45

Theo Starship Gabriel – orbiting Paradeisos, Aspro System

Day 420, Year 11269, 13:31SC, PCC

‘I’ve completed studying all of Gabriel’s database, Edward,’ said Cleo. ‘There’s a lot of really cool stuff in here. Programmes I reckon I can work on and improve some of our systems.’

‘You go for it,’ said Ed from his couch in the corner of the blister. ‘Don’t initiate anything without running it by us, but let us know what you have when it’s ready to rock. Talking of ready, do we have any news yet from our two world leaders?’

‘Nothing yet, although they called for more food not so long ago, including some Timorian wine.’

Well, that’s a good sign. If they’re on the piss, things must be going well.’

‘Oh dear.’

Oh dear, what?’ said Ed, wondering what the hell would cause a sentient computer to say, “Oh dear”.

‘An unidentified starship has jumped into the system and is heading straight for us.’

When you say “unidentified”, what exactly do you mean?’

‘Not a configuration or design registered on the GDA database.’

‘Must be our friends from Andromeda. Give their ship a thorough scan and see what they have.’

‘Concealed heavy weapons, screens inferior to ours and they don’t have a Palto.’

Okay, Cleo. If we have to activate the Palto as a last resort, immediately initiate full-drive straight at the point in space where their ship was and, if it was moving, then give it your best estimate.’

‘But that would punch us straight through their ship,’ said Cleo, nervously. ‘And possibly cause fatalities aboard their vessel.’

I know where you’re going with this, but you’re permitted to defend your ship.’

‘The Palto would be defending us.’

‘Okay, tell you what, if you set the best intercept course into the navigation system, I’ll get Linda to hit the initiate icon. How does that sound?’

‘Cool for cats.’

‘That’s great. In fact, have the navigation set straight at them as soon as they arrive. How long is that by the way?’

‘Four minutes.’

‘Shit.’

Ed jumped up and ran for the bridge.

Linda, Phil and Andy were already there, reclining on the control couches and wearing POKs.

Ed joined them.

Nobody was smiling or said a word. They all stared at the holographic image of the large Andromedan warship as it slowed and came to a stop ten kilometres away. It only took a few seconds before they were hailed.

‘Unidentified starship, my name is Captain Xir’gin of the GDA battle cruiser Trynn. I understand you picked up one of my crew when she crash-landed on this planet. I would be grateful if you could return her to my ship immediately.’

Ed grinned at everybody on the bridge. ‘Game on,’ he said and toggled the transmit icon.

‘Good day, Captain Xir’gin. My name is Commodore Virr—’

The other three all looked at him as if he was mad.

‘—of the Theo Battleship Gabriel. I feel you might have got a little confused. You see, my records show from our visits to your galaxy that you’re the Captain of the Andromedan Battle Cruiser Krawth of the Paragon Coalesce of Planets. Please correct me if I’m wrong.’

There was an extended silence.

Ed could hear Andy laughing on the opposite couch to him and held his hand up to quieten him.

‘Commodore Virr, I really feel it is you that is confused. No GDA ships have ever travelled to another galaxy so I will give you a few moments to realise your error and return my crew member. Otherwise I will be forced to disable and board your vessel.’

Ed could see pods and doors opening up along the length of the battle cruiser.

‘He’s preparing to fire,’ said Linda.

‘Do the same,’ said Phil. ‘It’ll make him realise we’re not the domestic starship we appear to be.’

Linda opened all the weapon bay doors.

It was the first time they’d seen the Gabriel fully guns up. It made the ship look quite menacing on the holographic display.

Andy suddenly whistled the theme from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Ed and Linda smirked; Phil didn’t – he looked around the bridge with a confused expression.

‘I’ll explain later,’ Andy said, noticing his non-comprehension.

They sat there for a few minutes, waiting to see what the Andromedan would do, when their concentration was broken by Prota and Klai arriving on the tube lift.

‘Hello, everyone,’ said Prota, smiling, then noticed the display in the middle of the room. ‘Oh, who is that?’

‘A very rude Andromedan battle cruiser,’ said Andy.

‘Andromedan?’ said Klai. ‘What, from the next galaxy?’

‘What’s he doing all this way from home?’ said Prota, staring at Phil.

‘He’s the advance party of an invasion fleet, apparently,’ said Phil.

‘He’s much bigger than us,’ said Klai, looking worried. ‘Can this ship cope with this?’

‘We have a few surprises,’ said Prota as he ushered Klai over to a seat at the side of the bridge.

‘Can’t we cloak and bugger off?’ said Linda.

‘No,’ said Ed. ‘I don’t want him to know we have that ability – and we’d lose him again. What we need to do is disable his ship so the GDA can study their technology and interrogate the crew.’

When they were beginning to wonder if anything would ever happen, the battle cruiser opened up with all six of its biggest laser weapons.

