by Ken Lozito
“Emergency thrust maneuver complete. Cutting main engines.”
“Understood,” Sean said, trying to keep the fury from his voice.
The Vigilant had taken significant damage. Sean watched the main holoscreen. With the detonation of so many warheads, they were blinded to the enemy’s whereabouts, but the Vigilant was heading steadily away from the planet.
“No sign of pursuit, Colonel,” Lieutenant Scott said.
“Understood,” Sean said and drew in a deep breath. The muscles in his neck and shoulders were almost rigid. A gaggle of questions spiraled through his mind.
“Colonel Quinn,” Specialist Sansky said, “sensors have picked up a CDF distress signal. The timestamp is from five minutes ago.”
Sean frowned. “From where?”
“From the surface of the planet.”
31
Sean couldn’t have heard the specialist correctly. “Come again?”
“We received a distress beacon from the surface of the planet. The signal is heavily fragmented, but it’s definitely from the Colonial Defense Force.”
“Do you know who it’s from?”
“I’m running it through the analysis engine to try to rebuild the fragmented pieces. This could take a few minutes,” Specialist Sansky said.
Sean chewed on the inside of his bottom lip. “Gabriel, is there any chance that this distress beacon was actually from the enemy ships we encountered?” Sean asked. He didn’t know who was on those ships, but they definitely weren’t friendlies.
“Negative, Colonel. No spoofing of the signal has been detected. The signal appears authentic. If this was of enemy origin, there would be a strong probability of a less fragmented signal. Would either Lieutenant Scott or Lieutenant Russo concur with this analysis?”
Sean glanced at his tactical officers. They both nodded. He turned and looked at Oriana. “If that’s not New Earth, can you think of how a CDF distress beacon came from the planet?”
It wasn’t a fair question, and Sean already knew the answer. There was no way for them to know. If they were in some kind of alternate universe, how could a CDF distress beacon even get on the planet?
“There’s no way to know for sure,” Oriana said. “There’re only theories and speculation.”
“Colonel, I have an ID associated with the distress beacon. Identification number nine-five-seven-six-two-six-zero. C. Gates. Uh, sir?”
“Connor,” Sean said and blew out a breath. “That’s General Gates’ identification number.”
He ought to know, having served with him for so long. Connor had retired from the CDF over two years before, but most soldiers still referred to him as General Gates, even when he wasn’t present. Connor was Sean’s friend and mentor, and apparently, he needed help. He glanced at Oriana and thought about the planet. Nothing added up about all this. First, one of Sagan’s moons was destroyed, then there were enemy ships that were able to bypass all their defenses and suppress all communications from COMCENT, but a distress beacon with Connor’s ID just happened to be detected?
A comlink opened to the bridge from the secondary bridge. “Colonel, we just got the last update. Is this correct? Is… Did we receive a distress beacon from General Gates?”
“That appears to be the case, Major. Tactical, is there any sign of enemy pursuit?”
“Negative, Colonel,” Lieutenant Scott replied.
Sean looked back at his XO.
“Colonel, we’ve taken significant damage. We need to do a proper assessment before we launch any rescue mission. Do you concur?”
Brody was right. As much as Sean wanted to turn the ship around and head back to the planet, they couldn’t. Not without a plan. “I concur. Report to the bridge, Major. Ops, take us down to Condition Two.”
“Yes, Colonel. Set Condition Two,” Lieutenant Hoffman confirmed.
Sean looked at the main holoscreen, and thankfully there were no enemy attack drones detected. They were safe, for the moment, but he needed to know what he was dealing with. He looked at Oriana. “We can’t determine what universe we’re in unless we go back to the planet.”
Oriana thought about it for a moment. “That’s correct.”
Returning to the planet would mean another battle. “Gabriel, I want a full tactical analysis of our engagement with the enemy, and we need a damage assessment of the sections that were hit by those attack drones.”
A few minutes later, Major Brody came onto the bridge. “What are your orders, Colonel?”
“I’m considering a slow-burn maneuver to put us on a course back to the planet,” Sean said.
Major Brody nodded. “We could send a reconnaissance team to do a flyby of the planet heading toward the lunar base. Have them do a cold launch so they’re not detected. Then, if the enemy engages, they’ll be in the clear and we can react accordingly.”
“That’s a good idea,” Sean said.
“Regarding these enemy ships, do you think they’re Vemus?” Major Brody asked.
“They don’t fight like the Vemus did.”
“Colonel,” Gabriel said, “the unknown ship signatures don’t match anything in our database for known Vemus ship types. The probability is over ninety-five percent that these ships are not of Vemus origin.”
“Good enough for me,” Sean said. He didn’t think they were Vemus ships either.
“Excuse me, Colonel,” Oriana said. “If the reconnaissance team is deployed and we have to fight another battle, how would they make it back to the ship?”
“We’ll have to give them time on the planet. They’ll contact us when we need to pick them up.”
“What about those ships?”
“We’ll need to play a little bit of cat and mouse with them,” Major Brody answered.
