Cowboys And Aliens Ch 35

35. The Rift

Cricket screamed, "

They destroyed the planet!

"

Mark looked up from his desk and saw large rocks floating past the transparent ceiling in their quarters. As they all rushed down to the bridge, Cricket told Mark what she had collected as she got the updates she had missed while they were in FTL.

Mark asked, "Was it the Star Hunter?"

Cricket said, "

No, the Star Hunter was here as were hundreds of other ships, but when these nine big ships showed up, the other ships fled as they turned on these weapons that cut deep into the planet. It looked like some of the ships, including the Star Hunter, attacked the big ships, but their weapons didn't appear to do much, if anything, and they all tried to flee. Then once the planet started breaking apart, the big ships left in the same direction that the other ships did, which is outside of our sensor network."

When they reached the bridge, Adam was shouting out orders for shields, weapons and navigation to protect the Poseidon and the Sentinel, although the Sentinel was doing most of the protecting at that point.

There was only a few more impacts as they moved the Poseidon behind Trayak's moon, which was now drifting toward the sun without the planet's gravity well to orbit, Adam asked for a damage report, and all stations acknowledged that systems were good.

Once the ship was protected by the moon and no longer being bombarded, Mark summarized everything that Cricket had told him about all the ships and the big ships that destroyed the planet and that the Star Hunter had actually tried to attack the big ships.

The crew began scanning the debris looking for signs of life, but holding out little hope of finding any.

Surprisingly, after a few minutes, the scanning station reported that they had detected two life signs. One was nearby floating amongst the debris, in what looked like an escape pod, the other was inside something larger on the far side of the debris field.

Adam dispatched the tractor beam shuttle to retrieve the escape pod, as everyone on the bridge monitored the progress with rapt attention. Navigating the constantly changing debris field was slow going and there were a few close calls with some colliding chunks, but the shuttle eventually reached the battered escape pod, obviously it had been bouncing amongst the debris.

Half an hour later, they were rushing to the port side landing bay to see if the person in the pod was still OK. The occupant was in stasis and didn't awake when the pod was opened, but appeared to be a bipedal woman in her early 20s, her body looked human-like for shape, but she appeared lizard-like from the appearance and texture of her skin.

The medics took her and put her in a medibed, but it was another half hour before it displayed 0:46, during which time they had begun to circumnavigate the debris field, to reach the other life sign they had detected.

It was very slow going, so to pass the time, they retired to their quarters to relax until the time on the medibed expired.

When the timer was due to run out, everyone convened outside the medibay. Within a few minutes, the technicians escorted the young woman out to where Mark and the gang was waiting.

Mark introduced himself and the people with him as she introduced herself as Ra'ki. Suspecting she was would be hungry, Mark suggested they go talk in the cafeteria where she could get some food and drink.

They just ordered some appetizers to snack on, but Ra'ki ordered something more substantial to eat. As she waited for her meal, she started to talk of her own accord. She was a Veranae, a species whose home world was destroyed by the Destructors. She and many generations before her, had been raised on a roaming fleet of spaceships that called themselves Rifters, they have been on the run from the Destructors for centuries, using the rifts to stay ahead of their foe.

Annabelle asked the question that was on everyone's minds, "What are rifts?"

She told them about a series of rifts in these micro nebulae, they didn't know where they went, they just knew that the smaller ships go through them faster than the bigger ships and because the Destructors are so massive, it usually gives them a good break before they get through the rift, find their way out of the cloud and then figure out where they went. The Destructor ships always seem to track them down, then they make a run for the rift to get away.

Adam then asked the next obvious question, "Don't your ships have faster than light travel?"

Ra'ki looked at him kind of weird and laughed, "Faster than light? Nothing can travel faster than light!"

As her meal was delivered, Mark laughed, "Well, that answers that!"

Ra'ki dug into her meal with ravenous hunger, while the rest of them were satisfied to eat appetizers and talk, giving her the chance to eat without interruption.

Mark took that time to ask Cricket, "

Do you know which way her fleet went and do you have any information on the Destructors?

