Far From Home: The Complete Series

by Tony Healey

  * * *

  Hawk woke.

  The chains clink-clink-clinked together. Water dripped somewhere. He was alone. Or so he thought. As Hawk peered into the spiral of light in front of him, he could see a shape beyond them. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from that spinning whirlpool of hypnotic light.

  CLLLLAAAANNNNGGGG!!!!

  Hawk flinched. The sound filled the room, invaded his head, made his brain jitter against the walls of his skull.

  “That’s it, Captain, I’m still here.”

  Hawk swallowed, his throat dry and sore.

  “Will you beg for me to end your life, Captain?”

  He gave the General the only two-word answer that would do in the situation . . . then the torture resumed as if it hadn’t stopped in the first place.

  5.

  “Standard docking procedure, Rogers,” Captain King ordered. She found herself about to issue the order to Lieutenant Banks, but checked herself just in time.

  It felt good to be back at the Krinuan’s home world, the one friendly way station they’d found in an unfamiliar galaxy.

  “Aye,” Rogers said.

  “Stand down on all weapons systems, Jackson. Shut it all off,” King said. “Beaumont, contact the Krinuans and request assistance.”

  “Yes Ma’am,” Beaumont said.

  “Shutting down all tactical systems,” Jackson said.

  King watched as Rogers sidled the Defiant up against the side of the Krinuan space station, then used the manoeuvring thrusters to slide her sideward. With a slight thump, the Union vessel mated with the station.

  “We have dock. Equalising pressure now,” Rogers reported.

  “Excellent, well done Rogers. Shut-down procedure on the engines. You know the drill, I’m sure,” King said.

  “Aye,” Rogers said. “I’ll put her to sleep, Captain.”

  “Good. Then I’ll leave her in your capable hands, Lieutenant,” King said. She left the bridge and went to the engineering section. It took a lot longer with her cane than it would have otherwise, but she managed well enough with her lame legs.

  “Captain, what’re you doing down here?” Gunn asked her.

  Her team was in the process of doing the opposite to the crew in the emergency command centre. Instead of shutting down operations, the engineering team was just gearing up to sweep through the Defiant deck by deck.

  “Just thought I’d check in, Chief,” King said. She looked around. “Not in bad shape in here.”

  “It got hairy for a bit, but no, we’re good down here. The heart of the old girl still beats,” Gunn said.

  “Indeed she does,” King said. “And what do you reckon on the rest of the ship?”

  “It’s going to be a long process,” Gunn said. “Weeks.”

  Jessica sighed. “Right.”

  “Any word on Del and the others?” Gunn asked.

  “Not yet. I’m expecting something soon, though. I expect they’ve observed blackout en route to avoid detection. I’m hopeful they’ll find some way of updating me though,” King said.

  “As soon as you do, will you -“

  Jessica nodded quickly. “Of course. Chief, you’ll be the first to know.”

  King left engineering and made her way to her quarters. It’d been far too long with no word from the rescue team. What were they playing at?

  It angered and worried her. Jessica wondered if they were all right.

  She went to her quarters and sat down to ease her legs.

  “Captain King, contact the bridge please. Captain King contact the bridge.”

  With a groan, Jessica got back up and hit the comm. unit.

  “Bridge this is the Captain.”

  “Sorry Captain, but the Krinuans have arranged a welcome party on the station. They’re asking for you.”

  “Okay Beaumont. Tell them I’ll be there as soon as possible. Contact Commander Chang and ask her to join me. King out.”

  6.

  The planet Ozbah loomed into view. The Krinuan pilot took them into an approach vector, handling the helm controls of the Naxor vessel with skill and confidence.

  Praror showed Commander Greene a schematic.

  “The facility is located within a dormant volcano, on an island in the northern hemisphere. We will touch down a ways from it and approach on foot. The Naxor will never suspect us.”

  “Good plan. How long by foot from the landing site to the volcano?” Greene asked.

