“We’ve come a long
way since Fraker’s Acre, haven’t we, Kyle?”
First Officer Kyle Rose looked up from his lunch and
smiled. “Yeah, Paul. That feels like a hundred years ago. What were we then, eight?”
“Six, I think. I was
in first grade. Remember old Mrs.
Anderson?”
“How could I forget?” Rose laughed. “I’ve still got welts on my backside. Any other school system in the country would
have fired that old witch for child abuse.”
“Yeah.”
“Paul, can I ask you a personal question?”
“When’s that ever stopped you?”
“No, really. When you
got back from that last test flight, you told me you were done. Out of the service. Retired.
So, why aren’t you? Why’d you
sign up to command the Prospect?”
“I heard it had a really good first officer.”
Kyle chuckled.
“Seriously, Paul. You told me
after Charlie’s accident that the Garrick name was… what did you tell me?...
disappearing fast?”
Garrick nodded. “It
is. My mom and I are the only two
left. I always figured Charlie would get
married and I’d get to play ‘Uncle Paul’ for his kids.”
“So you were gonna retire and have some of your own, right?”
“Yeah. I was. I am.
Maybe.”
“You can’t do that here.
Captains aren’t allowed to have children aboard. So why’d you come here?”
“Laura. After the
board cleared me on that last flight, she took me aside. Claimed she needed me to run the Prospect for
a five-year tour.”
Rose looked into Garrick’s eyes. “No, Boxleitner’s got pull, but not that
much.” He kept looking at Garrick, then
smiled. In his best Marlon Brando, he
said “She made you an offer you can’t refuse, eh?”
“Something like that.
I can’t talk about it. Let’s just
say I won’t be signing up for another tour.”
“You’d better not.
I’ll be out of here in six months, and—“
“Married to Renee, I know,” Garrick said, pointing his
thumbs at his chest, “Best man, remember?”
“I remember. I mean
it, Paul. I thought we’d be retiring
together. Traveling, fishing, beer, all
that. Now I’ve gotta wait on you.”
“I know, Kyle. I’m
sorry. If you want me out sooner, talk
to Boxleitner.”
“Captain Garrick,” Comms Officer Nelson’s voice said from
his wrist communicator. “We’ve got new
orders – top priority, encoded for your eyes only.”
Garrick looked down at the uneaten plate of food in front of
him. Always
before I eat. Never when I’m having
dessert. “On my way,” he said,
grabbing the sandwich and offering the rest to a nearby Tac Officer who eagerly
grabbed it.
Garrick stepped into the conference room off the bridge and
sealed the door. He activated the
computer and had it decode the orders.
According to the briefing, a stellar cruise ship belonging to the
Pindarons had gone missing suddenly. Its
last comm coordinates placed it in a sector at the outer range of Alliance
space, near the edge of the galaxy.
The Alliance had sent in the Prospect’s sister ship, the
Harrison, a few hours later. The
Harrison reported encountering an unknown alien craft flying away from the
cruise liner, and moved to intercept.
The Harrison hadn’t been heard from since.
Whatever or whoever attacked the Harrison had done so
swiftly and effectively enough that the ship wasn’t responding to computer
signals asking it for surveillance footage and sensor logs. It was as though something reached out and
swatted both the cruise liner and the Harrison like flies.
“Your primary mission,” the recorded voice of Admiral
Boxleitner said, “is to find out what happened to those ships and get word back
to us. Your secondary mission is to make
contact with the aliens, assuming there are any, and negotiate a peaceful
outcome. And, as always—“
Garrick cut off the recording. “I know, I know… don’t scratch the ship.”
<*>
Garrick took the Prospect in carefully, slowly. He encountered the cruise liner first. Sensor scans showed it to be devoid of life
and most of the hull depressurized. An
away team sent to visit the ship sent back footage that made Garrick glad he
hadn’t eaten his entire lunch. What he
had eaten was having trouble staying down.
Some hostile force had boarded the liner and killed every
member of her crew, and every passenger.
