GDA marine gunship, Dresse, Dresse system
The clunks and rattles of rocks striking the hull continued as Bache, Zaphir and Malic descended the narrow stairs down to the loading bay.
‘Open up some of the ration packs in there,’ said Ed, pointing to a row of overhead lockers.
‘I’m not that hungry,’ said Malic, wrinkling her nose.
‘It’s not for us,’ said Bache. ‘I’m going to give it to them out there.’
‘Better wear one of those suits then,’ said Zaphir, nodding her head towards the individual storage bays at the back of the room where the row of four ugly powered battle suits stood like sentinels. Their sightless black visors staring out ominously.
Bache shook his head and shivered. He hated the things and couldn’t remember any occasion where their use hadn’t escalated the situation.
‘No, I want them to see me unprotected, unarmed and bearing gifts,’ he said. ‘We need to find out what the hell has gone on here so we can provide a decent report for Mr Whippy when he gets here.’
‘Who?’ said Malic.
‘That’s Captain Whipper,’ said Zaphir. ‘The captain of our Katadromiko.’
‘You’re from a Katadromiko?’ Malic blurted in astonishment. ‘What, one of those huge planet-killing battleships?’
‘We prefer humanitarian cruiser,’ replied Zaphir, cringing slightly and giving Bache a knowing look.
‘Yes, well, that is a false impression we’re trying to shrug off,’ mumbled Bache as he hooked a universal translator to the front of his ship suit and picked up an armful of the more palatable ration pack items before stepping over to the rear door. ‘You two get a couple of rifles, set them to a light stun and keep them well hidden. Only to be used if I get into serious bother. Is that understood? We’ll only get one chance at showing them we’re friendly.’
Zaphir and Malic both nodded.
When they were all prepared, Bache removed the safeties from the rear door ramp and took a deep breath before beginning to power the ramp down manually and slowly.
There was an audible hiss as the huge seals released and a crack of daylight peeked through the steadily widening gap. Bache immediately noticed the sweet smell of the local vegetation pervading the cabin. It reminded him of camping trips he did with his father on Deelatayne as a boy. Another thing he noticed was the cessation of the rocks raining down on the ship, as it suddenly went eerily quiet.
‘Well that’s something positive, I suppose,’ he heard Zaphir whisper to Malic.
As the ramp dropped low enough to see over, he scanned the tree line some twenty metres away and saw nothing.
He stopped the ramp when it was about two feet off the ground, tentatively stepped out and peered around. It was still unnaturally quiet, even the trees stood as if frozen in time and the noisy leathery-winged birds they could hear from inside the ship had hushed too. Shrugging, he jumped down carefully so as not to drop any of the food, walked out about five metres to the trunk of a fallen tree and carefully placed down all the food items.
Staring out and pointing around the tree line and then down at the food, he nodded, turned around once, deliberately demonstrating he was unarmed and returned to the ship. He sat on the edge of the ramp, his legs dangling below and waited.
It took a few minutes until finally he spotted shadowy movement and the sound of faint murmuring coming from the trees on his left-hand side. He turned in that direction, smiled and pointed to the food again.
A face appeared amongst the underbrush, human, dark-skinned and bearded with characterful craggy features. Bache could see the fear and suspicion in the man’s eyes as he stared unblinking back at him, with just the occasional glance over at the food offerings. He could only guess at the man’s age; his lined features said sixties, but even at this distance the alertness in his eyes made him seem younger.
The man jerked back nervously as Bache waved, smiled again, brought his hand to his mouth in an eating gesture and nodded at the food. He set his translator to repeat what he said in several of the more common GDA world’s languages.
‘We’re not here to harm you, you’re quite safe,’ he called, in Ellinika and waited and watched to see if there was any reaction. It was on the seventh translation the man straightened and spoke back over his shoulder. The words were spoken too quietly for the translator to pick them up, but Bache caught a couple of words he thought might be Guasse. It had been a long time since he was at junior school and taught basic phrases in outer planet languages. But he was confident enough in what he’d heard to change the translator to Guasse and try again.
This certainly got a reaction. The man stepped out and stood fifteen metres away from Bache and stared. Some of the fear seemed to have receded, but his eyes remained vigilant.
