The Moon Dragon's Lair

LUNAR: The Lost Episodes

By Andy Beale

Volume Sixteen: Episode 2-14.10 "I thought I could see light at the end of the tunnel... But it was someone with a torch, bringing me more work!!!"

Rated: PG-13

Before we begin, a few things about the universe the ShadowDancer is from...

Glossary Of Terms

Alphan - Avian Humanoid sentient race, originally from the first planet in the Tau Ceti system, 11 light years from Sol. First extraterrestrial race knowingly encountered by Terrans. That first encounter was between two exploration groups above Alpha Centauri B, the second world now called Willdom. The name is incorrect, but has stuck amongst the Terrans.

BES - Biology and Environmental Scanner. Handheld device with sensors optimized for Biology and Environmental functions.

Borg - Term given to a robot or machine that hass some organic parts in it, usually some sort of nervous tissue.

Blaster - Name given to an EM weapon that generatess a focused beam in a range of different EM frequencies.

Blast Ampoules - Pressurized gas ampoules that are used too generate a blaster pulse; one use only.

Breakout - Term applied to the point were a star shiip comes out of FTL travel and back to normal space. Originally termed when a hyperdrive ship appeared at its location. Now used in relation to STATUS drive.

CB - Communication Booster. Current Tachyon communication transmissions have a finite range 32.7 light years. Boosters are placed nominally every 30 light years to collect the message and re-transmit to the next booster or planet.

CBST - Communication booster station triangulatiion. A triangulation system not unlike the old style GPS system on earth. Each booster knows where is and what time it is in UCT. Upon request, these transmit the location and the time the message was sent (also called pinging); by receiving two or more of these transmissions a ship can work out where it is in space. Also see timebase beacons.

Diam's - Short hand term, meaning Planetary Diametters. For safety reasons, STATUS drive and Hyperdrive jumps are terminated at least 100 Planetary Diameters from a world.

Dimension slide - term describing when something changes diimensions (i.e. to a universe with a different Quantum Resonance Frequency).

Distort - Name given to speed traveled in STATUS drrive. Measured in light-years per hour (LY/H) in modern starships, but can be applied in light-years per day. (LY/D)

Frell - A very versatile word, frell is an explettive for all occasions.

FSS - Federation Star Ship

FSB - Federation System Boat

FTL - Faster Than Light

Genejack - Term given to a genetically engineered peerson or creature.

Hardaren - Mammalian Humanoid sentient race inhabitiing the second world of the Beta Sagitta system some 250 light years from Sol. They are not native to that world; they are largest group of yet discovered of Salarivium (slave race of the Ancients). Full member of the Federation.

Heliopause - The boundary of the heliosphere, where thhe pressure at the outer part of the heliosphere equals that of the surrounding interstellar medium (ISM).

Heliosphere - The region of space, surrounding a star, which is inflated by the solar wind and within which the star exerts a magnetic influence.

Hyperdrive - A faster than light drive system. Hyperdrive works by forming a hole in space time to another dimension. In this dimension space & time work very differently. While in this alterative dimension, small thrusters fire, moving the ship slightly. The ship is (after a few milliseconds) popped back into real space, but in that time has moved its position in real space. The maximum distance a controlled hyperspace jump has traveled is 207 light years; uncontrolled jumps have been much longer. Journey time for all such jumps is less than a second, but all such jumps leave organic creatures in varying states of physical and mental distress. Other names for this system are Jump Drive, and Dimension Transfer, engine.

Interferometer - An interferometer consists of two or moree separate telescopes that combine their signals almost as if they were coming from separate portions of a telescope as big as the two telescopes are apart.

Jerbrn - A Mammalian Humanoid sentient race that iinhabited a cluster of yellow stars some 1025 light years from Earth. Extreme xenophobes; on contact with the Federation, they initiated an all out war of extermination against all Federation races. This led to a bloody three-year conflict, which was only resolved by driving back the Jerbrn to their home world and completely interdicting the system.

Laser - EM weapon that fires a focused pulse or bbeam of one frequency of EM energy.

Laserlance - Originally the trade name for one of the first commercial anti-blooming space borne laser weapon; now the term generally used to describe any space born laser weapon.

Mechtech - MECHanical TECHnician. General-purpose repair and maintenance robot, controlled by the ship's main computer and used to assist engineering staff with repairs. ShadowDancer has 16 such robots of various models.

