They appeared to be heading toward empty space, with the main belt of the system slowly migrating to the top of the screen; however, they appeared to be thrown askew at some random, unnatural angle, as if no one was at the wheel. It was disconcerting, and until he realized it, Peter thought things may have been going somewhat according to someone’s careful plan. The stark images outside the ship—of apparent motion with no one in control—hypnotized Peter and gave him an immediate sense of uneasiness. Had he not known better, Peter felt he could simply step from the bridge and into the cold vacuum of Vega space. For all the world it looked as though the ship was severed in two and tilting down in an attempt to empty its load of unwanted cargo. Soon—as the pitching deck approached vertical, at least in relation to the asteroid field he watched disappearing overhead—it appeared they would all tumble off the falling ship and into that gaping hole that was too real to be a view screen. Peter was frozen in place, afraid to move. He was torn between fleeing and holding on for dear life. Move, you idiot! Peter ineffectively commanded his body.
Ali brushed past Peter’s shoulder as he joined him on the bridge. Peter wanted to reach out to stop his friend from falling off the ship, but could not force his arms to move. He felt sad, thinking he would soon lose his dear friend to empty space.
“Peter. Peter,” Henrietta called from behind, as if from a tunnel. “Peter, what’s wrong?”
Her voice echoed in his mind. He felt her soft hand on his shoulder. Peter’s lock on the view screen broke and he shook his head, trying to break the spell. What? Where is Lieutenant Wilkins? Peter wondered.
Henrietta, and then Stiles, broke through the door and entered the bridge pushing Peter aside. “Either do something, or get out of the way,” Stiles warned in annoyance.
Peter slowly turned his head to look Stiles in the face. He tried to reply, but found his jaw locked shut. Peter felt entirely worthless, immobilized by fear and uncertainty. What’s wrong with me? Peter wondered.
“You’re a worthless turd,” Stiles said. He smirked and continued further onto the bridge.
Henrietta gently took Peter’s hand and gave it a tug. “Peter, snap out of it. We need your help.”
Peter finally snapped back to life, “Where’s Lieutenant Wilkins?” he finally asked. Peter looked around the bridge for the adult. Without him, they would be in serious trouble. Maybe he went down to engineering.
“Over here,” Ali replied. Ali was kneeling down just barely in sight, near the navigation station, with a projected star map partially obscuring him. “I think he’s dead.”
Dead? Peter thought. That can’t be. “How—”
“I dunno,” Ali answered, “but by the looks of this console, I think he was electrocuted.”
“Electrocuted?” Stiles asked. “How?”
Ali stood up. “His hand is burnt, and the expression on his face … it musta been painful. And, this navigation panel is fried. I think he was turning the keys when the ship’s systems overloaded. That shot from the Wasatti must have penetrated into the electronics conduits feeding into his station and discharged here.”
Peter, drawn back to reality, rushed to the lieutenant. He checked for a pulse along his neck, but found none; but then again, Peter was not exactly sure where to probe anyway. He turned the man onto his back and felt for his heart. It, too, appeared to be silent. Peter began pushing on his chest, as he had seen adults do in those action vids he often watched.
Henrietta knelt next to him, trying to help. She expertly placed her index and middle fingers at the crook of his neck, as if she had done this a thousand times before. “It’s not doing any good, Peter. He’s gone.”
Peter continued pressing his palms against the older man’s chest, throwing Henrietta’s hand aside. He kept up his futile efforts until he was exhausted.
“Peter. Peter,” Henrietta pleaded. “Stop.” She gently placed her hand on his shoulder.
Peter stopped, and looked up at her. What are we going to do? Peter wondered. It’s only us on the ship now.
“We still have a battle going on out there,” Ali reminded them. “We need to do something.”
Five kids on a battleship—in the middle of a battle. Five kids and a ship, Peter realized.
“Ship!” Peter called out. He hoped the ship could help, but there was no response. “Ship, answer me,” Peter persisted. The ship remained silent. “Ali, can you get any of those communication monitors to work?”
