Venecia

by Frank Carey

  "Cmdr. Nachase, sound battle stations," the captain ordered. "Weapons, spin-up missiles one through twelve."

  "Target, sir?"

  "Target six on the arcology and six on the Protector. Communications, signal the other ships in orbit and forward them the Bridge recordings from the last half-hour."

  "Aye, sir," the communications officer said. "Sir, message from Protector!"

  "Put them through,"

  "Deltafish, this is Capt. Thurgood aboard the Protector. You need to leave the area immediately."

  "Protector, this is Capt. Torga. We are aware of the situation and..."

  "Sir, unless Capt. Aymar is able to turn off that damn beam, he is planning on lighting-off his ship's self-destruct system. I suggest you put some distance between Deltafish and that arcology. Oh, and we're also aware that you're targeting us for a missile spread. Good thinking, Captain. I hope we don't have to use that option."

  "So do we, Captain. Ma'am, can we be of assistance?"

  "No. We can't risk one of those things getting into the Deltafish's systems. Anyway, we have the Conquistador's NAVComp helping at this end. His name is Roscoe."

  The captain glanced over at Aerith and Marta and saw looks of disbelief. "Very good, Capt. Thurgood. Good luck and Godspeed to you and your crew. Deltafish standing by. Helm, hard about. Take us away from the arcology at flank speed."

  "Aye, sir! The helm reads hard about."

  "Weapons, maintain lock on both targets."

  "Aye, sir."

  "Captain..." Marta asked, already knowing the answer."

  "I'm sorry, Capt. McMurphy, but there is no time. Your husband will be hailed as a hero of the League."

  "Posthumously," Aerith hissed.

  "Yes, ma’am, posthumously."

  The Deltafish completed its turn and headed out to sea, leaving Harmon to his fate.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Harm peeked around the corner and saw two guards standing on either side of a door. Unfortunately, it was the only door into the room containing the secondary control terminal. Pulling his head back, Harm looked around for something he could use as a distraction—there was nothing. Walls and floor were barren. The ceiling, though, had emitter heads attached to the fire suppression system. Smiling, Harm pulled a micro cutting torch out of a pocket and aimed it at the nearest head. A laser beam lanced out and engulfed the head. Within moments the head had melted, causing the system to spray suppression foam from heads up and down the hallway while sounding alarms throughout the section. Harm peeked again and saw the guards running down the corridor away from the doorway they had been guarding. Making sure no one else was about, Harm ran into the room and locked the door behind him.

  The room was empty except for a control console at its center illuminated by a single spotlight in the ceiling above. Harm looked around and saw no cameras, viewers, or communications devices in the room. Satisfied, he walked up to the console and started typing commands, "Damn. This would be a lot simpler if I had my hacker ball," he muttered. "Such is life."

  The first thing Harm did was bring up a holographic clock which was in the process of counting down. Currently, it read a little over thirty minutes. "Boy was I off," he said quietly. After several minutes of typing mixed with a large amount of cursing, Harm stopped and pounded on the console in frustration. "Dammit to all seven hells!"

  "Maybe I can help," a voice said from behind him. Harm recognized the voice.

  "I truly doubt that, Lorq," Harm said as he turned and faced the robot. "I have to commend your techs. They did a fine job locking down the transfer system. Any of them looking for work? I could really use their skill sets."

  "Sorry, no. Right now, they're on their way up to the warship you call Protector. It and every ship in orbit are about to be invaded by my minions, followed soon by thousands of my kind who will stream out into your InterWeb, turning the people of the League into our unwilling slaves. What do you think about that?"

  Harm leaned back onto the console and sighed. "Lorq, is there any way I can convince you to stop all this and join me for a nice cup of tea? We can lie about past victories and talk about future glories that will never happen."

  The robot stopped in mid-stride, as if it were considering the offer but it shook its head. "The offer sounds strangely tempting, but I have to decline. Now, step away from the console, and I may let you live."

  A look of sadness passed across Harm's face, a look which surprised and frightened Lorq. "I was afraid you'd say that," Harm said as he pulled the pendant from under his shirt and placed his thumb above the button at its center. "Goodbye, Cmdr. Lorq. I'll be seeing you on the flip side." He pressed the button. Nothing happened at first.

