by Drew Avera
Malikea stepped back, his feet on the side of a console as the Replicade flew upward. The man had the cold gaze of a killer in his eyes, but there was a hurt hidden beneath his yellow irises. “What do you think you’re doing?” Brendle snapped, half-turning his head to look at the controls and try to settle the ship into a maneuver so that gravity wouldn’t crush them to death. “I’m trying to evade the enemy and you attacked me.”
Malikea held no apology in his eyes. “You’re killing us,” he spat.
Brendle scoffed and pointed at the screen. “No. you see that vessel on the screen behind us? It’s painting a target on our back and is about to launch a full-scale attack right up our collective asses if I don’t get us the hell out of here. They are the one’s trying to kill us!”
Malikea went to step forward, but Brendle stopped him with his gun, leveling it at the man’s face. “Do it. Shoot me, Kelah Wa,” he said. The force of his words carried contempt meant for something else, but was directed right at Brendle.
“What? I don’t want to shoot you,” he said, manipulating the controls so the push of gravity settled in a way that at least made it easier to breathe. “What is Kelah Wa?”
Both men stared at each other in silence.
Anki stepped forward, her hands up. “Kelah Wa is the Lechun word for demon,” she said. “It was the harbinger of death for their religion.”
Malikea said nothing. It was affirmation enough.
“I’m not a demon,” Brendle said. “And I have no intentions to kill anyone on this ship. Now, if you’ll please leave me to piloting this trashcan, then maybe I can save us all. Anki,” he said as he tossed his weapon towards her. She caught it in midflight. It was risky letting someone who might shoot me in the back have my weapon, but she had to know it’s suicide to kill me now, he thought. “Please make sure I don’t get anymore surprise attacks.” He turned his back on them and focused on the controls as he programmed a series of evasive maneuvers, praying silently it wouldn’t come down to autonomous evasive techniques. With no one strapped in, he knew the risk was high of killing someone.
Anki held the gun in her hand, casually letting it rest against her thigh, refusing to point it towards Malikea.
“Deis is hurt,” Malikea finally said after a long silence. The tone was more reverent and less hateful.
Brendle and Anki looked towards the aft of the bridge and saw Deis lying unconscious. “Is he breathing?” Brendle asked.
“No thanks to you,” Malikea said coldly.
There was an entire argument looking for a reason to escape Brendle’s lips, but he choked it down. “Anki, can you please check on Deis. It might be a good idea to strap everyone in because this ride isn’t going to get any easier.”
Anki moved behind him as he moved his fingers over the control screen. Even with the transponder off, the Telran was still able to detect the Replicade. Brendle rubbed at the back of his head where it had struck the deck. He felt the early formations of a bump, the sensitivity of it increasing the more he touched it. “I need to get us out of this sector,” he said to no one in particular.
“How?” Anki asked as she knelt next to Deis. Malikea was next to her, holding his hand.
“There’s a gateway, unmarked, not too far from here. If we burn hard for it, maybe we can escape.”
“Can’t they just follow us?” Anki asked. She was fastening straps around Deis’ unconscious body now.
“Well, here’s the thing. I know the gateway is there, but it is invisible to the Telran because I hid it in case I needed to use it as an escape route. My original plan was to sneak off the ship in a transport pod, but that didn’t work out. Now, I have a ship that’s the right size and mass to make it through, provided we can hit it right and the Telran won’t be able to follow us without causing their ship to implode,” he said.
“You seem pretty sure about that, but this ship is probably double the size of any transport I’ve ever seen,” Anki said, not in a sarcastic way, but one that still had the lingering sentiment of a question.
Brendle turned and smiled. “Yeah, well I’m pretty sure if we can’t run away, then we’ll be dead either way.”
He turned back to the control screen and veered the Replicade in the direction that led to Key Lourna, the hidden gateway he erased from the records of the Telran several months prior. He had been lonely and depressed at the time. The idea of escaping the snares of the Greshian Navy had been appealing, but he knew he would never be able to return home if he carried through with the plan. Key Lourna, as he called it, was one of the smaller gateways in the sector, typically called a Service Station. It was designed to transport small ships for repair jobs in other sectors back when the idea of bridging the Alorian Galaxy’s vast worlds together seemed like a noble idea. My, how those progressive ideals seemed to backfire in a gloriously unfortunate way. He might not have ever pulled the trigger on escaping, but his idea to flee had not faded in all that time. If the Replicade could survive the jump then they might be able to see tomorrow. Maybe it was a happy accident, he thought. It was almost as if fate had seen this moment coming.
