Second Earth

by Stephen A. Fender

  “I know what it means, Captain.”

  “Oh,” he added sarcastically. “I had no idea you were so well-versed in flight procedures. Would you care to relieve Commander Hayes over there? I’m sure she could use a cup of coffee.”

  “At this point, I’m just here as a bystander, Captain.”

  “Then I suggest you observe with your lips shut and stay out of the way. People could die today, Agent Graves, and I don’t think you’d want that on your conscience.”

  She sighed heavily, knowing she could do very little other than watch and wait.

  “Sir,” Fredericks called out from the sensor station. “I think we’ve got something.”

  “Good. It’s about time. Channel it to the table now. I want to see it.”

  Melissa watched as Fredericks and Garcia shared a look of concern. Evidently, the two seemed unconvinced as to what their combined efforts were about to reveal.

  “Stand by, sir,” Garcia called out. “Transmitting the image matrix now, but it may take a moment or two for the emitters to come online.”

  Krif and Melissa turned in opposite directions to face the table to their rear. The surface, once a solid white glow, rippled like a pond of milk that had just been disturbed by the arrival of a small pebble. Suddenly, shards of blue-green photons from the holo-matrix sprang to life from inside the display top, as if something were being raised from the depths of the sea. It took several passes through the computer for the now hovering image to stabilize into a recognizable shape—and it was a shape that no one on the bridge had ever ascribed to a spacecraft before.

  The intruder looked every bit as perplexing as Lieutenant Mitchell had described. It had an overall wedge shape, ribbed along a central spine, with proboscis-like protrusions jutting out of the sides at regular intervals that grew larger the further stern they went. Along the ventral side, there was a large finlike structure near the stern, with more needle-like projections coming out at forty-five-degree angles to the hull. It looked like the head of some large, carnivorous beast that had long ago shed every ounce of skin, leaving only the horrid bones in the wake of its decay. It was larger than the Rhea, but only slightly, and it easily dwarfed the eight-hundred-foot Agincourt that was quickly advancing on its location.

  “What the hell is that?” Krif asked in disbelief as he stared wide-eyed at the projection.

  Melissa was equally astonished at the sheer size and the unusual shape of the intruder. “Whatever it is, it doesn’t look too friendly.”

  “Amen to that, sister. That’s one ugly-looking monstrosity. However, I learned long ago not to judge a book by its cover—no matter how unsightly that cover was.”

  “Captain,” Caitlin called out from her station. “The Agincourt is nearing the position of the intruder. Range is three hundred miles and closing steadily.”

  “Status of the intruder?” Krif replied, turning away from the table to look at the flight control officer.

  “Hawkeye reports no unusual movement from the intruder, sir,” Caitlin said. “Red Skulls and Rapiers confirm, sir.”

  “Have the Agincourt close to one hundred fifty miles and hold position, then have them repeat our initial warning in all languages and on all frequency bands.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Krif turned to face the frightening holographic representation of the alien vessel. “They can’t ignore us now that we’re nose to nose with them.”

  “But is it wise to get so close?” Melissa asked cautiously, hoping to avoid upsetting the captain. When she saw that he didn’t respond, she decided to press him further. She lowered her voice, careful not to alert anyone else that she was questioning the commanding officer’s decision. “Maybe we should exercise some caution here, Captain.”

  “To hell with caution,” he dismissed. “I want answers.”

  Melissa took a wary sidestep closer to Krif. “I’ll bet the Valley Forge’s captain said the same thing.”

  Richard glared at her angrily. “Watch it, lady. Captain Jothia was a good friend of mine. He never made a rash or unwarranted decision in his life. And considering that you’ve never commanded a Sector Command vessel in your short existence in this universe—let alone a fleet supercarrier—you don’t get the luxury of denigrating his decisions. Needless to say, you’re treading on thin ground. I told you to remain silent and I meant it. Unless you have something relevant to add to this situation, I suggest you clamp it.”

