by G J Ogden
One thing Adra had never believed in was fate or destiny or any kind of divine power. The rule of the Masters had taught her that the universe gave you nothing. For millennia the Hedaltus race had served the Masters, who had engineered and then taken her species from Earth. And not once during the millennia that had elapsed since that act had chance ever intervened to set them free. Adra, along with the strongest of the other Hedalt, had fought to overthrow them. No omnipotent being had granted their freedom. It was not fate or luck, but resolve and might that had given them victory. Yet now, on the brink of uncovering the shadowy new threat from the humans, it seemed the fates had indeed conspired against her.
“Provost, we can still destroy them now, or cripple their ship,” urged Lux, finally losing his battle to remain silent. He risked Adra’s wrath by challenging her openly, but he was desperate to comprehend her actions.
“You have your orders, Adjutant Lux,” said Adra. Her voice was cool and controlled, but she was dangerously close to the tipping point, and no matter how much she shared Lux’s obvious frustration, she was in no mood to be questioned.
“But we have them!” cried Lux.
“We have nothing!” snapped Adra, advancing on him. “That is just one ship. One crew!” She grabbed Lux by his chest plate and drew him towards her, lifting him to the tips of his boots. “You saw the asteroid base. You saw the two transports leave the planet! If we destroy them here we will never find the others!” Adra began to reach for her knife, feeling the blood lust almost take her, but reason managed to assert a stronger hold on her psyche. Instead, she released Lux and shoved him away. Still weak from the double jump, her Adjutant staggered backwards and dropped to one knee.
“Apologies, Provost,” said Lux, feebly, before forcing himself to stand. “I am not myself.”
Adra ignored Lux’s pleas and instead turned her attention to the headless simulant frame of Satomi Rose, which was still lying on the command deck. Lux’s challenge had drawn some of her restrained aggression to the surface and like a static charge it had to be released. She reached down and dug her fingers inside the neck cavity of the simulant, lifting the frame up before letting out a primal roar and hurling the body across the bridge. It rag-dolled across the deck, toppling three simulant bridge crew like ten pins, before finally coming to rest.
“The Taylor Ray simulant is weak!” cried Adra, turning back to Lux, “It believes itself to be human, and like all humans it craves attention. It wants to reform its crew. It still needs the Satomi Rose model to do it. Sentimentality will drive it to enter the CoreNet again to search for another unit, and when it does we will be waiting.”
“Of course, Provost,” said Lux, fighting with all the strength he had left to straighten so as not to disgrace himself further, “I ask forgiveness. I allowed my emotions to cloud my judgment.”
“Patience, Adjutant Lux,” said Adra. Her raw, physical outpouring of emotion had helped to clear her head, and this was as close to warmth and encouragement as Lux had ever experienced from her. “We need them to lead us to the location of their primary base – and they will – then we will not only destroy the rogue Corvette and its pitiful crew, but the last remains of humanity too.” She paused, glancing again at the rogue Corvette, now no larger than her thumb on the viewport. “So we will let them go. For now.”
Lux nodded and turned to make his way back to his station at the front of the bridge, but he only made it four paces, before his knees again buckled. This time, no force of will or strength of effort could compel him to stand. He could feel the life leaking out of him, like water from a broken dam, and he fell forwards, his head slamming hard into the deck. His vision moved in and out of focus, and then he was aware of Adra, kneeling at his side. He tried to speak, to apologize again for his weakness, but no words came out.
“Simulant, attend to him!” he heard Adra shout, and then he was aware of being turned over, of hands sliding underneath his back, and the prick of needles in his skin, but it was all dull and distant. His eyes focused and above him was the face of Provost Adra, stern-looking and hard, but with a new and strange softness to her emerald eyes.
“I am with you,” Lux managed, his voice barely more than a garbled croak, “I am... ready for... duty...”
