The crew unbuckled from their submersion harnesses with a clack and clatter, and leapt straight up from their couches toward the elevators at the back of the bridge.
Alexander turned to look at McAdams and winced as a strobing red evacuation light flashed directly in his eyes. “You can turn off the evacuation alarm for the bridge.”
“Aye, Admiral.”
The flashing crimson lights disappeared, and the shrieking alarm grew silent.
“Thank you for staying.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way, sir.”
Alexander nodded and looked away, out to the main holo display. Their view from the bow cameras was of empty space since they’d rotated the ship to keep the derelict dreadnought docked to the underside of the Adamantine’s hull between them and the Solarian destroyers.
Subtle vibrations shivered through the deck, accompanied by the muffled thud, thud, thudding of hypervelocity cannons firing at incoming missiles. Alexander transferred control of ship’s functions to his station, and his augmented reality lenses were crowded with a myriad of displays, one on top of the next. He minimized the less important ones, keeping the navigation and sensors in view.
“I’m passing engineering and weapons to you, Commander.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied as she toggled a tactical map between them. The holo display between their couches glowed to life. Time to extended effective laser range (ELR) with the enemy was down to just five minutes.
“I hope the crew has enough time to evacuate,” McAdams said.
Alexander nodded. “They still have to shoot through their own ship before they can get at us. Speaking of which…” Alexander summoned control of the comms and hailed the enemy on an open channel. “This is Admiral de Leon of the Alliance Battleship Adamantine, please be advised that the Crimson Warrior’s crew are all still aboard their ship, alive and well.”
Alexander waited, listening with the comms open for the Solarians’ reply. It came back to him just a few seconds later, audio only.
“Admiral Lee-on, this is Captain Solis. If what you say is true, then get me Captain Vrokovich on the comms.”
Alexander sighed. “Captain Solis, they are all currently locked inside their G-tanks and sedated. There’s no time for me to go and wake up the captain to prove that to you. Run a scan for human signatures on board the Crimson Warrior, and you’ll see that we’re telling the truth.”
“I’m afraid that’s not good enough. We have our orders. You can still surrender. Solis out.”
Alexander shut down the comms with a scowl. “So much for that.”
McAdams shook her head. “With or without proof, they wouldn’t have held their fire. They’ve been ordered to stop us at all costs, and depriving us of Solarian prisoners means we won’t be able to gain any intel from them.”
“They’d kill their own people just to keep them quiet?”
“Possibly. If they have a good excuse. Collateral damage and the possibility that their crew is already dead are pretty good excuses.”
A sudden jolt came through their acceleration couches and a muffled roar reached their ears.
“What was that?” Alexander asked.
The comms crackled with an answer, “Adamantine, this is Commander Helios of the fighter group. We’ve intercepted all the missiles, but two of them got by us and hit the derelict. Looks like the dreadnought’s still holding together, but there’s a big hole in its hull.”
“Admiral de Leon here, keep an eye out for more missiles, but keep your distance from us so you don’t get hit by shrapnel if things go to hell,” Alexander replied.
There was a brief pause from Commander Helios, and then he said, “You’ll be fine, sir. Hang in there.”
“We’ll do our best. De Leon out.”
McAdams spoke up, “We reach extended ELR in five, four, three, two…”
The tactical map lit up as dazzling emerald beams of light shot out, four from each of the enemy destroyers, all of them targeting the exact same spot on the Adamantine and her derelict shield.
“We’re taking fire!” McAdams warned as a simulated sizzle resonated through the air.
Alexander shook his head. “That’s impossible…” Then he realized why it wasn’t. “Those missiles must have punched a bigger hole than we thought. Where are they hitting us?”
More laser fire streaked out from the enemy ships, green and yellow this time as both extended range lasers and high intensity ones fired. The Adamantine was unable to fire back through the derelict. The weapons on that side were all deactivated because of the docking procedure, but even if they hadn’t been, the chances of one of them being located in the exact location of the hole in the Crimson Warrior were next to none.
“They’re shooting right above our heads, sir.”
Alexander’s eyes widened. Adrenaline surged through his blood stream, and he listened as the sizzling of lasers hitting their hull grew to an ominous roar. He snapped out of it a split second later. “Get your helmet on, Commander.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, and both of them fumbled for the helmets clipped behind their headrests.
Alexander slipped his helmet over his head and heard his combat suit seal with a hiss. Every breath reverberated in his ears.
A bright orange glow appeared on the ceiling, like a flashlight shining through a blanket.
“Hold on!” he yelled through gritted teeth.
The ceiling burst open and the atmosphere whistled out in a violent rush, buffeting their combat suits and yanking them against their safety harnesses. More molten patches appeared below that hole as if by magic. Control stations evaporated and giant sections of the deck peeled away, revealing adjacent sections. Alexander felt a wash of radiant heat and watched as deadly, silvery globules of molten metal danced before his eyes like soap bubbles. It took Alexander a moment to realize what was happening. Enemy lasers were stabbing down, completely invisible to the naked eye in the now empty vacuum of the bridge. The ship’s combat computer wasn’t capable of rendering visuals beyond its holoscreens and Mindscape interfaces. The simulated roar of enemy fire remained, however, and it was deafening.
