No Man's Space 1: Starship Encounter

by Nate Duke

  “What are they doing?” Kozinski asked York. He gestured at the mild static marks on the radars. We’d calibrated the radars to convert static into potential ships, and all the little points remained still.

  “They’re observing us before attacking,” York said. “They don’t like jumping to battle without knowing their enemy, and now they’re waiting until they can land and slit our throats.”

  “What’s the point of waiting if they’re invisible,” Kozinski said. “Won’t scare anyone, they won’t.”

  “They don’t want to scare us,” York said. “Cassocks don’t need to scare anyone. They just walk into a place and get rid of everyone, quick and clean. No point in letting us notice beforehand.”

  One of them whistled at the door, and they both turned to look.

  Lady Elizabeth walked in and observed the bridge. Several of her men were taking care of the controls instead of patrolling around the port. She curled her upper lip.

  I honestly didn’t care if she felt defenseless; we had a minor emergency orbiting around us.

  “Lady Elizabeth,” I greeted her. “Are you looking for Lieutenant Banner? I’m afraid that he’s gone for a ride. He’ll be busy for a couple of hours.” And I’d have sent you with him to get rid of you too.

  “Acting Captain Wood.” Lady Elizabeth marked my rank, especially the acting part. “I demand an explanation for this madness. Why have you taken my father’s men from their posts and assigned them to take part in your silly drill?”

  First: this was no drill. Second: a fleet of enemy ships had sneaked into our airspace. Third: since the governor had taken many of his men with him, I was the highest-ranked officer in the port. I was responsible for the outcome of the attack, regardless of whether Lady Elizabeth approved.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” I told her, “but you can’t enter the bridge during our operations. We’re tracking several enemy ships, and we can’t have any distractions.”

  She strode from one side of the room to the other, staring at the screens and our control panels. “This is nothing but a silly drill. I can’t see any ships out there.”

  “Our radars can’t see them either,” I said. “They’re invisible, actually.” Right, it sounded like an awful excuse. Don’t grin, don’t grin, don’t― Too late.

  “What do you mean, ‘invisible’?” Lady Elizabeth’s voice screeched. She thought I was making a fool of her, and it was slowly chipping at her ego. She wasn’t going to let a man with old boots like me make her feel unimportant. She wanted to be in charge, and she was going to fight for it.

  I’d explained everything about the static and how our drones had detected invisible ships during our trip. She’d understood it and she’d agreed that we needed to protect the port, but she didn’t want to let me make any decisions.

  I should’ve given her a way out instead of imposing my authority. That’s what Banner or Hatfield would’ve wanted. Banner was aboard a fighter and preparing his squad to flank the enemy; Hatfield was too busy in sick bay. And I was a big-headed and undiplomatic idiot.

  “This is a restricted area right now,” I told her. “We need to concentrate.”

  I know, I know. I was an asshole. But have you ever tried to defend a spaceport from an enemy fleet while a nerve-wracked woman is screeching in your ear? I hadn’t either, but I didn’t want to try.

  She wasn’t satisfied with my response. As the self-styled queen of the port, she stepped forward and looked for the men she knew.

  “Smith!” she barked at one of the security men. “Return to your post and make sure that none of the slum roaches get out of their designated areas. I don’t want any surprises this week after the egg incident. My father wouldn’t like this to happen twice, would he?”

  Smith stood up from his place and walked over to her. “We’re needed here more than out there, m’lady. Don’t want anyone to throw eggs at you, but I won’t have anyone to protect if we’re invaded by Cassocks.”

  “Cassocks? Nobody said anything about Cassocks!” Lady Elizabeth started shouting, telling everyone to prepare an escape shuttle and to accompany her away from the port. She didn’t care about the locals and she didn’t care if the port was lost, as expected from her generous soul and tolerant personality.

  But hey, I was an asshole, wasn’t I? Lucky that I’d kept some of Flanagan’s men on the bridge in case someone decided to sabotage us.

