Space Scout - The Peacekeepers

by S A Pavli

  “Sorry George, it wasn’t needed in the end. Our authorities saw sense,” I said.

  “No problem. I now have a lock of Manera’s hair. Could be worth a lot of money in the future,” said George.

  “You mercenary Frenchman. I thought we were going to share it,” complained Bob.

  “Uh-huh,” said George firmly shaking his head.

  “Bob, I’ll give you your own lock of hair,” said Manera with a smile.

  Our banter was interrupted by the Admiral. He had been talking to one of the technicians at the far end of the room where they had been carefully examining one of the comm screens.

  “Gentlemen, and Manera. I am afraid something is not right. Paul, Manera, can you come over to the screen please?” We excused ourselves from Bob and George and joined the technician at the 3D. “We have had a communication from the orbital Mars orbital observatory about the Hianja ships. There are two of them and they are now less than a million miles from Mars and heading that way.”

  “Going to Mars?” Manera looked perplexed. “Why would they be going to Mars?”

  “Yes. Our thoughts also,” said the Admiral. “They still have not responded to our hails. This is the best picture we have of the ships from the Mars orbital telescope. The picture was fuzzy but the ships were unmistakable.

  “They are Peacekeeper ships,” exclaimed Manera.

  “Why have they come in two Peacekeeper ships?” I asked.

  “The plan was to bring the Settang, just to demonstrate to the Earth authorities that the Peacekeepers have been tamed, but to also use two standard Hianja starships. They are much more comfortable and better equipped,” explained Manera. I was beginning to get a bad feeling in my guts and when I looked at Manera I could see she had the same thought as me.

  “Oh God!” I whispered. “No, it can’t be.”

  “The Pramasticon and its ally. Why have they come here?” Her face was fearful.

  “It won’t be to do good that’s for sure,” I said.

  “The Pramasticon?” asked the Admiral. “Is that….?”

  “Yes, the rogue Peacekeeper.” Manera answered his unfinished question.

  “Is that necessarily bad?” said the Admiral.

  “We must assume it is Admiral. We can only hope the Hianja delegation with the Settang Despass gets here very soon. In the meantime we must try to defend against these things as best we can. What forces do we have?” The Admiral scowled, deep in thought.

  “We are lucky. There are two battle cruisers on exercises around Mars. They have two squadrons each hornet fighters and are fully equipped with missiles and anti-missiles. There is another five ships around Earth and the moon, but only one is a battle cruiser. The others are light frigates and destroyers.” I struggled to remember what kind of ships they were.

  “Admiral, the Peacekeepers normally have sixteen fighters each. You know what those things can do. They are also very heavily armed with nuclear tipped missiles and anti-missiles. But both the Pramasticon and the other ship took heavy damage and losses in the Peacekeeper war. We can only hope their fighter force has been diminished as well as their stock of missiles.”

  “We need as much information as possible about these ships and how to combat them,” said the Admiral.

  “I suggest you consult with Alfred, ” I suggested. “let’s get him on line now. And Admiral, I think we should put the military on high alert immediately.”

  “Right. You two are co-opted into the military as of now,” said the Admiral. “Sorry Manera, I have no right to order you I know…”

  “Admiral, I will do everything I can to stop those things,” said Manera.

  The Admiral immediately got to work on the comm and began issuing alerts to the various military commands. I got on the comm to Alfred.

  “Paul, nice to hear from you.”

  “Not a social call I’m afraid Alfred. We may have an emergency and need your help. The Admiral will transmit some pictures coming in from the Mars Orbital Observatory. Two Hianja ships dropped out of Hyperspace but they are not the ones we are expecting. It looks like our friend the Pramasticon and its sidekick.”

  “That could be very unpleasant. Are you sure Paul?”

  “Have a look at them and tell me what you think. If it is, then we need to know how to defend against them if they decide to turn nasty.”

  “The military have some very advanced tactical computers,” said Alfred.

