Twenty-Nine
John stalked forward from the ramp. He wiped the back of a grimy hand along a sweaty brow. His arm trembled a little; he was that tired. But he made each footfall a hammer blow against the deck despite his exhaustion.
He’d never been so angry.
These things had hurt his people. They’d killed one of his crew and tried to kill all the rest. Paul might have been an asshole, but he hadn’t deserved the fate Andrew said had befallen him. These aliens didn’t just look like monsters, they were monstrous.
“I’ve had just about enough of these things,” John said aloud.
“How’s Beth?” Dan asked, as John drew close.
“Charline and Andy have her. She’s alive.”
John saw Dan had already backed the ship out of the hallway. “Damned fool thing to do, Dan. But thank you. I didn’t see any way we were getting out of that spot.”
“We’re not out of the woods yet. But the wormhole drive is back at full charge,” Dan said.
John dug his fingers into the back of the seat next to Dan. His eyes narrowed. A short while before he’d been ready to just run. He hadn’t wanted a war with these beings, hadn’t wanted it to come down to violence and death. But they’d come at him, at his people, at his family. It wasn’t enough to run away now. They needed to make a statement. John knew precisely how to make a lasting impression.
“I’m not ready to go, just yet. Turn the ship about.”
Dan raised an eyebrow, but didn’t question the order. The Satori spun around until her nose faced the aft of the alien ship. John did a little mental math. This hangar was very near the back end of the alien battleship. And if their drives were set up anything like the Satori’s, that’s where they’d be.
“Fire the wormhole drive, Dan.”
A moment later brilliant light stabbed from the nose of his ship. Where it touched the alien hull, the metal vanished. It didn’t melt or vaporize; it simply ceased to be there.
“Shut it down,” John said. He could see the first pulse had simply reached more halls and rooms. “Move us forward as close as you can to where the wormhole drilled them, then fire again.”
The wormhole vanished. Behind, it left twisted ruin where it had stabbed into the hangar wall. One more shot ought to do it, John guessed. Before he could give the order, he heard footsteps behind him. He turned and saw Andy joining them on the bridge.
“Beth?” John asked.
“Charline has her stabilized,” Andy replied. “She shooed me out to come help up here. What’s going on?”
John stared out the window. “We’re taking this thing down.”
A fighter zoomed into the hangar through the hole their railguns had made in the hull. Dan swore, trying to bring the nose of the ship into line with the smaller craft, but it darted away, firing as it went. The blasts rocked the ship, sending John sprawling to the deck.
As John staggered into a chair, the fighter slid sideways past the front of the Satori again, firing as it went. John could clearly see the alien inside in the fighter’s cockpit. He heard Andy gasp next to him.
“Oh my god. That’s Kassresh,” Andy said. “He commands their ship...and interrogated me.”
John glanced at Andy’s face, which had gone ashen. That told him everything he needed to know. This wasn’t just about recovering Andy now. And it couldn’t just be about escape. John could feel his anger build like ice.
This was personal.
Dan was swinging the ship around, trying without success to track the smaller craft. More shots slammed into the Satori.
“That pilot is damned good, John. I can’t outfly him in these tight quarters,” Dan said.
“We don’t need to,” John said. He knew what needed to be done, now. “Majel, set wormhole for home.”
“Confirmed,” said the computer.
“Dan, hit that same spot again!” John said.
The ship spun once more, stopping on a dime to face directly into the gaping wound its last blow had left. Once again, the wormhole licked out, devouring chunks of the enemy ship ahead of them. The wormhole’s energy continued its destructive path – right into the engines of the enemy ship.
“Detecting multiple secondary explosions in the rear area of the alien ship,” Majel said.
That was what John was waiting for. “Get us out of here!”
The Satori jumped forward into the wormhole. On either side, John could see explosions wracking the alien ship, fire blazing through the hangar all around them. The fire billowed out, filling every open space it could find. It chased the Satori into the wormhole as she danced ahead.
There was a gut-wrenching twist, and the ship was back into regular space again.
John didn’t need to guess where they were. The view of Earth and her moon from space was one he would never confuse with anywhere else. He’d seen Earth from space hundreds of times before, but after having seen another planet under another star, it felt all the more precious.
“Cloak is back up,” Dan said. “We made it.”
John relaxed back into his seat, taking in the familiar view ahead. Out there, it looked like nothing had changed. And yet, he knew that so much had.
They had been to another star system, who-knew how far away from their home. And he’d brought them home again. That was something. But they’d met an enemy, ruthless and terrible. He knew in his gut he hadn’t seen the last of them.
Then there was the ship. Before, he had thought of the Satori as being just a power source that nations might war over. But they’d been forced to learn how to use the ship as a weapon as well, perhaps the most dangerous weapon humanity possessed.
And she was a shield, as well. Because the Satori might represent humanity’s only defense against those aliens, should they find out where Earth was. Somehow, he felt in his gut that the alien commander had survived. Kassresh would want vengeance. And his ship, his crew, might be the only thing which could save their world from complete annihilation.
