A Spacetime Tale

by J. Benjamin

  Matt had also suited up. They were in one of twelve dressing areas lining the fighter bay.

  “Let’s move,” Matt said. The two gammanauts entered a metal door with a tight seal. On the other side was a narrow passageway with mist showers lining the walls. It was a quick decontaminant before they entered the bridge to the fighter bay. They stepped into the showers. The HUD on Kiara’s helmet display alerted her that her vitals were being checked. Twenty seconds later a green light confirmed that their suits were decontaminated and completely sealed. The metal door on the other side of the passage slowly opened, and the rush of air confirmed that they were now about to enter the exposed Sagan fighter bay.

  Kiara’s HUD informed her that she was relying on the suit’s oxygen supply. A cold rush of air flowed over her.

  “Kiara. Can you hear me?” Matt’s voice emanated through the speakers in her helmet.

  “I can hear you loud and clear,” she confirmed.

  “Good. I need a minute to validate my access codes and get one of those Lancers down from the garage,” he replied while accessing the fighter bay’s terminal from his smart lens.

  The crescent-shaped fighter bay took up one-half of the space from the four decks it inhabited. The other half consisted of decontamination chambers and spacesuit dressing rooms similar to what they just experienced. Four massive robotic arms filled the bay. Each was capable of magnetically latching a Lancer or other fighter craft from its garage space and attaching it onto one of the four launching platforms within the bay.

  As Matt attempted to access the terminal, something caught Kiara’s attention.

  “Matt, look,” she pointed. Beyond the fighter bay, the massive spaceplane known as the Nebula loomed large in the distance. A much smaller pod had disembarked from it and was slowly making its way to the Sagan.

  Then, as they were looking at the Sagan, something else caught Matt’s attention. Further out into the fighter bay stood a third person, also suited up. Matt stopped what he was doing and switched his comms from Kiara to the entire fighter bay area.

  “Who are you? Identify yourself,” Matt said to the figure whose face hid under a spacesuit. The individual turned around, and both Matt and Kiara recognized him.

  “Leon!” Kiara said.

  “Hello there,” he replied. “Surprise.”

  Matt marched up to Leon and grabbed the front of Leon’s suit with his left cuff. Kiara followed closely next to him.

  “Why did you try to have us killed?” Matt demanded.

  “I did no such thing,” Leon replied.

  “Bullshit,” Kiara interjected. “We know about your heart attack. We know what really set it off. It wasn’t either of us. You were the only one who could have done that.”

  “It wasn’t to kill you guys. Trust me,” Leon said. “I was saving you! You have to believe me.”

  “Start from the beginning,” Matt said. “Tell us what your real objective was on this mission, who you were working with, and why you sabotaged the spacetime sequence.”

  “I was brought on this mission for the same reasons you were. To offer my expertise as a scientist and researcher,” Leon said.

  “Oh yeah?” Kiara asked. “Is that why you disappeared all the time?”

  “Including the very night we were briefed about the mission,” Matt said. “You weren’t off to see your husband. Who were you feeding top secret intelligence to?”

  “I wasn’t feeding intelligence to anyone. I was receiving it.”

  “Pardon?” Kiara queried.

  “Who was feeding you intel?” Matt asked.

  “Secretary Adler,” Leon replied.

  “Secretary Adler?”

  “Before his death, he reached out to me for a top secret mission. After the attack on Calgary and the raid on Dubai, Secretary Adler was convinced that Terra Rebirth wasn’t acting alone. He had become increasingly suspicious that bad actors and dark forces both inside and outside the GSF were collaborating together to bring down our current government. It was not the type of mission one could assign to someone in the Intelligence community, as Secretary Adler believed that they too were compromised.”

  “So, he chose you? The chief exobiologist?” Matt asked. “No offense, but covert spy games aren’t your jam.”

  “Exactly! Nobody would see me coming,” Leon said. “And I have enough access to view top secret information. Secretary Adler enlisted me to keep tabs on persons of interest within the organization so that we could identify and root out potential moles.”

  “And how do we know that we are not being fed the world’s most fantastic alibi?” Matt asked.

