by C. S. Harte
Saera screamed and held her hands to her cheeks when she entered the enclosed sanctuary. “Soooooooo cute. So, so, so cute.” She ran to the mogie food dispensary, dumped mogie food into a bucket — purple and red Ezium berries — and sat down next to a heap of white fur. Mogies began to gather around her and soon buried her in a pile of fluff.
Nolan let out a hearty laugh. “I have to admit, if I was a 10-year-old girl, I might scream too. These little buggers are squeamishly cute.”
The migraines returned for Jonas. He held his palm to his forehead, trying to push it back. Images of Captain Weyer, Lieutenant Tien, Lieutenant Voight flashed into his mind.
“You OK, little brother?”
Jonas took his time to respond, waiting for the pain to subside. “Have you seen anyone else around? It’s just us here?”
“Must be a slow day, I guess.”
“You haven’t seen other people, in Commonwealth Fleet clothing?”
Nolan laughed and slapped his brother’s back. “Good one. I have no idea why Fleet sailors would visit the Mogie Sanctuary.”
“You joined Fleet recently didn’t you? This is your leave?”
“Yes! I only have a few days left before I have to head back to Ostia Station. Let’s stop worrying about things we can’t control and have some fun? What do you say?”
This can’t be real. My memories… this doesn’t seem right. Do I just play along? What else can I do to get back to the Endurance? Jonas feigned a smile.
“That’s what I like to see.” Nolan rubbed Jonas’ hair again and turned his attention towards Saera. “Should we rescue her or let the little puff balls eat her whole?”
Jonas laughed. “I’m OK with her staying there forever.”
Nolan placed his fingers between his lips and whistled at Saera. “Hey! You want to see the Moonspores right?”
“YESSSS!” She pushed herself up and began plucking the mogies off her clothes with some assistance from Nolan.
The Barick siblings shoved themselves into a rental rover and drove to the Moonspire Hills, the other main tourist attraction on Daxu. Once a Daxu-year — approximately 20 Earth-years — the Moonspire Plixies, tree-sized, orange and yellow mushrooms unrooted themselves and began their migration to the opposite side of the planet, maximizing their exposure to sunlight. During the journey, they released moonspores that interacted with the unusually low planetary ionosphere to produce twinkling orbs of multi-colored light. Tens of thousands of Plixies made the migration at once, releasing millions of moonspores. The sheer number of moonspores combined to create a flowing river of dazzling rainbow light, appearing to the casual observer as being the essence of magic and wonder itself.
Nolan parked the rover on a hill overlooking the migration path, high enough to be above the moonspore wave.
Saera immediately jumped out of the car to the dismay of Jonas. “IT STARTED!” She yelled as she trotted downhill.
“Wait! Saera!” Jonas chased after her, eventually catching her. “You said you’ll stay close to me. You promised.” He picked her up and squeezed her.
“Sorry! I got excited. Forgive me, Jonas,” she said with a pouty face. Saera tugged at her left ear, something she often did when she was nervous, anxious, or worried.
“I’m not mad at you, Saera. Just concerned. I don’t ever want anything to happen to you.” He gently lowered her to the ground but held onto her hand.
Nolan joined them. “Ease up little brother. We’re safe here.”
“Are we? Are we, Nolan?” Jonas took a breath when he realized the tone of his voice. “Where is everyone? This is the Plixie Pilgrimage. There should be over a million people here.”
Nolan smiled. “I think it’s nice, just the Barick siblings. Together again, experiencing the joys of the universe.”
Saera dragged Jonas toward the Plixies. “I want to get closer. I want to catch one of the moonspores!”
Jonas tapped Saera’s nose. “You can’t catch them, silly. They only exist for a few seconds.”
Saera’s face changed, her nostrils flared, her body tensed. Her skin took on a bluish tint, and her eyes became cloudy white. “I. Want. To. Catch. One," she said in a sinister tone.
Jonas took a step back, not recognizing his sister. He turned toward Nolan for help, but he began walking away. “Nolan! Hey! Where are you going?”
