Zero Hour (Starmen (Space Opera Series) Book 3)

by J. M. Hagan

  2

  He opened his eyes groggily, hearing the metallic glass of the chamber slide away. A black shadow draped his vision. His chest was tight, his belly wrangled.

  His eyes went to the bright canopy window and transfixed on the three suns above. Vorjool blankly stared for some moments, scarcely able to process his situation.

  It took minutes to clear his muddled head. Then, when he finally sat forward, he felt aches in his abdominal area. When his arms reached out and grabbed the sides, he suffered pin pricks, and felt like his limbs were floating.

  Vorjool turned his head and saw through the cabin window the nose of the main cabin had plunged into the surface, and was buried at the front in red sands.

  When he had overcome the pins and needles, he got out, finding questionable balance on tired legs; every muscle exhausted to the point of collapse.

  Naked and moving stiffly, he went to the console linked to the vitals of the other crew members and saw the awful truth. All of the crew, aside from Gwen, were gone. He looked into Peta’s pod and saw her corpse. It was withered and decayed like she’d been dead for years. A quick glance to the other dark pods confirmed they were the same.

  With tears in his eyes, he made his way to Gwen’s sleep chamber and saw her sleeping peacefully, bathed in golden light. He fell to his knees and thanked God.

  Vorjool initiated the waking procedure on her pod. It lit up brightly. Then a few moments later the metallic glass slid away. She opened her eyes groggily and saw him.

  “Gwen…”

  She coughed and sat up slightly. He reached in to help her out. Gwen slapped his hand away. Went over the pod and spewed. There were buckets under their sleep pods and he hurried to grab her one. Gwen vomited three times and was wool-pale. He’d never felt the need; his stomach was much stronger than that of a human.

  When she looked to the outside, wiping spit from her chin, and saw they were in the ground, her alarm spiked.

  “Where…?” she asked coarsely. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He left her and went to the cockpit with his legs rigidly protesting as he lowered himself into the chair. Stiff fingers pawed the keyboard, as he booted up the computer to try and discover just what had happened.

  He scrolled through the list of recent event notifications and learnt of the collision with the meteor.

  When it dawned on him they were stranded far from anywhere, he checked the date. To his horror, he saw they’d been in the sleep chambers for almost five years. A great fearful chill poured into his belly as he done the math. His hands trembled when he searched for Remus-2.

  Gwen moved with difficulty and stood over his shoulder, pale and shaking. “What is it?” she begged. “Tell me?”

  “Remus-2 is gone. We’re stranded,” he said. “We’ve been here for five years.”

  “Hasn’t there been any communication?” she begged.

  But he shook his head when he saw the empty log. “The whole system malfunctioned. Far as they know, we’re all dead.”

  Gwen turned in disbelief. “The others…?”

  “They’re gone,” he said, feeling cold with despair. He liked them all. They were his friends. His crew. “Been gone a long time.”

  She went over and saw for herself. When she did, she dropped in a ball of despair, weeping and sobbing desperately. He sat with his eyes shut, listening to the echo of her sobs.

  They were doomed. The rations on-board were enough to sustain them for a few weeks at most. This was a dead planet. And it would become their gravesite soon enough. They both knew it.

  A blinking light caught his frightened eye.

  The sensors picked up on something very faint. He hurried to check what it was, and found a weak signal was coming from a nearby source.

  “That’s a distress signal,” he muttered, whilst checking the source for an I.D. tag.

  It came up empty. This ship had no I.D. at all.

  “What is it?” Gwen asked, sniffling.

  Vorjool turned with hope. “There’s a distress signal nearby,” he said.

  “There’s another ship out there?” she questioned in disbelief, looking out to the sandy planet.

  “The signal is so weak we never would have detected it if we weren’t on the surface. It’s coming from somewhere underground.”

  Gwen dried her eyes with the heel of her hand. “My God,” was all she could muster.

  “Let’s find it,” he said, taking her soft, chill hand. She squeezed.

  *

  They needed food desperately and got emergency rations from the wall compartment a few steps from the sleep chambers. His stomach grumbled violently. The thin protein sticks were devoured as quick as he could remove the foil packaging. He ate three before he began to slow his consumption, then drank water to rid himself of cotton-mouth.

  The surface was scorching hot, and the sands were bright red in the light of the suns. The star perched on high was enormous, making the other two seem like boiling hot little moons in comparison.

  He wondered if there was night on this world. The dry landscape outside led him to believe it came rarely. Going out in their suits, even with the cooling on, was going to make for an unpleasant journey. But they had little choice.

  They took their meds to alleviate the sleep paralysis. As they prepared to suit up, he saw the fear in her, felt it himself. He caressed her cheek. Set his lips to her skin gently. Then put his forehead against hers and shut his eyes.

  “We’re gonna make it out of here. I promise.”

  “We better,” she said, bewildered.

  Vorjool connected his PDP to the ship’s sensors. Then he got into his suit, still aching in his muscles as he fit into it, before heading to the small airlock.