  “But only you know the Peacekeepers intimately. They will need your input.”

  “I see. I will prepare all the information I have.”

  “Thank you Alfred.”

  The Admiral had loosened his tie and was haranguing the comm unit. The screen showed five or six screen insets with different military faces in each one. He seemed to be desperately trying to impart the urgency of the situation to them with a lack of success.

  “They believe it’s just the Hianja delegation,” he said, his frustration evident on his face. I turned to Manera.

  “Manera, can you talk to them. Tell them we believe it‘s the Pramasticon and its ally but Alfred is examining the pictures. In the meantime we must prepare some kind of defence.” Manera nodded and sat next to the Admiral. I left her to persuade our leaders and asked the Admiral to make the Mars picture available to Alfred. The Admiral buttonholed his technician and we all moved to another 3D where the technician got busy uploading the pictures to Alfred.

  Bob and George came over looking worried.

  “What’s going on Paul?” asked Bob shaking his head questioningly. I realised we had a problem in explaining the situation. The Earth authorities had not released information about the Peacekeeper war to the general public, deeming it too unsettling for now.

  “It’s a long story guys,” I began, scratching my head and wondering how to begin. I went on to briefly describe the Peacekeepers, how they were established and what they evolved into, and the war that we had become involved in. Their eyes boggled with disbelief as I expounded my story.

  “Dammit Paul, we are sitting ducks here,” exclaimed Bob when I had finished.

  “Yeah, I guess all the orbitals will have to be evacuated,” I said. “We should talk to the admiral.” I had another thought. “How many ships do we have in dock?”

  “The Lisa Jane and two others,” replied George immediately.

  “Are they able to go?”

  “Yes, we are just doing normal maintenance checks. We can refuel them,” replied George. “But Paul, you are not thinking of using them against these… Peacekeeper things?”

  “No George, just get them away from trouble,” I replied. He nodded and grunted his agreement.

  “I get on it straight away.”

  “Me and Paul will be in the Lisa Jane,” Manera interrupted.

  “Baby, we should go Earth side,” I protested.

  “No, we stay and help.”

  “Stay and get killed,” I said.

  “Paul, Alfred can provide help to Earth’s forces.”

  “Alfred doesn’t need us. He can get the Lisa Jane out of trouble without our help.”

  “I think we can help him,” she said stubbornly.

  “Okay baby. Me you and Alfred it is.” No arguing with a woman who has made her mind up!

  Back in the familiar environment of the Lisa Jane cockpit, we prepared for departure. Alfred and I dispensed with the system checks and brought the ship up to flight readiness as quickly as possible. We were queued up behind the other two ships which were also being evacuated well away from the possible marauding Peacekeepers.

  The SES and military comms networks were buzzing with activity and a secondary processor was keeping us updated, allowing Alfred to pilot the ship. The Pramasticon was still heading for Mars and the two Earth cruisers were being mobilised to defend the planet. A hyperspace message had been sent to the Hianja receiver set up for contact informing them of the Pramasticon’s incursion into Earth territory and asking for immediate support. Whether they
would be able to respond in time was anybody’s guess. We had to assume we were on our own.

  Ten minutes later it was our turn to ease out of our berth.

  “Where are we going to Paul?” asked Alfred.

  “Mars Alfred,” answered Manera. I looked at her and she gave me a defiant look. “We must stop them from getting to Earth,” she said.

  “And getting ourselves killed is going to help?”

  “Alfred can provide better support for the military if he is there,” she said. I thought it was wishful thinking but on the faint chance that she could be right, I nodded my agreement. I knew the real reason of course; she felt guilty that a Hianja creation now threatened Earth.

  “Set course for Mars Alfred. Maximum speed.”

  Chapter 36

  We needed ten hours of continuous acceleration to put enough distance between us and Earth in order to safely jump into Hyperspace. We were three hours into our journey when the news arrived that the Pramasticon and its ally had switched course away from Mars. They were now heading for Earth.