“Someone took our little sister,” said Nolan, his voice was monotone, flat. “Our Saera. You have to find her,” he said without looking back.
Saera is gone? Jonas turned around to check on Saera. His jaw dropped.
She disappeared.
Jonas frantically searched for his sister. “SAERA!” He ran after Nolan, “Wait! Who took Saera? HELP ME FIND HER, YOU BASTARD!”
Nolan was already back at the rover. “Find her Jonas! I have to get back to Ostia Station.” He started the vehicle and drove away before Jonas could reach him.
Jonas dropped to his knees. “Noooo…” He lowered his forehead to the ground and began crying. “Not again… No, I can’t lose her again….”
“Engineering Deck,” said the ship's computer.
The decktram doors slid open.
Jonas lifted his head. The migraines came back, stronger than before.
“Captain!” said Engineer Jadin. “Are you… OK?”
Jonas stared up into her eyes. “I... I don’t know.”
8
“Captain, you’re bleeding!” Jadin screamed.
Barick held his hand to his head. His palm covered in blood. “It’s an old wound. I think…” He tried to sit up.
Jadin helped him lean against a wall. “I’ll get the emergency med kit.”
Was Daxu a dream? Was I unconscious? It felt so real…
Jadin knelt next to Barick. She opened the med kit and pulled out the skin regeneration gel, applying it liberally to the lacerations on his head. “Don’t move, Captain.”
Barick closed his eyes. He never felt so tired in his life. Two hours of sleep in the past 48 hours. 20 hours for the week. Every inch of his body ached, and there was an empty feeling of longing in his heart. The pain of losing his sister never dulled, only covered in a scar which reopened as wide as the wound on his head. He looked into the honey brown eyes of Engineer Jadin. “Thank you. It feels much better.”
She picked up an injector from the kit and loaded it with a turquoise vial, painkillers. “For your migraines.”
“No!” Barick pushed her hand away. “That will dull my thoughts. I can handle the pain.” He noticed the dark red bandage wrapped around her butterscotch wrist. “Are you OK?”
“Just a cut.” Jadin frowned at her Captain but complied with his request. She stood and reached her hand down.
Barick took her hand, allowing Jadin to pull him up. After straightening his uniform, he looked at his engineer and asked, “Do you have that situational report for me?”
“Yes, Captain. Follow me.” She lead him to the main engineering terminal, a ten-feet-long rectangular, holographic table, that displayed a three-dimensional rendering of the CMS Endurance.
Using her hand movements as controls, she flipped the projection to show the underside of the ship and zoomed in. “This is our biggest problem. We have massive hull breaches as you can see.”
Barick kept a stoic face even as a lump developed in his stomach. This is worse than I feared.
Jadin flicked her left wrist. A live feed from one of the repair drones appeared, hovering over the holo-terminal. “The repair drones estimate months of repair. Faster if we had access to a stardock.”
“How many decks did we lose?”
“Decks 1-6. Decks 10-14 were severely compromised.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head as he said, “All those people in Medical…”
“Yes, Captain.” Jadin wiped a tear from her face. “We lost everyone on those decks. Friends…” She paused, composing herself. “We’re using the Shuttle Bay as a temporary Medbay.”
Barick nodded
. “The priority is to stabilize the ship and then propulsion. We’re not safe here.”
“Captain?” Jadin’s voice broke.
“Yes?”
“What happened? How did the star mappers not know Telmun was an imminent expansion threat?”
“I suspect the answer is much more complicated than that.” Barick sighed.
Jadin opened her mouth as if she had more questions but stopped and nodded her head instead. “I think we can warp back in a couple of weeks. Sooner if we get some breaks.”
“What about ion drive?”
“Four, maybe three days. We don’t have much of an engineering team left.”
“Is there any way to finish in 24 hours? We have a distress call from the Venture.”
