“Really,” Benjamin gasped with delight. “Oh my, that will drastically change my base model for this excavation. I’ll have to examine the remains if they are still available.” His face contorted with a questioning look. “It almost makes me think that something really bad happened here a long time ago and time has just washed it all away.”
“Yeah,” Doug sighed in agreement.
Flux Point Foxtrot
Location Unknown
September 19th, 2176 / Early Evening (Dragon time)
“A
ll clear Willy,” Fergus said. “Nothing on passive sensors or in our immediate vicinity. I shot out an active sensor ping to make sure. But I keep picking up this insanely high frequency static. I’m not sure what it’s about, but I'll hopefully know more in just a few. I started a full diagnostic scan on the communications and sensor package just in case we took some major damage.”
“Damage report,” Willy demanded.
“Looks like minimal buckling of the hull around the docking port and bulkhead section delta eighty-eight,” Trae reported. “We managed to evade three of those missiles and the countermeasures took out the rest. I think we're good,” he looked back to Willy.
“Alright, good,” Willy said, letting out a heavy sigh. “How far is it to the next flux point?”
“At full thrust, about two hours,” Trae said.
“Andy, set course, but only run her at about eighty percent,” Willy ordered. “Let’s give her a little shakedown just to make sure we didn’t take any other damage.”
“Oh! This must be the bridge,” a strange electronic voice shouted. “And I presume you to be the captain. Please, I beg you, sir. Save me from the prodding of this mad creature,” the robotic voice begged. Jenny pushed the cart and shambling willow tree onto the bridge toward one of the starboard auxiliary stations. She grunted and strained with effort.
“Well hey there, Woody, ol’ buddy ol’ pal,” Fergus laughed. “Enjoying your stay?”
“My name is K’etu, not Woody,” the voice argued through the speaker.
“What in the hell?” Willy stared in disbelief at the shambling mound of whip-like limbs covered in blossoms. “What the hell is that?”
“It would really be nice if one of you strapping young lads would be so kind as to help a damsel in distress,” Jenny panted.
“Captain,” the willow tree shouted through the speaker mounted to the cart. “I am an ambassador of the It’Vit people. Please, my people will pay handsomely for my safe return, sir. I implore you to release me.”
“Jenny,” Willy said. “Can you not hear what it’s saying?”
Trae began to chuckle under his breath.
“Well, you see, Willy,” Fergus began, “our bat shit crazy schoolmarm here…”
“Had Andy yank out her translator implant,” Trae finished the sentence.
“Andy! What in the hell would possess you to do something as idiotic as that?” Willy drove a clenched fist down onto the arm of the command chair.
“What? They asked me to do it. It’s not like I went and forced them to let me take them out.”
“You do realize that it’s insanely expensive to have it replaced? The Polsions will only give you the first one for free.”
“Dip shit here also took his and Denise's chips out as well,” Fergus said as he thumbed in Andy’s direction.
“Captain, please. Do you understand the words that I am speaking,” the alien plant thing pleaded.
Willy frustratingly wiped a large meaty hand down his face.
“Get off the bridge!” Willy's finger firmly stabbed in the direction of the exit. “I don't care and right now I really don't want to know why there is an alien willow tree begging me for help.”
“I will do no such thing,” Jenny argued. “I need to document every movement in order to figure out this creature’s language.”
“Please Captain, please help me,” it begged.
“Turn the damn thing loose, Jenny! What in the world would possess you to take a prisoner?”
“It isn’t my prisoner, but it does not speak like we do,” she said. “It communicates with motion only and I must know how it does this!”
“Get out!” Willy closed his eyes and breathed in slow deep breaths. He blew out a slowly through his nose. “We can figure out the details after we get back to the hole and talk to Doug. For now, get the hell off my bridge!”
cHAPTER 58
Anderson (Eltanin 2)
The Betty / Mess Hall
September 21st, 2176 / Evening (Dragon time)
“C
ut the bullshit! You don't give a good God damn about me. You just want the prestige of knowing, the John Thomas,” the Chief shouted as he jabbed a skinny finger at Rachel in emphasis. “You wouldn't know the real John Thomas if he bit you on the ass. And trust me, you wouldn't like him either, so don’t go thinking that you know anything about me, girly.”
“Chief, calm down,” Doug said. “I wanted this meeting to be casual so that Rachel could tell you why she gets so spastic around you.” Doug glared over at Rachel, daring her to get excited about anything at the moment.
“I don't give a shit why. She can keep her damned legs closed and stay the hell away from me. I know how you freaky deeky fangirls can be. I'm sure that I have great-great grandkids out there somewhere that are your age. Hell, this one time I had one chick try to cut my ear off as a fucking souvenir,” the Chief shouted. He turned his head to the side. Pulling the hair away from his left ear he pulled down the tip of his ear to show off a ragged scar.
“You don't under...,” Rachel started.
“No,” the Chief bellowed. “You don't understand, princess!”
“Hey now,” Lizz shouted at the Chief. “Calm yourself.”
“Enough!” Doug threw a chair across the galley. “Sit your ass down now, Chief!”
“Or what?”
“Or I lock you in here with Rachel and leave you overnight.”
