COMMANDER
Chapter 15

As expected, there were compatibility problems. I set the holo projector on the table in front of me and switched it on and the projection holo-matrix sprang to life in front of me at chest level. The ministers were seated on their dais along with the PM and Deputy Minister Nefal. Captain Lewellyn sat at my side, Ronin stood behind us, and the rest of the team was scattered around the walls as in the previous meeting. None of us were suited in ABS but wearing our common work fatigues, and all of the team were armed with handgun and blades. Our rifles were left back at the barracks safely locked inside our ABS.

I touched the controls and spread the hologram to a display large enough that all those assembled could see the scenes and data clearly. The matrix was a deep, translucent gray with nothing being projected yet. I took a breath and prepared. Captain Lewellyn forestalled my next steps by standing and moving around to the front of the table, walking through the matrix to face the ministers.

“Good morning assembled ministers of Hanos. We greet you with thanks for your determination to witness the truth and for the precious time you so willingly give. Before you is a holographic projection matrix, into which we will soon project the recordings and data evidence we have brought. We will also provide you with the parameters to judge for yourselves whether or not this evidence shows any sign of tampering or falsehood.

“In addition, I have brought with me my chief engineer and data analyst, Commander Dotes of the Earth Naval Space Fleet. (Not his true title or job but they didn’t need to know that.) Cmdr. Dotes will be available to answer any technical questions you may have for us.”

The captain began to pace, slowly, dramatically, and choosing his words carefully.

“The agenda for this meeting will begin with Commander Rawlings of the Marine Space Expeditionary Force showing us the recordings of the battle which occurred at the Epsilon Peace Conference between the Shaquaree and the Earth Fleet. Cmdr. Rawlings will provide commentary to make clear the activity you will soon see with your own eyes. You will see, as I have seen, the truth. You will see it is incontestable. Commander Rawlings, please begin.”

He gave them no time in which to ask questions or begin preemptive speech-making. I pressed a stud and images appeared in the matrix as it began to glow. I walked around the table and through the matrix and the three dimensional display of the system of the peace conference.

“Ministers . . . All recordings you see here will be in third-person format, meaning our ship’s AI has translated all viewpoints and relative distances from all transmitted recordings to a format one would experience in a movie projection rather than from the Rontar as a focal point. We have found this type of viewing and presentation to be quite helpful and illuminating when viewing after-action reports. Focal-point format for any of the individual transmitted recordings is also available, should any of you wish to see those views.

“Here in the center you see the dead planetoid of the system where the meeting buildings had been built and readied for the conference. Over here, on your left, is the gathering of the Shaquaree ships, and on your right just above and adjacent to the asteroid field is the Earth Fleet. Just here, you will see the arrangement of two Marine Landing Craft from the Rontar as they patrolled the asteroid belt monitoring sensors for any unusual activity. You will also see other Landing Craft from other Fleet vessels performing much the same activity elsewhere.

“This one, the glowing red icon, is the Landing Craft in which I was stationed. The scene you are about to see is a raw recording of the sensor suite aboard the Rontar. As you can see, all ships are oriented in a neutral stance between the two fleets with bows ‘down’ relative to all other ships. This is important because for any of these ships to actually fire any weapons other than missiles directly and effectively at each other they would have to maneuver to a different aspect. Initially, I will cause the scene displayed to zoom in on the craft I am in so you may see clearly what happens.”

I walked back to the backside of the table and pressed another stud on the projector. The scene changed to show the LC quite large in the center of the matrix, asteroids drifting nearby. As we watched, there was a puff of gray on one side of the LC. I froze the scene and zoomed even closer.

“You see here, Ministers, the sensor drone I dispatched to check on an energy spike detected near this asteroid, here. Please note the time index. You can all see from the shape and size this is a very small sensor-package drone, powered by nitrogen discharge, nothing more. In space, weapons like rockets or missiles are powered by active engines which discharge distinct particles and power signatures. Please note there is no sensor notation of any such power signature coming from the drone.”

The scene shrank back to the LC view, and the drone was barely visible except for the bright yellow circle surrounding it as it transected the space between itself and the asteroid in question. The LC floated gently and slowly forward. As the drone passed the asteroid and came up on the backside of it, I stopped the recording again.

“Please also note this time index, as this is when the drone first displayed a missile weapons platform hidden behind the asteroid. You can see from the sensor cam the missile platform is just now becoming visible as the stealth technology shielding it is turned off so the missiles can be launched. At this point, I will back the view out to the same third-person view aspect we saw when it began and we will continue to watch from that vantage.”

