Origins: A Greater Good

by Mark Henrikson

  Three entire sector fleets totaling over three thousand ships entered the system within pointblank firing range of the Alpha asteroid field and ships. Valnor believed with all his heart that the alteration would allow the superior Novi firepower to finish the Alpha off and carry the day, but he was very mistaken with his estimation.

  The Novi formation seemed to implode as thousands of concussion bombs launched from the nearby asteroids hit their mark before the Novi could gain their bearings. This initial barrage devastated the Novi’s heavy hitting craft that were supposed to be protected by the outer layer of ships.

  Before Valnor could even think the word ‘retreat’, the Alpha’s restriction field came alive once more to trap the Novi ships in their vulnerable spot. Even with the extra firepower and fighting a stunned and disorganized enemy, the Alpha sustained devastating losses.

  Hastelloy took the opportunity to navigate his massive ship into the fray. Instead of aiding the Novi effort by firing on the Alpha, the Thorin class battle cruiser’s unmatched compliment of weaponry began firing on the Novi vessels. All of this was done on Hastelloy’s orders. The gunner crews and torpedo loaders had no clue what the central computer was targeting. They just went about their task trusting the command bridge would employ their toils and labor for good use.

  In the end, ninety percent of the Alpha ships were annihilated in the engagement, while the remaining ships were left battered and limping along with limited mobility. The heavy losses were not for nothing however. The Novi collector ships found themselves trapped right along with the fleets they supported and the Alpha destroyed all three in the end. It was an unparalleled victory for the Alpha and a defeat on a scale never seen nor contemplated for the Novi.

  If Valnor had control of his body at that moment, he would have crumpled to the floor in a wailing heap of sorrow and despair, driven by an all-consuming sense of betrayal. There must have been fifty million Novi lives lost when the collector class vessels exploded, and it was all Hastelloy’s doing. He may not have fired the guns, but he set the strategy that allowed the Alpha to prevail.

  A third wave of Novi ships arrived minutes later. This time nearly a thousand ships brimming with an insatiable need to avenge their fallen brothers held back and began methodically pummeling the outer defenses. The long-range weaponry aboard the Onager class ships raked away the defenses with relative ease. The Alpha had no reply.

  Their fleet was decimated, and the Onager’s were well protected by a deep perimeter of support ships. What few Alpha craft remained would be destroyed before they could even reach the inner lines. The eventual outcome of the battle was now inevitable; that is, of course, unless Captain Hastelloy was involved.

  “Follow my lead,” Hastelloy ordered the Alpha leadership, which complied without issue since they were out of options.

  Chapter 27: The Fall of Giants

  Hastelloy dashed across the bridge and took a seat in front of Valnor at his navigation workstation. There the captain proceeded to maneuver the ship’s orientation so that the diamond shaped underside faced the opposing fleet. It must have looked to the Novi like a five-mile long, two-mile wide wall of destructive force took aim at them. The amount of firepower it posed would be tough to withstand, but on the plus side, it would be almost impossible for their gunners to miss their mark with that large of a target.

  Every remaining Alpha ship formed up directly behind the Thorin class cruiser. Their ships would be unable to fire from their sheltered position, but in the same vein, they would not sustain any weapons fire on the voyage in either. It became all too apparent to Valnor that the captain intended to use his ship as a battering ram to deliver the remaining Alpha ships into weapons range.

  While the maneuvers took place, Valnor tried to evaluate Captain Hastelloy’s state of mind. From his immobilized position, Valnor had a profile view of the captain looking down at his superior seated in his workstation. Valnor looked for lines of strain or regret around Hastelloy’s eyes. He looked for hesitation in his movements as well, but neither were present. All he saw was a man bent on giving his enemy all the fight they could handle. Captain Hastelloy was fully committed and engaged in the fight against his own people, and he was intent on winning that fight at any cost.

