Alien Cradle by Jeff Inlo (web ebook reader txt) 📕

Jack cut him off. "Don't make the same mistake many of the researchers made. They wouldn't believe it, either. It forced them to ignore the facts. They kept trying to tie the Fenrites with our own history, but it seems they didn't progress like we did on earth. We tried to define them in terms similar to our own. That was the mistake. As far as societal development goes, they're near the dark ages; peasants, farmers, the like. But on a military scale, that's where they dedicated their energy. That's the paradox I was talking about. In terms of earth history, they're a fifteenth century society with late twentieth century weaponry. I don't know how to explain it, but like I said, they're not like us."

Jack paused, nodded his head as if just remembering something. He slowly pulled satellite reconnaissance pictures from his flexible case. "Here. If you don't believe me, take a look at these."

The pictures waited patiently for Rath's grasp. They did not shake even the slightest in the coordinator's hand. As Rath flipped through them, they hid their own deception, lies of doctored images and professed untruths about the surface of Fenrir.

"Missile Silos," Jack stated.

"I see them." Rath eyed the photos, but ultimately failed to understand what they had to do with him. This discussion was supposed to be about why Jack wanted him to stay. It wasn't. It was about the Fenrites, and he failed to make a connection as to why he was being asked to remain.

"So they've got nuclear weapons, so what?"

"So they're about to use them," Jack stated coldly. "Over the past few weeks, we've monitored increased hostility. It all seems to be coming to a head. Two Fenrir days ago, conventional weapons were pulled back but with no indication of any peace accord among the Fenrite factions. Not a good sign. We anticipate all out nuclear exchange planet side in less than one full Fenrir day."

Rath grunted. "Maybe I didn't make myself clear. That's the Fenrites' problem. What does this have to do with me?"

"We want you here as a witness."

"Witness nuclear war?" Rath blurted out. "What the hell for?"

"For many reasons, but mostly to protect the integrity of Regency Govern and the Authority."

"Me? That doesn't make any sense. I'm the pirate, remember? I'm the one who's motivated by money. That's what one of your council cronies said. And what did you say? I was worried about protecting my own skin. How can I protect the Authority?!"

"We were cutting through the bull." Jack's features froze into a stern demeanor. "That's what you wanted. And what did I call myself? A manipulator. I have to bring everyone together. So look at this from a political stand point. We've found alien life. In response, we secured the system with the Authority. Unfortunately, that decision may come back to haunt us. If Fenrir is turned back to a desolate and lifeless wasteland, what do you think people are going to wonder about? They're not going to believe the Fenrites blew themselves up. We can tell people about the warring nature of the Fenrites, but we don't have any real proof. The general public may blame the Authority. So we need a witness, just in case. You're the only one around, so you just got elected."

"And that's that." Rath grimaced, nearly spit on the floor.

"No, that's not that." Jack feigned anger. "Hopefully, you're not going to witness anything. Hopefully, Fenrir will still be here tomorrow, next week and next month. We want to stop this. We don't want to interfere; it's really not our place. We don't even know how our plans are going to affect the Fenrites, but we just can't let them destroy themselves."

The pilots hit the bays first. Rath watched them file by as he was ushered, rather vigorously, to a waiting area. The military pilots ignored him, ignored everything, moved with the same calculated precision that carried them through their daily duties. Give them an order and they carry it out with precision.

Rath wondered if this was how they approached other battles. Then, he wondered what other battles they might have faced. Crushing pirate activity probably. But what pirate force would even consider engaging twelve full groups of melee class ships; small maneuverable vessels capable of high pursuit, capable of tracing the path of lightning across a desert sky? Pirates didn't have mobile observation stations or carriers. A force of this many melees would make short work of even an advanced cruiser.

He didn't get to see them launch. The pads remained off-limits to him as long as the melees were docked. Security officers escorted him to a secondary command post while the pilots scrambled. Here, all monitors remained secured, all scanners shut down. The silence swallowed him.

Jack entered, but barely acknowledged the scout. He perused his own portable before making a blunt statement.

"Time to go."

It was the last thing Jack said while they remained on the station. He led Rath to the freight bay.

Rath saw his new scout. The Authority had moved it off the main pads, probably to facilitate the melees. They passed it without acknowledgment.

Jack rounded a few more pads before he embarked upon a small escort. No guns on this ship. No scanners and hardly any armor. Basically a deep space shuttle made for generals to move from one flag ship to another, to view the expanse of space through the wide bubble-like viewshields both overhead and forward.

Two Authority flight officers waited in the cockpit. Rath wasn't even going to fly. He was exactly what Jack said he was going to be, a witness, and nothing more.

