Carinae Sector: 01 - Traders' Scourge - Part 3 - New Shores (6 page)

Gindane respected the convention that Emeria had used in both seeking and providing medical information, and indeed the Traders had supplied medical information about the Voorde that was intriguing. However she now felt that the Traders were hiding something, as they had not released all of the information that the Barus research team were seeking. Gindane watched from the safety of several thousand kilometres as her ship raced out of the human system and a torrent of Maveen ships spread around the Earth.

Gindane knew that it would take at least three days to get back to the research fleet at the former Dradfer colonies and much longer to return to the Cephrit star base. Hopefully the authorities were backing up both her and the recently departed Tilmud frigates by having a decent number of ships deployed nearby. The research fleet location would be the logical place to start she decided quietly to herself.

Gindane continued to watch as one of the larger Maveen ships eventually established orbit around Earth and deployed monitoring equipment after two more hours. After several more hours, her ship had reached a location it could exit the solar system and a flash of light occurred as the research ship made the hyper drive jump.

                                                            ***

Troop Commander Gavin Lewis quietly watched the activity around the now closed Perth Airport with professional detachment. A frenzied number of civilian transport supervisors were coordinating a series of heavy vehicles down at one end of the international runway. Nearby he could see that two SAS teams kept a central area of the runway clear for the expected alien ships.

Gavin had been in the SASR, the Australian SAS regiment for many years and he had seen nothing like this high density deployment before. The night before he had reassured his wife after they put their two daughters to bed that everything would be fine. They had even briefly discussed and then agreed on the merits of joining the new colony providing it was safe enough. He knew that similar urgent discussions and frantic organisation of people, transport, food and equipment was happening around the world.

Gavin slowly pivoted around and viewed the full complement of the SASR second squadron of over eighty berets amassed with the signal corps troopers around the perimeter of the Perth airport. The squadron had brought a mixture of army fighting vehicles and trucks. The SAS soldiers were not alone either for a nearly equal number of elite US navy seals were present from US seal teams four and five. The navy seals had deployed to the Australian coast from the USS America, and had soon struck up an easy camaraderie with the SAS troopers after the confusion with the initial US fleet attack on the aliens was resolved.

Gavin watched as two US heavy lift cargo planes unloaded several US ground vehicles and other equipment, including three small helicopters and scouting drones near the domestic terminal. The SASR had already either brought over several of their own helicopters or had arranged for the loan of civilian helicopters and pilots. Other civilians were present in a huddle near the control tower and included several scientists from many different fields clustered around several four wheel drives.

A short burst of radio messages alerted Gavin, and he turned to watch as two of the larger Maveen ships escorted by those strange smaller probes now approached the airport. The featureless nature of the black hulled Maveen ships was apparent in the early morning light, and he watched in amazement as the alien ships now slowed to take up their positions. Within moments the two gate ships had landed on either side of the main runway, deployed long antennae, and a white oval a hundred metres across formed between the two ships at ground level. Gavin listened to another short burst of radio traffic and quietly went forward to meet the Maveen probes with the other Australian and US officers.

                                                            ***

Troy van Essen considered the media reports initially with disbelief and now with real interest. He sat back with a beer and his two young sons played with their toys on the carpet at his feet. From the street a siren howled as the police answered yet another emergency call in western Sydney. Troy was in his early thirties and always seemed to be on the brink of a career change. However he knew that he would be in a small rental house and an average manual job for the rest of his working days. Troy had grown up in the bush and found the pace and clutter of the big city to be at times unpleasant.

His wife Cheryl now carefully moved into the lounge room and then navigated around her sons to slowly sit with him on the sofa. Cheryl was getting bigger every day and they were hoping for a daughter this time. She took Troy’s interest in the media report as a good sign, at least it was not the football and he was only into his second beer.

‘Troy, can you believe those are alien ships at Perth airport? And that they are setting up something that allows us to travel to another planet?’

Troy answered his wife with a smile as he slipped an arm around her shoulders.

‘It sure is interesting times we live in, and the aliens seem, well so alien, but not hostile at this stage. I just hope our leaders know what they are doing.’

The two boys looked up from the carpet and Simon, the eldest piped up.

‘Dad, can we go and play out the front while you and mum watch the TV?’

Cheryl intercepted the question, and Troy watched on the TV as the Australian and US soldiers walked into the strange oval light between the two Maveen ships.

‘Simon yesterday you pushed your brother off the tray of Dad’s truck. You can either sit here and watch this with us or take your toys to your room.’

The two boys elected to sit in their parents lap and the four of them watched enthralled as the first images of a new world appeared.

                                                            ***

Gavin Lewis cross checked the equipment on the trooper next to him and paused as the same checks were made on his own kit. He glanced over at Sergeant Tom Evers, a hulking African American in his navy seal combat uniform, and received a polite nod and an ‘all set here’ in reply. A signals trooper stood a few metres from the strange gate off to one side with a broadcast communications array that served the radio, video and data links. A second broadcast communications array was mounted on a trailer behind the lead Bushmaster and as Gavin watched another trooper gave the array a gentle shove to ensure it was tied down correctly. Nearby he could see several unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, mounted on trailers behind other vehicles.

Gavin got a short radio order from the Major located on the perimeter of the airport, and took a deep breath as he led the mixed squad of Australian and US soldiers through the gate. There was a momentary sensation of walking into a fog and being disorientated before he stepped onto a level grassed field. He knew that he was being followed closely by several other soldiers and the bushmasters. So he strolled off to one side and watched the rest of the squad take up positions two hundred meters in front of the oval. He paused for a moment to consider an unknown three meter high black column off to one side, as the signals trooper unhurriedly uncoiled his cable and plugged in the second communications array before also walking to one side.

