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Episode 61: The Hunted
The three Galerans hauled themselves up through an opening freshly cut into the floor of the great ship. Their little craft was fixed to the bottom of the Eratite vessel so that whatever place they chose to enter wouldn't de-pressurize and space them all.
The ship rocked from another explosion and all three intruders braced themselves.
"Have you found her yet, Stav?" The woman, Nadalina, asked one of her fellow Galerans.
"Not yet." He replied, tugging at his strange uniform as he studied a device in his other hand.
All three infiltrators wore clothes exactly like the Eratites on board this ship. Nadalina in particular didn't care much for her new garb. It was too tight and she hated the boldness of the black and gold design. Stav, the shortest of the three, wore blue and white, which, at least to Nadalina, made him look even shorter than he already was. And his messily cut light brown hair did nothing for him either.
The leader of their team, a taller, broader man with black hair and dark brown eyes wore the orange and white of what they thought was the crew's engine corpse, but they weren't one hundred percent sure about that. At least the odd Eratite uniform seemed to suit Benjamin more than it did Stav and Nadalina.
"Benjamin? Where are you?" Nadalina called out.
"Over here." Their leader replied from the other side of the room. "I think we're in a cargo hold."
"Well, that's good. At least we won't be spotted right off." Stav muttered absently as he took a seat on a nearby crate and continued to stare at his computer. "I can't… seem to get a good fix on Princess Astra. I'm getting confused readings. There appears to be two people on board who could be her. "One is – it looks like she's alone somewhere nearby, and the other is…" Benjamin squinted at his computer, a look of puzzlement on his face as he said, "On the bridge…?"
"That's her!" Benjamin exclaimed, running back over to Nadalina and Stav. "They wouldn't leave the Princess by herself. They're sure to know how important she is. She'll be well guarded, and where better to keep her than within sight of their bridge crew?"
"He has a point." Nadalina said, running her fingers through her short, redish-brown hair.
"So how are we going to get her off the bridge and out into some other part of the ship where we can get to her?" Stav asked. "She isn't just going to walk out of there."
Nadalina shook her head in frustration. "We have to get her. The throne-world is counting on us to complete this mission – to end the war so we can all have peace again."
"You don't have to tell us that." Benjamin shot back. "We know just as well as you do how important this is. I have a brother and sister who live on Gamilon and Stav's parents are in Belarus."
"Wait!" Stav held up a hand for silence. "She's moving! She's leaving the bridge!"
"What?!" Nadalina exclaimed. "Why?"
"I don't know." Stav said, eyes glued to the device in his hand, "But this is our chance."
The ship jolted under their feet as another hit landed somewhere on the Eratite vessel's hull.
"Let's get going," Nadalina said, gritting her teeth in determination. "And take the Iscandari back to Frakken and his fleet before this ship gets shot to pieces."
"Captain, I need all available personnel with medical experience down here right now!" Dr. Sane's voice was so loud that Derek winced when he answered the emergency call to his communicator. "I need Nova here!"
"She can go just as soon as Saijo's here to relieve her. I need someone on the radar." Derek replied.
"She should be there any second." Sane replied. "I already called her."
An instant later Miki appeared on the bridge and headed straight for Nova. With a nod, the two women changed places and Nova stood, waiting for Derek's permission to leave."
"Go." He said. "Sounds like the Doc needs as many hands as he can get."
Nova nodded. "Take care." She said quietly as she passed Wildstar. A moment later she was gone.
"Put this one over there." Sane ordered one of the nurses who'd come to help. "And make sure he doesn't bleed out before I get to him."
"Yes, Doctor." The young woman replied, quickly doing as she'd been told.
"I don't care!" Sane replied to another attendant. "If the injury isn't life-threatening, they go on a waiting list!" The short man thundered around the med bay, seeing to as many people as he could as quickly as possible. The first hit to the ship hadn't resulted in any casualties, but that wasn't the case for the rest of the beatings they'd sustained. So far there were over fifty wounded, at least ten seriously, and the Doctor wondered how many of them would make it through the next several hours.
"At least Forrester's coming." He thought.
