Starship Defender: Beyond Human Space

by Michael Keats

  Throughout the years, scientists had studied the tech and they’d come up with cheap imitations of alien tech that had allowed us to advance our scientific and technological knowledge much faster. We were nothing other than copiers, but at least we were learning. Many governments had built up huge fleets to defend themselves from unknown threats, while others had attempted to match the technological knowledge of the crashed starship.

  We hadn’t exactly reached the aliens’ tech level, but the Defender gave us some hope about reaching it at some point in the future.

  Nobody had considered the possibility of annoying aliens by copying their work. I’d be fairly annoyed if an inferior race took my stuff and made blatant copies of it. Wasn’t that the cause of the Chino-Indian conflict from last century? The Chinese weren’t too happy when the Indian government copied their latest fighter jet designs.

  As for me, I was fine with both meeting aliens or fighting them as long as I was allowed to test the Defender’s engines and weapons. This new level of technology deserved to be put to the test. It kicked ass.

  Harry returned and paced around the hangar. He tried not to talk with anyone, but he disliked having so many people there. One of the scientists dropped a suitcase and Harry flinched with the possibility of scratching something. He kept making faces whenever someone dragged something along the floor or bumped onto walls.

  “This ship is new,” Harry mumbled under his breath. “Why do they need to scratch anything?”

  “They don’t like you either,” I said. “Just like Dr. Thompson or me.”

  His expression darkened for an instant and he stared at a couple of scientists to check. Then he realized I was joking and shook his head. “Don’t project your frustrations on others,” he said. “And why don’t you tell them to leave their stuff on Earth? None of these crates, boxes, bags, and equipment are necessary. We’re aboard the best ship in the world, and yet they keep bringing computers. Why don’t you tell them to shove their stuff up their―?”

  “Because they’re scientists,” I said, “and they know what they’re doing.”

  Harry rolled his eyes. “No wonder that you don’t have a girlfriend.” He gestured in the air and brought up a holographic screen that showed Dr. Thompson and the surgeon, Dr. Langley. They were both chatting happily, especially her, as they walked around the ship. “I’m just a hologram, but what’s your excuse? You’re an officer, you’re tall, and you have the pretty upper-class looks that girls swoon for.”

  “I’m not trying.”

  Harry cleared his throat and hesitated, then blew on his hand to smell his breath. “I’m not interested,” he mocked me. “But does my uniform look good? Because I don’t want Dr. Thompson to ignore me.”

  “Shut up.”

  It isn’t fun when an AI picks on you, but Harry was funny, I give you that. He was a computer with a sense of humor and too much personality for my taste. At least the trip wasn’t going to seem too long for either of us.

  Dr. Thompson and Dr. Langley crossed paths with a dark-haired young man with a threatening look. He didn’t look like the classic nerdy scientist and he wasn’t part of the crew. He simply stared at both doctors, stopped a few feet away, and said something. The doctors’ expressions darkened, and Dr. Langley pushed the woman behind him and stepped between him and the young man.

  This wasn’t a normal conversation amongst scientists aboard a spaceship. I had a bad feeling.

  “What are they saying?” I asked Harry.

  “No idea,” Harry said. “They aren’t making any sounds.”

  “Are your mics on?”

  “They are,” Harry said, confused. He gestured in the air and changed the settings, but the mics didn’t work. “No idea of what’s wrong.” He looked at me, and we both knew: something was going on.

  My hand moved instinctively to my gun and I ran out of the hangar and headed for the scientists’ location. I turned on my HUD glasses’ screens. “Let me see them on my right eye,” I said out loud. Harry didn’t hesitate or delay things; he showed me the images.

  A few seconds later, he turned on the sound.

  “Humans can’t reach the stars before they’re ready,” the young man said. He stepped forward, touched the surgeon’s abdomen and knocked him down without doing anything. He grabbed Dr. Thompson’s arm and pulled her to another deck. “You won’t help humans any longer.”

  “Block their paths, Harry,” I said.