The hostiles had killed everyone aboard in an incredibly brutal and
efficient manner. It was as though
whoever or whatever killed these people had been sending a violent, bloody
message. That message was “To us, you
are fragile toys to be crushed, broken, or ripped apart at will.” Some of the bodies even seemed to be
partially eaten. Several members of the
bridge crew were physically ill.
“Get the surveillance camera logs, Landon,” Garrick
said. “We need to see whoever or
whatever did this.”
“As long as I don’t have to look at ‘em,” Landon
answered. “I already know how the story
ends.”
Cruise ship surveillance, being primarily in place to catch
thieves and con artists, lacked the detailed sensor scans an Alliance starship
collected. Still, the footage available
told the story in morbid detail. Three
reptilian, or perhaps amphibian, creatures breached the cruise liner’s hull and
came aboard. They immediately began
methodically marching through the ship and killing every living being they
encountered – without hesitation, communication, or rest. It took the alien invaders less than an hour
to kill everyone aboard the cruise liner.
In two sections of footage, the liner’s security team made an attempt to
attack the aliens. If they did anything
more than sting the creatures, it couldn’t be seen in the footage. The aliens literally ripped the security team
apart. It was necessary, albeit
difficult, for Garrick and his officers to watch.
“Set course for the Harrison,” Garrick ordered. “Maybe we’ll get more answers there.”
<*>
As the Prospect approached its sister ship, the scanners
told similar tale to that of the cruise liner.
The crew of the Harrison had been reduced from four hundred to
thirty-two. The ship’s main power
generation was offline and life support seemed to be failing. There were gaping holes in the hull of the
Harrison. Its engines had been shot up,
and there were holes where the weapons should have been mounted. The scanner data showed it had been disarmed
and then disabled. This was probably a
prelude to boarding, Garrick thought.
“Let’s see if we can save what’s left of the crew and get
the Harrison running again,” Garrick told the Comms Officer, “Send a Tac team over
first to make sure it’s clear, then follow with engineering and medical.”
“Yes, sir,” the Comms Officer said, then turned back to the
console to begin assembling the teams and prepping the shuttles.
<*>
The away team on the Harrison sent the ship’s logs and
surveillance data to the Prospect.
Garrick forwarded the information on to Alliance Fleet HQ, along with
his observations and thoughts. He told
Admiral Boxleitner that they’d try to get the Harrison spaceworthy enough for
it to return to the nearest Alliance spacedock for repair, then they’d catch up
to the alien ship.
The alien ship was still well within scanner range, and
seemed to be in no hurry to leave the system.
It probably didn’t view the Prospect and the Harrison as credible
threats. Garrick was inclined to agree.
Garrick stood, then cleared his throat, and the chatter
around the conference table went silent.
“Let’s start with ship-based tactics. What do we have?” He sat back down.
Tac Chief Carson stood up, and called a three-dimensional
image of the cruise liner into view.
“The cruise liner had short-range defenses to ward off pirates and a
beam in the front for slicing up asteroids.
Its shields were pretty basic, mostly meant to keep it safe in a meteor
storm or other low-impact event. The
aliens fired one shot to destroy each weapon, and one more to disable the
liner’s main drive. Their shots were
precise and deadly. They cut through the
liner’s shields like they were made of paper.”
Carson then called up an image of the Harrison and the alien
ship. “The Harrison tried to hail the
alien ship, and got no response. They
saw only three strong life signs aboard, and an indeterminate number of weak
life-like signs. Thinking that maybe the
alien ship was in some kind of distress, they sent a shuttle over to offer
assistance. The shuttle was there
briefly, then turned back toward the Harrison.
They received a digital message claiming their comm system was offline
and that the shuttle was returning. When
it reached the Harrison, three alien soldiers stepped out of it and began
attacking the Prospect’s crew. The
Prospect’s security team was a lot better armed than the one on the cruise
ship, just like we are, but the aliens eventually killed three hundred and
seventy of her crew. The security team
sealed the aliens in a hallway and kept firing on them until they finally
died. As you can see in the footage
here, as soon as the aliens died their bodies vaporized.”
