Four Tomorrows: A Space Opera Box Set

by James Palmer

  Andrews was not amused.

  “Has something happened to the old man, Bill?”

  On the computer screen, Captain Andrews had a look of dread about him. The marshal wonders when was the last time he had slept, a concern he voiced.

  With an almost imperceptible nod and a wave of his hand, the Ulysis’ captain dismissed the question, getting straight to the heart of their problem.

  “Max, sometime within the last three hours, the old man was assaulted and taken prisoner by an unknown number of persons with the direct purpose of stopping the Ulysis from joining up with your fleet. We have every reason to believe that the admiral is alive and that he is still aboard ship.”

  He paused, long and silent as he weighed his words carefully. “We will find him, I can promise you that,” he added.

  Unsuccessfully, the marshal tried to hide his astonishment. That a crime of this magnitude could be perpetrated against a high-ranking officer of the United Planetary Alliance, much less that it happened aboard the flagship of the Alliance military. He moves closer to the monitor. “How?” he asked. “Who could have pulled this off, Bill?”

  The captain shrugged.

  “How the hell does this sort of thing happen on board a starship, Bill?”

  “I’m not certain of the details, but it does appear to me that we have a traitor on board the Ulysis. This person, or persons, has access to our computer’s data banks and also had insight into the admiral’s location and itinerary.” Captain Andrews lets his voice drop to nearly a whisper. “I have a few officers that I know well enough to trust heading up the search for the old man, but the people holding him seem to have us over a barrel at the moment.”

  “Damn.”

  “But only for the moment,” Andrews confirmed.

  “I understand,” Marshal Vortex said, looking up from the screen as Grady and Natalie entered. Each took a respective seat across from the marshal’s desk without interrupting the conversation.

  “Bill, do we know anything about the abductors? Are they part of this Earth Liberation League the old man’s been investigating?”

  “I haven’t a clue, Max. Even money these folks are either a part of the Earth Liberation League, or they want us to think they are. Either way, we have no proof. And we cannot risk the old man’s life.”

  The captain turned as someone off screen activated his office door chime. “I’ve got to get back to it now, Marshal,” he said as he reached for the controls. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I have some news. Andrews out.”

  The marshal fired off a smile of false confidence to his friend. “We’ll miss you at the party, pal. Get here when you can. Good luck.”

  The remark elicited a small bark of laughter from the starship captain. “We’ll be there, Max. We may be late, but we’ll be there. Just save some for us.”

  “It’s a deal,” he said. “Find him, Bill. Vortex out.”

  The screen went blank as the transmission ended.

  He regarded his two deputy marshals. “You heard. I need opinions, answers, supposition, anything,” he said matter-of-factly. As a friend of Admiral McKeen, the news of his abduction hit him hard, but it was not the time for one man’s sorrows. There remained a battle to be fought and his secret weapon had just been taken out of the equation.

  He looked at his friend and his daughter. He trusted these two more than either would ever know, relied on their guidance and wisdom. Even though he wanted to help his friend, his first duty was to the mission. They each knew it.

  Grady chimed in, breaking the wall of silence. “Well, I’d say this pretty much sucks.” She was not afraid to speak her mind, especially in the marshal’s presence. He had come to expect it, even cherish it. He wanted his relationships with those under him to be honest and open. In battle, there was no room for hidden trivialities or turmoil.

  “I’d have to agree,” Natalie echoed. “We have to do something about the admiral.”

  The marshal nodded. “I agree, Nat. But we can not allow this setback to keep us from our objective. There is, however, something to be learned from this.”

  “And that would be?”

  “First, we’ve learned that the Earth Liberation League has infiltrated Alliance military. That tells me that there could be some subversives among our own fleet.”

  “My God,” Grady snarled. “What do you want to do? This could jeopardize the mission, my squadron, all those people.”

  “Maybe there’s a way to use this to our advantage, Grady.”

  “How so, Dad?” Natalie questioned.

  “From this point on, there will be no, and I mean no, public discussion concerning our mission, course headings, or the League. And I mean discussion of any kind. This is of paramount importance if we’re going to salvage what we can of our objective. We have to assume that, if there is a spy in our fleet, then all of our plans have been compromised.”

  “You know what that means?”

  “Yes, Grady. We’ll have to rethink our strategies, and we’ll have to do it fast. If, and I can only speculate at this point, if we have a spy among us, then I want to manage the amount of information that gets out. I want total information lock down from this point on. Only the three of us are to have full access to the ship’s data banks.”

  “We should change pass codes as well,” Grady suggested. “Implement a safeguard so only one of us can access or purge the system.”

  “Good idea,” the marshal said. “Natalie, we’ll need new access codes for the three of us. Shut everyone else out, but do it quietly. If anyone asks, we’re running a security drill in preparation for the mission. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” she answered, but he could see she was troubled by the order. “Aren’t we going to include the other deputies?” she asked.

  “No, honey. We have to make it look like business as usual and that is not going to happen if I call a full staff meeting regarding every decision. If anyone has a problem, just inform them that the lock out is a security measure only. If they have any questions, tell them to come see me. The other Deputies have enough to deal with as it is, so I doubt they’ll have any problems.”

