by R J Murray
“Betty, delete programs EX- two-nine-five and two-nine-six please.” Eric asked with a smile.
“Affirmative. Programs deleted. Do you wish me to dump the chemicals now?”
“Yes please. Any other programs that may change human behavior or endanger this ship and crew?”
“Nice of the old girl to let us know what we need to delete.” Reed said to Chuck.
“Affirmative. Destruct sequence can be activated remotely using Special Order Seventeen.”
“Give me a list of all special orders that can be remotely activated by control please.” Eric asked. “Also, delete Special Order Seventeen as long as doing so does not cause damage to ship or crew.”
“Affirmative. Special order file in your console and number seventeen has been deleted.”
“Thank you Betty.”
“You’re welcome.”
Eric sat down and started reading the list. It was fairly long. He got up and grabbed a cup of coffee and a sandwich from the tray he had set up before entering the system. Who knew how long they would be sitting at the controls before they found the other two ships or until they knew they were safe. He made a face as he took a bite out of the protein sandwich before sitting once again at his console. It hadn’t tasted this bad before, but then again, he had been on drugs when he ate them.
“Is it that long Sir?” Chuck asked.
“I’m afraid so. Nasty minds these people have. Betty, I’m going to put a check next to the ones that make sense to me and an ‘x’ on the ones I want you to move to the read only file, Okay?”
“Affirmative.”
“Asi to any ship come in please.” The faint and static filled voice came from the speakers.
“Pathfinder to Asi. We are receiving you. Go ahead.”
“Pathfinder? Sir, I’ve got them!” Voices could be heard in the background for a few seconds before Phil came on the line.
“Pathfinder, do not enter system. Active Catroph defensive positions still present. Courageous and Asgard badly damaged, casualties high, all personnel still alive aboard Astangii. We are leaving this system, towing the other two ships with us. Meet us at the ice belt.”
“Roger that. Who or what is Catroph?” Eric asked.
“The furry ones. Asi has decided that we are allies and he can share information.” Phil answered.
“Roger that. Good to hear. Do you require assistance from us? If so, what do you need?”
“Just stay there at the ice belt. We will be there in less than forty eight hours. Everyone who will survive has been treated and those who would not have been given grace.”
“Damn. I’m sorry to hear that Phil. Give us coordinates for a rendezvous please.”
Numbers followed and the ship changed course to meet the survivors.
~~~~~~
“. . . and once they became active and launched, there was only about two seconds to maneuver. The first missile hit the bridge and we started to leak air. We evacuated and headed for the secondary bridge. I realized that we were maneuvering and when I looked around, I saw that Chambers was not with us. He stayed and continued to dodge and maneuver the ship to give us a chance. He died when the atmosphere vented completely.”
“He was a good man. I’m sorry we lost him and the others.” Eric poured a little more bourbon into the coffee cup Phil was holding and Horace held his out as well.
“Asi was firing everything he had at the rock, but he moved between us and the next missile deliberately, took the hit for us. We would all be dead if he hadn’t done that.” Phil took a long hard drink out of the cup. “They don’t use rockets engines on the missiles. It’s a modified drive like we use on the ships and much faster than rocket engines.”
“We were further away from Asi and took two nukes, one rupturing the hull near the bridge and the second hit East Bay Two and ripped the ship open. Secondary explosions from the fuel cells on the probes blocked sections with crew trapped inside. The bridge crew and I made it to safety when we lost atmosphere but we were trapped in an isolated section.” Horace shuddered before continuing. “Something different occurred near the second hit though. A small section had three men in it, relatively safe at the time. We could hear screams coming through the walls after a few minutes though. When we got the cameras on, we saw them being ripped to shreds, literally dissolving in front of our eyes.” Hoskins said. “It was the Catroph nanobots. They can be used as weapons, entering the body and dismembering it by self destructing. Get a few thousand of those things inside and let them all blow up at once, it makes a mess of a human body. They don’t kill you, they just disable you and let you suffer.”
“Damn. We need to wipe them out then, before doing any work inside their ships.” Phil said.
“Shit!” Eric jumped up and ran for the com station on the wall. “Chuck, call the base and tell them that the furry nanobots kill intruders!”
“Sir? Yes Sir!”
Eric turned and rejoined the group of survivors, standing behind his seat and explaining about the new base and the ships.
“So we could come back with their own ships and wipe out the base here? I like that.” Phil said with an angry gleam in his eyes.
“I may as well tell you the rest of the bad news.” Eric began. He relayed all the data on the drugs and special orders. The others just sat for a long time, silent. Then Horace began cursing.
“Those . . . people!” He finally finished with, having run through his entire vocabulary.
“Captain Maddwell.”
Eric hit the button on the wall unit once more. “Here.”
“They say they are already aware. They just lost two men in a sealed section less than five minutes ago. Captain Hoo is pulling back and preparing to irradiate the base again. He says . . . he says shit happens. I don’t understand the message Sir.”
“He means that we were five minutes too late, but we couldn’t have helped it. It was too late for those men and too late for feeling bad about it. Move on.” Eric let his thumb slide off the button.
