FIRST CONTACT: LEMURIANS (BOOK ONE)

CHAPTER 3

The speaker went off in the captain’s quarters. ‘Captain to the bridge, we’re under attack.’ Robert didn’t waste time drying off. He grabbed his uniform pants and shirt and started trying to put his legs into the pants as he walked toward the door. His feet became tangled, and he went down hard. Lying on the floor, he finished getting his pants on and then stood up and hurried out the door onto the bridge in his bare feet. He was pulling his shirt on as he got to his chair and sat down. “Report,” is all he said as he buttoned up his shirt.

Commander Edward’s relief, Sub-Commander Frank Cirone, spoke up. “Sir, three ships dropped out of FTL right on top of us. Ellie was able to maneuver us so that their missiles didn’t hit, but they’re still chasing us.”

“Have we learned anything new about their capabilities yet?”

“No, Sir.” The sub-commander looked over and asked, “Ellie, have any of the other teams learned anything?”

“Nothing so far. However, I have an observation. They had a two-second delay after coming out of FTL before they fired. I can target them and fire in that two-second window and then jump us away before they can hit us with missiles.”

Robert tilted his head, thinking. He then asked, “What part of their ship do you suggest we target?”

“Just a moment, Sir. Checking…aha, there it is. Their missile tubes, Sir. It appears that they have sufficient shielding so that any radioactive release won’t negatively affect their personnel. I think our lasers are powerful enough to damage their missile tubes. This would allow us to take out or, at the least, reduce their offensive capabilities.”

“Do so.”

“I’m going to jump us closer to bait them into attacking, Sir. Arrival in three, two, one. They’re approaching…and…jumped… We’re one minute light distance away and monitoring. I targeted all three ships, Sir. They each launched two missiles, but we were gone before they reached us.

Time seemed to drag as the light traveled from the Lemurian ships to DV129. Captain Chris took that time to run his fingers through his wet hair to try to smooth and straighten it out. Ellie finally spoke up: “One missile tube on each of the ships was destroyed, Sir.”

Lieutenant Curry, the second shift communications officer, said, “We’re receiving a com request from the Lemurians, Sir.”

“On speaker, Lieutenant.”

Over the speaker came the Lemurians’ voice, “Humans…”

Captain Chris interrupted immediately, “You tell us you want to talk, but then you attack us. Give me a reason why I should listen to you.”

“We picked up your sensor signals. You’re seeking a weakness to attack. We cannot allow that.”

“We have only fired on you in self-defense. A good commander seeks to know his adversary. Have you not been investigating us, as well?”

“We have been because you’re the aggressors. You sent us the knowledge that destroyed our planet, and now you have come to claim it.”

“Do you believe that, or is it just an excuse to keep from owning up to your mistakes?”

“We have made no mistakes.”

Robert continued, “Mistakes made by your very own leaders.”

“Captain, leave our system and don’t return. We are now on a war footing. We have enough ships to overpower you with numbers. We are gathering those numbers now, so be wise and leave.”

“Admiral, you’re making a mistake. We came to you in peace. We offered to help you clean up your planet. We were willing to give you the new technology to accomplish it. Why are you passing up this chance to make friends?”

Ellie yelled, “Emergency jump, Sir. We’re now ten light minutes away from our previous location.”

“Why did you jump us, Ellie?”

“Ten new ships jumped in, Sir. The talking was a ruse to try and overwhelm us with over a dozen ships.”

“Ellie, we need to buy ourselves some time. Initiate random jumps until we’re at least twenty-four light-hours away from their star system. These unpredictable jumps will give us a full twenty-four hours to strategize. Because of the speed of light, they won’t be able to locate us until that much time has passed.”

“Jumping, Sir.”

After quietly sitting at the new coordinates, Robert figured that the strategy had worked.

He felt comfortable enough and ordered, “Everyone, continue with the sensor readings and investigations. Learn as much as you can. We may be twenty-four hours out, but our sensors are good enough to gather most of the information we need.”

As they all turned back to their stations, Robert said, “Sub-Commander, you have the bridge. I’m going to go finish my shower.”

“Aye, Sir. I have the bridge.”

***

After retaking his shower, the captain dressed in his utilities and went to the galley to get something to eat. Quite a few of the crew were there, but none from the first shift. They must have all eaten and gone to get some sleep. He was famished, so he grabbed a cheeseburger, fries, and a bottle of water. Greg Radtka called out, “Captain, would you join me, please?” Greg was the president of the colonists. He’d been a congress member of the One World Government (OWG) before joining the crew. A natural leader, well-liked, and well-known, he was the only crew member whom most Humans knew. He had been asked to run for president of the OWG by many of his fellow members of Congress. He felt that running against the woman who was president at that time wasn’t the right thing to do. In his mind, she was a better OWG president than he would have been.

