Foster peeked at them again and saw the rest of Park’s team follow her lead, removing their helmets, unveiling their human faces. Foster took a deep breath, cleared her thoughts of doubt, and slowly approached them, keeping her weapon in her hands pointed at the ground. She waited for signs they weren’t being truthful but couldn’t see any. No bullets were fired, no aggressive stances were taken. They were friendly after all.
“Sorry about that,” Foster said, holstering her pistol. “EVE told me ya’ll were the bad guys.”
Park rolled her eyes at Foster. “The AI is there to help, not tell you exactly what to do.”
“I trust her.”
“If your AI told you to jump off a cliff, would you do it?”
Foster chuckled. “’Course not, that’ll get me killed.”
“Actually, Captain,” EVE chimed in. “You did leap into a pit approximately six kilometers deep.”
An awkward silence followed. Park and her team all fixed their shocked and disappointed stares on Foster.
With a flushing face Foster said. “But . . . here I am, right?”
“That is correct, Captain, you narrowly survived the ordeal,” EVE said.
Noticeable vibrations shook below Foster’s feet traveling throughout the ship, a reminder of what was playing out in space. Foster, along with the four EDF personnel, stood next to a nearby window and observed the deadly weapons exchange in orbit of Earth. There were more mangled Earth ships than there were invader ships.
“It’s getting worse,” Park said.
“What is goin’ on?” Foster asked her.
Before Park could reply, a blinding flash of light appeared from over the horizon of Earth. It was a second sun, one that grew larger and larger, forcing the five to shield their eyes with their arms. The glow from the flash dimmed and Foster saw the partially vaporized remains of two maybe three invader ships.
“Shit,” she said. “Was that a nuke?”
“Yeah, it was,” Park mumbled. “It must be getting bad if they’re using nukes this close to Earth. Let’s get to the bridge before it’s too late.”
Foster directed the four to the elevator and remained behind for a few seconds to look out the window. The number of invaders around the Carl Sagan blotted out half of the stars in space and its blackness. It looked as if the Carl Sagan was flying in formation with the invaders.
She joined up with the EDF team and rode the elevator back down to the central fuselage and its lack of gravity. They made their journey to the bridge, drifting through the corridors, past dormant control panels on the walls, various connecting corridors, and neared the cryo chambers from where the newly awoken crew emerged with tired-like faces.
“So, I ask again,” Foster said to Park. “What is going on?”
“Long story short, Sol is under attack by a hostile force.”
“Well, ya don’t say?” Foster snarked at her. “Is it the Empire?”
“Nobody knows for sure,” Park said. “All we know is these ships are nothing like we’ve ever encountered and have more than enough firepower to tear our ships apart. And as you probably know we have the strongest shield tech in the quadrant.”
“Is that why they made it to Earth?”
“Yes . . .” Park muttered as Foster held onto the wall, slowing her drift as they approached the entrance to the cryo chambers. “They cut our fleets at the edge of the system into pieces five hours ago, and then left a trail of destruction behind them coming here.”
She nodded in acknowledgment to Park and then faced her awakened crew. There were a lot less crew members floating in the corridors than she had thought there would be. True, the Carl Sagan left Earth with a skeleton crew, a skeleton crew that was nowhere to be seen. Only her senior officers were present. She winced and hoped that others were still being awakened.
“Everyone to your posts, we’s got a major situation at hand!” Foster ordered while casting away the concern of the missing crew as there was no time to search for them.
The Carl Sagan’s science officer, Doctor Travis Pierce approached Foster. His confused middle-aged faced grimaced and asked her, “Captain, why were we in stasis?”
Foster shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“And the alerts?”
“No idea exactly what we’s facin’.”
Pierce pointed at the four EDF personnel who were very eager to get to the bridge. “Who the hell are they?” Foster glared at Pierce. “Never mind, you don’t know?”
“This is Park,” Foster said, gesturing to her. “Don’t know the rest of ‘em.”
“Oh, by the way.” Pierce directed Foster’s attention to the tabby cat in his hands, flailing its legs within the low gravity environment. It was Foster’s pet cat Starlet. “Found this guy lost and confused . . . like the rest of us it seems.”
