Requiem of a Nightmare

by Jeremy Spires

  “I never hand power to anyone who wants it.” I said, calmly. “It’s a good way to incite a mutiny.”

  He straightened. “Sir, I would never let that happen.” He said firmly, and I saw the truth of that statement in his eyes.

  “Good.” I pulled my own tablet out of my pocket, handing his back to him. I punched in a handful of commands. “MacKenzie, as we will be traveling aboard Vandorian ships, in a Vandorian-led military action, you and all Phelb soldiers, regardless of unit affiliation, will now be required to adhere to the uniform of the day in Vandorian uniform.” I tapped furiously, entering the command codes I needed. We needed way better communications equipment, I decided right then. “I won’t punish or penalize anyone who doesn’t immediately strip naked and change uniform, I will give all soldiers one week to acquire proper uniform from today on.” I looked up at him. “And you are out of uniform.” I said firmly.

  He looked down at the mottled tan, red and orange camouflage pattern of his uniform and touched it self-consciously. “Sir?”

  “You are hereby promoted to the rank of Major, executive officer of the 160th Special Operations battalion.” I said, finishing my data entry and looking up at him. “There is a lot of work to get us organized into a proper military unit, Major. Are you up for it?”

  He smiled broadly, the first such gesture I’d ever seen from him. “Yes sir, Colonel.” He said. I extended a hand and we shook.

  “And Major?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Don’t ever shout when I have a hang over again.”

  ---

  The fleet began to assemble at a designated point on the outer edge of the Sol system, leaving Earth and a good number of our people behind, one dreadnought and the entirety of the Phelb defense fleet to protect Earth and Falsun.

  We had tested our new subspace drives, which to my limited understanding of quantum entanglement…or was it...quantum mechanics? Anyways, we modified our ships so that they created a large, localized subspace distortion, and in some fancy science-y way, space moved around the ship instead of the ship moving through normal space.

  Yeah, yeah. I’m smarter than you, and I still don’t understand how this works. In fairness, I get paid to shoot people, not to understand how the universe works on the daily basis. Except, we don’t have a money-based economy so…I don’t really get paid. It’s an old analogy, get over it.

  I sat in my office chair, going over the latest report from Major MacKenzie, who was to be known as Major Mac from this moment forth, mostly because he hated the nickname I’d given him. Someone had even come up with an ancient fast-food poster depicting a triple-bun hamburger, doodled angry eyes and a sword onto the poster, then hung it in the mess hall. He was pissed, and I ordered that the poster remain as a gag to harass our Phelb companion. Just because we were now allied didn’t mean any of them were getting off easily.

  He’d selected a command staff for the night stalkers, and had made only one uniform request, that soldiers on the ground be allowed to wear a customary cross painted on their right shoulder. I’d agreed, it was a symbol of religion, but it was only a cross, and no prayer was to take place, so I relented and let them have their bit. We now had four Captains, two Vandorian, two Phelb, and a slew of junior officers overseeing the operations of individual units, broken up into proper platoons and companies. That would make my life so much easier.

  I summoned the Major in from his own office, adjacent to my own, and he reported promptly. “Sir?” He asked.

  “Major, what kind of zero gravity training did your Marauders have before the union?” The ‘union’ was a term we had adopted after the Phelb and Vandorian forces joined together. It was like a marriage; not perfect, but worth working on.

  “Limited, sir. We didn’t have much use for training outside our ships as much of our fighting was to be done on the ground. We all have basic abilities like keeping ourselves from spinning out of control on basic maneuvers.”

  I exhaled. With Ivata off the ship, I’d have to train them myself if I wanted more space-diving soldiers. “Major, without offense, I think if we need to go EV we’re going to have to use only Vandorian soldiers. We all have extensive combat training in zero gravity.”

  He nodded once. “Makes perfect sense, sir.” He raised a brow. “Have you ever made a space dive?”

  “Only in training.” I replied with a grin. He frowned.

  “Sir…how old are you?”

