by C. S. Harte
The announcers introduced the pilots and teams, starting with the hometown favorites and working down a list of race leaders. A chorus of boos rained when they arrived at a Katok driver, Gavr, who stood twice as tall as any of the human competitors.
“Boo! Go back to your own planet you blue-faced sea monkey!” yelled a voice from behind Jonas.
Gavr stood unwavering against the verbal assaults thrown at him. He nonchalantly entered his rift racer. The announcers moved onto the next driver.
“Even among the supposedly xenophilic Commonwealth, we still have a lot of people not accepting of aliens,” said Nolan.
Jonas looked at the underside of his wrist, waiting for his BIP to light up. It didn’t. None of this is real. He turned toward his sister. “Who are you?”
A loud explosion rang throughout the stadium signaling the start of the race. The crowd jumped to their feet and roared, shaking the arena with the ferocity of the cheers.
Saera turned to Jonas and smiled. “This is so much fun, right?” she asked at the top of her voice.
Jonas yelled, “Answer me, who are you? Why did you bring me here?”
She smiled a devious grin and snapped her fingers.
“ARE YOU…” Jonas stopped when he realized the environment changed.
The crowd, Nolan included, disappeared. Only Jonas and Saera remained.
Jonas modulated his voice. “Are you Saera? I thought you…” He found himself outside on the edge of the floating New Austin, next to a bronze holographic statue of Armand Vasser, the founder of the colony and city. The sky was cloudy. A light mist soaked the air. He heard a soft roar behind him and turned around to see green waves crash against tide breaks.
Saera took his hand in hers and pulled him toward the railing. They were alone with only the sound of the ocean to cancel the silence.
Barick waited for her to speak first. When she didn’t, he asked, “What is this? Who are you really?”
She turned her head and shaped her lips into a smile. “I’m Saera, silly,” she said with a giggle.
“How is this possible? What happened to you?”
Saera tugged at her left ear. “What do you know about Entrents?”
Before Jonas’ mind began to process the question, another thought rocketed into his consciousness. What if Saera is an Entrent? Was she the Entrent on the Venture that was taken?
“Very clever, Jonas.” Her face brightened.
His eyes widened. “You read my thoughts…”
“Funny expression, isn’t it? Reading thoughts. As if thoughts were like words in an already written novel, bare for a telepath to plainly see.” Saera returned her sights to the distant horizon.
What is she talking about?
Still looking away from Barick, she replied, “Your mouth vocalizes your thoughts, but your mind is capable of speaking for itself. As a telepath, I can hear your words before they reach your tongue.”
So you can only hear what I’m not thinking? Can you probe my memories?
“Most people, I can. Yours… sometimes. It’s like your memories are stored differently than others. Only certain occasions, when the emotions are most vivid, like your last day on Daxu, can I see your memories. There’s something unique about your family's genetics. You have it too…”
“Have what?” He shook his head. “No, just answer one question. Are you really Saera? My sister? What did they do to you?”
“That’s more than one question.” Saera giggled. “By design, much about Entrents is kept secret, for our safety and yours. It is true that only certain people can become Entrents, those with a specific genetic marker. But we also have to undergo a transformative process. And not every candidate survives.” She touched her lips with her fingers. “Lately, so many have died.”
Jonas restrained himself from grabbing the girl in front of him and shaking the answers out of her. “Please, just tell me, are you my sister?”
“If I was, I am no longer. When I became an Entrent, my personality was stripped from me.” Saera lowered her head. “My identity dissolved away in the metallic vat that held my body.”
“I don’t understand.” He rubbed his eyes with his palms. The conversation with this thing in front of him felt draining, laborious. “When we were on Daxu with the mogies and the moonspores, was that you? Did you recreate those memories?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “You were thinking about Nolan.”
A still version of Nolan suddenly appeared next to them.
“He misses you. Dearly. He blames himself for Saera’s disappearance more than you blame him.”