The Gabriel’s shields flashed white instantly, but held up under the onslaught.

‘Shields at maximum deflection,’ shouted Andy. ‘We can only hold this for about two minutes.’

‘Okay,’ said Ed. ‘Course all plotted, Cleo?’

‘Yes. Go when ready. He’s certainly arrogant, staying stationary.’

‘Linda, prepare to hit maximum drive on my call,’ said Ed, giving her a wink.

‘Are we playing destruction derby again?’ she said, looking at Ed with a grin.

‘What’s a destruction derby?’ Klai said to Prota.

‘I’m not completely sure,’ said Prota. ‘But I think this involves a head butt with a starship.’

‘You’re kidding,’ said Klai, staring across the bridge and then looking around his seat for some sort of seat belt.

‘Don’t you scratch my starship,’ said Prota, waggling his finger at Ed and giving him a sly grin.

‘Thirty seconds with the shields,’ said Andy. ‘Twenty-five seconds, twenty seconds…’

‘Ready, Cleo?’ asked Ed.

‘Yep.’

‘Ready, Linda?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Palto up, and – go, Linda.’

They all watched the holographic image disappear as the Palto came online. Although there was never any sense of movement when the ship accelerated, this time they all felt a slight judder through the couches a second after Linda hit the icon.

‘Full stop, shields up – Palto off,’ said Ed.

The holographic display came back almost immediately. It confused them at first, as there appeared to be three ships in the vicinity. Then, as the two other ships gradually moved apart and began to spin slowly, it dawned on them: the Andromedan ship was in two pieces; the whole drive section at the rear was cut cleanly away and both cut edges trailed a long stream of debris and gasses.

‘Oh, crap,’ said Andy. ‘Did that ever work?’

‘The front section still has manoeuvring thrusters,’ said Linda.

As they watched, the spin slowed and the section started moving away from them.

‘What’s he doing?’ said Linda.

‘He’s trying to put the wreck into orbit,’ said Andy.

‘Shit. No, he’s not,’ said Ed. ‘He’s throwing the remains into the atmosphere so we don’t get it.’

‘Tractor beam?’ asked Linda.

‘Not for something that big,’ said Phil. ‘He’d pull us down with him if we tried that.’

Even as Phil spoke, the first fire trails from some of the smaller fragments could be seen entering the upper atmosphere. As they watched, the huge forward section of the battle cruiser dropped deeper into the upper atmosphere. The leading edge slowly turned from black to crimson, then lumps of white-hot superstructure began breaking away and forming their own flaming trails.

A faint voice penetrated the reverent silence of the Gabriel’s bridge.

‘You won the battle this time, little ship, but very soon you will all perish as the—’

They watched for another few seconds until Linda changed the display.

‘Is everyone okay?’ said Ed, glancing around the cabin.

‘I feel quite sick,’ said Linda.

‘We had to,’ said Andy. ‘They would have taken the prisoner and killed us all. They had no choice. We knew too much.’

‘I suppose,’ said Linda, looking downcast. A tear ran down her face and dropped into her lap. ‘I just didn’t sign up to kill people.’

Ed jumped up out of his couch, knelt down beside her and gave her a hug.

‘Well, from my point of view,’ said Phil, ‘we only disabled the ship as that was our initial purpose. It was their captain’s decision to throw the ship and crew into the atmosphere. We had no hand in that.’

Linda nodded.

‘Do you want to have a break?’ said Ed. ‘I can take over the ship for a while.’

‘No, no, I’m good. It was a bit of a shock, that’s all.’

‘Shall I get you a large brandy?’ said Andy.

‘No thanks, Andy. I have to drive,’ she said.

‘Shit, ’cause I sure as hell need a stiff one.’

Linda took a deep breath and took the ship over to the rear drive section. She scanned it for life signs, but found none. The section contained a lot of technology that would be useful to the GDA and was of a size that enabled them to tractor it into a high orbit. After this was done, she returned them to the low stationary position above one of Paradeisos’s four Theo Exy-constructed cities.

Ed removed his POK and looked across the bridge at the two gentlemen who were waiting patiently and expectantly.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘We appear to have neglected you on your momentous day. I take it, as you’re both sitting together, that negotiations were successful?’ he asked and gave them a thumbs-up.

Neither Prota or Klai could know what a thumbs-up sign meant, but they smiled and returned the gesture anyway, followed by everyone else in the room.

Ed clambered up out of his control couch again and approached Prota.

‘Sir, I would like to ask you a favour.’

‘Go on,’ said Prota, standing up.

‘As you must realise, we have a lot of information that has to be reported to the GDA as soon as possible and I know we have our own ship downstairs, but I was wondering—’

Prota raised his hand to silence Ed.