The life left Lux’s eyes and his body went limp in Adra’s hands. The simulant continued to attend to him, but Adra knew that Lux was already gone. She lowered his body and stood to her full height, staring down into his empty eyes, as blood trickled slowly from his nose and ears.
The jump engines began to build and she knew that within a matter of seconds she would be required to fight whatever waited for her on the other side. Lux’s death changed nothing.
“Remove this body from the bridge,” she said to the closest simulant, as if she was referring to nothing more than a sack of garbage or an unwanted piece of furniture.
The jump countdown began and Adra clenched her fists together so tightly that her nails bit deeply into her palms, drawing blood so heavy with bile and hatred that it stung her skin like acid. Then the War Frigate jumped.
TWENTY-ONE
The journey back to the star system containing the Contingency base had given Taylor some time to think and reflect and ultimately dwell on the events that had just occurred. Inevitably, his thoughts were focused on Satomi Rose. Initially, he found himself falling deeper into a black hole of despair, believing that Adra had destroyed any hope of rescuing her, but where his unfeeling simulant frame was in many ways a curse, it also afforded him the ability to analyze circumstances dispassionately. And the more he thought about his encounters with Satomi in the Fabric, the more he felt sure that wherever she was, she had not been on a Corvette-class cruiser. He was certain of that, if nothing else. And if that were the case then the Satomi that Adra had so callously destroyed was not the Satomi he had formed a connection with. She was still out there, somewhere. He knew he was reaching, and that there was no proof of his theory, but he had to believe it was true. Glass half-full, Taylor, glass half-full…
Eventually, he had been forced to stop dwelling on the fate of Satomi because they had more immediate concerns, namely how to get two large transport ships through the relatively narrow tunnel that was the only way in or out of the lava tube. But, as usual, Casey had stepped up to the mark.
However, even with the advantage of Casey’s remarkable piloting abilities, maneuvering the two transport ships into the lava tube had not been a simple task. The transports just fitted through the cave mouth with barely two meters clearance around the hull, but they were more than twice the length of a Corvette-class cruiser. Even Casey had been unable to navigate them through and into the main cavern without bouncing off the tunnel walls and gouging chunks out of the armor plating. But, even though the transports had emerged looking like they’d been mauled by a starship-sized wolf, they had got through. And as Commander Sonner had pointed out to a slightly dejected-looking Casey Valera, that was all that mattered.
The two transports had docked first, setting down in the second hangar because the primary hangar was already full of Nimrods, while Casey had landed the Contingency One on its usual pad, with her usual delicacy. The engineering teams had worked their magic while the Contingency One was gone; the Nimrods were now ready to launch and, through a heady mixture of skill, guile and sheer dumb luck, they now had the crews to fly them. All that was needed was a battle plan and the Contingency War would be real.
Pain dug in Sonner’s shoulder as she pushed herself out of the command chair causing her to scrunch her eyes tightly closed. She slid her hand over the top of her shoulder and gently massaged the area where Provost Adra’s plasma shard had impacted. Her body armor had saved her from more serious harm, or even death, but it still felt like there were a dozen needles sticking into her flesh, in addition to a growing number of other aches and pains and general weariness. Despite this, the pain was not enough to dampen her spirits. They had rescued the reserve flight crews, and manag
ed to retrieve yet another member of Taylor’s team, Tactical Specialist Blake Meade. And even more remarkably they had somehow all made it back alive.
That was the ‘dumb luck’ part of the equation. They had used smart tactics combined with Taylor’s unique abilities and Casey’s superhuman piloting skills to reach the reserve Contingency base undetected, but then they’d risked it all to rescue Blake. It was a gamble that shouldn’t have paid off, yet the dice roll had gone in their favor again. They had looked death in the eyes, and even provoked it, and walked away alive. Provost Adra had them; they had been on the gallows with a noose around their necks, ready to drop, and she had just let them walk away. How, why, didn’t matter now, but whatever the reason, Sonner was sure it would not be the last they’d seen of Provost Adra.
