by Andrew Beery
“Sir, they’re moving,” Tanny said suddenly.
“How soon before they’re in weapons range?” I asked, in an admittedly dejected voice. I had wanted a bit more of a rest.
“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean the aliens. I meant the Artemis. They are moving towards us under their own power. The Chief must have rigged up some type of helm control.”
“Good man, that Chief,” I said, with a renewed sense of optimism. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was just the universe’s way of pulling a cruel joke.
“The Artemis is no longer accelerating but is traveling at a constant velocity in our general direction. Admiral, their velocity is excessive. Their course and speed suggest they have limited navigational control and sensors. If we adjust our course slightly, we can intercept them in six point two minutes,” Arquat said.
I nodded to Tanny.
“Adjust course, Commander. Let’s go pickup my wife.”
***
About three minutes later, we got the first bit of bad news. It came in the form of a weak radio signal.
“. . . iant, come in. This is Artemis. I repeat, Defiant, come in. This is Artemis.”
I hit the ship-to-ship comms.
“Artemis, this is the Defiant, we read you three by five. Welcome back to the land of the living, Lori.”
“Good to be back JD. Let me try something. I think we may be close enough for visual,” my wife said.
A moment later, a holographic image of the Artemis’ wreaked bridge filled the view screen. Lori stood next to the command chair. The chair itself was being used to support some type of hardware chassis. Apparently, Chief Roker, given a choice between pretty and fast, chose fast when it came to getting the Artemis moving again.
“It looks like the Chief got creative with the bridge control systems. Is that the autoclave interface from the Sickbay I see tied into the command chair’s control harness?”
My wife smiled.
“It is. Mister Roker is a genius when it comes to MacGyvering problems. Unfortunately, there are limits to what he can do.”
It was my turn to smile.
“You can tell me all about it once we get you and the Chief onboard. Go ahead and kill your forward velocity. We’ll dock in just a little over a minute and extend the transfer tube. I need you and the Chief to hurry. I don’t know how much time we have.”
Lori looked down at her hands and I knew immediately there was a problem.
2100.1985.0623 Galactic Normalized Time
Chief Jason Roker swore. It was said he could peel the paint off a bulkhead with what was known to come out of his mouth. He was peeling a lot of paint right now.
His brilliant navigation patchwork interface worked . . . too well. The control interfaces in Engineering responded exactly as they should. Unfortunately, such niceties, as automated system feedback and alerts, were not supported by the makeshift controls he had installed on the bridge. He hadn’t thought he would need them for a twenty to thirty-minute trip.
That shortsightedness resulted in several critical navigation control systems burning out. He could fix them, but the work would take him several days and an EVA or two. Translation . . . he wasn’t going to be able to fix them in time to evade anybody who wanted to take potshots at them. Sadly, there was no shortage of entities that fit that last definition.
He peeled some more paint. He had one more idea. It wouldn’t restore navigation, but it was sure to ruin an alien weapon platform’s day.
Chapter 7: No Greater Love
“OK, I take it there are issues,” I said. “Fill me in, honey. What’s got you worried?”
Lori looked up at the screen. There was a sadness in her eyes that froze my heart. I wasn’t going to like what I was about to hear.
“The Chief is down in Engineering. He said something about the navigational control links shorting out. Basically, we can shut the thrusters off, but we can’t steer, and we can’t decelerate.”
I digested what she was telling me for a moment before I spoke.
“Arquat, run the numbers. If we match their course and speed, how close to the alien devices are we going to get?”
“Too close, Admiral. The odds of them not attacking, or attempting to use us a fuel source, are vanishingly small.”
“OK, honey. We are going to need to arrest your forward velocity,” I said. “We have what’s left of the Solomon’s docking harness hanging off our port side. We’re going to turn our ship around, and decelerate slowly, so you float right into that harness. It won’t be pretty, and it won’t be an actual dock, but it will allow us to slow you down enough that will have the time we need to get you and the Chief over to the Defiant.”
“What do you need us to do?” Lori asked, as Chief Roker entered the Artemis’ bridge. He was carrying what looked to be some type of remote.
“I need you and the Chief to button up your encounter suits and get to the airlock. When this happens, we are going to need to move fast.”