The young lieutenant had proven a capable nurse during her time assigned to Sane's staff at Central Hospital back on Earth. She'd picked up things strikingly quickly and the old man was glad for her help whenever he could get it.
"Broken bones, this way!" Sane waved another incoming patient off to a row of beds stationed against one wall.
Sane shook his head, "Wildstar, I know the captain put you in charge, but can you go easy on the crew?" he thought as three more crewmen staggered into the medical bay, bloodied and bruised.
"I'll be there in five minutes." Nova replied into her comm device.
"Oh, good. We really need you down here." One of the nurses answered. "It's getting pretty crowded."
"What did they hit?" Nova asked.
"Some crew quarters and a good section of hallway, looks like. Then there've been hits to a few other areas in the last couple of minutes. We're still getting people in from those."
"Okay. Thanks, for the heads-up, Penny. I'm almost there." Nova said.
"'Kay. See you in a couple minutes." The other nurse ended the call.
Nova was just about to round the final corner that would take her to her destination when a man she didn't recognize stepped into her path. He was much taller than her and a good bit larger. His brown eyes seemed to stare into her.
"Can… I help you?" she asked the stranger hesitantly. "You're in engineering, aren't you?" she noted the orange and white coloring of his uniform. "Is there something wrong in the engine room?"
"You will come with us." The stranger demanded.
Nova's eyes widened when she heard the man's words in her head, but instead of English, the words coming out of his mouth were in… Gamilon? But that didn't make sense. His skin was as normally colored as her own.
Then it dawned on her that she was still wearing the translator that she'd gotten from the Zögii.
"W – who are you?!" Nova demanded, a feeling of dread rising in her. Were some of the Gamilon's skin tones more like hers than the odd blue hue they'd observed in the past?
The man didn't reply.
"Hey! Let go!" Nova exclaimed as the stranger grabbed her by the wrist and twisted her arm behind her back, holding her in front of him so she couldn't see his face anymore. That was when she saw two more unfamiliar faces lurking in the hall several meters back the way she'd come.
Then she heard her captor say, "I apologize, Princess, but I have to make sure you will not get away."
"But I'm not a princess!" Nova protested, "I'm nowhere near a princess!"
The man didn't reply.
"Can't you understand me?" She tried again.
The man pushed her forward, "Stop pretending not to understand me." He said "I know you can; give up the act."
Nova twisted her neck and glared back at the man.
"Ah. I see you have some of the same spunk as your sister. You'll be seeing her soon, you know. And when you do, you're going to make her call off this Eratite ship." The man growled.
"Wait… They think I'm Astra!" Nova pulled as hard as she could against her captor's grip. If they thought she was Astra, there was no telling where they'd take her – what they'd do to her. Panic started to settle over her, then a sudden feeling of drowsiness clouded her mind.
"I'm not Astra of Iscandar!" she tried to protest, but the heavy fog kept trying to settle over her mind.
"No! No, I can't go to sleep!" she thought frantically, trying in vain to pull free again. "If I do, I won't even know where they're taking me." She shouted as loudly as she could manage, calling for help from anyone who could hear her.
"Oh, no, none of that." The woman who'd been stalking her approached and looked Nova in the eye. "You won't be calling your Eratite friends to help you."
Nova glared at the woman and threw a solid kick back at the man holding her.
He yelped, but held on.
Nova could see the edges of her vision starting to darken.
"No! No!" She pleaded with the darkness to leave her alone – to let her have one more chance to try to get away.
Then she fell into unconsciousness.
Benjamin hauled the comatose blonde woman over his shoulder. "Let's get out of here before anyone else comes through the area and sees us. The last thing we need is to lose our prize."
Nadalina nodded, as did Stav.
"Ship's ready to go whenever we get back." Stav said, staring at his palm again.
"This way." Nadalina pointed down a smaller corridor. "The map I found of the ship says there's a maintenance hatch nearby. We can take her through there."
The Galerans quickly found their way back to their ship and loaded their precious cargo on board.
Benjamin tied her up and made sure she wouldn't get knocked around too badly during their short trip back to Frakken's fleet.
"Get us outta here, Nad." Benjamin ordered.