Quantum Resonance Frequency - the inherent frequency that all atoms in the universe vibrate at, defining its space-time signature.

PADD - Personal Access Display Device. Small handheld computer with RF links back to main computers, the PDA of its time.

Ship suit - A light, tailored spacesuit; comes compleete with gloves and a flexible helmet; can be made pressure tight in under a minute. Two compressed gas cylinders are mounted on the hips, giving 10-20 minutes of normal atmosphere, and the back has fittings for a normal portable life support packs (PLSP).

Skybase -These are either government or privately rrun supply and repair bases. These space stations are normally found within star systems, but a few are deep space placements.

STATUS drive - A faster than light drive system. STATUS works by folding space/time. On activation, the drive folds local space/time into a bubble. The ship then moves over this bubble; the bubble is then released, leaving the ship at the other side of the area of space/time that was folded. Other names for this system are: Folder Engine, Potential Mass Drive, and Warper.

Terraforming - [f. TERRA + FORM v.] Transform (a planet,, environment, etc.) into something resembling the earth, esp. as regards suitability for human life.

TES - Technical and Engineering Scanner. Handheld device with sensor systems optimized for Technical and Engineering functions.

Timebase beacons - These beacons contain an atomic clock synced to UCT. Used to keep all internal starship navigation clocks at the same time.

Time slip - Term describing when a something moves inn time. This movement can be backwards or forward. Slips of seconds or minutes are common in FTL travel; greater slips are commonly caused by external factors.

UCT - Universal Coordinated time.

And now, the story...

Deep Space, approximately 13 light-years from the Alpha Zone, 5 February 2738

Alpha Sector, Grid 18 in the Golden Millennium is a rather boring place, being some light years from the thriving colonies in the Delta Pravonis and Tau Ceti systems, and of course Sol itself, the ultimate home of the Golden Millennium. Since it is relatively poor in the heavy minerals, the mining companies left this area behind, looking more towards the rich asteroid fields surrounding Epsilon Eridain and Keid 3. So, apart from the odd scout ship, and the occasional warship on a shakedown cruise after a refit, not much happens here.

Boring is good, boring is safe.

But nothing has a very nasty habit of becoming something, when you're not looking.

Deep in that sector, a starship appears, no fuss, no flash of light, no fading in; just one second there's nothing, the next second there is. It is a longish vessel, streamlined for flying in atmospheres, with a large wing surface shaped in a disk; and unlike any others that have been seen here recently, it is made of metal, plastics, and ceramics. It tumbles slowly in space; the frantic glow of small ion engines can be seen, slowly winning the war with physics; the nose tumbles into the light of a nearby star, revealing the name: "FSS 17729 ShadowDancer".

The FSS ShadowDancer

On the bridge of the ship, Jellic came to, very slowly and not feeling at all well. It felt like someone had attempted to bash his brains out with a brick. Opening his eyes, he found out several things: only the dim emergency lights were on, the gravity was out, he was floating head down a meter or so above the floor, and finally, the tray of coffee he was carrying in was now floating above him.

While reaching gently for a nearby panel to pull him along, he thought, this would so not be a good time for the gravity to come...

At this point, the sadistic humor at the heart of the universe kicks in, with a simple electronic voice that is the crack of doom for anyone's self-respect.

"Full life support restored!"

With the elegance his race is known for, he landed face first onto the deck, followed by pot of lukewarm coffee, milk, and sugar on his back.

"Why me?" came a pained comment from the floor.

"Okay, what the frell has just happened?" exclaimed Jellic to his battered crew and friends a short time later.

"Well, from what I can tell, we have been displaced in space," answered Susaumen, sprawled awkwardly in a chair, with her broken right leg and its cast resting on a small stool. Her light blue, feathery hair was still pulled away from her face, and the plaster covering the cut that had happened when she fell into the holo-pit in the middle of bridge when the gravity had come back on.

"The problem is where," came Jon's voice from where he was standing by the serving bar; standing because his backside had not quite healed yet from the battering it took from when he fell on to it. "Visual inspection tells me that we have lost the port long range sensor pylon somewhere; the starboard pylon is looking battered. Got mechtechs 7 and 8 out there and looking at it; that, and the main tachyon comms dish is down, so we cannot request a CBST."

"Jona is doing a fix by astronomical means, but that could take a while," commented Susan, the only one of the group unhurt; she had slipped on a seatbelt just before the incident.

