“Please be seated,” he said. “I’ll not take much of your time; I know we are all anxious to get on with our duties.”
The assembled mass, sat down as one.
“We have some very important news, which is again highly classified. At 21.10 hours yesterday evening, we lost contact with the Agemman colony. Since we cannot determine the exact cause of how we lost contact, E.D. F command has ordered us to maintain a level two alert; we have however begun to translate some of the communiques sent by the alien force before the Montfort was destroyed.”
Captain Wainwright was replaced by a slightly younger looking officer, whom Michael didn’t recognise.
The man began, “the original messages have been put through our linguistics programs, and we have also run it through several probability matrices. Here is the original recording again.”
The deep harsh Krenaran voice was played over the speakers. “On mulv varash a’lahun, al orash vak kroluth.”
“That was the first communication received by the Montfort. Here it is now that it has been partly translated.”
“On Mulv varash a’lahun, the Terrans will die.”
“And here is the second message,” the man said as he played another recording.
The screaming alien voice was heard again. “On vak drovath lok al Krenarii aden!”
“And here is the translation,” the man went on.
“On vak surrender lok al Krenarans immediately.”
“We think that the word Krenarii is the plural for the name of their race,” he continued. “And finally here is the third recording.”
The man played the final recording, followed by the translation.
“Krenarii mulv brolis, al orash vak kroluth!”
“Krenarans mulv stronger, the Terrans will die!”
“We can now surmise with reasonable accuracy that the last message is saying that the Krenarans are stronger and all Terrans will be killed,” the man said rather gloomily.
Captain Wainwright walked back onto the stage and replaced the man. “As of 07.30 hours this morning, we have new orders. The task force is to continue towards the Agemman system, investigate why contact has been lost, and report back to E.D. F headquarters. Furious will still be joining the fleet to give fighter support, are there any questions?”
A man towards the rear of the room raised his hand.
“Yes, what is your question?” asked Wainwright.
“If the translations are correct; then why are we still at alert level two? Clearly the aliens are a hostile force and destroyed the Montfort. They have most probably attacked the colony as well; they are behaving extremely aggressively; surely we should be at alert level one?”
“The answer to your question is that E.O.C. A is still holding out for a diplomatic solution. Also we don’t know if the Krenarans have actually attacked the colony. Until we find out what has happened, E.D. F command cannot authorize alert level one. Does that answer your question?” Wainwright responded.
“Yes sir, thank you sir,” the man sat down.
“If there are no further questions; then this briefing is over,” Captain Wainwright said.
Commander Angel dismissed them, and the officers began to fall out, talking amongst themselves.
Dylan turned to face Michael, “What do you think of that?”
“I agree with part of it, we should investigate what has happened at Agemman, but I also think we should be responding in force, they just killed 740 people Dylan, people with wives and families,” Michael replied.
“Yeah; if they show up, we should blast them out the stars, besides its obvious what’s happened at Agemman, the Krenarans blasted it; you heard the translations. The Terrans will die, the Krenarans are stronger.”
“Perhaps,” Michael replied thoughtfully. “For once I hope you’re wrong,” however in his heart Michael didn’t think Dylan was.
Later that day, another blinding flash of light near to the fleet announced the arrival of the Furious. The large carrier slowly maneuvered into position between the Yukon and the Europa, in order to give the carrier some protection in case it was attacked itself.
The Furious launched a small squadron of fighters that swung around and performed a routine sweep of the area, before heading back into the carriers fighter bays, once they were secured back onboard. The entire fleet of seven vessels shifted into plasma drive and was gone.
Michael had an uneasy feeling all day, he thought if the Krenarans didn’t attack the colony, and contact was lost due to the riots and the mass panic. He could be traveling to his death, because those ships were still out there, and would doubtless attack the fleet anyway. And if the colony had been attacked he could be traveling to his death anyway, because of those darned ships again. He thought of Jana and Theo; and wondered how they were coping back at Delta base.
Never had he missed them more than he did at this moment, however he was an E.D. F Naval officer, and he had a job to do, so with a supreme effort he pushed the thoughts to the back of his mind.
Chapter 5
And so it carried on for the next three days. Rumours about the fate of the Agemman colony, was it the Krenarans? Or was it the panicking population? Was there another cause? Or was the planet even there anymore? No one could tell for sure.
Later that evening Michael was relaxing in the Eagle bar again after his shift had ended. He was watching the viewer again, waiting for any news on the Krenaran activities.
Finally the news flashed up on the screen again, and in an instant the entire Eagle bar fell silent.
“Hello, I am Annika Raumov, this is the outer colony news, the top stories today. There is still no contact with the Agemman colony, there is also a huge refugee crisis at the Aurelias colony. We now go live to our correspondent at the Aurelias colony.”
“Thank you Annika.” The young correspondent replied. “I am here at Bravo Gamma base, a small training facility for the E.D. F troop division; within the past few hours the facility and the landing facilities on the planet below have been simply swamped by dozens of transports fleeing the disaster at the Agemman colony,” the correspondent took a short pause for breath.
“The Aurelias colony has granted landing privileges to some of the transports, however there are simply too many refugees for the colony to cope with; and emergency refugee centers are hastily being erected as we speak.”
The image on the screen changed to the small spherical orbital facility above the planet, the lights from its viewports twinkling in the darkness of space. In front of the facility were dozens of transports of various shapes and sizes, some were in a dilapidated state; decades old and only poorly maintained. Some were new; boasting the latest technology and looked ultra modern. However all were queued up past the facility awaiting landing privileges for the planet below.
The face of the reporter flashed up on the screen again. “Most of the refugees aboard these transports have been traveling without food or water for days. Many are showing the signs of starvation, while some of the elderly have already perished en-route.”
Suddenly there was turmoil amongst the queued up transports, the reporter was buffeted as troops sprinted through the corridor he was standing in, making the image shake. He quickly turned to someone off camera.
“Quick, get some footage of that; move!”
The camera quickly jerked around to see explosions and bright flashes of white and green light, thunderous explosions lit up the rear of the line of transports in bright plumes of flame.
The camera zoomed in to see a fleet of six ships of exactly the same configuration as the ones that attacked the Montfort, as well as a far larger vessel a similar size to the Ulysses and of the same colouring as the smaller attacking vessels.
The six smaller ships tore into the defenceless transports with sickening ease, as they darted through the line of vessels, tearing huge gouges into their hulls as they went. The larger vessel hung back and began disgorging waves of smaller vessels that looked like fighter craft.