“Well done, everyone,” said Sonner, releasing her shoulder and placing her hands on her hips. It was said with genuine feeling and none of the prickliness that everyone had come to accept as normal from Sonner. So much so that it almost sounded insincere as a result. “We just achieved the impossible, again. Now, we need to do it one more time.”
Casey flipped the last of the switches on her pilot’s console to power down the engines of the Contingency One and then pirouetted to face her. “No sweat, Commander S,” she replied, purple canvas shoes waggling like flippers, “we’re all experts at the impossible now!”
Taylor shut down his console and walked up to Sonner. “Impossible were our chances of escaping from Provost Adra, yet somehow we’re still here.”
“I’ve been wondering about that too,” said Sonner, “but we may never know why, and frankly I don’t care. We made it, that’s all that matters.” Then she winced and grabbed the back of her shoulder again. “It was hardly a clean getaway, though.”
Taylor stepped closer, “Let me take a look at that,” he said, reaching out to inspect the wound, but Sonner waved him off.
“Later, I want to meet our guests first, and we also need to fix up our new friend. What did you call him – Drake?”
Casey laughed, and spun around in her chair making ‘quacking’ noises.
“It’s Blake, not Drake,” said Taylor, rolling his eyes at Casey, but smiling too. “Though sometimes he can be a bit bird-brained.” Casey laughed again, and carried on spinning. “Between you and me, he’s not the only one,” Taylor added, more quietly so that Casey wouldn’t hear, but he hadn’t accounted for her enhanced simulant hearing.
“Captain, that hurt!” she called out with faux indignation.
“Anyway, we need to get you fixed up before we try to bring him into the land of the living,” Taylor went on, ignoring the complaint from the spinning pilot’s chair. And then he quickly added, before Sonner could protest again, “after we pay a visit to our new guests...”
“I’ll tag along, if you don’t mind?” said James, smiling at Casey’s spinning chair and waggling feet. Then he stood up and looked over at his big sister. “I want to meet my new crew!”
“I haven’t released you from duty here yet, Junior Lieutenant” said Sonner, stressing the word ‘Junior’. During their review of the available flight crew from the reserve Contingency base, it had been suggested that James would be better utilized as a mission ops officer on one of the Nimrod crews, which would also mean he’d get a promotion to full Technical Specialist. “But you’ll meet them soon enough. Secure your station, and we’ll see you out on the deck.”
James nodded and then Taylor and Sonner turned to leave, but they had barely taken a pace towards the door before it swung open. Sonner and Taylor instinctively reached down to draw weapons that weren’t there, half-expecting Provost Adra to burst in and attack them, despite the sheer absurdity of that possibility. But instead of a two meter tall, armor clad warrior, they were confronted with a considerably shorter, pencil-thin man in an Earth Fleet uniform. He had short silver hair and matching silver beard, which was still neatly trimmed, thanks to centuries spent in metabolic suspension. Taylor and Sonner relaxed their guards and glanced at one another; both recognized the man from the personnel records they had studied on the reserve base. It was Colonel Chester Collins.
“Is it not still customary to stand to attention when a superior officer enters the bridge?” said Collins, his voice thick with condescension. Taylor grimaced; as first impressions went, the Colonel had not endeared himself. He shot an ‘I told you so’ look at Sonner, wondering how she was going react, but he didn’t need to wait long to find out.
“Is it not customary to request permission to board a vessel that is not under your command?” retorted Sonner, peering at the little man with an ‘if looks could kill’ intensity.
Casey had stopped spinning in her chair and was transfixed by the exchange, as if she was watching the cliffhanger final episode of her favorite soap opera. James, on the other hand, had made a concerted effort to blend into the background, in the hopes of not being seen.
The Colonel bristled and took a step forward, “Need I remind you that this is an enemy vessel, Commander Sonner,” he said, talking to Sonner as if she was an unruly adolescent. “I do not need permission to board an enemy vessel.”
