Cowboys and Aliens Ch. 40

"That makes sense, we have a couple of Sentinels stationed near the rift don't we?"

"Yes, and they have both the old style singularity drivers and the new mass driver TRD's and both have lots of stored matter."

"OK I'm going to go up to my office so I can watch from the bridge of one of the Sentinels."

Mark then called Adam and informed him that there was activity near Rift 5 and to be on alert.

As they both got up and started walking back toward the palace, Annabelle asked, "Is it one of the Destructors? How many of those were left after Cantara?"

"I'm not sure if it's them or not yet. I'm going to go back to my office so I can do the virtual bridge thing from one of the Sentinels. I honestly can't remember how many remained after Cantara."

A few minutes later they were back in the palace and floating up to the residence.

Mark and Annabelle both went to his office and once they were both seated, she darkened the room and connected the virtual bridge.

Cricket showed them a before image of the nebula, where the gases were just barely moving and mixing. Whereas what they were looking at now was more like a storm inside the nebula with the gases moving much faster.

Mark said, "If the turbulence is an indicator of activity, we can use it as a bit of an early warning system."

Just then they began to see the edge of a ship begin to emerge from the nebula, it appeared round, but looked different from what the Destructor ships looked like, and not quite as big. This ship was only about 500 metres across and had a smooth exterior surface. It was also more metallic silver looking rather than the dull grey of the Destructors.

Once the ship was more than halfway out of the nebula, Mark asked Cricket to hail it.

Seconds later, Mark and Annabelle were looking at a small grey skinned man with an oblong shaped head, large black almond shaped eyes, no distinct nose although there were two small slits where a nose would be and then a small grey mouth. He looked like the traditional aliens you used to see in movies and even the flying saucer appeared similar to the sci-fi movies from the old black & white television days.

Mark didn't really know what to say to a potential new space civilization, so he just said, "Hello there, I am Mark Phoenix of the Atlantean Federation. You have entered a region of space under our protection, please state your name and reason for being here."

There seemed to be a bit of a delay before the being began to respond, but when he did, it was in a language that they didn't understand. The being then nodded to something or someone off-screen and then spoke again, "My apologies. I am Fleet Commander Ka'Ryll of the Norn, we are here by accident of following a planet destroying ship into the gas. Many thanks if you have already destroyed them."

"We have seen no other ships yet, you were the first ship to emerge from the nebula. How many ships were you chasing?"

"We were chasing two ships before they retreated into the gas, although we had inflicted heavy damage on one of them."

"So there's still two of them out there, we will be ready when they emerge, those are probably the two that got away on us at Cantara."

"You engaged them and two got away, how many were there before?"

"Nine!"

The Commander's eyes got even bigger, realizing his new acquaintance was packing much more firepower than they had. After collecting his thoughts he asked, "We followed them into the cloud, how would they not have come through first?"

"That type of nebula cloud has a rift inside it that transports you to another part of the galaxy. What we have found is that smaller ships tend to travel through the rifts faster than large ships, which is likely why you came out first."

Mark then had a thought occur to him that they may be lost, "Do you know where you are? Because I'm not sure how to explain to you where you are, but it's likely a long way from where you just were."

The Fleet Commander looked at someone off camera and then turned back to face Mark and Annabelle, "I have been informed that we have indeed travelled far from where we started, we have not been in this sector in a long time, but we do know where we are."

They continued to talk respectfully for half an hour or so, both being friendly to each other and no one showing any aggression toward the other. Commander Topos had arrived with the Poseidon, sans the Sentinel, and had joined the call, as had Ambassador Junga of the Norn.

Now that they weren't under constant threats and now that they had Sentinels around every planet and rift and even some just out in the empty space between planets, they were always close at hand, so the Battlestars had stopped docking with them and were back to being individual ships.

Seeing the black Battlestar, the Ambassador asked, "You have a Mazjik ship! We have not seen those in many lifetimes. Do you know how to contact the Mazjik? We would very much like to speak with them."

Knowing they were familiar with the Mazjik, Mark stated, "No, they helped us establish our civilization as their legacy, but they've long since passed away. We recently learned of the Norn from the Rifters."

It wasn't much of a smile, but his mouth did appear to be smiling. "Ah yes, the Rifters, they told us of these rifts a long time ago, they were looking for a planet to settle on, but were being chased by the ships we were just following. How are they doing?"

Mark laughed, "They are doing well, we took care of their Destructor problem and they have since settled on one of our planets."

"That is good, they were a nice people. Most life created by the Mazjik are nice people."

Suddenly they could see the turbulence in the cloud pick up as all four ships backed away from the nebula, all suspecting the enemy was coming through.

Sure enough a couple of minutes later they saw the leading edge of the Destructor ship begin to emerge from the nebula.

For Commander Topos benefit, Mark asked the Fleet Commander, "You said there was two ships remaining?"

"Yes"

"Let the ship completely emerge from the nebula, I want to try out our new weapon against them."

"This is your space, we will stay back to watch, do not hesitate to ask for assistance should you need it."

"Thank you for the offer, we should be OK though, we have faced them a couple of times now."

Commander Topos and the Fleet Commander moved their ships further away and behind one of the Sentinels.

Once the Destructor had fully emerged from the Nebula, both Sentinels fired one of the new mass drivers at the ship, both aiming for the central area where the weapon was, one shot hitting the top of the craft and the other hitting the underbelly where the weapon was.

Both missiles hit precisely where they had been aimed and the immediate destruction caused by the hyper accelerated mass driver showed that the projectiles had penetrated deep into the ship.

Within about a minute of those impacts the ship disintegrated into nothingness.

Commander Topos and his crew cheered, "Successful test of the new weapon, my King!"

The Fleet Commander also smiled, "A very effective weapon indeed. Much safer than an exploding ship."

"Yes, we learned that lesson the hard way during our last encounter, we lost three ships and severely damaged a fourth."

"Our condolences for your lost ship mates."

Mark hadn't forgotten about the loss of Captain Kirby, but the mention of it brought up some suppressed feelings, "Thank you, we lost some good people that day!"

We can take care of the next ship when it comes through. Fleet Commander, I invite you to follow Commander Topos back to Earth, where we can sit down in person and discuss things.

The Fleet Commander was shocked, "You're not here? I thought you were on one of the ships, since you communicated as soon as we exited the gas."

"The two ships that were waiting are Sentinels, they are autonomous ships that patrol the area around the rift. I'm actually sitting in my office on Earth in a simulated bridge from one of the Sentinels."

"How ingenious! You are doing the Mazjik proud. We shall see you soon on your planet."