  “Approximately an hour. If we move fast,” Praror said.

  “Approaching the threshold of their security shield,” the pilot announced.

  “What’s that?” Greene asked.

  “The reason we’ve never attempted a rescue mission here before,” Praror said. “Anything other than a Naxor ship would never get through the shield surrounding this planet. We know a lot about this place, but we’ve never been able to overcome that one barrier separating us from your fallen crew.”

  The ship passed through the security shield without event, then proceeded to break into the upper atmosphere. The front of the vessel glowed red hot as it descended.

  “You fellas ready?” Greene asked the replicant crewmen who’d joined the rescue party.

  Ensign Maisey nodded. “Yes sir. Ready to take names.”

  “Spoken like a true marine,” Greene said.

  “We’ll take out every Naxor in that base to get Hawk back,” one of the other replicants, Lieutenant Pilion said.

  “I’m sure you will,” Greene said.

  “We will face heavy resistance from the personnel at the base, Commander,” Praror told him. “It will not be an easy fight.”

  Commander Greene watched as thin, dirty clouds of the planet peeled back to reveal a barren landscape of green ocean and black, volcanic terrain.

  “I wasn’t expecting one,” he said.

  The pilot took them down over scant emerald rivers and tributaries, then through the gaps in jagged cliff faces. They worked their way over the water. Up ahead a lone island appeared to grow as the ship crawled closer and closer.

  “That it?” the Commander asked.

  “Yes. That is where will find your Captain,” Praror said.

  “What do they call this place?” Ensign Maisey asked.

  Praror regarded him with wise eyes. “We call it The Pit. Nothing has ever survived that place. Many would choose death over imprisonment there.”

  Commander Greene looked at Selena Walker in the corner, lost in her own thoughts. “Time for a change,” he said.

  * * *

  The Naxor ship landed along the shore of the island. Minutes later the rescue party was on its way to The Pit … to face whatever awaited them and rescue a legend.

  7.

  “Your ship is severely damaged, Captain,” a Krinuan engineer from the station the others called Jirn assessed a readout of the Defiant on one of his monitors. Jessica had to admit that the engineering capabilities of the Krinuans was surprisingly advanced. From a small station he could call up the readings of numerous sensor grids outside the station. The sensor beams probed the Defiant down to the very framework that held her together.

  It did a much better job of assessing her overall condition than any visual detail could achieve.

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” King said.

  “Sorry?”

  She sighed. “A human euphemism. Ignore me. So where do we go from here?”

  “In other circumstances I would say that your ship should be stripped and her parts salvaged for use in other vessels … but I know that is not an option.”

  Jessica frowned. “That bad, huh?”

  Jirn showed her several points along the Defiant’s axis, illuminated in red.

  “These are weaknesses at the structural level. They cannot be fixed. It’s something we see in ships that have withstood a great amount. To be honest with you Captain, it’s a wonder that your ship is still in one piece.”

  “I thought we were doing better than that …�
�� King said.

  “Appearances can be deceptive,” Jirn said. He cycled through the readings on his monitor. “Our scans penetrate every part of the ship concerned. There can be no error.”

  King put her hands on her hips. “You’re saying she’s scrap.”

  Jirn went to say something further when a presence in the doorway to the little room made itself known.

  “What’s this about scrap?”

  King turned around. Chief Gunn stood with her arms crossed. Worry shone in her bloodshot eyes.

  “Chief …”

  She strode forward and looked at the readout. Her eyes widened when she saw the red areas along the Defiant’s main framework.

  Jirn offered her a paw. Chief Gunn accepted.

  “The Chief is the one person who’s been holding the ship together all this time,” Jessica said. “If she’s dead in the water, then the Chief needs to hear it.”

  Gunn’s eyebrows rose. “Dead in the water?”

  “As you can see, your ship -” Jirn went to say.

  “Nothing that can’t be reinforced …” Gunn said.