"

Cricket answered, "

Yes, I know the direction they fled, but Trayak was at the very edge of our sensor network and the direction they went took them back out of the network.

Being on the very edge of our sensor network, the ability to track that many ships in close proximity was significantly diminished."

"

Have you redirected a seeding ship that direction?

"

"

Unfortunately, there are no seeding ships near Trayak.

"

"

Hmmm, leave the current seeding ships expanding the network, but have the Sentinels manufacture and leave a cloaked seeding ship at every planet, ready to follow any ships of unknown origin. Then once a seeding ship leaves to follow, get another one ready as soon as possible. If these Destructors touch the edge of our network again, I want them followed! I don't like the idea of something that powerful wandering around in our universe.

"

"

So how big were these Destructor ships that managed to destroy an entire planet?

"

"

They were the stereo-typical round UFO disk design, about a kilometre thick in the centre and about 15 kilometres in diameter. Their main weapon fires out the centre of the bottom of the craft. It's a bright white beam that moves kind of like lightning and seems to pulverize or disintegrate rock and soil as it digs, but there are four other beams around it that seem to suck up the debris it's making. Almost like it is mining the planet. Eventually they dug deep enough, and hit the molten core, which caused the planet to break apart. They also seem to have some smaller ships with laser type weapons, but no torpedos or missiles. With the nine ships digging at different spots in the planet, it didn't take them but a few hours before the planet started to break apart.

"

Mark then returned his attention back to Ra'ki. She was a pretty lizard girl, she had no hair, a black forked tongue and green reptilian eyes. Her yellow-orange-red scales, that covered her body, seemed to change colour based on the direction you viewed her from, but her base colour seemed to be more yellowish. Despite her fairly loose fitting red jumpsuit, she seemed to have a very shapely body for a 5'5" lizard, with firm looking breasts and what appeared to be small bony protrusions that went down her spine.

Once she finished her meal, Mark asked, "Do you know where your fleet went?"

"They would have returned to the nebula and went into the rift, the catch is that you don't come out where you went in. If you go in at point A, you come out at point B, but if you go in at point B, you come out at point C or D or E or whatever, we are not sure if it is random or if there is an actual network, or how big it is, I don't think we have ever been to the same place twice."

"So what happened to your ship?"

"Every now and then, the Destructor fighters get a lucky shot in and manage to disable a ship or two before the entire fleet can reach the nebula. The ship I was on already had engine issues and we got hit before we could get away, our hull was breached and most of my friends got sucked out the hole into space. Fortunately for me, I guess, we were in one of the outer corridors, where the escape pods were, and I was able to grab a handhold and pull myself into an escape pod and hit the launch button as the ship was exploding around me. Because we were already wounded, I think everyone was transferred off the ship as a precaution, it was just a few of us technicians that were trying to fix the engine. I wonder if anyone else managed to make it into a pod?"

Annabelle said, "We have found one other life sign amongst the debris, we're on our way to rescue them right now."

"So, what am I supposed to do now, I was an engine tech, maybe I could help you guys in that department?"

Rayven smiled, "I think we're pretty well staffed in that department, but we'll find something for you since it looks like you're stuck with us for the foreseeable future."

As she looked around the portion of the ship she could see from the cafeteria she said, "Well, if I'm going to be stuck, this looks like a pretty nice place to be stuck."

Annabelle said, "Most of us don't actually live on ships, the Federation had a number of planets and you can live on any of them."

Mark then spoke to Cricket, "

Here's an additional plan, let's create a special seeding ship with a different mission, we know there's a rift nebula near here. Drop a beacon at the nebula, go in and find the rift, then exit the nebula on the other end and drop another beacon, then go back in and do it all again. We're either going to map this entire network eventually or the other seeding ships will eventually locate these rift nebulae.

"

Everyone went up to the bridge to oversee the approach to the other signal, but as they cleared the debris field, they could clearly see it was the Star Hunter, well most of it anyway, since half of the ship was missing.

Ra'ki said, "It looks like they got Sebastian and Brian too!"

