Eric Olafson Series Boxed Set: Books 1 - 7

by Vanessa Ravencroft

“Will you remember us when you come into your own?”

  “I have already come into my own, Yeoman. I am a starship captain, acting or otherwise. I am where I want to be, and of course, I remember the Coven and all the Sisters of the Circle. Why would I forget such a memorable meeting?”

  She blinked with her big eyes and said, “Of course, Captain. I just wanted you to know you can count on me as much as you count on all the others. I will take your orders and obey your will even in my true form. So you have that option.”

  “Who knows what this journey brings and what we have to face, and yes, it is a good thing to have a flaming denizen of the nether regions to scare the living daylights out of someone.”

  I took a long sip of the strong special Navy blend coffee I liked so much and added, “Speaking of scary folks, I better check on my spooky friend.”

  His voice was immediately in my mind, and Narth said, “I have patience, my friend. One day, you’ll be the scariest and spookiest of us all and then it is my turn. Until then, I think I’ll refer to you as upper-chest-enhanced—”

  I interrupted his mental message. “It wasn’t my fault; tell that to Cherubim. She programmed the body changer. How are you guys getting along out there? I am eager to check out that moon and then get going. There are a lot of pirates out there, and we are stuck here.”

  “I estimate we will complete the repairs in six hours and twelve minutes.”

  “That is the most precise estimate I ever heard.”

  “I omitted the second increment off my estimate; how can it be precise?”

  I laughed inside and then had Elfi get me Shea. The angelic face of the girl I loved appeared on the main viewer and was partially obscured by the faceplate of her suit. “Hello, Captain, I was just about to call you. Three-Four is out of his suit and was scouting ahead, and we just discovered another one of those blue egg-shaped things. It is in a cave not far from here, and we believe it is feeding on the minerals.”

  “Shea, come back to the ship right away. Don’t get too close!”

  “Captain, there is Kermac machinery, and I think it is containing whatever it is. If the Kermac can contain it, we must learn how it is done.”

  I had to agree with her. While it was nothing but speculation, I was certain whatever the Kermac’s plan was, it was aimed at the Union. I was certain it was some sort of weapon, some sort of doomsday device. The Kermac built their entire civilization on the expertise to subdue other life forms and do their bidding. I saw them use a device that controlled the Y’All, and they’d found a way to control the psionic inert X101s. Controlling others was their expertise, and they’d done it for a very long time. If those rocks could manipulate transdimensional energies and gravitons, they could travel. Travel anywhere and perhaps faster than the speed of light. The Nul had managed to break the most advanced Union shields with their graviton weaponry. Not even the Narth Supreme knew about these rocks. I became more and more convinced that we’d stumbled upon something that was a big threat to the Union.

  I said, “Stand by, Shea; do not approach for now. We need to do this subtly and methodically.”

  To Ship, I said, “Keep an eye on your gravionics sensors and tell me when you experience even the slightest variation.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  I called Shea again and said, “Come back to the ship. I’d like to have a meeting and discuss how we proceed.”

  I had to keep myself convinced that waiting was the best thing to do, and I did wait until Narth and Cirruit had completed their repairs. We were all assembled in our pirate’s den, former Hangar Bay B. I had called the entire crew. Most of them were, of course, standing, as there wasn’t enough room, but I wanted all to hear and have a chance to say something if they had an idea.

  I repeated the details of our situation and included my opinion that this was a threat to the Union and that we had to do find out what we were dealing with and, if at any way possible, neutralize the threat if it turned out to be one.

  Cirruit spoke first, “If there is Kermac machinery then I think we need to analyze it first and see what it actually does. I can do that by sending nanites to examine the thing on a molecular level and then simulate this machine here and see what it does.”

  Three-Four raised his arm and added, ”I doubt they can harm me in my true form, and I can take a closer look.”

  I shook my head. “Three-Four, if they can manipulate energies, we can’t say to what extent and that’s what you are, energy.”

