by JD Clarke
“You didn’t have to suit up, you know,” I told him, referring to his armor. Dena had designed new uniforms for us just for this occasion. They were simple dark blue tailored jumpsuits with silver piping and our names embossed over the breast pockets. They looked sharp. Dena, Sasha, Mako, Jackson, Noomi, and I each wore one. Sybil and Claire each wore a high-gloss hard-shell suit that enhanced their figures. I think it was Mako’s preferred outfit for them. Sybil preferred white and blue, while Claire liked the red-and-white version.
“I have learned it is wise to be prepared whenever encountering a strange world.”
“Well, Legion, it is our home world, but you’re right.”
“It is just another gas planet. There is nothing extraordinary about it.” Claire was unimpressed. “It is not even the largest.”
“But it is our system, Claire. It’s a familiar and welcome sight to us,” Dena explained.
“Perhaps.” Claire turned and left the bridge.
As the bridge door closed behind her, I asked Mako, “What is wrong with Claire?”
“She is no longer involved with Mako,” Sybil answered.
“I’m afraid she did not take it very well. I told her there would be many men on Earth that she could probably have her pick,” Mako explained.
“She’s probably feeling like the odd man out,” Jackson added as he stood next to Noomi.
Dena stood next to me. “I wish I could see it more closely. I’d love to make a pass by each of Jupiter’s moons.” She gave my hand a squeeze.
“We could take one of the runabouts. We could circle the planet and make a pass over each of the moons. Would you like that?”
“Oh, Jason, I would love it.”
“Mako, the bridge is yours. Sybil, let me know the instant we establish contact with Earth.” Dena I began walking off the bridge. Her hand felt good in mine.
“Yes, Commander, although I must point out, I find it curious that we have detected no emissions from Earth. It appears strangely silent.”
“We’ll know more soon, Sybil. Keep trying.”
Dena and I walked down to the tram and began our high-speed hop to the hangar bay. She reached up and gave me a kiss and held me tight.
“Oh, Jason, I can hardly believe we are here. It has been so long since we have seen home. I wondered if we would ever see it again.”
“It has been quite an adventure. I’m glad to be home as well.”
“What will you do now that we are back? Will you stay on board as the captain of the Defiant?”
“I always assumed I would go back to my normal life on Earth. But that’s impossible. They will want me to advise them on the Unity and on the capabilities of the mother ship. Then there’s Legion to consider. He won’t be comfortable around humans for a while. No, I guess I’ll find a position in which I can help prepare Earth to defend itself against the Unity. Maybe I’ll stay on board the Defiant.”
The tram stopped, and we passed through the hatchway and air locks that led to the hangar bay. I always marveled at the size of the hangar. It was one of the largest open areas inside the Defiant. The warships and runabouts neatly lined up in military precision always looked so clean and neat. The sergeant had always insisted on neat, orderly rows. The warships were organized by squadron. The runabouts were spaced in front of their respective warships, ready to loaded aboard if needed.
“Where’s the Tempest?” asked Dena.
She was right; the Tempest was missing. “Mako, do you have the Tempest on your sensors?”
“Yes, of course, Jason. Did you and Dena decide to take a warship instead of a runabout?”
“No, we didn’t. We’re still in the hangar bay, Mako. The Tempest is gone.” Claire was the only one not accounted for. “Oh shit, Mako, tell me about Claire. Was she upset?”
“Yes, but not violent or threatening. She merely pointed out the advantages in having an exclusive relationship between me and her instead of Sybil. She was very logical in her argument and her demeanor. No theatrics at all.”
I was about to tell him that the theatrics may be about to begin when the Defiant was rocked with a heavy vibration. I had felt that type of vibration before.
“Jason, the Tempest is firing on the Defiant. The midsection of the ship has been hit.”
“The midsection, between the third and fourth rings, is the thinnest and weakest part of the ship, Commander,” Sybil added her assessment.
“I know.” I turned to Dena. “You take the Inferno. I’ll take the Cyclone. She’ll spot us on her sensors as soon as we leave the hangar, so be ready. I’ll go out first and try to decoy her away from the Defiant. You come out when I give you the order and get behind her. Shoot to kill, Dena. Her superior reflexes will give her the advantage.”
“Be careful, Jason.” She was already running toward her warship.
Inside the Cyclone, I prepped the ship and warmed up the weapons systems. I wanted everything ready as soon as I popped out of the hangar bay. I checked to make sure Dena was buttoned up before I gave the order to the hangar bay doors to open. I wished I had a gunner. I would have to do both navigation and gunnery, and so would Dena, but it was better to have two warships on the attack than one.
The lights in the hangar bay flickered as I streaked out, pulled a hard left bank, and began searching my instruments for Claire’s warship. It was closing in to the Defiant, still firing its plasma cannon. As soon as I spotted her, she turned her ship toward me and fired off a shot, then ducked under the Defiant and disappeared from view. I dodged and maneuvered away from the blue ball of plasma that came my way but had no time to get off a shot of my own. I swung out farther from the mother ship, giving me a better view, and began circling, searching for Claire.
