Requiem of a Nightmare

by Jeremy Spires

  “I know you aren’t. You never were like that, ever since I first met you.” She looked up at me and we shared a memory of one of the first years in our training, when all other recruits had hunkered down behind a shelter as instructors tossed stun grenades at us, I’d become angry and stormed the field armed only with the Vandorian issue carbine rifle and a sour attitude. I’d rendered all fifteen instructors “KIA” during the operation and had earned myself a promotion to Unit Leader, over the Platoon leader that had followed me from day one.

  “And I love you for that,” She admitted. “I just don’t want our child to grow up without a father.”

  “She will have a father, one way or another.” I replied “But Mallory, I have to do my job, just like you have to do yours. If I have to give my life in service of humanity then I will do so without a second thought, my love.”

  She sighed and hugged me back. “I know you will. Just please do me a favor.”

  “What is that?”

  “Come back to me.”

  ---

  Vandorian heavy cruiser Predator

  I walked off the Scalper dropship onto the deck of the heavy cruiser Predator about two hours later, with a massive crate of my own personal weapons that had been brought over from the Eternity.

  The Captain of the Predator stood at the bottom of the ramp, brown hair and blue eyes locked onto the heavy loading equipment that was carrying the whole of my equipment, including my vac suit and armor. Lieutenants Antillon and Severson walked down behind me, a loader accompanying each of them, and the Captain swallowed hard. She was not a night stalker-trained pilot as Mallory was. She was an enlisted-turned-officer normal recruit, who had passed the normal basic combat training and flight school.

  It was obvious she’d never seen the hulking, towering forms of Special Operations soldiers that we obviously were.

  “Captain Dawes,” I said calmly. I’d read her service record. She had a history more on the safe side of operations, staying in position as ordered, and not going off script. She would be hard-pressed to keep up with us. Miranda Dawes would be in a different world shortly. “A pleasure to meet you.” I said.

  “Colonel.” She said, holding out a hand. I shook her hand gingerly. “You’re all…larger than we expected.” On the four cruisers, we had sent twenty-five thousand night stalkers onto each, I was the last to embark, having taken some private time with my wife before I deployed. We had both terraforming and gear for a long term stay on a planet that may or may not support carbon-based life.

  “Yes,” I replied calmly. “I trust my soldiers were no issue to you?”

  “No, sir, beyond reproach. May I invite you to dine with my officers this evening?” She offered.

  “Thank you, but no.” I replied calmly. “I will eat with my people. No offense intended, Captain.”

  “None taken, Colonel.” She smiled at me. “We will depart for the target system within the hour.”

  I nodded, then ordered my gear stowed and consulted my tablet to find my berthing assignment. I found that I had been assigned a standard berth, but single occupant. That was more than fine with me, nobody wanted the commanding officer bunking with them. I located the cabin and called Shadow of Eternity.

  “Valentine here,” Mallory said, sounding distracted.

  “Hey,” I said. “How are docking operations going?”

  “Oh.” She paused. “They’re going well.” I could hear the door click as she exited the bridge and went into her day cabin. “I assume you’re all settled over there?”

  I glanced at the duffle parked on the bed, which contained my uniforms and my clothes for the next year. “Yeah, all settled.”

  She laughed slightly. “I know you better than that, Valentine. You’re not going to unpack ever, because you want it to be done and over.”

  I chuckled. “Yeah okay, you got me. My gear is stowed, at least.” Truth, because service bots and ordnance technicians were tuning up everything.

  “When are you leaving?” She asked. I glanced out the window and watched the first three destroyers fire themselves into subspace. “Never mind.” She sighed. “I love you.”

  “I love you too,” I replied, feeling my heart wrench. “Be careful, Mallory.”

  “Destota?” She said, her voice raspy as if she was trying not to cry.

  “Yeah?”

  “Come back to me.” The ship flung itself into the under space that bridged the vast distances of space.

