Dark Space

by Stephen A. Fender

  Oh, brother. He sighed heavily, then leaned away from her. “You sure do know how to kill the moment.”

  “Don’t play games, Shawn. This is serious. I have no intention of letting you—”

  “Resign?”

  “Get thrown out for no good reason,” she corrected. “You’re better than that, and you know it.”

  “So, now that you have me, you’ve got no intention of letting me leave. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I don’t have you. Not all of you, anyway.” She smiled coyly, then sipped at her drink. “Not yet.”

  This elicited a raised eyebrow from Shawn.

  “Besides,” she continued, “this has to do with the safety of the Unified government. We need to find out what Santorum transmitted here and get that information back to the fleet. Their safety could very likely depend on it. And …” she let her words trail off as she fumbled with her glass.

  “And?” Shawn asked, almost playfully.

  “And I can’t do it without you. Oh, sure, I could investigate the mining operations, and the old man that Grib described. But with your help I could get it done twice as fast. I won’t deny that I feel, with every fiber of my being, that you and I are a good team, Shawn … and I mean that both in and out of the cockpit.”

  Shawn could tell by the seriousness of her tone that playtime was indeed over. She felt very strongly about their mission and their objectives, including clearing Shawn’s name. He cared for her even more for it. He reached out and stroked her cheek gently. “Don’t worry, Angel. We’ll get this done and get back to the fleet before you know it.”

  She took his hand in her own and kissed it. “I hope so. This war needs to be over.”

  Finishing the rest of their meal in silence, Shawn put the dishes in the recycle slot and the two headed for the cockpit. Halfway down the long corridor that would bring them to their destination, Shawn reached for Melissa’s hand, and she grasped his gratefully.

  In the cockpit, the two sat in their respective chairs, and Shawn woke the direction thrusters from their standby condition.

  “The computer shows that all sandstorm activity at the mining site has abated,” Melissa said as she peered at the scanners.

  “Good. I’m looking forward to sunny, carefree skies and smooth sailing,” he replied as he took hold of the control stick. “Can you get a lock on the Special Services transmitter?”

  She shook her head. “We’ll need to be in line of sight to the terminal. Right now, any signal they’re sending would be blocked by those dark mountains,” she said, nodding out to the vista beyond the wide view port.

  “Well, let’s go see what we can see, then.” Shawn pulled back on the stick slowly, and the newly christened Nautilus rose from the landing pad without so much as a shudder. Kicking up a small cloud of red dust in her wake, Shawn moved the throttle lever slowly forward as he pointed the transport to the distant horizon.

  %%%

  The journey across the harsh desert landscape was thankfully uneventful. The Nautilus was cruising at an altitude of only a few hundred feet as it came to the edge of what the navigational computer was calling the Ruthenium Mountains. The black, obsidian-like peaks gleamed sunlight off nearly every faceted surface. Shawn had to adjust the filters on the forward view ports to stop the glare from affecting his piloting. A few minutes later, the ship was over the rim, and Shawn got his first glimpse of the mining establishment that was their final destination.

  There was a central tower-like structure that dominated the camp, with smaller outbuildings fanned out around it. A flattened square building had a landing pad painted on its surface, and looked to be in somewhat good repair. There were several long structures attached to it, spreading out like great fingers across the desert, the other ends attached to bullet-shaped structures protruding from the desert floor.

  “That’s the ore processing station,” Melissa said as she followed Shawn’s gaze to the flattened building.

  Shawn nodded. That meant the finger structures were likely the conveyors, and the bullet buildings housed the lifts that brought the ore up from deep within the crust. Shawn was about to ask Melissa if she’d gotten ahold of the Special Services team when he saw her at work on her terminal.

  “I’ve got a lock on the SS transmitter,” she said in relief.

  “Are they responding?”

  Melissa nodded, but didn’t reply. She pressed the controls that would open a communications channel and began speaking. “This is the Unified Sector Command transport Nautilus on approach. Requesting permission to land.”

