Return of the Star Raiders (The Long Road Back Book 1)

by Dietmar Wehr

  The main screen split in half, with the left side showing the video transmission while the right side continued to show the tactical situation. Strider saw a man who was wearing a tight-fitting and ornate uniform. It made Strider conscious of the fact that what he was wearing—a rather loose-fitting black overall with minimal insignia—was not making a very good first impression.

  “Ah, there you are,” said the other man. “I think I should introduce myself. I’m Commander Jonas Corso. And you are?”

  “Captain Richard Arthur Strider. If you are who you say you are, then perhaps, Commander Corso, you’d prefer to speak with someone higher up in our planet’s chain of command.”

  Corso smiled. “Like General Terrington maybe?” He chuckled when he saw Strider’s look of surprise. “We’ve been monitoring all the usual communication frequencies, Captain, and we heard what the General said to you. He is also hearing me as well right now. General Terrington, I mean no disrespect to you or to the leadership of your planet, but since Captain Strider’s Fearless has the ability to fire on us, I prefer to deal directly with Captain Strider until such time as he’s convinced of our credentials.” There was a pause. It seemed that Strider and Corso were both waiting to see if Terrington had a response. He did.

  “Perhaps if you explained why your ship came here, Commander.”

  “Certainly, General. Haven has endured the Dark Age since the collapse of the Federation better than probably any other Federation planet. We never lost the basic underpinnings of an industrial society. Apparently, many other planets were not so lucky. We’ve had the ability to travel in space for almost half a century now, and during that time, we have defended ourselves twice against the raiders. The first time was against one ship; the second time, which was five years ago, against four ships. They inflicted a lot of damage and fatalities, but we beat them off. When we recovered from that raid, my King decided that it was time to find allies and organize a common defence. Our small but growing navy has been visiting other Federation planets, hoping to find some with similar technical levels. Your planet is the first one we’ve found that can build spaceships. May I ask if you’ve traveled to other star systems as well?”

  “Ah, no. We have decided to concentrate our resources on defending this planet for now,” said Terrington after a half-second’s pause.

  “Yes, of course. Perhaps there are other ways our two planets can co-operate for our mutual defense. What else would you like to know, General Terrington?”

  “Do you know where the Star… where the raiders come from?”

  Corso’s friendly expression became a frown. “No. At first glance one would assume that it’s an ex-Federation planet, but some of our Intelligence analysts are wondering if they come from a planet that was never part of the Federation to begin with and therefore didn’t suffer from the disruptions caused by the collapse. Finding their base of operations is a high priority. Since there are over five hundred known planets that were colonized before the Federation collapsed, checking them all will take time. The more ships we can devote to that search, the sooner we’ll find them and be able to make them experience what it’s like to be on the receiving end of an attack from space. By the way, General and Captain Strider, our ship has decelerated to a stop now.”

  Strider checked the tactical display and saw that Corso’s claim was true. He heard Terrington speaking, but the sound was muffled and too low for him to make out what he was saying. Strider assumed he was talking with someone else at PDC and had put his hand over his boom mic. That muffled sound didn’t last long.

  “We’re prepared to let you land your ship at a location that is not close to any city. I can then meet you in person. Captain Strider’s ship will follow you down. If that’s acceptable to you, then we’ll provide the landing instructions, Commander.”

  Corso didn’t hesitate at all. “Yes, that’s perfectly acceptable. I’m looking forward to meeting both of you in person.”

  “Fine. The landing site will transmit a homing signal on a frequency that’s slightly lower than this audio frequency. When your ship gets within visual range, you’ll see two circles of flashing lights. They’re the landing pads for your ship and Fearless. Fearless will land after your ship does.”

  “Very good, General. We’re on our way now,” said Corso cheerfully.

  “I’m going to sign off for now, but Captain Strider will stay in contact with you.”

  A click confirmed that the General had shut down his com channel. Strider took a quick glance at the tactical screen and saw that Savannah was moving once again, accelerating at a modest pace. The communications channel between them remained open the entire trip down, but neither of them had much of anything to say.

  Chapter Eight

  Twenty-seven minutes later, Savannah gently touched down exactly in the middle of one of the landing zones at the Test Base where the General was still located. Strider brought Fearless down to the other landing zone three minutes later. It was still daylight but wouldn’t be for much longer. By the time Fearless’s engines and power systems were shut down, Strider could see on the external video feed that there was a small group of people standing at the base of Savannah’s access ramp. Since the other ship was almost half a mile away, it was impossible to make out if Corso was among them. Two air cars arrived from the Base, one for each ship. Strider hurried to exit the ship, not wanting to keep either the General or Corso waiting.

  As he quickly walked down Fearless’s ramp, he was shocked by the size of Savannah. It was clearly larger than Fearless. How much larger he wasn’t sure, but if it was 50% wider in diameter, then the internal volume would be almost three and a half times larger. The air car was waiting for him, and he quickly got in.

