by AJ Vega
Chapter 23: Trapped By The Past
Julius woke up groggily in his bunk. The memory of the dream came to him—another dream about the A.I.; this time about the final attack against its moon. He had hoped to get some solitude and rest in his quarters until it was time to pick up the crew—but the whole business with Chorus had once again invaded his sleep.
He stood up and walked to his desk, taking a seat and looking around his lonely surroundings. Once again, his eye caught the samurai sword hanging on the wall. The last time it caught his eye like this, he had played with the thought of disemboweling himself from the sheer boredom that his pirate life was bringing him.
However, he did not feel that way anymore. Since the mystery of the A.I. entered his life, coupled with Laina not retiring, he felt different—he felt alive again. Simply not knowing what was in store for him tomorrow gave him a sense of purpose—a reason to live.
Envisioning the likely future scenarios that would unfold, Julius felt a moment of panic at one of them. He envisioned turning the A.I. over to the highest bidder. Sure, they would likely obtain a nice profit, but eventually the money would be gone and he would have to return to the monotonous plundering of cargo ships. In time, he would end up back in this room, staring again at that samurai sword—again trying to invent a reason not to use it.
Julius turned away from the wall and shook the thoughts out of his head. He passed his gaze around the bare room. It reminded him of the home he and Daryl had back on Earth, all those years ago. He looked at the desk he sat at—the same one from that house. Despite a few marks here and there, it managed to hold together quite well for its age.
His thoughts went back to Daryl and the prior dream in which his younger brother mentioned Chorus by name. He knew it had to be just a dream, inspired by the story Laina recounted about her own dream. There was simply no way that the events really happened that way—or did they?
Opening the desk drawer, Julius pulled out an old digital organizer. He thumbed the control and a holographic image appeared, showing old photos of Daryl and himself. He scanned through the pictures, finding different photos of them back on the CSOW base. The images brought back memories of the dream he’d just woken from, and he was shocked to find how accurate the details in his dream were to the actual photos of the base, his old home, and Daryl. If only he could talk to Daryl and ask him about that day, find out if it really happened that way.
Julius had not seen Daryl in decades. Shortly after Julius’ discharge from the service, both he and Daryl had to disappear and keep their distance from each other. He did it to protect Daryl, but wondered if that was not who he was really protecting. Not a day went by that Julius did not think of his little brother. He needed to see him. When this whole business with the A.I. was over, he would—he had to. That would be his goal.
He put the pictures away and headed out to the bridge. Hopefully he would receive word from Murdock or Laina that the transaction was complete and they could enact their little ruse to fool the crew into deserting the casinos for their “hasty” getaway. The officers were all on board with the plot. He knew they would not have been if it were not for the bonus incentive they were getting—they all would have rather gone to the station to enjoy themselves.
Julius arrived at the bridge. The bridge officers all gave him a curious glance then returned to their stations. He was about to sit in his command chair when he was greeted by an unexpected gift. The chair had been repainted and touched up and the motivators were no longer sputtering—it was like new. The crew had fixed it up for him.
He looked around at the officers, who all looked back at him with suppressed grins.
“We wanted to thank you for the bonus, sir,” Jared said.
Julius stayed impassive. “Why aren’t there two new chairs here?”
They all looked at each other, but nobody responded.
“Very well,” Julius said. “I will have to be satisfied with only a half-complete job.”
Julius sat in the command chair, pleased to finally have back something worthy of a throne to sit in.
“This will do,” Julius said, as close to a thank-you as he would dare.
The crew knew him well enough to understand the hidden gratitude in his words.
“Jared, any communication from Murdock?” Julius asked.
Jared turned his module around to face Julius.
“He checked in upon landing—but nothing since.”
Julius eyed the sight of Venus-1 on the viewscreen, trying to picture the location of Von Haufsberg’s complex. Somewhere underneath that blue haze, Laina was dealing with that snobby fool for the future of the ship—how we wished they had a spare graviton coil to avoid all of this.
“What about Laina?” Julius asked.
“Same, sir—nothing for the past two hours.”
Julius looked at the time display—it had been too long.
“They’re overdue,” Julius said. “Send a high-priority request for check-in to all teams.”
Julius waited for his acknowledgement, but none came. He noticed a confused expression on Jared’s face as he listened to his earpiece.
“What is it, Lieutenant?” Julius asked.
“One moment, sir,” Jared said, as he looked down at his console. He frantically operated the controls for a moment then paused as he listened to his earpiece again.
“Something strange. I’m picking up a faint signal on the waves; it is identical to what we picked up earlier during the UEP and Confed engagement—from the projected ships.”
Julius tensed up. “Where is it coming from?”
Jared’s hands frenzied across the console and he shook his head. “I can’t tell sir, it’s… all around.”
“Captain!” Garval alerted. “I’m picking up a small group of our crew shuttles returning from the station. They are headed to us fast—they’re even bypassing the police checkpoints.”
“Jared, get a channel open to them now.”
“Have it, sir.”
“Onto the bridge speakers.”
The communication came up broken, “… and they have most of them! We had to leave them. Repeat, Sea Wolf: we’ve been double-crossed—it’s a trap!”
Julius kept his calm, despite all the alarms going off in his head.
“Jared, signal the entire landing party: emergency recall now!”
“Yes, sir,” he said then paused. “Oh no …” His voice went faint.
“Sir, there’s—” Ramey began, but was interrupted by a sudden vibration that hit the bridge, quickly followed by the familiar high pitch whine from the gravity generators. The pitch began to increase to uncomfortable levels, causing Julius to cover his ears.
As suddenly as it started, the whine of the generators stopped. The lights on the bridge went from dark blue to white, signaling that they no longer remained in the stealth shroud.
“Ramey?” Julius asked.
“Gravity well, Captain,” Ramey said as he gazed up at the viewscreen and pointed. “From them.”
On the main viewscreen a fleet of warships appeared. They surrounded them from every visible angle. Julius leaned back in his command chair and silently took in the multitude of warning indicators appearing on the screen.
He inwardly chuckled at the sight of the targeting computer straining itself to mark the seemingly endless amount of enemy ships. The computer marked the vessels with letters, starting from “A” and ending at “Z.” Unable to handle the amount of ships it saw as aggressors, it left the remaining ships with a “?” mark and some with no mark at all. Probably a bug in the software, Julius mused.
“How many targets, Ramey?”
Ramey blinked a few times as his hands operated the controls. “Yes, sir. Seventy-seven total targets. Navy battle groups from the Martian Confederacy and UEP, with some smaller Venusian forces as well. The groups are comprised of a battleship, destroyers, and other smaller strike craft.”
Julius sat silently for a moment longer. He could see the nervous glances between the officers as they tried to secretly weigh the odds of survival. Many times they had been in this type of situation before and they counted on him, Julius Verndock, their captain, to pull enough luck out of the empty vacuum of space to save their hides. But he knew that luck was a precious resource that could eventually run out.
“Well,” Julius said calmly. “Since we’re plainly visible, there’s no use in trying to conserve power for just the weapons and stealth, now is there?”
Julius took in a breath before giving the order.
“Battle alert!”