by J. Naomi Ay
“Don’t take it personally, Loman,” he said, patting my dad on the shoulder. “She’s like this about our SdK projects too. It’s her way or the highway. She’s going to make one hell of a queen for you guys. Are you coming to Andromeda, Berk? I think I know a little sushi place there.”
“I’m going to turn those squids into sushi,” Katie growled, taking out a handgun. She checked it for ammunition and wiped it off on her tunic. Then, she pulled up short, right in front of the window that gave us our first glimpse of the ship floating tethered outside. “What the hell is that?” She pointed her gun at the ship. “Is that what we are going in?”
“Um, Katie,” Thad chuckled. “You remember that little project that you delayed by giving away all of our funding?”
“Is that the project?” she cried. “That ship?” She broke into a run, scampering across the ship’s threshold to get aboard. We all ran after her including my father.
The last time I had been aboard was long before she had been trimmed out and even I was surprised by how well the ship had come together. It was a beautiful vessel, decorated in the manner of an ancient sailing ship with brass railings and deeply polished mahogany, wood planked floors.
Suspended two stories high on the wall of the atrium was a portrait of the lady for whom this ship was named. It was Katie of course, dressed in her wedding finery, gazing down upon us with an uncertain smile, just as she did that day when she became the Crown Princess. The ship was called the Katelina de Kudisha, and she was the flag ship of our future fleet.
Katie stared up at her image, her eyes wide as the ship released from her tether, swung her bow around toward the far reaches of our galaxy, and from there, toward Andromeda. A moment later, propulsion engaged. Swiftly and smoothly, just as she was designed to do, the ship gained post light speeds, our fermium based engines emitting neither sound nor vapor.
“So Katie gets the Owner's Suite, right?” Thad turned to me.
“Deck twelve, aft,” I replied. “You might want to change out of your Spaceforce uniform, Madame. Some of our crew might not understand why…well you know.”
Katie nodded. “I don't have to wear something like that, do I?” She pointed at the portrait.
“Actually,” my father grumbled. “Since we weren't planning on you coming aboard, we haven't gotten any gowns for you. We'll get you a Royal Guard uniform with a captain's bars. Would that satisfy, Madame?”
“Sure,” Katie nodded again. “I'm so screwed,” she told Thad as they walked toward the lift. “If anyone ever found out I came on this ship because Spaceforce wouldn't send one, I'd be court martialed faster than you can say my name.”
“Don't worry, Katie,” Thad winked. “Once Spaceforce finds out about this ship, which, by the way, has your name on the side of it, you'll be court martialed anyway.”
Chapter 23
Katie
Andromedeans, Berkan had said. That made little sense. The creatures from Andromeda were highly functioning, multi-celled organisms but lacking in high levels of intellect and incapable of reasoning. Each individual was essentially part of a complex organic machine controlled by some sort of central processing unit. Why would they come and take Senya? What use would they have for him?
I considered joining the others on the bridge of this ship.
“Go to bed,” Thad said. “We’ll wake you as soon as something happens.”
I was on the verge of collapse, wrought up and exhausted, so I took his advice and went to my assigned cabin. We had a long way to travel, even in this ship which seemed to be moving at four times the speed of the Discovery. I could use some sleep. I took off my shoes and climbed into bed.
Senya had visited Berkan metaphysically rather than me. Of course, he was physically talking to Berkan a whole lot more than me these days too. Since I had come home from space with Steven, nearly six months ago, I could count on one hand the time I had spent with Senya.
That was going to change, I decided. When we got him back, I would forgive and forget everything and start all over. I made a bargain with Senya even though he was far away somewhere and couldn’t hear me. Come home and I will take care of you again. I will support you in everything you need to do. I will be strong and I will love you as you deserve to be loved.
I had a dream. In this dream, I was at the Spaceforce Academy on Mars going through flight training. I was with my girlfriend Karen, both of us following similar career tracks, flight training, weapons training, astrophysics, and military science. Our task today was to pilot shuttles to Mars Moon Deimos. The two of us lined up in the shuttle bay along with our flight instructors.
“Pick a ship, Cadet,” my instructor ordered and so I selected a shuttle with dark blue stripes and the name Lil’ Eagle printed above the forward cockpit.
“That’s the one I wanted,” Karen teased. “Eagle is my favorite.”
“You can take it,” I was about to say but a voice whispered in my ear.
“The Eagle is yours,” it said. “Take the Eagle.”
“Why don’t you take Lil’ Osprey,” I called to Karen and climbed into the cabin of the Eagle. “Osprey’s a nice little ship too.”
“You owe me, Golden!” Karen cried. “Race you to Deimos!” She jumped aboard the Osprey and was out of the bay while my instructor and I were still going through the pre-flight checklist.
Karen had always been a better pilot than me. She passed every exam with higher scores and received top ratings for all of her test flights. My scores were middling and my test flights were always in need of improvement. By the time I took off, Karen’s shuttle was a tiny blip in the red Martian atmosphere. I concentrated on my flying and felt I was doing well until without realizing it, I nearly landed on Phobos instead Deimos.
