“Captain, we have to attain considerable speed to achieve that goal. We could make a pass at the ship before it reaches the station, but we are going to zip by.” Even as she said it, she applied power to the drive. “The station cannot take any kind of hit Captain. It is too fragile.”
Cindy had a hard time getting out the last bit as pressure on her chest increased dramaticly.
“Lock lasers on the midsection of the ship. Fire when in range.” Alex managed to grunt in short spurts.
“The ship is launching a pod towards the ISS.”
“Target the pod!” Alex shouted.
“I can’t,” Jack groaned. His fingers simply weighed too much to use his screen.
Cindy closed off all power to the drive. The pressure on everyone’s body ceased immediately.
“We’ll have less time shooting, but at least we’ll hit something as we pass by.”
Weightless, Jack engaged the decoupler’s targeting. The Destiny easily cut the thirty-five-foot pod into two pieces length-wise. Almost immediately, the station went past them in a blur.
“Damn, we are going fast,” said Lanora.
“We are on counter orbits,” Cindy replied. Everyone swayed as she turned the ship around and reengaged the drive.
“ETA to station is going to be three minutes. We should arrive at about the same time as the destroyer.”
“Faster,” said Alex. Cindy looked at him. Then she turned back and typed commands to Mimi.
The ship responded by increasing power, and the g-force rose to eight point two. In seconds, everyone on the ship passed out, except for Lanora, who was gritting her teeth as she forced her chest to hold its breath. When Mimi disengaged the drive, Lanora heaved a great fit of coughs, while she unbuckled and made her way to Jack’s console. She sat in the unconscious man’s lap and quickly worked out how to point the laser at the approaching Zorn ship and fire.
Now the Zorn were gunning straight for the Destiny. Lanora grabbed Jack’s finger and pressed it down on the fire button as she pushed herself towards Cindy’s station. The button was held for another seven seconds before the finger floated away.
Lanora had no idea how to operate Cindy’s station. The view-screen was filling with the oncoming shape of the destroyer. She picked a slider at random and moved it half way up the screen.
Nothing happened, so she moved the slider next to it. Instantly, she was hurled forward into the floor, as the ship began to spin end over end. With the Zorn ship moments away from contact, the rear of the Destiny suddenly came down hard on its nose. The Destiny violently shook as the two ships crashed and collided a second time near their midsections, and drifted slowly apart.
The jolt brought most of the crew awake. Lanora was floating, unmoving, in a far corner. Blood was pooling near her face, and spreading across all parts of her uniform.
Jack was the first to open his eyes. The Zorn hull filled the screen of the console in his hands. He quickly pushed the fire button, and the red beam seared deep into the Zorn vessel. Eventually, the Zorn ship had rotated out of the firing arc of the laser and he disengaged, and looked around.
Cindy was shaking her head as she came to. She blinked at her screen, and cocked her head, seeing that one of the disks had been moved to a highly unusual position. At first she thought it might have been damaged in the deceleration, but it responded nominally to her commands.
She reoriented the ship toward the still-drifting destroyer. Jack wasted no time in firing the laser once again. The destroyer was venting gases in several locations around the ship. Each time the laser decompressed another compartment, it would send the ship in a new direction. Finally, the Zorn vessel was cut into two pieces as it spun on its nose.
“Report,” mumbled Alex, his head between his hands.
“Second destroyer is inbound,” Mason said, watching the sensors.
“I’ve got damage indicators at various locations across the ship. Hull breach at the receiving bay. Air recycling is down.” Cindy strained to focus on the screen in front of her.
Alex’s eyes widened as he noticed Lanora, who was still adrift. She bounced off a bulkhead and moved towards the center of the bridge. Alex remembered they hadn’t had time to get Gloria on board.
“Mimi, ship wide. Medic to the Bridge!”
“Affirmative.”
“We’ve got people in free float. No sudden ship maneuvers.”
Jack was already firing at the approaching destroyer. At the current range, the laser was dissipating too much to cause any hull damage. The wide beam enveloped the whole ship, and the temperature across its hull began to rise.
The Zorn changed their ship’s trajectory.
Jack attempted to program the laser to a fixed point on the Zorn ship, but auto-tracking was damaged. He continued to fire manually, though its erratic maneuvers were making it difficult. As the ship approached, the laser began to penetrate into the hull. Jack was intently focused on his display. He watched the thruster ports fire on the enemy ship. Every time a thruster would fire he would bring the laser to the ignition point. Eventually, Jack managed to disable the maneuvering ability of the Zorn vessel. It was still several miles from the Destiny, and it would pass relatively close, but it was drifting, powerless.
Alex was watching closely. When the ship was no longer able to change its angle of approach, he ordered Jack to stop firing.
“I think we can catch that ship intact,” he said, triumphantly.
Just then, a medic rushed in and saw Lanora. He pushed himself across the room and started checking her.
“I need gravity,” he said.
“Do it,” Alex commanded.
