I.S.S. Starkiller Chronicle: Part Four

by Lon E. Varnadore

  I.S.S. STARKILLER CHRONICLE

  PART 4

  LON E. VARNADORE

  CONTENTS

  Previously on Starkiller

  Starkiller Chronicle Part Four

  Also by Lon E. Varnadore

  PREVIOUSLY ON STARKILLER

  The I.S.S. Starkiller was given a dangerous mission. To find a rogue planet for their one time enemies, the Eridani. They picked up a troublemaker named Trevor whom was raised by the Eridani. After dealing with a situation on the space station Cornelio, the Starkiller found the rogue planet, PFC Garret along with others went down to the planet to give a sit-rep. Losing his comrades to Eridani traps and enemy alike, Garret got the drop on two of them inside a strange facility.

  STARKILLER CHRONICLE PART FOUR

  Garret looked at the two sprawled Eridani and smirked. “So, want to tell me why I shouldn’t kill you where you stand… or sprawl, as is the case?” A grin split his lips. The hissing in his head was gone. Good riddance.

  “Peace, peace, peace…” one of them said, over and over. His spindly arms were up and quivering with effort. The two quivered and shook. The fear in their voices gave Garret a perverse sense of pleasure.

  Garret nodded. “Alright, relax. I won’t kill you, yet. But if you think I’m going to let you off, you’re mistaken. I want to know what the hell is going on?” At least they weren’t panicking.

  The two aliens stopped shivering with fear. One good thing. “So, what is going on?” Garret asked.

  They remained quiet, their stretched eyes staring at him blankly. Then, the two Eridani cocked their heads to one side. Garret shook his head. “Thought the Eridani were supposed to be smart.”

  “They are,” a voice said from behind him. “Humans usually aren’t.”

  Garret turned to see an Eridani that stood over six foot. His thick, barrel chest was smooth and rippled with muscle. In his hand was a nasty-looking pistol. “I suggest you put your weapon down. From what I understand, they don’t need all of you to make this experiment work.”

  “No need for that, friend,” Garret said, making sure to point his weapon down. Shit, how’d he get the drop on me? “What experiment?”

  “Blaster on the ground, please,” the Eridani said. He smiled, and it was more creepy than Garret thought an Eridani could be. He’d never seen an Eridani smile. The thing’s teeth were sharp and numerous.

  Garret dropped his weapon with a clatter, trying not to shiver under the thing’s glare and smile.

  “Good human,” the tall Eridani said. He then pulled the trigger.

  A moment before Garret lost consciousness, during that moment of pain from the complicated-looking stunner, he thought, Fuck me!

  Yamahara looked up as the ship came out of FTL. “Where are we?”

  “Near the border of the Wild Space and I.S.S. Space. Close to where we left, sir,” Ensign Briggs said.

  “How long until we get—”

  “Captain,” Briggs shouted, causing Yamahara to jerk her head down to stare at him.

  “What?”

  “There is an I.S.S. Ship. They’re hailing us,” Briggs said. He reached out to answer the hail.

  “Stop. Don’t do it,” Yamahara stopped him with a hand gesture. “Stay dark.”

  “But, Captain?”

  “I said stay dark. That is an order,” Yamahara said. “We’re on a secret mission that—”

  She was shocked, as were the rest of the crew, when the other I.S.S. ship fired a plasma bolt across their bow, buckling some of the bow plating of Starkiller.

  Red lights started to flash. Cerberus said, in an eerily-calm voice, “Captain, I am going to fire back.”

  “Why?” She shouted as two plasma cannons unleashed four shots towards the other I.S.S. ship.

  “You die, I die,” Cerberus whispered in her personal commlink.

  “I thought Trevor—”

  “No, he was only bragging to you. I am still in control.”

  “Then, why—”

  “We don’t have time to discuss this, Captain,” Cerberus said, as the ship’s shields flared to life as the other I.S.S. ship fired back.

  “Who is on that ship?”

  “It’s the Glory.”

  Sodding hells! Yamahara cursed. “Dammit, we need to get out of here. Narrows is a lackey of Alastair. How much longer until we can spool up?”

