Meskka is a science fiction book by a new author.

On a routine mission to take Guardian Tomed Nor to a diplomatic meeting, the Goddard is attacked by pirates and forced to land on an uncharted planet to make repairs.

Meanwhile...

When a human ship lands unexpectedly in the middle of her clan's territory, Bast is sent to investigate as part of her scout trial. After accidently injuring herself, she meets these new visitors and she and her senior scout Rrrark are invited to return with the aliens to their home planet to open diplomatic relations. Soon they are caught up in a pirate scheme that threatens to bring war to the galaxy with only her, Rrrark and two Guardians to prevent it.

 

Prologe and first page of Chapter 1:

  Tomed bolted upright out of a deep sleep to utter quiet. He swung his feet out of bed and slowly pulled his pants on as he looked around to try to find what had awakened him. Sensing nothing in his room he extended his consciousness outward and felt the alarm of the bridge crew a moment before the red alert klaxon sounded. He quickly finished dressing then dashed out of his cabin and ran in the direction of the bridge.
  As he entered the bridge, officers were franticly checking readouts and calling out damage reports. Before the captain noticed him, he listened enough to gather that the ship was venting atmosphere, and there was some sort of trouble with the engines.
  At this point, Captain Trenton happened to look up from over the shoulder of a frazzled looking lieutenant he was standing behind and noticed Tomed's arrival.
    "Good morning Guardian, I'm afraid we'll have a slight delay in getting you to the conference at SeQish."
    "Well, can't be helped. My presence there is more of a formality than anything else." Tomed replied. "Looks like I slept through all the fun, what's the situation?"
    "Well," the captain said as he walked back to his command chair, "We had a surprise visit from a pirate ship."
    Tomed raised his eyebrows then frowned as he tried to remember what the latest security report for this sector said about pirate activity. He really wished he had a cup of coffee, he never had been able to think clearly in the morning, and he suddenly realized it was 6:13am. At least-- it was in the last time zone he'd been in.
    "I think," he replied, "the latest report said that there wasn't any pirate activity in this sector since the new resort opened over at Antar."
    Captain Trenton chucked, "Funny you say that. Apparently the pirates that got us didn't get the memo about the resort opening... They thought we were a luxury cruise liner."
    Tomed laughed loudly enough at that to distract several of the other bridge crew.
    "Wait... they somehow mistook a Heim class cruiser for a luxury liner?"
    "Yeah," the Captain replied, "you'd think the giant U.G.A.L. logo on the side of the ship would've been their fist clue. That, and we're a little small for cruise ship."
    "So, how much damage did they cause?" Tomed asked.
    "We're still assessing the situation. Lt. Roshen here was just going over our damage report. Here's the short version: we're venting atmosphere from the stern storage bay, and we're leaking drive plasma from the port engine manifold."
    Tomed looked down at the readout. The atmosphere leak was already sealed off, but it looked like the drive plasma leak was getting worse.
    "How's the chief engineer assess the damage?" he asked.
    The Captain looked grim. "He says he's not sure if he can repair it."
    "Mind if I take a look at the damage report?" Tomed asked.
    "Be my guest" the Captain gestured at the console.
    Tomed sat down and scrolled through the damage assessment. The computers sensors didn't have an exact report of the extent of the damage, since the plasma plume jetting out of the fracture was obscuring the sensors enough so they couldn't pinpoint the full extent of the damage.
    From what the sensors could see, the damage looked bad enough. A blaster had struck the port engine nacelle about 24 centimeters behind the field output emitter --an area that wasn't accessible from inside the ship. That would make repairing it extremely difficult, and worse, the main drive reactor would have to be shut down to repair the plasma conduit. And if he was reading the data correctly, the leak was getting worse.
    Tomed grunted at the damage assessment, stood, and said, "Looks like the plasma leak will have to be repaired or we won't make it back to any U.G.A.L. Outpost. Worse, it doesn't look like the damage can be repaired without shutting down the reactor core. Our best option would be to find a planet to land on, that'd make the repairs easier, and we wouldn't have to worry about life support running out if we've vented too much drive plasma to restart the reactor."
    "That's exactly how our chief engineer assessed the situation" the Captain replied. "You seem to have rather thorough grasp of starship mechanics. I thought Guardians were mostly diplomats?"
    Tomed chucked, "There's a lot more to being a Guardian than most people associate with the job."
    Captain Trenton grinned, "There's more to most jobs than people think." he said as he walked over to the navigation console.
    "Anyway, Ensign Materton here was looking through our star charts to see if we had any suitable planets to land and repair on. Found anything yet Ensign?"
    A short brunet looked up from the console. "Possibly sir," she reported, "I've found a planet that a remote survey probe indicated might be habitable. However we haven't sent a live survey team anywhere near there yet. It's also pretty much the only one within the range that engineering says we can make."
