“Sir?” Tactical officer Durance said from his terminal. “I have been back through the fleet recordings from just after we entered the system. We actually recorded a transmission originating from the equator, approximately six thousand kilometres from here. Better still, I can pinpoint its destination to a drone in the outer system. I can also track the telemetry of that drone’s course. We should be able to pin point its destination with a little more work.”
“Don’t worry about that for now. Get me an exact location on the originating source. Prep an assault shuttle with full crew for launch just after the alien shuttle is successfully seized. Full assault crew under my direct command.” “Russell? You will have command from here. I am heading for the shuttle bay via the armoury. You have the bridge.”
“I have the bridge.” Russell confirmed.
Owen Matson walked briskly out of the bridge. An SAS soldier standing guard outside the hatch followed along. Owen looked at him quizzically. “Standard protocol Sir.” Sergeant Samuels said. “General quarters requires us to provide a close escort for the commanding officer, Sir.”
“Well this is getting very real in a hell of a hurry hey Sarge? And here we were arguing over whether we needed to commit resources to a defence system. Lucky we did.”
“Not lucky sir, just the right decision vindicated, I would say.”
Owen looked at Sergeant Samuels with added respect. “Wise words Sarge. Happy to have you watching my back.”
Chapter 51
“Why Is She Naked?”
David, Skye, Grandpa Jack, Flynn, Wayne, Timothy and Lurch stood with Fifteen in a semi-circle facing into the cavern, watching the old lady walk away from them toward a tunnel entrance on the other side.
“I warned you not to think of me as ‘The Old Lady’ David.” Said the old lady.
“Well, perhaps if you would tell me your name?” David replied, “I could use that instead.”
“Cheeky you are. That is good. But smart you will have to be.” She looked over her shoulder at the rag tag group of adventurers. “Well, are you coming?”
As they set off to follow, David looked at Fifteen and said, “While we are walking, perhaps you could explain how exactly you managed to be captured and turned into a booby trap left at the Princess’s front door.”
The Staff said, “Careful”.
The old lady interjected. “It matters not how she is here David. The important thing is that she is. And that you need her more than you know.”
David and Fifteen just looked at each other. David felt even more suspicious at that, and Fifteen could sense it.
Fifteen took his hand in hers and looked deeply into his eyes. It was weird, it was like looking into his own eyes, One Green, One Blue. She spoke softly, “David, I was captured just out of Paro, I had been following behind you, planning to catch up. They blindfolded me and carried me here in some sort of aircraft, I never saw them, and they never spoke in my presence. Please believe me David, I want to help you in any way that I can.”
David could feel a strange sense of isolation come over him, he didn’t know who he could trust. He wanted to believe Fifteen, it would be so much easier if he did. But then he realised that he did know exactly who he could trust, they stood all around him.
“Fifteen, your mysteriousness makes it hard for me to understand you, to trust you. I want to trust you, but you have to earn it. You keep appearing ahead of us after we have made a tough journey. I don’t understand that. Why didn’t the princess just open the door and rescue you?”
“That I can answer,” she replied. “Because you are the only one who could open the door David. The guy who captured me had been trying for two days.”
“But I didn’t open the door,” David scoffed, “It opened by itself.”
“No David, it didn’t.” Said the old lady. “It detected the presence of the chosen one, You. And it opened for you, no-one else.”
“Then how did you get in here?” David was getting seriously irritated now. “How did you even get here from Paro before we did? Is there like a bus station on the other side of the hill that everyone gets to use but us?”
Getting really wound up now, David spoke viciously. “Listen to me on this. I will not have blind faith. I am here to help humanity survive, to help my family survive. And if you ‘mystics’ want to keep talking in circles and don’t start coming up with some straight answers to our questions, we are out of here.”
David crossed his arms in front of him and noticed that the others were doing the same, backing him up. Even Lurch was doing it, with a scowl on his face. It made David laugh out loud when he saw that.
Fifteen and the Old Lady just looked at them, not knowing what to say.
“Good one,” laughed Timothy. “Did you not notice the door close behind us, Outer Space Nature Boy? I don’t think any of us are leaving just yet. You better stop bitching and start doing, mate. Haven’t you worked it out yet? It’s you who’s running this show, not the mystics here.” He waved a hand towards Fifteen and the old lady.
“Stop thinking of me as ‘The Old Lady’ Timothy.”
“Then stop being one.” Timothy replied sarcastically.
The old lady eyeballed Timothy with her best death stare.
“This isn’t helping us guys,” said Skye. “We have two choices. We can go back, or we can go forward, there is no ‘staying here’.”
