The Seryys Chronicles: Of Nightmares

by Joseph Nicholson

  “Aye, sir!”

  Khai ran for the lift, hoping that emergency power would hold long enough for him to take it down to deck six. When he approached the lift doors, they did nothing. With a frustrated grunt, Khai wedged his fingers in the crack between the two doors and pried it open with his bare hands. The door provided a little resistance, but after a loud crack the doors slid freely. Khai felt a pang of regret at breaking his new ship, but it was necessary. He swung around the doorframe and grabbed ahold of the ladder. Looping his feet around the back of the poles, he slid all the way down to deck six. With the same exertion, he pried those doors open and nearly stepped out…

  …Into a vast expanse of space. A whole portion of the starboard side of the ship was missing and went back as far as the aft of the ship. Emergency force fields were holding, but that wouldn’t last long on emergency power only.

  “Bridge?”

  “Bridge here, sir.”

  “How about that damage report?”

  “I only have a preliminary report. I was waiting until I knew the full extent of the damage.”

  “Give me what you got so far.”

  “We have several hull breaches, some of them appear to be large.”

  “You don’t say…” Khai said dryly looking at the deadly vacuum just on the other side of that force field. “Casualties?”

  “Early estimates are just under five hundred, sir. But, not to sound glum, we haven’t heard anything from hydroponics or engineering. And those two were the hardest hit.”

  Damn! “Well… It appears that hydroponics is total loss. I don’t see anyone moving down here. My only guess is that they got sucked out before the force field came up.” Khai looked around. “Is Widwar’s transponder still down here somewhere?”

  “Yes, sir. He still hasn’t moved.”

  “Good. I’m going after him.” Khai thought it seemed odd that he hadn’t moved from that spot. Perhaps he was trapped there from the explosion, or possibly he was dead. All these thoughts were running through Khai’s head as he rummaged through the debris that was once the hydroponics lab. There wasn’t a single person there.

  “Bridge, are you sure he’s still down here?”

  “According the internal sensors, he should be… less than a foot from you.”

  Khai whipped about, ready for a fight, but there was still no one there. He strained his eyes, looking for anything in the dim emergency lighting. Then he saw it—a bloody transponder chip on the floor amongst some fallen test tubes.

  Shit, he thought. He could be anywhere on the ship. Hell, for all I know he could’ve been sucked out during the explosion. Heaving a heavy sigh, he contacted the bridge again. “Bridge, I found his transponder chip. He must have removed it sometime before the explosion. Put security on high alert. If they see him, my orders are to shoot on sight.”

  “Sir?”

  “You heard me, Rand’son.”

  “Y-yes, sir. Shoot on sight. I also have the final damage report for you, sir.”

  “Let me have it.”

  “The damage seems to be mostly localized to the section you’re in now, sir. The starboard, aft is mostly exposed to space. There are a couple of pockets where the force fields are holding, but emergency power is fading quickly.”

  “Do we know what caused the explosion?”

  “Yes, sir. It appears that one of the liquid cooling units on the starboard engine clogged and failed. The engine, in turn, overheated and eventually melted down. The heat caused one of the Ti’tan’lium-lined fuel lines to rupture resulting in instantaneous combustion. The engineers who survived postulate that the super-heated gas and air expanded so quickly that it caused the hull breach to be twice as bad. There are also three minor hull breaches on the ventral side near engineering from secondary explosions near the fuel pods. One of those explosions knocked out main power. They say they should have main power restored within the hour.

  “The engines, though… that’s a different story.”

  “Care to elaborate on that?”

  “The starboard engine is completely gone. The engineers said that there’s a gaping hole where it used to be. Engine one is operational, but two and three took some damage from the secondary explosions. Those are only running at thirty percent. If we try to make it to the nearest star it would take almost two months to get there. We may have to scrub the mission.”

  Khai’s fists clenched. “Is there any good news?”

