The Exxar Chronicles: Book 01 - The Erayan

by Neal Jones

  But then the drone exploded, and Corwin let out a whoop of victory as she sailed through the debris field and charged the next beast. The pilot sneaked a glance at her power readouts, and was still amazed by the level indicators. She had taken out seven drones with three times the firepower of a mark nine hornet, yet she had used barely a third of the raider's capacity. Thanks to the alien technology, the more weapons fire thrown at her, the more reserves she had stored away.

  A trio of drones suddenly broke away from their assault on the Dauntless and turned their full power upon the raider. The burst of optimism that Corwin had just experienced vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and she gripped her flight controls as the cockpit rattled and screamed beneath the first volley of enemy fire. Foxfire returned the favor, opening all her forward gun ports and pushing her offnet to its maximum limit. But this time, three against one was one too many.

  From the corner of her eye Corwin caught the blur of motion that was the other stingers, and from the readout on her tactical display she could see that an entire squadron had come to her rescue. Unfortunately, it meant squat because the drones were totally ignoring the hornets. All ten ships were pummeling the drones as well as doing their best to intercept the enemy fire, but it still had no effect.

  Corwin executed a vertical move that shot her straight up and away from the dogfight, and she set course away from the battlefield. She wanted some distance, some maneuvering room to deliver another full-scale assault. She didn't know why that would make a difference this time, but there was nothing else to try. But when Foxfire turned to face the drones, they were gone. It took another couple seconds for the pilot to realize that all weapons fire had ceased. From this visual range, the Dauntless was a mere child's toy, and Corwin couldn't even see the drones. She pulled up a tactical readout and saw that the alien monsters had pulled back and ceased fire.

  "What the hell?" Corwin muttered.

  "Report, lieutenant!"

  Reyes was just as baffled as the rest of the bridge crew. "I don't have an explanation, ma'am. The drones have ceased fire, but there's no apparent cause for it. Our deflector strength is at nineteen percent, and there's heavy damage to the first and third generators."

  "This could be a new strategy," Juarez volunteered.

  McKenna pulled up her own readout and confirmed Reyes' report. She looked back at the viewscreen, at a magnified image of a pair of drones, knowing that her crew was waiting for an order from her. She wanted to pull her ship away from the battlefield, yet she was afraid that if she made a move - no matter how slight - it would interrupt this unexpected lull.

  "Now the drones are moving away, back to the planet." Reyes was incredulous. "And we're being hailed." His frowned deepened as he keyed in several commands. "I can't pinpoint the source, but it is originating from the planet."

  "Put it on the holo-comm, lieutenant."

  In the air above the circular platform that sat in front of the forward viewscreen, the holographic image of Commander Decev and Lieutenant Commander Benson appeared. McKenna deactivated her safety harness and stood, not bothering to hide her expression of relief.

  "Captain," Decev said. "Are you all right? I hope the damage to the Dauntless isn't too severe."

  "It's nothing we can't repair," McKenna replied. "I assume that I have the two of you to thank for keeping us in one piece."

  "Yes," Benson replied. "We've found something beneath the surface of this planet. You need to come down here to see it for yourself. We're transmitting the coordinates to you now."

  ( 2 )

  "You want me to do what?" Gabriel stared at Hazen's image on the wall screen, certain that he'd misunderstood the order that the admiral had just given him.

  "You heard me right, Marc. I want you to put together a covert tactical forces team and dispatch them into Jha'Drok space."

  "But you don't know what I'm supposed to tell them to look for."

  "That's right. I know that there's a lot about this that is unorthodox, but given everything that's happened so far I don't think this assignment is much of a stretch."

  "I guess not," the commodore said dryly.

  Hazen's tone was equally dry. "I also suspect that someone on your crew is already working for FCI. Find out who it is and enlist their aid."

  "I've already got a pretty good idea. Anything else?"

