The Chronicles of Henry Harper

by Jacen Aster

  At any rate, it didn't occur to us. But it did occur to us to get help in sweeping the remaining mercs and traitors from the ship. Only three of the ten members of the ghost security team assigned to capture the bridge had remained in fighting condition. Four had died outright, and the three more had received crippling injuries. Even adding the two team members who had been assigned to rigging Tim into the repair mech, and myself and Vairc, we were in no position to sweep what was still better than a dozen heavily armed mercs and twice as many traitorous crew off our ship. Instead, we barricaded engineering and the bridge, restored all systems to our control between them, and summoned help in the form of King Rellis's personal guard. They made short work of the intruders.

  Areina suffered no lasting harm, Teva was recovered mostly angry and humiliated rather than injured, and Tegan and his conspirators were publicly executed less than three days later. The hierarchy does not suffer traitors at that level lightly and the proof had been overwhelming. While it did put a spotlight on the issues, and there was some measure of unrest as a result, by the large it was portions of the nobility rather than the people of the hierarchy that were against Areina's reforms. In the end, the pressure from the people, who rather loved Areina and thought her a good choice, dampened the fires of those who might have taken measures like Tegan's. That is not to say that there were no more attempts on Areina in the run up to her coronation, but they were disorganized, unprofessional things. Not a single one of which got close enough to her to seriously threaten her life or health.

  Teva stayed on with Areina, permanently replacing Vairc as her personal guard, while Vairc ended up taking the role as head of Royal Security. Areina was, of course, crowned Queen of the Arabuli hierarchy right on time, and has since become one of their most successful and beloved monarchs, bringing the Arabuli slowly and patiently out of their isolation and into primacy among the star-faring races. Tim returned for a time to the Project Valkyrie labs, but had grown something of a taste for cloak and dagger business. He eventually hooked up with one of the contacts he had made during the affair, an information broker by the name of Tera Sky, as I recall. The Starlight and her sister ships are, of course, likely well known to you, my readers, as the only real alternative to the Ring Transit System, though the comparative rarity of rift energy means they still only see use to speed transit between far-flung systems with much to offer each other in the way of trade.

  As for me, I consented to stay with Areina, at her request, until the time of her coronation. I was rather caught by surprise, however, when King Rellis awarded me one of their highest honors for service to the crown, something never given to an outsider before or since. I was caught even more flatfooted when Areina, using my previously given position as an honorary member of the Arabuli, “promoted” that status in rank as far as she could and named me an official adviser to the crown and ambassador at large to humanity. Thankfully, I managed to fob that last bit off on some other poor schmuck. She didn't fight me terribly hard, so I’m fairly certain she only did it to annoy me. They also keep trying to convince me to dye my skin, something I have so far managed to duck out of.

  Alas, by the time the coronation was over, I had been in one place for far too long and was itching to once again be traveling into the unknown. With a royal send off, I cast off to wander the stars, looking for my next storm to ride and a port to ride it out in.

  Chapter 11 – The Forgotten Planet

  Well, here we are again. You can stop the death threats now. I promise this chronicle is about the events of the second expedition to the Transient Planet. More accurately, it covers one of the many events that took place after we reached the Planet's home territories. The salient major points of our nine-year journey can be found in both the initial field reports, now released for academic consumption, and in Fredrick Saint Claire's new book on the subject, The Other Side of the Galaxy. Having finally been given leave to release my own accounts, as the major players have already begun to release theirs, I mulled over the issue of which stories to tell for some time.

  In the end, I decided not to revisit the historic firsts, or great scientific events, or even to focus much on the big picture at all. Things like the Xeroteais race (the creators of the Transient Planet), or the various governments, empires, phenomena, etcetera. These either already are or eventually will be covered by the more “official” material. Rather than covering the same ground as the others, I decided, ultimately, that I would focus on less prominent events. Events of no galaxy shattering importance, but of no less interest in their own way.

  Such is the case of this story. St. Claire wasn't present for the events, though Vivian and I were. As such, aside from my own account, it may be years before much detail is heard. So sit back and enjoy what I have to tell you about the tragedy that nearly befell The Forgotten Planet.

  ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

  Henry was desperately and valiantly struggling against his gravest and oldest foe— boredom. Even after four decades of space service, Henry still hadn't learned how to handle deep space surveying. On a proper ship, rather than an overgrown shuttle such as the survey ship he was current languishing on, he could always tinker. On scout and survey passes like this though, it was all about a prolonged staring contest with a console for mindless hours. He'd spent the first few such missions tinkering anyway, of course, improving the survey ship’s sensors and programming alongside Vivian, but they'd run out of things they could improve without dismantling the ship two trips ago.

  Peeking at Vivian, the other senior officer trapped with him by the knowledge that any scout ship could stumble into first contact out here in the unknown, Henry almost growled in envy as he spotted her snoozing away at her console. Sadly, that was why they'd been paired together. Vivian was nothing if not dependable in a pinch, but she handled boredom even more poorly than Henry. Worse, Henry was the only one among the senior crew that she hadn't stunned when they tried to nag her into staying awake. Though admittedly, that was mostly because he'd known better than to try.

