Dremiks (31 page)

O’Connell displayed the accumulated data on the heads-up monitors. “We cannot obtain a clear infrared or radar readout from Dremiks or the moon Najif. The moon V-tay is on the far side of the planet at the moment, or it should be using the latest mapping data from the Dremikians.”

“I’d rather not rely on Dremikian data at this time.” His words bit into the tense atmosphere on the bridge.

“Yes sir. If you’ll pardon me, sir, I believe the following information will be of more interest to you than the relative unknowns of V-tay’s position.” She waited, trying not to wince. Captain Hill probably wouldn’t see the gesture, but Price certainly would. Despite his earlier admission of worried doubt, she wasn’t ready to show weakness in front of the subordinate pilot.

“Get on with it, Commander.”

“Aye, aye, sir. As I mentioned, I cannot get a clear sensor picture of the planet or the moon that most concerns us. You’ll see a sample of the data on the screen. The full logs of the previous ninety minutes of data are available for later evaluation. We can, however, get a relatively clear set of readings concerning S3, the third planet in this system. Because of this, I have concluded that there is a ring of satellites around Dremiks that are interfering, purposefully, with our instruments.”

Captain Hill leaned forward in his chair and peered at the information on the screens in front of him. He pulled out his tablet and began typing out calculations. He frowned and looked back at the display. “A logical and likely explanation. What do you plan to do if the satellites also interfere with visible light instruments?”

“I’m hoping they won’t, sir.”

“Abandon hope, Commander, there’s less chance of disappointment.” He winced at his own cynicism. “Five minutes until we’re in range?”

“Yes, sir.”

He leaned back in his chair and resisted the urge to drum his fingers. He also had to resist the urge to unbutton the high collar of his dress uniform. There had not been time to change since his return to the ship. The captain noticed Price mutter something to O’Connell. He watched both pilots move their hands across the controls. The data on the screen spiked erratically as the
Hudson
maneuvered sharply. “Commander?”

“Our escorts are tightening the cordon, sir.”

“And?”

“Flying underneath the gravity well isn’t good for them, sir.”

He stared at her seat back, aghast. “Commander if you’ve disabled a Dremikian craft it could be…”

“No sir, sorry sir, that’s not what I meant. One of the fellows slid too far underneath us. I just shimmied to the side so he had room to escape.”

“Clarity of communication, Commander. Work on it.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” She was happy he couldn’t see the smirk on her face. Price was equally smug. She hadn’t lied to the captain; the Dremikian escort ship
had
strayed too far underneath the
Hudson
of its own volition. She just failed to relay the fact that, before moving away, she had briefly moved
closer
to the exponentially more vulnerable alien ship. Their supposed hosts were now carefully staying far away from the underside of the
Hudson
, even if they had begun sliding closer to the rest of the hull.

“I really don’t think they want us getting close to that planet, sir.”

“I really don’t give a damn, Commander.”

In the co-pilot’s chair, Price’s eyes widened at the unusual use of profanity from their commanding officer. In his most neutral voice, he informed the bridge, “Telescopes on-line. Data collection beginning now.

It was rather anti-climactic. They could see outlines of the planet Dremiks and the nearby moon, but with the star Santalas directly behind the two bodies, it was hard to get a clear picture. The telescopes worked to diffuse the light from the star, but that took time.

“Sir, those ships are getting closer, again. I’m not sure I can maintain this speed and heading.”

“Still clear beneath us?”

“Yes sir.”

“Reduce speed to one half and let them match. Robertson, ready a probe.”

The ensign, still smarting from the commander’s earlier rebukes, protested, “But, sir, we are under a communications blackout.”

Captain Hill raised his eyebrow and stared at the young man until he was suitably cowed and muttered “Aye, aye, sir.”

“Commander, you know what I have in mind?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well. My prohibition on barrel rolls is lifted, but only if you deem it absolutely necessary. No theatrics.”

O’Connell’s stomach had only just recovered from the adrenaline spasms induced by their earlier aerobatics. She rolled her shoulders and tapped out a note to Price to make sure they were on the same page. He read the message and groaned.

