| By: Alva J. Roberts |
The purple clouds crouched ominously over the jagged landscape. A storm was coming. First
Mate David Hadwick knew that they needed to leave soon. The storms on Venti were legendary,
but so was the planet’s wealth.
An explosion rocked the plateau as thick clouds dust filled the air, making it impossible to see.
The miners were blasting again. David hoped they could get some more ore out of the ground
before the storm hit and before they were discovered. Venti was the most mineral rich planet ever
encountered, but with the United States of the Americas at war with both the European Federation
and the Asian Coalition the planet was in the middle of a war zone. David wondered if the
Australians or the African Empire had picked a side yet, the two isolationist countries could tip the
balance of the war.
David brushed the dust from his faceplate. Venti’s atmosphere was impossible to breath but at
least it did not have the enormous temperature shifts many planets were cursed with. David hated
trying to work in the helmet. Forty-two of their three hundred men had been lost because of the
dangers of mining with the apparatus on. A single miscalculation and a rock could shatter the clear
faceplate.
David would be glad when they were done. The Captain, Bethany Norris, better known as Black
Beth, thought the risk of a short-term mining operation worth the reward. David didn’t agree, but he
never let the men see him argue with the Captain.
“Mr. Pearson.” David called over their helmet walkies.
“Aye.” the second mate responded.
“I’m going back to the ship. Get those damn miners to speed this up. We need to have the
barges full by tomorrow night at the latest.”
David stepped into the lift tube with a grateful sigh. He unlatched the helmet. He took three deep
breaths. The world sped past him through the lift tubes glass walls. It was a little disconcerting
when he left the planet’s atmosphere and entered space, but the lift tube arrived at the ship within
seconds of leaving the atmosphere.
David stepped out of the lift into a large cargo hold. The Star Dancer had been a freighter
before they repurposed it. It had more armor plating than any war ship, and the largest fastest
engines money could buy. Miners scurried around the cargo hold, a huge lift tube had just carried
up another shipment of ore. The miners stacked the boxes quickly using an assembly line of
shared work.
David ignored the rough dressed men as he hung his helmet up next to the lift. They were not
part of the usual crew and he had never seen the point in getting overly friendly with them. He left
his black landing suit on, it was easier just to wear the lightly armored suit around the ship than to
put it on every time he had to return to the planet.
“Mr. Hadwick, why are you up here? I left you to supervise on the planet.” A hard female voice
said from behind him. It was just like the Captain to be there the second you weren’t doing your
duty.
“I left Pearson in charge. They just blasted the last crater. I thought I’d come up and prepare the
ship for departure. They should be done by tomorrow night at the latest. If we have them work
through the night they could be done in the morning.” David said turning to address the captain.
She wore an armored landing suit,that hid most of her muscular body. Bright red hair hung in a
small ponytail. She had piercing green eyes that were cold as the winter frost.
“I left you in charge for a reason, Pearson is unreliable. Get back down there. The next time you
disobey me you will not live to see the morning,” Black Beth said with venom in her voice.
“Aye, Captain.” David said donning his helmet.
David sighed as he entered the lift tube. He had hoped the captain would listen to his reasoning.
He should have known better, the captain would not allow even a hint of disobedience, it was one
of the many reasons she was so successful as a pirate.
The lift tube shivered slightly. Through the view window, David saw another explosion rock the
plateau. What the hell was going on? The miners should have finished blasting.
Something flashed by the lift, faster than David could see. It had to be a bomber. David’s hand
darted to the control panel, the lift let out a loud squeal of protest as it switched directions without
stopping.
He had to get back to the ship. They had been discovered. David felt fear churning in his belly.
If the Star Dancer left orbit the tube would shatter and he would thrown into space. David’s hands
scurried across the key pad, he needed more velocity, and damn the consequences. A lift moving
too fast could break the lift, punch a hole in the atmosphere, or damage the ship. Nevertheless,
any of the alternatives was better than waiting for the Dancer to shatter the connection.
His stomach felt like it was trying to drop through his feet. He flew into the air smashing into the
top of the lift as he came to a sudden stop inside the ship and then he dropped to the floor with a
crash, that shattered his faceplate sending shards of harden glass into his face. A thin trail of blood
ran down his nose from his scalp. He threw the ruined helmet down into the tube.
