Bright Horizons

by Wilson Harp

“Course is laid in, General, and we will be burning hot as soon as we get clearance. About three minutes out at this point,” Leonard told him.

  Kyle walked back to his seat and picked up his tablet. He was about to sit down when he heard Andrews address him.

  “General Martin. Sir? You have an emergency message coming in.”

  Kyle walked back over to the pilots. “Who is it?”

  “It’s Commander Salazar, sir. He says it is vital he speak to you.”

  “Put him on speaker, Commander.”

  “Salazar, I am putting you on speaker with General Martin,” said Andrews as he flipped a switch and nodded at Kyle.

  “General Martin, can you hear me?”

  “I hear you, Commander, you caught me minutes before we were to leave Earth space and head to Jupiter.”

  “I am very glad to have caught you then. Sir, I need to let you have some intel, I knew you would want it as soon as you could.”

  Kyle could tell this was urgent, Salazar’s voice was strained, but also strangely excited.

  “Go ahead, Commander, it is just myself, Andrews and Leonard here.”

  “We were able to take one of the Otina bases just about an hour ago, sir. We lost six and have twenty-four wounded.”

  Kyle winced; he hated having to lose any men.

  “We took most of their base fairly well intact, and in fact we were able to start downloading data into the Berlin’s data system and start analyzing it. One of the analysts caught something and brought it right to me, sir. It’s about the crew of the Endeavor. They are alive sir.”

  Kyle felt the ship spin suddenly and he was aware that Andrews was on his feet and holding his arm.

  “Sir, did you hear me? We believe that the crew of the Endeavor was taken by force from the shuttle before the Otina destroyed it. They are being held and experimented on at a base only a few million klicks away from here.”

  Kyle’s voice cracked and wavered as he spoke. “The crew is alive? All of them?”

  “Sir, I know your sister was on board the shuttle, and from the information we have, she is being held on their base. From what we can put together, yes, she is alive.”

  Kyle couldn’t believe it. His sister was alive, but apparently being experimented on by the Otina.

  “Salazar, send your coordinates to Andrews,” Kyle ordered. “Andrews, send a message to the Enterprise, tell them I have been delayed and to keep to their departure schedule.”

  Kyle started pacing as Andrews sent the message and waited for the coordinates to be downloaded.

  “Sir, looks like we will have an almost nine hour trip on full burst, you might want to go get some sleep if you can,” Leonard suggested after the two pilots started setting up for the trip.

  “Thank you Lieutenant, I might do just that,” Kyle said as he focused his breathing and tried to calm himself.

  Kyle went to the back and lay down on the small bunk in the sleeping compartment, but he couldn’t sleep. He just kept thinking that his sister was alive, and no matter what happened, he was going to bring her home.

  Chapter 19

  19 August 2044

  The curtain pulled back and bright light fell across Kyle’s face.

  “Sir, we are about to rendezvous with the Berlin,” said Leonard.

  Kyle sat up on the small bunk in the sleeping cabin. He wished he had been able to sleep at least a little before arriving, but he had been up for the last eight or nine hours thinking. He was thinking about how to get his sister out of the Otina base. He was thinking about what condition she would be in when he found her. He was thinking about his last dinner with her. He was thinking about the incredible grief his family went through when they believed she had died. But mostly, he was thinking about bringing his sister home.

  “Thanks Lieutenant,” Kyle said as he stood and stretched.

  “No sleep at all, sir?” Leonard asked.

  “No, but that’s ok. Sorry to make you change up your day,” Kyle said, stifling a yawn.

  “No need, sir. We understand. If it were my sister, I’d be doing the same thing.”

  Kyle smiled and patted the young pilot on the shoulder as he walked into the main cabin of the ship.

  The view out the main window of the Hedali vessel was amazing. None of the Earth ships, except the pre-contact shuttles, had an actual window to look out of from the bridge. There were some small view ports, but they were locked down for the most part. There were external camera’s that gave good images for the cruisers and allowed the scooters to land planet side using thrusters, but it wasn’t the same as looking out a good old-fashioned window.