23
Anki
Plans were fluid. It was what the Luthian Navy taught its sailors and marines in training. If you thought your plan was solid then you were wrong. Case in point, everything that was happening since the Seratora’s klaxons sounded. She thought she was safe, but she was wrong. She thought she could fight the enemy who had taken control of her ship, but she was wrong. She thought she could flee, but her transport was intercepted. It may or may not have saved her life, but the fact remained that her plan had failed. She saw an armed Greshian and her training took over, she shot at him using all of her skills and resources, but in the end she failed to carry out her mission. The fight ended in her surrender, one she knew was dishonorable to her people. She had been thrust into war to die for Luthia, not to concede to the enemy, yet here she was, fighting to survive with a Greshian at the helm of the ship she found herself on. To fathom the idea that both he and she were alive on the same ship wormed its way through her mind in the most annoying sense imaginable. When Brendle used her crashed transport to hail for assistance, she thought he was insane. She knew they were destined to die on that moon, the burning remains of the Seratora keeping them company until they breathed there last. His plan had the beginnings of a well executed rescue mission. A ship landed, yes, but now they were in more danger than they had been initially. Now, as she knelt next to Malikea as he held onto his husband for dear life, she saw the next phase of their would-be captain coming into play.
Brendle wanted to take a barely functioning warship through a small Service Station in hopes of transporting to another sector. The Replicade was at least twice the size and mass of the repair transports which used to frequent the Service Stations. His idea bordered on suicide, she thought. The worst thing was she couldn’t think of a better plan that might save them. So here she was, riding a ship piloted by a man who served her enemy, and wishing him the best of luck in her heart because her lips couldn’t stand the taste of those words. Plans were fluid indeed.
“Are they still following us?” Malikea asked her. She had no idea, but she understood that he didn’t feel comfortable asking Brendle. The reminder of their argument still sat chilling in her fingers. She looked at Brendle’s gun and wondered if he knew how easy it would be for her to pull the trigger. She wondered why she didn’t, but quickly pushed past the thought and back to the question at hand.
“Brendle, is the Telran still chasing us?” Anki asked. Malikea leaned forward next to her, his arm nudging against hers.
Without turning around he said, “Yeah, more or less. It’s hard for them to get a lock with all these mountains, but I can’t keep these kinds of maneuvers up for long. This ship wasn’t designed for evading and I’m more than a little worried we might rip the wings off if we aren’t careful.” Sweat was beading on his forehead and upper lip. The moisture reflected the lights from t
he console and made his face seem to shine from the glow.
She noted how he kept saying “we”. It was at least a little comforting knowing she wasn’t completely alone; even if her companions were an odd Lechun couple who practiced a dead religion and, for lack of a better term, a Greshian fugitive. “What do you propose?” She silently hoped he had a plan, but hope was an expensive commodity, and the price wasn’t one she wanted to pay with regret.
Brendle shook his head almost as if he was arguing with himself. “If we can build up enough speed then I think we should shoot straight up and out of atmosphere, burn hard past the debris field of your ship, and hope there’s enough distortion where they can’t track us.”
It was cold how he referred to the debris field of her ship. Anki wiped away a fledgling tear from her eye and swallowed down her emotions. Now wasn’t the time. The Seratora was lost and there was no changing that, but if he could save them, that was enough. She could grieve the Sera later.
“Isn’t that dangerous?” Malikea asked.
Brendle turned to look at the man. “Very, but it’s more dangerous for them, The Telran is too heavy to follow us in a straight line. If nothing else, it could buy us a little time. What do you say? It’s your ship technically.” Anki thought she could see a smile forming on Brendle’s lips, but it might have been the way the lighting hit his face.
Malikea looked at her, the signs of worry etched hard on his pale gray face. “What do you think, Anki?” he asked; his yellow eyes wide, eager for her to tell him what was right.
With every fiber of her being she couldn’t understand why the question was coming back to her. It struck her that Malikea might trust her more than he trusted Brendle, but that didn’t make her an expert in piloting a ship. The only thing she knew at the moment was that she didn’t want to die. Whatever helped her achieve that goal was all right by her. “It’s your ship, but I think Brendle has a good plan for getting us out of here alive,” Anki said. The words “good plan” echoed in her mind for a moment, questioning her sanity.
All eyes were on her. Did she make the right choice in trusting Brendle? She could only hope so. If it was any consolation, at least they weren’t dead yet. That was her buy-in for following his lead. At least we aren’t dead yet. It sounded ridiculous when she thought about it, but she couldn’t find the strength to take it back.
“Do what you need to do,” Malikea said. He nodded at Brendle. She took it as a symbol of understanding shared between the two of them. Anki had no idea where that understanding would go if they made it through the gateway, but for now all she could think about was getting to that point.
“All right, hold on everybody,” Brendle said as he braced himself next to the console. Gravity increased exponentially over the course of several seconds. Anki could feel the blood draining from her face and everything was becoming a blurry version of the world. She heard the groans of a masculine voice behind her, or beside her, she couldn’t conceive direction anymore. All she knew was that flying hurt, a lot. She began to pass out, the world coming to life in intermittent bursts of blurred blues. The pressures were extreme to the point she couldn’t even turn her head. Why did I agree to support Brendle? This is what I get for trusting the enemy, she thought between moments of her world going black.
24
Brendle
The mind is a powerful thing. It didn’t matter that there was no such thing as turbulence in the dark, or that the rumble of the engine had faded once they broke orbit. For Brendle, the Replicade was shaking under his control, fighting for elevation as it seared through the debris field of what was left of the Seratora. It had been the ship Anki was on and now it was gone, depleted of life and fizzling out as the radiated portions of the debris cooled in vacuum. He had seen the ship go nova, but now that he knew a survivor the spectacle of it had waned. The only interest it held for him now was not in the relative beautify in the way it burned, but at all the ways it could damage the Replicade and cause them to meet the same demise.
