SS St. Helena
John, Jane and Mike got suited up in their Maxon 3’s and prepared to jump. They hated leaving Ivanov behind and it was obvious Keenan would be furious, but there was no choice. The drop capable suit, an exoskeleton made of the older Crystanium fused metal augmented their moves, and had been a tremendous asset when introduced. With an inboard computer system that allowed remote operation, thrusters, an energy collection system, waste recycling and a host of other functions, the suit was the standard of choice for soldiers and fighter pilots alike.
Abadon had moved slightly behind the freighter, out of view of the alien tug in front. Although cloaked, anyone leaving cloaked space surrounding the ship would immediately become visible, and no one wanted the attention this close to the alien home world. The three agreed to keep communication to three meters only, knowing that the actual radio signal would travel much further.
Jane jumped through first, with John and Mike just behind her. They went straight to the freighter while Jane powered herself carefully to the alien tug, being careful not to get caught in the tractor beam. As she neared the tug, she felt the hair on her body spring up in reaction to the gravitic force being generated, and this brought back memories of when she had gotten caught in a beam while still a teenager. Although she wasn’t physically harmed, she ended up locked in place, unable to move as dozens of crew members passed by in their own ships and flight suits, commenting and laughing at her. She felt she could take a joke, but 14 hours of being stranded in space as her air thinned out resulted in two years of counseling, with the vow to never allow anyone to make fun of her again.
She cleared her mind of the rising anger and concentrated on not making any noise as her magnetic boots landed on the outer shell of the simple tug. Walking over to the alien access hatch, she cycled the odd controls and stood out of the way, knowing that drone craft probably didn’t have an airlock. True to her guess, the hatch blew open from the escaping air.
Once the air had escaped, Jane was about to make her way in when pincers from an ant grabbed onto her arm. “Unmanned my ass!” she said out loud as she struggled to break loose.
Although the pincers couldn’t penetrate the crystanium skin of her suit, it could theoretically tear the suit arm off at the joint, and Jane could see the ant solidly anchored as it worked to get a better grip. She tried reaching for her sidearm, but it was hooked on the same side as her pinched arm and out of reach.
‘Shit’, she thought. Ants could live in space for a good ten minutes, and her arm would be torn off long before then. Its head was just out of reach, locked inside the inner edge of the hatch as it adjusted itself for better leverage.
“I can’t believe this!” she said out loud, her anger starting to rise again. She needed leverage, but her bulky suit and the small airlock didn’t leave much space.
“YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME YOU BASTARD?! FINE!” and she lunged into the tug headfirst.
***
John and Mike had their own troubles. The DB’s had been disabled but left attached in case any alien ship passed by, but the airlock electronic keypad was opened only under power, and the ship was still dead. John knew of the manual override, but it was inside as a protection from anyone or anything trying to get in without permission.
“Now what?” John asked.
“Damned if I know,” Mike replied.
“I’d cut my way in, but then what do we do?” John said, more to himself than to Mike.
“Yeah. No way to seal it up after. Whole section would lose atmosphere.”
Moments passed as they considered possibilities. “Think the crew can help us?” John finally said.
“Can’t see how. They would go central, barricade themselves and keep life support operating in one room. We have no way of reaching them.”
“We can knock.”
“True, but they’ll think it’s the ants coming in.”
“Huh. Quite right.” They lay there next to each other as they looked at the stars.
“I’m hungry.”
“Uh-huh. And I gotta crap but that’s not going to help them right now. Concentrate!” John said as he knocked on his helmet.
After a few minutes, Mike asked, “John, what’s the top song out right now? You know, something popular, cheesy, annoying and really catchy, something anyone could recognize?”
“Of all things Mike! Didn’t I just say…” he started to say but realized where Mike was going with this. He thought for a moment and replied, “How about that teenage hit ‘Can you be my Safe-Sat?’”
“God, I hate that thing. Perfect!” Mike started tapping the rhythm to the song on the ship surface next to the airlock as John whistled the horrid tune.
