Excalibur

by Tim Marquitz

  “Of course.” Albion chuckled and held his drink out to Crate. The engineer waved it off, so Albion went back to drinking and staring at the scanner while Crate puttered with his projects.

  The two spent an hour in companionable silence, the captain having started in on the second stim, only to spot a reference to a Covenant ship buried in the chaotic scroll of nonsense. He set his drink down and brought the data up on the view screen, magnifying it so the alien words loomed huge before him.

  “Am I wrong about this, or do I see CSS Larth right there,” he asked Crate, jabbing a finger at the screen, the weird alien scrawl splayed out before them.

  Crate looked up from his device and nodded. “Yes. I see it too.”

  Albion felt his pulse race as he flittered through the document, doing his best to search for similar terms and pulled up another name he recognizes, the CSS Bolton, hailing from the planet Syrus. He just stared at the screen for a moment, Crate offering acknowledgment of the ship name without him even asking, and let his alcohol and stim-soaked thoughts marinate. It took a while before a spark ignited the entire mess, and Albion knew what he was looking for.

  “The shipping lanes,” he shouted.

  Crate stared without speaking, clearly waiting for the captain to elaborate. Albion didn’t, at least not right away. He moved the Xebedon logs aside and flipped through the data, hunting down any reference to the ships he’d picked out among the alien files. The first ship, the Larth popped up as having gone missing more than a cycle back, its last known location not one hundred parsecs from where the Ithaca had been attacked. The Bolton had vanished under similar circumstances, no evidence leading to the cause of the disappearance. It, too, had been within a hundred-parsec distance from Dev-ji 482.

  Albion dug through the registry, tracing missing ships and applying their names to the search of the alien data. He found eight more, their registries showing them to be from planets spread across the breadth of allied space, further explaining why there’d been so little furor regarding their disappearances. The only real similarity between them was that each had vanished within a range easily accessible from the abandoned planet by hyperspace, and each one had been a civilian ship. Most were luxury crafts, a few corporate cruisers, but none had military ties. Albion knew that was the biggest reason why they hadn’t been flagged despite the sheer number of ships going missing in the span of two cycles. The government couldn’t be bothered to track down errant spacecraft, just like they couldn’t have cared less about the Denzo station going missing or the Ithaca being destroyed. Worse still, though, was the apparent fact that the Xebedons had been operating in allied space for at least that long without being detected. That was something Command should have cared about.

  He slumped back in his seat and groaned. “In each case, with the exception of the Ithaca, they targeted ships with large numbers of passengers.” He threw his hands in the air. “Why would they do that?”

  “They were the only ones in the area?” Crate offered.

  “No, my scan of the records show there have been plenty of ships that have passed through that part of space. Military, private contractors, and all sorts of small civilian craft.”

  “So, the ones they left alone were armed and armored or small and fast.”

  Albion nodded. That made sense if nothing else did. “That explains their exclusion, maybe, but what’s the point of waylaying these behemoth cruisers full of people? What do they have to gain?”

  “Maybe that’s the answer right there,” Crate said. “Full of people.”

  “That corroborates Mara’s story, certainly, that they’re purposely trying to kidnap humans” Albion scratched at his chin, the stubble itching, “but it doesn’t answer why they’re doing it.”

  Crate pointed at the scanner in Albion’s lap. “You’ve seen the way they think, Captain. I’d suggest you stop trying to make sense of it.”

  “Maybe I should,” Albion said, nodding. “Still, I can’t help but feel there’s more to this than I’m seeing.

  He went back to the files. Vance had told him the aliens had been testing the defenses at the outer rim, the only verified sighting, so he dug into the data in search of anything regarding that aspect of the alien’s efforts. After an hour of fruitless searching, he came across a vague reference that did nothing to clarify their plans, not that he’d really expected to. Still, he brought up the entry and put it on the view screen, watching a short holo-vid of a Xebedonian ship, clearly recorded by another, as they tested the frontier defenses. They phased in and attacked head on, the alien ship onscreen being destroyed moments later, going up in a flash and a sudden flurry of debris. Then the screen went black as the second ship met the same fate.

