Requiem of a Nightmare

by Jeremy Spires

  “It isn’t as easy as it looks, it takes a lot of energy and effort. And I didn’t know that. It really wasn’t required training, and I don’t think anyone had ever fought with a sword on Vandor before that moment.” I smirked back at her. “And I still killed him.”

  “Yeah, you and that pistol.” She rolled her eyes. “How many people have you killed with that thing, anyways?”

  “I don’t know.” I said, tapping my chin. I thought back on it, and then tilted my head. “But I do know that Wrathe senior was the first.” I can still remember the feeling of the recoil in my hand as I fired the fatal shot that, ultimately sparked an invasion and occupation of my home world. I needed to ask Wrathe about that at some point, because it made very little sense why the Phelbs had occupied Vandor. “And I definitely don’t remember who was last because I barely remember getting out of there.”

  “Which reminds me,” Mallory said as we sank down to a bench at the midway point of the ship’s spine. We’d had it installed after some newer recruits had been unable to make the return trip in exhaustion. “We did crack open the computer drives you brought back from that ship. It was called the Aegis, and that battle fleet had been assigned to attack Earth.”

  I looked at her a raised a brow.

  “And,” She continued. “They were also carrying a huge amount of data from the war they fought with the Cetoplin. Apparently, they damaged a Cetoplin ship that had appeared in their orbit, and when it crashed, they ambushed the survivors, and eradicated them down to a single survivor. That made the Shipmaster seek out his lost ship. But by the time he found the system, the Gilbaglians had reverse engineered their technology and built ships of their own.”

  I nodded. “Sort of like we did when we attacked their frigate.”

  “Right,” Mallory said. “But we used their technology to adapt our defenses and weapons, and then we created particle cannons to counter their shield technology. They haven’t adapted because they haven’t been able to capture any of our ships. Twice they’ve had ships cut off, and in a position to be captured and I’ve ordered them to self-destruct.”

  “So, they’re imitative, not innovative?” I asked.

  “That’s what it seems. They’ve been hunting for Cetoplin technology since their final battle, out near the corridor. And it looks like,” Mallory raised her brows at me. “Why they had established colonies on those two planets outside of Vandor. They knew the radiation was deadly to them.”

  “Wait.” I said, holding up a hand and shaking my head. “Wait a second. So, if the radiation was deadly to them, does that mean their ships don’t have shields like ours do? The Cetoplin technology must have included shield designs?”

  Mallory smiled at me like I was a child. Sometimes that annoyed me, but as I’ve said before, I don’t get paid to understand the big words. “They did. But, the Cetoplins created those two worlds because the radiation of the nebulas killed Gilbaglians, but it did not harm them, so they didn’t bother to shield against it. Apparently, the Meyges are also affected by the radiation levels of those systems.”

  I sighed, then understood fully. “All this time,” I said, rising and walking back towards to bow of the ship. “I’ve been wondering how a technologically superior species like the Cetoplin could be ousted by an up and coming species. But if they had comparable technology, it wouldn’t be difficult to chase and kill a single battle fleet.”

  “It would be like if the Phelbs had attacked the Vandor right when it left Earth.” Mallory agreed. “With their current strength.”

  “All right.” I said. “How do we win this one, Mallory?”

  She shrugged. “You tell me, super-genius.” She nudged me playfully. “But the good news is that I can’t even begin to guess how this is going to play out.”

  “That is good news, how exactly?”

  “Because,” She smiled and pulled me to a stop and wrapped her arms around my neck. Her belly bumped into me when she tried this maneuver that we had done a million times and I looked down, then laughed a little. I gave my wife a tender kiss and then dropped to my knees in front of her, pushing her shirt up and over her stomach.

  My wife had skin so soft that I could have rubbed it until it was raw. It felt like velvety butter under my calloused fingertips and hands. I felt my daughter move at my touch and I laid a tender kiss just below her belly button. “I love you.” I whispered to my unborn child. I frequently spoke to her, often at night. Several times I’d woken up Mallory who laughed at me for it, saying it was “cute”.

