Beyond Mars Crimson Fleet (28 page)

It was a hair-raising
experience as gigantic solar flares and prominences twisted and
curled furiously away from the massive star and dangerously close
to the small fleet, regardless that they had materialize well away
from the corona and chromosphere of the star. Tara now understood
why Wakinyan had chosen this system. It at least provided
temporarily concealment for the colonist’s fleeing ships from the
pursuing Earth forces. Yet, the woman prayed that the Martians
would arrive sooner rather than later.

First Mate Martin Pearl, however, did not share
Tara’s optimism about the agreement with the Martians. He had his
doubts from the very beginning about them. Other “normals” had
shunned, lied to, and used the mutants too many times before in the
past. Why should the Martians be any different, he thought.

Still, he did not want to upset any of the others
with his suspicions, and secretly hoped he was wrong. So he went
about duties, neither voicing his uncertainty or negative
opinions.

“Sensors show very erratic and high radiation
readings,” he confirmed to Tara. “Even normal inter-ship
transmissions have broken up, forcing us to rely on our Aldis
Signaling Lamps for communications.”

“Good,” she was pleased with the news. “It means
we’ll be harder to follow.” Take us around the other side and then
deeper into the system. We’ll hold in an orbit around the first
planet we come to.”

Martin nodded in agreement and set a new course.

In a gentle arc, the ships swung about the star and
began to disappear around the far side. Just in time too, for
pathfinder ships of the Crimson Fleet suddenly and without warning
emerged out of hyperspace close where the colonists had first
appeared. One unlucky pathfinder ship, however, came out near the
chromosphere of Tibula at its apex just as a colossal coronal mass
ejection (CME) shot out from a huge sunspot on the star. It
broad-sided the vessel and the craft blew apart in a massive
fireball, which even the colonists could detect with their
sensors.

“CAPTAIN, A LARGE EXPLOSION NEAR THE TOP OF TIBULA!”
the sensor crewman cried out. “IT LOOKS LIKE IT WAS A SHIP!”

“IT’S GOT TO BE THEM!
THEY’VE TRACKING US!” another crewman shouted in near
hysteria.

“QUIET!” yelled out Tara to
stop a panic while she prepared herself to go into a hypnotic
state.

After a few deep breaths Tara
closed her eyes and went into a semi-trance. Slowly she extended
her mind outward from the
Ariana
, beyond the star, and gently
into the thoughts of the enemy.

For a short time, she
dwelled among their racial hatred, their arrogance of superiority,
and their lust for slaughter. The malevolence was staggering, but
Tara was more incredulous at what was not there. The tiniest
imprints of mercy and compassion were all gone. Instead, she felt a
soulless vacuum descending into a bottomless pit that surged with
an inexhaustible evil. Its unimaginable proportions were most
terrifying to the woman, but still she remained seeking what she
needed to know.

Finally, she pulled her
mind back into her body and her own sheltered reality.

“It is the Earthers—but
there’s too much interference for them. They can’t trace our ion
trail,” she announced with guarded joy as she came out of her
meditative state. “Martin, lay in a course directly away from them
at flank speed, but keep that star in between us and them,” Tara
commanded. “In the meantime, ready all distress markers and make it
in the universal galactic code. Also, have all ships make-ready
their hyper-drives again and prepare for dispersal.”

Martin said not a word as he followed her commands
to the letter. However, sadness filled his eyes that could not be
hidden, which conveyed the crushed hopes that abided within
him.

Tara immediately knew what
he thought and felt, finding her own feelings empathizing with his.
As the woman slowly turned and looked about the bridge, a sensation
of overwhelming despair flooded the atmosphere around her. She
realized then that all were convinced of the hopelessness of the
situation and that time—and possibly their lives were running
out.

“Damn you, Wakinyan!” she cursed the Martian officer
under her breath and near to tears as her hope began to failed too,
“Damn you!”

* * * * *

It took more than twenty minutes before the entire
Earth fleet managed a safe transition from the inter-dimensional
continuum. After some confusion due to the effects of the magnetic
star, all ships quickly reformed into their respective battle
groups and waited for further orders.

