New Neighbors

Chapter 10

It had been two weeks since Lucas and Toddus had arrived and joined with Amy and crew. Amy had just received Kate's message and she agreed that they had to find a way to improve communications. They would be in trouble if either system needed to call for help, she would get John and AL working on this as soon as possible. She reviewed the data on the local flora and fauna from the Alpha system. Things were really looking up. The mission to rescue the families would leave in 48 hours. Amy forwarded the message to Jake so he could read his sister's message. Maybe the Alpha system would make a good place to put the families of the former pirates, that was worth thinking about, and talking to Lucas and Toddus about. Amy had the pictures made public, on Mars and the Moon, so everyone could see what the Alpha system had to offer. 

Amy had asked Ted to command the mission to the stronghold, once again giving him command of a new ship. This one was the size of an Iberian ship and had weapons that matched it's size in strength. It was classified as a combination Battleship and Carrier. Now where to get enough pilots to man the fighters? A message from the Protectorate had come in a couple of days ago and they were really having problems with the Iberians. Something had to be done about that. But as long as the Iberians stayed out of Sol and Alpha, Amy figured that it was the Protectorate's problem. She had not said anything about the pirates to the Protectorate, that might cause discontent between them and her.

Amy and Jake were enjoying lunch together when a report came in that a small Iberian scout ship had been spotted. It was trying to sneak into the system and had some kind of cloak that wasn't very effective, at least not to their scanners. Amy said to let the ship come in and then take it, preferably in one piece and with the occupants alive. But to jam it's communications as soon as it was in system. About an hour later Amy had not heard anything else about the scout ship and wondered why.

The Iberian scout ship was still outside the system, but it wasn't idle, it was using strong scanners to get as much information as it could. The problem it was having was that everything pasted the seventh planet was a void to it's scanners. Finally the ship started to slip into the system. As it pasted the orbit of Pluto, four of Ted's fighters were all around it, but cloaked. Their cloak worked and they were undetected. As the ships approached Jupiter the scans got better. Now the Iberians were getting the information they were looking for. They saw the ships in orbit around the fourth planet, but none were showing any signs of their being detected. When they tried to scan behind them they could not scan the seventh planet. It was at that time that they felt their ship come to an abrupt standstill for no apparent reason. Suddenly they had fighters de-cloaking all around them and a huge ship was on top of theirs about 50 meters away. They were hailed and told to power down completely or be destroyed. Now these weren't the usual Iberians, these were a special team of their scientists that had very little combat experience. They did as told and powered down, but not enough to satisfy Ted. They were hailed and told again to power down completely, that meant everything including life support. They were told that they would then be towed to a safe area and boarded. Reluctantly, they complied with the requests. Their ship was towed away from the area and a shuttle docked with them. The beings that boarded were polite, but heavily armed. The scientists were taken aboard the big ship and their ship was then also taken aboard .

The scientists were asked why they had tried to sneak into the system? They replied that they had some problems with their ship and also knew that several ships had disappeared in this region. They didn't want to disappear also, so they were being very careful so as not to be detected. They had hoped that they could land somewhere and do the needed repairs and then leave without the system knowing they were ever there. They were especially interested in the third planet as it was the only one they knew of that could support life in this system. They were questioned over again and again before Ted was satisfied that they were telling the truth. Ted contacted Amy to see what she wanted done with the occupants. It was decided that they would be held in the brig on Mars until a suitable place was available for them. Their ship would be closely inspected to see what could be found information wise.

Amy held a meeting that evening to discuss the Iberians in custody and what they should do with them. It was finally decided that a biosphere would be erected a ways away from the colony and they would be housed there, without access to any technology. They would be supplied with food and water and would be monitored around the clock, closely.

Everything was ready for the rescue mission and the force would leave in about two hours. The force was composed of the two pirate ships and the new Battle-Carrier. There would be three squads of Marines, two squadrons of single seat fighters and one squadron of two seat fighters. That should be plenty of men to handle the stronghold. The mission would take about a month, with travel time both ways and allowing a couple of days to get everyone packed up and onboard. Amy had a last minute idea, she told Ted to go to the Alpha system after they had loaded everyone and check on Kate and Jones. The rescue force left on time and without any problems.

It was two days later when Amy got an urgent call from Cmdr Thomas. It seemed that their guests were very upset and refusing to eat. When Amy asked why, she was told that the last shipload of people had brought something with them, cockroaches. The Iberians had gotten upset when they saw one of the guards step on one. Amy was at a loss as to how to deal with this. One thing for sure, all baggage would be closely checked from now on to keep from importing any more pests. Jake said he would go down and see what he could do to settle their guests down.

