Gethsemane

by James Wittenbach

  Taurus Rook also recognized how dangerous this made her situation. Thall’s men were on edge. It would not take much to set them off. Her mind tried to work for a way to defuse this situation. It played on her that another Aves was due to arrive within minutes, bearing survivors from New Jacinto. How would these men react to that?

  “I think it’s safe to say neither one of us wanted to be put in this position,” Taurus Rook said.

  “I agree,” Thall replied. “But that does not change the fact that we are in this position.”

  “You must realize that our weapons are vastly superior to yours,” Taurus Rook reminded him.

  “I know,” Thall replied.

  “There may be an alternative you have not considered,” Taurus Rook unclenched her teeth and faced Thall down. “Trust me, you don’t want to fight with us. But you can help us. You can even come with us back to Pegasus. .” Thall’s cheek twitched. “We can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  Thall answered, but was struggling not to lose composure. “These men have families waiting for them on the other side.”

  Taurus Rook felt another wave of disgust toward Kahn, but did not blink. “I understand. At a minimum, we must discuss this, before anyone…” She abruptly interrupted by a BUDDA-BUDDA-BUDDA sound as one of Thall’s nervous men opened fire. Thall instinctively pushed Taurus Rook to the ground to get her out of harm’s way, while yelling “Cease fire!”

  But it was too late. The other Gethsemanian security guards had also opened fire, and the chill morning air was soon filled with smoke and the smell of cordite… also bullets.

  Taurus Rook’s Warfighters responded as they had been trained, activating tactical shields and returning fire with their gauntlets.

  “Cease fire! Cease fire!” Thall screamed over the top of his men, but the calls went unheeded. The Gethsemanian guns grunted and spat. Bullets sprayed across the dock, most of which were easily deflected by the personnel shields. In the background, unarmed, unshielded rescue personnel ducked and tried to shield the children from stray and deflected rounds with their own bodies.

  The battle was over in moments. Taurus-Rook’s warfighters were well-trained and had better weapons. Even though they were outnumbered, they made quick work of the Authority’s guards with pulses from their gauntlets and pulse cannons. The morning fell silent again.

  Thall helped Anaconda Taurus Rook to her feet. He had been spared because he had not been firing. Taurus Rook disarmed him in one swift movement and brought her gauntlet against his temple. “Real fighting isn’t the same as herding unarmed civilians into transports, is it?” she asked him.

  “Commander Rook, we have a casualty,” Johnny Rook shouted before Thall could give a response.

  Taurus Rook swiveled around One of her warfighters had gone down when the first nervous guard had opened fire, because he had just gotten out of bed and was not wearing his personal shield.

  Max Jordan lay on the dock, grimacing in pain and desperately trying to staunch the flow of blood that was fountaining out of his right leg. As the blood coursed through his hands, he was heard to shout, in grand warfighter tradition, “”Goddamn motherfucking shit-for-brains!”

  “Medic,” Johnny Rook called. He took off his jacket and pressed down hard on the thigh of his brother-in-arms.

  Max Jordan already had lost a lot of blood and was struggling to remain conscious as a pair of Medical Technicians struggled to get a pressure bandage on his shredded leg. He kept himself awake by cursing, loudly and obscenely.

  “I think he’ll make it,” said Warfighter Medical Technician Icedog when she had stabilized Max Jordan. “We’ll need to get him back to Pegasus immediately.”

  “Do it,” Rook ordered. “Get him on the next transport. And get the rest of these kids off the dock quick, fast, and in a hurry.”

  Rook and Icedog strapped Max Jordan into a stretcher. As the sedative kicked in, he his cursing became rich and pleasantly modulated. When he said, “Damn the Allbeing, stupid farking knob-gobbling son of a bitch,” he sounded like a man reading a news report.

  Taurus Rook turned back to Thall. “Are there any reinforcements coming or is it just you?”

  “We’re all she has left,” Thall answered.

  “Any other surprises?”