  “Two minutes, Captain,” Trevor said.

  “Finally, some good news.”

  “Unless we stop them, not good news,” the kid said.

  “Why?”

  “We need to drop our shields to spool up. Do you think—”

  “Starkiller can take a few hits,” Cerberus said.

  “Isn’t that kind of disassociation a bad thing?” Yamahara asked to her commlink.

  “How so?” Cerberus asked.

  “You’re Starkiller? Right?”

  “I’m… complicated.”

  The main screen flicked on to a heavyset man of middling years. A thick, hawk-like nose was the first feature Yamahara saw, and she knew the Glory was still helmed by Captain Ferdinand Magellan Narrows. “Want to tell me why you are shooting at me, Captain Yamahara?”

  “How did you open the channel?”

  “A new toy that Admiral Alastair gave those loyal to him. I have actually been listening since you appeared. You are very naughty, Captain. I have every right to destroy you.”

  “Fleet etiquette dictates you respond when hailed. When you cut the connection, what was I to think?” Narrows asked, leaning forward on his command chair, tenting his fingers. “I suggest that you power down and prepare to be boarded.”

  “On what grounds?”

  “You have obviously come under the influence of the Eridani. Crew of the Starkiller, stand down from your posts and—”

  “Belay that order and get the smiling git off my screen,” Yamahara said to Briggs.

  For a moment, Briggs was torn between what Narrows said and what Yamahara said.

  “Cut me off and the entire crew is—”

  “Briggs, I shall do it,” Cerberus said. The sneering face of Narrows disappeared.

  Yamahara gripped her left wrist with her right hand. “Shipwide.” She paused for a beat. “This is Captain Yamahara. We are on—”

  The sneering face of Narrows showed back up. “Not even the famed Cerberus can stop this from working. Now, I know you are talking to your crew to tell them to stand up to the Glory. By all means, I want you to tell them that, Ya. You will all be destroyed by Glory and your families will—”

  “Try it,” Yamahara said back, folding her arms behind her back. “You will find that Starkiller is a formidable ship.”

  “Captain,” Trevor shouted. “They are trying to infiltrate the ship’s systems.”

  Yamahara gave him a sharp look. “Then stop them. It is the reason you are still on this crew.”

  “I can’t. I’ve never seen a code like this. I have no idea how to take care of it.” He narrowed his eyes. “This is Eridani code… but more advanced than I’ve ever—”

  “Cerberus,” Yamahara shouted.

  “Captain?”

  “Spool up.”

  “Is that an order?” Cerberus asked.

  “Do not run, Ya,” Narrows said. Yamahara gritted her teeth when he used the nickname he always used on her. “Glory is newer and will destroy—”

  “No, you’ll stay there and wait like a good Alastair dog.” She looked at Cerberus. “Yes, that’s an order. Open fire and spool up!”

  She turned to Captain Narrows. “It was so very good to see you, Narrows. We are leaving now.”

  “How? You can’t even fire—”

/>   Before Narrows could speak, Cerberus fired the all gun systems. Most were for show, but two direct hits on Glory’s right engine were what the crew of Starkiller needed. The wounded ship fired back. Two hits struck the retreating Starkiller before it disappeared using the FTL drive.

  Starkiller exited FTL close to Station Cornelio where they had been before finding the rogue planet. When Yamahara looked at it, she wanted to order the ship away, but she stopped herself. It could be a good thing to get information.

  “Starkiller, you are not allowed to dock on this station,” the shaky voice of the dock master said over the comms. His image appeared in a still-disheveled office.

  “Fine, then we will just blast the station to dust and dig through the frozen scrap for what we need,” Yamahara said, quirking an eyebrow and showing a slight smile.

  The dock master’s face paled. He stammered out, “T-T-Then please, docking bay seven-B. Please.”

  When the comm was cut, Yamahara looked at her crew. They looked back stunned. “We needed to show we aren’t part of the I.S.S. and that we mean business.”

  “What is going to stop them from attacking us at the door?” PFC Knapp asked.

  “Me,” Cerberus said.

