First Journeys Chapter 24

Interlude: Distant Events – Several weeks ago

Deep space, minus 270 degrees Celsius , the stars were sparsely seeded in this region of space and these suns were generally very old stars. This near vacuum had not been disturbed since this universe began. An observer would have seen the sudden glimmering disturbance and then it was there!

Out here was no light to reflect off an object but this shimmering light gray thing with bright lights behind tiny viewports brought its own light. It was shaped like a huge wedge and on its wide end, it had four big box like extensions. If that observer could read it would see the bold lettering on its side: USS Ivanhoe. Right below a stylized symbol of a white spiral arm galaxy on a blue field with red and white vertical stripes on the side, a triangle superimposed forming the logo of the United Stars of the galaxy. The beautiful sleek looking visitor to this place in time and space paused for a moment. Sensor beams whispered and reached out from the object, tasting, sensing and probing. Collecting vast amounts of data, then it accelerated again, stretching as if elastic for the time span of a second and then it was gone again.

Captain Flowar Saxa brushed over his dull bluish bald head as he always did when everything seemed alright and nothing was out of the ordinary and yet, somewhere deep inside he had the feeling there was something the sensors had not picked up or somehow over looked. Something that was a potential danger to his crew and ship.

Saxa was a Plato, and one of a small handful of this species living as free beings in the Union. He was certainly the only Plato Union Captain. To the Kermac, the Plato were the lowest class of slaves, only good for the most primitive labor. No Plato knew where they originated from, their home planet either destroyed or lost, but there where hundreds of millions of Plato serving on every Galactic Council planet, ship and installation. The Kermac breed them in slave camps, sold them to other species as laborers and cheap workers. Plato Nan taakte meant lowest useful life form in Kermac.

Plato were strong and tough and had a legendary endurance, needed little sleep and could tolerate temperatures on both ends of the scale most other humanoid life forms could not.

He had been sold as Slave merchandise when he was still young, but the slave trader made a mistake. He tried a short cut through union space and was caught. He became a Union citizen and ever since had only one goal in life, repay this glorious nation with his unwavering dedicated service. He hoped that the Kermac would fall one day and then he would help to free his brethren and educate them how wonderful freedom and liberty was. The Union trusted him with the command over an E Type Explorer.

His ship was based on the same hull as the Galantor Class Super Cruiser. 1400 meters long, 400 meters wide and 600 meters deep at its base tapering to a chisel bow of only 20 meters. It was not as heavily armed as a Galantor Class, but had the same armor and shielding and his ship had much greater range. It also was equipped with a wider array of sensors and had a much larger science department. His mission was deep space exploration and the Ivanhoe would be the first ship to reach the Palomar 12 globular cluster 64,000 light years away from the Galactic rim. Even though this was the Core ward Sector, no Union ship had ever come this far into this direction.

He got up from his command chair and walked over to the OPS station and asked the Klack Lieutenant.” Nn’tik anything on the boards?” The Klack was a reliable, dependable officer and he would of course report anything anyway, but Saxa could not shake this feeling.

“No Sir, all boards show green and I have nothing on the scanners. We are almost done with the deployment of Sensor Relay buoy 27.”

The Ivanhoe had placed 26 SRB’s since they left Union space. Each of these sophisticated robotic devices would not only allow them to be in zero delay communication with Fleet Command, but monitored space with automated sensors, allowing both his crew and analysts back home to monitor the space they had already passed through. Officially their mission was the same as all the thousands of explorer ship, to expand the knowledge horizon and to make contact with other civilizations and was part of the Galactic Survey project. The goal of this project was to completely survey the M-0 galaxy. The projected completion of this project was in 13,200. By then he would be nothing more than dust, but he would not be forgotten, star system and sun bore his name and it had three garden worlds with suitable atmospheres.