  "That's it for now." The admiral's brow furrowed just a bit as he stared at Gabriel for a few moments. "You don't look as tired as you did the last time we spoke."

  The commodore gave a wry smile. "I've been getting more sleep and I've laid off the Scotch. Your pep talk a few days ago helped immensely."

  "Good. Hazen out."

  Gabriel shut off the screen and walked over to his desk. He pressed a button on his comm panel. "Lieutenant Hoagen, please get Brantar Varis and Colonel Bryant into my office ASAP."

  "Yes, sir."

  ( 3 )

  "My gods!" McKenna was standing at the entrance to an immense underground cavern. The walls, however, were not covered in rock and ore. Instead, they were lined with what could only be described as pure technology: power conduits, relay networks, hull plating, and much more. The ceiling and the floor weren't visible, and McKenna was standing next to Benson and Decev on a catwalk that split the spacious cavern in half, both vertically and horizontally. At the center of the catwalk was a four-way intersection, where a second walkway provided further access to the sides of the cavern. Descending and ascending from the four endpoints of the walkway arms were large lifts. McKenna shined her flashlight on the closest elevator, tracing its path to see which points it accessed on the technological walls. The only other light was provided by tiny lamps here and there in the walls, and their amber output was pitiful.

  "The only way into this cavern is via the cardon field in that room you were just in." Benson shined her light into the field that was still open behind McKenna, the one where the two science officers had taken their short nap while waiting for the LTB to finish its task.

  "It didn't take as long as I thought it would to decipher the alien database," Decev said. "There's a control station directly ahead, at the intersection." She started walking and McKenna followed. Benson brought up the rear. "It did take us awhile to find the directory which allowed us access to the control matrix of the weapons drones. The hardest part was bypassing the security protocols. There was at least two dozen."

  "What's the height and the depth?"

  Benson pulled up a readout on her suit's scanner. "Almost two hundred kilometers total. We're at the ninety-eight-point-four kilometer mark."

  "From what we can glean so far, we're very close to the planet's core," Decev added. "The machinery that lines the walls was carefully designed and constructed to maintain this chamber."

  "Maintain it for what?" McKenna queried. "A bomb shelter? A planetary defense control center?"

  Decev frowned. "We're not sure. I'm guessing all of the above. I haven't yet had a chance to comb through the entire database. My central concern was stopping the attack on the Dauntless."

  "Yes, of course," McKenna replied. Then she remembered something that Reyes said just before the battle. "Our initial scans of the surface showed seven biosigns. I'm assuming that means you two weren't detected because you were down here?"

  "That's right," Benson confirmed. "Only in the last few minutes were we able to disengage the dampening field which prevented us from communicating with the surface during our trek down here."

  They were now standing at a circular table, a design that reminded McKenna of the ops console on Exxar-One's command deck. Decev pressed her palm at a specific spot on the blank surface, and a 3-D interface appeared in mid-air above the console platform. The science officer reached out and began to manipulate the holographic controls. Holographic screens appeared and began displaying alien gibberish.

  "I've linked my EVA's scanner to this control station, and the LTB is almost finished with its task. The database in this compu
ter is obviously more extensive than the one in the transport room."

  "Is the cavern on emergency power?"

  "We're assuming so," Benson said. "If you examine portions of the walls up close, there's obvious damage. I think most of it is due to the lapse of time, and because there's an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere there's a lot of dust and decay."

  McKenna coughed and nodded. In the beams of their flashlights and the illumination cast by the holo-display, the dust motes danced thick and slow. The trio's short walk from the entrance to the control station had disturbed much. "Is everyone on the surface all right?"

  Benson nodded. "Lieutenant Simon didn't survive our crash landing, though."

  "My ship and crew survived, but there's extensive damage to the Apollo's engineering section. Now that the immediate crisis is over we can get engineering teams to the surface and start repairs."

