The Pirates of Sufiro (Book 1) (Old Star New Earth) (17 page)

"Yeah, yeah," said the cook. "You better be nice to me, or tomorrow it'll be purple, sir."
Shoukry realized that Ellis was deliberately trying to keep the mood of the crew light. It was possible the alien ship would still be in the area. If that were true, they would be going into an extremely dangerous situation. As they ate, the captain made a general announcement to the crew, detailing the mission.
Cookie gathered up the dishes just before the pilot came over the intercom. "We have reached jump point. All hands assume your stations. All hands assume stations for jump point."
Ellis and Shoukry returned to the bridge. They sat in chairs next to the door at the rear. They each had monitors with control pads for the right hand so they could check progress on various parts of the ship. In addition to that, the communicator had a direct brain interface with all ship's systems, so if the consoles failed, he could take control of the ship and follow the captain's orders. That was, in fact, not a decision to be taken lightly. Usually direct brain interface with the entire ship left a person drained and useless. Ellis remembered history lessons about the days when people used to be used like that regularly. The practice was considered unethical by the standards of Ellis' time.
The captain looked around and saw that everyone was at his or her station, then ordered the jump. Reality collapsed on itself then emerged moments later. For a moment the ship seemed to scream. Then it sang. That was followed by silence. Shoukry found her knuckles white from gripping the arm of her chair. Ellis held his stomach. He never inherited his father's tolerance for jumps. Captain MacPherson seemed collected as always, his scowl unchanged. Ellis wondered about that. MacPherson reminded him of his father in a number of ways. The second lieutenant often wondered whether immunity to the jump was a prerequisite for a captain. Then he noticed that the captain's own knuckles were white. The Old Man was not immune.
"Ship hull integrity, normal," reported the pilot. He sounded as though he were trying to hold his dinner down.
"Ship's weapon's operational, sir," reported the gunner.
"Environmental systems normal, sir," stated Shoukry a little shakily.
Ellis took a deep breath. "Landing bay secure. No launches broke loose during jump. Engines operational, sir."
"Ship's communication's systems operational, sir," reported the communicator.
"Then where's my damn picture!" growled MacPherson gesturing toward the view screen.
The communicator hit a button and the holographic screen came to life. The bridge crew gasped in unison. The alien ship sat in full view, dwarfing the smaller, cylindrical
Courageous
in the upper right of the hologram. It was a large, iridescent sphere surrounded by many smaller spheres conglomerated around the outside. Ellis found himself transfixed by the image. It seemed to speak to some dark, unused corner of his brain. "Space has creatures far bigger than the whales, far more hot-blooded," remarked Ellis, under his breath. "It's a cluster of some kind," he stated more audibly.
"What, eh?" asked Shankar.
"Cluster," echoed the captain. "It's as good a name as any for the alien until we learn more." MacPherson sat forward, resting his chin on his fingers, his lips pursed. He studied the situation for a moment. "How large is the Cluster?"
Shankar checked her screen. "Approximately two hundred meters in diameter. Each of the outer spheres is
approximately ten meters in diameter. Reflectivity from the star in this system indicates that the spheres are quite smooth. I'll have to commence active scan to learn more, sir."
MacPherson held up his thick hand. "Don't. What's the status of the
Courageous
?"
Shankar performed an active scan of the sister ship. "She's been hulled, sir." There was a moment of silence on the bridge. "Hit between decks and in each section. There are no life signs over there."
"Lifeboats?" asked MacPherson staring at the screen. "None used, sir. They're all accounted for on the ship."
"Damn," muttered MacPherson. "Damn it all to hell." MacPherson banged his knee twice. "Communicator, try to contact that cluster ship. Use all known languages. Use prime numbers if you have to. Just try to get them talking. They're the only ones who know what happened."
"Aye aye, sir," responded the communicator. He sat back, using the chip implant in his head to try to contact the alien. He sat for a while. There was no signal on his implant. He tried using ship's lights to signal the ship. The alien sat there and did nothing. "No response, sir."
"Approach, but as slowly as possible," ordered
MacPherson. Deep in thought, the Old Man stroked the end of his jet-black moustache.
As they started moving, the alien ship vanished. "Full stop," ordered the captain. "Where is she?" He gaped at the viewer. "Where is the Cluster?"
"Energy waves indicate she has something resembling an Erdon-Quinn engine aboard, sir. It appears she jumped," stated Shankar.
"But to where?" The Old Man bit his lower lip. He then sat up, straightening his uniform jacket. "Take us over to the
Courageous
. Communicator, copy their sensor logs to our computer. I want their readings of that ship as well as the ship logs. I want to know what happened."
"Aye aye, sir," said the pilot and communicator in unison.
As the
Astrolus
approached the
Courageous
it became clear that the attack had been executed with great precision. Ellis moved to stand behind the captain, studying the damage to the sister ship. The entire ship was black and motionless, including the EQ generator that normally glowed blue. Neat holes, like open mouths, gaped from the side of the ship. "Those blast points are too precise for any ship I know," said Ellis.
"Hmmph," muttered the captain. "We'll see what the sensor analysis shows."
"I have the records from the
Courageous
, sir," reported the communicator. "I'll display the camera log on the viewscreen."
"Do it." The Old Man sat back, folding his arms. As they watched, the alien ship returned to the screen. A green beam came from one of the spheres. Ellis jumped in spite of himself. The beam played in almost a strobe-like pattern across the screen.
"Switching to hull camera." The communicator's voice seemed out of place. The green beam moved down the hull of the ship. "These images were taken two minutes after
Courageous
completed her active scan of the alien."
"What do the scans of the alien vessel show?"
MacPherson's gaze was locked on the screen.
"Nothing, sir." The communicator shook his head.
MacPherson was not a man who showed strong emotion, but that last statement brought him to his feet. "That's impossible," he said. "The scan had to reveal something."
"Nothing more than the information we obtained from visual analysis, sir." The communicator turned to face the captain.
"Any energy readings to indicate some kind of shielding?" The Old Man started pacing.
"Nothing, sir."
MacPherson looked over the faces of his officers. "Opinions?"
Shankar sighed. "For all we know the scan did some damage to the Cluster and its crew interpreted it as hostile."
"That's true," said Shoukry. "However, we saw no evidence of damage on the cluster ship."
"For that matter, sir," said Ellis addressing the captain, "we have no evidence the Cluster is even a manned spaceship."
"You mean it might be an unmanned probe?"
"We have no evidence to the contrary, sir." The officers looked from one to the other.
MacPherson sat back in his chair facing the screen. "Communicator, get me command," he ordered.
* * * *

