by B. V. Larson
My shoulders sagged in defeat. “What do we do then?” I asked. “We’re screwed regardless.”
“I’m sorry James. This was never meant to include you and your people—but remember, you did come here uninvited.”
“So we did,” I admitted.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll always be with you.”
Then the screen went dark, and she was gone.
On the surface of the rogue planet, the skies lit up with one final dawn. A dawn so bright, so full of released energy and awesome power, that it would never be duplicated. The remains of the planet were expanding outward after that, gaseous, plasma—fire and dust.
“The whole world just blew up,” I said, stunned.
“The crust has been vaporized,” Natasha said. “But the bedrock core will still be there afterward. When it cools, it will look much the same, but without an atmosphere.”
Her voice was deadpan and cool. She’d lost all hope.
I knew what she was thinking. Earth was next. I was too—how could we think of anything else while watching the end of another world that had dared to oppose the Empire?
Earth school children were taught about the fate of planets that didn’t submit to the rule of the Empire. But all that had been talk and stories. I’d never actually seen it happen. Not like this. I’d seen a few planet-busters fall on a Cephalopod colony once, sure. But to see the surface of an inhabited planet shorn away and blasted into space like that…
Well, it was an experience I hoped I’d never have to live through again.
-59-
Natasha gazed at me in shock. I looked around the bridge of the Nairb ship. Most of my surviving unit members were here now, watching. They all looked like they’d watched their own deaths. No one said a word or cracked a joke—not even Carlos.
“Your orders, Centurion?” Natasha asked me.
“Hmm… I’m thinking.”
Carlos closed his eyes and shook his head in defeat.
After a minute, I snapped my fingers and pointed at the helm controls. “We’ve got a gun on this thing, don’t we?”
Natasha blinked at me in surprise. “We do, but it’s only a small shore-bombardment laser.”
“Doesn’t matter. Power it up and attack the AI ship. Right now.”
Her expression indicated she thought I was crazy. “We can’t possibly—”
“Natasha, that’s an order.”
She turned back to her controls, and soon we were swinging around and accelerating toward the battle.
“Wait a minute!” Carlos complained. “We’re going back out into the open? We should just run. Let’s warp out of here.”
“We can’t,” I told him.
“Can’t? Why not? Something with the warp core—?”
I looked at him seriously. “The Empire knows we’re here. We’ve been idling this whole time, standing around with our thumbs in our butts. If we run now, we’ll be marked as a rebel force. You just watched how the Empire deals with rebels. You don’t want that for Earth, do you?”
“No, sir…” he said, and he finally shut up.
We came out from behind the smoldering planet and approached the AI ship from behind.
“Get closer,” I said.
“We can hit them from here,” Natasha said.
“Then start firing, and charge right in close.”
White-faced, she did as I asked. The ship accelerated, pushing us all into seats that were better shaped to fit a Nairb’s rear end.
At last, when we were alarmingly close to the action, our laser cannon flashed out shot after shot. They were short bursts, maybe a half-second long each time.
“We’re missing!”
“The target is dancing around still, sir.”
“Guess where it will be next. And get closer, so we can hit it before it can shift.”
Natasha pressed on, taking us closer every second. The debris from the destroyed planet had now billowed out so far into space it was beginning to get into our way. Our shields flashed and alarms whined, informing us we were in some kind of meteor or dust storm.
We ignored all this and bulled our way closer, coming up on the stern of the AI ship. We were far closer than any of the Empire vessels, but so far the AI had ignored us utterly.
“It probably has calculated we’re not a serious threat,” Natasha said.
“It has calculated correctly,” Carlos interjected, unable to contain himself.
“Get in there and shoot it right up the tailpipe,” I ordered.
Natasha’s hand shook a little as she followed my orders. All around me, my unit’s finest looked like a pack of sick dogs. I knew they were thinking they’d fought hard, completed their mission, and now as a just reward they were about to die because of the suicidal actions of their sole-surviving—but crazy—officer.
I didn’t argue with them or explain my actions. They were right to be worried, but we also lacked time to fuss about it.
As we rushed into the battle against a ship with about a million times our firepower, the people around me grew quiet. Not even Carlos had something funny to say. We knew we were about to die.
For all that, I have to give my troops credit. They followed my orders despite the fact they felt sure it was going to get them killed. If that’s not loyalty, what is?
Our crappy gun began firing, and the computer colored in a thin line of yellow to show what effect it was having—the short answer was: not much.
“We missed?” I asked. “We missed again?”
“We’re at extreme range still,” Natasha explained.
“We’re almost on top of them! We’re not more than twenty thousand kilometers off her stern.”
She shrugged helplessly. “The target is still shifting. My predictive software—”
“Open a channel with the AI,” I said. “Then when it replies, lock on the beam. That should help give us a clue.”
Wincing, she worked her computer, which in turn worked the Nairb boards. All the touch interface icons on the Nairb computers were huge, about the size of a human palm. I guess it was hard to delicately operate a touch-screen with a flipper.
“Channel opened.”
“Hey!” I called out. “AI ship, your planet is burned away to dust. Why are you still fighting?”