David walked around the old lady and headed into the tunnel entrance. “Forward it is.”
The tunnel wasn’t overly long. David was fuming so fiercely that it only took him a few minutes until he emerged into a large naturally lit cavern.
David gasped, the cavern was huge, and completely open on one side. Somehow the warmth was being kept in. Jichu Drake filled the view magnificently, the sky was clear and blue, the storm had apparently cleared. The mountain was a perfect pyramid peak. Very steep, and obviously snow-capped.
Leading out from the floor of the cavern was a stone bridge that ended at a large circular platform with five large stone rings mounted vertically, in a semi-circle around its centre. A blueish haze rippled within the stone rings. David could see shapes moving on the other sides of them, a bit like looking through obscure glass.
David was looking at the scene, totally flabbergasted, when a warm voice spoke clearly and kindly behind him. “Welcome David. I have waited so long for this day.”
David spun around and saw a young woman sitting naked on a thick rug by a fire pit, exactly in the centre of the cavern. The flames illuminated her body. David looked around and saw the others waiting at the entrance to the cavern. To be honest, he didn’t want to look at her. He felt uncomfortable with her nudity.
“Come now David. I am naked so that you can see I have nothing to hide. If it makes you feel uncomfortable?” She reached for a shawl that rested on the rug that she was sitting on and tossed it loosely over her shoulders. It didn’t improve things much.
David tried to focus, was this just another way to distract him?
“Sit with me David, we have much to discuss.”
David approached the fire pit and sat cross legged opposite the girl. He looked at her through the flames, trying not to focus on her nakedness. The shawl only made her appear even more beautiful.
“You are the Princess,” David stated, he thought it best to get things started before he got distracted again.
She nodded, “Yes, I am.”
“How can you be so young?” David asked. “You’ve been waiting a very long time, since when my Grandfather was twelve years old.”
“Since way before that in fact. I am very old David, but as long as I remain in this cavern my body will not age. Believe me when I say that I am looking forward to leaving, and will welcome ageing, when you have completed your tasks. Assuming you decide to go on.”
“I have a choice?”
“We always have a choice David. I could have left this cave many years ago, perhaps after your Great Great Grandfather die
d. But I chose to persist, I believe my mission to be worth that sacrifice.”
“Maybe you should explain my choices. Just to be clear.”
“You could walk out of this cave right now and have your dragon transport you to your parents and leave humanity to its final fate. You could accept the five missions that will be placed in front of you and do the best you can. You could sit here naked with me for another hundred years while you decide if you wish. There are many more choices David, but they are yours and yours alone.”
“Does that mean that I have to complete these missions alone?”
“No.”
David looked over at the rings on the platform. “We have to pass through one of those rings?”
“Come on David, you knew that as soon as you saw them. How about you ask me some meaningful questions. We don’t have all the time in the world. When you activated the device, the re-setting process began. It cannot be stopped unless you are successful.”
“Ok,” David wiped beads of sweat from his brow. “Wait here.”
“Oh, I’m not going anywhere,” The Princess laughed.
David got up to his feet and went to speak with his family.
Fifteen was the first to speak. “Why is she naked David?”
Chapter 52
“I Like The Way You’re Thinking”
“Incoming shuttle, two-minute warning.”
Evan spoke quietly into his crew channel. “Here we go people. Remember to look passive and stick to the plan. Eyes down and look defeated.”
All forty-eight of them stood two by two, waiting to board the incoming alien shuttle. They had moved over on to land, away from the colony ship, just in case things went pear shaped.
Evan looked across at Molly and winked, “We’ve got this, you and I.”
Molly took Evan’s hand and squeezed it tight. “You bet your arse we have.” She put her fifteen minute re-breather into her mouth and got ready to crack the seal. They had decided that the most likely scenario is that the aliens would gas them into submission. This would give them fifteen minutes. If it took longer than one minute to take control of the shuttle, it would be all over for them anyway.
Molly could see the weird alien shuttle on final approach. It was essentially just a cube with a few appendages here and there, presumably sensors and aerials. There were no windows, just four engine nacelles on one side of the cube. It was now rotating to have the engines on the lower side to control its landing descent.
“Are you noticing what I’m noticing?” Evan said very quietly.
“Yep,” Molly said. “Very low tech, and old. These guys might not be as advanced as us. Maybe a bit beaten up too.”
“Exactly what I was thinking.” Evan forwarded their thoughts to Owen and Russell.
The shuttle noisily fired its braking engines and descended the last fifty metres. A support leg rotated out of each corner of the cube. As it settled onto them, a boarding ramp lowered on the side facing the waiting humans.
