Galactic Champion

by Dante King

  I shook myself free of my brief foray into religious piety. I would have to do this myself. Someone had to get back to the Federation and tell them about the Xeno’s presence in the void. Someone had to explain what happened in hyperspace. We had to give our people a chance.

  “First officer,” I said, “order the crew into the evacuation pods.”

  “We’re ready to do go down with the ship, Sir,” he said, an angry edge to his voice. “There is no greater honor than to die for the Federation, except to kill for her. Tonight, we dine in the mess hall, or we dine in hell, Sir.”

  We met eyes and stared for several seconds before I realized he wasn’t going to back down. I scanned the faces of the rest of the crew who, except for the tactical officer who pored over the telemetry on his board, all stared at me. They were willing to stand up to their captain rather than dishonor themselves or miss the opportunity to kill some bugs. I couldn’t have been more damn proud. Or more frustrated.

  “Are the pods standard Federation escape pods?” I asked.

  “Yes, Sir,” he said suspiciously.

  “Very well. Order the crew to the pods, First Officer.”

  “Aye, Sir,” he said, “but—”

  “I’m not accustomed to explaining my orders, First Officer,” I growled, allowing my frustration to rise to the surface, “but at least one of us needs to make it back to the Federation. Someone needs to tell our people about hyperspace—about what the Xeno can do here.” I thrust a finger at the main viewscreen for emphasis. “Otherwise, we lose a huge tactical advantage.

  “I will pilot the Revenge myself. I will make an example of our enemy and take out as many of the bastards as I can.”

  A wave of pressure washed over me and caused me to snap my eyes toward the main viewscreen. The data displayed there said the ships were still too far away to have hit us with any of their bug-ordnance. The tactical officer didn’t seem concerned, so I waved it off as the stress of the situation.

  “I understand, Sir,” Zadair said under his breath. “But I’m not sure the rest of the crew will agree. We’re Martians, Sir. We aren’t afraid to die.”

  “Then, understand this,” I explained, “if you repeat my order, the crew will obey. If you don’t, the enemy will maintain their advantage and their secret, and we will lose this war.”

  He stood his ground for another second before turning to the rest of the crew. “Set all systems to automatic! Order abandon ship! Everyone into their escape pods! On the double! Move!”

  Instead of the silent thrummer, the klaxons blared. There was no need to talk when it was time to abandon ship. Each man and woman had their last-second job to do before jumping into their assigned pod.

  Some would be securing hatches. Others would be running through apartments looking for anyone who might have been left behind. If we had any injured personnel, the medics would load them into escape pods before boarding one themselves. Everyone had their job to do, and I had mine.

  My duty was to scuttle the ship. We didn’t have hatches we could open and expect water from the surrounding sea to pour in and send the Revenge to the bottom. Opening all the hatches would only result in preserving everything nice and neat for the Xeno to inspect and learn from later. Instead, scuttling meant using the computers to remove the safeties from the fusion powerplants.

  With the safeties removed, the reactions would grow. Hydrogen would be poured into the reaction chambers. The magnetic field generators would compress the hydrogen as it poured in, and the tiny stars of the reactions would heat up even more. The increased power would provide the containment generators with the ability to force even more hydrogen into the reaction chamber.

  Eventually, the generators would reach their limits, and the tiny stars would escape their bonds. If I could hold it until the very end—if I could survive long enough to get the Xeno vessels in close—I could vaporize all of us in a single blast of a white-hot supernova.

  It would be glorious.

  After the tactical officer leaped to his feet, I stopped his chair from spinning and sat in it. I tapped a few icons, entered my own private security code, and locked in the critical systems I would need to complete my mission.

  There were at least two crew members whose responsibility it was to force the computers to wipe all their data. I couldn't allow that to happen—not yet. I’d need the computers to fly the Revenge right up our enemies asses. I also took direct control of the weapons and point-defense systems. I’d need both to get close enough.

