by G J Ogden
“Mercedes, get to Captain McQueen!” he yelled out to her through his mind, but Banks didn’t respond. “Commander!” he tried again, but it was clear that Banks had given herself over to bloodlust, and that he wouldn’t be able to reach her until the fire in her belly died down. If McQueen was going to survive then it was down to him, and Sterling knew that if he couldn’t save her then he’d be the one who had to kill her.
Sterling pushed himself up and tried to get a clear shot at the Sa’Nerran warrior, but the creature cleverly shifted its position, keeping McQueen in the line of fire. His eyes flicked up to the neural control device. It had yet to be secured over McQueen’s implant, but Sterling knew that his fellow captain could not resist the alien’s superior strength for long. If she were turned, then he’d only have to fight her too. Cursing again he adjusted his aim, pointing the Sa’Nerran plasma pistol at Captain McQueen’s head. McQueen’s eyes met his own, but he saw no fear behind them. McQueen knew what Sterling had to do. This was one of the reasons why he had been chosen as an Omega Captain. When faced with an impossible situation, where doing the unconscionable was the only option, Sterling would not falter. If McQueen were in his position, she’d do the same. Sterling slipped his finger onto the trigger and squeezed.
The plasma blast flashed through the air and burned a hole into the viewscreen behind the command platform. Perhaps anticipating his actions, the Sa’Nerran had pulled McQueen aside at the last moment. Sterling adjusted his aim, but before he could fire again, Commander Banks had rushed over to the command platform and tackled the alien. The mutilated body of the warrior Banks had been strangling lay slumped up against the far wall, its neck crumpled to half its former thickness. Sterling ran to the command platform just as Lieutenant Shade landed the final two blows in a ferocious flurry of martial art strikes that left her opponent broken and bloodied. Only the warrior that had attacked McQueen now remained. Reaching the command platform, Sterling saw Banks grab the Sa’Nerran’s wrist and snap it like a twig. Eyes still wild, she then lifted the two-hundred-and-fifty-pound alien warrior up as if it were a sack of cotton wool. Sterling dropped down beside Captain McQueen and tore the neural device off her head. McQueen’s interface showed no evidence of corruption, but Sterling barely got a look at it before his fellow captain was back on her feet. She stood in front of the warrior that Banks was now holding up like a prized Christmas turkey and glowered at it. Without a word, McQueen pulled the warrior’s semi-circular blade from its belt. Then with a single swift swing of the crude weapon, she slashed opened the alien’s throat. Banks continued to hold the warrior as blood gushed from the wound and spilled onto the deck.
Suddenly the other doors leading onto the bridge unlocked and slid open. Sterling dropped into cover, aiming his weapon at the nearest opening, anticipating another wave of warriors to rush in, but no-one came.
“Tactical report, Lieutenant,” said Sterling, switching his aim from one door to the next, still expecting an attack. Lieutenant Shade dropped into cover and tapped her neural interface. For a few long seconds the bridge was as silent as the dead of night.
“Our commandos have secured the secondary power systems control room,” Shade said, her face showing the intense concentration required to conduct verbal and neural conversations simultaneously. “The Imperium’s crew is now moving through the ship and taking down what remains of the Sa’Nerran invasion force. Deck one is secure. We’re safe up here.”
Sterling nodded then turned to Captain McQueen as Shade continued to liaise with her commandos and co-ordinate with the Imperium’s forces. Banks finally released her grip on the bleeding Sa’Nerran warrior and allowed its body to thump into the deck like a butchered carcass. The smell of alien blood surrounded them, though Sterling at least preferred this to the odor of burning Sa’Nerran flesh.
“You took your damn time,” said McQueen, folding her arms and shifting her weight onto her back foot.
“Space is pretty big,” replied Sterling with matching sternness. “You could have at least gotten into trouble a bit closer to us.”
McQueen then smiled and unfurled her arms. “You just can’t stay away from me, admit it,” she continued, dropping the pretense of being angry at him. “My knight in shining armor, riding to my rescue.”
Sterling laughed, though Commander Banks looked distinctly uncomfortable, like she was a third wheel on a date.
“Ignore her, it’s just her way of saying ‘thanks for saving my ass’,” Sterling said to Banks, which succeeded in breaking the tension. He knew McQueen well enough to understand that she struggled with genuine displays of emotion, preferring to make light of situations instead. And if he was honest, he was the same. “What the hell happened here, anyway, Lana?” he continued, turning to more serious matters to save all their blushes. “How did three Skirmishers get the jump on you?”
Captain McQueen shrugged while mopping blood from her face and neck with the sleeve of her tunic. “We had an Omega Directive to neutralize Artemis Colony. When we got here, these Skirmishers were hiding in the asteroids. The alien trash jumped us before we’d even had time to scratch our asses.”
Sterling frowned. “Artemis Colony has been abandoned for years. It seems like a damned strange target for an Omega Directive.”
“That’s what I thought too,” replied McQueen, pushing the Sa’Nerran she’d killed off her command platform with the side of her boot. “But intelligence from our recon probes in the Void showed there to be Sa’Nerran prisoner transports in the system. It looked like they were trying to use captured and turned Fleet crew and colonists to start up the mining operation again.”
