The Arwen Book one: Defender

by Timothy Callahan

  The pilot placed his hand on his ear and then nodded. “Captain, Ulliam is making a special broadcast, you need to see it.”

  Marjorie picked up the headphones, placed them on, and looked at the monitor. The first thing she saw was Merriam standing tall and proud. Behind him, she saw Kel. He was tied to the wall by thick chains and he hung there lifeless. His face was bloody and his eyes nearly swollen shut. Blood stained his bare chest in long, dried streaks. The only thing keeping him up were the binds.

  “People of Ulliam,” Merriam said in clear Common. “I am Merriam, founder of our civilization. I am the one who drove the monsters off the planet two thousand years ago. I placed myself in hibernation knowing they would return one day. I’ve spend the past few months building my strength and waiting for the Corps fleet to arrive. I thought they would be our friends; instead, they sent this man to kill me.” He stepped aside and pointed to Kel. He looked back at the camera and continued. “He has failed and he has proven what I had suspected: the Earth people are not our friends and they must be destroyed.”

  Marjorie gasped. What he said would be obeyed no matter how dangerous. He continued, his voice growing louder, stronger, more forceful that before. “You are to kill every non-Ulliam you see. You will do this without hesitation, without questions, because I demand blood! The fleet gathering above will attack the Gyssyc with as much force as is needed to destroy them once and for all. Today, Ulliam shall be free! Today we will become what we were supposed to be without interference from any outsiders. Go, now, destroy! Kill! Become my weapon against the evil that has stifled our growth!”

  Marjorie turned the picture off. Seconds later, Payton appeared on her screen. “Captain Cook, how close are you to the Arwen?”

  “We’ll be docking in a few seconds.”

  “I want you to take the Huck Finn and the Bean and rescue as many people from Ulliam City as you can.”

  Marjorie nodded, “Good luck, Payton. Captain Cook, out.” She switched channels then said, “Attention Arwen bridge. Go to red alert. Communications, link me up with the Huck Finn and the Bean.” She waited a moment before hearing the two other captains check in.

  “Captain Jenkins of the Bean, reporting.”

  “Captain Peterson of the Huck Finn, reporting.”

  “Gentlemen, by orders of Admiral Cook, you two are now under my command. Captain Peterson, prepare your fighters and transport craft. Our mission will be to rescue as many non-Ulliam as we can. I want each transport to be surrounded by fighters giving air support. Follow those transports like you were their shadows and provide ground support for the evacuation. Captain Jenkins, I want you to send as many marines down as you have. I’ll have the Arwen scan the city looking for human life forms and we’ll guide you to those locations. Once we clear Ulliam City, we’ll move onto the next city to help. We won’t be able to get them all, but we’ll get as many as we can. Captain Cook, out.”

  “Captain,” the pilot said, “we’re docking with the Arwen now.”

  “Thank you,” she replied, then closed her eyes. The biggest battle of her life was about to begin.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Five hundred fighters from the carrier Huck Finn met up with the squadron of personnel transports. Entering the atmosphere caused a long, red hot trail of flame which made them easy targets for any defense systems.

  The Arwen and the Bean met each attack with missiles and energy weapons, blasting the ground base missiles out of the air before they could get close. The closer the transports got to the ground, the less effective the beams would be, making them easy targets.

  When the Arwen or the Bean identified a base, the fighters broke off and attacked. The once beautiful, grassy plains that surrounded Ulliam City were littered with the debris of wrecked transports, Ulliam fighters, and missile fragments.

  An alarm warned Marjorie about several squads of Ulliam fighters approaching. She scanned her records and knew exactly where that base was. “Bean, destroy that base,” Marjorie ordered before sending the captain its location.

  The Bean lumbered away from the Arwen, its blazing guns paused for a moment as the coordinates for the base were fed into the computers. Moments later a devastating volley of missiles, fired from every silo the Bean had, entered the atmosphere and disappeared into the smoke filled sky.

