Stasis (Alpha Ship One Book 1)

by L. D. P. Samways

  The old man nodded.

  “Yeah, I see where you’re coming from. But that’s where things get complicated. You know how humanity sees itself as the cleverest race going?”

  “Yeah, it’s no secret,” I said.

  “Well, the humans back on Earth thought that arming them with the ability to make warships would not only give credence to their defense once they blew the Ursines out of existence, it would also make things more interesting. It’s a sick thought, but there are many army types that have been salivating at the thought of fighting an intelligent alien race in battle. Unfortunately, throughout history, all the space battles have been between deep space races. So the idea that they can have a scuffle with an alien race on even footing will not only make them look good to the galaxy but it will also be fun. But that’s where humanity failed. As usual, being the selfish, narcissistic race that they are, they forgot to account for the one thing that defines intelligent life.”

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  “And what exactly is that?” I asked.

  “Intelligence. Make no mistake, these things are intelligent. They learned from us. They know things. Things that we know. And just like we did, they learned how to split atoms. And in doing so, they invented their own nuclear bomb. Humanity is unaware of this development. They are also unaware of the twelve thousand miles of warships on their way. So this thing isn’t as simple as it looks. True, humanity can be evil, but it seems like a bit of our evil has rubbed off on them.”

  It was a lot to take in but I soon got the gist.

  “So I guess it’s true what they say, if you live by the gun, you die by the gun. And let’s not kid around here, we’ve had guns for a very long time, in some shape or form. It was only a matter of time before the guns would be turned on us,” I said.

  Silence fell across the room once again. This time it was long and uninterrupted. Me, Roderick and the two younger adults sat in our seats and thought about the predicament we found ourselves in. It was a predicament that seemed to be getting more complicated by the hour. And with every second that passed, the hour was growing nearer. And once the hour hit, we’d have to make the right decision. A decision that could either make or break history.

  It was certainly a lot to take in.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “They call me Teresa, and this is Philip,” she said as she shook my hand. I looked at her and smiled, gripping her hand firmly, and then shaking his. It was strange. I’d finally learned all of their names. I was the bloody captain of this ship, and only now I’d been properly introduced to the three of them. Before, they’d argued that their names were unimportant. But I guess now that we were on the same page, names were all that separated us.

  But we weren’t all on the same page. Dale and Jess were nowhere to be seen. Or at least they weren’t in the cinema. Earlier, on my way to the cinema, I’d checked a few of the ship’s many rooms and areas. They weren’t in there either. So I assumed that they were either on the bridge or in their bunks. Unless of course they were at the bar, much like me last night.

  This mission did have a way of making you want to drink, that’s for sure.

  “Nice to meet you Teresa,” I said. “Nice to meet you Philip.”

  Awkward silence followed. Then Roderick interrupted us. The lights in the cinema went on and the place lit up like a Christmas tree. I could now see my surroundings and the chairs that peppered the scenery around me looked creepy as they sat there, empty of occupants.

  “We need to make our way to the bridge. I have something to show you,” Roderick said, brushing his white specked hair with his hand as he spoke. The man looked like he liked to take care of himself. For a man of his age he dressed well, and carried himself in a decent manner. Most older gents I’d met back on Earth were stuck in their ways and had intriguing characteristics that usually involved wolf whistling younger women while drinking bottles of beer on the streets of the capital. Roderick was nothing like that stereotypical image I had in my head. He was elegant, or at least as elegant as a man could be.

  “What is it that you need to show me?” I asked, feeling a smidge of terror reverberating through my core. Roderick picked up on it and tried to reassure me with his eyes. He turned them inward, as if he was concerned about me.

  “Don’t look so scared. I won’t bite,” he said, putting an arm around me.

  “You?” I asked.

  Roderick smiled, squeezing me tightly while cocking his head toward Teresa and Philip.

  “These two don’t need to see what I’m going to show you. They already know. Besides, if we all go to the bridge, hand in hand, I’m sure it will look pretty suspicious. And the last thing that we want to do is look suspicious. Not when we have such savagery for company.”

