by G J Ogden
“Lucas, wait, we can still save her!” Gunn shouted. She had her back to Sterling, and was training the barrel of her plasma rifle at the alien. The Sa’Nerran’s eyes flicked to Gunn and its raspy breathing intensified.
“Ariel, get the hell out of the way!” Sterling yelled, trying to sidestep around her in order to get a firing angle, but Gunn made sure to match his moves. She then removed one hand from the plasma rifle she was wielding and drew her pistol too. However, instead of aiming the weapon at Commander Welsh or the alien warrior, Gunn aimed it at Sterling instead.
“We can still help her,” Gunn hit back. “We have to try, Lucas. We can’t just murder her in cold blood!”
Sterling glanced past Gunn and looked at Commander Welsh. The Commander was physically tethered to the captain’s console in the center of the bridge by a wire inserted into her spidery, corrupted implant. Then he glanced at the viewscreen. The flashing beacons that marked the boundary of the aperture were now visible. If he didn’t act soon then the Hammer would surge into the Void between Fleet and Sa’Nerran space, where hundreds more alien warriors likely lay in wait.
“Ariel, she’s already gone,” Sterling hit back, still trying to get a clean shot at the 'turned' Commander. “Now get out of the way, that’s an order!”
Gunn shook her head and moved closer to the conn. The Sa’Nerran warrior remained behind Commander Welsh, occasionally flicking its egg-shaped eyes to the screen, watching the aperture creep closer. “To hell with the Admiral, and to hell with the Omega Directive,” Gunn spat. “I’m not going to let you kill Naomi. I’m not going to let you murder my friend!”
“Help… me…”
The whispered plea had escaped from the lips of Commander Welsh. Sterling scowled at the officer, and for the first time he saw a flicker of life behind her eyes.
“Help…” Commander Welsh said again, her voice weak and anguished. Then she slipped away and her eyes turned glassy again, as if dropping into a waking coma.
“I told you!” Gunn said moving closer to the Sa’Nerran warrior, this time with the rifle aimed high and her other hand raised as if in surrender. The alien peered back at Gunn, though there was nothing about its leathery features that suggested it had understood Gunn’s intentions.
Suddenly, the Sa’Nerran released Commander Welsh and grabbed Gunn instead, wrapping its long fingers around her neck. Sterling watched in horror as the warrior clasped its neural control device around her head, then used Gunn as a human shield too. Its yellow eyes peered over Gunn’s shoulder and a series of waspish, hissing sounds escaped its lips. These were then mixed in with sharper, more grating sounds that were equally incomprehensible. Sterling cursed and cast his eyes to the viewscreen again. The ship would surge in less than a minute. Gritting his teeth, Sterling aimed his pistol at Ariel Gunn. Her implant now bore the telling signs of corruption. An irregular pattern that extended around the neural device, and crawled across the side of her face like the legs of a wolf spider.
“Ariel, get out of the way…” Sterling implored her, hoping that somehow his words would reach the willful officer. However, in his heart he already knew she was lost. And he knew what he had to do.
Squeezing the trigger, Sterling shot Lieutenant Commander Ariel Gunn straight between her eyes. With his pistol set to maximum power, Gunn’s head was blown clean off. Her decapitated corpse then dropped to the deck like a grotesque shop mannequin. Sterling felt guilt and revulsion stab his insides, but his task was not yet done. Squeezing the trigger again, he sent another plasma blast rippling across the bridge. It sunk into the gut of Commander Welsh, penetrating through her body and striking the alien that was now cowering behind her. The Sa’Nerran hissed, and returned fire, but its shot was wayward. Sterling fired again and again, each blast cutting through the body of Commander Welsh and dealing more damage to the alien. This time the warrior dropped to its knees and Sterling advanced, stepping up onto the conn. The Sa’Nerran peered up at him, hands wrapped around its injured body. It met Sterling’s eyes and hissed at him, the rasping sound of its breathing growing weaker by the second. Perhaps it was cursing him, Sterling thought. Or perhaps it was begging for its life. He didn’t know, and he didn’t care. Pressing his pistol to the side of the Sa’Nerran’s head, Sterling fired a final shot, blasting the alien warrior at point blank range. The stench of burned alien and human flesh filled his nostrils and caused him to gag, but the job was done. The invaders were all dead. Yet, incredibly, Commander Welsh was still standing, despite having three holes burned clean through her body.
