Voyager Dawn

by Richard Patton

  “The captain wanted me to do something,” Rebecca admitted, frustratingly unsympathetic, “but I outrank him, and therefore I decide when to step in.”

  Ethan could hardly believe what he was hearing, but it was her dispassionate demeanor that completely torqued him. “He seemed to be your superior in the conference room,” he retorted.

  “I allowed it.”

  Ethan leaned back, exasperated. “Wow,” he said finally, “I thought I was getting through to you. Maybe even becoming your friend. You really are a piece of work.” He stormed out of the barracks. It was Rebecca’s turn to be left speechless.

  The Infiltrator

  “Is there further word on the second Human vessel?”

  “The survivors have been assimilated into the crew and compliment. In terms of numbers, every kill we have inflicted has been undone by this sudden swell.”

  “The kills we inflicted count for themselves. Every Human life we take is another offering to the Great One. This influx of new stock only gives us new opportunities to instill fear in the Humans.”

  “Unless our own numbers are reinforced, though, we are vastly outnumbered.”

  “Perhaps, but they have no substantial advantage. When the Orbiter has finished its work, they will die easily.”

  Ethan lay against the hull of his Naldím fighter in a stupor, listening absently to the sounds of clanking metal as Frank strapped the bomb onto the ship next to him.

  “This thing really doesn’t want me putting anything on it,” Frank muttered, glancing up at Ethan. To drive the point home, he fell back suddenly to avoid a blast of energy from the nearest open panel.

  “Is it going to set the bomb off?” Ethan asked. He shifted himself slightly, moving away from the warhead.

  “No,” Frank assured him quickly, “I disabled the detonator. It won’t go live until it’s manually reactivated.” Frank twisted the last nut onto it’s corresponding bolt.

  “Then we’ll be fine,” Ethan grunted.

  Frank retracted his hand as the panel zapped him again. “You might be.” He looked up at Ethan, who had already retreated into his mind again. “Hey, uh, Ethan?” Frank said mildly, “you okay?”

  Ethan paused. “Why?”

  “You don’t look okay.”

  “Pre-mission jitters.”

  “But you never get jitters. You’re Ethan Walker.”

  Ethan smirked in spite of himself. He forgot how much Frank looked up to him. In the current climate, it was hard to stay atop the pedestal Frank put him on. “Thanks,” he said, “but it’s really… it’s something else.”

  “You mean Rebecca? Agent Winters,” Frank corrected himself. “Is that what it is?”

  Ethan paused before responding. He was grateful there was someone he was allowed to talk to about Rebecca, but he couldn’t quite put his feelings into words. Disappointing was the only one that came to mind, but it was not an adequate description. “Yeah,” he sighed, “I don’t know how to describe it exactly. She used to be just ‘the new guy.’ Now she’s…”

  “The Wraith?” Frank completed the thought.

  “The asshole,” Ethan answered. “Here I was trying to be friendly, welcoming her into a squad that was already tight, and it comes to…nothing. Less than nothing.”

  Frank put down his tools and hefted himself to Ethan’s eye level. “You tried. I think that’s one of those things where it’s the thought that counts,” he said.

  “Not when lives are at stake,” Ethan retorted. “She might be right, and I might not have the most keen tactical mind, but I know unacceptable losses when I see them.”

  “Well,” Frank said slowly. He looked rather nervous about being Ethan’s vent. “She’s still human,” he continued, uncertain, “maybe it just takes a little more effort… to make her less of a… an asshole.”

  “I guess we’ll find out.” Ethan looked over at Frank and patted him on the shoulder. “Thanks for listening, Frank,” he said, standing and grabbing his helmet. “I don’t know why I didn’t come to you sooner.” He paused. “You’re a good friend.”

  Frank diverted his gaze towards his shoes. “Yeah, well, you are too. Thanks.”

  “Is the bomb ready?” a sharp voice cut across the hangar. Ethan and Frank turned to see Rebecca approaching. She was wearing full body armor, but it certainly wasn’t marine-grade. It was jet black and covered in the most vicious array of weaponry Ethan had ever seen. An equally sinister helmet sat tucked under Rebecca’s arm.

