The Expanding Universe 4: Space Adventure, Alien Contact, & Military Science Fiction (Science Fiction Anthology)

by Craig Martelle

  “Captain Martin, Captain Price, we’ve sustained heavy damage and will need to report back to our post for repairs. Please continue on to assist the Denver. They’re under heavy fire and need immediate assistance. Transmitting coordinates…now.” Dani quickly entered the coordinates into her console before Cassia sent them to the other GC captains.

  “Understood. On our way.” Captain Price blipped off the screen, followed by Captain Martin.

  “Cassia, do you want to take a peek at the encrypted file and see if you can—”

  “Already on it, Dani.”

  “Great. Cruz, come with me to the medical bay. Let’s see if Dr. Lombardi needs any help while Howard’s working on getting us up and running again.”

  She and Cruz made their way to the medical bay, but it was immediately clear that they were needed, because the line of pilots continued out the door.

  “Peterson.” Dani spotted the lead fighter pilot as he instructed his team on which order they should line up.

  “Dani.” He looked at his team once more before leading her to the side.

  The pilots made way for Cruz to slip into the med bay to assist Dr. Lombardi.

  “Did everyone get docked?” she asked.

  Peterson hesitated a moment before nodding slightly. “We lost a few good men and women out there, the only upside being the rest of us were all able to dock even with the damages to the docking area.”

  Dani nodded solemnly with a knot in her throat. “I’ll handle all the paperwork. Do you want to notify the families this time or would you like me to do it?”

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll do it again. I know it means a lot to the families.”

  “Of course, whatever you need. I’ll arrange for transport and time off once we’re back at headquarters. Thank you, Jeremy.”

  Peterson offered a tightlipped smile before joining his team in line at the med bay. Dani walked up to the doorway and one of the pilots stepped aside, allowing her to enter.

  “Anything I can do?” she asked Dr. Lombardi as he examined one of the pilots.

  “No, I think Cruz and I can handle it. There don’t appear to be any serious injuries. We just need to clear the pilots for flight in case we need them again before we get home.”

  “Sounds good.” Dani turned and left the med bay and made her way to her private quarters near the bridge.

  She stepped through the sliding door and then leaned back against the wall just inside. Dani took a long, slow breath then released it again slowly. She hated losing people. In her line of work as a Galactic Conglomerate Star Captain, it happened a lot. Too often. And there was little room for grief aboard a GC warship. There was always another battle to prepare for unless damages were severe enough to warrant repairs. In that case, they’d return to GCHQ and Peterson would deliver the news to each of the pilots’ families in person. He’d share with them the stories they had and the respect they earned while aboard Alaska’s Vengeance.

  Only after the paperwork was filed and families notified would Dani and the rest of the crewmembers take the time to grieve. It often involved lots of food, drink, and reminiscent tales of adventure of those who had been lost. The next day they’d welcome aboard the replacements and prepare for their next mission.

  The never-ending cycle had gone on for years and it never got any easier. For Dani, the most difficult part was when she collected the fallen soldier’s belongings and prepared them for Peterson to return to the family. There were almost always photographs, video recordings, and usually a handwritten letter. The letters always got her. She never read them out of respect, but instead made sure they made it home to the family.

  No one onboard spoke of their letters, at least not that Dani ever heard. But she knew that most had them. There were a few exceptions, like herself, who didn’t have anyone left at home to write back to. It was almost a relief for Dani. She couldn’t imagine sitting down to write her last words to her family, if she had one. Though, occasionally, she did wonder if her father had ever thought about it before the war stole his life.

  A gentle rapping at her door pulled her mind away from the gloom and back to the present. She quickly wiped away the moisture under her eyes and straightened her uniform before opening the door. Before her stood Jag, concern all over his face. Dani may not have had family waiting for her somewhere on a planet, but her crew was family to her.

  “Holding up?” Jag asked as Dani stepped aside to let him in, the door closing behind him.

