In the Blink of an Eye

by Mark Dutkiewicz

  “Nothing important,” Curtis smiled, “Just that she reminds me of a certain someone we knew back in the academy.”

  “She’s nothing like her,” Jeff moaned rolling his eyes.

  “Really?” Curtis said raising a hand. Lifting fingers, he began counting off similarities, “She’s small, feisty, as pale as they come, has a razor whit and a mean streak—”

  “Jessica did not have a ‘mean streak’,” Jeff whined throwing an annoyed look across the table.

  “You’re blind Jeff,” Curtis said; “she could chew rocks and spit out sand. Only reason you didn’t see it was,” he paused with a lecherous grin. “You like the challenge.”

  “Oh God,” James groaned bowing his head into his hand, “you mean to tell me there’s another Kami Thomas out there?”

  Curtis laughed. “Not quite. Jessica, was…a pretentious snob who abhorred the military.”

  Blinking with a look of confusion painting her face Joanne asked, “Wait, wait, wait. If she hated the military, then how did you two get together?”

  Jeff felt his face growing flush as Curtis explained, “Jeff here got berated by her in a bar after trying to buy her a drink one night while on leave. He went back, the very next night mind, in civvies and boasted, ‘I’m going to tame this shrew!’ ” Curtis pumped his arms for effect at his imitation. “It worked too! Don’t know if she just didn’t remember him or what, but he dated her for almost three months before she got wise to his wildly bizarre schedule.”

  “Please Curtis,” Jeff protested, “She only caught me because she recognized the impossibly large black guy that was, ‘hanging with the scrawny sailor that one night.’ ”

  Curtis closed his eyes shaking his head. “So it had nothing to do with meeting up in the middle of the night, odd weekends, in the middle of the day when you were supposed to be on watch, the fact that you never invited her back to your place?” He made a sound of derision at Jeff’s comment. “You snuck off campus so many times I was having trouble keeping your stories straight. Frankly, it was exhausting.”

  Leaning back Curtis cracked a wicked grin. “Anyway, like I said, she got wise to his tricks and jacked him in the gut hard for it.”

  “Because you showed up at Finn’s in uniform,” Jeff tried to interrupt.

  “But that charm of his won her over. She stayed with him for another year, much to my dismay. Bitch wouldn’t shut up about how we were baby killers or some shit. But he stuck with her until she got bored trying to change him. So you see. He likes the challenge.”

  “Hold on a sec,” James jumped in, “Is this the girl that Knight here started pulling quotes out of his ass for?”

  “One and the same,” Curtis laughed.

  Jeff, in an effort to change the subject, excitedly chirped, “So who’s ready for shore leave?”

  “Leave’s canceled,” James said turning to him. “Don’t you read your reports?”

  “Could you read his?” Joanne added with a wink.

  “You guys just won’t let up will you?” Jeff cried in irritation. “Fine, since it’s obvious you’re going to razz me whatever the topic, yes, there’s a certain something about her that I find attractive.”

  “I’m not jerking your chain Knight,” James said soberly, “We have the rest of the week for restock and repairs then we ship out for the front.”

  “Shit,” Jeff mumbled distractedly, “and I just relieved Teak of duty.”

  “What’s wrong with Teak,” the other three called almost in chorus.

  “Combat fatigue,” he answered absently, “that little trip to Euphrates did a number on him.” Shaking his head, he looked at his drink reciting quietly, “Stormed at with shot and shell, / Boldly they rode and well, / Into the jaws of Death, / Into the mouth of hell.” Grunting sourly, he drained his glass, stood excusing himself, and grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair.

  “Knight,” James said as he was turning to leave. “You all right?”

  “Fucking dandy,” he said and stormed through the hatch. A sinking feeling was running roughshod over his stomach; this news couldn’t be good at all. “Pieces on a board,” he grunted under his breath stuffing his hands into his pockets. With a laggard pace, he proceeded to his quarters and its stack of reports, thoughts tumbling through his head. His hand closed around his father’s dog tags and he mentally asked him for advice.