  “Um, yeah,” Frank said, “yes, ma’am. Or agent. Is it agent?”

  “Rebecca’s fine,” she said.

  “Okay, well, uh, the bomb’s strapped on, and so’s your pod. The pod has EM shielding just in case the ship has some sort of-”

  Rebecca cut him off with a raised hand. “I read the briefing, thanks.” She turned to Ethan. “Are you ready?”

  “Ship’s primed,” Ethan said in answer, “ready to fly.”

  “I mean, are you ready? Can I count on you having my back?”

  Ethan was slightly taken aback by the question. Rebecca’s standing with him might have dropped sharply, but he wasn’t about to abandon her on a mission. It stung to know she had any doubt about him. “I’m a professional,” he said finally. “I don’t let people die if I can help it.” He had not meant the comment to insinuate anything, but the irritated twitch in Rebecca’s cheek told him she had caught it.

  Before anything more could be said, Ethan slid on his helmet and clambered into the cockpit.

  “Wait, you’re going now?” Frank said, alarmed.

  “It’s a stealth op,” Rebecca answered as the engines spooled up. “If the Naldím are monitoring comms, they’d notice a big launch. Best to go when no one is watching. Now clear the pad.” Rebecca climbed into the pod that had been bolted to the side of the fighter. It was a tight fit, barely large enough for her and her weapons. As uncomfortable as it looked, Ethan had a feeling Rebecca had seen worse.

  Frank stepped off the hangar pad with a wave, stumbling for a moment over a cart of tools. Ethan returned the wave and revved the throttle. At his signal the hangar doors opened, and the fighter launched smoothly and silently into the night sky.

  *

  “I take it you know what you’re going to be doing,” Ethan said over the comm to Rebecca as they slipped into the ionosphere.

  “Yes.”

  Ethan waited a second before speaking. “And? What are you going to be doing?”

  “Taking the bridge,” Rebecca answered, “and setting the ship on a collision course for Tango One.”

  “What’s the bomb for, then?” Ethan wondered aloud.

  “If I can’t redirect the ship, I can still take one of them out. If all goes perfectly, I’ll deploy the bomb and ram the ships, maximizing damage to both targets.”

  “Got it. Where do you want me?”

  “Just launch the bomb through the beam emitter after me, and I’ll put in place. Then wait for me to come back out.”

  “So I’m the get-away driver.” Ethan sulked. He had been hoping rather egoistically for a more prestigious role in the operation.

  “You’re my extraction plan,” Rebecca corrected. “Don’t discount your value.”

  Ethan missed a beat, foregoing a vicious retort. It almost sounded as if Rebecca cared about his feelings. Before he could think more of it, though, the radar sprang to life, flashing red. “We’re in the graviton beam,” he reported to Rebecca, yanking hard on the control sphere to stay level. “Bringing us up now.”

  “Have they seen us?”

  “Hard to tell. If they have, they’re not doing anything about it. Maybe they can’t.”

  “We’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Right.” Ethan gunned the throttle and shot upwards toward the second Naldím ship, fighting like a bullhound against the force of the energy beam. He could see the target a few klicks ahead, writhing like a mirage in the transluscent distortion field of the beam.

  “Com
ing into range… three klicks and closing,” he grunted as a surge of energy passed through the field. I’ve almost got a visual on the port.”

  “That’s close enough,” Rebecca said. Ethan could hear her compartment opening over the comm. “I’ll take it from here.”

  “I’ve got the bomb locked on target,” Ethan said, “but I’ll need you inside to receive it. Just tell me when.”

  “Copy. Launching in three, two…” Silently, Rebecca kicked off from the ship, shooting forward. She flashed past the canopy, firing bursts of compressed air from her suit as she struggled against the beam to stay on course. Ethan could only watch in amazement; the grace with which she maneuvered through space and hazards was most impressive. Sooner than Ethan had expected, Rebecca’s voice came back over the comm.

  “I’m just inside the emitter. There’s some sort of graviton generator in here. Looks a lot like a compression drive.”

  “I don’t suppose we could just shut that thing down and be done with it, then,” Ethan muttered.

  “Band-aid solution,” Rebecca replied. “We need to take it out. Send in the bomb.”