“I’m already on it.”
Peter saw Ali frantically fidgeting with some unidentified control panel. Nothing he did seemed to work.
“Come on,” Stiles taunted, “you know so much about this ship. Prove it.”
Static suddenly filled the bridge, as if in answer to Stiles’ remarks. Captain Campbell’s voice filled the room a short time later.
“Ruben! Rube, come in.”
Peter ran to the com station, “Dad, its Peter.” He saw his father materialize on the screen. He wished he was over there with his dad, or that his dad was here, with him.
“Peter! Where’s the lieutenant?”
“Dad, he’s dead.”
“What?”
Peter flinched. “Ali thinks he was electrocuted. Maybe when we were hit. We tried to revive him, but it did no good. Dad, what do we do?”
“UCSA Perry, come in,” Stephen commanded. “USCA Perry, this is Captain Campbell of the Sirius’ Revenge. Emergency Override: Delta-One!”
The kids waited impatiently for the ship to respond. Captain Campbell was tied to the ship by his DNA and if anyone could make the ship work, it was him. Ruben told them the captain was as much a father to the ship as anything else.
Peter closed his eyes, hoping the ship would wake up, but the silence was deafening. It hadn’t worked.
“The ship isn’t answering, Dad. I’ve tried to call out to him, but there’s no response. The only thing we’ve been able to do is get the screens operational, and if it wasn’t for Ali ….”
“What’s ship’s status?” Stephen asked.
“I don’t know—” Peter slowly responded in confusion, but was interrupted by Ali.
“—Sir, I cannot find anything wrong with any of the systems. We are showing multiple external warnings, but all internal indicators are solid green. He should be working just fine, but he’s not replying. It’s like we aren’t even here. The ship screamed when he was hit before. Maybe he’s frightened, and in shock.”
* * *
Stephen squirmed in his chair. He just watched the base he was sworn to protect dissolve before his eyes. There appeared to be no survivors from the destruction, although the Perry miraculously made it out of range of the spreading sphere of antimatter in the nick of time. He was in the middle of a battle for the future of humanity, outnumbered two-to-one, and he now received word that the most important ship in their fleet had no officer on board—or any other real crew for that matter. Now the kids think the ship they are on is scared.
“That’s ridiculous,” Stephen replied, trying to calm the kids down. “The ship wouldn’t do that. It’s not in his programming, Ali.”
“Sir,” Stephen’s tactical officer broke in on the communication with the Perry. “Five enemy ships are firmly in pursuit of the Perry: three cruisers, one destroyer, and a frigate. All five ships are dumping velocity like crazy, and beginning to maneuver around.”
“They’re not completing a strategic sweep of the system?” Stephen asked perplexed.
“No, Sir,” Tac replied. “We think they may be working out a specific intercept with the Perry. They will be matching velocity and vector with it soon. Other than their remaining cruiser in pursuit of the Algol, all the rest of their force is concentrating solely on the Perry. They are ignoring us completely, as if we didn’t matter.”
The Wasatti warships entered the Vega system at over half the speed of light. At those velocities it was difficult to maneuver, but they just did that to slow down and match, maneuver-for-maneuver, with the pr
ototype ship. They must realize how important that ship is, and want a closer look. That’s not good at all, Stephen realized.
“Can we still intercept them?” Stephen asked.
“Unlikely; at least not initially,” Tac replied. “Our original vector gave us a probable intercept, but with our acceleration and their radical course change, it will be some time before we can come about.” She ran some quick figures on her screen to confirm her analysis. “We will definitely overshoot them. We have maybe an hour, at best, before we can reestablish beam range again. A lot depends on what else they do between now and then. By the time we come about, they may be long gone.”
A lot could happen in sixty minutes of an accelerated space battle, Stephen thought. “What about the Capella? What can she do?”
“She is further back, Captain, so she can respond more readily. She definitely has more reaction time. My calculations show the Capella can intercept in 3.2 minutes, assuming she observes what’s going on accurately and reacts quickly on her own initiative.”
