by Tim Marquitz
“The captain, right?”
“He is,” Ares answered, swiveling the creature around so Albion was staring into its four metallic eyes. A strange, clicking emanated from the bot, Albion recognizing it as the alien’s language. The Xebedon captain chittered back and, while Albion had picked up much of the alien language in writing, he had no clue what the thing had said. However, he didn’t need to recognize the defiance in its tone
“Record this, Commander.” Albion knelt just outside of its reach, confident Ares would keep it in place, and met the creature’s eyes. “What are you doing with the humans you’re taking?”
Ares translated the question, and the alien chittered a short reply. Albion glanced up at the bot when he didn’t immediately offer the translation.
“His response was…crude, Captain.”
Albion chuckled. “Was it now.” He stood and stomped on one of the alien’s crooked limbs, snapping it backward, a loud crack resounding through the bridge. The alien squeed and squirmed, but Ares held it in place. Its silver eyes glared at him, unblinking.
“Ask him again.”
Ares did and, despite the lack of translation, Albion knew the answer was in line with the first. He snapped another of the creature’s limbs in half, twisting it sideways as he did. Still, the alien held strong.
With no hope the alien would crack, Albion turned his focus on his people. “Get their communications arrangement, Crate, and the phase core while you’re at it.”
The engineer sighed but nodded nevertheless, leaving Randall to finish the upload while he got to work on the hardware.
“What about this…thing?” Lyana asked, inching closer to the alien captain. “What do we do with it?”
“Not like we have a brig or anything on the Excalibur. Maybe it can bunk with you,” Albion said, chuckling as her upper lip peeled back into an ugly sneer.
“Don’t even joke about that.” She turned away, hand pressed against her helmet, and Albion grinned, thinking she’d caught a little of his earlier disgust.
And then the alien lashed out.
One of the limbs Albion had broken, bent at the tip to reveal a sharpened piece of yellowed cartilage. The creature thrust it at Lyana’s back. Albion reached for his weapon, the rifle slung across his back, but knew he’d never reach it in time.
Ares, however, could. A blade flashed silver and the alien’s limb was severed at the innermost joint, the leg dropping to twitch uselessly on the floor. The commander spun about, only then realizing what happened, and went for her gun. Albion was first, blasting the Xebedon’s skull into paste, which splattered Ares and the floor around him with goo.
“Guess that answers your question, huh?”
Lyana stood there, rigid, each breath steaming her mask and making the environmental systems work overtime to clear it. “That thing almost—”
“Almost being the operative word, Commander,” Albion told her, but he’d thought the exact same thing.
Time had seemed to slow down as the alien reached for her. He didn’t know if the wounded creature had enough steam behind the attack to pierce her armor, but it scared him all the same. Probably scared him more than it did her.
Images of her being impaled flashed through his head, but he knew that wouldn’t have been the worst of it. Her suit environmentals might have failed, leaving her to die gasping on an alien ship, if the middle of nowhere.
He drew in a deep breath and moved beside her, setting a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “You’re okay.”
She nodded, her gaze locked on the corpse of the alien captain. “Yeah, just shaken up a little. Took my eyes off it for just a second.”
“That’s all it takes with these things,” he said. “I should have just killed it to begin with. This is on me, and I’m sorry.”
“No need for all that, Captain. I’m good.” She forced a smile.
“I believe you, but how about you head back up and keep an eye on things. No need for you down here any longer.” He gestured to Ares. “Get her back to the ship. We can handle the rest,” he told her.
The bot started toward the door and Lyana followed without complaint, only looking away from the Xebedon once she reached the exit. The two disappeared with Ares’s clacking footsteps fading into the distance.
“That was close,” Crate said, tugging at a number of wires that spilled from the console before him. It looked like a jigsaw puzzle made of worms.
“Just finish up, Crate,” he told him. “The quicker you’re done, the quicker we can get the hell out of this ship.”
The damn thing creeps me out.
“Uh, Captain? You’re going to want to see this.”
Albion glanced over to see Randall, still hunched over the alien console, a silver line of sweat running down his temple.
“What is it, Ensign?” he asked, going over so he could see what Randall was so worried about. On the screen was a star map, a dotted green line of a plotted course standing out.
“I think I found where our tow vessel is headed.” Randall tapped the screen, his finger running across the dotted line, the image shifting at his touch.
Albion looked closer, catching the designate tag as it popped up. “Dev-ji 482? What the hell is that?”
Randall pecked away at the console, pulling up the planet’s specs. “It’s a dead planet, abandoned by the Covenant as void of resources, its core unstable.” A few more clicks and more information appeared. “Command tried to populate it early on in the expansion but deemed it hazardous after several colonization teams were lost. This was close to three hundred cycles back, Captain. No one’s been out there since.”
“No one human, at least.” Albion scratched at his chin, examining the data. “Where exactly is this planet located?”
“Quadrant Zeta, just inside the outer rim.”
Albion groaned. “Damn near the exact opposite side of allied controlled space from where the Xebedons are testing the borders. That can’t be a coincidence.”
Randall nodded. “I wouldn’t think so, sir.”
“And you’re sure that’s where our missing tow ship went?”