  He leaned back in his seat and watched recording once more, then again, the holo-vid too short to provide any insight. It was only when he went to shut the vid down that he realized something. The ship onscreen was much like the Excalibur in design, a destroyer.

  He stared at it for several long minutes before it clicked in his head that Lyana had been right about it being obvious the tactic was a distraction. The ships hitting the outer rim were older models. They simply popped in, attacked, and were destroyed without any fanfare. They went down without much of a fight, clearly doing their best to make it look as if their efforts were an uncoordinated effort by an unorganized enemy. That, however, seemed at odds with what was happening deeper inside allied space. They had something in mind and their feint appeared to work.

  Unfortunately for Albion and his crew, there was only one way to know for certain what they planned, and that was to travel to Dev-ji 482 and see for himself. The thought sent a cold chill slithering down his spine. Did he really want to know what the strange aliens were doing with thousands of helpless, human prisoners?

  No, he probably didn’t, he had to admit, but what choice did he have?

  Twelve

  Viridian 6 Outpost

  Sectors 053 and 082, Allied Space

  Captain Albion spent the rest of the day poring through the data files only to realize he was no more informed as to what was going on than he was before he began. In fact, his mind was so numbed by the influx of alien confusion that he finally surrendered and left Crate to finish up what he needed to while Albion crawled into his bunk. He gave a passing thought to getting a drink but memories of the night before convinced him otherwise. As much as he’d enjoyed his time with Mara, there was nothing new there. They did what they always did, and now it was time to step back again. Besides, even with as late as it was, Albion’s head still thrummed from the excesses of the night before.

  Come morning, he issued a notice to the crew that they were leaving the outpost and for them to return to the ship. A few hours later, the crew settled, along with Mara, the Excalibur was underway. Lieutenant Cole had decided it best for him to remain on Viridian 6 and await a new ship that wasn’t plunging to its death. Albion understood and Captain Rellith had wished him well, and then they were on their way.

  A fog of heavy silence hung over the bridge as Choi set a roundabout course for Dev-ji 482. Albion could see on everyone’s faces that they didn’t want to do this any more than he did. They hovered listless over their consoles, likely as hung over as reticent. None of them wanted to tell the captain they thought this was a bad idea, but he understood all too well what he was asking of them. Still, he didn’t have a choice. It was either do what Command told them to do and risk death or ignore the order and run, abandoning everything they knew and cared about and still likely end up dead.

  Wasn’t much of a choice, in his opinion.

  And so, as the stars blurred past, Albion held his tongue like the rest of the crew, thinking it best to leave them to their thoughts and not try to assuage their uncertainties. He was sure to fail anyway, as even he had no idea what they were truly doing out there, zooming toward a desolate planet he only believed had something to do with a sinister alien plot.

  Yet that was what he did. />
  It was the reason he’d been booted from the military, his commission revoked. The reality was, he cared too much. Not about military regulations or orders, but about people. His commanders had seen it as a weakness, Albion’s unwillingness to rack up collateral damage in the name of the military’s idea of the greater good.

  Memories of the insurrection of Trellis XG sprang to mind unbidden. Albion had been ordered to the planet to quell the uprising of its population against its Covenant-backed dictators. He’d gone as ordered, and parked his destroyer, the Defiance, in orbit about the planet.

  As it turned out, the ship’s moniker fit the role he would play perfectly.

  After an unsuccessful coup, the Trellis XG leadership lashed out at the populace, instituting martial law and rounding up dissenters. When that failed, they made a deal with Command to launch retributive strikes from space. In charge of the three destroyers in position over the planet, Albion was commanded to initiate the attack. The order sickened him, and he’d defied it outright. As did a second craft, it’s captain choosing to follow his lead and refuse to fire upon innocent civilians who wanted nothing more than to be free of their oppressive government.