I got a glimpse of her still firing on the Defiant, but she slipped around again, keeping the Defiant between us. “It’s no good, Dena. She’s not taking the bait. She’s staying in close to the Defiant. It’s like chasing a squirrel around a tree. Come out and form up with me. We’ll have to circle in different directions to get a shot at her.”
“That will separate us. We’ll lose our numerical advantage.” Dena pulled her ship alongside mine.
“We’ve no choice. We’re playing her game now. You go left. I’ll go right. Stay in close to the ship. Don’t give her an easy target.”
“Right, Jason, you be careful as well.”
As we split up, I could see the Defiant begin to buckle in the middle. Shock waves rippled through the hull as Claire continued battering the mother ship.
“We’ve lost power on the bridge, Jason. Instruments are down, emergency lighting only and no navigational ability,” Mako reported.
Just then, I caught sight of Claire’s warship. I snapped off a quick shot with my particle cannons, but they merely grazed the side of her shielding before she was gone from sight again.
“I have her, Jason, firing now.” Dena’s voice was full of excitement.
I reversed and dodged around a support to come around in front of where I expected Claire to be but saw only empty space. Then I felt a heavy hit on my warship’s stern quarter at the same time my sensors showed Claire behind me. I ducked in closer to the Defiant and swung around below the massive mother ship, dodging left and then changing course to circle round again.
“Jason, the Defiant is breaking up. She’s splitting in two,” Dena reported.
“We’ve lost all power on the bridge. Zero gravity, and the doors don’t respond,” Mako reported.
“Get off the bridge, Mako. Legion, get everyone off the bridge. Blast the doors open if you have to, but get everybody out.”
As if Claire had read my mind, I could see her ship on my sensors headed toward the bow of the Defiant. I quickly changed course to give chase.
“I got her, Jason, closing in, firing.” Dena’s ship was now on my sensors as well. I circled right to get a visual on both warships and help with the attack on Claire. Dena’s shot struck Claire’s warship along the right-side a
ft quarter. Only Claire’s last-minute maneuver prevented the ball of energy from making a direct hit on the warship. As it was, it ripped across side, shredding shielding from its attachment and leaving the hull exposed.
Then Claire’s warship pivoted on its axis; the plasma weapon was already charged, and a massive blue ball of death leapt from its forward cannon directly at Dena. The Inferno charged directly into the shot with no time for Dena to react and maneuver. Fragments of the forward half of Dena’s ship flew in all directions as the energy chewed through shielding and hull, exploding inside of the nose and cockpit. I maneuvered behind the burning hulk, keeping it between me and Claire.
On the sensors, I saw Claire launch an attack on the bridge of the Defiant. Another plasma discharge leapt from the Tempest and exploded into the nose of the Defiant. But Claire had miscalculated; she expected me to swing around the damaged Inferno in my attack on her. Instead, I plowed right through the debris and the smoking hulk, losing shielding and outer sensor arrays as I bulldozed the smoking dead warship out of the way. It bought me the time I needed to fire on Claire before she could turn from her attack on the Defiant. My plasma cannon released its destruction. Claire dodged her ship and only caught a small part of the destructive force of the plasma, but it left her right side turned toward me, and I had already begun firing my plasma cannons. With their high cyclic rate of fire, a thousand explosive-tipped projectiles tore into the side of her warship. I knew the Tempest as well I knew my own body, and I knew that inside the mighty warship, the bullets were striking the missile hangars and ammunition compartments.
The Tempest erupted with a huge ball of yellow and red flames as the missiles exploded inside the ship. I recharged and fired the plasma weapon at point-blank range. Nothing inside the Tempest would survive. Nothing was left, only unidentifiable pieces of scrap flying through space.
I turned and looked back at what was left of Dena’s warship. I did not even try calling out to her. She was gone. Strangely, I felt nothing—no sense of victory, no sense of loss. I was as empty as the hull that drifted before me. I looked at the Defiant, now two separate sections drifting through space as well. It was as dark as the space surrounding it.
“Mako, Legion, report. Anyone, are you alive?” I queried the crew.
“We are in the crew’s quarters with the hatches closed, Commander, all except Noomi. She was lost when she threw one of the young female warriors inside the hallway and slammed the hatch closed. A burst of plasma boiled up the companionway and engulfed her.” Sybil’s report lacked emotion and mirrored my own state of being.
“She sacrificed herself to save the young warrior,” Legion interjected.
“We have limited oxygen in here, Jason. We’ll need to get to the warships on the hangar bay,” Mako said. “We’ve already started suiting up, Sasha and I.”
“OK, make your way to the bridge. I’ll open the rear hatch on my warship and get as close as possible. You’ll have to jump for it.” I paused before continuing, not knowing how it would come out. “Dena is gone. Her ship was destroyed.” There was only silence.
