Alliance, page 12
When the battle ended there were several floating hulks that had been Antarian ships, badly damaged and not able to power up. The allied fleet had lost three ships, another Earth Fleet frigate and a Tressillian cruiser. The Medway was also badly damaged, but still just about space-worthy. Before anything further could be done to find out if there were any survivors on the five drifting Antarian ships, four of them blew up almost at the same time. It was found out later that it was the practice of Antarian captains to self-destruct their ships in such situations. Where the bridge personnel had been already killed, the AI of the ship was programmed to carry out the self-destruct sequence. Why the remaining Antarian ship did not do the same became apparent when a boarding party was despatched from the Magellan. The Bridge and the location of the ship’s self-destruct mechanism had both been put out of action at exactly the same time, breaking the command chain for the self-destruct to be able to take place.
The boarding party entered the Antarian ship on full alert, expecting resistance from any Antarians still able to fight. It was just as well they did. No sooner had the first of the boarding crew entered via one of the ship’s airlocks than fire was directed at him from three Antarians positioned at the inner airlock door. The ensign took the full force of their fire and slumped down to the deck of the ship. As the Antarians took aim at the remaining boarding party the fire was returned and all three of them were catapulted backwards by the force of the allied fire.
The marines moved slowly and carefully forward through the corridors of the ship, not meeting any further resistance until they came to what remained of the bridge. Several Antarians lay motionless on the deck, obviously killed instantly by the force of the missile that had exploded to one side of the bridge. The captain of the ship was slumped in his command chair. He had the presence of mind to put on his survival suit, unlike what appeared to be his first officer, who had taken the full force of flying debris from the blast.
As the rest of the boarding party secured what was left of the Antarian ship, rounding up half-a-dozen of the crew who had escaped being killed, one of the party on the bridge realised that the Antarian Captain was not dead, just stunned. A medical team was sent over from the Magellan to try to retrieve the enemy captain for interrogation. He was in no position to oppose the medics as they sedated him ready for his transfer to the Magellan.
Considering the surprise on both sides when the Earth Fleet began to appear in the midst of the Antarian ships, it was a good outcome for the allies. It obviously did not mean that the Antarians would not return. It did mean that they had been given a bloody nose and might think twice about the vulnerability of Earth.
The remaining Antarian ship that had not self-destructed, plus the few Antarians who had survived and not escaped, were taken to the docking station on the Earth’s moon. By the time the Antarian Captain had recovered sufficiently to be questioned he was on Earth at the Earth Command Centre in the Saharan Space Port. He stubbornly refused to give any information to the Earth Authorities under questioning. The interrogation team was getting nowhere, but had to admire his tenacity. Torture was not something that either humans or Tressillians took part in. Both of their civilisations had matured enough for any such practices to be outlawed. The Antarian Captain was a prisoner of war and should be treated with respect, even though he was the enemy. It was apparent that the Antarians did not take the same view. When it became apparent to him that he was not going to suffer any poor treatment, he took great delight in saying that Antarian interrogators would have no such qualms.
There was very little the enemy Captain could do though to stop the allied medical staff from carrying out a thorough physical examination of the Antarian personnel who had been taken from the disabled ship. It was obvious to anyone who was involved with the Antarians that they were originally from a planet with a higher gravitational pull than Earth. All of them were squat in stature with musculature that would allow them to move freely on higher gravity worlds. It was the analysis of their genome that brought the biggest surprise though, a finding that was to change how they were viewed from then on in the fight against their expansion. They were virtually identical to humans.
16. A Lightning Strike
The battle to protect Earth was over very quickly. There was little rejoicing. Those humans and Tressillians who had lost their lives were remembered in a moving ceremony at the Main Earth Space Centre in The Sahara Desert. The Tressillians who were injured were treated under the supervision of a medic from the Tressillian Flagship. Whilst the Tressillians were human-like in appearance, having evolved under similar conditions that had existed on Earth for millennia, their metabolisms were sufficiently different to need specialist support that only the Tressillian medics could administer. Those Tressillians who had perished were transferred to the Tressillian Flagship with full military honours to be stored in sub-zero temperatures so they could be taken back to their home worlds eventually.