***
Ivanov mustered all his strength to get the unconscious Keenan into the Drop suit. The others had helped bring him here to the drop hole, and had already gone down to get things rolling, leaving Ivanov to finish off. They left without goodbyes, the standard custom for all space-bound humans.
Keenan was a big man, and there were days where Ivanov didn’t want to get out of bed from the pain alone, but he never showed it. The spores from Ganon-3 really did a number on him as he sat there wheezing from the exertion, but he eventually got Keenan in. He afforded himself the luxury of getting up slowly, something he would never have done in front of the captain or the others. Grabbing a hold of the carriage, he picked up the Maxon 3 with the captain in it and rolled it down the delivery rack, through the airlock doors and over the Drop Hole.
“Suit comp, activate!”
“Working…all systems functioning.”
“You have an unconscious Captain Keenan as operator. He has been tranquilized but should regain consciousness in two hours or so. Mike, Jane and John dropped to the freighter hull and are trying to disarm DB’s. Get Visual and Tactical from ship comp and join them as soon as the airlock cycles.”
“Understood, Lt. Ivanov. And good luck.”
‘Good Luck?’ Ivanov was surprised at the comment, but had no time to think about it as he left the room. He quickly went back to the bridge.
***
Jane had tumbled down into the hatch and fallen on the ant, who had obviously not expected this move. She could feel it trying to get its grip once again, and she barely avoided having its mandibles grab her as she kept her limbs away. She was worried that the lack of air would cause the tug equipment to overheat, but the ant was putting up a serious struggle as she finally got the upper hand. Reaching down, she quickly snapped off one limb at a time until the ant could no longer fight back. It was no match for the suit, and she knew it. Not bothering to kill it, she tossed it out of the airlock and looked around. The unfamiliar juggled her memory and she looked for the interface jack that should be central to all the controls laid out on the bottom surface. Once she spotted it, she opened her Maxon accessories compartment, pulled out a PDA and connected it to the interface.
Although most alien ships were technologically highly advanced, tugs were general workhorses with limited capabilities and few if any weapons. Ants didn’t use unnecessary resources, and drone tugs were simple, expendable and easily modified. This one was no different as Jane quickly patched in. The relatively advanced PDA broke the simple encryption and her suit comp reprogrammed the same flight path minus the tow load.
Had Jane been able to smell it, she would have noticed a synthetic molecule released mimicking the smell of burnt insulation. Scents were the human equivalent of lights on a display, and would have warned an ant that equipment was indeed overheating, but with the lack of atmosphere, it took a few seconds for the suit to pick up the microscopic particles floating in the vacuum.
“Jane, the ship controls are overheating.”
“I guessed as much. Are we done?”
“Yes. I’ve just finished downloading the updated…” Jane didn’t wait for her suit to finish, but instead unplugged the interface and quickly exited the ship, closing the hatch behind her. She instantly felt the ship drop the tractor beam, and unencumbered from the mass of the freighter, it quickly sped up as it followed its programmed path to the alien homeworld.
Jane had already jumped and thrusted her way over to where John and Mike were sitting. As she dropped down she curiously watched Mike tapping on the surface of the freighter. As she got closer, static broke into her suit speakers, slowly clearing to the point where a very annoying whistling sound reverberated inside her suit.
“What the hell is that noise!” Jane asked, “And what are you doing tapping on the hull?”
“Can’t get in,” Mike said as he continued to tap and John continued to whistle.
“So John’s whistling?”
“Gotta keep the rhythm.”
Jane laughed, but Mike interrupted. “Seriously. We’re trying to get the rhythm through in the hopes someone will hear and come open the door.”
“Oh.” She thought about cutting but quickly reached the same conclusion they had, that the leaks would be impossible to plug afterward.
Looking up, they watched as Keenan’s suit powered down to them. That meant that Abadon had left to follow the tug.
“How long have you been knocking?” she asked as Keenan’s magnetic boots locked onto the hull near them.
