Requiem of a Nightmare

by Jeremy Spires

  “Well, I imagine that we are going to find Gilbaglian outposts and planets that we are going to have to raid.”

  “Not having the high ground is kind of pointless.”

  “We’re also going to have to attack and hold at least a couple of worlds, or even asteroids. We’re going to need fuel supplies and raw materials.” She added.

  “Yeah, good point.” I said, nodding. “I guess you’re right.”

  “I’m always right.”

  “That is debatable.” I laughed. “Well, Admiral, you had better find the Gilbaglians soon so we either get some answers or eradicate them.”

  “What answers?” She asked.

  “Why they want us all dead.” I answered, raising an eyebrow. “I would think that would be obvious, I want to know why they’re all trying so hard to kill us.”

  “Maybe because they just don’t like humanity?” She asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “There has to be more to it than that.” I said. “I mean, we don’t even know what they were fighting the Cetoplin about. We know the Cetoplin visited Earth a few million years ago, that’s why there was a record of them. But we don’t know why the Gilbaglians are so intent to kill them all.”

  She stared at me. “That…is a very good point, Colonel Valentine.” She said, her eyebrows raised. “Where should we go?”

  I glanced at my watch. “You, Admiral, need to get to sleep.” I said, kissing her lips lightly as I rose to my feet. “You’re sleeping for two now, remember.”

  “Oh, ha-ha.” She said sarcastically. “But, since I am tired, I will give in to your demands.”

  “How did those new morning sickness meds work?” I asked, remembering as I pulled my uniform jacket on.

  “They didn’t.” She replied sourly. “All the advanced medicine in the galaxy isn’t enough to make a woman stop vomiting when she’s pregnant.”

  I sighed. “I apologize my love.”

  “You should.” She said, throwing her uniform at me. I knocked it aside with a casual gesture and grinned, saying nothing but admiring the sight of her naked body as she lay down in bed. “Don’t stare too long,” She warned. “Or you might go blind.”

  “If that is the last thing I see,” I replied, still staring. “Then I will go blind in peace.”

  She laughed and pulled the covers over herself. “Get out of here,” She said. “And come back soon.”

  I stepped out the door and made sure it locked behind me, then started walking towards the onboard gym.

  I exhaled slowly and tried to organize my thoughts. Cetoplins and Gilbaglians were ancient species, and for whatever reason they had engaged in a war that had wiped out one entire species, and then they began trying to wipe us out as well. There had to be some reason beyond humans causing offense. And how had we caused offense?

  I sighed and rubbed my eyes, walked into the gym. Being that we were all highly trained special forces, they were always active, always in competition, and usually always ready to do something insane.

  Nobody saluted or stopped their workout as I walked in and headed towards the punching bags, pulling off my uniform jacket as I did. There were a few nods in my direction as the soldiers acknowledged me. I exhaled and tried to focus my thoughts as I lined up on a bag that weighed just over two hundred and fifty pounds. These damn birds were going to do their best to wipe us out, and I was simply not going to allow that. One had severely injured me, even though I killed that one and many others, I was almost terrified of the Gilbaglians. They were fierce in combat and we had almost no idea how to fight them.

  I hit the bag, relishing the feeling of the shock up my arm and into my shoulder. The bag swung mightily, and I reached out with my other hand and slowed it.

  Forget the macho bullshit you’ve ever seen or heard. Throwing a punch, on anything from a bag to a face, it hurts. And it usually breaks bone. We have stronger bones, thanks in part to higher gravity on our world, but mostly due to modified genetics, and it still hurts. My hands have been broken so many times that the bones in my hands have hardened layers of calcium covering them. Even still, it aches.

  The bag swung again, and I executed rapid-fire strikes on it, designed to disable an opponent, and then whirled into a spinning head kick. To my surprise, the bag broke free of its moorings and flew across the room and impacted the bulkhead. I stopped, lowered my hands and blinked in surprise. I looked around and saw some heads turned, mouths agape.

  A younger soldier walked up to me and stood at attention. He began to raise his hand to salute and I shook my head. “I’m off duty, soldier, what do you need?”

