Nathan Hystad - New Threat

Slate stood tall, intimidating as he silently seemed to assess each of us, his military-trained mind looking for value or weakness. He wore a black vest, holding what I could only assume were multiple dangerous and deadly devices on it, overtop of his Earth Defense uniform. We were all wearing the body suits, and it actually felt like we were a trained team about to head into space rather than a rag-tag group of survivors who’d just met, looking to stop escaped hybrids from camp.

I wondered who was in charge of the mission. After a few moments of dead air, all eyes ended up on me. They were looking to me to lead the charge? How was that even possible?

I cleared my throat, hoping someone else would speak, but when no one did, I began. “I don’t have any idea how I ended up here, on the bridge of a human altered Kraski ship, about to go back to space, the one place I truly have no desire to ever see again. But here we all are. Leslie and Terrance have left us no choice but to stop them. We can’t have the Bhlat know where we are. This is imperative at all costs.” I stopped, coming to accept the facts I was saying. “We’ll sacrifice ourselves, if necessary.”

The doctor fidgeted with his sleeve and kept his eyes to the floor as I spoke.

“Everyone good with that?” I asked.

One by one, everyone agreed. The last was Nick, who finally met my eyes, and I was happy to see resolve in them. He nodded once, firmly.

“Good. Mary, let them know we’re ready to go. Mae, on screen, please,” I said, sitting down in a chair. Not the one in the center, which I could only assume, from years of Star Trek watching, was meant to be the captain’s chair. I hadn’t earned that spot yet.

The curved viewscreen showed us the inside of the hangar.

“All clear. You’re ready for takeoff,” came through the speakers on Mary’s console, and she tapped the green glowing console tablet. The ship came to life, lights firing up around the bridge, giving us a green and blue glowing aura. It was spectacular.

Everything hummed lightly as we began to move, and moments later, we were in the field, directly under the open base ceiling. The viewscreen showed a line of base workers, all watching us depart. I picked Nat and Magnus out of the crowd, Carey at their feet. Godspeed, my friends .

Our black ship hovered and raised upward to the opening.

“Return to us, Heroes of Earth,” Dalhousie’s voice cut through the speaker.

“We will, ma’am,” Mary returned, and lifted us out of the secret base and into the night sky above New Mexico.

The stars were white and bright against the deep black backdrop. Here we went again. I remembered back to a year ago, when Mary had flown the smaller ship from Machu Picchu with Magnus and the Shield, a crazy elaborate and desperate plan to save the world. It had half-worked too. Better than the alternative.

A blip flashed on the 3D map on the bottom right side of the viewscreen: the same map that showed on my chair’s sidearm console tablet.

“That’s them. Setting course for intercept. They haven’t hit the high-velocity drive yet,” Mary said. They were more than a few thousand kilometers away, with a two-hour head start on their side.

“I’ve started to charge the drive. Should be operational for in-system FTL in two hours.” Clare stood at a console to the port side of the bridge, stood straight-backed, wearing her uniform with pride. She knew that ship inside and out, and I was sure she was going to be a great asset to the team. Not only that, but she was always a positive presence in the room, no matter where she was. It was hard to be in a bad mood with her energy lifting up the people around her.

We lifted through the atmosphere and shot into the massive expanse of space. I stood, seeing the moon ahead. It was such a different experience this time. This time, we knew what we had to do. Mary shifted the trajectory, pointing us away from the sun. The map showed the current position of the solar system’s planets, each on their own pattern of rotations around the system’s star, our sun. The blip of our target Kraski ship was on a line toward Mars.

“Slate, can you give me a tour of the supply room?” I asked the beast of a man. He’d just been standing, there watching space through still eyes.

“Sure thing, boss,” he said, and I thought it might be the first time I’d heard the guy speak. His voice was higher-pitched than I’d expected.

“I’ll be in the storeroom,” I said to Mary, who just nodded, focusing on her task at hand.

Slate led the way out of the bridge, down the hall, past the engineering room, and into the center of the ship. Crates were strapped to the walls. Upon closer inspection, I saw they were labeled. Food products on the left, from floor to ceiling.

“Boss, here are the clothing crates. We have medical supplies here,” he waved to the stack of crates on the right side of the room. “Toiletries here. And you saw the food supplies.”

“How about those?” I asked, nodding toward some large steel boxes in the middle of the floor.

He shook his head. “You don’t want to get into those yet. Armaments. Lots of them. Grenades, more pulse rifles than the few of us could ever use. Always better to be overprepared than underprepared. A few secrets, I’ll show you later.” Slate had a twinkle in his eyes, and I saw what turned this man’s crank.

Nick Ellis, the doctor, sauntered in, whistling when he saw the crates piled up.

“How about we get some of this sorted and organized?” I asked them. “There’s a small medic room near engineering. How about you start there, Doc? Slate, let’s get this kitchen set up, and the beds while we’re at it.”

Nothing was ready in the ship. The president hadn’t expected a long-range venture with a crew, so nothing was set up for us. I didn’t mind, because it allowed us to bond by setting it up. Some sweat equity at the start of the journey.

“Sounds like a plan,” Nick said, grabbing a crate down with Slate’s help.

Soon we were organizing what we needed, Nick setting up the medical station, then adding linens and pillows to the bunks. Slate and I filled the shelves of the kitchen and I found a coffee maker, brewing some fresh-ground beans to keep everyone going. All in all, it took us just over two hours, and I brought coffee up to the bridge for the ladies on duty.

“Dean, I’ve been thinking,” Mary said, smiling at me as she took the coffee cup. “If we can’t catch them here, maybe we should follow them secretly. We might want to see where they go. It could teach us a lot. Maybe we can find where the Bhlat are and take the offense to them.”

I hated the idea but didn’t want to dismiss her right off the bat. Maybe she was right.

“Let’s see how this goes. Maybe we catch up today and stop them, even if it means I’ll never get to eat the dehydrated food I just lined the shelves with. Patrice and Heart wanted us to stop them right away. I’m not sure I’m up for breaking those orders. Especially with the huge guy in the store-room on their side,” I said.

“Just think about it,” Mary said quietly.

“Clare, how are we doing on the FTL drive?” I asked.

She smiled. “Under an hour left before we can fire it up. What’s the plan?”

“Mary, what do you say when it’s ready, we jump closer to them? I have to think they know how to use their drive too. Maybe they just haven’t yet because they don’t know we’re coming after them. Appear right up their ass and blow them away.” I knew it wasn’t going to be as easy as capturing them. I wasn’t going to even try to kid myself.

“That’s exactly what we should do. I just assume they’ll …” The blip on the screen flashed. “Shit. They activated it.”