by Greg Dragon
The lights on the ship’s bridge dimmed to the point of darkness, and the front of the bridge took on a transparent effect that made it look as if the officers were standing and sitting in space. This disconcerting effect was one of the secrets that the Rendron held, and it allowed the warship a better insight into what was going on around it.
Connie hardened her features as the ugly, organic-looking hull of the Huythen loomed close. They were moving towards it now, the bow of the Rendron facing what could be considered its belly, and from what she was seeing, the Geralos were either allowing them to get in close or priming their weapons to unleash something nasty. She glanced over at Rend, who was still calmly observing the ship, and she moved to say something but bit her tongue at the last minute.
“Trace the hull for fifteen minutes and deploy our fighters immediately,” Rend commanded.
A Meluvian man slid his hand up on a screen and placed an icon into another before touching a few numbers while indicating points on a diagram of the enemy ship. The Rendron shook and a long, bright, yellow light shot out from somewhere below them and began to move across the bottom of the Huythen. This was a trace laser, a weapon that would split anything if there was no shield to protect it.
The laser shot a prism of colors off the ship’s shields when it touched it, and it gave the Huythen the look of glass as it repelled the deadly light. As soon as the laser touched, the Geralos began to fire kinetic missile shots back at them. The Geralos had learned ages ago that the Alliance’s shield technology was built specifically for light weapons. Kinetic payload always made short work of Vestalian cruisers, and since Rendron was one of the original motherships built by human hands, it would be vulnerable to nuclear missile strikes.
“Evasive maneuvers, take us away from those missile bays, Miss Dawn. Eject our trash, launch our disabled cargo! I want the space around this beast dotted with so much debris that the Geralos have nothing to aim those bombs at,” Rend commanded.
“Dawn!” Connie screamed, and Phimanila shot her annoyed glance. “How many missiles do you estimate are on that ship?” she asked.
Phimanila looked at a slender man pouring over one of the screens and he looked back at her after feeling her eyes. He seemed to have been gone out of their reality mentally and it was taking a few long seconds for the questions and situation to register inside of his head.
“Colin, that is your area. Answer the XO!” Phimanila screamed at him, and he spun around to face Connie and stammered out, “O-over two-two hundred missiles if we’re lucky, ma-ma’am!”
Connie gave him a nod and then looked over at Phimanila distastefully. “The next time I ask YOU a question, Lieutenant, you answer me. Do you understand?” she asked. Phimanila replied affirmatively and gave her a salute so hard that it almost looked as if she were trying to punch the life out of her own chest.
Trash, old ships, cargo, whatever was unnecessary on the Rendron was ejected, and the missiles began to find them instead of the shields to expel their payload onto. While this was going on, the pilots drifted the big ship around to the port side of the Huythen, where more junk was deployed to distract the missiles of the Geralos ship.
After two hours of this the Geralos gave up on the missiles and switched to lasers, mincing up the debris like tissue paper before a roaring fire. Lights of white, yellow, and cyan crisscrossed between the ships as they tried to wear each other’s shields down. Then Rend looked over to Constance ITO and made a motion with his hand that emulated the flight pattern of a ship.
Multiple vessels exploded from the side of the ship like confetti, and simultaneously the Rendron ejected its own fleet of fighters to combat them. Several of these fighters were shot immediately but the rest flew like aces, and a blossoming of lasers erupted from the numerous dog fights. The hull became translucent, then solid again, and Rend got up and walked to the big screen in front of him.
“I want you to prime a void projectile, Mister ABA and launch it as soon as it is ready!” Rend barked into the air.
Mayvon ABA was the head of the engineering team on Rendron, and as soon as he heard his captain, he hustled the men and women who were standing around to rack a vacuum bomb and prime it. They moved like a well-oiled machine, coaxing the droids to lift the payload into the arming device, and then to carefully walk it over to the loading shaft. Within five minutes it was ready, and the crew got back to their stations, eager to take on the next challenge.