No-one expected what happened next, especially so soon after the battle. Five days later the intruder sirens sounded at the base where the Antarian Captain was being held. A small space ship had materialised above the base, seemingly from nowhere. Before the guards could react, three heavily armed Antarian figures using personal jet packs descended from the ship onto the roof of the holding centre, firing indiscriminately. The speed of their approach and the fire they were directing at the buildings surrounding the holding centre took everyone by surprise. By the time the guards began to return fire, the three armoured figures had smashed their way through the roof of the building directly into the room where the Antarian Captain was being held. In no time at all they fitted a jet pack to the captain and all four rose swiftly towards the waiting ship, followed by a hail of fire from the ground. One of the snatch squad took a direct hit and fell away from the disappearing group as they entered the waiting ship. The ship then rose into the atmosphere in an arc before suddenly disappearing from the detection array of the Command Base. The whole smash and grab raid had taken around four minutes and had left six personnel dead. The injured Antarian had exploded before he reached the ground. The Antarians used self-destruct mechanisms for individuals as well as for their ships to avoid them falling into enemy hands.
The scene of the attack and rescue was still smoking as crews moved in to remove the dead and injured and to make the building safe. Everyone knew there was going to be a thorough investigation into how the Antarians could have undertaken such a daring raid without the Earth’s detection systems picking up any trace of the approaching Antarian spacecraft.
Once the initial shock of the attack had been overcome, the Earth and Tressillian leaders met to examine whatever evidence they had about how the Antarians had managed their lightning strike.
Senior Council Leader Joffrey began the meeting with a fitting tribute to those who had died in the attack and praised their courage. He then asked the question that was in everyone’s minds.
“I would welcome any information as to how the hell what has just occurred was possible. How did they get through all the defence mechanisms we have surrounding the planet?”
Vice-Admiral Clarke cleared his throat and, after a brief pause, said what several others at the meeting had been thinking.
“For the attack to take place without us having any forewarning must mean that the Antarians have a way of cloaking their craft from anything that we are currently using in our defence systems. Furthermore, as the attack only took the captive ship’s captain, leaving the other Antarian prisoners, I would hazard a guess that they must want the captain back very badly. He had shown no sign of giving us any information about the Antarians that could be of use to us. Did they want him back because they thought he might crack, or is there another reason? I would guess that we had captured someone who was more than just a ship’s captain for them to mount such an audacious rescue.”
He looked around the assembled humans and Tressillians. No-one else had any other ideas as to the reason for the rescue.
Gerry Clarke nodded to the senior general in charge of Earth defences, General Romero, as he indicated that he wanted to speak.
“I must agree with you, Gerry. We have been outflanked by technology that we do not fully understand. Their ships that took part in the battle a few days ago did not use such high-level cloaking technology. Perhaps the energy it takes to cloak a ship can’t be used as effectively on a large scale. The ship that appeared above the compound was only small, yet heavily armed. We did manage to eventually find a track for it, a very faint one, by boosting our detection systems with the help of our Tressillian allies. It seems that the ship used the same Vector Line that the main battle fleet had used. It then travelled the remaining distance to Earth at a speed that far exceeds anything our ships are capable of. If the Antarians can completely cloak ships, however small, and travel at such speeds, then we have a problem on our hands to say the least.”
Senior Captain Torgay of the Tressillian Flagship indicated that they had unconfirmed reports of Antarian raids on some of their outposts that were of a similar pattern. The reports were mostly from civilian workers and had been partially dismissed, assuming that the personnel on the outposts had been lax in their monitoring of Antarian threats. He reluctantly agreed that what the Earth personnel had said must be correct.