“Bad way to find out.” Horace said. “He’s right though. We had no way to get the word out until now. If I had said something as soon as we saw you . . . maybe we could have . . .”
“Forget it. You can go crazy wondering what if.” Phil said, refilling Horace’s cup.
“Yeah. Too late for all the dead, but not the living. We wipe out the Furrys. No prisoners, no quarter, no mercy.” Eric said quietly.
“Like Asi and his people. That is why they destroyed those ships at the last battle. That is why they tracked down the cripples and finished them off. Total war. Genocide.” Eric said. “Asi, can your nanobots kill?”
“Negative. Nano’s are machines and can only be used on machines. It is forbidden to use nanobots as weapons against living flesh. It has no honor.”
Eric raised an eyebrow and looked at the other captains. “Honor. Not a word we hear much about these days. Good to know your people have it.”
Chapter Six A New Fleet
“I got the message about three hours ago. The colony ships are out of the solar system and headed for my last given position. I am supposed to meet them and guide them to a habitable world without letting you know about it. Naturally, I promised that you would never know a thing.” Lee smirked.
In the two months since the one-sided battle, the Catroph nanobots on the base and ships had been destroyed and replace with the Astangii nanobots. Much larger and more powerful emitters had been built as small attack craft with contra gravity, engines and shields. The damaged ships had made it back to the base after a very long journey, time wise, and the crews transferred. Four warships were now crewed and ready for space. The Astangii was outfitted with Catroph rail guns in a dozen turrets around the ships outer skin. Astangii beam weapons were too power demanding to add to the Earth ships or the Furry ships. Nukes, ammunition for the rail guns, assorted missiles and hand weapons were stocked from the Fox Base One armory and from Fox Base Two. The question was what t
o do with them.
“Well, that planet we visited has potential even if we have to fight off the Catroph automatic defenses. Do we have any other choices that we know about?” Eric asked.
“Almost fifty worlds from both sides of the conflict are marked on our charts. I would not recommend any of the Catroph worlds just yet though. How much time do we have before the rendezvous?” Horace asked.
“Three months and twelve days. These ships are not very fast. They seem to be converted freight carriers from the old asteroid mining operations, refitted with FTL. Six ships each with three thousand six hundred people on board with a crew of ten. Half the colonists are women but no children are aboard. Three warships are traveling with them.” Lee answered.
“Warships? Like what?” Eric asked.
“Ships like our originals. They added six nukes and two launch tubes, two twin thirty millimeter rail gun turrets on the sides of the ship and twenty five troops with standard weapons.” Lee answered.
“We supposed to take them all to the same world or different worlds?” Horace asked.
“Control did not say. Control doesn’t say much of anything these days. After hearing what Eric told us about the drugs and auto destruct, I think this is a cleansing. They will ship out all who do not fit the mold and hope we don’t come back.” Lee finished and sat back.
“Like the old penal colonies they use to have back when there were individual nations. I have nothing to go back for, no companion, no home really after I left the crèche, and I saw the Grand Canyon before I left so that wraps it up for me.” Eric said.
The others chuckled.
“When you put it like that,” Horace said, “I‘ve seen the canyon too. I’ve seen a lot more than that and I didn’t like much of it. We are clean of the drugs they used on all of us and I like it this way. We go back then they may not like the real us.”
“What about the resources we were supposed to send back eventually?” Phil asked. “Metals, foods, chemicals? Do we still ship them back to Earth?”
“We should. We will need trade and more bodies if we are going to survive out here. More crews and captains for all the ships we are going to capture during our war with Catroph. Asi has planets with shipyards on them, probably in very bad shape since they are on a planetary surface. Weather will do things to ships and equipment that space does not. I think we should go back and capture the defenses around that first planet. What do you guys think?” Eric finished.
“It sounds like you are abandoning Earth and the mission, setting up our own world. Are you seriously thinking we could do that?” Phil asked.
“Well, yes, I think we can. That was why we were sent out here, wasn’t it, to set up a colony world? We just set it up for ourselves and the colonists who are on the way here. Earth doesn’t care how many of us die and they don’t want us to return.” Eric answered after a little pause to think it through.
“And you still want to send resources back after we rebel against Earth?” Lee asked.
“We don’t have to tell them we rebelled, do we?” Eric asked.
The others chuckled and nodded.
“So we secretly set up our own world for all the people they will send out here, all the other rejects like us. First we need the world and that means fighting the Catroph.” Phil said.
“Yeah. Go get some back. We got info on defenses from the Catroph computers and I think we have that planet as well. I will check and get back to you.” Lee stood and the others did too, each heading for his own ship. Eric remained behind. The Astangii was now his. Betty had been copied and loaded into the mainframe alongside Asi, his crew was in place in much larger and nicer quarters and all needed supplies and equipment had been transferred to the much larger ship. Chuck was happily working with his new toys and training a few gunners. The Pathfinder was empty and would remain so for some time.