  “Twenty-five.” I smirked. “You’re thirty-one, correct?”

  “Yes sir. I just keep finding surprises in the training from such a young age, and so many are useful. Your unit was more effective against any ten of ours, is that just because you have trained for so many years?”

  “No,” I said, leaning back and putting my feet up on my desk. “It’s really because we were backed into a corner. This isn’t to start an argument,” I gestured at him to sit and he sank into the chair across from me. “But you figure this: We left Earth to escape. Then Mars, then Pluto. When we found Vandor, the idea was that we would just lay low and avoid any action with the Phelbs. But then you found us, when I was just a teenager. That’s what prompted us to create the night stalkers, because we were backed into a corner.”

  “And you never corner a frightened animal.” He said, nodding.

  “Exactly,” I replied. “We were caged animals and when you hit us and drove us off our world, we simply weren’t ready. When we came back, however…” I grinned.

  He nodded. “I was supposed to be part of a second and third wave. We were ordered to capture technology and try to reverse-engineer it for our use.” He grinned back at me. “That didn’t go so well.”

  “Major, it’s all water under the bridge now. We are allies, and I won’t hold it against you.” I said. “Now we need to focus on survival.”

  The jump alarm sounded overhead, and the deck of the ship shuttered and then smoothed out once more. I sighed. “Major, we’ll have to cut this short, the fleet obviously located a target.”

  Chapter Four

  ---

  Starship Shadow of Eternity

  Oort cloud, Sol system, outer boundary

  When I arrived on the bridge, it was a hub of controlled chaos. I found Mallory standing at the rail that separated the command chair from the lower level operation center.

  “What are we hunting?” I asked as I stepped up next to her. “Gilbaglians, I trust?”

  “Sensor echo.” She replied absently, working furiously on a console. “I think it’s those destroyers.”

  The destroyers she mentioned were the ones that had hung around the edge of the system for the last three weeks, had launched the operation to capture the fetuses of our women.

  “Assault plans?” I asked, looking over her shoulder. “Any chance of a capture?”

  “Possibly, if we can catch them.” The Gilbaglians used different technology than ours, using a micro-singularity to alter space-time and by extension move their ships. Again, I don’t get paid to understand how that shit works.

  “Contact, contact, contact!” The sensor officer bellowed suddenly. The bridge lights darkened to red and the ship shivered as it altered course suddenly, then dropping out of subspace for a microsecond before launching itself back into the other-dimensional realm. “Four ships, Gilbaglian design.” The officer continued. “They are dropping out of subspace. Powering weapons!”

  “Bring us past them by three hundred million kilometers!” Mallory barked. “Raise shields, power weapons. Open missile pods one through thirty-five.”

  The carrier shuddered as it dropped out of subspace travel, then the engines roared at full power for a bone-rattling forty seconds as the fleet accelerated to flank speed and pointed their bows at the enemy destroyer squadron.

  “Enemy firing!” The sensor officer shouted.

  “Now we get to see if these new shields will do the trick.” Mallory said, glancing at me. I must have had a strange look, because she paused and stared
at me. “Are you all right?” She asked with concern evident in her eyes.

  “I do not like,” I said, letting my body move with the deck as the big carrier rocked under the blows of the Gilbaglian weapons. “Standing here while space craft fire at each other.”

  “You’re welcome to stand outside,” She snapped at me in exasperation. “Or you can quietly stand there until we need to board or land some of those ships.” She turned. “Status report?”

  I didn’t mind her harsh tone. She was, after all, my commanding officer, and my wife. She had final say in most things except for ground combat. And risky insertion operations, like the one to capture the frigate. “Shields are holding,” The sensor operator replied. “No damage reported. It looks like the upgrades are holding, ma’am.”

  The doors hissed open behind me and I turned to see MacKenzie rushing towards me, tablet in hand. I stepped away from Mallory and held out a hand. “What is it?” I said in a lowered voice.

  “Two of those destroyers are carrying human remains,” He said excitedly, pointing at the sensor images. I studied the display closely and without a word to him I spun back to face Mallory.