  Swiveling back to stare at his console with half blurred eyes, Henry almost wished for something, anything, interesting to happen. Almost. After all, “anything” included sudden depressurization, attacks by giant alien space amoebas, and first contact with shark people that wanted to eat you. He swiftly moved on from such dangerous thoughts, instead contemplating how he could convince one of the poor junior officers, maybe that stuffy Brillian Serira? Yes, she'd do. Vivian and she already hated each other. How he could convince her to jab Vivian with a stimulant pen, then he could drift off for his own nap while she was too hyper to sleep.

  He didn't realize he'd started to daydream about the effects of a hyper Vivian on crew morale until Teluk tried to get his attention. “Sir! Sir! I've got something strange here. I think it's a ship. It's moving at about a quarter light speed.”

  Henry jolted out of his daydream and skimmed the various readouts. He quickly found his relay of Teluk's data and equally quickly spotted what was “strange” about the ship. It was large, very large, but not using much power for its size. Which is presumably why they hadn't noticed it until it was deep inside their sensor envelope. It wasn't heading for them though, which was a relief. Rather it was cutting across their course. Seeming either not to have noticed them, or perhaps not to have cared. Either of which was odd considering their long range scanning wasn't exactly subtle.

  Henry reached over and nudged Vivian awake.

  “Wah?” She rubbed her eyes, glaring at him. “I was having a nice nap!”

  “We've got company.” He tapped a few commands, highlighting the ship on her screens.

  The speed she went from sleepy to all business would have startled him if he hadn't witnessed it before. She tapped her own commands into her console and frowned. “What in the galaxy is that? Not enough energy signatures for a battleship. Some sort of mining platform?”

  Henry had been running his own sca
ns. “No, I think it might be something altogether rarer than that. I won't be sure until we move in close enough for life sign scans though.” Addressing their crew, Henry called out his orders. “Preitus, take us in close enough for those scans. Serira, Teluk, cut us back to passives. If they haven't noticed us yet, I'd rather they didn't until we have a better idea what they are. It could still be a warship with weapons we just don't recognize.”

  Vivian hmmmed. “Or an armed drone ship. Though it's awfully big for that. What're you thinking, Henry?”

  Henry hesitated. It was a pretty wild theory, but his instincts were rarely wrong. Shrugging, he admitted, “It's a pretty wild guess, but I think it's a slow-boat colony ship.”

  That got their attention. Even the helmsman glanced at him for a moment in surprise before returning to the requested maneuvers. It was Serira who voiced a protest. Stiffly, of course.

  “Sir, that is highly unlikely. We've seen the ruins of several light speed capable species in this region, even ignoring the Xeroteais. The likelihood of any species intelligent enough to have built such a ship also escaping their notice is infinitesimal.”

  Henry shrugged. “I'm well aware of that, but it's one of the possibilities that matches what we are seeing, and my gut says that's what I'm looking at.”

  Her face screwed up. She looked like she very much wanted to point out that his gut wasn't a viable form of analysis, but Vivian cut her off. “We'll see in a few minutes. Though I'm placing my bet on Henry. He's rarely wrong.”

  In the face of both her superior officers standing opposed to her, Serira visibly suppressed her annoyance. With her glowering quietness, a good ten minutes passed in relative silence. Any curiosity by the final two crew members was firmly suppressed by the intelligent decision not to risk setting Serira and Vivian off again.

  It wasn't long before they passed inside what should have been any normal ship's sensor envelope, but the much larger ship still hadn't reacted. Not that it was entirely a surprise if they had gotten this close unnoticed. Their ship, the unimaginatively named Falcon's Eye was, in reality, a mothballed military scout ship bought and refitted for survey work. So were the rest of the survey ships for that matter.

  The ex-military ships had been a perfect choice for a deep probe into completely unknown space. Fast, with top flight sensors and moderately armed, they could get into and back out of nearly any situation. Needless to say, these were human built ships, equipped with infinity powered fold drives for long range scouting with no Ring Network. While the military hardware aboard was outdated, their stealth systems had once been top notch and it was certainly showing its worth here as they slid, apparently unnoticed, deep within the normal range for detection. As they finally crept within scanner range for deciphering individual lifeforms, Teluk gasped and Henry grinned. He was right again. Chalk up another one for well-honed instincts.

  Teluk was quick to report the obvious, regardless that everyone had been staring at the sensors along with him. “One hundred fifty-seven thousand and fifty lifeforms aboard.”

  Vivian’s eyes positively glowed with interest as she added a somewhat more relevant observation. “And all but fifty of those are stationary and reporting very low vital signs. A cryoship or similar, with a conscious crew of fifty. Amazing.” She shook her head and glanced at Henry. “So you were right. That begs the question of, what now? Do we fall back and report this to the boss or check it out ourselves?”

  Henry drummed his fingers on the console for a moment. “St. Claire will be interested, but I doubt they've finished at the current site yet. He'd have to delay checking this out until they wrap up. This ship might only be cruising along at a quarter light speed, but if they make a course change, we could still lose them. Their energy signature is so low we almost missed them as it is.”