  Hastelloy set his heading, engaged the ion engines to plunge the formation headlong into the formidable Novi line, and then raced across the bridge to handle the weapons targeting. On the display Valnor watched the darkness of space in front of the giant ship came alive with weapons fire. Every weapon along the ship’s five-mile long underside was firing at will with remarkably good effect.

  The captain was just one man, but along with the preprogramming he set into the central computer, he was dealing the Novi fleet a lot of harm. Hastelloy managed to adjust targeting almost instantly to enemy vessels being destroyed, as well as compensating for the loss of his own weapons systems from the massive amounts of damage his ship sustained as it barreled through the Novi line.

  Once through the outer layer of defenses, Hastelloy dashed over to his command chair to issue his orders in the Alpha language to their ships seeking cover behind the Thorin class cruiser. “Engage, now. Follow the targeting of your lead ship and take them out one at a time.”

  Valnor watched the various Alpha vessels jump out from behind their cover. Above, below, left and right they came out and swarmed the Novi as if the Thorin class cruiser were a recently disturbed beehive. The Alpha engaged their opponents in clusters of five ships. The overwhelmed Novi ships did their best to hold the line and continue protecting the vulnerable Onagers, but they were vanishing from the screen at an alarming rate.

  After a short period of hectic confusion, the tide of battle seemed to flow in the Novi’s direction once more. They became better organized, and Hastelloy’s ship sustained crippling damage to the underside. The long voyage into the Novi line had taken its toll on the ship. Nearly all of the weapons and engines facing the Novi were incapacitated.

  Captain Hastelloy once again raced over to the navigation post. He tapped in a maneuver sequence that rolled the gigantic ship completely over so that the fresh and undamaged top side of the vessel faced the enemy.

  While the ship’s thrusters did their work, Hastelloy rushed back to the weapons station and resumed managing the targeting. The renewed barrage of weapons fire from the undamaged side of the ship sank any hope of Novi victory. The Thorin class cruiser took over the duty of handling the defensive ships while the Alpha vessels tore the Onagers to shreds. The only Novi craft to escape the third wave of attack was the collector ship.

  Never in his entire existence had Valnor bore anyone this level of malice, not even Tomal in his worst moments. He wanted nothing more at that moment than to control a free swinging hand with a knife in it to stab his captain in the back as Hastelloy orchestrated the destruction of nearly six thousand Novi vessels. Valnor could not be certain, but that had to represent the bulk of the Novi Republic’s entire fighting fleet.

  The only upside was the fact that the Alpha’s fleet was no more, their ring of armed asteroid defenses was now decimated, and Captain Hastelloy’s ship was adrift in space without propulsion or weapons. One more push from the Novi and the battle would be over. The question was, how much more firepower did the Novi have left? When the answer to that question came, it would have brought a broad grin to his face had he been able to control any of those muscles.

  Five hundred Novi ships arrived in the system. These were not top of the line battle cruisers, but they did not need to be. The hard fighting was over and the lightly armed vessels floated right on through the Alpha defenses. Random shots were fired here and there, but those pockets of resistance were quickly stamped out. Numerous tiny, unarmed shuttles attempted to lift off from the thirty inhabited moons, but all were chased down and destroyed by the Novi ships. There was nothing left for the Alpha to do now except discuss terms for surrender.

  For his part, Hastelloy staggered over to his command c
hair and collapsed into the seat with a body and soul exhausted beyond all measure. There were no more tricks to deploy, no strategic miracles to conjure, nor any contingency plans available. Everything the great man had at his disposal was spent, and it was still not enough. Not this time. It may have taken the whole of the Novi Republic’s space fleet to do it, but Captain Hastelloy was beaten.

  If Valnor were a religious man like Tonwen, he would have praised the heavens. Not only was Captain Hastelloy’s violent rebellion against his own people at an end, but the Alpha were in effect neutered in the process. Their last remaining stronghold stood eviscerated. All that remained were nearly one billion Alpha inhabitants in this system who were now isolated and defenseless. For all intents and purposes, they were now imprisoned in a far-flung system where the contagion of their aggressive and primal instincts could be contained. He had to believe that the Novi Republic he served would now see to that imprisonment.

