by Kyle Larson
To conserve the fragile life support systems in their space suits, Ali and Holloway had spoken very little over the last few hours of their journey across the outer hull. Occasionally they would confirm a change in direction or trying to establish where they were on the ship, but neither of them had much to say. They still reeled from the death of their fellow crew, and that consumed their thoughts as they silently crossed the hull in the darkness of the vacuum. Captain Ali dreaded the task of contacting the families. The parents, partners, and children probably had no idea if their loved ones were the pilots killed. The captain wished it had been her instead of them. Ali felt she failed to protect them.
All Captain Ali and Holloway could do was to make sure their deaths hadn’t been in vain.
The dish itself was over three-hundred feet tall. Captain Ali and Holloway could definitely feel the height as they climbed up the narrow ladder that would take them to the lip of the bowl. The exposure to the vacuum of space never felt more terrifying for them both. At least the hull had given them some sense of foundation, whereas now they felt like they were dangling out into the void. If they made one wrong move or if their magnetic boots malfunctioned they would be swallowed up by the infinity. There was no room for error, but they also had to be quick. The strenuous climb would take a lot out of their life support. Both of them still felt paralyzed with fear that the Wanderers could potentially be wreaking havoc on the Earth Navy network if they’ve accessed the core.
“I can link into the communications array directly and see if they’ve made any transmissions or if Earth Navy has made contact. I won’t be able to transmit without giving away our position, though. It’s likely they’re monitoring anything that sends or establishes a connection on the ship.”
It was better than nothing. At least the captain and Holloway could see if Earth Navy was going to pursue the Monarch or the other ships. They could also see if the Wanderers had accessed the core and the Earth Navy network.
“Do it. I think there’s an access point over there, further down into the dish,” Captain Ali said. They were at the outer edge of the large dish, which was very deep but had a narrow radius, which was why it was quicker to go up and over it as opposed to trying to circumvent it.
The two of them made their way into the thimble-shaped communications dish. The journey down was much quicker than it had taken them to climb up. Since they were below the hull of the ship, it was easier for them to move around and they didn’t have to worry about the increasing speed of the Monarch. Wherever the ship was going, Captain Ali and Holloway knew it was going fast, which made each second more precious. Not to mention the very skilled group of computer hackers the Wanderers employed. Holloway was still baffled they had been able to break her codes just by watching her work.
They came to the access point, which was a small terminal that had to be manually powered up.
“You know the ship better than I do? Are they going to be able to detect this access point being powered up?” Holloway said.
Captain Ali had to calculate if it was worth the risk. Right now, they knew nothing of what the Wanderers intended to do. They also didn’t know what the Earth Navy had planned, and there was a chance there were communication logs they could access and read. It would give them a better idea of what kind of sabotage they would need to conduct to prevent the Wanderers from taking the Monarch wherever they were headed. She believed it was worth the risk.
“I’m not sure, just do it. How long will it take you to download the communications logs?”
“A few seconds. They’re good hackers, but trying to access the central core is probably taking all their attention. I doubt they’ll be looking for one in a thousand access panels around this ship,” Holloway said.
Holloway removed her mobile from a compartment on her suit and brought it online. She reached out to the access panel and entered her authorization code. The panel came to life with a monitor offering a few commands. Her mobile quickly established a connection and she transferred copies of all communications from the last few hours since the Wanderers captured the ship. There were seven of them. As soon as she had them, she severed the connection from her mobile and powered down the workstation.
“Here you go,” Holloway said, as she brought the communications online on her mobile and handed it to Captain Ali.
“They’re already decrypted,” Captain Ali said nervously. That meant the Wanderers had seen them too, but when she looked closer, there was only one message from Earth. It was from Queen Eleyn, and it had been transmitted only a few minutes earlier. Since it was a holoprojection, she could only hear the audio. Captain Ali played through the comm system in her and Holloway’s helmets.
They heard the queen’s warning to stay away from Venus. The two of them now knew where the Monarch was headed. It made sense they would join the Wanderers who were already there. The Monarch would be a good ship to have if the attack on Venus was imminent. It would also confuse the Venusians since it was likely no one knew the ship had been captured, especially if the queen was sending this message. All the Earth Navy high admirals must have been on board the ships headed their way. Captain Ali checked the other transmissions. There were only attempts by several Earth Navy ships to establish contact with the Monarch, but they had been ignored.
The other transmissions were to one ship in the Wanderers fleet –– the Empress. They both knew that was Aren’s ship.
“If Earth Navy doesn’t know the Wanderers have the ship, neither will the Venusians. Theoretically, the Venusians could allow them to pass through the Gravity Shield, and it would let the Wanderers launch an attack on their cities,” Holloway said.
“Then we better keep moving. As soon as we can lock out the core, we signal the rest of the fleet and they can take the ship. The Wanderers won't see it coming until it’s too late. Can you transfer all the bridge functions to the Royal Cabin once we get there?”
“That’s the plan. Once we have that, then I can turn us around to rendezvous with Earth Navy. All that depends on us getting to the Royal Cabin in time. We’ve still got a long ways to go.”
