Titan Fleet: The Invictus

by Jason J Black

  “Now, what you are dabbling in is highly dangerous and a number of things can happen. Are we willing to end up a part of the ship if it goes wrong? I have heard of this sort of thing ending badly, where whole crews have lost their lives when they ended up the other side, bodies like mash potato, all twisted and bodies between decks, broken. All based on an idea and not to mention we have never achieved it ourselves before. Don’t want to be the party pooper, but I’m just saying.” Cassy laughs.

  “As a scientist have you never taken a chance on an experiment before, not knowing the outcome? Where is your sense of adventure? We all know if we run into that ship before we reach Foloss we are all dead anyway, so what do we have to lose. I am sure I have a litepad in my life pod that has more in-depth analysis if you want to go over numbers. It’s worth a look I think. I will go and grab it a sec, I’ll be back in a minute.” Cassy is eager to prove her worth and little do they know she has ran the experiment once or twice before, to get out of trouble on the cargo ship and both times things went without a hitch.

  Cassy disappears out of the room and Sam whispers to the crew. “I think it is a mad idea that will get us all killed. Then who will warn the planet!”

  Rusty rests his hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Sam, from what I just saw, the girl has a great brain and we should see what else she has written down and hear her out first before we make our minds up. Let’s wait to see, eh?” Sam shakes his head.

  “Ok, but I just don’t like it, that’s all.” Sam replies, chucking his drink hard down his throat like a bowling ball down an alley. A few moments pass and Cassy appears once more, clutching a litepad. Smiling, she places it in the middle of the table and presses the projector button so they can all see at the same time. Bright lights flicker and images and text appear in front of them all, amazing to the eyes. Cassy begins to explain the components and the way they need to set things up in just half an hour.

  “The design is simplistic but it works, I have tried it before and my captain had me install it on the cargo ship to keep us out of trouble. You see this is not the first time we were captured by what you call the blues, known to the rest of the galaxy as the Oakthians. A short time ago, my captain bartered a deal with the Oakthians, their tech for human slaves. These slaves were murderers and the scum of the surrounding worlds, but the Oakthians grew greedy and so did my captain. He sold the tech to Eve Thorn for her Titan ship, the Fahrenheit. It is a super class Titan ship, which is her flagship, should all go wrong and she needs to escape. So knowing this, Eve then bartered more humans for more tech and made us all rich in the process, but something told me the Oakthians were not on the level and were not giving us a great deal at all. They have so much tech that I have not seen, it’s unreal. I became an alien tech specialist, believe it or not, so I’m telling you all, you need to trust me today, ok.” Pace sits nodding in agreement with his sister. He believes what she is saying is true, and if this wormhole thing is a chance, then that’s better than no chance.

  “Well, Cassy, if what you say is true, I think we better get to work. This ship, the Fahrenheit, you say it’s a Titan ship. I thought all the human Titans were destroyed apart from three — two drifted off into space and one crashed landed on Foloss, when we all left Dalgen 9.” Cassy is pulling up plans of the Fahrenheit, for everyone to see.

  “Well, Eve ordered a rebuild in the Deadlands where it crashed and everyone knows the law of the Deadlands, which was a perfect place to hide her new ship without any questions being asked. We were instructed to land there a few times to do work on it ourselves, never being allowed contact with the populace of Foloss, so we could not spill any beans as it were. The last I heard it was operational. It may still be there for all I know. Anyway, we were making another transaction when things went sour and we were held ransom by the Oakthians, while Eve came up with excuse after excuse to not rescue us, otherwise it would have been easy to open a wormhole and slip away and the rest is history. I would give ten years’ worth of trade to get five minutes alone with that bitch. She would eat her excuses, believe me.”

  Pace turns to Sam, who is deep in thought, rubbing his beard once again. “So, Sam, what do you think?” Sam looks up. He is still stood up with his hands on the table, either side of the light show.