"Great! Any more damage?" Jellic asked.

"Fusion reactor 2 went into emergency shutdown during the transition, and dumped its plasma. Problem seems to be control related. Should have that fixed in a couple of hours, and then another hour or so for a cold start up. Thrusters are fully functional, the matter/antimatter drive diagnostics came back clean; mechtechs 9 and 10 are giving them the full check to make sure. Both STATUS drive and hyperdrive cores are functional, although they have both gone cold and will need some time to get them working again. Antimatter reactor is fine if you want to use it," answered Jon.

"Rather we used the fusion reactor. Hydrogen is cheap, antimatter is not, now that we are out of military service. Anything else?" Jellic wanted to know.

"Tactical systems and defense layers are working, although we have lost one of the interceptor turrets on the port wing," said Jellessa, her right arm in a sling.

Jellic rolled his eyes, and then looked to last member of the group.

"Don't look at me; flight and navigation systems are fine; even that clapped out mess called a science package is working. It's just that not knowing where we are means we cannot go anywhere," replied Anternain, holding an ice pack to the large bump on his forehead.

Jellic sat back into his chair, and took a small sip from the small glass of coffee he was drinking. Jellic had gained a taste for this Terran drink and preferred it Turkish style, i.e. small glasses of thick, sweet, hotter than hell, black coffee. At that point, a door slid open, and the final member of the crew came in.

"Ahh, Jona, have you got any good news for us?" greeted Anternain enthusiastically.

The humanoid robotic avatar of the ship's computer smiled. "I have some good news, and some bad news."

"Ho, joy!" commented Jon. "What's the good news?"

"Firstly, we have worked out where we are. The good news is we have jumped 101.56 light years closer to Earth than our last known position, so we are only some 20.2 light years from Earth."

"WAY COOL!" smiled Jon. "Finally, a displacement phenomena that does us a favor for once."

"However," Jona continued, "we are presently at a position none to far from the heliopause of our old friend, Achird."

"Oh!" The sadistic humor at the heart of the universe was back.

From the pages of the TA Astrological survey 2510ce

System Summary

Achird, or as the Terrans originally called it Eta Cassiopeiae, is located about 19.4 light-years (ly) from, Sol, in the central part (00:49:06.29+57:48:54.67, ICRS 2000.0) of Constellation Cassiopeia, the Lady of the Chair - northeast of Schedar (Alpha Cassiopeiae) and southwest of Mu Cassiopeiae. This well-known binary star was discovered in 1779ce by Sir William Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel (1738-1822). Surveyed by Daedalus class robotic probe in 2117ce, followed by manned scout survey in 2129ce by TTA 817.

System breakdown

Binary system

Achird B

This cooler and dimmer, main sequence orange-red dwarf star (K7 V) is 56 percent of Sol's mass, 66 percent of its diameter, and around three percent of its luminosity. It is only 5 to 7 percent as enriched as Sol in elements heavier than hydrogen (metallicity), based on its abundance of iron. Age is estimated at 13.5 billon yearsand has lifespan of 35.2 billon years.

No companion worlds

Achird A

The main sequence yellow-orange primary (G3 V) is at 110 percent of Sol's mass, with almost the same diameter - 98 to 101 percent, and has 1.2 times its luminosity. It is about 63 to 68 percent as enriched as Sol in elements heavier than hydrogen (metallicity), based on its abundance of iron. Age is estimated at 3.5 billon years and has lifespan of 5.2 billon years.

Six companion worlds

Archird 1 - Type K rocky planet, 6784 Km in diameter, orbital period of 106 days, tidally locked. Only an extremely thin atmosphere, containing sodium and potassium vapors. Visited by initial survey for placement of study packages, no other reports of landings since.

Archird 2 - Unfruchtbar. Type M rocky planet, residing in the habitable zone of the star. 14345Km in diameter, orbital period of 423.43 days. The principal constituents of the atmosphere are nitrogen (72 %) argon (7.2 %), oxygen (17 %) and carbon dioxide (3%). Hydrosphere Oceanic 67%, others 6%.