  “Don’t lie to yourself Son,” he imagined the man saying, “but be a rock for your subordinates when things get rough. Having to swallow orders you don’t like comes with the job. But it’s your duty to keep everyone under you calm and focused. Remember that time you and RJ got lost in the woods? Not the part after I found you,” the phantom chuckled, “But how RJ kept his cool and remembered what I taught you. To keep moving in a straight line, to follow a stream, how to get your bearings without a compass. I still don’t know how you boys managed to get so far from home. “But one of you kept their head and knew you had to find someplace where we’d look. The same thing applies here; keep calm and no matter the outcome you’ll know you did everything you could to make the best of a bad situation. I can’t tell you what to expect, but I can say deep down you know what to do.”

  Thanks Dad, he thought. Pulling the silver disks from his pocket he smiled. Now only if you had some advice on dealing with Kami Thomas. As if the mere thought of the woman was a summons, Jeff turned a corner and found himself gazing upon her silhouette standing outside his cabin. He let out an exasperated sigh at the sight of her. This day just keeps getting better. Straightening his jacket, he proceeded toward the diminutive woman saying, “What brings you down here so late Commander?”

  Jumping at his announcement Kami spun facing him. Bolstered by his sour mood at the recall notice, he dove in before she could open her mouth. “Here to chew on me a bit for taking leisure time before we ship back to the meat grinder? Or is it about not getting my reports to you yet?” Closing the distance, he stopped short noticing her flushed face and bloodshot eyes. “Have you been drinking?” he stammered hesitantly.

  “So what if I have!” she bit. “And actually, if it will please you, I was just stopping by to see if you were awake so we could talk. But now that you mention it, your reports are due. I’ve already told you how I feel about slackers and I do expect them on my desk first thing!” Brushing a strand of her fiery mane from her face, the glare she threw was intensified by her bloodshot eyes to a level of menace he’d never seen from her. “There’s also the matter of some priorities requiring the expertise a pilot of your talents. Briefing will be at zero-seven-hundred in the captain’s ready room.”

  Not waiting for a reply the woman stormed off. Gritting his teeth, Jeff shot daggers at her back before punching the switch by the hatch. He didn’t buy her pretense of just wanting to talk and instead held his guess as to her motives. Still, she didn’t look well. Pausing he cast a gaze back down the passage after her. Her usual stiff gait seemed all the more stiff this evening. He was about to chase her down when she barked some obscenities at some poor petty officer who didn’t move quickly enough for her liking. Grunting sourly, he stalked into his room wishing for not the first time that he had an old fashioned door he could slam.

  CHAPTER 27:

  A NEW WEAPON

  Stifling a yawn, Jeff strolled into the briefing room casually wishing everyone a good morning. Everyone, as the case was, just happened to be no more than Captain Styles and Kami. Pausing near the hatch he checked his watch asking, “This is the correct briefing isn’t it?”

  “It is indeed Commander,” Styles said in his usual even tone.

  "Well that's a relief,” he said with a smirk, “I'd hate to interrupt a talk between the boss and his daughter." Styles grunt told Jeff what he thought of the joke.

  “Tough room,” he said quietly too himself before pausing by the Kami and dropping a large stack of folders he was carrying in front of her. The loud thump it made echoed through the room, and with a touch of theatrics he playful
ly said, “Your reports, Commander Thomas.”

  “Thank you,” she said in a quiet subdued voice.

  “A little hung over Sir?” he asked. The glare he received in answer had him take a step back raising his hands in feigned terror.

  “Just sit down,” Kami snidely replied, “Colonel Wesker should be here momentarily.”

  “Wesker?” he said in surprise pausing at the end of the table. “I thought we were planning a counter offensive?”

  “Things have changed Commander,” Styles cut in. “And the less people hear about it right now the better.”

  “So what’s ol wacky Wesker paying us a personal visit for?” Jeff said cheerful dropping into an empty chair.

  “That’s Colonel Wesker to you Mister,” Kami cut harshly. “Do I need to remind you that he just happens to be your superior?”