  "Noooooo!" Lorq screamed as the building violently shook, as if it had been slapped by the hand of God.

  ###

  The Conquistador sat on the roof, cloaked in invisibility while grange walked around it, oblivious to the ship sitting there. Inside the freighter, only the whisper of the ventilators disturbed the silence.

  "Beep."

  The Conquistador's cloak collapsed, revealing the ship to the grange. Before they could react, a section of the ship’s roof blew-off followed by the quantum singularity drive core ejecting. While the core arced upward into space, the smell of rocket fuel permeated the area as a hundred tiny spray heads filled the interior of the doomed ship with a fine mist of highly energetic thruster fuel. In less than a second, the ratio of fuel to air reached an optimum level. A small, antique cigarette lighter-shaped like an old cartoon character rose from the center of the deck. It sparked, igniting the fuel-laden air around it.

  The Conquistador vaporized as the equivalent of ten tons of TNT detonated. Around the freighter, grange, the top third of the arcology, and the transmitter device were instantly destroyed by the blast while shock waves traveled through the arcology's structure, bending, warping, and tearing apart pieces of the building. Thousands of leaks formed as the blast's energy passed through the structure and out into the ocean.

  The damage inflicted by the bomb did not stop with the physical. The sudden destruction of the transmitter device caused the entire system to overload, destroying the hardware while sending thousands of grange stored in the transfer buffers back to their universe. The energy pulse continued back through the power distribution network, overloading the portal and destroying the generators on both sides of the inter-dimensional bridge. The grange would not be returning anytime soon.

  ###

  "Captain, something is happening on the roof," the science officer yelled while pointing to the viewer. The Conquistador appeared as its cloak collapsed. An object launched from the ships dorsal side and shot into space.

  "Identify," the captain ordered.

  "Sir, this is impossible. The computers identify the object as a quantum singularity drive core."

  "Captain, we need to get out of here, now!" Royce yelled. "Harm's activated the Conquistador's self-destruct!"

  "Crash dive!" the captain ordered.

  "All hands to collision stations," Nachase yelled. "Emergency dive! Flood ballast tanks. Maximum down angle on the bow planes. Full battle speed ahead!"

  The deck tilted downward as the boat put as much distance as possible between it and the arcology. A moment later, the boat shook as a massive shock wave passed through its length.

  "Damage report!" Nachase ordered.

  "All stations report no damage or injuries, ma’am!" the communications officer reported.

  "Helm, cancel the dive and take us up to periscope depth," the executive officer ordered.

  "Aye, ma’am, cancel the dive and proceed to periscope depth," the helmsman repeated. A few moments later, the helmsman reported, "we are at periscope depth, ma’am."

  "Up scopes! Full scan. Route scope feeds to main viewer!"

  The main viewer shimmered as an image of Hephaestus formed. It was horrific.

  "My God," the captain whispered.

  "Harmon..." Marta s
aid, seeing the destruction in its totality.

  "Daddy," Aerith said with tears flowing down her checks.

  The top third of Hephaestus was mostly gone, blasted into oblivion by the force of Conquistador exploding. What remained of the top was peeled back like petals of some monstrous flower. Smoke curled upwards from several locations inside the structure while the water around it churned as the structure slowly sank beneath the waves.

  "Communications Officer, hail the Protector and request their status," the captain ordered. "Weapons Officer, secure the missiles targeting Protector."

  "Aye, Captain," they replied while getting to work.

  Everyone watched as the Hephaestus arcology slowly died.

  ###

  Calm suddenly returned to the Protector as the attack from the surface came to an abrupt stop. Ange looked around in confusion. "What the hell just happened? Report!"

  Kyne looked at his displays and shook his head in disbelief. "Ma'am, the beam is gone. Sensors indicate no grange entities aboard. Systems are returning to normal."

  "Captain," the communications officer said. "The other ships report their systems are returning to normal as well."

  "Damn, the elf did it. Communications, contact Deltafish and call them off."

  "They're calling us, Captain. Capt. Torga is on the line."

  "On screen. Capt. Torga, what the hell just happened?"