  “Nautilus, this is Lieutenant Halverson, Sector Command Special Services command. Request you provide identity code.”

  Melissa keyed in her sequence in the panel and awaited confirmation. It wasn’t long in coming. “Code received and verified, Nautilus. You’re cleared to set down on landing pad one. The pad boundaries are being uploaded into your navigation computer now.”

  A series of lights on Shawn’s panel blinked in unison as the ship’s computer interfaced with the SS terminal. A moment later, the Nautilus’s computer’s voice came over the loudspeakers. “Special landing instructions received. The ship is now on auto pilot. Please, do not attempt to deviate from our current course under manual control, or we will be fired upon.”

  Like he’d just touched a steaming hot surface, Shawn’s hands flew off the controls. “They don’t mess around, those SS teams, do they?”

  “They take things very seriously,” Melissa said gravely.

  “What kind of things?” he asked, hoping to avoid unnecessary insults or difficulties once they left the ship.

  She turned her gaze top meet his. “All of them.”

  “They can all go to blazes—the entire lot of them. Because of their ineptitude, my research was pushed back nearly ten years! If I simply had been allowed to finish my research, this whole war might have been over years sooner.”

  -Doctor K’artl Uudon, Unified Historical Research Society

  Uncovering the Truth About the Meltranian Invasion, 5th Edition

  Chapter 11

  High above the pink-white world of Ogolo, Captain Darian Ramos paced the bridge of the Duchess of York nervously. It’d been several days since he and the rest of the fleet, under the overall command of Rear Admiral Hansen, had jumped into the system. Shortly after the jump, Hansen, along with Rear Admiral Bill Graves, had called a meeting with all the ship captains in the fleet. Convened on the heavy battle cruiser Althea Melendez, Hansen had informed his commanders that Ogolo was thought to shortly become a major target of the Meltranian incursion into this quadrant. Now, it was all a waiting game.

  And if there was one thing Ramos hated, it was waiting for a fight.

  The cursory beeps and blips coming from the various consoles surrounded him. He took comfort in it, the ambiance of the noise calming his sometimes frayed nerves. Looking down to the planet from the expansive view ports, he imagined its surface war-torn, decimated, like so many other planets the Meltranians had ravaged. Ramos silently vowed that this peaceful place would not be one of them.

  Behind him, he could hear his helm officer, Lieutenant Ashlee Kidd, as she talked into her headset with someone down in engineering on the topic of propulsion. Beside her, Lieutenant Samantha Dorsey was sitting dutifully at the main sensor console, reading—for the third time in the last hour—the long-range sensor scans of the Ogolo system. It was unnervingly short.

  “Long-range scans complete, sir,” she said to the captain’s back.

  Without turning, Ramos nodded his acknowledgement.

  “Reconnaissance patrol report coming in from the eighth planet, Captain,” the ship’s first officer, Commander Jeannie Bates, said from the flight controller’s station.

  Squinting his eyes, Ramos’s thoughts of the planet below were interrupted by the exec’s voice—one he wasn’t expecting to hear. As he turned around, he noticed that the bridge, for the first time he could ever recall, was entirely
manned by female personnel. Even the ship’s normal communications officer, Lieutenant Flynn, had been relieved by a fresh-faced, pale-skinned yeoman who looked to be about two weeks out of Sector Command Academy.

  What in blazes was her name again? McDonnell? McConnell? Saving himself the embarrassment, he simply addressed her by rank. “Ensign, could you pipe the incoming recon transmission into the overhead?”

  “Yes, sir,” she stammered, startled and evidently unprepared for the captain to speak to her. After pressing a series of controls, a perfunctory chain of chirps was heard from the unseen speakers in the ceiling. “Ready, Captain.”

  “Patrol Wing 6, this is Captain Ramos.”

  “Lieutenant Serrano here, sir,” the pilot replied. “We’re completing our last orbit of the eighth planet, getting ready to head to our final waypoint before returning to base.”

  “Understood, Lieutenant. Your report so far?”

