Chapter 4: A Shaggy Beast
The Roustabout was an Elint, or electronic intelligence platform for the Trena Militia, it not only collected intelligence; but was designed to be a coordination and control platform for the Surveyor Flights, and squadrons of fighter space craft. When Roustabout flew it flew with a constellation of four Surveyor craft, and twenty space air superiority fighter space craft. This time when Roustabout flew, it was with only four Surveyors Craft and with four LC-6 medium lift landing craft to land exploration parties on the new world. As they approached the world the Roustabout launched the surveyor craft.
“This sure beats long patrol,” the sensor operator called as Surveyor 008 left the Roustabout. They had been chosen for this mission as they had the best crew in the surveyor teams.
“Yeah,” The crew chief said as he checked the ships systems. “A couple of quick turns around the planet with full sensor sweeps and back to the Roustabout then home. Hell, this is the shortest survey mission we’ve been on.”
“Okay folks,” The mission commander for surveyor double oh eight broke into the chatter. “As a reminder, the Star Exploratory Forces flew the system a hundred or so years ago. They did a quick flyby of number four here to determine if it was habitable. They didn’t even do an atmospheric survey. When they surveyed the star system for civilization they only did an EM survey. They found no electronic emissions. They didn’t take the time to do an imagery survey of the planet. We’ve been tasked to do is make a pole to pole mapping survey.
“We’re to do a full mapping run, from pole to pole.” The mission commander continued. “We’ll be the only one here, the others are checking out the rest of the system. So, pilot, take us to the top of the world.”
“Aye, to the top of the world sir,” the Thonian pilots replied and activated the preprogrammed flight plan.
So they went to the top of the world. Like Trena it had an ice cap that came down a couple thousand miles from the pole. It was an arctic desert, with only a few large roaming animals. As they orange peeled the planet in a long slice from the north to the south pole they found that the planet was lush. It was heavily forested, thousands and thousands of miles of forest land. The forested lands gave way to wide prairies, and savannas. The sensor operators narrated what their sensors were recording.
“Coming up on a mountain range now,” one of the operators was saying, “Most likely this continent’s continental divide, it runs southwest to northeast. Looks like it might be seven eight thousand miles long. What is that Jack!” the senior operator nudged the operator beside him. He had been half watching his station mate’s display. “Damn those are big!” The other sensor operator keyed in the intercom. “Trena has nothing like these; on Earth they were called bison.”
“On Thonia,” the other sensor operator called, “Largils are that big and they are as gentle as a new born child.”
“It’s moving toward that dark mass!” the sensor operator called, “Damnation, it’s a herd of them. It’s like a sea! Hey what the hell is that?” He tightened the zoom controls on the camera to its tightest viewing scale. “Hey it’s a man. Man there’s twenty or thirty of them! They’re stalking one of those shaggies damn one of them has climbed up on the shaggy and is riding it.”
“Look at that!” The other operator called, “They’re swarming it. They brought it down and they did it with only their bare hands! Can you believe it?”
“Okay folks settle down,” the commander broke in. “Let’s go to full stealth. Pilot, get us down close. I don’t want us seen by those abos.”
“Roustabout, Roustabout, this is Surveyor 8.” The commander called, “Condition Bust. I say again Condition Bust. We are feeding you live video and surveillance, we are in full stealth mode, I want Surveyor 5 down here also I want another group of eyes say a thousand west of us on the south east slopes. I want to make dam certain that this isn’t a case of a downed space crew. I want them to start doing a debris scan.”
“Roger 8" Roustabout replied. “We are seeing your scans now.”
“Pilot,” the commander called seeing another group of men dragging a sled towards the woods, “I am tagging a group on the ground. They’re moving some where towards the woods. I want you to keep us over them I want you track them to where they’re going.”
“Roger!” one of the pilots called. The pilots saw the group that the commander had put an icon on and now was displayed on their screen. The commander standing in the doorway to the flight deck watched as his pilot team worked without saying a word to each other. The Thonians’ were unnerving to watch. But they could make the surveyor craft do things its designers would consider impossible. They flew the ship into a near hover as they followed the tribe back to the woods. The woods were so dense that the people couldn’t be seen from the sky. They switched to infrared and radar sensors. The Chief was able to direct an almost never used surveillance microphone onto the people and recorded their language. A Thonian back on Roustabout began the process of translating what they were saying with the help of the AI.
“It’s not any known language,” the linguist said, “It’s not Terrish, Thonian, or even Verlin.”
It took days for the hunting party to a get to its settlement. Usually the Surveyor flights could stay on station for weeks at a time, but Captain Vaughn in Roustabout decided that the surveyor flights could only stay on site for only a few hours at a time. No more than 8 hours at a time. When the surveyor flights came off station they continued the mapping mission. The discovery of the hunting party was just the beginning. It didn’t take long to find other evidence that the planet was a bust. As they continued their mapping they found other tribes of people. They found no evidence of high technology, no radio, no holovision, no machines greater than human powered, animal powered or wind power. There were some sail powered sea craft. They found nothing more elaborate or technically complex than a man of war from Earth’s 5th century pre empire. Their hope of finding the remains of a star ship that would allow them to colonize this world came to a dramatic end when they witness a battle between two large sailing ships.
Finally, Captain Vaughn recalled the surveyors and made preparations to leave the planet.
The last surveyor flight to be on post of the aborigines was Surveyor 008. As they pulled out, the stealth system failed allowing the leader of the Woods Clan to witness the failure. He was in a meadow a little ways from the clan’s village where he was pointing out the stars to his son when the stealth system failed. The head man didn’t know what it was he was seeing but he didn’t think it was a good omen.
Every Last Mother's Child Page 65