  Ethan yanked the release valve that had been jury-rigged next to his seat. The bomb slipped silently forward and toward the target with even more precision than Rebecca, though far less grace. Before long, it was inside the ship with her.

  “Package received,” Rebecca reported. “Moving toward the bridge. Keep the entrance locked down.”

  “That’s what I’m here for,” Ethan sighed. He felt oddly helpless simply waiting for his superior to do the dirty work. He wanted to help, but he feared a deviation from the plan would put the entire mission at risk, not to mention Rebecca’s life. Ethan turned up the volume on Rebecca’s channel, listening to her progress. Unfortunately, there was nothing to hear. She moved with a phantasmic quiet, the eerie hum of the ship around her only occasionally punctuated by the muffled snap of a silenced weapon. For a moment, Ethan thought that the comm might have actually died, such was the lack of sound. Unexpectedly, Rebecca spoke again.

  “We have a problem.”

  Ethan jerked upright in his chair. “What?”

  “The helm controls are coded to those wrist braces. I can’t access anything.”

  “What about the Naldím on the bridge? Can’t you use one of them?” Ethan asked. He had a feeling what she was leading up to.

  “Already tried that. I think it needs a lifesign attached to it. I need-”

  “You need me to come to the bridge,” Ethan finished. “On my way.” Ethan nudged the fighter forward and through the access port, gently combating the graviton pulses. When he emerged on the other side, a shocking sight greeted him. Several dozen Naldím lay dead on the catwalks that encircled the graviton generator. Bullet holes and scorch marks lined the walls like a twisted work of art, and in the center of it all, the E.T.H.A.N. bomb had been jury-rigged into the center console.

  “Nice work in here,” Ethan said, his voice more quiet than he had intended. Suddenly he found himself quite frightened of Rebecca.

  “Thanks. Get moving.”

  The Naldím fighter sidled up to the catwalk, and the cockpit rolled open. Ethan clambered out, instantly drawing his sidearm, though there seemed to be no real need. Working his way through the labyrinth of corrdiors, the only Naldím Ethan encountered had met the same fate as their comrades in the generator room. Rebecca had been extremely thorough.

  After several minutes of instruction from his counterpart, Ethan found his way to the bridge. Rebecca was leaning against the helm, surrounded by corpses.

  “You, uh, really clean up,” Ethan said, switching his gaze to the controls.

  “Just set the course,” Rebecca sighed, “Three-four-niner by six-two.” Ethan grabbed the control sphere, his brace latching on automatically. Carefully rotating the ship into place, Ethan kept an eye on the display in front of him, his helmet frantically trying to keep up its translation as the coordinates onscreen shifted.

  “Three-four-niner by six-two,” Ethan said finally. “Ready to go.”

  “Punch it.” Rebecca started back towards the door, leaving Ethan to squeeze the sphere’s throttle point. Overlooking his luck that the ship handled exactly like his own, Ethan set the speed as high as he could and retreated from the console.

  “Let’s go,” he said, leading the way off the bridge. They began to run, the ship shifting under their feet as it pulled into a hard acceleration.

  A volley of energy bolts screamed past them as the pair rounded the last bend. Rebecca turned in a quick pirouette, returning fire. A few of the Naldím that had appeared behind them fell, only to be replaced moments later by another squad.

  “Just keep moving,” Rebecca grunted, squeezing off another round before chasing after Ethan. He didn’t need to be told twice, but paused long enough to take his own shot at the Naldím. One of them grasped his shoulder, clearly hit, but undetered. He regained his composure and lobbed a pulse of energy at Ethan. It missed, rocketing over Ethan’s shoulder and hitting the door console in front of them. It began to close, alarms blaring.

  Accelerating his pace, Ethan lunged at the door, falling hard to the ground and sliding under it as it closed. Rebecca was not so lucky. She slammed into the bulkhead, then turned to exchange fire with the Naldím.

  Ethan hammered on the door controls, but to no avail. The damage seemed to have put the mechanism in lockdown. “It’s jammed!” he yelled, “I can’t get through!”

