Voyage of the Dawn Rider

Chapter 12

Voyage of the Dawn Rider 10.

The next "morning" I had gotten some well deserved rest, although I noticed Magiere as well as Lieutenant Dall seemed to be still on the "sleepy" side, guess they must have done a bit of "celebrating" last "night," I caught Nessa snickering on a couple occasions but she wouldn't tell me what the reason was. Leaving our rocky host, I settled into a low orbit of the planet, Dr. Leah was right, readings showed heavy concentrations of radiation mixed with indications of life below. I took us as low as the radiation levels allowed us, as we traveled high above the surface of the planet. It wasn't long before we started picking up signs of former habitation, cities that seemed to have been destroyed, signs of wreckage and mass destruction. Everybody was now on the bridge offering ideas as to what could have happened. Finally Garet voiced what we all had been thinking. "It's very obvious this planet has suffered an attack of catastrophic purport ions captain, look at the readings, they seem to be heaviest where the remains are thickest…What must have been cities." "But why," asked Dr. Dall, "Who could have done this and why?" I looked at him and said, "As to the "who" doctor, I think it's very obvious, as to the "why" we can only speculate, right now I'm more interested in who this was done to." Before we could ponder further, Magiere called out, "Look everyone, look at the scanner." What we saw caused all of us to gasp, Ogres, and what appeared to be thousands of them. Massive heard-like groups roaming the lesser radiated areas. No one said anything for a moment, then Magiere quietly said, "I think this is what our leaders feared, what we see below us people is a massive staging area, I think we stumbled into this just in time." Elansa then added her thoughts, "I think at some point…Soon, these aliens intend to load these monsters up and release them on our home worlds as an invading army." I took a deep sigh, "Take us up and out past the debris belt Lieutenant, we've got to get a signal to the navy this place must be destroyed and immediately." Once we were clear I composed and sent off the message complete with pictures of the planet's surface. "In the meantime people I suggest we find ourselves another meteor to glom onto and wait for a return signal I can't take a chance and assume they'll get the message." "is there anything we can do" asked Lieutenant Dall. "Well Lieutenant, we're fresh out of "planet buster bombs" otherwise I'd institute a bombing campaign, other than that, it shouldn't take more than a few days for the message to reach the fleet and a reply sent. Meanwhile I think we'll sit tight and see if any more of our "friends" show up. I don't know how we'll do it but we need to get a couple of these creatures alive for interrogation, we've got to crack their language as well as data codes."

We were able to locate another meteor this one much larger and on the outer ring of debris as well. Spirits were pretty low, as all of us knew that we had now entered a high stakes game with entire civilizations being the looser. Now that we were playing the waiting game, I went to see if I could offer the chief any help in getting the data tiles we took from the alien ship to work. "It's almost as if their systems are completely reversed from ours," observed Spanner. "If we could take one of them "alive" with all their systems online and working, we'd have it a whole lot easier." "I shouldn't doubt there are more stations hidden around here," I said, "I doubt they'd allow us to just "sneak" up on them, actually I'm kind of hoping the word's gone out and hiding here we might get a chance to jump one passing through the area." Magiere wanted to take the pup out and prowl around, but I forbade it, too much chance of getting ambushed, as well as dividing our meager forces. In the meantime we waited.

Two days later we got our reply, once I de-coded it I read; "We are coming, hold until relieved." that short message said it all, I wondered what was going on in the minds of the two queens and the king? Magiere's mother surely realized her daughter, as well as the rest of us were now in the thick of it. "Hold until relieved," it sounded so simple, yet it overlooked the fact that we were involved in a deadly cat and mouse game. It was our duty to queen and crown to do whatever we could to whittle down their forces. We hadn't even located their home world yet, that was the real target after all. Another day later opportunity came calling, I had shut down all scans lest we get picked up by an unseen enemy, Nessa was pulling long hours watching our scanner screen, she knew we were all counting on her. I had just come from engineering, trying to help Spanner in another unsuccessful attempt to unlock their codes. A voice squeaked in my head, "Captain, something…Top right screen." At first I didn't see anything, then slowly it came into view, What appeared to a large saucer shaped vessel moving our way. "If we could get inside that thing, maybe we could capture it and finally get a handle on these creatures," I said. Everybody looked at me like I had worms crawling out my ears, "That's suicide!" gasped the chief. "maybe not," I replied, "Here's my thinking, "The pup is a two seater, Elansa, would it be possible to create the illusion that there was no life on board?" She studied me with narrowed eyes, "Yes, I believe I could do that…Why?" "Here's my idea, Lieutenant Dall and I deploy in the pup, the aliens pick us up on their scanners, which tell them there's no life aboard, curiosity get's the better of them, they tractor us aboard, where we come boiling out of the fighter very much alive. We secure the ship then tractor the Dawn Rider aboard as well." Looks of disbelief continued to stare at me. "Look everybody I know it's weak, but on the other hand it's bold and certainly not what they would be thinking, anyway if we're going to do this, we have to move fast I want to be ahead of that ship." All agreed I was crazy it would be shear suicide, only Lieutenant Dall was up for it. Magiere just shook her head. I was committed, it was go for broke, "Lieutenant, gear up bring that fancy pistol you've got we're going in armed to the teeth, Elansa, what do you need to do to create this illusion?" She continued to stare at me with hardened eyes, "I've got a spell or two in mind, you're really going to do this aren't you?" nodding, I replied, "Yes, oh and another thing, Nessa, you're with us." This only made Elansa angrier, "You're simply going to get her killed captain," said Elansa. "Sorry , that's not in the plan, I need her sixth sense, Lieutenant Starle, you're in charge here while we're gone, wait for my call, then come running, if this plan has any chance of succeeding, we have to move fast, now if you'll excuse me we've got a ship to capture, Elansa, get what you need report to the cargo area ." I put on my fatigues, as well as my combat harness, there was a place for a small pouch on the back of the vest, I had Nessa curl up inside, she would be handy but out of the way of any direct fire. I grabbed my plasma pistol, as my side arm as well as the auto shotgun, which I decided to let Lieutenant Dall carry. As for myself, I brought the Omma plasma rifle, as well as six PVN grenades. These were small bombs that contained pentavalent nitrogen an incredible chemical explosive, you had to be real careful where you used these little gems but I wanted to be ready for anything.