  The remaining transports landed on the streets of Ulliam City. Debris from the battle littered the ground making it difficult for them to land. Many had to open their back doors a few feet above the ground so the marines could jump out to clear a path. They were under constant fire from all angles and many fell before reaching the ground. From orbit, it was hard to tell the Ulliam dead from the human dead, but Marjorie knew there were many of both.

  When the civilians saw the transports, they ran for them, fighting off Ulliam who were merciless in their killing. The Ulliam moved fast; more than one transport was quickly over run no matter how desperate the soldiers fought. All over the city rescues were taking place, transports were taking off while others landed. Earth fighters swarmed above the city, fending off an almost endless supply of Ulliam fighters. Even after the Bean declared the base destroyed they kept attacking.

  Missiles and energy beams from the Arwen fired continuously. Everything that could be targeted became a target. The atmosphere was thick with smoke from exploding craft and projectiles.

  The murder on the ground and in the air was hard for Marjorie to watch. Shuttles filled with citizens, no matter how well protected, fell to the ground with long trails of white and black smoke spiraling in their wake as they were blasted from the sky. She tried not to imagine the horror of being inside of those crafts.

  A bright flash on a screen to her right drew her full attention. The Ulliam had launched a powerful missile attack that had gotten through the defenses and hit the Bean, ripping its shields apart and shredding its armor like thin paper. The engine belched out a fireball in an explosion that lit up the battlefield of space. The Bean struggled to keep its orbit. The damage was too severe and it was unable to defend against the next wave of missiles. The Arwen’s gunners did their best to protect the escort, but it was a losing battle.

  The bottom of the Bean glowed red as it hit the atmosphere. Armored plating peeled away, instantly vaporizing. A long tale of flame extended for miles behind the Bean as its outer skin melted into slabs of molten metal. Escape pods ejected into the hell of the reentry. Some exploded while others simply vanished in a puff of flame.

  “Where is she going to crash?” Marjorie asked.

  “About three miles north of the city, near one of the suburbs.”

  A populated area. This battle was less than half an hour old and already the loss of life was unbearable.

  As the Bean continued its fall, it broke up into large pieces. Each piece contributed to the fiery tails that grew in number as more of the Bean broke apart. The Bean slammed into the small town at over a thousand miles per hour. Ejecta exploded into the upper reaches of the atmosphere. A shockwave ring spread out from the epicenter disintegrating everything in its path. Buildings crumbled, roads and bridges fell, and the surface cracked. The cloud of dust, caught in the swift winds of the atmosphere, spread out over the planet, blocking Marjorie’s view of Ulliam City.

  There could be no survivors from an impact like that. Marjorie swallowed hard and said, “Send Admiral Cook a message. The Bean has been lost.”

  ~*~

  The Corps fleet sped toward the Ulliam task force gathered around the north pole. The Aragorn led the charge and was the first to fire its armaments. The rest of the fleet followed and the space above Ulliam filled with thousands of missiles and the steady, multi-colored flashes of energy beams.

  Ships on the outside of the Ulliam fleet exploded and crumbled into small pieces that fell to the planet below. None made any attempts to fight back and instead accelerated themselves forward and toward the Gyssyc ship.

  Part of the Corps fleet split up and attempted to
meet them before they arrived. The Ulliam fleet fought against the attempt to be outflanked with numerous missiles and energy blasts. The flashes from the shields absorbing the attacks resembled a powerful lightning storm as seen from a distance.

  With the Ulliam fleet trapped between the Gyssyc ship and the Corps fleet, Admiral Cook ordered his ships into a square formation. As if to help provide cover for the maneuver, the Gyssyc ship opened fire.

  The Ulliam fleet, like the fleets before, was systematically sliced into pieces. Undaunted, they continued forward.

  “Admiral Cook, we’re getting strange readings from the Ulliam ships. They seem to be charging up their particle accelerators.”

  “That’s their plan,” Cook replied. “They’re going to destroy the Gyssyc with strangelets. We need to take as many of them out as we can before they get close. Alert the Gyssyc ship and tell them to take evasive action.”

