by G J Ogden
The orange sky melted away to darkness as the two ships passed out of the atmosphere and into space. It wasn’t long before the remains of the alien space station, still burning brightly, became visible. Flashes occasionally popped off all along its surface, but then Hudson realized that there were other flashes ahead too, and these weren’t coming from the space station. Sensing something was wrong, Hudson hurriedly checked the navigation scanner to determine what other vessels were still in the system.
The scan updated and Hudson noticed that only a couple of the contacts were relic hunter ships. However, a small fleet of MP military vessels had since arrived to secure the portal. Hudson noted that the large cruiser that had joined the initial expedition was still there, but it had been joined by five smaller vessels – two destroyers and three gunboats. Oddly, they were not in formation, Hudson realized, nor were they guarding the portal location. Then he spotted another chevron on the scanner. It was red, like the strange contact the scendar device had detected, far out towards the galactic center. However, with the scendar gone, the navigation scanner was no longer detecting anything beyond the limited range of its human-designed sensors. Whatever this new contact was, it was close by, Hudson realized. And it was also moving fast.
An incoming audio communication pulled Hudson’s attention away from the scanner. He scowled at the display, which was unable to determine the origin of the signal, but he answered it anyway.
“This is Morphus,” a female voice said. “Does your vessel carry weapons?”
“Yes,” said Hudson, getting a sinking feeling that he was going to need them.
“Then activate your defensive systems and stay close to my ship,” replied Morphus. “The vessel you discovered on the surface is here. In your words, the best description is that it is a seed drone. It has been inactive for millennia, but its memory core has been rejuvenated, and it is now continuing its directive.”
“And what directive is that?” Hudson asked, knowing he probably wouldn’t like the answer.
“To exterminate sentient organic life,” Morphus answered, with an almost chilling aloofness. “Then it will search for Goliath and rejoin it. It must be destroyed.”
“Roger that,” said Hudson, quickly arming the weapons systems. He heard the comforting whirs and thuds as gears wound the turret and cannon out from their hidden stows. Targeting reticules appeared on the cockpit glass. Hudson set the turret to automatic tracking, but configured the nose cannon for manual control. “Okay, weapons are hot,” Hudson said into the mic. “Assuming they’ll do any good against this seed drone you mentioned.”
“Most likely not,” replied Morphus.
Hudson laughed, “You really have to work on your motivational techniques,” he said, but the radio silence he received in return told him that his joke had gone over the alien’s head. “What is that thing, anyway?” he added, choosing a question he knew that Morphus would be able to answer.
“They were once a part of Goliath,” Morphus answered. “At one time they helped to bring life to empty worlds. Now, they are the great ship’s foot soldiers, and they only seek to destroy.”
Hudson shook his head, “Maybe one day, you’ll have some good news to share.”
“Maybe,” said Morphus, “but not this day. Stay close.”
The channel remained open, and Hudson let out another long breath, while gripping the controls tightly. More flashes popped off ahead and Hudson saw one of the MP gunboats explode into flames. Five MP vessels remained, but as he approached the combat zone, he could now see the burning remains of two other destroyers that had already been obliterated.
Hudson stayed on Morphus’ tail, until both had approached to within visual range of the other vessels. His panel bleeped another incoming message, but this time it was from the lead MP Cruiser. Tentatively, Hudson opened the channel and put the message through.
“This is Admiral Shelby to relic hunter vessel VCX-110, M7070-Orion,” the message began, “You are ordered to steer clear of the portal. We are engaged with hostile forces. I repeat steer clear of the portal. This is your only warning.”
Hudson then noticed that the two MP destroyers had broken off, and were heading towards him. “What the hell are they attacking me for?” he said out loud. Then he felt his skin go cold as he realized who the MP destroyers were actually gunning for. “Shit, they’re after Morphus, not me!”
Hudson saw cannons flash ahead and he thrusted hard to stern to avoid the incoming fire, while Morphus broke hard to port. He quickly opened a channel back to the lead cruiser. “This is relic hunter Orion to Admiral Shelby. Do not fire on the second alien vessel – it is not hostile. Repeat, it is not hostile, do not fire!”
