Frontier's Reach: A Space Opera Adventure (Frontiers Book 1)

by Robert C. James

  Thirty-Six

  Seeker Weapon Ship

  In the service, there was an unofficial rule that no one was ever left behind. And here Jason was abandoning Kione to the mercy of the Seekers. A lump formed in his throat as he imagined the lengths they’d go to ensure their weapon became operational.

  Unfortunately, Kione was right. The Seekers wouldn’t let him go, and if Jason brought him back with him, he’d be risking the lives of everyone else aboard the Argo.

  He scanned the corridor through the visor of his helmet. Data scrolled in front of him, in the same text he’d seen on the weapon ship’s bulkheads. Linguists would have a field day with it when they get home. If they get home.

  Around a corner, two soldiers marched his way, and Jason strolled toward them as casually as possible, while holding his weapon firmly in hand. He wasn’t keen to use it, because if he did, his cover would surely be blown. While he thought about all the different outcomes in his head, the Seekers went past him without taking a second glance.

  He breathed a sigh of relief and approached the elevator shaft at the end of the corridor. He entered it and studied the small terminal. How am I meant to control this? He remembered back to when he’d first traveled on it. The soldier had waved at it with his hand, much like Jason had when controlling the cells in the brig.

  He assumed there must be some kind of sensor in the gloves of the suit, so he waved at the terminal, and dozens of different symbols flashed by. He searched for the one that looked like a backward S, with a horizontal stroke through it and a dot above—the same one he’d seen plastered on the bulkheads of the hangar deck.

  But the letters flew by too quickly. It stopped at a symbol that had two vertical lines with a dot between. The elevator door closed, and instead of descending, the car shot upwards.

  Crap!

  He tried to swipe at the terminal again, but the elevator came to a halt, and the doors opened. He stepped out onto a circular catwalk and grabbed the outer railing.

  Jason peered beneath him at a great complex over a hundred meters in diameter. At its heart on a large pedestal sat the sphere. Six giant conduits protruded from the relic and ran along the deck, beyond the bulkheads of the chamber. From everything Kione had claimed, Jason supposed the Seekers were using it to channel the power from the sphere to somewhere else on the ship. Potentially to a weapon emitter.

  Around the sphere were several workstations manned by Seekers. But they weren’t as threatening as the others he’d seen. Their armor was less bulky and their helmets less pronounced. They were also unarmed. He wondered if they might be engineers.

  There were, however, plenty of their brethren patrolling the chamber, appearing as menacing as ever, with their curved rifles at the ready. Jason had seen enough—it was time to go. He walked into the elevator and waved his hand over the terminal. He did it a little slower this time and watched the symbols fly past. It scrolled all the way to the end—the backward S. He pulled back his hand, and the doors closed.

  After a quick journey, he reached the familiar surroundings of the hangar deck. Its size awed him as it had the first time. The Julieanne sat off into the distance. It was so small and pathetic compared to the larger Seeker crafts around it.

  Now what the hell do I do?

  Jason walked toward one of the Seeker vessels. Inside were significant differences to a standard commonwealth craft. In place of a viewport at the front of the cockpit, there was a holographic screen wrapped around the pilot’s seat. On each side of the seat were unusual conical-shaped controls. And behind, instead of chairs, half-meter-long shafts protruded from the ceiling.

  He inspected the helm where the same alien text was present.

  Footsteps marched toward the craft and a group of twenty soldiers, armed to the teeth, streamed up the ramp through the rear airlock.

  I’m boned…

  One brushed past Jason and took a seat at the controls while the others each put their hands around a ceiling shaft. A click accompanied each one. Handholds?

  Not wanting to appear any more suspicious than he already did, Jason did the same with the handhold above him. His glove magnetized to it, and the soles of his boots did the same to the deck plating.

  The airlock at the rear of the ship closed, and the pilot powered up the craft. It gently lifted from the deck and headed toward the hangar deck exit.

  Cargo Ship Argo

  Conrad peered through the viewport at Psi-Aion below. His thoughts were only for Tyler. He and the others had been on the surface for over nine hours now. An entire night. The sun would soon rise.

  He’d hoped it was just a simple matter of them having mechanical issues with the Maybelle, but with the lack of communications, he knew better. Something was wrong.

  Very wrong.

  Conrad gritted his teeth. If there was anyone who would get them embroiled in a conflict with an alien species while throwing them light-years away from their home, it had to be the eldest of the Cassidy kids.

  Rycroft and Alyssa strode onto the bridge. While Conrad had re-strapped all the cargo below deck, the Rycrofts, with the help of Professor Petit, had concocted a plan to take the Argo through the atmosphere. He wasn’t optimistic, but he cared greatly for Tyler and would do whatever he could to save him.

  Alyssa walked over to him at the systems station. “Has there been any sign of Jason?”

  Conrad shook his head. “For the hundredth time, no.”

  She shot him a nasty glare. “There are people on this ship who still care for him.”

  “That’s not fair. I care like everyone else. It’ll be difficult to replace the Julieanne. They stopped making those pods years ago.”

  Alyssa stormed off to the operations station and Conrad smiled.

