The Long Way Home

by Darrell Bain

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  Double Dragon Publishing

  double-dragon-ebooks.com

  Copyright ©2009 by DDP

  First published in Double Dragon Publishing, 2009

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  CONTENTS

  THE LONG WAY HOME

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

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  The Long Way Home

  Copyright © 2009 Darrell Bain

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Double Dragon eBooks, a division of Double Dragon Publishing Inc., Markham, Ontario Canada.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from Double Dragon Publishing.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Double Dragon eBook

  Published by

  Double Dragon Publishing, Inc.

  PO Box 54016

  1-5762 Highway 7 East

  Markham, Ontario L3P 7Y4 Canada

  www.double-dragon-ebooks.com

  www.double-dragon-publishing.com

  A DDP First Edition July 20, 2009

  ISBN-9: 1-55404-692-0

  ISBN-13: 978-1-55404-692-8

  Book Layout and

  Cover Art by Deron Douglas

  www.derondouglas.com

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  THE LONG WAY HOME

  By

  Darrell Bain

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Dedication

  To John Ringo, David Weber and Travis S. Taylor

  Not only have I gotten a tremendous amount of pleasure from their books but reading them has made me a better writer.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Prologue

  For almost a century humans expanded their domain beyond Earth. The huge exploration starships ranged outwards, staying gone sometimes for a year or more while seeking habitable planets and hoping someday to meet other star-faring species. At first Earth and its colonies armed their ships against the possibility of hostile aliens. They constructed warships to patrol the home worlds and set up extensive defenses in case of need. As time passed, and humanity remained free of competition, preparations for fighting interstellar wars lagged. A once mighty military devolved into little more than a police force for settling squabbles among the several home worlds and policing the more remote colonies. The prospect of meeting other intelligent life in the galaxy waned. Scholars began writing long tomes proving beyond doubt that humans were a singularly unique species: the only one which had managed to evolve intelligence and break the bond of their home planet. Further, they postulated that even should another intelligent species be discovered, it was certain to be friendly. Nevertheless, Mankind ranged outward, seeking new frontiers but appearing destined always to be alone. To be sure, the exploration ships still carried contact protocols designed for technically sapient species, but they had never been used. The exploration ships also still went armed, but as time passed, it was thought that the weapons would never become necessary. And even if by chance they should, it was almost universally accepted that such an event would occur by accident rather than design. It was thought that other technically advanced species would welcome a meeting. The idea that such aliens might be hostile became a laughable notion—one that not even science fiction authors used very often as a theme.

  Such were the conditions when the new class of Exploration Ship Sam Johnston began its voyage. She was more than a year's travel and a thousand light years beyond the frontier worlds when the fabled technical civilization of aliens was first encountered. Contact protocols were initiated, and initiated again. By the third try at contact it was a foregone conclusion that the scholars had been wrong. Dead wrong. Disastrously wrong.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter One

  "I wish it was us going instead of them,” Explorer E2 Jeremy Costa said to his companion as he looked up from his Reader and stifled a yawn. The Explorer rec room in the Sam Johnston was about half full and at this hour beginning to get noisy. They'd have to move before long if they wanted to continue perusing studies in their primary specialties: xenomicrobiology and astronomy for him and xenogeology and xenopaleontology for her.

  "Huh!” Siegfrer Sorenson replied. “You in a hurry to die, Jer?"

  "Of course not. But it's a longboat going down this time. They can fight back.” The Sam Johnston carried two large longboats with a crew of three officers and ten spacers, along with five explorer officers and fifty to sixty explorer ratings. The two boats, each as large as a wet navy frigate, alternated the completion of assignments. They were warp capable but couldn't go nearly as many light years in a single jump as the big mother ship, and weren't meant for interstellar travel at all, except in an emergency.

  "The idea is to make peace with those ... critters,” Siegfrer answered. Shoving her Reader aside, she punched for a drink, and added, “But they haven't shown much inclination yet, have they? They seem more geared to killing any of us that come close."

  Noticing that she had ordered a drink, Jeremy did the same. He considered how to reply while he waited for the cart to arrive. He was only an Explorer Two on his first cruise—and newly promoted scarcely a month ago at that—while she was an Explorer Three on her second mission. Finally, he did speak.

  "Why do you think they killed the scouts, Sieg? Any idea?” It wasn't the first time by far that the question had been asked, and not only by him.

  "Who knows?” The chunky but well built blond of Swedish ancestry shrugged and shifted in her seat while doing interesting things to the top of her camouflage fatigues. “Best I can tell you is that they're alien. And if I were the Captain, I don't think I'd have come in this close, even if she is backing up Shannon.” The boat she referred to was their opposite number. Theirs was the longboat Hurricane Jack.

