“You are equipped with the same sort of prejudices we have. That’s all I mean.”
“Sir, I was against including these people on the mission from the start. This is going to be dangerous enough without having primitives aboard. What’s worse, we have to nursemaid a bubblehead.”
“I was wondering about that,” quipped Smith.
“About what?” asked Fitz.
“Attitude problems toward the aliens too.”
“Sir the corporal is not only trying to take over the mission but has apparently set himself up as our judge as well.”
“That’s enough from both of you! In case you haven’t noticed, we are just a few hours from being dropped in hostile territory, we have got to learn to work together, or none of us might make it out.”
“The corporal and his men are on this mission as gunners only, not planners.”
“He has a point, sir. I might have been out of line; it was not intentional.”
“No, everything you have offered has been for increasing our survivability. Now, gentlemen, if we can continue. Any problems I might not have thought about with jumping into the system opposite the small planet we are interested in?”
They looked at each other, but no one spoke. “Good, we can use the large inner planets to help shield our approach.”
“Sir, we will also be blind. This system is full of asteroids and comets. What if we came around into the clear at a speed and on a trajectory that would mimic a natural object? It might give us time to look around without them being any the wiser,” offered Smith.
The skipper spoke up. “Yes, but it will take months to get close to the target. That’s time we don’t have.”
“We will not have to stay that way long, just long enough to get the lay of the land.”
“The what?” asked the skipper.
“Time enough to check things out, see how many ships they have, maybe even find the missing ship, that sort of thing. Once in we might have time to better formulate our next steps.”
“Could work. What do you think?” asked du Bois.
“Might be an idea. It might, at least, buy us some time. But what if they have sentry ships all around the system?” asked Fitz.
“In that case gentlemen, we will be detected and will have to get to the target planet and out as fast as possible,” answered du Bois.
“Does this system have an Ort Cloud or Kuiper Belt like region?” asked Smith.
Fitz adjusted the picture down to where the outer star system was visible. “Yes, it does. Why do you ask?”
“Well if this transport ship just jumps out and returns at a prearranged time, we might already be dead. Would it be possible for them to jump out, hide in this region, and wait for our signal? They might be able to get us out of a jam.”
“Jam?” asked the skipper.
“Get us out of trouble,” answered Smith.
Chapter 14: Alien Rescue
Excerpt taken from, The Staff Field Manual of The People and Human Combined Command.
For the use of human commanders in preparing training materials for human recruits:
The Enemy
We call them Reptilians – a human word, as they resemble four-legged, lower life forms of the human world. There is nothing quite like them in our world.
They are over two meters (human measurement) tall. The males are generally 20 to 30% larger than females on average. They are quite muscular with a short snout and a mouth full of carnivore teeth. They have brow ridges and a long low skull.
They are bipedal, have a dorsal armored spine, with claws on their hands and feet. They are equipped with a strong, flexible tail that has a bony prominence at the end. This was most likely originally used in mating bouts. Apparently, they gather a harem of females.
We suspect males squeezed out of mating rites become psychologically aggressive. Primarily it is the males who do the fighting. They appear to be extremely territorial as well.
Weaknesses: The skin on the ventral side is not as thick as the dorsal side. The flat “cat eyes” are vulnerable as are the sex organs. These latter are located as we and the humans are familiar; only they can retract them offering some protection in a fight.
As conquests of worlds colonized by The People have indicated, we are no match for them in a fight. Incidentally, few humans would be as well. However, our technology gives us an advantage.
We have noticed in our study of the Reptilians that as they move away from their home world, there is a tendency to move away from harems ruled by a dominant male to polygamous marriages. We even found one community where there were only monogamous relationships. Violence tends to be less evident in these places.
The females: The females are somewhat smaller than the males, calmer by their standards, and more capable of reason. From captured documents and our observations, the females are responsible for the development of culture, science, technology, and perform the day-to-day activities to run the society under the head male.
However, do not underestimate them in a fight. They have a very short tail with no prominence, and it may possibly be used to signal readiness for mating. On the home world, one male tends to service a harem of females. This may even be part of what drives them to colonize, to get away from this traditional arrangement.
Fertilization is internal, and they lay eggs in a clutch. Females tend to wander until they find a harem, but one of the problems for them is that females occasionally slip away and eventually join another harem.
They lay a clutch of one or two eggs. In primitive times, eggs were buried in the warm sand. They sometimes even lay unfertilized eggs that will not hatch. Hatching only happens when females “mate”.
Some of the larger more aggressive human males might be a match for one of the Reptilian females in a fight if her mouth was muzzled so she could not bite.