John drew a deep breath. They were home. And safe, at least for the moment.
Problems for tomorrow. For now, it was enough to be back.
“Bring us home, Dan.”
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Deep Waters
One
Charline's stomach rolled over as the ship rocketed toward Earth, the planet looming larger in the front windows with every passing second. Her hands gripped the sides of her seat so hard that it felt like her nails were going to puncture the soft material. She'd started to take Dan's flying for granted. But this pilot seemed bound and determined to cure her of that for good! She wished that Dan was the one at the controls of the shuttle. His steady hand would be more than welcome. Charline glanced sideways at the pilot, whose own eyes remained fixed on his instruments. She hadn't caught his name earlier, which was unfortunate. She'd like to leave a nasty review about his flying skills after this bumpy ride from Luna to Earth.
“Not used to flying in space yet?” the pilot asked her. He sounded sympathetic, if distracted.
“I’ve done some,” she replied. If only he knew. But she couldn’t breathe a word of her experiences to anyone. If word got out, it could be disastrous for her home planet.
She and her crew mates had been farther from Earth than any other humans had ever travelled. Their ship, build around remnants of alien technology discovered on the moon, had carried them through a wormhole to another star system hundreds of light years away. They’d managed to survive what they encountered on the far side, but only just. For the time being the entire trip was a closely guarded secret. John Caraway - the man who’d brought them all
together and was bankrolling the entire project - wasn’t ready to tell the world that humans were very definitely not alone in the universe. Not just yet, anyway.
The panic that information would cause among the public would be bad enough. Learning that their ship the Satori existed would likely throw every nation in the world into a frenzy trying to acquire the technology aboard the ship. They had no way to replicate the engines which powered the Satori. Even with all their study, it seemed like the mysteries of the ship’s power source and wormhole drive might never be solved.
“Houston Control, this is Flight Charlie Alpha One Five Six, coming into atmosphere from Caraway Base,” the pilot called into his microphone. “Medical mission, require EMS on arrival.”
“Confirmed, sending flight path now,” came the call back over the radio. “We have medical teams standing by to escort your patient to the hospital as soon as you've landed.”
The pilot grinned over at Charline. “See? Piece of cake. You'll be down in no time.”
Charline gave him a weak smile in return. “Thanks.”
She looked back over her shoulder to the rear of the crew compartment where Beth was strapped to a gurney. She was stable and sedated for the trip back to Earth, which was much better than Charline had feared when she’d fought desperately to save her friend’s life just hours before. Beth was shot by an alien energy rifle while trying to rescue another member of their crew.
John’s doctors at the base had taken good care of Beth after the team returned home. But despite his excellent facilities, the bottom line was that Beth would do better on Earth. A top notch hospital could give her treatments that would drastically reduce her convalescence. John wanted his best engineer back on her feet as soon as possible. The trip to Earth would make that happen in days instead of months.
It also provided an outstanding cover for her own mission. Charline patted the cargo pocket of her pants for what had to be the hundredth time, ensuring that the small vial was still there. Inside was a sample of the blood she'd collected from the first alien life form they’d encountered: lizard-like creatures they'd called ratzards. Their initial tests showed the blood to have stunning properties. Put a drop of it in water, add light, and it grew. Charline didn't know how it was doing that, but the scientists at John's base were incredibly excited. It behaved like an algal bloom, or maybe a colony of small animals. Blood wasn't supposed to do that.
She remembered those black oceans back on the faraway world where they'd killed the ratzards. The planet was arid, dry as a bone. But there had once been rivers flowing – she'd seen the dry beds as they flew overhead. What if the oceans were black because this stuff had gotten into the water there and grown until it covered all water?
It made sense. It rang true to her. The ratzards would be a perfect biological weapon. If even one died near an ocean, its blood could spread from there and disrupt or even destroy the ecosystem of the entire world.
She shivered at the idea of bringing even these few drops of the stuff back to her homeworld. But John had insisted. The best xenobiologist in the world was waiting for the sample. John knew her – a Dr. Linda Paris – and radioed ahead to tell her he had “something she would want to see”. Charline argued for bringing the scientist to the sample rather than the other way around, but apparently rousting her out of her lab was going to take more than just a promise of something interesting to study. They couldn’t send more detail than that over the radio. Anything they broadcast might be intercepted, no matter how encrypted they made the transmission.
Charline hoped she could handle this meeting. John wanted the doctor to come back to Luna and join his team there. It was going to be up to Charline to convince her. The sample ought to do the trick.
“Better strap in. We're landing soon,” the pilot said, breaking her from her thoughts. She wondered if he'd seen her patting her pocket, and hoped he hadn't noticed. Her mission was secret – and the pilot was definitely not cleared to know what she was up to. John had ostensibly built his base on the moon to farm Helium-3, an isotope essential for fusion that was fairly common on the moon but rare on Earth. And given the pandemic power shortages helium-3 was probably the most valuable substance known to man right now.
