Terra Dawning (4 page)

Warmake nodded. “Yes they are, like the passengers from the train, she was put in harm's way by the actions of the pirates. In both cases it proved lethal, thus ultimate responsibility must rest on the pirates. However, I would counter that she wouldn't have even been there if she hadn't been sent, at the last minute, by the Aerie Argassi APC.””

Jance was thoughtful for a time. During her silence, the pilot reported that they'd arrived in Beta Quad. Below them was the solid form of a floater with the impact marks still showing on its side.

“Is that the original floater?” Jance asked.

Warmake nodded. “Yes, according to its logs, this is where the impact happened. On board cameras managed to capture most of what happened to Addson's skipper. Her maneuver was risky, but she did manage to evade the missile. If she would have started her leap even microseconds earlier, she would most likely still be alive.”

“Doubtful, if she had survived the jump over the floater, the third missile would have launched and finished the job. No, once that system had been locked onto her, she was doomed. Which is why I disagree with your hypothesis; that system has four missiles.

“Once the target is locked onto, the first missile launches. All of its data is passed to the three remaining missiles. If it misses, the second is launched. It hunts smarter, and so on, all the way to the last missile. To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever survived the third missile. However, I don't think I've ever heard of a person in something as limited as a skipper surviving even the first one,” Jance explained. “That being said, I have to credit your hypothesis because the warhead of the missile that hit this floater had to have been greatly retarded.”

“We credited the lack of damage to the floater to the fact of its construction. They have a duraluminum outer shell, over a tritium-fibersteel inner hull reinforced with magnetized Cryotanium polymer,” Warmake explained. “They're built to handle just about anything they can run into.”

“Damn! That is really built, but even so, if the warhead was at full strength, it would have seriously damaged it. No, this warhead was all but disabled; hell it could have been disabled and the scoring we see is from the flight motor,” Jance replied. ““Thank you, Task Commander. I think perhaps I have enough to begin my investigations now. May we please return to Argassi?”

“Of course, Commander. Would you also like the floater returned there for further investigation?” Warmake asked.

“Yes, thank you. I would like to run forensic analysis for the impact site as well as the areas where the skipper hit.”

Warmake typed in the request on his data pad, and below them the floater came to life. Without being told, the pilot also turned the craft and accelerated away from the area.

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B
edouin residence

Command Pod Alpha One

23 Apr. 10266 CE (AD)

Sector 34871 - Great Inland Sea

Earth, Sol system

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B
en stood in the middle of the room. “Before we begin, I would like to make introductions.” He waved his hand as he introduced each person. “These are our guests, Captain Elrond Coir; the current chief of the group known simply as 'the Pirates'. Beside him is his lady, Ms. Arivan Jythee.” He introduced the rest of the people to the newcomers and greetings were exchanged.

However, before Ben could get to the meat of the discussion, Councilor Carlyle asked a question. “Excuse me, Prime Council. I don't mean to sound rude, but I thou' th' goal of yon raid was to gather information prior to eliminatin' them?”

The news was clearly a shock to the two new people, but Ben didn't miss a beat. “That was the original plan, Councilor. However, things have changed. Thus, the reason I included you in this meeting is for you to act in the capacity of Council Adviser. We need to figure out how this will affect us and what to do about it if anything.”

“I understand,” Councilor Carlyle nodded. “Thank ye for askin' for me, then,” she said. “I ken you wanted me because of me post-fall profession, then?”

Ben nodded this time. “Yes I did. We do have other former intelligence operatives among our people, but you are the only one I know and trust personally.

“So, here is what we know, suspect, and believe,” Ben began. “First, before we made the raid on the base, we suspected that the Duke was the primary behind all the attacks on the surface. Elrond has confirmed that for us, but can offer no proof. Thus, we still can only speculate on his motivation for these actions.

“I believe he's planning a coup against the Empire itself. Now, this is mostly conjecture on my part and I have no proof. I've given this a lot of thought and it’s the only conclusion that fits.