“Orion, clear this channel and withdraw, or you will also be considered a hostile. I will not warn you again.” The channel then clicked off, as abruptly as the Admiral had spoken.
“Damn stuck-up, arrogant Martian assholes!” Hudson yelled into the microphone, before weaving the Orion between the two destroyers. He saw the red chevron closing in, and then checked the position of the portal. He adjusted his course and tightened the straps of his seat. All his instincts told him to turn tail and fly away in the opposite direction as fast as he could. However, if he was going to find Liberty, then he had no choice but to get out of the system as quickly as possible. And that meant he had no choice but to fly directly into the heart of the battle, and make a run for it.
CHAPTER 17
Agunboat surged out in front of the Orion, and Hudson saw turrets light up as it opened fire. Tracer rounds flashed above him as he pushed the Orion lower, narrowly evading the shots.
“I’m not a hostile, you Martian morons!” Hudson yelled, shaking his fist at the gunboat. Suddenly, he saw the vessel Morphus had called a seed drone soar above him, like a shining black arrowhead. He watched, mouth agape, as the vessel raced towards the MP gunboat, on a collision course. The gunboat opened fire, striking the alien vessel cleanly, but the only effect was to deflect it off course. The arrow-shaped ship shot past the gunboat, but then spun around in a maneuver that defied physics. The MP ship tried desperately to turn its weapons on the vessel again, but it was too late. The seed drone accelerated, slicing through the center of the gunboat like an axe blade through rotten wood. Seconds later, the MP vessel was consumed in fire and blown apart.
Hudson tried to put the image out of his mind, and spun the Orion around to line-up with the portal. He then pushed the thrusters hard and began to accelerate towards his target. However, Admiral Shelby’s cruiser still loomed in front of the opening, like a goalkeeper. His eyes flashed to the navigation scanner to check the positions of the other ships, and he adjusted course to avoid being caught in a crossfire. Then an intense flash of light filled the cockpit, forcing him to shield his eyes. When the glow subsided, he saw that the alien vessel had now punched through the hull of an MP Destroyer. However, this latest attack had placed the seed drone directly in Hudson’s line of fire.
Hudson locked on to the alien combatant, seeing an opportunity to get into the fight. His heart was racing and his mouth was dry as he squeezed the trigger, sending a volley of rounds snaking off into space. He saw the rounds land on target and then punched the air. Yet the alien seed drone merely continued onward, showing no signs of damage.
“What the hell?!” Hudson called out, but then his pounding heart almost stopped, as the alien ship turned to bear down on him. Hudson veered away and rammed the throttle control forward, but the Orion lacked the alien vessel’s seemingly impossible maneuverability.
Suddenly, he saw Morphus’ shuttle blast past the cockpit glass, and fire focused bolts of energy at the seed drone. The arrow-shaped ship evaded and then the two alien vessels broke off, weaving and turning with unfeasible agility. It was like they were world war one fighter aces, dogfighting in the skies above Europe. There was simply no chance any of the MP vessels could compete with them in combat. It was a mismatch on a laughable scale.
Flashes of energy tore across space as the two alien vessels continued their intricate ballet, until Morphus scored a hit. The alien seed drone then spiraled out of control, sparking like a firework.
Hudson punched the air again, but then watched in horror as the seed drone collided with an MP Gunboat. The two ships exploded with an almost thermonuclear violence, sending burning debris in all directions. Hudson narrowly evaded one of the flaming hunks of metal, and resumed course for the portal. Cannon shells and tracer rounds were still criss-crossing space all around him, as the remaining MP forces tried in vain to scores hits on Morphus’ maneuverable alien vessel. It was like trying to walk through the center of no-man’s land during the Battle of the Somme.