  Har-Hi played with a dagger of his. “I think we should simply destroy them fast and swift and then see if there are others like them in this system. I don’t think they can dodge and deflect an exo load.”

  Fective, who was standing behind Krabbel, said, “I am a Weapons Engineer, and I’ve been working on an idea ever since we encountered them. I modified one of our fire suppressors; you know, the energy siphon beams that we use to fight fire, even plasma fires, and mounted it on a rifle frame. Instead of shooting them, we suck whatever energy they’ve got and deny them their ability to manipulate anything.”

  Shea smiled at him. “That is quite brilliant.”

  A Takkian specialist said, “Captain, I am Science Specialist Joglur. I am related to your friend Miglar, the Lieutenant of the Hyperion. I don’t know if it is relevant, but we Takkians are rock and silicone based, as you know, and we have a very old legend about a species of floating rocks that are the children of a Living Mountain.”

  I said, “I have a gut feeling that your legend is what we are facing here. What do you know about it?”

  “Sadly not very much. It is told by the Takkian priests and part of our chant slates. I am not a very religious Takkian and haven’t been to the temples since I was just a silicone nodule, but I will contact the temple and ask for a transcript of the Chant Slates, if you permit that.”

  I got up and said, “Yes, do that please, and in the meantime, we will go to that moon. I don’t think the answers are to be found here. However, I will not risk the Tigershark again to be damaged by whatever it is. So here is my plan...”

  While he piloted the Gazelle, Har-Hi said, “You know there isn’t a single person on our ship who likes your plan?”

  I was sitting behind him in the small cockpit. “I am the captain, and I think this is the best way.”

  “A captain is the last to die, not the first. That’s a rule, you know. You are supposed to remain behind and make plans and let us carry them out. We can’t be an efficient crew if you can’t send us into dangerous situations. Maybe it is a handicap that your first command is a ship filled with your friends.”

  “I would do the same thing if I commanded a ship full of Thauran Nobles.”

  Har-Hi sighed. “I am going there to check things out, and you stay safe behind isn’t much of a plan either.”

  “That is not what I said. I gave everyone strict orders. I did send Hans and his team back aboard that cursed Kermac wreck to examine everything, and Narth is standing by to teleport us out. He can do so best with my mind. Three-Four is with us, and he, too, can manipulate energies. We got modified good old Quasimodos, with additional Arti-Grav modifiers and the strongest suit integrity fields Cirruit could come up with.”

  Har-Hi tried to turn his head but he, too, wore a Quasimodo and was not able to make that move. “Still, there is no I in crew and you know exactly what I mean.”

  I grinned, knowing he didn’t see it and said, “There is a C for Captain and yes, I do understand you, but I am not an experienced captain of many years’ command experience. I am doing this strictly by guts. I commanded the Devi by guts; I told you what to do when we faced the Seenian ship, not by any books or experience but by something else. Besides, I have an ace up my sleeve for this one.”

  “I don’t think carrying some antique steel ax is much of an ace against floating rocks, when you got a mounted Mini TL launcher on your shoulders.”

  “I am not even sure why I brought that thing along, but I remember
the boarding ax was much more effective than your blaster. Besides, my ace is a little red-headed Yeoman.”

  “Uhu, good idea! If we can’t win or destroy them, we let our onboard lawyer sue them for the use of non-permitted blue light in a green light zone or something like that!”

  “Watch where you are flying. I don’t want to find out if the Gazelle or the ice and rock junk around that gas giant are better suited to survive an impact.”

  “That thing was miles away.”

  “We are doing 500 kilometers a second.”

  “Well, we are here. The deep voice moon is straight ahead; what do you want me to do?”

  “Take us straight down.”

  Har-Hi did, guiding the lightly armed, recon-modified Wolfcraft inside the moon’s atmosphere. A Gazelle was based on the same hull as the Wolfcraft fighters and therefore designed to work in an atmosphere as well, Har-Hi was most likely the best small craft pilot in the Fleet and yet the Gazelle bopped like a Silver-Flicker fish caught in the wake of a Tyranno Fin.