“However, those actions, made through Elrond and his people, have attracted the attention of the local Imperial Rangers. They landed two days ago to investigate the destruction of the Great Falls Aerie. So now we have a new element added to the mix.

“I'm told these Rangers are very good at their jobs, and there is now a very good chance that Elrond, his people, and by extension, us, will be discovered. However, that runs counter to my theory of an Imperial attack,” Ben said and paused to take a drink of his cappuccino.

“Why's ta' odds with yon theory?” Carlyle asked. "I'm not trackin' yer logic Prime."

“Simple; the Duke had to have known that destroying an Aerie would bring in the Rangers. If he planned to attack Hyclarion using Earth as a staging point, the last thing he would want would be for Rangers to look under every rock. Also, he recently ordered Elrond to kill the team, and capture their leader. That action by itself would bring even more Rangers and they would be even less gentle than this team is being. His preparations would be discovered and he'd be found out.”

“Uh, p-Prime Council, I think I might have some more information,” Elrond said, hesitantly. “You see, all the ohto and other stuff we stole had to be given back. One of my people that handled a lot of the shipments told me that there were hundreds of House Tammerain troops already here at the underwater base where we returned our cargoes. He said there seemed to be more every day. The transports were all parked on the bottom of the sea surrounding the base. If the HRO does any planetary scans looking for us, they should find them quite easily.”

“What type of scans?” Marci asked.

“Multi-spectrum, broad bandwidth, ultra-high resolution scans. Everything from thermal differences to energy signatures to neutrino particle density,” Elrond said, shrugging. “That's why I was so scared they would find us. We should show up like a super-nova in the void.”

“Energy scans on this planet are inconclusive," Addson added, shaking her head. "There are too many random energy flares from all the ruins. There are literally billions of energy signatures spread all over the planet.”

“Surely they can tell the difference between random pulses and a fully functioning reactor?” Carlyle asked.

“Not really, you see the Ancients... uh, I guess that's you folks, used a lot of fission reactors. The waste from those crude devices is still creating energy even after all these years. A really huge power signature was detected once on the Aramic Plateau and was investigated. No one really understood what they found, but later discovered to have been a special dump for the spent fuel of fission reactors.

“Thirteen prospectors had died digging down to it. It finally had to be disintegrated just to get rid of the lethals. Since then, no one pays much attention to energy flares and the like. No one wants to deal with them, so they just leave them alone,” Addson replied.

“Well, I guess now we know why no one ever dug one of us up. But still, if someone starts investigating the energy signatures, we're going to be in trouble,” Kaitlin said as she carried a platter of sandwiches into the room.

“True, but there are other ways to track things,” Elrond said. “Whenever a craft or ship passes through an area, it always makes some form of disturbance. Depending on the local conditions of the area, that disturbance can be detected and tracked with the right tools. So, the more we move around, the easier it is for someone on the surface to track us.”

“Are you talking about that Neutrino thing you mentioned earlier?” Ben asked.

“Well, that's one way to do it, but not what I was thinking about. Tracking ocean currents or looking for micro-changes in the atmosphere both above and below water; of course both of those methods become unreliable if enough time passes,” Elrond explained. ““May I ask a question that's off topic?”

“Yes,” Ben replied.

“Why would you attack us? We didn't even know you were here,” Elrond asked.

Ben looked thoughtful for a moment. “Because of your proximity. Our survival is fully dependent on remaining undiscovered. We have a very large population that have no desire to become anyone's vassals. Besides, we feel that this is our planet and from the way we understand things on the surface and in the Galaxy, just coming out from hiding wouldn't be any guarantee that we'd be left alone. We want our planet back and we want our own autonomy. This is the home world of the human race. We originated here. We deserve the same rights as everyone else in the Empire.”

“How large is your population? For that matter, how large an army do you have?” Arivan asked.