He’d barely made it five hundred meters, before alarms shrieked inside the cockpit and he felt the ship shudder. Hudson took emergency evasive action again, while quickly scanning his array of screens for a damage readout. Red lights showed across a dozen systems. He didn’t know how bad it was, and he had no time to find out. More than ever, he wished he had Liberty in the second seat. Without her expertise and reassuring presence, he felt vulnerable, exposed, and utterly alone.
“Come on, move out of the way, you Martian hunk of crap!” Hudson called out to the cruiser, as if yelling would make Admiral Shelby retreat. Then he saw Morphus again. The alien ship buzzed past the cruiser at such frighteningly close range that he hoped Admiral Shelby didn’t have a weak heart. The cruiser took the bait, and reoriented itself so that it could bring the full measure of its formidable weapons to bear on the alien.
Hudson saw the cruiser’s cannons light up as it engaged Morphus. He took a deep breath and flexed his fingers, which had become drained of blood from gripping the controls tightly. This is my chance… he told himself. It’s now or never… He lined up the nose of the Orion with the portal, and pulsed the main engines, accelerating him towards it at what would ordinarily be a dangerously unsafe velocity. However, with Admiral Shelby’s ship momentarily out of position, it was his only chance.
The MP Cruiser launched another full broadside at Morphus’ ship, and Hudson saw it take a hit. The energy of the shell striking its hull knocked Morphus into a spin, like a pool ball striking another. Yet, there were no flames, or any evidence of damage at all. Tough little ship… thought Hudson. In contrast, a single cannon shell from an MP cruiser would have annihilated the Orion in one hit.
Hudson glanced at his instruments, checking the distance to the portal. He then made a snap judgement call, spinning the engine pods one hundred and eighty degrees and decelerating rapidly. The g-forces almost caused him to black out, but he remained alert enough to fire the thrusters to line-up with the portal. It was a gutsy move that could have easily seen him overshoot, but fortune favored him this time.
Suddenly, he felt a series of impacts hammer the hull, and more red lights started to fill up the damage control panel. He could already feel atmosphere leaking out of the cockpit, but emergency seals fell into place to stop the cold vacuum of space from consuming him.
Hudson pushed the throttle control forward, but the thrusters didn’t respond. “Come on, don’t let me down now!” Hudson cried, trying to talk the ship into responding.
With time running out, he rapidly switched to secondary backups, but a power surge overloaded the panel. He slammed his fists on the flight deck and looked out of the cockpit glass at the portal. It was less than one hundred meters away, but without propulsion, it might as well have been a light year. His thoughts turned to Liberty, and how Griff intended to sell her off as if he was auctioning a relic, and he gritted his teeth. He wasn’t giving up. Not now. Not ever.
Hudson unclipped his harness and scrambled over to the second seat, throwing open the service panel. Fuses crackled and sparked, as he reached inside, flicking out the damaged components, which fizzed on the deck like firecrackers. With the Orion now listing in space, it had slowly spun on its axis. Glancing up, Hudson saw the MP Cruiser slowly arcing back towards the portal. Admiral Shelby clearly had no intention of letting Hudson escape.
Working faster, he replaced the damaged fuses and slammed the panel shut, before running back to the pilot’s chair. “Come on, please!” Hudson pleaded, flicking the initiator to restart the thruster systems. He closed his eyes and waited. Agonizing seconds passed, and the thruster controls finally reinitiated. He had power, but the MP Cruiser was almost on top of him.
Then out of the darkness he saw Morphus approaching. The alien ship lashed the cruiser across the back with red bolts of energy, picking off its turrets with pinpoint accuracy, before breaking away and powering towards the portal.
Hudson slammed the thruster lever forward, as the cruiser completed its turn, bringing its powerful forward cannons in line with the Orion. One shot would be all that was needed to reduce him to atoms.
Hudson held his breath, expecting to be consumed by fire and fury. However, instead, the cockpit was filled with spiraling purple light, as the Orion entered the portal, and jumped.
