The Exxar Chronicles: Book 01 - The Erayan

by Neal Jones

  Vi'Sar merely blinked, then looked at his glass. "I do miss Kauramide wine. This is an excellent vintage."

  Arrul hid his scowl behind the rim of his glass. He was about to speak when Vi'Sar continued.

  "If you know about the Jha'Drok, then you know enough. I have secured their alliance, and they will help us regain the former glory of the Empire."

  "How? It has to be more than just this new technology that they've given us."

  "No. The technology is all that they've given us. But the Jha'Drok have their machinations, plans that will be launched at the same time as mine." Vi'Sar smiled and the cold hunger in his eyes made Arrul's gut clench. "You should be proud of what you've accomplished here, Schabe. Your resistance cell is one of the largest in this sector." He stood and downed the last of his wine. "I will be leaving tomorrow to tour the other cells. All you need to know is to have your people gathered together in the warehouse. The ship will be in orbit in ten days. Once you're aboard, there will be another briefing."

  Arrul stood and saluted. "Your will is mine, General. We serve for the glory of the Empire."

  "For the glory of the Empire," Vi'Sar echoed, returning the salute. He walked out of Arrul's office, and the cell leader sank back onto his chair. A cold sweat broke upon his brow, and he pushed aside his tumbler that was still half full of wine. Things were moving much faster than he had anticipated, and while he was relieved that he had gained Vi'Sar's complete trust, he wondered if there was enough time now for him to do what needed to be done. If he waited until the ship was in orbit, it would be too late. But if he acted too soon, it would tip his hand and Vi'Sar would not hesitate to act accordingly.

  After several minutes of silent deliberation, Arrul arrived at a decision. He relaxed, inhaling deeply, and then reached for his glass. There was no other choice. The time to act was now, or, more correctly, tomorrow night.

  ( 7 )

  "Oh, thank god! Please tell me that this is an elevator."

  Eight hours into their descent Decev and Benson had finally arrived at a small landing. Karri set down her rifle case and programmed her scanner to do another atmospheric check.

  "Still green. Radiation saturation is less than one percent."

  Decev nodded, and she reached for her helmet clasps at the same time as Benson. Once the helmets were off, the women took slow, hesitant breaths and pulled up the medical readouts on their scanner's holo-screens. The bio-monitors attached to their skin and connected to the internal mechanics of their EVA suits gave no sign of contamination or imminent biological danger.

  "So far, so good." Decev grabbed her canteen and took a long drink, then walked over to the com panel which was embedded in the wall next to the door. She removed her right glove and then pressed her hand on the panel. It sprang to life, displaying a pair of interlocking triangles, each a different color, and each containing a different alien symbol. Decev took a step back to visually examine the panel, and, after a few seconds, Benson impatiently stepped forward and pressed the red triangle.

  The door opened.

  "Are you always this impulsive?" Decev growled.

  "I have a wedgie, I'm exhausted, and I'm really hoping that there's some kind of communications center on the other side of that door," Karri snapped. "Or an elevator." The room beyond was dark, and she stepped forward to shine her light into it. She gave a disgusted snort. "No elevator, and the bank of consoles is pretty small."

  Decev walked past her, and panned her own light slowly around the small space. The walls were blank and the only piece of furniture was the bank of consoles near the door. Something caught Decev's eyes and she walked to the far wall, examining the surface closely.

  "I don't get it," Benson mused. "Why put stairs in a thirteen kilometer tunnel? Why not an elevator?"

  "Because an elevator can cease functioning in the event of a power failure. It's a sure bet that the designers of this tunnel reinforced the walls and the stairs to withstand any seismic activity as well. They wanted this room to be accessible, no matter what."

  "What are you looking at?" Karri joined Mariah on the other side of the room.

  "Slide your hand over this part of the wall. It feels different from the rest of the wall over here." Decev checked her scanner readout, then blinked in surprise. "There's an Omss regulator net in this entire section of the wall."

