The Reign_Destiny_The Life Of Travis Rand

by Lance Berry

  The com shut off, and Lieutenant Donahue at the helm immediately led the bridge crew in a round of applause. Travis tried to wave them off, but they wouldn’t hear of it. Mara walked over to him, thankful tears in her eyes, and patted him on the shoulder. With only a moment’s consideration, she reached up and hugged Travis, and he gratefully returned it. They stayed that way for just a little while, each somehow knowing the entire time that things would be all right, after all.

  Chapter 39

  (Epilogue: The Present)

  Once Rand and Zahara disembarked from their transport, he received a call from his first officer, requesting his presence in conference room A. He acknowledged, then he and the young lieutenant said their farewells, Rand heading out of the launch bay. The doors to the lift opened a few feet before he arrived there, and out stepped Lieutenant-Commander Bardo Va, the Tetelloran pilot who joined the ship’s roster only a year after Rand had taken over as captain.

  “Good day to you, Captain,” the pale-skinned, blue-eyed alien offered pleasantly. “Good day, Lieutenant,” Rand just as pleasantly returned. There was something about Bardo that just made people naturally relaxed around him; it may have been the casual way he naturally addressed everyone he met as if they were an old friend he was just meeting up with after a long absence.

  “I had heard you were back, and I knew that Zahara was your pilot, so…”

  Rand smiled lightly and nodded back toward the direction of the launch bay. “She’s still making the return flight check-in with the docking chief. I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” the younger man said with a smile. Off he went, his blonde hair almost sparkling in the hallway light as he headed down the corridor to see his girlfriend. Travis stepped into the lift and ordered it to carry him to deck three.

  The doors to what was formerly war room A parted and Rand briskly stepped inside. The actual design of the room hadn’t changed at all, but as soon as the peace treaty between Earth and the Calvorian Alliance was signed, a mandate came down from on high detailing certain policies and tactical addresses which were to be immediately changed. One of those policies was that all “war rooms” would now officially be called “conference rooms”. And so Captain Rand entered the conference room to find his senior staff seated around the meeting table.

  The chair at the head of the table, Rand’s own, was unoccupied of course. To the right of the chair sat his first officer, Mara Christenson and beside her the former Calvorian general Tholin, who was now security chief aboard his ship. It was an amazing thing when the legendary general, who in David’s time was almost his arch-nemesis in the classic vernacular, chose to defect to Earth’s side. He sought out the Horizon because he knew David, only to find that a new captain had taken his place. Travis had met Tholin in combat twice, and initially had doubts about the alien’s sincerity. However, an understanding was finally reached and he soon proved himself trustworthy on several occasions.

  To the left of the head chair sat Jamie Hughes and beside her Ben Williams. It was always good to see his elder friend at the table, and secretly wished that that would be one of the few things in his life to never change, no matter what. A foolish dream, he told himself, but if he had to have his delusions, he’d choose to hold on to the good ones.

  “Good afternoon, everyone,” Rand said as he took his seat between Mara and Jamie. Once the acknowledgements and greetings were done, Mara tabbed a panel beside her on the table, and the vid-screen set against the far wall activated. A planet appeared, grey and bleak looking, with large cracks across several portions of its surface. Mara stood and walked over to the screen as she spoke. “The planet New Erkonig, discovered two years ago during the war when its cloaking device failed, revealing it to both sides. As we all know, a large ancient and abandoned city was discovered to exist on its surface, estimated to be on the order of nearly one hundred thousand years old. Surprisingly, nearly eighty percent of the machinery within the city was found to still be functional. The technology, however, is so far beyond anything which either Earth or the Calvorians possess, there’s no way of knowing what is or isn’t a weapon. There were several surface battles between our forces, one of which led to these fissures opening at irregular intervals when one of the alien machines was activated.”

  “By the overeager Calvorians, as I recall,” Ben said as he raised his eyebrows and nodded toward Tholin, the effect producing a small snicker from Jamie. The Calvorian grunted deep within his throat, just enough to let the doctor know it was still early in the day for him to be getting on his last nerve already.

  “Regardless of who started it, Doctor, the end result was that the survivors of both sets of troops left the planet immediately,” Rand stated. “Although both sides secretly sent survey teams there over the years–none of which returned home–there was an almost unspoken agreement that the planet would be left alone until an actual victor emerged from our war.”

  “Had I been in charge of our enslavement camps, I would have made certain you were one of the first guinea pigs to set foot on its surface,” Tholin said pointedly at Ben. Tholin was so dead-serious the majority of the time that it was sometimes unclear when he attempted humor as humans understood it. This time, though, Jamie broke the mild tension and genuinely laughed while Ben nodded in a style accepting of the verbal parry which had been carried off.