  When they stepped outside, his eyes were strained by the intense brightness. They kept their heads down as they followed the signal trail across baron plains and rocky hillsides. Sparse pockets of lichen dotted the rocks, and strange plants with dry thistles were scattered around the valley they journeyed through, seeing the signal get stronger.

  It led them to the base of a tall mountain with a sharp point. On the mountain face, there was a metal door half buried. Vorjool got to shovelling with his hands.

  “Who built this place?” she asked.

  Vorjool, on his knees, looked up at the rusted door with its strange markings. “I have no idea,” he said.

  “We’re thousands of light-years from anywhere inhabited by the Federation.”

  Vorjool nodded. Then got to shovelling again. Gwen checked around the door and found a handle inside a small box next to it. She pulled it down with effort and the door slid open.

  It led to a long, dark corridor. They switched on the lights of their helmets and traversed it, hearing the metal floor screech beneath their feet. After that they found an old hangar with rusted gangways, and there, in the large empty bay, was a single ship.

  “Thank the stars,” said Gwen.

  It seemed to be a small transport, judging by the mass of the exterior against the small cockpit. The design was completely alien to them.

  Vorjool led the way as they hurried down the metal staircase and found the hatch to the ship was open. She boosted him and he climbed inside.

  The interface was different to anything he had seen before, though the tech seemed impressive, and he thanked the stars again when he hit the screen and it responded.

  “Yes! It still has power!” he shouted out to her.

  Then came a metallic shriek...

  Vorjool turned sharply, feeling icy fingers ascend his spine. It hadn’t come from inside this ship. It had come from the hangar bay outside.

  “What was that?” he asked. Gwen didn’t reply.

  He checked out the windows and saw nothing. Then he put his head out the hatch and saw her looking up at him. Another shriek came, this time he located its origin – it sounded from a corridor ahead.

  “Didn’t you hear that?” he asked,
when she didn’t react.

  She shook her head. “Hear what?”

  A mixture of curiosity and fear led him to climb out and walk toward the sound in a state of alertness. Gwen followed behind him.

  “What about the ship?” she asked. “Does it have power?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  Gwen sighed. “What are we waiting for then?”

  Something was near…he could feel it in his gut. “I can…sense something.”

  When he turned the corner, he saw a white light ahead. Its glow captured Gwen’s face as she stood next to him. They were riveted. It grew bright, then blinked out, over and over, as they approached. His heart thumped against his ribs.

  Before them was a small node in the centre of the room. The display wasn’t in rovian. Without an understanding of what the symbols meant, Vorjool pressed a switch at random. A click sounded. Then an electronic crackle. Light poured from the node, and a holographic projection formed around the room.

  He knew those blue whirling limbs of gas at once – it was a map of the Spira Galaxy.

  The image zoomed in, zeroing swiftly on a planet in a remote system, in the realms of the Fringe…

  “What is this?” Gwen asked, her mouth dripping open.

  Vorjool stared at it in fascination. “I haven’t the slightest idea…”

  A bright light shone into his eyes from the node and he heard Gwen shriek. He was enraptured. Too caught in what was going on to even be afraid. A pulse surged through him. He shuddered, feeling his body become weightless.

  Pictures forced their way into his mind.

  He saw space open up before him as though he were soaring through it, propelled at the speed of light. He saw another man – a man very similar to him in appearance. Then many others of the same race. He knew it was his race. For the first time in his life, Vorjool had discovered a link to his past…

  3

  Thanks to the knowledge imparted by the beacon, Vorjool had learnt the location of an undiscovered gateway. It shot them back to a little explored area of Fringe-space, shaving years off the voyage, and leaving them just several weeks’ journey to Delta-2.

  The ship they discovered was equipped with a TDS that was far more advanced than anything the Rovian Federation had to offer. Although it was a small transport ship, they could jump much farther than a top of the line dreadnought.

  The ship had also provided them with a food source that was infinite so long as they had power. He didn’t understand how it was made. Like most things on that ship, it was a mystery to him even with the knowledge he had discovered. It was a green pudding lacking in taste, but very filling and capable of sustaining them on their long journey.

  As they travelled, he alluded Gwen to everything, as his mind gradually unlocked the secrets stored within. The knowledge imparted by the ancient computer told a tale not known to another flesh and blood being in the galaxies.

  The secrets of the long dead Rokari. The builders of the Gateways. The lords of the galaxies – in a time long past.

  Their Empire had stretched to lengths still undiscovered by the Rovian Federation and the Ishar Empire. They inhabited just a fraction of the worlds the Rokari had settled throughout their long history, as they had been voyaging across the cosmos for tens of thousands of years.

  Somehow, they had died out. He wasn’t sure how. But he knew that he was the last, even as a half-breed. By his reckoning, it had been thousands of years since the last pure-breed of his race died. His DNA had mixed with several other races throughout his family’s generations giving him a unique look. But mostly, he resembled the Rokari. Grey skinned. Black eyed. Physically dominant – no matter how thin or short he appeared – when compared to other races. Immune to harsh conditions. Able to survive for a time in the vacuum of space even. He hadn’t known the full extent of his greatness until he discovered the beacon, having never tested his limits fully. He assumed air poisonous to humans was poisonous to him. But now he knew.