  Valnor’s sense of elation with the Novi victory soon morphed into despair. He watched onscreen in gut-wrenching horror as a cluster of Novi ships methodically moved from one moon to the next. They arrived in orbit above the defenseless inhabitants, took their time maneuvering into evenly spaced positions around the sphere, and then did the unthinkable.

  Without the slightest threat posed to them, each of the Novi ships let loose a particle beam that bore its way into the moon’s central core. There the hundred energy beams met and coalesced into a fireball that blasted apart the moon from the inside out. Every living creature from a seven foot tall Alpha down to a single-cell bacterium met its end in that combustible moment.

  This process repeated itself over and over throughout the system until every living creature residing on the multitude of moons was no more. The Alpha no longer existed, and Valnor was sick down to his shoes just thinking about it. Containment would have sufficed. This eradication had nothing to do with self-defense or preservation. It was revenge, it was genocide, and it was evil in every measure of the word.

  Valnor’s eyes fell upon the captain once more with conflicting emotions that were playing a lively game of racket ball inside his mind. Captain Hastelloy turned on his own people and killed millions of them in the effort, but was he right to do it? What sort of people murdered a billion beings who, for all their faults, were utterly helpless when they met their end? Was the captain right to oppose this new Novi Republic? Were they now the true enemy?

  Valnor decided that there was no right answer. Not all Novi, probably not even the majority, agreed with the Republic’s leadership. The ones in power were the enemy and thus became Hastelloy’s enemy. Should they be Valnor’s enemy as well?

  Valnor had no time to contemplate the last question in his mind. With their grizzly business completed, the Novi fleet turned its attention to Hastelloy’s Thorin class vessel. Hundreds of cone-shaped assault craft left the larger ships and dove nose first into the ship’s outer hull to deliver their assault teams.

  “All hands, this is the captain speaking. We are being boarded. These are our Novi brothers. There is to be no resistance offered. Captain Hastelloy out.”

  Moments later the lights dimmed and then went out, leaving the bridge in complete darkness for a moment; the boarding party had cut the ship’s central power grid. When the emergency lights turned on to cast the bridge in a devilish red hue, Valnor noticed the blue paralysis beam holding him in place flicker and ultimately cease.

  Valnor instantly felt control of his body return to him. He staggered forward before catching himself and turned to the captain, as did Gallono and Tonwen. No words were spoken, nor could they have been in that moment. The captain was betrayed by his crew; betrayed by men who remained loyal to him through thick and thin for hundreds of lifetimes. Hastelloy betrayed the crew by allying with the Alpha against the Novi Republic, even if it was with good intentions. Words could do none of it any justice.

  While the four Lazarus crewmembers held each other’s gaze, a dozen armed Novi troopers stormed the bridge. Every single wave blaster in the room found its aim on the captain.

  “Captain Hastelloy, you are under arrest,” a high-pitched voice declared in the most commanding tone the individual could manage.

  The captain gave no resistance as four beings half his size placed a set of binding cuffs over his wrists and ankles. They shuffled the captain toward the elevator. When the lift carriage arrived, a Novi wearing an admiral’s uniform blocked his path to declare, “You are going to burn for this treason, and I will make every effort to ensure I am the one who starts the fire.”

  “I see murdering a billion helpless creatures living on those moons was not enough death for you today, and you still have the nerve to wonder why I rebelled?” Hastelloy commented as he slipped past the admiral and vanished behind the closed doors.

  “Ensign Valnor,” the admiral exclaimed as if Captain Hastelloy had not said a word. “The Republic owes you a debt of gratitude that may never be repaid. You’ve returned those lives thought lost from the Fifth Fleet. You led us to the last stronghold of the Alpha, and you were instrumental in apprehending the Republic’s most wanted criminal. You are to be commended for your gallantry.”

