Galactic Defenders- Endurance

by Michael Mishoe

  ​“Thank you, Ambassador.” Turning his attention to Rick, he said, “Before you two assist the other officers to survey the information they’ve collected, Commander Rickman, I believe I have something to test out for you to see.”

  ​“And what would that be, sir?”

  ​“If I’m correct, it seems that this body has a powerful array of weapons built within me.”

  ​Intrigued, Rick asked, “Really, sir? Do you think it would be possible to show us what they can do?”

  ​“If you bring me something to shoot, I will decrease the intensity of the weapon to ensure it doesn’t leave any permanent damage.”

  ​Rick retrieved a small empty metal crate and placed it onto a nearby table. “Are you ready, captain?” Rick asked as he walked clear of the blast zone.

  ​“I believe so. Everyone, stand clear.” Vade lifted his right arm up and aimed at the cups. The top on the middle of the captain’s arm folded in, and a small black device appeared on his arm. The device was shaped like a rod, and then it split apart to make it V shaped, the point end facing the cups, with an energy emitter implanted on both side of the device. The emitter’s shining brightly as powered was diverted into them, the device emitted a loud noise that sounded like a motorcycle engine revving, and then shot a blast of crimson orange at the crate. The blast soared towards the crate and sliced through it, bursting through the other side and striking the wall behind it. When the crew looked at the crate, they saw that it was mostly hollowed out, and reduced to a mostly-smoldering husk, and the blast had left a four feet-wide dent was left in the wall, sizzling from the heat of the blast.

  ​The captain brought his arm down and the weapon folded back and retracted into his arm. Rick walked to the captain, keeping his eyes on the melted crate and the hole in the wall as he approached him. He turned to Vade and asked, “Was that supposed to happen, captain?”

  ​“I apologize for the damage. I was not certain how powerful it would be at its current setting.”

  ​Glancing again at the wall, Rick asked, “What setting did you have it on?”

  ​“The weapon was at twenty-eight percent strength.”

  ​Rick was stunned. “It did that at only twenty-eight percent!?”

  ​“It did indeed, commander.”

  ​“What other weapons do you have in there?”

  ​“I believe we should wait until later to investigate my other tactical capabilities. I don’t want to damage this place any more than I already have.”

  ​“Likely a wise decision, Captain Vade. I think it would be best to have a full report ready for the other senior staff in two hours. Would you be willing to let us run more tests to finish collecting the rest of the data we need?”

  ​“Though I won’t enjoy beginning poked and prodded like a lab rat, run whatever tests you need to. The sooner we find out what happened and examine the viability of my proposal to save the Atlanta, the sooner we may free the ship and get in touch with our superiors. We do still have an urgent food shortage to worry about, after all.”

  Location: Aboard the U.S.S. Ocean-Walker, on the border of the Atlantic Ocean.

  ​Olo opened the hatch at the top of the ladder he was climbing, giving him an exit from the cramped vertical corridor he occupied. After climbing it for three levels, with Blitz riding on his back through the trip, it appears he finally made it to deck seven, and, according to the map the computer had given him, the armory should be located nearby on this level. Blitz jumped off his back and ran ahead to confirm the hallway was clear. After a few moments, he heard a meow, signaling that it was clear.

  ​I can’t believe I have a cat for a sidekick, Olo silently lamented to himself. Of all the macho leaders and soldiers he had heard about, he couldn’t recall any of them left with a cat to watch their back. And then Olo’s eyes widened as he asked himself, With how powerful Blitz is, am I the cat’s sidekick? Shaking the thought out of his head, he hurried down the hallway and turned right and saw that the armory was just ahead. After reaching the door, he attempting to pull it open, but it was locked, and he had no idea what the code to the door could be.

  ​“Lieutenant Oakland?” Startled, Olo jumped around to see Captain Whitefield walking up to him. The captains’ uniform was torn in a few places, and a large bruise was on his head, though it didn’t look like he was hindered by his injuries.

