From a distance in front of the enemy ship, swirls of energy began to open. The fighter craft that had executed the maneuver which disabled the shields were returning. As they streamed from the exit points and shed their excess energy, the fighters launched plasma bursts of their own. The enemy ship absorbed the hits but the Quartero could see the weakened barrier begin to falter.
“End this.” Du’Solas ordered. “The chase is becoming cruel.”
The patrol craft accelerated towards the prey. Fighters swarmed over the damaged enemy like marsh flies feeding on blood. Lances of plasma fire lashed towards the fleeing ship. Debris still tumbled from the gaping hole in the side. Du’Solas even thought a body had fallen away. He would have to remember to have the patrol ships collect it for examination.
As the Ch’Tauk ships closed in, there was a flash of energy from the attacker. Du’Solas’ projection disappeared. The centurion started sliding his fingers along a darkened screen. The Quartero realized that he no longer heard the hum of air processing on the command level.
“What did they do?” Du’Solas asked. How did they…”
As Du’Solas tried to make sense of the situation, the projection snapped back into view. The command screens flickered to life and the centurion called up the tactical map again. The Quartero rotated the default view of his projection to focus on the fleeing ship, but it was no longer there. The patrol craft appeared to be drifting on momentum in space.
“Where are they?” Du’Solas asked. “Have they escaped or are our scanners damaged?”
“Scanners are functional, Quartero.” The Centurion said. “The enemy ship opened a membrane access point and escaped. The patrol craft report their systems are powering up.’
“How did they do this?” Du’Solas wondered. “I saw them damaged. They should not have been able to flee with that kind of hull damage.”
The centurion stared back at the Quartero without speaking. The mysterious craft had disrupted the systems of two patrol craft, a space station and dozens of fighters. He had never heard of anything that could do that so quickly and without massive damage to the user. He hoped that the attacker would not survive the transition to the membrane.
“Quartero.” The centurion reported. “I have received a signal from one of the fighters. They have recovered a body from the enemy ship.”
“Give me a visual projection of the corpse.” Du’Solas ordered. “I want to see who did this.”
An image appeared in front of the Quartero. The body had swollen and had serious damage from exposure but some details could be found. The creature was similar in height and size to the Ch’Tauk, but with pale pink skin that had gone nearly white in death. The skull was covered in short projections that resembled whiskers, but were more numerous and had a dark color. The body had no armor, but was wrapped in a brown covering over his upper half and green on the lower. There were military markings on the covering.
Du’Solas recognized the species. He had seen them come through his station for the past five years. He had fought them in the streets of Anu. The Quartero even recognized the coverings as those of the Terran Confederacy. What he had just witnessed was the return of an enemy that the Ch’Tauk had thought defeated.
“Humans.”
14
As Resolute glided through the blue-brown membrane known as M-space, Captain Farthing examined a damage report. The ship had suffered only minor damage during the battle, but he wanted to be sure. The decoy explosion appeared to have fooled the aliens into massing their forces around the ship. It was a tactic designed by Lee Pearce before leaving the ship. The felinoid captain wondered if he would ever be as effective a commander as his former mentor but intended to try.
“Mister Goldstein,” the white furred alien said. “Plot a course somewhere safe. We need to go out and take a look to be sure that our trick didn’t cause us any lasting damage.”
“Aye, sir,” Goldstein replied. “Do you mind if I take us into interstellar space? I doubt anyone will be looking for us in between places.”
“That seems acceptable to me.” Farthing replied. “Just make it someplace quiet and out of the way.”
“Aye”
Farthing stood from the command chair and stretched his long legs. He was used to standing at his communications station. The chair was comfortable but not what he was comfortable with. He closed the holographic projections and walked around the central command station and back to the rear of the bridge. He felt more comfortable there anyway.
“I will be going down to sickbay to speak with Doctor Demsiri.” Farthing said. “I believe he wanted to object to something.”
The bridge crew turned to look at him before he left. The doctor had been arguing with Farthing throughout the mission. Farthing noted the smiles on the human crew. He grimaced as he turned back to the lift. Human smiles looked too much like challenges to his feline senses. He trained himself years ago not to brace for attack every time one of the creatures looked at him.
The lift doors closed and Farthing pressed the key for the seventh level of the ship. The ship’s sickbay was located deep within the hull near the most protected sections. The human need to over-engineer everything even applied to ship architecture. Vadne ship design was much simpler favoring offensive power over defensive shielding. The sleek design of his people’s ships was a result of the form following the function.
The lift doors opened and he stepped into the busy deck. Crews were rushing to duty stations to relieve the officers who manned their posts during the battle. He recognized most of the people who passed him in the hall, although a few were new faces. The crew transfer after Captain Pearce left had been difficult. Chang had assigned new people to Resolute and transferred several key members.
He turned sideways in the narrow corridor to let five members of the fire control team move past. The men were covered in the smoky soot that he had ejected during the battle to simulate damage. The soot was harmless unless inhaled and it seemed that the containers had burst. He waited for a few more people to walk past him and then continued to sickbay.