He spoke and a split second later the translator did its job.
‘You not purrers?’ he said.
Bache realised from the intonation, it was a question.
‘What is purrer?’ he asked back.
The man seemed puzzled by this as his brow furrowed and his eyes flicked around randomly as he appeared to be trying to formulate a reply.
‘The plaguers,’ he eventually said, pointing south.
‘Interesting translation,’ said Zaphir, stepping out from the ship’s interior.
The man immediately took a step back, his eyes wide with more astonishment than fear.
‘Feeme,’ the man stuttered, gazing upwards nervously. ‘Swathe, swathe,’ he added, pushing his palms forward and up over his mouth in a gesture inferring she should retreat back on the ship and cover her face.
‘Why should she move back under cover?’ Bache asked.
‘Purrers—sky ship, plague gas,’ he replied.
Bache looked over his shoulder at Zaphir.
‘Go back under cover,’ he said. ‘It seems to make him very nervous you’re out in the open, and what did you mean by interesting translation?’
Zaphir put her hands up in a placating manner and backed up under cover of the ship.
‘Use of the word plague,’ she said. ‘It might have some meaning to why the population here has plummeted.’
‘Hmm,’ grunted Bache, turning back to his new friend. ‘Did the purrers or plaguers bring a sickness to your world?’
The man’s eyes widened at the question.
‘Your people not suffer too?’ he asked.
Bache realised from the man’s reply that he thought they were from another region of this planet.
‘We are not from this planet, we are from far away,’ said Bache, pointing straight up.
The man took a step back, and a look of fear washed across his face.
‘The purrers come from there—bring death,’ he said. ‘You come from there—bring death too.’
Bache shook his head.
‘No, that won’t happen because—’
The sudden scream of antigravs above made them jump and had them both staring skyward. The small ship passed overhead at speed and Bache heard the tone of the motors change as it vanished behind the trees.
‘We’ve been spotted,’ he shouted, as the indigenous man dived back out of sight. ‘Grab one of those backpacks each—we need to get away from the ship.’
He jumped up, retrieved a weapon and pack for himself, waited until Zaphir and Malic were off the vessel then entered a code into a hidden keypad on the outside of the ship. While the ramp powered closed, the three of them sprinted into the trees.
Moments later the alien ship screamed back overhead, only this time it was travelling much slower and circled around twice before flaring and dropping down to land.
Now about a hundred metres away, Bache, Zaphir and Malic ducked down and concealed themselves. Bache turned and peered back through the foliage, watching closely as the unfamiliar vessel, about the same size as theirs, touched down between them and their ship, but left the antigravs spinning.
For a few moments nothing happened.
‘What are they waiting for?’ Malic whispered.
‘To see if there’s any reaction,’ Bache whispered back. ‘After what happened out on the ocean, they’re understandably being cautious.’ He had a quick scan around; the locals had vanished but were most likely watching both them and the newcomers.
He turned back to the alien ship as he heard the spoolers dial down to a murmur. A door must have opened on the far side of the ship, as several pairs of legs appeared underneath descending steps. From this distance Bache couldn’t see much, but he knew they’d reached the gunship as a loud crack and a flash lit up the clearing between the ships.
‘What the ancients was that?’ whispered Malic.
‘You set the anti-tamper didn’t you?’ said Zaphir in Bache’s ear.
He nodded.
‘Don’t like my stuff being touched,’ he whispered back with a wry grin.
Bache could see the legs returning to the alien ship, and judging by the way they were moving they were carrying something or someone.
‘You didn’t kill him did you?’ Malic asked.
Bache shook his head.
‘Heavy stun.’
Once they’d loaded whatever or whoever it was aboard the small ship, three pairs of legs split up and started circling the clearing. Bache and Zaphir both brought their weapon optics up to their eyes and zoomed in, waiting for the first alien to show his face. The one furthest right came around the rear of their ship. At first he had his face in shadow, but he stopped and scanned around the tree line, his features suddenly coming into direct sight.
‘Well, fuck the ancients,’ exclaimed Zaphir. ‘They’re the last race I expected it to be.’