  "I agree," McKenna said. "I'll go back to the Dauntless and start coordinating that end of the operations. I'll leave the two of you in charge here. Bring down as much personnel as you think is necessary to get this up and running." She cast her beam into the void beyond the railing. It was swallowed almost immediately by the darkness. "I want to know exactly where this planet is located in relation to our home sector, and I want to know exactly what it is that we've found." The captain turned and began walking back to the cardon field that had remained activated the whole time.

  Decev and Benson exchanged glances. Neither of them had missed the note of barely contained excitement – almost glee – in McKenna's clipped tones. Now that the planet's defense system was no longer a threat, she was as eager as they were to explore this cavern's mysterious depths.

  ( 4 )

  "I want the two of you to plan a covert tactical mission into Jha'Drok space. Brantar, you're leading the mission. Commander Scoletti has a team prepping the Ares as we speak." The Ares, like the Apollo, was an Endeavor class ship designed for long-term exploratory missions, as well as covert tactical ops. Gabriel handed a compad to Varis. "This is a more detailed brief, but it's not much. Admiral Hazen wasn't specific on what you're supposed to be looking for. He only said that CI has lost their sources within the Emperium and that this mission is the best chance we have of getting some desperately needed information on Jha'Drok military movements."

  Colonel Bryant looked more skeptical than Varis. "Commodore, I don't like sending my men on a mission that has no clear objective. The Jha'Drok territories are a quarter of the size of the Federation's, and you want this team to what? Start at one end and work their way towards the other? This is bullshit!"

  "I agree, colonel, but we don't have a choice at the moment. Orders are orders."

  "Actually, gentlemen, I believe I can narrow our search parameters if you give me another day before we launch."

  Gabriel and Bryant exchanged wary glances, and then the commodore looked at Varis. "All right. You've got until tomorrow at thirteen hundred."

  "Understood."

  "Why are you commanding this mission?" Bryant asked. "I understand that you're the SO officer, but isn't something like this a little out of your range of authority?"

  Now it was Varis and Gabriel who exchanged a glance, and then the Ralorian said, "No, colonel, it's not out of my jurisdiction. My official position here is SO officer, but I'm also an FCI field agent."

  Bryant blinked in surprise, then nodded as if he realized he should have known this.

  "That information must stay between the three of us, though I'm sure the two of you don't need to be reminded of that."

  "No, we don't," Bryant replied. He turned to Gabriel. "Anything else, commodore?"

  "No. Dismissed."

  ( 5 )

  Taelon Zar pressed the door chime, then waited. At least two minutes passed, and the ambassador frowned. She was sure that Jerren was off duty, as it was well after nineteen hundred hours. She pressed the button again, then folded her hands over her waist to keep them still. She smoothed her expression into one of geniality, hoping that her surprise visit wouldn't put off her son so much that he shut her out completely. She was here to extend an olive branch. It was time to put all animosity to rest.

  Jerren appeared after another minute, and he was only mildly startled to see his mother on his doorstep. "Come in."

  As Taelon walked past the threshold she was immediately struck by the unmistakable aroma of kaanu, and she smiled inwardly as she realized why it had taken him so long to answer the door. The ambassador swept her gaze in a cursory examination of the living room, but she didn't see a bowl or cup anywhere.

  "I was just about to have dinner. What would you like?"

  "I'd like to have a joint of kaanu first. I haven't smoked in years."

  Jerren had started for the kitchen, but he stopped in his tracks and did a poor job of hiding his surprise. "What?"

  "I thought it would be easier to just ask instead of both of us pretending that you weren't smoking a bowl just now. Besides, I didn't come for dinner. I wanted to talk."

  Jerren was clearly having a hard time picturing his stoic and proud mother, one of the most respected and most decorated ambassadors of the Interstellar Federation of Peace, sitting back and lighting a joint. She waited patiently, and he finally gave in. "Have a seat." He walked to a cupboard behind his desk and withdrew a small bowl that had half a joint resting on its edge. He sat on the opposite end of the couch from his mother and rolled her a joint, then relit his own.