~~~~~~
The ship was scanned and recognized by the Catroph computer. The few remaining defenses went to standby and the system waited for the arrival of the ships. The assault was totally unexpected and completely successful.
The ship moved closer to the asteroid as though it was preparing to enter the base. As the double doors opened, a single emitter missile was launched into the hanger. The modified EMP and microwaves took out the electronics and the nanobots in a single move. A probe followed after a half hour and reported the base dead and the hanger empty. The main frame was deeper inside and if it was like the first base, protected from the emitter.
“That was easy. Let’s take her in Mr. Mohamed. Get a crew on the alien computer ASAP and wipe the area with the new emitters before you enter. ANY area.” Lee relaxed for a moment as his orders were carried out. His new ship, Ryu Akai, was larger, faster and armed to the teeth.
“Yes Sir.”
“Contact Phil at Fox Base One and the other ships please.”
“On line and holding now Sir.”
“Guys, it was way too easy. The computers are being checked now so we will have more detailed info in a few hours about any other defenses in this system.”
“Roger that. Astangii and Asgard II standing by at the ice belt.”
The Asgard II was a second furry ship taken over by Horace and his twelve remaining crew. Eventually they would need to paint a new symbol on the ships but they left the furry design on for tactical reasons now. Lee felt a small thud as the ship landed on the ring the globe ships used. There were clicks as the ship locked itself onto the ring for stability.
“Boarding parties away. Be careful out there.”
“Yes Sir. We will.” Mohamed answered.
It was only a matter of a few minutes before Mohamed Alex Rosenberg led the team into the base. He was in the lead behind the floating emitter, one of the units designed around the idea of a gate for new ships to pass through. It was self-contained, had contra gravity, a small set of thrusters for maneuvering, a full set of scanners in all wavelengths and a big emitter with the variable units to handle any nano. Now the emitter was carefully peeking around corners before sending a man further on to check the passageway. It seemed deserted but they were under orders to act as if the enemy were waiting for them. Slowly but steadily they moved deeper into the interior.
~~~~~~
“How long have they been gone?” Lee asked.
“Eighteen minutes Sir.”
“Is that all? Seems like a lot longer, just sitting here waiting. Of course, it will take weeks to investigate the whole base. Too many tunnels and rooms to do it quickly just like FB One. Marty, do you have info on age of the war? When it started and how long it lasted?” Lee asked, looking for something to fill the time.
“Affirmative. Partial file restored on war and duration. In our time line, the war began ten thousand three hundred years ago and ended, as far as this computer is concerned, three thousand one hundred years ago. Other battles may have occurred after this ship was isolated from the flow of information.”
“A war lasting seven thousand years? That’s incredible.” The com man, Ricardo Sabata was astonished. “It would explain why some systems are still functioning though. Fighting a war over seven thousand years means having nanobots doing maintenance on ships that were a thousand years old or more at the time of the war. The distances and the time it took to get from one star to the other, even the time it took just to locate an enemy ship or planet must have been centuries.”
“That’s why Asi was configured to look for habitable worlds. They were looking for alien colonies and their home world. When they found such a world, they sent for the fleet and killed every living thing on the planet. I don’t see how else they could fight a war across hundreds or thousands of light years. The war may not even have ended yet. They could still be looking for each other out there, a thousand light years from here or more.” Lee was momentarily awed by the distances and time needed out here in the galaxy. “We have just barely scratched the surface. We may never find all the worlds they held or all the ships they ha
d. Generations would go by and we would still be in a single quadrant of this arm of the galaxy.”
“We found the computer Sir. Jane is running the program now. Be about twenty minutes before we start getting answers. Nothing alive here for centuries by the way. Found a few mummies and bits of mummies and nothing else. All nanobots wiped by our little buddy here.”
“Roger that. Take your time. We have all of eternity.” Lee smiled, wondering what Mohamed would think of that.
~~~~~~
“One hundred meters and closing. Extend landing gear.” Reed called out quietly.
Eric ran through the numbers on his screen once again. Oxy nitrogen good, gravity one hundred and twenty percent Earth normal, air pressure nominal, sun nominal and plant life was evident even from orbit. Too good to be true.
“Do you think they terra formed this world?” Reed asked.
“I was wondering why it was so close to home. That could be why. At least it may be close to their home world and they have the same needs as we do. Amazing.”
“Twenty meters. Ten. Dead slow. Five meters. Touchdown.” Reed spoke in a monotone, hypnotic in a sense.
“Cut engines. Maintain thrusters for stabilization and be ready to lift.” Eric waited to see if the ground was going to hold the weight of the ship. Normally the globe ships on Earth would land on a concrete and steel ring shaped like a bowl, designed to hold the weight. Here they had to use landing gear and scan for hard ground.
“I think we are on solid rock here.” Reed finally said.
“Okay. Send out an emitter and check the area first.” Eric ordered.
“Yes Sir.” Reed said, glad the Captain was learning a little caution. The emitter was activated and began spraying the launch tube with microwaves and high energy magnetic fields, insuring that nothing would enter the tube when the outer hatch opened.