Final Days: Escape

by Jasper T. Scott

  Kendra forgot everything, and slowly stepped toward the center of the space. There were six stations where the Brivuk sat, manning the ship’s different functions. She wasn’t able to distinguish a gender difference, if there was one at all. The controls glowed softly, a gentle chiming echoing across the space, comforting her in the face of the unknown.

  She wished Andrew was here with her, but he was being taken care of by Hartford in their medical bay.

  “How long ago did you leave your home?” she asked.

  “We’ve uploaded the data from the one you call Roland. From that I can determine we have been away from our home for forty of your years.”

  Forty years. “And you waited that long to escape?”

  “We needed the fuel cell, and were unable to find a functional one until you arrived,” Belidar said.

  “How many others came between you and us?” she asked.

  “We only observed the groups nearby, and there were two. One crashed, and the ship was damaged. They are the ones who lived in the empty valley you mentioned. They didn’t obey Polarin, or Hound as you know him, and were destroyed.

  “The other was three valleys away, and we were fended off by the monsters. They didn’t want to engage with us, and over the years, we’ve sent many envoys to discuss a trade. They seem content with their new reality.”

  Kendra considered this and nodded. Without the interference from Morris, they might have ended up staying there forever, too. And if Hound had left them to it, perhaps it wouldn’t have been so bad. “If your world was destroyed, why are we returning to it?”

  Belidar stared up at the huge viewscreen. “We are not. They would find us there. We already had rudimentary interstellar travel capabilities before Polarin, and had mapped out a colony world. He knew none of this, because our space exploration program was kept a secret due to a lack of support among the general public. My people felt the funds would be better spent restoring our ocean. Now we are grateful that the Regents felt otherwise. Our coordinates are set for this colony world.”

  “When do we make the jump?” she asked, remembering how quickly Eden had traveled through the solar system, then on to their final destination. Hound had convinced them they’d been in the cryo tubes for seventy-one years, but it had really been less than a week.

  “Twelve of your hours. The fuel cell is functional, but needs to charge,” he told her.

  “Then I’d better get some rest.” Kendra turned, about to head from the bridge, then paused. “Thank you.”

  “It was a fair deal for the fuel cell.”

  “But you didn’t have to come and help us. You could have left us there,” she whispered.

  “That is not our way. You will learn this.”

  Kendra warmed at his words. If they were going to be heading to a new world, it was nice to have some allies when they arrived. There was so much the two races could learn from one another, and she was excited for the next stage.

  “Goodnight,” she told him.

  “I will see you before the jump, correct?” Belidar asked.

  “We’ll be here,” she assured him.

  Kendra was exhausted, her hands aching, her legs stinging from the cuts, and she decided to take Hartford up on his offer to check her out. She roamed the ship, nodding and smiling to every Brivuk she saw along the way. Most of them were safely stowed in their water tanks, waiting for the trip to be over, but there were always people needed to run a ship this size.

  Eventually, after getting lost a couple of times, she found the medical bay, and entered to see Andrew talking with Thomas. The doctor leaned against a bed and Tony slept on another cot, Val on the one next to him. Andrew looked better, his arm in a sling. A couple of other humans were inside, their injuries patched, and they seemed to be sleeping it off.

  Andrew and Thomas both turned to face her. “Are you all healed up?” she asked the former.

  “The good doctor worked his magic. I’d say it's your turn.” Andrew grinned, and from the glassy look in his eyes, Thomas must have given him a strong painkiller.

  “I just spoke with Belidar. We make the jump in about twelve hours. He asked us to be there.” She removed her jumpsuit, and mud crumbled from the bottom of the legs. She had no inhibitions about sporting underwear and a white tank top. She was too tired to be shy about it now. But she glanced at her legs, and saw dozens of scabbed cuts.

  “Twelve hours, then we start the trip to our new life. I can’t believe I’m this excited to hurtle through space,” Andrew said.