CHAPTER 18
The Orion emerged from the portal in an uncontrolled spin, toppling slowly, end-over-end, towards the tiny moon of Phobos. The already damaged drive systems immediately shut down. Hudson knew this was a normal side-effect of portal transitions, but without Liberty, it could take him up to twenty minutes to restart them. And in all that time, the Orion was a sitting duck.
Hudson peered down at the damage control panel and saw that the Orion was in bad shape. Worse still, the cockpit had been sealed off from the rest of the ship, due to a pressure differential. Hudson knew this indicated a hull breach somewhere in the cockpit. In order to restart the drive systems Hudson had to reach engineering, but until he could plug the leak, he was stuck where he was.
Hudson unclipped his harness and rushed to the disaster pod at the rear of the cockpit. Inside was the gear he would need to survive in the event the ship lost pressure completely. He removed the lightweight space suit and pulled it on over the top of his relic hunting gear. Combined with the compact helmet, it could be pressurized in the event that the cockpit was exposed to the vacuum of space. However, the prospect of having to abandon ship, and voluntarily venture into the void in the hope of rescue, filled Hudson with dread.
He left the helmet on the pilot’s seat, and began to search for the source of the leak. For the moment, the cockpit still had air and heat. His suit also had an emergency oxygen supply, but he intended to keep this as a last resort, in case he was stranded for hours, awaiting rescue.
Searching methodically from one side of the cockpit to the next, he quickly found the breach. The cockpit glass had been cracked on the starboard side, and it looked like there was a minor puncture to the hull below it. The emergency seal for the hull breach was secure, but he could see now that the crack to the cockpit glass was slowly spreading.
Hudson had seen enough dinged windscreens to know that in the event of damage to the cockpit glass, a protective shutter should fall. That this safeguarding measure had failed meant his survival now called for more desperate measures.
He ran back to the disaster pod, and sifted through the contents, until he found the resin applicator. This was designed to temporarily seal cracks in the cockpit glass, until repairs could be made. If he was lucky, and the crack didn’t widen much further, it would maintain the integrity of the cockpit long enough for Hudson to re-pressurize, get to engineering and then limp to a repair facility.
Quickly returning to the damaged window, Hudson was then distracted by a bright purple flash. “Shit, that’s another ship coming through the portal…” Hudson realized, finding comfort in speaking the words out loud. Without the main drive systems running, the cockpit was deathly quiet, and hearing his own voice somehow made it feel less intimidating. Even so, with the cabin temperature falling by the minute, Hudson was struggling to fight the fear that was vying to overwhelm him.
He dashed back to the pilot’s seat and tried to use the Orion’s impaired thrusters to corre
ct the ship’s spin. Whoever had just transitioned through the portal would also suffer a main drive failure, but their weapon systems would still be online. And with the Orion listing helplessly in space, even thrusters would be enough to catch up with him. Chances were that it was the MP cruiser, Hudson reasoned, but even if it was an ignoble relic hunter looking for an easy target, he was in big trouble.
Hudson managed to stabilize the ship and orient it towards the portal. The question of who had just arrived was then answered. Looming large above him was the powerful MP Cruiser, commanded by Admiral Shelby.
“Shit, I’d almost prefer it to be another hunter…” mused Hudson, before rushing back to the damaged glass to apply the resin. The arrival of the cruiser added an even greater sense of urgency to what was already a desperate situation. Hudson managed to cover about fifty percent of the crack, when the communications systems chimed an incoming message. Hudson didn’t need to look at the panel to know who it was. He reached across to the console on the second seat and flipped open the channel.
Admiral Shelby’s haughty, condescending tones immediately filled the cockpit. “Relic hunter Orion, this is Admiral Shelby,” she began, sounding slightly flustered. This was an emotional state that Hudson did not typically associate with Martians, and especially not those from the MP military. “You are under arrest for disobeying a direct command from an MP military vessel, while in Martian Protectorate territory,” Shelby continued. “Stand down and prepare to be boarded.”
Hudson finished applying the resin and then dropped down into the second seat. If there was one thing that could distract his fragile mind from an impending, icy death in space, it was a snooty MP Admiral talking to him like a seven-year old.