His XO, a Pan Saran complete with polished brass chest armor, knew his Captain well and said.“Maybe we should take a longer break here and send out two P5-Specters to recon the space ahead. It is the last star system on our course and from what it looks like it has planets and two are in the green zone.”

“Yes Marcus, good idea and while you at it sound Alert Condition Yellow.”

No one on the bridge questioned his decision to raise alert conditions to Elevated status, despite the fact that there was nothing on the sensors. Many of them served with Captain Saxa for more than five years and even more than regular combat units, explorers were away from known space and regular base visits for the most time and that often bonded crews like tight knit families. The Crew as not nervous or concerned but they knew if Saxa’s guts acted up, there usually was a reason and they trusted their captains feelings more than the best sensors.

His Chief Science officer was a Wurgus, one of the few not being a solar engineer, waved his captain over.“Sir, I went over the sensor recordings with a Terran fine tooth comb and I did find faint traces of exotic Hadron particles, all in a linear pattern towards that Star system ahead. Now these patterns are decaying and they are at least a month or so old, but Hadron particle spurs are often associated with Kermac T- engines, their equivalent to our Isah Drive.”

“I was just thinking about these bald headed bastards. Hail the Specters and tell them to be extra careful and high tail out of there as fast possible if they think there is danger.”

Marcus the XO sat down.” That system would be almost 20,000 light years from Kermac Prime. Could not another species use a similar propulsion system?”

The Wurgus rotated his onion shaped eyes.” Of course this is possible, the Dai for example use similar engines, but it’s the pattern that made me think of the Kermac first.”

Olnatar was a Siucra. His kind was the oldest and the very first Thrall species of the Kermac. They had one purpose and one task only, protect Koken. Koken meant Origin in the old Ker language. This was the holy planet of the worshipped masters before their move to their new home Kermac Prime 20,000 light years away. Olnatar had never set foot on Koken; he would never dare to defile such a holy place with his unworthy presence. No Kermac had been seen in 453 cycles, but he had been blessed beyond believe as he was allowed to see four Kermac ships pass in the far distance and his ships received the holy codes. He was certain his scanner and sensor data was altered by the Kermac Gods on purpose, how else could it been explained that the Worshipped Masters travelled in ships that did not appear all that sophisticated? The Masters had left Koken a very long time ago and their real technology must have been beyond the grasp of comprehension. This is why they fooled the sensors of lesser beings to appear traveling in ships appearing to be barley more sophisticated than the Siucra.

Olnatar knew all the songs and all the passages of the holy texts and knew why the Kermac had left their place of origin. He also knew why they had returned four times; they had come to talk to the Spirit of the Universe and to make the call. To Olnatar it was clear that the Y’All who came each time after the Summon was made, were another Thrall Species of the Kermac, only the Worshipful Masters could control and call such ferocious warriors.

The Siucra never revealed themselves to the Kermac. The Worshipped Masters would contact them if there was something they wanted done. It was not proper for a servant to address his master without being asked to do so.

For almost 900.000 cycles did the Siucra guard this area of space and have sterilized it of other life that could potentially insult the Kermac by their presence. The peaceful Tinkehel ascending on their own proudly flying their first deep space mission only to be crushed by the Siucra. Olnatar was one of the ship leaders that orbital bombed the Tinkehel world; they had the audacity to be on a direct course to Koken.

The Siucra commander hung from his gripping tail in a relaxed position, when the alarm gas flooded his quarters with the scent of potential danger. The System raised the bar he was hanging on through a short pipe and transported him directly into the commando stand. One of his officers waved his clawed legs at him in the prescribed gesture of obedience.“Initiator, a space ship of unknown origin has just appeared at the very horizon of our space feelers. It is so big, our mass detector operator thought it was a very fast wanderer of some sort, but it emits energies and has slowed down. Therefore it must be a ship. Not even the Y’All had something that big!”

“Send message to the Combined Force and alert every combat unit! We will not fail in our holy task!”