  “I think, Captain, that this might just work, you know, and we could gain the upper hand. If we can get to the Fahrenheit and take control of it, we could stop the invasion, because we all know Eve is sly and will not fight for the people on the planet. She would leave in a hurry if she found out that the blues had a Titan ship.”

  Rusty opens another bottle, this time it’s rum. “Well, firstly this is my favourite rum and thanks to the Captain for lifting the ban. I believe I owe you a drink or two.” He says, getting his priorities in order. “Secondly, I used to drink with the governor of Greyfields, a good friend of mine. He despises Eve and everything she stands for. I’m sure he would be interested in what we have to tell him. We should head there, plenty of places to hide the ship too.” Pace is relieved for once that he does not have to plan their next move. It has been hard as a captain, but now they had a plan and a good one at that.

  “I know we’ve all have had a bit to drink and we are tired, but we can do this, so let’s get this done. We will finish our food and have a few more drinks. One for the road, eh Rusty, and then follow Cassy’s instructions to get us there and things could just work out. While you do this, I’ll go up to medbay and get checked out. Let me know when we are ready.” Pace leaves the room exhausted but positive about the plans. He reaches medbay and approaches Padley, who is cleaning the room.

  “I need sorting out, Padley, can you fix me?” Pace places sits on the bed and lifts his legs up and then lies down to be scanned. Padley operates the scanning machine. It takes a few moments and the results are shocking to Pace’s ears.

  “Captain, it appears you are changing into an Oakthian.” Pace lifts his head to look at Padley peering down at him, her white face like a china doll.

  “Tell me something I don’t know.” Padley prods Pace in the face, where the blue scales have grown.

  “Your left lung has mutated into something unknown and for the best part you have a strange type of blood, not Oakthian and not human. The human cells are turning into Oakthian and the Oakthian is beginning to now change into something else unknown, probably due to cross genetics. Let me try something, it may sting.” Padley cuts the blue skin with a laser scalpel and the skin immediately heals, leaving no visible sign of injury.

  “Fascinating, truly fascinating. Now, one moment, hold still.” Padley holds up an injector gun with a small amount of alien toxin that Sam had developed. “This should not kill you, but I need to see its effects on you.” Before Pace can say no, Padley has injected his chest with the toxin and begins to monitor his life signs. A few moments pass quietly. Padley’s eyes glued to her screen, her fingers busy, trying to make sense of her results. Pace is drifting to sleep slowly, not from the toxin, but from sheer lack of rest, his eyes growing heavy and then Padley’s voice kicks him awake again. “I am shocked that you are unaffected by the toxin and I don’t know how to treat you. You are one of a kind. We need an expert in bioengineering like Megan.” Pace sits back up on the bed, his head spinning slightly from the blood rush.

  “Maybe I will find someone on Foloss who can help. Keep analysing my bloods, please Padley, and let me know if anything crops up.” Padley nods at Pace. She has accessed every database and every file known to man with no results. Pace stands up and leaves Padley standing there baffled.

  He feels so shattered, so heads for his room and as he enters he notices Megan’s night gown hung up on the back of his door. He sees her perfume and wash items littering the bathroom, like confetti. There is a lingering fragrance of her in the room, which makes it seem like she is there. He takes off his top and falls back onto his bed and drifts off to sleep in no time at all.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  The rest of th
e crew are busy converting a turret gun into a wormhole dish, which will be used to produce the tear in space and time to travel through. Anc is on the outside of the ship working on his own and Sam is helping Cassy in the gunners chair, rewiring a spaghetti-like mess, while Rusty is bypassing power cables to route power to the dish, all the while drinking the bottle of rum, which was now welded to his hand firmly.

