The Ghost Fleet

by Trevor Wyatt

  “I want every last drop you have,” the captain says with a defiant fist and a crooked smile. I almost faint because of his denture.

  After hashing out the price for the ale cum super soldier wonder drug, I say, “Also, I need assurance that you will not fire on us the moment you take delivery of our cargo.”

  “I will not. You have my word.”

  “Forgive me if I can’t take your word for it,” I say.

  “What will you have us do?”

  “I want you to power down your weapons system,” I say. “All the way down so that we can skedaddle the moment we get our money and give you the item.”

  The captain looks away and gives an order. There is a voice of rebellion in the background, which the captain silences with a sharp rebuke. Then he looks back at me.

  I glance at Alex, who, surprised, nods that the ship’s weapons system is powering down.

  “The money?” I ask. “How do you want to do it? Cash or transfer?”

  “I’ll send the money with the away ship,” he says. “They’ll dock with you immediately.” The connection is broken.

  I tap the engineering button and say, “Bob, get us ready to jump to light speed.”

  “Aye, boss,” comes his chirpy reply.

  “Garret, when I give the signal, get ready to jump to Phantom’s position. They are hiding behind one of the moons at the edge of the system.”

  Garret nods.

  I ride the elevator down to the cargo hold, where Sibiu is standing over seventeen crates of contraband ale and an explosive.

  “They are sending an away ship,” I say to him. “Let’s get these crates into the entrance bay.”

  We do just that. By the time we’re done, we step all the way back to the small access way to the cargo hold and wait. The away ship docks with our ship and the hatch slides up. Only one Sonali appears with a large sack, which I suppose is filled with cash.

  He sees the crates, then sees us staring at him. He drops the cash sack in the middle of the entrance bay and methodically moves the crates into the away ship. This takes him about thirty minutes. We watched him do it the whole time but he never looked at us one more time. Neither does he look at us as he shuts the hatch and undocks his ship.

  After confirming that the sack is indeed packed with freshly minted Union platinum plated hard currency, I run back into the elevator and ride it up to the bridge. I arrive just in time to watch the large ship swallow up the away ship in one of its huge bays.

  “Their weapons are coming online and fast,” Alex yells.

  “Garret, get us out of here!” I boom.

  I feel a sharp kick which throws me into the air. Before I slam into the ground, I see as the space around us fold in itself.

  I glance at Alex and nod.

  Alex presses a button.

  “Bring us out,” I tell Garret.

  We drop out just in time to watch, through the long range telescope, the Sonali ship explode in an immense, almost glorious flare of orange and yellow.

  “We did it…” Alex mutters, a bit unsure. Once the explosion vanishes, we see what is left of the ship, a sea of debris and bodies. I am chilled by the fact that I have probably just slaughtered a thousand sentient beings.

  “Captain,” Alex says, “No One is hailing us.”

  “On screen,” I say, taking my best posture by the Captain’s chair.

  She is all smiles and I can hear cheers and jubilation on her ship’s bridge. “Congratulations, Captain Jeremy. You and your crew are heroes. Your money will be wired to you shortly and your charges have been dropped.” She pauses for a while. “We could use men like you in our ranks.”

  I shake my head. “Thanks, but I really don’t like working for spooks.”

  No One draws a blank. She neither denies nor confirms my assertion. “Thanks again. Desist from running contrabands along the border. You may not be so lucky next time.” The super-hot commander vanishes from the screen, leaving me wondering how my close brush with death at the hands of the Sonali counts as being lucky.

  Last Survivors

  I stare across the large camp fire through the many faces to Kendra, who is sitting in the third row—the very back. I’m in the second row, and our eyes find each other. She’s the epitome of beauty. Her blonde hair lights up and glisten almost with a delicate bioluminescent material in the cast of the popping flames. Her soft eyes are green, though I can’t see them from this distance, looks at me and makes my heart melt.