---- Continued ----

From the personal diary of Susan Jane Hajkowski; June 21st 2522

Thank you, Federation scout fleet. They have found the Jerbrn home systems and at 14.20 we lifted to 100 diams from Unfruchtbar and hit the STATUS drive. 'Join the Third fleet and see the galaxy.' They were obviously not talking about this hole when they came up with that sound bite. This has been officially the worse six months of the whole war so far, but not because of the combat; no, just the opposite, stuck on a desolate rocky planet where is seems to rain for 18 hours of the 26 hour day. Heck, people were begging to take their ships out on patrol just to get away from the rain. The only life here was us, the prolific plankton life of the seas, and prep-grass planted by the terraformers. Didn't help that all but one of the terraforming machines had been pulled off a year before we came here, so the people have little to do but keep that one unit up and running and gradually watch the sea of green expand.

Perhaps is a couple of hundred years this place might be worth looking at, but for now I know far too much about plankton and prep-grass for me to comfortable. (That's what you get, I guess, when you date a Planetologist; she was cute, but I wanted her to shut up about work sometimes!) Onward to the next battle, and hopefully, the beginning of the end.

Sue

"Do we have to...?"

"Jon, there's a definite whine in your voice, there. I thought we had told you to give that up," Sue said.

"Come on, Sue, you know that place is boring as hell. When did I last whine, anyway?" retorted Jon.

"That time on the Finley was very noticeable," came Jellic's voice, out from under a console.

"Be fair, Jellic," Sue commented, leaning back in her chair and looking over towards Jon. "He had just lost 50% of his left foot when that VLC shell hit him."

"Fair point; but Jon, as you said yourself, with the long range FTL sensors' effectiveness down by so much, we can only travel at 0.05 distort. I am not willing to spend the next 160 hrs traveling to Skybase 17 at Ross 51, when in 23 hours we can orbit Unfruchtbar, refuel from the ocean, and raid the spare part cache we left there. Chances are no one will have got around to recovering that yet; that's if they even bothered to notice it," Jellic said, accompanied by the sound of something sparking.

"I know, I know, but..." Jon trailed off.

"But what?" Jellic asked as he pulled himself out from under the console.

"I will have to pay back that poker debt to Hirkio," Jon replied.

At that point, two seat cushions flew across the bridge, and hit him.

ShadowDancer bridge - 02/03/2524 14.47 ships time

"Breakout in 5 seconds."

"Gravitational gradient rising."

"Astrometrics show green."

"Negative on collision warnings."

"Breakout in 3... 2... 1... Now!"

In an outside perspective, a brief light-streak suddenly came into view, and then suddenly stopped with the appearance of a starship.

"Emergence complete, detecting no space-time anomalies," came the report.

"Navigation reports we are right on the mark, 120 diam's from destination," added Anternain. "Sensors report no other vessels within 2,000 km."

"Okay," said Jellic. "Put out a broadcast to announce our presence. We don't want to be dodging laserlance fire just because we forgot to say 'hello, we come in peace.' See if you can find the local time base beacon, as well."

A moment later Susan looked up from her console. "That's odd, I am not picking up any Sentinel activity; no challenge or cross talk between units."

"No time base beacon either," put in Susaumen. "It does not seem to be there."

Jellic's eyes narrowed as he frowned slightly. "Go to active scans; something's wrong here."

"Full radar and ladar sweep commenced. I am picking up low-level radio traffic from Unfruchtbar," said Susan, not looking up from her readouts.

"Voice?" asked Jellic.

"No," commented Jona, who was standing at the back of bridge. "Sounds like machine language talk between various computers, and systems in orbital units."

"Anything of interest?" Jellic frowned.

"Unable to say; I have no record of this language and the key codes for real-time encryption- decryption are not working. Will attempt to translate, but it will take some time," Jona replied.

"Okay, this is strange," muttered Jellic.

"Can I move this to the whole thing from being strange, to completely confusing?" asked Susaumen. The large holo-pit at the center of the bridge lit up. "This is a 10 light second scan of the surrounding space. We have no artificial objects in near space, no Sentinels, no static mines, nothing. I have six objects in geosynchronous orbit of Unfruchtbar, as well as long-range sensor reading of an object in sun-synchronous orbit. Each is artificial in nature, composition seems to be crystal of unknown type with electronic and radio components. The sun-synchronous object seems to have some sort FTL communication system, nature and type unknown."

"I hate unknowns," sighed Anternain.

"You and me both," agreed Jellic. "Have we time slipped?"

"No, astrometrics confirm that ship's time is correct to +/- 10 days," confirmed Jona.

