Stasis (Alpha Ship One Book 1)

by L. D. P. Samways

  “Yeah, I didn’t account for the combustion effect of their fuel. So that’s why all the ships are gone, and that’s also why we are royally screwed!” he said, kicking his workstation twice, then sitting down, head back in hands, feet stamping on the floor.

  “First wave, inbound, ten seconds,” Dale said.

  I closed my eyes and braced myself. This was going to hurt. But then I had an idea.

  “Five seconds.”

  I stood up.

  “Four seconds.”

  I reached for the hyper drive controls.

  “Three seconds.”

  I pushed the lever upwards.

  “Two seconds.”

  I sat back down.

  “One second.”

  The wave hit us. The ship vibrated, but thankfully, that’s all it did.

  “Picking up anomaly,” Teresa said.

  I looked at my screens, swiped right, and pulled a live feed from her screen. The anomaly was two minutes in front of us. The radars were going off the charts. A high-pitched alarm went off in my ear. There was no way around it. The thing, whatever it was, seemed to stretch on for more than a million miles. Even if we slowed down, and took a different route, the seven waves behind us would catch up, and destroy the ship. The only reason we were still alive was because I’d initiated Hyper drive before the wave hit, giving us an extra thousand miles a second. But that wouldn’t matter much come the second wave. It was traveling at a much higher speed than we first anticipated. And if I didn’t think fast, then we’d be toast in a matter of minutes.

  “Wormhole!” I said, half in relief, half in dread.

  “Shit. We’re heading straight for it!” Philip said.

  “One minute, fifty-two seconds until event horizon,” Dale said.

  I grabbed the controls again. I flipped the autopilot switch off and pushed downward on the levers. The ship dipped violently as we changed trajectory. The metal frame and panels on the outside of the ship groaned in protest. Dale, Teresa and Philip gasped in horror.

  “What are you doing? Are you fucking crazy? Changing bearing at this speed could rip us in half!” he screamed.

  I didn’t listen. I dipped the ship some more, pointing the nose downward. On the outside, it would probably look like a dive. But that’s not what I was attempting to do. I was trying to get as much torque as I could out of the ship. The speed we were going at was now pressing against the ship, slowing it down in a vice. I wanted to get as much of it as I could beating down against the ship, wrapping itself around the hull. After a few seconds of my nose dive, the Gs the ship was experiencing was akin to entering Earth’s atmosphere. We shook violently as I dived the ship for a few more seconds. The plan was simple. Accumulate enough downforce and G-force to momentarily fabricate a gravity field, and once that gravity field becomes too much to bear, I’d right the ship again and turn on the auto pilot, hitting the hyper drive at the same time. The force of those three actions coming together will catapult the ship into an even faster speed, giving the ship a boost, whilst riding the second wave.

  So that’s what I did. I flipped the switch, righted the ship and hit the autopilot button at the same time. The G-force ripped through my core as I flung back into my seat, my cheeks stretching apart slightly. The Alpha Ship One shot forward, and we all flew forward in our seats. I hit my nose on the control stick, splitting it open. Dale protected his fall forward with his massive arms. While Teresa and Philip fell onto the bridge floor. But after a few seconds, the violent turbulence stopped and the ship became bearable again.

  “Jesus Christ,” Dale said, shaking his head. Teresa and Philip got up from the floor and returned to their seats. They had minor injuries on their foreheads and elbows. Just grazes, thankfully. But my plan wasn’t to inflict pain, it was to outrun the second wave behind us.

  Luckily I did. We were now riding it, instead of being hammered by it. My quick thinking had saved us from being destroyed by the second wave. But the only problem now was that we were going super fast. Faster than any human ship had ever gone before. We were speeding into the wormholes path with just seconds left on the clock before we were consumed by it.

  None of us had time to panic. Our reactions just weren’t quick enough to see the massive red, purple and green mass suck us into its guts. And in a blink, it was all over. No more waves. No more deep space travel at twice the speed of light.