“Since we got here. Twenty minutes. Driving me nuts so it must be driving them insane,” Mike replied as John didn’t skip a beat.
***
Ivanov was sitting at his station, refusing to chair the Captain’s seat. Giving the captain a sedative was evil, necessary or not. As far as he was concerned he deserved a court martial, and his proud family legacy refused to allow extenuating circumstances or a hero’s motive to absolve his guilty conscience. He sat there drinking his chocolate milk and watching the fluctuating readings of the cloaking generator as the ship comp took care of following the alien tug to its homeworld.
‘Damn American crap’, he said to himself. Everything on this ship was falling apart. He missed good old WF132, the Russian ship he had been stationed on before signing up for this mission. That was a real piece of work he thought – dependable, efficient, and everything was easy to fix and stayed fixed. Here, if it wasn’t for the magnetic plasma bottles losing coherence, then it was the shield generator and if it wasn’t the generator, it was targeting, if it wasn’t targeting, then the toilets got plugged up. ‘Here, I have to fix hyper drives and unplug toilets,’ he muttered, shaking his head. “Plumber Ivanov, to the rescue!” he said out loud to no one in particular and laughed at his own joke.
He very well knew that plumbing was one of the more critical systems on the ship. Had the scrubbers ever stopped working, sewage would eventually contaminate the air, and the water recycling systems would have no water to recycle.
“50,000 kilometers to LPO,” the ship computer stated. He had asked it to remind him every 10,000 kilometers as to the distance remaining to low planet orbit.
The fluctuations on the cloaking generator were getting worse, but Ivanov it was too risky to leave the bridge now. Not this close. Either the unit was going to work, or it wasn’t.
He thought back to when he met Keenan. The Captain was married back then, on leave for some R&R with his wife on Niger-1. Ivanov was taking advantage of the amazing views he got hiking in the high altitude valleys along a northern mountain ridge. The stable double sun system left an unforgettable memory, and when the suns went down Niger’s 17 moons looked like jewels strung across the sky.
He bumped into Keenan quite by chance one night as he went to the local bar in the one ghost town. After having far too many beers to drink and going to the washroom to relieve himself, he came back and found a pretty woman standing at the near empty bar alone, so he went up to her and told her that out of the sea of beautiful women there, she was by far the prettiest.
She smiled, looked around and said, “First off, I’m the only woman here tonight, and second, I’m not interested.”
Ivanov started to protest, and felt a pair of hands grab him from behind. He flipped around, got close and stood up as hard and as fast as he could. The person behind him was expecting it, but Ivanov still managed to give the person’s jaw a solid whack before the man picked him up, brought him to his height and head butted him hard. That’s when Ivanov fainted.
After that, he woke up with his smiling antagonist looking down at him, chastising him for hitting on his wife. An embarrassed Ivanov apologized, the man bought him a drink, and they became fast friends.
“40,000 kilometers.”
He grabbed an electronic notepad and wrote down, “Captain, I’m sorry for disobeying a direct order. Were I to remain alive, I would be dishonorably discharged and stripped of my medal. That’s why I gave it to you. Having said that, it has been a pleasure to serve you, and I know of no man that I hold in higher honor. May your spirit shine brightly, and when you look at this star remember me. I will tell your wife and child that you love them dearly when I see them again.”
He put the stylus down. “Must get out of this mood,” he said to himself.
“Hmm. How about a little message to the children back home about the ants…?” and Ivanov continued writing.
“30,000 kilometers.”
A warning light came on, alerting Ivanov to trouble. He looked at the screen and was happy to see the tug’s laser coming on sporadically to clear debris from their path, and everything seemed to be in order. The cloaking generator however was not. He looked at the display and saw that a leak had appeared in one of the cooling pipes that kept the generator from overheating.
“Computer, send a data cube with the information I just wrote, addressed to Keenan. Estimated time for generator failure?”