“O’Brien will do it,” Stephen replied confidently. “If she can’t, no one else can. Do what you need to get us back into range, Deidre. Once close enough, fire everything we’ve got on their cruiser line. And get us between them and the Perry. They should be able to jump soon; hopefully before we even get there. Once they skip out, prepare to leave as well. Issue orders to the Algol and Capella to prepare jump coordinates for Alpha Bootis, at Rendezvous Point Beta-3. There’ll be nothing here left to protect once the Perry is gone. Pre-set our drives as well.”
“Aye, Sir,” Tac replied. She had a lot to do, but Stephen was sure she would get it done.
Stephen felt the Sirius bank sharply to the left. He was thrust forward in his chair as his ship shed velocity. He braced for more violent maneuvers to come.
By now, the enemy ships were well below him and heading further away and closer to the Perry. Further back was the Capella. He saw the Capella’s cone begin to warp to the left on his screens as she also altered course to intercept. She was still back, but the Perry was heading in O’Brien’s direction, who—hopefully—could establish a thin picket line between the kids and the Wasatti force. In the meantime, the Perry was not responding to commands, but was still generally heading where it should be going. If it’s offline, it must be moving at inertial, Stephen realized. What the hell happened over there?
Stephen opened the com to the Perry again, not sure who to address. A ship with no captain …. “Peter, Ali: the ship must be in some sort of standby mode. He can’t be hiding, or whatever you think he may be doing. Something else must be going on with him.”
“I don’t know what it is, then,” Ali replied. “The blue navigation insert is destroyed. That’s the only physical damage I can see.”
Stephen must not have heard them correctly. That couldn’t be. He wondered if those kids even knew what one console was over another. That had to be a mistake. “What?” Stephen cried. “Destroyed?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Ali, look at the monitor labeled ‘Primary Navigation’ and press ‘Status.’ What’s your navigational status?”
“Sir, I’ve already done that. Yellow on-line, only, Mr. Campbell.”
“Oh, sweet … you’re not at green yet?”
“No, Sir,” Ali replied. “Lieutenant Wilkins didn’t activate the blue key. He was trying, I think, before—”
Stephen’s heart sank. If they could not jump out, they were in serious trouble; both them and his small protecting fleet. “Listen closely, kids. You’ve got to get that ship ready for jump. I don’t think we can hold off the Wasatti more than a few minutes more.”
Stephen saw Ali look at his son, who answered for them this time.
“We’ll do what we can, Dad; if you tell us what we need to do.”
* * *
sel Roan sat impatiently on the ready bench at the rear of the small ship alongside eight other enormous strike Marines. They were suited for any contingency, including combat in full space vacuum. All carried a full arsenal of assault weapons and boarding equipment. Each soldier was capable of accomplishing the mission; alone, if necessary.
sel Roan raised the communicator on her wrist to her helmet speaker, “Darts-Two and -Three, check in.”
“Two is away and coming about,” responded the squad leader in Dart-Two.
“Three is now on course for the enemy ship. Decel maneuvers have been completed. Contact in twenty minutes.”
A ship from each cruiser, each carrying nine highly trained Marines, was on their way to the enemy prize ship. The first of the trio would arrive on station in twenty minutes. Ten minutes later, all three ships would be in position to force entry into their target. sel Roan was not sure what to expect when they entered the strange ship, or how heavily guarded the ship would be, but she had high expectations of success. A platoon of Wasatti strike Marines was not something sel Roan would want to go up against. She felt sorry for the human soldiers who would fight them. Almost sorry, she amended.
She reported back to her commander. “We are in flight now, General Kel. We will affect breaches at three locations within thirty minutes. My dart ship will concentrate on the rear of the enemy ship, while the others will board further toward the front. I will directly target the engineering sections, and the other darts will search out their command centers.”
“What do you see out there?” Sar ap Kel asked.
“It’s a relatively small ship, General. Smaller than the Devastating Glory but larger than a destroyer. But it’s totally different than anything we’ve seen—from us or them.”
