The Circle and Star

by John Foster

A low whistle escaped from Volkum, “Look what we got here, visitors,” said Volkum as he bent over one of the flickering screens.

  Dickens froze as the creature flew to him its arms widely stretched and claws grasping as it neared him. Dickens could see that the claws were actually outside of the suit and must have some type of adhesive or tension that kept it airtight. He realized that these monsters didn’t have weapons but were built for fighting in close quarters. He had no doubt that it would render him into pieces if it got close enough. He could see the muscles bulging in its tight vacuum suit with only a small darkened container for what must be air attached to its soft helmet. Sever could see that the human creature was aware of him but there was nothing Sever could do to go faster. The girder he flung himself from had not been substantial enough to give him much momentum and he could only lazily glide towards the victim and he drooled with relish at making a kill. The white packaged creature raised something in its hand and Sever realized that it was a weapon. It was a small thing but Sever had seen small things do terrible damage in the past and he wasn’t eager to find out what this mechanical thing did. He flung his arms and legs out in an awkward scrawl to stop his plummet into this being with its horrid device.

  Dickens stared in amazement at the sudden reaction to raising his weapon but he realized that if he didn’t shoot soon the vile creature was going to be on top of him. He pressed the trigger and there was no pull, nothing happened, and a look of shock came over his face. His mind raced as he struggled with the gun jamming. In the back of his mind he remembered that no pull meant that the safety was still in place and he nearly choked as he tried to remember how to disengage it.

  Sever in the meantime, underwent another transformation as he realized that the human hadn’t erased him in a flash of pain and struggled to turn to grasp the creature as it fiddled with the weapon. Sever was sure it was a weapon and he clearly recognized the look of panic on the creature’s face as its hands played over the weapon. The lust of a predator overcame all his other senses and he reached for Dickens, his claws, curling and uncurling as he came within reach.

  Dickens saw the creature coming at him, panic filling him as he clicked the buttons on the back of the gun, he saw a red dot appear and he was sure he had found the right switch, he couldn’t remember what the other switches did but was sure they had something to do with power output. It would have been funny if the creatures didn’t mean to murder him and eat him with the way it was cartwheeling and flapping in space trying to get to him in slow motion.

  The beast now pointed a single claw in an outstretched arm towards his face, it came closer and closer as Dickens in the last moment pressed the trigger again igniting the laser that raced up the creature’s claw, the arm, and finally into the body causing it to turn to cinders and then its body burst into a shower of blood and guts all about the room and Dickens. Dickens crumpled against the door frame, his breath in ragged gasps as he sought to recover from the fright.

  Madison and West joined Volkum and both looked down into what was a view of a ship’s corridor and in it were several white faced Sovar clones in dark spacesuits trying to gain entrance into a large room with armored walls. They looked at each other in amazement.

  “Where did they come from?” asked Volkum.

  “I don’t know, we didn’t see another ship coming in and they look like Sovar troopers,” said West.

  “They also look exactly like the soldiers we saw at the Gobi Desert in the canyon,” said Madison.

  “That they do, that they do. We’re going to give them a little taste of what they did to us in the Gobi,” said West looking at them carefully. “Let’s go pay them a visit and see what they’re up to.”

  West led them out of the room and using a schematic on the wall of the room copied to his HDA he was able to chart a way to the Soshi bridge room which according to the monitors still had life support and atmosphere. The HDA pulsed as the trio closed in on the passage with the Sovar troopers. They came to a T-intersection in the corridor where the Sovar were located. West told Madison to kneel and get behind him and that Volkum was to lay on floor and roll to the right of Madison as West would turn into the corridor and shoot into them. Then Madison was to fire and then Volkum as West’s laser recharged. Both Madison and Volkum whispered their understanding, even though their communications could only be heard between the three of them.

