Something had exploded right between us.



Something had exploded right between us.

I could taste my own blood and all I had was a strong whistling sound. Even though I was certain my eyes were open I could see nothing.”

Then everything stopped and I sank into oblivion.

That was the last thing I remembered and now I regained conciousness, a gentle voice said into my ear. “Suit integrity restored, third degree burns, concussion and eye injuries treated, Med-Evac recommended.

I opened my eyes and looked around. “I was at the bottom of a new crater.”

“More projectiles inbound.” the voice said.

“Shield?” “Shields at 100%. System Damage from initial..”

A tremendous second explosion hit me and while the shields held, the kinetic energies of the blast threw me, dirt and pulverized rock in a cloud of fire far into the air.

“Full Battle Mode!” While the Suit went battle active I switched to hover mode. More explosions shattered the ground all around us.

“Battle Mode active. Threat analysis : Burried explosive proximity mines and chemically propelled artillery fire.”

“Roll Call!” My command called up a retina overlay with the location and status of my away team. “Fective reporting”

“Corporal Jost reporting.”

“TheOther, no injuries.”

I saw Har-Hi's symbol but he did not report. His suit reported no damage to the suit, but his Auto Doc reported serious Injurie, serious enough for the suit to put him in stasis.

“Suit evacuate to the ship!” The barrage of artillery fire kept coming and whatever it was taxed our shields. The fire came from three locations in the mountains surrounding us. My suit reported. “Stage accelerated Plutonium Mass projectiles and Nuclear war heads, shields at 40 percent.”

We were able to evade direct hits easily now and we could retreat of course but retreat to me was like admitting defeat. My optics magnified at least a dozen heavy fortified grey bunker like constructs in the side of the mountains with big cannon barrels. We could of course assault them and use our Nano Load TL Cannons of our suits, but I had about enough and was worried and angry. “Captain to Tactical, target the coordinates my Suit sends you, lay a full kilo load in each of those bunkers.” “Aye Captain.” “Captain to landing detail re-group.”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">I transmitted coordinated I had selected via glance on a tactical map overlay and our suits accelerated as fast as our systems permitted. A dozen Anti Matter bombs detonated a few heart beats later in the local mountain range and changed the skyline of the range forever. The sun like heat melted rock, artillery postitions and whaterver else was there and turned it into molecular plasma gas and torrents of molten magma. Even though we had retreated almost 100 kilometers, the shock reached us and made our pulse engines whine in protest as they tried to keep station. Our primary shields dropped to 10 percent after ash, radiation and a hail storm of rocks and dirt pelteted us and everything else in side.

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Then there was silence.

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">“SHIP did Har-Hi arrive?” “Cateria here, we retrieved the XO and he will be fine. The initial shock,of an explosion broke his neck, but the suit kept him alive. He is in the ReGen tank and angry that I won't let him out.”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">“That was a close call.” To close to my taste and completley my fault. Neither him nor I would have been injured if I had kept my helmet close and paid more attention.

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">While I was angry at myself for overconfidence and landing on an unexplored world without more caution and almost loosing Har-Hi, despite the state of the art hardware,I had to put that into the back of my mind and take care of the current situation. “SHIP dispatch ten marines full Surface Assault gear and five Cerberus to my location.”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">“Acknowledged Captain.”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">“Lt. Fective, chek our sensor logs and see why our sensors did not pick up whatever and whoever attacked us.” “Already on it Captain. The technology used is Tech Level Two at best, the charges were triggered by wired cables, not transmitted signals. The Cannons firing at us worked on the same priniciple as that antique firearm of yours, projectiles accellerated by rapid oxidination.” “Alright, reset Shields and be on guard. We are going to get at the bottom of this.”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">--””--

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Krabbel and it's team had entered the alien orbital construct through a mechanical door they had found at its bottom ned and now found themselves in a small chamber like room, its function quite clear. It was a two door airlock.

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Shea was looking at a sign posted to a set of control devices and said. “It is no coincidence, Mao. This is German writing and it gives instructions as how to operate this Air lock.”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">She started to push a lever and crank on a wheel like control. Dials flickered and started to light up in a weak yellowish light. Several light elements at the ceiling became active.

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Krabbel asked. “Are you certain you know what you are doing?”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Shea responed with an excited voice. “Yes the instructions are perhaps th clearest and most detailed instructions I have ever decyphered. It not only tells you what to do but also what not to do. Whoever these Germans were they sure like the word 'prohibited'.”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Mao glanced over Shea's shoulder. “My suit computronic has downloaded the language and I now get retina overlays with the translation of all these words. Those dials and gauges are analog, The last time I saw such dials was aboard the White Puff.”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Shea said looking at her scanner. “Energy output of the Atomic pile has increased by 80 percent and the atmosphere puumped in here is of the exact air composition from Earth.” She turned to Mao. “What ship of the Union uses such dials?”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">“Steam powered ships on my home planet,, one of them is called the White Puff.”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">One of the scientists gasped behind his helmet. “Steam powered ships on a Union World?”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Krabbel intervened. “Maybe we can discuss that later and find out why there is something from Earth around a planet in Freespace.”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Shea added. “Something that appears Pre Astro and should not be here at all.”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Mao had kept an eye on the dials and then checked his suit sensor read out and pulled on a red painted lever.