"Aye aye, captain." The woman gave her comrade a mock salute and carefully detached the small craft from the Eratite ship's hull, then Stav, still staring at the device in his hand, made sure that the hole through which they'd come was carefully repaired so that no one would be the wiser as to their little incursion.
"Ready to go." Stav said when he'd finished his patch job.
With an unladylike whoop Nadalina sent the little craft hurtling away from the enemy vessel and out towards the rendezvous point.
"Wh – where am I?" Nova blinked her bleary eyes several times, trying to clear away some of the blurriness. "What happened…?"
She groaned at the pain in her head. How long had she been out?
The memory of her abduction suddenly returned and the panic she'd felt came with it.
"Derek! Mark! Anybody!" She called out, wondering if any of her friends had been carried away too.
When she received no answer she slumped back against the cold, hard wall she was propped up against.
She tried to move her hands only to discover that she was now bound hand and foot.
She looked around the strange area. The walls were made of an odd green substance. When she pushed back against it, it felt like it gave just a little, but remained strong and firm at the same time – almost like it was alive, or at the very least, organic material of some sort.
The lighting was dim and she couldn't see extremely well, but she could make out the door to what she could only assume was her cell. It looked much like the cell door back on Bemera – something like a honeycomb, but much less inviting.
She was alone in her cell, and as she listened she couldn't hear anyone else nearby. Either she was the only prisoner here, or the others were too far away for her to hear.
She sighed and pulled her legs out from under her. They were starting to go to sleep on her and the sensation of pins and needles washed over her legs as she moved them.
"Did they find the translator?" her breath caught in her throat at the thought that she might not be able to understand these people – whoever they were – anymore.
"Ah, you're awake." One of the men who'd captured her, the one who'd twisted her arm, approached her cell door.
Nova just stared at him, trying not to give away the feeling of relief that washed over her when she realized that she could still understand him.
"Still not in a talkative mood, I see." The man said. "Ah well. General Dommel sends his greetings." The stranger waved a dismissive hand at her, and then disappeared again.
Nova thought about the man's words, confused. Had Astra known this "General Dommel"? If so, how? The thought occurred to her that they really didn't know much of anything about the Gamilon chain of command, or the Iscandarian one, for that matter.
"I wonder if the Gamilons and Iscandarians used to be allies..." Nova thought.
She looked around again, trying to think of a way out. If she couldn't escape, maybe she could stall whatever plans they had.
She thought back to the few words her captors had said to her before bringing her here. One of them had called the crew her "Eratite friends." Was that was the Gamilons called people like her, people from Earth? What did they call "Earth" then?
"Maybe they'll come back and talk some more." She thought, hoping for another chance to listen to the language.
Three hours passed and still no one else came to see her. She fell asleep propped up against the wall. It was uncomfortable, but her adrenaline surge had come and gone leaving her hopelessly tired.
It wasn't until she felt the unmistakable sense of eyes staring at her that she awoke.
Stav paced back and forth in front of the princess's cell. He'd been assigned to guard her until her transfer to Leptopoda.
He stopped pacing and looked into the cell.
She was asleep. Her long blonde hair glowed in the low light, highlighting a beautiful face. Her strange uniform was wrinkled now, but still clean despite the ordeal it had been through. The gold and black rather suited the princess in fact. At least, that was Stav's opinion on it.
Suddenly she stirred. Her eyes opened and she stared back at him.
Stav looked away instantly. Unlike Benjamin, he felt as though the Princess still deserved some respect, even if she was involved with the Eratites.
He expected the woman to say something about him looking at her, but she didn't. In fact, she hadn't said anything at all since they'd taken her from the Eratite ship. Even then, the only words she'd spoken had been in the Eratite language.
He chanced a look back at her.
She was still watching him.
"P – princess…" he stammered, keeping his eyes averted, afraid that she was angry with him – at least, angrier than she already would be at being kidnapped. "Is there something I can do for you?"
"Water." Was all she said.
"Yes! Yes, I'll be right back." Stav disappeared just long enough to get some water and a little food. She hadn't asked for food, but he was sure she was hungry by now. It had been nearly a whole day since they'd taken her and she hadn't eaten anything.
