by T. R. Harris
Drake was right. Within twenty seconds the temperature within the pilothouse of the Kai Shek climbed to over one hundred-twenty degrees, even with the air conditioning blasting at full power. The ship followed the arc of a circle, with the anchor at the pivot point. They would be within the corona for only three minutes, yet the lashing streamers of white hot gas and radiation were enough to melt the hull of the Kai Shek if they sustained so much as an extra minute amid the hellfire.
Internal ship gravity began to go haywire. The Kai Shek’s systems began maxing out. Instrument lights on the bridge went out in chains, like the unplugged wires of a Christmas tree.
“Standby, Mr. Kincaid! I’m adjusting course to bring us in contact with the pod. You’ll only get one crack at it.”
“Understood. Now stop talking to me and let me concentrate.”
“Well forgive me, your majesty!”
“Knock it off you two,” Steele admonished. “My skin is as dark as I want it get, so let’s not spend any more time in here than we have to.”
“I have a lock!” Robert cried out. “Here we go…!”
The invisible magnetic grapple reached out for the metal pod as the Kai Shek swept by faster than the eye could follow. The computers were barely fast enough to time the release, and Robert breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the light turn green signifying a successful capture.
“Great job, Robert—”
The light abruptly went red.
“What happened?” Grossman asked. On his screens he could see the pod vanishing rapidly behind them.
“I lost the hook!” Robert said.
“Dammit!” Drake yelled. “You had it.”
“The hook really has to be set when we’re moving at this velocity.”
“So it’s gone? We can’t get the fuel pod?” Ryan sounded as if he was about to cry, and if not, then he was right at the edge of a full-blown panic attack.
Robert stared at the back of Drake’s head as he sat in the pilot’s seat, transfixed on the forward viewport. “We don’t have another option,” Kincaid said softly.
“I know,” Drake replied without turning.
“Eh, excuse me,” Javon Steele said, “but I may want to have children someday, and already I’m sure this radiation is having a field day with my ability to do so. We can’t go back in.”
“I have shots ready, Javon,” Drake stated. “Besides, isn’t one of you enough for a galaxy this size?”
“I suppose you’re right. I wouldn’t want to dilute my awesomeness with a bunch of miniature me’s running around.”
“We’re…we’re…going back in?” Ryan stuttered.
“Don’t have a choice, Mr. Grossman,” Robert said. “We can’t get to Earth without the rods. And if we don’t make it then the planet gets destroyed and the aliens take over—everything. We owe the Human race one more try.”
“I understand Captain. Just...can we survive another loop?”
“We’re about to find out.”
Drake had left the ship swinging along on its trajectory still attached to the anchor, knowing they had no other option but to make another run at the pod. Now they were whipping back around and closing on the corona once again.
“I have incoming!” Grossman suddenly cried out. “Tracking on target.”
“Will they reach us before we pick up the pod?” Drake asked calmly.
Ryan punched the keys on his console. “Near miss—unless they detonate early just to disrupt our stream.”
“Very well, Mr. Grossman. Please continue to monitor. We are entering the corona...again.”
The next minute and a half was even worse than the first run. The pilothouse heat climbed rapidly to over a hundred and thirty degrees, and being on the bridge was like standing before the doors of an open furnace.
“Closing on pod. Trajectory has been altered from the miss,” Robert reported.
“I see that. I’ll bring us by as close as I dare, but it wouldn’t pay for us to hit the damn thing head on, now would it?”
“Could come as a fast conclusion to all our pain and suffering—”
“Please stop talking to me so I can concentrate,” Drake calmly repeated Robert’s line from earlier. As he looked at the back of Drake’s steady head, Robert could almost see the smile on the big man’s face.
“Lining up,” Robert said. “Grapple away!”
This time no one cheered when the capture light turned green. Instead they stopped breathing and waited a full twenty seconds before exhaling.