  I agreed with him. If we’d all turned up at the bridge, I’m pretty sure it would rouse suspicions. But then again, what could the bridge possibly hold that it warranted a visit from me? I knew every inch of that place. It was my job. Flying the ship is a big responsibility. A responsibility that I’m not willing to take lightly. So every inch of it is mapped out in my mind. When I close my eyes, I can see every button. Every switch. I can hear every sound. I can smell every smell. The atmosphere of the place lingers within me. It comforts me, and on lonely days back on Earth, I’d think about the bridge. Even the bad memories. The hard ones. The ones where we were flying through dangerous sectors. The dog fights in space. The crew members lost. But it always made me feel comfortable. The memory of the bridge that is. It was where I performed best. So it was natural for me to feel right at home there.

  “I’m sorry Roderick, but I fail to see what could be so interesting on the bridge. It’s my special place, so to speak. I know it like the back of my hand. And before takeoff, I inspected every inch of it. So whatever it is, I’m sure you can just tell me here. Spare us the ten-minute walk,” I said.

  Roderick had lifted his arm off me and relaxed it at his side. He looked at me plainly as if I was slow. I stared back at him and blinked a few times. We were having some sort of stand off. A silent stand off. And I think he was trying to communicate something with me. But I was failing to understand it. So he had to literally spell it out for me.

  “C.H.A.T.” he said.

  I pulled a face.

  “Chat?” I asked.

  “Yeah, on the way, we can have a chat. Get to know each other a little better. You never know, we could become pals,” he said.

  I suppressed the sudden urge I had to puke and shook it off.

  “Okay, whatever you say. You’re lucky that the bar isn’t too far off from the bridge. I feel like I need a drink after all this depressing talk of setups and world conquering,” I said.

  ***

  A few minutes later, we were walking down one of the many dark hallways on the Alpha Ship One. Roderick had told Philip and Teresa to lay low, maybe go their separate ways for a bit to avoid suspicion from Borch and Ern if they bumped into them. The last thing that I wanted was to jeopardize this whole thing. Not when we were so close to piecing it all together. With all this new knowledge I was receiving, it gave me a good understanding on what we could possibly do to deescalate the situation.

  I didn’t want Earth to be blown apart, and I certainly didn’t want a massive war to break out. So finding the middle ground was what I was attempting to do. It was proving to be a little difficult, but I was determined to do so, with the help of my crew of course. We couldn’t allow this to continue. We couldn’t be the period on the end of the word humanity. We couldn’t be the bringers of such death. And on the flipside, we couldn’t let Earth destroy a world of aliens that were supposedly manipulated into war. It just wasn’t right.

  “So much for the final frontier,” I muttered under my breath. The comment was more of an ice breaker than anything else.

  “What do you mean?” Roderick asked, keeping his eyes firmly locked on the hallway in front of us. He was a man on a mission. He looked tense and seemed
to be expecting trouble around every corner. But I don’t think he knew just how big this ship was. People could get lost in it, so I wasn’t surprised that we hadn’t seen Borch or Ern all day. They were probably finding it very hard to acclimate to their new surroundings, and judging from last night, they might even still be in bed. No beast, human or alien could consume that much liquor and not feel it the next day. And if an alien race could drink that much beer and not nearly die, then Earth was even more screwed than I’d thought.

  “You know all the BS that they taught us at school, about space, about our race and how we were all about exploring the vacuum above us, so we could better understand where came from and what lay ahead of us?” I said, turning my head toward Roderick, who was still locked on to our surroundings. His eyes were wide, and sweat was dripping down his brow. The guy was nervous. And in turn, it made me nervous.

  “Yeah, what about it?” he asked, the heels of his boots clicking against the metallic floor beneath us. We turned right and then made our way up a small winding staircase. We were now on the second floor of the lower deck. We needed to reach the fourth deck, because only the third deck had an elevator. Budget cuts and all.