    "Pretty much?" the Captain asked.
    "Well sir, there are two more planets within our range, however.."
    The Ensign turned to the nav console, and pressed a sequence into the console that brought up a readout in a separate holo-window. Tomed and Captain Trenton moved in closer to read the display.
    "Each of these other choices" she stated, pointing to the relevant portion of the readout, "Has problems that would make them a bad choice for a repair stop. This one," she said pointing to the first planet, which caused the computer to bring up a larger hologram of the world in question, "is habitable, but barely. Probe reports indicate very unstable weather systems, and the star is dying, so it's very cold all over the planet. Hardly ideal conditions for exterior repair."
    The Captain and Tomed both grunted in agreement with her assessment. "What's the report on the other?" the Captain asked.
    "Well, it's even worse" she continued, "This one's not really habitable. It's got an atmosphere, and weather and temperature are good, but the air's not breathable, and pressure is slightly off. It might work, but we'd need air masks outside the ship. And, saving the best for last, it's also the furthest away of our three choices. I'd pick planet number one sir."
    The Captain nodded in agreement. "Planet number one it is then. Does it have a name?"
    "No, sir. It was just recently surveyed by long range probe. It hasn't even been assigned a designation number yet."
    "Very well ensign. Keep looking at that probe data, and see if you can find a few ideas for a landing spot."
    "Yes, sir." she replied.
    The captain turned toward the helm console.
    "Helm, lay in the course provided from navigation, and engage at whatever speed we can manage."
    "Course entered and engaged sir." the crewman stationed at the helm reported.
    The ship gave a slight lurch as it turned and accelerated.
    "Current top speed is hyper point zero three five. Our ETA is forty-seven hours, six minuets."
    Captain Trenton walked back to his command chair and sat down, then laid back and crossed his legs.
    Tomed turned toward the Captain.
    "Captain, permission to go bother the engineering staff?"
    The captain chuckled, "Permission granted Guardian."
    Forty-six hours later, Tomed was back on the bridge, and the Goddard was approaching it's destination, the fourth planet in the system.
    The ensign manning the helm reported, "Sir, we're approaching the planet."
    "Enter into orbit." the captain ordered.
    "Orbiting the planet." the ensign responded.
    "Ensign Materton, have you found any ideas for a landing sight?" the captain asked, standing and walking over behind her.
    "Probe data indicated two possible spots that look large enough to land the ship sir" she replied "I'm scanning those areas now... the first one looks like a lava flow... scanners show an active lava flow, safe as far as volcanic activity goes, but looks like it's ruled out for landing sir."
    She pressed a few more keys to scan the other possible landing site. "This one's looking better sir, a nice grassy plain about a kilometer wide and about 40 kilometers long, looks to be a forest on one side and foothills for a mountain range on the other. The west end is on a large inland lake, and the east end opens up to a large savanna."
    "Looks like a winner to me." Captain Trenton answered.
    He walked back to his command chair, sat down, and pressed the intercom button. "Bridge to Engineering, Commander Lagrange, are we ready to land?"
    The engineer's voice came over the intercom, "We'll be ready to land in approximately five minutes Captain. We're shutting down the main reactor core, venting the drive plasma out of the engine pods, and starting the power up sequence on the anti-grav generators."
    "OK, let the helm know when you're ready." The Captain replied, pushing the button to terminate the intercom.
    Tomed looked at the image of the planet on the main viewer. It hung in space, a blueish green orb, spinning serenely. He thought it looked friendly. He always liked going to new planets and exploring places where no one else had ever been. And, this world hadn't even had a preliminary survey team look at it yet. It had been a long time since he'd been able to be one of the first to explore a new planet. A long time ago, that had been one of the duties of the Guardians. For a while now, they had been considered too busy with their primary duties of keeping order on the worlds of the United Galactic Allied League. For the past few decades scout ships with specialized survey teams had been sent to explore new planets.
    Most of the star systems within easy hyperspace travel distance that deep space telescopes had identified as having planets had automated probes sent to survey them. Of these, only fifty-three that were capable of supporting human life that had been fully surveyed by a follow-up human survey team. Out of those, four so far had sentient beings inhabiting them.
    There were still several thousand planets that been scanned by probes that had merely been surveyed by a quick fly-by scan. The planet they were now orbiting of was one of these. It was a ways off from the standard hyperspace lanes, and hadn't even been assigned a survey designation yet. The odds were very low that it had sentient natives, but Tomed was hoping that this world housed a new species to be discovered.
    The ensign sitting at the helm console announced "Sir, engineering reports ready for planet-fall."
    "Very well ensign, commence landing" the captain replied.
    "Aye sir, commencing landing procedures."

