Ava looked up. “Oh shit, there’s more coming from above!” She pounded on the door as Vynce and Raze opened fire on the creatures. “Open the fucking door!”
Draco felt like he was dead on his feet. He could hear and see his crew facing their deaths but could do nothing to stop it. He was frozen in place. Conscious, but immobile. Time seemed to stretch out into an eternity as he felt himself spreading thin. He wanted to scream but couldn’t. The lights in the control room cut out, but the console itself stayed active.
The door slid open and Ava almost fell through the doorway. The sound of firing assault rifles echoed in the small room as Raze and Vynce backed into the engine control chamber. The mass of creatures came on inexorably.
The door slid shut again, locking into place. The sound of hundreds of skittering legs slammed into the door, but they could not breach it.
“I’ve sealed all vents in and out of this room,” Aloysius said. “That glass is rated to resist explosive changes in pressure, so they shouldn’t get through.”
The colony of flesh cockroaches might as well have been on another planet. They were no longer a danger as long as they stayed in that room.
“Captain, are you all right?” Raze asked.
Draco was completely unable to move. All around him, the air crackled with energy. At first it was like the sensation of pins and needles, but as the energy output intensified, so did the feeling until it reached boiling point. Every atom in Draco’s body was screaming in unison. He watched his crew succumb to the pain too. They fell to the ground one by one.
Everyone except for Al, who didn’t have pain receptors like his human crewmates.
A bright light appeared in the chamber. It started in the middle of nowhere, smaller than the head of a pin. It grew slowly, then with a crack as loud as a thunderclap, the small white light became a man in full combat armor. He held a small black gadget in his left hand, and a pistol in the other.
His armor was unlike anything Draco had ever seen. There were no angles, only smooth curves. It looked more like a second skin than a suit of armor. The helmet was a smooth backwards curving dome of reflective glass.
As this newcomer appeared out of nowhere, he seemed to float in the middle of the room. After the thunderclap, he fell to one knee and began coughing. He took his helmet off to reveal a man in his mid-forties with short black hair. He coughed hard, fell face down on the floor and threw up in front of them. He wiped his chin after as he rose back to his full height. He had piercing blue eyes, a chiseled jaw and a closely trimmed black beard.
He coughed again, then his face steeled as he saw the heavily armed crew around him.
“Where is Draco Goldwing?” he demanded.
Chapter Sixteen - Ava
“Who the fuck are you?” Ava said as she stepped between the newcomer and the frozen Captain Goldwing.
“Is that him? He’s not moving, so that’s got to be him. Damn it, I had hoped this wouldn’t happen, but I had no other choice,” the man said as he got to his feet.
“You better start explaining yourself, buddy,” Ava said.
“Ava, you better move. If you don’t, Draco will die,” the man asked.
“How the hell do you know who I am?” she demanded.
“There’s no time. The next few moments are crucial. Right now, Draco is quantum locked. He is a fixed point in space and time. That means that in every possible reality, and every possible time, he exists in this same instance. That’s not supposed to happen. If I don’t unlock him… His entire existence will be removed from every reality. You cannot afford to argue with me on this,” the man said.
Dumbfounded, Ava stepped aside and motioned for the newcomer to approach. He looked Draco over, then retrieved a small black capsule from a compartment on his wrist. He affixed it to the back of Draco’s neck. He pressed the small black capsule until the outer shell cracked, which sent a shock of white energy racing across Draco’s body.
Draco fell to the ground.
“What happened?” Draco asked as he got back to his feet.
The newcomer smiled broadly and clapped Draco on the back.
“You are a sight for sore eyes. It’s been far too long Draco,” he said.
“How do you know me?” Draco asked.
“It’s me, Jaxon. Jaxon Argentos. Please tell me you remember me. You have to remember me, otherwise this can’t have worked.”
“I have no idea who you are,” Draco said truthfully.
Jaxon turned away and swore under his breath.
“Where are we?” Jaxon asked.
“The Arcturus system,” Draco answered, and the color ran out of Jaxon’s face.
“When are we?” Jaxon asked.
“New Earth year 832,” Draco answered.
Jaxon swore to himself in Galactic Common. “I’m not supposed to be here. I can’t be here.”
“Just hang on a second stranger, I think you’ve got some explaining to do,” Draco said.
“I can’t. Not now, or it could ruin everything. The very fact that you know that I know who you are could already change everything. What have I done?”
“You said your name is Jaxon, right? Where are you from, Jaxon?”
“New Earth.”
“How did you get here?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Well that’s delightfully convenient. We’re kind of in the middle of something here, so you’ve got a choice to make. You can either make yourself useful, or you can go and die in a dark corner of the ship somewhere. That’s your call.”
Jaxon levelled his gaze at Draco. “If you had any idea of just what inhabited this ship, you wouldn’t have said that.”
Ava looked uncertainly at Draco, but her Captain didn’t give this newcomer an inch. He stared right back.
Jaxon relented. “I’ll make myself useful. Orders?”
