Devastation Class

by Glen Zipper

  “You’ve been right twice. That doesn’t mean you’re going to be right the next time. One day, maybe today, you’re going to get it wrong. And this time there’s no coming back if you are. Take a breath. Stop and think. What else can we do?”

  “There’s nothing.”

  “But we have Bix and Ohno and Toly—”

  “All of whom need to keep doing exactly what they’re doing right now.”

  We stood there in silent stalemate as we had done a thousand times before on the heels of arguments of no real consequence. It felt bizarre that the stakes could so suddenly be life and death.

  “Do you think there’s any part of me that wants it to be this way, Viv?” he said softly while rubbing his tired eyes. “If there was any other option, I’d try it.”

  My mind raced, trying to find even one alternative. I came up empty.

  “You know it, Viv,” he said. “It’s the only way.”

  As much as I didn’t want to accept it, he was right. But I still couldn’t let him do it. Not because I loved him. Because he was the wrong person for the mission.

  “Yes,” I replied. “But it should be me.”

  As the words left my mouth, they sounded like they had been spoken by someone else. I meant them, but they carried no emotion. Not even fear. Perhaps the reality of it still felt too far away. Or perhaps it was just too terrifying for me to fully process.

  “Absolutely not,” he snapped. “It’s suicide.”

  “You’re the only one who can make that sacrifice?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “Then what is?”

  “Listen to me,” he pleaded. “You’re needed here.”

  “And you’re not?”

  “How can you expect me to let you die?” His voice quivered somewhere just above a whisper.

  “What I expect is for you to act like our leader. Isn’t that who you’re supposed to be, John? Our leader?”

  “I can accomplish the mission.”

  “You may be a good pilot, but you’re not me.”

  Unable to refute fact, he struggled to find another argument.

  “That’s the only math here, and you know it,” I continued. “Who’s the best. Who can buy us a few minutes more. Or even a few seconds more. Just a few seconds more could be what it takes to save this ship.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Isn’t it? Answer one question for me, John. If the best pilot on this ship was anyone other than me, would we be having this conversation?”

  I watched his eyes dance back and forth as he searched his brain for a response that could outflank me. “Let me ask you something more important first.”

  “Go ahead.”

  He hesitated, obviously struggling to push the question past his lips. “Are you ready to die?”

  I didn’t have to think about it for even a second. “No,” I replied. “I’m not.”

  He gently brushed the back of his hand across my cheek. His touch sent goose bumps up my arms and uninvited thoughts running through my head. I didn’t want any of it. Not now.

  “Then let me do this for you. Let me do this for everyone.”

  “You’re not going to back down, are you?”

  “No. I’m not.”

  I thought back to Iso-Rec, the two of us racing through the canyons barely a day earlier, and how, yet again, he had so casually dispensed with the rules in order to win. I also thought of what he had said to me just afterward. That he considered it a lesson. One I still needed to learn.

  “If you want me to let you go, then you have to promise me something,” I said as convincingly as I could.

  “Anything.”

  “You’ll do everything you can to survive.”

  “I can’t promise that. You know what’s out there.”

  “Yes, I know what’s out there,” I acknowledged. “But we’re Alliance cadets. We find solutions when no one else can.”

  We stood opposite cell number six, its downward-beaming lights creating a soft halo around Bossa. He sat upright on his thinly cushioned rack.

  “Say what?” he yawped.

  “We’re taking your ship,” JD repeated himself.

  Bossa pushed himself up off the slab. “The hell you are.”

  “We don’t have time for a debate. What is the key code to the Delphinium’s primary computer?”

  Bossa folded his arms.

  “The key, Bossa.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You should understand I’m prepared to do whatever is necessary to retrieve that key code from you.”

  “What are you going to do?” Bossa quipped. “Pull my toenails out?”

  “I don’t think you’re going to last long enough for me to get to your toenails.”

  “Is that so, cookie?”

  Finding something humorous in JD’s perplexed reaction, Bossa smirked. “What, they don’t call you cadet-types cookies anymore?”

  JD returned an angry glare.

  “Okay, how about we try this friendly-like? Why do you need my ship? Tell me what’s happening.”

  “That’s not your concern.”

  “No. Go ahead. Tell him,” I said.

  Bossa had already provided us with one lifesaving solution we hadn’t thought of, so it was worth making sure he didn’t have another.

  “We isolated five Kastazi vessels on the long-range sweep,” JD told him with some hesitation. “They’re coming for us, and I’m going to hold them off with the Delphinium. Buy the California enough time to Blink.”

  Faintly visible electromagnetic filaments stretched toward Bossa’s fingertips as he cautiously felt for the limit of the containment field. “A suicide mission?” he scoffed. “You’re bluffing.”

  “Why else would we need the key?”

  “Because you’re looking for something. You needn’t bother. I’ve already wiped her primary computer.”

  “We don’t care what you’re hiding.”

  “Of course you do. Do you really think I don’t know who you are?” he asked, looking in my direction. “Or more relevantly, who she is?”

  “No more games. The key.”

  “Vivien Nixon, daughter of Commander Merritt Nixon.”

