Captain Michael Alexander was busily overseeing the final testing phase of the new graviton shielding system only recently fitted to the Liberty, while the process was ongoing the former Krenaran stealth ship had been temporarily taken out of active service.
In truth, the graviton shielding system was an experiment, a collaboration between Solarian scientists and the E.D. F research division. It worked via a series of powerful gravitic generators placed at key points around the ships hull. When these generators were all activated simultaneously, they produced a powerful gravitational field around the ship, thereby deflecting most types of weapons fire. Well that was how it was explained to him anyway, though to Michael it had looked like the Liberty had grown a few ‘pimples’.
His crew were due back in the morning, they had all been given extended leave while the upgrade work was being completed. Michael had come back a few days earlier as usual, to inspect his pride and joy.
Sat in a small restaurant, and overlooking the tiny dockyard where several ships were berthed. Today, he could only make out three E.D. F ships and two Solarian battlecruisers, the Solarians often used the dockyard as a re-supply point while patrolling the borders of their territory as the facility was close to Solarian space. He envied their clean, graceful, flowing design instead of the sharp rectangular shaped hulls of so many E.D. F ships. In comparison the Solarian ships looked positively majestic, their shining silvery crescent shaped hulls, and raised, sharp, beak-like command structure betrayed a love of technology far beyond the rugged utilitarian nature of E.D. F shipping, but also an aesthetic quality together with the wildly advanced technology that he doubted the E.D. F would ever possess.
Despite being a predominantly peaceful people, the Solarians possessed some of the most advanced and powerful fighting ships he had ever seen. The irony of that was not lost on him.
“Admiring the view?” Commodore Solomon Valente asked as he motioned to sit with the Liberty captain, a motion that was readily accepted with a smile and a nod. Valente was the commander of this facility named Charlie Gamma base, a tiny experimental research post and sub-orbital dockyard orbiting the Malthus colony on Malthus IV. It had been re-built after the Krenarans devastated the colony during the war, and only completed barely three years ago.
“I was just thinking about those Solarian ships,” Michael said as he turned from looking at the commodore, to glancing over the vessels one last time.
“I know, magnificent aren’t they? Wondrous machines, and damned fast too.”
Michael smiled and nodded, he probably had more experience of their capabilities than the commodore had. Especially since the Liberty had fought alongside them practically throughout the Krenaran war.
“Do you know about the Valley forge project?” Valente asked enthusiastically.
“I know it’s a design for a new type of experimental ship,” Michael replied, his brow furrowed slightly in thought. He hadn’t really heard a great deal on the subject, it was supposed to be top secret, senior admiralty only. It made him wonder how the commodore knew, but in all things, word eventually gets around in the navy.
“It’s more than that, the Valley forge is going to be the future replacement for the Danitza class battleships.”
Michael remembered back to his time aboard the Ulysses, a Danitza class battleship itself. It was immense, glorious, packed with firepower and the latest advances in technology. Unfortunately, none of that did it any good, as the Krenarans blew it to smithereens at the outset of the war. “The Danitza’s are powerful ships, some of them are amongst the most devastating ships in the fleet, why replace them?”
“The Danitza is an ageing design now; it was conceived and built as a deterrent, back in twenty sixty when all we had to deal with was random pirate attacks. Now we have Krenarans, Solarians, and Christ knows what else out there. We need a new advanced ship of the line that can deal with these new threats the galaxy throws at us.”
“The Solarians are not a threat to us, they are our allies.”
“I know that, the Krenaran war proved just how vulnerable the Danitza is to the types of energy weapons used against it. Its massive size makes it slow and unwieldy. Besides anyway, the Danitza’s are costly to run.”
Michael smiled and suppressed a harrumph at this last point, it always came down to money in the end, how much were colonists lives worth nowadays anyway? Since when did the E.D. F go from protecting the people, to savings and cut-backs. He remained silent, not wishing to get into an argument with a superior officer about this.
“From what I gather, the Valley forge is going to utilise technology reverse engineered from the Liberty. If the new graviton shields work, they are going to be used on the Valley forge.”