  “Because I have proof!” Leon said. “I created an encrypted database only known to myself. You can access it right now and see the files. They include the communications with Thomas Adler, proof of my innocence, and evidence implicating the real criminals behind today’s events. Go ahead. The address is 583.284.323.1. Login is alphaexplorer594. One word. All lowercase. Password is Kingdom, capitalized, followed by the numbers 8473. Go ahead.”

  “Kiara, can you look that up?” Matt asked.

  “Already on it,” she replied. Matt continued holding Leon in a falcon grip, refusing to let him shake loose. Several seconds passed. “Okay. I see three folders.”

  “Click on the one labeled extremophiles. Then click on the folder Enceladus. Look for a holo file called ‘queen proti,’” Leon explained.

  “Done,” Kiara said. “Matt, I just shared the file with you. You see this?”

  “I see it.”

  Inside their helmets appeared a bright orange hologram of a round object. The object next to it was a schematic of what was clearly the Sagan.

  “This is the Sagan, and what I think is the wormhole ring,” Kiara said.

  “Correct,” Leon replied. “Take a look at the readings on the beam cannons. Take a closer look at cannon number five.”

  “This is odd,” Kiara said.

  “What is it?” Matt asked.

  “Cannon number five is outputting fifty percent more energy than the other cannons,” Kiara replied.

  “Exactly, and what do you think would happen if that cannon had continued firing for ten or twenty more minutes?”

  “It would… oh my god,” Kiara said. “It would have blown out. The wormhole would collapse. We would all be—”

  “Dead,” Matt said. “The sequence would have collapsed. Except by the time the laser malfunctioned, we would all be on the other side of the bridge, and we would be killed instantly.”

  “Just ten minutes before the spacetime sequence, somebody onboard the Sagan sabotaged the energy output that was to enter the wormhole. By the time we were dead, it would have looked like an accident.”

  “How did you get this information just ten minutes before the sequence? When we were all suiting up?” Matt asked.

  “Adler and I both agreed that if the sequence were sabotaged, it would happen at the beam cannons. So, he deployed a second mole to discreetly monitor them. I still have no idea who it is because it was double-blind.”

  “Whoever it is, they saved our lives,” Matt said.

  “But who sabotaged the sequence?” Kiara asked.

  27

  Deck #40

  “Captain Starling, do you copy?”

  “I copy,” Cade replied. “Sagan Defense Unit Alpha, what is your status?”

  “The repair vessel is ready. Everything is in place. On your command, we will move in. It will take at least a minute for the operation to commence once the order has been given,” Alpha Unit replied.

  “Do it,” Cade ordered.

  “Affirmative, preparing to move in,” Alpha replied.

  “Good. As soon as it is done, you give me the alert. I need to inform SPG to arrest Manuel Carter as soon as his ship has been dealt with.” Cade stood up from his desk and slowly walked back down the hallway. He slowly approached the secretary-general’s main office in the executive suite.

  At the bottom of the s
tation, a seldom-used repair ship powered-up its ion engines. The nimble, cylindrical craft had an elongated shape not dissimilar to a flashlight. It was fully-powered and awaiting orders. It quickly freed itself from the truss that it latched onto.

  TripleSRepairBot#15: Undocking… Receiving new orders.

  With a nudge from its anterior side-thruster and a quick burn in its main engine, the repair craft made its approach for the uninvited vessel that remained docked in Sagan Berth Zeta 3. A few trusses got in its path, but the small repair craft navigated with ease. As the repair bot approached the skyscraper-turned vessel, it slowed its approach just slightly. The flat tip of the repair ship opened like a box. A super-magnetic circular pad ascended from inside. It would allow the repair craft to directly dock to whatever spaceship needed its assistance, including a highly-magnetic graphene surface such as that of the Gaia.

  TripleSRepairBot#15: Impact in 15 seconds…

  Several miles away, the crew of the Nebula received their communications from Sagan Defense Unit Alpha. The commander of the Nebula gave the order. The main beam cannon at the bow of the spaceplane started to heat up. Its target was locked-on.