  Har-Hi managed to stabilize and said, “Wind speeds exceed 240 klicks. That’s some serious wind for a little moon like that.”

  I noticed gigantic construction sites, monolithic pads of Duro-Crete, bigger than mountains and shaped like cradles. The magnitude of the Kermac project was mind-boggling, especially building all this in such adverse conditions.

  We approached the area where the giga load obliterated the Kermac craft and rearranged much of the moon’s landscape. A huge crater had been blasted out of the surface.

  Har-Hi said, “I think we are here.”

  On the far side of the big crater was a mountain that did not match the looks of the rest. It was a massive mountain of about 12,000 meters’ height, and it glowed with a faint blue light.

  Har-Hi put the Gazelle down just before that blue mountain and said, “If the little rocks could create thousands of tons gravionic pressure, then I don’t want to know what that thing is capable of.”

  I patted his shoulder. “We are here to find out exactly that.”

  With a determined move, I pushed the contact and lowered the seat to the ground. This was not the first time I’d set foot on an alien world, but the landscape of this moon appeared more alien than anything I’d seen before. The light did not come from the distant sun of this system but from the giant gas planet, casting a strange, unhealthy pinkish hue over everything.

  Unlike on Twilight, where the gas giant was only partially visible, here the planet filled the entire sky, and it felt overwhelmingly depressing somehow. We had landed at the edge of the twenty-kilometer-wide and deep crater our giga load had ripped into the surface. There were rugged and grayish pink mountains everywhere. Yellowish sulfuric snowflakes whipped by a hellish gale force wind splattered our suits with a vengeance. The wind was so strong I had to activate the gravo anchors on my boots and make slow steps toward that odd bluish glowing mountain that looked as alien and out of place as we did. It was an odd sensation to feel the force of a storm in a six-ton battlesuit.

  Har-Hi lowered the visual enhancer visor over his faceplate and pointed toward the bluish mountain. “I can see more Kermac machinery. There are standard power plants, but they are building equipment of unknown purpose to the base of that blue mountain. Some of it was destroyed by our giga load, but some seems still operational.”

  The images we saw were instantly relayed to the Tigershark, and Shea cut in and said, “I would need to see them close up and make more detailed scans, but I think these are Kermac psionic will amplifiers.”

  I acknowledged and asked them to stand by as I activated my suit’s comm system on the same frequency as the voice had spoken before. I had clear instructions to identify myself not as a pirate or freelancer but as a Union captain. “This is Captain Olafson of the United Stars of the Galaxies. I am here to establish contact.”

  At first, there was silence, and I’d already decided to get closer when Har-Hi’s shoulder-mounted weapon fired, a microsecond before two long line blasts impacted my shields. My suit computronic went to battle mode and automatically switched my helmet to tactical view. At the base of the blue mountain was a round cave entrance. I saw two Kermac in battlesuits using large line blasters on all terrain wheels a fraction before Har-Hi’s micro AM loads filled the entrance of the cave with blinding light.

  He went into flight mode and said, “Our sensors don’t penetrate that blue mountain... I had to fire to prevent them to ready their Antimatter Bazooka. Those things could ruin our day.”

  There was still silence on the channel, and I went into flight mode as well. I didn’t blame Har-Hi for firing without asking. Kermac line blasters could not make a dent in a Quasimodo, much less our shields, but a few hits of their AM Bazookas could wear down our shields fast.

  The possibility that the crew of the escape pod had not been killed but found shelter inside that mountain thing was now quite likely and with that was also the knowledge that they had the Translocator manual. We flew fast and with pre-programmed evasive patterns close to the still-smoking cave entrance.

  In Shea’s estimate, the blue mountain before us was about eight kilometers high and had a base width of sixteen kilometers. That gave us a potential volume of 2,300 cubic kilometers and, if that thing was hollow, lots of room for millions of Kermac.