  ​“It would appear we both had the same idea, lieutenant. I as well suspected that heading to the armory to better equip myself would be the best course of action.”

  ​“Exactly what I was thinking, sir. What do you suggest we-” Olo stopped talking as he noticed Blitz, was hunched down and growling at something down the hallway. He realized something was coming toward them; and it wasn’t hard to guess what it was. Captain Whitefield hurried to the armory door and rapidly typed numbers into the keypad.

  ​“Captain, is there any other exit from this hallway or the armory?”

  ​Still typing, the captain said, “No. The elevators are shut down, and it looks like the Ribiyar are coming from the ladders we took. We’re trapped.”

  ​“I have an idea, sir. At the least, it can buy us some time to get a plan together.” Olo then walked to Blitz and knelt to his height.

  ​“Blitz, I need you to hold the Ribiyar off, at all costs. They can’t be allowed to reach the armory. Do you understand?” Blitz meowed, and nodded slightly. Olo stroked Blitz’s fur and stood back up. Blitz meowed again, looked at Olo briefly, almost appearing sad to leave his side, and then leapt into the shadows of the hallway, disappearing from his sight.

  ​“The door’s unlocked, lieutenant!” Captain Whitefield said as the door buzzed and unlocked. Olo scrambled after the captain and helped him close the door. After relocking the door, he turned to survey his surroundings. The armory was twice as large as a person’s living quarters on the ship, having three rows of fives gun racks, each containing different guns and the ammo to them.

  ​“How long do you think that cat can keep them busy, lieutenant? I’ve heard of the might that E.V.A.N. units possess, but even they might not have the strength to survive the Ribiyar.” Captain Whitefield said as he started to get some guns and attaching ammo packs to his belt. Olo went to some laser rifles and thought about what to pick.

  ​“I don’t know, Captain. Maybe a few minutes at least.” Olo put on some chest armor and started to get some battery packs, which was ammo for the laser rifles, when he heard Blitz’s deep meow echoing in the hall.

  The Ribiyar caught up to us. Olo heard the Ribiyar shouting in their alien language, and then heard Blitz blasting into them with his machine guns. As he was linking his gun to a combat visor, a visor that went over the person’s eyes that helped him see where he was aiming his gun, the armory floor shook beneath him and loud explosions sounded from the hallway.

  Olo feared that Blitz had been destroyed, but he still heard his machine guns blasting away, so he guessed that Blitz must have grenades stored somewhere on him. It was possible that Blitz had more weapons that he knew about; he hadn’t been able to see the schematics of his weaponry before the attack began, so he didn’t know what tricks Blitz had up his ‘sleeves’, or how many bullets he could store inside him for his machine guns. Just as Olo finished linking his guns to the visor, he heard a whooshing sound that he guessed was a flamethrower. How the designers fit that device into the cat, he didn’t know.

  ​The captain yelled above the gunfire, “Lieutenant, if we survive this mess, we need to head to the lower decks and get more crewmen to help us. Once we have regrouped, we need to get on the main deck and find a way disable their fighters without destroying them. Any technology we can gain from them could help us win this war.”

  ​Once he was done gather his materials, Olo asked, “Are you ready, sir?” He walked over to the captain, who was also wearing armor, had several guns and ammo clipped to him, and currently held a gun nicked named ‘Quick-shot’, a gun that had three machine gun nozzles
, and had several clips stored into its main compartment, allowing it to store a lot of ammo. Because of the gun’s weight, the user was required to wear a cast, a metallic robotic ‘arm’ that’s wear on the user’s arm that greatly increases the person’s strength. Though the gun’s weight meant the user had less maneuverability, it could fire three-hundred bullets a minute, earning the name ‘quick’ shot.