Foster’s heart warmed realizing her cat made it into cryo along with the crew. She refrained herself from holding it, knowing full well there was a crisis at hand, and four military brutes behind her giving her weird looks.
“A cat . . . really?” Park said to Foster.
“Hey! Being a captain has its privileges now,” Foster said, and then directed her attention back to Pierce. “Hey, can you?”
Pierce smiled. “Your quarters, Captain?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“Captain, we don’t have time for this!” Park growled, placing her armored hand on Foster’s shoulder.
Foster ignored the EDF leader, patted Pierce on his back, sending him on his way back up to the habitat ring. “Quickly, Pierce.” He did as instructed and vanished along the corridor. “Besides, somethin’ tells me we ain’t gonna need his brains for what’s comin’.”
Master Chief Petty Officer Mathilda Chevallier, leader of the Hammerhead team and head of security, exited the cryo chambers last. Chevallier brushed her floating auburn hair away from her face while Foster drifted closer to the strong yet slender woman. “MC, round up all the Hammerheads in the docking bay and get ready to drop down to the surface.”
With Chevallier leaving the cryo chamber meant that the Hammerheads were soon to follow. They must have entered cryo last as they were a part of the UNE navy, unlike most of the crew who were members of IESA.
“Surface of where?” Chevallier said. Her French accent was strong, much like her mother’s.
Reluctantly, Foster replied. “Earth . . .”
Chevallier’s lips twisted at Foster’s words. “What the fuck are we doing back at Earth? Hell, why were we in cryo—”
“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know,” Foster said drily. “Any questions you have right now, that’s the answer, ya hear?”
“I hear ya,” Chevallier said, and went to drift away to the lower decks. Then stopped suddenly and asked Foster. “Did you cut your hair?”
Foster sighed. What did I just finish saying? “I don’t remember doing it.”
“Oh, wow,” said the Carl Sagan’s first officer Dominic Williams from behind. “Becca, you did cut it, looks cute.”
She stared at him and his dark face, noting he was resisting the urge to burst out laughing. Park cleared her throat, directing Foster’s attention away from Williams, and the fact he was clean-shaven. Last time Foster had checked he had a beard. Right, the bridge, wasted enough time out here.
Foster led the way and drifted onto the bridge and into her captain’s chair. The rest of the bridge’s crew followed suit, well, the senior crew that was since the rest of the low-ranking crew personnel were still unaccounted for. Mil Tolukei, a Javnis psionic who was also a member of the Radiance Union, arrived last on the bridge.
He used his psionic brain to generate gravity for the crew, ending their drifting, and putting the soles of their feet back onto the floor. Tolukei’s lizard-like leathery hands interacted with the computer terminal at his station as his four eyes searched for his assistant from behind the gloomy hood he wore. He found her, Nereid, the strange and exotic raven-blue-haired girl they
picked up at Sirius.
Park, and her EDF team, gave the bridge and its crew mesmerized looks while they walked closer to Foster. One member pointed at Flight Lieutenant Dennis Chang while he took a seat at the helm. “Is that a screen?” he asked him.
Chang spun in his chair facing the EDF member, Foster noticed his black hair and beard had grown long, way too long for UNE navy standards. “What’s wrong, never seen a computer screen?”
“On a starship?” said the EDF member. “Hell, no.”
“Buttons, knobs, and dials . . .” Park said, observing the vacant science officer station. “Feels like I walked into a museum.”
“Give us a break,” Foster said to Park. “We left in 2033 when this stuff was state of the art. I’m sure whatever ya’ll usin’ in 2050 isn’t that far advanced—” Foster shut her lips suddenly upon realizing her math was way off. A trip between Sirius and Earth was approximately seventeen years. It would have taken them another seventeen years to return back to Earth. “Sorry, must be what? 2067 now?”
Park exchanged grimacing glances with her EDF team. Glances that made Foster’s gut fill with concern. “Um . . . one last thing, Foster,” Park said.
“Don’t tell me I got the year wrong,” Foster said, “I ain’t that bad at math.” Though she had a feeling it was more than just that.
