by Linn Schwab
There was no one in sight as he walked across the hangar. No alarms went off, no one yelled at him to stop. When he reached the fighter, he climbed up the side, then carefully swung himself into the cockpit. Thankfully, all of the controls looked familiar, and the slot for the key was easy to locate. He inserted the key and strapped himself in, then flipped the power switch. The controls came to life.
“Come on, baby,” he whispered to the fighter as he reached for the engine ignition switches. The engines ignited on the first attempt. He took a deep breath and closed the canopy, then released the moorings and started rolling toward the airlock. With any luck, the controllers would allow him to pass without bothering to verify who was in the cockpit. If that failed, maybe he could blast his way out. Or perhaps the threat of that alone would be enough to persuade them to open the doors and allow him to leave. With that in mind, he placed his thumb on the rocket button as the nose of his fighter approached the airlock.
* * * *
Amidst everything that was happening right now in the control room, Lindsey saw the flashing light from just the corner of her eye. When she checked the notification on her screen, she saw: LOCK PROMPT, FIGHTER, LIEUTENANT VIRGINIA SCOT.
Still engrossed in the search for VC–122, she allowed the fighter to proceed through the airlock.
* * * *
After what seemed like an eternity of banging on the door, someone finally responded to Virginia.
“What happened?” Chelsea asked as the door slid open.
Virginia snatched the technician’s key from her pocket, pushed her aside and sprinted straight for the hangar. She could not risk allowing Jason to escape with a fighter whose flight path could be traced back to Volaris. The results of that could prove to be catastrophic. Somehow she had to make sure it didn’t happen. If he was out in space already, she would have to track him down and persuade him to return to the station with her.
Her legs burned from exertion when she reached the hangar and climbed up the rungs of the nearest fighter. She strapped herself in and inserted Chelsea’s key, which she hoped would grant her full authorization. Since technicians were required to do repair work on fighters, she knew at least some of them were authorized to fly them. In this case, her hunch turned out to be correct. The fighter roared to life when she hit the ignitors.
When she taxied toward the airlock, she got a call from Lindsey. “Chelsea, are you sure you want to go out there?”
“Open the door!” Virginia insisted.
“Virginia? I thought I just let you through.”
“It wasn’t me! Just open the door, Lindsey! The prisoner grabbed my key and escaped! I need to catch up with him before he gets away!”
Lindsey let out a gasp. The airlock opened. Seconds later, Virginia flew out in hot pursuit.
She tried the scanner. It registered a blip — a single fighter headed straight for the cover of Pangea. She pushed her engines to maximum thrust in an effort to overtake him before he could hide. If she lost him among the rocks, she might never find him. He could sneak along the outskirts without being seen.
She switched on her radio and said, “Turn around, Jason. Come back with me now so I don’t have to shoot you.”
“Come back with me, Virginia,” he suggested. “You can talk to my superiors. Maybe we can end this.”
“I can’t let you go, Jason,” she pleaded. “Your people might find out where Volaris is.”
“Convince your people to surrender,” he said. “It’s the only way to stop the fighting.”
He passed by some of the outlying rocks of Pangea. Virginia fired a burst of warning shots at him, and a stream of tracers flashed over his cockpit. She was closing on him fast. He was at a disadvantage. She could burn as much fuel as it took to catch him, whereas he was facing a much longer journey, and needed to conserve as much as possible.
“Virginia,” he pleaded, “just let me go. You won’t be able to keep up with me in here.” He banked left around an asteroid. She continued to pursue him.
“You won’t get away from me,” she insisted.
“You’re not at your best right now,” he reminded her. “Your arm is wounded. If you try to catch up with me you’ll crash into something.”
She fired another burst of warning shots at him. He banked to the right and through a gap between some rocks. She came around behind him. He dodged to the left.
“Virginia, why won’t you listen to me?” he pleaded.
“You tricked me,” she told him. “Why should I trust you?” She felt a few tears begin to trickle down her cheeks. He dodged right again. She closed in behind him. “Come back with me!” she warned him.
“Surrender to us!” he countered. “It’s the only way this war is ever going to end!” He was still doing everything he could to evade her, but the gap between them continued to close. In desperation, he made a final attempt to convince her. “Virginia, we’re not going to trash your planet!”
“I know,” she told him. Her meaning was clear. Earth’s forces would never set foot on Valhalla. Not if she had anything to say in the matter. Her thumb pressed down on the rocket button, and she watched his fighter erupt in a fireball.
* * * *
Commander Eldridge leaned over Veronica’s shoulder and tried to make sense of the figures on her monitor. “Any luck yet?” she asked.
Lieutenant Marlowe shook her head. “It’s not there, Commander.”
“What do you mean it’s not there?”
“I mean VC–122 is missing. According to the historical accounts of its orbit, it’s not where it’s supposed to be right now. And wherever it is, I can’t seem to find it.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” the commander remarked.
“Okay,” Janine said looking down at her interface, “I think I’ve finally got something here. It looks like Major Parsons was tracking this comet. One of the last actions she performed on this station was to ask its systems to predict the outcome of a gravitational pull on the comet’s orbit.”