His hands were sweaty and he was getting nervous that his grip on the console might slip as he maneuvered the ship, zigzagging between larger portions of the Seratora’s remains. He was aided by the large monitors on the ship alerting him of the hazards as the Replicade reached out, burning through the dark being its only escape plan, but the execution was all up to him.
It occurred to him, after a time, that he didn’t hear anyone speaking anymore. Even the light conversation of two people whispering was silenced. He dared a look behind him and saw the bodies of Anki, Deis, and Malikea unconscious on the deck. Worried, he fumbled through a secondary console and scrolled his fingers across the screen. “Come on, where are you?” he said out loud, but no one was listening. Several pages of data went past as he glanced from console to console, monitoring the trajectory of the ship while also searching for the auto-pilot program. He found the file, but it was text only. “Shit,” he said, opening the file with a keyboard application projected in front of him. As luck would have it, the file actually had a speech function. He selected it.
“Ship, I have three personnel unconscious on the bridge. I need a health diagnostics. Execute,” he snapped, his hands falling back to the console to avoid what looked like a burning transport.
The projected display blinked obnoxiously, but he could tell it was the ship’s artificial intelligence waiting to respond. The text followed soon after. “Replicade AI detects three personnel casualties in varying states of criticality. One female, unconscious with light breathing; none threatening situation. Cause of casualty was drop in blood pressure. Heart rate and blood pressure are normalizing. One male, unconscious with light breathing; non threatening situation. Cause of casualty was drop in blood pressure. Heart rate and blood pressure normalizing. One male, unconscious with staggered breathing; criticality to life is fluctuating. Cause of casualty was blunt trauma to the head causing swelling in the brain. Heart rate and blood pressure waning. Recommend expedient transfer of personnel to medical bay for class three first aid. Would you like for Replicade AI to assist?”
The screen was full of all kinds of useful information. The first two casualties were negligible, but the third casualty could mean loss of life if Brendle didn’t do something quick. “Ship, I kind of have my hands full right now. Is there a way you can wake up one of the others and have them take Deis down to the medical bay?”
The icon blinked again, but the response was faster this time. “Replicade AI is unable to function as you desire. The interfaces between Replicade AI and manual control of the ship’s interior have been offline since the drive initiation prior to flight.”
“Figures,” Brendle said. All the rush in bypassing the safety protocols meant Anki probably ripped out the interface when she yanked out the wiring in the bulkhead. Half the wires were still jutting out like hairs on a wild animal. “Ship, can you take control of the ship’s flight control systems and get us through the debris field?”
“Replicade AI does have access to exterior flight surfaces and engine thrust control capabilities. This does not afford the piloting software the ability to perform maneuvers beyond collision prevention and sustained flight path. Is this suitable?”
Brendle read the message and stifled a laugh. “Yes, ship, that is suitable for now. Please, take control and maintain present heading.”
“There is a flight path available with lower risk of collision. Do you wish to change course?”
A new flight path appeared on the screen, banking the Replicade hard left, reducing speed, and allowing the Telran to be in range for a lock. Not no, but hell no, Brendle thought. “Negative, ship, maintain present course, no deviations from set heading.”
“Acknowledged,” the screen read. Brendle wondered if it would have sounded sarcastic if the interface allowed him to have speech and audio hadn’t been disrupted. It was a thought he shook out of his head as he ran over to Anki and Malikea. If he could get one of them awake then they could help with Deis.
Brendle stopped at Anki first, shaking her by the shoulder, “Anki, wake up,” he said until she finally stirred. She looked groggy, but that was to be expected, he thought as he moved over to Malikea. Anki sat up and rubbed her forehead while Brendle stirred Malikea awake. Lucky for Brendle, the other man was more alert after Brendle touched him.
“How long was I out?” Anki asked, but her question went unanswered as Malikea sat up.
“I need your help getting Deis to the medical bay,” Brendle ordered. Both Anki and Malikea looked over as Deis. The shallow rise and fall of his chest wasn’t a good sign. “I’ll grab his arms and you take his feet,” he said.
Malikea wasted no time climbing to his feet to help, stepping over his husband and kneeling down to grab his ankles. “I’m ready,” Malikea said.
Brendle nodded as he reached for Deis’ wrists. “Anki, I need you to make sure there’s nothing between us and the med bay.”
She was already standing. “Got it,” she replied as she jogged hurriedly off the bridge and down a passageway.
The ship was only three decks, with the bridge on the top deck and the crew cabins on the second deck along with the medical bay and galley. The lower, third deck, was reserved for the engineering spaces and machine shops. The aft portion of the ship was for cargo and could be accessed from the first and third decks. The fact that most ships were designed relatively the same was a good thing, Brendle thought. The bad thing is that getting a full-grown man down a ladder well without a stretcher was difficult. He wished he had sent Anki for a stretcher first, but in the name of expedience neglected to do so. Whatever damage had been done, it was too late now. Brendle and Malikea laid Deis on the open medical table and straightened out his body.