They said no more and continued their journey, back up the curved interior of the communications dish. When they made it to the top of the lip of the dish and started to climb down the ladder a seemingly endless horizon of the ships hull was all they could see. Holloway and the captain pressed on.
Eerika Ali looked back out into the stars and remembered how many hours she spent as a child gazing at them. The wonder never ceased, even after logging countless hours of space flight, granted much of it was in Earth’s orbit. Ali’s first assignment in Earth Navy after her academy graduation was at the Earth Observatory, in orbit of the moon. It was constantly on the dark side of the moon so that the telescopes could peer deep into space without the glare from Earth or the sun. The view she had now reminded her of that.
Dangerously traversing the outer hull of a spaceship while it traveled at extremely high speeds across the vacuum is not where she believed she would have ended up. The stars always called to her, so learning how to get closer to them was something Eerika Ali became obsessed with. She studied science and engineering in hopes those disciplines would land her a spot on the Monarch. All her accomplishments in propulsion and engine technology were for the sole purpose of getting humans to another star in her lifetime. That goal was still very much in her sight, but Ali knew humanity needed her for another purpose, that of being a captain. As stressful as it was, Ali appreciated the trust Earth Navy had in her, even if it seemed shaky. If she ever wanted to command a ship that would leave the boundaries of the solar system, this was a way to prove herself. The only thing was, she hadn’t expected this opportunity to come so early in her life.
It made Ali sad to think that humans couldn’t appreciate how incredible life in a universe this complex was. Life in the infinity was something Ali still marveled at and believed firmly that if humanity could travel to all edges of the universe, that wou
ld be the best thing that could ever happen. Whatever awaited them out there, whether it was other beings or worlds filled with life, would make them realize how special life is. It broke her heart to think about the life that had gone out of the universe earlier and the war that faced the planets humans called home.
Her goals seemed to evaporate as soon as she started to think about the goals those pilots probably had. The things they would never see. Maybe one of them wanted to explore the stars as she did. It pained her to think that it was only the beginning and likely many more lives would be lost. Humans learned how precious life was in the wars that formed the Nine Kingdoms of the Sun, so it disappointed Ali at how soon many of them had forgotten. She didn’t want vengeance, she just wanted the Wanderers to stop. Ali didn’t want to hurt them any more than she wanted to see her own people hurt.
The captain’s thoughts also turned to Amelia. Though she was her captain, Ali thought of Amelia almost like a little sister. She knew Amelia also wanted to travel outside the Nine Kingdoms someday. The hope was that once Amelia was out of the academy, Captain Ali could recruit her and other officers to start work on a ship that was capable of that travel. The Royal Council had already approved Captain Ali’s project and that was what she was supposed to start work on as soon as her time on the Monarch was finished. But that was before Eerika Ali was promoted to captain after Riz betrayed them. Until Earth Navy relieved her of the command, Ali assumed her proposal to start building a ship and assembling a crew would be delayed. Not to mention, a war that was about to start with no end in sight.
Ali hoped Amelia was okay but wasn’t worried for her. She knew her young friend was just as capable of taking care of herself. She wished she hadn’t been as hard on Amelia when she left with Kelvin. Ali realized there was the shock at the time, which is why she’d been so angry. She hoped Earth Navy would keep Amelia instated as a flight officer. Ali saw a lot of herself in Amelia and believed there was a bright future for them both in accomplishing their dreams. It was another incentive to try and do whatever she could to end the possibility of war.
Disabling the Monarch and capturing the leader of the Wanderers would be a good start. So Captain Ali pressed on.
Holloway had similar thoughts about both Kelvin and Amelia. She was disappointed her students didn’t tell her what they planned and had been so sneaky. The disappointment was not without understanding, because she certainly would have tried to stop them from leaving the Monarch. In the end, it wouldn’t have mattered, now that Venus faced their own fleet of Wanderer ships. In a way, Holloway was glad they were headed for Venus, just in case those two needed help. She very much felt protective of Kelvin and Amelia. She hoped Mara was doing a good job of keeping them in line.
After another hour of walking, they began to make out the glass dome of the observatory in the Royal Cabin. It was still a long way, but at least they could see it. There was finally an end, even though it was far away, and in a sense, would just be the beginning of a very difficult task. Both Holloway and Ali realized they could possibly stop the war if they were successful.
King Erelm stood on the balcony outside his chambers and stared into the cloudscape. The white clouds completely obstructed the ground, thousands of feet below him. The upper chambers of the Royal Tower seemed completely cut-off from the rest of the Earth. For a man who’d made it a point to spend the last ten years in hiding, he felt exceptionally lonely today.
The news of the dead pilots just reached him. It was relayed by his old friend, Benito Chapman. Erelm had once been a pilot himself and knew what it felt like to pilot a star diver. He’d been in life-threatening situations and knew the fear those pilots must have felt in their last moments of life. The tragedy affected him greatly and now the threat to his people was real.