  Now close to the mountain, I scanned the material and, dependable as an Ult Chronometer, Shea came back saying, “The material is similar to the blue rocks on the Kermac Cruiser and those on Little Hell. It is mostly crystalline silicone, dense layers of heavy metals such as lead and gold. The bluish color is most likely due to a high concentration of the element cobalt. Noteworthy is the presence of large amounts of the biological coenzyme cobalamine, more commonly known as Vitamin B12. Many bacterial and animal life forms use this for nutrition.”

  While I listened to Shea’s analysis, I slowly approached the cave entrance, while Har-Hi did the same from the other side. I said to Shea, “Why can’t we scan through that? We should be able to detect life forms, including silicone-based life.”

  “I think it is the way the crystalline lattice is structured, but because of that, I am convinced this is a life form.”

  “You mean there are life forms inside?”

  “No, I am running the data once more through Ship and the xeno data bank on Venus, and I am certain the mountain thing is one single life form.”

  While I digested her info, Har-Hi tossed a mini spy drone into the cave entrance. The drone could cloak and was virtually invisible to most scanning equipment.

  I dedicated the upper left side of my faceplate to the telemetry of the drone.

  Our little spy machine floated through a long straight corridor made of the same bluish material for nearly two kilometers. We noticed the shattered suits and bodies of three more Kermac who could not escape the confined and thus even more devastating AM blast and then entered a large cavern.

  The image beamed back to us was overwhelming and frightening. There stood an army of bluish giants, beings with arms, legs, and heads. I estimated there were at least 20,000 of them, looking identical to each other, just like robots. Each of them held one of those bluish football-sized rocks before them in crude-looking hands. Each of them had to be at least four meters tall and at least two meters wide. On the sides of the cavern were more of those round rocks stacked in large piles, but they did not glow and looked broken.

  Two Kermac sat on the floor before them with closed eyes and a technical device between them.

  Har-Hi said, “What do you say? I take the ten thousand on the left and you the ten thousand on the right? There are certainly enough for both of us.”

  I smirked at that and was pondering what to do. These rough-looking stone golems did not move. Did the Kermac perhaps keep them in that state and contained? Would we unleash that army if we killed the Kermac?

  Har-Hi said, “I think we are fucked and you might agree with me if you turn!”

  I turned and saw
at least a hundred of those floating rocks. Before I could do anything, both Har-Hi and I were suddenly pushed inside the cave entrance by an irresistible force. The floating rocks had generated a gravionic focus point inside that pulled us and much debris through that cave corridor. My suit was holding but could not generate enough Arti-Grav to counter this force.

  Shea, who was still connected, said with an alarmed tone in her voice, “I am sending the Marines and robots; we will get you out of there.”

  Har-Hi and I tumbled before the two Kermac, who were no longer sitting.

  One of them clapped his hands and the stone warriors came alive and then he said, “Splendid, two Union fools have stumbled across our special project. It looks like they have translocator cannons with them.”

  I managed to get to my feet and said, “That’s right, Whiteface, and you are the first to find out how it is to be shot point blank by one.”

  “Ah, but you won’t. You see, we can crush you and your friend to liquid inside your suits. Our friends here have truly mastered the mental control of gravionics. So I suggest you hand over your shoulder cannons and tell us all you know about it. I can start with you and your friend will be very cooperative after seeing you squashed like a rotten fruit.”

  “I am going to overload the entire magazine of Translocator bombs!”

  The Kermac waved his hand to the stone giants. “Strip them of their suits, Children of the Conck. These are the ones who have abducted your queen and broken many rocks!”

  The shoulder cannons and our main TKU twisted and became useless. The Kermac lamented, “You imbecile Olours, that was what we wanted to preserve!”

  Our reinforced suits held much better than the Gilgamesh, but our systems were strained to the limits. The immobilizing pressure subsided, enough to take the ax I had fixed to my belt, and Har-Hi managed to pull his chain sword. It was more a gesture of defiance than anything else as we had no hope to defeat them all, but something strange happened. The stone giants stepped back; the floating rocks retreated from us.

  The Kermac who had spoken before now hissed, “Enough of this; crush them!”