The meeting ended. There was agreement that defence and monitoring systems should be kept on high alert. Everyone left in a sombre mood, none more so than Vice-Admiral Clarke. The battle for Earth and the defeat of the Antarians who took part in it was just the first step in a war that he was not so sure the allies could win. The words of his father, now a veteran of the Earth Space Service, echoed in his mind as he walked down the corridor that led to the Command Centre. ‘To win a battle against the odds, you have to know your enemy inside out.’ He was not sure that they would ever know the Antarians any better, no matter what the allies did.
Theo was in the Central Communications Hub when Gerry Clarke arrived. It had been the enhanced abilities of Theo, his team and three Tressillians who had been able to trace the Antarian ship by the space disturbance it had left behind on its journey through the Solar System. Its trace back, the way it had initially arrived, was also fairly clear now they knew what to look for. The neural network was also picking up the trace of an Antarian Battle Cruiser stationed in orbit around Venus. It too must be cloaked for it to evade the Earth defence scans.
I presume that is where the Antarian rescue craft was heading as it left Earth,
mused the Vice-Admiral as he joined the personnel still trying to track the enemy ships. Theo showed him the plot that had been traced. Yes, the Antarians had managed to hide one of their Battle Cruisers on the far side of Venus. It was now several light years away along a Vector Line that would take it close to Orgon on its way back to the Antarian home world.
“Do you think that the Antarians are aware of the Orgon?” one of the Tressillians asked.
“The trace of their journey will go very near the Orgon planet.”
Theo thought for a few moments.
“That’s a good question. There was no reference to the Orgon when we eventually gained access to the AI of the Antarian Ship that we captured after the battle. Their space charts didn’t even give the planet a designation, let alone a name. Perhaps they don’t know of the Orgon’s existence. I wonder if that could be to our advantage? Let’s find out if our neural network is anything near good enough yet to contact either of the high ranking Orgons we spoke with.”
Those with enhanced neural network powers focussed their efforts and sent out a request to Transor Sali and Drogon Tethi. Theo could feel his senses reaching out into space along with the others on the team. After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only a few minutes, the nebulous figure of one of the Organs they had already encountered appeared on the main neural screen.
Before anyone could ask anything of Transor Sali, his form shimmered indicating that he was about to speak.
“The Antarians do know of our existence,” he said, “but we try to keep our presence shielded from them as much as possible. We do not want to invite their attention. It is better that way. We have been monitoring your neural network development. You are progressing well. You must now learn to shield your network or the Antarians may at some point be able to find out information without you knowing, just as we have been doing. We will send you the necessary information to allow you to develop your own shielding. It is a matter of some urgency. The Antarians are not as advanced as you are in many ways, but they might realise sooner rather than later that they can tap into your network. We also have information about the Antarian that you captured. You are correct. He is not a mere space captain. He is one of the High Command of the Antarian ruling elite. His importance to the Antarians is why they have taken him from you. Be on your guard at all times.”
After Transor Sali had left the neural network Theo and his team set to work on the information provided by the Orgon in order to try to develop some kind of effective shielding for their net. The allies certainly did not want the Antarians to be able to infiltrate their neural systems. They were proving to be a devious enemy who were prepared to go to great lengths to achieve the success of their expansion plans. The words about knowing your enemy that Gerry Clarke sometimes used trickled through his mind once more. They were beginning to understand the enemy a bit more each time they came into contact with them, but there was still a great deal that they did not know, including being able to understand their enigmatic message. ’You are Us’.
Little did Theo, or anyone else on the allied side, realise the full importance of those three words, despite what they had found so far. The important focus now was on the preparation being made to return to Tressillia to help in their fight against the Antarians.
17. The Lull Before the Storm
The return journey to Tressillia was uneventful… for a change, especially after everything that had occurred recently. As they neared the planet the news was not good. Even the successful control of the Vector Line that dropped them very near the Tressillian home planet didn’t raise the mood on board.