The engines shut down, and the temporary silence was interrupted by a booming announcement, emanating from inside the cavernous shuttle.
“You will enter the shuttle two by two. Any attempt at violence will result in the annihilation of your colony.”
Now that Evan knew how things were going to go, he adjusted the plan and commed his group privately. “Ok people, we will be going with attack plan Charlie, repeat, Charlie.”
Confirmations came back to him from the squad leaders as he and Molly walked up the boarding ramp. A further four pairs would slowly enter behind them.
Evan and Molly waited a moment to allow their eyes to adjust to the dim interior. It was obvious that the aliens were wearing some type of mask. They broke the seals on their breather units.
Six of the bipedal aliens waited for them in a line with what looked like slave chains, ready to be attached to them. A further four on each side stood with strange weapons trained on them.
“Move forward to have your restraints fitted.”
They moved slowly, allowing the next four pairs to position themselves as per the plan. Waiting.
“Move more quickly,” The angry alien demanded.
The next two pairs waiting to head up the ramp, instead split off to the sides, running to an engine nacelle each. They quickly attached a small explosive charge to each one and cleared out in a hurry. There was no interesting technology in these engines, they were quite crude in fact. So, Evan felt no remorse as the four charges went off, destroying the chances of the shuttle ever getting back to space.
All at once, four things happened.
The five pairs who had entered the shuttle ripped off their shirts that covered their battle suits, shoulder mounted auto cannons popped up and powered on, dropping all fourteen aliens within two seconds.
Owen’s assault shuttle blasted out through the launch tube of the Conservator, creating a massive trailing plume in the water until they got enough altitude to bank onto their course. Indah was enjoying doing some real flying for a change.
Russell ordered the dome shields reinstated and activated the lunar defence systems.
The alien fleet left the orbit of Gamma Cygnus Four on an intercept with Soom, and the colony.
The race was now on. Evan and Molly had neutralised the threat of the shuttle and its crew. They secured the fourteen aliens and left the SAS lieutenant Durance in charge. Evan called for a shuttle pick up, he wanted to get back to the command deck and help Russell out as quickly as he could.
Owen, Indah, and a squad of SAS troops raced at low altitude toward their destination. They now had close up imagery of the site. They could see a small structure with a very fine needle like antenna pointing skyward. No doubt, this was where the warning signal came from. But exactly what would happen next was beyond their knowledge. If the aliens were able to remotely activate some sort of planetary re-set device, they were screwed.
“Record a message for the aliens please Maddy,” Russell said very calmly.
Maddy angled the camera towards him and said, “The message will begin recording as you speak sir.”
Russell collected his thoughts. They had already discussed what he would say, but he couldn’t afford to get it wrong.
“Envoy Reshnina,” Russell began, “We would like to offer you the opportunity for peace once again. Despite our original communications being peaceful, you have decided to be the aggressor. Our people will not be subjugated by the Yrammus or any other people. Trust me when I say that we have the means to defend ourselves. Initial studies of your technology show that we are much more advanced than you are. Back off to the orbit of the fourth planet and we will gladly return your shuttle crew to you unharmed, and then you can go on your way.”
“Message sent sir.”
“SIR,” yelled the tactical officer, “We are tracking multiple launches from the alien fleet. Missiles sir, a lot of them.”
“Interesting,” Russell thought for a moment, looking up at the holographic tactical display. “Maddy, get me a connection with Owen and Evan.”
“What’s up Russ? It’s hard to speak at the moment, Indah’s pulling multiple g’s on the way to the target.”
“Guys. I think you can back off the urgency. The fact that they have launched a missile attack tells me that they don’t have the means to activate that device. Otherwise they wouldn’t have to waste all that low-tech ordinance.”
Indah rolled her eyes in disappointment as she backed off the throttle. “Damn, that was fun.”
Owen breathed a sigh of relief. “We’ll still head there to check it out. Are you happy we have the situation in hand?”
“Yeah, I sent the message, no response. I will let the missiles destroy themselves on the outer shield. Hopefully that will make them back off. If not, we’ll activate the lunar defence. They will have to get inside it’s field of fire to use orbital lasers or kews.”
“Good work Russ, Molly and I will be with you in two minutes.”
“Incoming message sir.” announced Maddy. “I’ve captured it to the offline data pad.”
“Well, let’s see what our new friends have to say, shall we?” Russell accepted the data pad that Maddy passed to him and pressed play.
Envoy Reshnina’s happy face appeared before him. “There can be no peace.” She suddenly looked distracted at a commotion on her own bridge.”
“Sir, at that moment their missiles started to explode on the outer shields.”
Land Of The Thunder Dragon Page 28