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">The inner door swung open, allowing them access to the rest of the construct.”Why don't we go and find out?”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">--””--

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">I hovered over the rubble and debris our translocator barrage had created and reduced the height of several mountain peaks by a substantial margin. TheOther, a Cerberus robot and two marines were below me removing a house sized boulder and in doing so revealing a concrete tunnel leading deeper into the mountain.

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">“SHIP, we are going into the mountain. We maintain contact. If we fail to report tell Har-Hi to inform the Admiral first before he does anything else.” “Aye Captain.” TheOther and Fective stepped into my way as I was about to enter the tunnel and Fective said. “Captain, we should go first and take point.” “If there is anything down there that is able to overwhelm an Atlas suit under full shields, it makes no difference who's wearing it, Attikan, human or a Y'All.”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">“The difference is, you are the Captain.”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">“I won't be taking things lightly, I learned my lesson. Now let's go!” The concrete corridor was about 20 meters in diameters and it was leading at a 15 degree angle into the mountain. We passed several massive blast doors that had been crushed to rubble by the TL loads but the further we we went the less damage was apparent. After about six kilometers we reached a junction leading to the left and right and a closed blast door before us prevented us from going further. I split the Marines in two groups and sent them into each direction while I made the rest wait before the blast door.

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">As I suspected the the Marines came back telling me that the corridors branching of lead back up to different artillery positions and all were destroyed.

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">The blast door on front of us was made of steel and cocnrete and from the looks of it several meters thick.

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">“No sense of delaying it, whatever answers we seek are further down. Fective set charges .I doubt they will open the door to a friendly knock.”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">--””--

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Shea said. “No artificial gravitation but some sort of life support system has kicked in. The temperatue is rising.”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">They went down a narrow corridor single file and then reached the bottom region where the barrel type extension was attached to the square section of this space station. There were twelve pipes bundled in a cluster filling the larger pipe.

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">The side was a crane arm and a capsule like contrapption hung at its lower end. The Capsule was clearly designed to be fit into one of the pipes.

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">At first it did have the appearance of a projectile but as Shea examined the capsule closer. She noticed a transparent view port. Inside the capsule, on a stretcher like bed lay a mummified human body.

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">She recoiled and looked around in the large chamber looking at the exposed equipment, noticed stacks of the same capsules and she said. “I know what this is, it is a Space train reciever station.”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Krabbel, examining anohter capsule said. “But space trains are much bigger and there isn't anything like that in the Orbit around Earth, or is there?”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">One of the scientists said. “I am from the Sol System, and no there isn't anything like this now...” He stopped in the middle of his sentence and looked at something and said. “but it appears there was something like that around the orbit of Mars in 1944. He pointed at a soft glowing read out .”Schwarz Licht Transport von Mars erhalten October 12th 1944.That translates into Black Light transport received and the date on this readout suggests that happened 3076 years ago.”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Krabbel floated through the open door of an attached control room and looked over a dizzying array of control elements said. “But that was long before the Ascent and Space train technology is a recent development.”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Shea said, “No other space faring society has ever developed anything comparable and Space Train technology is controlled by SII.” She paused. “the man who adopted me, Rex Schwartz is from Earth and like Stahl and the others he is an immortal.”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Mao wiped over the view port of another capsule and said. “Schwarz licht, Mr. Schwartz sounds pretty much alike to me,”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Krabbel, still in the Control chamber turned to leave the control booth, one of his legs brushed over a lever, and the controls lit up, red and green lights started flashing.

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">Shea's suit reacted fast and reported with urgency.”Rapid built up of transspatial energies. Zero Point Gravitation..”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">--””--

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">SHIP was as proud as a AI could be, Her Captain trusted the machine with the Conn. It was a Command function and no AI (except of course X101's ) had ever been allowed in such a position. But then then Lt. Har-Hi was right, things were done a little different on the Tigershark.

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">She had no problem monitoring all sensors, the communciation and regulation ten thousand functions and adjustments all across the ship, every second and still only use twenty percent of her resources. Yet things changed very fast. Her sensors picked up a rapid built up of tremendous energies from the ancient device. Energies of trans dimensionsal character, energies akin to the well regulated and tuned TransDim shields but in a truly chaotic state. While she raised alarms, Circuit called up from engineering. “What is going on? Something is interfering with our TransDim tab.”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">“Unable to answer your question with certainty. Do you want to take Command?”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">“No SHIP. I stay down here, inform the Captain.”

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">--””--

<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm">The demolition charges placed by my Marines blew the massive door with surgical precisson out of it s frame and reduced it to rubble. We were just about to enter as SHIP called, “Captain, we lost all contact to Krabbel's team.