by Nick Webb
Commander Flopsweat, rather than swing a second punch, leaned over the console, pressing the all-station comm button. “All hands, this is Commander Smith. Fight it, people. You know what I mean. You feel it. The voices telling you to do … things, things that you know you shouldn’t. Fight it. That’s an order. Do your duty. Or … or I’ll come and beat the shit out of each of you. Smith out.”
The voices? What the hell was the man talking about? Dammit, things always made more sense when he’d gotten a few bottles down. Now where did I put that second one? He fumbled at his other boot. But another voice in his head, a more reasonable-sounding, boring voice, said there was truth in his commanding officer’s warning. He was not feeling normal. In fact, he was pulled in two directions. Half of him wanted to spring into action, be the hero, pulverize the alien ship, save the day. The other half wanted to knee his commander in the balls, take another swig from his flask, and go join the party down the hall.
“Commander Zivic, if you don’t start issuing orders to return fire, I’ll send you to the brig,” said Commander Combover-erection. His jaw trembled, as if he were only just barely containing his rage. Zivic toyed with the idea of cajoling the man further, payback for the sucker punch. But a moment later he realized how irrational that was. After all, they were being fired upon by an alien ship.
Holy shit, an alien ship.
Commander Pot-belly continued. His trembling subsided—it appeared he’d gotten control of himself. Perfect opportunity to throw another ball joke his way. “And issue a distress call. Tell IDF CENTCOM we’re under attack.”
Out the window, the little ship continued firing, advancing on the Watchdog until it was just a few kilometers away.
Then it unleashed hell, and Zivic, in spite of the oncoming storm, continued fumbling with the clasp at the top of the other boot. There it is, he thought, finding the second flask.
He’d need it to cope with what he could see coming towards the station.
Chapter Five
Wellington shipyards, Calais, Britannia System
Conference room, ISS Independence
Four hours after she’d boarded the Independence, Admiral Proctor stood at the head of the conference table. For her, it was one o’clock in the morning, but on ship’s time it was only the second hour of the second shift, so she’d need to stay up for several more hours at least—and she felt it. She hadn’t had to pull an all-nighter since she was a captain. Damn, I’m getting old.
“Thank you all for coming. For some of you this was a long trip. Believe me, I was hoping to enjoy my retirement and my classroom in peace until I became so old and accumulated so many cats that they’d have me committed.”
Uneasy chuckling around the table. They all knew why they were here, and most of them, having fought through the Second Swarm War thirty years ago, knew all too well what could be coming.
“First, some brief introductions.” She held up a hand to the gray-haired man next to her. “Captain Prucha will be my XO for this mission—”
“Admiral,” began Commander Yarbrough, “far be it from me to take issue with your personnel assignments, but wouldn’t it be more prudent to have someone who was intimately familiar with this new ship and the crew as our XO?”
Proctor looked daggers at him. “Yes, Commander, you’re right about one thing. Far be it from you to take issue with my personnel assignments.”
Some of her old hands around the table chuckled. The chief engineer clucked her tongue several times. Yarbrough, however, continued undeterred. At least he was persistent—she could give him that. “But Admiral, IDF regulations clearly state that the choice of XO is to be guided primarily by—”
She turned to him, letting a sharp note tinge her voice. “The regulations clearly state, Commander, that the prerogative lies with the commanding officer as to who she wants in which position, end of story.”
Yarbrough’s mouth abruptly shut, and he shrugged his reluctant agreement. “However,” she continued, “I want you as the assistant XO, since, as you rightly point out, you’ve been with the crew since they were assigned and know the ship inside and out.”
That seemed to placate him. Good—the last thing I need is an uppity Commander questioning my every move.
“Captain Prucha has graciously agreed to return early from his sabbatical. I believe you have a ship of your own waiting for you, don’t you, Jeremy?”
He flashed one of his easy smiles she always remembered him for. “The Forester, yes. New heavy cruiser they just finished out at Omaha Shipyards on Earth. But how could I turn down one last mission with the legend herself?”
