Neighbors

by Brian Whiting

  “Will do, sir. You think they will be effective? My experts tell me that

  since space is a vacuum, the explosion will cause far less damage than it

  would on the surface.”

  Uncomfortable silence waited the end of his words.

  “What do you think about their fleet?” the President responded.

  Alex had yet to give it a good look and took a moment to analyze it. “It

  seems a lot smaller than we anticipated,” he said cautiously.

  “Agreed. Let’s hope those shiddits don’t have any reinforcements nearby.”

  An aide whispered something in the President’s ear, and he nodded

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  before turning back to the UEF. “We haven’t always seen eye to eye, but right now. I hope you succeed and wish you all the best.”

  “Likewise, sir… Good luck.”

  The line disconnected, and Alex stared at the empty viewscreen for a

  few moments.

  “Captain, who do you want to talk to next?” Lanora looked expectantly

  at him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I have over four hundred priority communication requests, sir!”

  Alex pulled up the list on his screen. Ambassadors, Governors, Sena-

  tors, Prime Ministers, and even a few dictators were holding for a chance

  to talk.

  “Okay, I can’t do these all on my own. I want everyone on this bridge

  to take calls. Excuse my absence with the excuse that we are preparing for

  battle. It seems we are going to be waiting in orbit for some time, anyway.”

  Drake didn’t waste the opportunity. He pulled up the list and conversa-

  tions, restricting himself to the Senators.

  About an hour or so later, Alex figured out what his father was doing.

  Alex messaged the bridge crew privately to take senator and governor calls

  until those categories were complete.

  When Drake finished his latest call, he went to select the next one

  and was surprised to see the list was drained completely. Alex watched him

  refresh his screen and even back out and re-enter to confirm. He looked

  around and then selected another request at random.

  The bridge of the Abraham was much better than the Destiny, in Alex’s opinion. The bridge centered around a large circular display table. The

  command chairs were a bit elevated, so all could easily see every part of

  the table clearly. When the command chairs were facing the center table,

  everyone could look up and see each other’s faces clearly.

  Alex peered at the center table; it currently displayed a top-down rep-

  resentation of the space surrounding Earth. In the far corner was a large

  group of icons. Alex took command of the table from his chair and zoomed

  in on the cluster of icons.

  Alex wasn’t used to calling his crew by their rank, but since the influx

  of UEF recruits and their training, military protocol was coming back with

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  a certain familiarity. He generally didn’t call anyone by rank and barely acknowledged his own. Rather, he would shout out what he needed in terms

  of sensors or communications, and assume someone else would work out

  how to do it. There were few positions where it didn’t matter who was in

  charge, and observance of proper titling was required. The President was

  one. Alex could despise the person in office, but they certainly deserved the

  respect of title.

  “Tactical, use the telescope to get actual images of the ships.”

  “I’ll give it a try.” Jack switched to the targeting systems and looked for

  his targets fearing they were too far away.

  Alex stared at the icons. Each was selectable, and when selected, it

  would describe the class of ship and current telemetry.

  “There are no carrier class ships,” Alex mumbled out loud. “Open com-

  munication with Kalibri,” he ordered more loudly.

  “Communication open, Captain,” his new comm officer said.

  “Kalibri, what are your thoughts on this fleet?”

  “It is puzzling. We have nearly a dozen recorded fleet engagements of

  Zorn invading planetary systems. The size of this fleet is only a tenth of

  their normal contingent.”

  Alex switched his headset to a private channel and typed a message on

  his screen to no one specific, knowing that Kalibri was likely monitoring

  his screen.

  Eight seconds later, Alex received a response.

  Seventy-nine percent chance

  of success.

  “That’s great news,” Alex said aloud and switched back to the public

  channel.

  “Do you think the ICBMs will be effective?”

  “There are too many unknown variables to make a good guess; it all

  depends on if they detonate close enough to the ships. If the Zorn maneu-

  ver away from the missiles—”

  The blank viewscreen suddenly popped to life with an image from the

  long-range telescope. The ships were visible on the screen, albeit pretty small.

  “Captain, you said once in a simulation that you would lob rail cannon

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  rounds at the approaching fleet from a day’s distance away. Can’t we start firing?”

  Alex thought for a moment. “Jack, overlay on the main viewscreen pro-

  jected hit probabilities.”

  A few moments later, a large red circle enveloped almost the whole

  screen. “What is the current hit chance percentage if we fire right now?”

  “One point two percent.”

  “How many rounds do we have onboard?”

  “Two thousand rounds.”

  “At the sustained fire rate, how fast would we run out of ammunition if

  we started firing right now?”

  “Just over six hours, sir.”

