Starship Defender: Beyond Human Space

by Michael Keats

  “Tell them to return to where they’ve come from,” the admiral said, “and tell them to come back some other day.” He tried to lift his weight and stand up but fell back onto his seat. He let out a frustrated groan.

  I stood up and offered to help him, but he pushed my hand away.

  “Don’t even think that I’m an old lady who needs a gentleman’s courtesy!” Graff told me. “I’m just too drunk to move.” Harry looked at him with worry; after all, the admiral was in charge and we were defenseless if he didn’t face the enemy. “I don’t need anyone to lift my own weight; I just need to be sober. I don’t plan to die in my own bed, covered by my own piss, and that will be my fate if I don’t see some action. My back hurts, I’ve spent the day aboard a flimsy shuttle without any of my comforts, and I’m not going to stand up until I get drunk, fall unconscious, and wake up with an awful hangover.”

  “Want me to open a channel to the bridge?” Harry said.

  “Nah.” The admiral gestured towards the door. “O’Donnell, why don’t you take care of this while I continue drinking myself to obliviousness?”

  As much as I wanted to take control of the Defender, this was the admiral’s job. If I messed up, he’d get the blame. Captains always take charge of their ships before potential hostilities, and Graff was giving me too much freedom.

  “Would you like me to warn you if the ship doesn’t retreat?” I asked.

  “It’s a chance to prove yourself, for goodness’ sake!” the admiral said. “I’m tired, I’m old, and you should be desperate to get a promotion, not to make me work.”

  I nodded and thanked him and headed for the door.

  “Kick the ship’s ass if they don’t identify themselves!” the admiral shouted after me. “I want to see some fireworks, and we’ve seen nothing like the Defender’s weapons.”

  “I love fireworks!” Harry said excitedly. “Can we destroy them without contacting them? I want to see if the weapons are as good as everyone says.”

  “No, we can’t,” I said.

  I wanted to test the weapons systems, but we couldn’t eliminate a ship unless they gave us a good reason to do so.

  Deep down, I did hope that they gave us an excuse to test the weapons systems.

  Chapter 7: Kate

  Kate Thompson woke up to an intense headache. Her limbs felt heavy, her head was even heavier, and she had no idea of what had gone on in the past few hours.

  The symptoms were clear: someone had tried to put her into deep sleep, or stasis like most humans liked to call it. She was now in sick bay.

  She tried to stand up, but a firm hand pushed her back down. John, the surgeon, appeared almost immediately within her visual range. “Don’t even think of standing up,” he said. “You’ve returned from the dead, and I’d rather keep you sleeping for a while.” He gave her his classic smile and sat down on a chair by her side. His hand pressed hers and he looked at her with worry. She must’ve looked awful.

  “You don’t need to stay with me. I’m fine.” Kate’s voice sounded weaker than usual. She was the kind of woman who took initiative. Her strength never faltered. She didn’t like feeling weak, and it was even worse when someone saw her at her weakest.

  “I need to rest my legs,” John said. “The assistants can take care of sick bay while I’m resting.” He was an even worse liar than he’d been as a kid, but she nodded and smiled at him. He was one of her closest friends and allies, the closest thing she had to a family.

  John came from the same origin as Kate: a planet called Fratera. He’d been a few Earth years older than her when they’d joined the expedition to flee their country and share their knowledge with a deserving culture. They’d almost grown up together. They had hoped to contribute to building a new Utopia, a place where humans and Fraterans would share their planet and their knowledge.

  Humans had used the technology that Kate and some of the other Frateran refugees had brought with them to Earth, but they’d also offered them to live in their planet. Governments had shown some reservations towards them at first, but it was natural. Not many starships landed on Earth and claimed to have peaceful intentions.

  Some of her people had claimed that humans were only using them, and that they would kill all Fraterans as soon as they were no longer of any use to humanity. Kate didn’t think so: they’d worked with humans, but they still had much more to offer and exchange. The Defender was the first gift that Kate and many of the other scientists had given to humans, and there were many more to come. She’d always been an idealist, though, and she always saw hope in every country, even in her homeland.

  “You’ve been very lucky; you know?” John told her. He ran a hand down her cheek and moved a few stray hairs away from her face. “He could’ve killed you.”

  Kate knew. She’d known all along. Fraterans didn’t want to share their technology, but that’s why Kate and the others had escaped Earth.

  Once on Earth, her people hadn’t liked humanity’s warmongering attitude, and some had believed that they would never put their new technology to good use. Some of her fellow refugees had stopped working on the Defender.

  Vortos, her abductor, had resorted to violence out of desperation, but he hadn’t wanted to harm her. He was only a desperate man trying a desperate move to stop humanity from joining a league of star-conquering civilizations.

  “You can’t expect me to stay here while the humans use you in the front lines,” John insisted. “I won’t let anyone kill you, Qad.”

  Qad.

  Qadassa.

  She remembered the name from an earlier life, from before she underwent genetic modifications to adapt to human appearance. She was now indistinguishable from most humans on the outside, but her inner organs differed significantly from human standards.