“Who the hell is that?” David shouted running from the lift. The miners were running around like
mad men. The ship lurched to the side throwing men and loose boxes across the cargo hold. No
one answered David’s question.
He sprinted by them he needed to get to the bridge. He chose to use the stairs rather than the
ship’s internal lift. With his luck, the next blast would disable the lift with him between floors.
Ten flights of stairs and a long hallway later, David burst through the door to the bridge. His
breath came in heaving gasps and sweat ran down his forehead mixing with the blood, to form
crimson rivers that ran down his cheeks.
The bridge was a small room, just ten by ten, with five chairs and four consoles. Cool blue light
illuminated the gray and silver plastics that most of the room was fabricated from. The captain sat
at the Control Consol, the ship’s pilot, Pearson, was still on the planet. But the ship’s navigator,
Rachel Dunn, and the ship’s gunner Kenji Tokagara were there.
“Hadwick, thank the stars you’re here, fly us out of here.” the Captain shouted relinquishing the
controls, moving over to the Captain‘s Chair.
David ran over to the Control Consol. His hands were already a blur as he sat in the seat. A
sense of calm familiarity took over David’s body, pushing the fear to the back of his mind. He
belonged here. Pearson was the ship’s pilot but David had held the position for ten years. This was
the reason he was first mate, and probably the reason the captain had not killed him for his
disobedience years ago. No one could fly like he could.
He did not consider it bragging when he told people he was a good pilot, it was humility. He
was an amazing pilot and more than happy to prove it to any of his doubters.
The view screen showed two heavy Devastator Class battleships and a few dozen smaller one
man Strikers. The Devastators had enough firepower to decimate a planet. The Strikers were
nimble and quick, each had a plasma cannon.
The Star Dancer could handle the Strikers, at least for a little while but single shot from a
Devastator would destroy the pirate ship. The Dancer shot forward straight at one of the
Devastators. The giant battleships were planet killers, and had few close range weapons. The only
way to be safe was to fly into the mouth of the lion.
David felt a twinge of guilt, he had just killed anyone in a lift tube on their way up from the planet,
and abandoned hundreds more on the planet’s surface.
The Dancer’s own plasma cannons were firing none stop. Kenji had the two largest cannons
trained on the Devastator, though it would take lucky shot to get through their armored hull, while
the smaller cannon’s blated at the Strikers. David could see the effectiveness of the ship’s guns, as
he watched the Strikers disappear from his screen.
David took the Dancer in a corkscrew pattern around the massive ship. He just needed to gain
some time for the booster thrusters to warm up, and for Rachel to plot a course. The massive cold
fusion powered engines took about five minutes to warm up before they could be switched on, but
if they charged too long they would explode.
The Dancer shivered under the Striker’s blasts. Warning light were going off all over David’s
screen, he ignored them. Rachel would take care of any major problems until the battle was over.
David changed the ship’s course tilting the nose of the craft toward the Devastator and pulling
up at the last second. The Dancer’s cannon’s were only a dozen feet from the enemy ship now. If
they were going to damage it, now would be the time.
The force of an explosion pushed the Dancer away from the larger ship.
“I got the bastard.” Kenji shouted his voice full of excitement.
“Heading 58-671-30!” Rachel shouted.
A chain reaction of minor explosions blossomed all over the massive ship. David typed in the
heading Rachel had given him and slammed the palm of his hand down on a green button that had
just lit up. The Star Dancer’s booster engines fired. The huge booster’s were for a ship five times
the size of the Star Dancer. In just moments, the ship had reached near light speed. The ship
hummed and throbbed as the inertia-dampening field kicked in.
David counted a slow thirty before hitting the button to shut down the engines. The last number
Rachel had shouted was how long they could maintain the boosters. The Star Dancer was not an
intergalactic cruiser, traveling at such speeds would rip the freighter apart if they did it for too long.
“Rachel keep your eyes open, I want to know if they followed us,” The captain said. “Mr.
Tokagara, man the guns if anything comes within one AU, blow it to hell.”