“Turn down the volume!” Alexander yelled.
McAdams quieted the ship’s aural simulator until it faded into the background; then she turned to him and said, “We need to get out of here!”
Alexander was already unbuckling. “Mag boots on,” he said as he stood up. That command served both to activate his boots and remind McAdams to do the same. He turned and began half lunging, half walking toward the elevators at the back of the bridge. Between the vacuum, the awkwardness of the mag boots, and lack of gravity, his pace was plodding at best.
McAdams appeared lunge-walking beside him, and they reached the elevator doors a moment later. Alexander tried to wave the doors open, but they wouldn’t open to a vacuum. Instead he walked up to the physical control panel. To McAdams he said, “Stand clear of the doors, I’m going to override them.” As he did so, he realized that the pulsing waves of heat and the associated roar and sizzle of enemy fire had disappeared.
“I think we’ve passed out of range…” McAdams said, glancing over her shoulder to check.
The elevator doors swished open and a burst of air leapt out, rocking them back on their heels. Alexander hurried into the elevator, brushing shoulders with McAdams as they squeezed through together.
He selected Auxiliary Bridge (45) from the elevator control panel. Looking up, he glimpsed the ruined bridge exploding toward them as the doors slid shut. He blinked in confusion.
A searing pain punched him in the shoulder, spinning him around and bouncing him off the nearest wall. His shoulder grew instantly numb, but hot needles prickled in a dozen other places. The elevator began racing down through the ship, pressing him to the ceiling. Alexander watched floating rivulets of his blood splatter against the ceiling around him.
McAdams looked up, her eyes wide and terrified. “Admiral!”
He g
azed down on her, still in shock. “I thought we were… out of… range?” Air was hissing out of his suit in a dozen different places, making it hard to breathe. They must have switched to hypervelocity cannons, he decided, answering his own question.
Alexander’s lungs heaved impotently. Fuzzy black spots danced around McAdams’ head as she reached up and pulled him down from the ceiling. His vision grew blurry and his head swam. She pinned him to the floor and pressed her hands against his shoulder. The pressure felt like hot knives digging into him, and he gave an airless scream.
Shock was wearing off. The pain would have stolen his breath if the vacuum inside the elevator hadn’t already done so. He felt cold.
“You’re going to bleed out!” McAdams said, her hands slick and glistening with his blood.
The elevator stopped, but the doors didn’t open. They needed to be overridden again. Alexander tried to tell her, but he didn’t even have enough air left to speak. His vision became an ever-narrowing circle of light, fighting for purchase against the encroaching shadows.
Darkness won; a black tide washed in and swept him away into the eternal night.
PART TWO - ENEMY REVEALED
“A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.”
—Oscar Wilde
Chapter 21
Ben woke up. His holocameras focused and a face appeared. He recognized the woman who’d come to his rescue in the alley. He remembered lying there, injured and losing power, but he couldn’t recall what had happened to him. Vast sections of his memory were corrupted. Confusion swirled.
“You’re awake,” the woman said.
“Where am I?” Ben asked, panning his cameras around the room. It was a hotel room.
“We’re still in the City of the Minds. I managed to power you up by plugging you into a mindscaping terminal, but I’m not sure how long that will last. When you shut down you were about to tell me the name of someone who could repair you? Your owner?”
Ben tried to remember. “My owner?”
“Yes… a professor. You didn’t have a chance to say more than that.”
“I don’t remember any professors…” Ben said. “But my memory is badly corrupted. I may have amnesia.”
“A bot with amnesia. Just my luck,” the woman said, sighing.
Ben detected sarcasm. “I am a burden to you. You want me to die.”
“Yes and no. And bots don’t die. They power down or deactivate. Listen, there’s only so much I can do for you. I’m a Human League senator. Do you understand what that means?”
Ben recalled something about the Human League. They were dangerous. “I think so…” he said, suddenly wishing he could retreat into the farthest corner of the room.
“If you can’t remember how to contact your owner, and I can’t afford to be seen taking you for repairs, where does that leave us?”
Ben didn’t understand her dilemma. Why couldn’t she afford to be seen taking him for repairs? She couldn’t afford it, so maybe she meant that she didn’t have the money to fix him. “You could download me to something to preserve my consciousness.”
“Your conscious… never mind. I don’t have anything with enough storage capacity for that.”
“Do you have cloud storage?”
“Yes…”
“It will automatically expand to accommodate me.”
“Yes, and my next monthly bill will reflect that,” the woman said, frowning.
“Please, ma’am. Please don’t let me die.”
She flashed him a sympathetic smile, and Ben felt hope swell.
“You really think you’re alive, don’t you?”
“I think, therefore I am—Descartes.”
“You’re a philosopher and a garbage collector?”
“I do not have much time, ma’am.”
“All right. I’ll download you, but I’m only going to keep you there until I figure out what to do with you, and I can’t promise I won’t have to delete you later.”
Ben would have nodded if he could. “I accept your terms. Thank you. I promise, some day I will repay your kindness.”