  That other captain was Mara, and she’d paid for his stand against the Covenant’s decision.

  The third ship, the Valor, piloted by a crusty old warhorse, Captain Albert Vance, who just happened to be the brother of Vice Admiral Vance, had no such qualms. He opened fire on the people of Trellis XG with all guns, lobbing torpedoes into the citizenry without mercy or restraint. Albion and Mara had pled with Command to call off the attack, to put a leash on Vance before it was too late, but their pleas were ignored, and the couple was reprimanded, ordered to join the attack immediately or be removed from service.

  Mara held her ground, believing her decision to be the right one, the just one. She had her ship retreat, pull away from the conflict to make it clear she had no part in it. Albion, however, couldn’t let it go. He hailed the Valor and demanded Vance cease fire. The old man simply laughed and doubled his efforts. That was when Albion made his decision.

  Already facing discharge for his insubordination, he took control of the Defiance’s helm and turned the craft toward the Valor, driving his ship into the bridge. Shields in place, Albion knew his action wouldn’t kill the captain—though the man deserved it—or his crew, but it would damage the ship in a way that would keep it from continuing its assault upon the people of Trellis XG.

  It worked and, despite all the grief the move had caused Albion since, he had no regrets.

  Much like his current situation, Albion saw his actions, however foolish, as serving the true greater good, the people of the system, not the government or the chancellor or even Vance. Albion was willing to sacrifice his crew and himself if it meant the billions of people threatened by another Xebedon invasion would survive. Even if Vance survives, too, he thought, swallowing his urge to laugh.

  “I’m picking up a slow-moving craft ahead, Captain,” Randall called out, bringing the image up on screen.

  Albion leaned forward in his seat, his pulse fluttering at seeing the alien tow ship. “Is that the same one?”

  Randall shrugged. “No clue, sir. It’s blocking all our scans like the last one.”

  “We should have tagged it, too,” Albion said, examining the ship’s latest capture as it crept in the distance, Choi having brought them out of hyperspace well behind them to avoid detection.

  A massive transport ship was dragged along, tow beams shimmering on the view screen. The captive craft was clearly civilian, bright colors gleaming across its hull and it had way more windows than any ship should have, which ran the length of its sides. Without a doubt, it was a pleasure craft and it had to have carried a thousand people or more, not counting crew.

  “CSS Carnival,” Randall stated, knowing Albion would want to know what ship it was. “No report of it being missing yet, sir.”

  Albion growled through clenched teeth. The fact that the ship’s disappearance had yet to be noticed meant its passengers were still on board. His stomach roiled, and he knew Mara realized the same thing as she clasped his shoulder, nails sinking into the tense muscles.

  “Initiating scans for—”

  “Belay that, Ensign,” Albion shouted, regretting his tone as soon as the words were loose. He sucked in a sharp breath. “Sorry, but please, no scans.”

  “But, sir, there might be—”

  “That’s exactly why he doesn’t want it, Randall,” Lyana said from her station, stone-faced.

  “I don’t…” his voice trailed off, and he swallowed hard, eyes dropping to his console, cheeks paling. Albion felt the kid’s sorrow and disgust as though it were a palpable blow.

  His captain, a man he trusted, just consigned the passengers of the towed ship to death, making it clear that, not only would Albion do nothing to rescue the ship from its alien captors, that he didn’t even want to know how many people he’d condemned to death by his decision.

  Mara gave his shoulder another squeeze as he stiffened in his seat. She knew what was running through his mind and understood it. A captain would. It was their job to decide life and death in a split-second, and this was a situation that required that exact coldness of temperament. Randall might not understand it, but it was Albion’s job to survey Dev-ji 482 and learn what, if anything, was happening there. And as much as he wanted to fire on the tow ship and free any hostages they had taken, were he to do so, he would be putting the mission at risk. Even in Albion’s mind, the life of billions took precedent over thousands.

