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Future Sanctuary By Goliath Wildcat

Chapter 1: Fireball

From the depths of interstellar space a massive craft of alien manufacture streaks towards a small crowded system of eleven planets and multiple asteroid belts. The dinged and ancient hull still bears the words Maiden's Voyage in English a short distance from the blunt and scarred prow. There is an intense release of light and energy as the old ship's engines shut down and she starts to orbit in for a rough landing on the blue and green ball of the only habitable planet in the system.

The Maiden's Voyage's massive bulk shudders as the hull bites into the thin upper atmosphere. The young woman at the helm screams out with frustration as lights on her console flash red in alarm, "Captain! We can't correct our angle, the maneuvering thrust clusters just malfunctioned, drastically."

She taps her fingers quickly over another section of her control board and grimaces as she curses softly, "And the anti-grav system is failing to respond." The red headed helms-woman slams her fists into her nearly useless controls, "We're dead stick, sir. No response from anything but the main drives and that will only speed us up at this angle."

She turns her chair to face the older man strapped into the command chair behind her, her face a mask of distress while he shows no sign of his inner fear as he taps a few buttons on the arm of his chair, "All hands, this is the Captain, we're going in hot." He pauses to suppress the fear in his voice as his eyes lock on those of the red haired woman in front of him, "Prepare for crash landing."

His calm words fill the ship's corridors and cabins as colonists struggle to strap themselves and dependants into crash couches, while crewmen struggle to keep the ancient systems alive and keep the ancient ship from burning up in its fiery reentry.

Finally breaking eye contact with his helm-woman he breaths a soft sigh to release tension and closes his green eyes, "Ms. Fairchile, I think it's time to fall back on the old school techniques, deploy the airbrakes and see if you can at least get us slowed down to a manageable speed before we hit the rather unforgiving ground."

She turns back to her console, her worry changing to determination, and flipping up a cover grabs a handle on the floor next to her console, with a grunt and a slow and steady pull she drags it backwards towards her. With each centimeter of the lever massive hydraulic rams drive large meter thick panels inch-by-inch out of the craft's sides to bite into the rushing air.

"Airbrakes deploying, sir!" she shouts over the loud roaring transmitted through the thick hull as the atmosphere grows thicker.

From the station to her left the dark skinned science officer reports with a calm and detached voice, "Sir, I have detected air traffic in the atmosphere. There appears to be sentient life forms down there."

He raises his gaze to lock on the Captain's, "I told you that there appeared to be man-made craft in the asteroid belts as we streaked past." Returning his gaze to his console his hands flash over the pressure pads with calm routine, "Time to impact is now twenty minutes, the brakes are slowing us. Odds of surviving impact is twenty-five percent and climbing."

The captain grunts, "Please don't give us the odds Science, we already know we're at slim and nill and slim is thinking of leaving town."

He takes another calming breath and nods to the forward screens showing the closing planet, "Let's hope anyone in our path can get out of the way, this fat old lady isn't going to be able to dodge. What's the atmosphere doing?"

The science officer taps a few more spots on his console and nods as he reads off the statistics, "Air is growing thicker, estimate is that sea level pressure would be about twenty-five percent higher than Earth normal. Gravity is about ten percent higher than Earth normal. Air mix is tolerable by our standards, slightly different balance of elements in the air, but breathable."

Thumps and groans of stressed metal echo through the hull as Susie Fairchile slams her board again in frustration and reports through gritted teeth, "Sir, the thicker atmosphere is ripping off some of the airbrakes, but they are slowing us."

Her hands flash over the controls too fast to follow with the eye, "I'm going to try to flip the ship with the airbrakes we've got left so we can try to use the main engines to slow our decent. The airbrakes aren't going to be enough on their own without the anti-grav system to assist them."

"Make it so," the Captain orders, a hint of hope appearing on his face as he tries to look relaxed in his command chair.

A loud explosion echoes through the hull and the Captain spins his chair to look over at his engineering officer, a shot of adrenaline speeding his heart as a section of the schematic on his right hand monitor turns red, "Damage report?!"