The appropriate commands were made and the missile flew out into space at an insane velocity, narrowly missing a barreling Geralos fighter before catching the shielded stern of Huythen and detonating. A circular ripple of suction formed where the collision had occurred, and the shields on the Huythen struggled to stay relevant as the trace laser took advantage of the brief malfunction. A deep gash was cut into the center of the ship, and fires began to erupt on the inside.
“Got you, you cruta,” Rend mumbled. “Any captain dumb enough to sit idly while the Rendron bears down on him is a fool, and you’re going to lose that beauty today. All because of your foolish Geralos pride.” He raised his voice. “Break our fighters off of those mosquito ships and put all fire on the Huythen’s shields!”
“But they will be open to enemy fire,” Connie pleaded, too quickly to contain herself, and Rend shot her a look of impatience that made her stand at attention and shut up.
The fighters did as they were commanded and while a number of them were torn apart by the Geralos zip ships, the Huythen’s shields were decimated and the Rendron’s trace laser continued to cut into its hull.
“They’ve fired up the engines!” Phimanila announced, and then glanced at Rend to see if he was happy.
“Put another void on that’s bird’s aft feathers. I don’t want her fleeing; I want her stalled and ready for boarding as soon as possible. Put some damn fire on that bird!” the old captain commanded, and as they had been doing for over thirty years of his life, the crew of the Rendron complied.
The next void missile sucked in a sizable chunk of the Huythen’s thrusters and destroyed the FTL drive along with any poor soul that worked in its engineering wing. Escape pods began to deploy, and the zip ships broke off to make their way back to Geral in order to escape capture.
The Huythen stood sparking, a lifeless, pathetic shadow of its former glory, and Cilas “Rend” MEC turned around and looked at Connie. Their eyes met briefly and she felt young and foolish. She averted her gaze and saw that Phimanila was regarding her with a look of cynicism that made her want to pull her sidearm and plug her in the chest.
Cruta, she thought and then brought her attention back to Rend. He was looking at her, and so was everyone on the bridge. She didn’t realize that they had all heard her question the legend whenever he gave the order to weaken the shield. She glanced again at Phimanila, the Captain’s brat of a favorite apprentice, and she felt her role being questioned in his hard eyes as he regarded her. The stare was only a mere second or two but it felt like an eternity. He was giving her a chance to make it right and she knew it, but what could she do to fix insubordination to Rend MEC?
Connie placed the microphone down on her desk and faced her commander. She then bowed deeply to him until he asked her to stand and retake her command.
“Put traces on that thing and begin the process of transferring their fuel reserves over here,” Rend commanded, and the bridge echoed with words of obedience immediately. If Constance had doubts that the officers on the bridge had noticed her insubordination with the commander, it was made clear by the way they all snapped to their duties. The former air of friendliness despite professionalism had dissipated, and now everyone’s concern was not to further upset Cilas ‘Rend’ MEC.
The commander got up from his seat and walked past Connie without looking at her. She stared at him the entire time, begging him mentally to meet her sorrowful eyes. If he could pick up on her telepathy, he didn’t show it, but as he passed her he paused and said, “Miss ITO, the bridge is you
rs until my return.” He was gone by the time she recovered in time to acknowledge his command.
When Rend was gone from the bridge, Connie motioned Phimanila over and then walked her into the main elevator shaft and locked the door. The room was soundproof, and since it was really only used for emergencies—when the captain needed to get to engineering in a hurry—Connie knew that they would be left alone. What she had to say was brief, but she didn’t know how Phimanila would react to it.
“Do you think I’m blind or stupid, Phimanila Dawn?” she asked as soon as the slender brunette had crossed the threshold and the door had slammed shut.
Phimanila didn’t answer immediately, but looked at the woman with a bit of pity and a lot of disgust. Constance ITO was a robot by all senses of the word. She only played things by the book, and she had no imagination or answer whenever things didn’t go the way they were ‘supposed to.’ She was also a huge bore, a fact that had become the subject of gossip all over the bridge.