“Mission parameters not yet met,” the machine answered.
“What’s your mission then, if not to protect the planet?”
“Primary mission failed. Secondary mission: destroy all intruders. Secondary mission in progress.”
I turned to Natasha. “Did you get a lock?”
She nodded to me. Her face was ashen. I think she knew what I was going to say next.
“Good,” I said. “Now, kick it in the ass.”
She turned back to her boards, and she laid her hands directly on the Nairb icons. She used her entire palm, making large arm motions to reach high enough. After about five touches, the pencil-thin yellow line leapt out again—but this time, it connected our ship to the bigger AI vessel.
For about a second, no one breathed. But then, we relaxed a little as there was no immediate reaction.
“Do it again,” I told Natasha.
“Hey, guys…?” It was Carlos. He’d come close and was pointing up at the big board.
The AI ship was turning. She was coming about. Perhaps her frontal gun port only aimed forward. Maybe the center-line gun emplacement ran the length of the ship and had limited flexibility when targeting.
Anyway, she was still dancing as she did a one-eighty to face us. It was a sight to see. All hellfire was blazing away at her stern, but the enemy fleet was a good million kilometers off still and spread out too. They were nowhere near as close to the AI as we were, so they were still missing.
But we’d landed a glove on the big vessel. Sure, it had been a paltry, glancing blow. No damage had been registered—hell, we’d barely caused the stern shields to flicker.
But she’d noticed us. That much was mo
re than clear.
“Do we run, sir?” Natasha asked me.
“Dodge. Give it all you’ve got. Lay in a course to warp out in the meantime.”
“That ship will toast us, James,” Carlos said at my side.
We’d been together for a long, long time. He and I went so far back, I could hardly remember the first time I’d bashed him in the mouth. But he’d almost never used the voice he was using now or called me by my first name, either. He sounded serious, concerned and thoughtful. That made me give him my full attention.
“Look,” I said, “we’ve got to take another shot. If we don’t, none of this will look real.”
“If it hits us,” Carlos said, “we probably won’t catch a revive on Earth for a decade. Maybe never.”
“I know. Ride with me, Specialist. One last time.”
He slapped me on the shoulder, but his lips were a tight line. “Okay, cabron.”
Looking back to the forward screen, I saw the AI ship was fully aligned. That forward gun port—it was glowing a purplish color. Then, the gun port blazed, and a gush of energy lanced out. Natasha slapped at her controls—literally, like a seal beating on a drum—and our tiny ship moved in random jinks and swirls.
The AI ship phased, dancing, and the purple beam cut from one part of the heavens crosswise to another.
We were like a buzzing fly caught in the middle of that vicious, sudden slash of power.
-60-
I have to admit, I had my eyes squeezed almost shut. My gauntlets were gripping the back of Natasha’s chair like they were welded there, but then the beam was past us. It blazed with blinding color over the screen, and we were angling off and accelerating past the AI ship’s flank.
“Jesus…” Carlos breathed. “That thing shaved our fins off!”
“Going to warp!” Natasha shouted.
“No, no!” I shouted. “Hold on. Contact the battle fleet.”
She glanced up at me with wide eyes. She had that expression I knew too well, the one that said she thought I was insane.
“Do it!” I ordered. “The AI ship took a few seconds to turn around last time. We’re past her, and she’ll have to re-orient.”
As I spoke, she was obeying, connecting me up to a new, Galactic channel.
For about two seconds, our channel request pulsed and was ignored.
“Give it another—” I began, but then they answered.
“This is Grand Admiral Sateekas,” an imposing Mogwa said.
He was on screen now, and he didn’t look pretty. I doubted his own brood-mother could have approved of his bloated body and wattled, squirming limbs. He looked old and fat—even for a Mogwa.
“Hello Mr. Grand Admiral,” I called out. “I’m Centurion James McGill, and I’ve assumed command of this vessel—”
“Put me in contact with Magnate Slur,” the Grand Admiral demanded.
“Well you see, sir, the crew is all dead…”
“Rebel slaves!” Sateekas rasped out. “It is as I conjectured. We’ve been watching your—”
“Hold on, Grand Admiral, hold on,” I said, throwing my arms high. “We’re not rebels. We’re just the last people aboard this ship. The crew was killed by the actual rebels on this planet. They used X-rays to kill everyone aboard.”
Grand Admiral Sateekas fell quiet for a second or two, and his nasty cluster of eyes crawled over the unfamiliar faces of my troops.
“Animals run the ship?” the Mogwa demanded. “Is this true? Who ordered the attack on the enemy vessel?”
“I did, sir. We’re your local enforcers in Province 921. We’re—”
“Silence, creature. Here are your orders: you will wheel and strike the ship again. You are distracting it, and you’re allowing our fleet to close. Continue your actions.”
“Yessir,” I said. “As long as we’re able, we will do so.”
“I did not specify—”
Frantically, I made a cut-off motion to Natasha, who caught on quickly and aborted the connection.
“Now,” I said, “dance like a monkey on a hot stove. We’ll take one more shot then we’ll run.”
“What if it cuts us in half?” Carlos complained.