  “Admiral,” I called over the din of the bridge as the fleet opened fire. “I need units…” I looked at the tablet again for the fleet’s designation of the two ships. “Units two and four to survive.”

  She looked at me. “Would you like fries with that?” She asked.

  “No, they’re carrying human remains.” He held out the tablet for her inspection. “I need to get aboard and find out what they’re doing with human remains aboard. It could also be an opportunity to capture two destroyers for conversion or dissection.”

  She nodded. “What do you want to do?”

  I looked at MacKenzie. “If you can disable their engines and shields I will send teams to assault both destroyers at once.”

  She stared at me for a long moment then nodded. “Alright, go.”

  I didn’t hesitate, I turned and headed for the elevator. “MacKenzie,” I said, and he fell into step beside me. “I’m going to need you to lead team two. We’re going to need one hundred men.”

  “Teams are ready for deployment.” He acknowledged. “As soon as we got word that the fleet was chasing Gilbaglian ships, we started preparing. Most should be loaded, they’re just waiting on us, sir.”

  I nodded. Having a second in command was nice, since this was all logistical crap that I honestly did not have time for.

  “Let’s not keep them waiting,” I said, stepping into the elevator. I activated my communications. “Valentine to Kelis.”

  “Go ahead, sir.”

  I hesitated. I’d read the report, but I didn’t remember what rank he was now. It didn’t really matter, I was in charge anyways, but I still tried to honor my soldiers properly. “What rank are you now?”

  Kelis chuckled. “Lieutenant, sir.”

  “Good. Alright, Lieutenant, I want you and the Vandorians sealed up for a void jump on target alpha.” I tapped my communicator, updated my briefing packet as I spoke. “I don’t want another attempt on a docking bay landing after last time.” The last time we’d boarded a Gilbaglian ship, I’d gotten people killed and nearly died myself. “I want the Marauders ready for a hangar landing on target bravo.” I glanced over at MacKenzie. “Does that meet with your approval, Major?”

  He nodded, paused, then nodded again. “It is the best idea we can have.” He touched a finger to his chin. “When this engagement is over, I would like to start training the marauders on void jumping.”

  “I agree.” I replied, then turned my attention back to Kelis. “Lieutenant, we are on our way to the hangar. Is our equipment available?”

  “Yes, Colonel, your gear is here and being checked out by the technical staff.” Kelis replied.

  “Excellent news.” I clicked off and glanced up at the floor indicator in silence with MacKenzie for a long moment. It was about a three-minute ride down to the hangar deck, and now there was nothing to do but wait. I exhaled a few breaths and pushed the fear from my mind, the fear that always came from knowing I was going into combat. I’d been trained for combat, ready for it and…

  MacKenzie moved and my eyes snapped to him and I was treated to the disgusting image of him vomiting onto the floor of the elevator.

  “Dude come on.” I groaned. “Seriously?”

  “Nerves.” He grunted, wiping his mouth.

  “Seriously?” I asked again, reaching out to the wall and touching a command for a cleaning robot to emerge from the wall and begin cleaning up the disgusting mess. “I mean, come on, you’re a special operations soldier, what the actual fuck, Major?”

  He glanced at me. “Like you don’t get sick before missions.”

  “Do I look sick?” I demanded. “They actually taught me to deal with it. Are you telling me you’re afraid to die?”

  MacKenzie blinked. “Aren’t you?”

  “I’ve been dead since I signed up for the night stalkers.” I laughed. “I just haven’t laid down in my hole yet.”

  “And they said that the Phelb Empire was evil in their training.” The Major looked over at me. “I admire that, Colonel.”

  “Admire someone else.” I shook my head and stepped around the cleaning bot. “Because that was gross.” The doors opened, and I walked briskly to where two techs were working on checking out my space suit, which was a combat-rated unit, thin and flexible and ready for action. It was fitted with a chemical thruster pack, with a small control computer that fed data into my heads up display in my helmet and helped me vector for targets. Standard equipment for space diving.

