Crew members nervously glanced over their shoulders at Dax.
“Zen, the Vanguard forbid it,” Christensen said. “Until the peace talks conclude I must obey my orders. Besides, my friend, honestly ask yourself, could anyone survive that onslaught?”
Dax only knew he had to believe it was possible. He knew Angie was a born survivor. She’d find a way. Whatever it took she’d keep them both alive.
Christensen turned to his pilot. “Plot a direct course out of the restricted zone.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Dax felt his hands clench tight into fists.
Christensen walked back to his chair.
Dax grabbed his shoulder and spun him around.
Christensen’s eyes narrowed. His patience was wearing thin.
“Let me go in dark,” Dax said. “A halo drop.”
“Captain,” the navigator called out, “Armstrong’s orbiting satellite indicates a Vanguard patrol vessel coming over the horizon in less than one minute.”
Christensen stared hard into Dax. He seemed to see something in Dax that he knew neither of them could live with. He nodded.
“Begin countdown to Vanguard interception,” Christensen shouted.
“Fifty five seconds...”
“We will try to avoid the Vanguard until you’re ready to be picked up, Dax,” Christensen said and turned to face Dax. He seemed surprised Dax was still on his bridge. “You’re on the clock, Dax. Good luck.”
“Fifty four... fifty three...”
Dax pulled on his helmet and sprinted for the bridge elevator.
CHAPTER 29 - LUNAR HALO
Dax ran to the nearest airlock. As the door slid shut behind him he punched the outer seal release. It popped open. The charred lunar surface rushed by. He leapt from the airlock and tumbled towards the crater.
Retro rockets in his power-armor slowed his descent. He landed and skidded down the side of the crater. Rolling to a stop.
He glanced up at the Defiant as it powered away. He checked his air supply. He had less than an hour to search the wide, deep tunnels beneath the lunar surface.
He sprang up and ran towards the tunnel entrance.
He found a central computer port and hacked into it. He ran a life-signs scan.
One by one each tunnel reported as empty. All of them. No life-signs. No bodies. As he wandered around he found no signs of struggle.
Had the Moonbase inhabitants really had so little warning that they were all caught out on the surface?
Did the Vanguard instantly vaporize the entire population with no warning at all?
Despite the evidence, Dax refused to believe it. And yet he was wracked with guilt for wasting Defiant’s time.
He walked slowly to the tunnel entrance.
With five minutes of air left he signaled for Defiant to pick him up.
“Captain, you were right,” Dax said. “I’m sorry I wasted your time.
“Seeing is believing,” Christensen said. “If it brings you closure then--”
Static interference cut through the comms signal.
“Captain?” Dax shouted and felt his throat grow dry. “Captain?”
With lunar gravity only one sixth of Earth’s, he was able to climb up the side of the crater with giant effortless leaps. Within a minute he was topside and waited. Defiant rose up over the crater rim.
A shuttle left the launch bay. It dropped from Defiant at a suicidal angle of descent. The pilot was in a major hurry.
A cable attached to a pick up basket dropped from the shuttle. The basket swung violently at him. Traveling at some six hundred miles an hour.
Dax knew if he didn’t lose an arm leaping into the basket it would be a miracle.
Dax’s comms unit crackled.
“Dax prepare for a Pooper Scooper,” Christensen said in his ear.
Dax knew space marines were trained to complete a dozen mandatory lunar Pooper Scooper pick-ups in troop evacuation simulations. To Dax it looked like a flying decapitation machine bearing down on him. Right now he wanted to evacuate through every orifice in his body.
“Couldn’t have named it better myself,” Dax said and braced himself to be scooped up into the basket.
A vast cloud of pastel lights, orange, pink, blue appeared on the horizon.
Vanguard.
It was impossible to see what was inside the cloud. Dax was certain that was entirely the point. It could contain a Vanguard fleet warship or just a light cruiser scout-ship. Until it engulfed you --by which time it was usually too late to do anything about it-- there was no way to know for sure.