Olnatar made the hanging bar rotate twenty five degrees and faced another of his command crew.” You who interpret knowledge. What do you make of this?”

Uncomt was the scientific advisor and the smallest of the eight Siucra hanging in a circular pattern around the central Command bar. His leathery skin was more wrinkled as that of the others as his time of study was much longer than those of the others looked with one of his big eyes at a visualizer and with the other at his Commander.” Facilitator, we do not have enough feeler knowledge to make a precise evaluation, but it is an artificial construct. Not a hollowed out asteroid generation ship like the Magulon used, the one we destroyed seventy cycles ago. It appears to have a dense metal alloy that deflects or inhibits most of our feeler rays. Only space mass displacement and external energy can be measured. It is …” The Knowledge interpreter stopped speaking and almost fell of his tail bar, recovered and croaked.” Whoever they are they know we are here. We were just hit with energy magnitude 77 feeler rays. I can conclude it is a very advanced species.”

The Pan Saran XO shook his head.” I don’t know how you do it Sir, but your gut is better than our sensors, especially since you have no known psionic talents.”

Both the Plato and the Pan Saran stood before the main viewer and looked at the close up visual scanner image of the foreign vessel. Both P5-Specter recon craft were under full cloak and both pilots reported that the vessel of unknown origin had not scanned or detected them yet. The science officer a pretty Saresii true woman came over, a small data ball projection floating next to her. “It looks like Tech level seven. Sir, Six hundred meters bow to stern, a crew of 900 carbon based life forms. Neuro patterns not on file. Technology somewhat similar to Kermac, but distinctively different. No Trans Dim or Para Dim Tech detected, but they do use a neat Quasi Space Communication system that I would like to analyze more closely. It looks like the most sophisticated Comm technology we ever encountered, that is not Union tech.”

The Tactical officer, a human reported without turning from his readouts. Unknown vessel has certainly detected us and raised shields and activated weapons. That alien ship has some serious fire power. I am detecting twelve FTL Line Blast cannons, and one weapon that look like nothing I ever seen before. It does not relate to any of the other tech. It is clearly of a higher tech level than the rest.”

The Captain returned to his seat.” Comm, inform Fleet command about this new contact. Science I want you to work on the scanner data of that strange weapon. Dedicate a Com channel to Arsenal III and work with the Xeno Techs there. Tactical they raised shield so we do the same. Standby on all weapons, but leave the turrets inside.”

The crew responded like a well maintained piece of machinery. The Plato always felt pride at moments like this.

“Sir I am detecting more than 400 enemy contacts coming in fast centering on our location. All of the same configuration as the first enemy contact. They all have their weapons and shields active.”

“We are here to establish contact. Begin standard first Contact procedures and hail them!”

The Computronic started to transmit the most basic binary code sequences on all know channels and after contact was established on one of them, more complicated mathematical problems were exchanged. From there the Computronic send a mathematical expression of basic language references. It turned out the Aliens spoke form of Ker and with Kermac dialects of file it took little time to establish two way communications.

Olnatar was impressed by the size of the alien ship but now that most of the fleet was on its way, even it could be rendered to scrap. They had encountered technologically more advanced species before, but none of them could withstand the Holy fire of the Kermac Present. The Ones worthy of worship have left behind a huge cache of these weapons belonging to one of their other Thralls, a civilization called the Uni on the moon that orbited Koken. Over the millennia the Siucra had learned how to install them in their ships. While they still knew little about the principle behind the weapon. No enemy had ever been encountered that could withstand it.

“The intruder into prohibited space is attempting to plead for mercy, Great Initiator.” His Distance Speaker said.

“Let me see the faces and if they leave their ship with us, we shall be merciful.”

The visualizer changed and what he saw made his nostril curl in the most convulsing disgust he had ever felt, a Plato stared at him, standing like a lord in black clothing. He did not crawl on the floor like it should have and wore the offensive shade! “How dare you standing! This space has been once graced by the very presence of the most exalted Kermac! How dare you be clothed! How dare you wear black the unholy shade! A Plato must crawl and be naked! You will hand over that ship now! Then submit so you can be exterminated for your insolence!”