“I… I don’t blame him for that.” Jonas reached for his brother. “Just for leaving us, for leaving me when I needed him.”
Saera’s body began to flicker. Her movements became jerky. “Something is wrong.” Her words came out slurred. Her skin turned blue. She tugged at her left ear.
“What? What’s wrong?” Jonas tried to grab her, but his hands went through her body.
“The ship that kidnapped me. We are under attack. There’s a boarding party. Fighting. Death.”
“Attack by whom? Where are you? Who took you?”
Saera covered her face and shook her head repeatedly.
“Tell me something so I can help you!” His eyes began to well up.
She handed him a piece of paper. On it, a long string of letters, numbers, and symbols.
“What is this?”
“I’m afraid… Jonas…”
She disappeared.
“NO!” He swatted the air trying to hold onto her. When she vanished, he collapsed to his knees. Twice in a 24 hour period, he experienced the loss of his sister, a torturous wound that kept reopening. Jonas closed his eyes, squeezing the tears from them. He allowed himself three breaths. She’s not dead. I believe in that. If I can just get to her… When Jonas opened his eyes, he found himself on the bridge of the Endurance again. He quickly typed the string of letters and numbers into a terminal while it was fresh in his mind.
“Please hurry,” whispered a delicate female voice in his head.
Barick quickly turned around, finding no one behind him. He tapped his ear comm. “Lieutenant Tien and Chief Engineer Jadin. Please meet me in the briefing room. Immediately.”
He stared at the code given to him. Is this a clue? Was that really Saera? Could she still be alive?
10
Captain Barick sat across from Chief Engineer Jadin and Lieutenant Commander Tien.
“As a matter of formality, I’m giving a field promotion to Lieutenant Commander Tien.” Barick handed Tien a box with a set of silver wings inside. “Lieutenant Tien, congratulations, you are now, Commander Hank Tien. You will serve as my First Officer until we can recover our missing crew members.”
Jadin clapped and patted Tien on his back. “Congratulations, Tien.”
“I don’t know what to say, Sir. I mean, Captain.”
“Your service and professionalism have been exemplary under these dire times. This promotion can be made permanent after Fleet Command reviews the details.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
“I know that my placement over you hasn’t always been easy given your tenure, but I hope we can put it behind us to find our missing crew members. Forward together, Commander.”
Tien nodded. “Forward together, Captain.”
Barick returned the nod then turned toward Jadin. “Before I get into my briefings, what is the status of the repairs?”
“The holographic crew initiative is performing better than expected. Once we set up more emitters, I expect the ship will return to fighting condition in a few days. However, the external repair drones are burning out due to high usage. We’re finding ourselves spending a lot of time repairing the repair drones. Decks 14-16 are operational again, but we’re still working on decks 1-6.”
Barick rubbed his chin as he listened. “And propulsion, shields, weapons?”
“Ion engines are back online. Warp is offline fo
r another few weeks. Shields won’t be back at 100% until the hull is repaired. Most of our weapon systems are back online. That includes missiles and lasers. We have a full complement of Artemis missiles and enough drone parts left to convert our repair drones to attack drones if necessary.”
“This is excellent news.” Barick paused and gathered his thoughts. “I may have a lead on solving the mysteries surrounding this ship.”
“Really?” Jadin and Tien asked.
“Yes. Both of you have heard about Entrents, correct? And their telepathic abilities?”
“I have,” Jadin said.
Tien nodded.
Barick debated with himself whether to tell them about Saera. It didn’t seem material to the discussion. Yes, I could be biased in wanting to believe this Entrent and chase after the pirate ship. But it’s still the only clue I have. Whether or not the Entrent is my sister, finding her seems like the best course of action. He relayed the two encounters with the Entrent in full detail, omitting the parts about his sister. She’s probably not Saera. What are the odds?
“What if all of this is a trap, Captain?” asked Tien.
"By who, Commander?"
"Alliance, pirates, whatever else has been attacking us."
