Chapter 11: Ranger Baker Interlude

The music blasting from the speakers onto the flight deck of this small specialized space ship was called Country music and no one past the Sol system would know what it was, the man in the one person command center of the ship however grew up in Texas, long before the Galactic Ascent and he sang along, knowing every lyric by heart. He was a big man, with fists like five pound hams, a barrel chest and a weathered sun tan.

So long ago he had been a Texas Ranger and now over three thousand years later and a long distinguished career in the Space Marine Corps he was back at doing what he liked doing best, being a ranger and a frontier law man. He was an immortal, but not one of those picked by the guardian; he had become immortal even before the 200 where picked by an Alien that had appeared on the tribal lands of his Native American Grandfather.

So much had happened since then, but Peter Baker hadn’t changed much. He was still the same can do Texan he had been back then.

Now he was a Union Ranger. Technically a law enforcement agency for the frontier areas of the Union but it was so much more. He delivered mail, judged in local disputes, assisted in medical emergencies. He had helped to deliver quite a few babies and not all of them were human. He officiated in wedding ceremonies and did pretty much everything in between. Rangers belonged to the Bureau of Colony Affairs but had the full status of a Union Police Officer.

The Ranger Service was not for everyone and the training was very demanding. A Ranger on Frontier patrol duty was away for three month, usually alone, rarely in pairs.

He was not one of the famous immortals, hardly a handful of people even knew was older than even Richard Stahl but among the Rangers and especially among the settlers and colonists he was a legend.

Peter loved this job as he was mostly independent and could help.

Normally, his patrol range was the fringes of the Spinward Sector, but for the last year he was sent out here to the Fornax Cluster. Sixty five colonies about as far as can be from the rest of the Union territory.

When he set out for his patrol this morning he wanted to check on Cara’s Place, a desert planet with a colony of less than ten thousand, at first a peaceful, quite rustic colony with down to earth folks, but ever since they found vast deposits of Iridium there was constant squabbling among the settlers and now there was a murder, but Cara’s Place had to wait. He just received a call from Fornax Hub, that there was something strange going on at the Buonanno System, the space bus had reported that there were pirates or hostile aliens and now the space bus was overdue and did not respond to hails.

His ship was for the most part a standard Ranger patrol ship. Based on the Barracuda Destroyer hull, was fast, well armed and had excellent shields. Unlike the Navy version the Ranger barracudas did not have a Translocator cannon or Loki torpedoes. It had larger freight compartments filled with emergency supplies, medical equipment and two LEGO Nanite Factories. But his Rusty Betsy, as he called his ship had been modified by his friends and carried a few nasty surprises, as quite a few pirates and outlaws had found out. Still it would not be enough if there was some alien civilization invasion. He would have a look around, check on the bus and if there was more than he could handle, he would high tail and call in the cavalry. The problem was the closest full scale navy base was in the Small Magellan Cloud and it would take at least twenty days to get a Battle group here.

He dropped out of quasi space. His long range sensors had not shown anything out of the ordinary, but now that he was in the Buonanno System his sensors could pick up everything in detail and he immediately noticed the spread of metallic debris not far from Planet Annapurna. There was the distinct signature of an ISAH engine explosion. The remaining mass was consistent with the long range shuttle Terry Finlay piloted.

He stopped the music and put his Stetson straight on as he sat up and activated his shields. Something or someone had destroyed the Space Bus and he did not want to be the next victim of whoever was out there.

The only energy signature he could detect, was from the Zero Point Storage at Annapurna. He had more experience than most men alive and he was not afraid but he still wished Dark Cloud or Wulf would be with him in situations like this.

He hailed Annapurna and did get no answer even after the sixth try. His Computronic analyzed the power output at Annapurna port and verified that the equipment down there was working.

Of course there was cloaking technology and the possibility of something his sensor could not pick up was always there.

He could of course report the destruction of the space bus and call for back up, but if there were colonists down there in trouble any delay would reduce their chances. Then his sensors picked it up, it was well concealed and standard sensors would have never picked it up, but there was something down there on that surface, an energy signature and it was multi dimensional.

There was no putting it off, he had to land and check it out. So he called in made his report and did call for back up and then approached the planet and prepared to

--””--

End in Sight

In only fourteen days from now we would leave Camp Idyllic and what seemed impossible at first did happen, we got used to the long days, heavy work load, never ending study sessions and physical training.

Lt Waltham our Exobiology teacher ended his class and said: “You will get this weekend of for R and R. But I could use a group of volunteers to accompany me for a little expedition. No one seemed too enthusiastic and no one volunteered. He looked in Galmy’s direction.”Cadet I hoped you might be interested, it is a real scientific mission.”