The Arwen Book one: Defender

by Timothy Callahan

“You’re an optimist; we’ll be dead in five.” The Rulla pulled out the first Star bomb. “Perhaps we are close enough to the core where this will do the damage I hoped it would. Perhaps not. Give the evacuation order. Tell them they have five minutes to return to the shuttles. I believe we can hold the Gyssyc off for that long.”

  ~*~

  Chunks of surface material blasted off the Gyssyc ship as another beam of energy hit. The Arwen, surrounded by the last of the cruisers, continued its onslaught. The battle had now moved closer to the Earth and the ship was in range of several Earth bound bases. Missiles from the planet aided in the attack, but it all seemed like a wasted effort. The ship was too big, too powerful to be destroyed or slowed down that way.

  Marjorie sat up in her seat when she saw several shuttles take off. “Have they done it?” she asked.

  “I’m unable to contact anyone,” Commander Pippleton said. He looked at the screen directly in front of him. “They’re attacking Earth!”

  Captain Cook looked at her screen, Federation City, the capital of the Earth Alliance, rotated into view. A large green circle of high-density energy penetrated the Earth’s thick atmosphere, vaporizing it into a column of white clouds which followed the beam to the ground. When it struck the surface, it destroyed everything. Like a child with a magnifying glass on a sunny day, the beam burned everything it touched. Long standing buildings crumbled as their foundations liquefied. Captain Cook realized they were firing several of their gamma guns, focusing the energy into one large ray of destruction.

  Then, just a soon as the attack started, it stopped. Something happened to the Gyssyc ship. A large spot on the ship glowed white hot. Metal melted from the inside out. A hole appeared, a small breach caused by the detonation of a Star bomb. The Rulla and his team had done it. They had given the Arwen a chance.

  “Fire everything we have into that weakness!” Captain Cook yelled. “Tell the Earth bases to do the same.”

  The last remaining stock of missiles erupted from the Arwen. The Gyssyc ship now focused all its attention on the Arwen. Gamma guns, weakened but still deadly, sliced into the already damaged ship. Chunks of skin peeled off, entire decks were exposed, killing anyone unlucky enough to be in those sections. Large gun emplacements broke free and drifted away.

  The missiles hit their target. Those that weren’t able to penetrate the hole exploded on the surface; the few that made it into the ship devastated the softer interior. Explosion ripped apart hallways with enough concussive force to vaporize anything, or anyone, within a few hundred compartments.

  Another blast from the Gyssyc ship rippled through the Arwen, carving holes, slicing it up.

  Captain Cook choked on the smoke filling the bridge. She felt the heat from fires raging throughout the ship and expected the Arwen to explode at any moment. “Where are those missiles from Earth?” she yelled.

  “On their—”

  A huge explosion shook her ship enough to cause the bridge to tilt too sharply for the gravity plates to compensate. Commander Pippleton was lifted off his feet. He let out a short lived scream which died out seconds after he slammed into the wall on the far end of the room. When the bridge leveled out, his limp body fell to the floor, broken and battered.

  Captain Cook jumped off her chair and ran over to her second. She rolled him over. On his forehead was a large gash, blood poured out and onto the floor. He looked at her and tried to say something but found it impossible to speak. She looked at his chest and saw his breathing erratic, painful. A small bone, a rib perhaps, protruded from his skin. Blood leaked down his side. “You Ulliam are tough,” she said and a smile formed on Commander Pippleton’s face. She grabbed his hand and placed it onto the head wound. “Keep your hand here and apply pressure, you need to stop the bleeding.” He nodded and did as he was ordered.

  Marjorie ran over to the sensor officer and looked at his screen. “What is the status of the Gyssyc ship?”

  “Damaged but still operational.”

  “What is the status of our fleet?”

  “Down to ten ships, four cruisers, and six destroyers.”

  Captain Cook ran to her chair and looked at her own readings. The pounding on the Arwen had paused, probably because the Gyssyc ship was concentrating on the missiles from Earth. She had a moment to think. They had almost no firepower left. Her guns had been destroyed and she had no more missiles. All that was left was the Arwen herself. There was only one choice, only one way to save the Earth.

