Stollar's Gambit

by Jason Borondy

  “No,” he replied.

  The alien cocked its head to one side. “What do you mean, no?”

  “I mean I am not going to tell you what happened. What sort of species abandons their own for 22 years?” he said in a defiant tone.

  “That is our business and doesn't concern you. We don't have to explain ourselves to lower lifeforms. Just give me the answer,” it demanded.

  So, it thinks of us as a lower life form. Then all of a sudden, the world began to spin and a wave of nausea hit him. He knew that feeling.

  “Did we just jump?” he asked.

  An alarm cut out the alien's chance to answer.

  “What is that?” he asked.

  “Seems like we have encountered more of your species,” it replied.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  The alien walked over to the wall to the captain’s left and placed a hand on the wall. The room dimmed, and where the alien previously stood, a holographic image appeared.

  The image was of a Shenyang class destroyer.

  This was the latest class of destroyers. They were sleek, with no exterior Displacement drives. It has two sub-light engines flanking aft sides of the main body. The forward two dorsal 10 Petawatt class laser turrets on the hammerhead shaped starship were active and targeting the ship. He could see the green dots filling the barrels of cannons. That was the only color he could see, since the actual beams were invisible.

  “Is this your best?” the alien asked with its gloved hand reaching out towards the image.

  “Does it make a difference if it is?”

  “No.”

  Suddenly a ball of blue light hurled towards the destroyer. It struck dead center. Then the ship seemed to go dead as all the running lights went out and it began listing to port.

  “More resources to study and process,” it said as the light came back up and the image disappeared.

  Magnuson didn't like the sound of that. It meant that the crew of the destroyer would be going through this same process. He did notice one word in the alien's sentence.

  “What did you mean by resources?” The captain asked.

  The alien walked back towards Magnuson and said, “You need not worry about that now.”

  Fear overtook Magnuson--now what were they going to do to him? “Why shouldn’t I? Plus, you haven't answered what you did with my crew!”

  The alien approached Magnuson getting closer than before. “You don't need to worry about that now. We will find a place for you,” it said reaching for something behind the captain’s head.

  Scared, he said, “I thought you needed information.”

  “Not really, we got the information earlier. I just wanted to see how you would react. It helps us for when we gather more resources on our way to your Earth.”

  The chair made a click sound as the alien pressed a button outside of Magnuson’s view. Then a pinch of pain struck his neck. Quickly the room began to spin again, before he lost consciousness.

  9

  Tigershark Cockpit

  Grand Isle System

  “That wasn’t much rest,” David said to himself. He had slept maybe four hours. The whole time change from Earth to Grand Isle took longer than a day. Unfortunately, his new wingman was not going to give him too much time to get adjusted.

  “I heard that,” a voice blared into his helmet. It was Jasmine’s. “I told you if we are going to be assigned together, I am going to push you.”

  He looked to his right side and spotted the other fighter in formation next to him. He could make out Jasmine’s helmet looking over at him, but he could not make out any facial features. He just nodded and replied, “Roger that, Diamond Lead.”

  He once again put his attention to the controls of his fighter. The instrumentation was easy to make out. The panel in front of him contained screens feeding him information. One screen displayed the orientation of the fighter and another gave him information on armament levels. Also scattered across the panel were various buttons, switches, and knobs allowing inputs to the fighter systems. At his feet were attitude controls that helped in turning the fighter. On the left side of his chair was his throttle controls and on the right was his control stick. Fortunately for him, the Hornet’s Tigersharks were upgraded with new flight hardware and software. Now all info was fed into his pressurized flight suit. Green and yellow indicators lit up the clear glass of his visor. This allowed him to focus on what was around him without having to look down at instruments.

  David looked squarely ahead. They were in orbit of Grand Isle, a water planet that had a few large islands visibly scattered about. He turned his head back to the right and gazed at what made Grand Isle unique, its large debris ring. From his in-transit briefing, he remembered that when it was discovered that the planet initially had three small moons, but somewhere along its formation they collided. Now they were mainly floating in a ring pattern around the planet.

