Her brilliant blue eyes bore into his soul. They always did. He kissed her once in the starboard C-deck corridor. They had to go in opposite directions now. She had an F7 Hornet waiting for her in the starboard launch bay and he was needed on the bridge. She spun, and a whirl of a blonde ponytail was the last he saw of her. He turned to the lift bulkhead which bore the crest of his strikeforce and it’s motto emblazoned underneath. Per ardua ad astra – Through adversity to the stars. In the next instant, he was standing on the bridge. The azure mists of the wormhole tunnel – an optical illusion since photons technically didn’t exist in hyperspace – faded around the periphery of the main viewport as the ship emerged. In the distance, a world with a dead grey hue. It’s atmosphere the haze of a seedy, backwater smoking lounge with pimples of bright, fiery orange dotting the surface just underneath it; each one, where a city burned. The black dots, like flakes of pepper against the glow of the atmosphere, resolved themselves into the shapes of a Vanduul armada. Stretching like a line in a polar orbit three-hours off the terminator, they were systematically plasma-bombing every settlement, with zero expenditure of thrust; instead, just slowly waiting for the planet itself to rotate their helpless targets underneath.
Perhaps less than twenty-thousand colonists remained by the time the massive volleys of cap-ship torpedoes passed each other on their way to their targets. Most of the other Captains would have their fighter wings begin an intercept to mitigate damage to the ships behind. He believed in the the anti-missile batteries of the Pegasus class ship enough, and he ordered his wings forward to intercept the incoming alien fighters who wouldn’t be chasing after the torpedos fired upon them. The Vanduul welded the scrap of defeated enemy ships to their own hulls to serve as armor and as a gruesome trophey. They were confident that their clan’s trophies would shrug the first wave.
A quarter of the fleet remained. The Acheron plowed through the middle of it all. The Valhalla, a Javelin-class destroyer tight on it’s Z-minus providing fire support; streams of glowing red death from its remaining nine turrets peppering into the cloud of Scythes that were swarming the carrier group. Most of the fighter wing was gone. He didn’t know if she was among the deceased at this point or not. It was a thought he didn’t have the luxury to afford. The port-side engines were severely damaged but a brave marine kept them going by crawling up the exhaust vent and setting off a demo charge to blow away the crumpled superstructure that was blocking the flow. He never got to know the marine’s name who sacrificed his or herself in the blast as he called for the weapons banks to concentrate on 36 mark 18 at an incoming Vanduul destroyer.
Shields were failing. The primary generator was smashed and the secondary generator taxed well beyond the dreams of the engineer who designed it. Half the thrusters were lost when the Valhalla exploded sending shrapnel into the underbelly of the Acheron. EWACS telemetry died when the main scanning dish was blown clean off by a suicidal Glaive. If there were any of their original wing out there, nobody knew. Both fleets were shadows of their original selves with only a dozen capital ships left between them. The only exception was the clan Kingship, which had taken a pounding by every remaining nuclear torpedo in the Acheron’s arsenal, but still stood against the grey backdrop of the planet indomitable. On the comms was Lieutenant Parker, chief engineer; nice guy – brilliant mechanic. Starboard-three was going to be going critical in the next two minutes unless they ejected the run-away core. Somewhere along the way, they picked up a stray Idris who made it’s way over to their battlegroup from Juliet group. There were still Hornets out there fighting. He didn’t know who’s they were. He didn’t care. Maybe they could actually win this and save the remaining colonists if they could take out that Kingship. They were quickly approaching it on it’s Z-positive. He told the helmsman to point and lock the Acheron directly on the Kingship’s spine and told Parker to put all engines on overload thrust… then he gave the order to abandon ship.
