by Mark Tufo
“I am mortal, if that is what you are asking.”
“According to Lodilin, we are of the utmost importance, correct?” Cedar prodded.
“That is the reason for this escape, yes,” he replied.
“What if something were to happen to you?”
“What is going to happen to me?”
“I don’t know, Porter, there are a million and a half things that could go wrong. Don’t our chances of a successful escape increase dramatically if there are two skilled pilots aboard this ship?”
He gave her a sidelong glance. “Strap your harness on; do not touch anything,” he warned.
Cedar clapped her hands together. “I really do love when I get my way…how fun!” I could see her perfectly from where I sat; she was nearly dancing in her seat from excitement. She had to finally sit on her hands to keep them from touching any of the seemingly thousand buttons and switches in front, above, and beside her.
“Deep Onyx, you are cleared for lift off.” This was Lodilin speaking directly. “Good luck and may our gods bless us all.”
I wasn’t sure what to expect as the ship rose; I could not help but grit my teeth and grip the edges of my seat. So far, little about space travel had been what I would consider fun. I wish I had my sister’s attitude in regard to it.
“You can open your eyes now,” Lendor said softly. We were out in the vastness of space. Instead of my unease dissipating, it had billowed like a heavy cloud. Looking out at all the stars through the front window was slightly overwhelming.
“What do we do now?” Cedar was bouncing on her chair.
“We wait. The Iron Sides is fast approaching.” Porter moved a stick nestled close to his knees and we slowly spun so that the Ogunquit dominated our view. “We will start our first lesson in the meantime.”
I watched as the young Cedar fell away and a much more mature and serious version replaced her. I had a feeling that those of us in the back ceased to exist for the time being as she did her best to soak in all the knowledge Porter was imparting.
Ferryn went over to sniff at Serrot. “He is beginning to awaken.”
He groaned as he placed his hand on his head; there was a moment of confusion and panic as he tried to get up and was met with resistance.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I spoke soothingly and quickly undid the belt. “How you feeling?” He took my hand to sit up.
“What hit me?”
Porter turned from his chair. “There is a small galley in the door behind you; he will need to drink plenty of water and eat something—it will help immeasurably. No, no! Do not touch that!” He lightly smacked Cedar’s hand away from the console.
“What do you think they eat?” Tallow asked. “I’m starving.” He was the first up.
I was quickly behind. Lendor stayed with Serrot to keep him from toppling over.
Tallow was opening up all the drawers and cabinets. “Protein bars? Everything is a protein bar.” He pulled one out; it was the size of his forearm. He sniffed it and was about to take a bite.
“You realize it’s in a wrapper, right?” I smiled at him as I grabbed a large bottle labeled “water.”
“Duh, of course I did,” he ripped the wrapper, again sniffed the bar and took a bite.
I got the water over to Serrot, who protested at first. Tallow came out with a stack of protein bars. “Not half bad,” he said, putting them down on a small table in the side of the area.
“Protein bars?” Lendor and I had changed places and he was looking over the food. “Any idea what kind of protein?” he asked Tallow.
“What’s that mean?” Tallow said around a mouthful of the tan bar.
“Protein comes in many different forms,” Lendor said, slowly ripping his wrapper.
“Yeah, like a boar, right?” Tallow was powering through his food. “Don’t look at me like that Win, spacefaring is hard business.”
“I didn’t say anything.” I laughed. “And what exactly did you do that was so difficult?”
“Existing. Just existing seems to be a full-time job,” he replied. It was hard for me to argue with that.
“A boar is one way; insects can also be a significant source as well.”
“Are you saying I could be eating a cricket bar?” Tallow let his arm drop.
“Or whatever the Genogerians consider protein. Could be human meat.”
“It is not human meat!” Porter shouted from the front. Much softer he added. “We stopped that practice once we became allies.”
“Good to know.” Tallow gulped. “I could have been eating human,” he mouthed to me.
“I said it wasn’t human!” Porter seemed offended. “Mostly.” I saw the smile he gave Cedar.
“Tallow, I’m going to break that thing over your head if you interrupt my lesson again!” Cedar had got up and was berating him, her hands on her hips. “And give me one of those.” She strode over to the table and snagged one. “How are you feeling?” She leaned down to look at Serrot, gave him a small kiss and left before he had the chance to respond.
“Most of the protein in the bars is plant based,” Porter said as Cedar regained her seat.
“Whew,” Tallow replied, then took another bite.
“He said most,” Lendor reminded him.
“I liked it better when you were the enemy and I could just kill you.” Tallow put the bar down.
“As if,” Lendor snorted.
“I don’t feel so good.” Tallow gripped his belly. For a moment I was concerned that maybe the food stores were old and he had gotten food poisoning, like Fletcher, when he’d foolishly eaten the ancient MRE.
“One more thing…do not eat too much. For your size, no more than a tenth of the bar. It is so protein-rich it will take a while for your digestive systems to process. Eat too much and it will feel like you have sunken stones inside you,” Porter said.
