A New Threat

by Aaron DeMott

  Psygens and Space Cats, Book One:

  A New Threat

  Aaron DeMott

  © 2014 Aaron DeMott, Second edition © 2018 Aaron DeMott, Onicranium Dragon Books

  Cover Design Copyright © bsquirreldesign.com

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Summary:

  When an alien ship lands unexpectedly in the middle of her clan's territory, Bast is sent to investigate as part of her scout trial. After an accident, she meets these new visitors. She and her senior scout Rrrark are invited to return with the aliens to their home planet to open diplomatic relations. What started out as a simple diplomatic mission becomes complicated when they discover a pirate scheme that might be more than it seems. Only Bast, Rrrark, and two of the aliens called Pysgens are capable of stopping the pirates.

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my mom, Ranee DeMott, who not only taught me to read, but to enjoy it.

  Prologue

  Tomed bolted upright out of a deep sleep. He swung his feet from the bed and pulled the bottom of his shipsuit over his legs. Something had woken him, but what? He rubbed his eyes and cast his gaze around his guest quarters aboard the Goddard. Gray walls and beige carpet, a generic painting on the wall to the right, all normal for a stateroom on a Heim-class starship. The air circulator hummed along with a steady rhythm. Even the door that led from the bedroom to the rest of the suite was still cracked open just as he had left it.

  Tomed sensed nothing in his room. He frowned, extended his consciousness outward, and felt the alarm of the bridge crew a moment before the red alert klaxon sounded. He pushed his arms into his shipsuit and dashed out of his cabin before he had finished zipping it up.

  The bridge was controlled chaos. A dim light pulsed red when the alert siren sounded. The voices of the bridge crew blurred together as all of them hollered out damage reports and status updates.

  “We’re venting atmosphere!” an officer called out.

  “Engines are still offline!”

  Tomed pressed himself against the doorpost at the rear of the bridge until he was needed. The damage assessment station and the engineering monitor were on either side of the door. In front of him were the weapons control station and sensor station, the captain and first officer’s stations and the navigation and helm controls. The Main Holographic Display, or MHD dominated the very front of the bridge. It currently displayed a three-dimensional hologram of this ship, the Goddard, with several areas highlighted in red.

  Captain Trenton stood behind a lieutenant with uncombed hair and stared over his shoulder at the damage assessment station. He finished double-checking the lieutenant’s readout then glanced up at Tomed.

  “Good morning, Psygen. I’m afraid we’ll have a slight delay in getting you to the conference at SeQish.”

  “Well, it can’t be helped. My presence there is more of a formality than anything else.” Tomed shrugged. “Looks like I slept through all the fun. What’s the situation?”

  “Well, we had a surprise visit from a pirate ship.” The captain raised an eyebrow and cocked his head slightly to the side.

  Tomed frowned. It looked like the captain expected some kind of reaction from the statement. There was something about pirate activity in this sector that should ring a bell…

  Tomed longed for a cup of coffee. He’d never been able to think clearly in the morning, and it was somewhere around six—at least, it was in the last time zone he’d been in. He shook his head and willed himself to wake up.

  “I think—” Tomed scrunched his eyes halfway shut as he tried to think. “—the latest report said that there wasn’t any pirate activity in this sector since the new resort opened over at Antar. Shouldn’t all the pirates be over there?”

  Captain Trenton chuckled. “Funny you should say that. Apparently the pirates that attacked us didn’t get the memo about the resort opening. They thought we were a luxury cruise liner.”

  “Wait—” Tomed laughed loudly enough to draw glances from several crew members. “—they somehow mistook a Heim-class cruiser for a luxury liner?”

  “Yeah.” The captain grinned blew out a breath with a snort. “You’d think the giant UGAL logo on the side of the ship would’ve been their first clue. That and we’re a little small for a cruise ship.”

  “So, how much damage did they cause?” Tomed asked.

  “We’re still assessing the situation. Lieutenant Roshen.”

  Lieutenant Roshen cleared his throat and ran his hand through his hair. “We’re venting atmosphere from the stern storage bay, and we’re leaking drive plasma from the starboard engine manifold.”

  Tomed looked over at the readout. The atmosphere leak was already sealed off, but it looked like the drive plasma leak was getting worse.

  “What’s the chief engineer’s assessment?” he asked.

  The captain frowned. “He’s working on it now, but he’s not sure if he can repair it.”

  “Mind if I take a look at the damage report?” Tomed asked.

  “Be my guest.” The captain gestured at the console.

  Tomed sat down and scrolled through the damage assessment. The plume of plasma that jetted out of the fracture on the starboard engine manifold obscured the ship’s sensors. That made it difficult to get an exact reading on the full extent of the damage. A plasma beam had struck the starboard engine pod about twenty-four centimeters behind the field output emitter—an area that wasn’t accessible from inside the ship. Tomed grunted at the report and then stood. “I think this plasma leak will have to be repaired or we won’t make it back to any UGAL outpost. Worse, it doesn’t look like the damage can be repaired without shutting down the reactor core. Our best option would be to find a planet to land on. That would make the repairs easier, and we wouldn’t have to worry about life support running out if we’ve vented too much drive plasma to restart the reactor.”