  “Got it,” Natalie said as she rose from her chair.

  “Get out of here,” the marshal said, tossing his daughter a wink.

  It did not make her feel any better about the situation. Feeling apprehensive, she headed toward the office door, beyond which lay the bridge.

  And possibly a spy.

  “Well, Grady?” he asked after the door slid shut behind Natalie.

  The marshal’s second in command merely shrugged.

  “Damn,” he said as he dropped his head in his hands. “What are we going to do, Grady?”

  “I’m not sure, sir.” She chooses her words very carefully. “However,” she said while rising from her chair, “I have a suggestion to offer.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  Chapter 36

  34

  Space Lab Science Station

  “Will you please hurry up?”

  The intended victims of Captain Virginia Harmon’s growing anger were Dr. James Silver and Ensign Bailey, both serving aboard the space station research facility better known as Space Lab.

  “Captain,” Ensign Bailey argued. “This station was designed to prevent any type of chemical, natural, and/or alien contamination from escaping into the population. The designers planned for nearly every contingency, even the remote possibility of an encounter with an intelligent alien species, perhaps even a not so intelligent one. When the alarms go off and the station’s protective shields are dropped into place, it is damn near impossible to open them.”

  “Impossible?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Damn near. We, however,” he moved a hand back and forth, indicating himself and the doctor. “We plan on trying anyway.”

  “We’re funny that way,” Silver commented from within the wall conduit. Hidden from the waist up, his voice muffled by the opening he was dang
ling inside of as he attempted to hotwire the door.

  Not the smartest plan, the captain fumed, wanting to stress the fact that a small fleet of ships with probable hostile intentions heading for their location at full speed. Nevertheless, she figuratively bit her tongue, allowing them the opportunity to try their ridiculous plan.

  Why should they listen to me? She wondered. Hell, I’m only a starship captain for Christ’s sake.

  “Try it now!” Dr. Silver yelled from within the wall conduit.

  The captain nodded to Stephanie Walsh, who proceeded tapping in the station’s override code, giving the computer an all clear signal. Ensign Bailey, luckily, had access to that code in his duties as a security officer. The code, in essence, informed the station’s main computer that the danger to the station had passed.

  She hoped the computer bought the lie.

  The only way to get the trapped survivors out of the Operations Center was to force open the pressure doors.

  The computer console buzzed an error signal, as it has done several times since they first tried forcing the door. Stubbornly, it refused to cooperate, its indicator light glowing crimson in the hazy atmosphere.

  “Damn it,” Dr. Silver yelled. He was running out of ideas, good, bad, or otherwise. He tried as many different and varying approaches as he could think of, but this sort of thing fell well outside of his area of expertise. “Wait a minute,” he shouted after a moment.

  A heartbeat passed quietly.

  Then two.

  Three.

  “Doctor?”

  Nothing.

  No response.

  “Doctor?”

  Again nothing, save for the occasional grunt as the doctor shimmied farther into the conduit.

  “Doctor!” This time the captain’s tone was more forceful. “Are you alright in there? Do you require assistance?”

  An inaudible sound, something akin to a grunt, emerged from within the wall conduit.

  “What?”

  Immediately, Ensign Bailey was at the mouth of the conduit. “Doc?”

  The captain listened intently as the doctor’s voice, barely audible, echoed from inside the conduit.

  “Got it,” Ensign Bailey answered, turning to the captain. “Do it now,” he told her.

  The captain once again gave Officer Walsh the okay. The override command was input once more. This time sparks flew from the console, sending Stephanie Walsh reeling backward against the bulkhead.

  Stunned, but otherwise uninjured, she waved off Bailey’s attempts to make sure she was okay, although she was touched by the attention.

  The door cranked open slowly as the gears that operating the door creaked to life once again. Plumes of dust spiraled outward as the air from inside mingled with the already stale air in the corridor. If they thought the air in the corridor was hard to take, the air from inside the room carried a smell far worse. A mixture of sweat, fried circuitry, and blood washed over them.

  “You did it, Doc!” Ensign Bailey yelled, running toward the opening door. Smoke and dust billowed out as the somewhat fresher air of the corridor rushed into the Operations Center.

  Captain Harmon motioned Officer Hanover to the mouth of the conduit. “Hanover, see to Doctor Silver.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he answered, already in motion.

  As Hanover moved off to extricate Dr. Silver from the conduit, the others stepped cautiously into the debris laden Operations Center of Space Lab.

  “I am Captain Virginia Harmon of the Pegasus,” she said. “Someone here call for a taxi?”

  A round of thankful laughs greeted her.

  “I’m looking for Doctor Morgan,” Harmon added.

  “I’m Cynthia Morgan,” one of the trapped Space Lab contingent replied. Though still on her feet the captain noticed that she was injured, rather severely from the looks of it.

  “You’re hurt?” the captain said, stating the obvious.

  “Just a little,” the chief administrator said, forcing a pained smile. “My crew?”

  “Your crew is safe, Doctor. The escape pods were launched.”