  Vivian, technically the senior of the two of them, not to mention the one who knew St. Claire better, nodded her head firmly at that observation. “So we make contact. Preitus. Back us off a million klicks or so, best not freak them out by showing up right out their viewports.” As Preitus acknowledged and began slowly backing them off, Vivian turned to Serira. “Alright, Princess, time to prove those linguistic and xenological skills of yours are worth putting up with your winning personality. Try the Xeroteais pack first. If they've had contact with anyone in this region, it's probably them, and with a tech level this low there's no guarantee they can work through the normal package.”

  Serira grimaced, whether at being told how to do her job or the gross breach of first contact protocol, Henry wasn't sure. Either way, her fingers flew as she broadcast the standard greetings, as neutral as possible, in the requested language. “It may be some time before we know if they made sense of it. I should probably—”

  The reply cut her off and came in video as well as audio, in an older Xeroteais format that their systems easily converted. An image of a large plant-like being quickly filled the main screen. It was hairless, colored a soothing mix of browns and reds, and had skin textured almost, but not quite, like bark. Despite its size, which Henry estimated at two and a half meters, the motions of its arms, all four of them, were quite rapid and jerky in apparent excitement. It spoke rapidly in the Xeroteais tongue. Thankfully, their translators kept up.

  “Could it be? Unknown ship, are you a Xeroteais vessel? Have you finally come back to us?”

  Vivian stood and activated the ship’s video equipment, sending her image back. “I'm afraid we are not. I apologize if we have created confusion, but we assumed that you may recognize the Xeroteais language if you are from this region of space.”

  The alien stared at Vivian’s form for a moment before it visibly shrunk. Literally, in this case, it seemed to lose a good half meter of its physical height. Despite what was obviously, even to they who were completely unfamiliar with this species, crushing disappointment, the alien quickly mustered itself and started again.

  “No, you are clearly not. I suppose it was too much to hope for, that they would have finally returned to us, in our hour of need.” Seeming to gather itself a bit more, and returning almost to the height it had been at the start, it continued. “My apologies for the outburst. I suppose your choice of language was a good one, even if it brought about a momentary loss of judgment on my part. All captains of the Life Ships are required to know the Xeroteais tongue.” It hesitated and stared at Vivian a few moments more. “Your message said you come in peace, strangers, but we do not know you or your kind. What is it you want with us? I am sure you must already see that we are a primitive people by your reckoning.”

  Vivian seemed lost for a moment. She was a security expert, not a diplomat, and likely hadn't thought this first contact thing through. She rallied quickly, however, and what she said next sounded so much like Fredrick St. Claire that Henry was quite sure she was copying something from another encounter of theirs. “We wish merely to exchange greetings and to learn about you and your people. We are even willing to render assistance if we have such that we can offer you.”

  Henry cringed just a little. That speech had probably been given to a species that St. Claire knew a great deal more about. For all Vivian knew, they had just offered help to a race of genocidal lunatics. Henry might not be a diplomat either, but he knew, at least, that you really ought not make offers like that so easily. Still, Vivian was, among her other talents and traits, possessed of extraordinary luck, so hopefully this would still work out.

  It was the offer of assistance that seemed to pique the interest of the alien. “Assistance? What sort of assistance? Would it be too much to hope that your people are familiar with Xeroteais equipment?”

  From the expression on her face, Vivian seemed to have realized, too late, that she might not have wanted to say that. Thankfully, it was unlikely the alien could interpret her expressions just yet. With only a slight pause, she offered, “We do have some experience with Xeroteais technology. Is your ship having a problem with something of theirs?”

  The be
ing made a strange, deep noise and a motion, perhaps indicating a negative given its next words. “No, our ship is of entirely our own technology, and you surely must have realized our primitive nature in comparison to the Great Builders of the Xeroteais by now? Our ships cannot even travel beyond the speed of light, or anywhere close to it for that matter, which we were given to believe was common among other space-faring races. That you are here seems to support that belief. No, it is our homeworld, Klenthe, the home of our people, the Bralnchie we are called, that is in dire need of help.” It lost stature again as it hesitated. “What you see before you is a Life Ship, one of the few my people have been able to create. Our world is dying at the hands of devices the Great Xeroteais gave us for protection. If no help comes, we and our sister ships will be all that remains of our people.”

  ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

  It hadn't taken long for things to escalate from that comment. Soon, the Bralnchie captain, who they had finally learned was named Rekukal, was coming aboard the Falcon's Eye. Surprisingly, the requirement that he come to them rather than the other way around, a demand made in concern over the numbers and sheer size of these aliens, had not given the alien captain pause. As he had put it, “We are likely already at your mercy, Miss Vivian. Small as it is, your ship could nevertheless doubtless destroy us utterly. What does it matter if I go there or you come here? It makes no difference to our vulnerability, and if it convinces you to help us, it can only be a good thing.”

  As Vivian, Henry and Serira waited in the ship's small conference room, really little more than a holotable and a handful of chairs, Henry sighed and reluctantly bit the bullet. “Alright, Serira, what can you tell us about them?”