Susaumen's eyes suddenly widened and she started tapping away. "Accessing the interstellar gas collector. Jon, go and give a bash, will you?"

"Right-o-hoe," came a voice over the communication system. "Grabbing my favorite 10 cm gauge spanner wrench."

"What you looking for?" asked Susan.

"I hope I am wrong. But it would make sense," Susaumen answered.

"Slugged the sensor, data should be coming in, Susaumen," Jon's voice said via comm channel.

"Jona, just for the record, what is the quantum resonance frequency of our universe?" Susaumen queried.

"0.1561829012 Hz," Jona answered after a brief pause.

"Okay, well, the gas collector has just pulled in a sample with a frequency of 0.1561739012 Hz," Susaumen reported.

"Dimension slide," whispered Jellessa.

Jellic closed his eyes. "Well, we will not be going home any time soon." He opened his eyes, and took in the shocked looks around him. "Okay, people, we are dimensionally up shit creek, to quote a nice Terran phrase. Now, we have been dimensionally shifted before; so let's get started on working out what we do now. Jona, any data in the records about conditions in dimension 156173?"

"There is no data for a dimension of that frequency in our database," Jona replied.

"Now there's a frelling surprise!" came a comment from Anternain's direction.

"Okay, we can draw some conclusions from what we have found so far: there seems to be an established interstellar civilization, this civilization is probably advanced enough be able to repair our damage, and this civilization is probably at least curious about other worlds and dimensions, so we can probably arrange some sort of trade." He pointed to the round planet drifting in the holo-image. "And that cloudy ball of rain is our first point of contact."

ShadowDancer ships log - Commander Damlanmo recording; Ship time 02/03/2524 - 17.02

We have moved into standard survey orbit, around what we would call Unfruchtbar, after a slow approach to the planet. Our hails have produced no response from the planet, or the surrounding satellites, apart from a brief increase in machine language chatter when we moved into orbit. After further hails for two hours, we decided to commence a survey sweep of the planet, which will be finished in two hours' time. Results at the moment do not look encouraging. There seems to be no evidence of any terraforming activity, so the atmosphere is in its raw state. It's going to be uncomfortable down there. As ever, my crew/friends have adapted well to the sudden change of our situation, but there is still weariness amongst us all that I feel must be addressed and soon.

End Log.

Ship's lounge 02/03/2524 - 19.15

Jellic walked in from the kitchen, and placed drinks in front of everyone. "Okay, what do we have?"

Susaumen clicked on a remote control; the holo-display in the middle of the table activated, and an image of the planet came on.

"It still looks like crap," commented Jon.

"I would have to agree with you on that. What you see here is an Unfruchtbar that has not undergone any terraforming, so we have a low oxygen atmosphere, and its normal weather patterns."

"You mean rain and fog," commented Susan.

"That's what I have already said," replied Susaumen primly.

Everyone else rolled his or her eyes.

"Er, moving on," said Jellic. "Any sign of habitation?"

"Yes, one site." With a click of the remote, the view changed. On the holo, an image of a cluster of six rectangular buildings surrounding a large dome came up. To one side there was a large circular landing pad, sitting in the middle of which was a vessel of some sort. At the back and front of the installation were two larger cylinders. At the four corners of the site were small, round buildings.

Jona spoke. "This is a computer generated image generated from side-scan radar imaging, neutron-density sampling, and some limited infra-red ladar scans." A small humanoid figure appeared in the image. "The scale is accurate. The outer buildings are constructed of a duranium alloy, as are the sensor and comm relay stations. The main dome and the smaller domes are made from the same crystal-based material that the satellites are; the landing pad is a combination of local rock and duranium alloy."

"That's a fairly large set-up," commented Jellessa. "What's it for?"

Susaumen clicked on the remote control again. The image pulled back, showing four tracks radiating out from the base, on each of these tracks could be seen further cylindrical node structures.

"Each track is 40Km long, each holds 40 independent sensor stations and comm relays. We are looking at an radio interferometer set-up."

"That's strange," said Susan. "All the other radio interferometers I have seen have been built on low-gravity moons or sited in space. Having one on a planet surface, especially one with a dense atmosphere like Unfruchtbar, doesn't make much sense."

"Yes it does, if you think about it this way. Those structures you are talking about are scientific bases. This, I feel, is more of a covert base; finding this structure took some time, and due to the nature of the atmosphere, would have been missed on a casual sensor sweep. Other features point to this too; for example, the fusion reactor in the main dome is exceptionally well shielded to stop particle leakage," Susaumen explained.