“An estimate is not possible,” the computer replied. “The main cooling line has a rupture in it and high pressure steam is escaping. If the rupture doesn’t get any worse, you will barely make LPO.”
‘Damn,’ he thought again. “Notify me if the rupture gets worse.”
Suddenly, the warning klaxons came on notifying another hull breach, and the airtight doors to the bridge closed. “Computer?”
“Hull breach and damage to C3, 4, 9, 10, 11 with loss in cabin pressure. No damage to ship systems, but you can no longer leave the bridge without a pressure suit.
“20,000 kilometers. The rupture has increased exponentially and the generator will fail any second.”
Ivanov jumped into action. “Computer, dump all water into the cooling pipes immediately. That means fresh water, and when you run out, then grey water, and if you run out of that, sewage water will have to do, and if you run out of sewage water, tell me and I’ll piss into it.” He watched the heat levels increase until they had gone well into the red.
He knew that the Abadon was much bigger than the tug and ran the risk of still getting hit by particles that the smaller tug viewed as non-threatening, but he was hoping he could have avoided them.
“10,000 kilometers.”
The klaxons sounded again alerting to another breach, but Ivanov was getting annoyed.
“Computer, cut klaxons, but alert me if …” and as he said that, the cloak failed.
Ivanov stared in horror at the display. All this way and so many deaths for the cloak to fail 10,000 kilometers from its target. “Damn piece of shit! I’ve babied, messaged, coaxed and prayed to you, and you pay me back by farting in my face, damn you!” he said, furious. He glanced at the cloak display in disgust and turned away, but something didn’t seem right. The display showed heat levels dropping which he expected with the cloak off, but the power bar was at zero. Somehow this meant something important, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
He decided not to turn on the shields just yet.
“Computer, turn on the tractor beam and lock on the alien tug.” He hoped it would look just like another dead ship being tugged into near planet orbit. The viewscreen showed numerous red triangles, and two orbital weapons platforms in view. One of them was within 7000 kilometers. Hundreds of grey circles cluttered the screen showing relative positions of debris as they orbited the planet.
“Clear dead objects.”
Now, the screen displayed forty-two blue triangles – craft like the tug not considered threats, and twenty-nine blinking red triangles. None had shown any interest yet. The distance display had Abadon at 6500 kilometers to LPO and closing.
“Three alien vessels have changed their flight path and are approaching.”
His hands hovered over the firing buttons as he told the computer to lock on all three ships. They were just two scuttlers and a scout, but they could still damage his ship with his shields down. He waited as sweat started to drip down his forehead, watching the distance work its way down to LPO and the start of his final run. His other hand hovered over shield activation but he refused to turn it on just yet, hoping to avoid the interest of the big guns.
“The tug is heading toward the orbital weapons station. We will be in range of its weapons within 2 minutes.”
The alien ships came closer and started querying the tug for information, but it simply stated that it was returning to station without cargo. Confused, the ants on board the scuttlers queried again, but it gave the same reply.
The alien ships sprung into action.
“Weapons lock! Orbital Station is now powering its main cannon!” The red triangles stopped blinking, signifying active enemies.
“Break off tractor beam, full throttle to target and stay out of range of the space station!” Ivanov barked.
More ships were alerted and changed direction, but Ivanov concentrated on the closest three. Once in range, he fired the lasers and all three were quickly destroyed. As soon as he did that, all other red triangles stopped blinking as each craft turned its attention to the Abadon.
“Planetary Defense is now targeting us and two of the closest bases are now active. Ground launches have been detected.”
“Well, might as well go out with a bang… Computer, plot a course that gives us the shortest but safest path between all threats, and hold that course.”
“Done. Missile launch!”
That’s what Ivanov was waiting for. He hit the shield button, but to his horror, nothing happened.
Ivanov stared at the shield status display. At a loss for words and in shock, time slowed down as he heard the clack of projectiles and debris smacking into the outer hull, and the intensifying sounds reverberated down to the bridge. The missile was now reaching the troposphere and would reach him before he reached LPO, in two minutes.