That is when we got our second bit of bad news.
“Admiral,” Tanny interrupted. “We may not have as much time as we thought. The enemy ships seem to still be feeding but they’ve turned, and their path is going to take them right in front of us.”
“Arquat, take over the helm,” I yelled. “Execute the plan I just laid out. Lori, you and the Chief double-time it to the airlock. I don’t think there is any time to spare.”
“Admiral,” Arquat spoke softly. “There is no time. In less than two minutes we will be within weapons range. The Artemis’ engines are powered down. She will likely be ignored. We, on the other hand, are under power. We will most certainly come under fire . . . at which point, the Artemis will be destroyed.”
“If we do nothing the Artemis is going to be destroyed!” I yelled.
“Yes. That is likely,” Arquat said calmly. “The difference is, we will be destroyed too, and the information needed by the Diaspora to successfully fight this enemy will be lost with us. In less than two minutes, nothing you or I can do will make a difference.”
I knew that two minutes was not long enough. It would never be long enough. At that moment, I would have given anything in the universe to trade places with my wife. The thought of living without her . . .
I took a step closer to the holographic image of my dearest and best friend. The woman I had loved and cherished most of my life. The mother of my son.
She stepped forward at the same time I did. I reached a hand up to touch hers. Our hands passed through each other . . . just another cruelty inflicted on us by a universe that had, suddenly, become all too cruel.
“I can’t save you,” I sobbed.
“You already did, my love . . . many, many years ago. And now you must save our son.”
My legs suddenly became very weak and I sank to my knees. Lori followed me down, kneeling on the holographic floor in front of me.
“I can’t save you,” I sobbed, a second time.
“No, you can’t but perhaps I can save you.”
“I love you,” I said softly.
“And I love you, too,” she whispered back.
I watched as the Chief handed her the remote. I knew now what she was planning to do. I suspected she had known all along that she might have to do it . . . blow up her ship. I think she knew it before she succeeded in establishing that initial commlink with the Defiant. I think she had hoped I would be able to save her, but I think she knew I could not. She had reached out because she had wanted to say goodbye.
Commander Mumba . . . Tanny . . . pulled the Defiant away from the crippled Artemis before the enemy could reach us. I stayed with my wife for as long as I could but, eventually, the holograph image froze and then, disappeared . . . to be replaced by an exterior view of the stars.
I watched as the Artemis was swallowed by one of the alien weapons. They had grouped together again, in preparation for a third attack run. Seconds later, the fusion core of the Artemis . . . which had been building to an overload for
the last several minutes, shattered.
I watched as the alien weapon’s neutronium hull fractured, and then, exploded. The antimatter driven explosion engulfed the remaining three ships. Even neutronium is not impervious to antimatter. In one final act of love, my wife had saved us.
“No greater love hath anyone but that they should lay down their life for another,” I whispered.
A piece of my heart died that day in the Paradise system. In a way, the wound never healed. I learned to live with it. I raised my son as best I could. I carried out the mission. But I missed the woman who represented everything good in my life.
I took comfort in the knowledge that I would see her again. All the power in the universe would not be enough to crush a soul like hers. Yes, we would meet again. Of that, I was sure.
*** This ends the Prequel to Battleborn 2 ***
The Battleborn saga picks up with Riker’s great-great-great-grandson some five-hundred sixty years in the future.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First, I’d like to acknowledge and thank Two Steps from Hell for their wonderful song Battleborne which serves as the inspiration for this series.
I’d also like to thank my wife, Lori, and my two daughters, CJ and Jackie, for putting up with me while I wrote this latest book. Any similarities between people in this book and my immediate family and friends are purely intentional. Of course, I wouldn’t be much of a pastor if I didn’t acknowledge God – to Him, be all the glory! To keep up to date on all my books . . . be sure to follow me on Amazon by clicking the +Follow button on my author's page! As always . . . please leave a positive review!
Copyright © 2019 by Andrew Beery. All rights reserved. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author. First Electronic Edition: September 2019
Check out my other SCIFI series:
The Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles (9 books)
The Infinity Brigade (3 books)
The Boneyard Dog Saga (3 books)