  “S…uh, sir, Private Mebur, second Marauders.” He stammered. “I would like, sir, to spar with you.”

  I tilted my head and raised a brow. “You did just see me break a bag off of a chain and send it across the room, right?”

  “Sir, yes, sir, I’ve trained extensively in martial arts and I would like to test my skills against a master.”

  “I’m not a master,” I replied with a laugh. “Hardly a master of anything, Private. If you want to spar with someone, you should find a member of your cadre, they can teach you to fight.”

  “Sir,” He stepped closer. “I know how to fight, and I would like to test my skill on you, sir.”

  I glared at him for a moment and then stepped back towards the training mats. This brought a surge of soldiers towards us, and they gathered to watch. I walked to one side and stripped off my shirt, with some cheers from the women that made my cheeks feel warm. The younger man stepped closer and removed his shirt also.

  I walked towards him and he got into an exaggerated pose of fighting. As he began to move I reached out with one large hand in a feint, and when he moved to grab it, I reached past his guard with my other hand and gripped his throat, lifted him four feet off the deck and slammed him down onto the mat without much effort. Phelb soldiers weighed almost half as much as we did, and he was smaller as a Phelb. I stepped back to give him an opportunity to recover. I tilted my head.

  “That was unexpected.” He grunted as he rolled onto his feet.

  “You are facing a larger and stronger opponent,” I replied. “Your fancy moves and patterns just make you easier to read.” I turned my body to only half face him and held my hands at my side loosely.

  He approached, hands up once more, moving one foot at a time, twitching at random to try and make me flinch. I watched his eyes carefully, then when I saw a single bead of sweat trickle down his forehead and into his eyes, I ducked down, gripped him around the waist and threw him over my head onto the mat, and walked away.

  “Phelbs were taught incorrect martial arts.” I said. “Many of your best soldiers died at the hands of Vandorians at the battle of Crescent city. You did not take good advantage of your size, your force strength or your position. You are doing the same thing here, Private.” My voice was loud now. I felt in a teaching mood, I wasn’t trying to humiliate this young man, I wanted to help him. He did, however, surprise the hell out of me when he popped to his feet and a blade appeared in his hand. He yelled and threw himself at me. I dodged, feeling the sharp blade graze my jaw and blood spurt onto my bare chest. A brief flash of anger lit my veins and sent a pulse of adrenaline into my bloodstream. My perception of time slowed, and I saw his face, contorted in anger and frustration coming back towards me. I let my booted foot lash out and catch him in the stomach. He sprawled to the mat, the blade going flying. Lieutenant Kelis stooped and picked it up.

  “What,” He snarled. “Is this doing in the gym?

  MacKenzie stepped towards me and offered me my shirt back. I accepted it and pulled it over my bare chest. “Sir, are you badly injured?”

  I touched the spot on my jaw where the knife had grazed me, saw there was a generous amount of blood that had since stopped flowing, and shook my head. “What is the meaning of this?” I demanded, pointing a finger at the Private who was being held by two soldiers in their workout clothing.

  “The Phelbs should
never have joined forces with you!” He shouted at me, spittle flying from his lips.

  I scoffed. “Boy, do you realize you’re on a Vandorian ship, after a peace treaty? You just committed an act of war!” MacKenzie blanched and was about to offer apologies but I held up a hand. “If it wasn’t for Major MacKenzie, you’d be flying out of an airlock right now.” I looked back at MacKenzie. “Bring him before the Council tomorrow morning. Make sure Chancellor Wrathe is there as well.”

  MacKenzie nodded. “Yes, sir.” He said in a subdued tone.

  I exited the gym and set to a long walk around the ship, trying to shake off the events that had just transpired. Of course, there would be Phelbs, and Vandorians, who didn’t want anything to do with their former enemy. I sighed, shaking my head. I’d come to work out and think about the Gilbaglian issue, instead I was faced with a half-mutiny.