  “Well, it’s all bullshit,” I said, my stomach churning a little. I was still feeling a little green after last night.

  “What’s all bullshit?”

  I stopped, caught my breath and then continued.

  “You know, the whole spiel. The spiel about us wanting to explore. The stories of the men before us welcoming aliens with open arms. Trading with them. Talking with them. And it’s all just a massive lie. A lie that has been forced down our throats.”

  Now Roderick stopped to catch his breath. As I said, the ship was large. But he was also old. I waited for him, turning to face the man. At least I did him the courtesy of waiting. He hadn’t. But manners aren’t something that everybody possesses.

  “It’s not all bullshit, Flynn. Deep down, most humans want peace. But peace comes with dire consequences,” he said, starting to walk again. He caught up to me and we continued our journey toward the bridge.

  “What dire consequences? Surely war has much graver consequences than peace? People die in war. The only people who are dying in peace time are the frail, old or unlucky. I’d take those odds over war any day,” I said.

  “It’s not that simple, Flynn. Death isn’t the only thing that results from war. In my experience, and trust me on this, I have a lot of it, war has done as much good as bad. And with the good, comes the better. The better chance at growth. The better chance at building a future. And the better chance at learning from your mistakes. The thing that most people seem to forget about when it comes to war, is that war is usually the result of dire consequences. Consequences that push men into doing things that they usually wouldn’t. Killing, raping, pillaging and all the other nasty stuff that comes with war. But you have to ask yourself this, Flynn. What dire consequences have pushed the humans on Earth to spark an interstellar war with a group of hostile aliens that they themselves armed?”

  “Greed?” I said, almost immediately.

  “Perhaps. But I think there is more to it than that. Much more.”

  We came across another ladder and made our way up to the third floor. We weren’t very far from the elevator that would take us to the bridge.

  “So what dire consequences have pushed the Ursines into fighting us? We gave them all this tech. We built their cities and we armed them with our weapons. What did we do to deserve their warships? Their bombs?”

  Roderick began to laugh. He stopped to catch his breath once again.

  “If we knew the answer to that, then maybe we’d be able to stop them. The truth is son; they aren’t that much different from us. They have their reasons, as do we. But our job is to make sure that peace comes after whatever the inevitable holds in store for us.”

  “So you’re saying that there’s no way we can stop this?” I asked.

  “Stopping it isn’t what you should be focusing your attentions on, Captain.”

  We began to walk again.

  “Then what do I focus my attentions on?”

  “Surviving.”

  ***

  We finally reached the bridge after a ten-minute walk down various winding hallways. On our travels, we didn’t come across any of our crewmates. They were nowhere to be found. And thankfully, neither were Borch and Ern.

  At least we knew where Philip and Teresa were. But that didn’t stop me feeling edgy. The place was too quiet. Everything seemed to be still when we reached the bridge. Like we were in suspended motion. But luckily, we weren’t. In fact, on the big screens we could see the outside. The deep blackness of it. The swooshing lines as the ship hurtled at unthinkable speeds. The gravity on Alpha Ship One was similar to that of Earth’s, and it got me thinking: how the hell could this trip be running so smoothly…literally? The ship was going at twice the speed of light. Surely that would make the metal shell we were flying in rattle a little? But it didn’t. The journey was going as smooth as butter. Even at these ungodly speeds.

  “Amazing to think how fast we’re going,” I said.

  Roderick ignored me. He hadn’t hung about for long. I watched as he walked up toward the coms desk and beckoned me over. I was still standing near the door, watching on with intrigue. Deep down I didn’t really know whether I wanted to go over there and join the man, but he wasn’t taking no for an answer. So I attentively made my way over there.

  “So what is it that you wanted to show me?” I asked.

  Roderick grabbed a coms headset and handed it to me. I looked at him and then at the headset, rolling my eyes.

  “Come on, what’s going on?” I said.

  “Put those on and listen,” he said.