  It landed near the Base’s main building, next to where the other air car was already parked. Strider could see a group of men standing nearby: the General and his Aide, plus Corso and two other Haven officers who were dressed alike in gaudy uniforms. The General and Aide were wearing their best uniforms, and that just left Strider wearing his functional but plain ship-board uniform to stand out from the crowd. As he got out of the air car, he quickly checked to make sure there weren’t any embarrassing food stains, not that he could have done anything about them if there were.

  He quickly walked over to the group, all of whom turned to watch him approach. Corso had a friendly smile. The General’s initially neutral expression took on a bit of a scowl, probably at Strider’s appearance.

  “My apologies for keeping all of you waiting,” said Strider.

  Corso waved the apology off. “No apology needed, Captain. You had to make sure that my ship did as instructed from a position where you could have done something about it if we had deviated from those instructions. We would have done the same if you had visited our planet. My officers and I were just telling General Terrington how pleasant your planet is here. The temperature is quite comfortable, and the surrounding vistas are quite beautiful.”

  Terrington jumped in before Strider could respond. “Yes, well, let’s go inside and get comfortable. You too, Captain.”

  Strider followed the group inside to a conference room that had been hurriedly tidied up since Strider had seen it a few days previously. He was acutely aware of how unimpressive all this must look to Corso and his officers. To their credit, neither Corso or the other two men showed any signs that they were thinking those kinds of thoughts. Strider made a mental note to himself not to play poker with any of them.

  When they were all settled in chairs, the three AF people on one side of the oval table and the three Haven officers on the other side, Terrington folded his hands on the table in front of him and said in his best diplomatic voice, “Before we get down to serious matters, can I offer any of you something to drink? We have a very pleasant liquor made from one of this planet’s fruits.”

  Corso smiled and nodded. “Yes, I’d love to try that. My officers too, of course. We can use it to toast the new friendship between our
two planets.”

  Strider thought that was a bit premature but kept his expression friendly. Terrington’s Aide left the room to arrange for the drinks. When the silence as they waited became a bit awkward, Strider felt he should say something.

  “Savannah is quite the ship, Commander. May I ask how big she is?”

  “Thank you for that compliment, Captain. The Savannah-class cruiser is fifteen hundred feet in diameter. Does New Caledon still use feet and miles?”

  “We do. I’d be very interested in a tour of your ship if that’s possible,” said Strider. Terrington’s expression seemed to perk up a bit at that suggestion.

  “Well, if these preliminary talks go as well as I think they will, then I see no reason why we can’t exchange tours. I’ll show you my ship and you can show me your ship.” Corso looked quickly back at Terrington. “You, of course, are invited to have a look at Savannah too, General Terrington.”

  “Thank you. I suspect I’ll be too busy reporting to my superiors to take you up on that offer. Ah, here are the drinks.”

  When everyone had a glass of liquor, Terrington raised his glass and said, “Death to the Star Wolves.”

  Everyone, including the Haven officers, repeated the toast and took a sip.

  “Now that IS quite lovely,” said Corso. “I think you might have a nice export item here, General.”

  Terrington seemed surprised by that possibility. “Er, yes, well…I suppose so. I’m sure your planet will be exporting things to us too, but for now, let’s talk about helping each other eliminate the Star Wolves threat. You were talking about visiting all five hundred plus colonized planets. How many has your Navy visited so far?”

  “Oh, I think your planet is the twenty-first? Is that right, Karl?” said Corso to the officer to his right.

  “I believe that’s correct, Commander.”

  “And may I ask how many ships your Navy has?” asked Terrington.

  “We have three heavy and two light cruisers operational now. We expect to have another heavy cruiser by the end of this year. How many colonized planets have you visited, Captain?” asked Corso.

  “None. Fearless does not have a jump drive.”

  Corso looked puzzled. “Oh? Is there a technical problem? Perhaps we can provide some assistance.”

  “The problem is that our planet doesn’t seem to have any promethium. We’ve been surveying other planets and moons in this system, but so far haven’t found any there either.”

  “Well then, you’re in luck,” said Corso with evident enthusiasm. “We’ve found more than enough promethium on Haven to satisfy our own needs. I’m confident that we can sell or trade some to you, maybe for several hundred cases of this liquor perhaps?” he said laughing. “If you had the promethium, would you be able to build jump drives?”

  “Not quickly. We know it’s possible, but we don’t have any technical manuals on how to do it left over from before the Collapse. I’m sure we could figure it out eventually,” said Terrington.

  “I’m sure you could too. Given the nature of the Star Wolf threat, though, I’m guessing that your Aerospace Force would prefer to have jump-capable ships sooner rather than later. Is that correct, General Terrington.”

