Mission: SRX
Part 3
Deep Unknown
By M. D. White
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Matthew D. White
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the author.
Dedicated to the Warriors of my Generation.
The Mission:SRX series so far:
1: Confessions of the First War
2. Ephemeral Solace
3. Deep Unknown
Standalone works within the series:
101: Before Space Recon, a short story
Introduction
From my heart, this excursion has been incredible and I have you to thank for everything. My friends, the journey is far from over.
At the beginning, I knew where I wanted the adventures of Commander Prime Jefferson Grant and his crew to lead. Discovering the events in Ephemeral Solace was enlightening, but at the same time I came to the realization that with each line I wrote I was changing the universe more than I anticipated when I first began.
Most interestingly, the focus of the story began to change the farther along I went. Instead of driving forward with nonstop action, the characters took on lives of their own and by their own volition developed into figures deeper than I had originally conceived. Even Commander Grant, stoic as ever, found himself leaning on his crew as much as they respectively leaned upon him.
I’d like to believe they will be strong enough to see their conflict through to the end but to be honest, that remains to be seen. It’s up to the players and those in the arena to make choices to keep themselves alive. As much as I’ve grown to know the crew of the USC Flagstaff, they are people with histories and people with futures. More interestingly, they did not always act as I had intended, but usually in ways that made sense to them at the time.
These developments added to the realism that I had been concerned with for many of the early days and nights. With the past as the backdrop, step into the Deep Unknown and follow the rising war of Commander Grant and his crew. It is my goal you will find it as engaging to read as is was for me to write. Once more, Thank You.
V/R
M. D. White
The universe is about to get bigger...
Prologue
With a solid clank the metal hatch closed only a meter from the crew member’s face. He watched as the series of latches on the rear spun in unison to lock him into the tiny, cramped aluminum and steel chamber. For a brief second, he was left in silence, aside from his own heavy breathing.
Seated to his left were two other men he had trained with for years for this one operation, but in that brief instant he could hardly remember their names. Looking through the tiny window beside him, the universe around him seemed so far away. If he was the last person alive in the world, he wouldn’t have known it.
A muffled voice cut in from somewhere unseen; full of static and with the hint of an echo. The man couldn’t make out the words over the adrenaline surging through his arteries. His heart pounded. He had waited so long for this moment to arrive.
In front of him was a wide panel packed with a series of scopes, indicators and controls that looked archaic compared to what he was used to seeing. In a way he was comforted by their simplicity; there was less to go wrong, after all.
A faint rumble gave way from far below and steadily grew as the voice slowly spoke. Then the word: “Ignition.” It was the one word the man anticipated and had longed for.
The distant rumble slowly increased into a roar and he felt himself pressed back into his seat. Through the miniscule window, the man saw the first wisp of a cloud shoot by. Before him on the console, a meter marked Altitude had hardly budged. The same was true for the one marked Acceleration.
The pressure in the small chamber continued to build and drive the man inside closer to the rear firewall, to the point that the restraints around his shoulders began to feel loose. He could even sense the force against his eyes, pushing them towards the rear of his skull.
With another glance out the window, he saw the crystal clear blue sky start to give way to black. Despite the training, preparation and mental gymnastics thus far, a single thought came into the man’s mind: he was an astronaut!
In a matter of minutes, they had ridden a pillar of fire and crushed every altitude record of ordinary aircraft. He had flown faster than ten times the speed of sound. He had reached the pinnacle of human development.
As the rocket left the atmosphere behind for the blackness above, they rotated back, placing the entire blue disc of planet Earth in view below. Through the miniscule port, the astronaut stared out in amazement at the orb’s simultaneous beauty and frailty, as if it was a great gem he had been chosen to protect. The visage remained as the next stage ignited, pushing them into orbit around their living world far below.
He closed his eyes as a single tear slid from his face, caring not to see the hatch beside him unlock and open to the blinding light beyond. Gravity returned to normal, so he unhooked the straps from across his chest and with an awkward gait, stumbled to the exit.
On thin, spindly legs, the boy of ten years slid down the access ladder to his waiting family. “So, Scott, how was it?” an older, smiling man asked.
“Dad, it was incredible! I can’t believe we actually went to space like that!”
“I know. It’s amazing isn’t it?” Scott’s father responded, shaking his head at the massive portrait of a Saturn Five painted on the wall beside the simulator.
“I want to go for real!” the boy exclaimed.
The man laughed. “Son, I have no doubt you’ll get there.”
1
The vision flashed before Scott’s eyes along with a thousand others before he saw himself strapped to the wall of the cargo bay on a modern day battleship, under the influence of a gravitational well the likes of which he had never before experienced.
The miner, Othello, was flat on the floor beside him. That’s right, he remembered; Othello’s bulk, combined with the extra weight of his armor and weaponry, had blown the rivets in the jump seat and slammed him against the ground only a few moments earlier. The crushing equipment now pinned him down, rendering him unable to move.
