Heretic

by Philip C. Quaintrell

  “Century for me,” Jim commented.

  It occurred to Captain Fey that she didn’t really know anything about the councillors outside of their professions.

  “Were you born there?” she asked, happy for the distraction from more serious matters.

  “I come from three generations of Centurians,” Jim replied proudly. “I was born in Aspen. Fantastic summers, bloody awful winters. Did you ever visit?”

  “Century? Yes, several times in my youth.” The memory of hiking through the Vengora mountains brought a smile to the captain’s face. “I don’t suppose it matters anymore but, the UDC had a training facility in the northern pole. Every cadet goes through it.” Fey caught herself. “Went through it…”

  Fey wanted to ask Jim whether he had lost any family, but she knew it would lead to him asking her the same question. The face of her husband nearly brought a tear to her eye. Not a minute went by when she didn’t think of him and wonder what his last moments were like. They had never got round to having children - mostly due to her career - and for the first time in a long time, the captain was thankful to have suffered no such loss. More than a few had committed suicide aboard the Gommarian after they had learned of Earth’s and Century’s fate.

  “I take it you were Earth-born, Captain?” Jim inquired, pleasantly.

  “In a fashion. I was actually born on the moon, in Armstrong City. My family moved to Shanghai before I can remember anything about the habitat.”

  Captain Fey could feel Jim becoming more familiar with her. That would lead to more questions; something she could not allow. To be who she needed to be, there had to be boundaries that kept her apart from everyone else.

  “Nautallon,” Fey said aloud.

  “Yes, Captain Fey?” A blue hologram of a female human appeared at their side. Apparently, the ship’s AI thought it would be easier for them to commune with a human facsimile.

  “We emerged from sub-space some time ago. How close are we to the ship?”

  “It will be visible from the port side in a few moments, Captain. It is on the dark side of the third moon.” The blue hologram gestured to the viewing screen as a heavily cratered moon took shape.

  “That will be all.” Captain Fey dismissed the hologram without taking her eyes off the emerging moon.

  The Nautallon made its way around the circumference and into the moon’s shadow. Lieutenant Worth and Sharon Booth joined them by the window, despite the new ship still being too far away to see.

  “Did Uthor give you any details about this ship?” Sharon asked in disbelief.

  “Only that they had met hostile reproach when they attempted to board,” Fey explained. “Something is wrong with their communications apparently.”

  “Well let’s hope they don’t shoot us before we can say hello,” Jim added, his levity not appreciated by the group.

  “You will not be greeting them alone.” The deep, gravelly voice of High Charge Uthor startled them all. Along with a small entourage and a floating mech, the Raalak came to join them by the viewing screen. “A small strike team will be just out of sight, but ready to step in should events repeat themselves.”

  “Were there any casualties?” Captain Fey asked, concerned.

  “There projectile weaponry was oddly primitive, even by your standards,” Uthor explained. “No one was fatally injured, but the team of humans who awaited us possessed explosive ordinance and we didn’t want to risk depressurisation.”

  “They’re probably just terrified,” Sharon offered. “Who knows how they escaped the Gomar attack, let alone survive out here for so long.”

  Uthor hesitated. “I’m afraid it isn’t as simple as that. Though we have been unable to communicate with them, we have scanned their ship repeatedly.”

  “What did you find?” Captain Fey asked, her interest peaked. She had thought that this errand had been to smooth over first contact and give the human survivors a reassuring face, as well as an explanation to, well, everything.

  “What we discovered is part of the reason I asked you here,” Uthor replied mysteriously. The Raalak lifted his rocky chin to the viewing screen, directing their attention to the human vessel, off the port bow.

  Captain Fey frowned as she took in the sight of the bloated-looking ship. The design tugged at her memories but she couldn’t place it. The vessel looked to her as if someone had stuck a giant sphere in the middle of an ancient Earth space shuttle. The hull was a dull silver but appeared in great shape.

  “There are over a hundred thousand lifeforms onboard.”