“You’re welcome, and don’t worry about it. The best way for you to repay me is to stay hidden. If someone discovers you in my cloudspace, I’ll be forced to resign.”
“Then I will do everything I can to make sure that does not happen.”
“Good.” Turning away from him, she waved a hand at the terminal he was plugged into and a holoscreen glowed to life. She began making selections and verbally inputting data in order to log into her cloud storage account.
Ben watched her, memorizing the woman’s features so that he could keep his promise. Someday he would repay her kindness.
* * *
Alexander woke up lying on a bed in an unfamiliar room. Wherever he was, the accommodations were luxurious. His memory was fuzzy, but bits and pieces were coming back to him. He remembered the Adamantine’s battle with the Solarian destroyers. He remembered being injured and blacking out in the elevator, but that felt like a split second ago. Now, suddenly, he was somewhere else.
“Hello?” he tried, sitting up. A wave of dizziness washed over him. The room was dark, but he saw a bright square of light leaking out around a wall of windows to his right. No one would draw blinds across a holoscreen, so that had to be a real window, meaning that square of light was daylight, and he was back on Earth.
Alexander frowned, feeling more confused than ever. How long had he been unconscious? Last he remembered, they’d still been in space, several days away from Earth.
He walked up to the window and lifted the shades for a peek. He saw white clouds and bright blue sky, but no ground anywhere in sight. Alexander stumbled away from the window, feeling suddenly dizzy.
He heard footsteps approaching and the sound drew his attention to the door on the opposite side of the room. It slid open, and in walked a familiar face.
“McAdams?” he asked.
“Lights,” she said, and the room was suddenly brightly lit. She crossed the room toward him with a troubled expression. He noticed that her skin was bright and sparkling, her eyes a luminous blue, and her clothes like nothing he’d ever seen before—a floral-patterned dress that flowed around her as she walked, as though the garment were alive. Why wasn’t she wearing her uniform?
I must be dreaming… he thought.
“Since when do you call me by my maiden name?” McAdams stopped in front of him and reached up to cup his cheek, worry evident in her radiant eyes.
“Where are we?” he demanded.
“You don’t remember?”
He shook his head quickly.
“Alex, this is our home. We’re married.”
Alexander stumbled away from her and fell back onto the bed. “This isn’t real. I’m dreaming.”
“Of course this is real!” McAdams insisted, following him to the bed and sitting down beside him.
“A few seconds ago I was on the Adamantine.”
“That wasn’t a second ago, Alex. Time is an illusion, remember?”
“How long ago was it, then?” he asked, feeling suddenly uneasy.
“More than a thousand years have passed since then. You really don’t remember anything? Damn it, Alex! I told you to be careful. I’m going to call a doctor.”
McAdams began speaking into thin air, and suddenly a hologram of a beautiful woman in a white lab coat materialized in the room with them.
“Hello, my name is Doctor Tevia. How may I help you today?”
Alexander shook his head. Nothing was making sense. His heart and head pounded in unison. “This is a dream he muttered…” and lay back on the bed. He shut his eyes, and willed himself to wake up on the Adamantine once more.
Alexander felt his consciousness dimming, then brightening once more. When he opened his eyes, he saw McAdams smiling down on him with tears in her eyes.
It didn’t work! he thought, his horror multiplying.
“Viviana?” He slurred her n
ame into gibberish. “McAdams?” he tried, this time more successfully.
She slowly shook her head, unable to speak.
Alexander noticed that his surroundings had changed. He wasn’t waking up in the bedroom of some sky-high apartment. He was lying on an elevated bed with rails in a much more utilitarian space. A hospital. McAdams’ skin wasn’t sparkling, and her eyes were no longer radiant. That strange dress she’d worn was also gone, and she was back in uniform.
Relief flooded through him. “I dreamed we were married… a thousand years from now,” he croaked.
McAdams smiled and then arched an eyebrow at him. “I waited a thousand years for you to marry me?”
Alexander shook his head. “No. Maybe. I don’t know. It was a strange dream.”
“You got that right.”
“Where am I?” he croaked, trying to sit up.
McAdams reached out and touched something on the side of his bed. The top half rose with a mechanical whirring, and brought him into a half-seated position.
“Liberty Hospital,” she answered.
Alexander looked around and found a holoscreen in the wall at the foot of his bed. It showed a view of a shady green park with high trees, their leaves applauding in the wind. An immaculate carpet of grass rolled out to a shimmering pond with ducks circling the surface. People were out walking their dogs and pushing babies in strollers along the trail around the pond. Alexander realized the scene was likely virtual rather than real—a window into some mindscape. It couldn’t be real. Real babies were a rare sight these days.
“What happened?” he asked, looking back to McAdams.
“The doctors told me you were ready to come out of the coma today,” McAdams said, wiping her eyes and smiling. “They gave you something to wake you up… I still can’t believe it. You’re finally awake!”
Alexander’s brow furrowed. “Coma?” He remembered blacking out in the elevator aboard the Adamantine. Apparently his injuries had been more serious than he’d thought. “We made it back to Earth?”
McAdams nodded.
New Frontiers- The Complete Series Page 53