One flight officer turned, said nothing, but watched the coordinator intently. When Jack nodded, he mouthed something into his headset and initiated takeoff.

The small ship glided into space. The view was staggering. It was like being in a glass bubble propelled through the void. The system's sun blazed like a giant ball of fire, the stars in the opposite direction melded together like a long, dotted streak of bright white chalk dust. The planet Fenrir loomed in the forward viewshield. It appeared much like Rath remembered on his very first scout. Large sections of blue signified the vast oceans of water. Brown and yellow divided the deep aqua, indicated the existence of land. Fluffy white clouds flowed around the sphere like aimless ghosts looking for a place to land. In many ways, it appeared just like earth. And streaking toward this planet were tiny flashes of bright orange.

The melees darted through space in full group formation. As if guided by the same hand, they penetrated the atmosphere en masse. Most of the propulsion tails were lost in the clouds, but a few remained visible.

One flight officer turned back to the coordinator. "We've reached watch point alpha, sir. Speed and course locked in with planet rotation."

"Fine, fine." Jack studied his portable as the flight officer turned his attention back to the pilot controls.

Fenrir continued to fill the front viewshield. A massive portion of its largest continent held the center. As the transport moved with the spin of the planet, it looked as if the planet was frozen, suspended in space with no rotation. Only the upper atmosphere clouds appeared to move.

Rath watched intently, searching for signs of the melees. He noted a few propulsion signatures darting to the poles.

"I think they broke formation," the scout announced.

Jack was rather apathetic. "Of course they have. They're breaking into a pattern of full coverage of the planet. If they're going to shoot down those missiles, they'll have to be placed in perfect intercept position, and there's still no guarantee this is going to work."

"How long we will have to wait?"

"I doubt very long. We identified coded messages emanating from the planet that contain launch code characteristics, and we observed several birds being fueled in their nests. Estimation is that missiles with nuclear warheads will leave their silos within the next few minutes."

A flight officer interrupted. "Melee wing leaders have signaled position ready. Command has ordered standby."

"Will we get to hear them, too?" Rath wondered aloud.

"Of course not," Jack grunted, as if the question was not worthy of his response. "They're on a secure channel."

"Then what should I be watching for?"

"Flashes of light," Jack replied without looking up from his portable.

Dr. Sinclair could do nothing but wait, wait for the courier ship to deliver the sealed report from Jack Lasonelli. Regency allowed her that. Jack would simply note that the experiment was closed successfully. After that, she could retire into the abyss of concealment and isolation.

That's all that what waited for her, and little else. They would let her subscribe to scientific journals, even keep up with the work of the council she just resigned, but it would be a one way relationship. She could not add her own input, offer her own suggestions, or even contact some of her close friends that remained on the council. She would no longer be a scientist; she would barely be an outside observer.

She wondered how many Authority moles would watch her, to make sure she kept out of sight and out of mind of Regency's general population. She wondered what their orders would be if she decided to start writing her memoirs on planetary coms. They'd probably execute her before she could hit the send order.

She shook her head as she cursed a few of the more inept scientists that remained on the council, people she placed the majority of the blame upon. All they had to do was make a few genetic alterations. The general public was not all that bright. There was no need to get fancy. But the geneticists that created the Fenrite species had lauded their creativity, boasted that no one would ever discern from study that the Fenrites were an earth-born species altered to appear alien.

A lot of good that did. In a day or two standard, there wasn't going to be a Fenrite left to study. The planet was going to be washed clean by a nuclear bath. And why? Because the same idiot geneticists couldn't determine why the so-called "alien" was advancing so quickly.

But they didn't get the blame. They were still left to research, to study the remains of her experiment, and to determine why it ultimately failed.

Like angry bees swarming free from a nest under attack, the melees set upon Fenrir's atmosphere. These tiny ships zipped across the sky in pre-coordinated attack patterns. They broke from groups into sections and finally into wings as they covered the four large continents of the planet and targeted each major colony.

Only half of the vessels were armed, Spearhead missiles with megaton nuclear payloads, but more than enough to do the job. Detonation of a mere quarter would leave Fenrir a radiated wasteland.

The other half were needed to carry out the deception for the long range scanners. Melees responsible for simulating the signature of ground based nuclear weapons dove deep toward the surface. They took to the tops of the ever-expanding Fenrite colonies, not caring that the aliens would be able to clearly witness their vessels. They hovered over target areas like tiny clouds, harbingers for the fury of nuclear storm.

The Fenrites did not scramble for shelter as they did the first time a space craft entered their sight. Those that had witnessed Rath's scout and