Nathan Hystad - New Threat

He passed me a bottle of water from beside the bed, helping himself to one as well.

“I’m not sure. That’s above my pay grade.”

“Take a stab at it,” I coaxed.

He stared at the wall for a minute. Slate was a trained soldier, but from my experience with him, he was a lot smarter than even he gave himself credit for.

“Kareem said they were chased away, forced to leave the device hidden because they didn’t have their DNA yet. The Bhlat are a big force, we can assume, so maybe they left soldiers here in the off chance the Deltra came back. They pretended it was dead, in hopes of luring them back. Or they’re no better than space pirates, trying to get someone to board, and then stealing their ships. Either way, I doubt they knew about the hidden killing machine Kareem left behind,” Slate said, impressing me with his speculation.

“But fifty years? It doesn’t add up. Unless Mae was able to communicate to them?”

“There was no ship there. They had to have been dropped off some time ago.”

“What happened with the grav-system out there?” I looked to the ceiling, even though I had no idea what direction the Deltra ship stood.

He smiled at this. “We were losing, and I wanted something to turn the tides.”

“Thank God you did, because I was about to get shot.”

“And how did that work out for you?” He nodded at my stomach.

“I got shot,” I said, laughing along with him. “Stop, it hurts.” My hand settled on my wound, which was extremely tender to the touch.

“Sorry, boss. No more jokes.”

“Are we still at the station?” I asked.

“We moved away a few thousand kilometers.” He crossed the room and picked up a tablet. “See?” He showed me the image from the viewscreen on the bridge. The ship lingered there, just in orbit of a gorgeous, lifeless world, particles, water, and ice creating a visually stunning ring around the planet.

“I can’t believe something so beautiful can be so treacherous at the same time,” I said, still staring at the planet on the tablet.

“I had a girlfriend like that in high school,” Slate said, straight-faced at first. Soon we were laughing, and I was literally busting a gut. The pills beside my bed were starting to call for me.

“You guys are going to want to see this.” Clare’s voice came through the room’s speakers. Slate’s tablet switched to the map mode; Clare was pushing through. A small icon blinked once again on it. “Mae’s ship is back and moving fast.”

“Mae’s ship?” I blurted, hardly able to believe what I was seeing. “How is that possible?”.

“We don’t know. She’s heading out from the asteroid field we passed just now. Maybe she found a way to hide from our sensors inside it.” Clare slapped her palm to her forehead. “We should have gone back and checked. Sit a ship on a large enough hunk of rock, with just the right amount of radioactive metals inside it, and it would probably jam our sensors.”

I nearly smiled at Mae’s move. She’d hidden from us on an asteroid and was now getting away.

“Follow her,” I said.

Three heads turned to look at me, propped up in the captain’s chair wearing a cheap med-suit, and solemnly nodded.

“What choice do we have? If we want to keep the Bhlat from knowing we were here, she’s the last moving piece,” Clare said.

“She has to be exterminated.” Slate stood tall, staring forward toward the map on the viewscreen. His words bothered me, but I knew they shouldn’t. He was right.

“How do we know where she’s going?” Nick asked, still wearing his scrubs.

“We don’t, but we can predict where her current trajectory will take her. We’ll aim for that path, and maybe we can even cross paths. We have the advantage because we can see where she is, but she can’t do the same with us.” Clare was taking charge, and I obliged her. With Mary incapacitated, we needed someone who could fly the ship and think outside the box.

“What do you think she’s doing?” Nick asked.

“She has to be going to the Bhlat. The Kraski are gone, for all we know… but maybe that was a lie from Mae. She had no affiliation with the Deltra, at least none that we knew of.” I thought back to my memories of the Deltra visiting Janine and convincing her to work with them. They, of course, tricked her, just as they had tricked us last year. I looked down at the new Deltra tool I held in my hand and wondered how I had trusted Kareem so quickly. Suddenly, the killing device I was holding made me want to throw up. How had it even gotten into my hands? For all I knew, they were tracking us with it. The urge to release it out the airlock passed over me, but we might still need the damned thing. After that, I was sure I needed to dispose of it, once and for all.

“Make that happen, Clare. Slate, can you give me a hand back to the room? I think I need to rest.” My body was in serious pain, and the events were leaving me lightheaded.

“For sure, boss.” He took most of my weight and soon I was back in the room, lying on the bed looking at the ceiling. I took another pill, and before I knew it, my vision was fading, my brain getting foggy.

“Dean, I’m just going to go for a run. I’ll be back soon, and I’ll make breakfast.” Janine walked over to me at the kitchen island as I was pecking away at my laptop. She leaned over, resting her chin on my shoulder. I turned my head and she kissed my cheek, leaving her freshly applied lip balm. She always wore vanilla. I loved the scent.

“Have a good run. Can we have bacon with breakfast?” I asked. She rolled her eyes.

“Dean, do I go for a run just to counter a couple slices of bacon? Maybe you should join me.” She prodded me in the side with her finger.

“I promise I’ll go next time. I have some work to get done for this afternoon.” It was mostly the truth.

“Okay, babycakes. I’ll be back.” She hopped from one foot to the other, warming up her blood flow. Her hair was in a ponytail, and she didn’t have any makeup on. She was the most beautiful woman I’d even seen.

The door closed, and I went back to working on the Peterson file.

Iawoke from the strange dream wondering why I’d remembered that brief moment of my past. It was from eight years ago, probably not even a year after Janine and I had met. The pain pills left my mouth dry, another side effect of the medicine. Finding the bottle of open water on my table, I guzzled half the bottle before setting it down.

The dream had left me shaken, seeing Janine again. Mae looked just like her. I always felt like there was a difference I could notice between them, but since I hadn’t ever seen them together, it was hard to tell. Either that, or my brain filled in the Janine role in my dream with Mae’s face, her nuances.

“Dean,” a coarse voice whispered from across the room.

“Mary!” I exclaimed, so happy she was awake. “I’m here.”

Getting off my bed proved easier this time than the last, and I saw from the tablet on the wall that I’d been out for four hours. The pills really packed a punch.

I pulled the chair Slate had been sitting in and brought it to her bedside.

Mary’s eyes were closed, but she opened them when I touched her hand. It was warm, but not hot to the touch, and I took that as a good sign.

“How are you feeling?” I asked her, squeezing her fingers ever-so-lightly.

She groaned but smiled at me through the pain. “I feel like a fell from a cliff and landed on the ground in a poof just like a cartoon coyote. What happened?”