“The year is 2118,” Park revealed, to the shocked and worried faces of everyone on the bridge. “Welcome to the twenty-second century.”
The Carl Sagan’s crew was in cryo for sixty-eight years, and not one person knew why from what Foster was able to gather. If they had entered cryo and left for Earth and arrived in 2067, and then forgot, that could be somewhat explained. But sixty-eight years? It shouldn’t have taken that long to return.
What the hell were we doing during all those years?
The deadly confrontation outside the Carl Sagan increased with intensity. The crew looked on, through the bridge’s windshields, at the sheer number of invader ships that swarmed around the Carl Sagan as if they were trying to protect it from the UNE fleet. Extremely bright red and orange glowing explosions flashed at random.
“Shit! More nukes incoming!” Park yelled as a holographic window appeared next to her.
Foster too saw the incoming nuclear missiles that were plunging directly toward the invader ships surrounding the Carl Sagan.
“This is Gunnery Sergeant Park to any UNE Navy vessel. Disengage your nuclear warheads; the Carl Sagan is not hostile. I repeat, the Carl Sagan is not hostile, disengage all nuclear strikes close to my signal!”
This begged the question. “Why is the Carl Sagan flying alongside an alien invasion fleet?” Foster said.
“I don’t know,” Park replied.
“That seems to be a common reply these days.”
“My team boarded to find out why,” Park said. “Because, as it stood for the last five hours, it appeared the invaders had taken control of this vessel.”
Foster folded her hands together and watched the barrage of nuclear warheads close in on their intended targets, knowing full well that the Carl Sagan would eat the tail end of the nuclear blast. They could move, but where? They were trapped within a web of invader ships in the heart of their fleet. There wasn’t much space to maneuver without crashing into one of them.
“Well, as you can see,” Foster said drily. “We ain’t aliens.”
2 Odelea
Iey’liwea’s High-rise Home
Veromacon, Aervounis, Luminous system
Cycle 6021, 9th dawn of Tym, Hour 4 of 19 (August 2, 2118, 16:01 SST (Sol Standard Time)
Aervounis was the capital of the Radiance Union and the homeworld of the Aryile race. The planet was blanketed with a warm tropical-like climate that was slowly transitioning into a desert as the star it orbited was in its early stages of expanding into a red giant. War on the surface of the planet was rare, even during the years before the Aryile race was able to travel into space, unlike ancient Hashmedai and humans prior to their uplifting. Violence was limited to crimes. The war without end, which raged on for centuries between the Radiance Union and the Hashmedai Empire, hadn’t made it to the surface of Aervounis.
Today, that changed.
Every major city on Aervounis was built on floating artificial islands that hovered amongst the clouds. Every one of them was placed on high alert when a mysterious storm cloud began to erupt inside the Luminous system, spewing out hordes of organic ships from its center. The mysterious invader ships began to ravage the mighty Radiance navy, the largest known navy in the galaxy. The death toll rose steadily every minute.
The capital city of Veromacon burned while the bright white sunlight from the skies shined down. The sound of towering skyscrapers crashing into others was a common sound, mixed in with the noises of energy weapon strikes launched from orbit. They were reminiscent of lightning strikes. At first, you saw the light and the beam of energy from the skies strike, then the thundering noise of an explosion seconds later.
Not all areas of Veromacon were blazing. But at the speed the invader’s ground assault teams were progressing, it would only be a matter of time before they changed that or got fed up with the resistance of the Radiance rangers and have their orbiting weapons target their garrisons.
And it was that thought that paralyzed Scholar Ary Odelea, as she sat on the balcony of a high-rise home and looked on at the chaos. The scorching heat of the sun made her traditional Aryile morning meal of a bowl of fruit warm and dry. Magnetic rifle bursts from Rangers echoed from the streets below, with the odd psionic explosive blast from their psionic support.
She was able to make out eight different rifles blazing and carefully kept note if those said eight rifles continued to fire. As long as they did, it meant the rangers weren’t taking anymore losses. Minutes earlier she had detected eleven rifles singing in unison. May those three brave souls find peace with the Gods.
