Neighbors

by Brian Whiting

  in global moral.

  Someone walked by and dropped a flyer on her desk they said some-

  thing in passing, but she didn’t really pay attention. She wanted to finish

  her work first. Watching the raw video and selecting the good segments

  took a lot of time. It was no wonder Renee needed help.

  Time continued to pass, and the sun set. Then something occurred to

  her, and she finally looked away from her screen.

  The media section of the office was completely devoid of people. She

  reached out for her phone.

  “Damn!” A blinking red battery appeared on her screen. She fumbled

  in her purse for the charger, but it wasn’t there. She ran out into the hall-

  way, which was also void of people. Now she was really concerned. She

  picked up the pace and ran faster.

  “Hey! Can anyone hear me?”

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  She approached a large open area. Being startled happened first, then the pain bloomed through her body. She hit a brick wall, and her right eye

  stung terribly. She opened her eyes to find that she was face-down on the

  floor. She pushed herself up and lightly touched her eye and face. Next to

  her was a large man seated on his butt with a blank stare.

  “Are you okay, miss?”

  Jackie gathered her legs under her and stood up. She looked down at

  the man seated. He had ginger hair all over his body, which included a

  healthy beard. He shook his head once; his hazel eyes were big and bright.

  “I am so sorry.” Jackie reached out a hand to help the man get up. To

  her surprise, he accepted the help, and she leaned back as far as she could

  while holding onto his hand. He easily doubled her weight.

  “It’s okay. Are you okay?”

  “I was worried something happened. Where is everyone?”

  “Didn’t you know? Everyone is getting evacuated.”

  “What, where?”

  “I don’t know, something about a safer place. People are downstairs

  loading families into buses. I was on my way there now.”

  Jackie looked around; she wished her phone had even a bit of charge

  left. The hallways were eerily devoid of other people. The large man pulled

  out a flyer from his bag and handed it to her.

  EVACUATION—Buses are loading

  personnel and families to a safer

  location, please gather essential

  items only.

  There was a picture of a bus entering a tunnel underneath the message.

  “My name is Connel.” He extended his hand. He was dressed like a

  civilian, a man of business, his clothes only a little wrinkled from the blow

  she’d dealt him.

  She shook it. “Jackie.”

  “Yeah, I know… Do you have everything?”

  She looked back towards her office. “I suppose…” Her work would be

  saved on the server. She wondered if she would have access to it where ever

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  they were going, then she realized Renee was probably already there and wondered if that’s what she was trying to say earlier.

  * * *

  “Captain, four hours until pulse weapon range.” Jack had his head down,

  focused on his screen. “Shall I begin firing?”

  “No, let’s wait for the second wave of missiles to hit. What’s the ETA

  on that?”

  “Two minutes.”

  The viewscreen on the center table in front of them was a clear 3D

  image representing the approaching fleet. Visible to all were the blue dots

  representing the nuclear missiles, which were very close to detonating. The

  Zorn ships separated in various directions.

  “They couldn’t have just noticed the incoming missiles, surely they saw

  them coming. Why did they wait until the last minute to move out of the

  way?” Lanora asked.

  They watched as the slower cruisers banked in opposite directions.

  The nuclear missiles came in a nearly straight path, and despite the enemy

  undergoing evasive maneuvers, more of the missiles hit targets this time.

  After brief flashes of light, both cruisers were nowhere to be seen. The other missiles either missed targets or detonated too far away from other ships to

  be of any use.

  Alex readjusted himself in his seat and looked around at those on his

  bridge. The moment had finally come; it was now time to put years of

  words and plans into action.

  “Okay, this is it. Choose targets and begin firing. What’s the current

  hit chance?”

  The viewscreen projected hit probabilities again. Now that the ships

  were flying a bit erratically, it indicated that the chance of hitting one of

  them showed only 35%.

  “That’s not accurate,” Jack was quick to add. “That’s for targets not

  moving or flying in a predictable path. I’d say it’s less than five percent

  right now.”

  “It doesn’t matter, we can’t run out of ammunition if we start now

  anyway. That’s was the whole reason why we waited. Commence firing.”

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  A twenty-five-pound chunk of steel flew from the Abraham at incredible speeds. It silently cruised through space, waiting for something to

  interfere with its path to infinity. Ten seconds later, it was followed by an

  identical chunk of steel, then another.

  “Hit!”

  Four minutes went by. The viewscreen showed a destroyer venting gas

  near the nose end of the vessel. The ship continued on its erratic path.

  “Missile launch!”

  Alex looked at Jack for an explanation.

  “It’s the Raziya, sir. They just launched their four forward missiles and are putting on speed for intercept. Missile impact in eight minutes. Captain Mason suggests we form a wedge, with him being the point.”

  “Order the fleet to intercept the incoming Zorn ships. Form up

  on Mason.”