  Taelon coughed after her first inhale. "I forgot how acrid this stuff is."

  Jerren shook his head as he stood and paced to his desk. He took a deep inhale, then exhaled with a gust of frustration and disbelief. He turned to the woman on his couch. "This is so unlike you, mother, that I can't be sure I'm not hallucinating."

  "You don't believe that I was once young? That I once tried substances worse than this?"

  "No, I don't."

  "It's clear that you know me little, and I'm surprised to find that you have your own stash of kaanu. This is a controlled substance, and I'm fairly certain that you're not suffering from Merr's disease." She sat up and leaned forward with a sudden fearfulness. "You're not, are you?"

  "No, mother, I'm not." Jerren inhaled the last of his joint, then laid the stub of ash in the bowl. He plopped onto his end of the couch and lay back, closing his eyes.

  Taelon blew out a trio of perfect smoke rings, then looked at her son. "Are you ready to talk, or shall we share what's left in that bowl?"

  Jerren looked at his mother. "I want you to admit that you were wrong. That you made a mistake when you refused to support my choice of career and then misjudged the security risk in the Gorebron situation."

  "Do you know why your father wanted to come with me on that mission?" Jerren didn't answer. "He and I were planning to sign divorce papers. I always invited him to travel with me after you children were grown, but he always refused. I didn't think that this time would be any different, but to my surprise, he said yes. We agreed to sign the papers after the negotiations were over and we were back on homeworld." Taelon stood and walked to the viewport. "Your father supported your career, and I hated him for it. I hated him for his resentment of my own success, and the fact that our marriage was more or less arranged by our respective parents didn't give us a good start." She sighed. "Yes, I made mistakes, Jerren, but your quarrel with me is not about your father's death. It never was." She faced him, waiting for his response.

  Jerren was still struggling to comprehend the revelation that his parents had been planning a divorce. The notion was as ridiculous as the idea of Taelon smoking a kaanu joint, yet here she was. A wisp of smoke curled up from the cigarette that was firmly clamped beneath two fingers of her right hand. "I need a drink."

  "The embb?"

  "Yes."

  "Pour me one as well, please."

  The security chief returned from the kitchen a few minutes later with a bottle and two tumblers. He handed one to his mother, and they both drank the entire content
s of their glasses in silence. Only when the second round was poured and he had settled back onto the couch did Jerren respond to his mother's last statement.

  "You're right. I got more support from father than I did you. And I suppose that's one reason I chose this career. I knew it would piss you off."

  "It would what?"

  "Oh. Sorry. A human expression. I meant that it would infuriate you."

  "Oh. Yes, I see what you mean. And you're right. It did...piss me off."

  "And I know exactly why." Jerren set his tumbler on the coffee table and stood. "My earliest memory of you is you sitting in your study, and I was on your lap, and you were reading from this thick book. It was our family history, and you were going on and on about the noble bloodlines from which the House of Zar had descended. I still remember the cover of that book."

  "Yes. It was the seventh volume, the one lost in the fire a few years later. I still haven't been able to replace all of it." Taelon's expression became clouded and she took another sip of her embb. "I need to sit down. I think the Kaanu is finally filtering through." She took one last drag and then tossed her stub into the bowl next to her son's.

  "That's all you've ever been to me, mother, is a historian. You went on and on about our noble bloodlines, our proud heritage, our enduring legacy, and it was clear to me in secondary school that you intended for me to walk the same path that Eteshia and Sren took. I was enrolled in Roknal Athzdel before I was fifteen!" This was the university from which Taelon and her two daughters had graduated, all with high honors.

  "I only wanted what was best for you! You know that, Jerren! That's what every parent wants!"

  "But you didn't ask me what I wanted!"

  "You didn't have enough life experience at that age to know what you wanted. I believe now - as I always have – that a complete and extensive education is the only decent beginning to an adult life. Once you graduated from the university, I would have been happy with whatever career path you chose."