  “Easy as pie,” he said through the intercom. Several deck regions became sealed on my HUD, but the man kept dragging Dr. Thompson away through alternate routes.

  “Plot me a path to wherever they’re heading,” I said. “I want to intercept them.”

  “They’re heading for the lowest deck,” he said, amused. “There’s no way out.”

  I ran downstairs, but they were several decks ahead of me. They’d eventually reach the lowest deck, and I’d catch them. That man was going to curse the day he decided to act stupid aboard a starship.

  “Uh, oh…” Harry said through my ear mic. “I didn’t know there was a ship in there…”

  A ship?

  Harry quickly relayed me the security camera footage and showed the young man pushing Dr. Thompson into a concealed shuttle in the lowest deck. None of the ship’s blueprints or my dossiers showed the shuttle, but it was there nevertheless.

  They both entered and he flew out of the ship.

  “He wasn’t supposed to do that,” Harry said. “Someone’s messed up the ship’s designs, and now he’s taken the girl. Should I call the admiral?”

  The cameras showed a second ship of the same size and design, just beside the one they’d taken. Nobody was going to take a member of the crew if I could do something about it.

  This wasn’t about shooting anyone down using the Defender’s defense systems. This was about saving a civilian contractor from a madman. And she was the prettiest woman aboard the ship, too. I wasn’t going to let anyone shoot her down to catch her abductor.

  “I’ll take care of it,” I said.

  Hopefully, flying fighters was like riding a bike: you get the hang of it even after years without flying.

  Otherwise, Harry would think of something hilarious and humiliating to write on my tombstone.

  Chapter 5

  I got to the concealed shuttles a couple of minutes after they abductor had forced Dr. Thompson to board one. I was still within range of catching them. I jumped into one of them, shut the doors, and fastened my seat belt.

  Where the hell were the control panels? I’d flown hundreds of ships, but all of them had a joystick and lots of screens around them in case the gesture-based controls didn’t work. I tapped on the intercom in my ear to talk to Harry.

  “How do I make this fly?” I asked.

  The cabin instantly lit up and the engines turned on. A concealed door opened up on one of the Defender’s walls. Awesome. A self-centered AI controlled the shuttle I’d boarded. Hopefully, he wouldn’t force me to crash onto anything.

  “Thanks,” I told Harry.

  I stretched both hands in front of me to fly forward using gesture-based controls. I hate flying with my hands, but modern engineers don’t always listen to pilots’ preferences. I flew out of the Defender at maximum acceleration. The other shuttle had headed out at top speed too.

  “Sorry, I wasn’t listening,” Harry said through the intercom. “Oh. You’ve turned everything on already.” He talked for a while, fidgeted with a few controls, and realized that he had direct communication both with me and with the shuttle. He was able to track my location and toy with the lighting system. He hadn’t been warned about those concealed shuttles, though.

  I don’t like secrets aboard our ships, especially if we’re using stolen alien tech to build them.

  I waved in the air, and holographic control panels appeared. I set the radars to track the other shuttle’s location on the HUD map on the cabin’s glass.

  I hate holographic screens; they’
re much less reliable than tactile screens and they have many other points of failure. Scientists get overexcited about tech advances and want to use their new discoveries everywhere, so they end up making our lives harder. I’m not surprised, though; they never need to fly under enemy fire. When you’re shot and lose your holographic control panels, you’re royally screwed.

  “Hey,” Harry said, excited. “This is cool. I didn’t know we had these ships, but they’re awesome. Mind if I join you here?” He appeared holographically to my right and gestured at several of the holographic control panels to adapt the screen settings to his preferences. AIs aren’t supposed to do that; they shouldn’t care about aesthetics.

  “Don’t touch anything,” I told him. “We’re chasing after a criminal.”

  “I know.” He was as excited as a little kid. “This is my first persecution. I didn’t expect it so soon, but it’s awesome. Can we hang him once we’re done?”

  “No,” I said flatly.