“Aye captain.” They said nearly simultaneously. Rachel’s blonde head nodded, while the small
Japanese man merely glanced over at the captain.
“Hadwick I want to see you down in the cargo hold in five minutes. Run a diagnostic and then
come down.”
“Yes captain.” David said.
***
The lift tube took him to the cargo hold in seconds. The room was in total chaos. The inertia
dampeners had not kicked in. The huge three-ton crates had flown through the air to smash against
the wall, like they weighed nothing. The place had been ravaged by the loose ore, dents and dings
marred the shiny steel facade. Chunks of ore were embedded in every surface. Thick pools of
blood covered the floor and walls, and spattered the ceiling. The miners hadn’t been able to
escape the hold.
David thought he was going to be sick. He had seen his share of death first in the army and then
as a mercenary but he had never seen anything like the gruesome display in front of him. He had
never seen bodies hammered by rock and metal, at near light speed, until they looked like bloody
raw ground meat.
Captain Norris stood in the middle of the mess, supervising the clean up. There were two groups
of men cleaning the hold. One cleaned the blood while the other was gathering the ore. Both
groups wore their sterile landing suits and helmets.
“Damn. That thing’s sharp.” He heard one of the men yell as he walked over to the captain.
“Mr. Hadwick, you’re late. Get a helmet on and help clean up the blood.”
“Damn, damn, damn!” the man from earlier screamed.
David glanced over to see one of the strangest things he had ever seen. Shimmering crystal
encased the man’s arm. He screamed as he pounded the rock-covered arm on the floor. The man
swung his arm wildly, the crystal slicing small scratches in another man’s arm. He began to scream
too, as crystal grew from the slice in his landing suit.
The first man fell to the ground, the crystal began to grow on the floor.
“Everyone out! Out of the hold!” the captain screamed.
There was a maddened stampede for the door, everyone pushing and shouldering their way
through the crowd. The crystal was growing rapidly, by the time David got through the door; it
already covered a huge chunk of the floor.
The door to the hold slammed shut behind the Captain. Her hand flew to the key pad on the
wall. David watched through the window as the hold’s massive doors opened, and the air rushed
out into space. The huge load of ore swept out into outer space, soon the only thing filling the hold
was the vacuum of space, and the crystals, now slowed in their growth but not stopped.
“Captain you need to get to the bridge.” Rachel’s voice echoed over the intercom.
“We’re a little busy!”
“Captain you need to get up here now!” Rachel sounded terrified.
“On my way, Hadwick with me. Someone figure out what the hell that is.”
David felt the cold grip of fear clutch at his stomach. He had never seen crystals grow so fast,
they seemed to have feed on the men. He shook his head, he needed to have his mind on what
was happening now, if Rachel had called them up, the warships must have caught up with them.
In the lift to the captain was silent but literally twitched with her impatience. Her hand slid down
her thigh to the butt of her plasma gun. Her other hand rested on the hilt of her cutlass. The blade
seemed an odd choice of weapon but David had seen how truly lethal the weapon could be in the
close confines of the freighters they usually raided.
“What’s wrong?” the captain yelled stepping from the lift.
“Sir you said to call you if anything came into view.”
“Is it one of the Devastators?”
“No captain it’s fifty of them.” Rachel’s voice sounded hollow and lost.
The Captain ran over to the navigation screen. David slipped into the pilot’s chair. The pilot
consol felt cool and reassuring under his fingers, a sharp contrast to the white-hot terror the view
screen was showing him. Rachel was right, there were about fifty of the huge ships, enough
firepower to level a galaxy. Each one would hold between a hundred and three hundred Strikers.
“Damn.” The captain whispered. “See if you can open a communications channel. Why the hell
would they send that many ships?”
“Captain, who do you want me to communicate with? The EF, the AC, and the USA all have
ships out there.”
“What the hell? They should be too busy blowing themselves apart to bother with us. Just send
an open signal and see if any of them will respond.”
“Captain they’re all responding.”
“Play them.”
“Pirate Black Beth, you are carrying a potential biohazard. You will submit yourselves to the
European Federation.” A powerful male voice rumbled.
“You have 3 minutes to vacate your ship before we destroy it.” The electronic voice of the USA’
s ship stated.
