by Max Swan
“What nightmares?” Dexter asked, concerned he is still reliving Sheena’s death.
“I don’t want to talk about it, Dex, so leave it,” Paul replied. He took a swig on his glass of vodka.
“I could inject you with serup. I mean it might help,” Dexter said, worried.
“No! I’m not touching that shit. I’d rather be drunk than walking around like a fucking zombie.” Paul refilled his glass.
Dexter is about to say something, but at that point Ship unexpectedly dropped out of the Void. A wave of gravity hit the room making them fly across the room, like any other loose object. They came to an abrupt stop pinned against a wall, feeling a great weight pressing against them growing stronger by the second until they all blacked out.
*****
Paul found himself on the Bridge of Ship standing next to Colonel Abdul with a buzzing crew around him. He looked at the monitor to see a space vessel of a size that defied belief. It isn’t too dissimilar in shape to a Ship, only this one is an easy five hundred kilometers long. He is suddenly jolted out of his reverie by the Colonel speaking to him.
“Major, do you know something about this vessel?” he asked, rocking slightly in his chair.
Paul felt his heart thump dully in his chest. I know too much about this vessel. Way too much, he thought. “Yes sir, I think they’ve come for me.”
A deep male voice yelled from the security station, “Sir, our scans cannot penetrate the hull of that thing!”
Abdul nodded to Major Lance, his Ship’s Greeter. “Get all our weapons online. We might have to shoot our way out of this.”
“I don’t recommend that, sir,” Paul said, his lips and chin noticeably trembling.
“And why not?”
“You’ll just make them angry.”
Paul found himself being carried down a long corridor by a group of panting and puffing marines. Alarms were blaring and lights flashing, and steam vented into the corridor from cracked pipes. The ground shook as Ship took a barrage after barrage of disruptor fire.
He looked next to him to see the sweaty flushed face of Major Lance. “Come on, marines, times running out!” he shouted. A door opened, Paul is roughly thrown into a room, and the door shut with clang leaving him alone. They’d thrown him in the antimeld brig, a cell used to prevent Keepers from being able to meld to a Ship and escape. Anti-meld metal had properties that shielded against psychic abilities. Paul suddenly heard screaming and suffering so loud and vile, he covered his ears with his hands. The screaming face of Major Lance pressed against a window on the door. His face looking horribly distorted by what is going on outside the antimeld brig.
Major Lance’s eyes and mouth went wide, like Sheena’s had when she was killed, and for a moment Paul thought he was looking at her. He shook his head, and Sheena disappeared to leave only Major Lance, who had now become silent. The Majors face still held that expression of comic shock. He began to slide to the floor, and was gone.
Paul ran to the door and started banging on it. “No! No! I’m sorry! Please, it’s not my fault!” He fell to the floor sobbing in the knowledge that one thousand marines had died to protect him, and what he knew. “It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault,” he whimpered rocking back and forth. He heard a soft hissing, so he stood quickly and peered out the small window in the door, but all he could see were bodies and deep shadows.
“Hello? Is there anybody there?” he yelled out hopefully.
“But it is your fault, Major,” a strange voice answered.
“Who are you?” Paul demanded.
A heavy silence prolonged the moment. The voice said in a harsh whisper, “Death.”
*****
Paul opened his eyes feeling as if every bone, muscle and organ in his body hurt. He took a deep breath that also hurt, and pulled himself up, despite the pain it caused, to a sitting position. Next to him lay Dexter and he reached across and put his hand close to Dexter’s mouth. He’s breathing, Paul thought. We’re alive, but how? He dragged himself to his feet by grabbing the nearby sofa, feeling nauseated the whole time. Eventually he made it to his feet, and again felt relieved there were no broken bones.
Dexter moaned.