  Ahead of them was the Berlin. Several scooters were moving around it and two were docked with it.

  “Berlin, this is Earth Transport Three. Approach vectors received, docking computer online. Guide us in,” Andrews said.

  Kyle watched as Andrews pulled his hands away from the controls. The large cruiser seemed to subtly twist and turn and grow much larger until Kyle saw the small hatch that would provide docking.

  Leonard pressed a button on the console near the surface hatch and Kyle watched as the floor of the main cabin revealed a shallow depression with a docking hatch nestled at the bottom.

  “Sir, you might want to know that I will kill our artificial gravity in a few seconds,” Andrews informed Kyle.

  Kyle nodded and then felt his stomach roll as he suddenly went weightless. A few seconds later he felt their transport make contact with the large cruiser.

  Leonard moved to the hatch, opened it and crawled inside. “Port is up,” he called when he had moved in a way, letting the others know how to orient themselves when they experienced the Berlin’s artificial gravity.

  Kyle made sure he climbed into the hatch facing the port side of the Hedali ship so that he wouldn’t suffer the disorientation that he had encountered many times before. He hoped that one day they would standardize the docking of their vessels so the first crew member transferring wouldn’t have to let the others know from which position to enter.

  As Kyle crawled through the short tunnel, he noticed there were several men waiting for him on the other side. He took a hand offered to him and was pulled up by Commander Ramon Salazar. “Good to see you, General.”

  “Good to see you as well, Commander,” Kyle said. Sergeant Kiskaliski stood slightly behind the others, but Kyle made eye contact and smiled. “You wear First Sergeant well, K-Man.”

  K-Man smiled back at Kyle .“Your star looks lonely, sir. Maybe they should add another.”

  Kyle laughed and shook his head. “I don’t know if I could stand that. Now, gentlemen, what is the plan?”

  Salazar motioned down the hall. “If you will come this way, sir, we have a briefing set up for you.”

  A short distance down the hall a small situation room was set up with a tactical display table. Salazar moved to the far side and started narrating the plan as Kyle took a good spot by the table and watched the presentation.

  “Here is target Bravo. It is entrenched pretty deep in this asteroid, situated here in the belt,” said Salazar pointing out the location. The holographic image of the asteroid in question zoomed in and rotated so that Kyle could clearly see the surface portions of the base.

  “We will move into position 5,000 kilometers off of the surface and the Berlin will take out the heavy weapons located here, here and here. Once those are neutralized, we will move in with the Orinoco and the Nile, we will land the Danube over here once we have breached the perimeter. We were going to be using the Darling, but we have a problem with her navigation system,” Salazar said as he looked at Kyle. “We would like to use Earth Transport Three to bring down an additional twelve troopers, if that would be good for you, sir.”

  “That will work fine with me, Commander, and I hope you realize that I will be going as well.”

  Salazar nodded to one of his men and looked back at Kyle. “I thought that might be the case. I had them prepare a kit for you. So you
, Andrews and Leonard will be accompanied by twelve marines and land here.” He indicated another spot on the asteroid. “In all, our Strike Force will be made up of ninety three troops. We are expecting ten Human prisoners in the lab area on level two.”

  “How many levels are there?” Kyle asked.

  “Three levels, the lowest one will have the main computer and communications gear, which is the primary purpose of this assault.”

  Kyle nodded. The prisoners, including his sister, were a secondary target of the raid.

  “Sergeant Kiskaliski will lead Team One whose target will be the main communications array. I will be leading Team Two and will bring in the tech equipment to download the data from their main computer systems. Team Three will be led by General Martin and will be providing support for Teams One and Two until the lab where the prisoners are being held is located. At that point, it will become an extraction operation. Everyone clear?”

  “Yes sirs” were heard from all of the men in the room.

  “Let’s get your squads together and meet at your assigned ships,” Salazar ordered.