  “That’s exactly how our chief engineer assessed the situation.” The captain walked back to his chair and sat down. “You seem to have a rather thorough grasp of starship mechanics. I thought Psygens were mostly diplomats?”

  Tomed grinned. “There’s a lot more to being a Psygen than most people associate with the job.”

  “There’s more to most jobs than people think.” Captain Trenton crossed his legs.

  “Ensign Materton, have you found any planets in the vicinity that would be suitable to land on to make repairs?”

  “Possibly, sir.” A short brunette looked up from the console. “I’ve found a planet which a remote survey probe indicated might be habitable. However, we haven’t sent live survey teams anywhere near it. It’s also pretty much the only one within the range that engineering says we can make.”

  “Pretty much?” The captain raised an eyebrow.

  “Well sir, there are two more planets within our range, however—” The ensign turned to the con and pressed in a sequence that brought up a readout in a separate holo-window. “Each of these other choices—” She pointed to the relevant portion of the readout, “—has problems that would make them a bad choice for a repair stop.

  “This one—” She touched the first planet, which caused the computer to bring up a larger hologram of the world in question. “—is habitable, but barely. Probe reports indicate very unstable weather systems, and the star is dying. It’s so cold that
we’d need environmental suits to survive outside. Hardly ideal conditions for exterior repair.”

  The captain grunted in agreement with her assessment. “What’s the report on the last one?”

  “This planet has an atmosphere, and weather and temperature are good, but the air’s not breathable, and pressure is slightly off. It might work, but we’d need masks outside the ship. The biggest problem is that it’s also the farthest away of our three choices. We might not make it there. I’d pick planet number one, sir.”

  The captain nodded in agreement. “Planet number one it is then. Does it have a name?”

  “No, sir. It was just recently surveyed by a long-range probe. It hasn’t even been assigned a designation number yet.”

  “Very well, Ensign. Keep looking at that probe data and see if you can find a few options for a landing spot.”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied.

  The captain turned to face the console to his right. “Helm, lay in the course provided from navigation and engage at whatever speed we can manage.”

  “Course entered and engaged, sir,” the crewman stationed at the helm reported.

  The ship gave a barely perceptible lurch as it turned and accelerated.

  “Current speed is Hyper point zero-three-five. Our ETA is forty-seven hours, six minutes.”

  Captain Trenton leaned back in his command chair and un-crossed his legs.

  “Captain, permission to go bother the engineering staff?” Tomed offered a small smile.

  The captain chuckled. “Permission granted, Psygen.”

  The helm officer looked over his shoulder. “Sir, we’re approaching the planet,” “Enter into orbit,” the captain ordered.

  Tomed stood at an empty place by the door and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He’d hardly slept over the past forty-six hours while they made their way to the fourth planet in the system, and he’d spent most of that time hard at work in engineering.

  “Now entering into orbit,” the helm officer said.

  “Ensign Materton, have you found any viable options for a landing site?” The captain approached her chair to stand behind her.

  “Probe data indicated two possible locations large enough to land the ship, sir.” She pointed at the screen. “Scanners show an active lava flow for the first one. It’s safe as far as volcanic activity goes, but looks like it’s ruled out for landing, sir.”

  She pressed a few more keys and her eyes searched the display. “This one looks better, sir, a grassy plain about a kilometer wide and about forty kilometers long. There’s a forest on one side and foothills for a mountain range on the other. The west end is on a large inland lake, and the east end opens up to a savanna.”

  “Looks like a winner to me,” Captain Trenton said.

  The captain walked back to his command chair, sat down, and pressed the intercom button. “Bridge to engineering. Commander Pattersen, are we ready to land?”

  The engineer’s voice came over the intercom. “We’ll be ready to land in approximately five minutes, Captain. We’re shutting down the main reactor core, venting the drive plasma out of the engine pods, and starting the power-up sequence on the backup anti-grav generators.”

  “Acknowledged. Let the helm know when you’re ready.” The captain pushed the button to terminate the intercom and leaned back into his chair.

  The image of the planet shimmered into existence on the holo-display at the front of the bridge. It hung in space, a bluish-green orb that spun serenely. Tomed leaned forward and tried to keep a professional look on his face. This world hadn’t even had a preliminary survey team look at it yet. It’d been a long time since he was the first to explore a new planet. A long time ago, it had been one of the duties of the Psygens. For a while now, they’d been considered too busy with their duties of keeping order and overseeing the bureaucrats of the worlds of the United Galactic Allied League. For the past few decades, scout ships with specialized survey teams had been sent to explore any newly discovered habitable worlds.

  There were still several thousand planets scanned by probes that follow-up teams hadn’t gotten to. The planet they orbited was a ways off from the standard hyperspace lanes. The odds were very low that it had sentient natives, but Tomed hoped that this world housed a new species to be discovered.