"Great, we have stumbled on a base that no one wants us to know about," said Jon.

"Is there any life down there, or is it a purely automatic base?" asked Jellessa.

"There appears to be quite extensive carbon based life there," Susaumen replied. A further fumble of the remote, and the image came back to the base, with extra overlaid features. "The area around the base seems to have been terraformed extensively, and is artificially lit. No doubt an attempt to mask the bleakness of the planet for the people working there." Another click. "I read 33 higher life forms, most of which are outside the buildings; neural activity readings are somewhat confused, but seem to show 30 of these creatures to be about the same brain power as a terran wolf. This leads us to conclude that they are animals brought to balance the ecosystem. The three remaining, however, are more interesting." Another click and three dots appeared in the dome: two blue and one red. "These signify sentient level neural activity. The two in blue correspond to being Terran, and the third red one is of an unknown type of creature, but has a similar neural output to Terrans."

"So, we have people down there, but they're not talking to us. What do we do?" asked Jellic.

"One thing that could be influencing that is the fact that this part of the planet is currently in the night side, and neural readings indicate that both of the humans are asleep," Susaumen stated.

"When does it come into daylight?" Jellic asked.

"About five hours. Daybreak at the site is 00.31 ship time," Jona said.

Jellic sat back in his chair and sipped his coffee. "Okay, I want your opinions. From what I can see we have two options: one," he said, holding up his middle finger, "we bypass this planet and head to the local gas giant, skim some fuel from it, and head off towards the next star, and hope for better luck. But that's going to take some time, I imagine."

Jona spoke. "Next star towards Sol within reach at our current speed is 61 Cygni A, commonly known as Tumbledown, taking 260 hours."

"Thank you, and a refuel and head for Sol from there, taking...?" Jellic asked.

"Another 220 hours," Jona answered.

"Thanks. Or option two," a second finger popped up, "we risk a landing, and walk up to their front door and physically say, 'hello, can we borrow a cup of sugar'."

Jellic looked around, and the looks on everyone's faces told him that the idea of being stuck in space for 20 odd days was not a very good one, when, if they could get the sensor array back up to strength, the 19.2 light year flight to Sol could be done in a little under 28 hours. It was Jon who summed it all up.

"Bollocks, it would have only taken 11 days to get back to Earth from where we were in our own dimension. Let's pop down and see if we can find a few parts."

A vote was taken; it was unanimous for landing.

"Okay, let's work this all out," ordered Jellic.

ShadowDancer ships log - Commander Damlanmo recording; Ship time 02/03/2524 - 20.08

By unanimous vote we are going to land on this dimension's version of Unfruchtbar. Since our shuttle pod is still damaged, we are going for a landing of the main ship. We have selected what appears to be a secondary landing site on the planet surface some 45 KM due west from the main base. This site seems to be related to mining activity detected in the area; Susaumen says that area is rich in bauxite and corundum crystals of various types. It also has two other factors that make it attractive. The presence of a lake which we can take water from to extract hydrogen as well as refreshing our oxygen reserves. This site is over the horizon from the main base, so hopefully any defense systems cannot take pot-shots at us as we land.

I now regret being in such a rush to come home; if we had waited, we could have had all our war damages repaired before we set off. Now I find myself wishing we had our shuttle pod and/or the APC repaired, as the whole exercise would have been so much easier with these two vehicles. Oh, well, I guess you have to learn these lessons, but why does it have to be the hard way?

Anternain is pulling the three two-person ATV's out of the hold, which will get us there in about an hour. Susan and Jon are getting some sleep. The party will consist of Jellessa, Jon, Susan, and myself. Anternain and Susaumen will stay with the ship, sparing them the danger of the high C02 levels. Let's hope it all goes well. If nothing else, it will be good to breathe fresh (if oxygen poor) air again; we have spent too much time breathing canned air.

Outpost Archird Beta, Central Continent, Archird-2, Archird system, 6 February 2738

The FSS ShadowDancer

The landing of a modern star ship is a surreal experience; in the fact that is almost completely silent. This silence would have been most noticeable to the outside observer as the ShadowDancer loomed out of the rain and fog at the landing site. With only the sound of rain, and the wind blowing, the large ship came to halt over the landing pad, and with all the lightness of a daisy seed, hung there for a few moments. With mechanical clucks and clicks six landing feet emerged from the underside of the ship. With the same panache, the ship dropped slowly down and came to rest on its feet. A few moments later, there was a sigh, as if the ship was tired from its travels and had come gratefully to rest. It was quiet for a few moments; then the activity really started.