The scene shifted and now we could see all of the ships and the planetoid as before. Nearly a minute passed. During this minute the Shaquaree ships were seen to begin moving, maneuvering themselves to firing positions to attack the Earth Fleet. None of the Earth ships moved.

Suddenly there appeared the tracks and power trails of what appeared to be thousands of missiles blossoming in bright streaks from behind hundreds of asteroids surrounding the Earth Fleet ships. The multitude of flaring missile tracks were like lines of force, arcing gracefully out from their beginning points toward the six Earth ships and the small fleet of Landing Craft and fighters attending them. A hundred or so of these lines of force could be seen arcing toward the Shaquaree ships but they were vastly outnumbered by the ones streaking at the Earth Fleet.

All of the ships were seen clearly and in some detail, while the missiles were like pinpricks of reflected light moving at incredible speeds toward their targets. There were suddenly numerous small explosions seen as the first of the missiles began impacting the shields of the smaller LC and fighters. Within seconds, these smaller vessels were gone, disappeared in expanding balls of plasma fury of red, white, and orange colors.

Missiles began striking all of the ships in the display, and the scene on the left where the Shaquaree ships were centered glowed faintly with explosions. Where the Earth Fleet ships had been, on the right of the scene, was now a huge, brightly glowing mass of multiple hundreds of explosions of missiles of several types impacting the shields of the Earth ships or being blown apart by anti-missile fire.

Then the Shaquaree ships were accelerating, diving into the seething caldron of destruction. Beams of power from lasers and particle beams, and bright blue explosions of plasma cannon were seen stabbing into the mass of light bursts, every color of the visible spectrum shifting and flaring violently. Ships were torn to shreds before our eyes, breaking into pieces and flung away by the forces exerted on them. Others exploded in massive flashes. Then there came a monstrous blast and the planetoid ceased to exist as anything but a gigantic ball of flaring plasma and glowing bits of planetary mass ejected outwards in all directions.

Some ships were destroyed as the planetoid exploded and the over-pressure force wave was seen as an active spherical ripple expanding outward to shake everything in its path. Suddenly, the Rontar began to move despite huge explosions ripping at her sides. She rounded and straightened to move toward the much larger Excalibur. As the Rontar neared the dreadnought, both ships began to move in formation, and slicing beams of power shot from weapons ports on both ships to cut down two of the Shaquaree ships in quick succession.

These two were the only Earth ships moving under their own power. All others were either left as tiny bits of spinning debris or as floating, darkened, lifeless hulks. Three Shaquaree ships remained, all moving, trying to outflank or run away from the two Earth ships. The Excalibur was bearing down on one of the enemy and firing her Grafnal cannon, a mighty beam of light blue pulsing out to punch completely through the Shaquaree ship when suddenly a massive burst of violet light flared in multiple points throughout the matrix.

In an instant, over a dozen Shaquaree ships near battleship class appeared in the scene, completely surrounding the Earth Fleet and the battling Shaquaree, and immediately the arcing power trails of thousands of more missiles streaked from the new ships toward the ships in the center, all of the ships in the center, human and Shaquaree alike. Just as the missiles struck the Excalibur in a cloud of incandescent fury and the massive ship exploded like a single gigantic bomb, there was a blink of violet light from the position of the Rontar, and the scene went completely blank, once again the gray, translucent matrix.

Captain Lewellyn rose and walked to face the ministry of Hanos.

“Ministers . . . the recording you just witnessed ends abruptly when the Rontar exits the battle scene, upon orders from the Admiral of the Fleet aboard the Excalibur only moments before she succumbed. Is Hanosian society familiar with Transition-jumping?”

“We have heard of it,” admitted PM Bando, “by a different name, but we do realize from both our own history and examples of the Shaquaree that this is a method of traveling instantly from one place in space to another place. Obviously, we know nothing of the technology or the actual way it works but we do know it does work and is being used by space-traveling entities.”

“That is good enough for the time being,” Lewellyn said. “We may discuss details another time. Now, then, we will replay this last portion in slower motion to allow you all to see the multiple wave fronts of the blast from the exploding Excalibur strike the Rontar just as the Transition-jump initiates. We believe these forces are what had the effect to propel the Rontar somehow beyond the normal parameters of a Transition-jump, to nearly the speed of light.”

The scene played again, much slower, and the wave front ripple was clearly seen as it struck the Rontar at the exact moment the scene winked out.