  The noose was reserved to traitors. Abductors got a different treatment, generally going through trials and interrogations to see if they were linked to other criminals. Their families, friends, and even distant acquaintances were scrutinized to know where they placed their loyalties. Many innocent men and women ended up with lifelong surveillance for making the wrong kind of friends, but it was part of the world we lived in. Everyone was paranoid, and no politicians wanted to lose their jobs for being too soft with criminal gangs.

  “Can you appear in their shuttle and touch their controls?” I asked him. “Turn off their engines or something.”

  “Can’t,” he said. “The baddie must’ve disabled something. I can’t access his ship controls or appear inside. I’m still proud of appearing here, though. I didn’t even know these ships existed, and connecting to them isn’t easy.”

  “Yeah, we both know you’re awesome,” I said sarcastically. “Mind being useful for a change?”

  “Want me to act like the voice of reason? You’re being reckless for chasing after your love,” Harry said out of nowhere. “She doesn’t like you, and you’re the commander of the ship. Should I remind you that you’re in charge for half an hour because the admiral’s too busy shitting?”

  He was right, but I ignored him. Jumping onto a shuttle had been faster than getting a team of marines to do so. The marines would have lost precious time, and it could’ve been too late to save Dr. Thompson.

  I turned on the communications systems to contact the other ship. “This is Commander O’Donnell speaking,” I said. “I’m on your tail. Turn off your engines and release Dr. Thompson immediately or I’ll open fire. I won’t warn you twice.”

  “I won’t warn you twice,” Harry mocked me. He rolled his eyes. “Nobody’s going to believe you if you sound so worried for her. You need to say that he can kill her if he likes, but you’ll kill him anyway. I’ve read enough psychology book to know.”

  I knew, but I wasn’t going to bluff my way out of this. When trapped animals realize that they have no way out, they might react in different ways. Scorpions kill themselves, tigers attack, and humans sometimes kill their hostages. Criminals who are dumb enough to break the law are likely to act dumb again.

  I should’ve stopped the man sooner. I had been too busy supervising everything instead of taking a hands-on approach.

  I was about to reply to Harry, but the other shuttle brought out its weapons and shot a missile in my direction. I turned right and dodged it by inches.

  “Hey!” Harry said. “He could’ve killed us!”

  “Guess he doesn’t want us to catch them,” I said. We were doing well in the chase.

  “Want me to return fire?” Harry said. “I can use holographic controls too.”

  “No,” I said. “I’m not shooting at them.”

  I didn’t want to hurt them; I wanted to rescue Dr. Thompson alive and interrogate her abductor. Why did that man think that we weren’t ready to conquer the stars? We’d based our ships on alien tech, but our scientists had worked hard for many years. Nobody had the right to claim that we weren’t ready to explore the universe.

  The other shuttle emitted a strange emergency signal in most of our frequencies. I hadn’t seen this kind of emergency signal before; it was very intense and had long-range properties. It was going to reach the Defender, Earth, and maybe even other solar systems. Why would anyone create shuttles with such long-range emergency signal capabilities? And why had they been hidden?

  This wasn’t a good sign. If aliens truly existed and we weren’t alone in the universe, this signal might’ve been designed to contact them.

  I had no choice but to shoot, even if it cost the life of our top scientist.

  I’d flown ships since before I’d learned to run. I’d joined the Navy before I’d been old enough to choose for myself, and I’d learned even more about myself when flying in combat. I’d sometimes worked as an exhibition pilot during recruitment events. My aim rarely missed, and I always crushed my enemies.

  The moment something annoyed me enough, I destroyed it. There was a dark region in my mind that clicked when facing danger, a region that I tried to forget about and ignore during my normal life. But somewhere, hidden deep within me, something enjoyed the adrenaline of the chase, of going after my enemy and defeating him.

  I locked the shuttle as my target and launched a guided missile towards the side of one of its engines. I didn’t want to completely destroy the shuttle, but to cripple her enough to catch her.

  The missile flew true and quick and headed exactly where I wanted it. It disabled the engines and didn’t cause an explosion in the cabin, just a destabilization of the shuttle’s propulsion systems.