  “Captain,” Fredericks said from the sensor station, drawing his attention away from Melissa. “The intruder is changing position.”

  Krif bolted down from the command deck and stepped to the side of the sensor console. “Specify.”

  Fredericks requested the information from the sensors. “Sir, the intruder is coming about to a heading of one-four-four mark seven-six. It’s aligning itself to bear down on the Agincourt. Range is two hundred fifteen miles.”

  “Has the intruder increased speed?”

  Lieutenant Garcia slid from Fredericks’ side and, without asking for permission from the captain, assumed the secondary sensor console to Fredericks’ right. With seconds, he had the information. “No, sir. She’s come to a dead stop; no forward momentum. It’s just pivoting.”

  Krif glared at him. He instantly decided that now wasn’t the time to reprimand the lieutenant. Richard needed all the help he could get, and it was too late to call in a more trusted relief for the former Icarus officer. “Communications,” Krif barked. “Are we receiving anything from the Agincourt?”

  Clifton held his finger in the air, indicating that he was receiving a communication at the same moment Krif was making the request. When Clifton had received the message in its entirety, he instantly relayed it to the captain. “Sir, Agincourt is requesting to fire a cautionary shot across the bow of the intruder.”

  “Send a coded reply directly to Captain Wayside. He has my permission to fire a warning shot, low yield, tight pattern, across the intruder’s bow.”

  Completely disregarding protocol—not to mention the captain’s orders—Melissa ran down from the upper command deck and was at Krif’s side in an instant. There was no way she was going to allow Krif to put innocent people’s lives in danger based on his personal conjecture of the situation. “Captain, as senior mission commander, I would advise against—”

  Krif cut off her words with a burning scowl that could peel paint from a bulkhead. “One more word from you and Commander Wamata will escort you from this compartment in handcuffs, along with whatever else I can wrap you in. Do I make myself clear, Agent Graves?”

  She neither spoke nor physically acknowledged his statement. Regardless of her position in the current mission, she knew without a doubt that any of Krif’s men would blindly follow his orders and have her thrown in the brig. She glared into his eyes for a moment, then turned and walked slowly back to the upper deck. She placed her hands on the upper railing and leaned out toward the large view screen, knowing that, even at this distance, the entire CIC complement would be privy to the high-intensity beam that was about to erupt from the bow of the destroyer.

  As expected, a moment later there was a bright blue glow out in the darkness of space. The Agincourt had opened fire, letting loose three short salvoes from its main particle accelerator cannon. The unbroken beam shot out over the intruder’s bow and harmlessly out into space. It was over in seconds.

  Krif called out to the communications officer. “Anything from the alien?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Sensors?”

  “Nothing,” Garcia and Fredericks said in near-unison.

  “Flight control? Hayes, what do you have from our recon wing?”

  Caitlin, with one hand on her control board and the other steadying the visual display on her headpiece, shook her head. “No change, sir.”

  “Sir!” Fredericks examined a moment later. “Intruder is moving. Now showing their speed to be approximately eighty miles per hour.”

  “Distance from the
Agincourt?”

  “Two hundred five miles, closing slowly.” There was a slight pause as Fredericks and Garcia adjusted their respective sensor matrix assemblies.

  “Update, Captain,” Garcia shouted. “Now showing the intruder at a dead stop, resting one hundred seventy miles from the Agincourt.”

  “It seems the Agincourt has their attention,” Krif said triumphantly. “Maybe now we’ll get some damn answers. Communications, tell the Agincourt to again transmit our warning, all frequencies and all—”

  “Captain.” This time it was Garcia. “Some kind of…spatial distortion is appearing near the intruder’s bow.”

  “Spatial distortion? Specify.”

  “It’s difficult, sir. The readings are similar to jump-drive byproducts, but there are some really exotic quantum changes I can’t account for. Reading a massive gravitational envelope.”

  “Fredericks?”

  “The sensors are registering a spatial distortion, localized near the bow of the intruder.”

