by Gray Lanter
I walked across the empty MITT section of the ship. The only sound I heard were my own boots on the floor. The clunk echoed in the large chamber. The silence was deafening. They were always here, grinning. They were almost childlike in their enthusiasm for their next assignment. Even the last one, the assignment they would never come back from.
When I heard footsteps behind me, I turned around. Rab strode up.
“There’s nothing down here, major. They all deserted.”
I smiled.
“A military man shouldn’t be too sentimental, Logan. It’s bad for the profession. Bad for command. We all know we will lose men and women, soldiers who we have known for years. We have to accept that and go on. If we can’t, we should quit and go sell real estate.”
“I think you’d make a lousy real estate salesman, Rab.”
He laughed. “Yes, I’d probably would. If I ever quit this job, I don’t think real estate would be my line of work.”
I gazed at the empty walls and the empty room.
“Still, I miss them. What did I say to you not too long ago? Was it something akin to ‘if you’ve seen one MITT you’ve seen them all’? Which is not true. As difficult as it is to believe, they each had individual personalities. Each one of them. As distinctive as human personalities. I wonder how the scientists explain that.”
“They probably don’t bother,” Rab said.
I groaned. “You’re right. I need to go back to my office.”
I answered the buzz by Officer Picone.
“Major, just got a code message from the MITTs. They are in position and are ready.”
“Thank you, Mr. Picone. You’ve made my day.” I turned to Rab. “In five hours we attack. Wish we had a chaplain. There are a number of believers on board, such as Astrid.”
“We don’t need him. We’re winning this one. We won’t need any chaplains or tombstones. Not this time,” Rab said.
“I like your confidence.”
Two minutes from attack time.
I looked around the bridge. Every individual was at his or her station. Tension was as taut as guitar strings. But I noticed there was also confidence in the room.
“Is everything ready, admiral?” I asked.
“Yes, sir. All systems are go. We will enter hyperspace in one minute and thirty-seven seconds. Five minutes later, on our time, we will exit near our target. It will take just two minutes for bomb preparations. Then we head for home.”
I nodded.
“The general says he will attack the planet in six minutes per our schedule.”
“Wish him good fortune, admiral.”
“Thirty seconds until we make the jump, major.”
“Wish us good fortune too.”
“Three... two... one... NOW!”
A slight jolt hit the ship and, for a few seconds, the ship buoyed like a boat tied at dock in a choppy sea. Then nothing. No sound. No sense of motion. Hyperspace is a gray area, totally unappealing. You can’t tell the ship is moving at all. It could be dead calm on a sea. Or stuck in the middle of a windless desert.
It’s unsettling. But one of the things you get used to in space. The advantage is, of course, you can travel tremendous distances in a relatively short period of time. It also has military advantages. No enemy can know when a ship will appear from hyperspace. No defense mechanism can spot a ship before it materializes from the grayness. The downside is the passage is dangerous. More than one ship has been shattered due to the swift moving space currents in hyperspace. You have to have highly trained and highly competent personnel to navigate through the gray. And your ship better be in triple-A condition. If you go into hyperspace crippled or severely damaged, you come out dead.
Thankfully, Belen always bought the best ships and kept them in prime condition.
“Three minutes until we exit,” the admiral said.
“Everybody stay calm,” I said.
Which I thought was rather silly advice the second after the sentence left my mouth. No one on the bridge was panicking or, that I could see, even breathing heavily. Or shallowly. But at times a commander feels he should say something. Silence isn’t always an option.
“Two minutes,” the admiral said.
I showed a confidence smile to my command.
I buzzed the science officer who was in, for lack of a better word, our bomb bay.
“You still need one minute for bomb preparations, Mr. Anson? “
“Yes, sir. And I need the ship steady in the air or gliding at a constant speed. I’ll do some calculations and drop buster. I’m guessing it will take about three minutes for it to hit the planet. One second later expect a huge and I mean huge explosion. Thought I would shout ‘Surprise!’ when I drop it.”
“Can’t think of a better word than that.”
“We should have a spare two minutes and thirty seconds,” Anson said. “Shouldn’t take more than thirty seconds to return to hyperspace.”
“Down to five seconds and... we’re out!” the admiral said.
Chapter 17
My first thought was the sky was incredibly blue and the oceans of the planet a sparkling bright green. But it was the lines of fire across the northern continent that commanded my attention. I don’t know how our MITTs did it, but red flaming canals crisscrossed the land. In a half-dozen locations, yellow flames roared skyward. I guessed the locales had been military installations that had just been blown up.
