by Christi Smit
“Why us, when he is the real traitor?” Christian asked.
“Politics,” Pyoter said, leaning against the wall behind all of the seated Wolves. As always he emphasized the word with a hand gesture, which to any adult would mean only one thing - wanker.
“The blame would fall on us. If we can’t bring his treachery into the light, then we would be outlawed,” Rivers added to the conversation.
“If we choose to fight, know that we risk everything, our very lives and everyone’s on-board this vessel. Everything we hold dear will cease to exist if we fail,” Locke said, still standing with his folded arms in front of his squad. “We must choose now, and see the choice through until the end. Speak openly, what I ask of you will change everything as we know it, we must choose as one.”
There was a moment of silence as the rest of the Titans gathered their thoughts.
Nathan was the first to speak his mind. “The way I see it, there is no choice to make, all of us volunteered to defend our people from our enemies, whether they are alien or human. It makes no difference to me. I choose to follow you Gabriel, we strike back while we still can.”
Xander nodded in agreement. “I agree, kill or be killed. I’m in.”
Rivers stood and patted Nathan who had been seated next to him on the shoulder. “Remember the deal. I get first shot at the bastard.” Rivers’ words were enough to tell the rest of the squad what his choice was.
Pyoter said nothing. Locke had to stare at him for a few moments before the giant Titan said anything, coaxing him into speaking. “Dah,” Pyoter said. “There was no need to even ask, Captain.”
Locke nodded at the Titan’s reply, his eyes moved to the two rookies, seated at the edge of the bench the Wolves were seated on.
Christian realized he needed to say something as Locke’s piercing eyes stared at him. “I go where you go sir, I am with all of you,” Christian said.
“As am I,” Jay said without hesitating.
Locke unfolded his arms and held his hand to his chest, honouring the bravery and selflessness his squad had shown him with their words. Each of them returned the gesture with a closed fist to their chests.
“Prepare for war. The Hyperion will be ready to move soon. Time is very short, do what you must to ready yourselves for what is to come,” Locke said as he turned to leave the armoury. The Titan Captain had to speak to Sabian and Gray before they left for their intended destination.
“Where are we going, sir?” Christian asked before Locke reached the armoury door.
“New Horizon, his ship was anchored there when we left the sector,” Locke replied.
A wave of dread hit Christian as he realized that Jessica could and probably was in great danger. The blood in his veins burned as his anger rose to meet the horror he felt in his stomach. He never got the chance to reply to her message, and now he might never be able to.
If she was lost, he would have to break Rivers’ deal, he would strangle the life out of Lord Vincent with his bare hands if he had to.
The plan was beautifully dangerous. Remy had calculated every single move Gray would have to make, perfectly planned down to the smallest details. Because of her exceptional work, once again, the chance of failure was less than forty-five percent, and Gray was happy with the odds his second in command had given him. It was just enough to make the jump dangerous, but not too risky for his beloved ship. On a scale from nothing to hero, her plan ranked close enough to hero to make Gray excited at the prospect of following her directions. He was almost ashamed of his giddiness, but many years of hiding emotion from his crew had ensured that his zeal was well enough hidden from everyone around him. He had to hide many other feelings from his crew every day, especially what he felt for Remy.
But he could not hide his excitement from Gabriel. The Titan had seen everything in the old captain’s eyes the moment he had walked onto the bridge of the Hyperion.
Locke stood next to Gray’s command chair, watching the crew moving on the bridge as Gray ran the last few checks with his crew.
“Navigation?” Gray asked Remy who was already seated next to him in her safety chair.
“All clear,” she replied. Multi-tasking as only she could, answering her captain and running multiple checks of her own.
“Drive status?”
“They are at ninety-three percent ready, sir.”
“How long before we are clear to jump?” Gray asked Remy, craning his neck around to look at the girl he cared so much for.
Remy looked up and smiled at her captain. “Ten minutes, sir,” she replied.
“Good girl,” Gray, winking at the beauty before he turned back to stare at the screens in front of him. Gray was ready to manually control the Hyperion during the jump, something that was completely unheard of.
“Have you ever done this before?” Locke asked. He had waited for his old friend to stop flirting before asking.
“Once, during training,” Gray replied as his arms were connected to his command chair. Gray winced when the connection was made, he never could get use to the feeling of the control pins piercing his skin. “It did not go well,” he added as his vision changed to see through the eyes of the ship’s OS.
“That’s comforting,” Locke said, chuckling at Gray’s candour.
“It should be. I never fail at anything twice.”
“Will he see us coming?” Locke asked, his question directed more at Remy than Gray.
“We are taking the long way around, using that system’s primary star to sling-shot us around the sector. Our path will be masked by the radiation from New Horizon’s position in relation to its sun. We will be almost invisible to any normal scanners,” Remy said.
“His ship is more than just a normal ship,” Locke stated.
“They will not know what to look for, even to the trained eye we will look like a small comet carving a path through the universe. Because of our indirect path we will be identified as nothing more than a natural void phenomenon.”
“Meaning that bastard won’t see us coming until we are right behind him,” Gray added.