“Why?” Garrick asked.
“We can’t be sure, of course, but it was mostly like to keep
us from having a corpse to experiment with or examine.”
“I see. Anything
else?”
“Yes. Judging from
the weapons range and accuracy, I don’t recommend bringing the Prospect very
close to this ship.”
“Why?”
“They took out the Harrison’s engines and weapons in about
fifteen seconds, having never seen a ship like it before. I doubt we’d get within our own weapons range
before they did the same to us. And
they’d do it a lot faster this time since they know what to aim for. The Harrison was able to get close in a
shuttle. The alien ship’s defenses seem
to be designed around taking out larger targets. I think that’s why the Harrison’s shuttle
made it there.”
“Understood. Biology,
what do you have?”
“Sensor data says these creatures are of amphibian
ancestry. Assuming their biology is
similar to other amphibian races we’ve encountered, that means they’re
cold-blooded and can’t regulate their own body temperature. They’re also susceptible to dehydration. The armor they’re wearing in the scans seems
to contain circuitry to manage moisture and temperature, according to
Engineering. Some amphibians secrete
poison through their skins. We don’t
have any evidence of that here, but can’t rule it out, either. Judging from some of the weapons fire that
hit their unarmored skin, even their skin is pretty tough. Best guess from some of the things we see
them doing in the attacks – they’re about four times our physical strength and
at least twice our speed. They can also
climb on the walls and ceilings briefly, but don’t seem to be able to stay
there long.”
“Alright. If I get
the gist of what you’re telling me, we need to go over there in a shuttle,
board that ship, and be prepared to deal with creatures who are faster,
stronger, and better armed than we are… creatures that might stick to the walls
or ceiling… and who – maybe, if we’re lucky – will get dehydrated dealing with
us and need to run off for a drink.”
They looked him, smiled uneasy smiles, and muttered basic
agreement.
“Tac, on Earth, we used to have weapons called
flamethrowers. They were used about a
century ago in wars. They spew flammable
gases, liquids, or gels at an enemy.
That might dehydrate our amphibian buddies and allow us to take them
down. See what you can come up with.”
“Yes, sir.”
<*>
With the Harrison operational and manned by a skeleton crew
from the Prospect and her original crew, Garrick ordered them out of the system
and off to the nearest spacedock.
His duty to the fleet now discharged, Garrick was ready to
focus on the alien ship. It was a slow
mover, and even now was just at the extreme end of scanner range. Based on the Tac Officer’s estimates of the
alien ship’s weapons range, they closed to a distance beyond the alien ship’s
weapons range and matched its speed.
Although he didn’t expect it to work, Garrick followed
standard protocol and hailed the alien ship.
There was no response.
“Garrick to Comms.”
“Comms here, sir.”
“Have First Officer Rose, Dr. Blanchett, Engineer Thompson,
and two Tac officers meet me in the shuttle bay. We’re going to try to board the alien ship.”
“Yes sir.”
<*>
When Garrick reached the shuttle bay, the others were
waiting for him.
Landon held a strange device. Garrick pointed at it. “The flamethrower?”
Landon nodded. “Yeah.
It has just under a two-meter range, and
ejects an oily substance that it ignites as it sprays.”
“You’ll take point.”
“It may not work.”
Garrick smiled. “And
if it does, I want to be behind it.”
They boarded the shuttle and began their approach to the
alien craft.
“Captain,” Thompson said, “their weapons are charging up.”
“Try to give me a warning when it looks like they’re gonna
fire.”
“Aye,” Thompson said, studying the scanner data
carefully. “Now!”
Garrick jerked the shuttle hard to the right just as a beam
from the alien ship fired on their earlier position.
“Still charging, sir…
Now!”
Garrick jerked left, and the beam passed harmless to the
right.
This continued until they we close enough to the alien ship
that its weapons could no longer safely fire on the shuttle.
Garrick brought the shuttle to rest against the hull of the
alien ship. The Tac Officers began
cutting a hole in the alien ship’s hull.
When they finished, the circular section of hull material was pushed
through and landed with a thud inside the alien ship.