“No, Mr. Picone, they did not betray us. They saved us,” I said.
“Yes, sir.” The voice came from behind me. “I’m sorry I doubted them.”
“I had one or two doubts for a while myself. Astrid never did. That’s one reason why I usually listen to her and go with her opinions. She’s rarely wrong.”
“Major, sensors are telling us of explosions on the other side of the planet. The general must be attacking.”
“Slow to stationary mode. Give our science officer a chance to do his math.”
Mr. Picone almost jumped out of his chair. “Sir, we’re getting a message from the MITTs!”
“Really?”
“They said ‘mission accomplished’.”
“Where are they? Can we get to them?”
Picone shook his head. “No, sir. Message says they’re under attack, won’t last thirty seconds. Destroyers know they were fooled. They’re killing the MITTs now.”
I bit my lip.
“Mr. Anson. Is the bomb off?”
“In ten seconds it will be, sir.
“Major, all communication with the MITTs is dead. Would you like to hear their last message?”
“Yes, Mr. Picone, what was it?”
“Just two words, sir. Semper Fi.”
“Always faithful,” I said softly. “And so they were.”
“The bomb is on its way, sir. I suggest we leave.”
“Good idea. We’re not here for an extended stay. Besides, I’m beginning to hate this planet. Admiral, get us out of here. We’re heading home. Thus ends the Destroyers’ dreams of empire and genocide. With a bang, not with a whimper.”
The explosion threw me out of my seat. I landed on the hard floor of the bridge. Two other crewmen were tossed beside me. I started to get up then gave a yelp as the sharp, hot pain ran down my leg.
“Admiral, what was that?”
“I don’t know. Nothing came up on our screens. Nothing.”
Blood seeped from the wound. It ran down my leg and dropped onto the carpet. “I assume they have technology we don’t know about. They must have had a way to disguise the missiles or whatever it was they hit us with.”
One crewman had been knocked unconscious. Picone had a scarlet gash across his forehead. I grabbed my chair to help me up. The admiral was on his feet before I was.
“They hit us close to engineering. We may be in trouble, major.”
“As in not being able to make the jump?”
“Exactly. We have less than two minutes.”
“Admiral, can we shoo
t and destroy the bomb before it hits the planet?”
“Yes sir, but we have to act fast. Weapons officer. Aim for the bomb.”
“On my order, Mr. Weston,” I said. “Get ready!”
“Yes, sir!”
I started to give the command. Then stopped. My tongue wouldn’t move. We only had one bomb and one chance to pulverize the Destroyers. One chance. When we started this attack we knew we might not make it back.
“Stay that, Mr. Weston. Don’t shoot it down.”
“Yes, sir.”
I hit the intercom. “Engineering. Talk to me! What’s happening?”
“Blew a hole in the side of the ship, major. The ship is instigating repairs. Two men are dead but the damage is being repaired.”
“Who am I talking to?”
“Lt. John Harlane, sir. Second in command of engineering. My superior is wounded and unconscious.”
“We’ll send medics. Can we make the jump?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“You have less than one minute, Lieutenant. It would be nice to have a definitive reply.”
“Can’t give you one, sir. We and the ship are doing all we can. Now we hope for the best.”
“That’s rarely good military strategy, to hope for the best.”
“Even if we can make the jump, that doesn’t guarantee success,” the admiral said. “We may not survive the hyperspace current. It depends how bad the ship is damaged.”
I groaned again as I landed in my chair. “We’ll have to take the risk.”
The ship rumbled and shook, but there were no explosions.
“I’m guessing that one missed us, but not by much,” I said.
“Still nothing on our screens. I don’t know what they’re using, but whatever it is, it’s not being picked up by our defenses.”
“How much time?”
“Twenty seconds.”
“We have to go. We have to take the chance. If we stay, we die.”
“At least we know we have destroyed our enemies. The Federation is safe.”
“At least for now.”
“Five seconds.”
“Make the jump, admiral.”
Chapter 18
About two months after it was all over and the Federation was recuperating from the thankfully minimal effects of the invasion that was supposed to wipe humans from the galaxy, Astrid and I walked down the streets of Askehon, one of the main cities on the planet of Hebron. It’s a pleasant, small planet with several major military installations.