She smirked uneasily. “Flattery will get you everywhere, Captain. Or it may just get you air-locked. Depends on my mood.” She turned to the other end of the table. “I believe you all know the Chief Engineer, who apparently designed the ship from scratch.” She indicated the mousy, purple-haired woman seated at the other end, who flapped a wrinkled hand up in greeting to everyone. “Commander Rayna Scott. Rayna, how the hell is it that you’re not a captain yet? You’re as old as I am.”
“’Cause I don’t wanna,” came the gruff reply.
Proctor shrugged. “Fair enough.”
The Chief Engineer glanced at the rest of the senior staff. “And call me Commander Rayna. Or Granny Rayna. Or just Rayna, unless you don’t mind an occasional blunt hydro-wrench to your face.”
Commander Yarbrough raised a tentative hand. “But regulation clearly states that—”
“You can shove your regulations up your skinny ass, Yarbrough.” Rayna cackled. “I’ve been around the bend enough times to be called whatever the hell I want. So unless you want me calling you Commander Rectum for the rest of the mission I suggest you stop quoting regulations at me.”
Captain Volz, who’d been sitting silently next to Commander Scott the entire time, put an arm around her. “I think I like her, Admiral. Can I keep her?”
Everyone chuckled—Volz and Rayna had been close since their days on the Chesapeake, over twenty years prior.
“You all know Captain Volz, or Ballsy, as his friends call him. He’ll be CAG. Though I’m hoping this mission will not involve any fighter battles.”
Volz shrugged and his goatee wrinkled. “No fighter battles? We gotta have some fun Admiral. All work and no play makes Ballsy a dull boy.”
Captain Prucha stuck his thumb over at Volz. “Something tells me that Ballsy will find a way to make this interesting whether we want him to or not. Let’s not forget the little incident during the battle of Mao Prime—”
“Hey, I swear those holes in the ISS Lincoln were already there….”
Rayna snickered. “Oh, are we calling that an incident, now? That’s not what they called it at your court martial. I believe old General Norton—god rest his cantankerous soul—called it ass-hattery of the highest caliber—”
“People, please,” said Admiral Proctor, holding up her hands. The underlying tension they all felt from the emergency returned. “As much as I’d enjoy catching up on old times, we’ve got a serious situation here.” She finished out the introductions: Lieutenant Jerusha Whitehorse as the tactical crew chief, Ensign Annie Riisa as helm crew leader, polyglot Lieutenant Qwerty at the comm—he tipped an imaginary hat—and science chief Commander Mumford, who’d have looked like a heavyweight boxer were it not for the old-fashioned black plastic-rimmed glasses on his nose.
Ballsy interrupted her. “Didn’t you used to be a boxer, Commander Mumford?”
“I did.”
Proctor raised her eyebrows—she hadn’t expected her guess to have been right. “Really? What brought you to the dark side? Science doesn’t pay nearly as well as professional sports.”
“I like beating the shit out of things,” he said, nodding, as if that explained everything. He pushed his glasses back up after they slipped a bit.
They all stared at him.
“Nothing beats science.” He shrugged, still clearly thinking that explained everythi
ng.
“Indeed,” she said, letting the subject rest. “You all know why we’re here. We’ve got a situation in the Irigoyen sector, and it doesn’t look pretty. As we speak, Fleet Admiral Oppenheimer is on Britannia preparing the main IDF defense fleet for major combat operations, but we’re being sent in as soon as possible to gather intel, scout out the enemy, and hopefully stop it before it can do any more damage.”
Captain Prucha stirred. “What kind of damage are we looking at here?”
“The entire world of Irigoyen Prime has gone dark. All communications are out. No ships out of the system since yesterday morning. We’ve also got spotty intel from the Dolmasi—turns out they’ve lost a few colonies, and if reports can be believed, Verdra-Dol has gone dark as well.”
“Verdra-Dol? Isn’t that the closest thing to a homeworld that they’ve got?” said Captain Prucha.