  “How are we going to find the mutant Eridani if we can’t get off the ship?”

  Yamahara smiled. “Any of you been trained for zero-g?”

  A half-hour later, she and two other crewmen who had zero-g training were marching across the outside of the station. She was in the lead, since the other two had done barely anything back home beyond the Induction Rooms before they had been kicked onto the Starkiller. She hoped they didn’t get her killed. Or slipped off and went flying off into the void.

  Yamahara gripped the pulse pistol in one hand and looked at Knapp and Briggs. They looked unsure, not knowing if they were going to make it or not to the big center section of the wheel. “Come on, layabouts,” Yamahara said. “You need to hurry up. We need to get the Eridani mutants before the station knows what is going on.”

  “Why do you say that, Captain?” Knapp asked.

  “Because there are sensors that can detect movement on the outer hull, and the drones they send aren’t going to be pleasant.”

  For almost three clicks, Yamahara was about to berate and cajole the other two to take small steps that led them closer and closer to the Eridani sector of the station. She felt that she was already running on a strain of hope, when she felt the first thrum along the hull through her mag boots. “Prep for contact.”

  “Contact with what?” Briggs asked.

  “Hull drone sweepers.” She said before she brought her pistol to bear on a thick ring that circled the hull, spinning in a lazy rotation around the arm of the station. She knew it moved faster than it appeared. She had dealt with these more times than she wanted to ever admit.

  “You have to time the jump just right. Be ready.”

  “For what?” Briggs shouted back through the comm.

  He’s not going to make it. She felt that Knapp was ready when the drone swept closer and closer to them, thrumming through the hull. Yamahara braced herself. Bending down, and at the last possible second, she leapt high into the void. She slapped the controls of the mag boots twice within a second of each other. She was able to sail over the drone as it rotated under her. She swore she could feel the rotating blades. She looked behind her and saw Briggs, still not ready, and watched in mute horror as the Ensign was chewed up by the blades. Bits of his body floated off in different directions while large floating drops of red sprayed outward in a slow dance. The only good thing was that now Knapp was ready. She slapped her hand on the control once, and then again to slam back down onto the hull. She looked at Yamahara with a grim smile, her suit dotted with blobs of red that broke open on her.

  She moved closer to Yamahara and nodded.

  “Double time to the Eridani sector.”

  Knapp gave her another grim nod, and the two chugged along the hull towards the Eridani sector.

  Once there, she nodded to Knapp. “Set the goop.”

  The PFC knelt and pulled out a small canister, fixed a nozzle to it, and sprayed the thin goop in an uneven circle, large enough that Yamahara and Knapp could get through, barely. The goop was meant to dissolve the hull and cause a small breach. Knapp and Yamahara would get inside with the grapnels on their suits.

  At least that was the plan.

  “Trevor, get ready,” she said into her comm.

  “Aye-aye, Captain.”

  She was glad the brat was acting a bit more respectful. Though, who knows how long it would last.

  Yamahara bit her lip and took a deep breath to calm herself before the hull dissolved into nothing. She knew that the station-wide alarm would go off because of the breach. She and Knapp extended their hands and fired their grapnels into the room, Yamahara praying that Trevor kept the shields off for a fraction of a second longer than it took them to get down. She hit the button to retract and was yanked into the hole. She looked down to see three Eridani mutants holding onto their chairs. One of them shot upwards, connecting with Yamahara. She let the Eridani’s spindly body bounce off her. She heard a grunt from Knapp through the comm. She looked up to see Knapp had collided and was tangled up with the creature. It thrashed about, trying to pull itself off Knapp.

  At that moment, the emergency shield activated. Yamahara, Knapp, and the Eridani plunged to the ground. Yamahara was ready. Knapp was not. She hit the deck plating hard. Yamahara held her pulse pistol on the two conscious Eridani. She risked a glance over to see the one that had floated up was dead or unconscious.

  “Sit down and don’t make a sound, ” Yamahara said through the suit’s comm relay. Her voice boomed and shocked the two conscious aliens. Quickly, Yamahara had them entangled in their own grav-chairs, removing the power units. They were still Eridani and could barely move without the help of the chairs. The rest of the room was a disaster. The breach had ruptured two tanks, and Yamahara was sure that the remains had thankfully been sucked up and away from her and Knapp.