“Report!” Selena ordered her second in command.

Trager took a deep breath in disgust. “Our
pathfinder ships have confirmed that the dimensional disturbances
left by the hyperspace travel of the colonist fleet ends with this
system. However, the radiation and magnetic fields from the star
have obliterated any ion trail generated by their space normal
engines. It’s also making it extremely hard to scan as well.
Several destroyer squadrons are now conducting a visual search of
the system—but there is another problem,” he informed his
superior.

“Such as?” Selena questioned.

“We are deep within Indra space. If we don’t find
them soon, we risk being discovered—and a possible confrontation
with the Indra. Since they are an isolated race, we don’t have much
information about them. But we do know this, they don’t like
invasion into their territory by other species—and have eliminated
all who have attempted it,” Trager clearly pointed out.

Selena, however, was not impressed. “They haven’t
met my battle fleet, yet!” her smugness was clear. “In any case, I
don’t care who I have to crush to complete this mission! Continue
with the operation!”

“As you wish, Admiral,” Trager conceded to Selena’s
authority.

Selena settled back into her command chair and
waited. Even though the minutes slowly passed, she knew it was only
a question of time.

“SHIELD
FOUR TO STEEL GODESS!” the expected call came from the captain of
the
Chirac
. “WE
HAVE THEM, ADMIRAL! WE HAVE THEM!”

* * * * *

The colonist’s raced through the system for their
lives as an Earth destroyer squadron slowly began to over-take
them. Tara kept an eye on the narrowing distance, praying for a
miracle. But the last of her faith faded as her ships came within
the range of the weapons of the blood-red fleet.

“CAPTAIN, THEY’RE POWERING UP THEIR WEAPONS!” the
sensor crewman informed all on the bridge.

“DEPLOY ALL DISTRESS MARKERS!” Nargis yelled to
Martin. “GIVE THE ORDER TO DISPERSE THE FLEET!” Tara realized that
there was no time left.

Suddenly, a new threat appeared on her sensor
screens.

“CAPTAIN, ALIEN SHIPS OFF THE STARBOARD QUARTER!”
the sensor crewman screamed. “THEY’RE SCANNING US!”

“PUT THEM ON THE VIEWER!” Tara ordered Martin.

The viewer then came alive,
displaying seven distinct vessels that looked similar to shapeless
jellyfish. Each was followed by a track of pulsed clusters of
ionized gas that was studded with sparkling beads of energy that
fade within a few seconds. The energy, however, did not flow out
from the ships themselves, but appeared some distance away as a
trailing wash. Another oddity was a multitude of long and flowing
thin appendages that surrounded the inner core of each ship and
migrated in the direction of the bow. Each appendage ended in a
rounded tip and glowed as a fiber optic cable would, emitting a
laser light. The ships themselves were ghostly specters of
brilliant white that seem to ripple and flutter to some invisible
wind. Yet in their flowing, the vessels at times faded to a
transparency that bordered on some trans-dimensional
riff.

Tara stepped back in horror. “Oh my God,” her voice
trailed to almost a whisper, “Indra!”

Ominously, the thin appendages of the alien ships
began to point to the colonist ships as a spiral of green energy
charged each tip into a growing ball of fire. Colonists close to
portholes stared and screamed in alarm as the menace grew closer.
Within a few minutes their outcries of fear setoff a general panic
among both passengers and crews aboard each ship. Some fought to
get to the few life pods available, while most waited for the end,
their spirits completely broken in the misery of despair.

“CAPTAIN, ALL OUR SHIPS ARE BEING TARGETED BY THE
ALIENS!” Martin bellowed.

“NO!” screamed Tara as her eyes suddenly became a
starburst of illumination. In an instant, she threw out her
hands—and a mental plea to stop the aliens from killing them.