“I'm sorry, Ms. Jythee. I think we need to keep that information to ourselves for now. I do feel that I can trust you, but there is too much at risk for me to take a gamble like that,” Ben replied. “I hope you can understand that. I really don't mean to be rude.”

“Well, I thought I'd ask, since you know all of our secrets...” she replied.

“Excuse me, but did you say this planet is our home world?” Elrond asked.

Ben looked at Addson. “Why don't you tell them about what you've learned about us, but please don't mention anything about our people or how we live?”

The young woman bowed her head to him. Then looked at Elrond. “After you fired those missiles at me and I crashed into the floater, I was in pretty bad shape. In fact, not all of my injuries have fully healed yet.

“But when they came to rescue me, I thought they were the pirates originally. If I had had a working comm system, I would have reported everything that was going on. Luckily, I didn't, because that would have gotten these people discovered. Once they opened the escape pod, and started helping me, I knew that these people couldn't be the pirates because they cared."

Elrond winced again during her explanation; embarrassed about his part in her 'death'.

She continued. “The emergency medical AI in the skipper managed to find a common form of communication so we could speak to each other. That really threw me; I mean who could these people be that they didn't speak standard?

“A lot of the equipment they were using wasn't familiar to me, but what was seemed really old or functioned in an odd manner. What they told me about who they were was impossible for me to believe. I mean how could they have been here all along and no one have discovered them?

“I've seen the cryo units. The medical AI confirmed that the information stored in this AI matched what I'd been told. However, it also said that while the Base AI was of an old design, it was far more powerful than any other AI currently functioning.

“I've seen their maps of this world from their time. Every discovery we've made matches the location of one of their cities or large communities. However, there are quite a few that have yet to be discovered. I was a prospector up until you shot me down, so I know what I'm talking about here. These people are part of the original inhabitants of this planet,”” Addson finished.

Elrond nodded. “I believe you. But what I'm wondering is, if this is our world, why hasn't any proof of it been discovered in the ruins?”

“Aye and there's the rub. Evidence o' plenty was left, tah be sure. So then becomes the question of who does the lookin'?” Carlyle asked.

“All of the dig teams work for the Duke. They have to; it's his world, which means that everything on it is his,” Addson replied. “Not such a big surprise there. If it were proven that Earth was the home world of the Human race, he would lose a very profitable planet, millions of slaves, as well as the only habitable planet in this sector."

“Okay, so I think it’s safe to assume then, at least for the time being, that the Duke is the main bad guy here,” Ben said. ““Now the questions are why, and what's his next move?”

“The Duke has made no secret of his dislike for humans,” Deirdre said. “He thinks we're nothing more than a food source. You said that this Ranger team was led by a human, right?”” She asked looking at Elrond.

He nodded. “Yes and he was very specific in his instructions, should we have to kill her.”

“So, what are the chances that something very embarrassing to the Duke happened between them?” Deirdre asked.

“I just don't know,” Elrond replied. “It's possible. That would certainly explain his instructions and the speed he wanted them carried out.””

“So, is his ego and hatred for us enough for him to justify endangering his over-all plan?” Deirdre asked.

“Yeah, it is. If a human embarrassed him, he would stop at nothing to destroy that person as publicly as possible. It might be possible that he realized this and has ordered us to ignore his last orders, but I doubt it. He's rather blind when it comes to humans,” Elrond added.

“Tis then most probable that his plan is to attack the Hyclarion Emperor and the rest of this is just a bit of fun thrown in to appease his bruised ego. Must we then follow the belief that he needs be tah get rid of yon Rangers in such a way as to justify the arrival of 'new' troops to this planet,” Carlyle said. “What force would he need to make such an attack successful?”

Ben shrugged. “We have no way to know how well defended the Capitol is, nor do we know exactly how many troops and warships the Duke can use.”

“Aye, but we have to assume that both are a great many. Friend Addson told us what the lizard’s Marines are like. How many and of what type. More importantly, how many of each are already here on the planet, or even in this system,”” Carlyle said.