The captain walked in to greet him as the room changed around him in a predetermined program Voltari always ran for their visits. It was a nice room with two fine wooden arm chairs with velvet lining and plush padding facing opposite each other. A fine wooden table separated the chairs and each had a side table with lamps. The floor was a burgundy colored carpet and the walls were covered in fine gold trimmed wallpaper. The décor always reminded him of his adopted father.
“Good afternoon Captain. I know why you are here,” Voltari said as he sat in one of the chairs. He motioned for his captain to sit as well. “Don’t be sad my friend, I knew when I was created that I was a tool for this ship. I would live and die as it did. Its death may be premature but it has performed its function and service, it has returned you and your crew to safety, I can be proud of that.”
His statement made Sean wonder if the avatar believed he would have an afterlife. He took the seat across from Voltari as he pondered what to say. He felt tears start to come but forced them away.
“You have been a fine friend, a brother. I will miss you,” he said once he could talk past the lump in his throat. He focused on the table lamp instead of meeting Voltari’s gaze, it was the only way he could get the words out.
“Let us not dwell on that my friend, play a last game of chess with me before you leave, I do so enjoy beating you,” Voltari said with a smile at the end. An exquisite marble chess board materialized on the table between the two. The captain nodded his approval.
They finished their game after hours of quite deliberation, each trying to predict the others move. When they first started playing Sean had been impatient. He tried to win quickly, always to his demise. His friend had thought him the value of patience and how sometimes winning was a waiting game of studying ones opponent. Voltari’s teachings had far more reaching implications, Sean had become a better captain. Sean won this final match.
“Thank you for all you have done and for getting my crew home Voltari,” the captain said.
Voltari nodded in acknowledgement.
“And thank you captain for always treating me as a member of your crew and not as a tool or computer program. I could not say the same of your predecessor,” Voltari spoke his final words as the two men shook hands.
A few days later he would learn of his friend’s fate, they would decommission the ship. His program was terminated, Voltari died.
During his trip to the core systems he had plenty of time to think about the mistakes he made that led to the irreparable damage to the Voltari. He played so many scenarios over and over in his mind. If he had raised the shields. If he had just ran instead of fighting. If he had not been cocky thinking he knew his enemy he could still be commanding the Voltari. There were a lot of ifs in his thinking, he began to doubt himself. He was growing more depressed and withdrawn by the day, tormented by his mistakes.
He lay in bed and pondered the events that had taken him away from the Razors. His last mission was totally botched from the word go.
The Union had received intelligence that the Telarians were developing new weapons in a remote system with no Mother planets. His team was sent on a mission to gather hard evidence and acquire technical data if plausible. If there was ever a secondary objective he completed it regardless of risk. They would take a Mirage Special Operations Craft or M-SOCs, the only one equipped with active stealth technology and two Raptor SOFs. The fighter pilots would escort and engage only if fired upon. The Mirage would carry the insertion team of four, Lieutenant Jerry Brice, Lieutenant David Deas, Petty Officer Laskin Petrill and himself. They would jump into the system on the far side of a moon orbiting a gas giant to mask the gravity distortion from their jump window. Then they would proceed to locate the installation since the intelligence did not give an exact position.
What they did not know was the entire system had a grid of sensor relay stations, the ships were detected immediately upon jumping into the system. The enemy did not let on that they had detected them and drew them in.
The installation was a stardock with one unfinished ship, a Juggernaut, in its carriage. The Razors moved the shuttle into position to breach the hull in what they believed was an empty cargo bay on the station.
They did not know that new Telarian hull designs were engineered to provide specific breach details. Union hull breach detection systems used air pressure sensors only meaning they could be circumvented by sophisticated breach systems. The Telarians used these too but they went a step farther, the entire hull had a fine grid system inlaid that told them down to the millimeter the dimensions of the breach and the location. When the Razors cut the hull and equalized pressure they had no idea that they might as well have blown open an airlock door. The Telarians continued to lure them in allowing them to enter and start down the hallways they cleared for them. It was slow going, Telarian gravity was one point three of standard ship gravity.
Meanwhile the Telarians sealed off the cargo bay the M-SOC had docked at and vented the oxygen, the crew could do nothing to stop it. The shuttle crew was incapacitated before they understood what was going on.
The four Razors had penetrated deep into the stardock before realizing something had to be wrong.
“L T, something doesn’t feel right,” Lieutenant Brice said.” We breached five minutes ago and haven’t encountered a soul.”
“Agreed. Let’s backtrack and locate an interface panel we can use to hack in and download what we can,” Lieutenant Commander Connor said quietly. They began to retreat the way they came. Connor had infiltrated a lot of Telarian ships and installations all over known space, never had he seen the defenses he was about to encounter that would change this from a standard op into fighting to survive every inch of the way.