  I instructed Alfred to switch off our engines and cruise until we could decide what to do. Admiral Crozier came on line.

  “Captain, we need every ship we have to form a defensive shield. We will use the shuttles themselves as missiles. I suggest therefore that you return to Earth where we can unload your shuttle into Earth orbit and then take the Lisa Jane to safety.” That sounded like a good scheme to me. The fast and manoeuvrable shuttles would make versatile and potent weapons if we could throw enough of them against the enemy. “And get yourselves to safety Captain. Good Luck.”

  “Thanks Admiral. Good luck to you too.”

  We had to turn the ship around and decelerate. Obviously it took us another three hours to kill our velocity and start our return to Earth. It seemed touch and go whether we would make it to Earth before the Pramasticon. They could jump to just outside the Hyperspace limit and then accelerate at a subspace speed that we could not match.

  “Alfred, can the Pramasticon beat us to Earth?”

  “We will arrive at about the same time Paul.”

  That was a problem and I pondered on it. If we upped our speed to maximum we would arrive with very little reserves of fuel. Better to arrive after the Pramasticon I decided. We would at least know where it was and be able to manoeuvre accordingly. I explained my thinking to Alfred and he concurred.

  “Reduce power to fifty percent Alfred.” The idea was to approach Earth at a good speed for a fly by and release the shuttle into an appropriate orbit as required by the military, after which we hightail it to safety.

  The next few hours passed slowly and the Earth grew in size. Manera was fidgety and nervous, clearly upset by the appearance of the enemy ships. We were in contact with the Earth defence network and Alfred updated us regularly on the enemy’s movements and the disposition of the Earth forces. The two heavy cruisers were making maximum speed towards Earth but would arrive well after the Pramaticon.

  The existing forces already deployed around the Earth were going to have a difficult, indeed impossible task in defending the Earth, the moon and all the twenty five military, Science and tourist orbitals. They were therefore positioning themselves in ways that would allow some interception and resistance wherever the enemy appeared.

  The Pramasticon and its ally were formidable but were seriously outnumbered. The Earth forces would prevail eventually, but the enemy could do some very extensive damage. I found myself pondering the inexplicable question of why the Pramasticon and its allied ship would want to commit suicide, just to cause damage to Earth. Were they so insane, or were they after something else?

  “What are these machines after?” I asked Manera. “Why are they doing this?”

  “Revenge I suppose,” replied Manera.

  Could a machine harbour a desire for revenge? It seemed unlikely to me. They were after all still computers. Advanced AI but non-sentient, without feelings. I wondered if the Pramasticon had, like Cora, also built a semi-sentient computer substrate for its avatar. The Settang had kidnapped me in order to experiment with cyborg technology. The Pramasticon had been experimenting with the monkeys on the Peacekeeper planet. Is that what this was all about I asked myself. Did they want to kidnap humans in order to continue their experiments?

  It was a horrifying thought! When I expressed my thinking to Manera she held her face in her hands.

  “Oh Paul, we can’t allow that to happen.”

  “I don’t see how we can defend the whole planet against that kind of sneak attack,” I said. “They have already shown that they have the cloaking technology to avoid detection. The can land in an isolated village somewhere, round up a few people and be out before we can do anything.”

  “We must warn the Admiral,” she said. “They have to do everything they can to prevent that.”

  It took a while to get the Admiral on line. He was clearly a busy man and I was apologetic about expressing my idea. But as I explained myself his face took on a ferocious aspect.

  “Dammit Constantine, you know these machines better than anyone,” he scowled. “If you believe that is a possibility then we have to take it seriously, but God only knows how we are going to defend against it.”

  “If I’m right then the Pramasticon won’t take on the Earth’s forces head on. It will set up false attacks to divert them, while sending its fighters down to the planet to do the kidnapping,” I suggested.

  “So we should concentrate on tracking and intercepting the fighters,” said the Admiral. I agreed and the Admiral disconnected.