“Prepare to be boarded, if you submit then you will not be harmed.” A woman’s voice said in a
cold unfeeling voice, from one the Asian Coalitions ships.
“Rachel broadcast those messages over all channels. Let them fight over which of those they’re
actually going to do. Hadwick, you think you can get us out of here?”
“I don’t think so Captain. We could try, another Boost would take us to the edge of the asteroid
belt. We could try to lose them in there but the Strikers shouldn’t have a problem keeping up with
us, and there must be a few thousand of them on those Devastators.” David said.
“Rachel where is the closet habitable planet?”
“Not far, Hordoor, a neutral Australian planet, is just a few minutes away, actually. But they
would just follow us.”
“Navigator set a course for Hordoor. Hadwick can you get us there?”
“Yes.” David responded not sure, if he was telling the truth or lying.
The Star Dancer darted forward, David took the ship into a zigzag spiraling turn. One of the
Devastator’s fired on them. David banked the ship sharply; a shiver ran through the ship telling him
that he had not avoided cannon blast completely.
The view screen erupted in plasma fire. Striker’s darted from the bigger ships like bees leaving
a hive. David spun the ship around changing directions, forcing the ship to twist and turn in ways
the heavy freighter had never been designed to do.
“Rachel how much longer on the coordinates?”
“23-343, you can’t use the boosters there are too many small erratics.” Rachel screamed.
“You mean too many ships yeah I see ‘em, we’re just going to have to do it the old fashioned
way. Changing coordinates.” David said.
The Star Dancer lived up to its name, as David nimbly piloted the ship through the battlefield.
The ship rocked as blast after blast exploded near them. Strikers’s darted by loosing small sprays
of plasma.
“Damn, there’s so many of the little bastards. It’s like trying to kill mosquitoes with a shot gun!”
Kenji yelled the ship’s guns spraying the darkness of space with plasma.
“Keep trying Mr. Tokagara. Hadwick how much longer?”
“Captain we’ll be entering orbit in under a minute. I don’t think it’s going to be safe. The fight is
moving with us. Hordoor is going to be the center of a cosmic battlefield!”
“Hold it steady Hadwick.” The captain hit one of the buttons on the arm of her chair. “This is the
Captain speaking, we are under attack, everyone be ready to enter the life boat, that is all.”
“Captain, one of the Devastator’s is right behind us.” Kenji said.
David tried to shake the massive ship but their relatively straight course made them sitting
ducks. David tried to spin the ship hoping to avoid most of the fire. Star Dancer rumbled and
bounced off course.
“Captai-” Rachel said before her control panel exploded in a shower of sparks.
“Damn it. Rachel!” The captain yelled jumping from her chair to the ruined navigation consol.
Warning lights and alarms filled the bridge with harsh red lights and loud squeals. The controls
were growing sluggish. The Star Dancer was not responding, they needed to get out of the fire
field before the ship was pulverized.
“She’s dead.” The captain said, bouncing into her chair.
There was a loud crunching noise and the ship jumped. A glance down at the view screen told
David he could ignore the controls. The huge shipped had docked with them, they were going
wherever the Devastator took them.
“We’re docked captain.” He said in a quiet voice.
“Prepare to be boarded.” The captain shouted through the intercom.
“Tokagara, Hadwick, come on, to the life boat. We are going to have to abandon the dancer. Is
the remote consol working?”
“I think so.” David said with a glance at the small removable keypad, that would give someone
very basic control of the ship.
“Bring it along and start the boosters, if we make it off, kick the Boosters on full and we’ll see
how the bastards like it when the fusion generator blows and incinerates there damn Devastator.”
“Aye Captain.” David said with a smile. That was just like the Captain, if she could not keep the
Dancer no one could have the ship.
Hulking figures in thick Assault Armor thundered their way up the stairwell. David pulled out his
plasma gun. He had an ancient glock 9mm in a shoulder holster. The common ceramic shielding
that could stop a plasma gun would shatter from the force of a single bullet but the Assault Armor
was different. Nothing David had could hurt the men.
He looked over at the captain and Tokagara. The Japanese man had his own plasma gun out,
the fuel chamber open. He was working furiously on the side arm.