  "Isn't that one of the components in our cardon systems?"

  Decev nodded, then walked back to the consoles. "Help me get this up and running. There's got to be a portable power source in here somewhere."

  ( 8 )

  "We should go after them." Asimonn paced the flight deck like a caged predator. "It stopped raining an hour ago. We have no idea how far that tunnel extends past the twelve kilometer mark."

  "No, lieutenant," McCoy replied firmly. "Just because we lost communication with them doesn't mean they're in danger. We give them another four hours and then we send in a team."

  Asimonn glowered at the commander before stomping to the ladder well and descending out of sight.

  "He's got one galactic stick up his ass," Carter observed.

  Night had fallen three hours earlier, and the officers were grouped on the flight deck, killing time by playing cards and taking turns at the tactical console. Continuous security scans ensured that the Apollo wouldn't be caught by surprise, but if the last several days were any indication, there was no threat on the surface of this planet except for the acid rain, which fell at least once a day in dark, angry cloudbursts. Were it not for her deflector screens, the Apollo's hull would have begun to erode and decay long ago. Endari had collected a sample of the rain during the recent downpour, and she had been shocked by the analysis. The radiation and pollution saturation in the sample was almost eighty percent. There was enough fuel aboard the Apollo to last for several weeks, and the Dauntless would be back in only a few hours. The only worry now was Decev and Benson.

  ( 9 )

  "I think I've got it." Benson pressed a blue switch from left to right, then pressed the green button next to it.

  "That did it!" Decev grinned with anticipation as alien symbols and hieroglyphs appeared on the console's screens. She pulled a scanner node from one of her right arm pockets and attached it to the console's surface, then linked her scanner to the node. "This is going to take an hour, maybe longer." She typed a command into the linguistic translation matrix, and the program began to download and assimilate the foreign language.

  Benson settled herself against the wall, near the open door, and she pulled a protein bar from one of her leg pockets. Decev sat as well and reached for her canteen. After a long sip, she glanced in Karri's direction.

  "Was it really a mutual breakup, or did you have feelings for him?"

  "You're an L2, right? So you can tell if I'm lying or not."

  Decev chuckled. "It's not as simple as that. It depends on the emotional state of the other person. You're not one of these people that wears their heart on their sleeves so, no, I can't tell for certain if you're lying."

  Benson took a drink of her canteen, her expression dubious, but after wiping her mouth she said, "Yeah. I suppose I did. I still do."

  Mariah nodded as she opened a protein bar. "There's something about him, isn't there? He has this..."

  " – dark charisma." Karri leaned back against the wall and shifted her legs into a more comfortable position. "That's how Commander Lee put it."

  Mariah smiled. "Yeah, that sounds about right." She chewed slowly, grimacing that the taste of her bar. "I always forget how bland these things taste."

  "I like 'em." Karri finished hers and wadded up the wrapper.

  "There's a part of me that wants him," Decev admitted. "But then I wonder how much of a father figure he'll be for Josh. And Josh is going through his own difficult time right now, so I think that me dating is just going to muddy the waters even worse." She shook her head. "Everything's so complicated right now, and it didn't help that Marc was so juvenile about his prop
osal."

  Karri was in the midst of taking another drink, and she coughed with laughter, spurting water on the front of her suit. "Let me guess: half a bottle of scotch, and then an invitation to share the rest."

  Mariah giggled. "Yeah, that's right."

  "It doesn't matter what century they come from, men are pretty much the same." She closed her eyes and laid her head back. "You take first watch. Wake me in an hour or when that thing finishes its job." Karri waved a hand in the direction of the console.

  "Sure." Mariah checked her display readout. There was no indication yet how large the alien computer's database was, so the LTM couldn't give an accurate rate of progress. A typical translation task in this kind of situation lasted a minimum of one hour, but no more than six. Of course, there was exceptions to every rule, so it could reasonably take as long as two days to fully assimilate the database.