This did surprise Michael, he had not been made aware of any technology from the Liberty being used on any other ship in the fleet, mostly due to compatibility issues. He supposed it was just a matter of time until they got around it, although it would have been nice for command to let him know, especially since he was the ship’s captain and all.
“It’s the E.D. F’s attempt to merge the fighter carrying capacity of a carrier, with the firepower of a battleship. From what I hear, its primary weapons systems will be not one, but two high power fusion cannons. Each one considerably larger, and with a much larger bore size than the one the Liberty carries. Designs have already been approved by E.D. F command, building has already started.”
Michael had not even seen this new ship yet, and was already tiring of the commodore’s incessant repartee about it. He knew from experience that the fusion cannon was one heck of a power hungry weapon. The Liberties own fusion cannon was a Solarian designed one and is the most powerful anti-ship weapon currently available. If the Valley forge was to use two even larger ones, how the hell were they going to power them?
“How long until she is ready?” he asked, at least trying to make it look like he was still interested.
“It’s going to take three years to build the prototype, then you have shakedown and fleet trials. It’ll be a good five years or so until she is with us proper.”
Jesus, Michael thought. It looks as though the age of the advanced battleship has come upon us, nothing would tempt him away from his beloved Liberty though.
A young fresh faced lieutenant rather hurriedly approached the two men interrupting their conversation, he was panting from his rush to get to them.
“Sir, I am sorry to interrupt but I have important news,” the man puffed, a small bead of sweat trickled down his face.
“Do you know how rude it is to interrupt a senior officer’s conversation!” Valente snapped at the impetuous lieutenant. “Straighten you uniform man! Stand up straight!”
Michael said nothing, yet chuckled inwardly at the inexperience of the junior officer being given a severe dressing down.
“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant quickly flattened down his deep navy blue uniform, and stood briskly to attention, attracting a few chuckles from nearby personnel who happened to be passing by.
“Now that you have most rudely interrupted our conversation, what news do you have?” Valente glared at him, if this turned out to be something trivial, he would have the lieutenant on cleaning detail for a week.
“The E.D.F. S Eisenhower has just intercepted a sensor buoy, containing a distress signal from the Copernicus.”
The Eisenhower was a Jefferson class heavy cruiser on routine patrol near the Solarian border. An unremarkable ship by many standards, she had nevertheless earned her battle honours at the battle for Gamma IV, during the closing stages of the Krenaran war.
The Copernicus, Michael remembered, was the ship Kathryn Jacobs served aboard after resigning her position as chief medical officer on the Liberty. He missed Kathryn, although he had understood why she had made the decision to leave. Eventually the trauma of treating so many wartime dead and dying had affected her badly. It probably did all medical officers in the end, you see your friends and colleagues brought in torn to pieces on the operating table, and it’s your job to sew them back up, and send them right back out there again. It wasn’t a job Michael particularly envied.
Kathryn went and spent some time in counselling and therapy, trying to exorcise some of those demons that she encountered on that operating table. Finally quitting the medical profession altogether and re-training as a planetary geologist, her other great love.
While his current medical officer and Kathryn’s replacement, Lillian Goddard was the more experienced of the two. He missed Kathryn’s gentle, warm smile and soothing touch. She had that rare quality to be able to put anyone at ease.
Lillian on the other hand, was harsher, colder. Michael had to admit she was good at her job, she definitely knew her stuff, yet lacked Kathryn’s gentleness.
Commodore Valente looked grave, nobody launched a distress buoy for no reason. “Have the Eisenhower transmit the contents of the buoy to us.”
He gently rose from his seat, turning back to face Michael, “I’m sorry captain, but I must attend to this.”
“By all means,” Michael nodded in understanding.
With that Commodore Valente left the small restaurant, rushing to the nearest elevator with the lieutenant hurrying to keep up.
Michael was left alone, just as he liked it. Quietly watching the berthed vessels once again, and wondering if Kathryn was okay. Hoping she was safe out there wherever she was. He drank the remainder of the lukewarm coffee in his cup, before returning to his quarters aboard the Liberty.
A few hours later as he was quietly perusing the reports of the final test results, that were completed on the Liberties new shielding system the previous day. His wrist comm. chirped, interrupting him.
