Chapter 33
The ship on the screen looked unlike any that she had ever seen. Shaped roughly like a flattened cigar with a taper that came to a blunt point at one end and several elongated protrusions on the other, it hung, suspended and motionless just a hundred meters from the Roci. What looked like a long wing stretched from end to end at its midline. A blue glow emanating from within lit the entire outer hull, punctuated with bright flashes of blue-white lights that traveled in parallel lines from the pointed end to the start of the protrusions. It looked more organic than constructed, which was crazy, but so were the ring gates and the slow zone, so who was to say what was possible, Nik thought to herself.
"It looks…," Alex started.
"Alive," Naomi finished.
"That's not possible," Holden stated.
"Um, Boss, there's more closing in," Alex's voice was higher than normal, his accent flat. "What do you want me to do?"
"Whoever, whatever, they are, they're not threatening us. Just stay put and watch for now," Holden told him.
Nik flinched as a high-pitched whine echoed through the ship and an eerie feeling made her skin prickle as every hair stood straight up.
"What the hell is that?" Amos asked.
"They're scanning us," Holden answered. "I think."
"Should I scan them back?" Naomi asked.
"No, let's not do anything provocative."
The whine and feeling only lasted a few seconds before it passed. Then a long, tense moment stretched out as they waited for something to happen.
"The Cydonia is hailing them," Naomi said into the strained silence that followed.
"Any answer?"
"None."
"I don't like this," Alex's voice was back to its normal tone and drawl.
"Just stay calm," Holden directed at all of them.
"They're all around us," Naomi said.
Nik split her screen and pulled the LADAR back up. All around the Roci were red dots with no designations. They were surrounded. So were the MCRN ships that had pursued them into the asteroid belt.
"The Koto is firing on one!" Naomi's voice was strained in her ear.
On the screen one of the red dots moved in close to the Koto, coming within meters of the Cruiser, then moved past it to rejoin the ranks of its fleet. The Koto's dot turned purple.
"The Koto's reactor is down," Naomi continued her commentary on the actions going on around them.
"What did that ship fire?" Holden asked.
"Nothing that I could detect," she answered.
"Another MCRN ship is firing," Alex said. "I'm getting us out of here while they're distracted."
"No," Holden ordered. "Don't do anything. We don't want them to think we're going to attack too."
Nik heard Alex curse up above her and slam his hand down on something, but the Roci stayed where it was.
On her half of the screen showing outside, the camera angle changed as Naomi switched to a different camera to watch the encounter. While the first ship they had observed had nothing nearby to use for a size reference, the size of ships converging on the Martians could readily be assessed. Many were the same size or slightly larger than the warships, but several were more than twice that size and there were a few that appeared to be almost as big as a space station. Scattered among them were much smaller ones, maybe the size of shuttles.
The Martian ship was firing on one of these smaller ships on the fringes of the group nearest it. The glow of the alien ships turned from blue to red and the largest ones from the group approached the ship that attacked. Nik watched as the red ship neared the Sally Ride. As before, the ship came within meters of the Martian vessel then glided past. The dot on her screen turned purple.
"The Sally Ride's reactor is down," Naomi announced unnecessarily.
The other MCRN ships open fired on the alien ships around them in an attempt to fight their way out of the asteroid belt and, one by one, they were all disabled quickly and quietly by the others.
"Okay," Alex said, drawing out the word, "we're just going to sit here and mind our own business. Nothing threatening about us."
"Good idea," Amos remarked.
Nik looked up to meet his eyes. She wondered if her expression was as stressed as his.
"They're all moving towards the ring gate," Naomi said.
Around them, the strange ships, still glowing red, moved away, leaving the Roci surrounded only by asteroids and the disabled Martian ships.
"What now, boss?"
"Let them put some distance between us, then we will follow them," Holden told him. "Slowly."
"Roger that. Slow and unthreatening."
After a few minutes, Holden let Alex take them out of the belt and towards the ring gate. As they passed the disabled MCRN ships, Naomi scanned them. There was no discernable damage on any of them, but they floated with no power, or comms, like discarded trash among the rocks of the belt.
"Anyone alive on them?" Holden asked.