  My wife pulled me back to my feet and gripped me around the neck firmly and kissed me. I felt my body relax into her, and returned her kiss, feeling for just a moment that humanity wasn’t perched precariously on the precipice of total extinction. I allowed myself to relax and let my mind go blank for a moment and I reveled in that feeling.

  When she pulled away from me, I felt more rested than if I’d taken a ten-hour nap.

  “What is our heading, Admiral?” I asked as we stopped at one of the elevator lifts that served to take us down a level to where we could summon one of the trams that would carry us forward to our cabin once more.

  She depressed the button on the wall, and we waited. “We’re headed for Earth now.” She said. “And then once we devise a plan for the fleet to disperse best for good protection, we’re going to dump a lot of our scientists and engineers off onto the orbitals around Falsun and Earth, and then we’re going to build a Colony on Mars and more shipyards. If the Meyges are going to come through, and they’ve been rearming for ten thousand years…”

  “Yeah.” I said. “I’ve heard they’re massively huge, so fighting them isn’t going to be an option in the normal sense.”

  “Probably not.” Mallory agreed. “We’re going to have to modify the Night Stalker mission, I think. You’re amazing ground troops, but you’re Spartans on the sea up here.”

  I tilted my head. “Spartans?”

  “Ancient Earth military heavyweights. They were excellent land soldiers, but their navy was pitiful, and it was their downfall.”

  “Makes sense. The Night Stalkers from our chalk are pretty much the best we have. The recruits that came after are also exceptional, too.” I added. The elevator door opened, and we stepped inside. “What if…” I said, trailing off.

  “What if what?” Mallory prodded me. I didn’t like people to prod me when I’m thinking. It interrupted my thoughts, and sometimes that could be dangerous. For me and others.

  “Urrhh, me cave man, me think too slow for impatient wife.” I said, giving my best Neanderthal impression. “Me have good big idea, me think wife will want to hear.”

  Mallory burst out laughing, clutching her side. “If…if you make me wet my pants…I’m going to hurt you.” She gasped. I could see her point. I didn’t make jokes very often.

  “What if we set up a colony on that other planet in the nebula? The one where we found the hologram?” I asked.

  Her laughter faded away quickly. “Because the Meyges couldn’t reach us?” She asked.

  “Or the Gilbaglians.”

  “You’re thinking like a Vandorian.” She said with a ghost of a smile. “I get it. We’re adapted to running away.”

  I looked at her sharply and frowned. “I take offense at that, Admiral. We do not run away. We embrace the most ancient human tradition, as Vandorians.”

  “Oh yeah?” She said with a hand on her hip, lips pouting at me. “What is that?”

  “We fight.” I raised an eyebrow and put a fake tenor in my voice. “To run away.”

  She burst out laughing again, and I put an arm around her shoulders. “You’re an idiot.” She said.

  “Probably, I mean, I did jump out of a perfectly good dropship into an alien space ship with little to no experience, then blew it up like a toddler with the launch codes when things didn’t go my way.” I admitted. “But hey, the explosion was super cool, right?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Six thousand years of scienc
e and evolution and men still can’t get enough explosions.”

  ---

  Chapter Seventeen

  Earth

  North American Continent

  Eight Days Later

  If I’d thought Puerto Rico was beautiful on our last visit, I was not prepared for the absolute splendor of what had once been called Canada.

  Mallory complained at length about the cold, as this part of the planet was deeply in the winter months, and Ivata was training his recruits for arctic conditions. We sat in what he had called a “sled shack”, drinking hot coffee and generally relaxing. We were somewhere in a place my global positioning system called “Ontario”, far to the north of the large settlements.

  “This is fucking miserable.” Mallory declared, bundled in our heaviest winter gear. Winters on Vandor were generally mild, and due to the fact that we only had one continent, there wasn’t really anywhere that it got too cold to survive. But here, without proper equipment, you would die fairly quickly.

