The Interstellar

by David Lund

  As soon as they were clear of the crevice, Michael tried to hail the other Henfor ship, without success. They had barely gone twenty meters when a Friiist voice came out through the speakers.

  “Henfor vessel, you are in violation of the formal treaty, surrender now or we will destroy you.”

  Michael slammed his fist down on the control panel.

  “Videem, you need to get out us out of here!” he yelled. The Henfor did not answer but the ship accelerated sharply and quickly upwards. Less than two minutes later there was an explosion nearby and the ship rocked violently.

  “Henfor ship that was your final warning, surrender now or be destroyed.”

  “They are right behind us,” Lindsey cried, studying the sensors.

  “We’ll never make it to the base, Captain,” Caitlin said. “We need to get them off our tail.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “How deep is the water?” she asked Videem.

  “Here? About five hundred metres. We can’t go down that far.”

  “Is there a ledge anywhere, one we can reach?”

  “What are you thinking, Commander?” Michael asked.

  “If we can reach a shallow ledge and set the ship down, making it look like we’ve crashed, then power down the engines and wait for them to come close enough, we can fire a high energy discharge and hopefully disable their ship.”

  “That’s a lot of ifs,” Michael said. “What if they just destroy us when we are sitting ducks?”

  “I like it,” Videem said. “It’ll work. There’s a ledge one hundred and eighty metres deep about five hundred metres away. If we can reach it before they reach us, we’ll just manage it.”

  “I don’t know about this,” Michael said.

  “Do you have any other ideas?” Caitlin asked him

  He thought for a second then shrugged.

  “Okay.”

  Videem turned the ship sharply to the left and headed for the ledge. On the sensors, they could see the Friiist vessel closing rapidly.

  “They are firing, brace yourselves,” Videem yelled. The ship shook fiercely and they started to plummet deeper into the ocean. Videem didn’t need to fake the crash, but luckily for them they were almost over the ledge when they were shot and they didn’t go too deep. The ships’ systems went haywire and they hit the sandy bottom with a dull thud, unhurt. Videem turned the remaining systems off.

  The Friiist ship appeared to have stopped firing and were searching for them. Without any active systems, they would not be visible on sensors. The Friiist would have to find them the old fashioned way, with their eyes. A large searchlight was switched on ten meters above them. They obviously knew roughly where they had landed.

  They waited patiently while the Friiist searched.

  “I hope they don’t call reinforcements,” Lindsey said quietly, as if the enemy could hear her.

  “If we appear to be disabled, I wouldn’t have thought they would bother,” Videem answered calmly.

  The front view screen suddenly lit up with a bright white light. They had been found. The light grew steadily brighter.

  “I’ll have to charge the weapon at the last second or they might detect it,” Videem said pressing a few keys on his console.

  The light got nearer and nearer, Michael glanced nervously at the light and then at Videem, watching the cool, composed alien as he waited to fire.

  “Now,” Videem suddenly cried and pressed a button. A great electronic noise was heard and a blast of high energy burst out of the front hull, hitting the Friiist ship dead on. He then immediately started up the engines and sailed away from the ledge.

  “They are disabled,” he said.

  “We need to destroy their communications,” Michael said.

  Videem charged another beam and fired again, to Michael’s surprised, the Friiist vessel exploded in a ball of orange light. He turned angrily to Videem.

  “What the hell, Videem? I said disable, not destroy!”

  “They posed a threat to our operation.”

  “No they didn’t, they were disabled, they couldn’t follow us.”

  “Don’t be naïve, Michael, they saw our ship, they knew there was just us, we couldn’t let them live.”

  “And you don’t think they had already told their superiors what our ship was like?” Caitlin asked angrily, coming to Michael’s defence. Videem shook his head.

  “You don’t understand, they could have easily fixed their systems and come after us.”

  “You don’t know that! We said: limited casualties.”

  “I’m sorry, Michael, but it had to be done. There is no point arguing about it now, it’s done. We need to get moving.” Videem set a course for the station. Michael crossed his arms, he knew Videem was probably right, but it didn’t make killing them the right thing to do, and he wouldn’t change his mind about that.

  23

  James Henderson was sitting in a large room with several other people. The room they were in was nothing special, a simple grey affair, with a few plants sitting here and there. Not that James knew much about decoration, but he thought that this room seemed to lack any warmth. John sat at the head of table next to him. John said he was going to explain exactly how he planned to save the crew of the Interstellar. James could only imagine that it had something to do with the creation of this wormhole.

  The people sitting around the table were made up of suited men and women and others who were wearing lab coats. There were fifteen of them all together. James recognised Rachel, the women who had told him about the alien. Now that she wasn’t wearing her protective suit, she was revealed to be quite attractive. She was younger than he had first thought, probably in her late twenties. She had long dark hair and bright green eyes. He noticed as she smiled at him that her teeth were slighted crooked and that her nose was a bit big for her face, but other than that, James thought she was rather pretty.