“Shields offline. I have lost all contact with rear half of the ship, including the shield generators. I’ve attempted a rerouting, but power conduits were severely damaged with the last debris strike.”
“Damn! The power meters! I should have seen this,” he said, berating himself.
Ivanov’s mind raced as he tried to figure out what to do. Tactical clearly showed more alien ships coming to intersect, and the two Planetary Defense bases were already charging their massive laser cannons. Fortunately, the engines had locked on full thrust and they were directly on target.
“You said the corridor outside has lost pressure. How much of it?” he barked.
“Twenty two meters.”
“Are your sensors and door controls still working in that part?”
“Yes.”
Ivanov jumped out of his seat and yelled, “Continue to target. I’m going to run through. Open and close the doors after me. Turn on the shields as soon as you have power!”
With those words, he took one last look at the bridge as he expelled the air in his lungs.
The bridge doors opened into the corridor, and the vacuum sucked him in as he ran as fast as he could through the twenty two meter length. As he ran, he could clearly see the jagged, round hole punched through the wall and power conduit. The hole was the size of his fist, and it was obvious that the power interruption came from this. Electricity had arced and the leads had now fused, causing the main breaker to trip. His eyes blurred because of the vacuum, but he kept running and put his full strength into fighting the onrush of air he knew would come against him as the second set of airlock doors opened at the other end.
As he reached them, they quickly opened and a loose piece of metal sucked aloft by the outrushing air struck him in the shoulder. He didn’t feel it - his lungs were near bursting. Fighting the urge to breath, he waited for the automated air recyclers to finish their job as he made his way down to the shield generator room. On the verge of collapse, the ‘Green’ status light came on, and he finally took in a deep breath of air.
The Electrical Room was twenty meters down the hallway, and as he struggled to run he heard more clacking from the attacking craft. He quickly hit the palm switch and the doors opened. The large room was cluttered with equipment and two displays, one of them active and the other dead. The cooling pumps were still working, keeping the electrical equipment from overheating. He turned to the thirty power busses lining the wall that fed power from the generators to the cloak, shield and equipment one floor down.
Opening the one labeled ‘Shield’, he could clearly see the dead status light. Two feet over was ‘Life Support, and looking inside, the green LED’s blinked brightly and showed full power. The amperage rating was set at 4500 amps for the Shield and 3500 for life support, but it would have to do.
“Give me a break!” Ivanov yelled as the clacking intensified.
He looked around wild eyed for something he could use as a shunt, but he was interrupted with a boom that resounded deeply through the ship’s hull. Heavier weaponry was being used, and he knew the Abadon wouldn’t last much longer. As if to emphasize the point, a new hole punched through the room, narrowly missing him. He quickly felt the air in the room escaping out into space.
“God, if you’re there, help me now!” he prayed as he frantically searched for something to use. He looked at the dead bus and the leads going into and out of it. “That’s it! Just a few more seconds! Hang on, just a few…”
Jumping to the nearby lockers containing the repair equipment, he pulled out a laser cutter and ran to the dead bus. The air was escaping rapidly, and he felt his lungs starting to burn again as he took heavier and heavier breaths, but he ignored it as he cut four feet of two inch thick crystalic carbon line off the dead side.
Opening the inactive shield bus box, he prepared himself, and as his vision started blurring he pumped the primer for the dead shield breaker and flipped the switch, the breaker solidly flipping into place. Removing the cover, he laser welded the switch to keep it from shutting off and welded the carbon line onto the contact.
Boom.
His lungs screaming, he switched off the life support breaker and shoved the other end on to the contact, welding that one in place too.
Boom.
His vision now dark, he yelled, “Thor’s hammer…”
He primed the breaker.
“Will…”
He continued priming until the green light came on.
“Fall,” he said into the near vacuum as he hit the breaker trip switch. The electrical pulse generated further fused the two ends to the carbon line, and Ivanov’s teeth shattered as current from a small short dumped through his body and launched him through the air. He was dead before he hit the floor.