Reptilian technology
Their ships are huge, bulky, and primitive by the standards of The People and the human Separatists. They had traditionally been used to carry conquerors and settlers on one-way trips to nearby stars. Had their home world not been so close to the galactic core, they might never have spread out of their own star system. They had very little communication between colonies, so each was able to develop its own unique way of living.
This all changed when one of our exploration ships, on a joint mission with the humans, was destroyed by them. Now they have our drive technology. While imperfect and problematic, they have been able to make ships that can jump from one space-time to another just as we can.
That is how they managed to attack our colonies and exterminate The People. Initially, we lacked the will or the heart, as the humans call it, to kill. Only our superior technology and ships manned by human Separatists saved us from quick extinction. They were no match fighting ship to ship. However, the Separatist human ground attack mission was annihilated by the Reptilians.
The Reptilian ships are made mostly of metals with some ceramics used for separate functions. Their ship-to-ship missiles are primitive, slow, and easily avoided. They employ large battleships for fighting in space. The small converted destroyers of the Separatist humans have the advantage. Still they have spread through several star systems, crushing everything in their path.
Their ground fighting technology is much more sophisticated, developed from centuries of fighting amongst themselves. They tend to favor getting in close to an opponent and finishing him off with blade, tail, teeth, or claws.
They do have a primary infantry weapon, which fires metal projectiles and would destroy an unprotected human. They tend to ride to the battlefield, dismount and prefer to fight hand to hand.
This has proven to be a great disadvantage to them in ship-to-ship battles, as they use their ships as platforms for their infantry whereas the human Separatists use theirs as platforms for their artillery.
“Drop out of star jump in 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - 0.” They all experienced the disorienting feeling on dropping back into real space, a combination of nausea and being sloshed around inside a bucket. The air had already been pumped out of the small hangar, so Navy Lieutenant du Bois lifted her up as soon as the hangar door was open.
In their respective bubbles, each gunner got a firsthand view of the stars in deep space for the first time. This far in there was more of them and nebulas had color. The ship quickly moved away from the alien transport vessel.
Willy could not take his eyes off it. “You guys should see this. Man, this thing is big.”
“Captain, can you bring her about?” requested Fitz.
“Yes sir, not a problem. I would like to see this myself.”
The alien ship was huge. At first, it looked as though it was traveling away from them. It accelerated, banked, and from their perspective passed below the plane of the ecliptic. As it banked, they could see that it was a huge triangle, lit at each corner. It rapidly accelerated and appeared to just blink out of existence, and they were alone.
The pilot yawed the ship to starboard, entered the code, and the ship accelerated around the star. By the time it had cleared the first of the large inner planets, their speed and trajectory matched a comet passing around the star.
“Commander, we are powered down as much as possible in Corporal Smith’s listening mode.” He smiled and slid his oxygen mask back over his face.
“Very good. Don’t mind us, we are just a piece of floating space debris.” He grinned at Smith, who chuckled.
Spaceflight is never completely quiet. There are always the sounds of air being forced out vents and around the cabin, an electronic hum, or the occasional adjustment to keep in the proper attitude. This time there was almost nothing.
I can hear myself breathe, thought Smith. He saw the commander put his hand to his forehead. His lips moved, but Smith could not hear the words. Fitz’s eyes closed. He waited. Denver thought of putting on his headband, but it would just complicate things. His thoughts might just confuse and frighten the alien. Besides, he had a job to do.
He glanced at chief who was staring intently at his screen. “Mine shows nothing,” said Chief quietly as though it would keep the enemy from hearing.
Fitz spoke up. “He is getting something, not The People or human. It seems agitated, and he thinks there are numerous voices.”
“Long range is picking up something,” injected Chief.
“I’ve got nothing near us,” added Denver. They waited. He was almost envious of his men who were getting a great view of the sky alone, cold, and distant. If I get the chance, I’ll have to go steal a peek.
“Sir, I’m getting spectrographic readings that could be indications of engines firing,” said Chief. “It’s massive.”
“Rocket engines?”
“Yes, sir, from the spectrum it’s like the nuclear engines we used before we met the aliens and converted over to their in-system drive.”
Fitz furiously typed on his keyboard. “It will take them quite some time to get to us. They will still have to loop around the star. If they detected the drop into real space, they might be after the alien ship and not after us at all.”
“Well, they are burning like a star themselves,” added Chief. “They must be in one heck of a hurry.”
“The question is how close to the star are they willing to go. When they come out around the other side, they will be hauling it,” added Fitz thoughtfully.
“Their ships leak all over the spectrum. We should be able to develop some way to detect these guys; you know an early warning system,” mused the chief.
“Actually, we are already quite a ways along on that. Documenting this will help. Make sure we are recording everything.”
Chief changed screens. “Don’t worry Commander; we are getting everything.” He switched back.