Physically, she got a lot of attention for her looks. She was tan, her eyes were large and dark, and the officer-styled bob that she kept her black hair in complemented her handsome features. Men and women wanted to know more about the mysterious XO, but she was so focused on her ambition—and being the best robot follower of Cilas MEC that she could be—that she avoided her social life, and it was evident, at least to Phimanila. She wondered what she would do if she leaned forward and planted one on her lips. She’d probably swing at her, or fall down in shock and embarrassment. Either way it would be worth it but Phimanila kept her mischief to herself.
“No, Connie, not at all. You’re Commander MEC’s executive officer, and I have the utmost respect for you,” she lied.
“Then why do you take full advantage of every chance you get to embarrass me?” Connie pressed, and Phimanila wondered if the crack in her voice was due to her being truly upset over this, or if it was just the way she sounded when she was angry.
“Are we off the record here, Connie?” she asked, her caramel-colored pupils taking on an intensity that Connie had never seen before.
“If we weren’t I would have asked you out there, Phim,” she replied, switching her tone to one of informality in order to solidify the point that they were off the record.
“Okay then, I’ll just say it. You questioned the Commander’s orders right in front of all of us, and you knew you messed up and tried to correct it. For some reason, you assume that correcting your hiccups should always involve throwing me into the thrusters of a revved up fighter. I don’t appreciate it. You outrank me and have a direct line to Commander Cilas, yet you have always felt that we’re in a competition. What the hell is your problem?” Phimanila said, confused as to why her voice cracked similarly even though she felt calm on the inside.
“We’re supposed to be friends, Phimanila. We lived together for ten years as cadets, yet you don’t ever talk to me. You join in on the jokes behind my—”
“No, I don’t!” Phimanila interrupted.
“Yes, Phimanila, yes, you do,” her voice was a hoarse whisper now, and her large black eyes were fighting back tears. “Don’t think that I don’t know, you backstabbing little cruta. If you hate me so much, why come in here and pretend that you are so innocent in all of this? Just tell me I suck, tell me that I’m a schtill XO, and that Rend should airlock me and put you in my place as his second. That’s what you think, isn’t it? Isn’t that what you want?”
Phimanila stared at Connie with a mixture of pity and embarrassment, and she didn’t know what to do. The soldier in her wanted to stomp down, slap her hard, and remind her of the war, of her responsibility, and of her position. But she was still the tiny tomboy who had helped this pretty girl fend off bullies back when they were cadets learning how to fire a pistol. She stepped in and hugged Connie, and the tall woman melted into her arms and sobbed into her shoulder.
“Do you think he will forgive me, Phim? Do you think I can ever be in good graces with him again after this?” she asked after what felt like fifteen minutes of crying.
“I think that for being the second to Cilas, you aren’t paying close enough attention, Connie. That man respects the hell out of you and he expected you to object, which is why he answered you the way he did. You were chosen for a reason. He knows that he is rash, and plays a lot of things by instinct. You are supposed to offer a side of logic to the Commander, Connie, not just stand there and relay his orders to me and the rest of the guys on the bridge. We can hear him as well as you can.”
She backed away from Constance and used her thumbs to wipe the remnants of tears away from her face. “Take a deep breath,” she ordered, and Connie did so several times.
“When I found out about you talking behind my back I tried to hate you,” she said evenly. “I felt hurt and betrayed, but I had no one to talk to about it.”
“Of course you didn’t. You pushed us all away when you decided that you needed that stamp of galactic approval on your lapel,” Phimanila countered. “Look, they were just jokes. I never meant anything malicious, Connie. Maker, you’re like a thyping sister or something. How can I hate you enough to spread bad rumors? Seriously, you’re being extra sensitive because you freaking pushed me away, man.”
“I told you that I cannot have a relationship, Phim.”
“So it’s all or nothing? I merely suggested that we step things up between us but you made it more than clear that you’re not interested. I was fine with that; you’re my oldest friend. You took it as some sort of line that I crossed to become your enemy. Want to talk about hurt? Imagine what that schtill did to my head last year.”
