Sagitta

by C M Benamati

  With that, Del Toro stormed off.

  “Thanks,” said Victor. He sat down next to Morgan and punched him in the shoulder, slightly too hard to be considered playful. “But this doesn’t make us cool.”

  “Yeah,” said Morgan. “And don’t worry. I still hate your guts.”

  The End

  StarFighter will continue…

  Seeker

  Hrain sat up to grab a tool from his toolbox and smacked his head against the access hatch. He crawled out of the maintenance compartment and slammed the hatch shut. The stealth systems were still broken, among other things.

  “Angel, I wish you were here,” he said with a sigh.

  “Command unrecognized,” said the computer.

  He wiped a tear away. Here you go, crying again. It’s not like she was your lover. Get over it.

  He sniffed, and focused on the job at hand. It was a rush job, but both he and Ezek had agreed that day spent in space dock was a doubling of risk to the Talurian empire. Ezek had pressed the Mekmek crew hard to finish the repairs. The guidance computer was misbehaving, half the lights flickered, and the gravity plating in his quarters made him want to vomit.

  But they assured him that the Angel’s Fury could fight.

  “I fixed the matter reclamation unit,” said Mel.

  Hrain turned to face her. “I’m here trying to get the stealth grid online, and you are messing with the toilet?”

  Mel stuck out her tongue at him. “Trust me, we’re better off if it works. You wouldn’t like the smell otherwise.” She went forward to stare out the cockpit’s windows at the swirling colors. “It’s so beautiful.”

  She did this at least once every half-hour. It was as if she’d never been in hyperspace before. Which, as it turned out, she hadn’t.

  “Thanks for taking me with you,” she said, for the hundredth time. “I’ve only ever dreamed of such a sight.”

  “You’re welcome,” grunted Hrain. Ezek is going to kill me. He hadn’t exactly asked permission, and Mel had been so excited at the chance to come along that she’d taken Hrain at his word when he told her it had been Ezek’s idea.

  “Now, about the computer,” he said. “Have you made any progress?”

  Mel moved her head in that peculiar diagonal manner that the Mekmek used to say no.

  “Not at all?” said Hrain.

  “Well, the diagnostics take time,” said Mel. “And I’m a mechanical engineer, not a computer programmer. I know the basics, but other than running the scans and letting the damaged sectors re-learn the ship’s functions, there’s not much I can do.”

  Hrain slumped. It was the same answer she’d given the last three times he had asked. “Well, keep at it.”

  On the whole, he had to admit he was glad the little technician had come along. The Angel’s Fury was in much better shape for it, and it was nice to have someone to talk to. It kept him from thinking about Angel too much.

  “I thought we were going to Mauria?” Mel was staring at the navigation panel.

  “We are. We’re just making a pit-stop along the way. There’s a hyperspace anomaly coming up. You won’t be able to see it on the scanners, but it holds a splinched-off pocket of normal space within it. There’s a star and a few planets there.”

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing,” said Mel.

  “It’s one of a kind, as far as we know. Hold on, we’re close now.”

  They were nearing the anomaly. Hrain joined Mel at the controls. The eddy they were currently following looped around the anomaly without intersecting it. If they popped out here, they would still be a few hundredths of a light-year away from Sledgim.

  “Let’s drop out here,” he said. “Outside the system, in case there are any nasty surprises waiting at the doorstep.” Or inside. The bubble around Sledgim trapped all signals within it, effectively masking the Maurian base, but it acted like a lens, focusing outside signals into the system. It offered the perfect natural defense. No doubt they know we’re here by now.

  “Can I do it?” said Mel.

  Hrian indicated the hyperdrive panel. “Sure. It’s that button right there.”

  “I know which one!”

  The little primate jabbed at the controls, and the Angel’s Fury dropped to normal space.

  “Energy signature detected,” said the computer in flat monotone. “Bearing one-three-seven mark four.”

  Hrain swore. They’d come out too close to the system, and whatever was out there would surely have seen him.

  “Intercept course,” he said. “Ready all weapons.”

  “All systems ready,” said the computer. “Prepare for acceleration.”