Cindy slowly adjusted her console, bringing up gravity on the bridge to thirty-six percent Earth normal. The medic lifted Larnoa’s half-weight body in his arms and set off for the medical bay. As he left the bridge he shouted back.
“Keep it right there!”
Cindy used compressed air deceleration to reduce the closing speed of the two ships.
Jack continued to study the Zorn ship through the laser tracking scope. His whole body stiffened. Without saying anything, he transferred the scope feed to the main view-screen. The whole room inhaled.
The destroyer’s hull was beginning to crawl with Zorn drones.
“Kalibri, how many Zorn occupy a destoryer?”
“Sub space communications are down,” Cindy replied.
“I see at least thirty,” Mason managed to say, before Jack started firing again. The laser made quick work of any Zorn it touched. But they were exceptionally quick. Jack managed to get about six of them when suddenly they all jumped off the hull at the same time.
“There must be at least fifty!” Jack said as he started sweeping the laser left and right. The Zorn were rapidly growing in his scope, and he was forced to zoom out several times. The laser easily sliced through their bodies, but more came on. The others watched the oncoming assailants in shock.
Mason looked at the main view-screen, where Zorn were being sliced left and right as they hung seemingly motionless in space. He knew they were anything but. He hit the intruder button on his console, and turned a pale expression to Alex, whose eyes grew wide.
“Cindy!” Alex managed to shout.
Cindy disengaged the gravity and applied immediate power to put distance between them and the cloud of bio-debris. She was too late. They could hear thuds on the exterior of the ship, like rain on a metal roof. Then there was silence.
After twenty seconds, someone breathed a sigh of relief. Cindy reengaged the gravity plating. Then they heard it. Something was beating the hull of the ship.
“Laser just went offline!” Jack said.
“Mimi, ship wide. Unknown number of alien hostiles have landed on the vessel’s exterior and are attempting to gain entry. Whatever you do, don’t open the cargo ramp door.”
“Affirmative.” Alex heard his message repeated in the halls of the vessel.
“We have soldiers spreading
out over all the decks. Some are suiting up in the EVA room,” said Mason, monitoring the internal camera feeds.
“Captain, you should know the cargo ramp has been damaged. It’s not functional,” Cindy added.
“What the hell happened to the ship?” Alex cried, heading for his cabin.
“I believe Lanora took some kind of action while we were unconscious. She may have been attempting to combat the first destroyer.”
Mason was already typing furiously at his console. The main view-screen split into three and camera footage was replayed. They watched the minutes they had missed. The left screen was the internal bridge camera, the middle was the front exterior view and the right was the rear exterior view.
Lanora was seen moving in the bridge as everyone else was passed out, and she sat in Jacks lap.
“Wish I was awake for that,” Jack mumbled out loud.
“Change camera feed three to turret view”
Mason pushed in a few keys and the video replay showed the turret bearing down on the Zorn vessel.
“Look, we’re not causing enough damage and we are about to collide.” Then the forward feed went to spinning stars,
“Woah!” Cindy said. “No wonder my console was fudged up when I came to.”
“We collided with the ship!” said Alex, as he returned to the bridge with assorted weapons.
“She saved us,” Mason breathed, barely noticing as Alex handed him a shotgun.
There was a hissing sound and several thuds as the ship’s bulkheads simultaneously locked down due to a hull breach. Jack was already loading his own shotgun that he kept under his chair. He unbuckled and took position behind Alex’s chair, which gave him a good line of sight to the bridge door.
The bangs against the exterior were maddening, although by this point they had become less frequent. Several people jumped at the sound of gunfire somewhere deep in the ship.
“Can you find out where that is?” Alex asked Mason.
“Deck three!” Mason saw flashes of light on a camera feed but little more. He transferred the feeds to the main view-screen.
“There!” Cindy shouted, pointing to the upper-right.
A drone had just walked in front of the camera. It was quickly approaching two soldiers, who were desperately firing their guns.
Alex stared at the screen, breathing hard.
“Mimi, ship wide. Random music selection. Heavy metal, maximum volume.”
“Affirmative.” The word was drowned out by a sudden detonation of thunderous noise.
Everyone instantly put their hands to their ears. Alex couldn’t believe how powerful the ship’s speakers were. He offered silent thanks to Jorge for that one.
The Zorn staggered to a halt and began to flail in the hallway. The soldiers kept shooting. Eventually the drone stopped moving and they moved towards another flailing drone in the same hallway.
When there appeared to be no more activity, Alex yelled out. “Mimi, stop music selection.” The music was too loud for his command to be heard. Alex finally found a pause button on his console. An intense, high-pitch ringing accompanied the dead silence. Everyone worked their jaws, and rubbed their ears.
The soldiers searched every room of the ship. Some even left the same way the Zorn had come to examine the exterior of the vessel.
Twenty minutes passed before the squad leader, Bogdan, lifted the intruder alarm.
After setting course for UEF Headquarters, Alex went to the medical bay. The destroyer they had set adrift would have to wait.