“Captain, I know the hour is late, but a serious situation has arisen, I need to brief you immediately.” It was the grave voice of commodore Valente.
Well, this is a turn up for the books, an emergency in a dockyard. Michael guessed it had something to do with the incident involving the lieutenant and the Eisenhower earlier.
“I’m on my way,” he replied as he hauled himself out of his enticingly comfortable bed, put down the data navigator containing the report; splashed his face with cool water in an effort to re-awaken himself, and got dressed for the second time today, straightening his tunic as he went.
He made his way across the Liberties empty bridge, to an elevator which guided him to a deck where the main hatch was located on the port side of the ship. It was strange, he thought. With the Liberty berthed in a dockyard like this, instead of being out amongst the stars, bereft of her crew, and only functioning on minimal power it almost felt like the ship was sleeping. He had found that without a crew, six decks and one hundred and forty metres was a very big place indeed; though Michael had gotten used to it over the past three months while the ship received its latest batch of upgrades.
The elevator stopped on deck four, and opened out into a long corridor that ran the entire length of the ship, wiring and delicate circuitry for the myriad of the Liberties systems were all secreted away in overhead trunking, that, in some sections almost half covered the ceiling.
The floors were white, and the walls a very light grey, giving the corridor a clean almost hospital like appearance. Fully customizable displays lined the walls in even intersections, where the corridor didn’t branch off into separate sub-sections.
The displays were all powered down for now though in order to conserve power. The corridor itself had a series of bulkheads every fifteen metres or so, that created a kind of octagonal archway. This proved to be a nuisance, because if one didn’t mind their head, they could quickly be incapacitated by running into one of the armoured bulkhead surrounds, as several of his crew had already found out to their cost. Lillian had at least one concussion per week to treat. The idea was sound though, in the event of a fire or decompression, the entire area could be sealed off until repairs could be made.
Michael made his way halfway along this main corridor, eyeing the bulkhead arches with a kind of grim suspicion, he didn’t feel like a trip to the stations sickbay tonight, thank you very much.
He then hung a right, turning into a much narrower corridor with only small displays and many more doors leading into several ships departments, crew quarters, maintenance access corridors, supply rooms, the ships main computer core was located on this deck although that was on the starboard side of the ship, towards the aft of the deck lay the power plant for the ships primary sub-light engine. The Solarian negative Ion propulsion drive, as they called it. He loved the engines on this ship, it was what turned the ship from an ordinary cruiser, into a hot rod. Able to fly at a speed, dive and jink to avoid attacks, that left other ships simply in its wake, and able to get out of danger quickly if the action became too hot.
This ship was unique, there was nothing else like it in the entire E.D. F, and Michael loved its uniqueness, which was why he was a little hurt when he heard of the E.D. F’s plans to reverse engineer some of its technology. Suddenly, the Liberty was not so unique anymore, although he understood the decision, he didn’t have to like it.
Nearing the hatch, which was attached to a small temporary berthing corridor, a relatively recent addition to the ship that allowed it to dock with stations and other ships more easily, this small corridor led onto the main structure of the facility. At least here were signs of human life, a few dozen E.D. F engineers were strolling past, carrying equipment to perform some routine repairs to a couple of freighters having just recently arrived. They had already offloaded their cargo, and were just going through some minor repair work, before heading off out into space again.
Michael made his way over to the nearest elevator and said “command deck,” into the speaker.
The elevator merrily chirped its response and sped him onto his destination, although Charlie Gamma base was only a small substation under the command of the E.D. F research division, it was still quite a sizeable installation in its own right. Made up of thirty six decks and over eight hundred E.D. F engineers and research personnel worked there, its small, but advanced dockyards could service anything from a single seat Peregrine fighter all the way up to a Washington class heavy cruiser. Though not the Danitza class, or main carrier classes, as they were simply too large for the station to handle, they needed the services of a major facility like Alpha, Delta or Echo base, as those were the only facilities large enough to accommodate those metal goliaths.