The gesture by his fellow congress members sparked the idea of him becoming the president of an Earth colony. This voyage to the first planet, which would likely be habitable, sparked a fire in Greg that he hadn’t felt in years. When he put his name up as a potential colonist, it was a no-brainer for the space fleet. He was quickly approved and started training.

As Captain Chris sat down, he nodded. “What can I do for you, Mr. President?”

“Please, Captain, call me Greg. I’m not a colony president until we have a colony for me to govern.”

“Fair enough, Greg. You can call me Captain.” Robert smiled as he took his first bite out of the burger.

“Captain, I’m curious. Are we able to adequately defend ourselves from the Lemurians?”

“Well, so far, I’d have to say yes. We appear to be quite far ahead of them from a technological standpoint. However, we don’t know enough about their ships and weapons yet to understand if they can overwhelm us with numbers. We’re using our sensors to investigate and learn as much as possible. Why do you ask?”

“I’ve been thinking. If we find that we can use our fighter pilots to fend them off and get a small mining colony set up someplace nearby, we could build more fighters and begin cross-training more pilots. Eventually, we might be able to move into their system and set another colony up.”

“Why would we want to do this?”

Greg grinned and replied, “The first colony would be without their knowledge of its existence. We would not let them even know we were building a colony somewhere nearby. The second colony would be built at the Lemurians’ invitation.”

Robert shook his head slightly. “Ummm…Greg, haven’t you been paying attention? They hate us.”

“Respectfully, Sir, they don’t even know us. They’re overreacting based on information from over twelve hundred years ago. We can build the first colony and get the infrastructure up and running. We’d be building a base of operations. A base, as I said, the Lemurians won’t know about. We aren’t in a hurry. A follow-up science vessel is scheduled to arrive here in five years to check up on us. We continue to try to get a dialogue going with them, but we keep our retaliation to a minimum. Protect ourselves without escalating. The Lemurians will eventually realize we’re not invaders. It’s important that they ultimately realize that if we wanted their planet, we could take it. Showing our superiority without using it against them will lead to an understanding that we really are peaceful.”

“Why do we need a base?”

“We need it for the resources. We’ll not only build ships and weapons. We’ll build the equipment to cleanse their planet.”

“They don’t want to listen to our offer to clean up their planet, Greg.”

“The Lemurians don’t need to listen. We build out our infrastructure, ships, and weapons first. We assure our safety. Then, and only then, do we start building for the Lemurians. By the time we have their equipment built, they might be willing to listen.”

“And…if they aren’t willing to listen?”

“We tell them what we built for them. We tell them we’re going to drop it off near their system. If they choose not to use it, that’s on them. It’s right to help them, even if they don’t want help.”

“I like your idea. I’ll get engineering working on finding a suitable colony location. We’ll need someone to lead the efforts on this. Would you like to be part of that team?”

Greg shook his head negatively and confessed, “I can govern a colony, but I’m not the right person to help find a suitable colony location. I do, however, have geologists, botanists, and others who would be perfect to help engineering with that task.”

“I’ll have Lieutenant Fant get with you to put a team together. Great idea, Greg. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to finish my lunch and then get some rack time. I’ll tell Lieutenant Fant what you need before I go to sleep.”

Robert stopped by the bridge on the way to his quarters to let Lieutenant Fant know about Mr. Radtka’s idea. “What do you think, Cody?”

“I’ll put together the team with the help of Mr. Radtka. We’ll start looking, but I’m not promising anything. As you know, finding suitable planets or moons to colonize isn’t easy. We should have luck finding someplace to mine. However, we’d most likely have to build a pressurized living area. We’ve spent over one thousand years searching, and we haven’t found a habitable planet or moon. Well, at least not until today. Building infrastructure on a planet that isn’t habitable is not an easy task with the equipment we have here on the ship. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it would be damned difficult.”

“We build mining colonies all the time, Cody. Why do you think it would be so difficult?”

“Sir, we don’t build them. A mining fleet builds them. Our job is to find planets and moons that are suitable for mining or habitation. After that, we call in people who specialize in building those things. Our capabilities are steered towards building small colonies to sustain small groups, until we’re ready to grow a colony. That’s why we only have about fifty colonists on a discovery vessel. That’s our limit.”

“Are you saying that we can build a small colony for our colonists, but anything more than that isn’t feasible?”

“Like I said, it’s not impossible, but it won’t be easy. Building out defensive emplacements will be a major issue, too. We’d have to be able to defend the colony from these aliens. I’m not sure we can do that, unless we start mining. Which creates more issues.”

“Be straight with me. Is it even possible?”

“Yes. Umm… maybe. I wouldn’t get my hopes up, Sir.”

“Well…fudge bucket.”

“Fudge bucket?”

“It’s one of the things I say when I feel like cursing.”

“If you say so, Sir.”

