Star Splinter

by J G Cressey

  “Luckier than you think. Without the main thruster, that Pinpoint ship would have been a disaster waiting to be triggered.” Cal glanced at the fragments strewn across the floor. “That Hogmeyer was a major prick.”

  “Wish I could have seen the look on his ugly face when he figured out we’d nicked his best ship,” Toker said with a grin.

  “Best ship!” Eddy remarked. “Dunno ‘bout that. I s’pose it's fast an' all that. An' it looks kinda decent if you're into that sorta thing. But what if we wanna fight?”

  Cal gave her a crooked grin. “Perhaps it's time I showed you both what a gem of a ship we've swiped.”

  Eddy shuffled over to the flight console as Cal sat himself in the primary piloting chair, its smart-gel swiftly molding to the shape of his body. Running his hands across a wide, shiny black section of the console, he activated the touch-sensitive controls that immediately illuminated in sharp blue and red lines.

  “I'll set these controls so that they respond to our touch. And when I say our touch, I mean our touch. Anyone else tries, and they'll have a lifeless ship on their hands.” Cal considered for a moment then turned to look at the pair. “If you want, I could set aside some time each day to teach you how to operate and fly the ship.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Toker said, sounding enthusiastic.

  “I guess,” Eddy added, sounding less so.

  “You’re not overly keen, Eddy. Maybe this will change your mind.” Cal tapped at the controls, and a large screen emerged smoothly from the back of the console. The screen was crafted from such fine, clear material that it would have been barely visible were it not for the image upon it. “This shows the exterior hull of the ship,” he explained as the image began to rotate. “As you know, this ship is seriously fast, and we could probably outrun just about any threat we're likely to meet. But inevitably, there comes a time when you need to turn and fight.” A red, palm-sized circle began to pulsate in the center of the console. Cal tapped it with a single finger.

  Four aiming targets immediately lit up on the wide smart-glass of the cockpit window: two red and two blue, bright against the blackness of space. At the same time, six cylindrical devices sprang seamlessly from the armrests of the three front-facing seats, the middle one being the piloting chair in which Cal sat.

  “Notice anything different about the exterior image of the ship, Eddy?”

  The girl’s eyebrows shot up as she spied the multi-barrelled swivel blasters that had ejected out of the front and rear of the ship. Two monstrous cannons had also protruded from each side of the hull.

  “They real, Cal?” Eddy asked.

  “Yep.” Cal patted his hands on the two cylindrical controls that had emerged from the armrests of his chair. “This chair is the piloting chair, and these two control devices are used to pull off the maneuvering during combat. I've flown a shit load of ships in my life, but I can assure you the Star Splinter's are easily the most fun and without doubt one of the best ships to be in if you’re ever caught in a dogfight.”

  Jumping up, Cal moved into the chair to his right. “This is a combat seat. There’s three others: that one the other side of the piloting chair, and those other two at the back of the cockpit.' He jabbed his thumb back over his shoulder. Then he slipped his hands inside the two cylindrical devices protruding from the seat’s armrests. Toker and Eddy eagerly huddled around him as the devices closed firmly around his forearms. “These combat controllers do exactly that; they control all of the exterior weapons and defenses. They're the same design as the ones on the piloting chair but have different functions. The controllers are extendable and flexible, and once you place your hands inside, the smart-triggers automatically adjust to your grip.” Cal began to move his arms and nodded at the cockpit window. “See how any movement I make moves the two red targets? The right hand moves one and the left the other.” Cal swirled his hands in exaggerated loops, and the two red targets looped about the right side of the window. “The other combat seat controls the blue targets. Once you're homed in, you can blast away with the triggers.” He contracted his right index finger, causing a torrent of bright red blasts to streak diagonally across the window before fading into the blackness of space.

  Eddy laughed. The sound was music to Cal’s ears.

  “If there's enough people in the cockpit during combat, the two rear seats can also be manned using the image screens to cover the back of the ship. Also, it’s a little gimmicky, but some people find it helpful to activate the acoustics whilst firing.” Once again, he squeezed off another couple of rounds. This time, the cockpit filled with explosive noise.