  “Yes and no, sir. Yes, because subspace communication is still operational and I have already taken the liberty to send a distress call to Seryys. Also, yes, because the Eve’Zon drive is still operational. That comes with the only setback, though. To engage the Eve’Zon, we’d have to drop all force fields and close off all decks exposed to space.”

  “That doesn’t really sound like a deal breaker to me.”

  “That includes engineering.”

  “Ah. I see. So without people managing the power flow as we jump, the ship could explode.”

  “Aye sir, it’s a gamble. The automated system should work. The engineers are only there to make sure nothing goes wrong. But they don’t know if any secondary systems, like the power flow regulator, were also damaged. It would take hours of more work to do a full diagnostic on the whole system.”

  “Get started on that diagnostic. It’s not like we’re going anywhere.”

  “Uh, sir?”

  “What else could possibly wrong?”

  “Engineering also said that they took some heavy casualties. Medical teams have already carted off the badly-wounded, but they’re down to half their normal staff. If they were to divide their forces it would double the amount of time to fix both the main power and run the diagnostic, sir.”

  Khai stifled a sigh. “Okay, priority is obviously main power; get that up and going and then get to work right away on the diagnostic. This is a relatively unexplored region of space and we’re sitting ducks as long as we are only on emergency power. We don’t know if there are any hostiles in this area. Hell, for all we know, there could be other Seryysans from the old exploration days marooned out here and holding a grudge.”

  “Aye, sir. I have already relayed your instructions to engineering and they are already working on the problem.”

  Khai wiggled his way through hydroponics, down through the gaping hole in the floor to deck seven, engineering level. Upon emerging from a pile of wreckage, he was instantly saluted by the overworked engineers scrambling to get their work done.

  Khai pointed at one of the female engineers, “You, Kare’Rhen.”

  She pointed at herself and mouthed me?

  “Yes, you. Come here.”

  She briskly approached and crisply saluted. “What can I do for you, sir?”

  He pointed at the hole in rear of the engineering section and floor. “I want you to walk me through how that happened?”

  “Of course, sir. I-we apprised the bridge of what happened. Did they not relay the message? Is communication down, too?”

  “No,” Khai smiled. “I got the report and it was quite thorough. However, I want to see as much of the damage as possible.”

  “I understand, sir. Follow me.” She led Khai down a flight of stairs to the engineering sublevel. “We believe the problem originated here,” she said, pointing at the liquid cooling tanks. At the moment, the tank was opened and a man wearing several layers of protective smocks, boots, gloves, a helmet with a visor made of two-inch-thick transparent aluminum was inside spraying down the interior. Lobs of goop dropped from the ceiling of the tank to the floor. For an instant the ceiling and floor would be connected by a tiny strand of the goop before the strand would snap and be absorbed by either goop pile on the floor or ceiling. It smelled awful!

  “What is that?” Khai asked, referring to the slime.

  “It’s a natural byproduct of the cooling agent we use. As it runs through the system, it gets whipped up and becomes more viscous. Then the filter diverts it to a settling tank wh
ere it can rest and become liquid again. Then it is reintegrated into the main tank here.”

  “Where’s the rest of the coolant?”

  “In a reserve tank designed specifically for this type of scenario. Once the tank is cleaned, we will pump it back into the regular tank. Then we can pump the coolant to the other engines and at least get underway.”

  “So the engines are powered down at the moment?”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied. “Otherwise we’d have the same problem on our hands.”

  “So back to the coolant,” Khai pressed. “Does it normally coagulate so quickly?”

  “No, sir. Typically this kind of mess isn’t seen in new ships-especially ones that don’t have much flight time. This,” she waved her hand to the tank, “is indicative of a ship with thousands of hours of flight. That’s why we’re so baffled by it.”

  “Where did the clog occur?”

  “Follow me. I’ll show you.” She led the way back up to the main level and walked over to a mess of tubing and piping. One pipe, leading to where engine four used to be, had a large bulge in it. The rivets holding it to the wall were either stressed or missing. “We’re actually lucky that the clog had moved this far.”

  “Why’s that?” Khai was skeptical that it could have been any worse.