“If all goes according to plan and Captain Gray can perform the manual jump, then theoretically we will exit our BEAM jump only a few thousand miles away from New Horizon’s closest moon.” Remy returned to her work, re-checking everything again.
“How long until we get there Willis?” Locke asked.
“Three days, more or less,” Gray replied, his voice already melding with the mechanical voice of the Hyperion’s OS.
“Drives ready!” an officer seated to the left of Gray’s command chair yelled out. “All systems ready captain. On your mark, sir”
“All hands, brace for jump,” Gray said, his voice transmitted to everyone on board the Hyperion. “Hold on to your nuts Gabriel! Mark!”
Locke remained still, his newly repaired Titan suit countering the force of the jump drive activation.
One moment the Hyperion was drifting outside of the deadly asteroid field that was once a beautiful world named Nox, the next moment there was nothing but a bright light, propelled forward towards New Horizon.
A reckoning was coming for the master of the Stygian Council, a reckoning in the form of a cruiser full of seriously pissed-off individuals, hell-bent on spilling his treacherous blood.
Christian had wandered the passageways of the Hyperion for hours. He had no idea how he was going to prepare for the fight to come on his own, and the wandering had come naturally as his chaotic emotions consumed his every thought.
He had barely noticed the crew of the vessel he now called home going about their preparations. If he had he would have noticed how different each of them was steeling themselves for whatever was to come. Groups of crew still worked at readying the Hyperion for the battle to come. Cases of ship-killing ammunition were loaded into offensive and defensive batteries. Anything that could maim or kill was bolted or welded down before the ordinance started sailing through the silent void towards their belov
ed ship.
Women and children of crew members were huddled in communal areas, trying their best to calm the young ones during the jump to what could be the Hyperion’s final fight.
His wandering also made him skip groups of crew and soldiers gathering in makeshift temples to pray to their ancient gods. Had he come across these gatherings he would have seen many faces there known to him.
Religion was not outlawed on the Hyperion like so many other planets or vessels in the vast fleet protecting humankind. Gray was an understanding captain, and a believer of the divine himself, and so he allowed those within his crew the freedom to worship what their hearts desired - as long as it did not interfere with their duties.
As Christian neared his assigned quarters, he passed by the rest of the Wolves as they made themselves ready to face treachery head-on. He paused for only a moment or two to watch what his squad-mates were up to, hoping that their own preparations would give him an idea what he needed to be doing.
The first he had seen was Rivers, sitting at his usual work bench, fiddling with equipment as he watched ancient recordings of an alien dressed in a grey suit, named after some extinct grain. Rivers chuckled as the odd-looking man fell asleep in a church of some kind. The humour was lost on Christian; no doubt it was because of Rivers’ ancestry that made him understand the antics of the rounded-headed buffoon tripping over himself all the time. Rivers had noticed Christian in the doorway, turning to offer him a bowl of meat stew he was cooking next to his work-bench. Christian had politely declined Rivers’ offer, knowing, with a sickening growl to his stomach, that there was nothing but rodents on-board the Hyperion, and the stew contained at least a few of them.
Next he had walked by the open door of the armoury. Inside Pyoter was skirmishing against training dummies with his giant sword. Pyoter was already clad in his armour, swinging his colossal sword as he cleaved the training dummies into smaller pieces. Christian said nothing has he watched the expert skill of Pyoter’s combat style. It was an awe-inspiring sight to see, and even more so during real combat. Pyoter swung his blade in a horizontal arc, separating a dummy’s head from its metal shoulders. The giant Titan paused a moment as the blade completed its arc, turning his head to look at Christian standing outside the armoury door. Pyoter said nothing, only nodding at the rookie Titan before continuing his melee with his silent opponents. Christian had nodded back and had left Pyoter before he disturbed the man’s concentration.
Locke was not with his Wolves while they prepared, instead he was on the bridge, fully armoured as he stood next to Gray while he piloted the Hyperion through a manual BEAM jump. Choosing to be there should the jump fail, instead of sitting on his backside not knowing what was going on outside of the Hyperion’s thick hull.
Christian passed Xander’s quarters before he turned the corner to reach his own quarters. The explosive expert was sitting on the floor of his tiny quarters, unarmoured with his legs crossed and his eyes closed. All kinds of explosive devices surrounded the Titan, ranging from small grenades to larger devices capable of levelling buildings. Christian guessed that Xander was meditating and working shit out to make even bigger explosions, or he was silently letting the explosives arouse him somehow. Either way, both realities were disturbing enough and Christian moved quickly to not interrupt Xander’s meditation - or whatever it was he was doing.
Christian turned the corner and stopped dead in his tracks. Nathan was standing outside of his quarters, wearing his under suit as was his custom. Nathan’s arms were folded and his right hand was impatiently tapping against his left bicep. Christian walked closer, trying to look calm before he reached his brother.
Nathan turned his head to look at his approaching brother, smirking at his sibling before speaking. “Are you done?” he asked.
“Done with what?” Christian enquired.