  “Me neither.” Kendra hissed as the doctor got to work, pulling out bits of glass and dabbing the wounds with antiseptic.

  “You’d think that with all this advanced tech, they could make it sting a little less, hey?” Andrew laughed, and Kendra realized she’d never seen him this relaxed. Normally he’d be muttering about Tony being too close to Val, or worried about fending off Hound or Morris. With his enemies behind them, she looked forward to seeing this new side of the man she was falling in love with.

  Their future was unknown, but at least they were together.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Val

  Val woke to a sound like a freight train and the deck shaking violently through her sleeping bag, clacking her teeth together. She sat up to see her dad and Kendra already awake and staring at one another in the low light of the storage area.

  “Man, we can’t catch a break!” Roland said.

  “What’s going on?” Diane’s small voice asked.

  Tony stirred beside Val with a sleepy, “Wha...?”

  The sounds of colonists waking and shouting out in alarm filled the air.

  “We need to find out what’s going on,” her dad said as he jumped to his feet. Kendra and Roland were beside him an instant later.

  “I’m going with you!” Val cried.

  A second later they were pushing through the crowds to reach the double doors on the far end of the room.

  “It’s okay! Everyone calm down!” Kendra said. “We’ve weathered attacks before.”

  “This is an attack?” someone cried.

  Andrew grimaced. “Great.”

  “We know as much as you do!” Kendra said.

  The rising tumult of overlapping voices cut her off, and the ship jumped with what felt like an impact and the muffled roar of an explosion. Everyone screamed.

  “Come on!” Andrew yelled, leading the way and pushing through the crowds. People made room for him, opening a path for Val, Tony, Roland, and Kendra to follow.

  They reached the exit and found one of the amphibians there, wearing a translator. Andrew withdrew a matching device from the front pouch of his jumpsuit and placed it over his head. “Take us to the bridge!” he said.

  The alien said something in a warbling, watery voice.

  “I don’t care. We have a right to know what’s happening...” More alien words interrupted. “She’s the leader of our people.” Andrew jerked a thumb at Kendra, and she stepped forward with arms crossed over her chest.

  “We both are,” Kendra added.

  The alien’s neck fins fanned out and shivered briefly before lying flat once more. It fluttered its fingers at them in an odd gesture, and then turned and opened the doors from a control panel beside him. The alien motioned for them to follow. Val became aware of a surge of colonists coming up behind them, but Kendra turned and held out both palms to stop their progress. “We’ll be back with an update soon! Stay here and remain calm!”

  With that, they darted through the doors, and the alien shut them. The sound of colonists banging with their fists followed and the amphibian muttered something that might have been disapproval or scorn. Val hoped that wasn’t a sign of things to come. They still knew so little about these amphibians. The Brivuk, Val reminded herself. At least now they had a name.

  They wound through the corridors, chasing after their alien escort until they came to another set of doors, guarded by a pair of identical-looking Brivuk with their strange fl
ute-shaped weapons.

  The doors parted, and they stepped into a vast chamber with a high ceiling and a dome of stars overhead. A massive viewscreen curved around the front of the space, with six control stations arrayed in front of it where the Brivuk sat. Bright blue spheres of energy and strobing green lasers leaped between their ship and a large, boxy gray vessel to the right of that screen.

  Here and there silvery missiles came spiraling in, flying in evasive patterns and exploding with muffled booms. The deck shuddered in time to each explosion. Their guide announced himself in a rasping, high-pitched voice, and one of the officers turned his chair to face them. She guessed it was the one they called Belidar, but Val couldn’t be sure.

  “What’s going on?” her dad asked.

  “Yeah, man, if we need to evacuate we gotta know,” Roland added, wringing his hands and glancing in the direction they’d come.

  Kendra silenced him with a sharp look. She withdrew one of the translators from her jumpsuit and put it on her head.

  Belidar said something in his language, and Tony furrowed his brow in bemusement.

  “They found us,” Kendra said, relaying the message in a soft voice.