  Chuckling Jeff muttered under his breath, “He’s your superior too sweetheart.”

  “I didn’t catch that Commander; could you please speak up?” Kami chided.

  “Nothing Commander,” Jeff deflected, “Just a little surprised that an intelligence gremlin of such stature would wander so far from his lab.”

  “Really Commander,” Kami sighed, “must you be so insolent.”

  “Please accept my apologies,” Jeff said sardonically, “It appears my judgment has once again fallen short of your standards.”

  “Speaking of,” Kami cut in, “I understand that you’ve grounded Lieutenant Jacobs. Care to share your reasoning?”

  Leaning back Jeff crossed his legs. “Teak is experiencing some questionable feelings at the moment. Threatened to turn in his wings in fact. I don’t like my pilots making rash decisions when they’re not one hundred percent, so I ordered him to talk with the ships counselor to sort out his issues first.”

  “My, my Grant,” it was Kami’s turn to sound sarcastic, “you sounded like a model officer just there.” Folding her hands on the table she leveled an earnest glare at him. “Unfortunately the timing of this breakdown is far from ideal as we’re being saddled with a big task.”

  “The plot thickens,” Jeff smiled twining his fingers and leaning forward, “I can’t wait to hear the details of this one.”

  “Before this goes any further,” Captain Styles grunted upsetting the juvenile display, “I’d like to advise the both of you I’m growing tired of this game.” Turning his attention to Jeff the captain continued, “As to this operation. I’m afraid we’re as much in the dark about it as you are, save that it will involve getting close to the enemy. Any loss of manpower is not in our best interest.” The clipped tone and stern look he shot from under the wide brim of his hat spoke volumes of his waning patience for their continuing feud.

  Jeff’s murmured apology, echoed by Kami, seemed to placate the man. He paused a moment, as if to be sure no more bickering took place, before he continued, “All we know is intelligence has found something and Command wants the best group we have to take a look at it. Whatever it is, it’s important enough that Colonel Wesker was dispatched in person to deliver it. Any discussion on our involvement will have to wait until after the colonel gives his report.”

  Jeff barely had a moment to utter, “Understood Sir,” before the hatch hissed open admitting the Colonel as if summoned by the conversation.

  Small in stature and pale with gaunt cheeks, Wesker looked to be more at home in a laboratory that a military vessel. Dark circles rimmed the bottoms of his eyes as he shuffled in and the dark jacket of his uniform hanging from his shoulders looked out of place on his almost skeletal frame. A thin reedy voice emanated from his throat, “Apologies for my tardiness Captain, lots of data to go over and I haven’t a minute to spare over any of it.” Placing a large folder on the table he looked up and blinked as if he’d just noticed Jeff and Kami standing at attention. Waving a dismissive hand he continued, “Sit down, sit down, we have no time to waste,” before flipping open the book sized package and pulling a thumb sized object from a pocket inside.

  “Burning the candle at both ends Colonel?” Jeff smiled, which earned him heated glare from Kami.

  “What’s that? Candle? Oh, yes, yes,” Wesker chuckled, “good jest there Commander. Very good. Did you know that our current understanding of that phrase has nothing to do with its original meaning? Oh no, it was Nathan Bailey who defined the term in his Dictionarium Britannicum around, ah, seventeen-thirty with the citation, ‘The candle burns at both ends. Said when husband and wife are both spendthrifts.’ ” He chuckled again, now at his own comment, “So you see, it’s an implication of reckless waste and not of working late into the night only to begin again early the next morning.” A wheezing laugh continued from the colonel for a moment before Captain Styles cleared his throat pulling the man out of his revelry

  “Yes, good jest indeed,” Wesker sighed, “But it’s not the meaning of this briefing. I’m afraid big trouble has been presented to us from, ah…. a colony world’s orbital satellite in, ah…. the Procyon system,” Wesker stammered a bit while flipping through leaves of papers. “The…. ah…the planet Prokuon. Big, big trouble. The Drac have something new and powerful, terribly powerful.” Plugging the thumb sized device it into a terminal jack on the table the slight man himself took a chair. “If you’ll place your attention on the monitor please.”