Mark said, "You know them?"

"Not personally, when we came out of the nebula near the planet, they were already in orbit. We contacted them to warn them that the Destructors were coming, but since we don't have many ships that actually have weapons, our leaders talked to them for a few days. From what I understood, they had more or less agreed to join us. Our ships are so crowded, we're always looking for more space, plus they offered some defence. When the Destructors showed up, I know they attacked them, as the rest of us made for the nebula."

Adam ordered, "I want two rescuvacs. One to go get the survivor and one to see what you can get off their computers."

Nyssia and Myrria then spoke in unison from the communications station, "Since we knew that's what you would want to do, we've already hacked in to their computers and we're downloading everything to a secured partition right now."

Adam laughed, "That simplifies things, good work girls! OK, we just need one rescuvac to go recover the survivor."

The mermaids informed them that it would be about an hour until the download was complete, so everyone's attention was on the display screen, watching the recovery team from the camera inside the rescuvac, as they donned their jumpsuits in preparation for the spacewalk.

The jumpsuits they wear for spacewalks were one piece white jumpsuits, with the gloves and boots built into the suit, and sort of an open face balaclava that was part of the suit. The front of the suit had a double zipper, while the back of the suit had a small integrated backpack that supplied power, heat and air to the sealed suit.

Once they put the helmets on, they pushed a button and the helmet sealed itself to the suit, a headlight came on, their vitals were recorded and the camera, which must've been beside the headlight, started broadcasting.

They grabbed some utility belts and put them on, as the ramp of the rescuvac started to open... the force field holding the atmosphere inside the shuttle.

The two rescuers then simply walked off the ramp into the vacuum of space, using small thrusters in their boots and gloves to guide themselves over to the nearby Star Hunter.

After determining the survivor was inside an escape pod that was still attached to the ship. It appeared that the launch mechanism failed, so the pod was stuck partly out of the ship. One of the rescuers cut their way into the sealed bridge, discovering that the atmosphere had already leaked out into space, while the other worked from the exterior side of the escape pod port.

The rescue team worked diligently to cut the escape pod free. Once they got the escape pod loose, they pushed it in the direction of the Poseidon, so it could be pulled onboard by a tractor beam, while the rescue team looked over the remains of the Star Hunter and then returned to the rescuvac.

With the pod rescued and the download completed, they shot a TRD and deconstructed the remains, just to ensure no one else could get ahold of any technology that may be left on it.

Everyone met the rescuvac crew and escape pod in the starboard landing bay of the Poseidon as they opened the escape pod, revealing the survivor was barely alive and that it was, in fact, a Silican female with long blue hair.

Both Adam and Mark said simultaneously, "Damn, I was hoping it was Sebastian!"

Just like the other escape pod, when they opened the pod, the occupant was not awakened. The medics put her into a medibed, but 15 minutes later there still was no time on the medibed display. Maybe it had something to do with forcing the pod open when it was not on a planet, that was not waking them from cryosleep.

Since they had to wait anyway, the group went to the ready room to review what the mermaids had recovered from the Star Hunter computers.

It only took a few minutes of watching the latest bridge video log to see the battle with the Destructors. The Star Hunter did in fact have the powerful planetary defence weapon and they also had what looked like the equivalent of nuclear missiles. They fired everything they had and didn't seem to even scratch the surface of the Destructor, when that wasn't working they had tried to attack the main weapon that was destroying the planet, but they got too close to the beam and it jumped to their ship, like a spark of static electricity, moving more like lightning, instead of in a straight line like a laser.

The beam cut straight through their ship and shields, instantly venting everyone on half of the ship into space. When the order to abandon the ship was given, Brian Hawker and Sebastian exited the bridge via a door at the rear. Less than a minute later, the ship began exploding, so the bridge sealed itself off and the rest of the staff got into the escape pods off the side of the bridge.

