Flowers in the Black - Part V
03 Jul 2018Jellicoe
"As we all saw it came over and scanned us as soon as we jumped in, then it ignored us until we interfered with what it was doing when it attacked immediately." Vik began as a holographic representation of their encounter with the Thargoid ship was projected over the central table of the 'Resolution's' briefing room."Not quite immediately," Claude replied, "there was a small delay between them noticing what we were doing and attacking, you remember that shrieking sound it made?"
"Is that significant?" Jellicoe asked with a trace of irritation.
"Possibly."
"Why?"
"It sounded like a warning, telling us not to interfere before it fired."
"Is that significant?"
"I have no idea, but it is worth keeping in mind."
"Carry on Vik." Jellicoe said trying to keep his annoyance with his friends nit picking hidden, the hacker never said anything without good reason, but he would only share his thoughts when he was ready.
"First it deploys these... things," Vik continued as the holo-film showed a mass of small objects appear from the alien ship, "and it's these that open fire, low power weapons but they do bleed through our shields."
"Did our shields have any effect at all?" Jellicoe asked.
"Yes, the shields dropped so they did absorb some of the damage, how much I don't know."
Jellicoe stroked his chin deep in thought. "Drone fighters?"
"Some kind of remote combat platform yes, but very different to anything we've seen before, watch." The holo-film continued, showing the cluster of 'objects' sweep past the 'Resolution' firing as they went before extending the distance, wheeling round and making another pass, keeping together but whirling like leaves in the wind. "No fighter wing of ours can fly like that , it's more like a flock of birds or a swarm of insects than a formation of ships."
"They're alive?" Kira asked.
"I wondered that as well, but watch this," Vik scrolled the film on, "do you remember the missiles that hit us?" He asked highlighting two of the objects, "keep your eyes on these two." The film continued, the mass of objects made a swooping pass up the full length of the Corvette during which the highlighted pair veered away from the swarm, accelerated and slammed into the human ship. "They are the missiles and the fighters."
Jellicoe leaned back in his chair and adjusted his cuffs as he gathered his thoughts. "We fought a lengthy engagement with them and only took minor damage, how did it knock out a whole wing?"
"Remember when one of them pulled us out of hyperspace? it shut us down completely, engines, shields the lot." Vik replied.
"But the systems rebooted long before they'd have destroyed us with the firepower we saw today."
"You're missing the point Skipper," Claude broke in, "we clearly did not see the full range of their capabilities and that will also apply to their firepower as well as their shut down burst, the logical conclusion is that they did not destroy us because they did not want to."
"Why? Why the Fed battlegroup and not us?"
"Every question only leads to more." Kira said, her voice thick with frustration.
"What about the other side of the coin? Jellicoe asked. "Did we do them any damage?"
"Hard to say," Claude replied, "The scanners were all but useless, just a jumble of numbers, there is some fluctuation when we hit them but it quickly returns to normal. It's speculation but based on that and the fact that we're still here I'd guess we did them no significant damage, we were no threat so we were allowed to escape, tolerated, warned then swatted away like an irritating fly."
"And those Federation ships were a threat?"
"I don't know, I'm hypothesising with very little data but there must be some reason we're still alive and they're not."
Jellicoe pursed his lips. "Can we modify our weapons to make them more effective?"
"I'm a computer expert not a weapons specialist."
"And the pods, why do they want them and why did they attack us for trying to rescue them?"
Claude gave a very thoughtful look. "Mow that is the question, it could be any number of reasons, prisoners to interrogate, stopping enemy combatants being put back into the fight but here we do have some data to go on, Thargoids have taken humans prisoner before."
"Linnaeus, the pivot?" Jellicoe said in shock. "But he's dead, how can it be anything to do with him?"
"I'm not saying it is, but it would be very foolish to ignore it."
"Alright get digging, as much as you can find anywhere on the grid."
"What's our next move?" Kira asked.
Jellicoe frowned. "Palin owes me a few favours, I'm going to see if I can call them in for information."
"Not that I expect you to listen," Claude put in, "but be careful, somebody knows a lot more about this that they are telling anyonw, and they do not want anyone else sticking their noses in."
"What do you mean Claude?" Kira asked.
"How long did the Black Flight know about those ground sites and crashed ships? How long were the Federation shipping those artefacts back to the core before anyone found out about it? Do we really think they've just been storing them in a warehouse? This is why there are all those corpses out on the Zurara, this is what Salomé tried to warn us about, this is why they killed her, and they will do the same to us without a second thought."