The ship computer sensed a relay close and the availability of power to the shields, and said, “Shields Activated,” to no one in particular.
With Abadon traveling at 30,000 kilometers per hour and its program set, it calculated that impact would happen in 8.33 seconds, and that ground based lasers would activate in less than five. When they activated in four seconds, it registered the slight error and noted it for future use, not realizing that there wouldn’t be a future.
The Planetary Defense base laser struck Abadon’s shield, compressing and deflecting it from its round shape. The base computer wasn’t worried though, as it already decided that damage from one ship would be minimal at best. However, it continued to fire and registered success in its records when it noticed the shield deflect until the hull became visible. It programmed the laser to continue cutting, as Abadon increased in speed from the planetary gravitational force.
Abadon’s ship computer system knew the shield had been compromised, and rotated the ship as per standard evasive maneuvers. However, the power the generators had been supplying now suddenly failed, although the computer didn’t know why.
“Shields offline,” it said, again to no one in particular.
***
John and Mike were bored. They had sat there for two hours now, knocking on the Hull of the St. Helena with absolutely no response. Jane had joined them, as had a still unconscious Keenan. John had stopped whistling the tune and Mike had reprogrammed Keenan’s suit comp to do the knocking for him, but it looked like this was getting them nowhere and they needed something a little more obvious, but none of them could come up with an idea that wouldn’t put the lives of those inside at risk.
“Guys, we’ve been doing this wrong,” John said. “No matter how nicely we knock, it still looks like aliens cutting their way in, and for all we know, they probably have no teenagers inside who would recognize the tune anyway.”
“Isn’t there an airlock somewhere on the ship that we can cut into,” Jane said in frustration, “…one that has emergency doors located near the airlock?”
“I checked, Jane. Nothing. That’s what Mike and I were doing when we thought Keenan wasn’t looking.” John looked dejected, because he knew they couldn’t be out here forever. “Suit comp, I would like to have the people inside the freighter hear me. What do you suggest?”
The other two laughed, but the suit’s relatively advanced computer came in with a reply, surprising them all.
“Use standard channels.”
“Duh. We’ve tried, obviously. Twice,” Mike said.
“Lie down flat, with as much of the suits as possible contacting the surface. One of you record a sound, and the four suits will amplify and transfer the recording vibration directly to the hull.”
John looked at Mike and Jane, and Jane rolled her eyes at the thought of more whistling.
“Fine, then you sing,” Mike said.
Although she protested, it did her no good. Clearing her throat, she sang loud and clearly in perfect pitch. They stared at her in surprise, having never heard her singing voice before.
They laid down and followed the comp’s instruction, and soon felt their skin vibrating actively as the four suit computers did everything they could to amplify and send the signal through.
As they lay there looking at the stars again, John felt uncomfortable. The vibrating felt nice but he couldn’t help feeling like he was being watched somehow. He looked around but saw nothing, until a glint of light near his feet caught his eye. Looking down, he could see the edge of a bubble on the freighter’s horizon but couldn’t identify it. As he peered closer and augmented his vision, the realization of what it was struck him, and he motioned the others to stay perfectly still.
The alien craft rose up to greet this odd sight of four humans in Maxon suits laying prone on the hull of the ship, and it didn’t know what to make of it. Not wanting to waste resources, it quickly conferred with the other ant also inside the alien ship, and decided that prudence was the better course of action in this case.
The three had held their breath as they watched the light fighter rise to greet them. They stood perfectly still, hoping that the aliens inside might think them dead, but they soon realized that this was not to be, as the ship rose and lined up for a strafing run.
At that moment, a glare turned into a ball of fire as a temporary sun was created where the alien homeworld once was. The three, having forgotten the alien ship for the time being lay there mesmerized, looking at the now double sun system that they had helped create, and the sense of satisfaction made them feel that everything was perfectly fine.
“Well, isn’t that a pretty sight?” Mike said.