It was Adam that then said, "That puts a big question mark around the status of Sebastian and Hawker... were they just elsewhere on the ship and got vented into space or did they escape with the Rifters? I think we can rule out that they were in escape pods... and it's unfortunate that everyone that got into the escape pods would be dead now, since escape pods would've taken them to the surface of the planet and they would've died as the planet was destroyed... unless they were bouncing around amongst the debris like Ra'ki was."

Mark immediately asked, "Wait! Do our escape pods do that?"

"Yes, that's the way all escape pods have always been designed. If a ship is in trouble and people need to escape, the pods will head to the nearest habitable planet so they have a chance to survive, if it does not reach a habitable planet within an hour or so, the pods put you into a cryogenic sleep and automatically wakes you when a habitable planet is found... or you end up drifting into a sun and die... but at least it's a peaceful death!"

"That didn't work out so well for the crew of the Star Hunter! Maybe we should change the way our escape pods work?," then Mark started walking and talking, which everyone had learned was when Mark was thinking up something important, so they just watched and listened as he continued, "If the pods detect the Atlantean sensor network, they should simply hold position and broadcast a distress signal or homing beacon. Now that we have ships staged all over the place, it shouldn't take more than a few days to reach pretty much anywhere in our known universe. Then as a safety, if there is no sensor network detected, then they can search out a habitable planet. Also all escape pods, should have a reusable construx in it to build a basic house with recycling, a food synth and drink dispensers. If it's reusable they can pack it up and travel with it, then set it up when they need shelter or when they find other survivors."

Cricket said, "

Better yet, why don't we make the escape pods themselves a reusable construx house. That way, even if the pod goes to an uninhabitable planet, it could still create a house around them and they could live in it until they can be rescued. It would require the occupant to be a citizen to prevent the technology from falling into other hands, but they would literally wake up in a bed in a house. After they wake up, they could pack up the house and take it with them, unless of course, it's an uninhabitable planet in which case the house won't even have opening doors or windows."

"That's a great idea! Do it!"

"I will make the changes to the pods on all security ships, unfortunately I don't have the ability to manipulate civilian ships.

"

Adam said, "Those are great suggestions, I take it you're making those changes?"

Mark smiled, "Yes, not exactly as I outlined though, the escape pods themselves will be construx and as they land on a planet they will construct a house around the occupant. That way even on an uninhabitable planet, they could live in the house with the amenities until they can be rescued. On a habitable planet, they could pack up the house and take it with them. We're making the change for the security ship escape pods anyway! Do we have a time on the medibed yet?"

Adam called medical to inquire about the status of the survivor... there was still no time on the medibed.

Adam asked, "Since we know the person is Silican, should we head for Silica so we can turn her in?"

Mark said, "Do you remember seeing a person with blue hair doing anything on the bridge? I don't! So yes, we should probably return her to Silica, but right now my top priority is to find the nebula and rift, so let's go in the direction the other ships fled. I have the Sentinel manufacturing special rift jumper versions of our seeding ships for a mission, in fact I'm building two pairs of them, just to be redundant."

As everyone looked at him in confusion and curiosity, Mark explained his idea, "I want to know more about these rifts, so I have an experiment in mind. The first step is to see if we can actually communicate inside the nebular cloud. If we can communicate with the beacon inside the cloud, then we're just going to drop a sensor beacon near the rift, deploy the second rift jumper and they can both go through. However, based on what Ra'ki said, I seriously doubt we can communicate from inside the cloud, so if that's the case, the ship will exit the nebula, we'll update the protocol and deploy the second rift jumper, so the pair of them can drop six sensors all around the periphery, before re-entering, finding the rift and going through it.

Once they exit the other side, they will follow the predetermined protocol and do the same procedure on the other end, but with those sensors IDs being incremented by 1. Then, if they ever exit a rift and find existing sensors they would just append another ID number. This nebula will be our starting point, since it's now in our sensor network and we can monitor it. So if we ever see the sensor ID change from 1 to 1-12, for instance, you would know that there was 11 rifts before this one was used again. Then on the third pass, they would have a better idea of the network, 1-12-24 would indicate it's likely a set network of 12 rifts, but if you saw 1-12-32, that would prove that the rift network was indeed random.