Hunter's Moon, page 1
HUNTER’S MOON
Richard Tongue
HUNTER’S MOON
Colonial War: Book Ten
Copyright © 2023 by Richard Tongue, All Rights Reserved
First Kindle Edition: July 2023
All characters and events portrayed within this eBook are fictitious; any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Prologue
Something slept in orbit over Tau Delta III. Something that had rested in slumber for decades, since the last starship had visited that world, and was now beginning to return to life once more, aged programming detecting the long-forgotten presence of building dimensional activity. Slowly, laboriously, the ancient orbital station began the process of reactivating itself, the dormant reactor operational once more.
The station had been built with one purpose, and one purpose alone.
To seek, locate, and destroy any intruders to the world it was built to protect and defend. Three clouds of debris were testament to the ruthless efficiency of its creators, sole silent testimony to those who had dared to run the blockade in the past. Now another ship was about to run the gauntlet, to test its equipment and the skill of its crew against that of the long-dead engineers who had constructed Farragut Station.
And in a flash of Cerenkov Blue, the Starship Schenectady swept into the system, her crew unaware of the forces already plotting their doom…
Chapter 1
Commander Nick Kozak sat at the heart of Schenectady’s bridge, his crew working through the final preparations for egress. To one side, Lieutenant Pat Flynn, his Engineer, looked nervously at the instrument readings while Kim Rogers, at Guidance Control, struggled to ease them back into normal space.
Back when he was a kid, Kozak had read all of the stories of the first great steps into space, of the heroes and adventures who flew to the Moon, to Mars, and to the stars beyond. Of the expeditions that had charted unknown worlds and pushed back the frontier of humanity’s knowledge. A part of him had dreamed of joining them, before those dreams were dashed by the cold reality of the seemingly endless Colonial War.
The War was over, and now that dream had become a nightmare.
His ship was lost, stranded in the cold, hostile depths of deep space, a one-in-a-million incident throwing them further than anyone had ever thought possible. In theory, they could make it home, but it would be a voyage taking months, perhaps longer, and his ship simply wasn’t designed for such a trip at the best of times.
One glance at Flynn confirmed that it was not the best of times. They’d picked the nearest star that looked promising as a safe harbor, one with a world that might just be able to support human life if the worst came to it. A bleak future for his crew, trying to eke a marginal living while waiting for rescue to arrive.
Not a promising prospect at all. The rear door opened, and he turned to see Ivan Vykovsky, theoretically a prisoner-of-war, on effective parole for want of any other options, stepping onto the bridge, moving into position behind Kozak as they prepared for their emergence.
“Exciting, is it not,” Vykovsky said.
“Exciting?” Flynn replied, turning from his position. “I think we have different dictionaries.” Turning to Kozak, he added, “We’re right to the edge, Commander. I’ve got warning lights on half a dozen systems, and hull stress is at the limit.”
“Thread the needle, Kim,” Kozak ordered.
Nodding with grim determination, Rogers replied, “Will do, sir.”
There was a loud, ear-splitting whine as Schenectady tore a hole in the fabric of the space-time continuum and tumbled through, spinning end over end as it slid back into reality, alarms blazing over the ceiling speakers as Flynn struggled to tease damage control assessments from his battered systems.
“We’re out,” Rogers said, her hands dancing over the controls. “Trying to get us stable. We’ve lost some of our thrusters…”
“Control systems failure,” Flynn added. “I’m trying to run a bypass past the damaged parts of the network.” He shook his head, and said, “We’ve made our last jump for a while, skipper. There’s damage here that is going to take some serious time to fix. I’m not even sure that we’ll be able to do it with the resources we have onboard. This is a shipyard job.”
Nodding, Kozak replied, “We knew that was the risk when we came out here, Pat. That’s why we picked this system.” Turning to his Operations Officer, Lieutenant Cooper, he asked, “Ronnie, are we getting anything from the short-range sensors?”
“Just coming online now,” she replied. “Looks pretty much just as we thought, Commander. The planet below, it’s like Siberia in Space. In the middle of a glacial epoch, but with an equatorial belt that should be habitable, the air breathable, some signs of a biosphere that might actually be compatible.”
“A compatible biosphere?” Vykovsky asked. “If that is true…”
“Then this just might have all been worth it,” Kozak replied, “but we have to get home to spread the word if we’re going to make any use of this little discovery of ours. Orbital space?”
With a frown, Cooper said, “Resolution’s not good, but I’m picking up some signs of…there’s something in orbit, sir. Looks like a defunct constellation of satellites, maybe old, damned old communications and meteorological. And a larger station, potentially manned. We’re heading towards it now. There are power readings from the station, none from the satellites.”
“Hail them,” Kozak ordered.
“You’re on, sir, but this could just be an old, automatic system.”
Nodding, he said, “This is Commander Nick Kozak of the Confederation Starship Schenectady. We come in peace. Please identify yourselves.” With a glance at Vykovsky, he continued, “Our ship has been damaged. We request access to any shipyard facilities you have.”
“Is it wise to expose our weakness?” asked Vykovsky.