  “On two, one, two!” and West pivoted around the corner with the laser raised and pointing down the hall. He saw before him a small crowd of black suited troopers gathered about the armored door of the bridge. They had just attached a package to the entry and were starting to move away from the location when West opened fire. The first laser blast burned into the closest trooper shattering his helmet and immediately his head flamed as the oxygen escaped into the blast, a second trooper’s suit also burst and immediately flamed as the weapon ignited the oxygen. As West opened fire, Madison leaned out and fired into the right side of the hallway catching two others trying to move backward down the hall and away from the laser blasts, their faces impassive but their eyes terrified. Madison made a note of this in a small corner of her mind for when she had time for little mysteries. Volkum, always bold, rolled across the floor of the hallway firing at the feet of the now fleeing troopers and was able to bring down the last two, their bodies jerking from the lethal touch of the laser blasts.

  West relaxed slowly, his pistol hand still raised in anticipation of other troopers coming forward. “Volkum, cover our rear,” said West.

  “Right Chief.”

  West tried to move but Madison had clutched his spacesuit pants and he couldn’t move his leg. He reached down and touched her helmet gently. “We’re okay, they’re dead,” said West looking down at her.

  At first, she didn’t move then her helmet slowly raised up and he could see she was in a state of shock. She had just killed or helped kill several men and it would take a while to come to grips with this fact. He took hold of her arm and pulled her up to him. He put his faceplate to hers and held her for a moment. He put his arm around her. She relaxed and she nodded to him and then raised her weapon and pointed it down the corridor.

  He looked into her eyes one more time and then moved down the corridor to the armored door. He moved cautiously and crouched over keeping an eye at the end of the corridor where it split into a “T.” He moved to the door and looked over the package attached to it with a single pulsing red light. He looked at it and with a sudden realization saw that it was a primitive charge used in mining to blow off loose rock from an ore vein. It was the lightest of charges used in mining and realized that it would probably blow the door but not cause much damage beyond that. He looked for the fuse attachment and then told Volkum and Madison to take cover where they had initiated the battle.

  “And what are you gonna do?” asked Madison sounding exasperated.

  “Check to see if there are any survivors in the room,” said West as he turned to look at the package again.

  From down the corridor Madison could see the light on the package was flashing faster and said, “How come its flashing faster now?”

  West looked down and saw that it was so and ran down the corridor and was able to reach them and duck behind the corner just as it exploded.

  After the blast, West took out his weapon and holding it outward moved back down the corridor to the bridge. Debris and some type of paper like materials were being sucked out into the ship corridor indicating that the room had been pressurized. As West arrived at the unhinged door there were two dead Soshi in their chair harnesses but their necks looked broken and at an odd angle. Madison hurried up and peered around West’s shoulder. “What happened to them?” asked Madison.

  “I don’t really know. They look like they’ve been dead for some time now. They’re skin has crystalized in the freezing vacuum, so I would say several hours at least. Madison looked at the monitor in front of the one dead Soshi who had several ribbons pinned to its chest,
and noticed it was blinking green, then turned red and then slowly stopped.

  “That must have been the distress signal,” said Madison.

  West looked over and nodded his head and said, “I think you’re right.” He looked over the other still working monitors and saw a shadow on one exterior monitor that looked like an outline of a space ship, albeit a small one. He wished he could rub his eyes because the outline pulsed but he couldn’t quite see it long enough to figure out what it was. “Look at that,” West said pointing to the monitor. Volkum had now joined them and was looking at the monitor in amazement.

  “It’s some kind of ghost ship sitting there,” said Madison.

  “Remember when Theo said there was some kind of anomaly at the opposite end of the wreck when we started out?” said Volkum.

  “Yeah, I remember that,” said West and Madison nodded in agreement.

  “It’s some kind of alien ship that the Sovar have that can be cloaked in some way,” said Madison.

  As they looked at the monitor, they could suddenly hear ragged breathing and turned to the doorway and Dickens stood there, his suit covered in blood and pieces of flesh his face ashen and white in his helmet faceplate.