"Yeah, I'm picking up a full complement of life signs for the crews."
"So, these aliens somehow managed to shut them down without firing a shot or killing anyone?"
"That's what it looks like."
"How do you fight something like that?" he wondered.
"It looked like they have to be close for it to work," she answered. "So just don't let them get close."
Ahead, the fleet of ships were fading from red back to blue as they left the asteroid belt and the MCRN ships behind them.
"We just can't leave them out here like this," Alex said referring to the Martians.
"There's still the Hijo de Puta at the gate. They'll mount a rescue," Jim told him.
"If they can," Alex grunted. "Hopefully, they learned from the others' mistake."
"I wouldn't count on it."
A few hours later, they were close enough to the gate to see the alien ships arrayed in front of it and the remaining MCRN ship between them. It was still red on the LADAR screen.
"I'll be damned," Alex said, "they did learn."
"Oh, give them a minute," Holden responded dryly.
As if on cue, the Hiju de Puta fired up its thrusters and raced for the ring.
"Damnit," Alex said, "they just had to prove you right, didn't they?"
"I don't think they can help it. Not every Martian can be like you and Bobby."
"Too bad. The system would be a lot better off if there were."
The ship disappeared through the ring gate, leaving them alone in the strange system with the alien fleet.
"Now what?" Alex asked.
"We wait."
Fortunately, they didn't have to wait long before there was movement within the alien fleet. Four of the ships, one large and three slightly smaller broke off from the group and approached the gate. One by one, each ship passed through its plane and into the slow zone.
"Someone is shitting themselves right now," Amos said into the silence.
"Let's hope that Drummer is smarter than the Martians," Holden said.
"She is, but it might not be up to her," Naomi added.
The four ships were followed by another group, then three more, for a total of five groups; twenty ships altogether.
"Are they invading?" Alex asked.
"I don't know," Holden mused. "They didn't appear hostile and they completely ignored us."
"Almost like we don't matter," Naomi said.
"What if they've been trapped here since the ring system stopped working? Now they're just trying to go home?" Nik voiced her thoughts out loud.
"That was millions, possibly billions, of years ago," Holden told her. "There's no way."
"Why?" she came back. "You don't believe a civilization from millions of years ago could still exist?"
"No, the ones that destroyed the ring builders destroyed every system connected by the ring gates."
"Not ours."
"That's because our ring hadn't been built yet. Eros never reached its intended destination and the protomolecule was never activated. We were never part of the ring gate system."
"That's the only reason humanity exists today," Naomi added.
"Twice over," Holden said grimly. "The protomolecule would have extinguished all life on earth for material to build the gate. And if that wasn't enough, anything that evolved after that would have been wiped out by the ring builders' enemy."
Nik sat back in her chair to digest what he just told her. The thought that humanity only existed because of an accident was staggering. Then she considered the thirteen-hundred systems that had been part of the system and the civilizations that had been ended for the rings to exist.
"They're moving," Alex intoned.
"I'm going to scan one," Naomi said decisively. "We need to know something about them, Jim."
"Go ahead, but, Naomi," he hesitated.
"Huh?"
"Don't pick a little one."
Her eyes back on the monitor, she watched as the alien ships glided past them back into the system. One of them came close enough to make out details on the hull. It wasn't smooth like it appeared from a distance. Textured with ridges that reminded her of ripples in liquid, with shallow depressions in the valleys between them, it reinforced the feeling of something organic.
They didn't go back into the asteroid belt, though. Instead they angled away from it and towards the outer planets. Once all the glowing ships were past the Roci, they accelerated as a unit, disappearing from the camera view instantly. Shortly afterwards, the LADAR lost contact with them also and the Roci was left alone in front of the ring.
"I've never seen anything move that fast," Alex's voice was filled with awe.
"They left the system," Naomi said.
"What did your scan show?" Holden asked her.
"Nothing."
"What? Did they block it?"
"I don't think so."
"Send me what you got." There was a long pause. "No life forms detected. No propulsion system detected. No electronic signatures detected. Not even a heat signature from them. What the hell are we dealing with?"
"I think you were right, Jim," Nik said slowly. "They were never part of the ring system. They're something new."
"Yeah," he replied slowly.