  By the time the sound dissipated, Toker was laughing too.

  “Of course, there's not really any sound out there in the vacuum of space, but some find it useful. Gets the blood pumping.”

  “Can I have a blast, Cal?” Toker asked.

  “Yeah, me too,” Eddy blurted.

  Cal grinned and shook his head. “Afraid not. It's a hard and fast rule of space combat; no one can operate a ship’s weaponry until they’re fully schooled in the piloting of that ship. As to who goes first…well, that depends which of you is the most dedicated. Don't blame me,” Cal said, taking in the look on their faces. “Ask any space veteran. It's not my rule, it's just the way it is. Like I said, I'll be willing to teach you both…that is, if you’re keen on eventually manning the weapons.”

  “Count me in, Cal,” Toker said quickly. “I'll be flying this thing and hammering out cannon blasts in no time.”

  “Not before me, dimwit,” Eddy countered, a little of her usual confidence re-emerging.

  “Sounds like we've got a bit of a competition heating up,” Cal said as he slipped his hands out of the controls.

  “There won't be any competition, Cal,” Toker said with a self-assured grin. “By the time I'm blasting stuff apart with those cannons, you'll still be teaching this little monkey how to sit in the pilot’s chair properly.”

  “Watch it, mush nut.” Eddy retorted, her voice fully reverted to its usual pitch.

  Cal took that as his cue. Jumping up, he left Toker defending his face from Eddy’s elbows and wandered over to one of the rear consoles. There were still no pursuers. Not one ship or tracking drone. He grinned. They were away scot free.

  “So where we going, Cal?”

  “Huh.” He turned to see that Toker had survived Eddy’s attacks and had managed a retreat.

  “Yeah, Cal, where we goin’ to?” Eddy asked.

  Cal got as far as opening his mouth before he realised he had no answer. “You know what, I really don’t have a clue.”

  Part Three:

  Chapter Twenty-One

  THE FATHER AND THE SON

  Laurence Decker softly cradled his father's emaciated body in his trembling arms. It seemed like an eternity since he’d been a captain of a Class One Military Starship and his father had been one of the most respected admirals in the fleet. Of course, now there was no fleet, not anymore. Now, all that remained of a once-great military force lay helpless on the dark, desolate planet known as C9. The planet was a prison of sorts—a prison that relied on an inhospitable, food-less landscape as its lock and key. Like suffocating fish at the bottom of a dried-up lake, a multitude of broken men and women—once strong-bodied and mentally tough soldiers—lay weak with despair and starvation. Decker looked around at some of those broken souls now. As far as his stinging, dry eyes could see, bodies were scattered and slumped among the vast expanse of black volcanic rock. Many of them were dead. The rest were close to joining them. Months previously, when he'd still had the strength to walk and the will to do so, Laurence had learned from his nearby comrades that hundreds of thousands of soldiers and military personnel were spread across the planet surface, all living this hellish nightmare.

  Laurence looked up as a shadow passed over his father’s limp body. One of the tall, dark aliens, who occasionally stalked among them, passed by, its menacing, silvery eyes sending an unstoppable shiv
er down Laurence’s spine. The creature was a Carcarrion, one of the very same creatures that had brushed aside their military defenses so easily, and taken them all from their starships like babes from their cots. What a horrifying day that had been. Laurence remembered it with disturbing clarity. He’d been in the starship’s hospital wing. Lieutenant Harper had punched one of his front teeth out a week previously, and he was having it surgically repositioned. Upon waking from the rather unpleasant dreams of the surgeon’s anesthesia, he found himself facing a true nightmare: a fully grown Carcarrion warrior baring its cat-like teeth just inches from his face. Seconds after, the beast had used its great fist to send him back into unconsciousness.

  Shifting himself slightly on the black rocks, Laurence watched, his head half bowed, as the Carcarrion strode away. It walked with an air of supreme ability and confidence, a creature that had never felt threatened a day in its life. It had clawed hands, which looked powerful enough to crush bone, and its jet black, muscular body looked as hard as the sharp rocks that it stalked among. To Laurence, the Carcarrion seemed a gross, unnatural melding, a nightmarish hybrid of human and demon. On occasion, the passing creatures would throw down metal canisters containing something almost resembling water. Very occasionally, they’d scatter scraps of a dried, plant-like substance. It was a poor excuse for sustenance but food nonetheless. Much to Laurence's dismay, this had not been one of those occasions.