  “Navigation, turn the Arwen into the Gyssyc ship, aim for the hole.” She pressed a button on her chair. “Chief McFerren, enable operation overload.”

  His reply was stressed, but calm. “Yes, Captain.”

  She sat in her chair and felt the Arwen make its turn. She called up the intercom system, not knowing how many sections of the ship would hear. “This is Captain Cook. The battle is nearly over. We just have one more mission to complete. We hit the ship with everything we had and she hit us with everything she had. We’re two warriors fighting for our lives, but, in the end, there will be no one left standing. We are going to use the Arwen as a missile and plunge it into the heart of the enemy. Earth and the rest of the Earth Alliance will remember our names forever. It has been an honor to serve with each and every one of you. Captain Cook out.” She turned the communicator off and watched the monitors carefully.

  The ship grew until it filled all the screens with its massiveness. The Gyssyc ship concentrated on the Arwen. More of her fell off, more section were exposed, more people died. It didn’t matter, they would all be dead soon.

  The Arwen entered the breach. The sound of metal scraping against metal screamed like a death cry. She easily made it through the damaged section, ripping anything she touched to shreds. The heat from her engine melted the remaining metal to slag. When she hit the first undamaged section, her nose crumpled in on itself, the shock rippled over her skin, plowing through the sections slowed her but didn’t stop her.

  It was time to let Captain Cook say good-bye and let Marjorie Cook surface. She pulled up a picture of Payton on her computer. He looked back at her, smiling. Next to it she placed an image of Kel and Fran on their wedding day. Everyone looked happy, content.

  “Captain!” her communications officer yelled. “President Nollan wants to talk to you now. He’s ordering us to stand down.”

  Marjorie’s heart raced; why would he do that? Had the Earth finally surrendered? If she did, then Captain Cook would order the Arwen to self-destruct anyway. She would not go without a fight. “Put him through.”

  A very garbled face appeared, the Gyssyc ship’s interior was interfering with the communication. “Stand down, Captain, stand down.”

  “Why?”

  “They’ve been ordered to surrender by Lincoln. He’s returned with some friends. Now, stand down.”

  “Are we giving up to them or are they giving up to us?”

  “Captain Cook, I know what you’re thinking and I know where you are. I would never surrender while we had a chance to win, but we’ve won, we’ve won, Captain Cook, we’ve won the last war we’ll ever fight.”

  ~*~*

  The Arwen slowly backed out of the Gyssyc ship. Along the way, the external monitors showed the damage which had been done throughout the battle. She saw several doors open and Gyssyc men, each in space suits, float out. This worried Marjorie and she made sure to keep an eye on them. However, all they did was watch as the Arwen passed. It seemed as if they wanted to see the ship which had caused them so many problems. As her ship moved closer to the exit, she noticed larger groups filing out, watching.

  After a few minutes, the back end of the Arwen exited the ship and, for the first time, Marjorie saw why they surrendered. Behind her, waiting, was the Gyssyc scout ship. The ship which had left Ulliam before the opening shots were fired. The ship which was commanded by her first Gyssyc friend, Lincoln. Behind it in a precise V formation were five other Gyssyc ships. Marjorie felt the hair stand up as a new sur
ge of adrenaline pushed through her exhausted body. Did the Earth surrender to this new force? That would make the most sense, there could be no way they could fight a force this large, not after losing most of their fleet.

  “Captain, the lead Gyssyc ship is contacting us, it’s President Lincoln.”

  “Okay, put him through.”

  On her screen Lincoln’s face appeared. She found it hard to read his expression. In a human she would have guessed it was happy, even delighted. “Captain Cook, it is good to see you again.”

  “What is going on? Are we your prisoners now?”

  He barked a Gyssyc laugh. “No, Captain. I thought it was clear we are allies, not enemies.”

  “An ally would have stayed to help fight,” she said, angry. “We lost a lot of good friends while you were away.”

