Chapter 9

The two Woden ships that had previously crossed WS Reaper's breadtrail were still relatively close (in galaxy terms anyway) to planet P73197. One was a scout ship appropriately enough named WS Scout and the other a seeding ship named WS Clarion.

WS Scout had been doing exactly what its name suggested — scouting far flung galaxies looking for valuable minerals — when Captain Marlon had received an order to return to Woden due to the Zytol attack.

Marlon had barely given the order to set a course for Woden when the distress call from the WS Reaper was received.

"Emergency mayday received. I repeat, emergency mayday message received," announced the ship's communications officer.

Marlon lifted his head and looked at the communications screen. Since finding out that his planet was at war, any message that came with the adjective 'emergency' tended to make him feel very nervous indeed.

"Play the message please Hansa," the Captain ordered.

"Aye, Sir."

The 'voice' of WS Reaper's artificial intelligence played over the bridge.

"Mayday, mayday. This is the WS Reaper orbiting planet P73197. We have three enemy missiles heading directly for the ship and no way of defending ourselves.

"We request immediate assistance from any Woden ships in this or nearby galaxies.

"Mayday, mayday. This is the WS Reaper I repeat our ship is under attack and we request immediate assistance."

"Play it again Hansa please," ordered Marlon.

The short message played again and Marlon frowned. He was still thousands of light-years away from Woden, what could be attacking this ship in such a remote part of space?

"Hansa, try to make contact with the ship right now. Lieutenant Beegs, put up the classification of WS Reaper and search for any known information on planet P73197," he ordered his second in command next.

"Aye, Captain. Hailing ship already," replied the comms officer, Hansa.

"Information on WS Reaper on screen now. Searching for data on planet P73197, sir, replied Beegs."

Marlon looked at the screen again to see the details of the ship that was under attack.

WS Reaper
Class 3 Harvest ship
Capacity: 3.5 million tonnes
Crew: Pilot
Engines: 2xZardium LAT drives
Range: unlimited
Armament: None

"Shit, he's bloody defenceless," cursed Marlon.

"Data available on planet P73197, Captain," announced Beegs.

"Display please Lieutenant," asked Marlon.

Planet P73197
Seeded by: WS Clarion 43 years ago
Due for harvest: immediate
Subject of a clarification request from Woden fleet by WS Reaper

"Is there any information on what the clarification request was about?" the Captain asked.

"Aye, Sir," replied Beegs. "This looks like a strange one. Apparently WS Reaper arrived at the planet to undertake a routine harvest. Scans identified life forms on the planet and analysis indicated that there must have been an accident during the seeding. It looks like the pilot of the seeding ship cut himself and the resulting DNA was captured by a seeding pod.

"It would appear that the propagation units did their job and planet p73197 now has over five hundred descendents of the pilot alive and well.

"WS Reaper's clarification request asked what he should do about the harvest."

"Has Fleet responded yet?" asked the Captain.

"Eh, yes Sir."

The Captain was alert to the hesitation in the Lieutenant's response and he focused on the man.

"Well?" he asked.

"Ahem, Fleet's reply told pilot Kadesh to remove the life forms and carry on with the harvest. Apparently the war effort has led to a dire need for resources and Fleet indicated that WS Reaper was to harvest and get back to Woden as quickly as possible," advised the Lieutenant.

"WHAT? He was ordered to 'remove' them? Out here that can only mean 'kill' them. Are things that bad on Woden that we've stooped to this? Wodenites don't go around slaughtering innocent people, surely not!" exclaimed Marlon.

The remainder of the crew on the bridge were also looking shocked at what the pilot of the harvest ship had been ordered to do.

Captain Marlon's shoulders slumped and he let out a sigh. Ever since he had received the message telling him Woden was at war he had had a sinking feeling. Woden was as far from a warlike civilisation as it was possible to get — even the word 'war' was somehow terrifying.

If this message was anything to go by, the outbreak of war was already wreaking havoc with the society he knew and loved. The order from Fleet was nothing short of barbaric. How bad must the need for resources be for that order to have been issued?

"Any luck contacting him?" he asked at last.

"Nothing yet Captain," replied the communications officer.

Marlon considered his options. He was already rushing to try to get back to Woden to play his part in fighting off the Zytol, but a mayday from an unarmed ship couldn't be ignored. His sense of honour wouldn't allow him to ignore the call for help.

"Navigator, set a course for planet P73197. Let's go see if we can help the poor bastard."