‘You wish to borrow my beautiful starship, do you, Captain Virr?’

‘Err – well, we could just about fit into the Cartella, but if you have other plans for—’

Prota raised his hand once more and Ed fell silent again.

‘I had these starships built when it seemed an impossibility that the Timoria would ever return to the surface of the planet,’ he said. ‘The ships were to find and nurture an immature race that we could serve.’

He looked everyone in the eye around the bridge.

‘That was what we were originally programmed to do. Offering a new human race a beautiful home here on Paradeisos was our alternative plan after failing to encourage the indigenous race out of the interior of the planet. The events of the last few days have at last brought about our primary function. We have a new up-and-coming human race, courtesy of Mr Virr and friends, and –’ he paused and put his hand on Klai’s shoulder ‘– we have a distinct possibility of beginning the transition of the home-born Theos back out of the caves and into the world they originally populated.’

He smiled at Klai and looked back at Ed again, the smile vanishing from his face.

‘Captain Virr, the answer to your question is no. You cannot have the use of my starship.’

The look of disappointment on Ed’s face was obvious to everyone.

‘But,’ Prota continued. ‘Having seen the love you have for your crew, the respect you have for other races and your predisposition for preserving life, I have decided you can have use of your starship. The Gabriel is yours. I have no further use for her and, anyway, I have three others.’

Ed stood rigid for a second, staring straight at Prota, trying to make sense of what the man had just said.

His expression suddenly became a huge grin as he grabbed Prota, enveloping him in a huge bear hug.

A cheer rang out around the bridge and everyone else piled in to hug and celebrate the outcome that no one had predicted.

Even President Klai was hugging everyone.

Ed held his hand up to silence the crowd.

‘Err, okay,’ he said, wiping a tear from his eye. ‘There is one more thing before I accept your incredibly generous offer, Prota. Well, actually two.’

He looked up at the ceiling. ‘Cleo, would you appear in person please?’

The Egyptian goddess appeared in all her splendour in the centre of the bridge.

‘Who’s she?’ exclaimed an astonished Klai.

‘The most important member of the crew,’ said Ed and walked over to stand in front of her.

‘Cleo, as you are more a part of this ship now than anyone else, I feel I couldn’t accept Prota’s offer without your consent.’ He bowed his head.

Cleo stepped forward and took Ed’s hands in hers. ‘I should be the one bowing to you. It would be my honour to protect you and your crew,’ she said. But before Ed could say anything, she continued: ‘Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all.’

‘You’ve been reading up on Earth quotes,’ said Ed, before kissing her hand. ‘I believe that was John F. Kennedy. Thank you, Cleo. We’ll look after you too.’

Ed moved over to Phil.

‘I’ll quite understand if you want to drop me off here,’ said Phil, looking downcast.

‘Are you bloody kidding me?’ said Ed, amazed. ‘You’ve been a valuable crew member on this ship since you were two days old. Don’t even think of getting off this ship. It’s the only home you’ve ever known and, anyway, where would you go for your rock music?’ Ed looked back at Prota. ‘That’s so long as Prota has no problem with you remaining here?’

Prota shook his head.

Phil grinned and Ed got another hug.

‘Righto, that’s enough soppy shit and hugging for one day. We need to get to Dasos.’ He looked over at Klai and Prota. ‘I would imagine you two want to go planet-side?’

‘Well, actually,’ said Prota. ‘We need to go to Dasos too. We need to register the peace accord, get the Timorian’s terrorist status retracted and beg for a GDA peace-keeping force to oversee the transition.’

‘We need to get there as fast as possible, now,’ said Cleo. ‘I’ve just received a communication that Xavier Lake and Floyd Herez have been found guilty of the Katadromiko 37 murders.’

‘Couldn’t happen to a nicer pair,’ said Andy, scowling.

‘It’s not that I’m concerned about,’ Cleo continued. ‘It’s the fact that now the court is considering Ek Neou Spora on their home planet.’

‘What the hell is that?’ asked Andy as complete silence on the bridge ensued.

‘It translates to reseeding,’ said Cleo.

‘Does that mean what I think it does?’ said Linda, a look of horror on her face.

‘Yes, it is,’ said Prota. ‘The GDA only undertake that as a last resort. It’s only been authorised twice before in ten thousand years. Any new human colony within the GDA’s realm that they consider to be prodigiously genocidal, they submit to a reseeding programme. The planet is wiped clean and rejuvenated with either an established race that needs to expand or with selected Neanderthal life forms to start afresh.’

Everybody looked at each other with wide eyes.

‘Bloody hell,’ exclaimed Andy.

‘My sentiments exactly,’ said Linda, who was as white as a sheet and looked as if she was about to throw up.

‘Okay, let’s rock and roll, guys,’ said Ed. ‘Linda, to Dasos – and don’t spare the horses.’