Revenant

by Raymond Bayly

  Blake stood looking at his crew, his crew. He smiled a little, they were his family now.

  Above all else, Blake would see them back here safe even if it meant sacrificing himself.

  He nodded not trusting himself to speak for fear his voice would crack, and then marched towards the large doors. When he got to them, he pushed them open allowing them to swing inwards where the two lizards caught them before they slammed against the wall.

  Blake heard the grunt; apparently, he had pushed them hard. “Alright, we are in, but we are going to need weapons and a damn ship.”

  He said standing akimbo in the doorway,

  Seafu smiled.

  “That can be arraigned, Captain.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTYSIX

  Joy Ride

  Six hours later Blake and crew found themselves standing in front of a triangular black beast. The ship looked even more massive standing under it,

  it was a beast alright, and he couldn’t help but smile thinking this was his new command.

  Joining the crew from the Nismel were another twelve new members made up of initiates who had spent the last month training on the systems.

  Most of the ship was automated allowing a minimal crew of eighteen to run her,

  Blake had already given his core crew officer duties, and from there some of the Jr crew members would be assigned to the departments they now headed.

  Blake didn’t know if he trusted the temple members being assigned,

  but they needed them to run the ship.

  Over the past few hours initiates had been busy loading her out. Davi had overseen the provisions and weapons storage.

  Shira had been familiarizing herself with the flight controls.

  Blake, thanks to Morgan knew his way around the ship as if he had been born on it, he to his own amazement fully understood the principals that ran the gravity and plasma drives as well as the power requirements and how the two dark matter generators worked.

  The ship was a marvel, to say the least,

  its power output was second to none in known space, and its ability to unleash death upon those they targeted was incredibly efficient.

  This was a machine of war,

  This is also what gave Blake pause if this was bringing balance and they were supposed to be peacekeepers,

  this group definitely took the Latin phrase

  “Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum,” roughly translated

  “If you want peace, prepare for war”

  to its fullest potential.

  What was this place and what were they up to?

  He had asked around and could not get a damn straight answer.

  But at least for this mission, they had outfitted the crew and given them a ship,

  his concerns would have to wait for another day,

  he had a home planet to save,

  no pressure he thought.

  Walking around the ship, he marveled at the size of the shuttle bay as he peeked into it,

  which currently held the Specter and three drop shuttles.

  As Blake made his way towards the entry elevator which had been wheeled over to outfit the ship and load the crew,

  the rumble of the gravity drives came to life as Davi began preflight on the engines.

  Seafu had come to see them off,

  he seemed to be the spokesperson for the council, which was good because had it been Foghorn, Blake might have tried out a little target practice on the egotistical bastard.

  Seafu was all smiles as he approached the Captain and crew.

  “Well Captain it seems that TU-112 is ready for your crew” he swept his hand outward to seemingly show off the ship.

  Blake winced, “That is not its name is it?”

  Seafu seemed confused

  “That is the designation it was given. Why?”

  Blake looked the ship up and down, and his mind returned to a thought he had had during his time on the Nismel.

  “We will call her Revenant,

  as this civilization is no longer,

  and now rises to exact a task and purpose.”

  Blake guessed that his people had a word for that as well.

  Seafu nodded thoughtfully

  “Very well Captain. We are unfamiliar with the managing and naming of fleet ships,

  except for what the machines have told us,

  but that will be very appropriate, the Revenant it is.”

  Not one to stand on ceremony Blake nodded and stared appreciatively at his new command.

  Well, his second command,

  after he blew up his first one,

  he grimaced at the thought.

  Unlike the Nismel where he had been a bit unsteady but well guided,

  he felt, surer of himself because of the knowledge available through Morgan,

  it bolstered his confidence, and from the response of the crew,

  it showed in their attitudes.

  “Alright, we have work to do people”

  Blake said ushering the members of his crew that were still outside into the elevator before it started up towards the hatch.

  He stopped before entering the ship,

  the elevator being moved away now and looked down to Seafu

  “If there is a way to stop them, we will”

  he yelled over the engines very sure of himself but not knowing if that would be enough.

  He had good intel from Seafu’s spies on the number and types of ships as well as detailed information on the marine detachments they had on board.

  He promised himself silently,

  that if a sacrifice had to be made to ensure success, it would be him,

  his crew had to make it back alive.

  Blake nodded at Seafu, then turned and entered the Ship as the large door began to close,

  entering the cargo bay, he was about to head towards the bridge when he noticed.

  Davi stowing boxes of items in the back of the cargo bay as well as Kree inventorying the contents onto a data-pad.