“I’ve considered all such possibilities. But our options are slim if there is any hope of finding our missing crewmates, this Entrent might be our only chance.”
Tien nodded his understanding. “My greatest fear is forever losing our missing crew members, the ones who disappeared in a flash before the red giant expansion. Those are our friends, Captain.” His voice wavered as he spoke.
“I want to add something, Captain," said Jadin. "While we do have a nearly full complement of weapons, I would not say that we’re at full strength. We did lose two-thirds of our crew.”
“Let’s say that the Entrent is telling the truth." Tien sighed. "How do we get through 1.2 parsecs of Alliance space before the border and the nebula? Then if we somehow manage to sneak through — which by the way, I have to remind you, is an act of war — how are we going to find a ship in an emission nebula where our long-range sensors will be useless?”
Barick turned on the room's viewscreen. “The Entrent gave me this the last time she spoke to me.”
The long string of numbers, letters, and symbols from the Entrent displayed on the viewscreen.
“I’m hoping one of you two geniuses can crack it. I’m guessing it’s what we would need to save her.”
“Appealing to our narcissistic side,” Jadin said with a laugh.
Barick didn’t join the laughing. “I should add that we may be in for a fight. At the end of our last conversation, I sensed genuine fear from her. She was clearly scared of something.”
“You’re not swaying me on this plan, Captain,” said Tien, shaking his head.
“I believe there to be a conspiracy here. By who, I don’t know. It could be the Alliance or perhaps even someone within Fleet or the Commonwealth government. Maybe something else. Someone unseen. At the very least, it's a mystery. We have a duty to get to the heart of it. So that, if nothing else, our crew members did not die in vain.”
“Solved it! You guys were talking too much, so I just got to work,” said Jadin with an ear-to-ear grin.
“I knew you could, Jadin.” Barick smirked.
Jadin stood and walked to the screen. “She didn’t give you one piece of information. She gave you three.” With her fingers, she separated the cryptic string into three parts. “The first part is the ion signature of the ship that kidnapped her. I look at this data all the time as an engineer. Easy for me to recognize the pattern. The second is a star coordinate, for somewhere inside the nebula. Perhaps a last known position?” Jadin updated the viewscreen with the coordinates and zoomed into a maroon-color mist with violet streaks.
“Entrents do have the ability to scan minds. I’m guessing it scanned on the thoughts of one of the bridge officers.” Barick added.
“The third piece of information is encoded.” Jadin tapped her foot. “I don’t know…”
“It’s a security handshake for Alliance ships.” Tien stood and joined Jadin at the viewscreen. “It’s how ships confirm the identity of one another, cryptologically speaking.”
“If I understand you correctly, this means we can pretend to be an Alliance ship and go through their space uncontested?”
“Yes, Captain.” Tien nodded. “The obvious caveat is that we can’t be in viewfinder range or else they can see that we’re not an Alliance ship.”
“Can you program our shield emitters to project the image of an Alliance explorer-class ship?”
Jadin’s eyes brightened. “That’s genius! I…” She started pacing. “It’s never been done before, but I can do it. I know I can, Captain.”
“Is it strange to anyone else that, to save this Entrent, we have to go through Alliance space, disguised as an Alliance ship? Does that…” Tien paused as if dots were connecting inside his head. “Did the Alliance kidnap the Entrent and destroy a Commonwealth ship? How else would a pirate ship get through Alliance territory?”
“Why was a Commonwealth colony ship in this sector anyway?” asked Jadin.
“That’s a question I’ve been mulling over myself.” Barick stared at the map of the Alliance space as he spoke. “The Alliance are extreme isolationist. Xenophobic. It doesn’t make sense. There’s a greater conspiracy here that has yet to reveal itself. In the wrong hands, Entrents are very powerful. They can be used as weapons, which is all the more reason to follow this lead even if we are not at full strength. I’m sure this is what Captain Weyer would have wanted.”
Both Jadin and Tien nodded their agreement.