  Kendra Chapman—or KC, as she’s fondly called in our small settlement on this side of the second moon of Latrellia, is a tall goddess. Her lips are thin, yet luscious. Her oval face is a little puffy in the cheek region, giving her a very attractive look. She has a petite figure and a gorgeous body.

  I wink my left eye at her and she cracks a silent laugh, a little chuckle escaping her lips. The elderly woman beside her gives her an upbraiding glance and she presses her lips thin in response, fighting hard to keep from laughing.

  No one knows we are…together, and for good reasons. KC’s family and mine aren’t exactly the best of friends. In fact, there has been a feud between our families since before their fathers landed on this moon and settled here.

  I heard it has something to do with KC’s great grandfather and mine contesting for the town chairmanship and my dad failing. It led to a revolt that in turn led to many deaths, mostly on KC’s family’s side, thus beginning a feud that lasted until this day.

  “They are a pack of wolves!” my dad would always rant, even though he and KC’s father have had little or no physical altercation.

  When I first heard it, I couldn’t believe it. You only heard about stuff like that in the holo-vids. It didn’t happen in reality.

  But now, I have to think again, because my life was the very expression of that reality.

  I don’t know why Kendra and I clicked the moment she returned with her aunt from New Sydney to come here and start her formal training in agriculture. She’d been taken away when we were only toddlers and have not come back for several years. She returned just before the war began six months ago. I remember when I first saw her, alighting from the shuttle that had brought her and a couple of new settlers down from the transport vessel. That was the happiest day of my life.

  I hear a few scuffles behind me. I look over my shoulders to see many more people coming to gather around the camp fire. There are two more loose rows behind me. There are about a hundred of us at the camp fire, sitting on stones in the center of the town.

  It’s the first day of the month of September, and as usual, we begin every first days with a campfire night.

  It’s majorly for everyone below the age of twenty, including kids and young adults—and it’s compulsory. Not attending the camp fire night is tantamount to social suicide. It’s not however compulsory for adults, though some try to attend. Mostly the counsellors and teachers, even those in other settlements on the moon.

  “Are we all in?” says the priest. He’s not an actual priest, since we on the moon do not practice any form of religion. We like to think of ourselves as free thinkers. Perhaps, our ancestors travelled a great distance from Earth, saw the vastness of space, and decided there was no God. They laid down those principles for us, which has guided our beliefs.

  So, even though we call him a priest, he really isn’t. Nevertheless, we realize the functions of a priest, which is to guide and lead people to the light. And sometimes to remind us of our past that we may make the right decisions in our present for a better future. Because this man in the middle of the circle by the fire fulfils this role for us during the camp fire nights, we call him the priest.

  His actual name is John…that’s it. No last name. John is a wizened old man in his late seventies. He has undergone several regenerative surgeries in his late sixties that put a few more decades in his body. He’s still old and aging, but his physiological systems are still quite intact. So, he’s not walking with a bend, like some of the old p
eople in the town. He isn’t developing cataracts or glaucoma, like many of the oldies in the town.

  He certainly has a strong voice that can reach to the very edges of the town from the center of the town on a silent sunny afternoon. It is even rumored that he is still quite sexually active, although I can’t tell that that’s true.

  It’s pretty difficult to reconcile a priest (even though he really isn’t one) with sex—priests are supposed to be undefiled by the vain pleasures of this world. Priests are supposed to refrain from eating a lot and stay indoors seeking transcendence or higher truth or knowledge or whatever it is they seek.

  Anyways he’s not one, so whatever.

  John is standing ramrod straight, his face and hair adorned with silver hair. They are long and are stretching down to his shoulders, parallel to the general downward drawl of his facial skin. Unfortunately, John didn’t have enough money to pay for a facial reconstruction surgery to revive the youth in his face.

  There is a tiny gnat beneath his left eye, which many of us think is some sort of tech that allows him to see very far. Oh, and John has the best sight in all of the moon. The man can see in clear details for hundreds and hundreds of yards, so long as there’s no obstruction. When asked, he always attributes it to the reconstructive surgery he did on his eyes, but everyone knows reconstructive surgeries don’t give you super abilities—enhancements do.