  “The Authority lacks the ability to carry out a coordinated military operation against your forces,” Thall confessed. “We were her only option left.” Taurus Rook lowered her weapon. “So, the question is, what to do with you?” Taurus Rook answered. She cocked her head toward Johnny Rook, then toward Thall. Her husband slipped a pair of restraints on the prisoner’s wrists.

  Awakened by the ruckus, Shorpy the boy came running out of the shelter barefoot. He would have run to Taurus Rook, but a warfighter held him back.

  “What are you going to do with my men?” Thall asked.

  “I’m going to send them back to Hildegard Kahn with a message suggesting that she put something very large and unpleasant in a very personal part of her anatomy,” Taurus Rook responded.

  She realized that Pegasus Tactical needed to be informed of the situation, and she hailed Lt. Commander Kitaen on her COM Link. She explained that they had taken fire, defeated and captured the attackers, and relayed Hildegrad Kahn’s revised ultimatum. “They’re going to deactivate the gateway permanently unless we return the children.”

  “Oh, is that what they think?” Kitaen replied. “We were preparing to take the Gateway ourselves thirty hours from now.”

  “How many men are you bringing?” Taurus Rook asked.

  “Two teams of twenty, just to be certain,” Kitaen responded. “ Taurus Rook thought about it, and then replied. “Maybe if I go and have a very intimidating chat with President Hildegard Kahn today, we can end this and avoid the need to fight tomorrow.”

  She proceeded to tell General Kitaen what she had in mind. The warrior agreed with her plan, gave her a go, and made preparations on his own end.

  Pegasus – Special Telemetry Laboratory: Lt. Commander Alkema entered the designated Gateway Energy Project Special Telemetry Laboratory on Deck 53 and found Banks on top of her workstation with the top half of her uniform undone. Blade Toto was sitting on her lap, facing her.

  Alkema sighed, “Now, is this the proper time and place?” Banks shoved Toto off her, and quickly closed her uniform. “We thought it would be quicker than sneaking off to our quarters,” she admitted, blushing.

  “You’ll have all the time you need for that after the planet blows up.” Alkema looked past the two of them to the displays. “Is this modeling work on the Gateway energy signature.”

  Hardcandy Banks nodded, though she was still blushing “I’ve had the Braincore analyze the readings we took during the Gateway activations we witnessed and correlate them to the changes in the planet’s electromagnetic field our ship’s sensors have recorded.”

  “And, what do you have?” Alkema asked.

  “I think I was wrong initially,” she answered. “I thought the groundquakes and power spikes were caused by the cumulative effects of Gateway use, but now I don’t think so.

  Based on my analysis, the Gateway uses more energy than the planet can generate, so they are pulling it from somewhere else.”

  Alkema raised an eyebrow. “Somewhere else? Like, another set of dimensions.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on that, but it seems likely there is some source outside normal space-time that they are drawing on.” She activated an additional display. “This is a total shot-in-the-dark scenario, but imagine another universe where energy didn’t coalesce into matter. You could have a whole universe of pure quantum energy to draw on, if you could tap into it.”

  Alkema scowled. “My knowledge of inter-dimensional physics is limited, but that sounds… pretty far-fetched.”

  “Yeah, far-fetched,” Toto agreed.

  “I agree it’s far-fetched, but I don’t have any other explanation yet,” said Banks. She began fiddling with one of the di
splays. “Anyway, it’s not that the energy has been building up, like I thought. I think more energy is actually coming through the Gateway than there used to be.”

  She activated one of the displays. “This is what happened the last time the Gateway activated, and we had major, planet-wide tremors and seismic shocks. Look at this.” She zoomed in on the Gateway location. In the split-second after activation, a stream of energy, looking like a horrible tentacle, seemed to reach right through the Gateway.

  “What was that?” Alkema asked.

  “I don’t know, and that’s what worries me,” she said. “If my energy universe theory, or something like it, is right… then the Gateway could be tearing open an aperture between the two places. If energy just started pouring into our universe through that aperture… I have no idea how we could make it stop. But that’s not the worst of it.” Alkema was almost afraid to ask, but he knew he had to. “What is the worst of it?” Hardcandy Banks was grave as she turned over the latest telemetry reports to Lt. Cmdr Alkema. “I saw from the telemetry reports that that the Rogue planet is 1.4 million kilometers closer than the models predicted. Telemetry reports confirm the Rogue planet is accelerating. At this rate, it’s going to hit the planet nine hours earlier than we first thought.”