Over the ominous, reverberating roar of the engines working to keep them level, as a toy airplane would attempt to overpower a hurricane, he heard the familiar popping and creaking once more. With a crunch, Scott’s seat collapsed, leaving him hanging by the nylon straps now grinding hard into his armor and tearing into his body, from his shoulders all the way down to his waist.
He reached up, fighting with all his might against the crushing gravity field. He had to release the metallic clasp centered on his chest. The engineer’s fingers fumbled across the metal box. Where was it?
With a click he dropped straight to the floor, his helmeted cranium bouncing hard against the deck. Scott felt himself being sucked downward against his will and contemplated how he had ended up in such a predicament. Why didn’t he stay on Earth? Or in orbit? Or even on Mars? Hell, anything was better than where he found himself now.
Scott hadn’t considered himself religious for an extended time but in that moment, glued to the floor of a starship careening forward into oblivion, he found the words to mumble as darkness crept at his consciousness. Where they came from he didn’t know, but they seemed to fit. He hoped they’d be heard by someone, somewhere. “Almighty God, the source of light and strength, I implore
thy blessing on our lives…”
***
Five hundred meters aft on the Flagstaff’s sojourning frame, Major Kael was pinned on his back in much the same manner as the rest of the crew. The surviving members the First Ground Assault Battalion were spread around him, covering every square meter of the rear staging deck.
“Sergeant Mason! You still with me!” he shouted over the roaring storm beyond their walls.
John Mason tilted his head upon hearing his name. “Yes, sir!” he screamed as the air was pressed from his lungs by the building weight of the armor and ammunition strapped down across his chest. “A quarter of us are already out! This isn’t looking good.”
Kael focused on a single rivet in the ceiling above his head to draw his concentration. “Bullshit First Battalion! You are not about to give up this easy! You did not make it all this way to be done in by some gaddamn pansy who can’t fly his effing spaceship straight!” he shouted straight up, his booming voice carrying throughout the cavernous room, “By the time they pick their raggedy asses off the deck, we’ll have cleared off another five planets, HOOAH?”
“HOOAH!” Came the muffled response from those still awake and cognizant.
“What kind of army have I got here? The effing Girl Scouts?” Kael thundered back, “First Battalion! Battle Streamers of the First War-Begin! First Commendation!” he yelled out.
The reply was drilled into the head of every soldier in the room, “DEEP SPACE, FIRST CONTACT!” they shouted in unison.
“SECOND COMMENDATION!”
“SOL BRAVO, SECOND MOON OF POSEIDON, SIEGE OF THE LONDON!” they roared back again.
“THIRD COMMENDATION!” Kael screamed again out to the masses. Their voices started to grow weak in response. “STAY WITH ME! FOURTH COMMENDATION!” he yelled once more as darkness built around the edges of his vision and he felt his mental facilities fade.
***
A bright cone of plasma continuously swirled outside the leading view screen on the Flagstaff’s bridge which bathed the room in flickering, multi-colored light. As if the space was lit from behind a surging aquarium, the light mixed with the emergency signals on the ceiling and built long, dancing shadows in red and gold. They spun across the walls increasingly faster, shimmering as if alive.
Commander Grant lay motionless on the ground, sandwiched in place while the diamond-plate floor ground into the back of his head and the rear seal of his suit pressed hard against the vertebrae of his neck. Beside him, Commander Fox was sprawled out in like manner while still trying to mumble orders to their pilot who at the moment was also on the ground and unconscious. He likened the feeling to a ride in a flight simulator along with a disruption in the gravity generating cells, a stay in an isolation chamber and a complete inner-ear meltdown all happening at once.
The floor beneath him creaked and he wondered how much more stress the ship would be able to take before it shredded apart. There were so many endings to his life that he had anticipated, but until the hour arrived this was not one of them. The ceiling loomed a few meters above his head but if the ship decided to rotate, they would be slammed into it and likely be instantly mashed into a bloody paste. If the metal skin buckled any more, it would break the forward windows, suck the air out and leave them suffocating and frozen. If only he could quiet his nagging subconscious and make it stop thinking up new and more torturous ways to die, it would have been far more peaceful.
For all they had been through, Grant thought, was it all for nothing if this was the inevitable end? It would certainly be in the realm of possibilities as the apparent God of the universe was apt to making his people suffer for no reason. Who had he really rescued, if all he did was drag them to oblivion? At least they had bought Earth a few precious hours to regroup.
A meter away, Commander Fox had gone silent and succumbed to the unrelenting force beneath them, pulling them into eternity with a thousand relentless arms. Grant felt himself slipping and found relative solace in the barrage of noise from the sirens, air handlers and engines groaning against the ever increasing acceleration. It was finally over. He let go with a whisper, “Godspeed, Flagstaff.”