  ​The captain was about to answer when he was knocked down as the ship shook beneath them from a large explosion, bigger than the ones that they heard earlier. As Olo helped the captain up, Olo realized that the gun firing had stopped. This could only mean one thing: Blitz had perished, and that the Ribiyar would be upon them in moments. The captain signaled Olo to stand by the door, which had been dented inwards slightly by the explosions outside. The captain punched in the code and threw the door open … and then he froze. Olo started to jump in front of the captain to cover him when he saw why he had stopped. Outside the armory, the hallway was obliterated. Pieces of wall and ceiling platting where scattered everywhere, along with other pieces of the corridor, and several doors leading to rooms in the hallway had been blown open as well. If an object in the corridor wasn’t on fire, destroyed by Blitz’s grenades, or had bullet holes in it, parts of the Ribiyar were scattered on it.

  ​And there was Blitz: sitting in front of the doorway, licking his paw.

  ​“Lieutenant, how many Ribiyar do you see?” The captain asked as he tried to count.

  ​Olo looked over the amount of the wreckage and replied, “It appears that there were… over twenty Ribiyar, captain.”

  ​Captain Whitefield turned to Olo and said, “How could this cat possibly destroy that many Ribiyar and not have taken any injuries?”

  ​As Olo walked over the rubble to the ladders to travel to the lower decks, he replied, “It’s simple, sir. He is an E.V.A.N. after all.”

  Chapter 10

  Date: July 9, 2132.

  Location: Aboard the U.S.S. Atlanta, at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

  ​“So, is there any hope to bringing Captain Vade back to normal?” Gabrielle Lexton, a woman with shoulder length black hair and a dark tan, who was the Chief Engineer of the Atlanta, asked. It had been two hours since the procedure had taken place, and Commander Rickman and Ambassador Zephier had worked hard studying scans, conducting tests with Vade, and looking over the data they collected from him as well. With all that data, he was as prepared as he could be to deliver his report to the other senior officers. All the officers were present in the briefing room except Captain Vade and Ambassador Zephier, the captain taking time to rest from his resent experiences, and the ambassador continued to work with other officers examining the data they had collected from Vade.

  ​“I am going to be straight forward with you all.” Rick took a deep breath and pressed forward. “There is no chance to bring the captain back.” The room erupted in chaos as the officers began to shout their objections. After Rick got the room settled, Chief Lexton asked the question on everyone’s mind.

  ​“Commander Rickman, why in the world can’t we bring the captain back? If we made him this way, can’t we just reverse the process?”

  ​“There are two reasons, Chief,” Lieutenant Commander Hayley responded. “The first reason is that there is not enough of the captain’s genetic material left, so there would be nothing to base our reversions on. The second reason is that, based on our analysis and computer simulations, the captain wouldn’t survive the conversion back. It appears it just isn’t possible to bring machinery to humanity, though it appears we can bring humanity to machines.”

  ​“In that case, Lieutenant Commander, do we know why the machine did this to him? I can’t believe it did this because of something wrong with the programming, considering how closely we examined it. And that goes double for the Genetic Modulator itself.”

  ​“It is a difficult question to answer, Chief. We can’t find a way to access the file the GM was set on, no matter how we try to get into the file. It doesn’t appear that we’ll ever be able to get in it, meaning we don’t know the full extent of the transformation, even though we have the captain’s schematics we downloaded from him. It is possible we will never find out how the settings where changed, or who did it.”

  ​“What about the security footage in the control room does it show anything?”

  ​Lieutenant Kevin Nickland, a short man with crew cut red hair, who served as the Atlanta’s Chief Tactical officer, answered, “We have reviewed all of the footage in the control room and in the Research and Development room. There was no one in the control center when we believe the changes took place, and the computer display for the GM was on the wall, angled away from the security cameras. No one was in the room, but we can’t see what was on the display. If we could’ve seen it, we might have been able to stop the events from happening in the first place.”

  ​After waiting a moment, Rick continued, “Though this situation is far from what we intended, Captain Vade has informed us that he believes, with this new body, he may have a chance of removing the wrecked ship above us.”

  ​“And how exactly is he going to do this task?” Chief Lexton asked. “No disrespect to the captain, but personally, I don’t think that he alone can accomplish the task that the combined efforts of the crew couldn’t complete.”