  Jeremy grinned slyly, emphasizing his young age and what he'd been told was a handsome face. “Now you know more than the Captain does!"

  "The monkeys on
that inhabited moon are the same ones that killed both scouts in the last system we were in. I bet we've stumbled onto some colony worlds of an empire, and they have orders to keep all aliens at arm's length, even if it means firing on intruders. And we're the aliens by their light."

  "Well, yeah, but couldn't they have made a mistake?"

  "Twice in a row on the same planet? Get real, Jer. That's why we're here now, in a different system. The captain's trying again, but frankly, I don't give it much hope."

  He couldn't argue much with her logic. The star system where the little scout ships had been lost was known only by a catalog number, but it had one inhabited planet. The sapient beings there were the first aliens discovered in all the years since humans had begun exploring the galaxy. It had yet to be named officially but was informally called Condor by the crew of E.S. Sam Johnston. No one knew yet what its permanent designation would be, but the usual practice was to allow the crew to attach a name to a newly explored planet. From orbit it was found to be thinly populated, yet the inhabitants displayed a fairly high technology. The crew of the first scout discovered just how high-tech, when their craft was shot out of the sky with an energy weapon while broadcasting contact protocols. The next was allowed to land and then was disabled. The six-man crew was slaughtered as soon as they stepped outside.

  "I suppose not,” Jeremy conceded, his young face earnest beneath his dark hair, “but I still say they might not be so damned quick on the draw when a longboat lands, especially when they know Sammie's in orbit above them. Captain Beauchamp's been broadcasting for a week. Surely they'll know by now that Shannon is peaceful.” He looked inquiringly at his friend, but she simply shook her head.

  "I don't buy it. The scouts had one of our longboats orbiting both times, and it still happened. Anyhow, there's no point in arguing. The Captain has decided. We'll find out soon enough, one way or another, so drink up and let's go study—or find something else to do.” She touched his shoulder and winked.

  "I'm for that,” he said, quite willing to forego any further discussion. Siegfrer was great even if she did move around a lot, having stated that she didn't intend to settle down yet. She had been with him for several weeks now. He had to admit she had taught him things he'd only fantasized about before she took him to her bed. Nevertheless, and despite where they were headed now, he still wished it was the crew of the Hurricane Jack longboat rather than their opposite numbers in Shannon who were landing on the inhabited moon of the gas giant.

  * * * *

  The longboat image flared briefly in atmosphere, and then the holotank blinked momentarily out of existence while it switched to a different perspective.

  "Well, they're not shooting, so far,” Gordon Roxley, executive officer of Sam Johnston, remarked.

  Captain Beauchamp nodded. She knew she was taking a chance coming this far into the system, at such a distance away from the area of the primary's gravity well where she could warp out if necessary. But damn it, this was the first sapient species ever found, and she didn't want to let it go. Obviously, they had an empire, or at least had settled more worlds than their original home, for both Condor and this Earth-sized satellite of a gas giant were clearly colony worlds. Condor had had only two settlements of any size, and both of them had fired on her scouts with no provocation at all. She had hoped to find the Monkeyclaws’ home world, but this clearly wasn't it. It was even more sparsely settled than Condor. Perhaps that would help. This time she was sending one of her two longboats down—the Shannon. Some of her officers thought she should have landed the boat near one of the isolated farm settlements, but she had decided against it. At any rate, it was too late to change her mind. Shannon was committed, just as the Sam Johnston was.

  She shivered involuntarily as she thought of the aliens. The name given them in jest before the scouts were destroyed was Monkeyclaws, because recordings sent back by the first one showed how they looked. They combined something like an armadillo's backside with a monkey's upper body, terminating in a head resembling a monkey's but with huge eyes and a slash of mouth filled with shark-like teeth. All four arms ended in sharply clawed retractable digits, the lower ones larger than the upper. They were frightening to the eye, but she knew that was only human prejudice. At least she sincerely hoped so.

  The holotank came back into focus, now showing a small settlement in the distance. Similar to the ones on Condor, the cluster of buildings gleamed in the sun, against a backdrop of distant blue mountains. It was a pretty world. The Monkeyclaws were oxygen breathers and used about the same proportion of carbon dioxide and oxygen and nitrogen as humans. They could be friends, if only they would listen. And this time she had instructed the crew of the longboat to broadcast the contact protocols for more than a week, in all likely bands of the spectrum, before they landed. Surely they would have had time by now to unravel the friendly intention of a first meeting with a different species. If not ... well, she had Sam Johnston to back up Shannon and her crew.

