by Adam Moon
Jack’s beat up ship turned towards them and his head appeared on the monitor.
He said, “We should wait here for Crusoe.” Jack was bloody and bruised and his crew numbered just half of Sarah’s own. But then again, he’d thrown himself and his crew into the fray with gusto, so damage was to be expected.
He said, “The Seeder looks good, Admiral. I can’t believe she held up.”
Sarah wanted to say something poignant or memorable, but she just started to sob.
A Plan
Crusoe was soaked in Velor blood when he boarded the Seeder. The blood was pink, thick and oozy, and it stank of burnt hair.
He said, “Holy shit, Sarah. We did it.”
She wrapped him in a hug. “What do we do if they send more ships?”
“Those guys are cowards of epic proportions. There’s no way they send anything but their entire fleet at us, and I’m guessing that’ll take some time to put together.”
“So what’s next? We can’t go to the seed planet. They’ll just attack us there when we least expect it.”
“Don’t worry, I have a plan. We’re still colonizing the seed planet. We didn’t come all this way for nothing.”
Sarah stared into the empty airlock behind Crusoe. “What happened to the Velor I was holding captive in there?”
Crusoe smirked. “He must have jumped ship.”
“Uh huh.”
“Don’t worry. He didn’t feel a thing. Probably.”
“Well, there goes our hostage.”
“The winners don’t need hostages.”
When he said that, Sarah realized for the first time that they had succeeded. After all they'd been put through, it had all been worth it. They had taken on a race of warriors that always won and they'd beaten them easily. But what did that say about the human race?
Seed Planet
All personnel from Jack’s ship transferred over to the Seeder except Jack and a small contingent of volunteer soldiers.
Jack took up orbit around the seed planet and then the Seeder dropped out of orbit, heading for humanity’s new home.
The cloud cover made several of her crew weep openly as they descended. They touched down on a hill covered in some type of long grass.
Sarah had Molly wake up the colonists.
In a way she hated them. They had slept through the entire struggle to get them here. She especially hated the ones who had bought their way on board; they were dead weight, useless to a colony. But she honed her hate for later use.
It took six long hours to offload the people and the supplies.
Two guns from Jane’s ship had been dismounted and brought aboard the Seeder before they descended. Soldiers were already mounting them on the rocky patches of ground to act as defense turrets.
Crusoe disassembled the never before used anti-matter weapon from the Seeder and mounted it beside the others with its accompanying power supply and anti-matter generator. It wasn’t much, but hopefully none of it would be necessary.
The colonists had already erected several shelters and tapped out some drinkable water from an underground water table.
Unbeknownst to Sarah, the entire underbelly of her ship had been full of livestock, all in stasis. There was also a crate as big as a truck full of freeze-dried seeds to grow various plants and trees.
There was a lot about the mission that had been kept from her, but this bothered her the most, maybe because her nerves were frayed.
She watched as the livestock was thawed and penned. She wondered if the native vegetation would agree with them or not, and decided that she didn’t care.
When everyone was off the ship, Sarah and Crusoe and a small group of volunteer troops, including Robert Smith and Becky the redhead, boarded it and took off from the surface.
None of the colonists even bothered to wave goodbye. There was zero fanfare, and for that Sarah was thankful. She wouldn’t have appreciated any gesture of gratitude anyway. She was just too jaded.
Take the Fight to Them
They broke the cloud cover, and then the seed planet’s gravity, and soon rendezvoused with Jack’s orbiting ship.
Jack’s grinning face appeared on the screen. “Have any of you come up with a name for the seed planet yet?”
Sarah shrugged. “Who cares?”
Jack sarcastically joked, “That’s the spirit, Admiral.”
Crusoe put an arm around Sarah’s shoulder. “We have bigger fish to fry.”
Jack nodded somberly. “Are you guys ready to attack an entire planet full of jerks?”
Sarah nodded, and Crusoe directed the ship to head towards the coordinates he’d managed to torture out of Jason.
The Velors had no idea they knew where their home world was, so the attack would be a total surprise.
The trip would take almost a month, but they’d all decided in advance that they wouldn’t bother going into stasis this time. They were sick of it.
Crusoe said, “When the planet’s in our sights, I’m going off-ship and heading down there like a missile. That planet needs some serious housecleaning. I’ll hit the Velors like a bloody tornado, on their own turf.”
Sarah smiled. “We've got your back.”
“Bring us back some souvenirs,” Jack joked.
“Just take out any of those cowards who try to flee the planet.”
Sarah said, “With pleasure.”
Jack laughed. "This is going to be fun."
The Seeder led the way.
The End
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