Third Player

by Warren James Palmer

  ‘What about armament? Black demanded.

  ‘I can make out several ports that may house laser cannons. I believe it’s best to presume they’re hostile!’ she told them.

  ‘I think these are scout ships sent by our alien friends to find out who’s been poking a stick in their new nest. What do you reckon Moss?’ Black asked.

  ‘That would seem to make sense,’ Moss agreed, reading the information supplied by the scans. ‘That being the case, we can’t afford to let them follow us into hyper-space. We’re going to have to destroy them.’

  ‘Why?’ Black asked with a frown. ‘Surely, we’d be better off making a run for it rather than risking an engagement. We don’t know what their capabilities are.’

  ‘That’s exactly why we can’t allow them to follow us into hyper-space,’ Moss responded in deadly earnest. ‘What if they have the ability to follow our track? We could end up leading them all the way back to Dyason. We can’t risk giving away the location of another humanoid race for those bastards to devour. I don’t care what the Dyason did to us in the past, I wouldn’t wish what happened to the Heligsion on them as well.’

  ‘You’ve got a point there,’ Black agreed.

  Moss slid into the helmsman’s couch and felt the familiar tingle as Excalibur’s interactive flight controls engaged with his nervous system. ‘Prepare to engage!’ he ordered.

  From below the main body of the vast starship small fighter craft shot out of launch tubes and took up station in front and on each flank of Excalibur, forming a protective shield. The battle centre became a hive of activity as gun crews locked their batteries on the three unidentified vessels and powered up their armament. Moss felt the touch of an alien mind and once more a crude mental probe tried to break through his barriers. This time, however, it was different, for he wasn’t the only one to be mentally attacked.

  He became aware of the sentient computer that was intrinsically a part of Excalibur being equally probed by the alien entities. The response was as surprising as it was immediate. Excalibur created its own mental shield, blocking out the attack and responding with its own vicious bolt of mental energy exactly aligned to the alien frequency. Moss had never seen the ancient vessel do such a thing before and it made him realise that Excalibur must know what, and where, these ships came from. She obviously wasn’t about to divulge the information, but she wasn’t about to let the aliens attack go unanswered either.

  ‘You and I are going to have to have a long chat later…!’ Moss thought at the computer, but Excalibur didn’t respond.

  ‘We’re being aggressively scanned and there’s no response to our hailing transmissions,’ Jennifer announced urgently.

  ‘Scanners show a power surge, they’re powering up their weapons!’ the weapons officer stated.

  ‘Flyships attack!’ Moss ordered. ‘All batteries fire at will! Engage!’

  Moss willed Excalibur forward and she shot toward the alien cruisers. In response the enemy loosed off salvos of heavy laser fire which glanced off Excalibur’s main hull. Moss winced, he could feel the laser strikes through the interactive flight system, as if he himself had been hit. However, the mental bolt returned by Excalibur must have affected the aliens in some manner, because the strikes were uncoordinated.

  ‘Damage report!’ Black ordered.

  ‘Three hits on the main hull but no damage!’ came the response.

  In the battle-centre the highly trained crew didn’t repeat the aliens’ mistake. All Excalibur’s armament was aimed at the ship on the starboard flank and fired with deadly accuracy. The main armament and smaller batteries all struck on the same point on the cruiser’s main hull and punched a hole straight through the alien’s thinner armour plating. The cruiser began to tumble and fall out of formation, but not before it fired once more and struck one of the delicate sensor arrays on the prow of Excalibur.

  ‘Main sensors down!’ Jennifer exclaimed. ‘The feedback has blown quite a few circuits. Moving to back-up systems now, but our sensors will only be working at sixty percent efficiency!’

  ‘We don’t need the sensors now, Jennifer,’ Black responded watching the battle on the holographic viewer. ‘We know where the bastards are!’ he said as the holographic image began to falter, then came back on line at a lower resolution.