  He pulled up a display. If Bank’s higher estimate was right, Gethsemane would explode in just forty-eight hours. “How is this possible?” Alkema asked.

  “I don’t know, unless it has something to do with the energy source that powers the Gateway,” she replied. “And I think it’s just possible that it does. Watch this.” Banks activated a display screen that showed a schematic of Pegasus’s orbital position responding to a gate activation, the ship’s orbit was clearly perturbed by the event. ”The last two times the gate has activated, something pulled against Pegasus. Specialist Atlantic was able to compensate, but we lost 600 kilometers of attitude in the first, and over a thousand in the second.”

  Alkema threw out an idea. “Maybe space-time itself is being pulled into the Gateway, like it’s a quantum singularity.”

  “Doubtful,” was Hardcandy Banks’s assessment. “And even if it were the case, I don’t know what we could do about it.”

  “I’m going to have Atlantic put Pegasus into higher orbit,” Alkema decided. “62,000

  kilometers. I’ll tell Lieutenant Rook to begin wrapping up search and rescue operations.

  And I’ll tell General Kitaen to ramp up the schedule for his plan to take the Gateway and rescue the Commander.”

  “In the meantime,” he added. “You two stop banging each other.” Gethsemane, Near The Gateway: The sun was high in the sky as Anaconda Taurus Rook stepped out of the Aves Prudence and onto the tarmac at the Gateway Air Station. She took Thall out of the ship with her.

  Once outside, she released him from his handcuffs. “Go get her, bring her to the tarmac,” she ordered Thall.

  Reluctantly, Thall made his way into the Administration Building. Taurus Rook waited, inspecting her nails. She was pleased they had made it through the last few days without chipping or breaking.

  Meanwhile, another Aves, Quentin, descended from Pegasus and parked on the tarmac, dispensing another twenty warfighters she could use to storm the complex, should she find it necessary. She did not think she would find it necessary.

  Forty-two minutes passed. During some of these minutes, she had her guards remove Kahn’s disarmed men from the Aves and moved to the side where two of her men watched over them.

  Taurus Rook had just decided to give Kahn eight more minutes before she took the facility by force when, finally, Kahn appeared. She was minus Thall, but flanked by more of her elite security guards. She stood among them, chin held high.

  Taurus Rook was unarmed, but unafraid, as she walked toward the Administration building where Kahn waited. The wind was kicking up. In the distance, dust storms filled with arc-lightning rolled along the horizon and the ground gave off rumbles, the echoes of distant groundquakes.

  Taurus Rook squinted against the sun and the wind, but kept her gaze fixed on Kahn, walking steadily until Kahn shouted “That’s close enough.” Then, in direct contradiction of her own words, Kahn began striding across the tarmac, her heels click-clicking against the cracked concrete. She approached until she stood face-to-face with Taurus Rook.

  “What the furken is going on?” demanded Kahn. “Where are my security forces?”

  “On their way back here, minus their weapons and probably still sore from the ass-kicking they took from my men,” Taurus Rook answered.

  Kahn’s face contorted in rage. “I want you off my furking planet.”

  “It’s not your planet,” Taurus Rook informed her. “Not any more. You run this little complex, and you order around a few guards, but the planet isn’t yours anymore. 42 hours from now, it won’t be anyone’s.”

  “Kill her!” Kahn ordered her guards. Thirty of Taurus Rook’s warfighters immediately armed and leveled their weapons.

  Taurus Rook stood her ground. “We’ll drop every one of you before you get a shot off.

  We are going to finish rescuing these children I didn’t come here to debate you. We’re not going to abandon the children, we’re taking them with us … on Pegasus.”

  “They are not your children, you furking hoor,” Kahn bellowed at her. “They’re mine! If they don’t make it across, tough shit. Their stupid parents shouldn’t have defied the law.