  “How is that possible?” Krif snorted in disapproval. “No ship could withstand that kind of outside stress so close to its hull. Could it be a weapon?”

  “Sir,” Caitlin shouted from her station. “All communications with the Agincourt are down. All communications with our recon squadron are out as well.”

  “Communications officer, send the emergency system-wide broadcast to all vessels; order their computers to bring the vessels back to this point.”

  “Yes, sir.” The communications officer entered the emergency codes into the computer, allowing his console to take control of all the navigational computers of Mitchell’s ELINT, the interceptors, and even the Agincourt herself. Clifton’s voice was a mix of dejection and anger. “Sir, emergency navigational override is not responding.”

  “Try the backup systems!”

  “I have, sir. The computer is saying there is nothing out there to lock on to. It’s as if they’ve vanished.”

  “Try them again! Get those people out of there.”

  “Massive radiation surge emanating from the intruder, Captain,” Garcia shouted. “It’s jamming all communications within a three-hundred-mile radius of the alien’s hull.”

  Fredericks called out, his voice overpowering Krif’s easily. “Sir, distinct energy buildup in the intruder’s forward section.”

  On Garcia’s screen, the sensor image of the intruder—as well as all the Sector Command forces in the area—blinked out entirely. “What the hell?”

  “Lieutenant?” Krif asked.

  “They’re gone, sir,” Vincent said. “I’ve…I’ve lost them.”

  Suddenly the combat center’s view screen was awash with a brilliant white-violet energy. Everyone in CIC, including Melissa, had to shield their eyes from the flash. It lasted for only a brief second and then was gone.

  At the sensor console, the long-range sensors came back online the moment the flash had abated. “Sir, sensor report coming in!” Garcia shouted.

  “What happened?” Krif belted.

  “I’m still reading all our craft, sir, but…”

  The pause hung in the air for a split second before Krif jolted the man out of his silence. “But what, man? Spit it out.”

  “They’re…they’re not moving, sir. They’re just…drifting.”

  “Radiation surge is abating,” Garcia injected.

  “Sir, all communications are still down,” Clifton shouted from across the compartment.

  “Confirmed, no communications with our forces, Captain,” Lieutenant Commander Hayes added from the flight control station. “Sir, I’m also not receiving any life readings from the fighters or Lieutenant Mitchell’s ELINT.”

  “What the hell just happened?” Krif shouted to anyone who could give him answers.

  The control room went eerily quiet. A soft voice came from behind Krif—so soft he barely heard it above the static of the communications speakers. It was Melissa Graves.

  “Why don’t you ask the captain of the Valley Forge?” With that, she turned and strode from the combat center, her next objective painfully clear in her mind.

  Chapter 8

  Krif moved quickly toward the flight control officer’s station and the young woman standing there. With lightning-fast reflexes, Commander Hayes was inputting a request into her terminal, already attempting to pull up the information on the stricken Sector Command destroyer Agincourt and her fighter escorts.

  “Commander,” the captain asked frantically. “Can you confirm those life sign readings?”

  “Trying, sir. The readings are changing rapidly.” A bead of sweat formed on her brow as she pushed back some hair that had been sticking to her scalp. “I’m not receiving any communications for the Agincourt, Captain. All power on the destroyer appears to be down. It’s the same with our recon fighters as well as Lieutenant Mitchell’s ELINT.”

  Krif spun to face the two men seated at the sensor stations: the young but adept Sergeant Lance Fredericks, and the lone survivor of the doomed cruiser Icarus, Lieutenant Vincent Garcia. “I want an explanation as to what just happened, and you two are the only ones who can give it to me. What kind of weapon was that? Some sort of EMP?”

  Garcia was the first to speak. “Unlikely, sir,” he said with a shake of his head. “At least, not like one I’ve ever seen. Even an electromagnetic pulse should leave some of the Agincourt’s normally offline systems intact. As soon as main power was cut off, the backup systems would have instantly initiated. I’m detecting no power of any kind from the destroyer.”