  “Hey rookie, focus!” Jasmine screamed at him through the radio.

  David’s attention snapped back. He hadn’t noticed he was drifting towards her fighter. He gave a small, quick move to the left on his stick and a couple of the reaction control thrusters fired. This got the fighter back into the right position.

  “Sorry,” he said looking over shrugging his shoulders.

  “This job requires total focus. The minute you get distracted you are dead. Understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, now let’s get to our destination for the day shall we, rookie?”

  “Yes. Also how long are you keep going to call me rookie?” he asked

  “Until I can find the proper call-sign for you. It’s tradition. Until then you will be referred to as rookie. Now follow me,” she answered.

  David sighed and pulled his fighter into formation behind Jasmine’s. “But I don’t think I caught what your call-sign was?”

  “You’re right,” she replied.

  He got the feeling she wasn’t going to give him a straight answer to his question. Looking ahead, he followed Jasmine’s fighter. The SF-19 had a singular engine that glowed blue, and right now this was pretty much his only focus.

  It only took them a few minutes at the pace Jasmine was setting for their destination to come in view. It was the orbital mining station that was placed in orbit just outside of the ring of Grand Isle’s ring. The station was impressive. It consisted of three rings that were connected by a center column. This is where the precious material from the debris field was processed after being retrieved from the ring. The closer they got to the station, David could make out one of the tugs hauling a chunk of moon in a retrieval net to the station.

  “Impressive, eh, rookie?” Jasmine said.

  “Yes, very” David replied.

  “This is the reason the Hornet’s group is somewhat permanently stationed here to patrol. The resources in these moon fragments are worth trillions back home.”

  “What are we guarding it from really? The Invaders? No one has seen any sign of them in over twenty plus years,” he asked.

  “There are pirates that every once in awhile, try to take stuff from the ring.”

  “Pirates? Seriously? Like the peg-legged variety?” he mocked.

  “No, like the hijack-and-kill-the-tug-crew variety,” she replied in a stern voice, “It’s not a joke.”

  He felt like sinking into his seat. “Wow, that’s horrible.”

  “It is. Now let’s take a quick pass around the station and head back to the Hornet.”

  Suddenly a red dot appeared on David’s helmet’s display. The map came up and showed what could be an unidentified ship on the other side of the ring. “Did you see that?” he asked.

  “Speak of the devil, we might have a Bogey,” she said. He heard a click in his helmet. “Hornet, this is Diamond Lead. It looks like we have a possible undefined craft location 3.15. Permission to investigate. Over.”

  “Diamond Lead, this is the Hornet, permission granted. Be careful.” The CAG
responded.

  “Will do. Out,” she replied. “Okay, rookie, how is your asteroid avoidance flying? Because we are going through the belt.”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to go up and over or under?” He asked.

  “It would but we can get there faster going through. Just keep on my tail and you will be fine. Ready?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “No.”

  Jasmine’s fighter began to thrust forward towards the belt of debris. David applied power to his fighter to match speed just enough to keep a safe maneuvering distance behind. As they approached the belt, he could make out the pieces in detail. The pieces varied in size and shape. From tiny basketball-sized rocks to starship-sized rocks. “Why would she think this was a safe thing to do?” he thought.

  “Alright, we are approaching the boundary. Stay tight,” she said.

  Her words didn’t relax him at all, but he followed commands. As her fighter dodged, he would dodge. The smaller pieces were hard. They were moving with greater speed than the larger ones.

  “Oh crap!” he yelled. Two small pieces of rock slammed into each other above him sending debris in all directions. He could hear small kinking sounds as the smaller debris rained against the fighters hull.

  “Don’t worry, rookie. Your fighter has enough armor to withstand a few pebbles,” Jasmine stated.