Anything having to do with Caraway Industries was being watched. Which meant from the moment she set foot back on Earth, Charline was going to be under observation by governments and other corporate interests alike. They’d all want whatever information they could pry from her. Anything she gave away might give them an edge in dealing with John, and that was without them knowing half the secrets she was keeping. If any of them had an inkling about the Satori, she’d be a hot target for more than observation.
Charline sighed deeply, buckling her seat belt. Things were so much easier in space, where all she had to worry about were the computers she knew so well. This sort of cloak and dagger stuff was more Andy's thing. Thinking of Andy made Charline bite her lip. She hoped he was OK.
"That's odd," her pilot muttered.
"What's odd?" Charline asked. Her eyes scanned the console in front of her. She knew computers as well as she knew her own hands, but this sort of display was still foreign to her. She’d seen enough odd things to know that the word usually referred to something that wasn’t good news.
"There's another ship out there. Looks like it's flying inside our flight path."
Charline froze. Coincidence? It could be. Maybe someone was a little off course, or had made an error calculating their entry path. But Charline didn’t believe that in her gut. Earth didn’t have many ships traveling in space, just a handful. One of them showing up right on top of her shuttle was more than suspicious.
Two
"Are they going to hit us?" Charline asked. More than ever, she wished Dan was the one piloting the shuttle. She’d seen him dance through worse than this. He’d just dodge and weave, ducking away from the other ship, and then they'd be safe on the ground before she knew it. Where was the guy when she needed him? Back on the moon. Where she ought to be.
"No," the pilot said. His tone of voice wasn't exactly reassuring though. Neither was the next thing he added under his breath. "I don't think so, anyway."
He cleared his throat and keyed on the radio. "Houston Control, we've got another aircraft coming into our flight path. Can you confirm?"
"Confirmed," said the faceless voice on the radio. "We are working to contact them now."
The pilot leaned back in his seat. "There, see? Nothing to worry about."
Charline wasn't so sure. She'd spotted the other ship on the shuttle’s radar, and the blip showing the other ship seemed awfully close. It was hard for her to tell for sure, trying to translate the two-dimensional display into what it ought to look like in three dimensions, but it seemed to her like the radar dot indicating the other vessel was trying to close with them.
"Can they intercept us?" she asked.
"Seriously? They'd have to be crazy to try. And once we're in the atmosphere, forget it. We'll be bouncing around too much."
"How long?" Charline asked.
"Another minute or two."
"Go faster," she said.
The pilot looked at her like she was nuts. But he worked his controls, and thrust pushed her back into her seat.
Charline knew one pilot who'd be willing to try an in-space high-speed linkup. And if Dan was that good, she was betting there might be someone else in his class out there. The proximity of the other ship was making her sweat. Absently, she patted her cargo pocket again before she realized what she was doing. She pulled her hand away with an effort.
The last thing in the world she wanted to be doing was escorting this stuff down to her home planet. In the wrong hands it could devastate the planet. And that other ship was still headed straight for them. Why would someone fly so recklessly? Had someone breached all John's security, learned enough to risk everything to try to snatch the shuttle - or its passengers?
Charline wasn’t going to sit i
dly by and let them capture her ship. She slid her hand into the bag beside her seat and brought out her laptop. It was easy enough to link the computer to the ship’s network, and from there into the satellites floating in space around them. Hacking the shuttle’s transponder and the satellite feeds was more difficult, but it wasn’t the most challenging hack she’d ever accomplished. Every computer connected to a network had a backdoor somewhere. You just had to know where to look to find them.
“What the hell?” her pilot said. “The GPS is going all screwy. It says we’re way off course now!”
“Stay on the flight path you already had calculated,” Charline said. “I’m spoofing our transponder so we look like a satellite, and the satellite looks like us.”
“Seriously? You’ve hacked the GPS satellite system?” he said. “You could go to jail for that. I could go to jail for letting you.”
“It’s just for a minute. No one on the ground will even know, if I switch it back quickly enough. I’m hoping it will throw off that other ship for long enough that we can hit atmosphere,” Charline replied. “I really don’t think we want them to overtake us.”
“God damn it, I did not sign up for this shit,” the pilot grumbled. But he stayed on course.
Charline watched the radar, hoping to see…there! The other ship was veering off, chasing the fake signature she had the satellite broadcasting. That wouldn’t fool them for long, but it might keep them far enough away for just long enough. The other ship had only moved away from them for a handful of seconds before it shifted course and came right back at them. Shit, it hadn’t taken them long at all to see through her ruse. Charline swapped the transponder signals back. No point in maintaining the subterfuge if the other ship had already figured it out. She just had to hope it had been enough.
Adventures of the Starship Satori: Book 1-6 Complete Library Page 25