by Martin Tays
Grace turned in the command chair and screamed toward the guard. “I do not need insubordination right now!”
“Tough, sir!” The guard screamed right back. “’Cause you got it!” He scrubbed his hands over his face, looked back down at his console, and continued in a somewhat calmer tone of voice. “Thirty seconds to reload. Sir.”
“Good. Do we have the target locked in?”
“Yes, sir.”
Grace turned to look at the alien ship in the vid window. “Then fire the instant the missiles become available.” He turned back toward the man at the fire control panel. “If that’s convenient for you?”
“Yes, sir. I’m ready to fire.”
“Good. And if they fire back, we can always use the same trick they used. Right, Mister Obaseki?”
The helmsman glared at him, but finally answered. “Yeah. I can do that. But what if they don’t use missiles?”
“Don’t be silly. What else could they possib…” Whatever else Grace was planning to say was lost as the first of the steel pellets, fired at hypervelocity from the warship’s railgun, struck the spaceship.
The pellets tore indiscriminately through the alloy of the hull, through the insulation, through the wiring and through the equipment and through the people.
Especially through the people.
The almost solid stream of destruction entered the ship just forward of the bridge. The warship was above the Excelsior, and was depressed to fire past the meteor shield and down into the unprotected parts of the hull. The pellets began chewing into the ship, and the warship starting rotating on its maneuvering thrusters to walk the line of shot up the center line of the hull.
As the hurricane of destruction raked down the length of the vessel air vented, debris and materials spun out to be struck and vaporized by the relentless pellets, bodies tumbled into the void.
It was horrifyingly beautiful. It was frightening.
It was death.
And where it had passed, nothing living remained.
☼
“What the hell is that? What the HELL is THAT!?”
Sam, still clutching Rafe, turned from the entryway to the access corridor. The sound was incredible, a jackhammer like pulsing physical in its intensity. Hard rain falling on the tin roof of hell. Mad shook her head, as bewildered as Sam.
Before she could say anything, though, the sound spiked, loud past any possibility of verbal communication. The hand hold Mad was clutching started vibrating uncontrollably.
Suddenly, there was a flash about twenty meters down the ring corridor. What looked to be ― inconceivably ― a solid column of light crashed directly across the ring. As quickly as it appeared it vanished.
As did the air.
Mad’s lungs started screaming as the corridor lurched violently. She realized, horrified, that the ring was disintegrating and immediately started exhaling as fast as she could. The last of the ship’s air blasted past, yanking Sam and Rafe off toward the end of the corridor.
Mad shoved off with all her might and just managed to grab Sam’s ankle. She yanked back on it and sailed up, wrapping her legs around Sam’s waist to halt herself while dragging the now unconscious Rafe in as close as possible.
She looked up from Sam’s terrified expression and saw something she had never before seen with her bare eyes, and hoped she never would again.
Naked stars.
Sam started panicking. Mad almost nonchalantly backhanded her as she reached behind toward the package strapped around her waist. She was already starting to black out. Only seconds left. Damn it, damn it… there! She yanked the activation tab on the survival bubble.
The memory plastic snapped out and formed around her and her two friends just as darkness came.
☼
“Are we dead?”
“I have no idea.” Moses released the breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding. He looked over at Ami, shrugging. “Tell you what ― let me check. Bridge to galley.”
“Galley. Doug, here.”
“Oh good. Bridge out.” He turned to Ami. “We can’t be in heaven, ‘cause they’d never let Doug in, and we can’t be in hell ‘cause you’re a virginal innocent. Ergo, we must be alive.”
Ami snorted. “I’m a virginal innocent? May I remind you of who introduced you to the Chinese basket trick?”
“Children.” Mattie shouted from the helm. “May I remind you we’re about this far from a gun fight that we didn’t even bring a God damn GUN to?”
“She’s right.” Moses turned to Ami and pointed. “I thought you were supposed to bring the gun.”
She shook her head. “Not me. I brought the potato salad.”
“Ooo. The kind with the little pickle bits in it?”
“DAMN IT!” Mattie screamed.
Moses unfastened his safety belt and pushed over toward the nav station, talking to Mattie as he went. “Look. We’re here, and we’re in position for us to do… well, whatever quixotic damn thing it is we’re going to do. And then we’re going to in all likelihood die. All of us. Stupidly, uselessly and probably painfully. Can you think of a better time to joke?” He reached the station just as Sandar threw up an image on a vid window.
Mattie paused, then looked over at the scene. In it, about two hundred kilometers away, the warship and another Endeavour class exploration craft were squared off against each other. She sighed, then turned back to Moses. “Now that you put it that way, no. I can’t think of a better time.”
“All right, then.”
S’Nhu-gli had unstrapped himself, also, and pushed himself over to Ami. He whispered a question into her ear. She cocked an eyebrow at him, then leaned over and, just as quietly, began to talk. At one point she held up her hand with one finger extended and brought her other hand down over it, twirling it around the upright finger rapidly. S’Nhu-gli blinked, gave Moses an odd and slightly appalled look, then moved off shaking his head.