For a moment, Taylor thought that Sonner might reach out and strangle the Colonel, but instead she folded her arms tightly across her chest to prevent them from doing him harm. “An enemy vessel?” she said, repeating the words back to him as if he was stupid. “The Contingency One is no more an enemy vessel than the ninety-nine Nimrods on this deck. You wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for this ship and its crew.”
Colonel Collins glanced briefly at Taylor, looking him up and down like an attraction at a Victorian freak show. He then peered beyond him to Casey, who merely responded with a friendly wave.
“I reviewed your mission logs on the journey here, Commander, so I am fully aware of your escapades to date.”
Escapades? Taylor thought to himself. Who the hell says, ‘escapades?’. He was already fostering a healthy dislike for this new Colonel, and he could only imagine the dark thoughts of murder and violence that were probably swirling around Sonner’s subconscious.
“If that’s your way of saying ‘thank you’, Colonel, then you’re welcome,” Sonner replied, and then before Collins could bluster a response, added, “Now was there a reason for the intrusion, because we all still have a lot to do?” She took a step towards the door, but Colonel Collins side-stepped and blocked her path, holding up his hand like a traffic cop.
“No so fast, Commander, this isn’t a social call,” said Colonel Collins, “and I should think it obvious why I’m here. As the ranking officer, I am taking command of this operation.”
“Now wait just a damn minute,” said Taylor stepping in-between the Colonel and Sonner, which made the silver-haired man recoil and take a pace back, as if Taylor was a rabid dog snapping at his ankles. “Everything that’s happened so far is because of Commander Sonner, and the crew of this ‘enemy vessel’ as you call it. You’d still be a popsicle on a planet thousands of light years from here if it wasn’t for her!”
“And Earth Fleet appreciates what you have all achieved in getting us this far,” said Colonel Collins, barely even attempting to sound sincere, “Despite your questionable tactics, and even more questionable choice of crew mates.” He looked directly at Taylor as he said this, before returning his eyes to Sonner. “But, now I am in command, as regulations dictate.”
“Questionable choice of crew? Are you out of your damn mind?” snapped Sonner, incredulously. She had seemingly forgotten everything she had told Taylor while on the reserve Contingency base about the need to accept the authority of this Colonel. Far from accepting his authority, she looked like she was about to pop him in the mouth.
Collins appeared astonished at Sonner’s retort, and angrily jabbed a finger at Taylor. “Not only does your crew include simulant agents that until recently were hunting humans to extinction, you have twice risked the safety of the Contingency by conducting foolhardy and reckless missions
to recover two more of them!”
“Hey, one of ‘them’ is standing right in front of you, Colonel,” said Taylor, who also now wanted to pop this man in the mouth, “If it weren’t for me and Casey, Sonner would still be the last human alive. Can’t you see that we’re not your enemies?”
“It is for that reason, and that reason alone, that I have not already had you arrested and impounded,” said Colonel Collins. His choice of words was telling. Only people were imprisoned; animals, on the other hand, were impounded. Taylor took another step towards him, but Sonner held out her arm and looked into his silver eyes, shaking her head slowly. “But none of this permits you to continue commanding this operation.” His blustering had made his cheeks redden, which contrasted starkly with his white hair and whiskers. “Now, Commander Sonner, you will report to me in the base commander’s office in two hours to discuss our handover and next steps. Is that understood?”
Sonner placed her hands into the small of her back and straightened to attention, which only made her tower over the Colonel even more, “Yes, Colonel, I understand,” she answered, though it was like she was speaking the words through gritted teeth.
“Good,” said Colonel Collins, finally satisfied that he had asserted his authority. “Two hours then,” and he swept off the bridge, leaving them all stunned and lost for words.
It was Taylor that finally broke the silence, “So much for him being a ‘great guy’ and a ‘great leader’...”
Sonner turned to Taylor and sighed, “Fine, I admit it, he’s a problem. But he’s my problem.”