  The two remaining cruisers closed in on Excalibur and simultaneously fired again. This time their strikes were more co-ordinated and they hit the same spot on the hull. The hits punctured the outer hull, but not the tougher, inner skin. Moss groaned, it felt like he’d been stabbed in the body with a spike. He rolled and banked Excalibur toward the aliens in response, the massive starship showing surprising agility. The two squadrons of Flyships closed in on their prey and began to harass the cruisers, flying low to the surface of the ships and firing salvos of armour-piercing missiles.

  The aliens attempted to track the fast-moving fighters, but it was clear that they’d never come across small ships like these before. The cruisers’ gun turrets were unable to bring their weapons to bear against the Flyships and the numerous missile strikes eventually began to take their toil on the aliens’ hulls. One of the ships began to disintegrate; huge plates began to peel away from the hull. Vents of gas and flame shot into space and the vessel literally staggered under the numerous blows it received. As Excalibur swept by the wounded cruiser, the gunners saw their opportunity and struck the alien with a concentrated broadside. The alien ship broke up and disintegrated in a vast fireball.

  Seeing the fate of the other cruisers the third alien swung about and accelerated rapidly. Moss banked about and set off in pursuit as the alien ship tried to make a run for it. The Flyships pulled back to give Excalibur the opportunity to use its main armament without the risk of hitting their own fighters.

  ‘I’m getting readings of another anomaly opening!’ Jennifer called out urgently. ‘I think they’re going to try to leap out of here! If we’re going to take them out, it has to be now!’

  Once more, the swirling mist of multi-coloured vapour appeared and the alien cruiser made straight for it, Excalibur close on its heels. In the battle-centre the gunners desperately waited for the power in their weapons to recycle. The laser cannons had to be recycled after every third salvo, otherwise the weapons’ effectiveness rapidly dropped away. However, all the time the cannons were recharging, the alien cruiser was getting closer to the wormhole.

  ‘You can’t wait any longer!’ Black ordered them urgently. ‘Fire with what you have, before the cruiser gets clean away!’

  The gunners did as he ordered and the laser cannons lashed out once more, striking the hull of the cruiser just as it entered the influence of the wormhole. They watched as the alien ship staggered under the force of the blows, but kept going. Excalibur’s weapons hadn’t recycled through sufficiently and the strikes weren’t lethal. With a flash of sub-ether energy the cruiser slipped into the epicentre of the wormhole which then blinked into nothingness. The third alien had got away.

  ‘Shit!’ Moss cursed aloud, angry at having let them get away. They shouldn’t have let that happen! He wheeled Excalibur around and made for the crippled cruiser they’d hit first. It drifted lifeless, not far from the remains of the other ship. This bastard definitely wasn’t getting away. Although obviously badly damaged, it was still intact and Moss was determined that the vessel would surrender to them.

  ‘Black prepare a boarding party!’ he ordered. ‘I want that ship and her crew! They’re our link to who is responsible for the genocide on Heligsion!’

  ‘I’m already onto it Moss—’ but Black got no further as with a blinding flash the last remaining alien cruiser self-destructed. The explosion swept over Excalibur like a firestorm then dissipated. When the light faded there was nothing left except for a few wisps of vapour.

  Moss decelerated Excalibur and disengaged the interactive flight system. He wiped the sweat from his brow and lay quietly for a moment on the helmsman’s couch. Black ordered the recall of t
he two squadrons of Flyships and the collection of wreckage from the other destroyed alien vessel.

  Jennifer came over and squeezed her lover’s hand. ‘You okay?’ she asked with concern.

  Although she would never complain, Jennifer hated Moss flying Excalibur in battle. The interactive flight system was such that any hits on the ship were felt as blows to his body. There were supposed to be filters that stopped the pain of such strikes from being overwhelming, but Jennifer was somewhat dubious about their efficacy.

  Moss got up from the couch with a groan and said, ‘I’m a bit battered, but I’ll live.’ He turned and addressed Black and the rest of the bridge crew. ‘Good work everybody, that was a job well done. We nearly got the lot of them, but not quite. However, none of those bastards are going to be following us into hyper-space and that’s the main thing. Black…’

  ‘Yes Moss?’