  I haven’t been as descriptive as I should have been about our vessels. They are, as I’ve said before, massive. Vandorian ship builders believe that overkill is under rated, and therefore created ships of the line that were almost obscene in their mass. The Eternity was a carrier, the second largest ship class in our fleet. Its dimensions are so profound that I can’t explain them. The overall length of the ship is twenty-nine thousand, five hundred and sixty-eight feet, a width of just over ten thousand feet, and five thousand feet tall.

  Yes, you’re reading correctly. Our second largest ship is just over five and a half miles long, two miles wide, and a mile tall. And no, before you ask, it can’t land anywhere. Anything over a mile is impossible to land on a planet because you can’t fight the Coriolis effect of a planet. That is why we use so many dropships, if you’re wondering. If you believe there is no such thing as the Coriolis effect because you believe planets are flat, I implore you to go back to school, because you’re an idiot.

  Our tonnage, which is to say our cargo capacity, is so high that I won’t even explain it to you. We can carry eight frigates and four destroyers, with twenty full squadrons of our Viper and Predator class star fighters. Over a thousand dropships service the Eternity and the two other carriers in the fleet. There are over a thousand weapons ports on the hull, which is a sort of long oval, smooth and painted an off-grey color. The engines are so big that you couldn’t see your house if you stood on one end and you lived on the other end. They are just over one mile long each, and there are four of them, manufactured by Vandorian Primary Engine company.

  The carrier included a massive armory, which could provision the entirety of the Night stalkers for a ten-year war, an aeroponics bay which provided fresh green food, while a meat processor used artificial means to create the meat products that Vandorians enjoyed. Or, I should say, that we ate. After tasting real beef and pork products, nobody was particularly keen on our synthetic meats. Armed with this knowledge, you will now know why I can take to wandering the Eternity for days, weeks, possibly even years.

  And yes, we have a very efficient magnetic rail system that carried soldiers and ship staff to various points of the ship. Don’t ask about matter transporters, because that is all science-fiction nonsense that Earth people come up with in their spare time. It’s like they don’t even factor the idea that planets and ships move for crying out loud.

  Where was I? Oh right.

  I set off at a jog along the spine of the ship, a corridor that ran along one of the highest points of the Eternity and was used primarily for training. I was alone, and the lights turned on as I approached them and turned off as I left them behind.

  Gilbaglians. I tried my hardest to focus on the avian enemy that we now faced. Our newest weapons were a match, but not an overwhelming advantage to them. We’d trained with swords and sabers to combat them hand to hand, but they were fierce warriors. We were out here hunting them, but in a galaxy as vast as the Milky Way, it was difficult to find even a massive space-faring race if they were hiding. After all, Vandor had been hidden deep in a stellar nursery, a rare planet that formed and could sustain life…

  I frowned as I ran. That was rare indeed. I slowed to a walk and pulled my comm unit out of my pocket. I linked to the ship’s computer and requested data on the occurrence of planets inside of nebula that were life sustaining.

  The device returned a pair of hits: Vandor, and a planet that had only a designation: XLY99007. Interesting indeed.

  I stopped walking and sat down with my back against a bulkhead, the polished titanium cold on my back. I used the vast database complied by the Vandorian and Phelb computers to study information relating to the formation of planets in our local sector. I studied especially the formation of Vandor. There were a few accepted theories and most of them were best-guess scenarios.

  You see, most of the time, a nebula is formed by a molecular cloud that collapses in on itself, which in turns leads to the formation of stars. Usually very hot, powerful stars, that emit enough radiation in various wavelengths, and this created light in a visible spectrum that made the nebula into the beautiful light shows that humans enjoyed.

  What nebulas did not do, was create planets. A type G main sequence star was not all that unusual inside of such a nebula, but a T-Class planet inside of a nebula was impossible, for billions of years anyways, and Vandor had been known to be a fairly young planet with a very hot core and a lot of volcanic activity.

  I studied the display for long moments as I read through information and theories, came to the theory of the creation of Vandor. One scientist flatly stated that the planet had been placed by “advanced, technologically superior beings” or a “deity”. I looked up the scientist and found that she was not only still alive, but she was embarked with the fleet, stationed presently on Valiente, working on upgrading the engines.