  Before we knew it, we had traveled from one section of the universe, to another. We’d leaped star systems, galaxies and intergalactic sectors.

  All within the blink of an eye…

  ***

  Pitch blackness surrounded me. I tried to open my eyes, but I couldn’t. It was like they ware glued together, my eyelids permanently sealed shut. A buzzing sound rattled inside my head. A high pitched ring echoed in my ears. I tried to move, but I just couldn’t. It was like I was back in the nose dive again. The G-force was keeping me glued to my seat, and no matter how much I tried to move, even just an inch, I failed.

  “Oh god,” I heard somebody say.

  Still, I couldn’t see. But I could hear. And it sounded liked we were in space itself. Nothing but ongoing silence rang through my ears once the buzzing and ringing stopped. A silence that was so profound, I thought I’d died, and this was the afterlife. But after a prolonged period of silence and darkness came light. A massive ray of it. I flinched, shielding my eyes with my hands. But it was no use, the light was still finding its way into my vision. Black dots floated around in front of me, dancing like mythical creatures. I scrunched my eyes into a forced blink, trying to get rid of the floaters in front of me, but it just made everything worse.

  The light was suddenly brighter than before. Its luminosity was unbearable. I started to panic. What was happening? Why was there so much light? The high pitched sound returned. The silence was decimated by an unforgiving scream. It wasn’t a human scream. Nor was it an alien scream. It was the ship’s engines roaring into life. The dynamite sound exploded in my eardrums, and my vision began to return to normal. Suddenly I could see. The screens in front of me flickered. The readouts stuttered. Plumes of white, red and purple eroded on the monitors, disappearing within a few seconds of my eyes opening. And then I saw it.

  Earth. In front of me. Within touching distance. We’d made it. We were home. And I had no idea how we’d gotten here.

  “Is everyone okay?” I asked, blinking as I turned my head toward where my crew had been the last time I’d seen them.

  Sure enough, they were still on board the ship. A little worse for wear, but onboard nonetheless. Dale was hanging onto his workstation for dear life, draped over it, gagging and coughing, trying not to be sick. Teresa was looking around in confusion, sat in her chair, eyes as big as I’d ever seen, messed out of her mind. Philip was knocked out cold, fast asleep, drool dripping down the corners of his mouth. The ship started to jolt up and down. The rattling returned and then everything came bursting into life. Sound returned fully. The ship came to a grinding halt and Philip woke up.

  “This is Earth, hailing the Alpha Ship One, do you read me?” A voice echoed in my head. At first, I didn’t know if what I was seeing and hearing was real. But after hearing the voice again, I recognized it. It was the same voice that had called the ship in on my previous trips. The same voice that I’d heard thousands of times before. And like traveling back in time, it was calling for me once again. As if nothing from before was real. Like we’d never left. And now everything was going to be okay.

  “I repeat, this is Earth, hailing the Alpha Ship One, do you read me?”

  I reached for the channel changer on the dash. I flicked the switch, and tapped my microphone.

  “Yeah, this is Alpha Ship One. We read you,” I said, my voice sounding hoarse.

  The speakers crackled and then I heard a chorus of cheers, laughter and celebration. The joyous noise echoed throughout the bridge. I looked at the speakers, then at my crew who were startled by the sounds that they were hearin
g. They looked disheveled, and it seemed as if I was the only one in control of myself. The rest looked like they were comatose.

  “It’s great to see you Alpha Ship One! We’ve been waiting a hell of a long time for your return.”

  I nodded my head.

  “I hear that.”

  ***

  They’d sent some Earth ships to pick us up. Turns out we were orbiting the moon. I hadn’t noticed. All I’d seen was the big blue world we called home. And that’s all I cared about. So it was no surprise that I hadn’t noticed the particulars of where in the Milky Way we were. I’d been far too dehydrated, tired, and battle worn to even notice that we’d been through a wormhole, and we’d lived to tell the tale. Another first for humanity. Travelling at twice the speed of light? Check. Being sucked into a wormhole? Check. It was all way too much for me to take in. I was having a hard enough time piloting the ship. Thankfully, the ships that came to pick us up near the moon overrode the manual controls and lassoed the ship into a force field, effectively carrying us back to Earth.