“Dex? Dex, are you OK?” Paul asked hoarsely, but Dexter didn’t respond. He walked gingerly to Dexter’s limp body and scooped his arms under it. While Brainiac’s have large light bulb shaped heads that held their massive brains, their bodies were small like a ten-year-old child so they were easy to pick up. Paul scooped him up and laid him out on the sofa. Looking down at his friend he shook his head. You don’t deserve this shit, old friend, he thought. He looked for his bottle of vodka only to see the smashed remains near where they had been laying. He sighed deeply. At least the horrible rococo chairs are all smashed up, he thought looking around the room.
He needed a drink, and went into the kitchen of his quarters and opened a lower cupboard, pulling out an intact bottle of vodka among several broken ones. He held it up and looked at it admiringly. At least someone up there still likes me, he smiled at the bottle. Taking the top off, he swigged it down. As he stood there feeling the effects of the alcohol lessen the pain, he became aware of something else. A low pitched buzzing coming from his workstation. He walked to it and hit a button making the screen become active. On the monitor two big words flashed with the buzzing.
The words read: Collision Alert!
*****
Paul’s quarters were on ‘D’ Deck and the Bridge is on ‘C’ Deck, so he moved as fast as he could to the trail. Ship is five kilometers long, so a form of transportation is needed to move marines from end to end quickly. This is achieved by an internal monorail system that ran down the middle of Ship called ‘the trail’. The trail has stations at lift points which allows easy movement to upper or lower sections. The fastest way to move along the length of Ship is on the trail, as the decks are laid out like a labyrinth. Ships are designed this way to make enemy boarding a slow and laborious process. Fortunately it didn’t take him long to reach the Bridge, and when he entered, the various alarms hit him like a wall of sound. His eyes were immediately drawn to the main monitor at the other side of the room. Despite the large crack going down the middle of the monitor, it displayed a large planet. A gas giant that looked familiar to him. On the image of the gas giant, the same phrase he had seen in his quarters blinked at him: Collision Alert!
Paul stood mesmerized by the monitor, and a thought whispered in his mind that maybe it’s for the best. After all the death he had caused, his wife, and all those marines; maybe it’s his time now. Time to pay for all the destruction he had brought, and the lives he had ruined. He stood there watching the monitor, feeling that his destiny is finally going to be fulfilled.
At the station in the center of the Bridge, as if by some magic trick, a grizzled looking old man appeared, looking down at the computer station. An old man with eyes as back as the heart of space itself, and an olive, greenish complexion. His face so wrinkled, that it barely looked the same from one moment to the next. Colonel Nadir had returned from his meld with Ship. Nadir hit a button and the Bridge went silent. He sighed in relief. The thrusters were off-line. In fact, nearly everything is offline. He activated the intercom hoping like hell it still worked. “Gordon! Gordon! Are you there, Gordon?”
Enginelab didn’t respond, so he tried again. “Captain Blake, get your arse to the intercom now, or we’re all dead! GORDON!”
Eventually, there came a surly response, “All right, all right, don’t get your panties in a bunch.”
“You have to get forward thrusters online immediately,” Nadir demanded.
“What?” Blake sounded dazed.
“Look at the forward view,” Nadir screamed.
“Oh Fuck! I’m on it.”
The intercom went dead. Paul stood silently, watching as the gas giant loomed larger and larger by the second, completely oblivious to Colonel Nadirs presence. Only the voice of death hissed in his mind telling him it�
��s a good choice to die. The lights abruptly went out on the Bridge and the emergency lighting came on. The unused stations began to shut down as well. The gas giant now engulfing the monitor. Death is in sight.
Captain Blake’s voice announced over the intercom, “OK, I think I got it now.”
Nadir looked down as thruster control went into the green, “Confirmed. Brace yourselves!”
He hit a button and Ships forward thrusters began to fire. Again the g-forces rose inside Ship as the two energies fought against each other. The sudden change threw Paul to the floor with a yelp, making Nadir turnaround.
“Hold on, Major, it’s going to get turbulent from here,” Nadir yelled over the sound of thruster fire. The ride did get turbulent, causing debris to fall and bounce around. Paul hung on a rail knowing it would be futile to try to stand at this point.
“Ships slowing,” Blake said over the intercom.