They waited. It soon became clear that the Reptilian ship would loop dangerously close to the star. Denver was beginning to learn that the waiting was the hardest.
“I better go check on my people.” He looked over at Fitz.
“Don’t take long, and remember do not turn on anything. Don’t turn anything off either,” instructed Fitz.
“How are we at keeping down our spectrographic signature?” asked Smith.
“I don’t know. Skipper?”
“We are getting better at it. Our ships were not designed for combat, so we had a lot or refitting to do. This ship is actually one of the first to be retrofitted. Other than we do not reflect as much light as a comet, our electromagnetic signature should be pretty hard to see.”
As Denver stiffly got to his feet, he could not help but notice that this group of people was starting to sound like a crew. Having a mission commander, other than the ship’s captain, required an added man and might not catch on even though it seemed to work well under the current circumstances.
* * * *
“So how’s it going, Willy?”
“Just sitting alone here in the dark, trying to keep an eye out for something even blacker than space.”
“Any luck?”
“Not yet. This may or may not prove to be the best way to use gunners, but if you are antisocial enough, it’s a great place to be. Anything going on?”
“The bad guys have launched something, but we are not sure if it is coming after us or is in response to our jump into the system.”
“How long do we have?”
“I don’t exactly know. It depends on how much risk they have the belly for as they loop around the sun.”
“Loop around the sun? Why don’t they just come at us?”
“Orbital mechanics. The planet they were orbiting was going real fast in one direction around the star. They will need to keep moving in that basic direction and around the sun before they can even think of coming after us.”
“Okay, if you say so. No wonder they keep making you corporal.”
“I was fascinated by this sort of thing as a kid. Never thought I’d get this far.” Visits to the other two gun stations yielded similar results. People were getting tired and bored.
Sitting back down on the flight deck, “Commander, as nothing much seems to be happening, how about we start letting people get some rest?”
“Okay, but we need to keep a couple of guys on the flight deck just to be on the safe side.”
“I’ll start rotating my guys out.”
The skipper turned to the FO, “Why don’t you get some rest. I’ll relieve you in a couple of hours.”
“Right.”
“Just be able to get back up here quickly.”
“I won’t be far.”
“What about the alien?” asked Denver.
“Well, he’s in sort of a relaxed guard. I can almost feel him purring.”
“Purring?”
“It’s hard to explain. Figuratively speaking, his antenna is up, but he’s resting.”
If it were possible, things quieted down even more. Fitz took over Chief’s station. The pilot napped in place. The ship had slowly started to roll end over end in space. No effort was used to stop it. She just looked like a natural object tumbling through space, or so they hoped.
* * * *
This went on for over a week and had become pretty much routine. Denver went back to the flight deck after checking on Tyron, who had the top position. Fitz looked like he was in deep thought or asleep.
Suddenly he sat bolt upright and grabbed his head. “I’ve asked you not to do that. It really hurts.”
“Sir?”
“I’ve found them; I’ve found them! That’s all he keeps saying. I can’t get anything in edgewise.”
“What’s he found?”
“From all the excitement, I think he’s found his
people. Somebody must still be alive.”
“That’s a game changer.”
“Say again.”
“That changes things,” explained Denver.
“How so?”
“If any of the aliens are still alive, it would not please our allies if we just leave them. Not to mention the fact that they might be able to get information out of them. Then again, the debriefing of the aliens might give us valuable insight into the enemy.”
“So now they are high value.”
“It would appear so,” Smith responded.
“Hang on. Slow down! Man, I hate it when they do that.” He ripped his headband off. Fitz was sweating and looked ashen, weak, and tired.
“You okay?”
“No, I’ve got to go back and get him to calm down. You take the flight deck.”
“Yes, sir. Good luck.”
“Yeah.” With that, Fitz got up and stumbled down the companionway holding his head.
Over the passing days, they had decided to only keep one man on duty on the flight deck, saving themselves for whatever might come their way. First, he checked Chief’s terminal. All systems appeared nominal, and the sensors were continuing to collect data.
Next, he checked the short-range station, then Fitz’s. The enemy was too close to the star now to be seen anymore. It was only a matter of time now; the enemy would be behind them and in front of them. We might have outsmarted ourselves. He settled into his four-hour watch.
He was dozing when something caught his attention. Something was happening near the target planet. “This is interesting,” Denver said aloud. He went to find Chief.
“Yeah, they’re firing their rockets all right. You were right about that. Three craft it looks like, but they were not big burns. I don’t get it. Go get the skipper will you.”
“What you got, Chief?” said the ship’s captain as he entered the flight deck.
“Well, they have moved three spacecraft, but just a little.”
“Interesting, put it on my screen.”
He looked over at Denver. “Good eye. Where’s the Commander?”
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