  I did as he asked. Not as fast as he liked apparently, but still, I did it nonetheless. At first I didn’t hear much. Just interference. And as I stood there listening, I started to grow impatient. But sure enough, I heard it. My mouth gaped open as I listened to the various bleeps and bloops coming through the headset. I didn’t say anything at first. All I did was listen. Listen and wait. And then it repeated itself. It beeped and blooped some more, and stopped. After a few seconds, it did it again. And again. And again.

  “Is that Morse code?” I asked, taking the headset off and turning to face Roderick. But there was a slight problem. He was nowhere to be seen. One minute he was there, and the next he was not. And then I heard it. A growl. A recognizable growl. They were here. Both of them. Borch and Ern. And they had Roderick in their grasp. His throat had been mauled open. Blood was trickling down his chest, and pooling on the floor. In one motion, Borch ripped the old mans head off, and dropped the severed skull onto the floor. It rolled toward me. I watched as it got closer and closer. And then I stumbled backwards, attempting to flee. But there was no open space behind me. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. The damn coms station was in the way. And as I turned back around, both Borch and Ern were just a few inches from me.

  “You thought you could hide your little plan from us? You think we are stupid? That we don’t have cameras and microphones on this ship? You think that we’d just allow you stupid, puny, savage humans to walk around this ship unhindered?” Borch said, not before Ern roared as loud as he could. Both of these things looked as if they were ready to tear me limb from limb. Their fur was raised and their snouts were dripping with saliva as their teeth protruded through. Serrated white gnashers stared back at me. There was nothing I could do. Nothing but plead for my life.

  “I have no idea what you are talking about! Please, don’t kill me!” I said, my legs about to give out.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  At first, everything happened in slow motion. My legs buckling. The sound of them growling at me. Their paws swiping at me. Me ducking. Them missing. Me hitting the deck. Getting myself into position. Covering myself up. Closing my eyes. And waiting to die. But seconds passed and nothing happened. I opened my eyes slowly and looked up.
Borch and Ern had their backs to me. They were running toward the bridge door. At first I couldn’t see what they were looking at or why they were running toward it. But then I heard an unmistakable sound. A laser gun had been fired. The recognizable whoosh of its high powered battery venting, followed by the singing melody of its burst fire action. My eyes became round as the colors of green and yellow sparked and illuminated off the metallic walls, glinting in my direction. I covered my eyes and then stood up. As I did so, I felt wobbly on my feet. But I managed to hold it together and squinted in an attempt to see what was going on.

  “Jump on his back!” I heard a familiar human voice say. I couldn’t make out who it was, but then I saw Dale and Jess holding laser guns in their hands, and they were pointing those laser guns at Borch and Ern who were trying to swat the guns away with their tremendously large paws. But as they did so, they were being shot. The laser bursts hit the both of them in succession. Three-second-long beams burnt holes into their shoulders, thighs and chests. But the crazy thing was, neither of them stopped their advance. They continued to swing for Dale and Jess, who had appeared out of nowhere. Which was lucky really, because I was sure enough going to suffer the same fate as poor Roderick if they hadn’t shown up.

  “Get on their backs, Flynn!” Dale shouted from the door. He kept firing his laser beams into the two Ursines. But they still weren’t budging. I knew what was needed and expected of me. I had the opportunity to get one of these things from behind. To launch a devastating attack on them. Elementary level close quarter combat tactics teaches you that an enemy is usually vulnerable from behind. So if their attention is divided, and you manage to get an opening to attack from behind, then it would be wise to take it.

  The thing is, I didn’t have anything at hand to attack with. And with every passing second, the two large beasts were gaining ground on my two crew members, who could only hold them off for so long. The lasers didn’t seem to be having much of an effect on these things. They just stood there, swatting their paws at Dale and Jess as their fur singed in the burning heat. But the beams weren’t penetrating their thick muscular frames. Their skin was acting like some sort of protective shield against the heavy-duty lasers. A human’s skin would burn clean through at such a concentrated rate of fire. But Dale and Jess weren’t having any luck. And unfortunately, it was up to me to take advantage of such a situation.