  “Getting back to business,” Mara interjected, attempting to make certain they didn’t stray too far off the reason they had gathered, “Now that the war is over, a joint Earth-Calvorian task force has been assigned to investigate the city and determine what can be salvaged and shared equally between both sides. Guess which flagship gets to go?”

  Rand’s mouth dropped open slightly in disbelief. “You’re joking! The war just ended barely two weeks ago and we’re already doing joint task forces?”

  “Ain’t peace a glorious thing,” Ben said derisively, and Rand couldn’t blame him. To Rand, the greatest threat in the universe was an absolute unknown, and New Erkonig was the greatest unknown of the modern age. At least three Calvorian science teams and two human ones had gone to its surface at various times, and each one had met with the same fate: a comline suddenly going dead and bodies never retrieved, along with no clues as to what happened to them at all. Rand had made some tough decisions in his life, but he didn’t like having to make the choice to send people down into a situation with no clues to guide them. Still, he was a soldier first, and orders were orders.

  “When are we supposed to be there?” he asked in a tone which clearly underscored his displeasure at the situation.

  “Two days,” Mara answered. “We’re going to be met by the Calvorian light cruiser Reaver.”

  Rand looked at Tholin. “Do you know the captain?”

  “The last I knew, the ship was under the command of Captain Aleel. He is intelligent and decisive. However, this was four years ago…he may no longer be in charge.”

  Rand nodded and turned to Jamie. “A day at maximum speed, a day and a half at a hyperspace field of five,” she answered preemptively. Rand nodded in acceptance; over the succeeding years, he had come to appreciate Jamie’s intellect more with each passing day and every engagement they fought and won. She had never let him down when he needed it, and he was proud to call her a good friend as well.

  Rand sat up a little straighter. “Well, folks…tragically, they’re not paying us by the hour, so let’s get a move on.” He got to his feet, his officers rising with him as he continued, “Tholin, I’m going to want every last tactical sensor running when we get there. I don’t want to be caught off guard by anything.”

  “Understood, Captain,” the Calvorian replied as Rand started to make his way to the doors and Mara shut down the vid-screen.

  “Jamie, make sure all MPRS lines down in your division are fully functional. You never know when we might suddenly have to jump to light if someone cracks something open on the planet’s
surface again.”

  “Got it, Captain,” the young woman said as she and the others followed Rand to the doors and out into the corridor.

  “Ben, keep sickbay on standby, just in case.”

  “Way ahead of you on that one, old boy,” the doctor answered, but this time there was no facetiousness in his tone.

  “Mara, I want you to prep our science departments on this mission. Stress to them the urgency of caution, and don’t let them leave the ship until they understand it.”

  “Without a doubt,” Mara assured him as they headed to a lift, the doors opening upon their arrival.

  “And have Doctor Ortiz head up the team,” Travis added thoughtfully. “He’s got a good head on his shoulders for safety, now that I think about it.”

  “Yes, sir,” she answered again.

  Without another word, Rand and Tholin entered the lift while Mara, Jamie and Ben waited in the corridor as the doors closed. The engineer and doctor had different destinations to go to than the two command officers, and Mara would signal Ortiz and have a science team meet her back in the conference room for a pre-mission briefing.

  The lift ascended quickly to the command deck of the bridge, allowing Rand to get off while Tholin continued upwards to his post at tactical command. Corporal DiSalvo was at navigation and Bardo Va had returned to his place at the helm, as his shift had started. Lieutenant Tamberlane was at her position at the communications console.

  Rand stood by his seat a moment and stared at the beautiful blue planet spinning serenely on the central screen. He had dedicated his life to protecting Earth, and with the war at an end, it was finally safe. He found himself thinking back to his visit with Danielle and his days at Sanderson, wondering what Drake, Chang, Marion and the other surviving members of his cadre were up to at the moment. Maybe, if he and his crew made it back from this mission, he’d look them up…maybe Marion might even be willing to talk.

  He sat in the command chair, no longer feeling the burden of his captaincy as he did in the early days, and told his flight officers, “DiSalvo, set course for the planet New Erkonig. Lieutenant Va, we’ll be going to top speed once we clear the solar system.”

  The navigator and helmsman acknowledged the captain’s orders as they expertly began setting course and speed.

  “But keep Earth on the viewer as we pull away,” he said wistfully. “I think I’d like to watch her for a little while.”

  THE END