A few minutes later...

"Okay, are we set?" came Jellic's voice, slightly muffled by mask he was wearing.

Jon looked up from the ATV he was working on. "Fueled up and ready to go; having the roofs on will slow us down, but it beats getting wet."

"Good," Jellic commented as he touched the comlink on his right arm. "Sue, much to finish off with vehicle three?"

"Just about loaded now!" came the reply back over headset.

"Everyone," Jellessa's voice broke in. Jellessa had gone off to examine a small building that sat on the side of the landing pad.

"Found anything?" asked Jellic.

"Couple of things. Building's pretty much empty; there are a few plastic chairs and a table left, a photovoltaic and battery power system, a small communicator, and a fairly basic life support system, just enough to offset the high C02 levels here and provide some heat and light. Looks like it would have served as a mine office or such like when installed; now it seems to be a rest area or refuge," Jellessa said.

"Anything else?" Jellic inquired.

"Yah, couple of things. I found what looks like a version of our PADDs, a couple of food wrappers, and a bronze plaque, which should give a good idea on the language they're using here. It's quite interesting; it looks like a form of the Terran language Japanese. I can make out some of it, but it's been a while. Feeding the image data into my language AI; I'll see if we can get a better translation."

"Okay, sis, you and Tam head back; we will leave when you get here," Jellic ordered.

"On my way. Link off." And the link closed.

Susan then walked down the ramp, the final ATV following her down on automatic. When the ATV cleared the ramp, the ramp quietly retracted back in the ship, and the cargo door closed.

The ATVs were 3 meters long by a 1 meter wide, each with 8 individually driven wheels and a small waterjet system for going in water. The shell was slopped at both ends and stood about 80 cm of the ground. Normally, these vehicles were open topped; but these had a oblong, clear plastic tent on a diamond rod frame to stop them from filling up with water from the rain.

Jellic touched the comlink again. "Susaumen, any change at the base?"

"Nothing. I am sending a recon drone with you to act as comms relay and an extra set of eyes. Tim has reached the mouth of the gorge and reports nothing on his sensors; he will act as a further comms relay if required," came Susaumen's voice.

"Okay. Link off," Jellic said.

Jellessa emerged from the fog closely followed by Tam, one of ShadowDancer's three ground defense and security borgs: Tim, Tam and Ram. Tam broke off, and began a patrol pattern with Ram.

"Okay, people, are we ready?" Nods all around. "Okay, let's move out. Everyone keep your senses sharp, and if you see or feel anything you don't like, call back out. This whole thing is a little too strange. Remember, the physics of this universe seem to be the same as ours, but expect the unexpected. Okay, everyone mount up, and let's go."

A minute later, 3 vehicles pulled away, and vanished into the rain and the gloom.

The Outpost

"And that must be number forty," said Susan, as they passed the final cylinder, labeled W1.

"Any activity on that one?" asked Jellic over his shoulder, concentrating on driving down the track ahead of him.

"Nah, it seems to be on standby like the others. I have got the objective on vehicle sensors, though; it's 1.1 Km away. Switching to over to passive mode," Susan said.

"Cool, anything we should know about?" Jellic asked.

"Well, looks like we hit a metal fence about 300 meters out from the main dome; there seems to be a gate at the end of this track," Susan replied.

"Great. Susaumen, any changes at the base?" he asked over the link.

"Sentient red has moved its position, sentient blues are unchanged. No change in communication systems, as far as I can see," came back the report.

"This is weird. We have not sneaked up here; surely they should have picked us up by now!" Jellic muttered.

"Perhaps they're not bothered?" commented Sue.

"When people are not bothered, they usually know something you don't. I don't like that, because that something tends to be, more often than not, potentially lethal," Jellic growled.

"Jellic," came Jon's voice over the link.

"Yah?" Jellic asked.

"You're a bloody cheery soul, aren't you!" Jon exclaimed.

"Thanks!" grinned Jellic.

With that, the headlights of the ATV picked up the start of a metallic road, and shortly after, a 4 meter high aluminum fence appeared. The three vehicles pulled up by a large gate, which had a smaller man-sized door mounted in it.