  “Get back to the ship,” Rebecca ordered. “I’ll find another way o--.” Her voice was overwhelmed by the sound of screeching Naldím weaponry. Suddenly, there was silence.

  The Escape

  “We’ve lost contact with the Orbiter. There are still Naldím aboard, but they’re not responding to hails.”

  “And the Master?”

  “On the planet’s surface. Shall I retrieve him?”

  “No. We will handle this. Dispatch a squadron to the Orbiter. Destroy any foreign craft. If this is an attack, I want the ship purged. I’ll have no more humans desecrating our vessels.”

  Ethan’s blood ran cold. In a draining moment of fear, he realized that once more he was alone among the enemy. Indecisiveness gripped his mind, freezing him in place. Then came the gunfire. For a second, it sounded foreign to Ethan, but it slowly dawned on him that it was ballistic weaponry, not Naldím. He leaned up against the locked door.

  “Rebecca?”

  There was a pause, and then – “I’m fine. They took out my comm.”

  Ethan slid to the floor, relief sapping him of energy.

  “I’ll find another way around,” Rebecca continued. “Get the ship ready. If I’m not there in five minutes, leave without me.”

  “We don’t have five minutes,” Ethan said, “The ship’s set to collide in four, tops.”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “Get to the nearest airlock. In exactly two minutes, launch out of it. I’ll come around in the fighter and pick you up.”

  Rebecca was silent for a moment. “Two minutes,” she said finally. “Mark the time… now.” Ethan activated his helmet’s clock, his field of view now overlaid with a countdown. He was going to have to move fast.

  Falling into a furious sprint, Ethan backtracked towards the graviton generator, his mind completely void of thought. All that mattered now was getting to that ship.

  The door to the generator slid open as he approached, revealing three Naldím beyond, securing Ethan’s fighter to the deck. Without thinking, Ethan drew his pistol and fired, nailing each of the Naldím in the head in turn. Making a note to thank Rebecca for her marksmanship training, Ethan vaulted the catwalk’s railing and slid into the cockpit.

  Jamming the control sphere to the side, Ethan made to break away, but the Naldím had done something to the fighter. Glancing at the starboard side, Ethan saw a massive cable looped around the ship and the catwalk.

  “Dammit,” he grunted under his breath while the fighter whine
d against its restraints. Desperately, he shoved off again. The railing buckled, giving Ethan an idea. He haphazardly pointed the fighter at the catwalk’s structure and opened fire. The platform gave way instantly, and Ethan pulled away, only to be dragged back a second later by the added weight of the catwalk. The cable had not let go.

  Ethan checked his timer. Twenty seconds. He swerved and made for the exit, still trailing a significant portion of the catwalk. With the additional volume, he realized as he approached the port, he was never going to squeeze through. Moving too fast now to stop, Ethan whipped the fighter around, throwing the catwalk into his path. It caught on the mouth of the port and snapped. Ethan shot through the exit, falling into a chaotic spin, but free of the extra load.

  After a brief struggle he regained control of the craft and took a moment to check the timer. It read zero. Frantically, Ethan turned the fighter back towards the cruiser, his HUD scanning the space around it for signals. Finally it found one. Rebecca was tumbling through space toward the planet, picking up speed as she plummeted uncontrollably.

  Ethan gunned the throttle, shooting after her with everything he had, but the air was still too thin to slow her fall, and the gap between them continued to widen. He accessed the comm, hoping beyond reason it had come back online.

  “Rebecca, do you copy?”

  “Ethan…can’t…no RCS control…” the comm buzzed, Rebecca’s voice disjointed. Unable to clean up the signal from his end, Ethan did the only thing he could: he kept going.

  “Rebecca, if you can hear me, I’m not going to be able to reach you until you hit the atmosphere. Do whatever you can to slow down, and I’ll catch you in the drop pod.”

  “Watch…six. Ethan, behind you!”

  Before he could react, a blazing green bolt seared his hull. Ethan dropped to the side, barely avoiding a second blow. He checked the radar. Eight fighters were converging on him, each taking calculated shots at his craft.

  There was no hope of responding; Rebecca’s path was erratic, and Ethan couldn’t afford to turn and face his attackers. He needed to stay on target.