  TripleSRepairBot#15: Impact in 10… 9… 8…

  Cade Starling stood outside the main door to the executive suite on Deck #40. He crossed his fingers and said a silent prayer. Then, he unlatched his badge, opened the door, and stepped inside.

  TripleSRepairBot#15: 5… 4… 3…

  “Leon,” Matt demanded. “Who was working with Carter—” Before Matt could continue, he and the other gammanauts were knocked off their feet.

  The Nebula’s primary weapon, a powerful laser, was suddenly visible to all, tearing through the cold, dead, void of space. The menacing concentration of energy tore through the long truss of Zeta 3 and completely severed it from Space Station Sagan. The Gaia was, for a split-second, a free-floating vessel unlatched to anything.

  Then the repair bot made its impact against the diamond-shaped tip of the former Diamondhead Resort. TripleSRepairBot#15 activated its afterburners and pushed the renegade vessel away from the Sagan.

  Within seconds, the Gaia was successfully brought to a safe distance. On Deck #32, the Sagan Defense Center, Alpha Unit commanded all weaponry on and off the ship to lock on to the Gaia and fire at will. Before he could even finish his sentence, beam weapons, missiles, and gunfire shot from the various batteries and turrets aboard Space Station Sagan. They carved through the Gaia with ease. It was successfully obliterated from existence.

  Leon stood up and felt somewhat dumbfounded. He had no idea why the Nebula just fired a weapon in the direction of the Sagan. Kiara and Matt knew why. Both remained undeterred from their original line of questioning.

  “Leon,” Matt said. “Who is the double-agent?”

  “Okay. I’ll tell you,” Leon replied. “I had my doubts at first, but then it all made sense. Who was the one person besides the secretary-general and defense secretary who had access to every detail of our mission? Who had the most to gain in a period of heightened chaos and confusion? Who had the most access to intelligence so they could not only finance the world’s most wanted terrorists but help them evade capture? I’ll tell you who. It was the only person bold enough to pull off the greatest coup of all time and come out of it looking like a hero. The only person on the Sagan who had direct access to the spacetime football.”

  ***

  In the foyer of the executive suite, a lifeless SPG agent slouched onto a chair. Blood poured from the rapid-fire laser shot wounds in his chest. A few feet away, several more SPG agents laid dead on the ground. The door to the executive suite was busted open, but nobody was inside, at least nobody alive. Several more bodies of SPG agents lay about the room.

  “Captain Starling, come in,” Alpha Unit said. He had to raise his voice because there was a lot of cheering and celebrating on Deck #32. “The target is neutralized. I repeat the target is neutralized.” He waited for a reply. “Captain Starling?”

  There was never going to be a response. Captain Starling’s smart lens melted from the laser blast that ripped through his eye and out of the back of his skull. His body collapsed by the entry to the suite.

  The assassins escaped. They had taken the elevator and traversed several decks down.

  “That was a bold move,” Manuel said to his accomplice.

  “It had to be done,” Isla replied. “We needed to make it look like you killed all my Special Protection agents and took me as a hostage. It’s unfortunate that Starling walked in on us, but totally predictable. He’ll be portrayed as a hero for trying to save me.”

  “I did kill your agents,” Manuel replied.

  “I know that, but we have to make it look like you stole the rapid-laser from the exec suite and acted alone,” Isla explained.

  “Gotcha.”

  They were already suited up in military-grade spacesuits. The rapid-fire laser mounted to Manuel’s left arm had smoke pouring out the barrel. It was still deathly hot.

  “So, what’s our next move from here?” Manuel asked.

  “First, you answer this,” Isla said. “Are you positive there were no remaining Terra Rebirth affiliates beyond the people we just killed on your ship?”

  “Affirmative,” Manuel replied. “Everyone I was working with came to Miami and boarded the Gaia. Brilliant engineers, but feed them some quasi-religious, radical mumbo jumbo, and they’ll bend to your every will. You did me a huge favor. Now I don’t have to worry about them pushing for a plea deal by ratting me out.”