  Dani wrapped her arms around him, Jag returning the gesture, and they just stood silently for several moments before he brushed her hair back from her eyes.

  “We can’t stay out here.”

  “I know.” Dani sighed before looking down at her port-con. “Power is slowly regenerating. I’ll go check in with Howard to see where he’s at with the repairs.”

  “I’ll have Cassia run another long-range scan to make sure there aren’t any Vaerians coming to collect what’s left of their ship.”

  “Thanks,” Dani said with a slight smile before opening the door.

  Once outside of her quarters, they both went their separate ways without so much as a sideways glance from any other crewmembers. It wasn’t uncommon for members of the crew to visit her quarters, especially after they’d sustained losses. As difficult as it was for her to listen to them unload their pain, she knew it was worse for them and tried to provide as much support as she could.

  “Howard,” she said as she stepped into the engine room. “Where are we on things?”

  The mechanic poked his head out of a space behind one of the large engine power generators. “Well, could be worse. But we’re ready to head home now. Hyperdrive is operational and the engines should do well enough. Just take it easy on her.”

  “Will do,” she said as she turned and left. She would have loved to stay and chat with Howard, with anyone really. But there was always more to do.

  “How are we looking, Cassia?” Dani asked when she got to the bridge.

  “All clear.”

  “Great. Jag?”

  “Life-support systems look good. We’ve regenerated enough power to set shields to six percent but not enough for weapons, so let’s hope the way is clear.”

  Dani took a seat in her captain’s chair and touched the communications device she wore over her ear. “Attention: Alaska’s Vengeance is heading home. Prepare for a hyperspace jump.”

  She fired up the thrusters and maneuvered the ship into position while selecting GCHQ from the hyperdrive menu. A moment and a flash later, Alaska’s Vengeance warped into hyperdrive. The distant stars became faint streaks around them as the more prominent planets and stars blurred temporarily before everything around them became a current of light. Dani felt the slightest abnormality in the vibration of the ship through the controls, something likely to be missed by most other pilots.

  “Howard, everything holding up back there?” Dani asked through the comm as she flipped through status display screens on her console.

  “It’s a little rough, but my baby’s a tough girl. She’ll get us home.”

  Dani exhaled loudly and glanced around the bridge. Jag was running various systems checks while Cruz calculated their flight time before displaying the clock on the corner of the screen. Cassia seemed to be staring at her screen in bewilderment.

  “What’s up, Cassia?” Dani asked as she stood.

  “I’m not sure what this is, but it’s big.”

  Dani had made her way to Cassia’s station and leaned over her shoulder. “It looks like the schematics for a weapon.”

  “Whatever it is, it’s way over my head.”

  Dani bit her lip. The technology was more advanced than anything she’d seen. “We’ll hand it over to the GC and let them determine the viability of these plans.”

  “Well, whatever it is, I’m glad we have it now and not the Vaerians. I don’t even want to think about what they’d do with something like this.”

  Dani took her
seat once more. The abnormal rumble felt amplified at her touch. She mumbled, “Something isn’t right,” then flipped through a few of the systems screens on her console.

  “Does everything look okay to you, Jag?”

  “I’m getting some unusual readings.”

  “Unusual, how?”

  “I think something is stuck to our hull.”

  Dani narrowed her eyes at her display and ran a scan of the ship’s exterior. The system automatically runs an exterior scan after each encounter or collision of any kind. It searches for leaks and assesses any damage, but the scan was clear after the battle.

  A gasp escaped her lips as the scan picked up something foreign mounted just above the bridge. She immediately dropped Alaska’s Vengeance out of hyperdrive to allow for a more accurate scan. She decelerated the ship using reverse thrusters and reran the scan as the rest of the bridge watched her in silence.

  There, nestled just overhead was a device of some sort, Vaerian in appearance with its black metal and crude construction. Dani’s fingertips touched her lips as she leaned forward, eyeing the contraption. She didn’t even notice when Jag, Cruz, and Cassia joined her.