  “It isn’t so bad once you get used to it.” Ivata said calmly. “Last week we were in Brazil in the rain forest. One of the Phelb Marauders complained about the heat.”

  “So, you brought him here, naturally.” I said, rolling my eyes. “You’re as bad drill Sergeant Wesley.”

  Ivata perked up. “Thank you, Colonel, that is the best compliment you’ve ever paid me.”

  The three of us laughed. The Eternity had arrived the day before, and had completely debarked her crew, having only a skeleton crew aboard to maintain basic functions. The crews of almost all the ships in the fleet had been ordered to homestead on Earth, mix with the Phelb population. The Phelbs had not resisted, and had opened their doors, sharing space and helping Vandorians build homes. All of the armed forces were ordered to be on a stand down for two full weeks, just until we could assess and determine the threat posed by the Meyges. The Shockwave was due to return the next day carrying the Cetoplin survivors, and I’d taken the time off to go see my best friend.

  Ivata cracked open a beer and passed it to me, and we tapped bottles before taking a long drink. “So that planet you took must have seriously been awful to name it Cesspool, huh?” He asked me.

  “Ammonia atmosphere,” I said, wrinkling my nose. “All my gear smelled like the heads.”

  “So, it smelled like you after a night of heavy drinking?”

  We both roared with laughter while Mallory shook her head. “It was pretty bad.” I admitted. “But it’s already setting up to kick out some ships.”

  “I figured you’d have abandoned it?” He asked. “If most of the fleet returned here?”

  “We left a detachment to see how fast we could set up and churn out some ships,” Mallory said. “Even if they attack and we only get a few hulls out of it, we can bring them back to Earth to finish them, we’ll still be ahead.”

  He nodded. “What else happened out there?”

  “We found another Vandor.” I said, and Ivata perked up. I explained how we had located the second world ensconced in a nebula, and how we had located the hologram which eventually led us to finding the Cetoplin people on their hidden planet.

  “That is pretty intense.” Ivata admitted, leaning back to peer out the window. “All these new allies, and old. Are we going to reform their alliance from the Andromeda galaxy?” He asked.

  “We don’t know.” Mallory said. “We have to report to a council meeting tomorrow. Honestly, there is starting to be some resistance to the Council these days.”

  “Really?” Ivata raised his brows. “Why?”

  “Well, think about it.” I said after swallowing another mouthful of delicious beer. “The people of Vandor have seen failure after failure by this council. They didn’t allow us to evacuate in time to be able to set the ambush I wanted for the Phelbs. That could have allowed us the time to not have to rearm at Novella, which set us back substantially. We lost a lot of soldiers retaking Vandor, and we lost a lot of ships and sailors taking our home planet back. On top of that, they did not allow the envoys that my father had wanted to send to discover more. They kept us hemmed in.”

  “So, you think there might be some kind of no-confidence vote?” Ivata asked, raising his brows.

  “Possibly. Or people may desire an election, to choose leaders that they believe are stronger choice for leadership.” Mallory said with a shrug.

  “Would that be bad for us?” I asked, touching my chin in thought.

  “Could be.” Mallory said, taking my beer out of my hand and taking a drink of it, then pulling a face. “Disgusting.”

  Ivata and I both gasped theatrically and I snatched the beer back from her. “That is almost a divorce-worthy statement.” I said.

  She laughed. And all of us had a good chuckle.

  The walk to the dropship was extremely short, since we’d landed right outside of the sled shack. Ivata sent a communication notice and the thirty or so soldiers he had with him stood up from the snow surrounding the shack. Mallory jumped visibly and I grinned over at Ivata as the ramp lowered.

  “I never had you fooled for a moment, did I?” He asked, grinning back.

  “A little,” I admitted, walking up the ramp behind Mallory. The soldiers fell in behind us and headed in as well. “It was when you looked out the window. The guy to the rear of the shed moved and I heard him.”

  “You heard me, sir?” The recruit asked. It was a female. Damnit, I was bad at figuring out gender sometime.

  “Yes,” I replied with a nod. “You sneezed.”