By human standards, Saturn is a beautiful world. Its rings encircle the planet gracefully and spokes of dust drift lazily through them. Violent storms play subtly across the planet's face. When humans finally started reaching out to space, the last place they expected to find intelligent life was Saturn's largest, most enigmatic moon, Titan.

Indeed, humans had sent unmanned spacecraft by the darkly shrouded moon for years without realizing that intelligent life was most intrigued by the small frail craft careening by their home. Not only was Titan home to intelligent life, it was home to a vast confederation of intelligent species from throughout the known galaxy.

Peaceful to a fault, the word "empire" does not exist in the Titan's language. Humans have never quite gotten used to their nature. Even their physical appearance is disconcerting to many humans. Titans are large, furry creatures. They look like immense teddy bears until they grin and show frightening serrated teeth. However, the teeth are merely used to eat the water and methane ice they use for survival.

The Titans had been in space for nearly two thousand years. They realized early that uniting all the worlds that harbored intelligent life under one government would be impossible. However, realizing the limited resources of the galaxy and seeing the large number of rapidly developing societies, they worked to form a loose confederation with the worlds they discovered. Each planet in the Confederation still maintained its sovereignty, and the government could be used to solve interplanetary disputes. The system seemed to work quite well, especially since interstellar war was extremely impractical for most civilizations. This is not to say that conflict did not exist. Indeed most worlds maintained a military of some sort—many even maintained two or more. Fortunately, most beings sought out the Titans before engaging in any large-scale action.