  Kyle turned and almost ran into a man coming towards him.

  “Excuse me, sir. I didn’t expect you to turn that quickly. I’m Sergeant Wills and am here to get you geared up. If you will follow me.”

  Kyle had to walk briskly to keep up with the marine leading him further into the Berlin.

  “Sergeant, the Commander said there were ten prisoners, but the Endeavor only had a crew of eight. Do you know the reason for the discrepancy?”

  “No sir, just know what the mission briefing said. Ten possible prisoners, and we are going to bring them out,” said Wills as he opened a door. “In here sir, we’ll get you all set.”

  About half an hour later, Kyle was in full combat gear. It had been several years since he had prepared to go into ground combat and he was amazed at how everything came back to him. The weight of the body armor was reassuring, the laser sight on his rifle was like an old friend, and the feel of the KA-BAR on his waist was like the caress of a lover.

  He was more than ready to go get his sister off of that rock. He took several measured breaths to settle down his anxiety. He knew that being focused and calm would serve him better than being excited and anxious.

  “We’re ready sir, less than three minutes until we are in position,” Salazar said as he stuck his head into the locker room. “We’ll see you on the rock.”

  Kyle nodded to Salazar and left the room heading towards his ship. Several marines were waiting there for him, including Sergeant Wills holding a space helmet.

  “Sir, as you are boarding up to go on your first hypo-atmospheric mission, let me do the honor of sealing your helmet.”

  Kyle smirked. He had heard of this tradition, it was like checking parachutes in the old days; a sign of good luck, trust and camaraderie. He lowered his head so Wills could secure the helmet. A few clicks and a hiss declared that his oxygen system had kicked on. He pressed the side of his helmet and his head up display activated showing him all the associated information. Another button brought up the infrared display. He turned both off.

  “Everything is working fine Sergeant, thank you.”

  The marines gave one loud “Oorah!” and started boarding the Hedali Transport.

  Kyle smiled and crawled in with his team, hindered just a little by the helmet already secured on his head.

  The artificial gravity field ended halfway through the short crawl and he was able to swim out of the hatch with ease. He drifted over to Andrews and oriented himself so his feet would hit the floor when they detached from the Cruiser. A quick glance at the positioning display showed that the Berlin had approached the asteroid with target Bravo and had started it’s bombardment of the Otina base. Kyle looked out the front windows of the transport and saw the edge of the energy bursts from the firing railguns on the Cruiser.

  Kyle looked behind him and saw that Wills had secured the hatch and one of the other marines was standing by the console to close up the floor.

  “Grav in 4… 3… 2… 1… Mark,” said Leonard as the transport separated from the Berlin and the artificial gravity came back online.

  Kyle’s feet hit the floor of the ship and he instantly felt more at ease. Zero gravity is a fun thing to play in, but it is a real pain when you need to move around and get things done quickly.

  The Berlin left the view of the windows and Kyle saw the Orinoco and Nile speeding ahead toward the Otina base. Three large craters were all that were left of the heavy weapons that were protecting the base from other Otina clans.

  Kyle had asked Lon about the Otina while considering how to deal with them after Earth signed the Treaty of the Stars. Lon had provided as much information as he could about them, but the information was sparse in places. Since they had never signed the Treaty themselves, the Otina were considered outcasts and vagabonds and no one really knew where their home system was. That had been fascinating for Kyle to read about. The Otina basically separated themselves into families, tribes and clans. The families were led by Captains and generally were bound to ships or bases. The tribes were loose confederations of families and were led by Warlords. And the clans were very strictly delineated groups of tribes who were led by Kings. While there was some internecine tribal fighting, most Otina viewed other clans as their main source of danger.

  Kyle’s focus was brought back into line when he saw a burst of laser fire from the Orinoco as it started to land. A smoldering line of debris scarred the middle of one of the bulwarks leading up to the main entrance of the base. As Andrews landed their ship, Kyle saw the Orinoco’s ground troops start deploying as the Nile hovered about 700 meters up laying down suppression fire.