  To answer, Torga switched feeds to an exterior view of Hephaestus. "It seems Capt. Aymar is a man of his word."

  On the screen was the Hephaestus Arcology, or what was left of her. Above her were the dissipating remains of a mushroom cloud while the arcology itself was missing the top third of its structure. Debris continued to rain down upon the sea's surface. The outer skin of the pyramid-shaped building was rippled and scorched by the force of the blast while the sea around it was bubbling.

  "Nachase?" the captain asked.

  "It's sinking, sir. There's 5,000-feet of ocean between it and the sea floor."

  "Sir," the science officer said, "Readings indicate the building's power core is building up to an overload. Detonation in twenty minutes...mark!"

  "Any life signs?"

  "Yes, sir. One elf, very faint."

  "Where?"

  "North side, mid-level, near the central core. Sensor readings indicate a great deal of damage, sir."

  "Sir, Elf Marine Expeditionary Force Team One volunteers for a rescue mission, sir!" Royce said loudly and officially.

  "We can't get you there in time," the captain replied. "Capt. Thurgood?"

  "We're rebooting all our systems. Twenty minutes minimum before we can move. The other ships in orbit are in similar shape. I'm sorry, Captains."

  "Dr. Aymar?"

  "I... I'm completely out of assets. Marta, Aerith, I'm so sorry."

  "Sir," the sensor officer interrupted. "We have a small freighter incoming. Its IFF squawks as the Lyseckan Space Freighter Nala'ta. Its rescue transponder is broadcasting on Starguard channel two."

  "That's impossible. This just happened. How could they know?" the captain asked. "Defense Officer, ship's profile?"

  "She's coming in hot, sir, at least Mach thirty. I'd say she dropped out of FTL inside the atmosphere."

  "Can a freighter do that?" Royce asked.

  "Conquistador could," Aerith and Marta said in unison.

  "Communications, contact that ship," Torga ordered.

  "We have their captain on the line, sir," the comm officer said.

  "ETA one minute. Detonation sixteen minutes," the science officer reported.

  "On screen," the captain said. "This is Capt. Torga in command of the submarine Deltafish. Who am I speaking with and what are your intentions?"

  The image on the viewer was of someone's back. The person turned and faced the viewer. "Capt. Kestra Mrantz in command of the LSF Nala'ta. I'm... We're here to help Harmon Aymar out of a jam. Any idea where I can find him?"

  "How do you know Capt. Aymar?"

  "He once helped the crew of this ship, and we'd like to return the favor."

  "We're broadcasting his coordinates now," the captain said as he nodded to the science officer. "Be aware that you only have fifteen minutes to get Capt. Aymar and yourselves out of there. Sending time-sync... mark!"

  "Got the information, captain. Anything else?"

  "The structure is unstable and sinking."

  "Copy that. I think my Rock can handle it," she said as the camera pulled back to show a very large being standing behind and to the left of her seat.

  "Cuz, he's bigger than you!" Aerith whispered to Royce. The awe in her voice was unmistakable.

  "Yes, I see that, Captain. Good hunting," Capt. Torga said as he tried not to stare.

  "Thank you, sir. Nala'ta out."

  "Helm, continue on course away from Hephaestus," the captain ordered as they watched the small freighter slow before entering the opening in the ruined top of the arcology. "Mr. Aymar is blessed to have friends like those aboard the Nala'ta."

  "Oh my God," Gloria said as she checked her console. "According to the League Ship Registry, Nala'ta used to be called...the Spindrift. It was changed ten years ago after a salvage claim was put in for a derelict found in deep space."

  "Damn, I guess they're not dead after all," Royce said.

  "I guess not," Aerith replied as she turned back to watch the viewer, concerned only with her father's safety.

  ###

  The arcology was dying. Cooling metal clicked and rang, mixed with the sound of water pouring in though countless open seams. It was now a race between sinking and blowing up, though the blowing-up part would eventually take what was left of the structure.

  Harm lay near the central console, unmoving except for the slow rise and fall of his chest as his body continued to draw air in and out of his lungs. Nearby, the robot once inhabited by Cmdr. Lorq lay crushed under a massive piece of equipment dislodged from the levels above.