  Another red blip appeared on David’s screen. He glanced for at down for a moment, it looked like there was another unidentified vessel on the screen. It appeared to be heading for a tug in the area.

  “Do you see that? It looks like a tug could be in trouble.”

  “I see it. Okay, here’s the plan. I need you to go investigate our original contact. I will handle the new threat.”

  Puzzled, he responded, “Are you sure?”

  “Yes! Just do it, rookie,” she ordered.

  Jasmine’s fighter peeled high and to the left. She maneuvered around a large rock then he lost visual contact.

  Beep! Beep! Beep! David looked back front a large rock was in his path and he was closing fast. He pulled back on the controls and gave more thrust. The nose began to point up and the fighter launched up and clear of the obstacle.

  “Yes!” he exclaimed.

  Bam! The fighter began to spin out of control. The fighter defiantly struck something bigger than a pebble. He fought to regain control. Alarms where blaring and red-light indicators were flashing though out the cockpit indicating multiple failures. The fighter didn’t want to stabilize--it must have lost some of the control thrusters. Then a word began to flash in red across his visor EJECT, EJECT, EJECT. He reached for the handle, but as he looked up, he spotted a large piece of moon speeding at him. He closed his eyes, and everything went dark.

  “Okay, that’s it!” A muffled voice said. Lights came on and David raised the visor of his Virtual Reality helmet. The transition from the simulation environment to normal light made his eyes hurt for a second. When he could see he spotted Jasmine standing in front of the simulation pod. Her arms were crossed, and her expression was that of total disappointment.

  “What did I tell you?” she asked.

  “Always pay attention,” he answered looking at the ground of the sim-pod. He was angry at himself. He was better than this. He continued, “Why did you send me on my own anyways? Isn’t protocol to stay together?”

  “Yes, did you ask to stay with me? Did you try to stop me? No. You just went with the flow. In situations like that you need to speak up more.”

  David looked back to meet her stare and replied, “I understand. It won’t happen again.”

  “It better not, but at least based on that performance I was able to come up with a call-sign for you.” She said with a smile.

  “What?”

  “Rock Hound.”

  He rolled his eyes, “Really?”

  “Yes really,” she pointed at his head gear. “Now get that stuff back on. Time to run you through some more tests.”

  David sighed and lowered the helmet.

  10

  EDS Little Rock

  Interstellar Jump Point Three

  The door hissed as it opened. Jessica stepped into the meeting room. Like most rooms on the Little Rock, it was small, with cold metal gray walls that had a few pictures hanging on them. Most of the pictures were of the Little Rock at various points in its service. The only picture not of the Little Rock was on the far wall. It was a picture of the Roosevelt with a plaque the read, “Never Forget.” Not possible, she thought to herself.

  In the center of the room was a black metal table. Eight individuals stood at attention flanking each side of the table waiting for her.

  “As you were, everyone,” she said, giving them a wave.

  The crew members sat back down and pulled in their seats towards the table. Jessica pulled out the seat at the head of the table. The chair screeched as the from the legs scraped across the metal floor. She sat down and scooted her seat closer to the table.

  Jessica surveyed the people at the table. To her right sat her XO Lieutenant Commander Sinclair. To his right, the Little Rock's tactical officer, Lieutenant Zang Wei. He was a thin man, with jet black hair and brown eyes. He was wearing wire-rimmed glasses, which he didn't normally wear on the bridge.

  To Zang's right was a young woman with chestnut-colored hair and tanned complexion. It was Ensign Kai Hunter, the ship's helm officer. She was new to the EDF right out of the academy. She was staring straight at Jessica eagerly waiting for her to say something.

  “Evening, everyone,” she started and noticed someone was missing, “I see most of us are here.” She glanced at her XO.

  “Oh, yeah, sorry,” he said looking at the empty seat and then back to the captain, “the doctor couldn't meet us on time--he had a last-minute patient check into the infirmary.”