  I told York and Kozinski to escort Lady Elizabeth to her home. It was all for her own safety… and mine. Her silence was going to reduce the risk of making a Navy officer go mad.

  York tipped an invisible hat. “I’m sorry, m’lady,” he said. “Officer’s orders.”

  “No offense meant,” Kozinski added.

  Kozinski held her from her elbows and raised her in the air to move her out of the room. She kicked and screamed, but her struggling wasn’t going to stop him. York simply led the way out of the room towards Lady Elizabeth’s home.

  “I won’t accept this treatment!” she said. “Tell your brutes to let go of me immediately. Mr. Wood! This isn’t the way to treat a lady. My father won’t tolerate this.”

  I waved at her with two fingers. “We’ll chat later, Lady Elizabeth. As long as the port still stands.”

  She wasn’t going to forgive me easily, but I didn’t care. I’d end up caring the next time that she acted nice towards Banner and ignored me, but that’s the price of command.

  “They’re moving, sir!” one of my engineers shouted. “They’re approaching the port.”

  About time.

  “Activate proximity bombs,” I said. “Make our satellites say what we think of them.”

  Chapter 18

  The engineers blew up one of the satellites near the ships. The bits of space junk moved anomalously and erratically as they collided with the invisible ships.

  Seconds later, the ships disabled their cloaking systems, revealing a fleet of 18 enormous ships. They were flat discs and much larger than standard vessels. No country used ships that size; they were almost fit to be spaceports. Cassock boats weren’t this large either; they used smaller ships, easier to hide in space and less fuel-consuming during takeoff and landing.

  I enabled the long-range communications and sent them another message. “This is James Wood, Acting Captain of the PAS North Star. Your fleet is unidentified and entering our port space. Leave our space immediately to avoid further hostile action. This is your second official warning; we won’t stop shooting unless you retreat or explain your presence.”

  Silence.

  “Want us to shoot, sir?” one of the weapons officers asked.

  “Give them a few seconds,” I said.

  We’d received no response, no indication of their flag or their intentions. They remained silent, without acknowledging their presence. Their bright ships glowed in space, like stars which had moved dangerously close to us. What if their weapons were as good as their cloaking systems?

  I gulped. This was the time for me to make a choice, and I had no idea of what they were after. The port’s blockade had stopped the Admiralty from receiving any communications, so we were blind and I was the officer in charge. Being an engineer made matters worse; nobody had explained international diplomacy during boot camp.

  The ships continued advancing towards us and didn’t show any signs of slowing down.

  They’d broken safety rules near a port and ignored the port authority. Nobody was going to blame me for breaking them… unless they were carrying someone important.

  “Blow them up, gentlemen,” I said. “Don’t let them get any closer.”

  “Aye, sir.” The men smiled to themselves and started gesturing at their screens to control the explosions.

  We shot at the ship, blew many of our satellites up, and sent legions of drones to track their movements. Several of the enemy ships were damaged by the nuclear explosions, but our smaller bombs did nothing against the rest. The port felt the explosions more than any of the enemy ships
.

  Our weapons only tickled them.

  Why didn’t they shoot at us? If their weapons were half as good as their shields, they’d have obliterated us within minutes.

  “We’ve run out of satellites, sir,” one of the weapons officers said. “And our cannons are useless.”

  Just as we’d feared. A civilian spaceport was well-defended for normal standards: we could destroy smuggler ships and pirates easily, but neither the port nor the North Star had anything to do against a fleet. Not to mention such an advanced fleet.

  Officers need to take action, but there was nothing we could do. We could just hope to drain their shields or whatever protected them, or hope that they got bored and left without killing us.

  At times like these, I cursed whoever had decided not to add escape routes to spaceports. We were out in the open, and escape shuttles were designed to be visible and easy to rescue. Hadn’t anyone considered the dangers of being attacked and actually losing? Where did engineers go to school?