“Looks like you got a good hook, Mr. Kincaid,” Drake said without turning. He did, however, lift a fist and project a thumb’s up back at Robert. “Bring the pod into the hold and secure the grapple. We aren’t home free yet.”
The Kai Shek swung back out from the fiery inferno, only to have Grossman scream out: “Nine ships on screen, all have launch indicators!”
Robert could feel the slight tug to his left as Drake increased the power to the engines. With his grappling duties done, Kincaid switched his screen to tactical and assigned his console to weapons control. The opposing force was still pretty far out, and they didn’t appear to be in a hurry to approach too quickly. Yet their plasma missiles had no fear of the star’s corona, and Robert could see the trails lengthening as the deadly projectiles fanned out in a vast array, covering most of their path away from Elesisa.
“Ready to cut anchor on your order, Mr. Drake,” Javon Steele said, his voice heavy with anticipation.
When Drake didn’t respond, Javon grew more impatient.
“Either you tell me when to cut, or I’ll do it myself!” he said to Drake.
“Don’t cut!” Drake said firmly.
“What the hell do you mean, don’t cut?”
“I mean look at the screens. There’s no way we can stand against those ships. Our only chance is to cut anchor while in the corona and skirt out to the side.”
“Are you crazy?” Steele screamed. “We can’t make it! Not a third time!”
“That’s just what I want them to think.”
“Who?”
“Those ships and their captains.”
“Drake—” Steele began.
“Let it be, Commander,” Robert said. “I hate to say this, but I have to agree with Bondel. Our only chance of getting out of here alive is to go back in and then cut the anchor.”
“I have one other ace up my sleeve, Mr. Steele,” Drake said quietly. “One that might get us to Earth without any more hassles.”
Drake finally turned his head, locked his gaze on Steele, then swiveled around until he was looking at Robert.
“I hope it works, Bondel,” Kincaid said.
“Get the radiation shots ready—and a whole lot of cold water. It’s going to get toasty in here.”
The Kai Shek was buffeted by exploding plasma missiles. The attacking ships peeled off, however. It must have become apparent to them that the Kai Shek was piloted by someone clearly insane and bent on suicide. The missiles, however, persisted in a deadly rain.
To Robert Kincaid it felt as though the very air was on fire, but he knew the physical heat was only part of the story. The ship was bathing in cell-killing radiation, so much in fact that Robert had his doubt that the radiation counteragent would be effective on such a massive exposure. He shrugged. If they did make it out of alive, then the shots should at least let them survive long enough to get to Earth and possibly prevent her destruction. After that, he could welcome a speedy end at his leisure.
“Standby to cut anchor, Mr. Steele.”
“Standing by…still.”
“Cut!”
The Kai Shek jerked hard—once—and then assumed a direct line through the blaze of gases at the edge of the star. The ship struggled deep in the gravity well of the sun, yet maintained her course, a testament to both the quality of the ship and Drake’s piloting skills.
“Releasing propellant,” he announced unexpectedly.
“What propellant?” Ryan asked.
“The landing propellant that’s now streaming out behind us…like a flare.”
“So the others will think we burned up!” Javon Steele said, a modicum of awe in his voice. “And if they think we’re dead, they’ll stop chasing us.”
“That’s the plan…if the radiation doesn’t kill us. But at least we’ll last longer than we would have against those missiles.”
The Kai Shek emerged from the corona at an oblique angle, three hundred degrees out from the attacking ships.
Most of the bridge instruments that had gone offline came back up in haphazard fashion. The overhead vents carried away the excess heat and dumped cool air on the heads of the crew.
“My God,” Steele said. “We’re going to live.”
“Could be,” Drake said. He reached over and cut the engines and let the Kai Shek coast. The detection signature would be cut to only a fraction of what it would have been were the engines still blazing away. They could keep them dormant long enough to make sure the ruse worked.
“Back to the tramline?” Robert asked.
“We’ll join the stream of traffic headed to Earth. But lets chill a bit, shall we?”