“It is their second most populous world, yes,” replied Proctor. “And the latest intel report from Oppenheimer came in just a few minutes ago. Bolivar, the second largest world in the Irigoyen sector, reported sighting an unknown vessel entering the system just a few hours ago. Since then, nothing. Not a single meta-space signal has gotten through.”
Silence around the conference table as they all considered the gravity of the situation. “Not a single message? From the entire world? The orbital defense platform?” said Captain Volz.
Captain Prucha whistled. “That must be some ship. Reminds me of the Swarm when they first attacked thirty years ago. Remember the first incursions? All the systems went dark—they were able to disrupt all communications with their Russian-borrowed singularity tech. Are we certain this threat is not the Swarm?”
Proctor shook her head. She almost wished it was the Swarm—at least that was an enemy she knew how to deal with, as deadly as they were. But she’d led the mission that had destroyed the last known Swarm carrier twenty-five years ago, effectively putting an end to their entire race. A whole species, gone, with the press of a button. The war had been over for years, and the remaining Swarm carriers were mostly dormant since Granger had closed the black hole they were being controlled through, but still, CENTCOM had insisted that each remaining carrier be utterly destroyed. So she destroyed.
“No. The threat signature doesn’t match anything we ever saw from them. This is new, as far as we can tell. The ship description is unlike anything we’ve seen, their tech—what little we know about it—is advanced, and the worst part might be something we’ve never encountered before.” She glanced over at Commander Mumford.
He cleared his throat. “Before Irigoyen Prime went dark, there were widespread reports of civil unrest in the cities.”
“Which cities?” said Captain Prucha.
Mumford shrugged. “All of them. Fighting. Arson. Murders. It was like the entire surface just went up in the flames of riots and thuggery just before the unknown ship struck. And once it struck, that was the last we heard.”
Admiral Proctor nodded, and continued for him. “We’ve hypothesized that the aliens are using some sort of EM wave—possibly meta-space enhanced—that somehow influences organic neural pathways and brain chemical structure, inducing some kind of psychotropic response.”
Proctor looked around at all their faces, and saw understanding suddenly dawn on them. The un-asked question had probably been nagging them the entire time, she knew. Why her? Why turn to the ousted former fleet admiral, who was happily spending her retirement in the classroom and on the beach?
“Yes, that is the main reason they called me up, due to my extensive experience studying xenobiology, and my years of direct interactions with all things Swarm, Dolmasi, Skiohra, and every other alien race we’ve encountered.”
Rayna muttered. “Like hell, Cap’n. They’re calling you up for more than that. You’re a god-damned hero. The closest thing United Earth has to one, if you don’t mind my truth-speakin’.”
Proctor smiled, but held up a hand. “Thank you, Rayna. But we all know that all the heroes are dead,” she replied, using an oft-quoted aphorism of the Second Swarm War. “They died saving Earth last time around. I’m just a gal that knows a thing or two about commanding a starship, and a little extra experience dealing with aliens. Tim Granger was the real hero, god rest his soul.”
Her staff, old faces and new, beamed back at her. Many of them had been to hell and back at her side. As for the others, she assumed Admiral Oppenheimer had given her the best of the best. “We t-jump out within the hour. I want final readiness reports in thirty. Dismissed.”
“Don’t you mean tranny-jump?” said Volz with a lop-sided grin. “I mean, let’s call it what it—”
“Admiral Proctor, bridge.” The comm interrupted him. Proctor touched the glowing indicator on the conference table.
“Go ahead, bridge.”
“Sir, we just received a meta-space distress call from orbital defense platform Watchdog, orbiting Bolivar. They say they’ve, and I quote, engaged the Golgothics. It’s not entirely clear what they mean by that, Admiral.”
So, the Bolivarans have given the aliens a name already? “Golgothics?”
Lieutenant Qwerty, his voice tinged by a heavy southern drawl, raised a finger. “Ma’am, if I may. Grew up on Bolivar myself. Old Bolivaran legend, or rather, a campfire story you’d tell to scare the pants off each other. They’re supposed to be a race of unholy terrors that make you feel your worst emotions. All multiplied and enhanced till you’re good right batty. Eat your supper or the Golgothics will eat you—, my granmam always said. Of course, she was half coon crazy herself….”