  ​“Under normal circumstances, I would agree with you, Chief. But from what we’ve studied of his schematics, Captain Vade has a powerful array of weaponry installed within him, and given enough time, the captain can cut through the wreckage of the ship and remove enough off the Atlanta to allow us to escape.”

  ​“And how long will it take to do that?” Lieutenant Commander Hayley asked. “We only have five days of food left, and the crew’s morale is at an all-time low. I don’t know how much longer we can go on like this, sir.”

  ​“I’m afraid we just have to make do with what we have, Lieutenant Commander, and keep pressing forward. The captain can’t give us an exact estimate of how long it will take, but it is by far the best chance we’ve got so far.”

  ​“Commander Rickman,” Chief Lexton spoke, “what if we use the Genetic Modulator to make more food and supplies? If the device created Captain Vade’s new form, with all the advances in technology it had, couldn’t we use it to synthesize food?

  ​“I like your line of thinking, Chief Lexton,” Rick replied, “But that is part of the problem with bringing Captain Vade back to normal. The GM apparently can only make inorganic material, like metal. The device isn’t capable of making organic material, meaning we can’t use it to make food.”

  ​“Does that mean that... if these changes to the captain’s file hadn’t been made, he wouldn’t have survived?”

  ​“It does, Chief. If we had returned the captain to his normal state, he would have been fine. The GM can bring back something that hasn’t been altered. But you are correct. If the captain had been altered as we planned, he would never have survived.” The room was silent as they realized that this unknown hacker had apparently saved the captains life. Lieutenant Commander Hayley was the first to break the silence. “How soon can the captain start working on the debris above us?”

  ​“He said he is ready when the procedure is authorized by us.”

  ​ “Why would he need our permission?” Lieutenant Nickland asked. “He is our superior officer; he can do whatever he thinks is best without needing our approval.

  ​“That… is my last bit of news.” Rick said cautiously. “The captain has officially resigned from command and designated me as the commanding officer of the Atlanta.” The room once again erupted in argument and bewilderment over the news. When the room calmed down, Lieutenant Commander Hayley asked, “Why in the name of the seven seas would he do that?”

  ​“Vade didn’t feel that he was qualified to remain the captain with the recent events that have taken place. With his recent chance, he knew that our superiors back home were unlikely to allow him to
retain his command and are likely to pull him away for study and examination. Also… should something happen to him while he’s working on the wreckage, he wanted the transition of command already taken place so we wouldn’t be without a leader to guide us forward.” Looking at the faces of the officers in the room, Rick asked, “That being said, I think we should go ahead and decide. Does everyone agree that Vade should begin working on the wreckage?” When all the officers replied yes, Rick said, “If no one has anything to discus, this briefing is adjourned. I will inform Jack that he will begin within the hour.” Leaving the other officers in the Briefing Room, Rick made his way to Vade’s quarters to inform him of the decision and help him prepare for his undersea mission.

  ​After traveling to Vade’s room, still located at the captains quarters, as the change of command had only been made recently been made, and Rick didn’t feel any desire to rush him out of the room, he raised his hand to knock on the door, but saw that it was cracked open. Slowly edging the door open, Rick peered into the room, and saw Vade sitting at his desk. He had removed the remains of his torn uniform, which Rick knew likely would have been unsettling for him as he had been extremely proud of his command attire and the position it accompanied, and was now clothed only by his metal armor. In his right hand, Vade held a picture from about ten years ago, showing Jack alongside a woman he didn’t recognize, who had a light tan and red hair.

  ​“Sir?” He asked, trying to respectfully grab his attention. Vade quickly put down the picture and turned towards him.

  ​“Sorry, Commander- Captain Rickman,” Vade said, correcting himself, “I was caught up in my thoughts and didn’t hear you come in. And don’t feel the need to address me formerly; there’s no reason for you to do that anymore. Just call me Jack. It is my name, after all.”