The Definitive SpaceFed Trilogy (SpaceFed StarShips Trilogy).: A thrilling, action-packed Sci-fi space adventure. (SpaceFed StarShips Series Book 8) Page 21

  The coppery coloured ships hung in orbit over the site of the now devastated Varon encampment.

  Close by, the minute particles of Commander Benerox’s decimated fleet tumbled slowly in orbit.

  At some distant time in the future, the remains would drift down and into the planet’s atmosphere, then burn up.

  That would be the real end of the Varon expedition.

  The Commander of Fleet 17’s copper-coloured battlecruisers, looked down, basking in the glory of the devastation his ships had inflicted on yet another species.

  This Commander was tall, swarthy, handsome and very young for a flagship commander.

  He was a very confident officer, with his confidence, increased by the knowledge that all the ships of their empire had the benefit of an 'Antimatter' weapon. A devastating weapon which fired along a ‘tube’ running through the centre of the ship.

  He watched as the planet, his latest prize, rolled slowly beneath his ship.

  Laughing to himself at the puny looking ships that had tried to stop him.

  ‘How stupid they were,’ he thought. ‘They had no chance against our weapon.’

  He ran his hand over his bald head, took a small container from his pocket, opened it and sniffed the contents as a reward for his work.

  ‘What fools,’ he thought again.

  A beeper sounded on the communicator built into his epaulette.

  “Yes?” he voiced as he touched the front of the device.

  “Two blue globe ships have exited warp 2000 kilometres from the surface of the planet, sir,” his communication officer announced.

  The Commander’s feeling of triumph turned to fear. He had seen these globe ships before and knew his fleet was just as useless against them as the Varon ships had been against him.

  “What are they doing?”

  “Just hanging in one position, sir. Surveying what we’ve done no doubt.”

  “Shut up, and prepare to jump out of here.”

  “Yes sir,” his comm’s officer replied, in a nervous sounding voice.

  “Commander. They’re moving towards us,” the pilot informed him.

  “Are the globe ship’s surfaces shimmering?”

  “They are now, sir.”

  “Get us out of here right now,” the Commander bellowed.

  “Two minutes’ sir.”

  “Now. You fool. Didn’t you hear my order?”

  “Jump engines are still charging sir.”

  “Now! I said. Or we’ll all be dust.”

  The two globe ship’s surfaces were crackling with raw energy as they moved closer to his fleet’s ships.

  Then, one after the other, the two blue globes passed through the battlecruisers as if they were made of butter, and turned them into dust.

  Dust that quickly dispersed into space.

  Of the Fleet 17’s twelve battlecruisers, just eight managed to ‘jump’ out of danger.

  The two globe-ships then drifted down, and closer to the planet’s surface, but could see there was nothing left of the Varon species.

  Chapter 3

  New Ownership.

  Brendereen studied the minute dots in the sky. Slowly realizing that, whatever they were, they weren’t from his planet.

  They appeared to be in low orbit. However, nothing like this had ever happened before to his knowledge. Counting seven of them, he began to feel very nervous as one of the dots seemed to swell before his eyes. He could see that one of the objects was getting closer, and if these dots turned out to be spaceships, then they must be enormous.

  “Bren,” his wife shouted, from the door of their metal cabin. “The military have already seen them. They’re sending scout ships to us!”

  “Good!”

  The dot, growing larger by the second, was now visible as a coppery-orange coloured sort of object, with a black dot in the centre.

  It stopped about four thousand metres up and turned slowly, revealing its shape in full. It was a cylindrically shaped spaceship.

  Brendereen continued watching as he waited for the scout ships to arrive. Far away to the left came a whining sound that rapidly became louder as the two scout ships hurtled towards him.

  The cylindrical spaceship in the sky seemed to do nothing. But, suddenly, two tiny purple particle beams shot out and hit the scout ships, which dissolved into puddles of molten metal, flying on through the air, then plunging into the ground.

  Brendereen yelled in shock and started to run, as fast as his legs could take him, to their cabin. “Get inside,” he shouted to his wife.

  Molten metal slammed into the ground somewhere behind him, sending showers of red-hot metal everywhere. A large area of his ‘cabbage’ like plants flared into flame behind him, as he crashed through the open door. Slamming it shut, just in time to save them both from incineration.

  The remnants of Fleet Twelve had found a new home. A home with manufacturing potential.

  Ten minutes later, the walls of the cabin were cold enough for Brendereen and his wife to venture outside. He looked in dismay at his crops, all of them were entirely ruined.

  He suddenly remembered to look up, but the sky was empty. His wife, Acarea, pointed across to a mountain ridge, where a plume of smoke drifted upward.

  “Good grief, Acarea. It looks like they've taken out our military base.”

  The military base was of great importance, as it was an integral part of their city’s 20-kilometre ring of support facilities, which provided the necessary requirements and security for the city.

  Each of their cities was based on the same design and, as well as a military base, the support services also included manufacturing and food production plants, together with an Ore processing plant.