  None of us spoke on board. You’d think that finding our way back home was a cause for at least a conversation. Maybe a conversation that included a little laughter, a little whooping or maybe even a hip hip hooray. But my crew and I were speechless. I don’t know if it was because we didn’t believe our luck, falling into a wormhole like that and ending up at our destination, unscathed. Or if we’d been under so much stress for far too long, and were feeling a little shell-shocked.

  Either way, it wasn’t important. What was important was that we were home. And no matter how dog tired I was, I wasn’t tired enough to not appreciate that fact. We’d scratched, bit and clawed our way back home. How we did it exactly, I don’t know. Was I grateful that luck was on our side? Damn right I was.

  ***

  Turns out luck wasn’t really on our side; it was the computer chips. The wormhole wasn’t really a wormhole. Well, not in the way that we imagined them. It seems that the chip that they had buried in Roderick, the one that phoned in his position at all times to Earth, was actually acting as a triangulation device. The chip survived the cremation process and was sat snugly in one of the blue barrels next to Borch’s ashes. It was showing the people back home that we were on our way, and when we reached twice the speed of light, something short circuited, and caused some sort of vacuum within the vacuum of space, sucked us up into it, and teleported us back home.

  That was what they told us when we landed on Earth. In fact, it was the first thing they told us. As soon as the doors had opened, and we’d stepped off, breathing in Earth’s clean air, feeling the warmth of the sun above us, someone approached, wearing a helmet, and told me without even saying hi, that if I was wondering how we got back to Earth, then that is what happened.

  It was like the guy was reading from a script. He delivered it in such a monotone fashion. Then he left, and a bunch of marines came to greet us. They all shook our hands, and told us how brave we were. What a service we provided. And how proud of ourselves we should all be.

  The rest of it was a blur. I do know this though…nobody mentioned the Ursines. Or the banishment video.

  ***

  By the time everyone said their piece, and told us how great we were, me and my crew were whisked away from the shipyard in little golf carts. We were taken into a military complex and allowed to shower. We were then given fresh clothes. They instructed us to put them on because our presence was required at a banquet. I remember thinking: the hell they want me at a banquet for?

  Apparently, the banquet was a so-called heroes welcome back home. The president of Pilgrim Tech was there. He gave a speech about how we had gone where no humans had gone before, and managed to thwart a so-called plot against our great home world.

  Dale, me, Teresa, and Philip remained quiet as we ate, drank champagne and listened, feeling uncomfortable. Obviously, the propaganda was simple. We were good. They were bad. We, the good humans, had defeated the bad Ursines. Single-handedly as well. A lowly crew had taken on an alien race and won. What a noble story. The stuff of legends. They’ll make movies about this.

  We were stars. We were heroes.

  By the time the whole charade was over, and everybody had gone home, we were all asked to join the President of Pilgrim Tech in a debriefing. I say asked, but you get the picture.

  ***

  At the debriefing, the atmosphere changed. Now all the people were gone, and the buffet carts were being scrubbed down, we were being talked to like crap. Nothing new in the military.

  “I’m sure you are aware of the sensitivity of this situation?” the President of Pilgrim Tech asked from across a big glossy desk. He wore an expensive suit and an even more expensive watch. I could not only see my face in it, but my future children’s faces as well. I hated him immediately.

  “I know that nobody seems to be talking about the Ursines, their planet or the fact that we were banished from Earth,” I said.

  Dale, Teresa, and Philip were sat next to me. We were all sitting opposite to the Pilgrim Tech guy, like naughty school children in the headmaster’s office. But we were far from naughty children. We’d just saved the goddamn world! We were heroes! Well, according to that puke-fest of a fake banquet they’d held for us. Straight away, right from the very start, I’d seen through all their bullshit. I’d known that this was all a ruse, and the real shit would happen in private. It always did. Smile to your face and to others, but behind closed doors, beat you into submission until all you can do is smile back.