Odelea’s skinny frame was yanked back inside the living room of Za Iey’liwea, the Radiance Union Rabuabin council representative. Iey’liwea shook Odelea’s body repeatedly, speaking words she failed to process. The trauma from what she witnessed outside, and the fear that the rangers in the streets might fall and pave way for the invaders to march into the high-rise unit, muted all vocalized sounds around her.
Iey’liwea kept shaking Odelea’s body, making her short, red, wavy hair sway back and forth, smudging the glitter make-up she had applied to the strip of scales on her collar and the side of her neck and arms.
“Odelea!” Iey’liwea’s voice finally had volume and Odelea shifted her reptilelike eyes onto the Rabuabin woman with ram horns on her head.
“Yes,” Odelea muttered back. “I’m, I’m sorry.”
Iey’liwea released Odelea from her grip slowly with a wince on her face gawking at her. “Sorry, still not used to seeing you look so young,” Iey’liwea said as her tail stiffened, and her feline ears twitched at the explosive sound of a military transport ship crashing.
“It’s quite all right; I have been getting the same looks from all my colleagues the past week.”
Ary Ienthei, the Aryile council representative, joined the two women in the living room. He too had been visiting Iey’liwea along with Odelea prior to the arrival of the invaders. It was supposed to be a visit consisting of a quiet and enjoyable time for the three to talk and vent their opinions about politics of the galaxy.
Fists from the outside began to smack against the front door, someone wanted in, and from what Odelea could tell by the sound, that someone was wearing combat armor, or at least had the gloves on.
Iey’liwea sighed while rubbing the left horn on her head as she interacted with the holographic door control panel. Three armor-clad rangers invited themselves in as the doors unlocked and opened.
Crossing her arms, Iey’liwea asked. “What are you doing in my home?”
“I’m sorry, Councilwoman,” one of the rangers said, a Vorcambreum one at that, with its three-foot-tall body. “B
ut we’ve been ordered here for the protection of you two.”
“Two?” Odelea said, shaking her head. “I suppose by two, you mean everyone in this room except me?”
“My apologies, scholar, but we have our orders,” said the Vorcambreum ranger. “Ienthei and Iey’liwea are members of the council, should we lose them during this battle—”
“Ha! Please,” Iey’liwea interrupted. “I highly doubt any of you three will live to see the end of the day, let alone keep us alive.”
The second ranger stepped forward, a fellow Aryile from what Odelea could see via his gold-tinted visor on his helmet. “Councilwoman Ien’thea, please —”
“Stop, that’s not my name,” Iey’liwea said. “I am Iey’liwea, Ienthei is the lanky man in the corner there.”
“Ienthei, Iey’liwea,” the ranger said. “Your names are too similar and you’re both on the council.”
“Iey’liwea is the more exotic name, much like my species,” Iey’liwea said, bringing her ears, horns, and tail to their attention. “Just remember those details.”
“Whatever!”
Ienthei crossed his arms as his mouth twisted at the three rangers. “So, this is our protection?”
“Two weakling third class Aryile rangers,” Iey’liwea said, scoping out the two armored Aryile rangers and shifting her unimpressed expression to the third ranger. “And a Vorcambreum.”
“Second class Vorcambreum ranger!”
Iey’liwea spun away from them rubbing her forehead, cursing a racial slur in her native tongue.
Ienthei’s back rested against the wall and laughed. “This is ridiculous, what was the rest of the council thinking?”
“I don’t think they gave the order for them to come to us,” Iey’liwea said, then turned to face the three rangers. “Isn’t that right?”
“The order comes from General Pavobei,” said the Vorcambreum.
“Heh, they didn’t care to issue the order themselves,” Iey’liwea said.
“I’m not surprised; this isn’t the first time they’ve tried to get rid of us, when a convenient accident was taking place,” Ienthei said. “Where’s the rest of the council?” he asked the Vorcambreum who was clearly the leader of the squad. It made Odelea smile a little, as it was not every day one would see a Vorcambreum ranger, let alone one that was a leader and could care less what people thought about their height.
Celestial Incursion Page 3