The Captain’s escape pod was unlike the others. It was small, and cramped. Stuffed with the ship’s final memories and thoughts quietly beeping the location and telemetry of it’s black box, computer core and captain into the void. A Scythe came crashing through the bridge’s canopy seconds before he climbed into the pod. He remembered the look of pride on the alien’s face as it’s body was consumed in the metal fire. He had shrapnel lodged in his left side somewhere under the dozen bloodied bandages. It was far too cramped in here to properly dress the wound. He felt lightheaded from blood loss and closed his eyes to accept his fate. He knew he was probably going to die now and saw a hundred pairs of eyes staring back at him from the darkness. The brilliant blue pair directly in front of him bore into his soul like they always did and her sad voice echoed from the void. “You killed us all…”
He jerked awake in darkness that was pierced only by the holodisplay showing the current time as 05:26. Not daring to lie back down and chance further sleep, he sat up and rubbed the crud out of his eyes. That battle was so long ago now. It happened while the border colonies were still under attack before the shit really hit the fan. That little Idris that painfully worked it’s way across the warzone over to the last flight of the Acheron was the the last ship standing when it was all over. Ramming the Pegasus carrier into the back of the Kingship broke it in two and the harsh mistress that was space did the rest as buckled plating sent off a chain reaction of explosive decompression.
He was told the remaining fighters fell into uncoordinated disarray afterwards. No longer operating on effective group tactics, every remaining Vanduul became a lone wolf hunter intent on claiming a measure of personal glory in whatever afterlife they believed in, and as a result, divided they fell. Not before destroying every last one of the Acheron’s lifeboat escape pods in blood-vengeance frenzy though. In the end, thirty-three thousand made it off Crion alive because of his actions. Only two-hundred and fourty from the attack force were recovered alive including the bulk of the crew of the Idris. He was lauded as a hero in the UEE and was compensated well for his heroism. How many nights would he have to re-live those eyes staring back at him?
The lights flickered to life around the sink as they sensed his intent to use it and he slumped there letting the cool waterfall from the faucet pour over his hands. One of the pinhole sized cameras in the upgraded mobiglas sitting next to the stainless steel basin noticed him staring at it and upon recognizing his facial features, popped open it’s holodisplay for his access. The top of the screen told him his name as the words “Welcome Michael Bishop” blazed in electric cyan across the top of the display which was kept perfectly perpendicular to his gaze. Michael Bishop wasn’t the name he was born with, and wasn’t the name known to those survivors of Crion or to the ghosts who haunted his dreams, but it was his name now.
His eyes tracked across the display to check various accounts and assets he held. The Aegis Saber he owned was ready to go at a moment’s notice from it’s landing pad four blocks away. The 890 Jump he ordered from Origin Jumpworks was another six-months from completion at the factory on Terra Prime. The Constellation he purchased two years ago was still months away from a complete refit into the 2947 Phoenix configuration in an RSI drydock on Sol. Another account showed the receipt for his funds transfer to the UEE Warbonds Program for one of RSI’s new Polaris class corvettes. Breaking his gaze from the mobiglas caused it to deactivate once again and he rubbed his tired eyes with his damp fingertips.
He got dressed in the small apartment. Gravity was only eighty percent Earth’s on this station which was typical for stations on the edge of Xi’an space. It added a spring to his movements as he pulled his clothing on. He had no idea why he kept purchasing starships considering he didn’t know what he was actually going to do with them or have any desire to captain them. Maybe he just liked to have them around and at the ready. Just in case. Better to be sitting in a hanger than a thought in his head and credits in an account. Keep moving. Cope. Survive. He picked up the engraved metal card the odd man gave him a few days before. He didn’t know how, but the man picked him out of a crowd and recognized him for what he invariably was; a warrior. Maybe it was the way he walked. He didn’t know. The engraving on the card was a stylized letter “O” combined with a “D”. Underneath was written “Oddysee PMC” and a contact address. He stopped at the window to watch the greenish, half-terraformed world beyond. Working for a PMC had to be better than taking random fighter-jock jobs. Perhaps he could even confront the ghosts head on enough to accept a new command. He buckled on his sidearm and pulled the heavy black longcoat off the back of the chair and pulled it on. It was time to do some serious thinking, something he did best on his feet. He left the room with a single, final thought which he uttered out loud just to hear his own voice speak it. “Through adversity to the stars.”