“Live or die, I am sure glad to be able to see this day.”
“One small step for woman, one large step for womankind,” Jane added.
The two turned to her, and Mike finally replied, “Bet you spent all year thinking up that line.”
They turned their attention back to the alien ship. It hovered for a brief moment, but the freighter’s momentum had it slowly drift away from the alien fighter’s position. They watched the fighter for corrections, but it drifted slightly as the freighter continued on its momentum.
“Think it’s true, that the aliens have gone dumb with their planet destroyed?” Jane asked.
“Hope so. If not, then I have no idea what they’re waiting for,” Mike replied.
As they watched the fighter, they hadn’t noticed the airlock door cycling and Jane nearly jumped out of her suit when the suit transmitted sensory perception of the gloved hand now shaking her leg.
“Well, it’s about time!” she said, as they shoved Keenan in and then clambered quickly into the hatch, not waiting to see whether the alien fighter was active or not.
***
Keenan had a splitting headache and he didn’t know why. As he pondered this with his eyes closed, he became aware of the ache in his back from sitting in the wrong position. After that came the uncomfortable sensation of the wrinkles in the stretched and worn leatherette seat cover under his butt. Realizing that something was not quite right, he felt the unfamiliar armrests that his hands were now laying on top of.
He heard voices around him, but at first he couldn’t make out who they were or what they were saying, so he pretended to continue asleep as he watched through blurry, half closed eyelids. The bridge, if you could call it that, was unfamiliar – tiny and rudimentary. No Tactical, no Targeting, and Astrometric was only 2D. What he expected to see was simply not there, and he couldn’t figure out why. A body was standing at the status station, another one was plotting a jump using a combination of paper, electronic pad and ‘a whole lot of head scratching for god’s sake’, Keenan thought to himself as his eyes cleared.
‘Where did these people come from?’ Then he remembered.
“How did I get here?” he said, startling the two crewmembers near him.
“Um, Captain, you came in your Maxon, with the help of three of your crewmembers.”
“This is the St. Helena, I take it?” As the crewmembers nodded, he continued, “Complement?”
“149, Sir, plus 22 sick, one serious but stable and the other ones doing as well as could be expected.”
“Why am I in the Captain’s chair? What’s wrong with the Captain of St. Helena?”
The first crewmember stood there uncomfortably and stayed quiet. As the silence extended, the second crewmember finally spoke up and said, “When we were attacked and our ship disabled, the Captain at first tried everything he could to get us going again. But when the tug jumped in and towed us here, he went to his room and, well, he committed suicide. Um, Pierce here… well, Pierce is his son, Sir. My name is James Finnegan.”
Keenan’s heart ached for the young man, but he didn’t say anything. The silence encouraged Finnegan to continue talking.
“While we were grouped together, Pierce told us about how his father, Captain Browning, was one of a very few to have survived their experimentation camps, and he figured he must have felt that his experience would be repeated. At least, that’s what we can guess.”
Keenan mulled the information over as he put together the facts they had given him. The name was familiar, and he concentrated on it but couldn’t remember anything else.
“And my ship?” he asked, finally getting to his question but he worried about the answer.
“I was told it completed its mission, Sir.”
‘Thank God,’ Keenan thought to himself. Before he could ask for details, the crewman continued: “We don’t have video yet, but one of our techs is downloading it from your suit comp’s records and we should have it any minute. In the meantime, would you like some food or water?”
“No.” His tongue felt like sandpaper, but he’d take care of it later. “You’re sure mission is completed? The objective was reached?”
“Yes, Sir,” James said. “We were ordered by Mat to notify Command that mission objective was reached, and that there were four survivors. ‘Details to follow.’ That was the instructions and the three watched me while I sent the message.”
Keenan couldn’t believe they had pulled this off. “Who is here from my ship?”
Pierce finally spoke up. “Well, two men called John and Mike, and a woman called Jane.”