After a few seconds had elapsed, the elevator stopped at the command deck of the station, and cheerily beeped again to let him know of the fact. Michael stepped out onto the command deck of the base and was immediately shocked. For the size of the station, the command deck was tiny, the bridge of a Montgomery class carrier was bigger than this. Around twenty officers were sat manning stations, a central walkway ran toward the commodore’s office. Either side of this walkway a small flight of four steps descended into a pair of sunken semi-circular work areas lined with complex displays, five men worked within each section.
To Michael’s left and right, another flight of ten steps led to an overhead gantry, lined with yet more displays, here another ten men worked. He spied the commodore’s office ahead and just to the left of him. In the wall directly ahead was a giant viewer, partially obscured by this overhead gantry. It was currently showing the forms of the two Lincoln class supply ships which had docked earlier.
Michael could see the commodore waving from his office to enter, so he hurried along the central platform toward the side room, the frosted glass doors opened automatically.
Valente had guessed Michael’s surprise, “not what you were expecting?”
Michael had to admit, “not really, with a station of this size, I was expecting something a little larger.”
“That’s what surprised me too when I took command here three years ago, you would expect for a station that essentially oversees all operations in the Malthus system and for several light years beyond, to have quite a sizeable command and control centre, but not Charlie Gamma base,” Valente said shaking his head. “Please, take a seat.”
Michael sat down in a comfortable leatherette chair next to the commodore’s desk, as he did so a small monitor rose from the surface.
“As you are no doubt aware, the Jefferson class heavy cruiser, Eisenhower picked up a distress buoy from the Copernicus, which was conducting a survey of the Auriga system. From the logs and sensor data downloaded into the buoy we can confirm the Copernicus has been destroyed in orbit of the third planet in the system.”
Michael stared, his eyebrows raised in shock, fearing for the life of his former medical officer; his friend.
“However it is what destroyed the Copernicus, and the events leading up to it that has everyone talking.”
Michael peered at the small video playing on the monitor, he watched the monumental release of energy that shot past, coating the ship in its intense orange glare in the process, and whispered, “what the hell?”
The video showed the enemy ship, Michael at first mistook it for a Solarian battlecruiser. Yet when he looked closer he picked up the subtle differences, the lower, sleeker, more severely angled command structure. The pronounced weapon arrays on the wingtips, together with the fact that this ship was black in colour and not silver. The dark leviathan began firing on the defenceless Copernicus; the image quickly faded to black.
Michael had to ask the question, “is that a Solarian ship?”
“No, the Solarian’s have denied any involvement or even knowledge of the incident, but they are not saying who it is either. They are acting very strangely about the whole thing, and are absolutely adamant they will not get involved. So adamant in fact, that they have threatened to pull their ships out of the area.”
“That’s not like them, normally they are pretty co-operative with us, they never had a problem sharing information before, so why now?”
Valente simply shrugged, “beats me, E.D. F command has an inkling that the Solarians do know who is behind it. Or at least they have a very good idea, why they are being so reluctant, nobody knows. The planet isn’t even an E.O.C. A colony world, so there’s no threat of invasion for now at least. Command is monitoring the situation closely and has initiated a temporary alert level three on this, since it is an attack on E.O.C. A property, namely the Copernicus, and it is an incursion into E.O.C. A territory. This is our highest alert level since the Krenaran war captain.”
Michael was still wondering just what all this had to do with him, but continued to listen to the commodore’s briefing anyway.
“However, there are still a group of sixteen survivors from the Copernicus who were investigating some alien ruins on the surface, and we need to get them out of there fast. The Liberty is the only ship that can get there fast enough to save them, but you’ll need help,” Valente smiled. “Fortunately for us, a group of twenty E.D. F commandoes have been training for just this kind of scenario at Bravo Delta base on the colony world of Gamma Aurigulon not too far away. It’s a small military complex used for hostage retrieval training, Colonel Vargev is currently commanding them. They have been scrambled, and are currently on route to the planet in a Stockholm class lander, your mission is to rendezvous with the lander, transfer the troops onboard, and land them on the surface so they can extract the survivors.”
Michael understood the mission, however a few questions still lingered in the back of his mind, “if I may commodore?”
“By all means.”
“Why doesn’t the Liberty simply escort the lander in?”