The crew breathed a collective sigh of relief. It was the worst nightmare for any member of a space ship's crew — to be alone and in trouble in deep space. The fact that their Captain was answering the distress call was re-assuring. If it ever happened to them they had hope that other Captains would make the same decision.

Seven hundred light years closer to planet P73197, another ship had already received the distress call and the pilot had accessed all of the information that Captain Marlon now had.

The reaction on this second ship to the orders from Fleet was if anything even stronger than they had been on WS Scout. Sitting in the pilot's chair of the WS Clarion, Simeone had just learned that he had inadvertently started life on a new planet. Somewhere out there five hundred souls existed because of him. They were flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood.

No sooner had he been hit with this startling revelation than he learned that Fleet had ordered some hick harvester pilot to kill his descendents without a care.

Simeone's emotions were in absolute turmoil. No doubt he would be in trouble for the careless accident that caused the people to exist in the first place, but to find out that he had five hundred offspring was an incredible thing.

The order to kill them all was so outrageous that he checked the authenticity of the message. No one on Woden could have issued such an order, it was inconceivable. Yet the evidence that someone had done just that was impossible to ignore.

He got up and began pacing around the bridge as he tried to think straight.

"AI, any luck in contacting the WS Reaper?" he asked.

"I'm not getting any response sir, but those old ships don't have very good communications systems. It has taken a week for the distress call to reach us," the AI replied.

"Keep trying."

Simeone continued to pace up and down for a few minutes and then stopped. He had come to a decision.

"AI, set a course for planet P73197. We have a duty to answer the mayday and try to lend assistance," he ordered.

"Confirmed sir," the AI replied.

"If the people on the planet — my descendents! — found out that the harvest ship planned to kill them, it's no wonder they launched missiles at it. I still can't believe that Fleet would order them killed. I guess I've got some thinking to do. Woden is at war — shit even saying that gives me the creeps. I've got to decide where my loyalties lie. Do I follow orders or try to help the people I've given life to to survive?"

"How have these people survived? How have they managed to produce missiles? If it all started only forty-three years ago, how have they managed to progress so fast without any technology? There has to be an incredible story here. Shit, I'm a father. I'm not only a father, I'm a grandfather, a great grandfather, probably even a great great grandfather! Wowser, how completely bizarre is that?

Simeone sat back in the pilot's chair and continued to think about what could have happened on planet P73197 since the day he launched the seeding pods.

Thomas was as happy as a pig in muck. He was taking his time with the design stage for his first space craft and so far no actual construction had started.

His lab was littered with technical drawings as he considered every little detail and tried to visualise how the different ideas he had could be brought together.

His first task had been to think about how the ship would be powered. Woden ships generally used pure Zardium in a LAT drive and he wasn't even sure that this planet had any sources of Zardium. There were also issues about handling the raw ore as it was highly radioactive.

"Let's assume I'll be able to get Zardium, how could I make this ship better than anything else that Woden has built so far?" he asked himself.

His pen began to fly as ideas occurred to him. The normal set up was to have the Zardium drives set up in parallel. Engineering principles suggested that made for greater stability. Thomas was thinking about doing something similar to what he had done when he had set up the power for the caves — he intended to have four drives for his ship and set them up in a series. If he managed things right, he thought he could achieve a multiplier effect that would boost the power output beyond what four engines could ever achieve working in isolation.

To accommodate that, the design of the hull of the ship would have to be completely different to any of the ships that Woden had built. His ship would be shaped more like a bullet than the rounded craft that Woden seemed to favour. Fins would need to be added to address the stability issues and Thomas drew those in.

Having watched the recording of the missiles hitting the ship that was above the planet, Thomas also considered how he could stop the same thing from happening to his craft. The little force-field from the pod gave him some inspiration and that started him trying to design a much larger force-field, one that would cover his entire ship.

His first design was based on a series of relays positioned around the hull. A powerful computer was going to be needed to control the field, but he was banking on the younger members of the tribe to be able to come up with what was required there.

"Wait a minute! Why design a single shield? If it gets weakened at any given point, the entire thing might fail. What I need to do is design lots of mini-fields, all of them overlapping. That way if one gets taken down, there will always be others that can compensate. A series of a hundred overlapping shields, that's what I need!"

Adam was a frequent visitor, anxious to see what progress Thomas was making. He was frustrated that no construction was yet underway, but Thomas refused to be hurried.