They located a panel and removed the access cover to attach the Spider, a small device that would infiltrate the enemy’s computer quietly and hunt for information, when it found what it believed was what it wanted it started a download. As soon as David attached the Spider a panel opened in the ceiling and a small quad cannon lowered and opened fire. David Deas never had a chance, he was dead before his body hit the floor. Brice returned fire almost as quickly destroying the turret. They grabbed their fallen comrade and dragged him as they retreated. Telarians seemed to walk out of the walls there were so many. The Razors were highly trained machines with the best body armor the Union had, they could take hits from small arms fire and continue to move. When they reached the cargo bay door they found it locked.
“Petrill, Brice, hold this position while I get this door open.”
Connor took a good hit in the shoulder, it spun him around and dropped him onto the deck. Both of his men returned fire as their commander got up and started work on the door.
“Shuttle. This is Connor. Heat up those engines we are coming in hot.”
He grunted as he placed the charges to blow the door open.
No response, he was about to find out why.
“CLEAR!!!” he yelled as he activated the detonator.
The boom was way louder than he expected and more of a thud. The sudden rush of air that was sucked in to fill the vacuum created when the Telarians vented the atmosphere nearly pulled him off his feet. Brice was pulled off his feet and sucked into the door, it saved his life. Petrill was not so lucky, he was hit in the face with a plasma bolt, and it melted through his helmet and killed him instantly.
Connor grabbed Deas’s and Petrill’s bodies and started to drag them through the door back to the shuttle. He had multiple hits that had penetrated his body armor and he was bleeding badly. Brice grabbed Deas from him and pulled him in to the shuttle as Connor returned enemy fire. As he reached the opening Connor shoved Petrill’s lifeless body through the hole they had cut in the hull as he tried to return fire. He turned to push Petrill’s legs through and a Telarian shot him with a hyper velocity round. The bullet entered one side of his chest and traveled through narrowly missing his heart, puncturing both lungs and massive other internal
injuries before exiting the other side exploding a rib and through his arm. He didn’t notice at first because the round traveled at staggering velocities.
He crawled in the hole only to find the pilots dead, his head swam as he gasped for breath to tell Brice to move a pilot and get them out of here. He spoke, blood came out instead of words, his vision started to fade and he collapsed against the bulkhead.
The next thing he remembered was waking up weeks later at a Union hospital in an intensive care suite. Brice had not left his side except to attend the funerals for their fallen comrades. Brice too had been injured but his wounds were fortunately not as grave and he was able to hit the emergency jump button in the Raptor shuttle jumping them to safety.
Connor spent six months rehabilitating before he was allowed to return to service but because of his injuries he would no longer be allowed to be a Razor. It was a crushing blow to his self-esteem. Since his rehabilitation he had not been the same man. Because of his bravery in combat and bringing his men home in the face of overwhelming odds he was promoted to Commander and reassigned to the Solaria as her first officer.
It bothered him that they considered bringing back the corpses of his friends an award winner but in a conflict where most soldiers killed in action didn’t have a body to return to the family it was considered extraordinary. For him it pained him to lose them because they were family and he would not leave them behind. Lieutenant Deas’s younger brother Daxton would later serve with him as the helmsman aboard the Voltari.
The image of the ship that attacked the Voltari plagued his dreams, something about it ate at his mind. Its organic shape was somehow familiar but yet it was unlike any Telarian spacecraft he was familiar with. In the days to come it would become an enigma, a coincidence of fate.
Chapter Two
Earth
Earth, (from old English, the planet on which we live that is third in order from the sun)
Earth, the home of mankind. Sean Connor had only read or heard stories about it as a child. He had never actually been there; still he felt a since of nostalgia for her, Earth had been his parents birthplace. The war never came this far into the Union so he never came to visit. Now for the first time in his life he looked at Earth in all her splendor. A pristine orb of magnificent beauty, or at least she was until mankind took over, he thought. Sometimes he secretly understood why the Telarians didn’t like them, it was evidenced in the stunning lack of greenery Earth had once been famous for.
The partially constructed Dream Gate remained in orbit, envisioned as the first in a galactic network for instantaneous travel between worlds. The Dream Gate was to be the largest in a series, the others meant to fit inside to be jumped to its home destination. Advocates touted the network would be the fastest way to jump the extreme distances between home worlds. Opponents of the project always sighted the staggering cost and pointed out the fact that it was a technological infeasibility to power a device of its size.
It rivaled the ancient pyramids in scope as the most massive undertaking in human history. It was necessary to transport millions to colony worlds. He had heard it took twenty years to construct and millions of man hours in labor. Many from impoverished nations joined the crews constructing the gates and gateships. They worked only on the promise that they and their immediate families would be among the first to leave to worlds rich in hope and dreams.
It never happened. The already beleaguered construction project was halted when the war began. It had been plagued with technical hurdles and funding shortfalls since its inception and the powers that be sighted this new reason for justification to kill the unprofitable project once and for all. The war was the perfect excuse to shut it down and divert resources to the construction of warships, historically a more profitable venture.