  Obviously, he was very interested in what John’s plan was. If there was a way to save his crew, he was willing to do anything to try it. He didn’t see how they could do this without consulting with TEC however, and he wasn’t sure if John was willing to do that. After all RAPAET was as secret an organisation as you get. He could only voice his thoughts when the time came. But now, he was sitting patiently waiting for John to begin his speech. The latter looked over at James, and nodded.

  He stood up and cleared his throat.

  “People,” he said and outstretched an arm towards James. “You will have recognised James Henderson, from The Exploration Centre.” There were murmurs of consent around the table. “He has agreed to help us with our project.”

  “After being kidnapped,” James muttered.

  “Yes, well, you understand the reasons for that. Anyway James, let me explain the plan.

  “As I have already explained to you, our whole project is about Protecting the Earth against the aliens who pose a threat to us. They have already proved they are hostile when they abducted my father. We have spent years developing a way to get to them, and now we have succeeded. We created the wormhole that had the misfortune of running into your flag ship: The Interstellar. But we have picked up the signal, and they were successfully transported twenty seven light years away, into the alien system.” Applause broke out around the table.

  “What are you clapping for?” James said angrily. “Why are you applauding the fact that you have delivered twenty people to the mercy of hostile aliens?” Everybody around the table stopped clapping.

  “James,” John said patiently. “We didn’t deliver them to the aliens, we sent them far out into the solar system, there is no reason for them to have come into contact with them.”

  “You don’t think they would have scanned the system? Figured out that there is a planet with life on it? Or that these aliens are capable of picking up their signal? Don’t be stupid John. You’ve given them more humans to study, that’s if they weren’t killed going through your wormhole.”

  “There’s
very little chance of that, our calculations stipulate that there is less than ten percent chance of them dying from the transportation.”

  “Less than ten per cent?” James said furiously. “You know, there is a reason we have a company who sends people to space, we have a quota of risks, anything above two per cent is unacceptable.

  What you have been doing is foolish.”

  “If you want things done, you have to take risks,” John replied, showing a flash of anger. James got to his feet.

  “If you had run this by us, we could have made it safer, the crew would have been going into this with some knowledge, they would have known some of what to expect, they would have had a better chance of surviving. As it is, you’ve sent them blind into battle, without any of the tools necessary for success. You are a selfish jerk, John.” John was also on his feet now, and his face was as red as a beetroot. James thought he might start shouting at him, but instead John took a deep breath and sat back down, slowly.

  “James,” he said with as much calm as he could. “It’s too late to worry about any of that, what is done is done. AND,” he said loudly as James was about to interrupt. “The best thing we can do now is figure how to save them. Our wormhole works, we know that, and we can put it to good use. We can save your crew, my father, and sort out this conflict with the aliens. Do you agree?”

  “I won’t do this without TEC, we need the resources the company can offer.”

  “I’m afraid that’s a big no, James. TEC is a public company, and you would have to reveal everything you do to the public. This is a top secret operation, we will have to do without.”

  James knew John would say this but had no counterargument.

  “Okay, so what do we do?”

  “Aside from working on the wormhole project, we have had people building a ship. A ship beyond anything you have developed at TEC. It isn’t an exploration craft, but a war vessel. It has the most sophisticated weaponry you will find anywhere.”

  “Where are on earth did you get the funds for all of this?”

  “I’m a very rich man, James. Anyway, our ship will be launched and we will create a wormhole and send it directly to just outside the alien planet, where we will do everything to save your crew.”

  “That’s it?” James asked, surprised. “That’s a foolhardy plan, John. You are just going to go in, all guns ablaze and hope for the best?”

  “Believe me John, our ship can withstand anything they throw at us.”

  “And how can you be sure of that? You don’t know what kind of technology they have. Whatever it is, it’s probably way more advanced than anything we’ve got.”

  John smiled widely.

  “Ah, yes, but I haven’t told you about the best bit of technology we’ve developed.” He paused, and James waited. “Our ship will be invisible.”

  “What?”

  “Well, invisible to the enemy’s sensors anyway. As you know, we’ve analysed some of their data, and we’ve worked out how to send out false signals that will mask our energy signature. We could be sitting among them, and unless they see us with their own eyes, they won’t even know we are there.”

  “What about the wormhole? If it’s anything like here, it will create quite a large sensor reading, they’ll pick it up straight away.”

  “Ah well, that’s the tricky part. They will notice the wormhole but see nothing come out of it.

  Hopefully they’ll think it was a random phenomenon, like you guys at TEC did; and not worry too much about it. And even if they do suspect something, they won’t see us.”

  “You say us. Who’s leading this?”

  “I am,” John said. “And I want you to come along too.”

  “Are you mad? John, have you ever even been into space?”

  “No, but you have, you will be able to help us.”