“Command are worried that the lander may come under fire, as you know, the Stockholm class lander has no ship-to-ship weaponry, it is purely and simply a means of transporting troops onto the battlefield. Out in space it is highly vulnerable, that’s why we usually have to clear the bad guys out first using the navy, before we can send the landers in. If those commandoes die on-route, the mission is scrubbed and the survivors die as well.”
“Understood,” Michael replied, it had seemed as though the E.D. F had learned the lessons from all those failed lander missions during the war, so many were simply torn to shreds by stealth ships before ever reaching the surface.
“The Liberty is still not in active service while we are field testing these new graviton shields, surely there is another ship closer, who can perform the mission just as well?” Michael pleaded, his crew were still not back, and he didn’t want to be put in the position of having to take out the Liberty with a completely green, temporary crew, especially if he was expecting to take her into a fight.
“The Eisenhower could, but you know as well as I do, the Liberty is more than twice as fast as her, far more heavily armed and much more survivable in an engagement. Yes, the Eisenhower is closer, but the Liberty is faster, in this type of mission it’s a no-contest, we’ll just have to test the new shielding system in combat,” Valente said.
Just hope to hell they work like they do in the simulations, Michael thought, the power supply to the ships previous reactive hull armour had been removed to stabilise the load on the ships main power core, if those shields failed the Liberty would only be marginally more survivable than any other ship. “My crew have not yet arrived back from their shore leave, the Liberty can’t leave immediately anyway.”
“We have already contacted your crew and apprised them of the situation, most were on-route anyway, they have been given orders to scramble and should be here in the next couple of hours, no doubt you’ll also brief them personally?”
“Of course.”
“Look Michael, I don’t like rushing the Liberty back into service like this anymore than you do, but we both know the best chance for the survival of those scientists is if the Liberty is involved.”
Michael nodded, he couldn’t argue the point, the Liberty was the fastest ship in the E.D. F anyway.
“The Eisenhower has been placed on standby should you need her, and a taskforce of four other E.D. F ships have been dispatched from Delta base, they won’t arrive in system for another 2 days, and we are without Solarian help, it appears we are on our own on this one. Do us proud captain.”
“I’ll try my best, sir.”
The two officers saluted one another, and commodore Valente gave him a disc for his data navigator containing the specifics of the mission.
“Good luck out there, captain.”
“Thank you, sir.” Michael replied before the commodore dismissed him.
He wasn’t happy with the circumstances, the Liberty wasn’t really ready to be thrown into a combat environment just yet, and the Solarians acting weirdly was totally unlike them. He had a lead he could follow up on however, namely his own pilot, Eldathar, and failing that, ambassador Kerulithar on Solaria itself, the ambassador had helped them out once before when he accompanied them to the Solarian homeworld to enlist his people’s help in the Krenaran war, he was confident he would do so again.
He decided however, that the best course of action was to speak to Eldathar when he arrived back from his shore leave. With that, he left the confines of the command centre and headed back to the Liberty with more questions than answers.
Poring over the mission requirements, as well as accessing the stations primary computer archives from the terminal in his quarters, he wanted to be absolutely sure of the circumstances surrounding the destruction of the Copernicus. He was also worried about Kathryn, he found that according to the ships logs she was indeed leading a small science team to the planets surface to check out some alien structure.
So, she was on the surface after all, at least she might still be alive. This alleviated Michael’s fears somewhat, although he knew he had to get her out of there, no doubt the ship that destroyed the Copernicus would quickly find the remains themselves. Things could get very ugly, very fast.
A couple of hours later, and the first of the shuttles containing his crew had just arrived. Commander Quinn Kinraid, the tall, goatee bearded, long haired, red headed first officer of the Liberty stepped out onto the hangar bay and stretched his arms wide, it had been a long journey. He was followed by his shorter, dark haired, clean shaven companion Johnson Logameier, the Liberties chief engineer.
“Well ‘tis is all fine an’ dandy now isn’t it.” Kinraid quipped in his customary deep Celtic twang.
Logameier simply nodded in agreement, the hangar bay they had been directed to was small and cramped, festooned with all manner of manned and un-manned repair vehicles, as well as a few smaller shuttles in various states of repair.