  Gwen was stumped taking it all in, time and again. Vorjool pondered what he had seen while they travelled, unlocking deeper meaning the closer they got to home. It made the journey incredible. He even wished it could last a little longer.

  She was now his wife by vow. They didn’t require a ceremony, or even a witness. All they had had for so long was each other. The rules of the galaxies were no longer a concern. They approached Delta-2, still locked in a shared dream.

  They discovered from news reports regarding back home the government were segregating Mortron island from the surrounding cities with security checkpoints. The people of Virtra City had had enough of the terrorists, gangsters, and crooks, the underprivileged city housed.

  The newly elected Mayor of Virtra City had been elected because of his policies regarding the city of black sheep. New-Wave Security, a privatised security corporation had been given the substantial contract, and things were coming into place fast.

  The conflict on Omni-4 was on-going. Five years on, and the death toll was in the billions with no end in sight for the war, as the dictator in power had been put in place by the Federation to continue playing ball. Delta-2 was the largest Federation planet in the vicinity, as such, it had been targeted many times by the terrorist cell named Ogazi.

  “I was a crook on Delta-2,” he told her. “Growing up a homeless orphan in Mortron City…a life of crime was the only option available to me. I did a lot of things I’m not proud of to survive. But, when I became a man, and saved a little cash, I put myself through college. Got my degree. I spent almost a year exploring uncharted space. I think, in a way, I needed that quiet, that solitude. When I returned, I joined the Bright-Star Mining Corporation. I had been struggling with who I was…my place in the universe…for a long time. It took a lot of blood, from myself, and others, before I found inner peace.”

  Gwen was flying the ship casually as she listened. Delta-2 was a small dot in the distance. “I know,” she said. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me. I know everything I need to.”

  Along the way home, they had since contacted the Federation and made them aware of their survival. They were almost out of fuel, and they needed their pay if they were going to fund their expedition to the hidden base deep within Fringe-Space the beacon had shown them.

  “If it goes to private court, they’ll try to use anything they can against us,” he said, imagining the meeting with a sharply dressed, heartless delegate from the Bright-Star mining corporation.

  They were owed a lot of money, and he knew the corporation would do anything they could to reduce their salaries, seeing as they had lost so much revenue already with the destruction of Remus-2.

  *

  Three days later…

  Gwen sat down looking lost like she had when they woke from the crash. They were staying in a corporate building, having been provided free board while they went through the process of informing the corporation of everything that had happened.

  He had thought they were going to come gunning for him as the Chief Officer. But, to his lament, it hadn’t gone down that way. They had reviewed the activity logs of everyone on the crew.

  They saw from door logs he’d often stayed in Gwen’s room. He hadn’t even known they were monitoring things like that. His personal ident chip, lodged beneath his skin, was tracked at all times and his locations were recorded and sent back with all the other information regarding their journey.

  Gwen had been deemed negligent, having been the last person to run a ship diagnostic. The scan had shown several glitches at the time. They didn’t accept her argument that Deacon had said it was just a blip in the system.

  Gwen was crucified in the private court. Vorjool was charged with showing poor judgement in his capacity as Chief Officer. No details of the case were released to the public, and they had their lawyers make sure they operated well within their rights as they went after them both.

  They lost the case very quickly, and their accounts were frozen as a result.
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br />   “What are we gonna do?” she begged, welling up. “We’re finished…”

  Vorjool squatted in front of her and beheld the eyes of her downturned head. “We’re not finished,” he assured strongly.

  “We don’t have anything. They’ve wrung out our accounts. We don’t have any fuel. We won’t even be able to pay the rates for storing our ship. They’ll claim it in a matter of days!”

  He suspected that was what they wanted. His ship was of unknown origin and they no doubt wanted to research the tech. “I won’t let that happen,” he promised.

  “But, Vorjool, what can we do?”

  He made a fist, looking off. The second he thought of Aria – his former employer back in Mortron City – his heart sank in cold, black waters.

  But Vorjool was determined, no, desperate, to not let anything get in the way of his destiny, even his own dark past. He went against every screaming instinct…

  “We’ll go to, Aria,” he said.

  “Aria?”

  “Yes. Aria Garret. If she’s still around, then she runs Mortron City.”

  Gwen blinked surprise. Then whispered: “A criminal?”

  Vorjool nodded. “A long time ago, I worked for her,” he said, and it irked him remembering the violence of his past.

  “You think she’ll remember you?”

  “Yes. She’ll remember…”

  *

  As he waited in the foyer, Vorjool rapped fingers against his thigh feeling anxious with anticipation. His whole life could change drastically in the next few moments. If someone had told him before that his future would be decided on Delta-2, in Mortron city no less, he would have scoffed at them.

  A bizarre series of events had led him to the headquarters of the reputable smuggler.

  Gwen was waiting for him in a café nearby. They had no place to live. No other place to turn. He knew from his loansharking days that Aria was always interested in finding ancient artefacts. They could be sold for a fortune on the black market.

  He heard a heavy boot-tread and stopped fidgeting. The stocky ishar that told him to wait here returned from a narrow corridor ahead.