Second Earth

by Stephen A. Fender

  Shawn leaned back in his chair as Melissa accessed the data drive. Within seconds, a video file opened to the scene of an vacant, decrepit office. The camera pointed at an empty desk in the center of the image. Behind the desk was a large glass window, its blinds slightly ajar and filtering in the sunlight. Shawn and Melissa instantly recognized it as the office from which they’d retrieved the gold disk on Second Earth.

  There was a noise from outside the periphery of the camera, and then a figure stepped into view and sat stoically behind the desk. It was Admiral William Graves, dressed in his dark gray Sector Command uniform. The two clusters of silver stars that denoted his rank flashed their reflections into the camera lens as he obtained a comfortable position in the chair. Shawn could see that the admiral had aged well in the last several years, and hardly looked any different than the last time the two were together during the Galactic War. Except for the white tips of his extensive moustache and the patches of gray hairs forming near his ears, he looked like the same old “Wild Bill.”

  Admiral Graves reached into his desk, withdrawing what appeared to be a frequency scrambler, very much like the one Shawn had seen Melissa use before to conceal a conversation. William flipped the device on, placed it beside him on the desktop, folded his hands beside it and began speaking.

  “Melissa, I can only pray that it’s you who’s found this message, and that it’s still not too late. My dear, I need you to understand that billions upon billions of lives are at stake, and what I’m about to tell you will irrevocably alter the state of affairs for the galaxy as we know it.”

  Melissa turned silently to Shawn, who wore a blank expression. They turned in unison back to the monitor as William continued to speak.

  “Let me start by giving you a brief history lesson. Years ago, as the Great War was nearing the end as we have come to know it, the Kafarans were making plans for a major push into Beta Sector. This surge—had it been successful—would have wiped out countless scores of people from dozens of races along the front lines of the war. Sector Command, working closely with the Office of Special Intelligence, presented a classified report to the Unified President and the Council that stated, unequivocally, that our government would not survive such an attack. As you can imagine, with the threat of annihilation hanging in the balance, this sent a wave of panic through the upper echelons of our government.

  “The President ordered two special committees formed. The first would lead a team of delegates into the heart of Kafaran territory and vie with the enemy for a truce. The second committee, based around a select group of Sector Command scientists and the Unified Office of Research and Development, were to begin working on a new weapons platform that could be used to offset the balance of the war in our favor. It was felt that if the first committee failed, there would be no other alternative than to keep fighting.”

  A series of images filtered across the screen, giving Shawn and Melissa a brief glimpse of the emissaries as they appeared before leaving Darus Station.

  “Unbelievable,” Shawn gasped. “I was never told about a peace delegation.”

  Melissa nodded solemnly. “Most people outside of the OSI weren’t privy to that knowledge.”

  The images of the twelve delegates faded from view, and Admiral Graves sighed heavily before continuing. “As most thought would happen, the First Delegation of Representatives never returned from their mission. They were good people, each and every one of them, and when they died the last hope for a peaceful resolution to the war died with them.

  “On the heels of their failure was a piece of news that was quickly hailed by all Sector Command leaders and R&D researches involved as the most monumental discovery in the history of warfare; a triumph only equaled by the utter savagery of the thing. The scientists had developed a prototype weapon that had the potential to destroy all life on the surface of planet in a matter of minutes. It used a specialized form of a substance that was coined Epsilon-6. I won’t go into the exact specifications, as they are encoded on this data drive for your review. What I will tell you is that Sector Command now had a seemingly viable weapon that could turn the tide of the war in our favor.

  “The first application of the weapon met with no success. Sector Command had launched a preemptive strike against the Kafaran shipyards at K’Tal. My squadron was there with the rest of the Fahrenwald battle group. Of course, back then, I wasn’t privy to the information I am now, and we had no idea that this was going to be the test of a secret new weapon system. At the time, it was just one more battle to fight. In the months leading up to the first deployment, the scientist at Unified R&D had managed to shrink the warhead down to a manageable size. Working very closely with Sector Command and the OSI, they managed to get the first prototype on board the Fahrenwald.”