  “My gawd, what happened to you?” said West as he rushed forward to support Dickens who was about to fall. Madison and Volkum also moved forward. Volkum and West moved Dickens to a seat next to the monitor they had been viewing.

  “What happened?” said West again.

  Dickens, his head down slowly raised it and then with a look of horror raised his finger and pointed to another monitor view screen and they all looked to see a large lizard like creature pulling a body behind it as raced over the ship’s camera that they were watching. It crouched and looked back over its shoulder looking for something, something that wasn’t pursuing it but something or someone it expected to see.

  “Oh, my, that’s Thomas!” said Madison her voice rising in horror. Both Volkum and West looked again and were appalled at the familiar space suit with Thomas’s name stenciled on it as it was dragged along the outer hull. The creature paused one more time and looked back over its shoulder, waited, then snarled in frustration and pushed away from the wreckage. It floated with Thomas’s body for a moment then a circle of light appeared where the ghost ship had been and the monster and Thomas disappeared within.

  The flashing ghost outline of the alien ship on the monitor changed and the outline slowly faded. They realized that it was now moving away. “We’ve got to get help and rescue Thomas. Back to the Paradig,” said West.

  Volkum helped Dickens to his feet. “You need help walking?” asked Volkum.

  “No, I’m okay, just shaken,” said Dickens.

  “As fast as we can,” said West and they moved off the corridor stepping over the bodies of the fallen Sovar soldiers and moving down the corridor. They moved fast because Volkum had marked the path with luminous markers so that Dickens and Thomas could find them quickly. Running and jogging around obstacles, they eventually reached radio range of the Paradig. “Theo, can you read me?” asked West.

  “I can read you fine, you have some new crew?” asked Theo.

  “No time for that now, do you read another ship in the area, very close?” asked West.

  “No, that anomaly I noted earlier has stopped and the distress signal has also stopped,” said Theo.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Theo noting the urgency in West’s voice.

  “There was another ship parked on the opposite side of the wreck and they snatched Thomas from us and are now making a run for it,” said West.

  “What?! I’ll get the engines ready for departure,” said Theo sounding fired up.

  “We’re almost there,” said West. Indeed, they were and rounding the last corner, they could see the outline of the Paradig waiting at the outer air lock. The airlock door on the Paradig slid open and waited for them. They quickly made the crossing and entered the lock and it closed behind them. The vacuum was replaced by oxygen and they shed their space suits with West running to the bridge. Excited faces of the crew peered at them from open doors and hallways as they ran to the front of the ship.

  “Battle stations,” yelled West as he scrambled to the command chair.

  Alarms blared for 10 seconds and then stopped. Theo was whisking them away from the wreck towards the area of the last reading of the anomaly.

  “Captain, we’re getting readings from an approaching space vessel, it appears to be Soshi,” said Madison who had just arrived in the bridge.

  “Damn, we can’t outgun them and even if we could I wouldn’t,” said West.

  “Get us out of here Theo, full speed and evasive,” said West.

  “Aye Captain,” and Theo pushed the throttle forward and the Paradig gathered speed and flew between the asteroids and flotsam that littered the area but away from the approaching vessel.

  “Dickens? Are you alright?” said West.

  “I’m okay Captain, I can still plot a course,” said Dickens.

  “Good man, plot us to the next jump coordinate at Jo-Tene,” said West.

  Madison walked into the room, her helmet cradled under one arm and her coppery hair falling about her shoulders and her face grimly white.

  “We can’t leave Thomas, West,” cried Madison as she overheard West’s commands.

  “We have to leave this area or we’ll either be killed or imprisoned and that won’t do Thomas any good,” said West looking fierce.

  “But my gawd what will happen to Thomas?” said Madison her eyes tearing up.

  “Right now, Thomas needs us out of here. You can help by analyzing that anomaly that Theo detected and see if you can develop a method that can find and detect it. That will help Thomas more than anything right now,” said West.