  “We would, but it’s not just the shortage of promethium that could be a problem. Our government leaders feel that the amount of funding allocated to the Aerospace Force is as high as the economy can afford. Building a jump-capable ship, which I suspect will have to be larger than our Fearless-class cruiser to make room for the jump drive, will be a major expenditure that hasn’t been planned for,” said Terrington.

  “Hm. I see. That’s unfortunate. Haven can afford to build ships like Savannah, but our financial resources are not infinite either. One ship a year is about our limit. We’ve picked up clues about raider attacks on other planets that have confirmed that they, like us, have more than one ship. They’ve been raiding the Old Federation for decades, which means they’ve had plenty of time to build more ships. If we find them and discover they outnumber us in ships, Haven could be at risk of atomic bombardment from orbit if the raiders decide to form a fleet and attack us. I hope you’ll be able to convince your civilian leaders that there is strength in numbers and that time is not something we have a lot of,” said Corso.

  “Your visit here has definitely changed the situation for us. Without promethium, there was no reason to even research jump drive technology. Defending against a Star Wolf attack seemed to be the best we could hope for. Switching to an offensive strategy of finding and attacking them is such a radical concept that our leaders may not be ready to embrace it whole-heartedly, but I will certainly push for as much financial support as I can.” Terrington looked at his empty glass. “I wonder how fast the distillers can make this?”

  Over the next half hour, the discussion ranged from other potential exports by both sides to the technical capabilities of ship systems.

  “How many missile tubes and missile reloads does Savannah carry?” asked Strider.

  “Twenty-four altogether: sixteen facing forward and eight facing aft. The forward tubes can fire a maximum of ten missiles each, the aft tubes six missiles each,” said Corso with just a hint of pride. “And Fearless?”

  Strider looked at Terrington, whose expression matched his own thoughts. For a ship that had almost four times the internal volume, Savannah wasn’t that much better armed than Fearless.

  “We have twelve tubes facing forward, none facing aft. It never occurred to our designers to incorporate missile tubes aft. We have enough reloads to fire fifteen times with each tube.”

  Corso’s eyebrows went up in obvious surprise. “A hundred eighty in total compared to our two hundred and eight. Your Fearless is far more formidable than I had assumed. Savannah actually has room for more missiles in missile storage, but production of enough enriched uranium for more missiles has been the bottleneck. Our planet’s uranium deposits are few and small. We’re trying to find more as fast as possible,” said Corso.

  From the General’s sudden change in expression, it was clear to Strider that they’d both just had the same ‘aha’ moment.

  “That’s very interesting,” said Terrington slowly. “We’ve found only one uranium deposit so far, but it’s huge. I’m thinking that we could trade uranium, either raw or enriched or some combination of both, in exchange for promethium. And maybe also some technical assistance on how to build a jump drive?”

  Corso’s smile got a lot wider. “It sounds like an excellent idea in principle. Naturally the details will have to be worked out by others: how much uranium of both kinds, how much promethium, what kind of technical assistance. But I’m sure our two sides can agree on a mutually-beneficial arrangement. This calls for another toast!”

  It didn’t take long for them to finish the bottle, and it appeared to Strider that the Haven officers were feeling the effects more than he, Terrington or his Aide were. By this time, they were talking about sports, women, and the intellectual capabilities—or lack thereof—of each side’s civilian leadership in terms that generated howls of laughter.

  “Well…” said Corso slowly, “I think my officers and I should get back to our ship. I want to thank you for your hospitality, General Terrington. You’ve been a gracious host, and your two officers have been delightful company.” Corso stood up a little unsteady. His officers did the same.

  “I’ll have my Aide here drive you back to your ship,” said Terrington.

  “Not necessary, General. Our ship is not that far away, and I think a walk in the cool evening breeze will help clear our heads. That is unless there are dangerous lifeforms that we might encounter along the way?”

  Terrington laughed. “No. I’m sure you’ll be perfectly safe. Why don’t you escort them back to Savannah, Captain, since you’ll be returning to Fearless as well?”

  “Certainly, General.”

  With handshakes all around, and plenty of good-natured laughter, Strider and the Havenites left the building
and began walking the mile of so to their ship. It was now dark, and even at that distance, Strider could see lots of lights on the sides of Savannah, with the entire area around the base of the ship lit up. Fearless, on the other hand, was mostly dark, except for light coming from inside the ship at the top of the access ramp.

  Corso had been right about the cool breeze, thought Strider. It was refreshing. After walking in silence for a bit, Corse looked at Strider and said, “How long ago was the last raider attack, Captain?”

  Strider had to think for a minute. “Twenty-eight years and a few weeks,” he said slowly.

  “That would have been before you joined the Aerospace Force,” said Corso. “May I ask why you decided to join the AF?”