  “Nice shot, Decaf,” Harry said.

  “I’m Ed,” I said. “Stop calling me Decaf.”

  “I was praising your shooting skills,” he said. “And don’t be surprised if I call you Decaf if you keep reacting like an offended kid. I haven’t stolen your nose.”

  “Stop your engines at once,” I told the other shuttle. “I won’t warn you again.”

  “I’ll kill her!” The man’s voice resounded in the whole ship. He wasn’t kidding. He tried to shoot another missile at us, but I launched one of my own to make it explode before it got anywhere close to me.

  “She’s dead anyway.” Words came out of my mouth before I even thought them.

  I prepared another missile. This time, I wasn’t going to cripple the shuttle; I was going to blow it up.

  “He isn’t bluffing.” Harry waved his arms in the air between my face and the control panels. “Don’t try anything stupid or he’ll really kill her. He isn’t joking; I can feel it in his voice.”

  “Shut up or I’ll mute you,” I said flatly. My hand hovered over the missile controls. I was ready to take action against the shuttle.

  Harry didn’t like my choice, but neither did I. I mentally counted to 5 to give the abductor a few seconds to react. They sometimes need an extra while to act with common sense for a change.

  An escape pod flew out of the shuttle, perpendicular to our trajectory. It was too small to keep anyone alive for too long. I guessed that Dr. Thompson was inside. She could be dead by the time I caught the shuttle.

  “Bet the bad guy isn’t in the shuttle,” Harry said.

  The question was: was it empty, or was Dr. Thompson in it? I couldn’t risk chasing after it without guarantees, but I couldn’t let her die either.

  “Hey, that’s Dr. Thompson!” Harry waved in the air and showed a camera inside the escape pod. Dr. Thompson was either asleep or in a trance, but she was safe.

  I changed direction to catch her and launched the rest of my missiles towards the other shuttle.

  “You need to have a chat with the engineers,” Harry said. “Hate knowing how to do stuff without knowing that I can do it. Doesn’t even make sense, does it? I’m supposed to be the almighty ship AI. I must be powerful and know everything from the Defender, and yet here I am, guessing things like
an ordinary human.”

  I flew towards the escape pod and got within netting distance.

  “Be quiet and release the net,” I said.

  Harry released a net and caught the escape pod. It changed our direction slightly, but we rectified. The shuttle was still within range, and it had dodged all my missiles. I needed to return Dr. Thompson to the Defender, but I couldn’t let the other shuttle run away.

  “Can you do something?” I said. “Blow them up, disable its life support, or just talk to them until they give up and surrender?”

  “Want a miracle, don’t you?” Harry said. “I’m sorry, buddy, but I can’t―” He swapped screens, tapped a few things in the air to make everything more dramatic and waste time, and grinned. “Gotcha. Engines short-circuited and shuttle crippled.”

  The shuttle stopped accelerating, allowing our fighters to catch up with it before it disappeared into space or continued sending distress signals. Harry managed to turn on its reverse thrusters to return it to the Defender.

  “I’ve overridden some security measures that blocked me from accessing those shuttles,” Harry said meditatively. “I don’t know why someone doesn’t want me to access or to know about hidden shuttles aboard the Defender. If I were you, I’d start asking questions. We can’t have idiots abducting our scientists, can we?”

  I nodded and contacted the Defender to get some marines to clear the trash and catch the shuttle. They rogered and promised to take care of everything.

  “Now that we’re done with him,” Harry said, “Can I get a raise?”

  “AIs don’t get paid,” I said.

  “Now that you bring up the topic,” he said, “we should look into that. Doesn’t help my motivation to know that I won’t get anything whether the mission succeeds or fails.”

  We kept joking to relieve some stress, and something exploded inside the other shuttle. I hadn’t shot any other missiles or fired any of my guns; this had been an internal explosion. Several pieces had flown away from the shuttle, but it was still standing.

  “What have you done?” I asked Harry.