“Moving on. I can’t stress how important this is, Cody. It’s probably the most important thing we need to do.”

“I understand it would be a nice thing to have, but is it really that important?”

“If we don’t find someplace to put down roots, we might have to head back to Earth with our tails between our legs. It took us twenty years to get here. I don’t want to spend another twenty years heading back home.”

“Why would we head back home, Sir? Dark energy provides us with all the energy we need to run the ship’s systems. When Humans discovered what dark energy was and how to detect it, all of our energy needs were solved. We also have the hydroponics bay and the protein growth bays to supply us with food. We can stay out here indefinitely without needing a base.

“Cody. It may take years or even decades for the Lemurians to come around and realize that we’re not a threat. Do you want to hang out here for years or decades without a base? Drifting through space without a home?”

“I hadn’t thought about it taking so long. You’re right, of course. In addition, I definitely don’t want to go back to sleep for another twenty years. By the time we got home, almost everyone we knew would be dead and gone. And those that are still alive would be quite old. I see why you want a colony for a base. I would prefer to stay out here, Sir.”

“I agree.  Please keep me in the loop on this. Also, put Commander Edwards on your team. I know it isn’t his area of expertise, but I want to get him involved. I’m heading to bed now. Good luck, and thank you for leading this effort.”

“You’re welcome, Captain.”

***

Robert had finally gotten some sleep. He didn’t feel rested, though. He’d dreamt about the Lemurians’ atomic war. Their cries of anguish as they cursed Humans. In his nightmare of a dream, he watched from orbit as his ship dropped atomic weapons on their cities. He could see the mushroom clouds rising at all angles from his perspective. Those directly below him were a roiling, angry, reddish-black, boiling firestorm that seemed to be rising straight out of hell. Lightning was flashing all over the storm. It was like the storm had additional weapons flashing into existence, higher and higher, reaching for his ship.

The storm of the mushroom cloud continued to grow in circumference as it continued to rise. It was as if the storm had a mind and vengeance of its own. He felt like the storm was trying to reach him, trying to consume him in its rage for what he’d done. In his mind’s eye, he was guilty and deserved to perish in the hellish storm below.

When Robert turned his view to the clouds at the edges of the horizon, the mushroom shape was distinct. They seemed to be reaching so far up that it was as if they were traveling to space. Those storms were daring him to bring his ship above them. He could hear them calling him. ‘Come to us, Captain, and face justice and the vengeance you deserve.’

In the dream, he felt compelled and ordered, ‘Helm, take us over those clouds on the horizon.’

His crew argued, ‘Why are you trying to kill us?’

‘Because we killed so many of them!’ he replied.

His crew was used to taking his orders, and in the dream, they stopped arguing and started moving the ship toward the mushroom clouds on the horizon. The closer the ship got to the storm, the angrier it seemed to get. He could feel the emotions from the billowing firestorm ahead. It was as if the life force of all of the Lemurians who had perished in their atomic wars was now contained in that angry, lightning-filled inferno.

Robert began to plead and beg, ‘Please don’t kill us. We didn’t know. We’ve changed. We’re no longer a barbaric species. Please, please believe us. We would have been more careful if we had only known.’

It changed nothing. The conflagration ahead continued to beckon him closer. ‘You and all Humans must die for your sins, Captain! Your destiny awaits. Our spirits await the satisfaction of our revenge.’

Robert knew he was dreaming, but it seemed so real. The ship was now so close to the mushroom cloud that it filled the viewscreen. The heat was becoming unbearable. ‘It’s so… hot,’ he thought to himself. He felt the beads of sweat coming down his forehead and getting in his eyes. Robert felt the salty stinging of each drop. He looked down, and there was a small puddle of sweat forming at his feet.

The ship was about to enter the furor of the storm when a bright flash of lightning reached out and struck the ship, causing blindness and a jolt of electricity to go through his body...darkness…silence…the heat was gone. ‘I’m still soaked in sweat. Am I dead?’ he wondered.

He realized that he was waking up, and he and his sheet were soaked in sweat. It was as if the heat of the storms in his nightmare had drawn the moisture out of his body. Robert knew he was innocent and knew Humans were innocent. Yet, he couldn’t shake the feeling of guilt and shame as if he and all of Humanity were the cause of a genocide.

The captain got out of bed and rushed to the shower. He was able to scrub the sweat from his body, but no matter how hard he tried, the guilt and shame remained, refusing to be cleansed from his soul. As he was dressing, he opened a comm to Ellie.

“Good morning, Captain. What can I do for you?”

“Good morning, Ellie. Where is Commander Edwards?”

“He’s in the gym working out with the Marines.”

“Perfect. I’m going to grab a danish and coffee and head down there. How long has he been in the gym?”

“A little over an hour, Sir.”

“Meet us in the bridge conference room in two hours, please.”

“I’ll see you there, Sir.”