The doctor had been a friend of captain Pearce’s from the Terran Princess. He had requested transfer from the cruise ship to the Resolute after Chang had begun integrating crews. Resolute’s original medical team had moved to serve with Chang on Baal. After coming aboard for the first time, the man had declared that the entire facility needed to be rebuilt and restocked with the best that the Alliance could provide. The Elves had provided some technological upgrades and the rest had been salvaged from other damaged ships. Since then, Demsiri had been one of the most competent doctors in the fleet.
Farthing remembered the first time he had needed to see the man. He had damaged one of his retracted claws and needed minor surgery. The doctor complained through the entire procedure that he had not been trained to be a veterinarian. When the procedure was over, Farthing had thanked the man and immediately gone to Pearce with his complaints. Pearce had explained that the doctor took some getting used to, but was not as much of a xenophobe as he seemed. The captain had even told him how Demsiri had been the first person to examine the Karisien scientist Tuxor when they had rescued them from the Ch’Tauk. Farthing wished that the man that Pearce prized so highly was more like the man he had been left with.
There was a short line of crew standing outside the door to sickbay. Most people were holding limbs or covering burns with medicated cloths. Farthing did not think the ship had taken enough damage to justify this many wounded. He walked to the door, stopping to reassure the crew as he went that the battle was over and they had done well. As he stepped into the room, his sensitive nose was assaulted with the pungent aroma of medication. There were more crew in the waiting area and he spoke with a few. It appeared that a plasma coil had overloaded and damaged a corridor on the ninth level. No crew had been killed but several had been burned or injured trying to get away.
A loud crash sounded from behind the waiting room door. Farthing r
ushed to the door and pressed the pad to open. As the portal slid aside, Farthing could see Doctor Demsiri kneeling over a tray of instruments that had fallen on the floor. Several nurses stood around the man watching. One of the nurses had turned a deep red color and appeared to be crying. Demsiri was using language that Farthing understood was impolite among humans.
“Dammit, Elise, I told you not to run back and forth with these things.” The doctor said. “I haven’t got the time to pick up after more of your spills.”
“Doctor?” Farthing said. “Is there a problem?”
“Oh great.” Demsiri said. “Now I have to stop and talk to you. I’ve got patients here who need me more than you do, Captain. Sorry, but I can’t talk right now.”
“You seemed to be talking just fine to the nurse,” Farthing replied in a calm tone. “Quite loudly, in fact, and with a great many invectives. I simply wanted to answer your request for a conference.”
“Conference?” The doctor asked, standing up and looking at the taller man. “I didn’t ask for any conference.”
“Just before the battle, you sent a message to the bridge that you wanted to discuss something with me,” Farthing answered. “Now we can discuss it.”
The doctor stared at the tall felinoid for a moment before letting out a puff of breath. He turned away from the captain and walked back into the sickbay rooms. The nurses looked to the captain for understanding as he passed. They seemed to not know who to be more frightened of.
Farthing followed the doctor further into sickbay and through an examination room door. The man was leaning over a crewman who was in obvious pain. She had a terrible burn that extended down her face and under the sheet. Human skin had peeled away from bone across her cheeks. Farthing had never witnessed such damage to a living creature before. Demsiri reached across the bed and took a medical auto syringe and pressed it to the woman’s undamaged neck. A sigh of air and the woman calmed. She seemed to drift off to sleep as the doctor pulled away from her.
“This is what I wanted to talk to you about, Captain.” Demsiri said in a whisper. “I wanted to see if we could avoid this sort of thing.”
“I could not predict that the conduit would blow out, Doctor,” Farthing replied. “I would avoid injury to my crew if at all possible.”
“That’s just it, man,” Demsiri said. “You can’t avoid this kind of damage. We went to battle with an inexperienced crew and an antique ship. No offense, sir, but we left this ship’s captain back at that dark planet.”
Farthing looked at the doctor. He felt the crest rise on his skull as the meaning of what the man had said got through. In his military career, he had never been treated with so much disrespect as with the doctor. He took a deep breath to calm himself and tried to lower his crest.
“Doctor,” he began. “If you feel that I am not fit to command this ship then it is your duty to relieve me pending an investigation. That action, however, would rob this ship of the closest thing it has to a commander. It would also surely destroy this mission before we have had a chance to accomplish it.”
“I know what the situation is. You don’t have to tell me about rules and regulations.” Demsiri said. “I spent my time in the Confederacy and left it to serve people, not governments. War kills people, Captain. I knew that this whole thing would be the death of too many good people and now I see that you have forgotten. These people are not assets that you can do away with when you need to. They are humans and felines and octopods and others who are here because they believe in what this ship stands for.”
“And what are you here for, Doctor?” Farthing replied. “You knew that this was a battleship and yet you requested to be here. “
“I came along to keep an eye on Pearce.” Demsiri said. “He’s been through more these last few years than any of us. I believe in that man and what he can do with this ship.”
“As do I, Doctor,” Farthing said. “He left this ship in my care, though, and I intend to do as he would do. I will carry out this mission to the best of my abilities as will you.”