  “- and the extreme pressures involved -“

  Gunn waved the notion aside. “Listen, she’s been through a lot worse. All she needs is some TLC.”

  Jirn turned to Captain King with what passed for a frown on the furry Krinuan’s face.

  “Tender loving care,” Jessica translated for him.

  He nodded. “Ah.”

  “I’m not ready to give up on this ship just yet. She’s got mileage in her. She’s got to have,” the Chief said. “The Defiant has to get us home.”

  “Chief, maybe we have to acknowledge the fact that -” King started to say.

  Gunn shook her head. “No. I’ll fix her. I just need time. And help.”

  “Of course we will offer you any assistance you desire,” Jirn said. “As the head of engineering on this station, all of our resources are at your disposal. But please, do not hope for too much. Your ship is old and brittle.”

  “She’s got fight in her yet,” Gunn said.

  Jessica couldn’t help but smile. But it was short lived as a piercing scream erupted in the middle of her head. She took several steps back. The Chief and Jirn turned in her direction. She dropped her stick as her hands went to the sides of her head, as if to keep it together. Jessica’s legs buckled under her and before she knew it, she was falling towards the deck.

  And the black closed in.

  8.

  The scream died away like a failing wind. In the darkness Jessica saw a single point of light. It grew in intensity until its cool illumination surrounded her. It was a sun in a deep blue sky. She looked around her. A jungle. Lush green. An oasis.

  And there, as if it had been there the whole time and hadn’t just coalesced … a pyramid. Jet black against the blue. An alien artefact in both design and intent.

  “Captain.”

  Jessica turned in circles at the voice. Then a woman emerged from the surrounding jungle.

  Dana Oriz.

  “Where am I?” Jessica asked her.

  “Wherever you were before,” Dana said. “I am communicating directly into your mind.”

  Jessica’s hand went to her head. “How?”

  Dana shrugged. “I don’t know. All I know is that the pyramid allows it.”

  “The pyramid back at the planet … where we left you …”

  Dana raised a hand. “We don’t have much time. Look.”

  She looked up into the sky. Jessica turned to follow her line of sight. A group of starships descended through the atmosphere, headed directly for the pyramid.

  “The Naxor …” King said.

  “They’re coming for the pyramid,” Dana said. “They have one already. They’re working hard to unlock its secrets.”

  “What will you do?”

  “The only thing I can do. Tell the pyramid to flee.”

  Jessica swallowed. “And the locals?”

  Dana shrugged. “Their fate is in their own hands now. There is nothing we can do for them. I have instructed them to leave here and get as far away as they can.”

  “Dana … how will the pyramid leave? Is it a spaceship?”

  “I do not know. I can’t say it is a spaceship … and yet I can’t say it isn’t. All I know is that it is ready to leave. I asked it to wait whilst I made contact. There are things you need to know, Captain,” Dana said.

  A sonic boom from above caused the trees to bend backwards as if from a giant’s breath. The ships were getting closer.

  “Go on,” Jessica urged her.

  “The pyramids are some kind of manipulator. They can change time and space in a manner we’re familiar with,” Dana said.

  Realisation dawned in Jessica’s mind. “The black hole.”

  “I know that prior to all of this, the Defiant encountered a wormhole that led to an alternate universe,” Dana said.

  Jessica’s mind flashed back to that time. Years before, when she was a Commander, the Defiant had been on a mission to transport a deadly weapon to the hind end of space. During transit it was stolen by an intergalactic terrorist. He used the weapon to destroy a star system by turning their sun into a wormhole. The Defiant’s probes confirmed it as a tunnel through not only time and space, but the fabric between universes.

  “How do you know about that? It’s highly classified.”

  “The pyramid has knowledge of things like that. Please Captain, I have to be quick,” Dana said. “The pyramid can create shortcuts through space and time, in the form of black holes. These act as conduits. There are many pyramids, and many conduits. Though where they lead is anyone’s guess.”

  “Why create them?”