  "Still no hostilities, Captain. Maybe this time it will work."

  Again, she simply nodded at her XO's words, not wanting to speak for fear a tremor in her voice would show how nervous she was. The nearest point of the primary's gravity well from which a big ship like theirs could translate was hours away, and the Monkeyclaws had already shown that they weren't lightly armed, even on colony worlds. Or perhaps their colonies were meant to be armed. They employed a kind of energy pulse weapon and missiles similar to those used by humans.

  Or ... could it be? Maybe they were fearful of a third presence—an enemy other than human—and that was what made them so touchy ... so implacably hostile. It could very well be, she thought. In that case, the footage in the protocols showing the human form should keep them from being mistaken for their foes, if such existed. And why not? The galaxy was a big place, and theirs was the first ship to venture so far along the spiral arm which contained earth's sun. That left billions upon billions of unexplored planets.

  The primary fear preying on Captain Beauchamp's mind was the thought of a Monkeyclaw interstellar ship showing up before their intentions could be grasped by the settlers here. Judging from the weapons used on the scouts, it would likely be more than a match for Sam Johnston.

  "They're down,” Roxley announced. He was staring into a small screen separate from the holotank. It uploaded a continuous feed from inside the longboat.

  "Great. Maybe this time we'll get through to them.” The cheery voice of Joyce Chambers came to her from the astrogators's station on the other side of the control room.

  "Good enough so far,” Beauchamp agreed. She moved to stand behind her XO and watch the feed there.

  Roxley's screen was split. One part showed the forward interior section of the longboat, looking backward from a point forward and above the longboats's XO and astrogator. Both were busy with their after-landing instrument check. Behind them, the feed showed the back of the longboat captain's head, as he looked through the open cockpit door and into the hatches of offices and officers’ cabins on each side of the passageway. Beyond that was a closed hatch. As Roxley and Beauchamp watched, the hatch opened, and the view switched to take in the length of the interior back to the airlocks on each side of the hull. Farther back lay the loading and storage bays, power plants, and recyclers. The crew bunked in single rooms overhead. Their lounge and mess was a deck below.

  Another upload came on line with a view of the outside area. A short double strip of scorched vegetation showed where the thrusters had been used in addition to gravity pulses to set the longboat down. Well away from there lay the alien settlement.

  Beauchamp squinted. “What's that I see?"

  "Where?” Roxley asked.

  "There, just to the side of those smaller structures. Some of the Monkeys are pushing a device into the open. See?"

  "Yes, ma'am, but they're a long way off. I can't make out what it is."

  Beauchamp flicked the com switch.

  "Myers, com,” an enlist
ed tech said.

  "PO Myers, Captain here. Please relay a request to Shannon for a telephoto feed of this area"—she dropped a circle icon over the area where the Monkeyclaws were still fussing with their device—"and tell Commander Tem to keep his thrusters on standby if they aren't already."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  But apparently Tem was already suspicious. The image blinked and the Monkeyclaws abruptly were being viewed through a telephoto lens. His reaction was immediate.

  "That's a goddamn energy gun! Prepare to..."

  The sound of an explosion overpowered his voice. The screen showing the interior of the longboat jumped with the impact of an energy pulse that shook the whole boat. A blast of smoke and debris erupted from a hole blasted through the hull and into the interior. Another explosion crashed into the ship—a deeper, unseen one from farther back.

  "Captain, both my thrusters are gone!” Tem's voice was filled with agony. It showed on his face in stark, bleak lines as he looked up to the screen feeding the view back to Sam Johnston. “We need—oh, goddamn it to hell!"

  There was no need of explanation. The outside recording showed what had ripped the oath from him. Open ground cars were already racing toward the boat, packed with Monkeyclaws who were already firing their hand weapons. They emitted brief red flickers as tiny energy pulses erupted from the gun housings and impacted with stuttering splats on the fuselage of the longboat. They seemed not to care that the pulses were ineffective unless they went through the holes the larger gun had blasted for them—but that was where their fire was being aimed, as well as it could be from the moving ground cars.

  Beauchamp closed her eyes, sharing Tem's despair with a sickened knot of horror in her chest. There was nothing she could do for him now except remind him of his duty. “Commander Tem, protect our home worlds. Set your scuttling charge, but hold out if you can. I'll try to get some fire around your position next pass and send Hurricane Jack for you."

  "I doubt that we'll last until then, Skipper. We'll let them know how hard humans die, though."