Dax felt his stomach backflip.
The cloud of light sped across the sky. Defiant turned sharply in the opposite direction. But the Vanguard cloud closed in on Defiant.
Some fifty feet overhead, above the crater rim, the shuttle flew towards Dax, trailing the scooper behind it. In another few seconds it would be above him. Dax ran at the scooper.
“Five seconds to poop scoop,” the shuttle pilot’s distorted voice crackled in Dax’s ear. “Start running commander.”
Four
Dax glanced behind him at the Vanguard cloud.
Three.
Dax sprinted away from the basket. The idea being he’d leap into the air and be scooped up mid-air from behind.
Or be sliced in half like a salami.
Two.
Dax leapt into the air.
One.
Dax felt the scooper slide up and around him. Robotic arms clung to him and held him in mid-air.
He glanced up at the shuttle and whooped with exhilaration.
“Nice flying,” Dax shouted.
A bolt of blue lightning shot out of the colored cloud and cut the shuttle in half.
A brilliant white explosion blinded Dax until his helmet visor compensated a split second later. Just quick enough for Dax to witness the two halves of the shuttle drop around him.
Dax felt the scooper cable turn slack and the scooper drop. His stomach backflipped. He felt himself propelled over the edge of the crater rim.
The shuttle plunged down the crater cliff side and rolled after Dax.
Dax struggled to free himself, but the robotic arms held him fast. He reached down to one thigh and detached his Xiphos. He ignited it and thrust it up between his body and the robot arms. The arms fell away and he leapt from the tumbling cage basket.
He rolled down the crater until he could find his feet and push up off the moon rock. He leapt as the shuttle’s cabin rolled over the scooper, crushing it.
Dax heard a static crackle in his helmet comms.
“Sorry, Dax,” Christensen said in his ear. “Find a way to hold out in the tunnels until--”
Christensen never finished his sentence.
Another bolt of blue lightning erupted out of the cloud and sliced Defiant in half.
What have I done?
Dax dropped to his knees. The shuttle threw up a cloud of dust that engulfed Dax.
As the dust settled, the lunar crater vanished.
The Ursu ship appeared under his feet. Argyle Valkyrie lay at his feet. She held a thermal grenade in each hand.
Dax prized her fingers free of the grenades and grabbed at them. He ran at the warp-drive exhausts and hurled the grenades.
He spun around to face the marines. “Grenades,” he yelled and threw himself flat against the hull of the Ursu ship. Everyone threw themselves flat against the hull as two giant balls of rainbow light exploded out of the warp-drive exhausts.
The warp-drive balls rolled over the marines and bounced up to Valiant’s bridge tower. The tower vanished.
CHAPTER 30 - HANNIBAL’S BETRAYAL
Two giant balls of rainbow light collided inside Valiant’s bridge. Hannibal instinctively threw his hands in front of his face and turned away. He reminded himself he was the one in command and all his crew would be relying on his rapid-fire decision making. He turned back to his crew.
The two balls merged into one su
per ball of rainbow light. It bounced across the bridge, hitting Hannibal square in the chest and throwing him backwards across his command chair.
His landing felt softer than expected. He felt a humid breeze tease his itching beard. He sat up on his elbows.
He felt something rustling between his fingers. His palms rubbed up against something dry and brittle like dead leaves.
Impossible.
“Damage report,” he shouted.
There was no reply. He blinked away a thousand swirling stars of rainbow light until he realized he was alone. He got to his feet, but he was no longer standing on his bridge. He was no longer aboard Valiant.
He adjusted his eyes to a pitch black darkness that raised hairs on the back of his neck. A strong wind greeted him like a playground bully waiting outside school gates. Slapping his face with unrelenting joy until he promised to hand over next week’s lunch money.
He breathed in the warm summer humidity of thick wafts of sweet jasmine, wisteria, and honey suckle. But their intoxicating harmony couldn’t fully mask the stench of death.