  “You can thank Sagan Defense Unit. The way this whole operation was timed, your crew never stood a chance. As for what comes next, it’s simple. We fake your death. You realized that the jig is up and use me as a human shield until you’re off the Sagan. I have false footage showing your craft exploding after takeoff. Intelligence will attribute it to a daemonide accident.”

  “Even though I never actually had daemonide in my system?” Manuel said.

  “Correct,” Isla replied.

  “So, I take my thirty million credits, fuck off, and never show my real face ever again?” Manuel asked.

  “Correct again. As of today, Terra Rebirth is officially dead. You are dead. At least on record. You take your money, a new identity, and never bother the GSF again.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” Manuel replied. “Tell me, Madam Secretary-General. You went to great lengths to organize this whole charade. You formed an alliance with a known terrorist with stolen government money. You killed a whole lot of people. Was it worth it?”

  “Katelyn Lew went off the deep end when she started these spacetime sequences,” Isla said. “I really don’t think she had any fucking clue how dangerous this technology is. Of course, a useful idiot like Katelyn Lew served as a perfect puppet for the egotistical maniac known as Thomas Adler. His grand visions of spacetime and quantum science had to be stopped.”

  “That bad, eh?” Manuel asked.

  “Has anybody actually taken a serious look at the Kennedy Reports? These creatures in Wolf 482 should have every living human terrified. We are playing God with this technology. Not anymore. I am going to put an immediate stop to this program.” Isla said. “I could get used to this secretary-general position.”

  “No offense, but I wouldn’t trade places with you if you held a gun to my head.”

  “Fair enough,” Isla replied. “By the way, how did you convert an entire skyscraper into a rocket?”

  “We didn’t. We build the rocket in its gutted interior and simply used the graphene exterior as a shield to bind to it.”

  “Sounds complicated. I wouldn’t want your job, either.”

  The elevator door opened to Deck #60.

  ***

  The GSF Lancer Mark IV was the pinnacle of engineering perfection. Twin ion engines stacked atop the fighter’s v-shaped hull. Its wings came equipped with four more thrusters, two retrogrades in front, and two progrades in the back. The craft was designed to move fast
and evade any enemy with ease. At the bow of the fighter plane was the cockpit, able to carry two individuals. Below the cockpit sat a rapid-fire laser, capable of targeting the wings on a fly’s back.

  “Leon, you take the first one,” Matt said.

  “I appreciate it, but you have a civilian with you,” Leon said.

  “Excuse me,” Kiara interjected. “I may be a civilian, but I am no cupcake. I can handle myself.”

  “Again, this isn’t an issue as to how tough or physically fit you may be. You are a civilian. I am Cabinet. Well… was Cabinet. You are the priority. Let Captain Ashford take you back to Earth,” Leon explained to Kiara. She shook her head but nevertheless was thankful that he was letting her off the Sagan first.

  “Thanks, Leon. See you back on Earth,” Kiara said.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” Matt said to Leon. “But I really appreciate it. Also, sorry for roughing you up earlier.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Leon replied. “Just get back to Earth ASAP. We need to get the truth out.”

  Matt raised his right hand to his head and saluted Leon. He returned the favor.

  “Stars speed, Captain Ashford. Stars speed.”

  Matt and Kiara turned toward the Lancer. Neither had walked two steps when they saw the flash of light between them. The sound of a loud thud filled the speakers of their suits. Kiara stammered back in shock, almost falling. She looked to an equally-shocked Matt as the third gammanaut laid face-first on the ground. There was no sign of movement.

  “Leon! Leon!” Kiara shouted. She ran to his body and jumped to the floor. She grabbed his shoulders and shook him, but to no avail. A gaping hole pierced through the back of his spacesuit and through his internal organs. It went clean through the other side, cauterizing the fresh wound.

  Kiara felt a flood of adrenaline rush through her and was overcome with shock at the realization that her friend and colleague was dead. She got up and turned to see the culprits. Secretary-General Perez stood with a forearm-mounted, rapid-fire laser weapon trained on them, with Manuel Carter standing at her side.