Outcast

by Guerin Zand

  “Of course we will. We talked with Isabelle and we’ll be helping with all the Earth accounts.” I could see by the look on Crystal’s face that the ladies had found a way to cut me out of the deal. I thought if they helped Isabelle out they could funnel some funds to me, but they found out I wasn’t really needed in that equation. Oh well.

  “If that’s what the two of you want. I’m ok with it.”

  Crystal walked over to me and kissed me on the cheek. “We’ll be seeing you around then.” Cheyenne also gave me a little peck as the two headed for the door.

  Prima had just arrived, and the ladies exchanged greetings as they passed each other. I wasn’t sure what she was doing at my quarters. I was probably going to be in some trouble for that as well.

  “Are you ready to go?” Prima asked.

  “Yes.” I slung my go bag over my shoulder.

  “Would you like me to carry that for you?”

  I looked at Prima, and with nothing better in my repertoire of looks, I simply shook my head once more. I couldn’t help but thinking of the times on Earth when the little teenage bag girls at the grocery store would ask me if I needed help. Seriously? Was I using a walker? Sometimes they would get testy because I refused their help, but it was insulting. Ok, I was getting old back then, and I could only dream of having one of those little hotties help me out, but did they know how old that made me feel? The worst was one time, I was probably only in my 30’s, and the bag girl must have been in her 80’s at least. I couldn’t believe how pathetic I must have looked for this old lady to think I needed help with my groceries.

  “I got it. Let’s go.”

  We left my quarters and Prima piloted the waiting transport pad to the main level. We took the elevator to the spaceport and we both boarded the Vengeance. It was still early, and we were the only ones onboard except for Senri. She hadn’t left the shuttle the whole time we were on the Earth ship that I knew of. I dropped off my go bag in the Captain’s quarters and I met Prima and Senri in the galley for breakfast.

  After our meal, Prima showed me her crew manifest for our voyage. She had taken it upon herself to assign quarters to all the people who would be traveling on our shuttle.

  “I’ve assigned quarters to all the marines and I have them bunking two to a room as you requested. They’ve already moved their personal gear into their assigned quarters and I worked with Tim to get the other gear stored in our cargo hold. The other members of the crew have been assigned quarters close to yours, except for Julie. I put her in the quarters the farthest from yours, as you asked.”

  “Great. So, I guess you’ve taken on the role of cruise director now?”

  “What does that mean, Guerin?”

  “Don’t worry about it, Prima. I’ll explain it to you when we have some free time. Maybe we can watch a few old episodes of the Love Boat and you’ll see.”

  “Ok. I’ll escort our VIPs to their quarters as they board.”

  “Thanks. Senri, is everything good on the shuttle? Did you get all the supplies you needed?”

  “Yes. We’re fully stocked, but if I have to take any more shit from that dockmaster I’m going to kill him.”

  I smiled at Senri. “He’s a real prick, isn’t he?”

  “That’s an understatement. I don’t know how you can deal with those Bree assholes.” Senri enjoyed the colorful English language. I think she read the Urban Dictionary every night to come up with a new phrase of the day. “Just keep them off my ass, ok?”

  “That shouldn’t be much of a problem. The only Bree were taking with us is Julie, and I plan on making her stay as miserable as possible. You can join in and help with that if you want.” We both laughed. That got me thinking. Perhaps Senri could arrange for a waste recycling malfunction in Julie’s quarters at some point.

  A few hours later, the marines and the rest of our crew were on board and settled in. The other three shuttles had already left for our home solar system and the Vengeance was the last scheduled to depart. I had joined Senri on the lower deck in the central control area that I always referred to as the command center. We were getting ready to depart when the dockmaster’s annoying voice came over the comm system. He wanted to walk us through the proper shuttle protocols for departure. I had Senri pipe it through the entire ship.

  “Shuttle 04-2983243723-2718. You are cleared for departure. Proceed along the flight path highlighted on your navigation display.”

  I looked at Senri. I smiled and shook my head to signal her to ignore the message.

  “Shuttle 04-2983243723-2718. You are cleared for departure. Proceed along the flight path highlighted on your navigation display.” You could hear the tinge of irritation in his voice.

  Senri and I just ignored him and continued to chuckle.

  “Mr. Zand. Did you hear me?”

  It took a second to stop chuckling before I responded. “What do you want.”

  “Did you not hear my instructions for shuttle 04-2983243723-2718 to prepare to depart?”

  “Yes.” It was really hard to not just bust out laughing.

  “Well, are you going to follow those instructions?”

  “No. Why would we?”

  “Mr. Zand, what is the problem?”

  “We don’t have any problems. We’re just waiting for clearance for the Vengeance to depart. I assume you don’t want us to get in the way of shuttle 04-2983243723-2718.”

  “You are shuttle 04-2983243723-2718, you idiot.”

  “No. We are the shuttle Vengeance. Is that designation too difficult for you to remember?”

  Senri and I were really enjoying ourselves. Hopefully, the marines and the others onboard were enjoying it as well. We were just getting started with this prick.

  “Vengeance. You are cleared for departure. Proceed along the flight path highlighted on your navigation display.”