Interlocking pressure domes cover much of the surface of Titan. In these, residents from the many known worlds of the galaxy live and meet discussing policy and seeing to the mutual interests of the confederation. Few ambassadors have common atmospheric requirements. As such, identical tables exist in all of the pressure domes for use during meetings. At a table usually sits one person. The rest of the seats, benches and couches are filled by holographic projections of the other ambassadors sitting at the identical table in their dome.

Three days after the
Astrolus
encountered the Cluster five other ships from other worlds of the confederation had encountered Cluster ships in scattered regions of the galaxy. Four of these ships, including the one from Titan, had been attacked.

"It is clearly an act of war!" shouted the Rd'dyggian Ambassador pounding a massive six-fingered hand against the table.

The Ambassador from Tzrn tapped four of her eight legs impatiently. "Clearly? I don't think anything is clear about this situation. We don't even know if we are dealing with one ship or an entire fleet."

Valentin Lifshitz from Earth shook his head. "It's inconceivable that it's only one ship. That would go against every law of physics we understand."

The Ambassador from Alpha Centauri rested his head on a tentacle and grinned in a way that was mischievous on his planet. "Your people thought the Raz'pohod field went against all laws of physics until just a few cycles ago."

"We're not talking about the Erdon-Quinn drive; we're talking about the Cluster!" said Lifshitz, standing.
The Titan at the head of the table, Teklar, held up a paw and made a rumbling noise that was roughly equivalent in meaning to a human clearing their throat. She had a thick silver-gray coat. She wore an orange sash indicating her status as a leader of her people. "We have indeed strayed from the point of the meeting. We are here to determine if we should take united action relating to the Cluster. From what we have discussed so far, it is clear that ships are being destroyed for no apparent reason. It is also clear that no one at this table can suggest a defense against them. However, no Cluster ship appears to have attacked a planet."
"May I make a suggestion, Madame Ambassador?" asked the Rd'dyggian Ambassador.
"Certainly," replied Teklar.
"Ultimately, we are talking about defense against a common aggressor." The Ambassador wiggled a purple moustache-like growth on his upper lip. "For the moment, I'll put aside argument about whether or not they are warlike. However I think we should unite our fleets and pool our resources."
"And who commands the united fleet?" asked Lifshitz, scratching the bald spot on the back of his head.
The Rd'dyggian wiggled his moustache again. "As we have the most experience with military matters, I believe we should."
The hall exploded with cries of "Outrageous!" and "Never!" A roar silenced the outburst. The ambassadors turned their attention back to Teklar. "Uniting the fleets is a good suggestion, but uniting them under one planet's authority is clearly out of the question." The Rd'dyggian folded his arms and glared forward.
"Why not a new Admiralty made up of the senior admirals from all of the fleets?" asked the Ambassador from Tzrn.
"Indeed a good suggestion," responded the Ambassador from Zahar. His translucent body wiggled. "They could manage the resources from the worlds of the Confederation and deploy ships strategically."
Teklar called a vote and a resolution was passed that united the fleets of all the homeworlds under a central authority. Each of the ambassadors took the resolution home. Ten more ships were destroyed while the resolution was being debated. Some worlds wanted a declaration of war appended to the unification document. Ultimately, however, all agreed to the resolution as signed on Titan.
* * * *

It's a cluster
. The words of John Mark Ellis resonated in Teklar's chambers a few days after the vote uniting the fleet was cast. She turned to her aide-de-camp. "This human understands."

Teklar's aid shook her massive head. "The intelligence is reminiscent of a cluster of spheres. We can't assume he deduced the point of origin from one stray comment."

During the first meeting of the admirals on Titan, it was decided that ship construction needed to be increased so there would be vessels to monitor as many sectors as possible. Some worlds, such as Tzrn, had a limited number of ships due to minimal Erdonium supplies. As such, other worlds would have to help supply the increased demand. Admiral Strauss from Earth ordered Erdonium production increased throughout the Gaean Alliance.

On Sufiro, Sam Stone was enthusiastic. "We're gonna win this war!" declared the new Governor of Tejo. "We'll supply you with ten times the Erdonium you're asking for!"