Proctor snorted. “That name will do for now, I suppose.” She raised her head towards the comm. “Thank you, bridge.” She eyed them all. “Let’s move.”
Chapter Six
Britannia System, Calais, Wellington shipyards
Bridge, ISS Independence
“T-jump in five, ma’am,” said Ensign Riisa.
Proctor gripped her armrests in preparation. She had no reason to assume the t-jump would be qualitatively any different than the q-jump, which was basically undetectable to the senses, but her careful instincts set her on edge.
“Initiating.”
The view on the screen covering the front half of the bridge shifted from a serene display of the giant red clouds of Calais to a star-speckled canvas of black—open interstellar space. It had been years since Proctor had seen it, and had almost forgotten how free it felt. It reminded her of how sea captains must have felt as they lost all sight of land, seeing only the unending swell of distant waves.
Proctor’s ears popped.
“What the hell was that?” She craned her neck around to look at Commander Yarbrough.
“Normal, ma’am. The t-jump is a bit more … intense than the q-jump. We did just travel five lightyears, after all.”
Proctor opened and closed her jaw to relieve the pressure differential. “But why the pressure change?”
“Just an artifact of the t-jump process. Due to the extreme distances involved, the less dense matter arrives first—in our case, the atmosphere. Just a fraction of a fraction of a second, but the individual speeds of the air molecules are high enough that when the rest of us appear the internal ship pressure has dropped by a small amount.”
Proctor glanced at science chief Mumford, who shrugged. “Well that’s … unnerving,” she said. “There’s no chance things could get out of hand and we suddenly lose all pressure on one of these jumps?”
Commander Yarbrough shook his head. “No, sir. We’ve run the numbers on our t-jump simulations for years, and the chances of that happening are less than five sigmas of standard deviation from the mean. If you’d like, I can run a few additional Monte Carlo simulations and determine a better regression—”
“Thank you, Commander,” she said, cutting him off. She remembered being a little uptight herself back when she was a fresh commander seeking to stand out, but she already found his eager-to-please attitude tiresome. “Let’s focus o
n the emergency at hand.” She turned back to Ensign Riisa. “Time until next t-jump?”
“Just a few seconds, sir.”
The same unnerving feeling washed over Proctor as her ears popped and the starfield on the screen shifted almost imperceptibly. “Not sure I’m going to get used to that.”
The jumps ticked by, and within ten minutes Ensign Riisa announced, “last t-jump.”
Proctor nodded. “All hands to battle stations. Sound red alert.” She motioned over to Captain Prucha to begin battle readiness operations.
“Mag-rail stations, commence loading operations. Laser turret crews, prime initiators and start auto-targeting sequences. Emergency crews, stand by to prepare for damage control and casualties….” He went down his readiness checklist while Proctor clicked the comm over to the CIC on the fighter deck.
“Ballsy, everything ready down there?”
“Yes, ma’am. Got a pretty green crew down here, but the squad leaders are veterans, at least. No one has seen actual combat. Except me, of course,” he added off-handedly. “I would have thought that with a new experimental starship we’d get new experimental fighters.”
“Problem?”
“Not at all. These old X-25’s are solid workhorses. I wouldn’t ask for anything more. Just let me know the plan when we get there, Shelby.”
“Stand by, Ballsy. One t-jump left. Have all fighters ready to launch.”
“All stations report ready, Admiral,” said Captain Prucha.
She nodded. The old, swelling feeling of pre-battle adrenaline surged into her chest. This was the part of command that she both hated, and missed. The feeling of urgency and clarity that preceded an impending battle. The awful feeling that some of them might die, that she might lose people under her command. But it was invigorating nonetheless—nothing in academia or the rest of her experience came close to replicating the feeling. It was like a drug: she felt guilty for enjoying, yet looked forward to the next fix.