  “Roger that,” I replied as I signaled Senri to start taking us out of the spaceport.

  “The proper response, Mr. Zand, is affirmative.”

  “That’s what I said. You should check your English download. You obviously did not translate our response properly.”

  “Vengeance. You are exceeding the suggested velocity for travel within the spaceport.”

  “It’s only a suggested velocity, right?”

  “There are reasons for those suggestions, Mr. Zand.”

  “Well, since you didn’t find it necessary to provide those reasons in the shuttle protocols, we have no reason why we can’t proceed at our current velocity.”

  I knew the dockmaster would try and take control of our shuttle, so I had Senri cut the remote link to the Earth ships spaceport control center. This, of course, was a little hack of ours that I was sure would get a rise out of the dockmaster.

  “Vengeance. Your link to spaceport control has been lost. Are you having technical issues on your shuttle?”

  “No. Everything’s peachy here.”

  “Did you sever the link, Mr. Zand?”

  “Is that even possible? Hold on. Let me check with our engineer.”

  Senri and I were laughing and making funny faces at each other. Seeing you could do the best dockmaster impersonation.

  “Dockmaster. Our engineer has just confirmed that it is possible.”

  At this point, the two of us just lost it. We couldn’t stop laughing.

  “Vengeance. What are you doing? That is not your assigned departure route. Reduce your velocity and return to the space assigned for your departure.” The dockmaster had taken a rather unpleasant tone with us at this point.

  Senri looked over and nodded to signal the flight path was clear. Our flight path, not the dockmaster’s.

  “Watch and learn dockmaster. We’ll show you how this should be done. You might want to hold on to something. We might leave a little ripple behind.”

  I gave Senri the signal and she opened up the FTL gravity drive to its max. The resulting ripples in local spacetime caused by this probably gave them a good shake back a
t the spaceport. Nothing serious. Just a goodbye kiss. Unfortunately, in space there is no sound, so there were no screeching wheels to be heard, and no trail of tire smoke left behind. Regardless, I’m sure the dockmaster got our message. We opened a transit portal and passed into the Earth system before the dockmaster could say another word.

  “Well done Senri. You may address the passengers now.”

  “That concludes the entertainment portion of this flight. We will be entering orbit around Ganymede in 30 seconds. I hope you all had a pleasant flight. Feel free to wander about the ship, and smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.”

  We entered orbit in the way one would expect after how we departed. Senri basically threw the FTL engines into max reverse and we essentially skidded into our pre-determined position in orbit above Ganymede. We were within a few meters of our target position.

  “You must be slipping, Senri. We missed our designated orbit by 2.712 meters. Next time try not laughing so hard.”

  Senri just smiled. “Aye aye, Captain.”

  Senri was the best pilot in the Collective. Of that, I had no doubt. The ripples in spacetime caused by our rather unorthodox approach to Ganymede were directed away from the moon and our arrival went unnoticed. I couldn’t wait to hear what the other shuttle captains thought about our navigation and piloting skills.

  Senri and I were both still laughing as I left the command center to make my way back up to the crew deck. We still had several hours before we would send the troops down to the moon’s main habitat. We had made a few adjustments to our plans after my meeting with the Council. I decided it was best to go in during the morning working hours when it appeared the targets would be more concentrated. This would reduce our presence on the surface, and by doing so, reduce our chances of being detected.

  I entered the galley where the rest of my team was waiting. My daughter looked at me, rolled her eyes, and shook her head. I waggled my eyebrows in response and we both let out a little chuckle.

  “You just couldn’t behave, could you, Dad?”

  “What? You should spend some time with Senri if you want to learn how to really fly one of these shuttles. Space travel can actually be fun if you try.” The rest of the human crew were smiling while Julie had that same old disapproving look which I liked to ignore. “Are the teams ready, Steve?”

  “All shuttles report their teams are ready and waiting for the order to go.”

  Roger was on the video link and reported that all shuttles were in position as well.

  I brought up the sensor net real-time feed. It was still very early in the morning using the moon’s local time reference. Most of the targets were still in the sleep cycle positions we had observed over the last few days. That meant they were scattered about the ship more than what we wanted. If all went as we had observed over the last few days, they’d be in the optimal position in a little less than two hours.

  We went over the plan one more time. Using the abilities the Council had granted me, I would render the Alacians on the surface unconscious. All I knew technically about this ability was it somehow blocked signals in the motor cortex of the species to be affected. Some sort of field was generated that was tuned specifically to the species to be targeted. I had the knowledge to select the species and the target area. It was obvious that my knowledge was limited to only allow me to use this on a limited number of species.

  The more areas on Ganymede I had to target meant I would need the support of more shuttles to cover all of those areas. This was why we updated the plan to wait until morning when the Alacians were typically in fewer and larger groups. After I had set up these fields, I would signal the teams to go down to the surface. Once there, they would simply put physical restraints on the Alacians just as a precaution. Then, when they were all secured, we would generate portals the teams would use to remove the unwelcomed guest from the surface and return them to their ship. We would maintain an immobilization field over the entire ship until I sent them out of the system with a transit portal.