“Sir, permission to alter uniform of the day for purposes of mission?” He was already on his feet. As soon as the captain nodded in permission, the lieutenant stripped out of his dress uniform jacket and loosened the buttons on his shirt cuffs. He slid back into his seat and pulled his shoulder straps tight.

O’Connell, grinning, said “Petty Officer Sparks, please retrieve the lieutenant’s jacket and find a safe place for it.” Under her breath she jibed, “Typical man, just leaving clothes all over the deck.”

Price chose to ignore her taunt. “Speed reduced by half, and our escorts have matched our speed.”

“Launch probe.”

The probe shot out of a canister on the nose of the ship toward the planet. Three Dremikian escorts raced after it.

“Sound collision.”

The klaxon blared throughout the ship, startling the crew and colonists.

“Proceed, Commander.”

O’Connell hadn’t waited for the command. As soon as the three flanking ships followed the probe, she sent the order for max speed. The engines hummed contentedly, like a thoroughbred given her head and allowed to run. They still had eight other ships surrounding them, but none underneath. At the very same time she increased speed, the
Hudson
dropped straight down the z-axis. Passing through her own artificial gravity bubble caused a brief moment of jarring turbulence, but Price compensated for that by rolling them slightly to port. The Dremikian ships were just as fast, but they weren’t expecting the sudden, erratic movements of the human ship. The
Hudson
rocketed forward, leaving her escorts behind.

“They disabled our probe, sir!”

“Noted, Ensign. I’ll add it to the list of accounts. Return to normal communications, please.” The radio, infrared and electronic message boards immediately began blinking. “Start filtering those, Ensign Chi.” He did a double take at the Ensign. “Commander O’Connell is the entire officer corps on watch this evening?”

“All hands maneuver, sir.”

“Very well. Alter subsequent watch schedules as necessary please. I doubt this is the last of our long nights.”

As if on cue, Price muffled a massive yawn.

“As soon as we establish orbit, hit your rack, Lieutenant. I’ll need fresh eyes up here come morning.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am. Ah, there we are. Telescopes transmitting.”

Dremiks flashed onto their screens in increasingly clearer pictures. With their altered trajectory, they were approaching the planet at a ninety degree angle from its sun. Darkness covered half of the visible planet. The half under the light of the distant star appeared wreathed in dark smudges that began to take on a blue tint. The moon Najif, orbiting above the darker side of the planet, looked pale. Beneath the moon, on the surface of the planet, electrical storms flashed in the darkness.

The images were beautiful, in an alien, stark, way. O’Connell began to relax in her seat. Maybe the captain had over-reacted to something the Dremikians had said, or simply misunderstood them. Although, she had to admit that the aliens had seemed particularly keen on preventing the
Hudson
getting within visual range of Dremiks. Now, though, their escorts had taken up flanking positions and showed no interest in slowing human progress to Dremiks. The commander looked away and began to plot a high orbit.

“Price, check this.”

He did so, pausing to run a few equations on his tablet. “Looks good to me ma’am. I don’t think…. Oh shit.”

Price and O’Connell stared, horrified, at the images on the heads-up monitor. The rest of the bridge crew turned from their stations to watch. Captain Hill was so stunned he completely forgot to reprimand the lieutenant for using profanity on the bridge.

Najif had progressed in its rotation around Dremiks, and away from the
Hudson
, showing more and more of the moonscape closest to the planet. Great chunks of the moon were simply gone. Large rocks tore from the surface and floated in a lazy trail behind, above, and around the moon. Meteors that had fallen into Dremiks’ gravity streaked against the night- darkened sky as red blazes. Storms roiled the surface of the planet even as its moon came apart and bombarded the atmosphere. The austere beauty of Dremiks turned into a seething, inhospitable, nightmare as they watched.

Chapter 18

Dr. Fortunas scheduled his briefing for 1100 hours. Ensign Robertson was on the bridge watch; the rest of the officers assembled eagerly. There was an air of barely contained agitation. O’Connell and Price were both chomping at the bit, ready to begin their initial flights to Dremiks, but equally concerned about the dangers involved. Ensign Chi seemed merely exhausted. No one smiled or talked.