  “What Ursines?” the Pilgrim Tech guy asked, glaring at me. I looked blankly at him, and then at my crew. They nodded their heads.

  “Exactly,” I said, scowling inside. “What Ursines?”

  The meeting didn’t last much longer after that. He told us the dos and don’ts of our lives from then on.

  We do move on. We do keep quiet. And we do our work.

  We don’t ask questions. We don’t talk about what we went through. And we certainly don’t complain.

  God damn heroes…. that’s what we were.

  I’d like to tell you that Pilgrim Tech’s secrets came back to haunt them. But unfortunately, the real world doesn’t work like that. Space had become a dog-eat-dog world. Alien civilizations were only really interested in making credits, expanding their interests, and destroying the races that stopped them from accomplishing their imperialistic goals.

  Pilgrim Tech, the humans, and the Ursines were no different. They were just a bunch of once savage - now armed - space dwellers trying to strike it rich. Just like the many millions of other races doing the same thing around the galaxy. There is no justice in war. Like there are no rules. The establishment tells us different. They tell us that we must stick to rules of engagement. But where are the rules of engagement when it comes to taking over another race’s planet? Where are the rules of engagement when it comes to killing the entire population of a species? Harvesting their minerals? Sucking the lifeblood out of their planets and moving on?

  There are no rules when it comes to space. And as we finished the briefing with the bigwig from Pilgrim Tech, I came to the realization that there never were any rules. Not for the people that really mattered, anyway.

  “We at Pilgrim Tech appreciate your service to your species and are forever in your debt. You will be exempt from all taxes from now on, and elevated to VIP status on the census. We hope that will be a fair reward for your cooperation,” the guy told us as we left, shaking our hands, while slipping us a million-dollar credit each. I looked down at my credit and smiled.

  The price of silence, I thought to myself.

  “Wow, a million credits,” Dale said in astonishment as the door slammed behind us, and we were left alone in the hallway. The chaperoning and parading had ended. We were back to being ordinary citizens. A million credits richer, but ordinary nonetheless.

  “I know, pretty sweet,” I said, covering up my anger at the outcome of this mess. I’d expected a lot more fro
m Earth. At least a divided opinion. Maybe people gate crashing the banquet and telling Pilgrim Tech that they could see through their lies. A fight breaking out and us being whisked away into a rebel camp where we’d plot to overthrow the vile government that controls our lands, and fight for the freedom of the aliens above.

  But one can dream, I suppose. Instead, we are left with a cover-up, a pat on the back and a million credits to keep our mouths shut.

  “I’m not going to complain, a million credits will do me just fine,” Teresa said, eyeing the chip in her hand.

  And neither was I going to complain. That many credits could reinvigorate some life into my battered old ship. And I’d have enough left over to buy another ship. Maybe start my own fleet. The possibilities were both endless and unlikely. Firstly, we were under the microscope. We weren’t allowed to ever leave Earth permanently. We could do missions, but only ones sanctioned by Pilgrim Tech. So in other words, we were not only theirs when it came to our collective silence, but we were theirs when it came to what we could do with our money.

  Secondly, they’d never let me run my own fleet. Not after the trouble I’ve caused them. It took a lot of money to cover-up what we’d all done. Good or bad, it would stay buried forever. And the only way that would happen was if they had me tightly under their thumb…. until I died…or they finally got rid of me…permanently.

  So it looked like I was stuck doing their dirty work. That, or I find a way to topple the bastards for good.

  As I said before…one can dream, right?

  Join the crew of the Alpha Ship One in their next adventure out February 2016 exclusively on Kindle!

  Destroyer of Worlds

  Continue reading for a sample of Luis Samways’ new thriller, The People Outside!

  Sample

  Chapter One

  Leo Thomas and his wife Alana were driving down the motorway in their Ford Focus. The weather was overcast and the muggy atmosphere was causing slight condensation on the windshield as Leo hit the fog lights for better visibility. He turned to his wife and smiled.