After the war started the sister gates and gate ships, which were in the beginning stages of construction themselves, were dismantled and recycled to build warships during the war. Only one survived, the U.E.S. Tabula Rasa, it became a museum piece and tourist attraction visited by millions from all over the Union every year. The Tabula Rasa was a cigar shaped no frills vessel. Simple life support systems, living quarters, engines and shuttles to ferry people to their new homes and return for more. Its rated capacity, if he remembered correctly, was to be half a million people and it remained in orbit next to the jump gate.
His chartered shuttle passed close to it as they approached Earth affording him a spectacular view of both relics. As it passed sunlight glinted off of the structure and for a split second it glistened like diamonds. Even though Sean had seen many such scenes before, this one somehow had a more striking visual sense adding to the nostalgia. The jumpgate and the Tabula Rasa slipped slowly out of view as the shuttle maneuvered into its approach window to descend over Mumbai.
They had spared no expense bringing him here. He was the only passenger on a private shuttle. The flight attendant served all the meals, made the bed and restocked the towels and such. He was not used to being catered to but it was kind of a welcome vacation from years of living on the edge during war. His only concern had been how to entertain himself during the long trip. He had not used any leave since he left the academy and had accrued over half a year of leave. His only home had been a starship or a stardock in almost ten years. He had no home, no apartment, all of his belongings fit in the two bags he brought with him.
He was lonely he realized and he missed Kara. With so much idle time during the trip he had nothing to do but think about his life. What he wouldn’t give to turn back the hands of time to be with her again. She was a beautiful Bvaltari woman. He missed her touch and her smell. He missed having someone to share everything with. He rubbed the engagement ring he still kept on a chain around his neck as he thought and stared out the window at the flare of heat coming off the ship during reentry and wished his life had been different.
The ship circled Mumbai once as it prepared to land giving him a good view of the city. It was a huge city with beautiful architecture. The omnipresent Sanjay Gandhi National Park still dominated the northern city, one of the only patches of green he saw on the way down he noted.
The ship touched down gently on the busy landing field next to Union Command which was situated on the peninsula just north of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. He heard the engines shut down and the hiss of the door as it opened. He did not know what this trip was about but he was one step closer to finding out. He grabbed his bags, all he had in the world, and walked off the ship to a waiting transport that would take him to the main complex where he would be staying.
Following the collapse of several nations after the Corsarious event in North America on August 9, 2126, the remaining world powers formed the United Earth Consortium. The main complex was the headquarters of the UEC before the Union was formed. It was from here that all human exploration into space beyond our solar system began in earnest. Since then it had been converted to a working museum still housing offices and working laboratories. He decided to tour the facility to pass the rest of the afternoon.
The main entrance was an enormous tinted glass enclosure dominated by a domed ceiling. Stairs led to an open air second floor balcony with a multitude of exhibits. Children gawked at a large holographic representation of the Milky Way that rotated slowly on a tilted axis while holding intensely to the rail. Several tour groups were milling about above and below. In the center next to the hologram was a large group of children.
“Good morning!” Rena Lata, the tour guide, spoke excitedly when she felt she had the class’s attention.
She stood on a short dais beside a large open space with a domed ceiling. In the middle floated a full color, holographic representation of the Milky Way galaxy set in a slow spin.
“Astronomers agree that the Milky Way is a spiral galaxy, with observations suggesting that it could contain about 400 billion stars and is estimated to have at least 50 billion planets, 500 million of which could be located in the habitable zone
of their parent star. Our Solar System,” she said pointing with both hands together spread them apart in a gesture that zoomed in to our local area of the Milky Way, “Is located halfway out from the center, on the inner edge of the Orion–Cygnus Arm. Earth,” she said zooming again, “is the third planet out orbiting Sol. It is the home of humans and it is estimated to be over four billion years old. Millions of species have lived and died on Earth over the course of millions of years. Earth is but a speck in the cosmos.” She zoomed out to the Milky Way again. “Life had to exist elsewhere, we needed only to venture out and find it.”
She tapped on a controller on her wrist and the Milky Way disappeared and was replaced by images from Earth’s past. Images from three world wars, starving people from around the globe, cities on fire, citizens fighting police in the streets, rioting and looting trucks full of food and escaping with their prize.
“It was not until after the Corsarious Event of the early twenty-second century when the population was in excess of fourteen billion and after multiple failed ecosystem repair initiatives, famine and civil unrest left the governments with few options but to put aside their differences.” An image of the consortium logo replaced the disparaging images. “The United Earth Consortium was established to bring together the greatest minds with all the resources mankind had to offer to develop faster than light drives or FTL’s to take them to the stars in search of habitable worlds to ease the populations strain on earth’s limited and damaged resources. During our tour today we will journey back in time to experience what it was like to work and live here during that momentous time in human history.”
Rena stepped down from the dais and led the class down the hallway to her right. She stopped at the first exhibit, the warp drive lab.
“Doctor Miguel Alcubierre, in the late twenty century, envisioned the warp drive. However, it was not until over one hundred years later that his dream would be realized in a practical working device.”
Relentless: Book One of the Union Warship Saga Page 4