"Here." Stav held out the food and water through the cell door.
The Princess gave him a strange look and twisted just enough for him to see her still-bound hands.
"Oh, of course. I'm sorry." He set the food and water down on a small shelf mounted a few feet from the cell. Then he fumbled with the door and managed to unlock it. The cell opened and he stepped in. Taking a knife from his belt, he carefully sawed through the Princess's bonds. He noted her tied ankles as well, but thought better of undoing those just yet.
Stav quickly fetched the food and water and brought them back to the Princess. She nodded, a look of thanks on her face. As she ate Stav cut through her ankle bindings.
"Here, let me take those." Stav gathered up the empty food and water containers and took them with him back out of the cell, which he summarily closed and locked. "I'll bring you food and water – and let you out when you need to… use the facilities… I'll be the one guarding you most of the time until your transfer. I have to go sleep for a while now, but I'll be back in a few hours."
The Princess nodded and smiled just a bit. Stav felt his face growing a bit warm and he quickly looked away from the woman and left.
"At least one person hasn't forgotten about me." Nova thought, rubbing her wrists and ankles. They still stung from the hours they'd been bound. At least whatever they'd used to tie her up hadn't left blisters. She winced at the thought of open sores and the possibility of infection. No doubt the man who'd given her food would have tried to help her, but the others… she wasn't so sure about.
It seemed like she – or rather, Princess Astra – was quite important to them for some reason, though that reason wasn't clear to her as of yet. Perhaps she could learn that from the man who'd promised to bring her food.
She sighed and pulled her knees up to her chest, laying her forehead on her kneecaps.
"At least I've listened to Homer talk a little bit. Maybe I can remember enough to communicate with this Gamilon."
Feeling cramped, she let go of her legs and stood up, giving herself a well-needed stretch. She walked the length of the small cell. She touched the door, feeling the odd texture of the material used to build it. It was the same stuff that made up the back wall.
She reached through several of the holes in the door, noting that there were no force fields in place to keep her from doing so. She saw the small shelf hanging on the wall near the cell. She tried to reach it, straining as hard as she could, but she was still at least a meter short of it.
"Well, they're not stupid, I'll give them that." She thought. "I wonder who's in charge of this ship. If I'm going somewhere, I have to be on a ship." She stepped away from the door and began circling her tiny abode. "And where are we going? To Gamilon?" she shuddered at the thought of meeting with the heads of the people who planned to wipe out her own planet.
"Maybe they're taking me somewhere else." Then she remembered the words of the man who'd left a few minutes before. "He said 'until your transfer.' They're transferring me to another ship?"
Suddenly an alarm blared through the ship.
"Prepare for gate transfer. Gate transfer imminent."
Nova's eyes widened. "Gate transfer?! Oh no! No, we can't go through another gate. The Argo won't have a way to find me if we go through a gate they don't know the destination to." The dreadful thought occurred to her that, perhaps she might not come back from this.
Then, as she phased through the event horizon of the Aquarius Gate system, she did the only thing she knew to do. She prayed.
Episode 62: Impact
Another explosion rocked the ship as Feria brought the Seagull in for a hard landing.
"Made it back." She sighed in relief. "Great job, Royster." She called back to the weary science team member.
"Yeah – yeah, thanks." He managed in return.
"Okay, nerd, get up. We gotta get back into the battle. No more loafin' around in the back seat." Clemens reached back and socked Royster in the shoulder.
"Hey, I did a lot!" Royster protested.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever; I guess you did help… some." Clemens muttered as he exited the scout ship and let Royster out behind him.
"I've got to get out there with the rest of the Tigers." Feria said as she brushed past Clemens and Royster. "Can you two take care of unloading the equipment?"
"Sure." Clemens replied with a grin. "Leave it to me."
"Okay, thanks." Feria called back as she raced to her plane. At least she was already suited up from the previous flight.
She settled into the cockpit, closed it, and waited for the signal to start her launch sequence. When the hangar was clear she triggered the auto-launch function and waited for the ship to pick up her plane and jettison her out into space.
It was always such an exhilarating feeling to launch this way. Every time she did it she felt a little surge of excitement jolt through her.