  At the second mention of Shawn’s old ship, Melissa turned to the lieutenant commander, who was silently watching the video as William continued to speak.

  “The upper chain of command had decided that the weapon would be loaded onto a random ship, thus saving the pilot the added stress of knowing that he carried a weapon capable of obliterating all life on the surface of the planet below. It wasn’t until years later that I discovered that the pilot in question was a young and impetuous Lieutenant Shawn Kestrel.” Graves looked away from the camera and smiled, as if a distant memory bubbled to the surface. After a moment he looked back into the device.

  “When we arrived at the shipyard above K’Tal, the place was brimming with Kafarans. They had two fleet carriers on alert, with another one in the dry docks that could have been launched within twenty-four hours. There were three destroyers, a handful of cruisers, and enough gunboats to fill an ocean. Nevertheless, we were pretty evenly matched. Our two carrier groups brought more than enough firepower to handle them, but that’s not what Sector Command wanted. They wanted total destruction of all life in the K’Tal system.” Graves shook his head in disdain and then leaned in closer to the camera, as if to make his next words more poignant. “All I can say is, thank God we pilots didn’t know what we were truly being asked to do. Combat flying is one thing, but genocide is…is another matter altogether. That was never what the founding members of the Unified Council envisioned when Sector Command was first established. Had we known our true mission’s intentions, I’m quite sure Sector Command would have had a mutiny on their hands.”

  William straightened in his chair, resuming his tone and his story line. “As I was saying, we went out to attack the yards at K’Tal. One of the other squadrons from the carrier was spearheading the first wave, and my squadron was leading the second. It was a fierce battle; we lost a lot of good pilots, and some of my dearest friends. An hour into it, we were finally close enough to the planet to deploy the experimental weapon. Kestrel was ordered to fire his entire arsenal directly at the planet.”

  Melissa turned to Shawn. “Do you…do remember that?”

  Shawn nodded slowly. “Yeah, I do. I recall saying something about it being a stupid idea.”

  As if the recording was overhearing their conversation, William chuckled to himself before continuing. “Shawn told me over the tac-net that it was a stupid idea, but in the end he did what he was ordered to do. Fortunately, the weapon only skidded harmlessly across the atmosphere of the planet for a few seconds before burning up on entry. Apparently, the equally experimental casing of the weapon wasn’t as perfect as the engineers had envisioned. After the failure during the battle, they went back to their proverbial drawing boards to design something more effective. The breakthrough they sought in this effort very nearly succeeded, and it was the match that lit the flame we are witness to today. It’s also the one that will burn us for a long time to come.

  “In their relentless endeavor, driven hard by the OSI Director, the scientists reengineered the casing using a new alloy discovered on Tireir. The compound was completely resilient to the heat generated when an object entered a planet’s atmosphere. Used for benign purposes, it could have revolu
tionized colonial operations. But everything the upper chain of command saw in the immediate future was war and death. Without the prior authorization of the Unified Council, the OSI ordered all the weapon research and prototypes moved off Tireir and closer to the front lines, where it was felt the weapon would soon be needed. They chose the only place that had a pre-established military presence, and which would also be far enough away from the inner sphere to avoid raising any questions during the weapons test phase: Second Earth. Under a cloak of total secrecy, the entire evolution took nearly six months to complete.

  “It wasn’t long after operations were in full swing at Second Earth that the Kafarans began their advance into Unified Space. Within a month, they arrived at Second Earth. The scientists had been quick to develop their superweapon, but not quick enough.”

  Shawn watched William clench his fists as he recalled the memories.