Moses ignored the byplay. He was leaning over Sandar’s shoulder, staring at her display. “Okay. Let’s bring up broadband. See if you can get me someone in either of those ships. We’ve got to try to talk some sense into them.”
Sandar nodded and was just bringing up the communications protocol when Mattie gasped. Moses looked up. “Oh. Oh, Jesus, no.”
The warship was firing.
Moses reached over to Sandar’s panel and brought the magnification up. The vid window flickered, then came back on a closer view of the other human ship. Much closer, in fact, than Moses honestly wanted to see.
The destruction was slow, methodical, and total as the warship’s railgun worked its careful way up the spine of the ship. The command module simply disintegrated, as did the hab ring hub a short while later. The severed hab ring lurched, then collided with the spine of the ship. It cracked open and broke up into dozens of pieces.
The central corridor, with its cargo pods and docked shuttles, was next. It, too, disintegrated, and was followed by the engineering module.
The warship ceased firing before the lethal stream could reach the engines or fuel bunkers. Moses was grateful for that small favor. Several tons of antimatter would make short work of everyone in the vicinity.
Slowly, gracefully, the warship began turning.
Toward the Endeavour.
Moses groaned. He looked down at Sandar, his voice a tortured whisper. “Get ‘em?”
“Yeah. The trouble is, I can’t talk to them.”
Moses turned to yell at S’Nhu-gli, but the priest was already moving. He arrowed over to the station, fast enough to almost wrench Moses’ arm out of its socket when he grabbed the flying priest to bring him to a halt.
“Where’s the microphone?”
Moses pushed him toward a handgrab, then rubbed his shoulde
r ruefully. “Just talk, dude. They’ll hear you.”
“Oh. Of course. Sorry.”
“Good luck.”
S’Nhu-gli nodded, looked up toward the viewscreen, and began to speak.
Moses heard Sandar talking quietly to herself. He leaned in closer.
“… thy kingdom come, they will be done, on Earth as it is… as it is in Heaven…” She became aware that Moses was staring at her. She shrugged self consciously, tears bright in her eyes. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. If we have time, we’ll say a Shema Yisrael.” He patted her shoulder, then kissed her on the crown of the head. He then turned to look over at Ami. “Hey.”
Ami looked back at Moses, confused.
He smiled. “Know something? We’re about to die. Somehow, it just doesn’t seem as difficult anymore.”
“What?” Ami glanced at the viewscreen, then back to Moses. “What doesn’t seem as difficult?”
“I love you.”
Ami stared at Moses for a long moment, then shoved herself over to wrap herself around him like a rug. She was crying.
Mattie turned from the helm, a genuine smile on her face. “Why, Moses Hamish Dunn. It’s about damn time.”
Moses kissed the top of Ami’s head, then turned to look over at the helmsman. “See? Told you she knew.” Mattie grinned and shook her head. “Oh, and Mattie?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s been a pleasure and an honor working with you.”
“Yeah.” She nodded solemnly. “You too, Moses. You too.”
S’Nhu-gli, his words incomprehensible but his tone increasingly frantic, spoke on. And in the vid window, the warship turned toward them.
☼
“No, priest. No. The matter is closed. I am truly sorry.” General K’har-atah looked up toward the weapons console, a questioning look on his face.
The technician at the station checked a readout, then turned back to the general. “We are almost in range, sir.”
“Very well. Standby.” He turned back to the communicator. “We will be firing in a few moments, Lord S’Nhu-gli. I do not wish to kill you, but I wish to kill the humans. To do that I must, unfortunately, kill you also. I will light your funeral pyre myself to see you into your next life.”
There was a brief delay as the light speed messages traveled between the ships, then S’Nhu-gli replied. He sounded tired but determined. “General. It is not my life I beg for. My life, though important to me, is inconsequential. I beg for the lives of all our people. For if you kill these humaans, all of our people will suffer.”
K’har-atah had been turning toward the weapons station, his forepaw in the air. He paused at S’Nhu-gli’s last remark, though, and turned back to the conversation. “How do you mean that, priest?”
“Two humaan ships, general, have been sent to this system. Our home. And you’ll have destroyed them both, and killed every humaan aboard.” He paused.
“So?” K’har-atah finally replied.
“I have been studying these creatures, general. They are remarkably…” He paused, then continued. “There is a phrase the humaans use, to demonstrate absolute determination in the face of all odds. ‘Bloody minded’. They are remarkably bloody minded, general. When these humaans don’t return, they’ll send another ship. One that’ll make your warship seem like a toy.”
“Impossible. And if they do we’ll destroy it, also. I’ll destroy it, also.”
“Possibly. And possibly even the one after that. But eventually they will send something you can’t destroy, general. And it will destroy you. And your warship.” There was a pause, then, softly, “And your people.”
“He’s right.”