  “Well,” she explained as she took a dozen steps along the wall toward the main coolant tank, “if the clog had happened here at the flow junction, it could have cut coolant to all the engines. If that had happened, well… I wouldn’t be explaining this to you now.”

  “Do you have any reasons as to why the clog got that far?”

  “Yes, sir. I do. About an hour and a half before complete failure, the computer detected an increase in pressure; when that happens, the system automatically—albeit, briefly—increases pressure to try to remove the obstruction that’s causing the problem. Since the clog moved further down into the inlet for only one engine, the pressure dropped significantly. It wasn’t until the system detected the clog in engine four that we realized that we had a problem.

  “When the system increased pressure and the clog didn’t dislodge, an alarm sounded. We are all trained in the different alarms so we know exactly which alarm is attached to which system. When we heard the alarm, we jumped into action. By the time we found the clog, we had only a few minutes to fix it before the overheating alarm went off. We had less than five minutes to evacuate engineering before the engine blew. We…” for the first time she lost her composure, “lost a lot of good people…”

  “It’s okay,” Khai said, trying his best to console her. “Do you have any ideas how the coolant got so bad so quickly?”

  “Not yet, sir,” she said sadly. “We sent a healthy sample to the onboard lab and the science team got to work on it right away.”

  “Okay. Thank you, Kare’Rhen. Contact me the moment you get the results from the science team.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Khai stormed the bridge. His crew was working so diligently they didn’t even notice his arrival. It was okay by him, he preferred it that way. There were still many things about command he didn’t like. He didn’t like feeling helpless, like all he could do was bark orders. He didn’t know enough about engineering to help there. He knew plenty about starship operation, but he had a full bridge crew and knew that he would only be in the way. There were still days that he asked himself why he took command of a starship. He hated being in charge in the Seryys Combat Ground Forces (SCGF); he hated sending people to their deaths without suffering next to them. But, at least on a ship, his choices affected him as well those under him.

  He wished that his current predicament was an enemy that he could physically punch in the face. So he did the only thing he could think of, plop down in his command chair and grumble softly to himself. As he sat, turning the transponder chip end over end between his fingers, he thought about the good colonel. Was he behind this? What was he doing in hydroponics? Was it just a random place to drop his chip so they couldn’t track his movements? How did he remove it? The chip was implanted deep in every crewman’s shoulder. He would have had to go in three inches just to get to it, not to mention dig it out. Did he have help? Was another person working with him, perhaps a doctor?

  Or were these just the wandering thoughts of an idle soldier itching for something to do? Suddenly he felt fatigue tugging at him. “Rand’Son.”

  “Sir?”

  “Any word from engineering?”

  “Last report indicated that the main power would be up in just under half an hour, sir.”

  “Good. I’ll be in my quarters. Notify me when something good happens.”

  “Aye, sir. Sleep well, sir.”

  Khai hefted his bulk off the chair and sauntered to the lift. From there he made a beeline for his quarters, not stopping to talk to anyone and barely acknowledging the people saluting. He really wished they’d stop doing that! He thought by addressing everyone by their first names, that they’d get the hint that he liked things more laid back. But then, how can you ignore years of training? His years of training conditioned him to hate the Vyysarri. It took falling in love with one to break that.

  The darkness of his room was as welcoming as a sunset on the Graluck Ocean back home on Seryys—that is if you can avoid getting eaten by sharks. In the low light, Khai shuffled to the bathroom, freshened up, changed into some sleepwear and slipped into bed.

  He let out a de-stressing sigh and let his body relax. No sooner did he finally let his guard down when he felt the sharp point of a knife jab him in the ribs. With a grunt that was equal parts surprise, pain and anger, Khai was on his feet, the knife still sticking out and ready for a fight. It didn’t take long for his adversary to appear. A murky shadow stood stone still in the umbra of the room. Khai, without taking his eyes off of his opponent, hit the button on the wall and the light came up slowly as to not blind the occupants.