They had hitched a ride on the civilian deep space cruiser, la Rochelle transporting eager holidaymakers to the glorious sights of the crystal cities on the Solarian homeworld. Now that the war was over, and interstellar travel was relatively safe again, the crystal cities had become a popular holiday destination, much to the chagrin of overworked Solarian officials trying to manage the constant morass of shipping going to and from the immensely busy world.
The two men gradually made their way through the corridors and confines of the station, passing a long walkway that offered views out to the dockyard and the ships contained within. There, nestled between two Solarian cruisers was the Liberty, their home away from home, looking as dark, as brooding and as menacing as ever. Both men noticed the newly acquired ‘bumps’ that adorned the ships outer hull. Even though the old warhorse had changed slightly it was still the Liberty, still the most famous and instantly recognisable ship in the E.D. F fleet, and still like a friend to those who served aboard her.
Since the end of the Krenaran war, the E.D. F didn’t have much use for a former captured Krenaran stealth ship, turned into one of the most advanced and deadly ships in the fleet, though they still retained her services.
During the early stages of the re-building of the devastated outer colonies shortly after the war, her immense speed and hitting power had made her an excellent anti-pirate patrol ship, although over the past couple of years the navy slowly recouped their massive losses and gradually re-asserted control over E.O.C. A space again. As a result, pirate activity died down once more to pre-war levels. This unfortunately left the Liberty virtually surplus to requirements amongst the more multi-role ships of the navy nowadays.
The two men made their way aboard the berthed ship to stow their gear, as they had done a thousand times in the past.
“Smells just like home,” Johnson said as he stepped aboard.
Kinraid nodded in agreement, “That it does, that it does.”
The two officers headed to their separate quarters to change into their full naval uniforms, Logameier headed to engineering to check if things were okay down there, while Kinraid headed to Michael’s quarters to hear about this new emergency that had everyone flapping.
“Ah Quinn, welcome back, have a good time away?”
“Yeah thanks cap’n, although the crew are not appreciatin’ having ta’ hurry back like this, what’s goin’ on?”
“We have new orders Quinn, the Copernicus has been destroyed.”
“That’s little Kathryn’s ship!” Quinn said in alarm.
“I know.”
“When’s the briefin.’”
“As soon as everyone is back aboard.”
“Whatta’ you think cap’n?”
Michael hesitated for a moment, contemplating his answer, “I think we owe it to Kathryn to go in, find out what happened, and get those still on the surface out of there.”
“There ‘r’ people still on the surface?”
“Yes commander, and they don’t have much time, it will all be in the briefing.”
“I understand,” Kinraid nodded respectfully.
Michael rubbed his chin in thought, “my gut tells me this won’t be easy Quinn.”
“Is anythin’ we ever do easy cap’n,” Kinraid replied smiling.
“I guess not.”
Less than an hour later, a small Lincoln class supply ship dropped off the remainder of the Liberties crew, they all hurried aboard to get their equipment stowed and begin to make the ship ready for departure. Eldathar, the tall Solarian pilot, returning from his stay on the Solarian homeworld itself, was last to arrive. Kinraid had informed the crew there was to be an immediate briefing as soon as everyone was aboard.
They all assembled on the ships bridge, it was a tight squeeze, but the crew of forty one just about managed to fit into the oval shaped room.
“First of all, I’d like to apologise for making everyone rush back like this,” Michael began, “however this is a unique situation, if there was any other way, we wouldn’t have done it.”
The crew all silently nodded their understanding.
“Those of you who were with us during the Krenaran war will remember our former medical officer, Kathryn Jacobs. The ship she currently serves aboard was destroyed by a new unidentified enemy, resulting in the deaths of over two hundred naval personnel and scientists. The Copernicus itself is an unarmed survey vessel under the command of the research division; it was conducting a survey of the Auriga system. Although not everyone died, sixteen people are still trapped on the surface of Auriga III, including Kathryn in some unknown alien structure. The vessel that destroyed the Copernicus is still out there, and is still a threat. Here is all the information we currently have on it.”
Michael played a video feed containing the sensor data and the ships logs of the Copernicus through the shimmering holographic main viewer.