  That was a good one.

  He turned to Rycroft who was getting comfortable at the helm. “Is everything ready?”

  Rycroft ran his hands over the controls. “We’ll find out soon enough.”

  Alyssa walked to the helm and she pointed at her father’s monitor. “I wouldn’t advise dropping below this margin. If we do, we’re toast.”

  While the pair continued to go over their plan, Conrad took another look at the scanners. He did a double take at a blip. “I have something,” he said.

  Alyssa rushed over to him. “Jason?”

  The object moved toward Psi-Aion and its outline became clearer. “That’s not the Julieanne.”

  Alyssa’s demeanor deflated. “If it’s not the pod, what is it?”

  “Seekers.” Conrad shook his head. “It matches the size and configuration of the transport ship they sent down to Orion V.”

  “What do you think they want?”

  “The kid alerted them to our presence here. They may be coming to finish us off.”

  “We weren’t seen as a threat back at Orion V.”

  “They might think otherwise now.”

  “It’s not worth the risk.” Rycroft ran his hands over the helm. “We’ll have to call off our expedition to the surface until they’ve passed by. I’ll take us to the opposite side of the planet. With any luck, they shouldn’t detect us.”

  While Conrad found the girl annoying on occasion, she was dead right. With what they’d seen of the Seekers at Orion V, as long as no one was hostile toward them, they took little notice of anyone else. Jason had only gone in a small unarmed pod.

  What could they be up to?

  Thirty-Seven

  Psi-Aion

  Tyler’s eyes drooped. He hadn’t slept a wink.

  He’d stood at the cave entrance for the rest of the night, gazing through the bars at the landscape beyond.

  No one else got any shut-eye either. Captain Marquez and Doctor Tai laid against the cave wall, quietly chatting, while the Marines had scattered, finding a spot to rest, remaining as alert as possible.

  The sun was almost up, and it was producing a brilliant purple sky around it. Tyler hadn’t seen many sunrises. It was an occupational impossibilit
y as captain of a cargo ship. He would have enjoyed the experience if it weren’t for their confinement.

  From the village, a group of the natives headed toward them.

  “We’ve got company,” Tyler said, alerting the others.

  Everyone stood, just in time for their captors to arrive, led by the native who’d initially captured them out near the Maybelle.

  “Tolar Geri Vokar!” he said to them in a deep voice.

  His men opened the cell and rounded them up, once again roping their hands behind their backs.

  “We’re not Geri Vokar,” Marquez tried to tell them. “Can you understand? Not Geri Vokar!”

  His words fell on deaf ears, and they were led down from their detention back to the center of the village where the elder was waiting for them along with every other village person.

  “I don’t like the look of this,” Tai said, noting the six wooden posts around the central tree stump. Each post had a stack of wood surrounding it. “They’re going to burn us at the stake!”

  Tyler remembered being told tales of women back on Earth centuries earlier, being burned because people believed they were witches. The stories had given him nightmares.

  Marquez broke free of his captor and stepped toward the elder. “You must listen to us,” he said calmly. “We are not Geri Vokar.”

  The elder’s eyes narrowed and he nodded to one of his guards. In an instant, with the butt of a spear, Marquez was sent crashing down on his ass.

  “Nicolas!” Tai yelled.

  The guard dragged him to a post and tied him to it, wrapping the rope around his body. He struggled but couldn’t break free. Behind them, the natives bore down on the others with their torches lit.

  Tyler hadn’t given death a second thought for a long time. Not since his father died. But if he were to guess which way he’d go, it would never have been like the witches of a quaint Massachusetts town.

  Seeker Craft

  The massive globe that was Psi-Aion approached quickly. While standing behind the pilot, Jason kept a close eye on the helm and how adept the Seeker was at controlling the transport vessel.

  The Seeker craft entered orbit and Jason could only wonder for what purpose. Was it because he’d come calling on their door and Nash wanted to ensure no one else came searching for him? If it were the case, he hoped the Argo had already hightailed it.

  The craft pushed beyond Psi-Aion’s orbit and made a beeline for the atmosphere.

  Are we going to land?

  The Seeker helmsman maneuvered the smaller ship down and the deck plating reverberated. Jason sniggered to himself. Even an advanced species, with sophisticated spacecraft, still had trouble making smooth drops through the atmosphere of a planet.

  Through the cloud, large swathes of green stretched out to the horizon. Jason’s stomach churned while the vessel pulled up and straightened out.

  The helmsman found a clearing in the tree line where a massive cliff face overlooked the great forest. Jason did a double take. Beneath it were small wooden structures.

  And people.

  Psi-Aion

  Boom!

  Nicolas joined everyone else in the village and gazed into the sky. A craft zoomed overhead, appearing like a black vulture ready to pounce on its prey.

  Panic took hold of the villagers and they grabbed their loved ones, scrambling at the sight of the Seeker craft. Even the elder moved quickly for someone of his advanced age.

  “Vakar!” they all yelled at the top of their lungs.

  Within moments, they’d all fled, leaving the six of them to fend for themselves.