  All the ships gradually increased velocity as they heading towards the

  approaching fleet.

  “We are receiving more Zorn subspace transmissions, Captain.”

  “Send them to Kal…” His voice trailed off, and Alex looked down at

  his screen, watching the destroyers let loose a hoard of pods.

  “I count just over fifty pods,” Lanora said as she watched the screen

  closely. Alex watched her as something caught her attention. “Priority mes-

  sage from The President.”

  “On screen.”

  “No, sorry, sir, it’s message only. It reads Zorn main fleet is approaching, we lose.”

  Alex frowned and exchanged awkward glances from his bridge crew.

  “He gave up?”

  “He thinks we lost already,” someone else said. Alex wasn’t sure who.

  “We’re getting a file now…” Her fingers danced across her screen. “It’s

  a sensor file.”

  They waited for the file to appear on the display in front of them. The

  screen lit up with multiple enemy contacts: dozens of cruisers, battleships,

  even a couple of carriers, and a ship shaped like a snowflake and other odd

  designs. An unstoppable armada.

  “Why don’t we see these contacts?”

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  Jack swallowed hard. “Captain, the ships are on the other side of Earth. We can’t see them from our location. This fleet we are attacking is

  a diversion.

  Realization dawned on Alex, and he leaned his head back hard. He

  stared at the ceiling.

  �
��Why bother with the fake up? A fleet that size could wipe us easily,”

  Jack mumbled.

  “Contact the Destiny.”

  Lanora didn’t waste any time making contact.

  Brandy’s face appeared. “Are you getting this?”

  “Yeah, listen, I am sending you to face them.”

  Brandy’s head moved to the left, squinting, her mouth cocked to

  the side.

  “Stay in the upper atmosphere, don’t meet them in space. Shoot down

  the pods as they come in. It will be like shooting falling rocks. Just stay out of their way and destroy them. I don’t expect you to do much else, except

  stay alive.”

  Brandy’s pilot shifted the control before she was ordered to, but Brandy

  gave no reaction to it as she saluted Alex. He returned the salute, and the

  display went dark. He feared that would be the last time he saw her.

  “Get the rest of the captains on conference.”

  Moments later, the three other captains appeared onscreen, looking pas-

  sive or appearing concerned. Alex watched on a smaller subscreen as updated

  scans from the opposite side of the planet were projected up. The carriers

  launched their contents, easily tens of thousands of pods, if not more, along

  with the other ships launching their cargo into the atmosphere below. He

  watched the other Captains as they observed the scene unfolding before them.

  “Let’s focus on the fleet in front of us. Keep moving, don’t let the pods

  predict your next direction. Let’s make the pods our priority targets. Once

  it gets close quarters, we should all circle in tight and shoot down pods that are closest to us. Once the pods are destroyed, the destroyers should be easy

  pickings. Again, keep focused on the task at hand; we will worry about the

  fallout later. Good luck!”

  Alex watched as the active sensors showed the Destiny zoom off

  towards Earth.

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  Brian Whiting

  Alex’s ship shuddered as a rail round shot forth, jolting him back to his

  task. It was still about an hour before the two fleets could merge into one.

  With each passing minute, more of Jack’s shots found their targets. It was

  disconcerting that there were no visible signs of damage, other than the

  venting of atmosphere from the hull.

  Twenty minutes into their barrage, one of the pods was unlucky enough

  to travel into the path of Jack’s next rail round, and the pod shattered into

  hundreds of pieces.

  “One down, a hundred to go,” Jack said sarcastically. The two fleets

  drifted closer and closer to each other, punctuated by the occasional rail

  round fired from the Abraham.

  On his screen, Alex watched as the Seraph and the Nuboko fired pulse rounds, and small stars flung out of the barrels at great speeds, streaking

  past the incoming pods and making contact with the destroyers behind. The

  shot from the Nuboko made contact with the midsection of the destroyer, turning the hull in that section into a tar-like goo. The Seraph achieved a similar goal with its next hit.

  More and more shots rang out, turning some of the destroyer hulls into

  an unrecognizable mess, and yet there was still no real way to determine if

  the ship was functional unless it started maneuvering again.

  The bridge crew felt the g-forces grow as the pilots undertook a circu-

  lar course correction, each ship heading off on a different trajectory. The

  decouplers on each of the ships fired, except for the Raziya, as there hadn’t been enough time to outfit her with a decoupler. Instead, that ship let out a

  burst of minigun rounds. Alex watched as one of the pods on his screen dis-

  integrated as though sandblasted with large rocks. The minigun was effec-

  tive, yet it affected the Raziya’s course and speed. They slowed down more than Alex could have guessed with the bursts from the weapons. One of the

  pods was getting close to ramming it.