  Mariah glanced at Karri, surprised to see that the science officer was already asleep. She shook her head and shined her light at the far wall. From a distance, it was hard to tell where the regulator net, which was embedded just beneath the surface, began and ended. Mariah sighed and turned her thoughts to the alien consciousness that she had been sensing in the back of her mind ever since she and Karri had begun their descent. She reached out once more, probing whatever space lay beyond or below this room, but there was no more strength to that foreign presence that there had been eight hours ago. It was like a shadow, lying along the edges of the mind's light, and Decev closed her ability, sighing as she checked the scanner's readout. Now that the descent was over, and now that she'd sat down, she suddenly realized how tired she was. She decided that there was no harm in taking a short nap. It was possible that there could be a threat from whatever consciousness she was detecting somewhere below, but her scanner would automatically alert her if anything unusual entered sensor range, or when the LTM finished its task. She closed her eyes, and it took her less time than it had Benson to fall asleep.

  Chapter 18

  ____________________

  ( 1 )

  The blue vortex exploded into being, belched forth the ECS Dauntless, and then growled back into nothing. On the bridge, Captain McKenna leaned forward in her command chair, every muscle comfortably taut, her sharp gaze probing the starfield on the forward viewscreen for any sign of the drones. Her command crew relayed various reports to her and each other, and the red alert klaxon sang its single, blaring note in the background.

  "Launch the alert fighters," McKenna ordered. "Once a CAP is formed, launch the raider. Then begin transmitting the jamming field."

  All three orders were carried out with speed and clarity, and the stingers shot from their berths like manned torpedoes, falling instantly into the prescribed formation. Seconds later, the Haal'Chai raider zoomed from its launch tube, and Lieutenant Corwin navigated a safe distance from the CAP. The jamming field was already in effect so the usual background chatter in her helmet's headset was gone. It was disconcerting, like losing a limb, and Corwin found it more difficult to concentrate on her tactical readouts in the ominous silence. She decided to talk to herself since no one would be able to hear her anyway, but what to discuss?

  "Well, there's a whole range of topics, Neva. For starters, what exactly is happening between you and your CAG? Do you always start forbidden relationships just to see if you can get away with it, or are you actually in love with him?"

  "Okay, never mind. No talking to myself."

  She passed one more glance over her tactical screen, noting the position of the blue dots that represented the alert fighters. Nothing else was in range, and Corwin glanced at her chrono in the upper corner of her secondary screen. A full three minutes had passed since the Dauntless had emerged from the gateway, and still no sign of the drones.

  "Report," McKenna barked, forcing her index finger to cease its rapid rhythm against her armrest.

  "I've zeroed in on the surface crash site," Lieutenant Reyes stated. "Seven biosigns. Six human and one Chrisarii. Still no sign of – wait." He punched in a command sequence, then his mouth tightened into a grim line as he looked at the readout. "Confirmed. Four drones on intercept course. Forty seconds to weapons range."

  McKenna sat back and activated her safety harness, as well as the tactical screen in her armrest. "Launch the second, third and fourth squadrons."

  Juarez relayed the orders, as Reyes brought the offnet online and Voorhees prepared to move the ship into a defensive position.

  Corwin grinned as thirty new blips appeared on her tactical screen. The stingers fanned out to join the alert fighters, creating a wide envelope around the Dauntless. Foxfire took a deep breath, her smile quickly fading as four red dots appeared from the upper half of the screen.

  "Showtime," she muttered as she inputted several commands into her console. It was time to see how this baby handled actual combat. Firing at asteroids was one thing. Shooting at a moving target that was firing back at you was another. Corwin laid in an intercept course for the lead drone.

  Twenty seconds to weapons range.

  "Captain, the jamming field appears to be working," Reyes said. "The drones aren't moving with the same speed and precision which they used before."

  "Open fire as soon as we're within range," McKenna ordered.

  A tense silence filled the bridge as everyone quietly counted the seconds to contact.