Robert nodded.
23
THE Norvell Tramline was Humanity’s first interstellar electromagnetic channel. Discovered and charted over five hundred years previous by Neutron Drive inventor Holland Norvell, it had become the only major thoroughfare into the heart of the Orion-Cygnus Arm of the galaxy. The tramline led inward through Eridani Territory, the Midlands, the Reaches and finally the Shadowlands. The stream also continued in the other direction away from Earth, extending through Galaxy View, Andromeda Minor and the Borderlands. In normal times, the Norvell Tramline was the considered the busiest of all twenty-seven major tramlines discovered to date, yet these were not normal times.
Robert Kincaid was amazed and aghast at the abundance of contacts on his screens, a flickering river of light with individual contacts impossible to discern. Upon entering Earth Space, the Kai Shek merged with the traffic flow, which seemed to be heading more into the Solar System than out of it. A link to the local news media stations instantly told the story. It was the same news, repeated on every comm channel.
The word was out. Peace was coming to the United Peoples of Earth and all the worlds under its dominion. In twenty-nine hours a ceremony would take place that would cement that peace forever. Representatives from all of the colonies of Earth were arriving—the wealthy aboard private starships, and even the not-so-wealthy; all to witness the momentous and pivotal turn in history.
The Peace and Solidarity Ceremony—the official designation for the symbolic scuttling of the Vixx’r Fleet—was to take place five hundred-eighty miles above the surface of the Earth, near the Council Center Space Station. Robert was shocked to hear that in attendance would be First-Secretary Kyle Patel—the supposed author of the peace agreement—along with UPE President Victoria Simms.
Victoria Simms had been the UPE president for twelve years, having been elected at the outset of the Human-Vixx’r War. Normal terms for UPE presidents ran for eight years. She had been reelected handily during some of the worst fighting between the two races, and two years after the annexation of the Reaches. For Patel to do what he had done to a very popular president was a major risk on his part, as well as his supporters. Even if he felt his cause justified, he had still circumvented established protocols and procedures. By all rights, Kyle Patel should be in prison for high treason, awaiting execution.
Instead, he was about to preside over the most-watched news event to ever take place in the Human galaxy. And as Robert watched the broadcasts, Patel was being hailed a hero, the new savior of the Human race, with Madam President Victoria Simms now relegated to a supporting role.
Drake broke the Kai Shek off from the main flow of traffic heading for Earth and approached the Moon from the dark side. Yet when the small ship skimmed the jagged mountain peaks and deep craters to emerge into the light, all four men on the bridge of the ship took in a deep breath at the shimmering sight of their ancestral homeworld.
Robert was especially moved, staring out at the blue, white and brown globe now half revealed in light. Before him was The Earth, the planet from which all Humanity had sprung forth. Now those fragile, thin-skinned creatures were in the process of colonizing a galaxy—if still in the infant stage of their ambitions. He had always dreamed of visiting the planet, and here he was—finally. Yet he hadn’t come as a tourist, but rather as the planet’s savior, if, in fact, that was to be. If not, then he would bear witness to an event as consequential as the Big Bang itself, and be among only a relative handful of Humans to see the glorious planet alive for the very last time.
“I hope we get to land there once this is over,” Ryan Grossman said softly.
“Let’s hope it will still be worth landing on,” Robert said.
Drake cleared his throat. “Now if we could all shift our attention back to the matter at hand, I’m looking for a spot far enough away from any settlements, yet still in a clear line-of-sight of the scuttle fleet.”
“I was expecting the Moon to be covered with cities, but I was wrong,” Robert said. “I guess with a whole galaxy to choose from, they didn’t need to settle for an airless ball with one-sixth the gravity. That place looks good.”
The Kai Shek set down at the bottom of a shallow crater about twenty miles in diameter. The closest settlement they could see was over five hundred miles away, on the great plain known as the Sea of Tranquility. Robert thought the name sounded familiar, and being the avid history buff he was, he felt he should remember why. But his memory failed him, and he moved on to other concerns.