Her plane shot out of the hangar.
She righted herself, then radioed the main group.
"Conroy, where are you?" she asked.
"Got two groups right now; one to port, and one to starboard. Take your pick. We both need all the help we can get." Conroy replied. There was a moment of silence and Feria thought he was done talking, then he said, "Glad you got back okay. We were all concerned you wouldn't make it back."
"Thanks, Conroy. Now watch your own tail before you get blown away, okay." Feria replied.
"Sure. Will do. Conroy out."
Feria smiled. Peter had become a good friend. She would hate to lose him.
She looked one way, then the other. She checked her instruments. They still weren't working properly, but at least her radar could hook up with the sensor net she'd helped put out. There were swarms of Gamilon fighters and missile ships everywhere. She noted that there were slightly more Tigers to port, so she decided to take the starboard side.
Another Tiger zoomed into view forcing her to send her plane into an unplanned dive. Her eyes widened as she flew all the way under the Argo to avoid the collision.
The third bridge, with its ever-annoying red paint job, jutted down from the bottom of the ship. Feria flew just under it, not wanting to damage it yet again. The poor thing had seen enough action already. Since they'd launched, this particular part of the ship had been blown off at least twice, and damaged countless more times.
As she went by she looked up at it.
Her brow furrowed. It looked like the third bridge had seen a bit more trouble than she remembered. A circular section of the hull appeared to have been removed, and then reinserted at the bottom of the small area.
"Huh. Must have been damaged by one of the enemy planes or something. But when would they have had time to fix it?"
An odd feeling of dread started to rise in Feria's throat.
"Hey, Conroy?" she called over the radio.
"Yeah?" he replied.
"Did the third bridge get hit again?" she asked.
"Not that I know of. Why?" he said, clearly distracted.
"Oh, nothing. I'll show you later." Feria replied.
"Alright. Conroy out." Peter ended the conversation again and Feria zipped away from the ship just in time to intercept a missile headed right for one of the lower decks.
"That was close." Feria thought, thankful that she'd been there when she had. But something about the odd markings on the third bridge still nagged at her.
An enemy fighter whizzed by and Feria dove after it, chasing it down and finally hitting it, sending half of one wing flying off into space. It gave her no joy to kill the Gamilon pilots, especially not after what Nova had told her about her encounter with Melda Dietz, the young Gamilon woman they'd had on board the Argo for a short time. They were people – enemies, yes, but still people.
Feria turned her plane around and shot back into the fight, dodging and weaving through enemy fire, landing several more good hits and disabling every enemy she set her sights on.
She could see Conroy faring decently too. Flying without a targeting computer could be tricky, but she'd practiced it before, and now she was glad that she had.
Wave after wave of deadly fire came at them. It was like the enemy had a never-ending supply of fighters and missile planes. Every time they took one out, another two were there to take their place.
"Whoa, what is that?!" Jefferson Hardy's startled voice crackled over the radio to all the other Tigers.
"Where is it? I don't see anything." One of the other pilots asked anxiously.
"Coming in straight at Argo's bow." Hardy replied. "It's huge."
Feria quickly wove her way towards the front of the ship to see what Hardy was talking about. Once she saw what he had, she sat dumbfounded, jaw slack and eyes wide in surprise.
"What in all the universe is that…?"
"Is it away?" Dommel asked his second in command.
"It is, Sir. It should reach the Eratite ship within minutes."
"You're sure the pilot can evade their fighters?" Dommel asked.
"Yes." The officer nodded. "He can."
"Good. Now we wait until our cobbled-together weapon has done its job. We should be able to see the explosion from here." General Lysis clenched his jaw hard. Frakken had said that they had the Iscandari princess with them, so she was no longer in the line of fire.
"Keep her safe, Wolf." Dommel thought. "And see to it that she makes it to Leptopoda alive and well."
"Captain," Miki Saijo got Derek's attention from the radar station. "There's something on the radar – something large. It looks like a ship, but it's not in the database. I can't identify it. It could be a probe or a weapon of some kind."
"It's Gamilon." Sandor supplied. "That much we can see. The design is consistent with their other technology."
"It's coming straight at us." Saijo added.