Sean nodded. “Before we engage with them in any manner, we’ll do a thorough analysis of what just happened. We have more at our disposal than simply launching HADES V missiles at them. We have combat shuttles, Talon-Vs, and attack drones of our own. There’s also a chance that those ships were destroyed. The number of HADES Vs we launched was more than enough to take out three destroyers; it just depends on whether they were in range. But we won’t know that until we go back there because if we do active scans, I suspect they’ll detect that. It seems they showed up when we started actively scanning the planet.”
“Shall I alert Spec Ops about the mission?” Major Brody asked.
“Yeah, let’s get Bozeman, Stonehill, and Dean to my ready room, along with Captain Webb. We’ll brief them and flesh out the details of the plan. I almost wish I could go with them,” Sean said.
“Absolutely not, Colonel. We have Spec Ops for a reason,” Major Brody said.
Sean grimaced. “I know, just old habits. We should probably update our scanning protocols for the energy signatures we detected from the new enemy ships.”
There was a lot for them to do, and they had very little time to do it. The more Sean thought about it, the more he believed that planet wasn’t home. Because if that planet was New Earth and there was only one solitary distress beacon calling for help, then everything was already lost. And Sean refused to believe that. He looked at Oriana. “We need to understand how this whole ‘alternate universe’ thing works. You mentioned before that if they vibrate at near the same frequency, there’s the possibility of crossing over. How would this work?”
“It’s more than vibrations. Dr. Volker was right in that it would take a lot of energy. At least, according to our theories.”
“How much energy?”
“More than our fusion reactors are capable of, but if whatever these things are have figured out a way, then I would look for a machine to help in the transition between universes. Something big and powerful.”
“Big and powerful,” Major Brody repeated. “That narrows it down.”
Sean shrugged. “It’s a start. Once their attack drones got going, they were faster than anything we have. If their ships can match the speeds of the attack drones, t
hey might be able to generate the power Dr. Evans alluded to.”
“The specs say that given enough time, the HADES Vs could work up to point five Cs of light, but the cost is still the same in terms of resources and their ability to maneuver,” Major Brody said.
“All true, but you’re right. We need to do some speculation until we can confirm what their capabilities are. We keep going around this, but ultimately we need to learn more about what we’re dealing with, so a frontal assault is out,” Sean said and glanced at Oriana. “We need to be sneaky.”
32
Gordon squared his shoulders and scowled.
Connor gestured toward the ground. “We’ve found what looks like NEIIS tracks along with those from the crew. There was an exchange of weapons fire,” he said and nodded toward the sub.
Gordon looked at the sub and the furrows on each side of his mouth deepened. He turned back toward the tracks and bent down to get a closer look, following for a short distance. “Is this blood?”
Connor went over to his side and peered down at the ground. The tactical display on his internal HUD detected traces of human blood. He glanced over at Diaz.
“I see it,” Diaz said.
“Scout the area,” Connor replied.
They were only able to detect trace amounts of blood on the ground, and it went in the same direction the tracks led off on.
“Are you able to tell whose blood it is?” Gordon asked.
“No, but we know it’s human, and we know they’re still alive. We’ll follow the tracks,” Connor said and took one last glance at the submarine. It had been rolled onto its side, motionless, like a wounded leviathan. “Pair up two by two. Diaz and I will take point. Sims, I want you with Gordon. Alder, bring up the rear.”
The tracks followed a trail that went along the coastline. The withered trees leaned precariously to the side, as if their roots were about to give out. While there was plenty of moisture in the air, the forest along the trail had died back to a dull, lifeless yellow. The MPS detectors hadn’t shown any poisons in the air; if there had been, alarms would have gone off at the first detection. Yet the trees around them were a tangled mess of a vast forest going through its final death throes.
Connor heard Gordon quicken his pace until he was just behind him.
“You said before that there were NEIIS tracks. Is my wife a prisoner?”
Diaz glanced at Connor for a moment before focusing his attention on the path ahead of them.
“There are enough NEIIS tracks here that the others might be in trouble. That’s all we know. We’re going to keep following the trail and figure out what happened to them. You need to trust me,” Connor said.
Gordon clamped his mouth shut and nodded as they continued onward. Connor wasn’t seeing any more blood on the ground. Whoever was bleeding must’ve been able to treat their wounds, but the tracks were clear. The crew of the other sub, including Flint and the others, were prisoners of the NEIIS. They all knew it, but Connor redirected Gordon’s question so the man would focus on what they were doing.
He’d learned a few things about dealing with crises over the years, especially those that involved noncombatants. Sometimes he had to be firm and direct, but there were times when that was counterproductive. Had this occurred before his involvement with the Sanctuary Recovery Institute, his response to Gordon might have leaned toward one of rigid directness. In that case, they’d still be following the trail, but he’d have had to deal with Gordon’s growing fear becoming full-fledged panic, which could be contagious to the others. Again, that would be counterproductive, although he imagined Lenora would say he’d become more compassionate over the years. Perhaps Lenora was right, but he could always revert if he needed to.