  Hrain let the autopilot do the flying as he manned the scanners. Mel looked on with childlike interest. It was the strangest debris field he had ever seen. It wasn’t the individual pieces themselves: the junk seemed normal enough, although what it was from was impossible to tell. It was how all the crap was spread out that was so odd.

  It wasn’t the conical or spherical spreading pattern that was typical of debris from a destroyed vessel. Rather, this was more like a debris highway, stretching on for hundreds of thousands of marks. The velocity of the debris was also worth noting, in that all the bits of junk were traveling away from the Sledgim system.

  Hrain took the controls as they approached the energy signature.

  “Strap in, little one,” he said to Mel.

  Mel did so, a serious look of determination on her tiny face. “There,” she said, pointing at the sensor plot. “It’s just through this patch.”

  Angel’s shields flared momentarily as they passed through a cloud of tiny particles and gas. And then, there it was.

  “Maximum magnification,” said Hrain.

  It was a tiny ship, battle-scarred. Perhaps a one-seater.

  “Computer, scan for life signs,” said Hrain.

  “Scanning,” said the computer. “One signature confirmed.”

  Hrain bared his teeth. “Species?”

  “The life sign matches no known organic configuration.”

  Hrain locked onto the little ship and prepared to blast it out of existence. If whoever was onboard was aware of Angel’s approach, they made no moves to get out of the way or offer a defense. Is it a trap?

  The ship didn’t look like it was something the Ta’Krell would build. It was much too sleek. As they got closer, the marking on the hull became visible. They were alien alright. One of the wings had been shot off.

  “Look,” said Mel, pointing at the intact wing. “I think those seams are for adjustable flaps. This ship could be capable of atmospheric flight. See if you can match rotation, I want to see more!”

  “That’s what I’m doing,” said Hrain. “Keep it together.”

  He fired thrusters, using the fine-tuning knob on the dash to dial in the rotation rate. “Let’s have a look, shall we?”

  This was the most dangerous part. He fired the ventral thrusters so that the Angel’s Fury drifted slightly upward, then locked the rotation so the dorsal surfaces of both ships were facing each other. They were so close now that he lost the weapons lock on the tiny ship.

  “Coming alongside nice and easy,” he said, nudging the main throttle forward and then firing braking thrusters. He craned his neck up. They could see the ship’s canopy now. It was transparent. There was an unoccupied seat towards the stern, and in the front…a Mekmek?

  No, the creature was too large, and had some strange organ growing out of its head. No, not an organ. Fur. Lots of golden fur, floating about in zero-gravity.

  The alien didn’t move. Its eyes were closed. It had a small mouth with thin red lips, open ever so slightly.

  The computer beeped. “Warning: The life sign in the target vessel is diminishing. Suspected cause is oxygen depletion. Spectrographic analysis indicates a build-up of carbon dioxide in the vessel.”

  “It breathes oxygen?” said Hrain.

  Mel was working her controls. “I’d say that’s a fai
r bet. I’m detecting tanks, depleted now, but with residual oxygen in the lines.”

  This is no Ta’Krell.

  Hrain closed his eyes and reached out with his mind. Slowly, gently, he found the other. The creature was afraid and confused, and it lashed out when he brushed its consciousness. He withdrew quickly as the computer voiced another warning.

  “Warning: Life sign dropping below detection threshold.”

  Hrain’s hands flew over the controls. If this is a trap, then we’ll find out right about now. He dropped the shields, then reformed them, extending them out and wrapping them around the target ship.

  “Computer, pressurize the interior volume within our shields with ship’s atmosphere.”

  “What are you doing?” said Mel.

  Hrain unstrapped from his chair and headed back aft. “Grab your mag boots. We’re going to save that alien.”

  About This Book

  The idea for Sagitta came to me back in 2005. I was halfway through my second year at the University of Maine in Orono, in a dual degree program of mechanical engineering and literature. I had just finished chain watching Star Trek DS9 with my roommate. One day I went for a long mountain bike ride on the trails behind the school, daydreaming about science fiction.

  I had burned through all the Star Trek I had (which is all of it), plus the Star Wars movies, and a whole bunch of paperback books. I’d recently finished reading Ender’s Game, and thought it would be cool to have a young protagonist go on a sci-fi adventure in my own crafted universe.