“With your self-pitying stroll. Follow me if you are, otherwise you can go inside and cry some more.” Nathan straightened up and started walking away from Christian.
Christian’s anger increased at his brother’s comments, but he was so used to it by now that he bit back his own comments. He followed his brother without a word, wondering where the estranged brother of his was leading him.
They stopped at an intersection a few passageways away from the crew quarters. In front of them was a sealed bulkhead door, locked by a keypad connected to a rotating mechanism visible on the outside of the door.
Nathan keyed in a six-digit code, turning to look at Christian as the door unlocked with grinding gears. “If you tell anyone about this, I will kill you,” he said without a smile.
Christian nodded and followed his brother into the dark room beyond the open door. Nathan stopped to punch in the same code on the keypad inside the room, waiting for the door to close before hitting the light switch next to the keypad.
The lights came on with a dim glow, rising slowly to increase the ambient light to a level that would not hurt their eyes.
Christian’s eyes adjusted quicker because of the rising glow and he saw something that surprised him more than anything. “It’s not possible...how did you...why did you...it can’t be,” he said, the words staggering from his mouth.
“I found it during a mission, before volunteering of course. I kept it all this time, it helps me to relax when I need to,” Nathan replied calmly.
On an ammunition crate stood a piece of both brother’s memories, something the both of them congregated around when they were still young, spending hours glued to the device - to their mother’s annoyance of course. It was attached to a display hanging from the wall above it, with two small controllers connected to it with a length of cable. Two chairs faced the display, and a small cooling case stood in between the two chairs. As children they called it a gaming console, a device capable of taking anyone using it to distant virtual worlds or ancient times. The one they had as children was already an antique by the time they had inherited it from their grandfather, but it made no difference to them as they spent most of their youth shooting virtual opponents or beating each other senseless with gruesome avatars.
Nathan took a seat and picked up the left controller. He was always adamant on being player one. He opened the cooling case beside him, reaching in and taking out two bottles of what looked like green slime. “I couldn’t find what we use to drink during our sessions, but these don’t taste too bad,” he said, tossing one of the bottles to Christian.
Christian caught it and sat down next to his brother, picking up the second controller before speaking. “Is this how you are going to prepare?” he asked Nathan.
“I am already prepared. You are the one in need of this.” Nathan pressed the green power button on the device and the sound of it coming alive filled the small room with memories of their past.
Christian almost cried as he remembered the days that were long gone, without another word he waited for Nathan to choose the game they would play, preparing himself for his brother’s cheating ways.
Without realizing it, Nathan had given his brother the greatest gift in a moment of great need. Christian had no direction, and this small gesture was exactly what he needed to calm himself.
He secretly wished they could stay like this forever, just having fun, doing what they did as children. But it was not to be, and soon the Hyperion would draw close to New Horizon.
And once it did, all hell would break loose.
Chapter Six
Arrival
“We carve through the void with little resistance to our vessels, reaching further and further into the unknown. Every moment that passes our kingdom expands, growing unchecked in all directions. There is no horizon to block our passage, no object too far for our grasp. I hope we never reach the edge of the universe as long as our species still draws breath, for we should not wish to see the nothingness beyond the light of the stars - extinction lurks there, just waiting for our young species.”
-Honoured Captain Theroux, The First Star Explorer, De
ceased
“Prepare the pods for launch,” Gray said to the communications officer close by.
“Aye, Captain. Pods are ready to launch,” the officer replied.
“Good, fire on my mark,” Gray said. He was concentrating so hard that the veins in his forehead were visibly throbbing. He was tired from staying awake for such a long time. His arms were almost limp but he used up every ounce of energy he had left to complete the jump. So many people counted on his expert piloting skills that he had no choice but to forego sleep until the jump was done.
Gray knew that the Hyperion could not take much more of the constant strain it was being put under. Gray spoke to his beloved ship under his breath, trying to sooth the vessel with sweet nothings. “Good girl, bring your ass around one more time for Daddy,” he said softly to himself, “that’s it, just like that, you can complain all you want once we are done my dear.”
Locke heard everything his old friend was saying, and he smiled inside his helmet as he stood vigil over the bridge of the Hyperion. He remained silent, leaving Gray to do the thing he did best.
“Making our final turn now, this will get very choppy!” Gray said as he yanked at the controls, pulling back and to the left to force the Hyperion to change course mid BEAM jump.
The Hyperion did not lose any velocity as it changed its course, bending the light projected by the BEAM drive. The manoeuvres Gray was performing that Remy had calculated were unheard of. No-one before now ever succeeded in manually changing course during a jump, its probability factor was less than one percent, and yet the Hyperion obliged every time Gray coaxed it along its path toward New Horizon.
“Mark! Fire pods!” Gray yelled at the communications officer.
The communications officer did not reply, not wasting time with words. He pressed the launch button and within moments sirens announced the departure of all escape pods.
This was another piece of Remy’s elaborate plan. The escape pods were heavily armoured, automated pods capable of long distance travel. Inside each pods she had worked tirelessly with engineering crews to install boosting transmitters and upgraded broadcasting equipment.