  Okay, okay, the battle. What do you want me to say? We were shooting and it was useless; we were going to lose anyway.

  Oh, of course. You want me to tell you everything about it because you love to hear that the Navy loses against the bad guys.

  Well, the battle wasn’t going well. We weren’t fighting Cassocks, we weren’t fighting the European Front, and we weren’t finding any empires, coalitions, or anyone I knew of. We were the target in an unknown country’s new technology tests. With 18 ships. What kind of madman builds 18 prototypes before testing a vessel in battle?

  “I’ve never seen their shield tech before,” Gupta said.

  Neither had I. And I doubted that the Admiralty had seen it either. I hadn’t heard of any friendly ships that had disappeared recently without leaving a trace, and these ships were going to turn us into space dust.

  “Keep shooting,” I said. Shooting was better than waiting for them to attack.

  Then their shots began.

  First, the ground shook under our feet. The entire port trembled, and our equipment short-circuited and turned off automatically. Metal clanked, broke and fell all around the port. I hadn’t seen those weapons before, but they were much worse than anything we’d ever faced.

  The lights went off for a while and we turned to our back-up power system.

  I switched my intercom channel to talk to Banner and his squad. I told him that we’d unsuccessfully used the bombs in the satellites. The nuclear heads did have an effect on the enemy, but nothing too great. We’d made a couple of dents, burnt a few outer hulls, and stared at the rest as they slowly approached us.

  “We’re out of lights, out of bombs, and out of ideas,” I told him. “What about you?”

  “Somewhat disappointed, Wood,” Banner replied. His voice was full of interferences because we used the back-up communications systems. “I was hoping that I’d hold command by now. We’ve seen the explosions from here.”

  “Enjoying the fireworks, Banner?”

  “I’d enjoy them more with a few more explosions up here,” he said. “How can your men miss so many shots? Are they drunk?”

  “They were yours, actually.”

  “Then they’re drunk,” Banner said. “Your fault, Wood. They don’t drink when they’re working for me.” He almost sounded like Flanagan. What the hell was going on? Where was the posh lieutenant who was scared of his own shadow when he spent a while aboard a Cassock frigate?

  Flanagan laughed. “We’ll chase after those bastards and foam their hulls, sir.”

  I told them to be careful and shouted at my men to get the systems back online. We were using secondary communications systems and our basic radars barely showed anything. The ships’ attacks had disabled everything we used, but they hadn’t been electromagnetic in nature. This was beyond our level of technology and beyond the Earth’s scientific development.

  Our fighters began surrounding the enemy fleet, flying close to them. Banner and Flanagan were both collaborating together and with me. It’s funny that teamwork only starts once you’re so close to death. Everyone leaves special bonding moments until the last minute, when it’s too late to put it to good use.

  “The foam’s clinging onto them,” Banner said through the intercom. “And they’re stopping.”

  Finally. Everyone on the bridge fell silent and stopped moving in case the sound of their breaths alerted the enemy and started the attacks once more.

  “What are you waiting for, gentlemen?” I said. “We have a battle to win.”

  They kept working, but our strategy had worked. We got some of our cannons back online and shot at the ships. The corrosive foam had weakened their hulls, and the attacks damaged them.

  “They’re stopping!” Banner said. “They’re stopping and changing direction.”

  The men on the bridge stood up, stopped working, and cheered. Many were engineers and hadn’t had to actively fight in battle. Others belonged to the port security, and their definition of an agitated year included a couple of uprisings from the locals. None of us had been ready for a large-scale attack or for a sudden retreat. We hadn’t won the battle and we’d barely hurt them.

  Perhaps polishing and painting such behemoths turned out to be more expensive than whatever they could plunder from our port.

  I exhaled and realized that I’d been holding my breath all along. What the hell was I doing on a spaceport’s bridge and fighting a bunch of technologically advanced hostile ships?

  Energy ships, invisibility, and destruction of technology… The madman we’d found aboard the Cassock frigate had predicted everything. He was either a visionary or he’d seen something before.