  A volley of fire from the now completed square formation tore the Ulliam fleet apart. Weakened ships dissipated in a flash as magnetic fields fell. The Ulliam fleet had been reduced by half, yet they continued to advance toward the Gyssyc.

  The Gyssyc ship’s might combined with the Corps fleet made quick work of the remaining ships. The few that remained continued on their way, ignoring the destruction around them.

  Admiral Cook’s relief was short lived. Almost to the second the first fleet was destroyed, another wave of wormholes formed. Unlike the first wave, which seemed to concentrate above the north pole, this wave had staggered themselves at random. Some appeared peerlessly close to the Gyssyc ship; those were quickly destroyed before they even had a chance to advance.

  Payton studied the new attack before realizing what the plan was. They were all blind jumps. The kind of attack he might order if he wanted to use strangelets as weapons. There was a chance one might appear close enough to the Gyssyc to destroy it. There was even a slight chance once might appear inside the ship.

  Another flash caught his attention. An Ulliam ship had appeared almost next to the Aragorn. A few meters more and his flagship would have been nothing more than a small wormhole. He ordered his gunners to open fire before the ship had a chance to fire up its particle accelerator again.

  He watched the destruction for a few moments before he saw his second in command running to station. He looked at his reading before yelling, “Admiral! One of the Ulliam ships has been caught in the gravity well of the moon. It’s still got its magnetic field up. If it hits the atmosphere . . .”

  Cook knew what would happen then. “Concentrate all firepower on that ship. We can’t . . .”

  He looked at the screen to discover it was too late.

  The Ulliam ship touched the upper layer of the atmosphere just as its magnetic field collapsed releasing its payload of strangelets.

  A small string of linked strangelets slipped from a wisp of thin atmosphere, waving like a ribbon as it rode an air current into the sky. Strangelets turned all the atoms they touched into a strangelet. A chain reaction that was impossible to stop. The energy released by the transformation caused the atoms to emit energy in the form of a bright light that rivaled that of the brightest sun.

  The ribbon of strangelets zipped down into the upper atmosphere and traveled out in a ring. The ring became a sphere of light that reached the ground near the speed of light.

  While the atmosphere dissolved, the ground began to melt away. It didn’t take long for the ever expanding number of strangelets to eat away at the thinner layers of crust releasing the lava held underneath. High gushers of lava were quickly turned into strangelets as they touched the now strangelet saturated air. Mountains fell into lakes of molten rock as their bases fell to the onslaught.

  The moon glowed brighter than the Ulliam sun. It was now impossible to see what was going happening on the surface as the strangelets ate away at the iron core. It would take a while, but even the dense iron core would be gone and there would be nothing left of the Ulliam moon.

  Admiral Cook watched this from his bridge. “Recall the ships. Meet at the designated recall point near the third planet,” he ordered, his voice barely able to contain his shock. “It’s too dangerous now. Once that chain reaction is over, we’ll return.” He looked at another monitor that held the image of the Gyssyc comet. It continued its fight against a seemingly endless supply of Ulliam craft. Hang on, he thought, we’ll be back to continue this fight.

  ~*~

  The side of Ulliam that pointed toward the moon flexed back once the moon’s gravitational influence weakened. Along the equator a crack large enough to be seen from space formed. The pressure of the continental plates sliding suddenly caused a worldwide quake.

  President Packard grabbed onto table to prevent himself from falling. Merriam stood, unmoving, his face impassive to the destruction around him. Packard looked over at Kel, whose head hung low.

  Reports from all over the planet told of the destruction. Cities had fallen into lakes of lava that formed under the thin crust. Long dormant volcanoes had suddenly, and violently, erupted. Lakes overflowed and flooded the fertile valleys they helped to create.

  The ground shook again as the planet attempted to regain its equilibrium. The flexing would continue for days and cost the lives of millions more.