  “Nothing serious, I hope,” she replied in a concerned tone, “When we are done here, please get me an update on the status of the patient.”

  “Will do, Captain,” he said and then scribbled a note town on his tablet.

  “Okay, so the main reason I called you all together is to do an initial meet and greet.” She put her hand up anticipating the question the young ensign was going to ask. “I know a few of us have been together for a while, but I wanted to wait until Lieutenant Commander Sinclair was on board before we had our formal meet and greet.”

  “So why am I here?” questioned the man at the far-left end of the table. “I am not part of the bridge crew.”

  Jessica turned to the individual asking the question. He was wearing black fatigues and sporting a buzz cut. She also noticed a scar that ran along right side of his head above the ear. She wondered how he got it.

  “The Marines are a valuable asset to this ship’s security. Major Thompson, even though you are not part of the ship’s command, I consider you and the Marines an important part of this crew,” she replied.

  The doorbell to the room buzzed. Jessica turned to the door and said, “Enter.”

  The door opened and three people pushing carts entered the room. On the carts were trays of food, drinks, plates, and utensils.

  Jessica pointed to the wall behind the XO. “Just line the carts up over. We can serve ourselves, thanks.”

  “Yes, Captain,” one of the men answered as his placed a cart against the wall.

  Once carts were set, the three individuals departed the room. “Go ahead, grab some food,” she said, gesturing to the spread.

  Isaiah leaned over to Jessica and asked, “When did you have time to coordinate this? I could have done this for you.”

  “Before you arrived. Oh, don't worry, from now on, you will,” she replied with a smile.

  Minutes later everyone had plates of food and returned to the table. They began eating. The room was quiet. Uncomfortably quiet, Jessica thought. She felt that she needed to do something to get the ball rolling. She turned to her ensign and asked, “Ensign Hunter, how was your wedding?”

  The
woman almost choked on her food. She coughed and brought up her napkin and wiped her mouth. Jessica could see she was unprepared by the question.

  “It was wonderful, ma’am,” she replied, “just wish I had more leave to spend with her.”

  “Was it a traditional Cherokee wedding?” Jessica asked while using her fork to get another piece of steak.

  “No, unfortunately just a quick Justice of the Peace ceremony. My parents didn't really approve of my lifestyle choice,” Kai replied.

  Jessica was surprised by the comment. She didn’t think people thought that way anymore.

  “It’s your decision on who you love, not your parents,” Senior Chief McKnight stated after taking a sip of her drink. “Then again, I have two failed marriages, who am I to give love advice?”

  “Is she in the service too?” Jessica asked.

  “Yes, she is an engineer.”

  “You couldn't get a joint assignment?” she asked while cutting another portion of steak.

  Kai sighed. “No, not yet. It takes time to go through the process.”

  “Maybe I can help. What ship is she on? Maybe I could talk to the captain,” she asked, putting the fork with a piece of steak in her mouth.

  “She is on the Spruance,” Kai answered.

  Jessica began to cough on the piece of steak as it began to go down the wrong tube. “Not the Spruance,” she thought. Ignoring the fact that the XO was jumping out of his chair about ready to perform the Heimlich maneuver on her.

  She put her hand up to stop him and said, “I am fine--it just went down the wrong tube.”

  Kai looked confused, “Did I say something wrong?”

  “No, Ensign. It's just the captain of that ship and I don't have the greatest of relationships.” She took a sip of water and continued. “I will still see what I can do. Okay?”

  “Yes. Thank you, ma'am,” she replied giving a smile.

  Jessica turned to the individual sitting in between McKnight and Thompson. He had dirty blond hair and blue eyes. Borderline overweight for standards. His gray flight suit had some black grease stains, and a blue-and-yellow Swedish flag patch was sewn on his right shoulder. He was eating quickly. Jessica was wondering if he was taking breaths between bites. She couldn’t believe this man oversaw her engines. It is amazing they are still running, she thought.