  Some of us believe that he was some sort of spy for the Armada Intelligence, especially during the Schism. We know he fought in the war, we just don’t know in what capacity he fought. And his wartime experiences are something he never ever talks about.

  There are still some people coming in from all directions. I take another look around. We must be over two hundred now.

  It’s going to be a long night.

  “Are we all in?” John asks again, his voice strong and subduing every murmured and hushed whispers around.

  The giant flames dance in the smooth breeze that washes across us under the starry night. Other moons are in the sky, flooding us with a strong moonlight.

  “Yes, John,” replies a young woman from behind me. At that point, I hear commotion to my right. I look down my row to see Peter making his way towards me, causing everyone to complain.

  He gets to me and I shift a little so he can squeeze himself in. Instead, he just flops himself into the tiny space, jarring me a little on my side. I guess the other guy feels the pain because he curses a little and jerks Peter in the side.

  Peter is about to punch the guy in the face, when I stop him. Peter glances at me, a wicked glare still on his face.

  “Don’t do it,” I whisper to him.

  The other guy is already in a defensive post, his hands made into fists and raised above his face to fight. It’s Brad, and he is one of us. By us I mean one of the cool guys in this settlement.

  “Sorry, Brad,” I whisper to the guy. “Peter is sorry, too,”

  “No, I’m not,” Peter says almost immediately. Then he adds in an icy tone, “And don’t think I’ll forget this.”

  “Whatever dude,” Brad says and relaxes back in his sit.

  When I feel the tension let loose in Peter’s arm, I let him go.

  I look up at John to check if he’d caught the commotion.

  John is looking at us trio, his eyes squinted in suspicion. Fighting is not uncommon in camp fire meetings, because every teenager is here. And when every teenager with raging hormones gather, things are bound to happen.

  Tension is usually high—including romantic tension.

  The tension between me and Kendra is so high that I wonder if people can sense it off of us. Sometimes I get scared when Kendra and I are close together and Kendra’s father walks by. Of course, I’ll have to dodge the man’s look or make it look like I don’t know who Kendra really is. Still, the tension can be so strong I wonder if he can sense it.

  “Why are you late?” I ask Peter.

  Then I notice someone settling in beside Kendra. She’s a pretty black girl with a brown blouse and dark jean pants. Her glossy lips radiate in the firelight as does the tiny little necklace on her chest, which sits against a balmy, sweaty chest.

  Peter chuckles beside me. I glance back at him just in time to see him and Tiffany share a look that’s more than just friendly.

  “You didn’t…” I whisper at Peter.

  Peter is distracted by Tiffany and only replies me with an indiscernible mumble.

  I grab his jacket and shake him until I have his full attention. Peter is huge for his age. Like me, he’s eighteen…heck, we are all eighteen. Kendra, Brad, Peter, Tiffany and I are host of other seniors. It’s like our parents decided to give birth to us at the same time. Peter, however, looks like a professional quarterback with his incredible upper build.

  He’s got a lot of muscles for a guy his age, and he’s easily the strongest of us. Brad comes pretty close since Brad grew up with his dad in the Terran Armada Academy and learned one or two tricks. Brad’s dad is a First Officer aboard a war ship that’s off fighting the BFs. This is one reason Brad’s been touchy lately. He worries about his father.

  Most times when I look at Brad and his mother, I thank my luck that my dad hadn’t followed through with his plans to join the Armada and become a sailor. I’ll probably be having a wistful look on my face now, waiting by the slipstream terminal for a call from the Armada telling me how brave my father was or how he sacrificed his life for me and all that rubbish.

  I’d rather someone else sacrificed their life for me and my dad.

  A lot of our soldiers are dying out in the stars so much so that nobody sleeps comfortably at night any more. A lot of the folks on this moon have people that are currently in the border being eaten for dinner by the BFs.