  “Ready for deploy, sir,” said Wills. Kyle looked back at the marines. They had their helmets secured and were all facing the door.

  “Marines, go!” Kyle ordered. One of the troops hit the button on the control panel and the hatchway started opening. Before the ladder had touched the surface of the asteroid, four marines were on the ground and heading towards the base.

  Kyle had just exited the transport when he saw the Nile land and its troops start to deploy. The Otina had been taken by surprise, as was the plan, but in the minutes between the orbital bombardment and the landing of the craft, the crafty aliens had been able to put up a small amount of resistance. Kyle saw two Earth troops lying unmoving near the Orinoco as he approached the entrance to their base.

  The chatter and responses of the troops as they moved in told Kyle that the Otina had blocked off several routes on the ground level and were trying to funnel the Earth troops into a particular corridor. K-man had spotted the ruse and had one of his men deploy two grenades which detonated the booby traps and killed several Otina waiting in ambush.

  By the time Kyle had caught up with the lead team, they had secured the main elevator shaft to the lower levels and the Earth engineers were cutting the cables and setting up their own secure lift.

  “We can get the prisoners up with no problem?” Kyle asked as the engineers went about their business.

  “Yes sir,” one of them responded without slowing down his work. “We can even get a stretcher up it like a mother’s embrace.”

  “We’re open,” someone stated. K-man and another of his marines stepped into the canvas stirrups. They zipped down out of sight and two more marines stepped up to take their turns. A blast and the sound of automatic fire from below told everyone that the Otina were still showing heavy resistance but K-man and his team were advancing anyway. In short order thirty marines were down on the second floor and it was Kyle’s turn to descend. He stepped in the stirrup and grabbed the rope with his left hand. The motor cranked the pulley and he rapidly descended on the makeshift elevator. He practically fell off the cable into the opening that had been a sealed doorway. About a dozen Otina lay strewn about the hallway in both directions.

  “This way, sir.” Sergeant Wills signaled to Kyle off to the right. A bl
ast from the opposite end of the hall said that K-Man’s team was heading towards the auxiliary elevator leading to the communications array. That meant that Salazar’s team would descend further down the first shaft to the main computer room.

  Kyle started after Wills when he heard the sound of automatic fire and the high buzz of the Otina laser weapons. A marine staggered out of the doorway that he had seen Wills and the rest of his men duck into. Kyle reached him and helped him sit down in the hallway. A large portion of his arm was blackened and burned and he was gasping heavily.

  “Wait here son, help will be here soon,” Kyle said as he activated the alert button on the marine’s helmet.

  “Go get her, sir,” the marine mumbled out as he slumped against the wall. “I’ll be fine. Go.”

  Kyle heard “Grenades” shouted by a marine as he stood from tending the wounded warrior. He suddenly felt the concussion blast behind him followed by screams of pain. He barely kept his feet as he turned to the doorway. Heavy smoke was coming out of the entrance and a quick look in the room told him that something had gone dreadfully wrong.

  The room was about twelve meters long with a far doorway. Lab equipment and examination tables lay jumbled along the walls and there were several Otina lying still. But there were also a half dozen marines lying still as well, most within five meters of the door Kyle was standing in. The other half of the squad were moving, some barely, and he saw Wills crawling back to the door.

  An Otina appeared at the far doorway and Kyle raised his rifle to fire.

  “No!” shouted Wills through his pain. “Cease fire!”

  Kyle lifted his finger from the trigger and looked at the doorway that framed the Otina. There seemed to be a light blue shimmer.

  Kyle dropped to a knee, rifle still at the ready and looked at the Otina just staring at him.

  “What is that, Wills?” Kyle asked as the sergeant got near.

  “I don’t know, sir.” The sergeant sounded healthier than he looked. “Our grenades blew back on us. Any Otina on this side took the blast, but the shrapnel seemed to bounce off that blue field.”