The four of them set about offloading the two hundred crates of exotic alien objects the ship carried. Wearing lightweight environment suits, the work went faster than any of them expected because of the light gravity, and soon all the containers were placed in four neat rows of fifty each and separated by twenty feet between the rows.
“You sure you can get these things to form up?” Robert asked Ryan Grossman for literally the hundredth time.
“Yes, Captain,” answered the exasperated twenty-year-old. “First we open all the outer crates and then the inner boxes. Each crate contains a lead module, and once activated, they’ll begin to form up into a central core, beginning with four and then eight and so on. The worker modules will then be called to link up with the core, followed by another layer of control units. Once the process starts, we won’t be able to stop it from forming.”
“And how long after they start forming do the fireworks start?”
“Once eight are in place, the device is activated. The energy output is low at this point—relatively—but as the number of modules double, the power output increases a hundredfold.”
Drake came out the back of the Kai Shek with two backpack-like units. “These are used for maintenance spacewalks,” he said, handing one each to Javon Steele and Ryan Grossman. “They have a twenty-four hour air supply and a propulsion pack. Once you get these buggers building, then activate the jets and get the hell out of here. If this device does what we want it to do, then the area around this spot will struck by the largest bolt of lightning ever seen. I would be on the other side of the Moon if I were you when that happens. There are some cities on the dark side. Try to get there before Zeus sends down his lightning bolt.”
“Don’t worry, Bondel, we don’t intend to become sacrificial lambs to the cause,” said Steele. Through gloved hands, Drake and Steel shook. “You know when you think about it our job here is the easier of the two. Ryan and I don’t have to figure out a way to infiltrate a maximum security space station and rescue the president of a galactic empire from the clutches of an evil madman.”
“Sounds like the plot of some science fiction novel,” Robert said.
“More like a fantasy, if you ask me,” Drake replied.
Captain and Executive Officer then hugged each other. “Hope to see you on
the other side, Mr. Steele. And that’s an order! And look after the kid for me, too. ”
“Aye, Captain, and you know me: I never disobey a direct order.”
24
THE Kai Shek lifted off the surface of the Moon five hours after landing and headed for the bright round dot set against the black curtain of outer space and hovering above the shimmering thin layer of atmosphere encircling the planet Earth. Council Central Space Station was a massive structure, measuring twenty miles across and half a mile thick. It had countless dark matter gravity bands running along the bottom which faithfully recreated the tug of the homeworld for the facility’s half a million occupants—which had swelled to over a million in anticipation of the upcoming ceremony.
At his request, Robert had assumed piloting duties aboard the Kai Shek and he now had the small ship closing on the massive, glowing dome-shaped space station. There was a long line of other vessels all heading the same way, and Robert had to assume they had clearance to enter the station or to take up a position nearby.
Drake and Kincaid did not have any such authorization.
“Well, my Captain,” Drake began, “you’ve been fairly quiet, yet I still detect purpose in your actions. I assume you have a plan for getting us inside?”
“I do, Mr. Drake. Indeed I do.”
And with that Robert pressed the comm link on his board and began to speak. “Attention Center Security, this is Captain Robert Kincaid aboard the merchant vessel Kai Shek. I am a fugitive from justice and wish to surrender myself and my ship. Do you copy?”
The response was immediate. “Is this some kind of a joke? Use of this channel for unauthorized communications is prohibited. Cease your link or else we will pursue legal recourse against you.”
“This is not a joke. Please check your database base for a Robert Kincaid of the Reaches and Bondel Drake from the Midlands. Also research the vessel Kai Shek. It shouldn’t take you long to verify that what I say is true. I’ll wait.”
The silence from the other side of the link lasted less than thirty seconds before a screen lit up in front of Robert and an officer of full commander rank was staring out at him. He looked hard at Robert and then away at something off screen.