  “At four hours to engagement range, I want you to start firing. That

  will give us the highest chance to make good hits and leave us with a few

  rounds left for close-range battle.”

  Jack unbuckled from his seat and stood up, which earned the attention

  from everyone on the bridge, his cheeks a bit red. “What? We have to wait

  like nine hours before we can get an update. I’m going to get some food

  and rack out.” He hurried from the bridge.

  “That’s a good idea. Everyone else can go ahead and do the same.”

  Alex motioned for Lanora to approach. She responded quickly, and he was

  pleased he had chosen her to be his XO.

  “I want one of us on the bridge at all times until this thing is over.”

  “You can take first watch sir.”

  Alex looked at her with a bit of surprise.

  “The first and last watch are the easiest. You’re either already awake, or

  you’re simply getting up a bit sooner than everyone else. It’s the shifts in the middle where you lose sleep waking up and going back to bed that are more

  difficult. Every military soldier worth their salt knows this to be true.” Alex looked at the clock and made a few quick calculations that would give his

  XO the last shift.

  “Three-hour shifts?”

  Without doing the math, she agreed and disappeared from the bridge,

  while Alex rested into his command chair, his eyes fixed on the approaching

  Zorn fleet. All he could do right now is wait.

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  Chapter 9

  Main fleet

  THE BRIDGE OF each ship was crammed with crew as they watched

  their viewscreens. Jack was eating out of a la
rge bag of chips. One of the

  men from the security detachment was standing over him, focused on the

  viewscreen. When Jack went for another chip, he was blocked by the sol-

  dier’s hand, who took it upon himself to snag a few chips. Jack looked up at

  the man, who returned a grin.

  The viewscreen turned white, and everyone turned away. Just as the

  flash diminished, another took its place. It didn’t take too long for the flash to dissipate, perhaps a few seconds. They had just long enough to look back

  at the screen at the enemy fleet, then another flash blinded their viewer.

  “Damn! Let me know when all the missiles have detonated.”

  Jack focused on his console and watched as the dots representing the

  nuclear missiles blinked out one by one, then his screen displayed odd

  images, like the ships were converging and morphing somehow.

  “What the…”

  “Captain, it seems your people have scored at least one good hit. Debris

  from the ship is causing sensor ghosts,” Kalibri chimed in on the comm system.

  Jack watched his screen again closely as the sensors continued to provide

  faulty readings. Glancing up, he watched the others on the bridge focus intently on their own screens. There was nothing to do but continue to wait.

  It was another minute before the last of the missiles detonated. The

  sensors were still useless, so he used the telescope to find the fleet once

  again. This time, he had to zoom out farther, as the enemy fleet had to scat-

  ter in various directions to avoid the missiles.

  “Zoom in on the big ships.”

  He quickly glanced between Jack and his own screen, back and forth.

  An image appeared: a capital ship. Like all of the other ships, it appeared

  pitch black. Its shape was weird, three-pointed cones fused together at their

  base. Each cone was a different length, and no cone was the same diameter.

  The ship changed direction, and they could tell the rear of the ship was

  rounded off with a singular thruster in the rear. There didn’t appear to be

  any damage to the ship.

  “Try another one!”

  “Subspace comms array is picking up odd signals.”

  “It’s Zorn communications,” Kalibri said.

  “Can you translate?”

  “Sending to Kalibri for translation.”

  Alex frowned and sat back in his chair, deep in thought as he waited for

  Jack to find another ship. He looked at him to find Jack was glancing back

  at him every now and then.

  “Without the sensors working, it’s not exactly easy,” he said, as though

  he knew what Alex was thinking.

  An image popped up on the screen; they’d found another ship, and not

  one they were able to identify.

  “It’s a cruiser-class vessel. It was split lengthwise,” Kalibri casu-

  ally mentioned.

  They watched the screen as tiny pieces of debris reflected the sun’s light.

  It looked like snow that refused to fall.

  “The Zorn transmission is confusing. It was a command meaning

  Arrive, which doesn’t make any sense, and Scatter.”

  The reception of the sensors cleared up. “I’ve got good sensors,” Jack

  called, glancing up at the screen.

  Alex navigated his screen to pull up the sensors. Most of the fleet was

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  still intact; most of the missiles detonated between ships, which were separated by more than a kilometer. The detonations couldn’t create shockwaves

  in space, as there is no atmosphere.

  “Looks like we got a few of them.”

  “I was hoping for more… Comms, get a line to the President.”

  Alex waited patiently while his communications officer made a connec-

  tion, being routed and rerouted to the President in a secured bunker. After

  another minute, the President’s face appeared on the viewscreen.

  “Mr. President, your missile launch seems to have destroyed or dam-

  aged about four vessels. You took out a cruiser, and the rest were destroyer-

  class vessels.”