  A fresh surge of adrenaline coursed through Foxfire as she pressed the button on her console and unleashed a storm of disruptor energy upon the lead drone. The sphere exploded like rotten fruit, spewing guts and fuel in all directions. The pilot laughed with surprise as she sailed through the debris field. One of the other drones diverted its course to intercept her, and she locked her targeting scanner on it. Another barrage of weapons fire, another debris field. This was too damn easy.

  "Keep it coming, motherfuckers!" Corwin yelled as she targeted the third drone.

  "I don't believe this!"

  "Report, lieutenant," McKenna snapped.

  "Corwin is obliterating the drones. The alert fighters are intercepting most of the enemy's fire, and she's destroying them with only a single barrage." He pulled up a readout, perused it, then looked at McKenna with an expression of glee. "All four are gone!"

  McKenna didn't hide her own smile of triumph. "Excellent. But let's stay sharp, people. Are there any more on their way to replace these?"

  Reyes quickly skimmed his screen. "Negative."

  "Maintain red alert. Mister Juarez, break the jamming field long enough to check in with our pilots. And relay my gratitude to Foxfire."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Roger that." Corwin checked her maintenance displays. "All readings are go. I'm ready for the next round."

  "Copy that, Foxfire. AGC out."

  Corwin grinned as she sat back and checked her tactical screens. This was going to be easier than she thought, but then her panel beeped a warning, and ten crimson dots appeared on her screen. They immediately fanned out, faster than the other four, and Corwin wasted no time in setting a course and locking on target.

  "Either we were wrong about how they communicate with each other, or the jamming field is having no effect, captain," Reyes said.

  The bridge rocked, and fresh alarms pealed. Only a couple officers were caught off balance, and they were prevented from getting up as the deck lurched again.

  "Deflector strength at sixty-two percent!" Reyes barked. "The drones have surrounded us and we're taking it from all sides!" He rapidly punched commands into the offnet, returning fire with all weapons batteries, but, like before, it was nearly useless. The Dauntless may as well have been a housefly attacking an elephant.

  "Holy shit!" Corwin jammed the throttle forward and then executed an evasive maneuver that sent her stomach rocketing into her throat. As she came back around, she slammed her thumb on her firing button and raced at full speed towards the nearest drone. This time, it took a little longer to overload the enemy's deflectors, and the coc
kpit rattled with violent force as the raider was hit from behind.

  "Fuck!" Corwin executed another one-eighty and found herself nose to nose with a drone. She barely had enough room to open fire before altering course so as not to collide with the automated daredevil. She jerked around for another pass, not wanting to lose her opportunity, but, because of its spherical shape, the drone only had to rotate its gun ports on their hidden tracks. It fired first, but Foxfire wasn't backing down this time. She had enough distance to unleash a satisfactory assault, but now there was a second drone closing in to join its brother in the fight. Corwin barely had enough time and room to destroy the first foe before slamming her ship ninety degrees starboard to engage the second drone head on.

  "Two drones destroyed. Deflector strength at forty-six percent. They're ignoring all the other stingers, just like before."

  Reyes' tone was unusually calm, and McKenna silently congratulated him on keeping his panic under control. Two drones down, eight to go, and the Dauntless' deflector strength wasn't going to last another five minutes. On a ship the size of the Dauntless, the deflector field was generated in four quadrants – one fore, one aft and two in between. Right now, the first and third quadrants had taken the heaviest damage and were about to buckle. Reyes was doing his best to divert power from the second and fourth generators to compensate, but it wasn't anywhere near enough. Once the generators failed, the ship's hull wouldn't last two minutes beneath an onslaught like this.

  "C'mon, you fucking bastard, just die already!" Corwin was racing towards her third drone, and the asshole wasn't going down like his brothers. The possibility that these drones were capable of adapting and upgrading with each new fleet was a disturbing thought that had already occurred to Foxfire. And if that was the case then she was prepared to take as many of the heathens with her when they finally obliterated her skinny ass.