“That’s brazen, especially so close to Fleet space,” said Commander Banks. The fire had left her eyes now, though her muscles were still taut, as if she were about to spring into action again at any moment.
“The Sa’Nerra are nothing if not audacious,” replied McQueen. “Anyways, it seems that our arrival spooked them. There’s nothing here now, except the crippled Skirmisher that's still docked to us.”
Sterling rubbed the back of his neck, trying to massage away the tension. However, it wasn’t the stress of the battle that was causing his muscles to spasm. Something about McQueen’s experience at Artemis Colony didn’t add up.
“This all still seems damned odd to me,” said Sterling, folding his arms. “But I guess we’ll never know. It’s not like we can interrogate Sa’Nerran survivors and get any intel out of them. Not unless you speak ‘alien hiss’, that is.”
McQueen shrugged again. “That won’t stop my weapons officer from trying.” She then turned to Commander Banks, eyeing her up like a prized bull at a market. “Are you sure you don’t want to transfer to the Imperium, Commander? You’re one hell of a useful lady in a fight.”
“Thanks for the offer, sir, but the Invictus is my ship,” said Commander Banks, politely, but firmly. She then straightened her tunic, which was ripped and looked more red than blue thanks to the copious amount of Sa’Nerran blood it had absorbed. “Besides, my next post after the Invictus will be as captain of my own Omega Taskforce ship,” she added, though without any hint of irony.
McQueen nodded and smiled. “I’ll put a word in with Admiral Griffin. We could do with more Omega Taskforce ships on the front lines.” McQueen then touched her neural implant, which Sterling was glad to see still appeared to be perfectly normal. McQueen was silent for a few moments, while receiving a message from one of her crew. “The Imperium is secure, thanks to your help,” McQueen then said, lowering her hand back to her side. “My crew are boarding the Sa’Nerran ship now. Hopefully, we’ll be able to take a few prisoners for Griffin to use in her next round of Omega Directive tests.”
Sterling nodded, remembering how the hard-nosed Admiral had used captured warriors during his own Omega Directive test on the Fleet Dreadnaught Hammer. “The Omega Directive test has to be real,” Admiral Griffin had explained to him, over a glass of Calvados – the flag officer’s favourite ti
pple. “It’s the only way we can discover officers with the grit that we need.”
“Well, if you’re all good here then we need to get moving,” said Sterling, reminding himself that they had their own Omega Directive mission to carry out. “We’ve been ordered to Vega Two.”
“Vega Two?” replied McQueen, scowling. “That’s another little backwater nothing place, like Artemis.”
“It will certainly be a nothing place once we’re through with it,” replied Sterling, thinking about the unenviable task that lay before him. “I can leave you a few extra repair drones, if you like?” he added, recalling that the Imperium’s engines had taken damage.
“Thank you, Captain, that would be appreciated,” replied McQueen, sincerely. Then she looked around the bridge, which was pockmarked and scorched with plasma blasts and splattered with human and Sa’Nerran blood. “I think I’m going to need them,” she added.
Sterling felt Ensign Keller reach out to him, and he touched his neural implant to allow the connection.
“Captain, the hangar bay is now secure,” the Ensign reported. “The Imperium’s crew are in control. But…” Keller hesitated, though because of their intimate neural link, Sterling could feel his discomfort and even guilt.
“What is it, Ensign?” Sterling pressed.
“While defending the hangar with the shuttle, I’m afraid I killed two Imperium crew members who hadn’t been turned. They were caught up in the fighting, and I couldn’t have known…”
“You did what you had to, Ensign Keller,” Sterling cut in, his own voice strong and unwavering. “Your actions helped save the ship, and that’s all there is to it. Do you understand?”
Keller was silent for a couple of seconds. Then when the young man’s voice again filled Sterling’s mind, the hesitation and doubt was gone.
“Yes, Captain. I understand,” Keller said.
“Stand by, we’ll be back with you in a few minutes,” Sterling added before tapping his neural interface to sever the connection. He then addressed Captain McQueen, speaking out loud. “Hopefully, the next time we meet it will be under better circumstances, Captain,” Sterling said, offering McQueen his hand.
“I very much doubt it,” McQueen replied, still smiling. She then took Sterling’s hand and shook it. “Till next time, Captain.”
“Till next time,” Sterling replied. He relaxed his grip, but as McQueen let go, she slowly stroked her thumb across the back of his hand. Sterling nonchalantly acted as if it hadn’t happened, but a quick glance across to Commander Banks told him that his eagle-eyed first-officer had observed the subtle gesture of affection.
Sterling and Banks then regrouped with Lieutenant Shade, stepping over dead alien warriors to reach the door they’d blasted through only minutes earlier. However, he’d barely taken a step off the bridge when Captain McQueen called out to him.
“And Captain Sterling, thanks for saving our collective ass,” McQueen called out, breaking character and offering her gratitude sincerely and openly. “We both know that Griffin would have had you blow us out of space if I’d been turned and captured. I won’t forget it.”
