We slowed our approach to a relative crawl, and I called a meeting in the bridge to discuss how to proceed. We'd been scanning the moon carefully, and there were no changes that I could see. The surface had transparent domes scattered about among the many craters in the few level locations.
I'd taken the time to learn a little about Oberon before setting out and found it very interesting. It was a curious moon, but most likely, it wasn't going to be a nice place to visit.
I'd learned that Oberon's mass places it ninth out of the entire solar system. Herschel discovered it in 1787, and it was named after the king of the fairies in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
The aspect of Oberon that makes it curious is that its orbit is the most distant of Uranus' five major moons at 584,000 kilometers, and it is almost right over Uranus' equator. The moon moves quickly, making one revolution around Uranus every thirteen and a half days. By coincidence, Oberon's rotation is the same length, making it similar to our moon, with the same face always pointing towards the gas giant. There is heavy bombardment by the solar wind since Oberon is in such a distant orbit that Uranus' planetary magnetic field does not protect it.
The most unexpected fact that I found was that Uranus has a polar tilt of almost ninety degrees, orbiting the Sun lying on its side. This means that Oberon spends one-half of the planet's year with its poles in complete darkness and another half with them in full sunlight. Since Uranus' takes about eighty-four Earth years to revolve around the Sun, this makes for long days and nights on parts of the moon. The surface is rugged with lots of craters and steep mountains; all told, it is not what a human would call the garden spot of the universe.
Because of the roughness of the place, the aliens had scattered their domes widely. There were craters inside craters, and each of them seemed to have mountainous piles of ejecta surrounding them along with steep central mountains. After studying the moon through high magnification, I concluded that it would be nearly impossible to determine how many domes there were. Giving up in disgust, I relied on my standard fall-back tactic. I asked Frazzle, "How many domes do the Pug-bears have on that place?"
He considered with his hand rubbing his stomach. I'd noticed that he tended to do that while meditating. I was relatively confident that his brain was in his skull, so it must have just been a habit.
Finally, he answered, "I don't know, Dec, de Great Ones, er... Pug-bears might have moved more of their kind onto the moon in the time we were going to Kasm's planet. We know that one new FTL arrived. I don't know how manys of dem were on that vessel. Nor, how many Sunnys or Pugs either."
"Can we contact the Sunnys with radio?" That had worked in the past, and I wondered if there was a chance of it working now.
He answered with a negative sounding chirp, "Not working well. I been listening for radio calls, but nothing is happening. Dere no space traffic and no mining, so all is quiet."
I considered in turn, "Let's try calling on the frequency that your people usually use for their own radio traffic. Just say something innocuous. Maybe pretend you're lost or something, just in case the Pugs might be listening."
The Pugs sometimes monitored radio traffic, but they were of a more primitive mindset and didn't habitually do so. As for their masters, the Pug-bears, they could care less about radio communications between what they considered the lesser peoples. They weren't physically equipped to create or use technology anyway. Their claws were designed for hunting and fighting but not for fine manipulations, so they depended on the Pugs and Sunnys when it came to such tasks.
Frazzle turned to the communications console, dialed in a frequency, and made a short whistle that was his version of an interrogatory sound. Nothing happened for several minutes, but then a cautious set of whistles and clicks came back. He responded and shortly was in an animated dialog with the Oberon Sunny contingent.
He paused after a bit to explain to me. "Dec, deys all Sunnys in just a few domes. There not many Pug-bears; only three, but a whole bunches of Pugs. De Pugs and Pug-bears have their own habitats and don't stay with my people."
I started to say that was a good set-up for us, but he held up a webbed, furry paw and lifted one of his stubby fingers, so I paused.
He quickly said, "De problem is that the Pug-bears have a bunch of Sunny servants. There always some of us with dem, so separating the Sunnys to where the transporter link is can't be done. Maybe we have to go down and rescue Sunnys in person."
It made me grin a little. His reluctance to engage in violence or even consider it made him phrase things oddly. What he meant, in plain terms, was we'd have to attack and clear the domes on foot, and that was a hazardous business. Both the Pugs and the Pug-bears were difficult to kill and deadly fighters.
I didn't want to risk my men clearing out a group of enraged Pug-bears if there was any possible alternative. Fortunately, Kasm came wandering into the bridge area, and I mentally posed a question to him.
"Kasm, we're going to have a problem getting the Pug-bears away from the Sunnys and the Sunnys to the Oberon transporter. Any suggestions?" I sent.
He answered quickly, "How many Pug-bears?"
"Only three, but they keep a lot of Sunny servants with them at all times," I answered.
The cat-like alien paused briefly and then said, "Here's something that might work. When they invaded our planet, we found that some of them made nests and laid eggs. We learned that the hatchlings' distress calls would cause any nearby adult to come to their aid quickly. It made a great way for us to set up ambushes and traps for the stupid things."