The eighteen year old freckle faced kid in the engineer's seat wipes sweat from his forehead as he replies with a shaky voice, "Sir, we just lost pressure to sector thirteen. Seems the reactor in that sector suffered a breach and vented into the ship before blowing out the relief panels. Inner bulkheads are holding."

He reads more on his secondary screen and winces before he turns towards his commander, grief and pain cracking his voice, "Sir, the science labs are gone and half the crew there is reported as lost, including the entire senior staff. Reports indicate that crawler is a total write off, we've lost her."

The Captain slams his own fist on the arm of his chair, letting the fear and frustration finally boil free of him, "Damnit Ms. Fairchild, get us down safely before we lose anyone else."

***

Talri looks up to see the large fireball streaking across the sky. The nearly seven feet tall felinoid stands in her open front ceremonial robes of blood red with their tracings of silver and a skin tight black under suit trimmed in the blood red of her robes. Her solid cobalt blue pelt and long silver hair glistens in the bright light of their sun as a tentacle extends from her left shoulder blade to scratch an itch behind her left pointy ear without uncrossing her arms from her impressive chest.

She opens her mouth in surprise, pointed fangs glinting in the sun, and blinks as something seems to flare out of the object's side with a blue brilliance that dims the sun and whispers in awe, "Spirits above..." the tufted tip of her long and sensual tail flicking in uncontrolled apprehension behind her.

Closing her mouth she composes herself for a moment before she speaks with a neutral tone. "Do we know where it will impact?" she asks quietly of the advisors arranged behind the tall female Rathac noble, each bedecked in the robes of their office. The lone exception, another tall female wearing gleaming metal plate armor with an elaborate sword across her back.

One of the shorter males bows his head, his long silver hair sweeping across the blue and white stripped fur on his face, "We have High Mother. It will impact in the uninhabited wilds between our kingdom and the Republic of Dilar. But..." he trails off nervously.

She sighs in frustration at the timid male's hesitation and without looking back asks, "But what my youngest son? There is no need to fear telling me what is only suspected as well as what you know for sure."

The felinoid male bows again, "It does not appear to be a natural object, it is slowing and our Black Skyships reported it came from out of the system at extreme speed, slowing significantly with a bright flash before it entered the atmosphere." He coughs lightly, "The other observers believe it is a piloted craft of an unknown origin, obviously damaged and out of control. We cannot speculate on if they will be hostile or friendly." He pauses a moment before adding, "Nor if anyone will survive the arrival. Our ships plunging at such a speed would be destroyed long before reaching the surface of Tierrar."

She blinks a few times and watches as the object seems to tumble end over end for a moment before a larger blue-white flame burns from the end pointed at the ground and it visibly slows on the tongue of glaring brilliance. "Send the Denguard to investigate," she orders without raising her voice. "Daughter Yamoti, see to it."

The blue furred female in armor behind her snaps to attention, her armor clinking quietly. She salutes with the end of a cobalt blue furred tentacle that extrudes from her right shoulder blade and loops over her armored shoulder to touch her brow over her right eye before retracting it with crisp military efficiency, "Yes High Mother, I will lead the Burning Wind myself, for the glory of the Kingdom and our clan."

The older female casually looks back to cast a loving gaze at the tall warrior, "May the Spirits of the winds guide and favor you my daughter. If anything survives, don't fire unless in self defense."

She looks back towards the falling object, different emotions struggling inside her heart for control, "I am curious about such a race that could cross the void between systems, and they may have far more powerful weapons than our alcami can dream of. Peaceful relations are probably for the best."

With a quick nod of her silver haired head the warrior slips a helmet on and dashes for the ramp down, her long and sensual tail flicking in her excitement at possible action, the silver brush at the tip glistening in the clear sunlight.

Talri chuckles to herself, her shoulders lifting and falling a little in response, "Such an eager young warrior."

The tallest male, still over a foot shorter than the blue furred female, steps forward a half step and coughs politely for her attention, "Yes Tirgale?" asks Talri softly without turning to look at him.