  Khai was not surprised in the slightest to see Colonel Widwar. In fact, he half expected it. He just didn’t expect Widwar to make such a brazen move as to go for the kill on a man who had cheated death more times than he could count. The wild look in Widwar’s eyes did surprise him entirely. There was anger, even hate in those eyes; a wild kind of anger that Khai hadn’t seen in some time… since the last Vyysarri he fought a few years ago—that seemed like another life ago, though.

  “Stand down, colonel!” Khai growled, pulling the knife from his side.

  “You stripped me of my rank, remember? You can’t give me orders anymore!”

  “Fine. If you value your life, allow me to take you to the brig. There’s no reason to make this worse than it already is.”

  “I’m not going to the brig. They’d kill me anyway! I’d rather die on my feet, taking out a priority target, rather than die on my back in some cell.”

  “If you’re in trouble, I can help. If you need protection, I can provide that, especially if you help me. I don’t want to kill you, but if you leave me no choice, I won’t hesitate.”

  Widwar took a step forward and smiled ruefully. “You think you can protect me?” he laughed. “You can’t even protect yourselves!”

  Revelation struck Khai’s face. “What do you know about the explosion? Was it sabotage?” Widwar’s face didn’t twitch from that sneer. “Fine. I’m not gonna kill you. I’ll let ‘them’, whoever they are, kill you.”

  “You won’t live long enough to see me die!” he said as he quickly pulled a pistol from the small of his back. Khai instinctively went for his sidearm, which wasn’t there. The muzzle flashed, Khai sidestepped the bullet and it ricocheted harmlessly off the wall.

  In his last ordeal, he went toe-to-toe with an Agent—a kid conditioned by the government to be a killer and implanted with a Reflex Chip that gave her inhuman response times. Some responded so well to the chip, they could literally block bullets with a sword. As a way of saying “thank you,” Prime Minister Puar granted Khai permission to have one of those chips implanted in his br
ain, despite the fact that the Agent Program was stopped dead by Prime Minister Puar after Dack’Tandy Dah, a close friend of Khai’s, convinced some of them to revolt against their programming.

  This was the first time Khai had had an opportunity to utilize it. So far, he was quite impressed.

  Widwar fired two more shots in vain as Khai was able to simply dodge them. He gave up on that and tried the old-fashioned way, his bare hands. Widwar lunged at Khai snarling the whole way. Khai met the attack with an attack of his own. Being a soldier, Widwar had the same training and same strength advantage, but Khai had twice the amount of combat experience and the Reflex Package. Khai sidestepped the attack, grabbing Widwar’s wrists and flipping him to his back. Widwar wildly got to his feet and attacked again, rattling some gibberish about “never gonna work with those leaches!”

  Khai actually pitied him. This man was throwing his life away! Khai ducked, dodged, and blocked every attack that Widwar threw. Finally, Widwar overcommitted on a wild punch and Khai decided it was time to end it. Khai leaned and twisted out of the way, grabbed Widwar’s wrist with his left hand and drove the palm of his right hand into Widwar’s elbow. The pop it made was enough to make Khai grimace. Widwar growled with rage and tried to strike with his good arm. Khai caught the attack and drove his forehead into Widwar’s. He crumpled to the floor in a heap.

  Khai grunted as he walked over to the wall panel where a communication console was located. He hit the button.

  “Bridge,” he grumbled. “Send a security detail to my quarters on the double… oh, and a medic.”

  “Right away, sir.” Rand’Son’s tone definitely betrayed a little confusion and surprise, but Khai commended him for keeping his cool and following orders without question.

  Chapter Two

  Khai was sitting grumpily on a med bed being treated for his single injury when Widwar finally came to, strapped to another bed. Since Widwar’s little concussion-induced nap, Khai had received word from his science teams. The sample of coolant sent from engineering contained traces of a chemical that, when mixed with the coolant, caused the coolant to solidify within days. Their only saving grace was that the coolant was literally brand new and didn’t react to the chemical as strongly as it would have if the coolant had seen a couple years of use. Had they been flying an older ship, they would have been dead before they emerged from the micro-black hole.