  “What is that?” Cassia asked.

  “I don’t know, but it looks Vaerian to me. I don’t think it came from Talon,” Jag answered.

  “It most definitely did not,” Cruz signed. “I’ve seen one of these before. It’s a bomb.”

  “A bomb?” Dani’s blood ran cold. “Why hasn’t it exploded yet?”

  “I’m guessing it’s on a timer of some sort.”

  “Shit.” Dani exhaled loudly. “We have to get it off the ship.”

  “And how do you propose we do that?” Jag asked as he circled around to the other side of the image.

  “Manual removal,” Dani said flatly as she made her way to the space suit storage compartment within the bridge. She carefully removed her space suit and turned around, nearly bumping into Jag.

  “You know I’m not letting you do this alone.” He reached past her and grabbed his suit as well.

  Dani hesitated a moment before deciding not to fight with him about it. The truth was, she might need the help, and if she couldn’t figure out the removal on her own, then the ship was a loss anyway. The pair donned their space suits while Cassia and Cruz stood by and watched.

  “Dani, you be careful out there.” Cassia wore a familiar worried expression. The same one she got every time Dani was about to do something dangerous.

  Cruz took a step closer to Cassia’s side. He, too, looked slightly worried. But his gaze was focused on Cassia rather than Dani and Jag. “Good luck,” he signed before gently placing a comforting hand on Cassia’s shoulder.

  Jag and Dani exchanged their own nervous glances before Dani led the way out of the bridge and down the hall toward the back of the ship. They entered the airlock and sealed the interior door behind them. Dani was getting ready to open the exterior door when Jag caught her arm and pulled her close to him, their helmets bonking together gently.

  “Hey,” he started but didn’t continue.

  Dani studied his face. She could tell he wanted to say something. “Yeah?”

  “I… If we pull this off, then I think a celebratory dinner is in order.”

  Dani’s heart skipped a beat. She’d been over the GC handbook hundreds of times over the years for many reasons. Some of those were to remind herself about the restrictions against fraternization, but she still was unsure of exactly where the line was. Then it occurred to her she didn’t even know what kind of dinner it truly would be. As co-workers, friends, or maybe more?

  Her hesitation caused Jag to release his grip and take a step back. “All of us, I mean. The whole crew. This was the toughest mission we never actually arrived at.” He forced a chuckle.

  “Oh, right.” She was disappointed but tried not to show it, figuring it was best to not complicate things anyway. “Sounds good.”

  With that, Dani turned and opened the exterior door. As she did so, the relative gravity released, allowing the pair to exit the airlock and head the direction they needed to without complication. A gentle kick off the floor before she lost contact sent Dani toward the built-in ladder running across the ceiling and out the airlock.

  They climbed out, following the rails to the exterior of Alaska’s Vengeance. It was quite a climb to the bridge, but luckily the ladder would take them fairly close to where they needed to go. It wasn’t uncommon to lose some of the long-range scanning equipment mounted above the bridge in a rough battle.

  One rung at a time, they continued until they finally reached the precipice of the ship. Each grab of the hand and placement of the foot was done carefully and with purpose. The last thing anyone wanted was to slip away into space. While recovery was possible, it was still terrifying.

  “There it is.” Jag’s voice cracked over the radio linking the two suits and the bridge. Sure enough, the device was before them, not far from the ladder.

  “Let’s go see what we’re working with.” Dani clipped her suit’s tether to a secure point and carefully let go of the ladder. It didn’t matter that she had been on dozens of space walks before; being out here with only a cable holding her to her ship was nerve-racking.

  Jag clipped onto an alternate secure point and the two drew nearer to the bomb.

