the proverbial haystack, and possibly not even the correct one.
As he glanced down, a sudden flash of motion caught his attention. Snapping forward, he magnified the image as the screen rapidly populated with what looked like more than a hundred moving objects. However, unlike all the others he’d tracked during the night, these were concentrated together and their numbers appeared to be growing.
They expanded from a point near the base of the mountain range. It reminded him of a geyser, except instead of expelling water and steam, this geyser was gushing lifeforms. And they were fast. He estimated nearly two hundred had spread across a distance of more than a kilometer in less than a minute.
“Possible sighting in sector three.” The silence of the bridge acted as an amplifier. “Twenty-nine point nine-six-six-seven degrees north, by ninety point zero-five-zero-zero degrees west. Visual onscreen.” He sent the image to the bridgescreen.
The night vision filtering produced a green glow over the scene, but it also allowed for a definition that the lack of ambient light wouldn’t normally provide in the visible spectrum. The targets were definitely using aerial transport as they skimmed over the landscape below, but he couldn’t identify any specifics at this magnification.
Jon, Cardiff and Kelly all turned to face him, awaiting his orders. He started with Jon. “Get me infrared, and monitor any communication signals being transmitted to or from the targets.”
Jon nodded and pivoted back to his console.
Kire glanced at Kelly. “Sweep the area for anything else that’s moving, biological or mechanical. We don’t want any surprises.”
“Aye.”
He continued around the semi-circle to Cardiff. “Get a close up on the visual and see if you can identify who or what we’re looking at.”
“Got it.”
He finished with Star, whose three-dimensional image had appeared seated at the console to the left of the captain’s chair. He knew her physical presence was a cheat to make it easier for the crew to interact with her, and that he could have whispered while staring at the floor or ceiling and she would have responded anyway. However, he appreciated being able to make eye contact. “Scan the area for any sign of a transport vessel large enough to carry at least two hundred humanoids.”
“Yes, Commander.”
“Infrared on screen,” Jon said. “Picking up transmission signals among the various targets, but they are localized. No indication of external communications.”
The main view split, with the night vision image on top and the infrared below. The figures continued their rapid movement across the valley, creating dotted rainbows from their heat signatures as they headed toward a section of rural farms to the southeast. They began to fan out, steadily forming a rough grid.
With the wide angle, the individual targets were difficult to see now that they were no longer clumped together, especially as they slowed and descended toward the ground, blending in with the surrounding landscape.
“Cardiff, give me a tag on each of those targets in the visual image.”
Red markers appeared across the scene, defining the interior grid of the rough rectangle the targets had created. The scene remained fixed for roughly ten seconds. And then….
“What…the…hell.” He could almost feel his pupils dilating as he strained to draw in as much light as possible. But that didn’t help him process what he was seeing.
In the infrared, glowing hot spots bloomed around each figure, almost like a red and yellow corona of flame had been lit beneath their feet, setting them ablaze. But the visual image revealed something even more startling. Only moments before the area had been filled with the dark shadows of plant life. Now, like ripples from a pebble tossed into a still pond, the plants winked out of existence in expanding circles with the figures at the center. And yet, he couldn’t see anything obvious that was causing the destruction.
His heart rate accelerated as he slapped his comband. “Captain?”
Several seconds passed before Roe replied, her voice thick with sleep. “Yes?”
His jaw clenched. He hated having to drag her out of bed when she obviously needed the rest. But this couldn’t wait. “We have a positive ID on the targets.”
This time, her response was brisk. “On my way.”
Within moments she appeared on the bridge from the lift, securing her blond hair in a braid as she crossed to the captain’s chair. He moved out of her way, but she didn’t sit down, choosing instead to stand next to him as she faced the bridgescreen. A frown creased her forehead and tension lines around her eyes indicated she probably hadn’t been resting easily even before he’d woken her.
“What’s the status?”
He gave her a summary as she studied the images.
“Celia, any idea who or what we’re dealing with?”
“I’m not sure of the who, but there are two different species down there.” Cardiff tapped her console and a third image appeared on the screen to the left of the other two, showing a close up in night vision green of a hunched figure, the outlines of its head and the ends of each arm the only easily recognizable body parts. “This first one is canted at the hips rather than completely upright. It’s possible they’re used to walking on all fours, but from this angle it’s hard to judge. We’d have a better idea from a ground perspective.”
It looked a lot like the creature the child had drawn, although most of the torso was blocked from view by two large protrusions from its upper back.
“Are those wings?” Roe asked, taking a couple of steps toward the screen.
Cardiff nodded. “I tracked this figure on its approach, and the appendages were extended out during flight. They folded down when it landed. But they’re mechanical, not biological. During flight, you can detect the energy pattern of the propulsion system.”
“That would explain how they were able to move so quickly.” Kire studied the close-up image. “And why the footprints in the debris appeared and disappeared.” He glanced at Cardiff. “What about the second species?”
“They have the same wing apparatus, but their biology is very different.” She added a second image that showed a significantly larger humanoid figure, this one fully upright and much closer in silhouette to a human. However, the figure’s body was completely covered in some type of cloth mesh that obscured its features, making it impossible to identify. “And that looks like a rifle to me.” She indicated the object the figure was holding.
So they were armed. However, judging from the heat signature, the weapon hadn’t been discharged. And there was something else. While the plants around the hunched figure were rapidly disappearing, no changes were taking place to the plants around the armed target. The corona of heat didn’t show, either. “This one doesn’t appear to be part of the destruction,” Kire murmured.
Roe nodded, her gaze thoughtful.
“How many of each?” he asked.
Cardiff had obviously anticipated the question. “Twenty of the second species, all around the perimeter, and nearly two hundred of the first within the grid.”
Roe folded her arms. “So are the armed ones acting as guards? To protect the others?”
“That’s the most likely explanation,” Cardiff replied.
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“The Gaians are lucky no one has stumbled upon them during an attack. It would probably have been a death sentence.” Roe’s focus remained on the bridgescreen. “Any sign of a transport?”
Kire glanced at Star. “Anything?”
She shook her head. “I have been unable to detect any sign of a transportation device in the area large enough to accommodate them. Since they appeared from the tree line at the base of the mountain range to the north, they may be using the rocks to block sensor readings. The area contains many gullies and valleys large enough to hide a vessel, and the mineral content in the area would make it difficult to distinguish a ship from the surrounding landscape.”
Roe continued to stare at the images on the screen as though hypnotized. “When they head back, track them and see if you can pinpoint their final location.” The muscles around her mouth and eyes pinched in a subtle wince.
Kire spoke in a low tone. “Are you okay?”
She glanced at him in surprise. It was the first time she’d looked away from the screen since she’d arrived on the bridge. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you just flinched.”
She ran her fingers across her forehead as her gaze returned to the images. “I woke up with a headache.”
“Are you sure that’s all?” After what had happened on Gaia, he wasn’t about to take any chances.
She nodded absently. “I’m fine.”
He didn’t believe her. Roe had a way of taking personal strength and self-reliance to extremes, and as her first officer, it was his job to protect her, especially if she wasn’t watching out for herself. However, her explanation made sense, especially given her stress level and lack of sleep. He wouldn’t push…for now.
“They’re on the move again,” Kelly said.
The wings on the two targets Celia had magnified shifted into place and lifted them into the air. Kire glanced at the infrared. The entire grid was in motion, although they didn’t appear to be heading back to their starting point. Instead, they were on course to another large plot of unblemished land about two kilometers away. For the moment, the creatures stood out in stark contrast to the complete desolation they had left behind.
The Dark of Light (Starhawke Rising Book 1) Page 11