The white coated male with black stripes and glossy black hair bows his head slightly, "High Mother, are you sure only one fleet will be enough. If they have such technology to travel the voids they could be a great threat indeed. And I'm sure the Republic will send its own fleet to investigate such a find as an alien craft."

She waves a furred tentacle that extrudes from her right shoulder in a combined dismissive and calming way. "If the Denguard's fleet can't handle it, I will want the others ready to react."

She closes her eyes and shakes her head as she sighs in regret, "But really, if the aliens are hostile, will we stand much of a chance anyway?"

Raising her eyes once more to the fireball arcing across the sky she continues in a calm voice, "As for the Republic, they are timid and their little lodeships are no match for ours. One of our Kira class lodeships could take on a fleet of their heaviest, and the Denguard have three Kiras."

Tirgale bows his head again as he steps back into his place among the advisors, "Of course, I'm sorry for questioning you."

Her tentacle waves with the combined dismissive calming gesture again before retracting into her shoulder. "Think nothing of it first mate of my heart, I understand your nervousness for our daughter, and I admit I share a small amount of it myself. But if I truly thought there was a great threat, I would not have hesitated to order it destroyed soon as it landed."

She smiles, keeping her fangs concealed by her lips, "I hope we can learn much from such a race."

An old male, his muzzle white with age rather than the gray of his pelt chuffs with a quiet voice before he speaks with great reverence, "High Mother, I'm sure you have thought of the religious implications. While aliens are not unbelievable in our teachings, will they accept our beliefs? What if their beliefs are that we should all submit to them? Can we truly hope for peaceful relations with such an unknown entity?" He taps his walking stick in emphasis, "I think a show of force is good, it will show them that they are not dealing with savages who are unable to defend themselves."

She closes her eyes as there is another blue flash from the falling object and responds with a polite tone, "As your teachings have instructed me for most of my life Kirant, the Spirits will watch over and guide us through this ordeal."

Raising a thin and aged hand he adds, "The Spirits help those who help themselves and prepare High Mother."

"What do you recommend?" she asks without looking back at the old male.

"Prepare the Capital's reserves High Mother, we will show their ambassador that we are not weak cubs pushed easily aside. It will also reassure the common folk that you have their best interests in mind."

She flicks a tentacle towards her first mate, "See to it Tirgale, have the reserves armed and ready near the port when the Denguard return with news."

***

The Captain watches, his face once more calm, as Susie uses the airbrakes to turn the massive craft over and slams her fist onto the main engine fire controls as a rumbling roar courses through the deteriorating hull around them. "Sir, we lost more of the airbrakes but I got us turned and am firing the main engines to slow us."

Her hands dance over her controls and her face is a mask of mixed worry and concentration. "I don't know if I can get us down in one piece though. The engines are not responding correctly since we lost section thirteen. It's going to be a rough landing no matter what I do, sir."

The captain closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose for a moment before he looks at her and growls out, "Do what you can Ms. Fairchile, this has been too long a voyage for us all to die in a smoking crater on an alien planet."

The helm-woman doesn't respond as she focuses on her controls and readouts. She bites her lip as the readouts fail to reassure her.

The science officer scowls and taps his controls, "Sir, we've lost most of the sensors but I've got enough readings to show some sort of craft seem to be leaving a large structure and heading for our projected landing zone. Looks like we might be getting a welcoming committee a few hours after touchdown. I can't be more precise than that. The scans are too nebulous to get a good reading on their speed."

The Captain sighs and shakes his head as a soft chuckle escapes his lips, "Just what we need, let's hope they're willing to help strangers from another planet and not just kill us on first sight for this wreck of a ship we're about to land."

He broods quietly for a moment before nodding his head in decision, "Inform Chief Ward that it looks like we'll have a welcoming party. I want pulse rifles set to non-lethal, but have full charge lethal-packs ready if needed."

He looks over at his engineering officer and scowls with worry, "How are the living quarter decks holding up?"

The kid sitting at the engineering station runs his hand though his close-cropped brown hair and nods in reassurance, his voice steadying at some good news to report. "Those are the most heavily armored against rough entries, no reports of damage and only a few injuries from people who didn't strap in fast enough. Except for the labs and that section of engineering we lost when we left Chenkane drive, we're in fairly good shape, sir."