  “The Kafaran armada, having split into two fleets, initiated their orbital bombardment of Second Earth at approximately 1035, local space time. The first city to be hit was New Aberdeen. Ten minutes later, the main body opened fire on Crystal City. The first few blasts destroyed some of the low-lying buildings in the city, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Once the enemy ships targeted Delta Base it was all over. As fate or destiny would have it, the Kafarans’ first salvo struck the storage room where the scientists had been keeping the new Epsilon-6 weapon.” William began shaking his head slowly. “I guess the geniuses at R&D didn’t take into account the effect of Kafaran weapons on the Tireirim in the storage facility. That, mixed with the rather large supply of Epsilon-6 in an adjacent storage depot, blew open a crater nearly eight hundred feet wide. That’s when the Epsilon-6 vaporized and became airborne. When it dispersed into the atmosphere, it killed everyone on the surface of the planet in less than twenty minutes.” William looked away from the camera for a moment as he contemplated his next words.

  “After the war, a few years after I was recruited into Unified Special Services, I was given a recorded video of what happens to someone when they are exposed to even the smallest amount of E-6. It’s a highly potent, exceedingly localized form of radiation. It destroys simple organic material at the molecular level. Since Kafarans were known to have extremely tough exoskeletal structures, the weapon was designed to permeate their joints and destroy their bodies from the inside out, leaving only their hard outer shell. When the material was released on Second Earth, it immediately went on to attack the humanoid population, destroying them from the outside in. When it was all over, all that was left of the inhabitants of the planet was a pile of slowly decaying bones.

  “The demoralizing effect on the Kafarans in orbit was immediate and profound. It has been widely speculated that they’d never seen a weapon of such destructive power before. In other words, the Kafarans had no defense against this kind of device. Within ten minutes of the detonation, they completely ceased their attack on the planet and departed, heading back into uncharted space at flank speed. They probably feared that all Unified warships were already armed with this new biological weapon. Had they only known the truth—that every version of those superweapons had just been destroyed on the surface of the planet—I’m quite certain the attack would have resumed.

  “Before the Kafarans made it out of the system, they were intercepted by a fleet of Sector Command starships. I’ve seen the sensor records and the flight recorder data; the Kafarans wanted nothing to do with the Unified forces. They were trying to leave the system under full power, but the Unified ships were ordered to pursue and eradicate them. I can’t fault the USC crews for that. For all they knew, the Kafarans had just willfully wiped out the entire population of a planet.

  “The rest—as they say—is history. Or was, up until six months ago. That’s when the intelligence reports started coming in that the Kafarans were rearming. It was decided that Second Earth was too close to Kafaran territory, and that they may suddenly decide to invade the defenseless planet and look for the same research. If the weapon fell into their hands, the destruction they could unleash would be catastrophic. I was ordered to Second Earth to try and recover anything from the Epsilon-6 program I could find. My mission was twofold: to find remnants of the research for the weapons system, and to locate a way to subvert its effects. I was only completely successful in one of those endeavors.

  “I’ve been covertly shuttling between Second Earth and the planet Corvan under the guise of a free trader for the last year, but I’ve spent the better half of the last three months here on Second Earth. It’s a lonely, desolate place, but I think I’ve finally found the information I was ordered to find. However, it leads me to believe there is one piece of the puzzle still left unsolved. Everything I’ve found points to the planet Corvan having the answers I need—the answers we all need. I just can’t believe, after all the time I spent there, that it was right under my nose the entire time.

  “Every single bit of research I’ve done, including copies of everything I’ve discovered so far, is encoded onto this disk. It’s encrypted, but I know you’ll know how to access it. In the event something happens to me before I can complete the puzzle…you will have to finish it for me. I’m sorry to lay this burden on you, sweetheart. But, if anyone can do this, I know it will be you. You are my one joy in this universe, and I hope to see you again very soon.”

  William quickly looked away from the screen, giving Shawn and Melissa the impression that something had startled him. He then fixed his eyes back to the camera and his voice became more hurried. “Shawn, if you’re there with her—and I pray to God that you are—please take care of her for me. She’s going to need you on this one, the same way I needed you during the war. Come through for her the way you did for me, the way I’ve always known you could. I was always proud of you…proud of both of you. We must see this through to its conclusion or we will all be doomed. I’m sure of it.”