  “How many remain for you to deal with?”

  “Fifteen undamaged destroyers, three cruisers and a larger kind

  of cruiser.”

  The President looked dejected. His eyes were sad, and the skin of his

  face drooped a little. “I’ll order the second volley. Good luck, Alex.”

  Alex felt his heart skip, and he called out in a small panic, “Mr. Presi-

  dent! One more moment please.”

  The President turned away, but was still listening.

  “If you could… launch your missiles to target only the cruisers. We’ll

  take on the destroyers. I fear we simply don’t have enough firepower to take

  on those ships.”

  “The missiles weren’t meant for space combat, I doubt they are that

  accurate. But…” He looked back into the screen with a confident nod, and

  the image went black.

  The mood in the bridge darkened dramatically. Alex wasn’t aware how

  bad it was until the feed was cut and he had a chance to look around.

  Everyone was silent, and no one wanted to look up from their screens,

  though he could tell from glancing at a couple of faces that they weren’t

  actually seeing them. He was grateful the other captains weren’t aware of

  the contents of the transmission.

  Alex’s display panel flashed twice and grew slightly brighter. A message

  scrolled across his screen.

  Captain Alex, if I ever had a friend, it

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  was you. I want to make you aware

  of several things. I apologize for

  not keeping you completely in the

  loop. I did act in your best interest

  whenever possible, but my core

  programming always came first.

  There’s no information I was able

  to attain that wasn’t transmitted via

  subspace back to Thean command.

  They even have your technology on

  the dark matter propulsion drives.

  If you survive this battle, I hope you’ll

  still honor your original agreement

  with us. Due to immediate and

  emerging details, I have been

  authorized to give you some more

  of our standard weapon technology.

  There’s nothing in the file that will

  help you now, but I am sure you’ll

  find it useful later. Pay close attention

  to the medical section—we are a

  biochemically-driven society, after all.

  There is also something else I

  want to tell you, but my core

  programming will not permit me.

  So I offer this instead: “Should the

  battle be won, and the streams are

  reborn, look to the pillar above and

  sleep in its light. Fortunes abound in

  ambers light. A cost, a choice, yours

  to decide. Do what’s right.”

  It’s the best workaround I can give

  you. You should know that by the

  113

  time you read this, I’ll likely be no

  more. It seems they landed on the

  other side of Titan and took a bit of

  a trip. They are already in the decks.

  My reactor is going critical, so I’ll

  take care of these few for you. You’re

  on your own.

  Goodbye, my friend.

  Alex looked up and scanned the face
s on the bridge; they were unaware.

  They waited on edge for the reveal, for him to tell them what’s going on.

  Jack and Lanora jumped when their screens flashed with alerts. They

  both talking over each other.

  “—priority—”

  ”—Capt—”

  ”—message—”

  ”—light—”

  ”—Titan—”

  ”—alert—”

  “Okay, please stop,” Alex snapped, interrupting them both.

  “Titan just exploded! Messages are coming in from all our ships,

  Captain.”

  Jack shifted the telescope to Titan, and the image appeared on their

  screens. A giant ball of gas was displaced, in orbit around the moon Titan,

  whose crust glowed a cherry red, the surface remarkably clear, clear enough

  to see the newly-formed crater that covered its surface.

  “Sensors indicate the orbital velocity of the moon was reduced signifi-

  cantly. It’s… It’s not going to maintain orbit any longer. In twenty months,

  Titan will make contact with Jupiter’s upper atmosphere.”

  “What the hell?” Lorna said under her breath, and Alex saw a few other

  crewmen nod in agreement.

  Alex glanced at his crew. “The Zorn attacked Kalibri, so he let his reac-

  tors go critical. That’s what I was reading.”

  * * *

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  Renee held a large box as she walked down the last flight of stairs. She approached a large black SUV and placed the box in the back section, then

  closed the door. She pulled out her phone and placed a call.

  “Hey.”

  “Hi… Listen, I think it’s time for us to leave. I know some people that

  are willing to house us in the shelter. You should think about coming with

  me, so you don’t have to wait on the buses. I can swing by and pick you up,

  if you’re interested.”

  There were a few moments of silence. “I don’t know. I need to take care

  of stuff first.”

  “Well, I leave in a few minutes. If you change your mind, let me know.”

  More silence.

  “Take care, Jackie.” The line clicked off.

  Renee jumped into the driver’s seat of the SUV, next to her male pas-

  senger. The SUV pulled out of the compound and onto the long drive to

  the UEF shelter. On the horizon, a cluster of stars ascended into the sky

  once again.

  * * *

  Jackie put her phone away, busy editing and cutting the latest feed from the

  UEF fleet in orbit. Video of the Zorn debris field would make a huge boost