  “They're weeding out the strong, father, killing off the weak. Why else keep us alive?” Laurence’s voice was little more than a hoarse whisper.

  His father didn't answer; he didn't even hear. The fever had all but taken over his mind.

  Laurence shifted a flat, slate-like rock by his side and pulled out a canister of the gritty liquid along with a morsel of the plant-like substance that he'd managed to eke out since it was last thrown at his feet. “You're one of the strong ones, father. You've always been one of the strong ones.”

  The only reply was an incoherent moan. Laurence looked away. He found it almost impossible to look upon the skeletal form of his once broad-shouldered, athletic father. Laurence had never been athletic. In fact, not all that long ago, he'd been nothing short of obese.

  For the first couple of months on the ominous planet, Laurence had considered his extra body weight a blessing, something that would help assure his survival. But now, that extra bulk had mostly gone, and it had been far from a blessing. It had kept him alive long enough to witness the countless deaths around him and the wasting away of his father. Now, all he felt was an anguished bitterness towards that extra flesh and the fear and agony that it had prolonged.

  He slipped the morsel of dried plant into his mouth and slowly began to chew. After a moment, he carefully spat it into his hand and gently pushed the green pulp between his father’s quivering lips. “You have to be strong again, father. I need you. We all need you.”

  As if in spasm, Laurence's face suddenly screwed up as he tried to fight back an uncontrollable bout of tears, tears that had constantly plagued him since this nightmare had begun. Deliriously, his father coughed and automatically spat the chewed offering from his contorted mouth.

  “Damn it,” Laurence rasped, his anger overshadowing his self-pity. He did his best to scrape the pulp from the rocks beneath him and feed it back between the man's feverish lips. “You will eat, you will become strong again, and we’ll both get off this bloody planet.” Laurence's voice had become as near to a shout as his raw throat would allow. The only response he got was a deep rumble from one of the distant volcanoes coupled with a trembling of the hard ground beneath him. It was as if the planet itself was mocking his words. He stared miserably to the horizon and wondered if the ash and lava ever stopped spewing, if the smoke-filled, orange skies ever became clear.

  “Son?”

  The word was little more than a breath, but it was enough to shock Laurence out of his misery. He looked down to see his father’s eyes fixed upon him, a sight he hadn't witnessed in weeks.

  “Father?” he whispered disbelievingly. He wanted to say more, but all he could do was bring his head as close as possible to his father's softly moving lips in order to discern the faint words.

  “Strength, Laurence. You must find strength.”

  “There's no need, father. You've come back. You're strong enough for the both of us.”

  His father weakly shook his head. “No, I'm dying, my boy. I'm sorry; there's no stopping that now… Soon, it will be only you.”

  Laurence shook his head, the need to shed tears once again threatening to overwhelm him.

  “I've failed you, my son…in so many ways.” The admiral's eyes were wide open now. “Stay close, son, and listen carefully. There's much I need to say.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  DESTINATION

  Cal couldn’t help but grin as Toker bellowed with everything his lungs could muster. “Shoot, Eddy. Blow the bloody great thing to smithereens.”

  The girl answered his cries with an explosive torrent of cannon fire.

  The Star Splinter's cockpit boomed, crackled, and rumbled as if a ricocheting thunderbolt was imprisoned within its smooth walls. Eddy then watched with obvious delight as the blasts streaked towards the giant asteroid and blew it, as Toker had requested, to smithereens. Not wanting to be outdone, Toker followed her efforts by accelerating the ship on maximum thrust to spiral it expertly through the careening shards and spinning fragments of disintegrated space rock. Throughout his fancy maneuvering, the young, blond man complemented the cockpit’s dissipating rumble of cannon fire with howls of triumph.