  Aside from a few hand-picked people in Earthen governments, her secret had remained underground and no humans knew that a group of Fraterans were living amongst them. Nobody else would ever notice unless they cut her open.

  She’d renounced her identity and become Kate Thompson, an average scientist. She didn’t recognize her own name anymore. She was Kate, and she felt as human as anyone. John, on the other hand, had been a few years older than her when they’d arrived, and he still had trouble renouncing their origins.

  “I can recognize a martyr’s face when I see it.” John shook his head. “I don’t mind sharing our technology, but don’t die for them. They’re not worth it.”

  Kate didn’t plan to die for anyone. At least not yet. She was going to keep doing her job, though, and no threats or attacks would discourage her from working aboard the Defender and other modern starships. This was her present and her future.

  “John,” she began.

  “Call me Jarlis,” John said through gritted teeth. “I hate that stupid human name. John Langley. What kind of stupid name is John Langley? It’s hard enough to smile and reply whenever one of those idiots addresses me by that name.”

  Kate sighed. John had never liked how humans had reacted to them. Humanity hadn’t been ready to discover so much about the rest of the universe. Until that point, humans had thought that they were the center of the universe and they were used to being at the top of the food chain. The Fraterans had made them realize their own insignificance. Everything was a matter of ego.

  But still, humanity had hope. Commander O’Donnell and the others had a special personality. She’d seen him a couple of times, and he had what Fraterans called impe, somewhat similar to initiative combined with spunk and intelligence. The Frateran word was faster to say, though.

  “One of them tried to save me,” Kate said, smiling like an idiot. She’d always liked men with impe, and the commander had the looks to match his personality.

  “I’m glad that the commander rescued you,” John said, “but that doesn’t save him from being an idiot anyway. And stop grinning; he’s human.”

  “You make it sound dirty,” she said.

  “Because it is,” John sa
id. “They’re human. They’re millions of years away from proper evolution. Their minds are so simple that they can still eat vegetables and survive.”

  Kate rolled her eyes. She’d heard the story a thousand times: Fraterans were better than humans because of all their differences, and humans were little more than animals because they’d been uncivilized for millions of years. She didn’t pay attention to the rest of John’s reasoning; she already knew it.

  Humans didn’t have some of their mental abilities or their knowledge, but they were impulsive, they were creative, and they compensated their flaws with enthusiasm. Fraterans were a bunch of grumpy and apathetic people. Well, not exactly people, but you get the idea.

  John eventually realized that he wasn’t going to convince her, so he talked about the man who’d abducted her. Vortos, one of their very own scientists, had shown reservations to teaching anything to humans. He’d felt trapped because of Earthen governments’ constant surveillance and the prohibition to meet other Fraterans without prior authorization.

  Nobody knew why one of their own had added concealed shuttles to the Defender or why Vortos had tried to abduct Kate, but they’d eventually discover it.

  “Perhaps he was just showing off,” Kate said to try to get John to relax.

  John shook his head and scratched the afternoon shadow along his jawline. “And immolate himself along the way? The admiral’s seen him. He knows, Kate. He’s seen one of us. I don’t know how he’ll react, but he wasn’t supposed to know.”

  Admiral Graff seemed like a reasonable man, but reasonable men were square-minded and didn’t like changes. He would have problems accepting the existence of aliens, and he would eventually wonder where Vortos had come from.

  They couldn’t hide, though. The Defender needed them during her first few flights in case something went wrong. After that, they’d need to help humans build even more ships.

  “What about the others?” Kate asked. “Does Graff know anything about anyone else?”

  John didn’t cheer up or show any signs of hope. “There’s Vortos’ brother. He’ll have to claim the corpse to say goodbye before his brother joins the afterlife. They’ll suspect and ask questions, and they only need to draw some of our blood to see that there’s something wrong with us.”

  John had always been a pessimist.

  “We’ll be fine,” Kate said.

  “We should leave before it’s too late,” John suggested. “Steal a shuttle, alter our appearances, and live amongst humans for a while.”

  “You? Amongst humans?” She laughed. “I’d like to see that!”

  He didn’t laugh. John was too worried to show any emotion in those troubled times. He feared being distrusted like when they’d landed on Earth, he feared rejection from society, and above all else, he feared the experiments that some scientists had performed on some of their kind.

  Returning to Earth and hiding wasn’t an option, and neither was returning to Fratera. After centuries of wars and conflict, their planet was dying. They’d consumed most of their resources, contaminated their own food supplies, and unsuccessfully attempted to colonize other worlds.

  Kate and the other refugees had escaped Fratera and undergone genetic modifications to look human. Her parents had led the research program, and she’d been allowed to take part in it and get a better chance of survival than normal Fraterans. The genetic therapy had altered their physical appearance without altering their inner organs. She was officially half-human and half-alien.

  These adaptations would eventually allow all Fraterans to adapt to human life and escape their dying planet. Her parents had stored their genetic research in her brain, and she had given Commander O’Donnell the closest thing to a backup.

  Some of her own people considered her a leader because of these implanted memories. The memories made her the Keeper of the Code, an excessively formal name that Fraterans had given her. It was their only hope to live on Earth.