“Too late.” Tallow moved to lay down where Serrot previously had been. “You should get up; you’re kind of crowding me.” Tallow was getting into a fetal position, muscling Serrot out of the way.
“They are here,” Porter said flatly. There was no need for an explanation of who they were. For as large as the Ogunquit was, the Iron Sides dwarfed her. Nearly one entire half of the front viewport was taken up, and I could not even imagine the distance we were from them.
“What exactly are you trying to pull, Lodilin?” Breeson asked.
“How is it possible that we are listening in on their communications?” Cedar asked.
“This is an espionage ship and for now, if you would remain quiet, I will answer your questions afterward.”
“Your weapons were trained on us, Commander, and you told me that you have broken protocol by disabling safety features designed for this very occurrence. I feared for the safety of my crew. I thought that with a small respite, we may be able to have cooler heads prevail.”
“My head will be much cooler when that which was taken from me is returned. If you even think of powering up your buckle drive, I will consider that an act of hostility and will be forced to fire upon you. I am sending the shuttles to search your ship; are you willing to comply?”
“I do not agree, Commander, and I will file a grievance upon my return. But if it keeps the peace, then do what you must,” Lodilin replied.
“Was that so hard?” It sounded like Breeson was sneering. With some small changes to pitch, I could have imagined it was Haden’s voice, with its arrogant superiority over all others I was hearing.
Porter had to point out the shuttles to us; they were so small in size compared to the behemoth they flew out of.
“Are those fighters escorting them?” Cedar asked, referring to the dozen other small ships surrounding the shuttles.
“It would appear so.” Porter seemed extremely tense. “Commander Breeson is an intelligent individual; he will know that my father only acquiesced to this search because we have somehow escaped.”
“Why bother with the search then?” I a
sked.
“It is a display of power. He is letting the High Councilman know his status before he strikes.”
“Before he strikes?” Lendor asked.
“I fear that Commander Breeson will attack once he knows for sure we are not there.”
“We need to do something,” I entreated.
“All we can do is sit and remain quiet. To do anything else would be an affront to all that those on the Ogunquit have sacrificed.” Porter let his head nod down, his eyes closed as he spoke what appeared to be a prayer, though it was in a language I did not understand.
“Porter, we’re not worth it!” I said, interrupting him.
“Hey!” Cedar interjected.
“I didn’t mean it like that, but I don’t want to trade our lives for all of theirs.”
“Okay, that I get,” Cedar agreed.
Not much was said in our ship as we watched the shuttles dock with the Ogunquit. The fighters buzzed around her like incessant mosquitoes; I almost wished that Lodilin would swat them out of the sky, just on principle. It was long hours later that the shuttles left, the fighters quickly in tow. Serrot’s head was starting to feel better, and Tallow had come up to the front with us; the groaning had subsided.
“Where are they, Lodilin?” Breeson said, the anger clearly evident in his tone.
“As I have told you before, Commander, there is no one on board that is not authorized to be here.”
“Last chance.”
“Their weapons are powered up,” Porter hissed. He was looking at a small display off to his side, then nervously up to the screen.
“We have shared a long, proud history of peace between our races. You would….” That was the end of the transmission as an array of violent blues and blistering reds streaked across the expanse of space and collided with the hull of the Ogunquit. There was a fireball twice the size of the ship as it at first exploded out and then collapsed in on itself. When it was all over, there was hardly any debris at all to let anyone know that the High Councilman’s ship had been there.
I was in a state of shock with what I had witnessed—the loss of so much life. I had barely known Lodilin and those with him, but noble felt like an apt word to describe them. That they had not given a second thought to sacrificing themselves for us was profound.
“Fire on them!” Serrot was so angry he was leaning over Cedar looking for the weapons controls.
Cedar’s hands were hovering near to what I suspected where those very controls.
“Do not, little one.” Porter’s head was down. “I would do so in a moment if I thought that we could inflict enough damage to make it worthwhile.”
“He can’t do that!” Tallow couldn’t comprehend what had happened. He wasn’t the only one. “He’ll have to pay for that, won’t he?”
“Humans control the council. They will attempt to cover this up or diminish the importance, say it was an accident of epic proportions.”
“They can’t do that!” Tallow cried, so upset he was repeating himself.
“Injustices have been happening as long as there has been life,” Porter replied.
“Something is going on.” Cedar was looking at signals on one of her control panels.
“Look at all the shots; they are scatter-shooting,” Serrot said.
Porter sat up, his remorse pushed away for the moment as we faced this new threat.
“It is called an active scan; it is modeled on an old system your navy developed in ages long past…it was called SONAR, and was based on sending out an acoustic signal—a ping. If the signal bounced off an object, they could tell how far away the ship was by the length of time it took the return echo to reach their sensors. In space, however, sound does not travel; that is why they are using high powered lasers.”
“So, they aren’t shooting?” he asked.
“Not in the traditional sense, but LARA, laser ranging, is only used in active war because the ship being targeted can have many of its sensor arrays damaged.”
“Are we going to run?” Cedar looked primed to do her part.