“Minus 30 points for that, Cadet,” my instructor said and marked me off on his tablet.
I nearly panicked. I needed a score of 70 to pass and without that, I wouldn’t advance to the next round of training. I would either be dropped from flight training or held back another semester. That would totally screw up my chance to join a Starship crew in the summer. I had to be absolutely perfect on this flight from here on out.
Trying to stay calm, I steadily guided the shuttle back into upper Mars orbit until Deimos came in sight, and then I glided it down into the weak gravitational belt, letting the moon pull us gently toward it's surface.
“Your friend is already here,” my instructor commented, noting the Osprey was already parked in a crater. I looked down at it, gauging my track for a parallel landing when I noticed something was wrong. The stern of the Osprey was standing nearly upright, the bow smashed into the ground.
“She crashed!” I cried and though my hands were shaking, I managed to land the Eagle right where I was supposed to.
The instructor and I immediately donned spacesuits and gravitated over to the wreckage. Karen and her instructor were both dead from internal injuries caused by impact. We carried the bodies one after another back to the payload bay on the Eagle and then I flew my dead friend back to Spacebase Mars. When the Osprey was recovered the next day, the crew discovered a pinprick hole in a hose. The Osprey had run out of hydraulic fluid and Karen had lost all steering controls.
My dream shifted to a few years later when I was already serving aboard the Discovery. We were orbiting above Lumineria II, conducting a series of Vessel Inspections. As spacecraft, both freighters and private vessels, departed the planet, we would track them and pull them into our docking bay for a safety check. I was certified as a Vessel Inspector and had spent the whole morning climbing in and out of various spacecraft looking for safety violations and writing up those I found. The owners of the vessels had then 30 days to repair the violations, request an appeal or pay the fine. Unfortunately, most chose to pay the fine and move on with their cargo despite the hazards their ship presented to those who served aboard as crew and the other ships of the galaxy.
My duty shift had ended and I was leaving the bay,
prepared to go meet Caroline and Jerry in the pub for lunch. I stopped in my cabin to change out of my jumpsuit and back into my Operational Duty uniform when I noticed a message on my vid. It looked like it was from Caroline. It said, ‘Meet me in Engineering, Deck 4.’
I didn’t think much of that as Caroline had a new boyfriend from Engineering and I figured she just wanted me to meet him. I headed down there without delay but couldn’t find her anywhere. I walked around the cavernous room, looking at all the systems that controlled our ships engines and steering systems when I happened to notice a whiff of smoke coming out from under a sealed door. I wasn’t sure what was in that room as the windows were fogged over but I was pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to be smoking.
“Hey,” I called over to a crewman who was standing next to a console. “Something’s going on in this room!” The guy came over and studied it for a moment.
“I think the turbines are overheating,” he said and opened the door by pressing some buttons on the panel. The doors swished open and a huge wave of heat and fire drafted out at us. I ran for cover. I wasn’t sure what happened to him. A few other crew in the bay started yelling and a fire claxon sounded. Someone was screaming that the fire suppression system was showing a fault and would not activate.
From where I cowered underneath a console, I could see the fire creeping towards me like a hungry snake, consuming everything in its path. I realized as smoke filled the air around me that I needed to move from where I was, or surely I would die in here. Then I heard a voice telling me to look up. I did. I looked at the panel which was housed underneath the console I was hiding in. It was flashing red and showing a fault. There was a miniature touch screen there and a series of lights. I had never seen this panel nor knew anything about this system but the voice spoke to me and told me which buttons to press, what to type, and a moment later, the room hissed as it filled with nitrogen, extinguishing the fire.
In my dream now, I watched myself attempt to climb out from the console but the fire had weakened the support posts and as I did so, the unit collapsed on top of me, knocking me in the head and burying me beneath it.
Rescue crew came running in while I lay on the floor but no one saw me or even thought to look for me as this wasn’t my duty post but far from it. They carried out everyone and I saw both Jerry and Caroline checking them and then the Captain ordered the room sealed off until we could be delivered to a space repair facility.
“Wait!” Jerry yelled and ran back inside searching for something, searching for me. He walked right past me but then turned around. A man was standing next to the collapsed console, a man who glowed with silver light, long silver hair and beautiful silvery wings. He lifted the console to show Jerry me and I was saved.
I woke up from my dream just then or so I thought, to discover that man hovering above me, his wings drawing a gentle breeze across my body.
“Sister,” he whispered.
I followed him from my cabin and through the ship. I was floating just as he was, my feet never once touching the ground. We entered the bridge and I looked at the panels and screens that hovered at each duty station. I watched the panoramic view of the stars as we sailed past them, the monitor showing present speed at Light +10. I saw Berkan sitting at the Navigation desk, another winged man speaking in his ear. Thad and Loman were sitting in chairs further forward, a winged man invisibly between them.