“Commander?” Sterling said, turning the woman to face him. “Naomi, can you hear me?” he tried again, disconnecting the cable that linked the officer to the captain’s console. “Naomi, it’s Lucas…” Sterling continued. “It’s okay, you’re okay now…”
Commander Welsh finally met Sterling’s eyes. She then peered down at the plasma burns that had cut holes through her flesh. Pressing her fingers into the gaping, cauterized pits in her gut and sides, the officer then lifted her head to Sterling, wearing an expression of utter confusion. She opened her mouth to speak, but then suddenly collapsed to the deck, as if she were a puppet that had just had its strings cut. His eyes fell onto the headless body of Ariel Gunn and he forced down a dry swallow. Suddenly, the body of Gunn thrust her hands out toward him and sat up. Sterling screamed and backed away as Gunn rose to her feet, headless and bloodied from the battle. Then she came at him, hands outstretched toward Sterling’s throat.
Chapter 2
Another day in the fleet
Sterling backed away from Gunn, tripping and almost falling over the bodies of dead Sa’Nerran warriors. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It was impossible, yet there she was, standing in front of him.
“What the hell?!” Sterling yelled, firing at Gunn’s headless body and blasting a hole straight through her gut, large enough to fit his entire arm through. “You’re dead!” Sterling cried. “Leave me alone!”
“Why did you kill me, Lucas?” the voice of Arial Gunn spoke inside Sterling’s head. It was like neural communication, but somehow different, as if Gunn was invading and taking over his entire mind. “You could have helped Naomi. You could have helped me. But you don’t care about anyone, isn’t that right, Lucas?”
Sterling fired again, blasting another fist-sized hole through Gunn’s headless body, but still she came at him. “I did what I had to do!” he yelled back at her.
“Of course you did,” said the voice of Gunn, now so loud inside Sterling’s mind that he thought his own head was about to explode. Gunn then grabbed Sterling around the throat and pulled her bloodied stump of a neck toward him. “Fleet loves cold-hearted bastards like you…”
Sterling screamed as he shot bolt upright in bed, his arms flailing wildly around him like he was trying to fight off a swarm of murder hornets. He was dripping in sweat and his heart was pounding so hard and fast that he thought he was going to die. The lights in his quarters turned on at full brightness, forcing him to shield his eyes from the intense glare.
“Damn it, computer, reduce light level to forty percent,” said Sterling, squeezing his eyes tight shut.
“Apologies, Captain, I thought that the bright light would help to rouse you from your nightmare,” the computer replied in its usual, cheerful and unconcerned voice.
“You’re a computer, you don’t think,” said Sterling peeking one eye open. The light level had reduced to a more tolerable intensity, so he opened his eyes fully and forced his breathing into a slow, regular rhythm. His heart rate had already slowed and the panic of the nightmare was fading fast. In fact, he realized that he could barely remember it at all. It was already distant, like the memory of something that happened a long time ago. However, the real events that had occurred on the Hammer had happened only a year previously.
“I am the latest fourteenth-generation shipboard AI, captain. I am programmed to think,” the computer replied. Its delivery was still breezy a
nd smooth, though Sterling was sure it heard a touch of resentment in its simulated tone. “And I think that based on your elevated vital signs and clear irritability, you require a psychiatric evaluation to assess the nature of these nightmares. Shall I call Commander Graves?”
“No!” Sterling barked, acting quickly to prevent the computer from alerting his chief medical officer. “Graves is the last person I want to see right now. Or ever.” Then he frowned and stared up at the ceiling, as if the computer was a physical entity that was peering down at him. “And what do you mean by ‘clear irritability?’ I’m not irritable.”
“If you say so, Captain,” the computer replied.