  Krif nodded in comprehension. “Just like what happened on the Icarus.”

  Garcia sighed heavily, the memories of those final moments after the power had gone out on his ship flashing through his mind. He thought of the last few gasps of air the crew would have struggled to take before the life support equipment failed completely and the entirety of them suffocated and froze to death in zero gravity. It must have been an agonizing, hideous way to die. During his recent two-week stay in the brig, Garcia had begun to wonder why he had been spared when so many other—better, he reflected—officers and personnel had perished.

  Caitlin Hayes, sensing the captain was pondering his next move, moved the few paces from her station to Krif’s side. She lowered her voice to a whisper, hoping not to arouse suspicion from the rest of the crewmen in CIC. “Sir, we don’t have any kind of defense against weaponry like that. Perhaps we should consider—”

  Krif held up a hand to stay her next words. His tone was calm, but resolute. “No, Commander Hayes. Not just yet. I want to learn as much about this intruder as we can. What we do here now could be of vital importance to the Unified government. There’s no telling if we’ll ever get another chance like this, and I’m not about to give up this opportunity.”

  “But sir?” she pleaded quietly. “If this single ship is responsible for wiping out the Valley Forge and her escorts, we’re not going to stand much of a chance. Perhaps discretion is the better part of valor here.”

  “I’m aware of that, Commander,” Krif all but shouted. His eyes darted around the room, noticing only then that his outburst had drawn unwanted attention. Caitlin, for her own part, seemed to shrink away from him. He looked at her apologetically. “We’ll have to take that risk, Caitlin. Every enemy has a weak spot. All we need to do is find it and exploit it.”

  She nodded, and for the first time Krif could remember, the young woman cast her gaze to the deck in defeat. “I understand, sir. However, as second officer, I respectfully request you accept my formal objection to remaining in this system.”

  “You’re aware that such an complaint will appear on your otherwise stellar service record, Commander.”

  She turned her eyes to stare into his. “I do, Captain.”

  Krif nodded in understanding. There was no way such a remark would do anything to hinder Caitlin Hayes’ promising career. If anything, it would probably solidify it. Sector Command didn’t want officers who would blindly follow the
ir captain’s orders without considering the ramifications of those actions, and he was proud to see that his choice in second officer understood that unspoken fact. He only hoped they all lived long enough to see him pin a captaincy on her someday. “So noted, Commander.”

  “Thank you, sir. Now, what are you suggesting we do?”

  Richard did have an idea. Actually, it was more of a loose theory than anything else. “The enemy vessel didn’t attack until we fired a warning shot.”

  Hayes agreed with a nod. “It seemed that way.”

  “And, based on your observations, it totally ignored the reconnaissance patrol, correct?”

  “The enemy salvo was directed solely at the Agincourt.” Caitlin realized what the captain might be getting at. “You’re suggesting that our fighters may have been collateral damage?”

  “Precisely. I want you to order all hands to flight status. Equip them with the most powerful missiles we have and launch everything immediately. I want every space-capable vessel out there, from the interceptors to the Marines. Get everyone formed up off our bow in ten minutes.”

  “But if your theory is off, then the intruder will wipe out the entire fighter wing, and the Rhea will be all but defenseless.”

  “I don’t see that we have much of a choice in this, Commander. If the fighters can’t stop them, then it won’t matter. This is what we all signed up for when we joined the ranks. We all knew a day like this might come. Besides, if we do need to evacuate the system, the space wing is the best defensive cover we have.”

  “Yes, sir,” Caitlin said, lowering her eyes.

  “Carry out my orders, Commander Hayes,” Richard said just before he turned to leave her station.

  She nodded her head sharply. “Yes, sir.”

  * * *

  Lieutenant Commander Shawn Kestrel was in his small but adequate quarters. With a final pull, he zipped the last closure on his gray flight suit just as a resounding knock came from his door. Half expecting to see Melissa Graves, Shawn was stunned that the person who entered his room was none other than Trent Maddox.