Her thoughts and feelings
traveled in an instant to illusive minds that were complex and
vast. For in the dimly lit and dense fluid pressurized interiors of
the Indra ships, the ancient beings perceived. Their floating
octopod forms paused momentarily in communal thought and debated.
After they finished, the extraterrestrial beings swiftly prepared
to unleash the power of their weapons.

It was utter pandemonium on the colonist ships, as
people shriek, cried, and prayed at the approach of the alien
vessels. The appendages varied their aim from one colonist ship to
another, their tips oscillating in an ever-increasing ball of
energy.

* * * * *

The
captain of the
Chirac
smirked as his sensors showed that the Indra were about to
fire. He was happy to let them do his job for him. But amusement
quickly turned to bewilderment, as the alien ships opened a large
gap in their formation and let the colonist’s fleet pass
unmolested. Bewilderment then translated into shock as part of his
destroyer squadron suddenly dissolved into explosions and particles
from the massive energy bolts discharged from the alien
cruisers.

“TARGET
THOSE SHIPS AND FIRE!” Captain Prues of the
Chirac
immediately ordered the
remnants of his command.

The Earth ships swiftly deployed themselves
into a skirmish line and returned a lethal barrage of fire. The
accurate blasts from their weapons struck several of the Indra
vessels in clear hits. However, the ghostly white specters just
seemed to absorb the energy, which flowed across their skins and
dissipated. The Indra then fired once again—and Destroyer Squadron
Four of the Crimson Fleet ceased to exist.

The seven
alien ships then stopped and held their formation in front of the
Earth fleet. The energy balls at each tip of the Indra vessels grew
menacingly bigger, and violently shimmer and threw off halos. To
all that who witnessed the spectacle, the meaning was clear, the
Crimson Fleet
was to advance no
further.

* * * * *

As Tara moved her ships deeper into the
system, she was very grateful for the protection the colonists were
being given. The aliens had conveyed their assurance to the woman
that her charges would not be harmed. Unbeknownst to Tara, however,
their decision was based solely upon the potential they saw within
her alone.

Although Tara’s high intelligence and
developing mental attributes counted in part for their judicious
reasoning, it was the “essence” of the woman that had compelled the
Indra to provide safe passage to the colonists from destruction by
the red ships.

The Indra had scrutinized Tara by a wonder
beyond known technology, where their space vessels that were living
creations of biogenic silica and carbon merged temporarily with
their own beings to become a single entity. Tara’s physical
dynamics and DNA as well as the sum and substance of her soul
impressed upon them a perception of an ascending race that was
capable of much greatness and grandeur. It was well beyond the
primitiveness of normal Homo sapiens and deserved a chance to
flourish by offspring. Still, there was a great risk in allowing
this.

The Crimson Fleet was the reason why. They
embodied the evil portion of humanity’s duality that the Indra knew
was harbored in all species. The cyborgs’ destiny was decided by a
combination of personal chemistry and choice. The pestilence of
societal murderers and thieves existed because evolution dictated
that not only the smartest like Tara survived, but strongest and
most brutal as well. The Crimson Fleet was the latter type of
mutation; a degeneration that marched ever backwards into primal
chaos, rapped in the auspices of what was thought to be advanced
technology and the official linen of abusive political
authority.

The Indra had seen their kind many times
before. These regressive deviants deliberately invaded territory
under the guise of furthering their research in scientific
knowledge or professing military defensive measures in order to
exterminate sub-species, steal natural resources, or to extend
their control well beyond their own borders. Always their egos’
need for recognition and gain drove this rationalized destruction
by unrestrained emotions that guided their self-serving actions.
But here it was not so—for the Indra made it that way. And the
Indra now meant to stand as a roadblock to this fleet of cyborg
decay, while nurturing the hopeful beginning of a race not much
unlike their own.

* * * * *

Even with the help of the Indra, however,
bad luck still plagued the colonists. Tara ordered another jump
into hyperspace to take advantage of the alien distraction. But as
they prepared to make the jump, the hyper-engines on two ships
malfunctioned—and then failed. Age and wear on the old crafts
initiated the problem, sending the inter-dimension engines into a
safety shutdown mode.