  “The race who built the pyramids and hid them throughout this galaxy were a race of titans who evolved past their physical reality. Captain, they became pure energy. Whatever their true intentions were, we’ll never know. They no longer exist” Dana explained. “At least, not in this dimension, anyway …”

  “So that’s what they are. Relics. How dangerous are they?”

  “With the know-how, one of these could be used to create a conduit from here to a pre-configured system,” Dana said. “But that’s not all. When I say they can manipulate space and time, I mean it. They can send you back and forth in time. An enemy could use a pyramid to create a conduit from here to Earth’s past, to a time when the human race would be easily enslaved.”

  A mighty ship roared overhead.

  “Dana!” Jessica yelled.

  Dana shook her head. She started to step back into the jungle. “I have to go!”

  Jessica reached out. “Dana! Not yet!”

  The ship hovered overhead. The jungle consumed Dana. Then the pyramid rose into the air. The ground seemed as if it would break apart around her. The pyramid turned, then with a loud crack, as if a hurricane had been suddenly extinguished, it was gone.

  The dark returned.

  9.

  “She’s coming around,” Gunn said.

  Jessica’s eyes opened, then closed. They fluttered open again and stayed that way. She sat up.

  “Are you all right?” Jirn asked her.

  The back of King’s head smarted. “I’m fine … I think,” Jessica said, ” Just a little fuzzy around the edges.””’”

  “What happened?” Gunn asked her.

  King accepted the Chief’s help getting up off the floor. Jirn handed her the stick.

  Everything rushed back to her. The jungle. Her conversation with Dana Oriz. It was like waking suddenly from a very deep, but vivid, dream.

  “I’ll explain everything,” she said. “Jirn, do you have a ship in the vicinity of the planet we left before coming here?”

  “I believe we do, yes.”

  “Can you make contact with them? Could they do some reconnaissance?”

  “Yes. I’d have to get clearance …”

  “Please do it,” King said.

  “What’s all this about? Are you oka
y?” Gunn asked her.

  Jessica shook her head. “No. No, I’m not.”

  * * *

  An hour later, Jirn showed Captain King the telemetry from a vessel in the area. From a distance it managed to conduct observations on the alien planet.

  “No sign of a pyramid at all,” Jirn said. “However they did detect several Naxor ships leaving the planet.”

  “So it was real,” King said.

  Chief Gunn and Jirn exchanged puzzled looks.

  She walked to a nearby viewport. Outside were only stars. The Defiant lay on the other side of the station, and the planet glowed beneath them. But here, in this direction, stars and nothing else.

  Where are you? Jessica thought. Where are you now Dana?

  10.

  “Beg.”

  Hawk shook his head. “No … no …”

  “ASK me to kill you … .”

  “Never … it’ll never happen …”

  “Death will be a release.”

  CLLLLAAAANNNNGGGG!!!!

  Another blast of the painful sound. It pulsed from one side of his head to the other.

  “Do not fool yourself, Captain. You cannot hope to keep this up,” General Carn said in a flat voice. “You may not realise it, but the sound is getting increasingly louder as we go on. Thankfully I am impervious to its destructive abilities. However you are not. Eventually the sound waves will cook your brain.”

  The pain subsided as the echo of the abrasive sound faded from his ears. Hawk drew long, ragged breaths.

  “Eventually you will come around to my way of thinking. Eventually you will see for yourself, Captain, that there is no use in resisting me. You will beg me to kill you.”

  Hawk couldn’t speak. His whole body ached.

  “Lost for words, I see,” Carn said.

  Hawk continued to look at the spiral. Stars sparkled in front of his eyes. I’m close to blackin’ out, he thought.

  “Perhaps this calls for a different method of persuasion,” Carn said. He motioned to someone else in the room to fetch something. The General stood with his arms crossed. “Your outlook is entirely wrong. I hope that, with the right impetus, you will see that everything I tell you is true. Despite what you already believe. That there is no hope, only surrender.”