"Venture, evasive maneuvers." Derek ordered.
"Yes, sir." Mark replied and immediately tried to compensate, turning the ship so that the enemy would pass them instead of plowing right into the bow.
"It's turning." Saijo reported. "It's like it's following us."
"Captain, there's one life sign on board it – probably a pilot." Sandor said. "We won't be able to dodge it like a missile. We'll have to actively avoid it."
Derek nodded, then looked at the fill-in gunnery chief and said, "Dash, get your crews on it. Target that enemy ship and hit it with everything you can. Tell them to fire at will."
"Aye, sir." Dash nodded quickly and started relaying orders to the gunnery crews.
Moments later brilliant flashes of white and blue energy surged from the Argo's main turrets straight towards the enemy ship.
"It's a miss, Captain." Sandor said. "They evaded at the last minute."
"How fast can that thing be? At that size it should have the speed of a freighter, not a destroyer." Derek said, perplexed. "Fire again, Dash, and this time, tell the crews to keep firing."
"Aye, sir," came the reply once again.
The ship rocked with the explosions from more enemy fire as it tore through the Argo. The gunnery crews did their best to take aim at the incoming enemy and let loose another wave of fire, this one lasting much longer than the first. They landed a few hits to the thing, but it kept coming.
Derek growled in frustration and ordered, "Ready the wave motion gun."
"Wildstar, if we use it now, we'll be left without power until the engine core can recover." Sandor protested, concerned at the acting captain's rash decision.
"It's the only thing left to do, Sandor. That thing's too big for the Black Tigers to put a dent in it. And we don't know enough about it to try to guess at its weak points. For goodness' sake, we can't even get a good hit in" Derek replied, then to Homer he said, "Get the Tigers back onboard. We don't want them to get caught up in the firing solution."
Homer nodded and did as he was told.
"How long until firing?" Derek asked.
"We'll need five minutes, Wildstar." Orion reported. "My crew down in the engine room needs ta adjust a couple a' things before we fire. There's been some damage to a few systems that could affect the engine core."
"Get it done as soon as possible," Derek replied, brow furrowed. "We don't have a lot of time."
On Iscandar, Starsha awoke to the shriek of an alarm.
Quickly clearing the sleep out of her eyes she reached for her Interface, still resting on the bedside table. She pulled it onto her hand and activated it.
"Oh, no!" she exclaimed when an image of the Eratite ship immediately appeared before her. It was surrounded by enemies, being beaten and bloodied by hit after hit. But that was not what concerned the young queen.
Coming straight for the noble ship was something Starsha had only seen in records or books: a mining drill. Its carrier ship was headed straight for the Eratite ship's firing gate.
"Get out of there!" she silently pleaded with the ship. "Yahweh, help them!"
"Captain, the enemy ship is separating into two." Saijo announced. "The larger part of the ship is still headed straight towards us, but the other half is retreating. It looks like… they launched a giant missile."
"Stay away from it." Derek told Mark. "We can't let it catch us before the wave gun's charged."
The worst explosion yet sent everyone tumbling to the floor.
"Report!" Derek barked.
"Significant damage to the port engine and minor damage to the starboard one." Orion replied. "She's not goin' anywhere, I'm afraid."
Derek balled up his fist and gritted his teeth. "Is the wave gun ready yet, Orion?"
"No, sir. It'll need another two minutes at the very least." The old engineer replied.
"Saijo, how long until that missile hits us?" Derek asked.
"Sixty seconds to impact." Miki replied.
"Bring all guns to bear on that thing and fire." Derek ordered.
"Yes, sir." Dash replied.
The gunnery teams fired at the oncoming missile with everything they had, but no matter how many times they hit it, their target would not be deterred.
"Twenty seconds to impact." Miki announced.
"Get all crew members out of every area in that thing's path – including the engine room." Derek ordered. "I want everyone to midship or the stern, now!"
The order went instantly to every crewman and woman on board. Derek could almost feel the tension on board rising as the enemy drew near. He could very nearly taste the fear flowing through every corridor and room in the ship. Anxiety flooded every hold, every crack and seam line.