  “There’s not much, sir. Not a single contact within sensor range. We detected a small meteor about an hour ago heading out of the system, and my wingman reports that there are currently twenty-one particles of space dust per cubic yard out here.”

  Ramos sighed. “Very well, Lieutenant Serrano. Continue on your flight plan. Contact us immediately if anything changes.” The captain then looked down to the young ensign at the communications station, giving her a nod that told her to close the channel.

  The woman—the name McDonnelly now clearly visible on her uniform badge—began to close the channel when a look of confusion crossed over her face. She glanced down to the controls, and her expression gave every indication she’d forgotten what she was supposed to be doing.

  “Problem, Ensign?” Ramos asked with a smile. He’d remembered his own time as a junior officer, and how he’d once made a similar mistake the first time his captain had asked for a minor course correction. Ramos’s mind had blanked, and the entire bridge was as unfamiliar a place as he’d ever seen.

  “No, sir,” McDonnelly replied without a hint of stammer. “Something else.”

  “Something? Like what?”

  The young woman worked at her controls, flipping switches and pressing buttons. “It’s definitely a transmission, but it’s been scattered … probably at the source. It’ll take a minute or two for the computer to reconstruct it.”

  “Samantha,” Ramos asked the sensor officer, “can you give me a bearing on where the transmission originated?”

  “Yes, sir,” she answered. A moment later she had the requested information. “If we project the path along a straight trajectory, then the transmission originated somewhere in the Tau Beta system.”

  Tau Beta? Ramos knew the system. It was close to Jevol, the location of the 11th Strategic Squadron—not to mention the pompous Rear Admiral Darius Cody.

  “Is it coming from the 11th?” Ramos asked over his shoulder to the communications officer.

  There was a pause, long enough for Ramos to turn and see the young woman frustrated at her controls. “It’s difficult to say with certainty, but it is being carried on a Sector Command frequency. I’m trying to clean it up now.”

  “Try running it though the secondary computer core,” Commander Bates said. “It isn’t used much when we’re at Condition-Green … should give you a little more processing power.”

  “Aye,” McDonnelly replied. Doing as she was requested, she quickly shunted the garbled audio stream to the secondary core. In a few minutes, she was provided the results. She began playing it back in her headset, just to verify it was audible. “I’ve got something, sir.”

  “On the overhead, Ensign,” Ramos said, then leaned against the command chair off to the left-center of the room.

  “This is … tain Danielson. USCS Evinr … under attack by Meltranians for … eriencing heavy resistance. They’re picking us apart one ship at a … somehow managed to breach the Kafaran shields … we’re outnumbered on all fronts. Unable to locate … Cody. Flagship is unable to account for his … sending out a general distress on all frequen … don’t know how much long …” There was a burst of static, followed by what sounded like an explosion. The computer indicated with a beep that the transmission had completed.

  “That’s all there is, Captain,” McDonnelly said, her mouth dry.

  Commander Bates exchanged a worried glance with the captain, to which Ramos eventually nodded slowly. “That was the voice of Captain Ru’all Danielson. He’s the skipper of the destroyer Evinrude.”

  “Experienced?” Jeannie asked.

  Ramos nodded again. “Very much so. Good man … tight ship.” It seemed Sector Command intelligence had gotten the Meltranian movements wrong. Jevol wasn’t a fallback target as Fleet Admiral Blackwell had informed Admiral Hansen several weeks ago. The 11th Strategic Squadron was only half the strength of Hansen’s fleet. If Admiral Cody was faced with the full might of the Meltranian incursion, there was no way the 11th would have had a chance. And here was Hansen’s fleet, an awesome assembly of unparalleled might that was utterly useless, stuck in orbit above a planet that wasn’t, in all likelihood, even a target for the enemy. In frustration, Ramos pursed his lips and slammed his palm into the armrest of his chair. “Damn!”

  “What now, Captain?” Bates said under her breath and out of earshot of the rest of the bridge crew.