“Yes, sir. They risked the jump into hyperspace as soon as their escorts attacked. It seems the cargo made it through the other side as I was able to pick up the tag, though it stopped broadcasting shortly after.”
“So, we have an abandoned planet and a hostile alien force kidnapping Covenant citizens,” Albion said, thinking out loud. What the hell are they up to?
The captain couldn’t fathom their intentions, but he knew well enough this was something he couldn’t ignore. He had to do something.
“You two hurry it up,” he told Crate and Randall. “Seems there’s more work to do.”
Nine
Sector 02, Allied Space
“I thought you said communications are blocked,” Mara said, staring at Albion as he loomed over Crate while the engineer worked.
“They are,” he answered, “but we’re not without our resources.”
“By that, he means me.” Crate grinned, and Albion thumped him on the shoulder with an open palm.
“Less chatter, more work.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” Crate said, chuckling as he wired the communications system of the Xebedon ship into the Excalibur.
“What this going to do?” Mara brushed the hair out of her face and watched Crate.
“With a few modifications to the signal, we’ll be able to broadcast clear, the alien nature of the device’s programming keeping the Covenant from infecting us with the virus again,” Crate told her. “The only reason they pulled it off before was because I’d essentially retrofitted the Excalibur’s comms to Covenant standard out of a need for convenience.” He grunted. “Not going to do that this time around.”
“So, we’ll be able to reach out to Command now and be sure it actually reaches them?” Lyana asked.
“Precisely that.”
“Good. Then we can tell them to screw off in person.”
<
br /> “Tempted as I am, Commander—”
“As we all are,” Mara added.
“…we need to play this one by the books. Then, maybe, we can tell them what we really think.”
Lyana grunted. “Can’t wait.”
Albion certainly could. After his last showdown with the chancellor and Vance, the last thing he wanted to do was speak with them again. They’d shown no regard for Mara’s loss or her contract, discarding her like trash without so much as looking into things. They’d called them both liars, and that had lit a fire under Albion to prove them wrong. Now, once Crate had the systems up and running, Albion would reach out and shove his stockpile of irrefutable evidence down the chancellor’s throat.
Still, he had to wonder why they’d been so dismissive. It didn’t make any sense to Albion. What did they have to gain by rejecting the idea that the Xebedons had returned to do more than peck at the borders? It was a question he didn’t have an answer for. The only thing he could think of was that the military was hoping to stave off a panic in the system, keeping people in the dark until Covenant had some real intel on what was going on.
He didn’t want to contemplate the other possibility, that there was some sinister purpose behind the blackout. As much as he hated Vance and his cronies, Albion had a hard time believing the man to be a traitor. An asshole, certainly, but not a traitor.
“We’re up, Captain,” Crate said, cutting into his sour reveries.
“Files ready to send?”
“Yes, sir.”
Albion sighed, then cleared his throat. “Then I guess it’s the moment of truth. Bring us online, Crate.”
The engineer’s fingers flew across the newly constructed console, and he pointed to the view screen as the call went out as priority, narrow-streamed straight to Command. Albion clasped his hands together and waited. He didn’t know what to expect, but he had a feeling Command might simply ignore his message, though he’d had Crate prepare something should that be the case. Albion was getting ready to initiate that exact plan when Randall called out.
“Command coming on screen, Captain.”
Albion drew in a deep breath to calm his nerves, and let it out slow, only signaling to Randall to bring up the call when he was certain he presented a confident front.
“This is becoming a bad habit, Captain, and I’ve only replied to ensure you understand this is the very last time you reach out to Command without consequence.” Vice Admiral Vance’s voice filled the bridge with disdain. “I’d hoped we were finished with you and Captain Rellith’s fantasy.”
Without a word, the captain gestured to Ares, who skittered over, holding the corpse of the Xebedon captain up so Vance could see it. And for the first time in Albion’s memory, the Vice Admiral had nothing to say. He swallowed visibly, eyes examining the dead alien, then glancing down at what Albion knew was his scanner report, most likely pinpointing the Excalibur’s position.
“Regardless the animosity between us, Vance, we have a bug problem.”
Vance straightened and met Albion’s eyes. “Report, Captain.”
Albion resisted the urge to remind the Vice Admiral that he no longer worked for him, but being difficult would only cost him what little credibility he’d earned by flashing the alien corpse. He signaled Randall to begin the feed.
“I’m sending over all the evidence we have, which doesn’t detail what the Xebedons are up to, but it shows they have infiltrated allied space far deeper than anyone realizes.” Albion paused to gauge Vance’s reaction but the man stood stoic, so the captain went on. “We stumbled across a weird craft, something we couldn’t identify, towing one of the scavenger craft that struck at New Orion. As we went to examine it, two Xebedonian destroyers appeared and engaged us.”
“Two destroyers, and yet you’re able to report it?”
Albion grinned. He’d had Crate alter the video so Command wouldn’t see the mine shift into phase space, but he knew the rest would show the Excalibur’s excellence under duress.
“We took them out but, as the files will show, these were a new breed of ship. Even with the Xebedon scanners of the Excalibur, we barely picked up the crafts and, what’s worse, is that they are now capable of firing weapons while still in phase space.”