Then, the Argo and the Gamilon missile collided.
"No!" Starsha pleaded with the image in front of her. "No! This cannot be!" Tears of disbelief streamed down her face. "Yahweh, You must deliver them!" she turned her face towards heaven. "You cannot let them die now. They must live to fulfill Your promise to Erats. You cannot let the place of Creation be destroyed. You cannot." She fell to her knees, the image disappearing as she held her face in her hands.
"Please, please, Yahweh, deliver them. Thou hast said that, 'He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.' Thou hast said. 'Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.' Thou hast said, 'There shall no evil befall thee,' and Thou hast said, 'He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.' Fulfill these promises to these ones who seek to save the world."
Most of the engineering crew were out of the room when the enemy ship smashed directly into the firing gate at the front of the Argo. But there was no explosion.
The few who were left in the engine room called their chief on the bridge.
"Orion, nothing's happening down here." One of them said.
"It's like the thing's a dud." Another man added after the first.
"Stay away from it." Orion's voice replied over the comm. Get out of the engine room and wait for the captain's orders."
"Yes, sir." The remaining engineering crew replied before scurrying out of the room and getting as far away from the front of the ship as possible.
"Sandor, what's going on?" Derek turned to the XO for an explanation.
"There are no explosives on board that thing. It's no missile." He replied. "But there is something very odd about it. It has a computer core. Then there's the shape of it." Sandor brought up a complete image they'd been able to get of the thing when it crashed through the bow of the ship.
"It looks like a gigantic drill." Derek said.
"Precisely." Sandor nodded. "I think this is worse than a bomb, Wildstar."
"What do you –" Derek never got the chance to ask his question. Just as he started speaking, the entire ship began to shake, like an earthquake was ripping through them.
"What's going on?!" Derek demanded.
"It's moving." Sandor said ominously. "It's drilling into the ship."
"But it's lodged in the wave gun's firing gate." Derek replied. "Let's just blow it back out."
"Can't do that, Wildstar." Sandor said. "That missile is wedged in too tightly. Firing the wave gun now would destroy the ship. All the energy would be concentrated inside the firing gate and would cause us to explode."
"Cancel the charge for the wave gun, Orion." Derek ordered.
The old engineer nodded and did as he was told.
"There has to be another option." Derek shook his head, trying to think of something – anything they could do to stop the inevitable. "If that thing makes it to the engine…"
"It won't matter anyway." Sandor finished.
Derek nodded, face starting to register some of the anxiety of his crew. "Sandor, is there anything you can do?"
"I don't know." The XO replied. "I can take IQ-9 down there and see if I can find out more about it."
"Go." Derek ordered. "Do whatever you can. Stop it from hitting the engine, even if you have to tear up part of the ship to do it. Better to have to make repairs than to be dead."
"Yes, Sir." Sandor immediately disappeared, calling for IQ-9 to meet him down in the engine room as he went.
"Pull everyone back." Dommel ordered. "Let the mining drill do its work. There's nothing more they can do to stop it."
"Yes, Sir." Lysis's second-in-command replied and issued the order for all fighters and missile ships to return to their carriers.
"How did we fare?" Dommel asked.
"We lost… over thirty pilots, Sir." The XO replied quietly. "Their fighters, even with minimal instruments, have remarkable skill."
"I see…" Dommel sighed heavily, thinking of all the families he would have to inform when this was over. "A formidable enemy indeed – at least, they were. Soon we will have avenged those deaths, and all the others that those Eratites have caused these past months."
The XO nodded, but said nothing.
"What else?" Dommel asked, knowing there was more news.
"In addition to the fatalities, we also lost over fifty more fighters. It seems that there were many of the Eratites who shot to incapacitate instead of kill. We managed to get all the damaged ships' pilots back here. But…" the XO stopped.
"But what?" Lysis asked.
"It… seems that the Storm Leader… Melda Dietz, from Rakiah Cobel has… disappeared." The XO said hesitantly.
"Disappeared? What precisely do you mean?" Dommel asked, "Was she among the causalities?"
"No, General." The officer replied, lowering his head, "She is not among the dead. Her fighter is still on board, and there is a scout ship missing."