The science officer mumbles quietly and the Captain looks over at him with a scowl, "What was that Mr. Guena?"

He shakes his head in dismissal, "Nothing, sir."

"Captain!" shouts the helm-woman as she grips the sides of her console, "Landing in sixty seconds. I've slowed us as much as I can but there's little more I can do. The main engines are redlining as it is and the fusion reactors are threatening to vent their plasma to prevent failure of the magnetic bottles."

Knowing the danger of losing the engines in these last few minutes he turns to the kid and shouts, "Engineering, don't let those reactors vent, if they go cold we'll lose the engines before we land and we won't be able to get them back up again in time!"

Taking a deep calming breath the Captain taps the intercom key on the arm of his command chair and orders in a clear and clam voice, "All hands, impact in fifty seconds. Brace for impact! Say again, brace for impact!"

All over the Maiden's Voyage crew and colonists tighten their restraints and pray for salvation as the end of their one-hundred-and-forty year voyage is finally in sight. On the bridge, the command crew closes their eyes and a scream is torn from Susie's throat at the ship impacts.

***

The fleet of loadships flies through the dense atmosphere and out of Capital, their armored bulks held aloft by the large and ornately carved pieces of glowing loadstone held in the lifting cradles strategically placed around the craft to allow for stability. Pods near the rear spin like propellers and provide locomotion that drives the vessels through the air. Slanted masts spear the sky and support booms with sails lashed tightly to them.

Smaller craft dart around the fleet relaying messengers and patrolling for any small threats trying to sneak through the screen of massive lodeships. Crowds on the streets below stop to watch in awe as the entire Denguard fleet is mobilized in mass formation.

The ram-like prow of the lead warship cuts through the air as the green furred Captain and everyone else on the bridge come to attention as the blue furred female warrior steps into the room to a growled order of, "Attention!" from the guard outside the door.

She flicks a tentacle dismissively and everyone resumes their duties as she turns to look out the forward windows with a neutral expression. "The alien craft will crash soon. How long will it be till we reach the location of impact?"

The Captain snaps a quick salute with his right tentacle and responds to the much taller female in crisp military fashion, "We should be at the scene of the crash three segments after its impact Commander Yamoti."

She nods her helmeted head and pulls out a pair of finely crafted bi-viewers from a small pouch on her belt. Looking through them at the flaming ball of wreckage heading for the surface at frightening speed she orders, "Tell your crew to brace Alpha Captain Yaran, when that crashes there will be an immense shockwave this high up, even this far away."

She lowers her bi-viewers and quietly mumbles, "At least the settlements will be protected by the intervening lands. Thank the spirits for small miracles."

His tentacle snaps another salute as he turns to a tube next to his chair and shouts into it with authority, "Attention all crew, prepare for shockwave! All crew, secure the ship for shockwave!"

His words are repeated throughout the massive Kira class lodeship by junior officers at the relay stations and he nods in satisfaction before turning to the youngest male on the bridge and snapping, "Flagmast, signal to the other ships, prepare for shockwave."

Digging frantically though a small trunk of flags the young brown furred male finds the flags he's looking for and attaches them deftly to the rope hanging next to his station with both nimble hands and deft tentacles. Pulling on another rope the flags are lifted out of the bridge to flutter on the signal mast overhead in clear view of the other ships in the fleet.

Commander Yamoti gives no outward sign, but she is pleased by the quick and efficient operation of her command ship. "Very well Alpha Captain, soon as the shockwave has passed I want the main weapons prepared, but don't load them yet. Last thing we need is an interstellar incident caused by a nervous crewmember with an itchy trigger."

He nods respectfully, "I gave orders to that effect just before you came to the bridge Commander."

She gives him a closed lip smile and nods, "Very efficient Alpha Captain. You are an asset to your clan."

Looking back out of the windows she sees the alien craft disappear behind a row of hills and both her shoulder tentacles snake out from her back to brace herself on handholds as she sees the darkness of dirt flying into the sky signaling the craft's crashing. She slowly counts the sub-segments in her head till the shockwave finally strikes the fleet and the ships rock and shudder in the violent winds and dirt kicked up by the crash.