  ‘Set course for Dyason at maximum speed. Arrange a detailed debrief for everyone and get the intelligence guys to analyze the data. Then I want all the senior officers in the conference room at 16.30 hrs. We’ve got a lot to discuss!’ he ordered in a tired, but firm voice.

  ‘I’m on it straight away!’ Black answered. ‘Where will you be until then?’

  Moss made his way to the turbo-lift wincing at the lingering pain in his side. ‘I’ve got somebody to talk to,’ he answered mysteriously. ‘Somebody who hasn’t been telling us all they know!’

  CHAPTER TEN

  Dyason moon—Silago

  The balloon-tyred transporter sped across the moon’s surface leaving a trail of dust behind it. It rapidly approached a set of what were obviously temporary environment shelters and stopped beside the largest. An articulated corridor locked onto the side of the moon buggy and the airlock opened. Imperial troopers moved rapidly into the main building, carefully watching over their charges. Jenson ignored his escort and looked about with keen interest as the tall, thin, head of the Imperial secret service spoke at some length to what could only be, a white-coated scientist. A few steps behind Jenson, Hanson watched the proceedings with equal interest.

  The Imperial X34 fighters had guided them to the Imperial moon-base, where they’d landed their Flyships and been led to Polesy. The dour-faced head of the ‘Masorak’ or secret service then bundled the two Terran pilots onto the moon transporter without telling them anything—except to inform them that if they tried to escape, his troops would not hesitate to shoot them. Funnily enough, Jenson believed him. The trip across the moon’s surface had taken about forty-five minutes, during which time neither he nor Sandpiper had been able to get anything out of their captors. Now it finally looked like they were about to find out what the subterfuge was all about.

  They stood on some scaffolding above what was obviously an excavation site. An area of the moon’s surface had been dug away and Jenson could clearly see a ramp descending into some sort of underground chamber. Dyason scientists were busy entering and leaving the excavation site, which was harshly lit by direct sunlight beaming through the clear protective covering of the environmental dome above them. This place was obviously the source of the ‘artifacts’ Polesy wanted them to see.

  The head scientist gave Jenson and Sandpiper a good, long, hard look, then nodded at Polesy. The head of the Mosorak gestured for Jenson and Sandpiper to follow him down into the underground chamber. The two fighter pilots looked at each other, shrugged and gamely followed. Their escort of Imperial troopers remained on the moon’s surface.

  In the low gravity of the moon they were down the ramp and in the chamber in a couple of bounds, passing the scientist Polesy had dismissed. Once inside the chamber, Jenson and Sandpiper immediately recognised the design and layout of the smooth-walled construction. They’d been in similar chambers before, most recently only a few weeks ago, when they’d seen something much the same in the southern wastelands of Dyason.

  ‘Do you recognise the style of construction and layout?’ Polesy turned and asked the Terrans, his harsh face illuminated by the soft fluorescent glow emitted by the walls of the chamber.

  ‘Sure?’ Sandpiper replied. ‘It’s much the same as the chambers that surrounded Dominator and Excalibur when they were cocooned underground. But what’s this one doing here?’

  ‘You’re not about to tell us that you’ve found another starship?’ Jenson asked, looking around the chamber which was bare of any sort of furnishings. Its sole content was an ornate pedestal which stood in the centre of the crystal floor and had a recess in its top, which looked like it would fit a humanoids hand.

  ‘Unfortunately not, Group Captain,’ Polesy replied with a lopsided, conspiratorial smile. ‘As much as I would like another starship, one hasn’t fallen into my lap just yet. However, what we have discovered is very nearly as exciting!’

  The Dyason placed his palm in the receptacle on the pedestal and a portion of the far wall became transparent, then disappeared. Polesy stepped through the new entrance and into a second chamber. Jenson and Sandpiper followed, their curiosity now fully aroused.