"Are you ready for this Nessa?" I thought as I headed for the cargo bay. "I'm scared, but I'm ready, captain, and thank you for believing in me, I won't forget this," came the reply. The Lieutenant as well as Elansa were the only ones there, Keith and I climbed into the fighter as Elansa continued to shake her head. "What do you need to do Elansa?" I asked her. "I will let Nessa know when I am finished, then you do what you must do." With that, I closed the hatch, what seemed like forever, was only a few minutes before the voice in my head said, "She's done captain." "Open the hatch Magiere, launch me." The pup was launched out the cargo bay via a catapult, normally you fired the engines once you escaped the cargo bay, but in this case, I allowed us to drift. Both the Lieutenant and I said nary a word, sitting frozen in our seats, even Nessa was silent. We maintained no communication with the Dawn Rider as we drifted in space, I didn't see the alien ship at first, until I felt a force starting to draw us up. My heart was pounding, Lieutenant Dall looked grim. I could feel us being drawn deeper into the alien ship, we seemed suspended for a moment, then a feeling of being lowered, as soon as I felt us stop with the sound of us coming to rest, I looked at Keith and whispered "Show time!" Both of us had our pistols drawn, pointed at the hatch. It must have taken the creatures a moment to figure out how to open the door, but when they did it was the last thing they ever did. Once the hatch had completely opened, two alien faces peered in, both disappeared in blaster fire. Both of us came bolting out of the craft blasting anything we saw, I kicked an alien full in the face with a size 10 "gunboat" that sent it flying across the floor. we spotted a hatch and I shouted for Dall to follow. Switching to my rifle I poured plasma fire at several moving figures, I saw trying to get away. I heard the shotgun blasting away. It was over in less than a minute, we seemed to have secured the hanger area. Torn and shredded bodies lay everywhere, I say one creature with no legs trying to crawl away which I promptly dispatched with my pistol. We made sure the area was secure, then began to move towards what appeared to be a main corridor. "Here's where you come in Nessa," I thought. "Sing out if you detect anything." A very subdued voice said, "Yes captain." I covered the front, while the Lieutenant watched our rear. So began the "grind," slowly we moved down the corridor, Nessa would warn, we would prepare, aliens would die. None of our initial contacts had weapons, but I knew that would not last. Before long we began to take laser fire. The Lieutenant seemed to have a knack for tossing grenades, whenever a corner was in doubt, he would bounce a pulse grenade off the far wall so that it skip around the corner usually catching several hapless creatures in it's blast. In that case, the walls became painted with bluish blood and guts. At one point, I was forced to use a PVN grenade, I made damn sure there wasn't any critical looking equipment in the room, several aliens were holed up in what appeared to be a dormitory or sleeping room, I tossed the grenade in and ducked well away. The whole room erupted, the corridor wall that must have been part of the room buckled, debris and smoke flooded into the corridor. Peering into the smoky room I saw total destruction, nothing was left alive it was a charnel house in there. After that, the aliens seemed to be getting smarter, they didn't dash out into the corridor anymore, and began to lay in wait. It did them no good in the long run, Nessa was really earning her pay today, she could always pick up on life forms.I tried to contact the Dawn rider on three occasions, but without any luck, when we got to the engineering section things got tougher, I couldn't use any PVN grenades, and we quickly discovered the little buggars liked to hide under the plumbing, but Nessa could always tell. I used up all but one pulse grenade but once the aliens realized these grenades got them no matter where they tried to hide they would scatter. In fact, Lieutenant Dall found a container about the size of our grenades which I used to flush out the creatures so we could take them down with the shotgun.

Finally we worked our way back to the main core of the ship where we came to a locked hatchway. A satchel charge made short work of the hatch, once on the other side my attitude of these creatures changed. We must have been whittling them down because we began to encounter fewer and fewer of them. I kept checking on Nessa, afraid I would crush her with all the crashing and rolling around I was doing. "I'll be fine, I'm paying close attention to what you are doing," came a little voice in my head Entering what turned out to be a lab area we came across pure horror, the room contained devices that could only be instruments of torture, we continued on to find evidence of not only human but Elvin victims. Body parts hands feet heads in containers, both the Lieutenant and I Vomited repeatedly, Nessa was beside herself her wails screamed in my brain. We also came across what appeared to be a lab devoted to "creating" beings. Here we found a couple bodies of Goks. The Lieutenant stumbled into a room then burst out sobbing, he wouldn't let me see the source of his anguish, "Sir, do not go in there, please!" I could only surmise what he saw was so horrible he had no words. After that, he seemed to delight in blowing the legs off these creatures and listening to them shriek as they tried to crawl away. We continued our deadly work. We must have been near the bridge when the aliens made their last stand. They had blocked the corridor, but it was all in vain, intense shotgun and plasma fire, as well as my last grenade finished them off.