“No problem, Captain,” replied Sterling, feeling both buoyed and discomposed by his fellow captain’s candid admission. “You’d do the same for us,” he added.
McQueen shrugged. “Don’t count on it, Captain,” she said, a wicked smile curling her lips. Then she turned to her captain’s console and set to work on the task of getting her ship back in order.
Sterling huffed a laugh then headed out of the door. However, he hadn’t gone far, before he felt Commander Banks’ eyes drilling into him. He stopped and turned to her.
“Go on, say it,” said Sterling, folding his arms. “I can tell that you’re dying to.”
Banks also folded her arms, mirroring Sterling’s defensive stance. “I told you she wouldn’t have done the same for us,” she said, huffily.
Chapter 9
Void Colony Vega Two
The vivid, blue-green planet that was home to Colony Vega Two shone out of the viewscreen like a jewel in the Void, but Captain Sterling’s eyes were focused down on his console. They’d exited the aperture expecting to find a squadron of Sa’Nerran warships waiting for them. However, their scanners were suspiciously clear.
“Are you sure there’s nothing out there?” said Sterling, directing the question to Commander Banks.
His first-officer shrugged and shook her head. “If there is then they’ve managed to hide from our scanners somehow,” she replied. “It could be that they’re on the surface, powered down, but if they are then it won’t be easy to find them.”
Sterling sighed then started tapping his finger on his console like an impatient schoolmaster. Based on the information Admiral Griffin had sent him, the colonists on Vega Two had been turned and set to work manufacturing weapons components for the Sa’Nerra. That being the case, he would have expected at least one enemy ship in orbit around the planet. If nothing more, this ship would act as an early warning system to call for reinforcements through the aperture relays should a Fleet vessel come snooping, as they had just done.
“Take us closer, Ensign,” said Sterling, still tapping his finger on the side of his console. “But stay alert, and keep your eyes out for anywhere that a Sa’Nerran ship might hide. The magnetic poles of a moon, dense asteroid fields, any area of high EM chop, that sort of thing.”
“Aye, Captain,” replied the ensign, increasing power to the main engines to propel them closer to the world.
The door to the bridge then swung open and Lieutenant Commander Clinton Crow walked in. As always, the ship’s chief engineer had his multi-tool attached to his belt and a modular computer wrapped around his left forearm. The display was malleable, so that when not in use it simply flowed like the material of his tunic, but when active would stiffen and become glassy.
“Repairs are complete, captain,” said Crow standing beside the command platform and fiddling with the multi-tool on his belt.
“You could have told me that over neural comms, Lieutenant Commander,” replied Sterling. “What brings you all the way up here?”
Sterling wasn’t annoyed to see his chief engineer, not in the same way that the sudden arrival of his morbid medical officer would disturb him. He was at least thankful that it was his engineer rather than his doctor that was paying him a house call. Sterling had already spent enough time with Graves of late, due to the need to have the wounds he sustained on the Imperium tended to and healed. However, Crow rarely came to the bridge, unless ordered to do so, which meant the engineer’s arrival was unexpected.
“I just wanted to get a better view of Vega Two,” replied the engineer. “The viewscreen in engineering doesn’t quite have the resolution of this one on the bridge.”
Sterling shot Banks a knowing look. Clinton Crow’s specialty may have been starships and engines, but his real passion was exploration and discovery. It was the only reason he’d joined Fleet in the first place, though even if Crow hadn’t willingly chosen to serve in the UG Fleet, his valuable talents and skillset meant that he would have been drafted anyway. Most people who were forced into Fleet service resented it, even if they buried this resentment deep down. Crow on the other hand would have welcomed it.
“Vega Two is an interesting world,” Crow went on, still fiddling with his multi-tool. “It has some unique metals and mineral compositions that could have exciting applications in starship hull materials and more.”
“Fascinating…” said Banks, drolly.
Sterling tapped his neural interface and spoke to his first officer over a private link. “Be nice, this is the guy who keeps us flying,” he said, glancing across to her.
“I know, but he’s sooooo dull,” replied Banks. Her words were so loud and clear in Sterling’s head that he subconsciously turned to Crow to make sure he hadn’t overheard, before remembering that he was speaking neurally.
“If you don’t mind, Captain, I’d like to accompany
any landing party,” Crow went on. Sterling noticed that the engineer’s multi tool was now in Crow’s hand and that he was using it to adjust the captain’s console. The brightness and fidelity of the digitized display suddenly increased.
“This is an Omega Directive, not a scientific mission, Lieutenant Commander,” Sterling replied. His tone was intentionally stern. The notion that they’d arrived at Vega Two just so Crow could go rock hunting angered him. It wasn’t the first time his engineer had put his own considerations above those of the mission.
“Of course, Captain, I just meant if there's time after the mission is over,” Crow replied, seemingly undeterred.
“I’m detecting a five percent variance in regenerative armor integrity on the port quarter,” Commander Banks then announced out loud. Sterling raised an eyebrow and looked over his at first officer. She was staring down at her console with a look of intense concentration that Sterling could tell at once was faked.
“Really?” said Crow, returning the multi-tool to the clip on his belt. “A five per cent variance? That can’t be right.”