  The bomb itself was the shape of a pyramid with knobs protruding from the top and the center of each of the sides. Dani thought back to her Alien Weaponry course at the academy. Her promotion to captain a few years prior had required her to take the advanced curriculum. However, Vaerian tech had changed rapidly and the bomb she was looking at now was somewhat different than those she studied before. Yet there were still some similarities.

  “These here look like pressure sensors,” Dani thought out loud while Jag looked on. She leaned down to see how it was connected to the ship. It seemed to have clamped on to a section of their communications system. “Okay, so it’s on our ICC amplifier.”

  “Can you take it off?”

  “Well…” Dani sighed, sitting up. “It might be rigged to explode if it senses me messing with the mounting device. I think it’s best if we remove the amplifier all together.”

  “That’ll severely limit our communications,” Cassia’s voice squeaked through the comm.

  “Better than severely limiting our life-span.” Jag snorted.

  “Right.” Dani started digging around the pack she carried and withdrew a wrench. “Well, I think a communications delay is an acceptable option.”

  “Just as long as we don’t get attacked again,” Jag added.

  Dani sighed and rolled her eyes at him. “Why’d you even say that?”

  Jag shrugged. “Sorry. I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

  “Why’d you say that?” She laughed. “Just stop talking before you jinx the bomb into exploding.”

  Jag made a zipper motion across the front of his helmet.

  Dani got to work loosening the bolts that connected the instant communications amplifier to Alaska’s Vengeance. Without it, their instant communications field would be much smaller and there’d be a delay in their ability to communicate effectively with Peterson and the rest of the pilots depending on how far they ventured from the ship. It would also cause a delay in their communications when they announced their arrival into the GC home system per protocol, but Dani figured they’d cross that bridge when they got there.

  “Hey, Jag, I’m going to need some help on this one. It seems to be stuck.”

  Jag slowly made his way over to her, carefully watching his tether to make sure it didn’t come in contact with the device. He placed his hands on the wrench with Dani’s, and the bomb’s exterior triangular plates lifted several inches. A light within began to flash.

  “What’d you do?” she asked frantically.

  “I didn’t touch it!”

  Together they frantically loosened the bolt and made their way to the final one.

  “What’s going on up
there, guys?” Cassia asked through the comm.

  “I think it’s getting ready to blow,” Dani grunted as she and Jag wrenched off the last bolt.

  The plate shifted, causing Dani to slam her hands down on the edge to steady it. The pulsing light quickened from within the contraption. Jag went to the other side of the amplifier’s plate and on Dani’s nod they lifted it together. A series of wires ran from the device through connection points before they went down into the hull and through the series of airtight panels. Dani reached in and disconnected the first wire.

  “There’s not enough time for that,” Jag said as he withdrew a knife from his own pack and severed the wires with a quick swipe. He then hoisted the bomb, amplifier, and plate up into the air over his head and kicked himself away from Alaska’s Vengeance before releasing the bomb.

  Dani scrambled to get to his tether and pull him back down to the surface of the ship as the bomb drifted away, spinning slowly.

  The moment Jag was within reach, he grabbed onto the ladder and pushed Dani down toward the ship, covering her with his body. She could see the bomb over Jag’s shoulder as it continued to drift farther and farther away. A brilliant flash of energy emanated from the bottom of the device where it had been mounted to the ship, followed by a shower of debris that burst out, away from Alaska’s Vengeance.

  “Guys?” Cassia was frantic on the comm. “Are you there? Talk to me.”

  “We’re here,” Dani said as she blinked rapidly to free her vision from the bright spot that lingered. She then shifted her gaze to catch Jag’s eye. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it,” he said with a smile.

  Her green eyes lingered on his blue eyes for a moment, drinking them in. He always found a way to protect her from whatever threat they faced. She had been on her own since her father’s death following her mother’s disappearance. With no siblings or others to speak of, she often longed for a deeper human connection. So much so that she occasionally wondered what it would be like to throw the rulebook out the window and act on her impulses.

  “Dani, you okay? Your pulse is increasing.”