  Still fuming, Ramos straightened his uniform and looked out once again at the planet below. “For now, Commander, we wait. Have Admiral Hansen alerted that we’ve received a communication from the 11th fleet, and have him meet me in the bridge conference room as soon as possible.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “And Commander,” he said, stopping her before she’d strayed too far. When she returned to his side, he lowered his voice once more. “I’d like to keep the knowledge of this transmission to as few personnel as possible. Understood?”

  Of course she did. It would do nothing but demoralize the crew at this point. “Understood, sir.”

  %%%

  With Shawn having relinquished the controls to the computer, the Nautilus passed over the former mining establishment one final time before setting down onto her assigned landing space. It wasn’t until after the magnet-lined pads had firmly touched the surface and the engines began to wind down did the Special Services team relinquish their hold over the small transport’s guidance systems.

  “Computer control has returned to normal, Commander,” the perfunctory computer voice said. “Shall I open the outer hatch?”

  Outside the forward view port, Shawn could see a military transport hovering toward them across the otherwise-unused landing space atop the ore processing station. He couldn’t tell how many personnel were present in the small craft, but assumed there would be enough room inside for both him and Melissa—and not much else.

  “Pack light,” he said as he nodded toward the transport. “Looks like it’s going to be a little cramped.”

  “I’ve got some equipment in the cargo hold. Nothing too large, but I think it’ll come in handy.”

  After disembarking the vessel, the two made their way aft. Opening a side hatch in the long cargo container attached to the underside of the Nautilus, Melissa disappeared inside. As soon as she was out of sight, the Special Services transport slowed to halt a few yards away. The front doors slid up without a sound, and two figures stepped out. They were wearing light, sheet-like garments, with sashes tied around their heads that completely obscured their faces. As a gust of wind kicked up around them, Shawn noticed through their fluttering garments that each was well armed, with rifles slung over their shoulders and pistols in holsters around their waists. The taller of the two men approached Shawn, while the shorter one seemed to be taking stock of the Nautilus.

  “Commander Kestrel?” the male voice asked.

  Shawn nodded.

  “And where is Special Agent Graves?”

  Melissa’s voice called out from inside the hold. “Here! I’m in here. Be out in a second,” her voice echoed just before Shawn heard
the clang of items being tossed aside and toppling over.

  “Problem in there?” Shawn called into the open hatch.

  There was another crash before she spoke again. “Nothing I can’t handle,” she said with marked frustration.

  Shawn smiled as he turned back to the obscure, well-armed figure. “Women. What can you do?”

  The man seemed unaffected. He simply responded with a curt, “Yes, sir.”

  “I heard that,” Melissa’s voice echoed from inside the hold, “from both of you.” A moment later she appeared through the hatch carrying a small, black backpack. If she was startled by the appearance of the two SS operatives, it didn’t register on her face.

  “Agent Graves?” the man asked in the same tone he had used with Shawn.

  “That’s right,” she said, holding out her hand to the unknown figure.

  His head moved down to look at her hand, he then jerked it in the direction of the hovering carrier nearby. “The major is waiting for you both. If you’ll come with me.” He then turned and headed off in the direction of his conveyance without another world.

  “Friendly bunch,” Shawn muttered when the man was out of earshot.

  Melissa looked at him, slung the stuffed pack over her shoulders, and then began walking away from the Nautilus. Giving the landing area a final, cursory glance, Shawn turned and closed the hatch to the cargo hold, then quickly went in step behind her.

  Once they were inside the craft, the pilot immediately engaged the engines. The transport quickly skimmed across the wide surface of the landing platform, then down a series of winding ramps before coming to the desert floor below. It then abruptly turned right and entered an opened, well-guarded hatch that led into the ore processing station’s innards. The long passageway they were now in was sparsely lit, and with the hover car’s headlights dimmed, Shawn wondered how the driver was able to navigate the darkness at such a high rate of speed. Then he recalled Melissa having once performed a similar feat while wearing light-sensitive spectral contact lenses. Hoping this was the case with the driver, Shawn tried to relax as the car twisted down another long passageway, this one completely devoid of any light whatsoever.