  This was madness. All over the planet people were dying and yet he could not move or react. He looked over at one of the guards; his gun would be so easy to grab. He wanted to do it, he wanted to reach out and do it. He tried to move his hand toward it yet found his hands steady, unmoving.

  Commander Lipton lifted his head and the two made eye contact. “Mister President, do something. I know you’re not under Merriam’s control like the others. I heard you lie to him earlier when he asked you a direct question.”

  “I can’t,” President Packard said. His hand shaky, wanting to act. His voice came from a place inside his head he didn’t know about. He had never let his people down and now he was killing millions of them because of his indecision. “He does have control over me, maybe not as much as the others, but I cannot disobey him.”

  “Look at what he’s taken away from you so far.”

  He’s taken everything away from me, my leadership, my people, and my will. Packard thought this and did not dare give it voice. He eyed Merriam, the great one, the one who would lead them into a new era after the Gyssyc and humans had gone. What kind of world would it be if this war destroyed everything? How far would Merriam go to destroy his enemy? Not my enemy, he thought, but his.

  “Be quiet,” Merriam yelled, walking over to them. “President Packard, what is he telling you?”

  Packard looked Merriam in the eye. Deep inside his psyche he wanted to tell him all the commander talked about. The president found a way to suppress the urge to obey and lied. “He was trying to convince me to let him go.” It was another lie, more proof he did not need to obey this being, this creature that had taken over. Merriam wasn’t an Ulliam, he wasn’t even a Gyssyc; he was a hybrid. A true Ulliam wouldn’t want to destroy the planet for revenge. A true Ulliam wouldn’t let those that held the promise of more adventure and understanding be destroyed. He was a monster and he needed to be destroyed.

  With a quickness he hadn’t known he had, President Packard reached out and grabbed one of the rifles from a guard. The president swung the gun around and pointed it at Merriam. The guard he took it from lunged forward as the other guards pointed their rifles at him. Packard saw all the action, he absorbed it, not wanting to know what was happening, but not wanting to forget it either. No one reacted fast enough and he pulled the trigger three quick times.

  Merriam looked down at his chest, stunned at the three holes. Blood poured out, staining the suit he had wore. He fell to his knees before looking up. A satisfied grin crossed his face. He shrugged his shoulders at the president before falling face first onto the floor. Blood pooled around his body as he took his last breath.

  The president found himself breathing heavily. Warrior lust fill
ed in his heart. He spun around to see everyone in the room pointing a weapon at him, uncertain as to what to do next. The Ulliam needed structure. They needed a leader. “I am President Packard, your leader. We will no longer be under the control of those who want to harm us. Put your guns down. I’m in charge once again. Give me an open communication channel to everyone. This war is over.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Marjorie looked at herself in the mirror, adjusted the bra under her formal uniform, and smiled. She hadn’t worn her formal uniform in years and was very happy to see it still fit. It brought out some of her finer curves and hid some of her less attractive ones.

  She fretted with her cap making sure it sat on her head in such as way as to not ruin the haircut she received earlier that day. When she was done, she looked at herself one more time and then saluted to see what it looked like. “Perfect.”

  As she walked away from the mirror and toward her bed, there was a knock on the door. “Marjorie, may I come in?”

  “Come on in, Mason. I’m almost ready.”

  The door opened and Mason walked in. She was very happy to see him and was proud of the weight he had taken off. In the six months since they made their escape from Ulliam, he lost over a hundred pounds and was starting to look more and more like the man she knew from school.

  She walked over and gave him a hug that he returned gratefully. “You look fantastic,” he said.

  “So do you.” She pulled back and looked up at him. “Will I get a chance to meet the wife and kids tonight?”

  “Yes, they are all looking forward to meeting the great Captain Marjorie Cook. I think they’re all waiting for you to tell them some stories about me from school. I don’t talk too much about that. Not the proudest time in my life.”

  She gave him a playful push. “It wasn’t that bad. Besides, I owe you. I now have Professor Ricter calling me ‘nervous Nelly Cook’ whenever I get a little frustrated at his progress.”