“At full impulse, how long would it take to reach Alliance space?”
“About 16 hours, Captain,” Jadin said.
Barick nodded. “Chief Engineer, Jadin. I understand your team has been incredibly taxed.”
“Don’t worry, Captain. I have the best people around me. We’ll get the Endurance ready for whatever may come.” She left the briefing room mumbling ideas to herself.
“Commander Tien, set course for the nebula.”
“Right away, Captain.” Tien rushed out of the room leaving Barick by himself, still staring at the map.
Barick touched the coordinates given to him by the Entrent and whispered, “Saera…”
11
Captain Barick stared at the viewscreen, forcing his mind to concentrate and his eyes to stay open. It was a losing battle. He activated his BIP. They don’t recommend I use combat stimulants for three straight days. What choice do I have? We’re in a dangerous part of space. The crew here and the crew missing both need me.
With a tap of his finger on his wrist, Barick released another dose of stimulants into his bloodstream. Instantly, the world became sharper. The veil of tiredness lifted from his mind.
Chief Engineer Jadin joined the bridge crew for the current mission seating herself at the tactical station.
“We’re at the edge of Commonwealth space, Captain. We can still turn back,” Tien said from his navigator terminal.
“Activate holographic cloaking,” Barick said to Jadin.
“Activating holographic cloaking,” she replied.
The modified repair drones moved into positions around the Endurance. Millions of laser-thin beams of light crisscrossed, meshing to form a blanket of illusion around the ship.
Barick stared at the viewscreen watching the image of the Endurance change from a Commonwealth Discovery-class research vessel to an Alliance Explorer-class frigate. Jadin is an impressive engineer. A genuine miracle worker.
“5000 km from the Alliance border. It still feels like an Alliance trap to me, Captain. They’re trying to bait us into a war. I just know it. Maybe the Entrent doesn’t fully understand the political ramifications. Can we trust her? How…”
“Commander Tien,” Barick said, cutting off his first officer sharply. “Now is not the time for second-guessin
g. To answer your question, yes I do trust this Entrent. I have no reason not to at this point, and I believe the potential benefits outweigh the risks we must take. Please proceed forward toward the Quarke Nebula.”
“Yes, Captain.” Tien hovered his fingers over the ion engines.
Cobalt-blue light shot out of the ship’s exhaust, pushing the Endurance into Alliance space.
Barick felt his heart racing but kept a stoic face for Tien’s sake. Earlier, he told Tien not to second-guess their mission but found it hard for him to do the same. He was balancing the need to find answers about his missing crew mates, the egg-shaped ship, and the mysterious Entrent who could be his sister, versus the safe return of the surviving members of his crew. He was OK with risking his own life for clues, but not the lives of everyone else. Earlier he held a briefing in the Shuttle Bay discussing the situation and risks they were about to take. To a man, they wanted answers and to find their friends. Everyone lost someone.
“Captain, we’re being asked for a challenge password,” Tien said.
“Enter the code given to us by the Entrent.”
“I did. It’s not working.” His fingers moved frantically across his console.
“Try again.” Barick bit his lower lip.
“I have been, Captain.” Tien began sweating around his collar.
No… Suddenly, the idea that the Entrent lied didn’t seem so far-fetched. But there’s no reason to go through this elaborate ruse. The destruction of the Venture... She could have died. Why would anyone want to be kidnapped?
Proximity alarms blared. Tiny specs of red appeared on the viewscreen.
“Captain, I see six, correction 10… no 16… no 24 attack drones heading our way from the sentry outpost. Intercept in 60 seconds,” Jadin said in a hurried voice. “Raising shields.”
“No! Don’t raise shields! We can’t seem like a Commonwealth ship. Our defenses wouldn’t hold against that many drones. Commander Tien, why isn’t the code working?”
50 seconds until intercept.
“I’m guessing the challenge password needs to be encrypted. Alliance doesn’t use the same encryption scheme that we use. I’m trying multiple variations.”