The Captain holds onto the arms of his command chair and smiles in pleasure at seeing the strong black furred female at the helm holding tight to the wheel with her hands as her shoulder tentacles and wide braced legs hold her at her station. The dense muscles of her arms straining to keep the ship on a straight course as the winds buffet the flying lodeship and threaten to drive the Burning Wind into the ground.

The young signal officer cries out in panic as he is thrown roughly against the outer hull of the bridge when one of his tentacles comes loose from its grip. Only a quick hand from the heavily built second-in-command prevents the young male from falling hard into the trunk where the signal flags are kept.

She sets him easily back on his feet and pats his shoulder in reassurance before turning back to watch the rest of the crew on the bridge. A few of the other crew are shaken but no one is injured as the shockwave passes and everyone straightens their stations.

As the captain reaches for the speaking tube a deep voice comes before he can say anything, "Bridge, this is Alcami Yakin, the Burning Wind has weathered the storm and passed through intact. Lodestones are still fully functional and I can report no skeletal or hide damage. Praise be to the Spirits of the Winds who watch over us."

The Captain nods and grins in approval of the reports. Standing, he bows to the Commander with stiff formality, "Since we have some time yet, would the Commander honor me with her company at a meal?"

She raises an eyebrow in surprise and gives a slight nod in response, favoring him with a tight closed lip smile.

He turns to his second-in-command, a large blond furred female standing next to the young signal officer, "Gati, feed the crew, I want them well fed before we reach the crash in case we need to chase off some Republic scavengers. If the aliens are peaceful we should be sure they are not inconvenienced by such rabble."

The blond furred female, her blond hair trimmed short as her fur, snaps him a salute with her right tentacle and takes his chair as he motions for the Commander to precede him from the bridge.

***

The immense bulk of the Maiden's Voyage slams into the ground with less force then she would have had not the main engines been firing all the way till impact. Everywhere in the vessel people are thrown around as the inertial dampers fail suddenly and secondary explosions rip through engineering, killing dozens of brave men and women at their posts.

The main engines fail as their nozzles crumple into the ground and the backwash of supercharged plasma creates a feedback in the main reactors. As the safety overrides are tripped the reactors blows their relief valves and vent their superheated plasma through blast ports in the hull, creating a flare of white light around the wreckage of a spaceship and turning the air outside into a blast furnace for a brief moment with the explosion of energy.

On the bridge an overload courses through the control panels and sparks fly from exploding circuits as the room goes dark for a moment before the red emergency lights come back on. The Captain barely holds onto consciousness and stabs at his intercom soon as the worst of the impact passes to cry out, "All hands, abandon ship. Deploy the colony crawlers! Crawler crews get away from the ship and take up defensive circle. All hands, abandon ship!"

Seventeen massive sections of the immense hull drop to the ground with resounding crashes that shake the earth. Tractor treads deploy to slowly churn up the hard ground under them as they drive a short distance from the smoking and burning shell that has sheltered them through the long voyage in the emptiness of space.

The crawlers circle around the three mile long mother-ship like a bunch of covered wagons circling for protection in the pioneer days of old Earth. Defensive weapons pointing outward to cover every point of the compass.

The Captain nods in reassurance as he hears the release of the crawlers. Looking around his bridge crew his face droops in intense remorse.

The helm-woman, Susie Fairchile, is leaning over her controls, from the angle of her neck she died bringing them in as safe as she could. The failure of the inertial dampers must have caught her at the wrong time and snapped her neck.

The young kid at the engineering console groans and looks around in confusion as he comes back to consciousness. His face is covered in soot from the exploding panels and a trickle of blood oozes from where he bit his lip.

But the science officer's chair broke loose in the crash and flew backwards into the bulkhead, the splash of red, gray, and white chunks indicate that there is nothing to save there either. Another brave soul lost in the crash.