“Unless their sensor tech is drunk, they already know that we’re in bad shape. Better to open with honesty. Any reply, Lieutenant?”
“Nothing, sir,” she said. “Our message got through, but no response.” She tapped a series of controls, and added, “Picking up…wow.”
“Something interesting?”
“You could say that, Commander. This world has five moons, all of them small, but until fairly recently, it had four. One of them exploded at some point in the recent past, tore itself into two pieces of approximately equal size. And this happened perhaps a million years ago.”
“That’s an interesting date,” Vykovsky said.
Nodding, Kozak replied, “Something to watch out for, certainly.” He paused, then asked, “Any sign of life from the station?”
“Negative, sir,” Cooper said. “Nothing at all. I’m not getting any signs of civilization from the surface, either, though there are a few pinpoint heat sources that could be non-natural. Could be just forest fires, though. Hard to say at the moment, our sensors are still…”
“I’m working on it,” Flynn said, as Kozak turned to him. “Don’t expect a quick fix, though. We have overloads on most of the command net, and the reactor is badly strained. It’s going to be hours before we can do much.”
“What about a probe?” Rogers suggested.
“We’d struggle to control it at the moment, and while we could get the data back, processing it would take time,” Flynn replied. “A shuttle would be a different story, though.”
Kozak frowned, nodded, and said, “Can you spare a pilot?”
“If I might,” Vykovsky suggested, “I am a trained engineer and pilot, and am fully trained in your systems.
“How did you manage that?” Cooper asked.
With a smile, Vykovsky replied, “I did a tour as an enlisted man in the Federation Navy, ten years ago, as an undercover agent.”
Shaking her head, Cooper said, “After admitting that, we’re meant to trust you?”
“We don’t have a choice at this stage. If we don’t work together, we’re never going to get out of here,” Kozak replied. He tapped a control, and said, “Doctor Dietz, report to Shuttle One on the double.” Glancing at Vykovsky, he added, “She will be in charge, reporting directly to me.”
Nodding, Vykovsky said, “If she demonstrates the same degree of skill over there as she did facing my forces, we will succeed.”
“A two-man team?” Major Knox, running Defense Systems, said. “I’d like to go along for the ride, Nick, give them some muscle…”
Shaking his head, Kozak replied, “Nice try, Sandy. If I had things my way I’d be leading that mission myself, but we can’t be spared, not now, not until we’re got some sort of idea just what we’re dealing with out here.” He looked at the world below, and added, “That doesn’t look like much of a place for me to spend my retirement years. If we can come up with some sort of good alternative, so much the better.”
“I don’t know,” Vykovsky said, shaking his head. “Someone could get used to that. Look at the forests around the equatorial belt. Lush, dense. This could easily become a new home for humanity, Commander. Supposing that it has not already attained that status.” He smiled, then said, “By your leave?”
“Dismissed, and good luck. Don’t take any risks.” As Vykovsky walked off the bridge, Cooper turned to him, shaking her head.
“That could be a mistake, Commander.”
“Maybe, but if we can’t trust him, better that we find that out now. You said yourself that there’s nothing significant on that station, no signs of life, but if there’s a chance we can get their facili
Shaking his head, Flynn said, “That looks like an old modular dock. I’m not sure it’ll have the kit to give us much of an assist.” He paused, then added, “Though we might be able to use some of it to help.” With a wry smile, he said, “Don’t worry about it, Commander, we’ll work out a way to get ourselves out of this mess yet.”
Nodding, Kozak said, “Kim, can you change our orbit yet?”
“We’re getting some power back, sir, but I’m on manual.”
“Put us into an orbit matching that of the station, but keep clear of it for the moment, say a thousand miles out. We can always guide ourselves back in if it looks as though it’s going to be safe to dock.”
“Aye, sir,” Rogers replied, moving to obey.
“Shuttle away,” Cooper reported, looking up at her console. “They’ll be there in a matter of…,” she paused, then said, “Wait one, sir.”
“What’s happening?” Kozak asked.
“Power readings on the station just jumped. And I’m getting pinpoint heat sources from it, hatches opening.” She turned to Kozak, and said, “They’re arming weapons, sir, and they are preparing to fire.”
“Battle Stations,” Kozak ordered. “Get our shuttle home. Major, can you get our weapons working?”
Shaking her head, she said, “Not right now, sir. Too much damage to the reactor. I can get some of our point-defense weapons online, but with the sensor resolution this low, it’ll be blind luck if we actually intercept anything.”
“Kim, get us out of here. Go for high orbit, out of range of the enemy.” He turned to Cooper, and asked, “The shuttle…”
“Coming around, burning hard, but they’re coming within…” With a sigh, she said, “Energy spike, Commander.”
Kozak watched the screen, a brief flicker of light dancing between the station and the shuttle, then glanced at the sensor display, expecting to see a cloud of debris forming where the small ship had once been, where two of his crew had just been.
Instead, he saw the shuttle.
Cooper whistled, then said, “I’ll say this for Vykovsky, he’s actually one hot pilot. That was an x-ray laser, old but powerful, but it only managed to score a glancing hit. They’re losing power, on their way down to the surface, but I think that they have every chance of managing to make a landing.”