Encounter
Sybil and Jackson were with me in the Cyclone. Mako and Sasha were in the warship Tsunami. Legion and his three Warriors were in the Typhoon. We were orbiting the Defiant, surveying the damage as she continued to hurl toward the center of the solar system. Each half of the great ship was slowly drifting away from each other, perhaps three hundred yards apart now.
“The ship will miss Earth and continue on around the sun, where it will slowly spiral into the sun’s gravity well and be destroyed.” Sybil’s evaluation of the Defiant’s trajectory was not encouraging. At least it would not plummet into Earth and destroy whatever civilization was there. The thought of our being the cause of Earth’s destruction after all this made me shudder.
“We have company,” Mako announced.
I looked at our sensors aboard the Cyclone. Seven small dots were approaching from the direction of Earth. “I guess we got someone’s attention.”
“They are moving at one-quarter the speed of light. They will intercept us in approximately seventy-four minutes if their speed remains constant,” Sybil reported to me.
“Then we have time to look over the Defiant to see what can be done. Keep monitoring for—”
“Commander, I am receiving a message via a low-wattage laser beam,” Sybil interrupted. “The ship’s commanding officer is demanding to know our identity and intentions.”
“Transmit this to him: ‘I am Commander Jason Hauptman of the space shuttle Atlantis. My team and I are returning from our mission in 2012. We have brought back valuable technology and information regarding alien threats to our civilization. We will rendezvous with you in seventy-six minutes. Be prepared to welcome me aboard your ship as ours has been disabled,’” I told her. “That should give them something to think over.”
“They will be very confused by your reference unless they are up on their history,” Mako joked.
“Are the engines still operational on the Defiant, Mako?” I ignored his remark and tried to get back to the business at hand, saving the Defiant.
“Yes, I think so. They do not appear to be too badly damaged, but all the controls are in the forward section of the ship. Even the auxiliary control bridge is forward of where the break occurred. Claire knew what she was doing.”
“Can we utilize the control room above the hangar bay? I know it’s not tied to the engines, but the instrumentation is there to monitor the ship and control the ingress and egress of ships.” Jackson was thinking along the same lines I was.
“All necessary navigational information is fed there from the external sensors as well,” Sybil added.
“We might be able to reroute engine control to the hangar bay control room. If the aft section still has some power.” Mako was already planning. I could feel it in his voice.
“What about the forward section?” Legion asked.
“Well, the Defiant has its own repair capabilities. This will be a good test to see just how well they work. If we can maneuver the two halves together and secure them, perhaps we can get the ship to repair itself.” I was probably being too optimistic, but there was nothing to lose.
“We’ll have to use the warships as tugs to position the forward section. It could be tricky, and there is the possibility of damage to the warships,” Mako said.
“Jackson, are you up for a little zero-g walk? I need you to go aboard the Defiant and assess the damage to the engines firsthand. Restore power if you can, and then we’ll have a look at the forward section.”
“I’m on it, Jason.”
“I would like to go aboard and retrieve my holographic processor unit, Commander. I could go aboard the forward section and survey the damage as I do so.”
“OK, Sybil, but be back before we rendezvous with those seven ships. I want you with me when we go aboard to meet them.”
“Yes, Commander.” Sybil wasted no time guiding the Cyclone over to an opening in the bridge, where she was able to board the Defiant’s forward section. I took the time to reflect on how I would answer the coming questions.
The seven ships from Earth were larger than our warships. They were a sleeker design, probably as a result of material conservation rather than eye appeal or aerodynamics. From a sharp-pointed nose, they took an overall wedge shape. I was reminded of the paper airplanes I used to fold and fly as a child; these were of course more complex. Their polished metal skins, broken only by their call numbers and military insignia, gave the ships a clean look. They also had no shielding, obviously not designed for the type of war we had been fighting. Each ship looked as though it could house perhaps one hundred people. Sybil and I went aboard the lead ship by backing our warship’s rear hatch up to the Earth ship’s air lock and making a quick step through the vacuum of space. I was of course in my light armor. Sybil was exposed. I am sure they were very impressed.
As we entered the Earth ship, we were met by two row
s of military officers on either side of the hallway with an armed guard at the end of each row. Their uniforms were unfamiliar to me, but not unlike the naval uniforms of the twentieth century—blue with touches of silver, gold and medals. At the end of the row stood a distinguished officer with gold braid and a chest full of medals, unmistakably the senior officer. His slightly grey hair and stern eyes gave him an air of authority. He showed no signs of surprise by Sybil’s lack of a protective suit.
I removed my helmet and handed it to Sybil, who stood on my left. I strode forward as it seemed unlikely the “captain” was going to come to me. “I’m Jason Hauptman, commanding officer of the Defiant. The space shuttle Atlantis was lost some time ago, as was most of her original crew.” I made no move to shake hands. I’d let him make the next gesture of goodwill.