  ---

  The alarm sounded just after 0300 six days later.

  My eyes snapped open and the elusive dream I’d been having about my wife faded, leaving my mouth dry and my bladder in desperate need of attention.

  “What is it?” I asked into my communicator, my voice calm and even.

  Captain Dawes responded, instead of the Lieutenant I was expecting. “We crossed the DMZ over an hour ago and we just got hit with a massive gravity shear.” She sounded tense. “It pulled us out of subspace. We’re trying to orient our drives now.”

  “Damage?” I asked, stepping into my pants and pulling my black combat blouse around my shoulders.

  “None, some relays are burned out. We have damage repair teams on the way now.”

  “Roger that,” I replied. “On my way.”

  Because of my wife, I knew exactly where the relay controls were and exactly how to fix them, after damage had required the Admiral to make repairs to her own ship. I called Lieutenant Antillon. “Lieutenant, do you know where the computer core is?”

  “Yes sir,” He replied immediately. “On my way now.”

  I finished dressing as I walked out the door and headed for the computer core, one deck up and only half a section over. The Lieutenant and I arrived at roughly the same time, I was still punching my command override into the system when he stepped up beside me. “Sir?” He inquired.

  “Gotta fix the ship.” I said quickly as the doors opened. I grabbed one of the floating boards that Mallory had utilized on our last mission and threw myself under the relays for the drive controls, pointing with one hand where the spares were stowed. I pulled the drive relay open and pushed the new one into place. Power surged into the drive and I slapped the communicator on the console above me after three attempts. “Drive restored, Captain.”

  “Sure is.” She quipped. “Maybe you could stay down there. We are probably about to blow a handful of weapon relays.” My stomach knotted, and this wasn’t any kind of new anxiety that I was unfamiliar with, this was the feeling of fear that I felt every time we headed into combat, and I was stuck aboard a ship, watching them shoot at each other while I stood and watched helplessly. Well, on the Eternity that was the case. I guess here Lieutenant Antillon and I could be counted on to make repairs.

  “How many ships?” I asked as I rose and headed for the weapon controls. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Antillon toss me a relay and I caught the two-foot-long device easily.

  “Oh, thirty or so.” She replied. “Our destroyers are on an inbound vector to get back to us, we are going to punch it out and fight until we get clear of the gravity distortion.” Dawes replied.

  “Chances of success?” I asked as I found the weapon control systems.

  “Better than you think. About half of them are merchant ships. They’re armed, but lightly armored. The other half are lightly armed transport ships. We don’t plan on a full engagement.” She had a shrug in her voice.

  “You have to.” Antillon and I said in unison, then looked at each other. “You have to kill them all.”

  “Why?” She asked, taken aback.

  “Because if even one ship jumps away,” I said, grinding my teeth to control my frustration. “They will report our position to the fleet.”

  There was a moment of silence. “You’re right, Colonel. We are opening fire now. The destroyers will be here in six minutes.”

  The ship shuttered as the particle cannons fired along with the conventional weapons, and I kept my eyes on the energy r
eadouts. Antillon stood next to me, also holding a relay. “Colonel?”

  “I don’t like it either,” I replied. “But this is better than sitting in your bunk waiting to explode.”

  “Roger that, sir.” He nodded his agreement.

  I adjusted my stance as the ship moved on its axis and shuttered again as the big cannons spat fire at the Gilbaglian enemies. Everything in my body rebelled against being on a ship.

  “Enemy forces at fifty percent strength.” Dawes reported with real regret in her voice. “No outbound signals are getting through our jamming.” I shrugged one shoulder and turned to put the relay down into the cradle that held the others.

  “Looks like we’re going to get out of this.” Then the ship didn’t even shudder, it shook. Hard.

  “Captain?” I asked.

  “Stand by!” She shouted back.

  Antillon and I both turned for the door and exited the chamber as quickly as we could, then broke for the hangar deck at a run.