He was exaggerating a little, something that he often did, tending to be a little over-confident in his outlook. The Pug-bears weren't stupid, or at least the symbiont-infected ones weren't. They were quite cunning but still acted in an animal-like and ferocious manner. Those who did not have their brain augmented by the symbiont only functioned on their natural animal level and were only as cunning as perhaps an earthly bear. Even so, I could imagine that either kind would come charging in response to a distress call.
"So, what you're suggesting is that we set up some sort of ambush for them?" I asked. I still couldn't see what he was getting at. The presence of the Pugs would complicate matters. They would fight hard if they discovered us.
"No, silly!" he sent. "All we have to do is to broadcast a hatchling distress call from a distant dome, and the three Pug-bears will do everything in their power to get there quickly. They'll leave the Sunnys behind, but they might take a force of Pugs with them. Then all we have to do is to destroy the dome."
To be honest, I was preparing to argue with him about being called 'silly,' but his idea made so much sense that I forgot about it. I realized for about the hundredth time that I continually underestimated him. It was easy for my human eyes to simply see a large, green-striped tiger, and we aren't used to thinking of tigers as quite so devious.
"That could work. We'd have to figure out how to get a recording of a hatchling, though," I thought out loud.
"Let's ask Frazzle to find out from his local people," he replied. "It might be that the Pug-bears have laid some eggs somewhere, and maybe we could steal one."
Frazzle called and almost immediately found out that the Pug-bears had a separate dome for breeding. They had been on Oberon long enough to lay several nests worth of eggs.
One of the Sunnys was assigned to turn the eggs periodically. Apparently, that helped the embryo develop, but the Pug-bears weren't noticeably concerned with domestic chores and gladly assigned the task to a hapless Sunny. He was in constant fear that the eggs would hatch and the hatchlings would attack him. He was also afraid they wouldn't hatch and he'd be blamed.
The first batch of them was just now showing signs of readying for hatching. The eggs became more brittle immediately before the event so that the young spider-like hatchlings could easily break out.
When I asked the location of the hatching dome, Frazzle showed me by pointing at the video monitor. It was near the central Pug-bear residence dome and connected by a long, meandering, inflatable tube.
The Pug-bears avoided the matter transporters for the most part. The symbionts that gave them their intelligence were hypersensitive to the transporter process and would die if the Pug-bears undertook more than an extremely short jump. This meant that the Pug-bear would arrive at its destination in its feral state. It could eventually regain intelligence by consuming parasite eggs until one of them attached to its brain, but that often took a long time. This situation was not optimal for the Pug-bears, but it was all they had. Transportation between domes via matter transporter was limited to Sunnys and Pugs. The Pugs had no problem with the transporters, and neither did humans, Sim-tigers, or Sunnys.
There were no transporter heads in the egg dome, making it difficult to formulate plans to raid the place. It promised to be a chancy venture. We'd have to slip into the Pug-bears' habitat and then travel down the tube with the attendant possibility that they'd discover us.
I briefly considered wearing a vacuum suit and just shooting my way through the outside of the dome, but that would undoubtedly evacuate the entire complex and kill the Sunnys I wanted to rescue, so that wasn't an option.
From our insider information source, the Pug-bears' habitat dome had a transporter head used by the Pugs and Sunnys when their masters summoned them. The transporter was near the entrance to the tunnel that led to the nesting area, and it seemed like it might be possible to slip through undetected. Then I happened to realize that there was an almost equal possibility that the Pug-bears would sense any unshielded mental emanations and attack before we could go through. That meant that only the Sim-tigers and I would be able to go. The Sim-tigers naturally shielded their minds, and I was confident that my mental shield would keep the Pug-bears from sensing me. The rest of the humans did not have the ability or were too weak in their shielding, as in my wife's case, to be able to sneak through undetected.
It was at this point that Liz came through, "Dec, you've been looking at this thing all wrong. Why do you want to capture a hatchling? To record its distress cries to lure the Pug-bears into an ambush. Well, the creatures are all in one dome now. Just go in and kill them and try to save as many Sunnys as you can. Forget the egg dome."
I felt like slapping my forehead and saying, "Doh!" She was right, of course. I sent a thought message to Kasm, "How long will it take before you and your friends are ready to attack the Pug-bears' dome?"
The answer was immediate, "We're ready now! We'll be at the transporter waiting for you."
They were as good as their word. The Marines and Joe and I arrived together and were greeted with Kasm's guttural voice asking, "What took you so long?"
The Sim-tigers were all armed with their choice of words, some with an extra weapon strapped around their midsection. The humans were carrying anti-matter weapons.