  All four humans slowly turned and stared blankly at the Raalak. They had hoped for twenty or maybe thirty survivors, as it had been with most of the other craft that wasn’t in the solar system when the Gomar attacked. A hundred thousand was…

  Captain Fey’s eyes filled with tears, but she kept them from breaching her eyelashes. “I don’t understand…”

  “How is this possible?” Lieutenant Worth asked, his gaze fixed on the swollen ship.

  Uthor glanced at the Ch’kara - who appeared as a bug next to the Raalak’s bulk. “My engineers tell me it hasn’t been here for very long. Only a couple of days by your standards.”

  “How can you tell?” Jim asked, equally vexed by the ship.

  “The intrinium scar left by the ship’s…” Uthor chewed over his next words. “Solar Drive, I believe you call it.”

  The Ch’kara by Uthor’s side spoke up. “The radiation levels being emitted by the engines are close to becoming fatal. If it isn’t fixed soon every human onboard will die.”

  Captain Fey put her hand on the glass and realised it wasn’t glass at all, but some kind of force-field that vibrated across the surface of her skin. She looked at the hulking ship and saw humanity's only hope of resisting extinction teeter on the edge of a knife.

  “Do we know anything else about it?” Fey asked with desperation creeping into her voice.

  “Only its name,” Uthor replied. “Paladin.”

  The captain’s mouth fell open when the Nautallon swung around to reveal the massive white letters printed across the silver hull.

  “As in… the Paladin?” Jim asked what they were all thinking.

  “You know of this ship?” Uthor looked down at them in surprise.

  “I wrote my dissertation on this ship,” Captain Fey commented without thought.

  “Everyone knows about the Paladin,” Jim explained. “It was an Arc ship, designed to transport huge amounts of people to Century. It became one of those old mysteries you know; where did the Paladin go? What happened to the crew? It hit sub-space and never reappeared.”

  Captain Fey turned to Uthor. “That ship disappeared over two hundred years ago.” That thought gave birth to new fears for the captain. The original crew would surely all be dead by now, leaving the current occupants to be shipborn descendants. Who knew what they would be like after drifting through space for so long. No wonder they were hostile.

  “Wait,” Lieutenant Worth sounded confused, “you said it only arrived here two days ago, from sub-space. How is the Solar Drive still operational?”

  “Perhaps its plotting random courses periodically?” Jim mused.

  “In which case; we have no idea when it might jump again,” Sharon replied with urgency.

  “But it should have run out of intrinium by now,” the lieutenant finished his point.

  The small Ch’kara spoke up again. “We have scanned their engine. It appears to be brand new if a little ancient in its design.”

  The humans looked at one another in confusion. The Paladin was becoming more of a mystery by the second. As the Nautallon continued to glide around the human vessel, the captain noticed a Conclave-looking ship attached to the starboard side, near the bow.

  “What is that?” Fey gestured to the alien ship.

  Uthor puffed out his wide chest. “Our strike team is in position, but their ship is also serving as a docking station. You will be flown across shortly and from there, t
he strike leader will help you to gain entry.”

  “Should you begin a dialogue,” the Ch’kara explained, “inform them that we have engineers who can fix their drive. Hopefully, we can get them back to Conclave space.”

  The captain nodded her understanding and turned to her human companions. “This sounds like it could be more dangerous than originally thought.” She looked specifically at Jim and Sharon. “Neither of you has UDC training and so I don’t expect you put yourself in harm’s way. If you wish to stay behind I will understand.”

  Both Jim and Sharon looked at each other before turning back to the captain. “We’re not missing this,” Jim spoke for both of them.

  It wasn’t long before the humans were escorted across the gap and granted access to the Conclave ship, attached to the Paladin like some sort of leech. The ‘air-lock ship’, as it were, was some kind of transport ship for the strike team, filled with weapons and tech. A circular door to the port side was all that stood between them and the Paladin.