  Dimming the lights and bringing the rooms view screen to life Wesker continued, “What you see here is the video feed from one of Prokuon’s satellites. Two days ago, the colony transmitted a distress signal that went dead almost instantly. The Drac apparently used it as a test site for a new weapon we’ve never seen before.” As if punctuating his words, the screen displayed multiple large Drac space cruisers emerging from superluminal in orbit of the planet. “What you see here is what we’re calling the Drac cannon ship.” he said in description of the gargantuan vessel that followed the space cruisers dwarfing even their impressive size. The colossal craft was tipped with a large barrel shaped bow, the gaping maw of which looked able to swallow the Victoria and a large portion of her entire escort whole.

  Within moments the ships were illuminated by quick expanding balls of fiery gas, spherical evidence of whatever meager defenses the colony had attempting to defend the planet. “The video speaks for itself in regards to the swiftness of the attack,” Wesker continued solemnly as the unfathomable events played out on the monitor. “Our forces had no time to prepare, though I don’t imagine any preparation would have been adequate.” The edges of the mammoth crafts bow began to glow, softly at first and steadily growing into a blinding intensity. The sickly hull of the ship seemed impervious to whatever was thrown at it while energy continued to collect in its barrel before a white hot beam impossibly wide erupted from it. The satellite seemed to absorb the destructive release as the unseen shock wave spun the view point widely before displaying static.

  Punching some keys on his terminal Wesker added, “This is the feed from another satellite in higher orbit. It shows the devastating power of the attack.” True to his words, the vantage of the second satellite revealed the gruesome truth of the matter. The Cannon Ship’s powerful beam swiftly atomized any craft in its path. Undeterred by the woefully meager defense the beam ripped the atmosphere away from the planet burrowing deep into its crust. In the span of a heartbeat the planet Prokuon collapsed then exploded into innumerable fragments of earth and rock leaving little more than a cloud of dust when the satellite image failed.

  Stunned silence hung oppressively in the confines of the briefing room. The sheer magnitude of the witnessed atrocities left Jeff feeling numb with fear. Working his mouth in an attempt to reintroduce moisture to it his voice weakly trembled, “What the hell was that?”

  “That Commander,” Wesker decried, “is our doom.” Jeff turned his attention back to the slight man when the lights came back up. “Our best estimates put the size of the cannon ship at approximately three to five kilometers in length.”

  “Three to five kilometers!” Jeff and Kami gasped
in unison.

  “Indeed, I fear we have vastly underestimated the Drac’s ability to make war. It appears as though the incident at Euphrates was merely a decoy to throw our forces into disarray, and allow them to demonstrate their barbarity. Even the carcass recovered from there lends credence to strategy. However, it has produced some obscene theories that we’ve brought this calamity upon ourselves. Completely unsubstantiated, I’m only including them for the sake of thoroughness.”

  “What theories?” Styles asked, Jeff simultaneously saying, “Captain Miller said he left the body there.”

  Wesker blinked, his face giving the impression he was trying to process both questions at once. “Once we heard of the creature from Commander Grant’s report,” he said looking at the captain, “we dispatched a small research team to recover the specimen. Some of the younger…er…more inexperienced exobiologists examining the creature believe it to indeed be a member of Exogíini Vampír. They’re attempting to make a connection from the lifeform, claiming it to have a lifecycle similar to that of a cicada, to a series of fissures found in the general vicinity of the supply station.”

  Laughing he added, “Quite preposterous really. The fissures are located in close proximity to subterranean deposits of silica and have been observed on various moons and such that have been surveyed for mining. It is well established they are the result of pockets of subterranean gasses, or possible geysers, escaping to the surface. Based on my findings, I’m confident that it’s not quite the boogeyman Mister Grant made it out to be.”

  “If you’ll excuse me Colonel,” Jeff grated in agitation, “but that Goddamned thing almost killed me.”

  “I’ve no doubt you had a harrowing experience on Euphrates Commander. But Commander Swanson and I are quite assured it’s not a Drac—”