Chapter 1:

Edge of the Great Forest
 

Alkask

    Bast was walking as quickly as she could through the forest while still being silent. She flicked her ears around in every direction, listening for anything out of the usual. So far, all she heard were the normal sounds associated with the forest. It was a beautiful day today, and she was happy to be on this assignment. The scouts for all the clans had seen the giant metal ship, something that large and that un-natural of a shape could only be a ship, that was slowly coming down to the ground. If it kept going without changing it's speed or direction, it would land in the large grassland in the territory of her clan. She had worked hard to earn an important assignment such as checking out what this strange ship might bring, and if she did a good job, she would be officially recognized as an adult in her clan. That -and, she must admit to herself- she was very curious about where it came from, and what sort of creature would travel through the stars on such a ship.
    She approached the edge of the forest that opened onto the plain, and looked around for a nice bit of cover. She found a line of bushes between a stand of trees that offered perfect cover, and an escape back into the forest if it became necessary. She sat down on her haunches behind the brush, curled her tail around her feet, and licked a speck of dust out of her paw. The ship should be landing soon.
    She idly wondered whether it would glide in and land like a bird, or if it had some other method. She paused and looked up, trying to spot the ship. "It could be crashing too..." she mused aloud. She thought the first option unlikely. It didn't have wings, and didn't look natural, so she didn't expect it to act naturally. The third option didn't look likely either. The scouts and scientists reported that it was on a stable course and wasn't on fire or anything. Most likely it would surprise her somehow. She liked surprises -for the most part- and this would certainly be an interesting sight to see. She heard a faint, high-pitched noise off to the west, and poked her head slightly out of the bush, and raised her whiskers out in that direction. Nothing yet. She waited a little longer, and the sound grew louder, and a slight wind started blowing across the plain.
    Bast laid down as low as she could in her observation point, and crept slowly forward to where she could see through the bushes, but remain unseen. The sound grew to a rather loud whine, high enough pitched that it was starting to hurt her ears, and the ship was just coming into view. To her amazement, it stopped completely in mid-air, about 40 lengths above tree level, and slowly lowered itself straight down. Something that looked like legs lowered from several points, and the ship set down on the grass.
    Bast had never seen anything remotely like it. She found the ship fascinating. It had several different designs on it in various places, and two long round cylinders attached to what she thought was the rear of the ship. The shape didn't look very aerodynamic, and didn't really look like the shape mattered much at all to whoever built it. It just sat there for the longest time, not moving. Bast wondered if there was anyone or anything on board, or if it was automated in some way.
    After the sun had moved about twenty degrees westward across the sky, a hatch on the bottom of the ship swung down and a ramp lowered down to the ground. Bast tensed and looked eagerly at the ramp. Were the passengers of this strange craft coming out? After a few more minuets four bi-pedal creatures walked down the ramp, and looked around at the plain.