“Commencing orbital insertion,” Nadir replied. Watching the controls, Nadir noticed that power levels were fluctuating wildly, a bad sign. “Gordon, what’s our power situation?”
“The q-drive’s dead, so we’re using emergency power. Firing thrusters at full throttle is chewing through it,” Blake replied.
Nadir ran the calculations through his mind, because he’s beginning to doubt Ship could slow enough to attain a safe orbital velocity for Jupiter. “Gordon, shut down everything that’s not needed. If we run out of power now, we’re dead!” Nadir ordered.
“I’m way ahead of you, sir, I’ve already done that. We may be better off doing a sling-shot, as I don’t think we have enough power to make orbit,” Blake suggested.
Paul forced himself up and sat at his shut down station. All Bridge functions were operating through Nadir’s station now as extreme power saving measures took hold inside Ship. He had quelled the desire inside himself that craved death for the moment, as the intensity of their predicament took hold of him. He is a marine after all, a finely tuned soldier whose instincts took over in the heat of danger and conflict. He yelled across the Bridge to Nadir, “I think Blakey’s right. Forget orbit, we’ll never make it.”
Nadir turned and looked at Paul, considering his advice. Paul hated being stared at by Keepers as their black eyes gave him the creeps.
Ship suddenly announced in her female voice on the intercom, “Collision in fifteen minutes and counting.”
Nadir knew what he had to do now as he watched the power levels drop below half. A Brainiac on the Bridge would’ve calculated a new course in a matter of seconds, but Nadir had no such luxury, it’s now up him. So he melded with Ship again disappearing from the Bridge, his body merging with Ships flesh. He felt his awareness become heightened as he began to see through Ships senses. Through their connected minds, Nadir and Ship looked outward into the coldness of space to see whether they could avert this coming disaster. As their minds reached out, he could see glimpses of possible futures unravel. Eventually, a path revealed itself that gave them the best chance to sling-shot around Jupiter. As Nadir looked at how sharply he would have to maneuver the body of Ship, he knew it would hurt her.
He whispered to her lovingly, “I’m sorry,”
Ship replied, “It can’t be helped. Now go, time is running out.”
Nadir appeared at his station on the Bridge again and immediately began entering the coordinates into the computer and programmed the thruster firing sequence. He hit a button that would enable him to broadcast across Ship. “All hands, brace yourselves as I’m about to attempt a sling-shot maneuver around Jupiter.” He touched his station to initiate the program he had entered.
Forward thrusters abruptly reduced to forty percent power, but other thrusters fired on the bow at full power pushing Ship away from the gas giant. The ride became turbulent again. Items rattled around inside the Bridge, and Paul hung onto his station grimly. As Ship is pushed, there is resistance from Jupiter’s upper atmosphere and her body began to bend until it resembled an over ripe banana. Nadir closed his eyes as her suffering became more and more acute, and tears ran down his cheeks. Ships not built to bend like this, so the pain she feels is enormous. Ships consciousness slipped from Nadirs mind, and he knew she had blacked out, again.
“I’m sorry, my love,” he whispered, watching Jupiter leave the monitor view to be replaced by open space.
Chapter 3
Paul knew that the sling shot maneuver had taken a toll on Ship by the way Nadir hunched in the chair with his eyes closed. “Ship is brave to have endured that, sir,” he said making the Colonel look at him.
Nadir stroked the flesh of his chair lovingly for a moment. “She’s the bravest Ship in the fleet,” he said softly.
Paul nodded. “So what now? We may have skimmed by Jupiter, but we’re flying blind toward who knows what?”
Nadir regained himself and stood, straightening his uniform as he did. He looked at his station to find it dead, so he walked to communications and it was the same. “Fuck, nothings working. We have to go to Enginelab, I hope Blake has a few stations working there.”
Paul looked at his station and tried to activate it, but nothing happened. He pulled out his cell to try to call Dexter, but the screen flashed: Network Down. “Communications is down,” he said, holding up the cell for Nadir to see.
Nadir frowned and shook his head. “You and Barrett are going to have to take a shuttle out. Get hold of Command, we’re gonna need help here and fast.”