  James Henderson had been an astronaut many years ago, but only on short missions on the ISS.

  “Have any of your crew ever been to space?”

  “No.”

  “This is madness, John. You can’t just send inexperienced people into space. Let me talk to TEC -”

  “No. We have to do it my way, James.”

  James sighed.

  “Let me see the ship,” he said finally.

  *

  James was impressed. He now found himself in yet another room of this enormous building. The room was huge, it had to be to fit the enormous spaceship that was in front of him. It was a shaped like a plane, with a pointed nose and slim, elegant wings on either side. The back end held four big reactors that James knew were powered by the famous Newton engine. The craft was about two hundred meters long, smaller than the Interstellar, but not by much, and a lot more pleasing to the

  eye. It’s body was painted black, and James imagined that would make it harder to spot in the dark space.

  All along the craft, people were working, obviously preparing it for flight. James could not hide how impressed he was. He whistled loudly as he saw it. He was actually a bit jealous because it was so much prettier than his own ship. Of course, they had not really spent money on it’s design, preferring to make it the most comfortable possible.

  “Have you tested it?” James asked, who could not see how such a big ship could not have been picked up by their radar.

  “Yes indeed. Seeing as you haven’t seen it, I’m guessing it was completely hidden from your sensors?”

  “And, no one ever saw you fly this thing?”

  “You don’t know where we are, do you?”

  “No, you bloody knocked me out before bringing me -”

  “The point is,” John interrupted. “Is that we are surrounded by desert, there is nothing around us for hundreds of miles.”

  “What about satellite imagery?”

  “We would have been a blur. An unidentified object on a grainy picture. Listen, James, this craft is solid. It will take us where we want to go. I need you on board.”

  James was astounded. What John was proposing was complete and utter madness, and yet somehow he was intrigued. The idea of travelling to a completely new system, meeting a different civilisation, from a different planet, was something he had always dreamed about, much like anybody else who was interested in space travel. But on the other hand, there were so many uncertainties, John was clearly jumping the gun, and James couldn’t help but think that he would be signing on for a one way trip. It seemed unlikely that they would be able to escape from a powerful alien race, of whom, let’s face it, they knew very little about.

  James didn’t have any family to worry about, no one close anyway. He had spent his life dedicated to his work and had never had children. His wife had left him years ago because she so seldom saw him. This trip was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

  “If we had the help of the government -”

  “James,” John interrupted again. “This ship is ready to fly now. If the government gets involved, they would want to check my readings, and know everything about my organisation. I’m afraid it’s not an option. I need three days to generate enough power to create the wormhole. Then we are leaving. I’ll have someone take you home. Think about it, I’ll give you my card. You have three days to make a decision.”

  With that, James was escorted out of the building.

  24

  They were making their way slowly towards the underwater station. They couldn’t travel very fast because the ship was not designed to operate underwater and the reactors were not pushing the ship hard enough. This suited them fine however. They needed to figure out how to get inside the station, preferably without being detected, and Michael, for one, could not see how this could be managed. Videem’s nonchalant way of doing things was starting to get on his nerves.

  They were still about twenty kilometres away and so far, there was no sign of any more enemy ships. They still hadn’t managed to contact Gareen and the others, and Michael was worried, he hoped nothing had happened to them. He had taken to looking out of the window i
nto the dark ocean beyond it. He was disappointed in the view. The ocean was murky and there was little visibility. The little he could see wasn’t that interesting, there were no living creatures down here, as the radiation had killed everything. He thought sadly of how this used to be a thriving planet which hosted many different species. And now, because of them – the humans – and their probe; all life on the planet was destroyed, along with many of the Friiist themselves. But it was accident, Michael reminded himself. But again, he asked himself how the probe had gone so far off course. It should never had gone into orbit, let alone crashed on the surface.

  As he stared out at the flat, murky scenery before him, Lindsey was studying the readings received by the ship’s sensors. She was essentially shifting through all the data, looking for anything interesting, but mainly to make sure nobody sneaked up on them.

  “The level of radiation in this ocean is astonishing,” she said after a period of complete silence as everybody was lost in their own thoughts. “If we were to go outside, we wouldn’t survive for long.”

  “How long is not long?” Caitlin asked.

  “A few minutes, maybe ten or twenty if we were lucky, but it wouldn’t be nice.”

  “We’ll try and stay indoors then,” she muttered.

  Once again they lapsed into silence. Michael stopped looking out the window and studied the instruments. They were about ten kilometres away from the base. He could now see on the sensors that there seemed to be a flurry of activity ahead of them. Michael could make out several submarines on the sensors. Videem too, was studying them.

  “Twelve ships,” he muttered, frowning, and making the crinkles in his brown skin more pronounced than ever.

  “How are we going to get past them?” Caitlin asked.

  “It’s going to be difficult. We may have to fight our way through,” the Henfor answered.