“I’m so sorry, Phimanila, for everything. That was not what I wanted, and I never rejected you outright. If you can recall, I said that I wasn’t ready. It was just bad coincidence with the timing, and I deal with things through seclusion – you know that more than anyone else. I’m sorry, so let’s forget all of this and just go back to being friends, please?”
All Phimanila heard was “I never rejected you outright,” and threw caution to the wind. She stepped in and took Connie’s waist into her hands and kissed her softly on the lips. Time stopped as she expected her once-friend to push her off violently and admonish her for taking advantage of the situation, but there was no rejection; not in her body language and not in her actions. Constance ITO had gone limp, and this surrender, this trust and release from a woman that she had known to be an ice queen, sent shivers down her body to the point where her toes actually curled.
She moved in deeper, tasting the smooth, oily lipstick mixed with a million emotions and raw unbridled lust begging her to go all the way, that there may not be another chance, that she should crack Constance open and consume her very soul. Her mind couldn’t focus; it was all butterflies, heat, and smooth, tanned flesh. They were in the aftermath of a battle that should have taken their lives, and they had been off the bridge for over fifteen minutes now, but none of this was evident.
Phimanila reached down but Connie stopped her, and their heated breathing was like a fuel pipe that had been split in half and forced apart at its strongest point.
“My head is spinning,” Connie said, and tried to fix her uniform.
“I’m sorry I—” Phimanila began, but Connie placed her finger on her mouth to silence her, took her head inside of her strong hands and planted a hard kiss on her lips.
“If we weren’t on duty at a crucial hour, I would say, thype it, let’s make up for lost time,” Connie said. “But we’ve been gone awhile, and pretty soon someone will come to see if we’ve killed one another, or something else. I should be thanking you, Phim. You have no idea how much I needed to know that you still cared about me.” She could barely talk through her heavy breathing.
“Calm down, Connie, long breaths. You need your voice ready to command, and … you’re welcome. I was beginning to think that I had lost you.”
08 | To Hunt A Traitor
RAFIAN woke up with a start, looking around co
nfused with his surroundings. He lay half-buried in a mountain of sand, and the sun seemed closer than it ever did. He was on the ground in what could best be described as a graveyard for starships. There were half-buried spaceships everywhere, and they looked as if they had been there for centuries.
He pulled himself from out of the sand and slowly rose to his feet. His episode with the Makers was still fresh in his mind but everything that had led up to that moment was hard for him to remember. He recalled the Geralos hovering above Zallus, and he remembered flying into their midst along with Yuth, Camille, and Tayden. It was after the attack that things got murky, and he wondered if he had somehow died and was in limbo before his cloning.
What if the cloner was destroyed and I am stuck in this nightmare forever, he thought. This made him anxious so he quickly forced it out of his mind. Thoughts of oblivion had a way of immobilizing an individual, and the last thing he needed was to sit still while the Geralos raided his city.
He tried to walk but found it painful. This prompted him to scan his body for wounds but he found none beyond the scars of his past. He pushed past the pain to observe the closest of the ships. It was an old Vestalian Classic like the one Camille flew back when they were on Helysian. It had been hit with a kinetic missile of some sort and this was evidenced by the hole in its port side, which was dented in and charred.
Rafian walked up to it and touched the rusted metal. “You were someone’s pride back when you were in action, weren’t you?” he mused. He then climbed inside of the cockpit and sat on the plasteel seat. This is a first generation, he thought. This has to be well over 300 years old.
He pulled himself out of the ship and scanned the desert horizon. Ships were strewn about all over the place, and in the distance a massive destroyer lay dormant like a metallic beached whale. “Where am I?” he whispered and started walking in the direction of the destroyer. The proximity of the sun and the wispy white clouds clued him in that this was not Vestalia. His comm was missing and so was his jacket. Whomever had done this to him had only left him his Phaser pants and boots, and the tank top that would normally be worn beneath the shirt.