  Kree floated over on his chair

  “Captain, I took the liberty of cleaning out the data stores on the Nismel and transferred the cash,

  well minus my fee to the new ship,

  so she has some credits in her bank.”

  Blake nodded giving Kree a sideways glance “Your fee?” he asked just a little too laden with sarcasm. Kree nodded

  “Only 10%. Crew discount”

  and he floated away.

  Blake just nodded his head, it wouldn’t be long till Rom won that away from him in cards anyway. Kree could never walk away from a game.

  Blake walked through the cargo bay along the corridor that held the crew quarters.

  At the beginning of the long hallway,

  he found the officer’s area and at the start of that, the Captain’s quarters.

  Shira had moved into the XO quarters,

  and Rom had taken one of the officer billets as had Davi, Kree, and Xera.

  The junior officers were in the enlisted barracks, still well-equipped but definitely smaller than the ones in what he now referred to as officer country, which consisted of the state rooms one floor above the operations and bridge level.

  Plus, Blake thought it was best to keep the new people together, easier to watch them.

  Blake stopped into his new quarters and checked that what little he possessed,

  the items he had brought with him from Earth including his phone,

  which he was pretty sure didn’t get service out here, were stowed.

  He then made his way to the elevator that would take him to the center of the ship where the bridge was located.

  Being a warship, there were no windows;

  the critical areas were situated in the center of the ship, not along the outside.

  So, should they come under fire it would be harder to take out a needed area easily.

  Blake walked onto the bridge and whistled,

  alo
ng the front area of the bridge stood seven 90-inch screens.

  The bridge itself was not flat but staggered,

  starting at the top with the captain’s chair,

  then coming lower to the sensors and weapons.

  The next tier was communication and navigation with ship control and steering at the front.

  The monitors were showing a real-time view of the bay using some sort of camera technology along the hull.

  He could see the people scurrying out of the way as the announcement of the launch of the ship went out over the general station wide com network.

  Blake walked over to the com station and clicked the internal speaker switch

  “All crew finalize preparation and then report to the bridge for takeoff.”

  He closed the connection and then went back to the captain’s chair.

  While he waited, he had Morgan walk him through the various tactical and real-time views available from the captain’s chair console located on the right-hand rest.

  From here he had views all over the interior and exterior of the ship as well as trimmed down versions of the tactical and navigation maps. Within a few minutes Davi, Xera, Kree, Rom and Shira made their way to the bridge and took their respective spots.

  Shira at the pilot’s station, Rom at tactical, Davi at sensors and engineering, Xera at navigation and Kree at communications.

  They all had familiarized themselves with their stations in the last Six hours,

  so they at least had a working knowledge of them. Blake with the help of Morgan, training each.

  They were competent and would get better during the trip, this Blake knew.

  “Alright, prep for take-off, Kree get ahold of the tower and let’s get clearance. Xera did the tower transmit coordinates and the fleet location?” The newly minted captain asked.

  Xera punched them up on her console.

  “Yes Captain, we have a route that will allow us to beat the fleet to the planet by five hours”

  She said setting in the coordinates,

  “It will be four days of slip travel and then one day of in system travel and docking”

  She finished verbally confirming the information as it came up on her screen.

  “Alright, let's kick the tires people,”

  Blake said loud enough for everyone to hear.

  Kree finished getting clearance as Shira fired the engines up.

  Outside the ship, beings gave a clear berth to the great black beast as she began to roar to life.

  The gravity drives cycled up and the dull red becoming a bright crimson as the great sleeping beast awoke and prepared to hunt.

  The ship seemed to growl as the engines gained the power to lift the ship off of the planet rising from the ground, it stalked forward like a jungle cat making its way towards the bay opening.

  The ship barely cleared the top and bottom of the doorway creeping slowly forward to reach open space.

  As she cleared the berth, the ship accelerated and quickly cleared the dock and rocketed into the planet’s atmosphere.

  Once she had cleared the atmosphere,

  the drives lights faded.

  As the gravity drive took over,

  The ship shot out at an incredible rate of speed making for the edge of the reality bubble,

  Blake could make out the edge of the bubble as it collided with slip space.

  He was still in awe of the accomplishment of this race of beings.

  A buzz on his chair broke his reverie.

  They were one hour out from the edge of the bubble. Blake looked again.

  “Xera is this correct, it took us longer to get here than that?” Blake said turning an inquisitive look in her direction.

  Xera checked her readings.

  “Yes Captain, apparently this ship,

  even with its large mass is significantly faster than the Specter or the Nismel.”

  Blake whistled seemed they had traded a Ford for a Ferrari.