  Harm slowly opened his eyes. He looked around and saw Xura kneeling next to him, back in the black dress but sans sheep. "Not again," he said as he closed his eyes.

  "What?" she said with a perplexed look.

  "I'm dead again, aren't I?"

  "Nope, you're as alive as they come. This room's heavy shielding absorbed most of the shock wave from the blast. It didn't help Lorq, though," she said nodding to the scrap heap on the floor next to them.

  Harm looked and winced. "Ouch. That had to hurt. Did he get back to his universe?"

  "Yeah, about that. You see, Lorq is an ex-inspector. In fact, he and I used to be... married."

  Harm looked at Xura and smiled. "And Marta thought she had made bad choices. You should really talk to her."

  "Funny, elf. I'll have you know we were once truly in love, that is until he became a megalomaniac."

  "Oh. My apologies then. Tell me, is your sweetie still around? You know, looking for revenge and all?"

  "I'm not sure. I thought I sensed him, but now the feeling's gone. He'll be thrown back to the service corridor when the self-destruct blows this place to kingdom come."

  Harm looked up and saw the clock ticking down. "Not enough time for me to get out of here, is there?"

  "Not if you walked. Hey, great job with the device, by the way. Blowing up your ship was pure genius. The council is very impressed."

  "What council?"

  "My employers. They keep things running smoothly behind the scenes. They're sort of the kitchen staff of the multiverse."

  "Well, then I’m glad I could impress them. What now?" he asked as the room shuddered.

  "I keep my promise, silly" she said as the door was ripped open from the outside. Harm looked at her for an explanation, but she was gone.

  Into the room walked two people: an impossibly large male of a species Harm didn't recognize, and a much smaller and vaguely familiar Lyseckan female. "Are you Harmon Aymar?" the big guy asked.

  "Why yes, yes I am. And you are?"

  "I'm Rock and this
is Vayla," he said as Vayla helped Harm up. "We're here to save you."

  Harm stared up at Rock in disbelief. He then looked at the timer. It read six minutes. "We need to hurry," he said as he headed to the door with his two rescuers close behind.

  They emerged from the corridor and to his shock, Harm saw a freighter hovering in front of them, its dorsal shields deflecting debris falling from the levels above. As he watched, the ship moved forward until its forward ramp scraped along the deck he was standing on. He heard a noise and turned to see a guard robot fire its weapon at Rock, hitting him squarely in the middle of his impossibly broad chest.

  Harm dove out of the way, as the big alien fell backwards into the lock, losing his weapon while being knocked off-balance by the energy of the robot's stunner. Vayla screamed and ran to her friend's aid, leaving Harmon to deal with the behemoth standing before him.

  "Going somewhere, elf?" the monstrosity said as it took a step toward Harmon and his companions.

  "Why don't you make things easier for all of us and just die?" Harmon said while picking-up Rock's weapon off the deck. He checked its load status before setting it to maximum power.

  I can't die, fool! If you destroy this body, I'll just find another. I can't be stopped! I will rule your kind, and when I do, I'll make sure you suffer..."

  "Oh, shut the hell up," Harm said as he aimed and fired, hitting the bot in the middle of the chest and boring a hole through it. It stood there before breaking out in laughter,

  "Is that all you got, elf?"

  Before Harm could respond, eight more energy beams lanced out from behind him, striking Lorq in multiple locations on his robotic body, ripping him into small, easily manageable chunks.

  Harm spun around and saw the crew of the freighter standing there holding a wide assortment of weapons, each with a smoking barrel. "Care to join us, Capt. Aymar?" Rock asked.

  Harm ran inside as the ramp closed.

  "Captain, we need to go," Vayla said into the intercom.

  "Copy that. Hang on, it may get a little choppy."

  The ship lurched, causing Harm to grab onto a railing with his tail. "Thanks for the assist," he said to the crew. "I owe you one..." He stopped when he saw the ship's plague on the bulkhead above his tail hold. "Impossible," he whispered as he read the ship's name. "Spindrift. But, I killed the Spindrift..." he turned and looked at Vayla, recognizing her even after all the intervening years. "I killed you, and you, and you," he said as he recognized the others standing around the bay.