“Further,” the captain continued, “we believe the time dilation effects of the velocity forced upon the Rontar is what caused us to appear here, in this system, more than 800 years of real time later, while subjective time for us was only the normal few milliseconds.

“Do any of you have any questions about the sequence of events at this point?” the captain asked. “Is there any portion of the battle scene you would like to see replayed?”

Several arms shot up as ministers began vying to be heard with questions and requests. Over the next two hours the scene was replayed numerous times to ascertain time indexes. Cmdr. Dotes was called upon to answer many questions, as were both the captain and I. By the time they called a break for the midday meal, we were tired and ready for it. The captain and his group would return to the ship while Team Zulu and I retired to our assigned barracks. Word would be sent when the ministers would be next ready to meet.

Joonia Valco appeared at our door at 1235. It was warm out, bordering on becoming hot with humidity rising. She was wearing a thin blouse of white and dark tan slacks with the flared section below the knees, and sandals. Her hair was tied back with a strip of cloth the same color as her slacks. In the sunshine, with the humidity, her dark nipples could be seen through the white blouse as distinct purple blurs. She was, apparently, oblivious to this. Or enjoyed it. Again, this attitude was in striking contrast to the other women we had seen, who dressed uniformly in the dark suits similar to the ministers, drab and sexless.

Joonia informed us the ministry would likely require at least one full day, maybe more, to review what had been presented to them and to reach any conclusion.

“I have a wonderful idea,” she stated exuberantly to me. “Why don’t we get out of here for a while and I will take you on a tour of the city, and to one of our beautiful parks. Your team can stay here or come with us, or wander around a little themselves if they like. I will arrange guides for any group who would like to do that.”

She looked around at the team. “Anyone interested?”

“We remain together,” I instructed through the transceivers. “Do not allow yourselves to become separated from the team.”

Several hands flicked affirmative signals, unnoticed by Joonia.

“We would enjoy seeing a park, Joonia, thank you,” I told her. “Give us just a moment to prepare, would you?”

“Certainly. I will step outside and call for transportation.”

“Condition One on the suits, concealed blades and handguns only with us, work fatigues.”

Again, the unobtrusive hand signals of affirmative were given.

A few minutes later, a bus with electric motor drive and rubberized, pneumatic tires on metal plated polymer wheels rolled up silently and parked in front of the building. We all climbed in with Joonia playing the chatterbox guide/hostess, and away we went gawking like tourists. Within a few blocks we were rolling down a thoroughfare with numerous other vehicles of various sizes. Pedestrians were seen walking the sidewalks, and gathered in groups in front of what must be eateries. They looked like pedestrians on lunch break on any Earth-settled planet I had ever visited.

It took nearly an hour of circuitous, sightseeing travel to get to the park, and Joonia was right. It was beautiful. Vast fields of mowed lavender grass were punctuated by large trees with leaves of various colors and shapes, and by outlined flowering garden areas and ponds of breeze-rippled water. There was a huge variety of color and shape and many smells mingling in the air to create a relaxing and extremely pleasant atmosphere. There were families picnicking, and children running and playing games with various toys, insects and birds flew, amphibians croaked. It was like any warm spring day on any Earth-type planet with humans going about their lives.

Clothing was colorful and ranged from full trousers and long-sleeved shirts, to short pants and shirts with short sleeves, button-ups, pull-overs, shoes, sandals, bare feet, and swimming costumes of various types of shorts for the young men and one-piece or two-piece for the young women. The team and I drew many glances and full-on stares but few approached for any closer looks. The people seemed interested yet concerned. Not quite frightened but not friendly, either. The children were simply curious with big eyes and pointed stares. We smiled and waved, and they smiled and waved back until shushed and called by their parents.

“Wolf, I just got the report from the trauma bot on the DNA sample. No wonder these people and their activities look so familiar to us. They are 99.999867 percent human,” Stitch reported as we walked.

“Any theorized explanations?” I asked.

“No, just the data and test results at this time. First thoughts are that this was an Earth colony with some minor gene therapy for local conditions. But, that is just a first thought.”

“Okay. Send it all to the ship and see if they can access any historical records from the planet. Maybe the bigger AIs can postulate or verify a cause. Is there any evidence of nano activity?”

“No, none at all. Of course, there wouldn’t be, if their tech was anywhere close to ours.”

On the ride back at the end of the day, the team held conversation via the transceivers to review all we had seen and learned, and to share perceptions.