The medical room had enjoyed many improvements since the Destiny first took flight. Now it had all the amenities of a surgical facility, thanks to generous donations from around the world, and they were being put to good use. Lanora was hooked up to ventilation, and had splints on all four limbs.
“She’s heavily medicated,” said the medic. “Mostly anti-swelling. Got to keep that down while we give her head a chance to heal. Several breaks, but they should set. I am going to keep her sedated until we reach a proper medical facility. In the meantime, she’s stable. But…”
“Just tell me,” said Alex, looking from medic to patient with dead eyes.
“Her mental function is yet to be determined. She could have significant brain damage.”
“Thank you, staff sergeant,” said Alex. He turned, only to find himself nose to nose with MSG Bogdan. “How did you know that awful racket would incapacitate the creatures?”
“It was a working theory. Sci team advised that Zorn hair may be a sensory mechanism, like the inner ear. It was the only thing I had to protect my men.”
Various emotions competed on Bogdan’s face. Finally, they saluted each other, and he marched away.
“Congratulations,” said the medic, drily. “I’ve seen the MSG salute only two officers since my time in this unit. Even to the threat of demotion and insubordination. That man doesn’t just salute anyone.” The medic presented a salute himself.
***
It was late that evening. Alex emerged from the shower feeling transformed. He sat down alongside Amanda on a couch in his room at UEF Headquarters, or what others called the UEF Complex, and put his arm around her.
The orbital battle had been just the start. After depositing Lanora at a hospital, the Destiny had spent the rest of the day hunting Zorn drones around the world. Timmy’s team had already dealt with several incursions. North Korea was the last hotspot, where the ship took more fire from human forces on the ground than they dealt to the alien attackers, who were eventually overwhelmed by the Koreans’ force of numbers. The only pod landing unaccounted for was in the Amazon rainforest, but no one had seen any sign of the Zorn in that area.
The Destiny had limped back to HQ much the worse for wear. The rear section had been utterly crumpled and buckled by the collision, while the entire hull was littered with holes and splotched with black tar.
Fortunately, Renee had been active. Furious that she hadn’t been able to directly participate in any of the battles, she had coordinated with Alex and Timmy’s teams, insisting that soldiers wear body cams and that the shuttle was equipped with its own recording devices. She was already pouring over the Destiny’s footage, putting together a sequence Alex had no doubt would be spectacular.
“I finished my preliminary report on Zorn biology this morning.” Amanda raised on eyebrow toward Alex, knowing he would be interested.
“And…” he replied, his body stiffening.
“They don’t eat, and its not clear how they reproduce.” She flicked her hair to cover the side of her face nearest to Alex.
“What do you mean they don’t eat? How is that possible?”
“No mouth, no digestive systems. Their limbs are controlled by electrical impulses much like own own bodies. Small fibers that act as both muscles and tendons retract into small glands allowing for quick movement. Nutrients, I theorize, are supplied by the exoskeleton marrow, what we’re calling tar. I figure each drone has a very short lifespan. It might explain their resilience to environmental factors. Their bodies are completely closed off.” She trailed off when she realized Alex was not participating in conversation. She glanced at Alex and could tell he was lost in deep thought again. She looked at a nearby display screen which was silently playing Renee’s recently edited video, awaiting his approval before release to the public.
“Why haven’t you shown it to the world yet?” asked Amanda, hoping to pluck him out of his mental struggles. “Everyone thinks you’ve gone silent. Some people are saying you’re dead. There are senators muttering that you’ve left Earth to its doom. People are getting angry.”
Alex smiled, and opened a laptop, where he pulled up footage of a group of politicians making comments to exactly that effect.
“I know,” he said. “I’m letting them destroy themselves. When the world sees what the UEF has done for it today, our opponents will lose political capital as they try to convince people of our neglect. Think of it, Amanda. The Earth just took on a galact
ic superpower, and won. Humanity will remember this day. It was the day we found our common purpose, when the people of the world looked to the stars – and saw their Destiny.”
He grinned at Amanda’s smirking expression.
“This is only the beginning. I want to contact the other alien civilizations. We already know some are not violent like the Zorn. Imagine what we can learn from them. To truly explore space and all its wonders. That’s what I’m looking forward to.”
Amanda reached over and grabbed a newspaper still neatly folded. Headlines Earth Invaded in big bold print. She tossed the newspaper into Alex’s lap and stood up to get dressed.
“Priorities, Alex,” she said, disappearing into the bedroom.
Coming soon! Book 2
“Neighbors”
About the Author
Brian Whiting is an infantry veteran of the Iraq War, and a college graduate working full time with two kids. He spends a lot of time on the fantasy creations he has dreamed and built up over the years. Recently, he decided it was time to share his most loved imaginations with others, and he hopes you enjoy them as much as he does.
Special Thank You: Damean Ravichandra, Nicole Dentremont, Deja Watson, Holly Soall, Zoe o Huiginn, Connie Sue Kellermann, Heather Nelson
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