***
When Commander Grant closed his eyes, he had expected they would remain shut for the rest of eternity. He couldn’t hear; couldn’t feel. At last, he felt a sliver of peace as consciousness drifted away, leaving him in darkness. Her voice still echoed. Finally, he would know peace. He would see them again. He wafted in and out of consciousness as what felt like infinity passed and he felt a presence and a blinding light from above. Could this be the end? Grant thought and opened his eyes.
He saw the battered roof of the Flagstaff’s flight deck come into focus, and then out of his periphery, the faces of two dark gray beings consumed his field of view. They turned their heads, considering the fallen soldier as a person might look upon an injured insect. Grant couldn’t scream. He couldn’t move. The last image to flash through his mind was that of the nearest creature’s hand reaching toward his face.
2
Hallucinations swirled about his mind. He saw the faces of those he had abandoned; his family lost so long ago alongside the one he had been given as his own; the members of his commands being as close as any blood relative. Their faces sparkled with angelic purity, as if in his mind they had left the pain of the world behind to beckon him onward. Even in that place, they began to change.
Where his parents had stood were the silent faces of hundreds of soldiers, pilots and civilians. Without the single man in the foreground with a blood stain crossing his face, Commander Grant would have known them instantly. The ones he didn’t save. Worse than that, the ones he led to their graves. Unforgivingly, there were also the ones he had placed there himself.
The soldier wearing the bullet wound across his temple stepped aside to reveal a conglomeration of pilots dressed in exceedingly sharp red flight suits. Their faces bore expressions of unshakeable courage and honor. Pictured as they had been at inception, they showed no fear against unbeatable odds. As Grant watched, the crowd melted away in an all-consuming fire that built from their feet upwards until they were completely obscured. Lost there, the single soldier remained alone, without even the memory of those he had known. Was it hell?
His eyes flashed open and he saw the roof of the Flagstaff’s flight deck come into focus, and then, out of his periphery, the faces of two dark gray beings filled his field of view. They turned their heads, considering the fallen soldier as a person might look upon an injured insect. Grant couldn’t scream. He couldn’t move. The last image to flash through his mind was that of the nearest creature’s hand reaching toward his face.
Forever might have passed, or it could have only been a matter of moments, but somewhere Grant sensed his mind still firing back in the real world. As if in the last stage of a deep sleep, he knew he was alive although he couldn’t yet control his muscles or open his eyes. Without moving, he tried to feel around his extremities. What had happened? The visions from the bridge had swirled together with his burning crews, leaving him a tsunami of thoughts without a way of separating the real from the fantasy.
The crushing force of gravity was no longer upon his body. Wherever he was, they were no longer moving under the influence of the vortex. He focused closer, noticing that his armor was gone. It had been replaced by what he could only imagine was a loose-fitting, fabric garment that felt finer than silk. Farther out, Grant changed his concentration. He was lying on a moderately soft and warm surface. It wasn’t a rack from the Flagstaff, not even the one in his officer’s quarters, but then that’d be extremely unlikely. Who would have pulled his armor off and put him to bed?
Jeff opened his eyes. Who, indeed?
He was in a room, nearly silent, that was of the purest white. A ceiling two meters or so above his head glowed unfluctuating with soothing light that was neither obscuring nor overly harsh. Sitting up, Grant saw he had been lying in a bunk bed in a moderately sized room, square on every axis
.
There were three other sets of racks beside his own, one per wall, each holding members of his crew. The miner, Othello Harris, whose bulk was unmistakable, was across from him. Likewise, Scott Ryan, their faithful engineer, was to his right.
Bracing himself with his arms, Grant felt a tingling sensation through every nerve fiber in his body. He couldn’t place the feeling although he attempted to catalog it. Stronger than a shot of caffeine or nitrous but less numbing than alcohol, he felt neither jittery nor distracted. It was as if he was sensing his environment with a new level of clarity.
The air smelled cleaner than anything he had encountered on a ship including his own. It didn’t have the hint of fuel that stuck at the back of his throat and there wasn’t the telltale odor of a masking fragrance; instead it was as pure as standing in a country meadow. Questions kept piling up as he watched the miner stirring.
Othello grumbled, lightly shaking his head and sat up in like manner to survey the room, letting his eyes adjust to the new influx of light. He paused when his gaze met Grant’s, both faces full of questions. The miner came to the same conclusion the commander had only minutes earlier, that they must be alive and in relative safety. Taking the chance, he swung himself over the side and hopped effortlessly to the floor to check on the others.
His pair of bare feet hit the cool metallic floor and sent a burst of sensation through his newly-formed nerve cells. Having atrophied for years, the part of his brain responsible for the signal interpreted the event as if he had just been baptized under a slurry of ice.
“What the…!” Othello exclaimed in shock before losing his balance and falling onto his back in surprise. A furious stream of curses followed as he flailed about on the ground.
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