  “Fuck!” She muttered, slumping into a seat and getting a pat on the shoulder from another recruit.

  “Don’t take it too hard, soldier.” Mallory said firmly. “He does some really irritating shit to all of us.”

  Ivata and I burst out laughing, the way we only did when we were around each other.

  The flight back to where the Council was set up only took up an hour of my day. I found a seat and let my wife doze on my shoulder. I received a communication from an unlikely source moments before we landed in Helsinki, Finland, the hub of the Council. It was a text message from Wingell, asking me to come immediately to see him.

  I sighed and pocketed my communicator, then gently rubbed my wife’s arm. “Hey.” I said softly into her ear, her hair tickling my lip. “Wake up, we’re here.”

  She rubbed one eye and yawned, then cuddled back into me. Mallory had never been one for waking up, under any circumstance.

  “Five more minutes.” She mumbled. I obliged and roused her again once more just as the dropship settled onto the landing pad and the soldiers trooped out.

  Ivata, Mallory and I rose and headed down the ramp. The soldiers had lined up on either side of the ramp and saluted as we walked down. Mallory returned the gesture first, followed by Ivata and I. We walked past them into the building and were met by the Blutencer delegation, with the blue-skinned Mike at it’s lead.

  “Hello, Colonel Valentine.” He said through the translation device affixed to one of his tentacles. “It is very cold in this place.”

  He wasn’t wrong. Finland in the winter was almost as cold as northern Canada.

  “Yes, it is,” I agreed. “How are you today, Mike?”

  “I am well, human.” The delegation broke down into giggles as he replied. That was so unnerving I can’t even begin to explain it.

  “Very good,” I said, then stepped past them. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting with one of our councilors.”

  “Of course, Colonel.” He replied, and they moved on down the hallway in the opposite direction.

  Mallory looked at me. “Who do you have to meet?”

  “We are going to meet Wingell.” I replied. “If he thinks I’m going in there to talk to him alone, he’s out of his fucking mind.”

  She chuckled and twined her fingers in mine as she walked, then she looked over at Ivata.

  “What are you doing, Major?”

  “Me?” He asked absently. “Oh, I just want to see Colo
nel Valentine shoot Wingell again.”

  We laughed loud enough that the guards in the council area turned to look over their shoulders at us. We walked past them without a second thought, and straight into Wingell’s office, where he sat alone behind his desk.

  “Good afternoon, Colonel, Admiral, Major.” He said, rising to shake our hands.

  “I do not approve of clandestine meetings, Councilor.” I said firmly. “What is it you wished to discuss with me?”

  “The population of Earth has demanded an election. This comes from both Vandorian and Phelb populations, because they feel that we no longer have the big picture.”

  “Who are they putting forward?” I asked.

  “Myself, Wrathe, and…” He glanced down then back up at Mallory. “Admiral Valentine.”

  She snorted. “As if.” She snapped. “I don’t run planets, or governments. I drive ships.” Ivata and I looked at each other behind her back. Her head snapped around to me. “You have something to say, Colonel?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’d be nice if someone was in charge that would absolutely support our operations and was smart enough to know not to do something as stupid as having illegal ivory in their home.” I glanced out of the corner of my eye at Wingell, who looked down. The night I’d arrested him on Vandor, I’d found several illegal items in his home, and he’d made a buffoonish attempt to make me believe that my father was some kind of double agent. He’d been suffering from a mental disorder at the time.

  I’d assumed as such. But I’d still shot him in the leg and turned him over for judgement. It was, after all, his fault that the Phelbs had found us, stowing a tracking device aboard his shuttle that he brought back to Vandor after a secret meeting.

  “And there’s also that other thing.” Ivata added, glancing down. Mallory looked at him, then down at herself.

  “Oh right.” She said softly.

  “It would be easier for Alyssa if you were here, on Earth, stable, and not out on some ship in the middle of a war zone with a species of unknown ability.” I said softly, trying to be reasonable. “And also easier on me knowing that I would be able to know you were completely safe.”