It showed the dark shape of the enemy ship closing with its prey, Michael studied the reactions of his crew intently as they watched; in particular Eldathar. The Solarian’s eyes widened in shock as he instantly recognised the alien vessel.
The crew witnessed the devastating impacts of the torpedoes, and the carnage wrought onboard, the smoke, fires, and lifeless broken bodies, and then the final coup de grace from those deadly laser lances, the video went black.
The crew stood in silence, not since the Krenaran war had they witnessed this kind of wanton destruction, and for many it brought back uncomfortable memories of that dark time.
“The E.D. F has initiated an alert level three, the highest alert level since the Krenaran war in response to this, so this is absolutely as real as it gets gentlemen. The Liberty is the only ship in the area fast enough to rescue the stranded science team. This is what we’ve trained for, what the Liberty is built for, we won’t let her down, and we won’t let those scientists down; for Kathryn!”
The whole crew echoed solemnly, “for Kathryn.”
“Dismissed.”
The crew all fell out and began to filter through to their familiar stations throughout the six decks of the one hundred and forty metre long ship.
All that is, except Eldathar. Michael needed to know what the Solarians knew about this new alien species.
“You know who that was, don’t you?” He probed gently.
“Yes; they are a people long thought forgotten, and one I didn’t expect to see again,” he bowed his head low as though in shame. “They are called the Dracos, and were once Solarians; a breakaway radical group who placed the infliction of pain and torture above that of peace, culture and science.” Eldathar took a long deep breath, as if trying to re-open a long suppressed memory buried deep within his people’s psyche, and never told to anyone. “They once tried to overthrow the Solarian government over three hundred years ago, causing a brief but bloody civil war, in the end they were defeated. Our people went mad, seized by a vengeance to right the wrongs they had done to us, we chased them relentlessly through our space, the warfleet mercilessly harried them world from world, system-by-system, until they disappeared forever. We devastated their key facilities, infrastructure and bases from orbit, and thought we had destroyed all trace of the Dracos. In doing so we had destroyed a part of ourselves, though now three hundred years later they have returned.” Eldathar sighed sadly as he recounted the tale.
“So they are like the Solarians smaller, evil little brother?”
“In a way, yes.”
“So why don’t the Solarians get involved, help us to stop them?”
“It is not a time we are proud of as a people, we derived no pleasure in turning weapons against our own kind. No matter how wayward they had become they were still our brothers and sisters, this was a time of nothing but universal sadness for the Solarian people. Before this, no Solarian had killed another in anger, and to us it was like killing our own family. Now three centuries on we feel exactly the same, and that is why the Solarian empire cannot intervene.”
Michael searched the Solarian’s features as he looked up at him, the sadness was plain to see, this news must be tearing him apart on the inside. “I understand, I will not force you to go on this mission Eldathar, if you wish to remain behind I will not hold it against you.”
“I am a Solarian yes, though I am also a member of this crew, and I will continue to do my duty; Kathryn was my friend too captain.”
Michael smiled knowingly, this was exactly the kind of response he had come to expect from his number one pilot, although he couldn’t imagine how difficult this must be for him.
The Solarian quietly took his place in the Liberties pilot’s chair, while Michael took up the centre seat.
“Kinraid, contact engineering, tell them to bring main power online.”
There was a pause of a few seconds while commander Kinraid transmitted the order down to the Liberties engineering section from his console. “Engineering confirms, Solarian power core’s charging up and is stable, we’ll ‘ave full power in two minutes for ‘ya cap’n.”
“Excellent, contact Charlie Gamma base control, and request permission to get under way.”
Kinraid worked the controls again, after another brief pause the response came, “clearance’s been granted.”
The holographic viewscreen shimmered into life once again, before becoming crystal clear, the face of Commodore Valente and the rest of the command team in the background became visible. “Good luck Liberty, and god speed.” The viewscreen shimmered out of existence, leaving just the bare bridge wall.
Lights flickered into action and consoles came to life throughout the ship, the half-orb that housed the ships plasma drive system beneath the vessel, covered in a lattice work of delicate conduits, began to power up. Navigation lights fitted to the widest part of the Liberties sloping, angular hull began to blink their respective green and red. The primary negative Ion propulsion drive lit up into its brilliant electric blue, as did the ships Ionic turning thrusters nestled within wide indents halfway along the ships hull.