“No, we are going dark. I am going to pull in and shield anything that may be harmed. We will sit here and hope we get lost in the vastness of space.”
“Nothing? We’re going to do nothing?” I asked.
“We are going to live, hopefully,” Porter said as he flipped some switches.
“And if we get pinged?”
“It will be best if we do not.”
I was frustrated that he said no more on the matter. It was intense and exhausting. The Iron Sides was taking her time doing a thorough grid search of all the space around them. Each time the laser array moved on to another location, we were happy it was not on us but worried that it was one step closer to where we were.
“Are they going to get tired of doing this?” Tallow asked
“It has been eight hours; what do you think?” Cedar was moving so much if I didn’t know any better I would swear she’d sat on an ant hill.
“I think they’re going to keep on going until they find us,” Tallow said angrily.
“How long has it been?” A yawning Lendor had returned from taking a nap.
“How can you sleep during a time like this?” Cedar asked.
“Not sure what else I can do. Unless you get me on that ship, then I’ll be happy to attack all that get in my way. Until then, I plan on eating and sleeping.”
Cedar looked back at him, then over to Porter. “Those lasers, will they detect this ship?”
“In theory, no; the ship’s hull will absorb 99.92 percent of the light.”
“The other point zero eight percent?” she asked.
“Will reflect back to the Iron Sides but their sensitivity will only be calibrated to one percent margin of error,” Porter responded.
“Meaning what?” I asked.
Cedar turned to me. “That their ship will hopefully disregard the signal as erroneous. What aren’t you telling us, Porter?”
“It all depends greatly on the technician doing the scan. If he is inattentive, we will be overlooked, but if he is paying attention, he will notice that the lasers that hit us are not continuing to travel further out into space.”
“So we light up as a dark spot,” I said, understanding the implications.
“I’ve been watching how they are conducting their scans; we have about another four hours. There has to be some slip in vigilance,” Serrot stated.
“They are being methodical and slow. They will have the ship’s computer checking everything, and I would think they will have multiple people looking at the findings. Before you say anything,” Porter was looking at me, “I said, in theory we will be safe.”
“I don’t get this. Isn’t there a better chance of surviving if we start flying as fast as we can to get away from them?” Tallow asked.
“The propulsion system would be detected immediately.”
“I learned about inertia while I was training for the shuttle flight. What about a micro-burst to get us moving?”
“To what end?” Porter asked.
“Get us closer to their ship, possibly even underneath it so that we are not in the path of the lasers.”
“We are shielded to a degree, but if we power up the engines and fire them for even less than a millisecond, it will spike on their sensors,” Porter replied.
Cedar was thinking hard, her eyebrows furrowed. Her eyes grew wide. “The airlock.”
Porter’s eyes closed for a moment. He appeared to be thinking on it; I was glad I wasn’t the only one that had a confused look on my face.
“The thrust from the escaping air…” Cedar began.
“It could be enough to push us forward.” Porter was tapping away at a small board with strange figures on it.
“How could escaping air be enough to move us very far?” Tallow asked.
“In space, once something is moving, it will not stop until there is an equal reactionary force…”
“Or we hit something.”
Lendor was pointing at the Iron Sides.
“That is a valid concern.” Porter looked up from his device. “It is difficult to say exactly in which direction we will move, and the next problem does indeed become: how do we stop?”
“Next idea.” Cedar was working through the problem. “They have already scanned the far side of the ship. Won’t we be alright if we just travel on past them and into the cleared zone?”
“Ingenious!” Porter exclaimed. “They will have no reason to sweep the area again. Everyone back to their seats, please, and buckle in!”
We did as we were told. I was nervous, but Tallow looked terrified.
“Win, how long do we have to hold our breath? How long can we?”
“What do you mean?” I asked him.
“Those crazy two up front are going to let all the air out of the ship. I mean, what good does it do if we avoid the Iron Sides only to suffocate in our seats? I don’t want to go out like that.”
“What is Tallow complaining about now?” Cedar yelled from the cockpit.
“He’s worried about not having enough air to breathe,” Serrot said.
“Aren’t you?” Tallow asked him, Serrot shrugged.
“I am now. Hadn’t thought about it before you said something.”
“You hadn’t thought about suffocating? How could you not?” Tallow shot back.
“Both of you relax. There is an airlock where we came in; it is sealed from this main compartment. We are going to open the outer door for a split second—just enough to give us a shove. You’ll hardly even feel it, I think, but there will be no loss of breathable air in here. I promise. I think.”
“Win, I really hate when she adds, ‘I think,’ on to the end of stuff. She makes me fearful, and her confidence loses credibility in my eyes.”
“If she says we’ll be all right, I trust her.”
“That doesn’t work; you have to say you trust her, she’s your sister.” Tallow pulled his straps tight.
“I have decided that space sucks,” Lendor said, completely out of character; he was generally so stoic. “I do not like fighting my enemy, no matter who they are, without being able to peer into their eyes.”
“I don’t know,” Cedar replied. “There’s something to be said for being as far away from Stryvers as possible.”