“Captain!” Jadin crossed her arms. “I don’t think you fully understand the extent of our damages. Besides, we’re not in any shape to help anybody. We need to help ourselves. Plus our missing crew…” Her head turned to the terminal where Chief Engineer Holtz used to sit.
“There are complicating factors…” His voice came out unsteady, unsure. “We have orders from Fleet to assist the Venture. An Entrent was on board.”
Jadin shook her head as Barick spoke. “But Captain...”
Barick held up his hand. “This discussion is premature. I haven’t decided on anything. The priority is to fix the ship. Do you agree that we cannot stay here?”
“Yes, Captain,” Jadin stared at the ground as she replied.
“Then how do we go about fixing the ship faster. What can I do to help? What resources do you need?”
“Well, the Endurance was retrofitted with holo-emitters on every deck during the last upgrade cycle. I’m one of the engineers that's been working on the Holographic Emergency Crew system along with other engineers in Fleet. It’s more accurate to say that I’m one of the lead…”
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“In theory, we can create a holographic crew to assist with the repair, fixing the ship faster. It’ll require a few hours of programming, but I think…”
“Can you get the ion engines back in 24 hours?”
“You’re still asking for a miracle, Captain. I can’t promise that, but I’ll do my best.”
Barick smiled. This was the first time he remembered doing so in a long while.
“Captain to the bridge,” Tien’s voice spoke over ship comm.
Barick tapped his ear comm. “Acknowledged.” He turned toward Jadin. “Propulsion, shields, weapons. I think we’re still in danger of another attack and we need to get away from this space.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Barick started walking away but came back to Jadin. He placed a hand on her shoulder and said, “Great job. You’re the Chief Engineer now. You are more than capable. Forward together.”
“Forward together.” She nodded and began programming the holographic crew system.
Barick hesitantly stepped into the decktram, half expecting to disappear into another world. The decktram began zooming toward the bridge. Relief washed over him when he saw Tien sitting at his station.
“Sir.” Tien rushed to Barick. “We have a recorded message from the emergency beacon of the Venture.”
“What is the status of the ship?”
“Long-range scanners only show debris. It appears that the Venture was destroyed…” Tien said in a hushed voice.
“That’s not possible!” Barick jerked his head back. “Even pirates wouldn’t be so cruel as to destroy a ship of colonists!”
“It doesn’t make sense.”
“Play the message on the viewscreen.” Barick walked to his captain’s chair and slowly took a seat.
Tien returned to his navigation terminal. “One moment. I’m having trouble opening the video file.”
“What’s wrong?” Barick tilted his head.
“It’s… It’s not a distress message.”
Barick raised his eyebrows. “That seems odd given that they stored it on an emergency beacon.”
“The message is encrypted.”
“Hmm.” Barick rubbed his chin. That’s even more puzzling. Why would the Captain of the Venture leave an encrypted message on the ship’s distress beacon? So far, absolutely nothing in the past 24 hours have made sense.
“Got it!” Tien nearly jumped out of his seat. “I used Captain Weyer’s authentication, and it worked. It looks like a personal message from Captain Tameron of the Venture for Captain Weyer.”
“Play it.” Barick sat back in his seat.
The viewscreen flickered before showing the face of a man much older than Barick.
Captain Weyer. We lost the Entrent. You must do everything in your power to retrieve it and complete the mission. The ship that attacked us looked like an Alliance Predator-class vessel. Though, it did not have Alliance weapon signatures or ship designations. We are not sure if they were pirates or a covert Alliance ship. Be wary my old friend. I’m sorry I won’t be able to pay you back for that scotch I owe you. Godspeed.
Tien looked back at Barick. “What mission is he talking about, Sir?”
“The Venture was heading for Galli Prime, right? When did planetary terraforming start on Galli Prime? 25 years ago? 30?”
“According to the database, 32 years ago.”
“Galli Prime is an ice giant planet. It’s another 20 or so years before terraforming finishes, and the first colonists can settle safely?”
Tien shook his head. “I’m not versed enough in terraforming to answer that, Sir.”