Jake went to the cells where the Iberians were kept. 

"Now you decide who the spokesperson is to be and have that one come talk with me." Jake explained.

One of the insectoid beings stepped forward after a few seconds.

"Now what is the problem? I understand that you refuse to eat and are trying to cause a disturbance."

"We see how your people are. You kill our distant relations in front of us. We would rather starve to death than wait for you to kill us in the same way." the insectoid replied.

"I'm not sure what you are referring to, as far as I know we have no other Iberians here." Jake added.

"We saw your guard step on the little one." the insectoid replied.

"Oh you mean the cockroaches. They are from our home world and carry many infections. They were not meant to be here, they are dangerous to our health. I'm sure on your world there are such creatures that you dislike and kill on sight. Some sort of pest that carries diseases." Jake said.

The insectoid seemed to think for a few seconds then replied "You are correct, but we would never kill them in front of their kin who were being held prisoner. These roaches are very primitive but they mean no harm, they just want to eat and breed as is their nature. Just as you evolved from apes we are the evolution of what you call insects."

"I think I see. But, how do you know they mean no harm?" Jake asked.

"We can communicate with them on a very limited basis." was the reply.

"I will make you a deal, if as you say you can communicate with them have them all gather and go with you to your new quarters. In exchange I will have the humans leave the ones that join you alone." Jake offered.

The Iberian agreed to this deal. Unknown to Jake, the base had been sprayed and poison bait put out for the roaches. The roach population had been almost completely eradicated, even the eggs. The roaches that were still alive were dying even as the Iberians called to them. It was a few days later when the Iberians were found dead, it seems that they had been eating "the little ones".

Somewhere in another system

Ted and the rest of his rescue force came out of hyper space. They were still 100,000 km from their destination but had agreed to meet here before going in to the asteroid belt. Ted kept his ship cloaked while the other two, though capable of cloaking, remained visible. Lucas would lead, Ted would be in the middle, and Toddus would bring up the rear. After conferring with the others, Lucas started in. Ted monitored any and all transmissions from the other ships just to be cautious. They had no problems as they maneuvered through the maze of asteroids, Lucas even pointed out the hidden defensive positions along the way. While the pirate vessels landed Ted stayed aloft. Each of the other ships had a squad of Marines onboard to handle any problems on the ground. Before Lucas could even open his hatch there were inquires as to the whereabouts of Blythe. Lucas responded that Blythe never showed. Toddus asked that some of the men come help with some prisoners he had onboard, this worried Ted. Ted saw about 15 men enter Toddus' ship and 10 Marines exited a few minutes later. At the same time 10 more Marines left Lucas' ship and proceed to round up the inhabitants of the settlement. Toddus called Ted and said that he had 5 uncooperative men locked in his brig and had room for about ten more. Ted asked about the other 10 men, Toddus just replied they were busy trying to talk some sense into the 5 uncooperative ones. It took about an hour for everyone to be rounded up and for Lucas to explain the situation. 

Ted went down to the settlement via shuttle. He added to Lucas' explanation that Blythe had really upset some people and was currently in custody, along with his most loyal crew members. Just as Ted was finishing Lucas told him that three Iberian ships were outside the belt and doing deep scans of the belt. One of the men in the settlement said that the Iberians had been doing this for the past month and ships had not been able to leave. Ted asked how far away was the closest Protectorate base and was told two days by hyper space. Ted asked Lucas what would happen if Protectorate ships came here with the Iberians outside the belt. Lucas said there would be a battle between the two forces. This gave Ted an idea, which he explained to Lucas and Toddus.

 They found an old ship that was being used for parts, placed an PDF distress beacon onboard, and towed it to just inside the asteroid belt. The Iberians started firing at the old ship's location. The ship was destroyed but two PDF destroyers dropped out of hyper space and attacked the Iberians. The battle was quite exciting, Ted and Toddus both helped by using their EMP weapons on the Iberians which seemed to cause more confusion than anything else.

After the battle was over, Ted and Toddus retuned to the stronghold. They would need a couple of days to get everything packed and loaded. Nobody on the surface had yet to see Ted's ship, and he kept it that way. Ted returned to the surface to answer any questions that arose and to see what kind of ships were available. Most of the ships needed repairs done but they would have to do for now.

When everyone and everything was loaded, Ted gave the ones that elected to stay one last chance to change their minds. The men that had caused trouble were left on the surface, all the ships not leaving were disabled enough to prevent anyone from trying to follow any time soon. Each of the ships in the convoy were given the first set of coordinates to jump to, once everyone was at that point they would be given the next set of coordinates.