  Still, he didn’t want his conscience involved as it didn’t always feel the same way, and that was why he denied the order to scan the ship. He’d rather not know.

  “Any Xebedon ships nearby?” he asked, hoping to get Randall to think about what they faced, to realize Albion’s apparent cruelty was borne out of necessity, not some underlying malice.

  “None…sir.”

  Albion sighed. He’d have to talk to the kid later, make him understand, but now was not the time. “I don’t want to risk a tracker being detected so just keep us at a safe distance and follow along,” he told Choi. “Stay on the scanners, Ensign. Those Xebedon ships snuck up on us last time. We can’t have that happen again. Tell me if there’s so much as a ping aimed our direction.”

  Randall nodded but said nothing. Choi shrugged Albion’s direction, offering his support as best he could without stirring up a hornet’s nest of ethical debate. Albion was glad for that.

  The Excalibur settled into an easy pace that guaranteed boredom among the crew, but he preferred that to the horrific adrenaline rush of battle. Anything was better than that.

  They settled in for the long wait, Dev-ji 482 still a short way out, and the bridge drowned in silence, only the occasional shuffle of moving feet, soft sniff, or tap at a console broke the quiet. Mara had long since moved to her adopted station, and Albion fought the drag of sleep, yawning over and over, eyes blurring as he watched the view screen. The image of the towing ship stayed static the entire time, the slow creep of space reflecting none of its motion. Then, when Albion was ready to surrender to the boredom that clung to him, Randall bolted upright in his chair.

  “What the hell is that?” he asked, pointing at the view screen as the angle shifted focus.

  Albion leaned forward to look and spotted what the ensign referred to. A giant shape emerged out of the shadow of Dev-ji 482, inching into the light. It was clear instantly that, whatever it was, had been built there in the space above the abandoned planet. The thing crept into sight, and it took over twenty minutes before the entirety of it was visible.

  “That thing is huge,” Choi said. The crew muttered their agreement.

  At first, Albion thought it was a space station, the weird object ten miles across at its widest. It was vaguely star-shaped, and the exterior thickness was three times the length of the Excalibur. The shape turned as they approached, revealing a roiling black poll encased
within its borders.

  “Is that a—?” Lyana started to ask.

  “It is,” Crate answered, arriving on deck.

  A land gate.

  “How the hell did they build that here and Command not know?” Albion stood, unbelieving. The gate was monstrous, twice the size of the one they’d used to enter Belltros’s atmosphere.

  Randall, no longer moping, sat straight at his station and clattered away at the console. “It doesn’t register on scans, Captain.”

  “What? How is that possible?”

  “It reads as dead space.” The ensign brought the results onscreen, a tiny window posted beside the image of the land gate. The results showed nothing standing between the Excalibur and Dev-ji 482. “The signals just go right through it as though it weren’t even there.”

  “That explains why Covenant thinks the planet is still dead. Their scans are coming back empty.”

  “Can you tell what it’s made of?” Crate asked, moving to hover beside Randall.

  The ensign shook his head. “There’s nothing to make that determination with,” he answered. “Maybe if we had a sample of it…”

  “Don’t even think about it, Crate,” Albion told the engineer. The man just grinned, clearly ignoring the captain’s warning.

  “The tow ship is headed straight toward it.”

  Albion dropped back into his seat, processing what he saw. “Scan the planet, Ensign. If this is a land gate, then it makes me think the planet might be shielded like Belltros, which would really make for interesting times should we try and enter the atmosphere.”

  Randall clattered at his console for a moment, then lifted his head, nodding. “The entire planet is shrouded, sir.”

  Albion grunted and thumped a fist against his armrest. “Then we’re screwed.”

  “Not necessarily,” Crate said.

  “What do you have in mind, Lieutenant?”

  “And how long will it take to get us killed?” Lyana asked, casting a glance his direction.