“Explain.”
sel Roan looked closer at the approaching target. It had a strange beauty. “It is very streamlined. The surface of the ship looks almost … liquid—”
“Liquid? Ridiculous! What do you mean by that?”
sel Roan realized the general was nervous. Despite his reputation for brutality, he was always insecure when he was nervous. He would always try to make others look stupid if he was the least bit unsure about his actions, mostly to conceal his own ignorance. Maybe he should have come with the strike mission, if he’s so concerned, she thought silently. “It looks like it was formed from molten metals, and extruded directly into space. It’s almost …” sel Roan had to search for the proper word, “… freeform, or something. There are no windows. All the shapes along its hull are very odd and irregular—‘bumpy’ might be a good way to describe it.”
“Bumpy,” Sar ap Kel remarked. “That’s all you can come up with? You are second in command of this strike force, and all you can say is bumpy?”
sel Roan tried to hide her anger, snapping off the metal claw-hold she was grasping. The soldier on the bench next to her moved a few inches to put more space between them. She wanted to throw the cleat to the deck in anger but realized the loose object would pose a hazard within the maneuvering craft, so—controlling her emotions—she carefully placed the broken piece of metal into her EVA sack. She took a deep breath before replying. “Like parasitic crustaceans on the hull of an ocean ship, only encased within the metal hull itself. Yes, ‘bumpy’ is the proper term.”
“Huh,” Sar ap Kel replied. “Could that be where the instruments are?”
“I hadn’t thought of that. It is possible, though.”
“Armaments?”
sel Roan was worried about that exact thing. She expected to be fired upon any minute, but so far the ship remained mysteriously silent. Could it be unarmed? “None I can discern, nor can I see any obvious vanes or antennae. It is a most unusual design.”
“You must capture that ship.”
“Yes, General, we are well prepared. Once we are aboard, we will take charge of it, I assure you. We are closing in now, so I must prepare for egress. Is there anything else you require?”
“Just give me that ship.”
He did not need to tell her. She was just as curious as he. “Of course. Roan out.”
* * *
Chaos permeated the bridge of the Perry. Ali and Henrietta were furiously working on the blue navigation panel, as Captain Campbell suggested, but the blue key was fused solid, and it looked like it would take a major overhaul to set it free. Even if they got the key out, that did not account for making the panel operational again, which would be a whole different story. The key was a melted mass, and without it—even if the slot were free—they could not activate the panel. Peter was at the nearest com station, near the command center, while Stiles split his time between tactical and the yellow nav-panel. Stiles tried to get the weapons operational, but everything he pushed did nothing. Jimmy mutely sat in a chair staring catatonically at the dead lieutenant. He kept muttering something about if his father had looked like that when he died.
“What’s going on over there?” Peter asked.
“This isn’t working at all, Peter,” Ali replied. “We’ll never get it turned.”
“It’s got to,” Peter shouted.
“How?” Ali threw back. “You might as well have poured durasteel down this panel. If I hadn’t known better, I wouldn’t even know a key slot was here.”
Peter began to argue, but Henrietta confirmed what Ali was saying. “Peter, he’s right. This station is toast.”
Peter looked around the bridge, not knowing what to do. He glanced at Jimmy and wondered if the young boy was about to get sick; since first seeing the dead man, he did not take his eyes off him. “Ali, is there anywhere else we can put the lieutenant?”
“There’s a cold storage compartment just off the forward sensor room, up-deck,” he replied.
“Get him up there, would ya? Get Stiles to help; and be quick.”
The two boys man-handled Ruben to the lift and disappeared, trying not to make a commotion, though not very successfully. Peter reached over and turned Jimmy’s gaze away from the deck. “Jimmy, it’s not the same. Your dad’s face wouldn’t have looked like that.”
Jimmy remained unnaturally still. Peter furrowed his brow and lowered his head in surrender, feeling totally worthless. He could overhear his dad issuing battle commands to his fleet over the com. It did not sound good.