  Cal could have laughed, but he didn’t want his two young students to get cocky—or at least not overly so. Eddy and Toker had met his challenge well, spending almost every waking hour of the last two months tirelessly studying and practicing the ship’s flight controls. During that time, Eddy had achieved a level of piloting competency that Cal felt earned her a position in one of the combat seats. Toker, however, had voiced no further interest in the ship’s weaponry. He’d become far too addicted to piloting the ship, and as far as Cal was concerned, he was damn good at it. It was clear the pair loved their new ship. Indeed, they loved it to the point that it had turned into yet another competition as to who loved it the most.

  “Very good, guys. I mean it,” Cal said happily. He turned to Jumper, who was looming behind Eddy. “You agree, Jumper?”

  Eddy spun in her combat chair and looked up at the tall man.

  “Absolutely. I'm no expert in flight combat, but they seem like a crack shot and an ace pilot to me.”

  “Thanks,” Toker said with a flash of his white teeth.

  “Yer, cheers, J,” Eddy added. Standing up, she unsheathed the huge combat knife from her skinny thigh and spun it around her finger.

  Jumper winced.

  “Relax, old man. I'm just gonna give myself a hair chop,” the girl said before hopping up onto one of the side consoles and hacking into her hair with a wild sawing motion.

  “Bloody hell, Ed,” Toker exclaimed. “Why don't you save some time and start at the neck?”

  Eddy ignored him and continued to hack away. The rest of the gang had put their faith in Melinda's steady, cybernetic hands to keep their hair from becoming too unruly. But until now, Eddy had let her buzz cut sprout freely into a finger-length mass of grungy black spikes.

  “So, Cal,” Jumper said, trying not to look at Eddy's reckless grooming, “you mentioned earlier about having another destination in mind?”

  Cal rubbed the back of his neck. “Er, yes,” he said with a crooked grin. So far, his destination choices hadn’t been all that successful.

  Viktor, who until that point had had his eyes glued to one of the cockpit’s rear consoles, looked up. “Another colony, Cal?”

  “No, not exactly.” During the last eight weeks, they had visited seven colonies, all of which were at least partially occupied. It had been a relief to find and converse with humans other than those residing in
Magnet City, but frustratingly, they’d gleaned only scraps of information regarding the invasion, and most of that was conflicting. During these visits, however, three things had remained constant: First, long range communication remained worryingly unachievable. Second, other than the rumours of empty, drifting starships, the military remained completely absent. And third, people were scared out of their wits.

  Other than paranoia of further attacks from the invaders, fear was bubbling up from many sources, and lack of military enforcement was already causing civil unrest. Whether trouble was brought about through desperation or through opportunistic crime, the effect was often the same: chaos. Some felt lost, some felt free, and some felt it was time to take matters into their own hands. The pirates were growing bolder of course, and there was even talk of cults rising up. The end of days is upon us. Embrace your new masters. Your sins have brought this wrath. Repent for mercy. Etcetera, etcetera. Cal had even heard rumours of human sacrifices on one planet. They’d decided not to stay.

  “The way I see it,” Cal explained, “we have two options. Option one, we continue to search out occupied colonies or possibly other ships and space stations. Basically wander around and see if we can gather more information about what's been going on…”

  “And option two?” Toker asked, not sounding overly keen on option one.

  Cal paused, a little unsure of the wisdom of his words. “We go and find out about this strange new enemy first hand—”

  “Now you're talking, Cal,” Eddy interjected.

  “Really, Cal?” Viktor said, paling slightly. “You really think we should go and seek them out?”

  “No, not all…just one.”

  “One?” Eddy asked, sounding deflated.

  “I assume you all know of the Krill Strip?”

  “Course, Cal,” Viktor snorted. “Everyone knows about the Strip. Toddlers learn about it in school.” Seeing the expressions on Eddy’s and Toker’s faces, the boy continued. “It’s that section of space. Somewhere near the fringe boundary. Three thousand and eighty-four planets and twice as many moons all packed up tight. Home to eighty-one percent of all alien life discovered so far.” Viktor suddenly paused then paled a little more. “You think we should go to C9, Cal? That’s in the Krill Strip, right?”