  I called my parents that night and told them I wanted to write a book. Of course they were supportive (how they endured my endless blabbing about being an author I have no idea). My brother and I plotted it out over AIM, and I started to write. The act of writing, by the way, is an excellent stress reliever from all those engineering classes. A year later, I had my first draft. My best friend Al still has a copy of that one somewhere in a 3-ring binder.

  That book is not this book. Some elements are the same, but at 130,000 words long, draft #1 (titled New Hope, sorry George!) was basically a brick of action without any plot or characterization. Of course I thought it was the greatest thing ever. I submitted it to various publishing houses, waiting anxiously for a response (and writing two unrelated, half-finished novels in the interim). Rejection, I should have known, was guaranteed. It came over a year later and crushed my soul.

  I re-wrote the book in 2008 during a week at camp in Ellsworth, Maine, trimming the fat to 100,000 words. Then it went into a drawer while I wrote short stories. Sagitta (the name taken from my Raidmax gaming computer case) didn’t come out again until 2011. That third edit lasted until 2013, mostly because I spent my free time playing Modern Warfare after work. I also was reading more non-fiction, especially books on writing and publishing. I laughably thought I was a good writer. Then I started dating the woman who would be my future wife. At the age of twenty-four, she had read more books than I ever will in my entire life.

  Suffice it to say that I learned a lot about how my writing stacked up. By working on short stories, I discovered how to actually plot something out. Joining the online writing website CritiqueCircle.com was an eye-opening experience. There, aspiring writers help each hone their skills. I won’t get into the details of my short story failures (and occasional successes), but suffice it to say that I recommend this path for all aspiring writers, at least in the beginning. Thanks to all that short story practice, I eventually became a traditionally published author of short fiction.

  Sagitta came out again for a fourth edit in 2016 and a final polish / alpha read in 2018. Feedback was generally positive, except for all the typos and a somewhat uninteresting main character. Trimmed to about 85,000 words, the plot was simple, the characters passable, and the action plenty. That version went on to be the official beta read copy. Instead of doing it electronically, I opted to create a paperback on Amazon to be a bit easier on the eyes.

  I considered that beta version complete, but it still had typos, inconsistencies, and a few things that just didn’t make sense. There were also elements missing. Now that most of the mess had been cleaned up, these lacking bits were easier to see: for example, a proper emotional response by a character to a trying situation. The lead characters in particular still needed some work to make them more interesting. I ended up writing two additional chapters to challenge other aspects of Morgan and Mog, highlighting their weaknesses and helping them to evolve.

  The “final” version is what you hold in your hands. I say “final” in quotes because nothing is ever perfected, merely good enough. The temptation to polish the stone is still there, especially in the world of digital publishing where it is so easy to tweak things.

  For a first book I am content, and I’m going to do my best to let it stay the way it is and focus on the rest of the series. I’d love to know what you think of Sagitta. What worked? What didn’t? What would you have liked to see more of? Please leave comments, reviews (good or bad) and suggestions on the Amazon review page or at goodreads.com. Also, I keep a blog about this book and my other writing projects at www.starfightersf.com.

  I really appreciate your support.

  -Chris

  The following people were instrumental in helping me finish this book by reading and re-reading the last few drafts in various forms. Thanks…

  Alpha Readers:

  (for making Morgan more real and spotting all those typos)

  Kirsten Benamati

  Nate Benamati

  Mike Litvinov

  Stephen Sweet

  Beta Readers:

  (for finding what was lacking)

  Curt Alpha

  Joe Blochberger

  Marya Callaghan

  Mike Coraizaca

  Travis Fields

  Karl Fortune

  Jeff Gateman

  Lee Schwartz

  Mike Simms

  Keith Travis

  Omega Readers

  (for that last read)

  Kirsten Benamati

  Allen Daley

  Mike Long

  Brian Staskowski

  Noelle Todd

  Want to read more from the StarFighter Universe but can’t wait for book two? Then please keep an eye out for my novella Hrain, available in 2019 exclusively on Amazon.