  “God what a nightmare,” said Manera. “What is this going to do to Human Hianja relations?” It was a thought I had not considered, and the answer was obvious. The Peacekeepers were Hianja after all, and once people learnt what they were, they were unlikely to discriminate between one kind of Peacekeeper and another. But there was little point in worrying about that now.

  “Alfred, if you were tasked with flying in from Space and kidnapping a bunch of people, how would you do it?”

  “There are vast tracts on land on Earth which are still largely uninhabited,” he began with his best schoolteacher voice. “Mostly in the two northern continents of Siberia and Russia. There are numerous small traditional settlements, research and weather stations and oil and mining facilities which are difficult to defend. The enemy has sophisticated cloaking technology, their fighters could fly in at very high speed undetected.”

  “Do you think we should advise the Admiral?”

  “It’s fairly obvious Paul. I think they can work it out for themselves.” I was reluctant to interrupt the Admiral again so I agreed.

  “Yes, they are hardly going to land in Trafalgar Square I guess.”

  “Where is Trafalgar Square?” asked Manera.

  “I took you there. Centre of London? With the tall column with Admiral Nelson on top. It’s hundreds of years old and has been repaired a dozen times.”

  “Was Admiral Nelson Admiral Croziers predecessor?” asked Manera.

  “No, I don’t think Admiral Crozier is that old,” I replied with a grin. “Anyway, he is American not English.

  “Don’t you have statues of Americans in England?” asked Manera.”

  “Oh yeah, presidents, artists, the odd General. But as a rule, countries reserve statues for their local heroes. Can’t have our pigeons shitting on foreign dignitaries.”

  “Pigeons?”

  “Large, incontinent birds,” I explained. She laughed and squeezed my hand.

  “It doesn’t matter how bad things are, my Captain will make me smile.”

  “We’ve been in worse fixes love,” I said giving her a hug. I should have known better than to say that.

  “Paul, you and Manera must take refuge in the Epsilon shuttle immediately, and prepare to depart.” Alfred’s voice was peremptory and uncompromising.

  “Bloody hell Alfred, what’s up?” I exploded.

  “One of the rogue Peacekeepers has com
e within range and released two missiles in our direction.”

  “Oh shit on it!”

  “Quite. Expected impact in seven minutes. The Lisa Jane will nor survive.” As usual Alfred did not pull any punches.

  “Okay Alfred. We are getting you into the Epsilon as well.”

  “You do not have time…,” began Alfred.

  “No arguments, shut the engines down Alfred and let’s move it.” Manera and I hurtled out of the cockpit, through the living areas and down the single connecting corridor that was the spine of the ship. We stopped off at Alfred’s computer room. It took a couple of precious minutes to power down his drum and unplug him and then pushing his drum ahead of us we floated down the corridor to the Epsilon’s mooring bay. The shuttle was at the base of the ship, bracketed by the water cylinders and the three fusion rockets which extended twenty metres behind the ship. I did not waste time plugging Alfred in but prepared to take the shuttle out on manual.

  No sooner had I completed the power up and prepared to release clamps when the ship was shaken by a tremendous explosion. Fortunately the first missile hit the ship at the front and we were protected by the massive water cylinders. It was also fortunate that I had not released the clamps otherwise the Epsilon would have been thrown disastrously against its moorings. I waited for the second missile to finish us off but it didn’t come. Through the cockpit window I could see the ship around us breaking up and an electrical fire flared along the ship’s wiring. I hastily disconnected the clamps which fortunately still worked and applied reverse thrust on the manoeuvring thrusters.

  The shuttle eased out of its bay and cleared the engines but I held it close to the Lisa Jane for a few minutes.

  “Why are we not leaving Paul?” asked Manera.

  “I want the Peacekeeper to think that no one got away. I think it diverted the other missile when it got a strike on the first one. Hopefully it will think we are done for and bugger off.” I had no way of knowing where the Peacekeeper ship was. Without Alfred my systems were basic with no long range scanners operational. I had to take pot luck.