"Hmm." Dommel's brow furrowed, "Try to trace the ship's trail. See where she's headed. Whatever's going on, she may have a good reason for it. The Storm Leader sometimes receives odd instructions. Give her a chance to return."
"Yes, General." The XO nodded, sounding a bit relieved at the suggestion that Dietz might have left on official business.
"I know you have ties to the Prime Minister, Dietz." Dommel thought. "You had better not be trying to subvert our efforts."
Sandor stared at the gigantic drill as it steadily shredded through the front of the Argo. The thing had made it about a tenth of the way into the firing gate by now. Thankfully it was going fairly slowly and Sandor estimated that they had at least forty minutes before the drill reached the engine.
"Turn off the gravity in the engine room." Sandor said into his comm.
Suddenly he was weightless.
"IQ, let's get up there." The science officer motioned to his robotic companion.
IQ's red dome lit up in agreement and he floated behind the XO as they made their way up into the firing gate.
They quickly made it down the long tunnel to the drill.
"Get a complete scan of everything you can, IQ." Sandor told the robot.
"Yes, Sir." IQ droned, then activated his scanners. It took several long minutes for the scan to finish. "Sending the results to you now, Sandor."
"Thanks, IQ." Sandor opened up the results of the scan on his hand-held. The noise the drill was making was horrendous, and more than once Sandor clamped his free hand over one ear to lessen the irritating shriek of metal against metal.
The science officer concentrated hard on the information in front of him for over ten minutes.
"Twenty-five minutes until contact." IQ announced.
"Yes, I know." Sandor replied absently, then, to the robot's puzzlement, the science officer's face lit up and he opened another application on his handheld.
Pointing the little computer at the oncoming drill, he tapped something on the screen.
As the man and robot watched, the tip of the drill spiraled open, allowing them access to the inner workings of the machine.
"Wildstar, we're in!" Sandor said triumphantly into his comm.
"Great!" Derek replied. "Just get it to stop moving. We'll figure out how to get it out later."
Sandor put away his comm and stared at the opening, studying it.
A moment later he stepped up to the drill and stuck his head into the opening.
"I can see the control center." Sandor grunted as he tried to reach for the operations systems, but – I can't –" he grunted again, "I can't reach it."
The science officer pulled himself back out.
"IQ, you'll have to do it." Sandor said.
The robot made a grumbling sound. "Why do I always have to be the one who has to fix things?"
"Because you're good at it," Sandor replied, "Now get in there and do exactly what I tell you to."
"Okay. I'll do it." IQ mumbled – at least, as well as his vocal processors would let him.
The red-domed robot reached into the opening. It was just big enough for him to fit his thick arm through and allow him to position one photoreceptor to see into the strange machine.
"Patch your video feed into my computer." Sandor said.
Instantly, he could see exactly what IQ was seeing.
Sandor studied the words displayed across various sections of the drill's computer center. He could read most of them fairly easily; though a couple of them were words he was unfamiliar with. He could sound them out, but their meanings were lost to him. Thankfully he found the one he was looking for.
"IQ, splice the 'ignition' wire into the 'stop' wire." Sandor instructed.
"Clarification needed." IQ said, confused. "I cannot read these words."
"Cut the blue wire and patch it into the green one." Sandor replied.
"Working." IQ said.
Sandor started to put his handheld away when he noticed something very wrong. "IQ, what are you doing? I said the green wire."
"I am doing as you instructed." IQ said.
"No, you've connected the red one." Sandor protested, a bit of panic starting to rise in his throat.
"It appears my photoreceptors are malfunctioning." IQ droned in apology.
"Why didn't you mention that before? I can't read the label on the red one. There's no way of knowing what that one will do."
"I did not know they were malfunctioning." IQ retorted.
The drill rumbled to a sudden halt.
Everything was still for a long, tense moment, then the drill began making a series of curious chirps and bleeps.
"IQ, get out of there, now." Sandor ordered.
The robot backed out of the drill as quickly as his rotund form would allow.
There was a clamor of shrill scraping, and the drill began to shake violently, then, with a loud shriek, it started moving.
Scripture references include: Psalm 91: 1,5,10, & 15