  Both Jack and another tactical officer from one of the other ships hit

  the pod with a few seconds of a decoupler beam. The pilot drastically changed the course of the ship, forcing them all back into their seats. The

  scene molded into chaos as small red beams of light flashed here and

  there on their screens. The ships collided with broken bits of pod debris

  several times. The Earth swirled across the viewscreen as pods engaged their thrusters, turned

  120

  and engaged again, in an attempt to board one of the ships. Once or twice, Alex had the satisfaction of watching two pods collide with each other.

  They seemed no worse for it, however. Alex watched one of the side cam-

  eras as the other ship targeted a pod approaching the Abraham at a perfect angle. The pod was split into two segments, and Alex watched as the red

  beam swept across the camera, which made the image go dark.

  “Geesh… Hey, watch it!” Alex barked out loud. His comm wasn’t acti-

  vated, so he was simply yelling into the bridge. Those sitting around him

  gave him a weird glance.

  “We just got hit by a beam strike.”

  One of the two pod segments that split hit the hull and bounced off.

  Everyone was jostled for a moment but then got right back to it, aware of

  the threats to their lives. Occasionally, Jack would yell out to Lanora to

  turn, speed up or decelerate as he downed pod after pod.

  “Seraph struck!”

  A video icon appeared on his display screen, and he clicked on it. It

  enlarged to show a deeply-embedded pod in the midsection of the Seraph.

  Then the crew was jostled again a couple of people almost thrown from

  their seats.

  “Pod strike!” one of the crewmen shouted a moment later. “We got

  lucky; the angle was bad, and they bounced off.”

  “We lost one of our rear propulsion disks!” Alex’s pilot said.

  “How many Zorn pods are left?” Alex asked.

  “About… thirty.”

  A group of pods split off from the others and formed a loose formation

  near the outer edge of the engagement area. They took a moment to choose

  a target: the slowest ship at that moment. They engaged their thrusters to

  full and sped back into the engagement zone at increasing and frighten-

  ing speed.

  They didn’t notice the pods until it was too late.

  The five pods zipped by, barely missing a pod themselves as they breached

  the engagement perimeter and sped through the middle towards their target.

  Jack watched on his screen as a group of pods blurred past his tar-

  geting screen. He zeroed in on a different pod as it made an attempt on

  the Nuboko.

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  Four of the five pods struck their target. Two pods struck awfully close to each other, and the later one to hit the hull went in one side, barreling

  through the ship and exiting the other, a ragged mess tumbling through

  space with a shower of debris surrounding it.

  The other three pods were deep within the ship. Gas escaped at various

  strike points.

  “The Raziya has been critically hit; I count four pod strikes. The ship is dark and adrift.”

  “Focus on the remaining pods!” Alex shouted as he was pushed back

  into his seat. He watched as one of his officers flailed in front of him,

  unable to keep his arms close to his body as he was squished against his

  forward straps. Alex was unable to move his head from the headrest.
>
  A few moments later, the pressure released suddenly, and the crew was

  jostled again.

  “Can you pilot a little better, maybe?” Jack hissed between his teeth as

  he nursed his shoulders, looking at the man in the pilot’s seat.

  “You’ll thank me later,” the pilot responded, too focused on the 3D

  battlefield in front of him to worry about his passengers’ comfort.

  The ships had a hard time targeting pods bound for themselves, as the

  decoupler was installed on the belly of the craft near the nose. There were

  simply too many vectors of approaching pods, and the decoupler could not

  get engage targets unless the ship rotated.

  “Comms, raise the Raziya,” Alex said while he felt the back of his head for blood. There was none.

  “I have been, sir; there’s no response.”

  The crew was jostled violently again, one man falling out his seat only

  to scramble back into it to pursue his duties.

  “Pod strike!”

  Alex looked at Jack, who returned his gaze. “Eight pods left.”

  The viewscreen lit up in red beams as two of the other ships targeted a

  pod approaching the Abraham. They managed to destroy the pod, but the

  debris collided violently against the hull.

  Half of the interior security cameras went offline and the power flick-

  ered for a few seconds.

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  Chapter 10

  Military In Action

  TEN MILES FROM the coast of California, there was another kind of

  battle taking place.

  “New contacts in Kill Box Two!”

  “Aye, alert contacts!”

  “Firing one, firing five, firing nine.”

  Three intercept missiles launched from the deck of the cruiser, tracking

  their various targets.

  The deck gun continued to pound AA rounds into the sky, and CWIG

  mini guns roared out their rounds as well. The ship was travelling at full

  speed but was forced to make a sudden drastic course correction. Anything

  not tightly secured was flung against the walls within the cruiser. The ship

  moaned and complained, then a large explosion of water spread across the

  entire ship as a pod struck the water at nearly four hundred miles an hour,

  just in front of them.

  “Sir, rear birds are dry!” one of the officers said.

  “The Nimitz was stuck again! F-18s in the air are bingo fuel; emergency nets are being deployed.”