Not long after I arrived, our long range scans located a disturbance, a cluster of emissions and energy that was moving towards Andromeda at a fraction of our speed. I glanced up at my angel as we closed in on it and he smiled beatifically back at me. As it had in the skies above Rozari, the alien mass appeared to be a cloud, obscuring the vessel within.
A message was broadcast to the alien vessel and a threatening response was received in return. It told us to turn back or we would all be destroyed. It told us the MaKennah was already dead and a picture of his corpse was flashed upon our screens. He looked like a corpse, mutilated, bruised and sodomized. My angel touched my head and I woke up in my bed.
Chapter 24
Senya
His ship was within range now. Though the propulsion system was silent as he had designed it, he could feel the pulsation in the forces around him. He could feel the presence of his brothers too. They had guided it here. They had saved him again. He returned to the chamber, the cavernous room with the brain and the gurney upon which lay his battered body.
He looked down upon himself and realized while he was away they did brutalize him more. He was glad he was not present for it. He would remember it when he inhabited the body again. The terrors would rush upon his soul and it would take a long time for him to recover, both mentally and physically. He wouldn’t dwell on that now though.
“Are you ready now?” the brain inquired. “You have little time. Neither I nor your body will last much longer.”
Indeed, he agreed. The brain was showing yet more signs of atrophy. His own brain was shutting down too. They had him on a respirator and a heart pump to keep his blood circulating.
“Go!” the brain urged. “Go now before it is too late for both of us!”
He listened carefully, waiting, waiting, and then he heard it, the hiss of the EMP engaging. The heart machine and respirator went silent as he leapt back into his mortal being and died.
The Royal Guards boarded the Andromedean vessel. It was darker than night, the only source of light was the distant pinpricks of stars outside the windows. Lasers would not work. Torches were useless. A match and a cigarette were used to guide their passage from deck to deck and room to room.
The creatures that inhabited this vessel were mindless, circling in place, posing no threat to the Rehnorians, as their brain was dead. Some circled until they collapsed. Others wandered out of the airlocks and exploded into space. A guardsman raised a pistol and shot one which promptly turned the creature into gelatinous glue that stuck to the floor and made their passage more difficult.
Eventually, the Guards came upon the chamber where the MaKennah lay. They approached him hesitantly, for now it was their unwelcome task to return his body to the very ship that he had created, to bring him back to the planet that was only now starting to prosper again under his stewardship.
“Come on,” the squad leader urged. “We have only twenty more minutes until our air supply runs out. The others stared at the body afraid to touch him.
“He’s dead,” a guardsman whispered. “Senya’s dead.”
“Come on,” the squad leader said and reached out himself to heft the body. Just as he did so, three silver orbs appeared in the room. The Rehnorians lurched backward toward the door, staring transfixed as the orbs hovered above the MaKennah’s body.
Senya reached out to his brothers.
“I will heal you,” his brother said. “And I will fill you with my healing powers. I grant you the strength to cure others with your touch.”
“I give you my wisdom,” his other brother said. “I give you the knowledge and foresight from this time and all before and after.”
“I give you my strength,” his last brother said. “May you be victorious against the evil that threatens the Heavens and the Earths. May you save us all again from the despair.
Senya felt their power infuse him with new life. He basked in the light and he blessed them.
“Bless you, our brother,” they said as they disappeared.
Senya moaned.
“He’s alive!” the squad leader yelled and they ran for him.
Chapter 25
Katie
I woke and immediately sat up, glancing at the clock. I had been asleep for more than eight hours. The ship was rocketing back toward Rehnor and a message on my vid said that Senya was stabilized in sickbay but in surgery. I swung my feet over the side of the bed and for a moment my own head swam. I chastised myself for having been so ineffective on board that I had done nothing in the rescue but sleep throughout it.
A vivid memory of
my dreams came back to me just then. I saw angel men and Senya dead on a gurney, rising to greet them, coming back to life.
“I think I may be coming down with space sickness,” I mumbled and checked my head for fever.
Maybe Thad was wrong about the new environmental control system. Even though it didn’t cause muscle based space sickness, something weird was definitely happening in my brain. I took a shower and ordered up some food and then dressing in a Rehnorian Guard Captain’s uniform, I headed down to sickbay.
Thad was asleep on a sofa while Loman stood pacing outside the door. He glared at me as if this were all my fault.
“We are going back to Mishnah,” he declared, leaving no uncertainty about it. “You will stay there until we deem it otherwise.”
I nodded. I considered protesting. After all, I did have my own job. I was still, for the time being, an Allied Spaceforce Captain. I sat down on the sofa near Thad’s feet and dutifully, I typed up and sent a message to Admiral Mattson explaining that my husband had been recovered by our SdK security. I told him I would need to extend my maternity leave to care for my family for a while and I asked if he would kindly notify the Discovery that I would not be coming back for at least another three months. Loman sat down in the chair next to me and together we waited.
"So we did pretty good after all," Berkan said, surprisingly upbeat as he came down the hall. "Only a minimum of squawks and the EMP performed flawlessly. Well done, Thad!"