  Brendereen and Acarea went back into their metal cabin, and he tried the short-range transceiver but found it dead now. Irritably flicking his long black hair out of his eyes and swearing softly, he thought, ‘I must cut this mop off.’ He tried to reach the other transceiver on the top shelf, but being short couldn’t.

  “Here, let me get it,” snapped Acarea. She reached up, got it without any trouble and handed it to him. “You need to take some of that stuff you put on our plants.”

  “Funny,” he grunted as he switched the emergency transceiver on.

  There was nothing but static on their own channel, so he tried the channel for City Marca.

  A voice came crackling through the handset.

  “This is City Marca comms. All our Military is gone. Take radiation filter tablets now. On your own. Good luck.”

  That was all he heard, then the voice was gone. He called again, but no one answered.

  Suddenly, a flash came from the right, many kilometres away. Another plume of smoke started winding its way upwards. Then came a clap of thunder that shook the ground, as air rushed in to fill the void.

  Their City, Atreen, was gone!

  Brendereen couldn't believe what was happening. Then realized that the industrial area hadn't been hit yet. It was still intact.

  “Acarea, get the skimma ready. We're leaving.”

  “OK,” a shocked Acarea replied, her tone subdued. Then she dashed around the back of the cabin to get their skimma.

  ‘Why have they done this?’ He wondered.

  ‘Maybe they're in trouble? They could be, maybe. They must have a weakness. If so, we've got to find it, and quick.’

  Acarea removed the protective cover from their skimma and touched the activation button on its control panel. It came to life, humming to itself while awaiting a command.

  The Skimma was like a small Earth car, but without wheels. With seating for two people and minimal storage space. All skimma’s had an electronic display, with auto search mapping screen. And its power unit never needed refuelling.

  Their skimma’s map was set to show the local area, at the moment.

  “Acarea, get the Blasters while I search for a safe route. Oh, and don’t forget the filter tablets.”

  “Going Bren,” sh
e said, and went back into the cabin, then came running out with two Blasters.

  Stuffed one in her belt and handed the other blaster and a filter tablet to Brendereen.

  “Put the tablet under your tongue, that's what the instructions said,” she ordered.

  He did, as ordered. Then pushed the blaster into his belt and sat in the skimma.

  “We've got to find out what's happened. Should we head for the city’s edge Acarea?”

  “Yes, that would be best,” she replied as she climbed in beside him and a transparent canopy slid shut above them.

  Brendereen put his foot down and guided the silent skimma out into the open. Touched the mapping screen to indicate their destination, and the vehicle shot away towards the city.

  They sat in silence until they were close to the city area. They could see that the ground ahead was starting to look glassy.

  “We'd better stop here behind the bank. We'll walk up to the top and take a look.”

  Once on top of the bank. They could see that all their friends had been obliterated, in the blink of an eye.

  Nothing was left of Atreen’s city area, just a gigantic crater. Its whole inner wall glistening like glass and taking on a pinkish hue. The colour, being caused by the bright yellowish-orange star which cast ghostly dark red shadows on the surface of their planet.

  Brendereen looked up. He could see the tiny coppery-orange dots again high above them.

  Why? He wondered. Why would they destroy everything? No, not everything, that's not true. Maybe they only need the production and processing plants.

  “Let's see what's happening at the industrial plant,” Brendereen said aloud.

  They returned to the skimma and set off in silence for the park, which was some thirty kilometres away.

  Bren suddenly stopped the skimma, as he saw two enormous tubular objects with purple jets streaming behind them, slowly descend into the industrial park area.

  “What now?” he growled.

  “Easy Bren,” she replied. Then, pointing to a ridge close to the park, said.

  “Let’s go up to that ridge, we should be able to see the park better from there.”

  “You're right as usual Acarea, but we’d better be more discrete than we have been.”

  “Agreed.”

  Eleven minutes later, they stopped the skimma just below the ridge and went the rest of the way by foot.

  At the top, they crouched down and surveyed the area.

  They could now see that the two objects on the ground were vessels. With several, of what appeared to be aliens, milling around them. While some of Brendereen's own race were knelt in front of their new masters.

  “That says it all,” Bren grunted.

  “Look,” she said. Pointing at two black objects far away across the sweeping farmlands.

  “What's going on over at that hill?”

  He took up the small digital spy-glass that had been attached to the back of his emergency transceiver. Through it, he could clearly see that the two black objects were, in fact, what appeared to be floating drilling rigs.

  The rigs were hovering about fifteen metres above the ground, each with a shaft of purple light hammering into the ground causing a fountain of gas and rubble to rise skyward.

  After ten minutes, the rigs stopped, then moved a short distance away, and started all over again.

  “They're drilling for something, that's for sure.”

  “But what?”

  “I don't know. But maybe those ships up there are here to stay.”

  “Don't say that Bren.”

  He looked thoughtful for a moment; then his face brightened.

  “Acarea, isn't there an underground laboratory around here somewhere?”