Erelm knew it was time to make peace with the fact that Aren was beyond his ability to rescue. In the years he spent cut-off from the kingdom, the worst part of his sadness was not knowing where Aren was. That gave him hope and that hope tormented him. The possibilities paralyzed him, but in his worst nightmares, he never imagined Aren would end up where she was now. These deaths made her an enemy of Earth, and if she was an enemy of the planet he’d sworn to protect, it demanded she be his enemy.
His daughter was gone and there was no way to bring her back. Erelm knew his people needed him but he knew that the Royal Council would love to brush him aside. His conversation with Queen Tendai had stirred many memories in him. He remembered the young pilot he once was, daring and adventurous. The many missions he’d flown with his friends, doing whatever good needed to happen around the Nine Kingdoms. In a way, he was very much like Kelvin, trying to use his privilege for some good. Not all realms of the Nine Kingdoms were as lucky and safe as Earth. Erelm and his friends devoted themselves to helping those who could not help themselves.
Erelm remembered he used to be a hero. He wondered what that hero would think of the broken king locked away in a tower above the clouds.
The chime rang on his chamber door. Erelm turned and walked slowly to open it, he already knew who was on the other side.
Earlos Monson stood tall as the chamber doors parted. He was stunned when he saw his old friend, King Erelm. The last time they’d been this close had been decades. When he’d seen Erelm eight months earlier, when Earlos took it upon himself to warn the royal family about the Pirates of Mercury in a very public way, he hadn’t gotten a good look at Erelm. Earlos realized how much time had passed, as he could see the facial lines and gray hairs accounted for it on both of them
“Your majesty,” Earlos said. The Lunar Guardian, a lord in his own right, bowed to the king.
“There will be none of that,” Erelm said gruffly, as he turned and walked from the chamber door to make way for Earlos. The king made his way for two glasses and a bottle of whiskey. He picked them up and motioned for Earlos to follow him to the balcony.
Earlos was still not used to the brilliance of the sun, so he placed a pair of sunglasses over his eyes. Most of his time was still spent on the moon still, trying to keep what remained of Moon City together. Erelm poured a small portion of the whiskey into each glass and rested them on the balcony railing.
“I haven’t had a drink in twenty years,” Erelm said. Alcohol didn’t sit well with him, so he’d given it up at a young age. He remembered the first time he met Earlos Monson was at a pilot’s lounge in orbit of Neptune. They’d become fast friends because they enjoyed the same brand of whiskey – Kentucky Pinger’s Barrel Reserve. It was the same brand that rested in the glasses now. “How about you?”
Earlos was both puzzled and pleasantly surprised by the king’s casual friendliness.
“Last night,” Earlos said. He picked up both glasses and offered one to the king. “Pingers?”
“Of course,” Erelm said. He took the glass and tapped it against Earlos’, in a gentle cheer.
They each took a sip and felt the heat of it go down their throats. One sip was enough for Erelm, who only did it as a gesture to his old friend.
“I’ve not been well, my old friend,” Erelm began. His acknowledgment of the obvious was his way of conveying he’d asked Earlos here to help him move on. Erelm was ready to lead again, he just needed an old friend’s advice first. “I haven’t thanked you for what you did for Kelvin and the Monarch.”
“You don’t need to. He’s family,” Earlos said, as he took another sip of the whiskey. “Besides, the Lunar Guardians never forgot their duty. We protect Earth. That’s still something I take very seriously.”
Erelm remembered how honorable and serious Earlos always was. That hadn’t changed and he felt ashamed of how he treated the Lunar Guardians. They made a mistake and he’d banished them from their homes on Earth.
“Do you remember the Valcor?” Erelm said. It seemed a foolish question, but it seemed like he should just come right out with what he wanted to ask his friend.
“I’ve never forgotten. The ship we were going to build. Battleshi
p, twice the size of the Monarch,” Earlos said.
In their academy days, Earlos and Erelm both studied ship design. Erelm almost went into a job in the Earth Navy engineering division before becoming a pilot and could have made a great ship designer. Earlos was not far behind him. During long voyages between planets, they talked about the dream ships they hoped to build one day. After many discussions, they decided they’d design a ship together. The design would have given the fastest and largest ship in the galaxy. They called it the Valcor.
“Your shipyards on the moon…I’ve heard stories. Would it be possible?” Erelm said.
Earlos wanted to say it would be, but the small number of workers he had left were already working around the clock to repair the Lunar Gale. He was lucky to have them, as many of his people left to join the Wanderers. There was a lot of sadness in Earlos. As much as he wanted to return to Earth, the moon had become his home and he hated to think the society he’d helped maintain for so long would be gone without him. He couldn’t ask his people to build a ship from scratch, especially for a king that had banned them from his planet for pretty much their entire lives.
“No, Erelm. My people are not happy with me or with your kingdom, if we are speaking honestly as friends,” Earlos said. As much as he enjoyed this glimpse of his old friend, many resentments stirred inside of him. He wondered if the population of artificial people would have left if Earth hadn’t rejected the moon. Earlos knew it was mostly his fault, but he never thought the king should have punished everyone from the moon. “Earth has never been an ally to them and the Wanderers welcome them with open arms.”