by Brett P. S.
Chapter 4
Hasty Departure
Glenn snaked his way through the spikes and crags, taking considerable care not to arouse the suspicion of his visitor. The ship descended slowly, which meant it hadn’t found her yet. This was a big rock and it was going to have a hard time scouting for survivors in the wake of a planetary disaster. Once if vanished beyond the horizon, however, Glenn bolted at the speed of a super hero with his gravity drive turned up enough to keep him on the ground.
“Kelly, if you can hear me, switch everything back on,” Glenn said, huffing. “We need to take off in sixty seconds.”
He waited for a reply while he raced across the soil. Once he entered the landing site, he charged up the ramp and punched the override on the decontamination chamber, forcing the airlock shut. Glenn pulled off his helmet and ran out into the central corridor, and he rammed into a blunt object making a turn around the bend. Glenn opened his eyes after recovering from the fall. Kelly winced, climbing to her feet as she scrambled to hold a shattered piece of electrical equipment.
“That’s going to be hard to replace,” she said. Kelly paused her speech before meeting him with a serious gaze. “Is it bad?”
“Can we fly?” he asked.
“Mostly.”
“Good,” Glenn said. “Can we punch out to FTL?”
“I don’t know, but the major problem’s been fixed … so maybe.”
“Tell OSI to fire up the thrusters. I need you in the engine room making sure the FTL drive works like it’s supposed to.”
Glenn ran up the hall and dashed into the cockpit. He slid into his chair and brought up a flickering HUD as the rest of the Albatross’ systems turned on. Power restored, the graphic of the ship displayed in front of him lit up in green lights, and he initiated the lift off procedures, an automatic process Kelly programed OSI to handle.
The thrusters rumbled and the hum of whizzing machinery shook the ship until the inertial dampeners kicked into effect. Glenn tapped on his console and brought up a visual of the direction from which the scouting vessel dropped down. Numerous beads of light honed in on his viewport, beam weapons, not unlike his own, though a thousand times larger. Each massive bolt of raw energy could tear through the hull of the Albatross in seconds. Any one might easily bring him crashing down.
Glenn pushed the thrusters to their limits, curving his path upward to avoid the rays. For once, he was glad for the asteroids. The little ones pelted his hull while the massive ones took the brunt of the offense directed against him. He swerved up through the gaps between asteroids and hugged tightly to their sides in case they tried a second salvo.
Good, he thought as he zoomed ahead in an arching forward vector. He’d nearly approached the exterior of the asteroid field, though it meant fewer stones to protect him.
“How are we holding up?” Glenn said.
“I want a raise!” Kelly blared through the intercom.
“You can have it,” Glenn said.
The tiny ones slammed across the hull of the Albatross, and a few of them nearly knocked out the main camera, but he cleared the range nonetheless. His eyes opened up at the infinite blackness of deep space, a dark void blanketed by twinkling lights. He turned the ship around and plotted new coordinates. Glenn glanced at a notification on his HUD and brought up a list of incoming projectiles.
“Here goes!”
He rammed the FTL drive into submission and began the plummet into another dimension, but the ship faltered and Glenn found himself caught between worlds. He looked down at his hands, transparent things not quite physical, almost translucent.
“Kelly, I’m feeling lightheaded.”
“Fixing it,” she said. “Keep them busy.”
Easy for her to say. A fleet of ships with enough firepower to obliterate a moon and his task was to preoccupy them. Glenn sighed and stared down the open void as a salvo of beams whizzed at him. Outrunning the scope of them was useless, but if he could get between shots …
Glenn adjusted his seat and rammed up the throttle, burning the hearts out of his thrusters. The Albatross flew forward into the fray, and he rolled it on its side to avoid a dangerous beam cannon. Electricity rolled past him and knocked out some of the equipment on his hull, though it hardly mattered.
The second salvo approached and Glenn scanned the pattern for an opening. Up and to the right. Yes, he could make it in time if he tried. Glenn piloted his ship at break neck speeds and jammed it in between two stray beam cannon rounds that buffed his paint job even more than the asteroids. His HUD alerted him to an oxygen leak. One of those shots came too close, in fact, ripping out a chunk in the process.
“Done!” Kelly said. “Try again!”
Glenn rammed the FTL drive once again and this time, it worked. The ship submerged into a separate dimension where ordinary physics no longer applied. A second or two before the third salvo hit them, Glenn engaged the FTL engines, and the stars warped around him.
Faster than light, the Albatross departed.
Epilogue
Journalistic Integrity
Glenn strolled the busy halls of Centurion Station, a cozy location in the center of Delta Sector packed full of tourists and merchants of diverse backgrounds. He sent Kelly to deliver the package and paid the extra credits for use of a dolly. He could have shipped it and been done with the ordeal, but if things went sour, he didn’t want to implicate his crew.
He pressed through the crowd and stopped short of an open door to the offices of an independent publication channel. Glenn brushed back his hair and sagged from his formerly perfect posture. It wasn’t his first choice, but it carried the fewest risks to his own physical well-being. The Federation was a beast.
He walked in and caught the stench of poorly mopped floors and shoddy sideboards until he made his way to a stationed secretary. He smiled at her and put his arms on the counter between them.
“You’ll have to wait,” she said. “We have appointments till six in the afternoon.”
“I have the story of a lifetime,” he said.
“I’m sure you do,” she said. “Now if you give me your name and number, I can schedule you in.”
Glenn reached down into his pocket and pulled out a blue credit stick with gold filament connectors for easy transfer of large sums. Her eyes lit up, and she backed away for a moment before flagging down one of the adjuncts in his office.
“Mr. Trevor will see you sir,” she said.
Glenn stepped into a tight office space and sat down in a chair next to an older gentleman in a suit. He wore a silver business suit and carried a data pad for taking notes with his stylus. Newer models allowed for voice to text, but this man seemed old fashioned. Glenn respected him for carrying around a fossil.
“What can I do for you, mister …?” Trevor said, in hopes that Glenn might finish his sentence.
Instead, Glenn unzipped a pocket on the front of his jacket and grabbed a data chip, the one he uploaded each photograph and video feed the Albatross recorder. He edited them down, though, to protect his anonymity with the help of OSI. He also placed the readings from his soil samples and the scans Kelly took of the area on the data chip. Glenn placed the tiny two inch square on the table.
“This is yours,” he said. “You can do what you want with it. I’ll pay you as long as it’s a secure transaction.”
“You mean private?” he said. “What’s this about?”
“In a handful of cycles, you’ll catch word of a disaster in the southeast quadrant of Delta Sector. Wouldn’t you like to be the first to know about it?”
Trevor eyed the data chip. He picked it up and rolled it across his fingers before he grabbed hold of the piece. He grinned at Glenn and held out a free hand to shake, but Glenn backed away and stood up. He walked partway through the open door to Trevor’s office before he looked back.
“I want no part of this,” Glenn said. “The glory’s
all yours.”