“Another question is, why take an Entrent to a planet with no Katoks? As far as I know, the only reason why Entrents exist is so that humans can talk to Katoks.”
“Sir, I can’t answer that either.” Tien began tapping his foot as if annoyed by the questions.
“To answer your question from earlier, Captain Weyer only mentioned that we were to assist the Venture should they need help. I am not aware of the mission that Captain Tameron is referring to in the encrypted message. There’s a lot of things not making sense…”
“You’re not seriously contemplating chasing after pirates while our crew is missing and with all the damages to our ship?”
“Was there anything else in the distress beacon?”
Tien turned back to his terminal. “Searching.”
Barick stared blankly at the screen as questions swirled inside his head without answers. All these questions, but no answers. The missing crew. The egg-shaped ship. The sudden red giant expansion. The bright blue wave. The pirate attack on the Venture. My dreams about Daxu, Nolan and… Saera. How is all of this tied together?
“Captain, there’s an intel file. It looks like the pirates went through Alliance space and into the Quarke nebula.” He turned around and stared at Barick. “We’re not seriously going through Alliance space and breaking the Treaty of Ashadha? Are you really going to risk a war with the Alliance?”
9
Both Captain Barick and Lieutenant Commander Tien sat silent, lost in thought after hearing the puzzling message from Captain Tameron.
“This whole situation gets curiouser and curiouser,” said Barick. “Captain Tameron must know we can’t enter Alliance space without it seen as an act of war. Is there another path to the Quarke nebula that doesn’t go through Alliance space?”
“If we had warp, we could jump to the Sonti System and enter the nebula from the other side. It would take,” he paused to calculate the time, “17.874 light years via ion engines,” Tien said with a yawn.
“Chief Engineer Jadin is working on repairing primary systems. At worst, we have 24 hours before we have to make a decision. Let's get some sleep. I’ll take first watch. I’ll see you at 02:00.”
Tien shook his head. “Sir, I can take first watch. You look like you need it more than me.”
Barick rubbed the back of his head. He felt the scar tissue from the laceration he suffered not long ago. “Lieutenant, if anything comes up, I will let you know. Please, hea
d to your quarters. That’s an order.”
Tien stood and nodded. “Yes, Sir.” He took his time walking to the decktram and exited the bridge.
Questions swirled around the mind of Barick. There is something that I’m missing. Why was a colony ship heading toward an un-terraformed world? And going through pirate controlled space without a Fleet escort? His eyelids became heavier and heavier as if weighed by his thoughts and questions. Having stayed awake for nearly two straight days, Jonas could no longer resist the pull of sleep. He allowed his eyes to close. Just resting my eyes...
* * *
A sharp tap on his knees woke Jonas.
“Wake up Jonas! You’re going to miss the start of the race!” yelled a 32-year-old Nolan.
Jonas' eyes flickered open to see Nolan to his left and Saera to his right. It took him a moment to process the change of scenery. “Where am I?”
“New Austin, silly,” said a laughing Saera.
“New Austin? On Nari Prime? How is this possible?” Jonas narrowed his eyes.
“Um, we took the Tasa Gates from home,” Nolan said with a wry smile.
This isn’t a memory. I’ve never been to New Austin. Jonas stared at Nolan’s face.
“Do I have something in my teeth?” Nolan covered his mouth. “Why do you keep looking at me like that?”
“It’s just… It’s been awhile since I’ve seen you. And you look… older.”
“Gee, thanks. You’re not exactly a nubile manaci yourself.”
Jonas looked at Saera. She’s grown so much since he last saw her. “Saera, you look…”
“Don’t tell me I look old. I’ll kick you right here. I will!” She turned away from Jonas and tugged her left ear.
“No, I just… miss you, little sister.”
“Aww, I miss you too, Jonas.” Her posture softened. “It’s been too long since we’ve hung out like this, just the Barick siblings.”
The crowd began cheering as a massive floating screen rose from a hidden bay in the center of the race track.
“This is my favorite part, the close up of the hyper pilots,” said an excited Nolan.