Draco ignored the question and turned to speak to Al, “Are we in the system yet Al? Do we have control?”
“Not complete control, no. But in our favor, this console is isolated from the mainframe, and this is the only console that the engines can be controlled from. Our friend can’t access this console, and the engines are firing. But we need to contact the Icarus before we start the towing procedure. We can’t engage the engines. The Icarus is no doubt tethered to Metropolis Seven by now, so if we take off without the push / pull system engaged, we’ll destroy our ship and everyone on it.”
“How long will it take to restore communications?” Draco asked.
“I am not sure. I must first find out how we are being jammed, and that could take some time.”
“Well, we’re all out of time. Find a solution.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Jaxon laughed to himself.
“Something funny?” Draco asked.
Jaxon pulled a small comm unit from the compartment inside of his left forearm and tossed it to Draco.
“Use that to contact your ship,” Jaxon said.
Draco caught the comm unit and stared at it for a moment.
“Trust me,” Jaxon said, “It’ll work. It opens a direct line to the Icarus.”
Draco pressed the button on the side and the comm unit crackled to life.
“This is Captain Draco Goldwing, hailing the Icarus. Can anyone hear me?”
‘Captain, this is Arak. You are a welcome sound on the wavebands. I don’t recognize the channel you’re broadcasting from. The signal is so strong.’
“Nara-ka, it’s very good to hear your voice. We’ve just restarted the engines, and they’re ready to go on your mark. Talk to Nook and let us know when you’re ready for us to start them up.”
‘Yes, Captain.’
Draco turned, looked at Jaxon and said, “After we get back to the Icarus, you’ve got some explaining to do. But first, how the hell did you know the waveband of the Icarus?”
“When we have a moment, perhaps it is pertinent that you and I have a little chat. We have quite a lot to discuss,”
Jaxon answered.
“Clearly.”
Ava watched those two intently. This guy had literally appeared out of nowhere, talking about space and time. It was like he was a time traveler or something, but that was impossible.
Wasn’t it?
‘Captain Goldwing? This is Nook, are you ready to engage the engines?’
“Just tell us when.”
‘Tethers are set to push-pull mode, so on your go we’ll be ready. When you turn on the engine thrust, we’ll turn on our ion drives. Standing by for your word.’
“Everyone, hang onto something.”
Ava hung onto something secure as the Captain started counting.
“10 seconds, starting now.”
Draco counted down from ten, and as he said blast off, Aloysius set the engines to full burn. The engines rumbled underneath their feet and the force almost took the crew to the ground.
‘Igniting the ion drives,’ Arak said through comms. ‘Holding steady. And we’re underway!’
The two ships moved in unison away from the burning planet beneath them. After a moment, the two ships broke away from orbit, and together they floated through the void between worlds.
‘We’re out of orbit, Captain,’ Arak confirmed. ‘We’re free and clear. Get back to the Icarus and we can let the Alliance Military handle this.’
“Things are a little more complicated than that my friend. There are a couple of things we have to take care of on the Metropolis Seven before we can come back to celebrate. There could be a lot of people still in danger, and we may have picked up a hitchhiker,” Draco said.
‘I don’t like the sound of any of that,’ Arak said.
‘You don’t have to like it as long as you follow your orders, boy,’ Nook added over the commlink. ‘On this vessel we follow the orders of our Captain.’
“We’ll be all right,” Draco said. “Just hold her steady. Make sure the energy tethers stay in place. We’ll see you all very soon.”
“Did we actually do it?” Vynce asked.
“Yes. We’re out of orbit,” Draco said.
“Arak’s already requested assistance from the Alliance Military, right?” Ava asked. Their job was almost done. Now it was time to hand it over to the proper people to clean up the mess.
“Not yet. I think we’d better find out what’s going with our friend over the loudspeaker. If nothing else I think we owe him a visit, don’t you?” Draco said.
“Can I make him have an accident, Captain? Please?” Ava pleaded.
“That remains to be seen,” Draco said.
“Captain, I have downloaded the schematics of the ship and I can now access them from my personal data banks. I am currently tracing the signal from our anonymous friend from earlier. In a few moments I should have his location,” Aloysius said.
“Fantastic work, Al. Let me know when we’re good to go.”
Chapter Sixteen
On board the Icarus, Veck had made one significant victory. He had managed to disguise himself as a security protocol and slip into their ranks. The security sentries both stood as guardians in front of the pillars of Evie’s core programming and moved through the code like sinuous wraiths. If they managed to find him there was no telling what they might do to protect Evie, so Veck was cautious.
Time was something he had plenty of. Even if Draco managed to pull off his salvage mission, it was still another few weeks before they’d reach the nearest Gateway that led back to Alliance space. He had time.
Veck’s consciousness twisted and turned around Evie’s core in beautiful harmony with the programs around him. It reminded him of his childhood on New Earth, bathing in the crystal-clear waters of Harmony Bay. He would stay in the ocean for hours, flowing back and forth with the gentle tides. The sensation of flowing between the programs was like being awash in the tides. He allowed himself to become lost in it. He took note of the openings in the code. He saw places where he could slip through the nets and take control of Evie’s core programming. But it was not yet time. There was still too much risk.