“I see,” Keenan said, realizing that his hunch of what had happened was correct. “And they are where?”
“Well, Sir, that’s the interesting part. They’re in the Brigg. Actually, to be honest, we don’t have a Brigg but they have locked themselves in their rooms, or rather, their cots. We share a common room.” Pierce was getting embarrassed and nervous from his inability to explain himself.
Keenan was getting frustrated, but Pierce continued: “Anyway, they are refusing to leave the room on principle, as they say it.”
“Huh. What did they do?”
“They said they disobeyed a direct order from their superior officer, and so they jailed themselves and are refusing to come out unless there’s an emergency.”
“Interesting,” Keenan said, laughing. They were absolutely right, and although Keenan liked to think that he wasn’t the ‘black and white’ person so many others in high rank appeared to be, he always stuck to the rules, and now was no exception. Drugging a superior officer and disobeying a direct order was a serious offense and couldn’t be ignored, even if it saved his life.
“Would you like to see the video now, Sir?” Pierce asked.
“Pierce, tell him about the message,” James said.
Keenan waited until Pierce spoke up. “Well, Captain, we picked up a message in transit addressed to you from a Lt. Ivanov, and recorded it to a data cube. Would you like to read it now?”
‘Ivanov.’ Keenan’s brows furrowed as he thought of his now dead friend. “Give me the cube, I’ll take care of it later. Where are we headed?”
“Command said we have wounded in Grid 183. The SS Normandy and its convoy is doing cleanup operations there and you are to report once you arrive. ETA is 6 hours, Sir.”
“Good. I’ll check over your jump calculations before you jump, but for now, show me the vid.”
The video displayed on the screen in 2 dimensions, and Keenan wasn’t able to see much as the suit optics had its limitations. It showed a very distant tug near planet orbit around the alien homeworld, and within moments the tug disappeared as Abadon became visible.
Keenan guessed the cloak generator had failed, which was no surprise. For some reason, Abadon was ignored by the enemy aircraft at first, but within moments it came under sporadic fire. Three light fighters were destroyed, but others quickly joined in on the attack.
“Can you max the resolution?”
“I’m trying, Sir. Give me a second.”
The video froze and Pierce quickly filtered the zoomed but pixilated video log. Keenan could see Abadon much closer now, but the quality suffered as there was no serious software aboard the St. Helena to clean it up.
“Best I could do with this equipment.”
He watched as the video started playing again.
More attack fighters had joined in, including a destroyer with a rail cannon. Keenan watched as the cannon powered up and he winced as a massive chunk of armor plating blew out of Abadon’s opposite side. Within seconds, it had recharged and another chunk of hull blew into space, together with air and steam. The heavily damaged ship was now in full thrust as it was slowly torn apart by the fighters and destroyers attempting to keep up.
As the destroyer hit it again, the shields came up and Keenan breathed a sigh of relief, forgetting that the mission had already been accomplished. He watched as the orbital platform attacked, followed by planetary ground defenses.
Abadon quickly moved out of visual range, but within eight seconds a black hole developed where Abadon impacted. The video displayed a small but growing black spot as the singularity started consuming everything. As matter entered, a glowing ring centered on the spot appeared, steadily brightening until no one could look into it any longer. The video suddenly jerked and ended there.
“What happened to the alien homeworld in the end?” Keenan asked Pierce.
“Oh, it’s gone, Sir. Nothing left!” Pierce said with a big smile. “A bright glow shone for about an hour, and then everything slowly went dark. And the funny thing is, all the alien ships are drifting or moving erratically, as if the pilots are asleep or something.”
Keenan went silent as the realization that the impossible had been accomplished finally sunk in. His hand drifted to the object in his pocket, curious at the unsettling lump pressing against his side. He pulled out the Valor in Death medal and stared at it confused. Looking at his chest, his own medal was displayed, and it took him a moment to realize why he had two.
‘Good old Ivanov,’ he thought, ‘The Hero’s hero.’ He got up to meet his crewmen in the Brigg.