  “Colonel, sir!” Kelis shouted, calling the formation to attention. All the hundred soldiers assembled snapped straight and saluted. I returned the gesture, and then began to assemble the vac suit and armor around myself as quickly as I could, with the help of the two techs.

  MacKenzie looked over as he donned his own armor and raised a brow. “How do you fire in zero gravity without spinning off into space?” He asked.

  “Thrusters.” I said, holding up the carbine I would be using as we crossed space. My big pistol was strapped to my thigh like usual and this time I had four extra magazines for it instead of the usual two. “This rifle has a control computer that links to my head up display, as I fire, the thrusters counter-fire to prevent you from spinning off into space, as you put it.”

  He nodded. “Sounds interesting.”

  My communicator chimed. “Destota,” Mallory said into my ear piece. “We overdid it.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, accepting the helmet and dropping it over my head. There was a hiss as the armor sealed and began a pressure test. The techs continued putting the armor plates that I was able to wear over the vac suit, and I made sure my external speakers were off. “The ships were destroyed?”

  Instead of a reply, an image appeared on my head-up display. I blinked to activate the icon, and a video played. The image showed five deep blue lances of hard light firing from Shockwave and Valiente and slamming into the bows of the Gilbaglian destroyers. The shields rippled and rocked the large insectoid looking ships backwards and out of their formation.

  “We overdid it.” I agreed with a chuckle. “What, um, happened?” I asked.

  “We use the capacitors for the subspace drives to power the weapons,” Mallory explained as Eternity shivered slightly. “And the reactor cores power the capacitors. Our reactors are more efficient than Gilbaglian units, and we recharge the particle cannons much faster.”

  “Got it,” I interrupted. “Our guns are bigger.”

  She laughed. “The two ships that you want have no shields. Anything else I can do before I obliterate these other two?”

  “Any chance you can punch holes in the hull without blowing them up?” I asked hopefully as the vacuum check cycled to an end.

  “We could try.” She said. “My weapons officer is bugging me to test how accurate a sustained burst could be. We’re going to see if
we can use it like a laser beam to slice one of these other ships in half.”

  “That sounds exciting.” I said. “Make sure you save the video, so I can see it later.”

  “You got it.” She said. “And Destota?”

  “Yes?” I asked, checking my weapons once more. A hand appeared in the corner of my vision and I turned to see Kelis holding out the sabre that I’d used to attack the Gilbaglian soldiers before. I nodded and he mag-clamped it to my armor.

  “Come back to me.”

  “Don’t I always?”

  “The last time, you came back missing an arm and bleeding a lot.”

  “Well, you’ll have to excuse me, I tend to bleed when I’m wounded.”

  “I know, it’s gross.” There was an anxiety to her banter and I knew she was fairly panicking about me making a space dive of this intensity. Then I remembered that she had never seen me make a space dive, ever. Because by the time I was in that phase of my training, she was training to fly fighter craft and dropships.

  “Hey,” I said. “Don’t worry. We’ve done this a hundred times in training.”

  “Yeah,” She said, her tone changed to a more concerned tone. “But how many times with someone shooting at you? With cannons?”

  “Um, honestly, none, but you know, I’m very lucky.” I said with a chuckle.

  “You’re lucky I’m not down there to hit you.” She sighed heavily. “Just come back to me.”

  “I always do.” I replied with a laugh. I was beginning to think that she would probably take herself out of action due to obsessive worry during this pregnancy thing.

  We signed off the channel and I boarded my dropship with Kelis and the rest of the night stalkers, all clad in the same mirrored helmet and matte black armor with thruster pack that I was wearing. “Be careful, Major.” I said to MacKenzie as the ramp raised into position. As soon as it locked shut I turned and looked at Kelis.

  “You think he’s going to fuck it up?” I asked.

  “Probably.” Kelis admitted. “Major MacKenzie is falling all over himself to make you happy, and I can almost promise you that he’s going to fuck up some small detail that will probably result in us having to save him.”