  “I can see that, Belidar!” Andrew exploded, gesturing emphatically to the enemy ship busy delivering a full broadside.

  The alien traded a glance with one seated to his right, and Val noticed that Belidar was situated roughly in the center of the configuration of six control stations. Is he the captain? she wondered.

  Belidar went on, and Kendra continued translating for the rest of them to hear. “We’re taking heavy fire,” she said. Andrew’s cheeks bulged with another angry retort, but this time Kendra placed a hand on his arm to calm him, and she stepped forward to take over. “Will we make it?” she asked, waiting while Belidar explained. He seemed agitated, speaking quickly, his gaze darting to the battle going on around them. The other bridge officers were shouting to one another, their hands flying over their controls.

  A massive explosion roared and kicked through the deck, interrupting Belidar’s frantic explanations. The jolt from that hit nearly sent them all sprawling. Val flailed for something to hold onto, and Tony appeared by her side, holding her steady with an arm around her waist. “I’ve got you,” he breathed beside her ear.

  Glowing debris went flying past the viewscreen, and Belidar spun away, shouting orders to the others. He glanced at them and said something else.

  “Hold on!” Kendra warned.

  Then came a sudden, gut-sucking loss of gravity, and a blinding wash of light that made Val wonder if they’d just taken a hit big enough to vaporize them. Her vision cleared a few seconds later and everyone began drifting clear of the deck, but there was no sign of damage anywhere on the bridge.

  Gravity made a slow return, tugging them to the floor. The viewscreen and domed ceiling were now both showing a swirling maelstrom of light, but no stars or dark gulfs of vacuum between them. Val’s dad hit the deck face-first with a grunt, and quickly recovered as if he were doing a push-up. “What the hell was that?”

  Val managed to land on her feet with Tony. Kendra, too. But Roland landed on his back and hit his head. “Ow,” he muttered.

  Belidar made a hissing sound that might have been a sigh as a bleating alarm started up and flashing blue lights washed through the bridge.

  * * *

  Roland

  Alarms continued to ring out, and Roland picked himself off the bridge’s floor, rushing over to the nearest control position. The aliens warbled emphatically; their words were unfamiliar but their worries shone through. The swirling lights of superluminal space faded to the more familiar static points of stars.

  “What just happened?” Kendra called out, blinking at the viewscreen. Belidar spoke. Roland wished he had a translator on, but she relayed the message quickly. “He says that last shot damaged the fuel cell. We had to drop out of superluminal space early.” Kendra had paled, and Roland stared out the viewscreen at a strange red sun in the distance.

  Andrew was right beside Belidar, one of his arms draped over Val’s shoulders, consoling her. “So where the hell are we?” He wore one of the translators, too. Belidar answered. “Great!” Andrew threw up his hands. “They don’t know.”

  Roland peered at the console in front of him, seeing the Brivuk officer sifting through what looked like star charts. The screen flashed through dozens of constellations, but after a few tense minutes, the crew member’s arms rose in the air. He bellowed something dire, and Roland peered to Kendra for a translation.

  “He said we’re lost. They have no record of the stars here.”

  “What does that mean for us?” Tony asked.

  Roland stepped over toward them. “It means we’re screwed.”

  “Why? Can’t we…” Tony gestured helplessly to the viewscreen. “There have to be planets nearby, right?”

  “The chances of finding a world that can sustain human life, not to mention having water suitable to the Brivuk, is very low,” Roland said. “We’re going to be searching out here for years. And even if we do find one, it might be already inhabited by something not so friendly.” It was so frustrating to be so close, only to have another obstacle in their way.

  “What about fixing the fuel cell? We could head for the original destination after that,” Andrew suggested.

  Belidar spoke again, his posture saying it all.

  “They don’t have the proper tools to fix it,” Kendra told them. The alien spoke again. “But…”

  “But what?” Roland asked impatiently.

  “But he does have a method of searching for compatible worlds. It was how they found the potential colony world in the first place,” Kendra relayed from the Brivuk leader.