  Unlike the first chamber, this room had several reclined couches similar to those fitted in the control rooms of the three starships. Jenson remembered waking up on just such a couch when he’d first encountered Myrddin, in the mystical chambers below the now destroyed Stonehenge. Sandpiper parked his backside on one of the couches and began to lie back.

  ‘I wouldn’t do that just yet my friend,’ Polesy told him.

  ‘Why not?’ Sandpiper asked.

  ‘A few weeks ago you could have lain on those things for days on end and have nothing more interesting happen than a good night’s rest. However, that all changed when Dominator was launched into orbit,’ the thin, beak-nosed Dyason told them. ‘Since then, those couches have become…interactive.’

  ‘What do you mean by interactive?’ Jenson asked, examining the reclined, padded seats in detail.

  ‘I mean that information is fed directly into the occupant’s mind,’ came the response.

  ‘What sort of information?’

  ‘Look,’ Polesy said ignoring the question. He leant against one of the units, crossed his arms and looked at the two Terrans, ‘It’s time to be candid. I’ve brought you here because I, or rather we, need your help. And to be blunt; you need our help. Our own personal feelings toward Terran, Heligsion or Dyason is irrelevant. We’re all in the same shit together, gentlemen.’

  Jenson looked at the head of the Mosorak curiously. The Dyason’s attitude had changed dramatically since their first meeting on-board Valvia. Why was that? What was the leading member of the military junta up to?

  ‘I think you’d better start at the beginning,’ he told Polesy.

  ‘So be it,’ the Dyason agreed. He began telling the full story of the Imperial secret service’s involvement in the battle for Earth and the launch of Dominator.

  He explained how Imperial archaeologists had discovered some of the rooms and chambers above the caverns which once held Dominator some twenty-five years ago. At that time they had no idea of the existence of the ancient starship buried further below the desert wastelands. Examining the artifacts and the sole machine in the chambers they were given access to was difficult, due to the ongoing war with the mutants that controlled that area. Which was why Mosorak was given the job of overseeing the top-secret project. There were only a handful of members of the Imperial council who even knew of the archaeological find.

  ‘Including Nimue?’ Jenson intervened.

  ‘Including Nimue,’ Polesy confirmed.

  However, this wasn’t the only project the secret service was involved in. Secret scientific reports shown to Mosorak, confirmed their suspicions that the Dyason biosphere was in terminal decline. The worldwide Imperial wars and massive armaments industry had devastated the environment to the extent that even over twenty years ago, the planet’s end was in sight. Mosorak had attempted to change the Imperial government’s policy. To force them to seek peace settlements with the mutants and attempt t
o stave off environmental catastrophe by cutting back on the manufacture of munitions.

  ‘However, our advice wasn’t heeded. With Nimue controlling that freak purporting to be the emperor, policy remained unchanged. The bitch seemed determined to send us all into oblivion,’ Polesy explained, his mind focused on the past. ‘I even tried to have her assassinated a couple of times, but to no avail. She had some method of weeding the killers out. I gave up trying after a while.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ Sandpiper commented. ‘Nimue had some very peculiar talents.’

  ‘Then the wormhole opened and everything changed.’

  Polesy went on to explain how they used their infant space technology to launch a probe and then a scout ship into the wormhole. When they returned with news of a habitable planet on the other side, a plan for invasion was put together. Knowing about the alien chambers, Nimue insisted that the alien technology discovered by the archaeologists was put into use.

  A fleet of battleships—the Domes—was cobbled together from a mix of Dyason and alien technology. Then the newly formed Imperial navy was launched against Earth. At that time Mosorak was fully behind the invasion. The situation on Dyason was spiraling out of control; large areas of the planet were becoming uninhabitable, the land poisonous. The remaining cities were massively overpopulated, the air foul and almost unbreathable.

  Colonisation of Earth was seen as a second chance; at least for the fortunate few who would be going there, which of course included Polesy, his wife, two young sons and daughter. Here was a chance to build a new empire, free of the constraints and mistakes made on Dyason.

  ‘Then we came along with Excalibur and ruined your plans?’ Jenson interrupted, following the Dyason’s story with avid interest.