  Everyone, of course, asked the same question. What if they ran into human resistance on the surface? From what we saw, the areas we were targeting were controlled only by the Alacians, but we couldn’t guarantee no human defense forces would be encountered. If they were, the teams were authorized to use lethal force if necessary. The best way to avoid this from happening was for the teams to move quickly and get the job done before they were discovered. The other question was, what if this immobilization field failed to perform as advertised? In that case, the teams would use lethal force against the Alacians without hesitation. We would also reinforce the teams as needed. There was no way we would know that the Alacians were unconscious before we left for the surface. We were going to have to trust our friends’ technology but be ready if it didn’t work as planned.

  After the quick briefing, Steve headed to the cargo bay where the teams were assembled. I headed to the transport room on the crew deck. From there I could initiate the immobilization fields and Maria would control the transit portals. Opening multiple transit portals in close proximity was not advised. This was why I would leave from the transport room and the teams would leave from the cargo bay.

  There was a concern that since I was the only human with the knowledge of this immobilization technology, I should not be leaving the shuttle. I reassured everyone that if we needed the other shuttles to generate more fields in areas we hadn’t planned on covering they would. Roger had the authority to order the captains of those shuttles to assist as he saw fit. Still, everyone argued I was too valuable to risk. I argued if it was such a risk we shouldn’t be sending in the less capable humans that made up the teams of marines. During the Chinese crisis, I had let Katie and her team handle Diane’s rescue because I was understandably distracted by the death of my wife. This time, I had no such distraction, and since it was my plan, I needed to do my part on the surface. All I had to do was secure the child, then do whatever was needed to allow the team in the main lab access to the secondary lab.

  The time came. The Alacians and our human targets were located where we had expected. I initiated the immobilization fields to target the Governor’s office and the main and secondary labs. We started a five-second countdown, then opened the portals and walked through to the surface. That, of course, was the end of things going according to my plan. What happened next was a bit of a blur.

  As I came out of the portal, I was instantly greeted by one of the synthetics and his blade coming at me in a most unfriendly way. My assault rifle was at the ready, but the synthetic was not cooperating. He came at me from an angle where I could not make the shot. I only had time to use the rifle to block his blade. The blade cut into the barrel of the rifle part way and got stuck. I had two hands on the rifle while my opponent only had a single hand on his blade. With a quick turning maneuver, I was able to break his grip on the blade. This pulled the synthetic forward and down. I continued my turn which put me behind my opponent. I landed a powerful blow with the butt of my rifle to the base of his neck. He went down and remained down.

  Before I could be sure the first synthetic was out of the fight, the other two from the secondary lab were just about on top of me. My rifle was useless unless I wanted to risk it blowing up in my face. One thing in my favor was that the two synthetics couldn’t fit through the doorway into the living quarters at the same time. I swung the rifle with my left hand at the one closet to me. It knocked his blade off target. I quickly reached for my 45 with my right hand as I swiveled to avoid the charging synthetic. I fired, and my shot found its mark. The second synthetic’s brain matter scattered on the glass wall in the secondary lab. The other synthetic hadn’t forgotten about me and his blade entered the lower right area of my back. I reacted, mostly due to the pain, and quickly turned to catch him in the forehead with my right elbow. It knocked him back and my right arm extended. Before he could recover fully from the blow, I fired at almost point-blank range and his head exploded. I looked down at my feet
where the first synthetic who attacked me laid. As I said, I wasn’t sure he was out of the fight. I fired one last shot to his head to make sure.

  I looked up to see this small girl staring at me with her eyes wide open. She appeared to be maybe 5 or 6 years old. She looked like she was at least part Asian from her eyes, but she had brown hair. I was partially deaf from firing the 45 in the confined space. I hadn’t thought I would need the silencer, so I didn’t attach it before leaving the ship. I was sure the little girl’s hearing was probably affected as well.

  I smiled at the girl and said, “Hey, are you ok?”

  She didn’t respond. I heard a loud noise and I looked back at the doorway. I didn’t see any more synthetics heading my way. If there were, I wouldn’t be telling this story. I should have checked before I checked on the girl. As I looked out into the lab, I saw the marines storming into the room. The noise I heard was the breaching charge they used to gain access to the secondary lab.

  As I said, most of what happened was for the most part a blur. The team had been communicating with me over the comms, but in the heat of things I hadn’t paid it any attention. They were talking to me, but it was hard to hear. My ears were just ringing. The team leader realized this and used the comm network. The interface was direct to my mind, so my hearing problems were not an issue.

  “The lab is clear sir. Let’s get you patched up. You’ve been wounded.”

  I just nodded and turned my back to them to check on the child again.

  “Are you ok? Can you hear me?”

  She nodded yes. I felt something behind me and I looked back. One of the medics in the team was sealing the wound in my back with a patch kit. He was applying a fluid, really just a fancy version of super glue, to close the wound and stop the bleeding. I left him to it, and turned my attention back to the girl.

  “My name is Guerin Zand. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?”

  She shook her head no. We both appeared to be recovering from our earlier hearing loss.

  “Really? I’m kind of famous you know. I guess you don’t get out much, huh?”