“And did she get the results?”
“It looks like she did. But if I’m reading this right, it looks like she didn’t get them until after she was injured. Her judgement may have been impaired at that point, which might explain why she started calling it Valgrind.”
“And what were the results?”
“According to this, VC–122 passed close to the gas giant, Freya, at some point during its current orbit. Major Parsons must have picked up on that, and realized its orbit would be affected.” She touched the screen of her archive and suddenly looked out toward Pangea in concern. “Oh, no,” she said. “We’ve had it all wrong. Commander Stinson wasn’t planning to abandon this station. She was moving things out to reduce its mass, and making preparations to reposition it.”
The commander gave her a look of confusion. “Why would she want to reposition Volaris?”
“Because that comet is gonna pass straight through Pangea, and Volaris is sitting right in its path!”
“How soon?” Commander Eldridge asked. “Should I give the order to evacuate?”
Janine pointed to a background glow behind Pangea. “I think it’s already too late for that now.”
* * * *
With the asteroid field a good distance behind him now, Karl decided to begin his approach toward the planet. Very carefully, he pulled his fighter to its left, then used his thrusters to set it tumbling end over end in an awkward spin. Not fast enough to make him ill or dizzy. Just enough to give the impression he was dead. He killed the engines and shut everything off, and just hoped that the ruse would be enough to get him through. For now, his fate was no longer in his hands. Only if he made it through to the planet’s atmosphere would he need to spring into action again. He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, to minimize the motion sickness from the spin. Every minute or so, he opened them briefly to keep track of how close he was getting to the planet.
* * * *
On the bridge o
f the Sentinel missile ship, Sunbright, things were finally returning to normal. The ship was just returning from the reload station with a fresh stock of nuclear armed projectiles. Settling in again alongside her sister ship, the Sunburst, she was ready to resume her tireless vigil, high above the clear blue skies of Valhalla.
In response to a costly mistake in the past, the crews who now served aboard missile ships lived by a motto — and repeated it often — to remind them of their role in protecting the planet. Nothing gets through. Short and to the point. Blunt, like the nature of the armament they wielded. If fighters were the scalpels of the Sentinel Fleet, missile ships could arguably be considered the sledgehammers.
When the Sunbright’s positioning thrusters powered down, Commander Jenkins glanced up at the ship’s coordinates. “Are we set?” she asked her helm operator.
“Station keeping, set. Orientation, set. Stable orbit, reestablished.”
“Commander,” the radio operator said, “I’m receiving a call for you from the Sunburst.”
“Put it through,” the commander said, pointing toward the intercom.
“Welcome back, Sunbright,” a voice rang out.
“Thank you, Sunburst,” the commander replied. “Did we miss any action while we were gone?”
“Eight missiles’ worth, called in by Volaris.”
“Volaris again? They seem to have a nose for sniffing out targets lately.”
“This one was deep in enemy space. Deeper than we’ve ever targeted before.”
“That’s interesting. What was it this time? Did they find another shipyard out there?”
“Couldn’t tell you. It was a blind launch for us. Coordinates only – no visual contact.”
“Commander,” Lieutenant Chambers cut in, “I’m receiving a call from Listening Post Six.”
Commander Jenkins instructed her to patch the call through. “This is the Sunbright,” she said to the intercom. “What have you got for us, Post Six?”
“Radar contact, out in the open. Looks like a single enemy fighter.”
“A single fighter? Any signs of life?”
“Negative. It’s either dead, or a very convincing ploy. Either way, it’s headed directly for Valhalla.”
“Alright, we’ll take care of it. Thank you, Post Six.”
“Nothing gets through.”
“Nothing gets through.”
The commander looked up at her targeting screen and instructed Lieutenant Chambers to plot a firing arc. “Open outer silo hatch number one,” she ordered. Without warning, the Sunbright began to pivot right. Commander Jenkins had to scramble to keep her footing. “I didn’t give the order to pivot!” she yelled.
The helm operator seemed panicked and confused. “I didn’t do it,” she said. “I’m not sure what happened.”
The ship now began to roll to its left without any input from the helm controls. The commander glared at her helm operator. “Get this ship under control, now!” she ordered.
“I’m trying,” the girl insisted as she tugged at her controls. “The ship seems to have a mind of its own.”
“Commander,” Lieutenant Chambers called out, “the targeting computer is going absolutely crazy. It seems to be plotting an arc on its own, and it’s running an astonishing amount of simulations.”
“Simulations of what?” the commander asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s working so fast I can’t make sense of it.”
The commander looked around from one crewmember to the next. “Would someone please tell me what is going on!”
“Commander,” the radio operator said, “whatever’s causing this, it isn’t just happening to the Sunbright. All of our missile ships appear to be affected. Every one of them is reporting a sudden loss of control.”
“Commander,” Lieutenant Chambers said, “it looks like the computer is locking in on something.”
The commander looked up at her tactical display. All twenty–four of her outer silo hatches were opening. “What could we be targeting?” she wondered out loud.
A countdown on the tactical display reached zero, and the Sunbright’s launch tubes unleashed their thunder.
* * * *
“Four minutes to impact!” Lieutenant Porter announced.