“Can you contact them?” Kozak asked.
Shaking her head, Cooper replied, “I’m not even getting telemetry.”
Flynn frowned, then added, “I think I know why. That hit took out their antenna array. They’ve got no way to signal to us, and we’re not going to be able to track them down to the ground.” He turned to Kozak, and said, “Unless they can signal us, skipper, it’s going to be almost impossible for us to find them down there, even if we can get our sensors working.”
“We’ve beaten the odds before. We will again.”
“Coming into high orbit now,” Rogers said. “Going for ten thousand, sir. That ought to put us out of range of…” She frowned, then said, “Ronnie, I’m getting signs of activity from some of those dead satellites.”
“Confirmed, looks like the whole network was playing dead.” Shaking her head, she said, “We’re looking at an old but functional orbital defensive network, x-ray lasers powered by solar accumulators. In our current condition we can’t outfight them, and if they match the old specifications, they’ve got a maximum range of fifteen thousand…”
“Increasing altitude,” Rogers said. “I’ll keep us out of range, sir. That’s going to make it even harder to track the shuttle, though…”
Nodding, Kozak replied, “One problem at a time. Cooper, track our people for as long as you can, at least narrow down the potential area we might have to search. As soon as possible, I want some probes outfitted for a surface sweep, rigged to operate in the local atmosphere.”
Flynn’s eyes widened, and he said, “That’s going to be quite a major modification, skipper. I’m not even sure just where we would start…”
“I have every confidence that you and your team of miracle workers will rise to the occasion as you always do,” he said with a smile. “Once we’re in our new orbit, I want the local system swept. We could be here a while. Let’s find out just what we have to work with.”
“And if there’s anything else out here wanting us dead,” Knox added.
Chapter 2
Dietz looked at her controls, saying, “Fifty thousand, falling like a rock. Temperature on lower hull passing safe limits.”
Grimacing, Vykovsky replied, “Don’t worry, I’ve got this.” He guided the shuttle through the atmosphere, steadying out the ride with a series of careful, calculated course changes, finally pointing the nose down again as the heat began to dissipate, revealing an endless landscape beyond.
In the distance, Dietz could see the gleaming ice caps, the cold tundra below, and the lush forests to the south. Vykovsky brought the craft around, trying to get as far as possible from the ice, while she looked at the readings from the sensors, shaking her head.
“Damp down there,” she warned.
“We’re not going to be able to take off again whatever we do,” he said. “That shot did too much damage. I’m going to try and slow us as much as possible and go for a vertical landing with the thrusters. She’s not really built for it, but it ought to be survivable…”
“The ice caps…”
“We can’t live on those,” he snapped. “And if we get too far away from the forest, we could die before we make it. We might be down here for months before rescue. Or longer.”
She grimaced, then saw something on the horizon, far to the south. A column of smoke, rising into the sky, perhaps fifty miles distant, rapidly going out of sight as the shuttle continued to descend. She made a mental note of the direction before returning to her work setting the controls for a landing, making one final attempt to send a signal to the ship, an attempt she knew was doomed to fail.
“Coming in,” Vykovsky said. “Give me the numbers.”
“Thousand feet, falling,” she replied. “Eight hundred. Six. Five…”
“Firing thrusters,” he said, slamming his hand on the controls, a loud report echoing through the cabin as all of the maneuvering thrusters gave of their all to arrest their descent. A second later, the shuttle slammed into the ground, jolting the two of them forward in their restraints, a loud hiss sounding from the rear, a strange smell leeching into the cabin through the hull breach.
Fresh air.
“At least the atmosphere’s breathable,” Vykovsky said, throwing a series of switches to turn off the flight systems. “Or we’d be dead by now. We’re down. Permanently, as I thought, but we’re down.”
“Power systems failing,” she said. “We must have taken some damage underneath. I doubt we’re going to get a fire, though. Not with this mud.” She looked at another reading, and added, “We’ve settled in position for now, but I’m not sure we can stay here.”
Nodding, Vykovsky replied, “We wouldn’t want to, anyway. Nobody could land here without having the same problem we did. We need to find some sort of solid ground.” Tapping a control, the viewscreen flickered into life, showing an image of the land they’d travelled over. “There are some low mountains to the north of here. That might be our best chance.”
“On descent,” Dietz countered, “I saw smoke.”
“Signs of life?”
“Potentially. Someone had to put that satellite network into orbit, and their descendants could easily still be down here.”
“That network just shut us down, remember.”
“True, but even so, it’s our best chance.”
“I think…”
“I hate to break it to you, but I’m still in charge of this mission,” she said. “If there are humans down here, then sooner or later we’re going to be running into them anyway. Better to do it on our own terms. Hell, they’ll have seen this crash for a hundred miles in every direction. Odds are they’re on their way here already.”
“Anything you say,” Vykovsky replied. He pulled a piece of chalk from his pocket, found a clear patch of wall, and asked, “What direction?”
“South-south-west. Good idea.”