  There was definitely a noise outside the view of the camera this time. It was a loud, banging noise, as if someone were trying to force his way into the admiral’s office. In the background, Shawn caught the faintest glimpse of something hanging just beyond the Admiral’s window.

  William stood from his chair, then withdrew a sidearm from some unseen location. A picture frame on the desktop toppled over as he quickly closed a drawer. “I have to go, but I’ll get this message to you somehow. I love you. Don’t forget that I will—” There was a final crashing noise, followed by a howling screech as the video turned to static before Shawn and Melissa’s eyes.

  Chapter 6

  Shawn and Melissa sat in marked silence, each staring at the blank monitor before them. Melissa watched as Shawn slowly stood up from his chair and walked over to the large view port that dominated the starboard wall of her quarters. The Rhea’s current orientation put Second Earth right below the ship’s starboard side, affording most of the crew an unobstructed view of the spinning blue-white world below.

  From his vantage point, Shawn could see a weather system moving in from the far east, and it gave him a moment’s concern because it looked as if it might turn into a full-fledged hurricane. He almost chuckled to himself at the thought, because there was no one left on the planet below to care about such things.

  His thoughts shifted to William Graves’ words from the video. He tried to process the information as best he could, but it seemed all too incredible for him to take in one swallow. He sighed heavily, then looked from the window to Melissa, sitting silently with her hands buried in her lap, and he knew her contemplations were no less muddled than his own. He turned his head back to the planet below for a fraction of an instant before he heard soft crying emanating from the other side of the room.

  He stepped quickly to Melissa’s side, kneeling down beside her chair and taking her hands in his. He had no idea where to begin to console her, and truth be told, he needed a little comfort himself. Luckily, Melissa was the first to speak.

  She looked into his eyes and brushed the side of his
rough face with her hand. “All those people…down there…” Her words trailed off as the water in her eyes began to cascade down her pale cheeks.

  Still holding her hands, Shawn effortlessly guided her to her feet, and then wrapped his arms around her yielding body. He held her tightly, experiencing his own sense of anger and frustration at the deaths of so many on the planet below.

  Melissa pulled her head back and Shawn searched her eyes, seeing that her makeup had streaked down her cheeks, creating paths like dry riverbeds in the summer heat.

  “Do you think…if the Kafarans hadn’t detonated the weapon, they would still have annihilated the population?” she asked, her voice wavering.

  It was a valid question; he’d already asked himself the same thing and had come up with the only answer he was currently equipped to give her. “I’m sure they would have, although there probably would have been survivors.”

  A fresh stream of tears began welling in her eyes, and she clutched her arms around him tightly. “Oh, my God, Shawn. We did this. Those people…those people are dead because of us.”

  In one way, she was very right. Yet, in another, he knew the big picture was even larger than the small glimpse they had been afforded. “No. We didn’t do this. The Kafarans did.”

  She shook her head, sniffling and fighting back another wave of sadness. In her mind it was easy to brush it aside and replace it with anger. “No. That’s a dodge, Shawn, and you know it! We built the weapon.”

  “They built the weapon, Melissa. The UCS did. The OSI did. Not us. We were just soldiers.” He knew his words were empty, and Melissa’s response only solidified his unbelief in them.

  She tightened her lips and swallowed hard. “It’s all the same…when it comes down to it. We are all cogs in the same machine.”

  Shawn shook his head derisively. “I don’t believe that.”

  She laughed, but not out of any humor she found in the commander’s statement; it was out of a loss she felt for the dead below. “What matters is that when descendants and family members of those poor souls on the planet come looking for answers, we’ll have a new truth to tell them. We will tell them it was a weapon designed by their own government that was responsible for the deaths of nearly four and a half million people.”