  Chapter 28: Hero Worship

  Hastelloy took a moment to look around the courtroom audience arrayed across the stadium seating as Valnor wrapped up his testimony. Every set of eyes in the cavernous chamber stared him down with murderous intent behind them; they wanted to string him high right on the spot. There was not even a speck of sympathy or thought paid to the morality of the Novi Republic’s actions in the aftermath of the great battle. A billion life forms eradicated, and everyone in the courtroom was just fine with it.

  This was expected of course. Only the firebrand war hawks gained admittance inside to witness these proceedings. Chancellor Malum and the council needed to convey a sense of unity behind their actions. Allowing moderate viewpoints into the show trial would have wasted a perfectly good propaganda opportunity.

  “Thank you Captain Valnor for you testimony,” the magistrate said after Valnor concluded his statements. “I shall attempt to paraphrase what I heard and please correct me if I mistook any of your meaning.”

  “You arrived in orbit around that planet with no idea that it was an Alpha stronghold.” An affirmative nod from Valnor let the magistrate continue, “Once you realized the Alpha were present, you proposed a way to both escape the predicament and inform the Novi council of the Alpha’s location.”

  “That is correct,” Valnor confirmed.

  “The captain disregarded your proposed course of action and engaged in negotiations with the Alpha to turn over technology that would have allowed our greatest enemy to interfere with our Nexus device technology. When you realized this, you carried out your plan of action without orders.”

  “That is also correct.”

  “From that point on, you and the rest of the bridge crew were immobilized. Everything that occurred during the battle against the Novi fleet happened by Captain Hastelloy’s doing…alone,” the magistrate said with careful choice of wording.

  “That is correct,” Valnor affirmed.

  Chancellor Malum took the opportunity to chime in. “I would like it also noted for the record that this testimony is consistent with the written statements of Commander Gallono and Lieutenant Tonwen. All three acknowledge that they were immobilized while Captain Hastelloy orchestrated his egregious act of treason.”

  “It is so noted,” the magistrate confirmed and turned his head to look at Hastelloy. “Do you dispute anything that Captain Valnor has said here today?”

  “No I do not. I acted alone while in the Alpha system. My crew were helpless bystanders once they defied my orders and sent the message buoys,” Hastelloy answered.

  “Do you have any questions you’d like to ask before the witness is excused?”

  “Yes, I have a few questions. Captain Valnor, do you agree with the Novi council’s decision to attack Earth?”

  “No.
”

  “Did you agree with the Novi fleet’s actions in the Alpha system where, after the battle was won, they proceeded to destroy all thirty inhabited moons and end the lives of nearly a billion Alpha?”

  “No, I most certainly did not,” Valnor stated with conviction. “The battle was won; the Alpha had no means of escape. A token fleet could have remained in the system to make sure the Alpha never again ventured out into space to harass the Novi or any other species.”

  The entire Novi Republic was watching and Chancellor Malum did not intend to have his dirty laundry aired for all to see. Their narrative was that the Alpha were finally defeated, and it was the grandest of Novi victories. The ugly matter of how that victory was accomplished did not play well to the public, so he moved to shut it down.

  “This is all out of order,” the Chancellor declared. “We are here to decide innocence or guilt, not debate well thought out and long debated government policy.”

  “Your point is well made,” the magistrate said. “Do you have any questions for the witness that are relevant to the specific charges of this case?”

  “No.”

  With that answer, the magistrate rotated his gaze to look upon Valnor once more. “Well then, Captain Valnor, on behalf of the entire Republic I would like to extend to you my most profound gratitude for your loyal service. The Nexus device of the Fifth Fleet is home safely as a result of your tireless effort though the ages. That alone would be worthy of admiration from every Novi citizen, but you were also instrumental in the final defeat of the Alpha. I can think of no one else to have ever existed who has done more for his people. I salute you, sir.”

  A faint smile grew across Hastelloy’s lips as a standing ovation erupted from the audience in recognition of Valnor’s heroism. The cause was twofold: pride in the fine officer Valnor had turned out to be, and amusement at Chancellor Malum having to pay tribute to a man more beloved by the people than him.