  Madison nodded her head, looked thoughtful, and left the bridge to head for her work station down the corridor. As she ran, she berated herself for asking West to replace her with Thomas in the Soshi corridor. She had persuaded West to trade personnel so that she wouldn’t have to work with Dickens who she knew would have pestered her the entire time they were alone.

  “We’re approaching the corvette, Sun Seeker,” said the first officer to the Captain of the Arrow, the fastest war ship of the Soshi fleet.

  “We’ve detected that little Terran scout ship in the vicinity of the Sun Seeker,” said the sensor operator.

  “Increase speed to intercept,” said the Captain.

  “Aye, Captain Amal,” said the helms person.

  The hum of the Arrow increased until it was a higher pitch and the ship swiftly turned toward the fleeing earth vessel.

  The first officer, approached Amal. “You think that it’s the one that has been capturing our wounded?” asked the officer.

  “I believe it is. It makes sense, send in a small scout ship to look for survivors, capture them, and then I assume they are tortured,” said Amal, her face a grim mask as she pondered the fate of her compatriots that had disappeared from previous battles.

  “It doesn’t look like the other Sovar vessels we’ve encountered before Captain,” said the First Officer.

  “These humans are savages, they don’t have standardized vessels or weapons. We’ll hunt these beasts down and slay them but not before we have a hand at gathering some information from them in a less than friendly manner. Increase speed again, helm,” said Amal.

  “We’re approaching maximum speed as it is Captain,” said the first Engineer.

  “You have your orders, proceed,” said Amal her eyes steely gray, the sides of her head pulsing red and orange colors.

  The First Officer and Chief Engineering Officer glanced at each other and then the Engineering Officer nodded to the technician and the pitch increased until it was a steady whine.

  Amal stood like a statute unmoving but feeling the distaste in her mouth as she realized that even with the increased speed it would not be enough to capture the human vessel now dwindling to a mere dot as she watched.
/>   “Reduce speed and return to the Sun Seeker,” said Amal in frustration.

  The first officer nodded her head and gave instructions to the helm as it was clear Amal had returned to her calm state and would not give orders directly to the crew as was the protocol.

  The long and sleek Arrow, pride of the Soshi fleet was one of the newest ships that the Soshi had developed as a result of their recent war with the Sovar. The pirates, as Amal called them, often attacked with smaller vessels that easily out maneuvered the larger craft that made up the bulk of the Soshi Navy. Although it was infrequent that the smaller craft could severely hurt the larger Soshi warships, they often took enough damage which required lengthy repairs and that was slowly eroding their defensive capabilities not to mention their ability to take the war to the enemy. The Arrow proved to be a capable vessel in addressing the weakness that the Sovar had exploited up to now. It could outrun and outgun most of the enemy vessels which in turn forced the Sovar’ to up armor their own vessels. It was the age-old escalation of war. Amal who had been seeking birthing time had been picked to command the Arrow, initially an honor she didn’t want since the Soshi only had one opportunity to have a baby in their lifetime and Amal had always looked forward to that time when she could join the motherhood of her race. But her Naval Commanders had insisted that her duty was to serve as a War Commander and Amal had proved that she was one of the best, time after time, first with the War with the Nafti and now with the Sovar.

  “Docking now,” said the helm.

  The first officer walked to the view screen looking at the damage wrought to the Sun Seeker. It would seek no sun again, she thought.

  “No signals,” said their communications officer.

  “Have a rescue team sent in and see that they are vigilant,” said the First Officer to the Security officer on the other end of the video port.

  “Very good, First Officer,” said the Security Officer.

  Amal watched passively as part of the security team crawled up the sides of the Sun Seeker and the rest entered the open hull doors of the ship. The doors would only have been opened if the ship had been boarded by aliens thought Amal. She felt her anger rising again and she fought it down. This was war and cool thoughts were needed if it were to be won. She thought ruefully as she considered the Nafti, they had not been defeated just put under ground like the vermin they were. They could deliver a sharp blow and often had but since the war with the Sovar, they had laid low willing to let the Sovar take the brunt of the Soshi naval might.