  Now, you can just get the furken off my planet, right furking now!”

  “I don’t think you’re in any position to stop us, Madame President,” Taurus Rook’s voice was calm and measured, but her eyes burned with intensity. “As you can see, my crew feels strongly that we should complete this mission. These men have orders to seize your complex, and they will. I hope you have enough to see that your resistance is futile.” Kahn was spitting in her fury. ”You don’t have the recall code. You’ll never get your people back.”

  “The recall code is a bluff,” Taurus Rook said calmly. “There is no recall code. The Gateway has only two modes, Send and Receive.”

  “Who told you that!” Kahn hissed.

  “You just did,” Taurus Rook answered. “Or, rather, you confirmed our analysis with your reaction.

  “You listen to me, you snatch-licking hoor,” Kahn spat at her. “I’m not playing any furking games here. You don’t get your furking captain or his friend back unless you bring my furking kids back to this planet… Code or no code.”

  “Our commander is expendable,” Taurus Rook replied. “So, you can imagine how we feel about our ship’s bartender. Regardless of that, the children are staying with us.”

  “Is that your final word, you snatch?” Kahn asked.

  “Not quite,” Taurus Rook activated her COM Link and barked. “Pegasus… Go!” Nothing happened. Hildegard Kahn smirked and tapped her foot. “Well?” Taurus Rook crossed her arms. “This will take a second, Pegasus is on a 60,000 kilometer orbit.”

  Four bright streaks appeared in the sky, and almost as soon as they appeared, they slammed into four of the giant transport aircraft lined up beside the main terminal. The aircraft exploded into bursts of light and noise that shattered them to tiny pieces. When the fireballs and dust cleared, there would be four neat symmetrical craters in the ground where they had been.

  The elite security guards ran for cover, but the warfighters stood stoically, even repressing, temporarily, the urge to share with each other how cool that just was.

  Taurus Rook stood her ground as the blasts from the explosions blew past her. While debris was still falling on the tarmac, she said to a visibly shaken Hildegard Kahn, “Those were just babies, low-yield tactical warheads. We can and will destroy the Gateway, or bury it in rubble with you on this side of it. And I don’t think you want to be standing on this planet when that other planet hits it.”

  Hildegard Kahn was almost apoplectic by this point. “So, that’s your furking plan?

  Threaten us with your furking we
apons? What the hell kind of people are you?”

  “We’re nice people with big weapons,” Taurus Rook replied. “Don’t furk with us.” Kahn stayed silent for a minute. “That’s how it’s going to be? That’s how it’s furking going to be?”

  “It is,” Taurus Rook assured her. “The Gateway is scheduled for a reactivation in 2

  hours. That activation will recall Commander Keeler and Mr. Redfire. Some of my men will now escort you to the control room to make sure that activation and the recall take place. And we have them, we will leave, and you can do whatever you want here. But if anyone from your Authority comes near my people again, we will kill them.” Kahn scowled, but was unbowed. “You can go ahead send your men to the control room. I am returning to my office. We will depart on schedule.” Kahn turned on her heel and headed back into her complex, followed by her guards.

  Taurus Rook gestured for half of her warfighters to move in and take the Command Center. She allowed the disarmed guards they had brought from the docks to follow Kahn’s men.

  When this was done, she activated her COM Link, and connected to Pegasus. “The situation on the ground has stabilized,” Rook reported to Alkema, Change, and Kitaen on the Main Bridge. “I have sent a squad to secure the Gateway control room. Thank you for the missiles.”

  “A loud explosion has a way of focusing the mind,” Kitaen remarked.

  “What about the recall code?” Alkema asked.

  Taurus Rook reported. “There is no recall code, like Banks said.”

  “You need to begin wrapping up ground operations,” Alkema told her. “The point of impact may be sooner than we estimated.”

  “I received that update already,” Taurus Rook confirmed. “Once we have the commander, I’ll return to the base and we’ll start packing up around sunset today. Rook out.”

  She terminated the COM Link and went over to speak with Quentin’s pilot. She instructed him to remain at the Gateway to recover Commander Keeler and Phil Redfire.