  I punched in her communication code and tapped the icon to send a priority signal to her, and a few moments later a dark-skinned woman with blazing green eyes and a shaved head filled the screen. “Yes, who is this?” She demanded.

  “Good evening, Dr. Boyd.” I said. “This is Colonel Destota Valentine.”

  “Oh.” She looked very flustered and ran a hand over her head. “My apologies, Colonel, I don’t…I’ve never received a priority signal from anyone before.”

  “It is no issue, Doctor.” I said with what I hoped was an easygoing smile. “I have a scientific question for you, with regards to one of your papers that you have published.”

  “I will do my best to answer you, Colonel.” She replied, sounding more confident now.

  “You stated that Vandor had been placed in the nebula by an advanced race of beings or a deity.” I said. “Is that correct?”

  She looked crestfallen. “Ah…Colonel, I hope you know I was not being sympathetic to the Phelb…”

  “Just because we don’t accept or acknowledged organized religion,” I said calmly. “Does not rule out the possibility of supremely advanced beings which have transcended their physical forms to become a sort of deity.” I said. “Even science must accept that.”

  “It does, and I appreciate that you are not small-minded, Colonel.” She replied with a smile of her own. My wife might disagree, but whatever.

  “Of course, doctor.” I said. “Now, please, could you explain your logic in this matter?”

  “Well, simply put, Colonel, planets do not form in nebulae.” She used the proper plural for nebula. “They form in accretion disks of dust and stellar debris around main-sequence stars.”

  “Could Vandor not have formed in a smaller, localized accretion disk in the nebula?” I asked.

  “The short answer is yes, but the primary answer is no.” She replied, really rolling into her thoughts now. “A planet could have formed in that small of a space. But for there to be a perfect-sized bubble pushing back the entire nebula, as well as a single-entry point, the odds are…impossible to calculate. Also, the size of our orbit would dictate a planet about half the size of Pluto Not even really a planet, Colonel.” I blinked and pondered for a moment too long, and she smiled sheepishly. “Co
lonel, I haven’t spoken too fast, have I sir?”

  “No,” I replied quickly. “The opposite, Doctor. You have given me all the answers I required to make a decision. Thank you.”

  “You’re most welcome, sir. If I can be of any assistance, please do not hesitate to call me.” She signed off and I turned and sprinted at my full speed towards the elevator that would carry me back to my office and the bridge.

  “MacKenzie,” I said into my comm as I ran. “Meet me in my office in…” I checked my position. “Seven minutes.”

  “Sir?” He sounded sleepy. “Um, sir, it’s…”

  “Now, Major.” I snapped, changed to my wife’s channel. “Mallory.”

  “Yes?” She replied immediately, no trace of sleepiness in her voice, showing once more the difference between Vandorian and Phelb. “Where are you, Destota?”

  “Heading to my office. I’m going to meet MacKenzie, could you meet me there?” I asked.

  “Of course, I’ll be there in five minutes.” She replied. “See you then.”

  I willed the elevator to sink between decks faster, then exploded from the unit when the doors opened and sprinted down the hallway to my office. I skidded to a stop and swung around the open doorway and fairly jumped into my chair, past my wife who wore a shocked expression. “I know where to go.” I said breathlessly. “Vandor wasn’t an accident. Someone put it there.”

  MacKenzie stepped into my office as I spoke and then both officers stared at me in disbelief. “Are you serious?” He asked, looking slightly grumpy and annoyed. My eyes snapped up at him and I glared.

  “Stow the tone, Major.” I snapped. Mallory glanced at him then at me.

  “Slow down, Destota.” She said. “How do you come by this idea?”

  I explained everything to them, my examination of records, speaking to Doctor Boyd, and finally I showed the data about the unknown planet.

  “Now this is damned interesting.” Mallory said, staring at the holographic display I was showing. “There are no gravity disruptions at these sites.” She pointed at the nebula that the mystery planet was contained in. “And there should be more than one star inside of a nebula of this size.”