“You wouldn't,” the Chief gasped.
“I just want you to hear her out. It's something extremely important to her that she needs to get out, or she might explode.” Doug nodded at Rachel. “Show him what you showed me.”
Gently, Rachel opened her backpack and removed a heavy square object. It was wrapped in a layer of lightly oiled leather from an old military duffel bag and placed it on the table. She methodically unwrapped the package, one age-worn layer at a time. She lifted and folded down the last flap of material, revealing an aged leather-bound tome. Its corners and edges worn from years of attention and use. Scraps of paper, bits of this or that stuck out at odd angles in places.
“My grandmother gave this family heirloom to me years ago, just before she passed away. She had planned to give it to my mother, just as her mother had passed it to her, but my mother wasn't the responsible type and died very young because she brought me into this world. This,” Rachel lovingly caressed the book, “is what inspired me to become a pilot and an engineer and to do whatever it takes to get the job done.” She stared across the table at the Chief, tears filling her eyes. “You inspired me.”
She flipped the large binder onto its front cover and flipped to the last filled page of the ancient scrapbook. Slowly, she leafed through the pages, wrapped in the warm, loving memories of her grandmother. “Unless we've missed something over the years, this should cover your entire career. All the way back to your days before flight school. The task has been passed down to the women of my family since its beginning. My grandmother passed it to me, her mother passed it to her, and my great-great-grandmother passed it down to my great grandmother.” She smiled and pointed at a newspaper clipping. “See here, this was when they erected the statue of you in Atlanta.” She looked up at the Chief and smiled. “You know, it's still there. Any time I go Earthside I make a point to swing by and leave a candle by it.” She continued flipping pages.
Panic and a need to escape flashed across the Chief's face. “Besides being a fam
ily of creepy fangirls, what does this have anything to do with me?”
“See here,” she pointed to a clipped magazine cover. “This is where you were awarded the humanitarian service medal after the incident on Venus station. And here,” she flipped another page, “You took the top scores among hundreds of participants during the contractor testing.”
“She was so proud of you.” Rachel smiled wide as tears of joy trickled down her face. “And I get to tell you, her story.” Rachel smiled and began to sob.
Lizz caressed Rachel's back with caring, motherly strokes.
“Do you remember Claudia Rose?” Rachel sniffled and sucked in a lip quivering breath.
“Claudia,” the Chief gasped at the name. “I...I could never forget,” he stammered. “But...h...how do you...” He swallowed dryly. “How do you know that name?”
Rachel flipped another page and removed a yellowed photograph from the scrapbook. “My great-great-grandmother is the one that started this scrapbook. That was back in the days before you were a hero. Before you even went off to flight school. She kept everything that she had from the earliest of days when the two of you dated in high school. She was so proud of you from the very start. She fell in love with your determination.” Rachel lovingly smiled at the figure in the picture, then handed it to the Chief. “Her name was Claudia Rose.”
“Claudia,” the Chief shakily whispered. Confused, he took a ragged breath and tenderly accepted the time-worn photo. “Oh...my...” His slow exhale fractured into a face contorting sob. “My Claudia,” he quietly wailed.
Doug clasped a comforting hand onto the elder space boomer’s shoulder. The Chief reached up and thankfully patted the proffered comfort.
“She always wanted you to know that there was no one else,” Rachel continued. “You were her one and only.”
He leapt forward, grabbing Rachel's hands across the table. “But I came back! I looked for her,” he growled.
“Claudia knew that you did,” Rachel calmly said. She sniffled and wiped her nose on the collar of her flight jacket. “She even saw you from a distance one of the times that you tried to infiltrate the family's manor house. She was the first to notice you leaping over the hedgerow from the tree branch when you landed on your face.”
The Chief sighed. “I remember that.” He sadly giggled under his breath. “I managed to break my nose that time.”
“You knew her family and how they were. It was all of her father's doing. After finding out that she was pregnant, her father, Marcus decided it would be best to keep her locked away and hidden. He hoped that you would just go away, which you eventually did. But please don't take that the wrong way. She did not expect you to wait for her. You had your mission and she knew how important it was to you.”
The Chief’s eyes bulged as the realization set in. “I'm a father.” He glanced to Doug, then Lizz and back to Rachel.
“Yes.” Rachel beamed, wiping away more of the happy tears. “You had a daughter.” She flipped the pages of the scrapbook to a section that looked like a family picture album. Baby pictures, hospital bracelet, umbilical cord taped to the top of the page, scatterings of baby teeth all decorated the ancient family tome. “Her name was Ashlee, after your mother.”
Location Unknown
Flux Point Charlie
September 21st, 2176 / Evening (Dragon time)
“W
e’re through! The flux is closed,” Andy said loudly as sparks exploded, showering the bridge from an overhead relay conduit.
“God Dammit! Damage report,” Big Willy demanded. Control panel displays flickered as main lighting began to fail.
“We have a hull breach in aft engineering,” Fergus reported. “Looks like emergency bulkheads are holding for now. The reactor is stable, but the power distribution system that is having issues right now. It's like that last hit was followed by an EMP or caused a surge in our electrical power supply system.”