  “Now come on, Higgy, don’t let me down. I have a whole lot of drinking to catch up on, so don’t give me any trouble, ok.” whispers a drunk Rusty to the Hyper Gyron 4 lump of pulsating power that he had fondly named, so that he did not bring bad luck to the ship. It was a done thing for all mechanics to name their engines. Stumbling side to side, Rusty slides a cover back over his neat wiring job and attempts to seal the cover down with his hand welder. He does a neat job before falling backwards on the floor, without spilling a drop of rum, something he was a master at it seemed. “Ha-ha. There ya go, and now where were we.” Rusty had missed his rum. It calmed his nerves and he felt all warm inside again. He always felt so cold out in space, hence him always wearing his woolly multi-coloured hat.

  Lights flickered on the console and sparks popped like bangers on bonfire night, but Cassy and Sam were almost done. Sam took a moment to stare once again at Cassy, when he thought she wasn’t looking, but Cassy caught him out of the corner or her eye.

  “Why do you keep staring at me, Sam? I noticed you a few times now.” Cassy looks at Sam with interest.

  “Umm, oh err … you just remind me of someone, that’s all. You look just like her, it’s unreal. I’m sorry; I don’t mean to offend you.” Sam begins to turn red in the face.

  “Who do I look like? She must have meant something to you because of the way you look at me, I feel the love.”

  Sam, now totally flustered, has no choice but to tell Cassy. “You look just like my wife when we first met, when we were young. She is passed now, a long story which is too painful to share right now. You are just a lot like her.”

  Cassy hugs Sam on the floor holding him tight and whispers in his ear. “I am sorry for your loss, I truly am.” She leans back after the embrace. “I don’t think you are that old, are you?”

  Sam giggles. “Thanks, but I must be twenty years your senior, Cassy.” Sam lifts up the cover to the wires and Cassy screws the screws in tight and they both stand up, proud of their work.

  “It’s done, but Rusty has not got back to us yet. I wonder if he is finished.” Sam calls Rusty on his gauntlet. “Hey Rusty, you finished yet? We are ready to go if you are.” A stuttery voice replies back and a half covered face looks at them. Rusty’s hat has slipped over his eyes.

  “The fish is ready and when today wanted a book, he got one you know, and I often thought a gyron was a goat.” Rusty begins to laugh hysterically and he is so drunk now that Sam rushes to the engine room to make sure all is well, and to check what Rusty has done. It is all perfect, despite his drunken nature. Sam picks Rusty off the floor and walks him to his room, where he takes off his shoes and socks and lays Rusty on his bed. “I love you man, I really do, you know that?”

  Sam smiles. “I know mate, I know. You rest now; you’ve done a great job.” Rusty curls up on his bed with the now empty bottle of rum, hugging it like a favourite teddy. Sam leaves the room quietly and wonders about the captain and visits his room to find Pace fast asleep too. Sam eventually returns to Cassy on the bridge.

  “Your brother and Rusty are fast asleep. I think they need it. I’m not going to disturb them for a while, are you?” Sam sits back down next to Cassy.

  “No, let them rest, Sam, we will give them a couple of hours. I am concerned about my brother though. I have only just got him back and now he is changing into something and I don’t want to lose him.”

  Sam laughs. “I’m sure he will survive. He’s a tough one. It sounds like it runs in the family. What were your parents like?” Cassy does a scan of the space around them to make sure they are not being followed.

  “My parents were awesome, to be honest. My father was an engineer and fabricator and my mother was head teacher of our school in Dalgen 9. We had a nice house and plenty of room to play. We were quite young, well I say we were young, but I was seven and Joseph was 17. He was my big brother and the age gap was large between us because of Mum working, and I came along as a little surprise. My father was quite a stern man who had good family values. He would never promise something unless he knew he could keep that promise, and people trusted his word on that, although many people used to say to him, ‘oh, you promised that …’, when he had not and that used to annoy him, because he knew they were lying just to get their own way on things. He did not lose his temper much, but when he did, boy did people know about it. My mother was even worse. If anyone upset us she would be on them like a ton of bricks. She did have a way with us though, something I can’t explain. It was a feeling inside when she was near, and I still get that feeling sometimes today. Maybe she is still with me, who knows. I am open to all possibilities. Anyway, I am waffling on, what about you, enough of me. Let’s go and get another drink.” Cassy stands up and Sam joins her in the canteen where the drinks were still waiting on the table.