  “Colonel, we had to jump away.”

  “What happened?” I asked as we ran.

  “A Gilbaglian battleship jumped in. We’re no match for them.”

  “Can they follow us?” I asked as I slowed to a jog and then came to a stop.

  “No, not at their level of technology. We are safe for now; all ships are in formation with us. We burned out a couple of exciter relays, we need to find somewhere safe to repair the weapons before we advance on the target.”

  I sighed. “Alright, how can we help?”

  “Help, Colonel?” She sounded amused.

  “There are twenty-five thousand of us,” I said. “And we are not idiots.”

  And that was how I made the horrible blunder of getting the entire night stalker battalion on a work detail. None of them minded, except that it took away from training time. The positive, was that we were able to install upgrades to the drives that the Cetoplin hologram had left us, and we blasted around space five times faster than we had before.

  This was also how we arrived at our target almost three weeks early.

  I was loading magazines for my rifle when the lights over us in the hangar turned red and a klaxon blared overhead. I looked up at Lieutenant Antillon, and grinned. “Looks like it is time to go, Lieutenant.”

  “Sir?” He said, swallowing hard.

  “Nervous?”

  “I’ve never actually been in combat, sir.”

  “It’s not so bad.” I said calmly, activating the mag-clamp for my sword to my armor. “Unless you die.” I grinned at him.

  With a heavy sigh, Antillon turned away from me to find someone less depressing to talk to. I chuckled and looked up to see Captain Solaris standing in front of me. “I fought on the frontier against the Gilbaglians.” He said, his smooth voice slightly stilted. “I have not yet fought with the Vandorian night stalkers, sir.”

  “You’re afraid we’re not up to your combat standards?” I asked with a challenge in my voice.

  “No, sir.” He looked down. “I am afraid that I cannot compare to your standards, sir.”

  I’d warned him against making everything he said a “Sir” sandwich. He was proper and was reportedly a fierce warrior in combat. He reminded me of me when I’d first started this adventure. “You’ll do fine.” I looked over my shoulder and saw Antillon talking to his platoon and laughing. Maybe I really was depressing. I was trying really hard to be upbeat, damnit.

  Chapter Nine

  ---

  Starship City of Vixtor

  “Winged Freedom” system, outer marker

  Year 6,069 Human calendar

  Gilbaglian people did not have the naming conventions of the filthy humans, and Supreme Commander Warklis found the entire human race vile and distasteful. They had been born of mere slime, from the foolish race of Cetoplin who believed that they would have been able to defeat the proud and mighty Gilbaglians.

  Warklis watched the human ships approach Winged Freedom, the name of the manufacturing world where Warklis himself had grown from the egg. He glared at the main bridge display on the City of Vixtor, the beautiful cruiser that had been born of this shipyard. “What are those stupid humans attempting to do?” He demanded, the Gilbaglian language was mostly high-pitched squeaks and shrill tones, understood only by avian brains for the most part. He could speak the disgusting human language called English but despised himself for every moment of it.

  Captain Sparklia, the female in charge of the operation of Vixtor turned and looked at her Supreme Commander. Warklis had received a hasty promotion after successfully baiting the humans into a violent, if brief, civil war, and Sparklia had rose through the ranks in the appropriate manner. She very much did not appreciate a male holding a position of power in the matriarchy. “They appear to be attacking.” She replied, her voice deadpan and her slit-pupil eyes narrowed. “That appears obvious, Supreme Commander.” She spat these words as if it was a vile curse.

  “Mind your tone, Captain.” Warklis snapped. Humans might have said tongue, but Gilbaglians lacked that disgusting appendage and instead used air pushed through holes on their cranium and beak to make the tones needed for their language. “Your insolence has not gone unnoted.”

  “Should we counter attack?” She asked, wishing instead she could ram her sword through his chest and split his abdomen open. Or to spit the foul-smelling oily liquid that their species used as a defensive reaction.