I glanced at him. “Then, just maybe, the Mogwa will spare Earth due to our sacrifice.”
“Oh. Right.”
We could hardly breathe or swallow as the battle continued—if you could call it that. It was more like a teasing session. We felt like a Chihuahua trying to piss off a grizzly bear. Our ship danced and cavorted, while we held onto straps and seats shaped all wrong for our bodies. We didn’t even bother to fire anymore. All Natasha’s attention was riveted on dodging that deadly slashing beam.
It occurred to us all at once after about thirty seconds that the AI wasn’t trying all that hard to hit us.
“Is it even shooting at us?” I asked.
“No,” Natasha said, “it appears to have shifted its attention to the real threat, the battle fleet. It’s killed twenty more of them—and James, I have bad news. The Mogwa fleet is in range now, they’ll start saturating this area with radiation any second now.”
We glanced at each other, and I nodded. “Time to pull out. Go to warp.”
“It’s not safe this close to a gravity-well. We’re not aligned toward any destination. If we—”
“Go to warp, dammit girl!”
She did so, and we flashed out of existence. As far as the other ships were concerned, we no longer existed. We were inside an Alcubierre warp bubble, drawn through space itself inside a “low-pressure” pocket of space that sucked us forward at terrific speeds.
“Warp back in,” I said about a minute later.
Everyone had just begun to relax, sigh, and open their helmets. They choked when they heard my words.
“Don’t tell me we’re going back into that shit-storm!” Carlos complained.
We promptly came back into normal space. We were far from Arcturus IV, far from the battle, but still in the same star system.
“Align our helm, Natasha. Take your time. Then, warp us out for home.”
She smiled at me at last. “You think the Mogwa will buy all this?” she asked.
“Let’s send a final transmission to Grand Admiral Sateekas to make sure.”
When she had the channel open, it was a one-way transmission. We were too far out to hold a normal conversation. The radio signal would take several minutes to reach the battle fleet.
“Grand Admiral Sateekas,” I said. “We’re your loyal allies and enforcers from Earth. We fought closer to the enemy than any ship in your fleet. We are almost unarmed, and we are damaged. We had to retreat, as your other ships have done throughout this glorious battle. We wish you well from Earth, and we will no doubt celebrate your victory soon. Centurion James McGill, out.”
“Ha!” Carlos shouted when I was done. He came forward, clapped me on my armored shoulder, and beamed into my faceplate. “That was grade-A Georgia horseshit if I’ve ever heard it, McGill. If we live, I owe you a beer.”
“I’ll take you up on that when we get home, Ortiz.”
While Natasha sweated to figure out our navigational parameters, I took the time to watch the battle unfold. The AI ship had done incredibly well. It had taken out close to a third of the enemy strength. Now, however, the Galactics were in too close. They had their main batteries in play, and they were scoring hits.
It was clear the AI ship was doomed.
“Warp out!” I ordered.
“What?”
“Now, before the damned Mogwa win this.”
Natasha didn’t slow me down to tell me how she wasn’t ready yet. She just jumped on it. That’s what I liked in a trooper of any rank. Action under fire.
We vanished again, and left Arcturus in our wake. I hoped never to return to this star system, and I doubted I ever would. After all, there was nothing left here other than a ripped up husk of a planet and some floating probes.
As we slid away to safety, my mind drifted to t
hink of Floramel. She’d said she would live on with us. I supposed she meant in spirit. I vowed to remember her, as I remembered so many I’d seen perish and die their final deaths.
Overcome with fatigue, injuries, and a sense of sadness mixed with relief, I fell asleep in a dry Nairb bathtub. With my faceplate open, I dozed while others chattered and high-fived each other. Everyone was relieved to be heading away from this whole mess.
Only Natasha seemed nervous, I thought as my mind slipped away to dream. She was still trying to figure out how to control this ship.
Hoping she could get it right, I slid into a quiet, dark dream.
-61-
It took us about a week to get home. It was a rough ride, if the truth were to be told. We didn’t have any human amenities. No showers, no changes of clothing. We were stuck in our battle suits the whole time, and we were getting pretty ripe by the time we reached Old Earth.
Sure, we could have taken our clothes off to bathe in one of those Nairb bathtubs, but no one wanted to try it. You see, the Nairbs didn’t seem to like clean water. Their water was more swampy, like something a manatee would feel right at home in. Particulate matter and an unfiltered, gray-green slime was our only option on hand to fill these tubs.
Fortunately, our suits were equipped with emergency filtration systems. We could draw enough moisture and process it to keep us alive indefinitely. We just didn’t smell too good.
During that long week, I tried my luck with just about every girl left alive on the ship. For some reason, they weren’t interested. Maybe it was the fact we weren’t bathing anymore. For myself, I figured that shouldn’t have stopped anybody. Hell, if both partners stank that pretty much canceled out the problem in my mind. But the women disagreed, so I was left frustrated and bored until we came into sight of our home star system.
“James!” Natasha called out the moment we came out of warp.
Right off, I knew something undesirable was afoot. Not only because she’d called me by my first name, but also because there was a twinge of fear in her voice.