Landon and his flamethrower went through the opening
first.
“It’s really humid in here.
I feel like I’m in Florida in July.”
Garrick and the others followed him. The room was well-lit. Looking around them, it appeared to be filled
with crates. They opened one and peered
inside. It looked like dehydrated food.
Dr. Blanchett pulled out her scanner and swept it in an arc
in front of her. “The life signs are coming from this direction. Four of them are weak, but getting stronger.”
“How many are there?”
“I don’t know, captain.
The signs are weak enough that the computer’s having trouble counting
them.”
“Take a guess.”
“I don’t know. Thousands?”
They began walking in the direction of the life signs when
energy blasts began firing at them. Thompson’s
arm was grazed, but he got out of the way.
Chaney and Landon took turns firing at the source of the blast, which
turned out to be a ceiling mounted turret.
A few sidearm blasts caused the turret to explode in a shower of sparks.
Dr. Blanchett patched Thompson’s arm and they began moving,
much more cautiously this time, toward the source of the life signs. “The life signs are growing a little
stronger, captain.”
“Analysis?”
“It looks something like the readings from old-style stasis
tubes, the ones that had to gradually wake up someone up from sleep.”
“You’re saying more aliens are waking up?”
“I’m not saying anything, but if I had to guess, that’s what
I’d guess.”
A voice boomed around them, “That is correct. I am waking up another squad to deal with you
invaders.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is irrelevant, but in your language my name would
be ‘Slave’.”
“How did you learn our language?”
“I interfaced with the computer system aboard your
shuttle. A primitive device. Easily breached.”
“Primitive?” Thompson
shouted, “That’s a state of the art optical—“
“I could replicate that device’s function with one percent
of my capacity. It is primitive.”
“Thompson,” Garrick held up his hands. “Stand down.
Slave?”
“Yes?”
“I’m Captain Garrick of the Alliance of Sentient
Lifeforms. We’re here in peace. Our scanners indicated that your ship is
filled with weak life signs.”
“Your scanners are correct.
This ship contains three hundred twenty Melkon warriors in stasis, and
one million Melkon eggs, ready to deposit on the planet of our choice.”
Garrick looked at the others. “This is a colony ship?”
“That is one way to phrase it.”
“OK, then, how would you phrase it?”
“In our galaxy, the Melkon empire covered ninety-six percent
of the habitable planets. Another species,
the Dreen, refused to be conquered by the Melkons. The Dreen began driving the Melkon from all
of their conquered worlds. This ship was
one of five sent to preserve the Melkon species, and give it new worlds to
conquer.”
“So you’re a base ship for an invasion?”
“Correct, captain.”
“I’d like to talk with one of your crew, to negotiate a
peace.”
“That would be impossible.
The Melkon view all species as threat, food, or slave. The species which created my circuitry became
slaves to the Melkon. The Melkon do not
have a word for peace in their language.
The closest approximation is ‘conquered’.”
“You said there were other ships like this dispatched to
other galaxies. What happened to them?”
“Unknown. I have lost
contact with all of them. They may be
destroyed.”
Garrick wished he hadn’t heard that. This
ship may contain the last surviving Melkons in the universe. The Alliance doesn’t have the right to
destroy the last survivors of any race.
“Slave, is there anything I can do to convince you not to wake up any of the remaining
crew?”
“No.”
“Even if I promise to help you find a world where the
Melkons can setup a colony?”
“No. I am programmed
to find a suitable world myself. I have
analyzed you and your ships. Your
technology is vastly inferior. You are
weak and lack the Melkon’s warrior skills.
You have nothing the Melkon want, except your worlds, and the Melkon
will take those from you in time. The
soldiers are just beginning to awaken now.
You will be dead soon. This
conversation is over.”
“Slave? Slave?”
Garrick turned to Thompson.
“You’re on point again. Let’s
keep making our way toward the life signs?”
“Are you kidding?”
Blanchett’s mouth hung open. “We
should be getting the hell out of here.”
Garrick looked at all of them. “Look.