  “Shut up and give me the key.”

  “And daughter of Lieutenant Commander Damon Nixon of the UAS New Jersey.”

  “What are you doing, Bossa?” I interjected, my fingers beginning to quiver.

  JD rested his hand on my shoulder. “Ignore him. He’s trying to get in your head.”

  “No one knows what I do about that ship. I was there. On the New Jersey. If you ever want to know what really happened—”

  “Lying isn’t going to help you,” JD interrupted him. “I’ll ask once more. The key, or we get down to business.”

  I poised my hand above the keypad controlling the cell’s containment field.

  JD looked at me sideways. “What are you doing?”

  “Whatever happens, don’t try to stop it.”

  Bossa nervously inched back. “Don’t try to stop what?”

  Activating the keypad, I pushed the field one meter inward. It hit Bossa’s chest and knocked him to the floor.

  “Are you out of your mind?” he shouted at me, snapping back to his feet.

  “The key code.”

  “Screw you!”

  I hit the keypad again. The field jumped in another meter, knocking him down again.

  “Stop it,” JD said. “You could kill him.”

  “I know.”

  I hit the keypad twice more, doubling the field’s inward progression to two meters.

  Leaping backward, Bossa narrowly avoided another thunderbolt.

  “Last chance.”

  He retreated until his back was up against the wall. “Don’t!”

  I pushed the field forward until it boxed him in like a coffin, its electromagnetic discharge singeing his skin.

  “Stop!” Bossa screamed out in pain.

  I kep
t going, squeezing him against the wall like a vise. Visibly excruciating waves of energy pulsed through his entire body.

  “Okay! Okay! I’ll give it to you!”

  I waited an extra second before releasing the keypad.

  “The key, now, or we start again,” I said as the field reset to its original position.

  On his knees, exhausted, Bossa struggled to stand. “There is no key,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. It’s disabled.”

  CHAPTER 28

  JD

  WE ENTERED THE HANGAR THROUGH THE FORWARD observation deck, a small compartment overlooking the launching floor. More often than not, the FOD was empty, a consequence of there being very little worth observing on an Explorers mission. In our three months in space, its seclusion had offered me a sanctuary. A place to disappear and empty my burdened mind out among the stars. It seemed appropriate it would be the last place I’d ever visit on the California.

  I leaned against the transparent floor-to-ceiling viewing wall. Some twenty meters below, the Delphinium sat waiting. She looked expectant, as if ready for a fight.

  I could feel Viv’s anxiety.

  “It’s going to be okay.”

  “I know,” she replied, although she couldn’t have possibly believed it.

  “I’ll do what you asked. I’ll do everything I can to survive.”

  Viv smiled through her sadness and nodded.

  The hatch to the launching floor exhaled with a hiss as soon as I punched in its access code. Too overcome with emotion to say goodbye, I turned my back on Viv and prepared to step through.

  “Don’t. Not yet,” she called to me.

  Taking my arm, she turned me toward her. Then she leaned in and kissed me. It felt exactly like I always thought it would. Perfect.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, our lips finally drifting apart.

  “You don’t need to say—”

  Still consumed by the moment, I never saw it coming. I only felt her open-fisted strike against my temple. Stunned, I crumbled down to one knee.

  Viv stepped through the hatch and closed it behind her, smashing the control panel on the other side to lock me out.

  I jumped to my feet and hit the com. “No!” I screamed at her through the viewing window. “It has to be me!”

  “You Blink. No matter what.”

  “Don’t do this!”

  “I love you, John.”

  I pounded on the glass as Viv climbed down a ladder to the launching floor. It didn’t matter how hard I pounded or how loudly I screamed—there was nothing I could do to stop her.

  “What’s wrong?” Ohno whispered, noticing my wet eyes as I relieved her from the captain’s chair.

  “Julian, I need you at Piloting.”

  “What? Where’s Vivien?”

  A disembarking alert sounded on the bridge. A moment later the Delphinium burst into the center of the Holoview. She was beautiful, a striking image of power and fury. Viv tipped a wing to us, then blasted into overdrive with a magnificent burn of the Interceptor’s thrusters.

  “Was that—?” Julian squeaked.

  “Yes.”

  “What does she think she’s doing?”

  “Buying us enough time to survive.”

  “She’s going to try and hold off the Kastazi herself? She’ll be killed!”

  “I understand that,” I answered as calmly as I could. “And so does she.”

  “And you just let her go anyway?”

  I didn’t know how to answer him. “Ohno, do you have the other bridge Synths back online?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Activating Nav Synth.” I pushed on, entering its activation sequence in my control console. A featureless avatar materialized at Safi’s station. “Countdown to hostile intercept. Report.”

  “Forty-two minutes, thirty-six seconds,” the Synth responded.

  Ohno approached my station and hovered over me, her tattoos spinning angrily into black, tightly wound circles. “We have to stop her.”

  “We can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  My eyes begged for her understanding. “If we don’t let her do this, we’ll never make it to the Blink.”

  “We don’t even know that Bix can make the interface work!”