“I’ll say hi to Rachel for you.” Kenji shouted throwing himself down the stairwell. A thunderous
blast rocked the ship, a glance down the stairwell told them they would have to chance the lift, there
was nothing left of the stairs but melted slag.
“Captain, it is time to surrender.” A voice called from the stairwell.
A group of men stood on the lower landing. They were Asian Coalition Guardsmen, wearing the
ceramic armor created to stop plasma fire. The speaker stood a few steps back from the rest, his
armor had been stylized to mimic a samurai.
“Our Strikers wait outside, none will be allowed to leave this ship. If you surrender now, I may
be able to let some of your crew live, fight on and everyone will die.”
The captain drew here cutlass, turning with a grim smile she jumped to the landing below. David
swallowed hard, drawing his 9mm he jumped after her. He rolled to his feet as he landed. The
glock barked loudly as he fired.
The Guardsmen’s armor would stop a plasma blast. However, it could not stop the ancient
9mm or the captain’s cutlass. The yellow clad men were in a panic.
David replaced the clip in his gun but found he didn’t need it. The only person left standing of
the small force was the leader. He whimpered and cried the captain’s sword at his throat. David
thought he should be ashamed to wear the Samurai armor.
“You’re going to tell me what the hell’s going on.”
“Okay, please, please don’t hurt me. We had to stop you, the Crystal Blight is on board. It was
a weapon, a trap. It will eat and grow out of any carbon-based material. Even if you destroy it, the
particles get in your lungs and can start growing years after they attach. The European Federation
was supposed to start a mining operation on the planet. But the United States found out about the
Blight.”
“So the USA and EF came to destroy it and you came what to study its growth before you
destroyed it?”
“No we needed a sample. We could not replicate it no matter how hard we tried.”
“Thanks.” the Captain said before slicing the man’s throat. “We need to get to the life boat and
get the hell off the Star Dancer.”
“Aye captain.” David said running down the stairs. The lifeboat was only three levels down.
They made the trip faster than ever before.
Plasma fire thundered against the door. Through the view window they could see most of the
crew pinned down right outside the door, the AC’s soldiers between them and the lifeboat.
The Captain didn’t hesitate, kicking open the door and she ran straight at the soldiers, her
plasma gun in one hand her cutlass in the other. David followed firing the 9mm with his left hand the
plasma gun with his right. The crew followed them in their mad charge down the hallway.
The soldiers were dropping quickly but not as fast as the crew was. The captain was hit in the
shoulder her plasma gun flying across the room. But she didn’t slow down until her cutlass bit deep
into the flesh of the man in front of her. David holstered his 9mm picking up a chunk of broken
metal to use as a club.
He smashed it into the face of one of the soldiers. His plasma gun fired again and again. He
spun around cracking the kneecap of another soldier with his make shift club.
Burning plasma lanced into his side sending him flying through the air. He crashed into the
bulkhead with a loud crunch before falling to the floor. His hand reached for his wounded side,
blood spilled over his hand. He grunted in pain reaching out, searching for his lost plasma gun.
He felt more than saw someone standing over him. He turned, pulling the 9mm from its holster,
only to see that it was the captain.
“They’re dead Hadwick. David they’re dead. Can you fly us out of here?”
“Yes captain.” He whispered in a voice tight with pain.
David slid into the pilot’s seat of the lifeboat with a soft moan, as white-hot pain shot through
his side. He tossed the Star Dancer’s remote pilot consol to the captain. The small ship was
crowded with about fifty people. Most had some wound or other to deal with.
The lifeboat left the Star Dancer with a groan of metal on metal. David’s vision began to blur,
he had to land the ship. He shook his head forcing the world into focus.
Through the view window they could see a huge crystal formation growing from the open cargo
hold on the Star Dancer. It seemed to pulse and throb, like a beating heart. The captain hit the
button on the remote pilot. Star Dancer’s booster engines flared a brilliant golden yellow before a
massive explosion obliterated the ship. The Devastator took the brunt of the explosion spinning
into space, before it too was engulfed in a fiery inferno.