  Roland brightened at that. “They can find us a home?”

  She nodded. “He says it might take a while, but he’s confident it will work.”

  “And then what?” Val asked. “We can’t travel to another star system at sublight speeds!”

  “Maybe they have cryo pods,” Kendra suggested.

  Belidar spoke, and Kendra smiled. “He says they dropped out of superluminal to save what’s left of the fuel cell and effect emergency repairs. The original destination is too far, but we should be able to reach another, closer star system.”

  Belidar spoke with another officer, and Kendra leaned toward them, still listening in. She turned to Roland, whispering in his ear. “He says their software isn’t compatible with the ship’s. They kept their own scanner hidden from their version of Hound, so he wouldn’t find out about their plans. Belidar is confident they can make it work, but it’ll take time.”

  Roland grinned, nodding toward Belidar. “Can you find me one of those translators?”

  Kendra nodded at his suggestion, and she removed the spider-like cap from her head, passing it to Roland. He’d never worn one, and flipped the hinged legs a few times before settling it over his head. It moved as if of its own accord and clamped successfully against his skin. It felt a little tight, but eased off a second later. “This is cool,” he muttered, causing Belidar to meet his gaze.

  “Roland, what is it?”

  This was super weird. He could still hear the man’s bubbly words through his ears, but heard the English ones inside his mind. This tech was revolutionary. It made him wonder if they would have been able to speak with animals back home.

  He pushed away the image of him talking with his childhood German shepherd, and got to the point. “You need to link your own software to the ship’s?”

  “That’s correct. We think we can do this, but have refrained from attempting it before. We never had the need to use our system scanner, since we’d already selected our target.” Belidar pointed to the computer screen, and Roland sauntered over, seeing an image of an aquamarine-colored planet, primarily water with only a few lonely continents spread across the expansive oceans.

  “Mind if I have a crack at linking them? I have a knack for this kind of thing.�
�� Roland took a seat as the other crew member rose. “I’m going to need some coffee.”

  “Good luck!” Andrew snorted. “It’s probably buried under a few tons of other supplies.”

  “At least that gives us something to do,” Kendra said. “Come on. Let’s get the man his coffee.”

  * * *

  Learning their system didn’t take long at all, not when Roland had been able to add the translator plug-in to operate the software in a language he could comprehend. After that, the rest had only taken three or four hours. The bridge crew remained vigilant, continuing to fly through this system and searching for signs of pursuit. So far they were clear. Roland hoped it stayed that way.

  The rest of his friends had left, but Eve had come to see how he was doing. She’d brought another cup of coffee, and he glanced at her near the end of the bridge, dozing softly in an oversized chair. She was an enigma. For a long time, she’d tormented him while she was under Morris’ command, but since then, she’d softened to him. She’d become downright chatty.

  “Roland, how is it you were able to perform this work so quickly?” The Brivuk lead engineer had taken charge of the operation, wearing a translator. Belidar had left to soak in a tub of water or something. Apparently they were limited in how long they could be exposed to open air.

  “This was nothing. I once created a subroutine path that allowed me to cause a loop in the…” Roland stopped, seeing the man’s dark eyes glazing over. “Never mind. I think this should do the trick.” Roland’s tongue stuck out the side of his mouth, and he held his breath as he keyed the final command in. This was his seventh iteration; the first six had failed for one reason or another. No biggie. He rarely managed something this complex on the first or even the tenth attempt.

  The screen flashed green, and he leaned back, adrenaline filling his body.

  “You did it!” The rest of the bridge crew peered over, a few coming to stand behind him. “Send word to Belidar. We can begin the search.”

  Roland hopped out of the seat, and the engineer took over, accessing their program and through it their scanner. Roland stared over his shoulder at an image of the surrounding space. The display periodically highlighted stars on the display, zooming in and framing them with lines of alien text. The console was back to displaying things in the Brivuk language. “We will find what we seek, but it may take some time.”