  Xera plotted in the course, and as it registered at the pilot’s station,

  Shira began to make adjustments pointing the ship towards there exit point and entering in the flight numbers.

  “Course laid in, Captain,” Shira said and set the autopilot.

  The ship rocketed out of the bubble and into slip space but not before a message was received from the planet.

  Seafu was larger than life on the screen in front of him.

  “Captain, I know the odds may seem against you, but we are getting more crews to ship’s as we speak.

  They will be less than a day behind you.

  Stay strong Captain help will be coming.”

  Seafu nodded, and the screen clicked off.

  “Well, I feel better already, just hold off the entire fleet for a day, shit might as well call this a Starbucks run,” Blake said shaking his head at the empty black screen.

  And then the ship slid into slip space, towards there waiting enemy.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTYSEVEN

  Ends Ville

  Blake awoke in his cabin on the second day to a beeping coming from the wall.

  As he looked, he could see the Holo-screen standing out, it was blinking a green circle, meaning someone was trying to get ahold of him.

  Sighing Blake put down the tablet and pulled himself out of bed he walked over to the unit hitting the button and speaking.

  “This is the captain,”

  He said to the console

  “captain, can I have a moment of your time,”

  Rom said his upper body looming out of the console.

  Aside from training, Blake didn’t have a whole lot to do. Except for paperwork, apparently Seafu had loaded his computer down with forms that needed filled out, assessments to do and policies to read.

  When the hell had the little guy had the time to come up with this crap he thought,

  It seemed bureaucracy was the same galaxy wide.

  “Alright, looks like you’re on the bridge I will be up in a couple.” He said,

  thankful for any excuse not to have to attack his mountain of paperwork.

  Blake wandered onto the bridge freshly showered with a cup of something that approximated coffee, looking around the bridge he noticed all seven screens taken up by some kind of simulation that Rom was running.

  “What’s this all about?” Blake said stepping over to the large Doxvern.

  Rom’s hands went over the console as he reset the simulation.

  “Captain we will be going up against 250 battle-hardened veteran soldiers, who will be in full body armor, I have been running simulations including the changes to our bodies as variables to see how they would play out.”

  Rom shook his head “It’s not good,

  even with the augmentations to our bodies and our weapons,

  both from Davi and from the planet.

  We are going to get overwhelmed,

  the overwhelming force will be victorious”

  he kept looking at the console as he said it.

  Blake stared at the screen as he watched the virtual battle. He could see the black dots of himself and Rom as they waded into the red dots of soldiers, killing as they went.

  The black dots were tearing through soldiers,

  and then Blake saw at which point the number of soldiers overwhelmed the two dots and were taken down.

  The simulation ended.

  He hung his head.

  “Do we know the land layout of where the temple is?” Blake asked. Rom hung his head and nodded. “The terrain layout I received from Xera on the last geological and mapping scan they did.”

  Blake nodded and walked around the console to look,

  to really look at the screen.

  Morgan came awake assessing the screen and whispering in Blake’s mind.

  Blake’s eyes glazed over as he seemed to be mumbling to himself.

  Rom knew what it was, he was talking to Morgan, but it was still unsettling
, hell almost as disturbing as the new eyes.

  The Chrome eyes freaked Rom out a little,

  though he would never admit it to anyone.

  He liked the captain. He liked the crew.

  Truth be told Rom had not had a home since his planet was destroyed,

  and it was nice, to belong again,

  and he didn’t want anything to threaten that.

  He was worried if he found this machine was compromising Blake in any way,

  he would rip it out himself.

  Blake stared at the screen, the whispers from Morgan rolling through his head.

  “Rom, can you do me a favor and simulate blowing this hill and this one,”

  Blake said pointing at the screen.

  Rom cocked his head and looked at the screen. “What about this one and this one,

  thus, setting up a killing alley and limiting the access the troops have.

  If we can limit them to 5 abreast, we would last longer”

  Rom said scrutinizing the geography.

  Blake nodded

  “Let’s try it,” he said. Rom went to work,

  and a few minutes later the simulation started Again, Blake saw the black dots as they proceeded towards the two smaller entrances and as the red dots came into the killing zone the restricted passage causing the red dots to bunch up and come through the pass slower than before.

  As the battle progressed Blake could still see that though they lasted longer,

  they still could not defeat the overwhelming force. He sat looking at the screen thoughtfully,

  Rom poured over the data.

  “Captain no matter what we do we can’t defeat that large an army” he looked defeated.

  “Rom where is Shira right now?”

  Blake asked that distant look back in his silvery eyes again.

  Xera sat in meditation in her room,

  she had been distracted as of late.

  She had studied for years about the machines,