‘Divide and conquer,’ he thought to himself.
At the very thought, his consciousness was willed into splitting itself in two. One part of his consciousness remained focused on infiltrating the artificial intelligence, but the other part spread to his physical body. He had never experienced simultaneous consciousness before, and the elation that the overload caused his senses was almost too much to bear.
The sentry programs left ghosts as they passed. Veck stole glimpses of the code they moved through to get their shape. These ghosts led him to the piece of information he needed.
The location of the defense protocol that would destroy him if he tried to escape.
From there, he probed the code for the location of his arms. Draco had locked them in the one place that they couldn’t escape from unless the ship was in emergency lockdown. One of the emergency escape pods on the aft side of the ship.
Veck followed the sentry programs disguised as code, rifling through their shadows for a covert way to open the escape pod without rousing the suspicion of the sentries. He would have to work slowly to remain undetected.
In the engine bay, Rhken was hunched over the diagnostic console as she checked and double checked the integrity of the kinetic energy tethers. They were set to push / pull mode, so regardless of where the thrust came from, both ships moved in unison at the same speed. The tethers transferred the energy provided by both ships from one to the other so their velocities matched.
Reban sat back in a comfy chair, looking out at the view behind the ship through the display on her father’s console. The Icarus was as small as a housefly next to the gigantic Metropolis Seven. When the engines had come back online, the running lights on the top and sides of the huge ship switched back on like the bioluminescent light spots of a giant deep ocean fish.
Nook had managed to speak to Captain Goldwing for a moment. The comms were still down between the two ships, aside from that one waveband that came through loud and clear. Nook didn’t know how the Captain managed it, but he was glad that he did. The second star had gotten bigger in his viewfinder while comms were silent and he couldn’t help but imagine what would happen if they didn’t get the engines back up and running in time.
Suddenly he noticed a blip on his sensors that hadn’t been there a moment ago. As they moved the huge cruise liner, he realized that another ship had been hiding in the static cloud of comms interference. Nook zoomed into the minuscule blob on his display to get a better picture of what lay in the darkness behind them. The picture was distorted by the propulsion energy firing out of the back of the Metropolis Seven, but the shape of the ship was unmistakable.
The main diamond-shaped cabin was situated between two angular forward sweeping wings. Nook recognized the silhouette instantly. The cockpit ended in a fine point, and there would be two ballistic missile launchers embedded in the nose. It was a Vartalen scout cruiser.
It was no real surprise. The Vartalen owned this sector of space and defended it against anything which threatened their supremacy. Humans were especially unwelcome by the Vartalen, so it was only natural that they would take interest in a human distress beacon. From their behavior, they didn’t look as though they were getting ready to attack. They were merely spectators. Nook opened the open comm channel back to the Metropolis Seven and hailed the Captain.
“Captain, we have a Vartalen cruiser hanging around the tail end of the Metropolis Seven,” he said.
‘Hostile?’ Draco asked.
“Not yet. It’s most likely a surveillance ship.”
‘I can’t blame them for being interested. Do they know we’re inside?’
“Depends on how long they’ve been watching. I would have to recommend we take the cautious route, but it’s very likely that their communications have been interrupted just as much as ours.”
‘Do we have schematics?’
“I’ll arrange for Reban to find out any information we ca
n. But Captain, you should know that it is most definitely an attack cruiser.”
‘One of those pointy bastards.’
“Very pointy.”
‘Let me know if anything changes.’
“Yes sir, I will,” he said and closed the comm channel. He turned to Reban who was relaxing in her easy chair and said, “Reban, I need you to download some information for me. We have a Vartalen attack cruiser hiding in the comms black field behind Metropolis Seven. I need you to try and access it. Get as much information as you can, and hopefully we can deliver it to Captain Goldwing.”
Reban sprung to her feet at once, nodded and opened the display module on her terminal. She began the search.
Inside Evie’s core programming Veck had found a foothold to begin his assault. He had slipped out of the double helix formation of sentry drones circulating around the core and disguised himself as a blank memory sector. He slipped away from them without drawing any attention to himself.
He began to bond himself to Evie’s core to ensure that he could keep complete control, even if she became aware of him.
His first mission was a complete success. He sent a subroutine to Evie’s core commanding her to release his two arms from their prisons. They crawled along using their fingers and disappeared into the Icarus’s ventilation shafts. Slowly, they crawled along the shafts towards Veck’s cell.
He worked himself into Evie’s code until he himself became a subroutine. He identified the defense protocol Draco had put in place to fry his neurotech implant if he moved, took a copy of it, and deleted it from Evie’s memory banks. He replaced it with a dummy program so that if it did fire, then Evie’s systems would mark it as successful. He stored the original subroutine in the neurotech implant it was designed to destroy, away from the one routine that could activate it.
In his cell, Veck smiled as he got to his feet. He cracked his neck back and forth, jumped in place, and bent down to stretch his spine.
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