Captain Hill entered at 1058 and noted with approval that he was the last to arrive. He poured himself a cup of coffee and glanced sideways at O’Connell. She made notes on her tablet and did not return his glance. He sat before saying, “As you are all now aware, the Dremikian ambassador has informed me that humans are no longer able to establish a colony on the planet Dremiks. He has, furthermore, made it abundantly clear that they wish to alter our previous agreements regarding the resolution of Najif’s decaying orbit. I want to know why.” He looked around the table and nodded at Fortunas. “Please proceed, Doctor.”

The chief scientist stood and motioned toward the screens on the surface of the table. “We’ve had over thirty hours in stationary orbit to study the atmosphere, ionic fields, and take radar and radio readings of the surface. I will briefly outline each section of my findings, starting with the planetary structure.”

“The surface on this side of the planet is delineated by two separate systems of fissures and mountain ranges. Dremiks is considerably older than Earth and, thus, if there is a molten core to the planet at all, it is so deep and so relatively cooled that seismic activity due to tectonic movement should not exist. However, my abilities to accurately measure seismicity are greatly hampered by our inability to set up accurate instruments.”

“I have outlined four distinct sections of the Dremikian atmosphere. These zones are named in accordance with Earth’s four atmospheric zones for ease of classification and should not be considered an indication that the qualities are anything like Earth’s. The exosphere of Dremiks is very diffuse, like Earth’s. There is a slightly cooler average temperature, despite the fact that Santalas is brighter than our Sun. This is due to the fact that Dremiks is further from Santalas than the Earth is from the Sun. There are significant particle clouds orbiting in the exosphere, evidently debris from Najif that is too small to be pulled further into the atmosphere.”

“The thermosphere reflects a great deal of visible light and energy due to the increased amount of the debris. Particles here are much denser. Commander O’Connell and Lieutenant Price should be aware that the probe I sent into the thermosphere came back with significant surface damage, as if it had been sand-blasted.”

“Lovely,” muttered Price.

“There are, also, extensive magnetic storms. The location and intensity of these storms increases with proximity to the lunar track of Najif.”

O’Connell brushed an errant curl off her face. “How extensive? Could you be more precise? Are we talking complete frying of electrical systems, or just enough interference to block signals from the surface?”

The others turned attentively to hear his response.

“I’m afraid, Commander, that I do not have enough information to give you a quantifiable answer. You will all note, please, the shifting magnetic fields around the planet and the high rate of ionization of the atmosphere on this side of the planet—a direct result of the degrading and erratic orbit of the moon Najif.”

“Also, there are times when radio waves are in fact bouncing off the atmosphere, with zero penetration, due to the magnetic storms. Because of this, and the fact that none of our probes have reached the surface, I’ve had very little success studying the lowest level of the atmosphere or the planet surface. I have been unable to conclusively confirm the barometric pressure, prevailing winds, soil consistency, or water density as previously reported by the Dremikians. Most of the readings I do have are spotty and inconsistent.”

The captain interjected, “Is there anything you can hypothesize?”

“Captain Hill the only thing I can say for certain is that we have been purposely misled about the status of the moon and its effect on the planet. We were told Najif was in a degrading orbit—a slowly degrading orbit. Najif is breaking apart while we sit here. Correction, I can also say with absolute certainty that the reason for Najif breaking apart and bombarding Dremiks is not due to natural causes. Someone exploded enough lorga on that moon to carve a quarter of it away and catastrophically alter the gravity and orbit.”

O’Connell’s green eyes narrowed. “Doesn’t sound like a good scenario for
fixing
the orbit and proximity using
more
lorga.”

“You are sure it was the mineral lorga that caused the explosion?”

“The surface of the probe I mentioned earlier, the one that sustained abrasions due to the debris in the atmosphere, was coated in a layer of lorga. So much so, in fact, that I’ve had to quarantine anything associated with it so we don’t have any accidental contact with sulfur-oxide and nitrous-oxide.”