  John’s back remained tense. He always worried too much.

  “We’ll be fine,” she repeated.

  He lowered his gaze. “Others want to leave. Why don’t we join them? I’ll follow you wherever you go, but we’ll be safer if we’re in a group.”

  “And what do you plan to do?” Kate asked. “Take a shuttle and run?”

  John nervously glanced at her. He was hiding something. He lied really badly whenever he was around her. “We were thinking of―”

  “I won’t steal the Defender.” Her mouth spoke on its own before she even realized his intentions. Then she realized the danger of their plan and added, “Are you mad? We’ve done this for humanity. They’ve given us a home, offered us their food. What will they think of us if we take the ship and run?”

  John shrugged. He rarely cared of what humans thought, and he didn’t bother to hide it.

  They spoke of other matters. John told her that both Harry, the ship AI, and Commander O’Donnell had shown an interest in her. They’d both asked after her and he’d told them that she was too tired to entertain guests.

  Kate hated to think that humans would be afraid once they learned more of her. Many humans fear the unknown, and Fraterans are a big unknown to them.

  “Why do humans always show an interest in you?” John sounded tense, even possessive. “They have more than enough human females on Earth, don’t they?”

  Kate blushed. She actually liked the commander, but they weren’t even of the same species. Nothing was possible between them or between her and any other human. She sat up and moved her undulating hair behind her shoulders.

  “Qadassa,” John struggled to say. “I know it’s been a long day for you, but I’ve seen you look at the commander. He’s human; we both know it. I am not.”

  Kate gulped. She’d always liked John and appreciated him with all her heart, but not in a romantic way. They’d known each other for years, and she loved him like a brother. She didn’t want to break his heart, but she couldn’t let him harbor false hopes.

  “I don’t want to live another day without opening my heart to you…” John continued.

  “John, I―” she cut him.

  The ship’s alarms sounded. John checked his watch and turned on the holographic display for her to see. An unidentified ship was approaching the Defender. A Frateran ship.

  How had they found them? And why were they approaching now?

  “You need to leave.” John pulled her out of bed and shoved his coat into her hands.

  “How?” Kate didn’t know what to do. “What am I supposed to do?”

  He guided her to the door out of sick bay, used his watch to plot a path to one of the hangars, and handed it to her.

  “Find an escape pod,” he said. “Or a shuttle. Something. Find somewhere to hide and turn on whatever cloaking devices you have. Don’t even breathe until they’re gone. You’re the Keeper of the Code. They’re after you.”

  Kate hesitated. Was this a goodbye?

  Her responsibilities with the memories her parents had implanted in her brain were stronger than her loyalty towards the Defender. Her people held hope, but only if she survived. She couldn’t let Fraterans access her knowledge and use it against humanity.

  But she couldn’t leave John behind.

  “Come with me,” she offered. “We’ll both board an escape pod.”

  “Nobody can notice that you’re gone,” John said. “We’ll be fine as long as you are. I’ll live if you live. Good luck.”

  He touched the top of his forehead with his middle finger and then tapped on his navel with the same finger, a gesture of honor, luck, and respect. Fraterans used it to show appreciation towards their leaders or love towards their kin.

  Kate returned the gesture and hurried towards the hangar.

  Chapter 8

  I won’t lie: I was excited with the prospect of a battle, and leading it was even better.

  With some luck, I was going to become the first human to use our fryers. We called the advanced laser devi
ces fryers because we’d had no previous equivalent before finding the alien tech. The weapons fried the opponent, and that’s where the name comes from. Scientists and naval men aren’t too original baptizing anything.

  The Defender’s bridge was functional and designed for engineers and ensigns with technical knowledge. The yellowy light of the screens reflected everywhere, turning the room into a fairly unnatural place. Most of the engineers were focused on their holographic or physical screens, gesturing in front of them to change display settings and using neural controls.

  I took out my HUD glasses. They were less accurate than larger screens and the human eye isn’t designed to see a screen so close. Long-term use of screens required either a good genetic disposition or painful surgery. My genes allowed me to use the HUD screens during normal battle times, and I preferred to look around freely in battle. Looking at fixed screens was like being in the previous century.

  One of the bridge officers opened a channel to broadcast a message to the approaching ship. “Short-range communications channel ready, sir,” she said.

  I nodded, turned off my HUD display glasses and looked at the nearby camera. “This is Commander Edward O’Donnell aboard the Starship Defender. No ship is allowed within a safety radius of one light minute from our position. You have trespassed this area. Please stop advancing and identify yourselves.”

  The entire crew on the bridge froze while we waited. None of us had expected hostile action so quickly, and none of us wanted to face anyone so soon. Actually, most of us did want to face someone, but we didn’t want the consequences linked to opening fire against an inferior ship. A war would only make matters worse for everyone.

  Harry raised an eyebrow at me. “Dude,” he said. “If that’s your way of telling people to turn around, I won’t be surprised if they get closer and open fire. You sound like a whiny idiot. I’d open fire too if I were in their shoes!”