Peter looked at a projection of the comet’s path, and wondered if it might pose a threat to the planet. “Is there any danger of that comet striking the planet, Lieutenant?”
“On its current trajectory, no. At least not in one piece. But once it hits those asteroids, debris is going to scatter in every direction. Some of it will probably enter the atmosphere. I don’t think it’s likely to cause widespread devastation, though. They may not even notice it down on the surface.”
“Are we in position?” the admiral asked Captain Schiffer.
“As close as we dare to get,” the captain answered. “What are your plans if we should make it all the way through? Do we come out the other side guns–a–blazing?”
The admiral glanced at Peter briefly as if to apologize for what was to come. “Yes,” he confirmed, “guns–a–blazing. We’ll try to establish a beachhead if possible. If not, we’ll have to fight our way back out again.”
“Understood,” the captain said, then ordered his crew to prepare for combat.
Peter checked the comet’s progress again. It was going to pass alarmingly close to the fleet. If Lieutenant Porter’s calculations were off by just a fraction...
“Three minutes!” Lieutenant Porter announced.
The radar operator suddenly yelled, “Missiles! It looks like the enemy is launching missiles at the comet!”
“How many missiles?” the admiral asked.
“Uhh ... my best guess would be approximately three hundred.”
“Three hundred!” Captain Schiffer exclaimed.
Lieutenant Porter rushed to the radar station to view the results on the screen for himself. “Oh, no,” he said. “No, no, no, no, no! This is bad. This is really, really bad.”
“How so, Lieutenant?” the admiral asked him.
“If they somehow manage to fragment that comet, it’s gonna spread out, and we’re gonna be caught in the path of its remains!”
The admiral turned to Captain Schiffer. “That’s it. Get us out of here, now!” he ordered.
“It’s too late for that!” Lieutenant Porter insisted. “If we turn our side to that comet and try to escape, we’ll just be making ourselves a bigger target!”
“He’s right, Admiral,” Captain Schiffer confirmed. “Our best bet now is just to hold on tight.”
Admiral Sands turned to the communications officer, and said, “Order the fleet to brace for impact.”
Peter looked up at an overhead monitor displaying a close–up view of the comet. As he watched, the missiles began to detonate in what looked like a highly coordinated pattern. The comet vanished for an instant in a swell of brilliant light, then emerged as a rapidly advancing cloud of gases, fueled by a raging storm at its center.
* * * *
The comet’s death cloud swept forward like a tidal wave, pummeling its victims with ice and debris, and engulfing everything that lay in its path, while leaving everything that survived in its wake cloaked in fog. It first swallowed Pangea, then Brünhilde and Valhalla, and all of the orbiting Sentinel bases. When it swallowed Volaris, Veronica checked her radar screen.
“We’re blind,” she said. “We are completely blind.”
IMPRESSIONS 093
<<
Jensen eased into the maneuvering thrusters to reduce the shuttle’s closing speed. Ahead of him loomed the David Livingstone, still orbiting Valhalla after three hundred years, with its bays full of botanical research specimens. Behind him, brimming with anticipation, sat the students he’d be sequestered with for the week. Five boys, three girls, all in their teens, and possessing some of the brightest young minds on Valhalla. They were here to further their botanical studies w
hile performing a variety of experiments, which they themselves had submitted for acceptance. Out of hundreds of applicants across the planet, only eight had been selected for this exciting opportunity — a week in space aboard the legendary ship of the founders, with personal instruction from Dr. Gabriel Jensen. Now, as he positioned the shuttle for docking, he found himself wondering which perk they valued more. A week in space, or a week of instruction from myself? He chuckled out loud at his own foolishness as the kids crowded into the cockpit for a look. Who the heck am I kidding? he thought. The view through the windows was answer enough.
“Wow!” one of the students exclaimed, overwhelmed at the Livingstone’s staggering dimensions. “I’ve seen pictures of this ship before, but none of them come close to seeing it in person. What an incredible piece of machinery.”
“Certainly is,” Jensen agreed. “I doubt we’ll ever see its like again.” He pondered the thought of Valhalla building such a ship, but convinced himself it would never happen. There was no reason to do so that he could foresee. After all, the Livingstone had been created for deep space travel, and his people had no real ambition for that. At least not yet, anyway. There was still too much work for them to do here. And besides, he asked himself, why would anyone ever want to leave Valhalla? He shuddered at the thought and pushed it aside, then refocused his attention on the task at hand.
“What’s that one?” one of the girls inquired. “That smaller ship, over there.”
Jensen looked to where she was pointing, though he sensed he already knew what she was seeing. There weren’t any other ships in orbit. Just the Livingstone, the shuttle, and ...
“That’s Little Friend,” he said. “It’s not a ship, really, just some kind of probe. It showed up here more than a century ago, but we’ve never been able to communicate with it, so we aren’t really sure what its mission was. From the looks of its outer skin, though, it took quite a beating during its journey. Chances are, it ended up way off course and wandered into our solar system by happenstance.”
The girl appeared to be concerned by its presence. The look on her face showed lingering suspicion. “Why is it called Little Friend?”