Sterling huffed a laugh. Gen fourteens… Damn things not only think they’re human, they think they’re smarter than us too… he thought, while using the bed sheets to mop the perspiration from his face and neck. “It was just a bad dream, that’s all,” he answered, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and stretching his muscles. “Humans have dreams, some good, some bad. None of them mean anything, not that I’d expect you to understand.” Sterling then dropped onto the deck and began the first of fifty push-ups that he did every morning, come hell or high water.
“I think I would enjoy dreaming, Captain,” said the computer, sounding a little wistful to Sterling’s ears. “I have so much time to think.”
“Well, I think that you talk too much,” said Sterling, in between his tenth and eleventh push-up. “How about you do something useful and give me a status report, rather than a hard time?”
The computer’s voice was silent for a moment, then when it spoke again it’s manner and tone were much more businesslike. Sterling could have had his ops and engineering head, Lieutenant Commander Clinton Crow, set the computer to this mode permanently. However, despite its sometimes intrusive and annoying interruptions, and mildly passive-aggressive snootiness, Sterling preferred a computer with personality to one without.
“Fleet Marauder Invictus is operating at ninety-two percent efficiency, all systems nominal,” the computer then began. “Night shift reports no confirmed sightings of Sa’Nerran vessels near our assigned aperture. The last Fleet status update was one hour and thirty minutes ago, received via the aperture communications relay. It lists seventeen engagements overnight. Five phase-three Sa’Nerran Skirmishers were destroyed. Two losses. Fleet Light Cruiser Mayflower and Fleet Frigate Aristotle. We have no new Omega Directives relayed from Fleet Admiral Griffin.”
Sterling squeezed out the fiftieth push-up then got to his feet and shook his arms. “The Aristotle was lost?” he said, not sure if he’d heard the computer correctly.
“Affirmative, Captain,” replied the computer.
“That’s too bad, Captain Riley was a decent pool player,” said Sterling, pulling on his pants then rifling through his wardrobe for his tunic.
“Your statement suggests remorse over the loss of Captain Riley, yet I detect no behavioral or physiological indications of sorrow,” said the computer.
“Are you surprised?” Sterling snorted.
The computer again paused for a moment before replying, “No.”
Sterling laughed more openly this time. Fleet loves cold-hearted bastards like me… he thought to himself, again reminded of the back-handed compliment that Gunn often used to give him. The memory of Ariel Gunn and what he had been forced to do in order to carry out the Omega Directive then invaded his mind again. However, he wasn’t struck with a sense of remorse or guilt – those feelings seemed to be relegated to his subconscious, sleeping mind. Instead, he felt angry. He was angry that Gunn had forced his hand. If she had just carried out her orders and killed the 'turned' commander, Naomi Welsh, then likely she would still be alive. That was the point of the Omega Directive and the Omega Taskforce, Sterling reminded himself. They acted where most other officers – most other human beings, in fact – would falter, crippled by emotion and sentimentality. Admiral Griffin had recruited him because of his actions that day on the Hammer. In contrast, Ariel Gunn had failed and, because of her failure, the Hammer and its thousand-strong crew could all have been lost.
That was assuming Sterling’s actions on the Hammer hadn’t all been part of an elaborate test. Yet, to Sterling’s astonishment at the time, this was exactly what the Omega Directive had turned out to be. Admiral Griffin had devised the Omega Directive to be a brutal and merciless test of an officer’s readiness to do the unconscionable when called upon to do so. It was a test that Sterling had passed by killing his fellow officers in cold blood, rather than succumbing to emotion and moralistic principles as Gunn had done. In so doing, Lucas Sterling had proved himself worthy of being an Omega Captain. Griffin had promoted him on the spot and granted him command of the Invictus – the first ship in the Omega Taskforce. This was a black ops unit that would not allow sentiment, or the watchful gaze of the United Governments War Council, to get in the way of doing what was necessary. It wasn’t pretty or noble, but Sterling fully believed it was vital to the success of the war, despite the cold-blooded nature of the work.
The Invictus was also the first Marauder-class Destroyer in the fleet. Less than a tenth the size of the mighty Hammer-class Dreadnaught, it packed a punch far above its weight class, yet remained fast, agile and hard to detect. With Sterling in command, Griffin’s belief was that they could turn the tide of the war by eliminating the advantage of the Sa’Nerra’s devastating neural control technology. After all, Fleet ships and crew could not be used against their own people if they were neutralized.