Vance’s eyes squeezed into tiny slits. The captain could see his shoulders shifting, and knew the Vice Admiral was bringing up the intel they’d sent over. “They can attack in phase?”
Albion nodded.
“What’s this about captives?”
The captain resisted the urge to remind Vance that he’d already told him about that. “While we’ve no proof beyond Captain Mara’s word that they took hostages, I find her report credible.”
Vance snorted, but Albion wouldn’t be deterred.
“We saw firsthand that the aliens were towing a craft in the direction of Dev-ji 482, which we think might be connected to their taking humans hostage, though I’ll admit I don’t have any idea as to what they might be up to.”
“None of this makes any sense, Captain,” Vance muttered, his eyes angled downward at his screen. “That planet is a husk, long dead. I’m searching the activity of our relays in the area, and there’s nothing in them to corroborate your theory.” His lifted his chin and stared at Albion. “Are you absolutely certain the two-craft you saw went to Dev-ji 482?”
Albion glanced over at Randall, and the kid shrugged. The captain sighed under his breath and turned back to the Vice Admiral.
“No, it seems that part of our report is conjecture.” He hated to admit that, though he was certain Randall had been correct in his assessment. “Isn’t it possible that the relays are unable to pick up the alien energy signatures?”
Vance shook his head. “No. We learned our lesson the last time around, Captain. If the relays aren’t catching our bugs, I have to believe there aren’t enough in the area to trigger them.”
“But what about the two that attacked us?”
“Isolated incident as far I’m concerned. I can’t mobilize forces in the area based on the say so of a disgraced, former officer.” Vance raised a finger to ward off Albion’s complaints just as he opened his mouth to make them. “That said, I can’t discount your theories entirely given the evidence you’ve provided.”
Albion swallowed hard at hearing the Vice Admiral’s words. He was sure he knew what was coming next.
“Under Executive Order 4522398175, I’m contracting you to follow the trail of this unknown tow craft and determine if it has any connection to the Xebedons, and report your findings to me directly.”
Captain Albion sighed, and he heard his crew do the same. Under the order cited, Vance had claimed command of the Excalibur and its resources, pressing Albion’s ship and crew to service under Covenant Command. Refusal of the order would result in a system-wide bounty being placed on his and his crew’s heads, marking them for death. Albion’s earlier desire to leave the system welled up inside him again, and he felt his cheeks warm despite his attempt at control.
“I presume such duties come with paychecks commensurate to the degree of risk your newly anointed servants face, right?”
Vance chuckled. “Do what’s expected of you, and I’ll personally see you’re paid for your service.”
“Captain Rellith and Lieutenant Cole as well…sir,” Albion said, adding the honorific in hopes of sweetening the deal.
“Don’t push your luck, Captain,” Vance fired back. “You find something that keeps us from being invaded by bugs, and you can write your own ticket, and Rellith’s too. Until then, do as you’re told.”
The view screen flickered and went dark.
“Well, look at it this way,” Lyana said, “at least our families won’t have to worry about burying us, Command offering up a free cremation in space.”
“This is, to agree with the commander’s usual sentiment, is bullshit, sir.” Randall slumped in his chair and glared at the blank view screen.
Crate shrugged. “Did either of you
truly expect anything different?” That didn’t go over well. Both growled his direction, and the engineer just chuckled. “That’s Covenant service for you. Bend over far enough so they can stick it to you and they want you to thank them for it.”
“You’re not helping, Crate.”
“But he’s not wrong, Captain,” Lyana said. “It doesn’t take a genius to see that the Xebedon forces are testing the border at the outer rim as a distraction. This abandoned dirtball we’re headed to might not factor into their plans, but the bugs sure as shit are planning something that has nothing to do with their pitter patter raids at the edge of allied space.” She jabbed a finger at the view screen. “That bastard knows it, too. He’s dumping us in the middle of it so when everything goes south, he can stand tall and claim he was doing his job. Can’t blame the man for trying, they’ll say, all while our families will get a holo-vid, if they’re lucky, claiming we died doing our duty.”
“It’s not even ours,” Randall said.
“But it is,” Albion countered. “We might not be Covenant any longer, well, in our hearts at least, but it doesn’t matter who takes the blame or the credit if the Xebedons return. The bugs are going to wipe out the entire Covenant off the star map, and we might be able to do something about.” He eased out of his seat and paced in a small circle in front of it. “If we’re right that these alien scum are plotting something and we sit back and do nothing, then we’ve condemned not only ourselves but our family and friends as well. We can’t leave this in Vance’s hands, or in the chancellor’s, or even the military’s because they each have their own agenda. Our only agenda is to survive, to make sure the people we care about are safe and don’t end up being butchered by the bugs.”
“Can’t we do that by scooping them up and getting the hell out of allied space before it all hits?” Randall asked.
“Sure, if you want to condemn them to life aboard an alien ship that barely has enough room for the current crew and guests. Not to mention the logistics of food and supplies and the very likely prospect that, if war erupts between the Covenant and Xebedons, by dint of this very ship, we’ll be targeted by both sides. Better they stay put, I think.”