  I paused as yet another uncomfortable sensation passed over me. What was that? A gravity wave? Do the Xeno have gravity tech?

  I tapped an icon to split the board’s screen into three: weapons on the left, scanners in the middle, and the ship’s status on the right. There wasn’t much information on the right third of the screen, though. All I could see were the human systems our engineers added. One was the crew-tracking system. There were still several crew members running around as they prepared to abandon ship. We were still out of firing range, so there was time for them to finish their duties.

  My eyes danced across the tactical display. Sixteen Type-3 Excalibur x-ray cannons, two Type-1s, four missile tubes, each with a four-missile magazine, and four rapid-fire Helfstein point-defense cannons.

  I let out a slow whistle and admired the specs. The bugs had originally built the Revenge for war. Buw now, it also had the best tech mankind had come up with drilled into her hull. It was a sight to behold. I was so pleased, I didn’t even mind how ugly the ship was.

  I didn’t know if the Xeno had been here waiting for us, or if they were just sitting here, like ants sometimes do outside of a nest. Either way, they knew we were here now. And they knew we weren’t friendly.

  A new alert on the tactical display indicated that they’d launched their own missiles—heavily armored bugs whose job it was to crash into enemy ships. Those who survived would crawl across the hull, chewing, ripping, and grinding, until the whole ship came apart. Six of them, one from each ship, were headed my way.

  I stabbed my finger at an icon and launched my missiles. While theirs were bugs, mine were merely delivery systems for one-ton, pointed, tungsten rods. At an acceleration of several hundred gravities, they’d hit with enough force to penetrate clear through their target, causing shockwaves throughout their vessels.

  I stabbed the button over and over again until all my missiles were on the way, and ground my teeth when I saw they’d done the same.

  I checked my display again and noted that all my crew members were in their escape pods. But none of the pods had ejected. Was there a problem with their ejection systems? All of them? Now?

  “First Officer Zadair,” I transmitted, “report! Why hasn’t the crew abandoned ship?”

  “They’re waiting for you to get into your pod, Sir. Nothing I can do. Their minds are made up. They aren’t leaving without you.”

  Touching, I thought.

  When the battle was over, I planned on giving each of them some serious disciplinary attention. I’d teach them not to disobey a direct order. For now, I guessed I’d have to keep them alive if I wanted to kick their asses later, after I’d finished what I stayed behind to do.

  A few taps on the tactical display brought up the automatic weapons system. It wasn’t as accurate or intuitive as what a real person could do, but it would suffice. The Federation had found it fit to bless me with enough firepower to take on four or five of our own vessels.

  I grasped the edge of my seat. It felt like the universe was tipping and starting to slide. I tried to force myself to focus—to get back to the mission. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath as another unseen wave passed through me.

  After-effects of portal travel, I told myself. I wasn’t a doctor, but it made sense. Entering hyperspace was the only thing I’d done differently than in my previous missions. My only hope was that when—or if—I got out of hyperspace the weird dizziness would stop. If not, then I knew the doctors back
home could fix me up.

  My missiles hit first. There were no explosions, huge flashes of light, or slowly expanding clouds of bug-debris. Instead, two of the six Xeno vessels veered off-course. I’d broken whatever had kept them pointed at the Revenge.

  According to the tactical display, the first two had been hulled but not badly enough to destroy or even dissuade them.

  An icon on the tactical display began flashing, indicating activation of the point-defense systems. The Type-3s had begun to fire at maximum range. They blasted the leading edge of the missiles every tenth of a second with x-ray lasers, each shot removing about an inch of carapace with every impact.

  One missile was hulled. Somewhere deep in the bug’s guts, a fuel cluster had probably broke, burning the creature from the inside. The rest began to spin, spreading out the damage.

  I cursed, activated the Type-1s as point-defense, and grabbed the straps holding me to the chair. I braced for impact and was disappointed with the results. I barely felt them and had to check the sensors to see if I’d damaged all the missiles badly enough that they broke up on impact.