Seven more of the Tressillian frontier planets had been taken over by the Antarians. On six of them the allies had been able to evacuate nearly everyone before they were attacked. The seventh was not so lucky. It was further into the Tressillian systems than any of the other planets so far taken over. The enemy was gaining ground and confidence. Reports were coming in of incursions further and further into Tressillian space, many of which seemed to be probing for any signs of opposition to their advance.
Three Tressillian days after they had reached the planet news reached the allies from the Orgon that no-one wanted to hear. The Orgon defensive mind-shield had been breached by a probing search from deep within the Antarian system. The Antarians had struck lucky, probing planet after planet for any weakness in allied defences that they could possibly exploit. Against all the odds they had successfully penetrated the Orgon defences and it was highly likely that they now knew there was an intelligent specie on the planet. Drogon Tethi, the other Orgon who the allies had spoken with, thought that it was only a matter of time before a ship would be despatched from the Antarians to investigate Orgon space. If the Orgon could immediately trap any ship in their stasis field as soon as it came within their mind sphere, they might have a chance that their systems could fool the ship’s AI so that it did not register a presence on the planet. All anyone could do was wait and see what might happen. They did not have to wait long. It was only two days later that the message came through from Orgon; they had registered two Antarian ships on a course that would result in their arrival in the vicinity of the planet in three days’ time.
Theo and his team of humans and Tressillians maintained a constant link with the Orgon as the enemy ships drew closer and closer. The lead ship was identified as a heavily armed battle ship, whilst the accompanying vessel was smaller and built for speed. The worrying information from the scans of the approaching ships was that they were maintaining a distance from each other. That meant that any stasis field used by the Orgon would only be able to capture one ship at a time if they stayed in their current formation. The Antarians were obviously approaching with a certain amount of caution, knowing that there was something on the planet, but not fully aware of what it was.
The lead ship slowed and positioned itself in orbit above one of the poles. The Orgon waited. They wanted to see if the accompanying ship would come close enough for the stasis field to capture both of them. It remained at a distance from the planet, just out of range of the field. If the Orgon used their stasis field the other ship would immediately know that there was a presence on the planet. They waited as the Battle Ship’s sensors probed the Organ shields carefully. If they could maintain their blocking defences, they might yet be able to convince the AI on board the ship that there was nothing of any interest on the planet. It was a game of cat and mouse. The Antarian ship eventually began to move slowly away from the plant’s pole. It looked like the Orgons had succeeded. What they hadn’t counted on was what the captain on the Battle Ship did next.
Without warning the ship turned to bring its forward armaments to bear on the planet and fired a salvo. The only thing that the Orgon defences could do was to deflect the energy beams that the ship was using so that they bounced harmlessly into space. That was the sign the Antarians had been waiting for. Now they knew that there was something or someone on the planet that had repulsed their beams. The Orgon immediately deployed their stasis field and froze the Antarian ship in time and space. As expected, the accompanying Antarian ship immediately moved away from the planet at high speed. The Orgon cover was blown. They were now as much in the war with the Antarians as were the allies. The Orgon probed the ship they had captured. It was a drone Battle Ship that must have been under the control of the smaller ship. The Antarians were not taking any chances. They had even stripped the ship of any data that would provide intelligence to anyone in the event of it being captured. It was only the fact that the Orgon stasis field had instantly frozen the AI that meant that the ship had not had chance to instigate its self-destruct commands. The Orgon in control of the stasis field had no doubt that, if they released the ship, it would instantly self-destruct. It would have to remain circling the planet until a decision had been made as to how it was to be dealt with safely. More importantly, what would the Antarians now do? They undoubtedly knew that there was an intelligence on the planet that had captured the drone ship. What they didn’t know was how the ship had been captured. Their communications with the drone’s AI had just stopped as far as they were concerned.