“Brace yourselves!” The captain shouted seconds before the shock wave hit the lifeboat.
The tiny ship bounced and skidded along the shock wave, entering the planet’s atmosphere.
Warning light flooded the interior of the ship with a harsh red glow, as the lifeboat’s speed
increased.
David maneuvered the small ship for a landing. They were coming in too fast, and there was
nothing he could do about it. He kicked on the forward thrusters hoping to slow the ship and aimed
it for a stretch of empty beach, the sand should help buffer the landing.
The ship hit with a gigantic spray of sand, digging a huge furrow along the beach. Everyone in
the cabin flew through the air to fall into a tumbled mass of bodies. David remained seated
strapped into the pilot’s chair.
The ship groaned to a halt in the thick sand. The view window showed the crashing waves of a
tropical island. Hundreds of explosions in space illuminated the twilight of the setting sun.
“Land, ho.” David whispered weakly. “Everyone alive?”
“A little worse for the wear but we’ll live.” the Captain said standing.
“What now?”
“We patch up our wounds and make out way to New Sidney. Then we acquire a new ship, I
hear the Australian security measures are rather lax on their colonies.”
“Aye, captain.” David said with a smile, she would never change.
Mate David Hadwick knew that they needed to leave soon. The storms on Venti were legendary,
but so was the planet’s wealth.
An explosion rocked the plateau as thick clouds dust filled the air, making it impossible to see.
The miners were blasting again. David hoped they could get some more ore out of the ground
before the storm hit and before they were discovered. Venti was the most mineral rich planet ever
encountered, but with the United States of the Americas at war with both the European Federation
and the Asian Coalition the planet was in the middle of a war zone. David wondered if the
Australians or the African Empire had picked a side yet, the two isolationist countries could tip the
balance of the war.
David brushed the dust from his faceplate. Venti’s atmosphere was impossible to breath but at
least it did not have the enormous temperature shifts many planets were cursed with. David hated
trying to work in the helmet. Forty-two of their three hundred men had been lost because of the
dangers of mining with the apparatus on. A single miscalculation and a rock could shatter the clear
faceplate.
David would be glad when they were done. The Captain, Bethany Norris, better known as Black
Beth, thought the risk of a short-term mining operation worth the reward. David didn’t agree, but he
never let the men see him argue with the Captain.
“Mr. Pearson.” David called over their helmet walkies.
“Aye.” the second mate responded.
“I’m going back to the ship. Get those damn miners to speed this up. We need to have the
barges full by tomorrow night at the latest.”
David stepped into the lift tube with a grateful sigh. He unlatched the helmet. He took three deep
breaths. The world sped past him through the lift tubes glass walls. It was a little disconcerting
when he left the planet’s atmosphere and entered space, but the lift tube arrived at the ship within
seconds of leaving the atmosphere.
David stepped out of the lift into a large cargo hold. The Star Dancer had been a freighter
before they repurposed it. It had more armor plating than any war ship, and the largest fastest
engines money could buy. Miners scurried around the cargo hold, a huge lift tube had just carried
up another shipment of ore. The miners stacked the boxes quickly using an assembly line of
shared work.
David ignored the rough dressed men as he hung his helmet up next to the lift. They were not
part of the usual crew and he had never seen the point in getting overly friendly with them. He left
his black landing suit on, it was easier just to wear the lightly armored suit around the ship than to
put it on every time he had to return to the planet.
“Mr. Hadwick, why are you up here? I left you to supervise on the planet.” A hard female voice
said from behind him. It was just like the Captain to be there the second you weren’t doing your
duty.
“I left Pearson in charge. They just blasted the last crater. I thought I’d come up and prepare the
ship for departure. They should be done by tomorrow night at the latest. If we have them work
through the night they could be done in the morning.” David said turning to address the captain.
She wore an armored landing suit,that hid most of her muscular body. Bright red hair hung in a
small ponytail. She had piercing green eyes that were cold as the winter frost.
“I left you in charge for a reason, Pearson is unreliable. Get back down there. The next time you
disobey me you will not live to see the morning,” Black Beth said with venom in her voice.
“Aye, Captain.” David said donning his helmet.
David sighed as he entered the lift tube. He had hoped the captain would listen to his reasoning.