  They hadn’t. Instead of penetrating the hull and chewing it up from the inside, they’d alighted and were now crawling along the exterior toward the big Type-1s. I cursed and tried to force the point-defense to target them, but the Type-3s weren’t designed to shoot things off the hull. If the bugs made it to the big guns, there’d be no way I’d have enough firepower to fight them.

  A thought occurred to me.

  Battles are lost because commanders are either incapable or unwilling to think outside of their training.

  I had enough firepower to take the enemy on. I even had a decent chance of winning. I just had to think.

  Then it came to me. The powerplants charged capacitors for the weapons systems, but the weapons themselves had their own high-speed batteries. They’d only hold enough for a single shot, but it could be enough.

  No more time to think about it. It was time to do something.

  I took manual control of the two forward Type-3s, checked to make sure their capacitors were full, and detached them from the hull. The guns floated slowly as I reactivated the point-defense and waited.

  Four seconds later, the gun on the starboard side fired once, hulling one of the bug-ships on that side. But the starboard one was spinning the wrong direction. It would be several minutes before it made a complete revolution. By then it would be all over.

  It was time, and I was ready. I designated targets, switched half of the point-defense to active attack, and sent another silent thought to the Void Gods. It felt good to do so. Unnaturally good. Joker’s prayers had obviously rubbed off on me, and all those indoctrination sessions in the colonel’s office must have filtered into my mind. Even so, a quick prayer to some other power was as good a hope as any, given my current circumstances.

  I disabled the safeties on the navigation system and set the Revenge’s destination as the slightly larger of the two Xeno ships headed our way. With the safeties disabled, our captured Xeno vessel would do its best to obtain the same position in space as our attackers. End result? A glorious explosion of powerplants and bug guts.

  The First Officer shouted something in my ear, but I ignored him and focused on the task at hand. I couldn’t deploy the Burner against them. The device was designed to work on planets. It was also designed to be deployed into a gravity well. I couldn’t even aim it properly. If I survived this somehow and got back home, I planned on addressing that small oversight.

  Now, it was time to save my crew.

  “On my way, you disobedient assholes!” I roared into the ship-wide comms. I was touched by their gesture, but it wasn’t proper for me to come right out and say it. I was the ship’s captain, after all.

  My pod was a short run from the bridge. I never thought I’d use it. Nobody ever thought they would, but Federation troops trained constantly on all the equipment we were expected to operate. Even escape pods.

  I slapped the control panel on the circular hatch our techs had installed. The bulkhead irised open with a high-pitched hiss. I hesitated. The automatic fire of the ship’s weapons wasn’t very accurate. At best, they’d get one pass at our enemy and maybe score five or six hits on a single ship.

  The navigation system was sluggish compared to what a human could do. If the Xeno I’d targeted managed to dodge, they could all come about for a second pass at us. Hell, they’d be flying right up the Revenge’s ass.

  I stretched one leg through the opening and paused again. No man had ever been in hyperspace, so far as I knew. Our scientists had no idea what an escape pod might do in that circumstance. It might be suddenly ejected, which was my personal theory, or it might break up into its basic molecules and be spread out over a thousand light years. But that wasn’t the worst-case scenario.

  The worst case scenario was that the pods would remain in hyperspace. We’d be picked up by the Xeno and brought aboard their ships as prisoners. From there, I didn’t have the imagination to match their probably plans for us. Maybe they’d eat us. Maybe we’d become slaves. Maybe—

  My thoughts were interrupted by another gravity wave. This one was powerful enough to knock me dizzy. I fell unceremoniously into my escape pod and landed hard in my seat as the chair automatically secured straps around my chest, waist, and legs. I heard the pod’s iris shut behind me.

  “Eject!” I ordered, knowing the comm system would automatically patch me into the rest of my crew. Small thumps echoed into my pod—the sound of my shipmates escaping into the great unknown.

  I was furious for a couple of reasons. First, I didn’t like running from a fight. Second, I didn’t like what was coming next. I’d be helpless for a while.