Connor tried to count how many NEIIS there were based on their tracks, but he’d never been really good at that sort of thing. All he was sure of was that there were enough of them to take the others prisoner. He knew Flint and Rollins wouldn’t surrender without a fight, but if any of the others had been killed, their bodies hadn’t been left behind. It’d been a while since Connor had had to think in such terms, and he was a bit surprised by how quickly he settled back into old habits.
He caught sight of Diaz shaking his head at his own thoughts. None of this made any sense. The NEIIS were heading in the direction of New Haven. Could they have missed a bunker and those NEIIS had somehow awakened from stasis? Connor supposed it was possible, just as it was possible that the same colossal current that moved their submarine several kilometers away had beached the other sub, none of which explained why the NEIIS had taken prisoners. If the NEIIS had awakened in the bunker, why would they take the colonists prisoner?
Connor glanced up at the moon, thinking that he was missing something, but it could be that the situation as a whole was playing on his nerves. He looked ahead of them. The path led toward the water and then curved off out of sight.
Connor kept the recon drones patrolling nearby because he didn’t want to alert the other group that they were being followed. The drones operated in stealth mode, and Connor sent them on ahead. He considered leaving the trail to cut across the dying overgrowth, intending to use the drones to give them a bird’s-eye view of the area, but decided against it. Both he and Diaz had the drone feeds on their internal heads-up display.
The drones reached the area where the trail curved away from them and they stopped. Connor gestured for quiet and the others following him became still. He enlarged the image on his HUD but couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. He needed to see it with his own eyes, and he crept forward. He reached the curve, and the others came to his side.
The water reached the harbor, but it wasn’t New Haven. A towering arch straddled the harbor from end to end. The metallic structure nearly glowed in the night sky, and the planetary rings could be seen to the south. The base of the arch was glowing, with pale light reflecting off the water. It was a stark replica of the arch they’d seen underwater. Behind the arch were buildings grouped together that resembled temporary HAB units, along with several large rectangular buildings that looked more permanent. There were ground vehicles being driven among the buildings, but Connor couldn’t see the details. There was enough lighting amid the buildings for it to be considered a large settlement but not quite city-sized.
Connor saw wedge-shaped ships rising from the area farthest away from them. They sped upward on a trajectory Connor knew only too well. The speeds at which the ships moved quickly reached escape velocity and left the planet’s atmosphere. Connor had seen more than his fair share of military operations during his career. There was an organizational method that streamlined the efficiency with which any military base was utilized.
He tasked his implants to increase his visual capabilities. There were hundreds of beings at the base. They were armored from head to toe, and he couldn’t mistake their shapes. They had long arms, and he bet if he were closer, he’d be able to see protrusions at the shoulders and elbows. The way they moved was akin to the NEIIS he’d encountered at the military bunker, but there’d been no indication that the NEIIS had any of this technology available to them. He glanced up, following the trail of one of the ships as it exited the atmosphere. All the archaeological evidence of the past ten years indicated that the NEIIS were not a spacefaring race, but here was their base, at least a half-kilometer back from the arch.
Conner turned toward the trail, which led directly toward the base. He scanned the path again, trying to find the others, but he couldn’t see them. They must’ve been taken to the base. He looked beyond the buildings and saw the same wrung-out landscape that was surrounding them.
“What the hell is this?” Diaz said.
“This shouldn’t be here,” Lockwood said.
Connor breathed in deeply. “We shouldn’t be here. Wherever we are.”
Gordon ran ahead before anyone was the wiser, but Connor quickly caught up to him and made him slow down.
“My wife is in there,” Gordon s
aid.
“I know, but we can’t just go charging in.”
“I can’t leave her.”
“We won’t, but we don’t even know where the others are. We need to recon the area, and I can’t do that if I have to worry about you running off. At best, you’ll get yourself caught, but you might get the rest of us caught as well, and that I can’t have. Look at it,” Connor said and paused for a moment. “We don’t even know who they are.”
Gordon glanced at the base as if seeing it for the first time. Then he looked back at Connor and nodded.
Connor gestured for Sims to watch over Gordon and walked over to Diaz. They took a few steps away from the others.
“I don’t know. If they are in there, I have no idea how to get them out,” Diaz admitted. He looked at Connor. “Please tell me you’ve done something like this before.”
Connor looked back at the base. He’d done plenty of black ops missions, but they’d come after months of careful planning, and he didn’t have months to plan this. He looked at the others for a moment. “We’re not equipped to do anything like this,” he said quietly so only Diaz could hear.
“I know you’d never abandon anyone, so what’s the plan?”
“I have no idea.”
They spent the next thirty minutes scouting the area from a distance and listing rescue ideas, none of which would have a chance in hell of saving the others. They still didn’t know where the captives were being kept. Connor knew they’d have to factor the recon drones into any plan they came up with, but he was reluctant to send them in yet. He didn’t know whether they would be detected right away. If they were, the NEIIS—or whatever the hell they were—would understand that there was somebody else out here on the hunt. He had to explain this at least four times to Gordon and the others as they worked their way closer and continued to watch the NEIIS base.