  “No, not at this time.” Warklis hissed. “Are you stupid?”

  She ground her beak in frustration. “Supreme commander,” She said with pure distain in her voice. “If we do not rouse the fleet-…”

  “Do nothing!” Warklis shouted at her, startling her bridge crew. “Do as I command!”

  “You are a fool!” Sparklia growled, her sword clearing the sheath by two inches before her Lieutenant put a hand on her arm.

  “I have fought with these humans.” Warklis snapped. “And you do not want to face this one.”

  The fear in his voice stopped her cold. “What human would make a Gilbaglian feel fear?” She asked, but the sneer she had intended to convey came out as a squeak.

  “It is the human that killed more than a million of his own people during their civil war, and his unit of like-minded warriors. We can kill him,” He announced, puffing the crest atop his head in defiance. “But we must be cautious.”

  Sparklia felt a powerful surge of adrenaline. She wanted very much to face the human and his companions in combat, to see if they were worthy of Gilbaglian combat standards.

  The human cruisers began to do something very interesting as the dropships descended to the surface of Winged Freedom; they powered their engines and headed straight for the Gilbaglian battle fleet.

  The City of Vixtor’s main computer-generated tonnage estimates and tried to calculate how much firepower the six destroyers that accompanied the looming cruiser could bring to bear.

  “Ignore them,” Warklis said. “They are trying to distract us. They will not open fire, they will jump away immediately after the dropships return to their mother ships.” His tone was smug and Sparklia stared at the display. She had to admit that the Supreme Commander was convincing.

  But slowly, her mind was changing.

  The cruisers did not seem particularly interested in the dropships. In fact, the dropships didn’t seem interested in even leaving Winged Freedom. She felt the familiar feeling of fluttering terror in the tendons where her species had once had wings, the urge to spring into flight and flee from a predator.

  The comm crackled to life and a human face appeared over the holographic display. It was an angry looking human woman with blazing blue eyes and an angry snarl that made all of the bridge crew look like they wanted to flee.

  “Gilbaglian vessel,” The human boomed over the comm, her language translated by the Gilbaglian technology. “This is the human warship Predator. You are urged to leave this space as it has been claimed by the Human Empire. However, should you wish, we can reduce
your ship to subatomic particles.”

  Warklis boomed with laughter. “Human, we would never knee before you.”

  “Sounds good to me.” The human replied and signed off.

  Sparklia’s deep intake of breath filled her bones with the air needed to take flight, even if the species could no longer fly. “Hard to…” She started to cry, but the human vessel opened fire with the particle cannons that had shredded the last two destroyer squadrons that the Gilbaglians had sent into the Sol system, looking for weaknesses.

  The particle cannons made it look like the shields of the powerful battle cruiser Vixtor were not even online. The shots made precision strikes against the Gilbaglian ship and hit the weapon pods and shields.

  The comm crackled to life again, and the woman’s face appeared once more. “Change your mind yet?” She asked.

  Sparklia did not allow Warklis to speak this time. “Human vessel,” She said, trying to come up with words to say. “You are in sovereign space, you must depart at once.”

  “Yes, we know. This is called an invasion.” She replied with a smirk. “I’m giving you a chance to depart before we rip your ship apart and kill your crew.”

  “We do not surrender!” Warklis bellowed.

  The human glared at the Gilbaglian for a long moment, a moment that Sparklia figured her starship would explode.

  “I know you.” The human growled at last. “I’ll make sure Colonel Valentine knows where you are.”

  The hologram clicked off and the destroyers began to fire on the Vixtor. Sparklia ordered her ship into motion, trying to avoid the destroyers, but the cruisers cut off every escape. Displays and consoles exploded all over the bridge of the ship, weapons were offline and then the cruisers took their engines also.

  “Abandon ship!” Sparklia called over the comm as she headed for her escape pod, but she grabbed Warklis by his plumage. “Who is Valentine!?” She shouted in his face.