  We call them BFs, which stands for Blue Freaks. Because that is who they are, freaks. Freaks of the universe. Freaks of nature.

  I come to, when I see that I have Peter’s attention. I drag him closer to my face and sniff his jacket. I perceive the distinctive smell of perfumery. It’s jasmine, Tiffany’s perfume.

  I almost choke in disgust as I imagine what Peter and Tiffany had been up to. They came in almost at the same time. He has Tiffany’s perfume all over him. It’s obvious what the two of them did. And thinking of that and the place I told Peter about earlier this morning, I just knew he betrayed my trust. Blasted Peter!

  “I told you that place in confidence, man,” I say letting go of his jacket.

  “What do you mean, Jake,” he replies. “It’s not what you think.”

  I sneak one more glance at Tiffany. She’s now in an impassioned conversation with Kendra, probably telling Kendra how deep Peter went and how he made her cum and all that stuff. Probably putting ideas in Kendra’s mind and thereby putting pressure on me to measure up, at least, to Peter.

  How could I measure up to someone that’s several times bigger than I am?

  I am frowning at Peter amidst the steady buzz of chatter around.

  “Seriously, Jake,” Peter says, focusing his attention on me.

  “Man, I know you went to our special spot and took Tiffany with you,” I say. “I can smell her on you and I know you don’t think of the consequences of your actions before you take them.”

  Peter’s smile vanishes, and I know I’ve struck a chord. “Ouch, bro, you don’t have to be so harsh. It’s just a spot in the woods. I’m sure there are many other spots.”

  His reply should infuriate me, but I am used to his insensitivity by now.

  “It took me days to find that special spot, Pete,” I reply. “You know how Kendra and I decided to wait ‘til we were eighteen before we...you know…”

  “Had sex?” Peter helps, with an arched eyebrow.

  I feel my cheek burn so hot. I never knew it’ll be this embarrassing. I told Peter about the special spot I picked in the woods in the event that he would spur me and encourage me. I certainly didn’t tell him so he and Tiffany would go there for a romp in the hay. I’m al
most sickened to my tummy.

  “I don’t get why you can’t still go there,” Peter says. He’s whispering now because everyone is falling quiet as the seconds roll by.

  “I can’t!” I say, my voice a little tense with exasperation. “This is the night we both lose our virginity. It has to be perfect. If we go to the same spot, we’ll just be smelling you and Tiffany all over the place.”

  Peter smiles. “Not really. I told Tiffany it was your special spot after we had sex and she insisted we cleaned up the place.”

  “You clean up the woods?” I ask, incredulous.

  “Well, not exactly the entire woods,” he replies. “Just the place we used. I promise you won’t notice a thing. There’s nothing lying around to suggest that we were there.”

  I frown and look away from him.

  John is silent. He is sitting on a high stone with a flat surface so all of us can see him. He is in a meditative pose, so I know the meeting will begin in a couple of minutes.

  We’re already close to silent, though there are still a few quiet whispers scattered around the gathering.

  “It’s not going to be the same,” I reply without looking at Peter. “Even if Kendra doesn’t know, I do. And all I’ll be thinking about is you and Tiffany and god knows what you did.”

  Peter chuckles. “I can assure you, we did a lot.”

  I mildly jam my ankle in his side. “It’s not funny.”

  Peter throws his right arm around my neck and pulls me in. “Hey, there’s a lot of other places you guys can go. You can head to the waterfalls. It’s going to be beautiful. You guys can have all the fun you want there.”

  “It’s way too far from town.”

  “All the more reason you should go,” Peter replies. “It’ll be fun. The two of you, walking through the woods, hand in hand.”

  I almost smile. It does sound like a good idea. Kendra had mentioned it earlier, how she would like to spend some time at the waterfall. Her parents rarely allowed her out of the house. This night is going to be one of the nights she’ll be free to do what she likes, majorly because her parents would me meeting with delegates from other settlements in the town hall all night.