  “Sir, engineering reports we’re ready for planet-fall,” the helm officer said.

  “Very well. Ensign, commence landing,” the captain said.

  “Aye, sir, commencing landing procedures.”

  Chapter 1

  Edge of the Great Forest, Alkask

  Bast loped through the forest while trying to maintain some measure of stealth. She flicked her ears in every direction and listened for anything unusual. So far, only natural sounds filtered through the canopy.

  The air was crisp and sunlight filtered through the leaves. The perfect day for her first assignment. She clenched her jaw, measured her breathing, and straightened her tail. She needed this assignment to go well. Only then could she be recognized as an adult.

  Scouts from every one of the clans had seen the giant metal ship—something that large and with such an unnatural shape could only be a ship—come slowly down to the ground. If it kept going without a change in its speed or direction, it would land in the part of the Large Grassland which fell inside in her clan’s territory. Besides, where could it have come from? What sort of creature would travel through the stars on such a craft?

  She approached the edge of the forest and looked around for a nice bit of cover, and chose a clump of bushes at the edge of a stand of trees. It would provide an escape back into the forest if it became necessary. She sat on her haunches behind the brush, curled her tail around her feet, and licked a speck of dust off one of the white patches of fur on her paw. The ship should land soon.

  “It could be crashing too,” she mused aloud.

  But the scouts and scientists had reported it was on a stable course and wasn’t on fire or anything. She liked surprises—for the most part—and this would certainly be an interesting sight. A faint, high-pitched noise came from the west. She poked her nose from the bush and raised her whiskers in that direction. Nothing yet. She waited a little longer. The sound grew louder, and a slight wind blew across the plain.

  Bast crouched as low as possible and crept slowly forward to where she could see through the bushes and yet remain unseen. Her calico fur blended into some environments better than others, and the bushes at the edge of the forest made an ideal spot to hide.

  The sound grew to a loud whine. Bast flattened her ears against her skull to help block the high-pitched whine. The ship lowered slowly down through the clouds. Bast starred at the ship. Was it painted, or was the metal naturally that shade of periwinkle? Two long hollowed-out cylinders that were as tall as the rest of the ship jutted out of the sides closer to the rear. Several supports connected these cylinders to the rectangular main body of the ship.

  A large intricate design was painted on the ship near the front. She wasn’t sure what it meant. It didn’t appear to be artistic, with its swirls and straight lines of red and black crisscrossing over a triangular patch of dark yellow.

  The ship stopped and hovered about forty lengths above tree level. Bast’s ears stood up, and she had to fight to keep her tail from doing the same. Leg-like appendages descended from several spots on the bottom of the ship, and it lowered itself onto the grass.

  Bast had never seen anything like it. The ship was too aerodynamic to be a spacecraft, but too boxy to be an aircraft. She hunched down into the brush and watched while the sun climbed higher in the sky. Nothing moved on the ship. Was anyone or anything on board, or was it automated in some way?

  After the sun had moved about ten degrees westward across the sky, a hatch on the bottom of the ship swung down and a ramp lowered to the ground. Bast tensed and couldn’t stop the tip of her tail from twitching. After another short wait, two bipedal creatures descended the ramp and scanned the
plain. Bast sniffed carefully, but she couldn’t smell them.

  The aliens wore dark red clothing—uniforms of some sort? They were dressed identically. Bast could tell them apart by the different color of the scant patch of short fur on their heads and slight differences in size. They stood on two legs instead of four. Bast studied them, and they didn’t seem to drop back down to all four legs, even when they walked around. The aliens appeared to be about twice as tall as the average Meskka, but it was mostly an illusion due to the odd way they walked. Bast thought she could probably look them in the face if she stood up on her rear legs—but there was no way she could walk around like that! They were also awfully scrawny. She suppressed a giggle.

  Each of the aliens carried a narrow metal tube in one hand, and a small box in the other. Bast guessed the tubes might be weapons from the way they pointed them at anything before they approached. After they waved both the tubes and boxes around for a moment, one of them turned back toward the ship and waved an arm. Another alien strode down the ramp. This one wore blue clothes and had brown fur atop his head. He took his time looking around as he strolled down the ramp. The group’s confidence gave her the impression they were all male.

  One more alien exited the ship. This one wore clothes in a mixture of several different drab colors. He carried a metal box slightly larger than the aliens in red carried.

  She yawned as she watched the strange creatures. So far, they hadn’t done anything interesting. The two with the weapons went out ahead of the others. Perhaps they were scouts? The one in blue with brown fur—if you could really call it fur—seemed to be a leader. He moved back and forth from the scouts to the other alien. This brown-furred one and the one with the colorful clothes stared at the box for a while and then waved at the scouts to follow him. They all headed in Bast’s general direction. She waited, absolutely still, her muscles tensed, for a moment. Had she been spotted? After a few moments of agony, the aliens headed off to her left.