The doctor looked back up at the captain. Farthing could see a note of respect growing in the man. Both of them had been left by Lee Pearce and they both were trying to defend the ship and crew. Demsiri looked back down at his patient and placed his fingers to her neck. He waited for a few seconds and then stood up straight. There were tears in his eyes as he looked back to the captain.
“She’ll make it,” he said. “I know it wasn’t your fault, Captain. I just never wanted to see this kind of thing again.”
“I understand, Doctor.” Farthing replied. “I did not want this either.”
“Can you tell me if they fell for it?” Demsiri asked. “I mean, we didn’t eject Jenkins for no reason, did we?”
Jenkins was the name of the body that had been placed in the breakaway section of the hull. Farthing had decided to place the body behind the panel to add realism to the scenario. Demsiri had objected to the use of the body until Farthing had ordered it. It had actually been Pearce’s idea to bring along the cloned body. It had never been alive. The sole purpose of the clone was for use as a treatment test for medical tests. It had been Goldstein who had named the body Jenkins. He had said that it reminded him of his roommate at the academy.
“It appears that they did, Doctor.” Farthing replied. “I hope our message came across to them as well. Commodore Chang is hoping that the Ch’Tauk will begin mobilizing for our raids and not notice the buildup for the war.”
“Clamor in the East,” the doctor said. “Attack in the west.”
“What did you say?” Farthing asked. “I have heard that phrase before.”
“I’ll bet you have,” Demsiri replied. “It was an entire class at the academy.”
“You attended the Academy?” Farthing asked. “I thought medical personnel did not need to go.”
“I wasn’t always a doctor, Captain.” Demsiri said. “I went for a year before medical school. Didn’t you ever take Professor Itake’s class on ‘The Art of War’?”
“I took the class, but it was not Itake who taught me.” Farthing replied. “It was Admiral Hathaway.”
15
Five Years Ago
Earth - Los Angeles
Stepping into the late day sun, Alvin Bennett wiped sweat from his broad forehead. His skin reddened under the California sun but he was used to it. The construction site behind him was a noisy mess of dust and shouting voices. He felt the damage his occupation placed on joints. He was too old to be a construction worker.
He walked down the short ramp from the site to street. Even this short trip seemed to make him out of breath. Alvin thought of the years he spent with his first wife and daughter. In those days, he worked for one of the largest legal firms in the state. He was more alive than at any time in his life. That was when the Almighty begins to take things away from Alvin. When Dana grew sick, he gave up the practice to take care of her. After she died, was left with no career and a daughter who blamed him for her mother’s death.
Chemical dependency took everything else from him as he tried to salve the wounds of Dana’s loss. Alice was taken by the authorities and no legal firm would even look his way. He struck bottom when even the mighty Confederation Medical Services refused to treat his addiction anymore. They declared him incurable and had him committed to a permanent facility in Alameda. It would be years that he would never be able to replace. By the time he came out of the drugged stupor, he lost track of his daughter and found himself back at zero.
He finally moved out of the care facility and into a half-way house in Hollywood. Finding that his legal credentials had long since become useless, he tried his hand at construction. The work was grueling for a man approaching late middle age, but it allowed him time to reflect on his life. He married once more while in rehab but it had not been successful. Alvin finally worked up the nerve to try to track down his daughter. A message bar on his wrist com told him that the service he hired to track Alice reporte
d news. He decided to wait until arriving home before opening the message. His heart had already started beating hard as he walked to the nearest transit hub.
The hub covered nearly a half kilometer in downtown Los Angeles. It had been built over the remains of an old metro rail center fallen out of use after the development of skimmers. When the city banned private vehicles in the city, the transit hub was created. Small cars floated on magnetic tracks along tubular highways that stretched across the enormous city complex. Alvin’s stop took him nearly ten minutes during higher traffic days but the delay was acceptable. He considered walking to the hub stop a few kilometers further away to walk off the added pounds he gained after his release. In the end, the pain in his knees talked him out of the exercise.
Alvin waited in line to board a transit car. He would be paired with several more people travelling to his stop before being allowed to board. He pulled up a feed from the news service to find out the results of the recent Dodgers game. The team was enjoying an upswing in their luck and Alvin placed a small bet on the game. After the life he led, he deserved a little good luck
His wrist began to itch as his transit car arrived. Alvin made his way towards the car and stepped aboard with four other people. Two men in business suits boarded and Alvin was reminded of his own past again. The other occupants included a woman with a baby and twin girls heading home from school. Alvin remembered Alice again and fought off the impulse to check his messages. Instead, he scrolled through the news network to catch a glimpse of the game. For some reason, the network seemed to be running very slow. He chalked it up to the magnetic lift system and sun-spots and dropped his arm back onto the seat.
The baby began to cry as the lift slowed to a stop. The two girls hopped up and walked out of the car. They giggled as they passed the two professionals. The men were occupied with their own wrist coms and ignored the girls entirely. They were complaining of a weak signal to the people on the other end of the network. The car’s doors sighed shut and the car sped on.
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