Here’s the situation. This ship
contains over a million aliens. They may
be the last of their kind. It could land
on an inhabited world somewhere that’s not expecting it. If three of these things nearly took out the
Harrison, what do you think will happen when three hundred of them land on an
inhabited planet? And what’ll happen
when a million more hatch and grow up to be just like them? Like it or not, we have two responsibilities
now. We have to protect the Alliance,
and if we can save this species, it’s our moral responsibility to do it.”
“Just to be clear, captain,” Tac Officer Chaney made eye
contact. “If it’s down to us or them, we
take ‘em out. Right?”
Garrick nodded.
“Yes. Alliance first,
self-preservation second, saving the Melkons – last. Kyle, look out!”
A Melkon dropped from the ceiling behind Rose. It grabbed the man and tore him apart.
Landon opened fire with his flamethrower. The Melkon released an ear-piercing shriek
and stumbled out of the room. A second
dropped from the ceiling and landed behind Thompson.
“Thompson, down!” Landon shouted. Thompson hit the floor just as Landon’s
flamethrower fired on the Melkon. This
one shrieked and swayed from side to side, burning as it did so, then collapsed
to the floor.
Garrick stood motionless, looking at the remains of his best
friend strew around the room. He felt
nauseous, and defeated. He couldn’t
imagine a universe with Kyle in it – until now.
Kyle was an only child. “The last
of his line,” Garrick mumbled under his breath.
“What, sir?” Landon
asked.
Garrick didn’t hear the question.
As much as he wanted to curl up into a ball and mourn the
loss of his friend, Garrick knew he couldn’t.
Not now. There was too much at
stake. He promised himself, promised
Kyle, that he’d think about it later.
“We have to finish this.”
Landon nodded.
A Melkon came up behind Captain Garrick. Garrick spun to face it and opened fire with
his sidearm. The alien reached for
Garrick’s neck. Landon fired the
flamethrower at it. The Melkon ran out
of the room, flames covering its torso.
“Come on,” Garrick waver his weapon toward the hall the
Melkon had just taken to escape.
The team carefully made its way down the hall.
Dr. Blanchett looked at her scanner. “We’re heading back toward that stasis room.”
“The Melkons must have gone back to wake up more.”
“Is this a bad time to tell you I’m out of ammo?” Landon strapped the weapon onto his back.
Garrick’s eyes opened wide, then he shook his head. “Wonderful.”
They entered the stasis room. Just as Slave had warned them, the walls were
lined with hundreds of stasis pods containing fully grown Melkon warriors. A large oval-shaped bin in the center of the
room contained a frozen liquid filled with eggs.
“Wow,” Blanchett said.
“A million little bloodthirsty lizard babies…”
Landon opened a door and peered through. “Captain, you’ll want to see this.”
Captain Garrick and the others entered the room. It appeared to be an arsenal. There was enough weaponry in the room to
outfit a thousand soldiers. Some of the
larger items appeared to be artillery, bombs, and other explosive
materials. Thompson ran a scanner over
it.
“If I had to guess based on these readings, you could almost
cut a hole in the Prospect’s hull with one of these sidearms,” he said,
grabbing one and tossing it to Garrick.
Garrick looked it over.
It had a clumsy feel, having been designed for claws and not human
hands, but he puzzled over it for a moment before test-firing it at an empty
crate. The crate nearly vaporized.
“Whoa!” Thompson’s
jaw hung open. He grabbed more of the
sidearms and handed them to the others.
“Even if these don’t stop the Melkon, it might slow them down.”
They stepped back into the stasis chamber. The two wounded Melkons were there waiting.
Garrick walked over to the egg storage and aimed the Melkon
weapon at it. He hoped it would get
their attention.
It did. The nearer
Melkon rushed at him and knocked him back, forcing him to drop the weapon. Garrick punched the Melkon, screamed, looked
down at his hand, and lost consciousness.
Blanchett, Landon, and Thompson fired on the Melkon and
killed them with their own weapons.
Blanchett’s scanner beeped. She pulled it out to check the
reading. Her face grew pale.