Jellic stood, looking at the door. "Can anyone see a doorbell?"

"No, but I can see a surveillance cluster up there," Jellessa said, pointing up to a dome structure above the gate.

"Before you ask," came Susaumen's voice, "yes, it is active, and no, there's been no response from the sentients inside."

Jon looked up from his TES. "The main gate is locked, four lock points," he pointed. "Could blow them with a few laser pulses. The small doorway is open, however."

"And the sign on the door says 'Authorized personnel only'," said Jellessa, working on her PADD.

Jellic looked towards the door, then back to group. "Okay, this officially stinks. Something is seriously not right here. Okay, people, we go in on foot, helmets and packs on, keep your favorite weapon at hand. I will take point. Sue, Jon, keep those scanners going; scream if anything comes up. Sis, keep our backside clear, I want a retreat path. Susaumen, any changes you see, shout loud; Anternain get everything back inside the ship. I want to evac from here if we need to. Everyone got that?"

"Yes, Commander," replied five voices.

"And stop calling me that!!!"

"Wow, that's a change!" commented Sue, as she stepped inside the doorway. The seemingly ever-present thick fog was still there, but the environment had changed radically. "Trees, grass, even some flowers. Someone's spent some considerable time and credits terraforming this."

"I would imagine it would be necessary, seeing how dark and dank this planet is," commented Jon.

Jellessa looked around, seeming unimpressed. "Well at least it's stopped raining for a while. It seems brighter as well."

"There are lighting stands every 50 meters or so," said Jon. "It raises the brightness in here quite a bit."

"I take it this path leads to the buildings?" Jellic asked, and pointed up the simple stone path leading into the trees and fog.

"Yep," replied Susan.

"Then let's go," ordered Jellic.

They quickly lost sight of the gate, and about half way up the path came to an open area, with four lighting stands and eight large raised beds. To one side was what looked like a well-lit greenhouse. A wheelbarrow sat to one side of the path, full with what looked soil.

"Food production?" asked Jellic.

"Probably only on a small scale, probably more of a hobby than anything serious," replied Jon.

Jellessa looked towards the greenhouse. "What's that in front of the door? I see a low level heat source."

"I have it too," said Jellic. "Sue?"

Susan pulled out her BES and began to take readings. "Read mammalian biomass." Her eyebrows shot up into her helmet. "95% likelihood of being human."

The recon drone left its location above the group and floated over to the greenhouse. New image windows popped up on Jon's and Sue's sensors, and the image it showed was not a pretty one.

It was a human female, probably in mid twenties, curly brown- blond hair, and her face was drawn into a look of absolute terror. The camera paned down; she wore a brown and black jumpsuit, with a bar shaped metal badge bearing the name in a Terran Japanese derivative of N.C Heathcote. The shoulder of her right arm had three small wounds, like claw wounds; the cause of death, however, was a large diagonal cut from under her right breast down to her left hip, the relative lack of blood indicating that traumatic shock probably killed her before blood loss.

"Holy shit!" exclaimed Jon.

"Okay, I am calling backoooo.... what the fuck's that!" exclaimed Jellic, spinning around. He pulled his handgun from its holster, and began looking down the path they had just come up. Jellessa reacted at same time and swung her blaster carbine into the ready position.

Susaumen's voice came on over their headsets. "We have a strange reading, here; all the non-sentients have stopped what they were doing, and most of them are converging on your location."

Then, out of the mists in the location where Jellic and Jellessa were staring emerged a creature standing about 2 meters tall, looking like a cross between a reptile and an insect. The head had compound eyes, but with a reptile's mouth and nostrils; its skin was part armor plating, part exoskeleton. It had six limbs. The bottom set was adapted to walk upright with large splayed toes; the top two had simple three fingered hands, with each finger having a 10cm straight claw at the end. But the middle two were the worst; a single half-meter long blade had replaced the hand on each.

Jellic's eyes widened, and then narrowed. "Frell! Re-classify these as hostile, 'cos I bet you the next curry that one of these killed that woman."

The creature stopped, looked at the group, and then screeched a battle cry and charged straight for them.

Jellic pulled the trigger on his handgun and pulses of laser energy streamed out; Jellessa's blaster wined as it spat out an energy pulse; they all hit the charging creature.

They did absolutely nothing, apart from producing a nice light show.

"OH S..."

To be continued...