  “I think so, and if there is, there has to be a gravity-well shaft to get to it.”

  “Start looking then, but discretely. I'll pop back and camouflage the skimma. Won't be long,” he said as he turned and left.

  By the time Brendereen returned, she had found a small man-made opening in a rocky outcrop some three-quarters of a kilometre from the ridge they had been standing on. There were many deep craters around it, each about thirty metres across.

  “Come over here,” she called. “This has to be it Bren, but there's no way in that I can see, and it's very close to the craters.”

  “That's all we need. Get a life-line, then chop it off.

  Well, it looks as if this area's been targeted with smaller rays,” he added as he pulled the radiation monitor from his pocket.

  “Be prepared, that's my motto. Oh, watch out Acarea, the radiation’s a bit high we'll have to be careful.”

  After pocketing the monitor, he let his hand slide slowly over the smoothest part of the rock, then stopped.

  “What is it, Bren?

  “There's a warm spot here.”

  He left his hand on it for a good ten seconds and was just about to move away when three lights seemed to show through the rock face.

  “Now what?”

  “Touch the amber light Bren. It's like the colour of our sun.”

  He did, and the rock section moved inward’s a fraction then slid open.

  “Well, I never,” Acarea gasped. “I didn't know we had all this technology.”

  “I didn’t either. Let’s go into this dragon's lair, slowly.”

  They moved cautiously inside, noticing that the light level rose as they approached a strange shell-like object that was sunk into the ground.

  “I don't understand Bren, there's nothing in here except that thing,” she said, pointing at it.

  He walked over to it. It appeared to be to a beautifully decorated shell with a large dark circle in the middle. The centre looked like water and seemed to sparkle, just a little.

  Touching the surface, he jumped back in surprise, as a voice said. “Step on.”

  Brendereen quickly recovered. “It wants us to step on it, I think.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  Once on the shell shaped platform, their feet started to itch, then the platform began to sink downwards.

  A minute later it came to a gentle halt and they stepped off, to see a smooth-walled tunnel stretching out before them.

  “Only one way to go,” Acarea said.

  Both removed their blasters from their belts and proceeded cautiously down the tunnel for about a hundred metres.

  It then opened into a vast cavern. To the left, a small nuclear reactor whistled softly to itself.

  Farther on, a lot of computer screens lined one side wall some of them were lit. On the other wall, they could see that experiments and so on must have been taking place.

  It soon became evident why the place was deserted. At the far end, there was a blank wall of glass looking rock, it was the edge of the crater.

  “Now we know,” Brendereen said, pointing to the far end. “This facility must have been quite a bit larger, going on further originally.”

  “What can we do, Bren?”

  “I don't know. Is there anything showing on the screens that are working?”

  Out of just nine screens still working, only one was readable, the others showed what appeared to be gibberish.

  “This looks like some sort of an attempt at a foreign language. Maybe they were trying to communicate with the aliens?”

  “Maybe, and this is what they got,” Brendereen replied, pointing to the glassy looking rock wall. Real hate sounding in his voice.

  “I know Bren,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder. “We'll get them for this. You wait and see if we don't.”

  “Yea. But how? We don't know how to get to them. How to get to their ships. We don’t know anything about them.”

  “We'll think of something. Remember, we’ve had special training.”

  “They’re up there. We're down here. A bit one-sided don't you think?”

  “Yes, it is. But somehow, we’ll do it.”

  “I'm sure you're right,” he replied, sighing.

 
; Then, with his face brightening slightly, said.

  “Hey, this working computer, it's an all-in-one type. Let’s take it back to our cabin to look at it properly.

  We've power, and it's probably the safest place for it until we decide what to do.”

  “OK. Come on, let's get going.”

  They packed up the computer and looked around for anything else that might be useful. Putting everything into four large sling bags found in a cupboard.

  As they passed the small nuclear reactor. Acarea asked, “Bren, what about shutting it down?”

  “Not yet, we may want to come back.”

  They hurried on back through the tunnel to the platform, carrying the four sling bags over their shoulders.

  This time when they stood on it, the platform rose quickly and silently to the surface. Within moments, they had reached the skimma and loaded the bags.

  “Better select a different route back Bren, just in case.”

  “Good thinking,” he replied, and tapped the journey start and finish points.

  Then adjusted the ship’s route line on the skimma’s small display screen, so that it bent well away from the way they had taken to get here.

  Moments later, they were on their way back to their cabin. Hoping they hadn’t been spotted by the invaders and wouldn’t suffer the same fate as their own people had at the industrial park.

  Chapter 4

  American Arm.

  After work, Frank and Susanna were together a lot of the time while waiting for the Andromeda to be refitted. Taking in several Holographic films and shows. And going to the hugely popular Holo Clubs, where they were able to revisit the music played by legends from all genres of music, from the 20th Century onwards. They were, in fact, just like regular people for a change. Even though, they and all their work colleagues could hardly wait to go back into space.