  Nicolas stared at Tyler whose ropes hadn’t quite been secured. He wrenched his body forward and twisted out of them with a skill and precision he hadn’t expected. Tyler loosened Nicolas’s knots, and between the pair of them, they had everyone free in a matter of minutes.

  “What do you think the Seekers want?” Higgs asked, throwing his ropes to the ground.

  Nicolas remembered the drawings they’d seen in the cave the night before. They were coming down for only one reason.

  “Fresh meat.”

  Cargo Ship Argo

  An alert sounded from the operations station. It was the last thing Kevin wanted to hear while steering the Argo toward the opposite side of the planet.

  “Something?” he asked Althaus.

  His colleague nodded. “Just as we moved into scanning darkness and lost contact with the Seeker craft, there was a change in their trajectory.”

  “Were they coming after us?”

  “No. They were heading down to the surface.”

  “Where?”

  “By the looks of it, toward the region our pod landed.”

  “They must be going after our people.”

  “It’s time we got down there.” Althaus said with steely glint in his eyes.

  “I thought—”

  “Tyler’s down there. If Alyssa said we’re ready to go, that’s good enough for me.”

  Kevin smiled and turned back to the helm, activating the intercom. “Bridge to engine room.”

  “Engine Room,” replied his daughter.

  “We’re going down.”

  “Roger that.”

  Kevin switched off the intercom and pushed in the commands on his console. It’d been some time since he’d landed a craft of the Argo’s size.

  He hoped he still had the right stuff.

  Thirty-Eight

  Psi-Aion

  A Seeker prowled toward Susan with his weapon raised. She pushed on with what energy she had left after fleeing the village and dived behind the nearest tree.

  A weapon blast smashed into the trunk, and she covered her eyes from the expected carnage, but instead of the burst blowing the tree into a splintery mess, it instead dispersed into it.

  Susan peered around trying to find the others. After escaping into the forest, they’d all got split up. There was still no one else in sight. Around the other side of the tree her attacker moved ever nearer.

  “Psst.”

  Susan darted her head around to the sound.

  “Down here.”

  A hand poked upward through the green brush beneath her. “Nicolas!” She grabbed hold and slid into a trench beside him. Her ex-husband pressed a finger to his lips and they waited until the Seeker passed.

  “Where are the others?” Susan whispered.

  Nicolas shook his head. “I don’t know. I think they’re farther ahead.”

  The crack of a Seeker weapon echoed around them and they peered over the top of the trench where a native fell from the blast. His attacker approached him and rolled his unconscious body over.

  “Seems they have their weapons tuned down.” Nicolas observed. “On Orion V, those things burned holes in our guys. These are only knocking them out.”

  “Can’t have dead slaves.”

  The Seeker attached a small device to the neck of the native and continued on, leaving him on the ground.

  “Looks like they’re tagging them.” Susan lowered her head and more soldiers approaching their position.

  “We can’t stay here for long,” Nicolas said. “We’ve got to find the others.”

  Cargo Ship Argo

  The Argo bashed and crashed through the atmosphere of Psi-Aion, viciously spiraling downward to their destination.

  “Engine room to bridge,” Alyssa called over the ship’s intercom.

  “Bridge here. Please tell me you have good news.” Kevin grabbed the helm console with a vice-like grip as the bulkheads shuddered around him.

  “Well, we’re in one piece,” Alyssa said optimistically. “But we’ve lost two of our ventral thrusters. The heat shield hasn’t protected everything.”

  “That’s okay, I’ll just make sure I pull up a little earlier than normal.”

  Kevin checked the monitor on his console. The Argo had pushed through the stratosphere and began to enter the troposphere where the turbulence smoothed out.

  “Well done back ther
e,” he praised his daughter. “Give my thanks to Professor Petit.”

  “Will do.”

  Kevin turned to Althaus. “Have you found the Maybelle?”

  “If I can find where the original CDF signal came from, I’ll be able to extrapolate—” His console beeped. “Got it. I’m sending the coordinates to the helm.”

  Kevin plotted the course.

  Psi-Aion

  After filing out of the Seeker ship, Jason stayed well behind the main groups of soldiers, watching them cut a swath through the forest. It had been nothing short of a bloodbath.

  He bent down to one of the victims before him and rolled over his body. The face was a familiar one. They were the same beings Althaus had killed on Orion V, and the same ones Jason knocked out on the weapon ship when he’d escaped. The warpaint and primitive weapons made them look like something from an old historical documentary on early human development.

  They’re slaves…

  It began to make sense. The aliens of Psi-Aion were being used by the true Seekers to do their bidding. And to be their voice. He thought of his friend and how different Nash had seemed on Orion V.

  What Kione had seen when he’d probed the mind of the guard on the weapon ship, was the being getting captured, before being turned into one of them.

  Jason spotted a small device attached to the alien’s neck. He tried to pull it off, but it wouldn’t come loose. He wondered if it was a control collar of some sort.

  Who are the true Seekers if these people are nothing more than their slaves?

  In the distance, the bulk of the soldiers disappeared. He stood and hurried off in their direction on a parallel path, keeping out of sight. He reached them quicker than he thought and when he closed in, he discovered why.