  “We have to conduct ourselves as if he can. If he can’t, we’re all dead anyway.”

  “Why her?” Lorde seethed. “You’re the senior-ranking cadet. Why not you?”

  “It had to be her,” I said, admitting the truth I had tried to ignore. “She’s the best pilot on the ship.”

  “Dear God. You’re really letting this happen.”

  “There’s got to be another way,” Ohno insisted. “There’s always another way.”

  Every fiber of my being felt the same way she did, but I knew that was all about emotion. Our training was to compartmentalize those feelings, allowing us to focus on the most rational means of survival. I had failed miserably at applying that training too many times already.

  “There’s not. Not this time.”

  Resisting a deep swell of sadness, I concentrated on my mission checklist and commed to Medical.

  “Report.”

  Anatoly’s image materialized on the Holoview. “All injured in stable condition,” he replied, light static slightly obscuring his expression.

  “Acknowledged. Stand by.” Another few swipes of my console expanded the Holoview horizontally and brought up a split screen with the reactor compartment. Glitching with distortion, it revealed Bix monitoring Nick’s connection to the reactor. Its various lights continued to strobe erratically. “Report.”

  “Slightly ahead of schedule,” Bix declared. “I think I might be able to open that door a little sooner than I thought. And then we’ll see.”

  “He’s ahead of schedule!” Ohno shouted. “We have to stop her!”

  Bix peered back at us, confused. “Stop who?”

  “Viv took Bossa’s ship to buy you more time.”

  “She did what?” Anatoly bellowed from the other side of the split screen.

  Ohno stepped closer to the Holoview. “Tell JD you can get us to the Blink in time, Bix. That she doesn’t need to get herself killed.”

  “I . . . I don’t know.”

  “You’d better know,” Ohno snapped at him. “Otherwise she might die for nothing.”

  I never would have bet the ship’s survival on an educated guess, unless that educated guess belonged to Bix. “I need an answer. Are you confident you can get us Blink capable before the Kastazi intercept our position?”

  Bix paused a moment.

  “If there was ever a time to trust yourself, this would be it, Bix,” I said.

  He shook his head. The answer was no.

  Ohno was unyielding. “Not acceptable, JD. You may be the senior cadet on this bridge, but that doesn’t mean you get to make a choice like this by yourself.”

  “Then who’s going to make it?” I asked.

  “We all do. Together.”

  “I was wrong,” said Lorde, his voice taking on a detached affectation. “We’re thinking with our emotions instead of our heads. There are too many lives at stake. We can’t stop her.”

  “Too many lives, or your life?” Ohno challenged him.

  “Anatoly, what’s your call?” I asked.

  He agonized, struggling to make a decision.

  “If you’ve got an opinion, I need it now.”

  “We have to stop her,” he finally replied.

  Two against two. A deadlock.

  “Bix, it’s up to you then.”

  I already knew his answer. The pained expression on his face told me everything.

  CHAPTER 29

  VIV

  STANDING ON THE EDGE OF THE DOCK, I stared out across the stillness of Serenity Lake, its surface gently rippling from a faint breeze. I inhaled deeply, taking in the menthol fragrance of the surrounding pine trees. The crisp, cool air expanding into my lungs broug
ht back powerful sense memories. Freedom. Possibility. The safety of my dad’s arms.

  My father had first brought me to this special place. It was the only spot on Earth that could still make me feel close to him. Like he was standing right next to me.

  I’d last visited during the two weeks’ leave we were granted right before prelaunch.

  It felt far longer than that.

  “There you are,” Safi’s voice beckoned from behind me.

  My heart skipped a beat and then seemed like it stopped altogether.

  Not believing my eyes, I rushed toward her.

  “Safi . . . you’re . . .”

  She cocked her head slightly sideways.

  “I’m . . . ?”

  “Alive!” I blurted out.

  She laughed as though I was joking.

  “I certainly hope so. I definitely feel like I am.”

  This isn’t possible.

  I reached out and touched her hand. Her skin was warm and soft.

  Am I losing my mind?

  “You’re real. This is real,” I said, tears spilling over my lips just as the words left them.

  She noticed my tears, but her expression showed no concern or compassion.

  “There’s no time for that, Viv.”

  “You died. Our quarters were ripped open. You were . . .”

  An anguished knot in my throat choked off my words.

  Safi slipped her hand past mine and squeezed my wrist.

  “Come,” she said as she guided me back toward the water.

  As we approached the dock’s edge, she turned and pulled me close.

  “Back on the ship. When you saw what happened to me, what did you feel?”

  I reached up and touched her face. My unsteady hand shivered against her cheek.

  “Horror. I felt horror. And sadness. Terrible sadness.”

  Her eyes locked on mine with an odd intensity. It wasn’t the answer she wanted.

  “Beneath that. Go deeper. What else did you feel?”

  “Emptiness.”

  “No!” she scolded me. “There was something else.”

  I flinched, startled by her sudden bite.

  “I’m sorry . . . I don’t know what you want me to say.”

  Safi raised her gaze to something over my shoulder. I couldn’t see what she was looking at, but the hair on the back of my neck stood on end.