The general started at the new voice in the conversation. He looked over toward the communicator. “Engineer T’Han-mri?”
She ignored him. “Father, you know you won’t be able to stop him.” Her voice was resigned.
“Indeed.” S’Nhu-gli’s voice broke, just a little. “I must say my goodbyes, then, child. I love you, and I am proud of you. Be well.”
There was a brief pause, then she replied. Her voice sounded faint, as if she were working in the other end of the probe’s cabin. “Yes, Father. You must say your goodbyes, as must I. I am grateful to the Maker that we both had the opportunity to do so.” Her voice got loud, again, as she came back over to the instrument. “and please say my goodbyes, also, to my friend A’Hmee and my friend M’Hoses.” There was a long pause. “I so would have liked to live forever.”
☼
Halfway in between one human exploration ship and the shattered remains of another hung a dark, utilitarian shape. A proud, well engineered warship, beautiful of line and terrible of purpose.
There was a brief, pregnant moment, then a line, crisp and eye-searingly bright, came into existence around it.
The line flickered, brightened, then instantaneously swelled into a pulsing bolus as the warp drive energized at full emergency power.
Tidal forces from the strained and flickering drive field pulled at matter for a thousand kilometers around. Debris began sliding inward from all directions, drawn by the massive gravity pulse generated by the unstable field.
And then, just as quickly as it came, the drive field vanished.
So did the warship.
“There’s this old ‘television’ series with a bunch of humans in a spaceship, assisted by other humans cunningly disguised as aliens by the addition of two grams of putty and some gold lame. They bang around in a universe so stiff with life that you can’t throw an asteroid without wiping out a civilization.
“I’ve watched that entire series, plus all of its derivatives. And I’m still not sure if I love it for its goofily shallow hope or hate it for its goofily shallow hope.”
Cid O’Bryan, from “The Last Trip Out”
Chapter 28
“As a man grows older it is harder and harder to frighten him.”
Jean Paul Richter
There was timeless, exquisitely painful moment of utter silence, then everyone on the bridge of the Endeavour started making noise at once.
“No! No, no, no, NO, NO!” Ami’s nail dug into Moses’ arm with each repetition. Moses, groaning, never noticed.
Sandar just screamed and covered her mouth, but Mattie was quietly speaking one word over and over again as she scanned the area where the warship had been. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckity fuckfuckfuck…”
Moses looked over to S’Nhu-gli, who was staring up at the vid window and quietly speaking in his own language. He realized the priest was praying.
He looked back at Ami. Tears were pooling around her eyes, too, in the zero g environment. He realized he was having a bit of trouble seeing, himself.
Moses scrubbed his face, flung the resultant handful of moisture off into the control room at random and turned back to the helm. “Mattie.” No response. A bit louder. “Mattie.”
She broke off her monotonous chant and glanced back. There were tears in her eyes, too, but she angrily wiped them away and replied. “Yeah. I found it. We got trouble.”
“Fuck.” Moses carefully detached himself from Ami and pushed over to S’Nhu-gli, absently rubbing his arm where Ami had gripped him. The priest gave no notice of his presence. Moses cleared his throat.
After a long moment, S’Nhu-gli blinked and shook his head. He looked back over at Moses, who recoiled a bit from the agony in his face. He steeled himself, and reached out to gently wrap a hand around S’Nhu-gli’s unresisting foreleg.
“I am so, so sorry to do this, friend S’Nhu-gli. But I need you here with us, now. We need you.”
The alien priest looked into Moses’ eyes, then shut his own for a moment. He shook his head as if to clear it, then looked back. “I understand, friend M’Hoses. Th
e living must come before the dead. It is the way of our people too. How may I help?”
“How much do you weigh?”
S’Nhu-gli blinked. “Well, perhaps more than I should, as with many of us. In our units, maybe two hundred and thirty fen. May I ask why?”
“No. The warship.” Moses turned and pointed to the vid window. “What was its mass? Give it to me in the same units.”
S’Nhu-gli blinked. “I… I can only give you an approximation. In those units, probably around… let me think… about twenty five thousand thousand fen.”
“Woah. That is a bigass ship. Was. Bridge to medical.”
After a moment, Clive answered. “Captain. We’re going to need to…”
“Shut up. How much does S’Nhu-gli weigh?”
“Pardon?”
“Damn it, man, you weighed him for his physical, right?” Moses replied angrily. “What does the weasel mass? NOW!”
“One moment.” The doctor’s reply was icily formal. “Here it is, sir. His weight was just slightly over eighty four kilos as of two weeks ago. May I ask…”
“Bridge out.” He turned. “Mattie!”
“Already on it. Standby… got it.” She looked up at Moses. “Nine thousand, one hundred metric tons, give or take, plus some change. We’ve got a little time.”
“Thank God.” He pushed over to the helm to look down at Mattie’s instrumentation. “Is it effervescing?”
“Like a champ. Buttload of gamma, and some energetic particles that frankly I’m clueless about.”
“Probably some neutrinos in there.”