“With permission, I’d like to check on Dex first. The last gravity wave hit him hard,” Paul asked. It me hard too, he thought.
Nadir nodded. “Yes, I suggest that’s our first stop.” They walked out of the Bridge heading for the trail station when, to Paul’s relief, they met Dexter along the way. Nadir looked him over, “Good to see you in one piece, Mr. Crimpson. We were worried.”
“You too, sir,” Dexter said, eyeing off Paul. “Why has the Bridge been left unattended?” he asked, eyes darting from Nadir to Paul.
“The Bridge is offline, and we’re flying blind. We’re headed to Enginelab to see what we can do about it,” Nadir said, and as they walked to the trail Nadir explained his plans to Dexter.
Paul climbed into the first carriage and headed for the hanger bay at the aft of the ship to get a shuttle ready for launch. Nadir and Dexter climbed into another carriage heading to Enginelab, which is at the center of Ship. As they travelled along, Dexter’s curiosity got the better of him, because what they’d been through is unprecedented in human history. They had made the journey from Bolaris to Earth in a week. A feat thought impossible by modern science.
“Sir, what happened after we entered the Void?” Dexter asked, while leaning forward to listen.
“We were carried through the Void by a gravity well at an incredible speed. We were powerless to stop it. At least we exited the Void where we originally planned to, but I don’t know how.” Nadir shivered at the memory of it.
“That would indicate that gravity doesn’t behave in the Void as it does in ordinary space.” They suddenly became distracted by another trail carriage passing them with Lieutenant Huang on board, probably heading to the Bridge. They watched the carriage pass and Huang waved to them, both returned it.
After she had passed Nadir said gruffly, “I know what we felt, Mr. Crimpson. I’m positive we went faster than the speed of light, and when I say faster I mean much faster.”
Dexter leant back in his chair keeping his expression and tone neutral. How one can decide such a thing on feelings alone, thought Dexter astounded? “That’s an interesting observation, sir. Still, impossible to verify scientifically, but I’m sure the Brainiac Guild will be interested to know about your experience.”
Nadir shook his head in a scowl. Verify Scientifically, he thought astounded. “Not everything can be measured in a test tube, Mr. Crimpson,” he said.
Dexter looked down at his hands. “No, sir.”
Typical bloody Brainiac arrogance, Nadir thought. So he changed the s
ubject of the conversation to something that interested him. “I’m surprised you decided to come on this mission. Especially after the Brainiac Guild flatly refused my requests for any Brainiac crew.”
“General Appleton asked me as a favor, and I agreed.” Dexter remained looking at his hands. Nadir suddenly laughed uproariously prompting Dexter to look at him. “Sir?”
Nadir recovered himself but held his smirk. “I didn’t know Brainiac’s listened to General’s. I thought they never listened to anyone, but other Brainiac’s.”
Dexter sat with his lips pressed tightly, his arms crossed around his chest as Nadir looked down on him. Eight years had passed after he last served on a Ship, and he now remembered why he preferred that arrangement. Working in a research facility is how he met Paul. Sheena worked at the same facility as him, until her death, and through her he met Paul. Does this beast think he can bait me so, he thought looking at Nadir? Dexter knew Nadir was playing him, to discover why he is here. “Brainiac’s are in fact good listeners, sir. We always hear more than is said,” Dexter said cautiously.
Nadir realized instantly that Dexter isn’t going to be manipulated. He is no young Brainiac with a head full of science, and no life experience. Those types were usually easy to manipulate until they learned better, and the most irritating thing about them: they learned quickly. Realizing Dexter had seen through his game, Nadir tried to recover his position in the discussion.
“Still, it’s strange how an acute case of deafness afflicts you when the ‘Keeper’s Guild’ speaks.” He rolled his eyes attempting to assert his superiority.
Dexter’s body sagged and he said blankly, “Colonel, Brainiac’s aren’t interested in Keeper mysticism. Although I’m sure you find it engaging and fulfilling, I find it lacks any scientific credibility.”