“I am Captain Flowar Saxa of the USS Ivanhoe and we are of the United Stars of the Galaxy. We are on a peaceful mission of exploration. Am I to understand you are a Galactic Council species?”

“Now you speak! Without my permission and you are still standing! You will die now!” He made the sign and his Weapons operator placed both his feet on the firing contact plates.” The Holy fire weapon rocked the ship and drained power!

Captain Saxa almost fell, the Ivanhoe rocked hard, but the Ships Computronic reacted faster than any living being could and used a tractor field to pull him back into the Command Chair and the safety restrains snaked around him.

“Shields down to 30 percent. Forward shield generator damaged. Secondary system on line! Light casualties on deck nine.” The XO barked.

“Reverse engines! Go to Course 45.34.12 mark seven. Full weapon activation! Launch both Loki tubes at these Kermac worshiping bastards!”

The Ivanhoe shuddered again. A second enemy ship had taken them under fire from a distance that was beyond their translocator cannon range!

“Primary shields down. Secondary shields buckling. We have hull damage starboard aft. Damage control procedures in progress!”

Olnatar could not believe his eyes. The other ship was still there after it was hit by two charges of Holy fire Cannons.

As if hit by an enormous hammer, his ship rocked and shook. Sparks from over loading circuits showered from visualizers and he could smell the putrid smell of fire!

“Energy Buffer Bubbles were unable to deflect enemy smart weapon effect. Heavy damage to engine and hull”

“We will not fail!” He screamed. “Unleash the Holy Fire!”

“The weapon is at twenty percent at best!”

Olnatar slashed his claw across the face of the Weapons operator hanging to his left.” Unleash it now!”

He then activated his personal Escape pod and said to the command crew.” You will fight to the last while I organize the battle from another ship.”

“Secondary Shields gone Sir! 12 Percent Hull damage, FTL Drive damage! ISAH field symmetry no longer certain. Reaching FTL threshold no longer safe.”

Saxa turned.” Did you send our distress call? Is the Log Drone on its way?”

“As Ordered Sir! Drone is away and we have contact to Fleet Command. The closest help is twelve days out.”

He said to his XO. “Pack as much crew as you can in our auxiliary craft and fly as far as you get back home. Stay on the relay buoy route!”

The Commander reacted and did as he was told. “Saxa slaved the controls of the stations and fired the Translocator canon. One of the attacking ships now within range exploded almost instantly as a five kiloton TL bomb at the point of detonation rematerialized in its engine room. He send out another Loki and destroyed the already severely damaged first attacker. The Ivanhoe’s FTL Directed Energy projectors opened up on a third ship, but at the same time was hit by three more discharges of these powerful alien weapons.

The Ivanhoe had enough FTL auxiliary craft for everyone. The XO called him.” It’s time to go Captain! All Aux Craft but one is gone.”

“I gave you an order Mister. I stay with my ship and risk to go TL! The Ivanhoe is not done yet. I got plenty of energy. Now go!”

“Aye Sir and good luck! The Ninth Fleet is on its way!”

The Ivanhoe got hit again. Repair robot resources already stretched to the limit. He cut of Life support to all decks, and pushed the accelerator. The Computronic warned that the Isah Field was not symmetric. An absolute necessity to safely pass across the FTL threshold into Quasi space, asymmetry meant chaos condition not predictable. He risked it anyway. The Ivanhoe, with over 50 percent hull damage vanished from this reality in a bright white flash. Neither pilot of the still cloaked P5's had ever seen such a flash when a ship went into Quasi Space. They knew about the asymmetric Isah field. One of the pilots was an Ult and he wished he had tears, he certainly felt like crying as he saw his Captain die.