  But I didn’t fight the robotic arms that rotated out from behind my headrest to secure a transparent breathing mask and tubes to my face.

  A half-second later, there was a small but sharp pain on the skin just beneath my right ear. A hidden robotic arm had emerged from a panel near my headrest, and I was being injected by a sedative and muscle relaxant. Escape pod ejections were violent, and the drugs were meant to protect me from hurting myself during the launch.

  The piercing-white lights in the pod dimmed to a dull, tired brown. A second later, the drugs turned my brain into mush, and I suddenly felt happy, relaxed, and as stupid as a box of boiled feathers.

  I barely felt the explosion that catapulted me from the side of the Revenge.

  Chapter Seven

  I didn’t like drugs, especially the ones the escape pods injected. They made me feel numb and helpless, but the worst part of it was that they made me feel like I didn’t care.

  The scientists who had developed the stuff knew what the effects were. They knew that if we were captured, we might be helpless for a while. But if they didn’t give us the drugs, we might rip muscles, pull our own joints out of their sockets, or otherwise injure ourselves. Then we’d be screwed for sure.

  As part of our training, we were dosed about once a year. Any more often, and it was likely we’d build up a resistance, but any less often, and we might panic as we came out of the giddy, warm cocoon the chemicals put us in. Thrashing around in an escape pod could be dangerous.

  I took a deep breath and gagged at the taste in my mouth. The after-effects were based on each individual person’s metabolism. For me, the major after-effect, besides feeling tired and dizzy, was a horrible metallic taste in my mouth. It tasted like I’d buried myself in a dumpster, found all the bottlecaps floating in the trash-water at the bottom, and for some reason, decided they’d do better in my mouth.

  I inhaled again and realized the breathing tube was no longer on my face. If it were still there, breathing would be a little difficult. I’d get all the oxygen I needed, but it would only be delivered in measured amounts. Sometimes, people panicked on coming out of the drug-induced stupor, especially if they’d never experienced it before. Controlling their oxygen flow helped prevent them from hyperventilating
.

  For a moment, I wondered if I’d thrashed while I was out and somehow knocked the mask off my face. It happened to troops sometimes, but never to me.

  As I lay there with my eyes closed, I became more aware of my surroundings. I couldn’t feel the seat of my escape pod, and I no longer felt the straps holding me down. There was no pain at the injection site on my neck, nor did I hear the status beep—normally sounding every 30 seconds—from the escape pod’s control board. None of it felt familiar, even though I’d been through the training at least 13 times.

  I figured I wasn’t in my escape pod any more, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t dead, so I started thinking about other possibilities.

  A Xeno ship could have taken me in and made me a prisoner, along with my fellow shipmates. That wasn’t so bad. It would save me the trouble of hunting them down later. Hell, I could rip one of their stupid legs off and use it as a club until I found something better.

  Were they going to try to wake me for interrogation? Or would they allow me to stay here as long as I was still?

  The Xeno weren’t like us. When we captured our enemies, we rarely allowed them to sleep until we had extracted some information from them. Sleep was a reward, not a privilege or a right. It had to be earned, just like food.

  But enough delay. I was ready.

  I opened my eyes and started in surprise. Though I couldn’t smell fire, there was smoke everywhere. The room was dark—really dark—as if the walls and floor had been painted black. I couldn’t see a light source, but I could see the smoke. I wondered if some of the other crew members had been captured and were nearby, but I couldn’t make out any of them beyond the thick haze.

  I tried to stand, to prepare myself for a fight, but couldn’t find the floor. I stretched one arm and leg behind me, but found nothing solid. When I reached in front of me, my hand passed through a slithering tendril of smoke. It was cold—colder than the surrounding air.

  I sniffed the air again, wondering if the drugs had messed with my sense of smell, but detected no odors. Also, the metallic taste was gone from my mouth. Something wasn’t right. Or, the inside of the Xeno holding cell was sterile, which I doubted.