“What’s wrong?” Chaney asked.
“They’re all being
brought out of stasis. We are in
so…much…trouble.”
“Maybe not,” Thompson said, pulling out his scanner. “If I trace these circuits, maybe…”
Thompson frantically ripped at a panel on the wall and began
alternately checking his scanner and manipulating the wiring inside.
Blanchett’s scanner vibrated. “That must have worked. The life signs are all holding steady.”
<*>
Garrick awoke in the Prospect’s MedBay. Dr. Blanchett was standing over him. Garrick started to sit up, but Blanchett
pushed him back down.
“Whoa there, captain,” she told him, “You’ve been in a coma
for two days. That Melkon poison is
really strong. It nearly killed your
central nervous system.”
Garrick looked at her, “The Melkons, what--?”
“What happened to them?
I’m sure Thompson will tell you all about it later, but here’s what you
need to know. We shut down all the
stasis tubes with warriors in them, then—“
“You killed them?”
“Let me finish. With
the warriors dead, we carted away all their weaponry. That’s headed to Directive 51 land, Thompson
tells me. The Melkon eggs are being
taken to an uninhabited swamp world inside Alliance space. The Alliance is going to send biologists,
educators, and other scientists there to make sure the little baby Melkons grow
up like good little Alliance citizens.
They’ll have no idea where they came from, at least until they’re ready
to handle it.”
Garrick smiled. “You
saved them.”
“Yes. And you. And the Prospect. Not a scratch on her.”
“Nicely done,” Garrick said, his head falling slowly back
onto the pillow as his eyes closed.
Garrick slept for another twelve hours.
<*>
When he finally recovered, Garrick had several unhappy tasks
to attend to. As captain of the
Prospect, it was his responsibility to notify his best friend’s mother that her
son was dead. He knew her comm
identifier by heart, and entered it.
Within seconds, Kate Rose’s face appeared on the screen.
“Paul, how good to see you!”
“It’s good to see you, too, Mrs. Rose.”
“How’s Kyle? What
have you two been doing?”
Garrick felt a lump in his throat. His eyes burned. “Kate,” he said, tears streaming from his
eyes, “Kyle’s dead.”
“How?”
“I’m not allowed to say much. He was… attacked by something. Right in front of me. It was so fast…”
She was crying now, too.
“My baby…”
“I know, Mrs. Rose. I’m
so sorry.”
“I…. have to go…” she said.
The comm window went blank.
Garrick let the tears continue to flow. He cried for his brother Charlie. He cried for Kyle, for Mrs. Rose’s only son,
and for himself. He was now, truly, the
last of his line.
<*>
“I want out,” Garrick said.
“I’m finished.”
“Paul, I wanted you on the Prospect for a reason.”
“Which is?”
“I can’t tell you now.
Trust me. You’re where I need you
to be.”
“Out in space, killing my friends?”
“You didn’t kill Kyle.
The Melkon did.”
“I could have left him on the Prospect. I killed him by bringing him along.”
“No you didn’t.”
Garrick sighed.
“Why do you want out, Paul?
Why retire now?”
He looked her on-screen image in the eye. “I’m the last one left, Laura. The last Garrick. Charlie’s dead. My mom won’t live forever. I’m it.
If I die, my mom and dad die with me.”
“I want you to think about something, Paul. We’ll talk again in a week. If you still want out, I promise I’ll think
long and hard about it. OK?”
“Yes.”
“Suppose I let you out.
You go home. You find someone you
like. You marry her. You have a couple of kids. Your family name lives on, and all that. Just like you wanted.”
“Right.”
“Maybe your kids go on to be something special. Maybe they don’t. Now, look at the bigger picture. You stay on
the Prospect. You teach your junior
officers everything you know. They’re
better. They end up in ships of their
own. They change the universe,
Paul. They make the Alliance and the
fleet better. That’s your legacy, Paul. A stronger Alliance. A stronger, better fleet. And your name, the Garrick name, becomes
known as one of the fleet’s best and bravest.
Think about that.”
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