The attendant greeted us as the doors swung open to the military museum. She asked if we needed any assistance. We said no. We had been there before and knew our way around.
We paused for a moment before the exhibit honoring Naval Captain Horatio Donaldson. His ship, the Audie Murphy, took on three heavily armed Creager vessels when the Creagers tried to invade Oregon II. We flicked on the screen and watched him during the three-hour battle. He was a tall man, almost six-five and at the time of the battle, gray streaked his hair and the black goatee. The man had nerves of steel. When explosions rocked his ship and the space around him, he stayed calm. Viewing him you had no idea he was seconds away from death. Astrid and I had met Captain Donaldson just two years before he died.
There are some individuals who have so much charisma it’s akin to a waterfall. It flows out of them and can wash over you. They suck the oxygen out of a room. Other individuals, such as Captain Donaldson, are unobtrusive when they walk into a room. But the more you talk to them and the more you get to know them, the more impressed you are. They don’t seem to raise their voice or engage in any type of histrionics, but convey their basic decency and integrity and courage. There are few men and few women like that. But Captain Donaldson was one of them.
We watched him give commands during the battle. Everyone on the bridge took courage from his example. In addition to his exemplary personal traits, he was a brilliant commander. When the smoke had cleared, one Creager ship was destroyed, a second was shattered beyond repair. The third limped off heavily damaged. His victory played a major part in Oregon II being saved from the Creagers. The population of Oregon II knew the vicious nature of the invaders. It’s not surprising Captain Donaldson received numerous awards and accolades from the government. They also elected him to the Oregon II Hall of Fame. It was a well-deserved honor.
We observed a few other pavilions of honor before we entered the section dedicated to the MITTs. A gold plaque listed the names of the soldiers the Federation had lost. Although the MITTs who lost their life fighting the Destroyers were not officially Federation personnel, an exception was made and they were honored in the military facility.
We walked silently on the thick rug. The holograms of the departed MITTs were excellent. They looked just like them. We read about their service and how they volunteered for a suicide mission against the most vicious enemy the Federation had ever encountered.
Technically, the commanding officer did not have to order them into combat. But it was still my responsibility. If I had been forced to give the order, I would have. But I was still saddened. And I still missed them. I didn’t think I would.
Even though the conflict was recently over, the scroll gave a complete recounting of the prior military events. I couldn’t argue with a line of the summation. Especially the concluding paragraphs.
“Although it remains unknown just how the MITTs achieved their victory, they did convince the Destroyers that they were deserters from the human command of Major Logan Ryvenbark. They were taken to the main military facility on. It is believed they managed to hack into the military computers at the facility and then caused extensive destruction to the Destroyers and their military capacity. The resulting computer attack by the MITTs created chaos and briefly paralyzed the Destroyers. They remained paralyzed as Major Ryvenbark’s ship dropped from hyperspace and released the Planet Buster Bomb. No Destroyer ship was even able to lift off the ground by the time the human ship returned to hyperspace. The resulting explosion obliterated the planet and crippled the planned invasion of the Destroyers. Without their sacrifice, the mission could not have been successful.
“The Federation still knows very little about the Destroyers and possibly will never know more than we do now. But we do understand we were saved from a genocidal enemy by the courage of the MITTs.
We honor their memory now and forever.”
I read their names on the gold plaque. I hoped we would remember them forever. If we didn’t, our civilization was lost.
“They were not human. They were metallic,” Astrid said. “But so help me, I think the words courage and sacrifice are proper to describe what they did.”
“Yes, I agree.” I sighed. “You know I’m not sure if humans have improved over the centuries. We have the same flaws we’ve always had. We can be heroic. We can be cowardly. We can sacrifice for others and we can be selfish. But we do seem to have the knack for creating virtuous MITTs.”
Astrid shrugged. “You think the Destroyers were really built just to kill? Or did something go wrong with their creation?”
“I guess we’ll never know. It will be one of the secrets of the galaxy. Which has a great many secrets. We will never be able to discover the answer to all of them.” I chuckled.
“What’s so funny?”
“Well, it’s not funny, but when man first began building machines and robots, it was feared by some they would turn against their creators and wipe out all humans. But, on the contrary, it’s the robots and the MITTs who have saved us. Rather ironic.”
“Plus Ralph. The one Destroyer who refused to destroy.”
“Yes.”
I gazed upon the exhibit featuring Ralph. He had an honored cubicle.
Along with the thanks of humanity.
Semper Fi.
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