"Kid, let's get out of here," the Captain chokes out as smoke filters in through rents in the hull and pours from several panels. It surrounds them in a choking cloud and control panels continue to spark and catch fire in the red lights of the bridge.

With trembling hands the young engineer releases his harness as the Captain pulls open a small red and white stripped compartment marked emergency. Taking two harnesses he pulls the large red handle inside and with a series of loud thuds a small emergency exit tunnel opens to the outside allowing a breath of fresher air. He hands the Engineering Officer one of the harnesses and slaps his back, "Come on Simon, let's find out where we are going to call home."

The kid takes the harness and belts it on. With short slides down the tunnel they leap out of the emergency hatch and fall the three-hundred yards to the ground, the anti-grav harnesses slowing their decent to a comfortable and easy landing.

They look around the blasted crash site for a second or two before they run for the largest crawler where a heavy ramp is slowly lowering from the rear. A double column of security officers come out at the run with their weapons at the ready and grim features visible below their visors. Six of the small dune-buggy like vehicles follow them out and skid to a half, their hydrogen powered engines idling quietly.

The Chief of Security comes to a stop and snaps a salute and reports with a brisk tone, "All but three of the crawlers deployed. Those in the two jammed crawlers are being evacuated to others while engineers try to free those crawlers."

The Captain looks towards his former command, "The science and laboratory crawler?"

The Chief shakes his head with regret, "It's a total write off, sir. The few found alive are being treated in the medical crawler now. I estimate only two or three hundred of the scientists survived, and most of them are junior lab techs. We haven't found any of the senior staff yet."

The Captain suppresses his regret at the loss of so many men and women under his command. Taking a deep breath he nods to the young engineering officer, "Go see if you can give them a hand freeing those last two crawlers lad, we're going to need them operational, especially the engineering crawler."

The young man nods and hurries off with a determined look while he pulls off the anti-grav harness.

The Captain turns back to Chief Ward, the sadness he feels at the loss of some many men and women clear in his voice. "How many did we lose in the crash?"

The armored man shakes his head, "They're still being counted, sir."

The Captain starts to unfasten his harness and sighs, "Give me your rough guesses then."

Chief Ward shrugs his wide shoulders before continuing with reluctance, "Most of the eggheads seem to have bought it when the labs went during reentry. I'd say we're at about half the engineering staff, maybe a bit more but that is the most damaged of the crawlers they're trying to salvage, and of those who are still alive, a good third of them are injured. The civvies lost the least, only a few who weren't strapped in properly when we hit were injured, no one killed by some miracle. Security is at about ninety-percent. Most of those lost were in engineering and the labs."

He looks over at the still smoking and mangled wreckage and winces, "Considering she was falling apart after a voyage of more than a century, I'd say we're lucky to have survived." He looks back to the Captain and asks a single word, "Susie?"

The Captain closes his eyes and shakes his weary head, "She did all she could to bring us down safe, but she died in the crash. We lost Tom Guena too, his seat tore free and smashed him into a bulkhead."

Chief Ward nods, his visor hiding the tears in his eyes, and turns to look back to his men and barks orders in a parade-ground voice, "I want perimeter security now. One mile out from the crawlers, foxholes to be dug and weapons readied, and keep your eyes open. Sensors showed signs of sentient life forms and unknown power sources. I want warning before anything can get close to the crawlers and the civilians."

He points to a group of specialists, "Get the portable turrets out and run a check on the crawlers' defenses, we don't know what we'll be facing here."

Looking back at all his men he snaps, "I want it done now people!"

The men and women brake into well drilled teams and head out at a run to watch for visitors while the nearly silent buggies tear up the turf, speeding to do random sweeps around the crash site. On top of the command crawler a large bay door slides open to reveal one of the small scout hoppers as its engines whine to life before it lifts into the smoke and dust filled sky.

"They're good men, they know what to do Chief," says the Captain in reassurance with a grip on his shoulder.

"I know, sir. It's what the locals will do that makes me nervous."

All characters unless otherwise stated are the intellectual property of Chris Gilman [aka. Goliath Wildcat] Story © Copyright Christopher Gilman 2009 all rights reserved tell me what you think