  “We couldn’t stay, the stakes were too high. We had to reawaken the others.”

  “While you were away we were dying!” Captain Cook found it difficult the keep Marjorie out of her voice, out of her mind. The captain was no longer needed, the battle was over. Marjorie was going to have her say.

  “I understand, Captain.”

  “No, you don’t. We lost Kel and Payton. They destroyed the entire fleet.”

  There was another voice, a different voice which cut in, the voice of President Nollan. “Captain, stand down.”

  Marjorie closed her eyes and tried to will the pain away. “What are your next orders?”

  “Return to Earth, place the Arwen in dry dock for repairs. We still have a lot of work for you to do.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Marjorie stood in front of a fresh grave. A cool breeze blew through her gray hair, causing it to fall onto her face. She brushed it away, not taking her eyes off the ground.

  The ceremony was beautiful. The presidents of Ulliam, Earth, and Lincoln gave wonderful speeches about sacrifice, about how the lives of all those lost would not be in vain. They talked about how the war brought everyone closer, how the treaties they were working on would bring a new era of peace to the Earth Alliance. They spoke of promises. Promises to never wage war again. Promises of how they would find a way to bring Regal, Hellamite, and Ecollite into the alliance. Old enemies would become new friends. All six races lost some of the best and brightest minds in a senseless war that never should have been fought.

  Marjorie stared at the grave knowing Payton’s body was in the ground. She would never touch him again. She would never kiss him again.

  She bent down and touched the soft earth. This was as close as she would ever come to touching him again. She grabbed a handful of dirt and squeezed until the grains poured out between her fingers. She didn’t think she had anymore tears but they were there, behind her red eyes, working their way out.

  A hand touched her shoulder, and she turned and looked up. Theo Richter looked at her, his face stone and grim. “They’ve moved on to the next grave.”

  “I’ll join them when they get to Kel,” Marjorie replied. “In the meantime I’m going to stay here with Payton.”

  The professor knelt down next to her and placed his arm around her shoulder. She looked over at him and smiled. “That’s a rather forward gesture from you, isn’t it?”

  “You seemed to need it.”

  She grabbed his hand. “I did, thank you.”

  They sat in silence for a few moments, each lost in thought. Professor Ricter broke the silence. “What’s next for you?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “I told them my desire to retire but they’ve convinced me to stay on a little longer. They need captains with experience, and since the Arwen was the only large ship to survive the war, they wanted me to stay on to show they still had people willing to defend the Earth.”

  “I thought we were all at peace now,” Professor Ricter said with some disdain.

  “Won’t last for too long, there will always be another threat, always another enemy to fight. I’m getting tired of fighting. I’ve lost everything because of the fight. Everything I ever loved.”

  “Well, I still need some help finding a suitable planet to help save Ulliam. I‘m sure I’ll need someone to escort me around. I have enough pull now to request the Arwen once it’s ready.”

  Marjorie looked over at him and raised an eyebrow. “I thought you wanted to stay on Ulliam to do your research?”

  “Ah, well, it’s not the same. I can’t trust you captains to perform the delicate calculations needed to determine the correct planet size, density, and all complexity involved. Besides, it would take too long to get from Ulliam to the planet and I hate to waste my time. I figured if I were on a ship, a ship that could make it to any part of the galaxy quickly, it would help me immensely.”

  “Well, the Arwen won’t be ready for another two months, can we wait that long?”

  “Yes!” Ricter said standing up, he seemed genuinely excited. “That will give me time to catch you up on my research. I’m sure you’ll find my notes and observations fascinating. ”

  For the first time in a very long time, Marjorie felt a bit of her old self surface. A small sliver of her former self beamed through the dark clouds in her mood. She found it funny that it was the professor who brought that out in her. “Well, I seem to have lost track now; how many planets have you saved?”

  “Once I save Ulliam it will be two,” he said. “Once we say our good-byes to Kel, I’ll take you to my lab to get you caught up on my research.” He made a gesture urging Marjorie to lead the way.