  Fey was surprised when Uthor had insisted on his coming too. She wasn’t sure whether the Raalak was feeling protective or simply curious. Ever since the incident with Professor Garrett Jones, the High Charge had become more of an ally to the human population. Kalian and the others had explained everything they knew to the Raalak after he commandeered the Gommarian. Over time it had apparently become clear to Uthor that the humans were really trying to help, and that the real enemy was hiding in the shadows, as well as in plain sight where Protocorps was involved.

  A Novaarian wearing gold armour from head-to-toe approached Captain Fey and Uthor. “Greetings of peace, Captain, High Charge.” The Novaarian had a two-handed weapon in both his upper and lower arms.

  “This is Norvak, my strike leader. Has there been any activity?” Uthor asked.

  “No, sir. Our scans show that a small team has taken up positions at the end of the corridor. I recommend opening the hatch and presenting no visible targets. Make contact audibly first, something we have been unable to do due to language barriers.”

  Captain Fey nodded in agreement. “I bow to your expertise, Norvak.”

  Norvak’s team of five took up their positions around the craft, out of sight. They had assured Fey that all of their weapons were non-lethal since they were dealing with an endangered species. Using one of his four arm-bracers, Norvak hit the controls that sent the circular door spinning to the side. An acrid smell of ozone filled the captain’s nose as she stood slightly out of frame. Lights flickered sporadically in the corridor, more evidence to the brief firefight that had taken place.

  Norvak lifted his upper arm and presented Fey with a three-dimensional hologram of the corridor and the six humans that occupied it. She could see that three men had taken up positions on the right, while a man and two women were positioned opposite them. All were armed with what the hologram identified as projectile weapons.

  Captain Fey cleared her throat, ready to project her voice. “I am Captain Fey of the…” she still wasn’t used to having no ship under her command, “of the United Defence Corps.”

  There was a pause while the holographic men and women looked at each other. Fey waited another moment, giving them time to decide what to do.

  “How do we know it’s not a trap?” a female voice shouted back.

  Captain Fey looked to Lieutenant Worth, who could read his captain's intentions and responded with a look of caution. As her subordinate, he could do nothing else but watch, as Fey stepped out into the middle of the air-lock.

  “I’m unarmed.” Fey held her hands above her head and stood very still, giving the humans time to assess her. “Like I said, my name is Captain Fey of the UDC. Who is in charge of this ship?” Fey knew that the original captain had been Jedediah Holt, a relatively average man by his service record, who had fought through the last battles of the Corporation Wars.

  There was another pause on their end, with only whispering to be heard. One of the male members broke cover from the shadows and dashed out of sight. Fey squinted into the darkness in hopes of making out the others, but they were just as good as the Conclave team at hiding. The only thing she knew for sure was that their guns would be trained on her.

  “Hold one!” the female voice cried back to the captain.

  Those were the words of a soldier, not a shipborn, though it was possible that the language had been passed on from one generation to the next. Thinking through the details she wrote about in her dissertation so long ago, Fey tried to recall if there had been a strong military presence onboard. The Arc ship had been transporting predominantly families and young professionals, ready to tackle a new world.

  The shadows moved when the male soldier returned with someone else. The metallic bulkhead under their feet thundered slowly as this new person made their way into the flickering light. For the second time that day, Captain Fey was overcome with surprise.

  “My name is Jedediah Holt. I am the Captain of the Paladin.”

  The man’s dark complexion made his features harder to distinguish in the flickering light, but Fey had seen enough pictures of the Paladin’s captain to know it was him.

  “I am Captain-”

  “Fey, I know.” Captain Holt glanced back at the concealed team. “Is that your ship out there?” Holt’s expression told of his disbelief.

  Seeing the ancient captain had disorientated Fey. “No, not exactly.” She noted Holt’s observations of her, taking in what must have been a strange uniform to him, though even Fey wondered whether there was still any point in wearing it.