  “We are in,” Yamahara said, pulling off her helmet.

  “Roger,” Cerberus responded. “Distraction is a go.”

  Knapp winced with pain, but she gave Yamahara a thumbs up. “I’m good, Captain.”

  “Good.” She turned to the one mutant Eridani she remembered. Snarling, Yamahara moved closer to the Eridani that had caused the chaos with Garret. She pressed the barrel of the snub-nosed plasma pistol into the creature’s head. “You have exactly ten seconds to tell me what you did to my crewmen.”

  The smile on the creature’s face caused Yamahara to grit her teeth. “No idea what—”

  Yamahara aimed the plasma pistol at the Eridani’s left hand and fired. The scream was cut short as PFC Knapp slapped a hand over the Eridani’s mouth.

  “I warned you. I do hope you are a righty.” She nodded to Knapp who pulled his hand away. “Speak!”

  “I sent your crew to the planet you needed. I happened to use him as a courier.”

  “A courier for what? He was checked out. He didn’t have—”

  The Eridani laughed. “Humans have a crude form of exams. My delivery was in his very DNA. He is a mule, I think is what you humans call them.” The Eridani let out a longer laugh that turned to a groan of pain as Yamahara pistol-whipped the creature.

  “What did you send?”

  The Eridani started to laugh. Yamahara struck the creature across the face again. “What did you send?”

  “Something that they need to make the planet start to work properly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A key to start the factory again.” He continued to laugh and laugh.

  Yamahara cursed in English and Japanese. Then another few choice words in Finnish.

  “Damn Captain, didn’t know you knew that kinda talk,” Knapp said.

  Yamahara spun on her heels and fired her stunner at the creature, holding the trigger a fraction longer was needed.
The Eridani shuddered and slipped from the chair, unconscious. She looked at Knapp. “Been part of the I.S.S. almost as long as Garret. You pick up a few things. Come one, we need to get back to Garret and that planet.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s going to be in big trouble.”

  Yamahara grabbed her helmet. “You going to be ok to make a run for Starkiller?”

  “How, Captain? The alerts are going off. How are we going to get out of this sector without—”

  “Have more of that goop?”

  The Eridani that was questioned looked at Yamahara. “You are going to breach the hull again?”

  She looked at him and gave him a smirk. “I am pretty sure that the shields will work once we are out. But if not, better than you deserve for what you did to my crew.” She pulled out a beacon and activated it. “We have about ten seconds,” she said. She looked at Knapp, who looked sick but was already pulling her helmet on and applying the goop to the inner hull.

  Yamahara pulled on her helmet as the goop went on in a much thicker, foamy half-circle. Knapp shook the canister as she was close to the end of the arc. “It’s empty, Captain.”

  “It’ll be fine,” Yamahara said. “Brace yourself.”

  The hull melted as it did before. This time, with a bigger section to eat away, Yamahara was worried the shield wouldn’t pop up before it was gone. She shoulder-checked Knapp through the opening and leapt through herself. She looked back to see the shield snap closed a hair’s breadth from her bootheel.

  She looked the other way to see the maw of Starkiller’s hangar bay open and scoop them up. Moments before the hangar bay closed, Yamahara looked back at the station. She saw flicks of pulse weapons going off and then the red and black body of a large loader drone tromping through the corridors of the station.

  “Well, I guess that will work as a distraction.”

  Garret came to, bound in a chair. It felt like a cold metal chair, and the fact he felt anything was the first real worry. He looked down, finding his head was restrained, and he could barely move it, but he could see down enough to see that his suit had been removed, and he was in his skivvies.

  He took stock of himself and where he was. His head hurt from the stunner, the cold from the cool air of the room itself, and his throat was parched from the dry air. He was breathing without difficulty, which was a good sign. The greys had pumped in Earth’s oxy-blend into the room, or into the complex. Garret thought the Eridani were able to breathe the air on Earth before the war started.