  She walked in front of the professor and toward Kel’s grave. Professor Ricter walked next to Marjorie and started to tell her about his theory on the kind of planet he was looking for.

  Preview of The Arwen Book 2: Manifest Destiny

  Captain Marjorie Cook, hero during the Gyssyc war, Captain of the most decorated ship in the Corps, a woman with countless articles written about her courage under the worst of circumstances, stood in a lecture hall and tried not to hyperventilate. The backstage did her no favors in calming her racing heart. Around her were several discarded props from either cheaply produced plays or cheaply produced presentations. Some sort of foam rubber tree leaned against the grey brick wall. To her left was a small hologram projector stacked on top of a pile of data-pads. Next to that was a rolled-up flat screen computer, when unrolled it would be bigger than the curtain on the stage. The red rug beneath her feet was worn down to the wooden floor. She wondered if it had ever been replaced in the schools 300 plus year history.

  The speaker on the other side of the curtain, a scientist who was explaining something about supernovas and dark matter, sounded as if he were wrapping up. With a shaky hand she held up her data pad and looked through her notes for the three hundredth time. They were no different than the last time she spoke and probably wouldn’t change the next time she spoke but seeing the familiar words distracted her enough to calm her nerves.

  Captain Cook wore a dark-blue jacket with a wrinkle proof material that highlighted the many medals she wore over her left breast. Most of the awards she received simply because she was lucky enough to survive a battle. Her white pants made her hips seem wider than she would have liked and could only image what they did to her rump. She made sure to wear the white gloves given to her a few weeks ago at some sort of tribute ceremony. She had been to so many of them over the past three months she’d forgotten exactly where she got them from, she just knew they made her hands look nice by hiding the ever darkening liver spots.

  She heard some polite applause from the other side of the dark-blue curtain. The speaker before her had finished. She felt the electric shock of nervous energy shoot through her body before settling onto her stomach. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She focused on a calming image: her sitting in her Captain’s chair during an easy shift reading a novel while the crew around her worked happily. No worries. No orders. Just her and her crew working in the everyday. It could be boring but boring was sometimes nice. It calmed her.

  “You
are Captain Cook, correct?”

  She opened her eyes to see a tall man standing in front of her. He wore a suede brown suit with a neat bow tie. He was older than she was, maybe in his late 70s or early 80s. He wore a pair of skinny glasses, an artifact that had been out of date a hundred years before he could have even been born. Everything about him told her he was old school, set in his ways, someone who didn’t care about how he presented himself. Behind his eyes, she saw an intelligence that, quite frankly, intimidated her. “Yes.”

  “Hmm,” he said looking her over.

  “What?” She asked wondering what he was looking at. People dismissed her because of her height, because of her age, because she was a woman in a field still dominated by men. Marjorie sometimes felt she needed to work twice as hard as men just to get to the same place they occupied.

  “You seem nervous.”

  “I’m not great at public speaking.” She replied pushing some of her graying hair behind her ear, a habit she got into when she was younger.

  “Ah, it’s nothing.” He said with a dismissive wave. “No different than running a ship I’m sure. It’s an honor to meet you. I've been reading up on your adventures for some time now. I have to admit, I only took this speaking engagement because I heard you were going to be here as well.”

  This was something Marjorie still hadn’t gotten used to. People thought they knew more about her than she was comfortable with. She’d always been a popular figure that would occasionally be recognized on the streets but after the wars she became something of a celebrity. “Thank you, Professor?”

  “Professor James Pine.”

  “Professor Pine, thank you.”

  “I know you need to go out there; the crowd is waiting for you, but I was wondering if after your talk, we could get some coffee. I’d love to talk about your adventures.”

  Marjorie couldn’t help but smile. This wasn’t the first man to ask her out since she got back to Earth. The first time it happened she didn’t know how to react, didn’t know a good way to say no. Now she was very good at it. “No, thank you Professor Pine. After this I need to head back to the Arwen, then I’m off on another mission.”