Everywhere onboard people were glued to their stations, checking over the readouts of status displays flashing across a plethora of terminals.
The elongated barrel of the ships most deadly weapon, that Solarian designed fusion cannon lit up; being the most energy intensive system on the ship it was always last to fully power up, although the weapon itself wasn’t active, that would only happen once the Liberty entered into a combat situation.
Finally, Michael gave the command, “blow docking hatch, release all moorings, reverse thrust one quarter power, manoeuvring thrusters at users discretion.”
Keeping his eyes glued to the sensor readouts in front of his chair, Eldathar gently pulled on a small throttle control nestled within the palm of his hand just a fraction. The one hundred and forty metre long vessel gradually began to reverse. The confines of the small dockyard were tight, and the Solarian had to guide the ship skilfully around the hull of the Lincoln class supply ship that had docked earlier.
The Liberties port turning thruster flared a brilliant electric blue as power was shunted to it, lighting up a section of the transports hull as it gently glided around it, slowly edging its way out of the dockyard and into the star filled blackness of deep space. The only object to impose upon that universal blackness was the bright blue-green atmosphere of Malthus IV below them, the site of the Malthus colony, and the dull grey hull of Charlie Gamma base itself ahead, festooned with its numerous shining portholes, and lit sections.
From a distance, the station resembled a giant oblong, with a tall cylindrical main structure at one end, it was in this cylindrical section where the stations crew lived and worked. The large oblong structure extending outwards from it was the dockyard itself, providing shelter for the ships huddled within, and wherefrom the Liberty had just emerged.
“Okay, now that we are clear, set a new course, bearing zero-six-seven degrees, elevation twenty one.”
“Aye captain,” Eldathar replied as he raised one arm of his pilot’s chair, while simultaneously lowering the other. The ship instantly responded to the pilot’s movements and rapidly spun around to face this new direction. The fore section and fusion cannon was pointed away from the station, as the ship raised itself as though on a gentle incline to match the co-ordinates given for elevation.
Michael had to hold onto his seat as the ship manoeuvred into position, unlike a big, bulky E.D. F ship that took a veritable age to turn, the Liberty was almost instant. At times Michael wondered whether the Ionic thrusters were too good, though he rarely complained as they had proven to be such a boon when in battle.
“Full power to main engines, then initiate maximum plasma drive once we are clear.”
“Understood captain,” Eldathar replied, as he pushed sharply down on the same throttle control, the Liberty rapidly accelerated, soon leaving the colony world and its small orbital facility far behind.
After about ten minutes of sub-light cruising, the planet was little more than a tiny speck, barely visible in the surrounding vastness of space. In-fact the only thing that was visible was the bright yellow-orange of the Malthus sun.
The star of the Malthus system was a very old one, almost twice as old as the sun the Earth orbited, and had all but used up the hydrogen contained within its corona. As such it was beginning its expansion, slowly transforming from a yellow star into a red giant. Scientists had predicted that unless no unusual phenomena interfered with the stars natural metamorphosis, the colony wouldn’t need to be evacuated for at least the next five hundred years.
The Liberty reached a safe distance and then engaged its plasma drive, the half-orb beneath the warship glowed with barely contained power, as plasma energy filled the myriad conduits adorning the sphere. The plasma built up, and then shot forward along a wide slightly raised channel, running from the plasma drive itself along the length of the Liberties hull, to a sharp frontal emitter, where an intensely bright blue beam of raw plasma energy lanced out from the front of the ship. Exploding into the swirling multi-hued plasma wake, fringed with its distinctive halo of bright white light. The Liberty itself, still hurtling along at full sub-light speed, dove headlong into the plasma wake and entered plasma drive.
Now travelling at plasma factor seven, seven times the speed of light, the small yet deadly warship shot through the swirling tunnel of colours that was the plasma wake, racing towards its destination just outside the Auriga system to pick up the commando assault team, before venturing into the system itself.
Michael prayed for the scientist’s sake, that they would make it in time.