I had no doubt about my ability to use the weapon sensibly, but the Marines, having been recruited before we shipped out, didn't inspire my confidence. Considering the fighting abilities of the leathery-skinned Pugs, I had decided that it would be best to bring two Marines along with Joe and me. We'd be armed with anti-matter pistols backed by the two men who'd have anti-matter rifles. That would allow maximum maneuverability paired with stealth.
I decided that I'd better have a brief talk with the two Marines. "Listen up! The rifles you're carrying are incredibly destructive. They will easily shoot a hole in anything at which you point them. That includes the dome structure we're going to raid. If one of you is careless enough to dissolve a hole in that dome, it will evacuate, and we will die. There isn't enough atmosphere on this moon to count, and what there is isn't breathable by any stretch of the imagination. All shots must be single shots; no pulse bursts! And, all shots must be backstopped by either buildings or other aliens or the dome's floor. If you shoot downward, you'll be less likely to kill us all. Understood?"
Joe just looked grimly amused as the two chorused back a muted, "Yes, Sir!"
Sighing, I judged that was the best I could do. I looked at Kasm, and he made a face that I had come to recognize as indicative of him finding something humorous.
He sent, "Don't worry, Dec! We'll most likely have them down and dead before your people come through. There will be no need to shoot."
I only hoped that he was correct. I looked at the Marines again as Kasm and the small group of Sim-tigers entered the ship's transporter and disappeared. We followed, and I pushed the button, and things got blurry for a moment, as they always did, then we came out into the alien's dome.
There were two dead Pugs directly in front of us, and nothing else was visible. I could hear some fighting coming from the far side of the dome. The place was like the first dome I'd ever seen. A garden or plot of uncultivated vegetation was in the center, with cubicles spaced evenly around the perimeter. The vegetation was between us and the fighting. I could hear some Sim-tiger snarls mixed with the weird, moaning noise the Pug-bears made.
I waved the two men towards the left and led Joe around the right side of the central garden, taking care to stay well back from the alien vegetation. Before we could get started, a huge Pug-bear broke through the plants coming right towards us. It was missing a couple of legs on one side, and there were some deep slashes in its carapace on the other, but it was coming fast, and it was obviously enraged.
I shrugged off the impact of its mental attack and then realized that neither the Marines nor Joe could do the same. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the three of them standing, paralyzed, with their weapons drooping. The Pug-bear had come out somewhat behind my position just as one of the riflemen passed close by the central plants. I should have warned them, but I hadn't foreseen the layout.
Before I could complete my turn and aim, the swollen, spider-like alien had slashed the marine with one of its venom-tipped claws and was reaching for the next. I brought my pistol up and then had to step to the side because Joe was standing, stunned, between the Pug-bear and me. It struck at the next marine but only succeeded in knocking his weapon out of his grasp. Before it could try again, my anti-matter pulse had burned off two more of its legs and dissolved a basketball-sized hole in its side. It wavered, staggered, and then fell over, still reaching for its last target. The remaining marine was standing just a little out of its reach.
The thing wasn't dead, and I suddenly sensed a difference in its mental sending. Instead of commanding that its prey stand still, it switched instantly to summoning them. The targeted man shuddered and then turned, starting to step toward his death, as did Joe.
The alien lifted its remaining forelimb to strike, but a green-striped fury charged by and struck with its sword, lopping the threatening foreleg off near the carapace.
Then, the Sim-tiger turned and chopped with all its considerable strength, cleaving the Pug-bear's skull in half. A stunning mental shriek emanated from the thing's symbiont as it died. Then all was still.
I stepped over and pushed the semi-paralyzed and stunned man away from the venom-dripping claws. There was no sense in risking an accident. As I moved him away, Kasm came up beside me and sent, "I don't think your people should fight these evil things. Most humans can't resist their mental commands the way you can."
"You may be right. I'd forgotten just how powerful an intelligent Pug-bear can be," I sent with a mental feeling of regret. My lack of preparation had resulted in the death of one of my men, and I didn't feel worthy of command at the moment. I'd made a stupid mistake.
Kasm brought me back to the immediate situation. "How many of these things were there supposed to be?"
"Only three, according to our informant," I responded.
"There are three dead ones on the other side of the plants. This one is the fourth, and I think some others ran down the tunnel to the hatching dome." He was still worked up over the fight and finished his mental sending with a ferocious and loud snarl, making the remaining marine jump.
I turned to the man and ordered him to set up a guard over the transporter portal. It wouldn't do to have enemies arriving behind us when we were in the tunnel. Then I said, "Joe, please check each of the cubicles. Carefully! There could be a Pug-bear in any of them. I'll have one of the Sim-tigers go with you, just in case."
The marine stepped towards the portal, and Joe headed for the nearest cubicle along with one of Kasm's people. As for me, I turned and followed the rest of the Sim-tigers into the tunnel.