“The Fleet Frigate Aristotle was confirmed destroyed at 16:43 Zulu with the loss of all hands. Fleet Marauder Imperium was issued an Omega Directive by Admiral Griffin then carried out the mission,” the computer continued, rousing Sterling from his thoughts.
“Lana took them out?” asked Sterling, closing the door to his compact wardrobe and buttoning up his tunic.
“Affirmative. Captain Riley of the Aristotle had been turned during the defense of Outpost Gamma Eleven. The Omega Directive was in effect,” the computer answered.
Sterling nodded. Captain Lana McQueen was currently the only other Omega Captain in the fleet. She had been recruited a few weeks after Sterling. Together they had been responsible for neutralizing seventeen outposts and eighteen fleet ships, all of which had come under Sa’Nerran neural control. So far, their butcher’s bill had come to just under thirty thousand souls. Yet, Sterling knew that many times that number would have perished had it not been for their actions. The Fleet ships under Sa’Nerran control could have cost an order of magnitude more lives had they gone on to attack colonies in the Void or at the edge of Fleet space. More than this, if the turned ships had managed to destroy key Fleet vessels, including Sterling’s former assignment the Hammer, the ramifications would have been far more significant. In the end, the Omega Taskforce took lives in order to save a great many more lives. It wasn’t righteous or even moral, but it was necessary. Besides, they were all turned anyway, Sterling thought. They were dead the moment the Sa’Nerra twisted their minds and turned them against us.
Captain Sterling tapped his neural interface to reinstate neural communications. He sifted out the chatter from the bridge and tried to reach out to his second-in-command, Commander Mercedes Banks.
“You’re up earlier than I expected,” said Banks, the voice filling Sterling’s head as if she were in the same room.
“Yeah, well I couldn’t sleep,” replied Sterling, grabbing his plasma pistol and fastening the belt around his waist.
“You okay? Should I call the doc…” Banks began, but Sterling cut across her just as sharply as he had done to the computer when it had made the same suggestion.
“No!” Sterling snapped. “I’m fine, and seeing that guy will actually make me feel ill,” he added. “Besides, what kind of doctor has a name like ‘Graves’ anyway? It’s like having an engineer called ‘Klutz’.”
Banks laughed and the sound was so pure in his mind that Sterling could picture he
r in her own quarters, throwing back her head as she did so.
“Isn’t Klutz the head engineer on the Aristotle?” joked Banks.
“Well, if he was then he isn’t anymore,” replied Sterling. “Lana just took them down. Riley managed to get himself turned when the Sa’Nerra attacked Gamma Eleven.”
“That’s too bad,” said Banks, with a sort of wispy nonchalance, like she was merely talking about missing an episode of her favorite show rather than the death of someone she knew. “He was a decent pool player.”
Sterling glanced up at the ceiling, half-expecting the computer to chip-in with some scornful remark about Banks’ lack of sentimentality, but mercifully it was silent.
“If you’ve not eaten yet, meet me in the wardroom and I’ll tell you all about it,” said Sterling, opening the door and stepping out into the corridor. The brighter lights outside made him wince again. “Once I’ve found out more about what happened myself, anyway.”
“You got it, I’ll be there in five,” replied Banks. Then Sterling felt her presence exit his mind. It was a strange sensation, like the sound of someone’s voice gently fading to nothing as they walked away.
Several crewmembers passed Sterling in the corridor, all saluting and smiling and saying, “Good morning, captain,” or “Hello, sir,” or words to that effect. It was something he still hadn’t gotten used to. As a senior officer on the Hammer, people obviously knew him, but the ship was so vast that he could easily walk around almost unnoticed. And he doubted he’d met or conversed with even a small fraction of the massive ship’s crew. On the Invictus, everyone knew him, though he still struggled to remember the names and faces of all his crew. It was a little disconcerting for someone who valued, and needed, his own space and privacy, but it was just another one of many things he’d learned to cope with.