  “Oh thank God,” she said, relieved, a weight visibly lifting from her shoulders. This confirmed what the Pegasus’ communication’s officer had told her earlier.

  James Silver slid to a stop at the entrance to the devastated Operations Center. “Cynthia?” he called.

  “In here, Doctor,” Harmon called back.

  Relief washed over him when he saw Cynthia’s hand raise in a slight wave. The doctor made a beeline for his chief.

  “James?”

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “You’re late,” she said, more jovial than she actually felt.

  He gave her a simple smile. “Sorry about that,” he whispered.

  Damn the man, Harmon thought. He might just be sincere for the first time in his life.

  “Better late than never, huh?” he answered sheepishly.

  “And they said you weren’t--” a cough. “--trainable.”

  “Baby steps, Cyn,” he said, brushing the hair from her face.

  “If you two are finished,” Harmon said, interrupting their banter.

  “I guess miracles do happen.”

  “We’re getting you out of here,” Silver told the chief. “Come on.”

  She allowed him to help her to her feet, bracing against one of the many smashed computer consoles that lined the wall. “Good. I think I’m ready to go now anyway.”

  “Anywhere in particular?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. Which was considerably more painful than it should have been. “Just elsewhere. Elsewhere will do nicely.”

  Doctor Silver guided her to the door and the hallway beyond. “Get me out of here and I just might let you have some time off.”

  “Hey. A vacation. Can’t beat that, huh?”

  “Thanks, Jimmy,” Cynthia’s tone softened. “I hear you saved a lot of my people.” Her eyes told the true story of her fear, speaking volumes to James Silver. The same James Silver who had looked into those very same eyes once upon a time without actually seeing what was there. Now his eyes were open as well. At last he understood.

  “It was nothing,” he said with a wink. “Nothing at all.”

  Across the room from the reunited scientists, Harmon surveyed the damage. Spotting the senior military officer on deck whose stripes on her darkened uniform signify her rank as Lieutenant, she walked over.

  The lieutenant was carefully covering a body with her uniform jacket, another senseless casualty in a day filled with senseless casualties.

  “Lieutenant?” Harmon called out as she approached.

  “Captain.” The lieutenant snapped to attention, firing off a salute to a superior officer.

  Captain Harmon returned the salute. “Good job, Lieutenant...?” She fished for a name.

  “Vandrell, sir.”

  “Right. Lieutenant Vandrell, let’s get you people out of here, shall we?”

  “Yes. I would very much like to leave now, Captain,” she said.

  “So would I, Lieutenant. So would I.”

  32

  Alliance Starship Ulysis

  Gun in hand, he stepped into the dark room.

  Though it was being used as a prison cell, the room had once been used for storage. It seemed quiet enough, which worried the man. Appearances, after all, were often deceiving and the creature he tracked had proven to be the most dangerous prey.

  The man who had earlier played a large role in the torture of Admiral James McKeen stepped carefully, not uttering a sound for fear of giving away his position to the enemy inside he did not relish facing again. An enemy hidden away in this room, tensing, ready to strike.

  The man strained to hear anything that might give away the enemy’s position but heard nothing. By the time he made out a sound it was too late.

  The enemy was upon him.

  No longer in hiding, Admiral McKeen slammed into the man and drove them both to the deck. The att
acker angled himself to land on the man’s back, adding his weight to the impact. The man strained to hold in a scream as sharp stabbing pain shot daggers through his back, up his spine.

  “Where am I?” the enemy screamed at him. “Who do you work for?” McKeen could barely restrain his fury as he hefted the body of his tormentor forcefully to his feet. Then, in an astounding display of strength, the admiral pummeled his opponent until the man was unable to recall his own name, much less answer any questions.

  Adrenaline waning, McKeen released his hold, letting his tormentor’s body drop to the floor with a wet thump. He allowed a small moment to revel in his triumph before moving. His captor was not alone. His friends would undoubtedly not be too far behind.

  Feeling his way around in the dark, searching, and eventually finding the prize that sought to elude him. Retrieving the unconscious man’s pistol and checking the safety, he slid it securely in the waistband of his black uniform pants.

  At least, the admiral thought to himself. I’m finally out of that damned room.

  Heading for the exit, only two thoughts fueled him. First was payback. He figured that the Earth Liberation League bozos had enough of it headed their way to make the admiral a happy man for the rest of his life.

  “It is time to start paying these idiots back,” he said between gasps. “With interest.”

  The unconscious bruiser and his friend had no comment. Not that he had expected one from either. He didn’t bother to tie them up. He simply left them facedown and locked the door to the starge room behind him. He wedged a stool under the handle to secure it.

  Next on his list was finding Lt. Melvin Jeffries. Jeffries was one of a handful of people on board the Ulysis that Admiral McKeen believed he could trust outside of his friend, Captain William Andrews. Right now, he needed to surround himself with as many trustworthy people as he could find.

  Taking a second to allow his real eye to readjust to the bright light in the corridor, the admiral immediately recognized that he was in Nomad City. He had assumed that he was being held in this part of the ship anyway, so the discovery only served as confirmation. Checking his surroundings, the former marshal headed off to the right, carefully opening every unlocked door and hatchway on the corridor.