Gavin also spotted a pair of Maveen probes flying slowly in the far distance. He looked around at the landscape in the area and noted that they must be standing many kilometres inland on a long grassy field surrounded on one side by high hills with taller hills behind them. He panned his helmet camera around at the high hills and paused to zoom in on the tall trees that crowded the hills. Gavin then keyed his microphone and then slowly panned his helmet camera around again, as he took in the decent sized river fringed by tall tress and scrub several kilometres away. He placed a hand over the head camera to protect the unit and then looked skywards for a moment at the gentle midday light coming from a sun-like star overhead. He thought the star of this world might be dimmer than their sun, but not by much, and hopefully the boffins could answer that question very quickly.

‘Major, are you seeing all of this in front of us? We should be able to deploy UAVs and helicopters very quickly.’

‘Gavin, we are seeing all of this on the monitors from the helmet displays. Deploy the UAVs as soon as possible. The choppers are just being wheeled through now.’

The squad had soon moved forward several hundred meters and unshipped their equipment loaded on the other bushmasters. Gavin organised several patrol teams, and they took off in smaller vehicles to patrol the edges of the field as teams of men wheeled through the small helicopters. Gavin looked again around the field and identified the highest point several hundred metres to one side.

‘We will setup up flight control and refuelling for the choppers over there to leave the gateway clear. I want several more teams to come through and we will set up a team to keep the gate clear. Another team is to setup a vehicle marshalling point further down the slope.’

Sergeant Tom Evers carefully dug an arm deep hole into the ground, as another of the Americans did the same and also dug up packed red loam. Tom now looked over at trees lining the edges of the field with his binoculars as Gavin considered his next actions for a moment before the American calmly spoke.

‘Gavin, I learnt a thing or two from my farming grandpa. The soil is good and deep, there is water nearby and the ground has not recently been frozen. The tree line tells me that fire is not common, unlike your own Australian landscape.’

Gavin gave his own agreement of Tom’s comments as he cautiously scanned the nearby bush yet again. Streams of soldiers pushed through helicopters or drove bushmasters through the gate as Gavin keyed access to the first UAV pictures from the video feed in the Bushmaster.

‘Major, I see no signs of an armed force or large animals near our position. Do we know if there are any threats on this world?’

The major delayed response for several moments as he in turn studied the data from the UAV’s, and then he replied.

‘Gavin, we are attempting to establish the risks from the Maveen. They refer to the star as Dalunon and the world as Barede and state that it is a fallow world not populated by a technical race. However I am prepared to bet there would be natural hazards. I am attempting to get a map of the world from them if it is available. Please keep all the teams in sight on the grass for the moment.’

‘Yes major, can you send through the astronomers? They wanted to get a reading of the sunlight and then the night sky as soon as possible. No doubt the other scientists will want to come through as well.’

                                                            ***

James Tilburn listened to the SAS Major patiently, as the man obviously had a job to do keeping them all safe.

‘Now I repeat that I do not want any civilians wandering off by themselves. Troop Commander Lewis will ensure that you have armed guards protecting you at all times. If you ignore our requests we will send you back home, so no arguments.’

James acknowledged Major Donaldson’s instructions and silently drove his team forward in the four wheel drive. The rear of the vehicle was packed with camping equipment and the trailer held the largest transportable optical telescope they could obtain at short notice. The trip through the gate was an anti climax he thought as there was no star field or sensations of travel, although his ears did pop a little as if he was on a plane.

A heavy set uniformed American motioned the four wheel drive to continue forward and head down a pegged laneway. As they drove along as another civilian four wheel drive appeared through the gate behind them. That would be Phoebe Roberts and her team of biologists he considered as he stopped several meters from the makeshift SAS command post. A tall SAS officer looked him in the eye before he turned to a SAS sergeant a few metres away and looked across to the edge of the large field.

‘Troop Commander Gavin Lewis and you must be James Tilburn. Johnson, select three men and take James and his team to that far edge of the plain as they will not be disturbed over there.’

The sergeant picked three men and they quickly got into a bushranger and led the astronomers over to the edge of the large clearing three minutes away. The SAS troopers filed out and performed a quick patrol of the area before they took up station and eyed the nearby edge of the field. James could see over another section of the central field were Will Ellis and his team of geologists and surveyors were rigging a drill truck.

James and his team left the big optical telescope until the evening and readied a quick series of measurements for the local star. After the first hour of measurements they had key details worked out as they established the spectral glass and the luminosity of the star. James quickly discussed the findings with his team as they continued to make further measurements.

‘The mass is ten percent less than our own sun and the luminosity is twenty five percent less. I consider that this star is similar to Alpha Centauri B in key characteristics; in namely it is a larger K series star. So the habitable zone we are in must be around the equivalent of an orbital distance for Venus in our own system. The night time observations will sort out the orbital data, for now we need to get the flux rates and establish the age of the star.’

The SAS sergeant was listening avidly and made a quick call back to his commander by radio.

‘Sir, the boffins up here have stated that the local star is less luminous than our own star. This would explain the small shortfall in power from the solar cells.’

                                                            ***

Phoebe Roberts, a young and capable Australian biology professor, evaluated the field around her with real fervour. She considered that the various grasses would not be out of place in either southern Australian or southern Europe. She bent down and quickly pointed out to the video camera the burrows of either ants or native Australian bees, and she prodded a small beetle not unlike a lawn beetle.