  “Gupta,” I told one of my engineers, “the bridge’s yours. I’m going to have a chat with our Russian friend.”

  The intercom clicked before I left the bridge.

  “Wood,” Banner said through the intercom. “I’ll chase them to teach them a good lesson. They can’t fly near one of our ports and expect to get out alive.”

  What was he thinking? Did he consider himself the new Nelson? We were undermanned and we were lucky enough to be alive. We weren’t going to tempt the ships to come back and finish us off.

  “Negative,” I replied. “I don’t want to risk anyone else. They’ve gone, and now we have time to lick our wounds.”

  “I insist, Wood.” Banner sounded tense.

  “Forget it,” I said. “Get your asses down here before I tell the men to shoot you down.”

  Banner didn’t reply, but his fighters headed back. He wasn’t going to forgive me easily.

  Making friends, James?

  Chapter 19

  I needed to talk to our Russian friend and I’d locked him up in the brig, so I headed to the North Star’s lowest deck. I know it hardly sounds humanitarian for a man who’d been held captive aboard a Cassock ship, but we were still hostile towards his country. I couldn’t set him free without the Admiralty’s authorization, but the men weren’t going to mistreat him or anything. Everyone was quite scared of the poor old man – nobody wanted to know what he’d seen, and they preferred to hurry whenever they got close to him.

  The axial elevator brought me down, adjusted my rotational speed to the lowest deck’s rotation, and finally let me out. To my right, a couple of midshipmen were pushing each other into the elevators, and Gomez was dizzy and bumping onto walls because he’d been changing decks too quickly.

  Damn them.

  I know I was the acting captain and I had to tell them off for playing aboard the Star, but I wasn’t in the mood. I simply dodged them and kept going.

  I got to the brig and found a team of medics, a stretcher, and Hatfield. They were all surrounding the man, who lay listlessly on the floor. Hatfield looked up at me and shook his head. The Russian man was dead.

  Hatfield dropped the Russian’s wrist, told his men to disconnect the electrodes from him, and stood back up. He dusted himself, unworried. “It looks like our friend couldn’t stand
the thought of being attacked again. It was too much for his heart.”

  And I’d locked him up despite his stress. Should I have sent him to a counselor instead?

  “This isn’t your fault, Mr. Wood,” Hatfield said. “You locked him up, but he was dead before you met him; nobody’s mind survives the Cassocks.” He shrugged and enabled his holographic wrist planner. “Speaking of more pleasant matters, why don’t you take some flowers to Lady Elizabeth? She could do with some courtesy, and you might benefit from her contacts.”

  “Flowers?” I raised an eyebrow at him. “We’re at war. You can’t be serious about worrying about social matters.”

  “Social matters are far more dangerous than the risk of dying.”

  No, no, and no. I had to lead the defenses, and I didn’t know if my second-in-command was planning a mutiny. I didn’t have the time for flowers or for Lady Elizabeth.

  And now I didn’t know what the Russian guy had seen. What if he’d seen something beyond normal Cassock ships? What if we were facing the next technological leap in starship design?

  I guess I’d have to wait and see.

  And I hated waiting.

  Chapter 20

  After the fighters had landed, most of the men had stayed around the hangar to talk about the mission, the fight, and share some excitement. Others had gone straight to the best taverns in the port, and a couple of them had even invited me to join them. Hatfield had warned me that they considered me one of their own, and he was right.

  Banner had questioned my right to give him orders, and he’d disappeared instead of apologizing. He would’ve apologized to O’Keeffe if he’d shown such a childish behavior. I had to start acting like a captain, or I wouldn’t keep command of the North Star until we got back home.

  Selfish, right? I know, but I’d rather mess things up myself than let someone else do it for me.

  York and Kozinski had already run to the hangar with bottles of contraband rum. They waved their bottles in the air. York noticed me and hid his, and Kozinski saluted while still holding the bottle in his hand.