He could see nothing, but dark, twisted, gnarled branches that seemed to reach out to him. The sounds of a river crawling through the dark trees like a wounded animal felt so familiar. Insects of all sizes buzzed about him like hovering chainsaws.
I know this place.
He was struck by instant memories of weeks of shore leave spent at his wife’s mansion on her family’s plantation in the Deep South. Despite state-of-the-art air conditioning in all the rooms, he couldn’t sleep at night. Whenever sleep did find him, it would toy with his dreams like a trickster until he woke drenched in sweat.
He only had one nightmare. Over and over it played out the same. He’d be laying on his bed next to Rachel. Feeling his skin prickle with heat under a damp sheet, like a funeral shroud cast over him by the hot, sultry night. He wouldn’t know if he was awake or asleep. He’d be on the cusp of both. Teetering on the twilight edge of every man’s secret abyss.
There on the bed he’d feel a welcome light breeze playfully sneak through the balcony’s open French doors and tease his toes. The breeze brought indecipherable whispers from the trees. He’d enjoy the sensations like a honeymoon lover’s tease. The rustling of leaves felt like snakes coiling up in the warmth of his inner ear.
But always they’d accompany a small knot in his stomach. The growing sensation of a snowball rolling down hill, gathering pace and growing in size. As the snowball of apprehension rolled up his senses into one furious, uncontrollable descent, he felt himself jolt to a halt. He’d suddenly remember shutting and locking the doors before he retired for the night.
Always, at that precise moment in the dream, he’d be convinced he was awake. He’d sit bolt upright and stare down at his feet. Thick tree roots like wet, slimy tentacles wrapped around his ankles and squeezed.
The roots would tighten and slither back across the room. He knew they were returning to the dark place he feared most. Returning to the swamp and intent on taking him.
The sudden, violent pull of the roots would yank him across the bed.
Always he’d contort his body and face Rachel. She’d sit up, pull the sheet up to her chin and look at him as if he were a stranger.
He’d reach out with both hands and paw at her arms. But always she’d slap away his splayed fingers. Soon she’d be out of reach.
The roots would tug him off the bed, across the carpeted floor, onto the smooth oak flooring and out through the locked French doors to the balcony. And with a sense of foreboding déjà vu his stomach began to lurch. A moment later, another violent tug would drag him over the edge of the second floor balcony.
He’d hit the ground with disappointment the fall hadn’t killed him. For he had a sense he knew what was coming next.
Even recollecting the nightmare now sent shivers down his back. He remembered how always after he awoke from the dream he’d need fresh air as if he’d been sucking on the vacuum of space his entire life.
He would inevitably find himself outside, standing on their bedroom balcony overlooking the plantation. He would stare with a sense of foreboding into the distant swamp. A feeling inside him like dread would coil itself around his soul.
Like the twisting, suffocating roots of thousand year old swamp trees. He’d remember how in the nightmare the roots dragged him down into the bayou where alligators stowed the rotting flesh of carcasses.
At night, under a moon, he felt the beauty of the dancing mist spirits calling out to him. Mesmerizing, flirtatious flickers of ghosts, beckoning him with siren call. But he knew better than to trust them. His knuckles would grip the balcony balustrade throughout the night, like it was a life preserver keeping him from going under.
There he’d stand, shaking like a drowning man until the orange fireball of dawn rose over the plantation. Only when those ghosts vanished as the sun incinerated the mists, could he relax.
At first he would tell his wife about it and with her scientist’s curiosity she’d listen, evaluate, tick mental boxes and pigeon-hole his agitation as war-fatigue. After a while, he’d pretend he was fine. She seemed to believe him, or else was too distracted by her own problems.
He’d inquire, but she’d recoil as if he was prying. In her off-handed way she’d state she had problems with confidential research and development and that his security level didn’t give him clearance to know more than that.