Purplish blue electricity arced from the forward starboard auxiliary station to the floor decking. The station suddenly exploded, sending circuitry, plastic, and Amanda flying across the bridge.
“Denise, help me,” Janey ordered as she ran to Amanda's side, checking her for injuries.
“Comms and sensors are still working, but weapons are down. I'm getting faults in the main relay housing for the gauss capacitors,” Trae said.
“Helm is a dead stick,” Andy added.
“What about missiles?”
“Nada,” Fergus sighed. “I’m not sure what the issue is, but the system is showing no missiles installed, but I know we have at least two dozen left.
“How's Amanda?” Willy turned, craning his neck to look around Janey.
“She'll live. Just scrapes and a few burns. Nothing serious. She got really lucky.” Janey stood and held out a hand to help Amanda to her feet. “I'm going to take her to sickbay and patch her up.”
“Alright. Bring us to an all stop if the thrusters will agree,” Willy ordered. “Fergus, if sensors are up and running, try to find us a safe harbor so we can get these repairs knocked out. The rest of you, get to work. Andy, Trae, weapons, and helm are the top priority. Those bastards have hunted us down for the last three days. We can't afford to be sitting ducks again. I'm going for a walk to see how bad that hole is and to take a look around.”
“Did you wake up and eat a bowl of stupid for breakfast or something?” Denise unlatched her harness and walked over to the command chair. “You're seriously going out there when those alien sons of bitches could show up at any moment without any warning whatsoever?”
“Absolutely,” Willy said pensively. “I have a feeling that we've been tagged. It's the only thing that makes sense with how they keep finding us after we’ve gone through a flux point.”
The alien willow tree rushed onto the bridge and zoomed up next to Willy in its hover-gator. Its tentacle-like branches whipped about in a flurry, striking Willy about the legs. “You promised that you'd return me. You are as crazy as the female that captured me,” the robotic voice of the translator frantically shouted.
“Okay, okay,” Willy said, dodging the shivering bush's attack. “We'll get you back to where you need to be just as soon as we can. For now, you're just stuck with us. And if you want to live, I suggest that you go help look for damage before I make a toothpick out of your scrawny ass!”
The Willow’s branches suddenly slumped and dragged along the ground behind the transport as it hovered toward the bridge exit.
cHAPTER 59
Anderson (Eltanin 2) Orbit
The Ethel / Command information Center
September 24th, 2176 / Noonish (Dragon time)
“N ow I tell you what, Captain,” Chris said exaggerating his normally nasally southern dialect. He smiled at the camera mounted above the station in the engineering section. “All of this zero-g welding and extracurricular spacewalks have left me feeling a might parched, Captain. We have been bleeding and sweating and working our asses off up here. Do you suppose that there is any chance that Miss Melanie would be so gracious as to work up a special batch of sweet tea for us when we set foot back down in the Hole?” He flashed a crooked tooth smile over the Ethel's massive view screen.
“I'm sure that she wouldn't have a problem with that, Chris,” Doug said. “Unless it's something special that we don't have in stock.”
“Oh no, no, no, nothing like that at all, Captain. As long as she has the three main ingredients.” He stuck up a finger and began counting them out. “As long as she has tea bags, lots of hot water and the very, very most important ingredient of all,” he paused, licking his lips. “Pure white cane sugar.”
“There were enough people on the roster that drank sweet tea that I know we brought plenty of tea and sugar back with us.”
“Maybe so Captain, maybe so. But let me ask you this. Does she know how to make true southern sweet tea?” Chris’s large fluffy eyebrows comically rose with hopeful anticipation.
“I'm sure t
hat she does,” Doug replied. He began to rub his temples in a preemptive strike against the headache that he was sure was coming. “You just steep the tea bags in hot water and add sugar. I’m pretty sure that she can handle that, Chris.”
“Ah, but I'd bet that's where you're wrong.” He smiled and waggled a greasy black finger.
“Okay, how do you make true southern sweet tea then?” Doug crossed his arms and waited for Chris’s earth-shattering reply.
“You see Captain, you mix in a great big ol' extra helping of diabetes into it. So thick and sickeningly sweet that you can feel yourself transcend upon a higher plane of existence.” He closed his eyes and slowly licked one finger after another.
“Is Danny down there with you?” Doug said with an exasperated huff.
“Well yeah,” Chris said. “Why, what’s up?”
“Could you get him for me?”
“Oh hey, yeah, sure. Hold on just a sec there mon Cap-i-tan.” Chris cupped his hands and looked away from the camera. “Hey Danny! The Captain wants to talk at ya.” He turned back to the screen. “Hang on, he's coming. He'll be over here in just a second.”
“What the hell are you doing man?” Danny joined Chris at the engineering station, walking into the camera's range of view. “Did you get those injectors calibrated yet?”
“Naw, not yet. I was fixing to get to it when the Captain rung me up,” Chris said, pointing at the viewscreen.
“What? Get the hell out of here and back to work before I throw you out an airlock ya damn layabout.” Danny threw the greasy rag that he held at Chris, then turned to examine the engineering console.
“Alright, alright,” Chris threw his hands up defensively and backed away, out of the camera's view.
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