We were able to infer several things from our trip to the park. First, we perceived the government personnel, the ministers, and their aides and secretaries appeared to be the only ones who wore stylized and muted clothing like uniforms. The rest of the people we saw were obviously aficionados of variety and comfort. Second, it appeared there were actually few differences between our experience of other human planets and this one. There were always subtle differences between planets based on cultural, religious, governmental, and sometimes weather or geo-related factors. Third, it appeared the Hanosians may be descendants of possible original humans colonizing the planet, who likely received some gene therapy to help their bodies adapt to certain planetary conditions. Our own nanos would be taking care of those slight negative effects.

Lastly, as open as the communications between the government and the citizens seemed to be, there seemed to be something else going on, some undercurrent of a serious nature of which we were, as yet, unaware. It was imperative we gain some understanding of the history of Hanos.

Then, of course, there was also the history of all the colony planets we needed to learn. Much would have happened in the eight centuries of real time which had passed. Our lack of knowledge was our greatest enemy. What was this LCP, and what races comprised it? Which races were in control, and how was it governed? How many sectors did it control? Were there other large conglomerates which existed? If there were, how did they interact with the LCP? How had Earth been affected and what state was the Fleet in? Did the Fleet even exist anymore?

We had not even considered trying to contact Earth or the Fleet openly until we could learn more, and any travel to other systems was insanity without first learning more or updating our star charts. The captain had ordered Dotes and his team to work with Astrogation and the AI to update all of the star charts in our databanks but the task would take weeks or maybe months, Dotes said. After all, we were talking about trillions of exabytes of data, and descriptors like “massive undertaking” were hopelessly inadequate. Nonetheless, we needed to do it. I ordered every spare bit of processing power of the Combat AI be provided to the Navy team at their request, as did the doctor with the Medical AI.

Fortunately for me, Team Zulu remained grounded and centered. Like most troopers, they had learned to focus on the job at hand and to not let the big picture overshadow or overpower them. Shut the fuck up and do your job, trooper, and the rest of the universe will take care of itself however it may.

We had been dirtside for two full days now and the inactivity was getting to us. The team was restless. The trip to the park had been greatly informative but we needed some action to keep the edge and take off some of the building tension. When we got back to our makeshift barracks, I made nice with Joonia for a little while but begged off of another night of breaking bread and “socializing.” She departed with a flirting smile but her stiff walk belied her discomfiture. Oh, well, she’d just have to get over it.

We talked as we ate our light dinner.

“Team, listen up. Tonight after dark we’re going to have a little fun. Ronin, who’s best at taking out sentries?”

“Star and Buzz,” she answered without hesitation.

Buzz grinned while Star looked uncomfortable.

“Who needs the most practice?”

“That would be Spear and Mouse.”

“Hey!” Spear interjected. “I sneak better than Dog and Boomer!”

I almost replied to chastise her but Ronin beat me to it.

“Give me a hundred and shut the fuck up, trooper! When I want your opinion I’ll ask for it!”

Spear was pissed for a moment, but only a moment, as Ronin joined her in the pushups without a word. I said nothing until they were finished. Neither did anyone else. The entire team had flopped to the floor only seconds behind Ronin and they all shared the discipline. When they sat back down to continue eating, Ronin spoke again.

“You do sneak better, Spear, but you need practice with the final kill. I can see you hesitate ever so slightly when the moment comes. I know you’re good with guns but you need to get better with the knife.”

“Aye, sir.”

Gods Above, what a team! I stood and moved from my chair and fell forward to hit the floor and punch out my hundred. I owed it to them. They sat quietly, silently. When I finished, they were all looking at me. Like they expected to hear something.

“You’ve put together one hell of a team, Ronin. As a team, what happens to one happens to us all. Now, then . . . Mouse, you’re with Star . . . Spear is with Buzz. I want you to take out the two watchers non-lethal, just put ’em to sleep with spray. Star and Buzz lead the way until the final approach, then Mouse and Spear make the hits. Signal the team when your target is down. Once we are clear, we join up and we will all take a midnight 10K at full run, full battle dress minus guns, knives only, and I will lead.” I paused a moment before continuing, “Let’s just see how good their security forces really are. If the watchers report anything undue in the morning, we fail. If the security forces crank an alarm on our run, we fail. Clear?”

Smiles and nods surrounded me. At last! A good test of what we had all been learning and practicing! Yeah, they were ready to sharpen their teeth.

Sᴇarch the FindNovel.net website on G𝘰𝘰gle to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.