He’d respond with a smile of clenched teeth. He’d wonder where in their twenty year marriage the cracks had become tectonic plates. Drifting in opposite directions and occasionally rubbing up against each other. Causing a friction that they’d each ignore.
Until perhaps one day the big quake would force them to look at themselves... if they survived.
The last few shore-leave visits had been strained. He had been unable to mask his hatred of the plantation. He knew it was good as it was to see her, in between long missions, off-Earth. But at the end of shore leave he was glad to be shot of the house, the swamps and the dreams of death. He even blamed the strain in their relationship on the plantation.
This would provoke deep hurt in her, he knew, for she loved the place. It was her connection to her parents and their parents, and so on down the line. It was her heritage as a lady of the South, full of grace and fine bearing.
She felt she owed who and what she was to the privilege of her upbringing on the plantation. But now, he hated how he had come to despise that which had shaped her. His mouth felt arid dry with disgust for growing to hate the beauty and independence of spirit that had once drawn him in and made him fall hopelessly in love with her in the first place.
After her death, such thoughts shattered him with the aftershock. With tremors of guilt.
He had known Mars was vulnerable to a first wave of attack. He knew the Mars negotiations where dead on their feet. He knew war was imminent. He could have breached his security clearance and warned her.
Why didn’t I insist she stay away from Mars?
The cold, harsh truth spat back at him. Because you’re a man of duty first, a husband and father second, Hannibal.
He hadn’t been back to the plantation since the end of the war.
What was the point?
The only good thing about the galactic war had been when Earth Defense Fleet shot down a Lupos raiding party ship over the plantation. It had crashed into the mansion, destroying it completely.
At the time of hearing news of the house’s destruction, he had thanked God his wife had survived -- she had joined a two year science mission on Mars. The video footage of the raging, uncontrollable flames consuming the house of his nightmares. He slept well that night for the first time in years -- until a week later when he learned of her torture and death on Mars at the hands of a Lupos pack.
Those barbarians had deliberately targeted the civilian science vessel and gutted everyone. It still didn’t make sense to him. The pictures of the slaughtered scientists had been leaked by military
sources to the press. It made for horrific viewing and an excellent recruitment strategy. Seeing them, it was no wonder Nia hated him.
But now he had a feeling he was back there on the plantation. How is it possible?
Did I ghost-warp?
And more to the point... why bring me back here when there’s nothing here for me but nightmares?
The stench from the swamp worsened. His eyes watered as if onions had been rubbed into his tear ducts until they were raw with the agony of burning syn-propanethial-S-oxide. His Interactive Reality Lens scratched at his eyeball like a throbbing wasp sting. He popped it out of his eye, wrapped it in a silk handkerchief and placed it in the chest pocket of his uniform with the intention of returning it to his eye once the smarting subsided.
But it meant he was without the IRL’s infra-red, night vision and thermal imaging sensors. He was as good as blind, until his human faculties could adjust to this new environment. Crucial seconds ticked by as he studied the night with the vulnerability of a defenseless child.
A full moon broke through fast moving cloud. Like a beacon from hell, it clawed at the trees, forging a deep groove like a pathway to a clearing. There, it illuminated a huge white mansion like the invitation of a Gothic nightmare.
Her house! I’ve traveled back in time! So is she alive?
Propelled by thoughts of his wife in his arms, he ran towards the house.
There was a light on in their bedroom.
It can only be her. This is my chance for redemption. I’ll beg her to forgive me. Tell her how much I love her. Ask her to see me as that love-drunk fool she once fell in love with and not that bitter, sarcastic old man who betrayed her.
Yes...
YES!
He ran faster.
He bounded up the white stone steps, three at a time, up to the porch. The double doors scanned his retina and opened inward before he reached them. He sprinted into the large, marble floored lobby to the bottom of the sweeping staircase.
Taking three steps at a time, he skipped up the wide spiral until he came to the second floor door of their bedroom.
He hesitated as a tiny voice warned him to knock.
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