  “Oh, this and that, I have done a lot, served in the military for a while and then turned my hand to science. I got my degrees and met my wife and settled down and that’s it really. I don’t remember my parents that much to be honest, but I am here and still alive, so I’m thankful for that, each day is a blessing, I think.” A few hours pass and Cassy and Sam natter like old friends and down a few drinks in the process.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Pace is still in his room. He is awake now, but feeling very disorientated. His blood pumps so fast around his body that it feels like a freight train late for its stop. There is a ringing in his ears and a strange discharge from his nose and mouth. He manages to stand, steadying himself against his wall, while looking at his mirror in the bathroom. He forces open his sleepy eyes to find that his tongue has now begun split in two like a serpents tongue, not a nice look for him at all. The rest of his body seems to have stayed the same, which he is happy to see. He walks slowly back to his bed and dresses himself the best he can, before smiling and putting his brave face on for the crew. Pace drifts down the spiral stairs to the bridge and is welcomed by Cassy and Sam.

  “Hey, sleepy head, you ok?” Pace eases himself into his chair.

  “Yep, good to go. How are things set? Are we ready to give it a blast?” Pace presses the button on his chair and up pops a joystick to control the ship. His hand is at the ready, poised but shaking slightly with nerves, not knowing what is to come.

  “Yes, we are set. Be ready to give it full power and keep her in a straight line if you can, and there should be no problems.” Pace looks around for Rusty, but he is not on the bridge. Sam is sat at a console, ready on the guns, and Cassy is sat at her console, ready to scan and multitask if needed.

  Sam sees Pace scanning the room, and tells him, “Rusty is taking a nap. Believe me, he has earned it today, the man is incredible.” Pace relaxes and they are set.

  “In three, two, one.” The engines fire up like small suns exploding into action, propelling the ship with a huge jolt forwards. Cassy operates the dish, and power from the core and engines flows through the large dish on the front of the ship like blood through veins. A light appears some distance in front of them growing bigger and bigger as they draw near. It looks like they will fit easily through the tear in space, but where will it take them. They all hold their breaths as they pass through into a long tunnel full of light and colours, speeding faster and faster. The lights dazzle the crew but they hold their course.

  “Steady now, steady, I just have to hold her straight or we will lose her.” Pace turns the nose left a few degrees and they look good once again. It seems like they have been travelling a while, but it has only been minutes, the sweat beading on their foreheads like sparkling stars. There is a huge tug backwards, like a parachu
te stopping a dragster and they are out of the lights and colours, into the dark once again. They had made it, but they all begin to scan space to see where they were. It appears that Cassy’s sums were right on the money, and they were indeed now ahead of the alien vessel and very close to home.

  “So we need to head for Greyfields, which is to the north east of Hawkesbury and away from Eve Thorn and her troops. Rusty said something about the governor being a friend of his, so that’s a great start. We will head in from the east of Greyfields, so we are not picked up on scanners and go from there, sound good?” Pace is eager to get down to the planet and expose Eve for what she is, and get the people off the planet before it is too late. He is still very much in control of the ship and heads for the Greyfields landing site.

  They creep into the atmosphere without a problem and navigate over the Unknown Islands, which have never been explored, noticing a strange creature walking around below them. Pace would have loved to stop and see what was down there, if there were not such pressing issues directing their actions. They pass over the Tepid Sea and then see land again. It is grey in colour and it is the aptly named Greyfields for sure. It is the planet’s dumping ground. All manner of rubbish sits and decays here. Some areas are for waste foods and other areas are old broken machines and scrap.