  “Forgive our caution Captain Fey,” Holt continued, “but you’re not the first person to walk through that air-lock, and calling it a person is really stretching the facts. It was seven-foot tall with four arms and a lot of firepower by the looks of it.”

  “That was a Novaarian,” Fey replied. “I realise that makes no sense to you right now, but there’s a lot you need to know. Beyond that air-lock… is a very different universe to the one you remember.” The captain could see that Holt was looking past her, to the Conclave vessel, searching for any sight of the aliens. “Lieutenant?”

  The captain’s call brought Lieutenant Worth into view, along with the councillors. Captain Holt’s team made the subtlest of sounds, adjusting their weapons to track the newcomers.

  “I promise this is no trick,” Fey continued. “This is Lieutenant Worth and councillors Jim Landale and Sharon Booth. Jim here was actually born on Century. That’s where you were going wasn’t it?”

  Captain Holt took a couple of steps back. “What’s going on here? How did you find us? Our navigation system is down, but the star charts would suggest we’re a long way from home. Humans have never travelled this far before. We’ve been lost for two days in wild space and then a group of humans conveniently arrives after that thing showed up. It doesn’t add up, Captain Fey.”

  Fey half turned to the air-lock behind her. “High Charge Uthor. Seal the door and take the ship back to the Nautallon.”

  Uthor’s monstrous-like voice replied from out of sight, “That would put you at great risk, Captain. There is also the radiation to consider.”

  Jedediah Holt took another step back, with an expression of guarded terror on his face. To him, Uthor’s words would be unintelligible, as no one aboard the Paladin possessed a translator behind their ear. Fey could only imagine what a Raalak’s voice sounded like with no context.

  “Return for us in an hour,” she replied. “I’m sure you can cure us of a little radiation poisoning.”

  “This was not what I had in mind,” Uthor’s tone was grave. “Bear in mind Captain, you will be exposed to small amount of radiation, but the crew of the Paladin does not have much longer before sickness sets in.”

  “Thank you,” was her only response.

  Norvak closed off the air-lock, eliciting another reaction from the team hiding beyond Holt. A distant thoom echoed through the walls of the Paladin and the conclave vessel detached from the hull.<
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  “Like I said,” Captain Fey continued, “this is not a trick. I have a lot to tell you and an hour isn’t going to be long enough, so perhaps we should get started?”

  “You know about the radiation?” Holt asked, the deadly waves clearly on his mind.

  “Yes. And after you’ve decided to trust us, perhaps you’ll let us fix it.” Fey locked her gaze on Holt’s dark eyes, taking a measure of the man. The radiation leak would be at the top of his priorities since it currently threatened every life onboard his ship.

  Holt looked over the Lieutenant and the councillors. “There’s a conference room not far from here. The Raiders will escort you there.” The shadows gave birth to a small group of elite soldiers, all heavily armed. “I’ll join you momentarily, Captain Fey.”

  “Please, call me Li.” The captain hoped a familiar term would stir trust between them.

  Holt didn’t reciprocate but simply offered a nod in return, before standing aside and allowing the Raiders to move them on.

  Jed waited until the corridor was clear before accessing the comm panel on the wall, outside the air-lock. “Captain Holt to the bridge.”

  “Vale here, Captain.” Sam’s voice was quick to reply over the comm.

  “How’s Grenko doing with the radiation leak?” Jed wasn’t holding out much hope. Grenko, his new chief engineer, had been quite clear about the catastrophic damage to the Solar Drive.

  “No luck yet. What’s going on down there? I saw people on the feed.”

  “Give Maloy the conn,” Jed ordered. “I want you down here for this. Meet me at conference room two on the double.”

  “Aye, Captain.” Vale closed the comm.

  Jed stroked his face and felt forty-eight hours of stubble prickle his skin. How had everything spiraled out of control so fast? Whatever was about to happen, he knew he would have to take any help offered to him. The lives of over a hundred thousand people were in his hands, and right now they were trapped in a metal tube filling with radiation.