He should have known better, the captain would not allow even a hint of disobedience, it was one
of the many reasons she was so successful as a pirate.
The lift tube shivered slightly. Through the view window, David saw another explosion rock the
plateau. What the hell was going on? The miners should have finished blasting.
Something flashed by the lift, faster than David could see. It had to be a bomber. David’s hand
darted to the control panel, the lift let out a loud squeal of protest as it switched directions without
stopping.
He had to get back to the ship. They had been discovered. David felt fear churning in his belly.
If the Star Dancer left orbit the tube would shatter and he would thrown into space. David’s hands
scurried across the key pad, he needed more velocity, and damn the consequences. A lift moving
too fast could break the lift, punch a hole in the atmosphere, or damage the ship. Nevertheless,
any of the alternatives was better than waiting for the Dancer to shatter the connection.
His stomach felt like it was trying to drop through his feet. He flew into the air smashing into the
top of the lift as he came to a sudden stop inside the ship and then he dropped to the floor with a
crash, that shattered his faceplate sending shards of harden glass into his face. A thin trail of blood
ran down his nose from his scalp. He threw the ruined helmet down into the tube.
“Who the hell is that?” David shouted running from the lift. The miners were running around like
mad men. The ship lurched to the side throwing men and loose boxes across the cargo hold. No
one answered David’s question.
He sprinted by them he needed to get to the bridge. He chose to use the stairs rather than the
ship’s internal lift. With his luck, the next blast would disable the lift with him between floors.
Ten flights of stairs and a long hallway later, David burst through the door to the bridge. His
breath came in heaving gasps and sweat ran down his forehead mixing with the blood, to form
crimson rivers that ran down his cheeks.
The bridge was a small room, just ten by ten, with five chairs and four consoles. Cool blue light
illuminated the gray and silver plastics that most of the room was fabricated from. The captain sat
at the Control Consol, the ship’s pilot, Pearson, was still on the planet. But the ship’s navigator,
Rachel Dunn, and the ship’s gunner Kenji Tokagara were there.
“Hadwick, thank the stars you’re here, fly us out of here.” the Captain shouted relinquishing the
controls, moving over to the Captain‘s Chair.
David ran over to the Control Consol. His hands were already a blur as he sat in the seat. A
sense of calm familiarity took over David’s body, pushing the fear to the back of his mind. He
belonged here. Pearson was the ship’s pilot but David had held the position for ten years. This was
the reason he was first mate, and probably the reason the captain had not killed him for his
disobedience years ago. No one could fly like he could.
He did not consider it bragging when he told people he was a good pilot, it was humility. He
was an amazing pilot and more than happy to prove it to any of his doubters.
The view screen showed two heavy Devastator Class battleships and a few dozen smaller one
man Strikers. The Devastators had enough firepower to decimate a planet. The Strikers were
nimble and quick, each had a plasma cannon.
The Star Dancer could handle the Strikers, at least for a little while but single shot from a
Devastator would destroy the pirate ship. The Dancer shot forward straight at one of the
Devastators. The giant battleships were planet killers, and had few close range weapons. The only
way to be safe was to fly into the mouth of the lion.
David felt a twinge of guilt, he had just killed anyone in a lift tube on their way up from the planet,
and abandoned hundreds more on the planet’s surface.
The Dancer’s own plasma cannons were firing none stop. Kenji had the two largest cannons
trained on the Devastator, though it would take lucky shot to get through their armored hull, while
the smaller cannon’s blated at the Strikers. David could see the effectiveness of the ship’s guns, as
he watched the Strikers disappear from his screen.
David took the Dancer in a corkscrew pattern around the massive ship. He just needed to gain
some time for the booster thrusters to warm up, and for Rachel to plot a course. The massive cold
fusion powered engines took about five minutes to warm up before they could be switched on, but
if they charged too long they would explode.
The Dancer shivered under the Striker’s blasts. Warning light were going off all over David’s
screen, he ignored them. Rachel would take care of any major problems until the battle was over.
David changed the ship’s course tilting the nose of the craft toward the Devastator and pulling
up at the last second. The Dancer’s cannon’s were only a dozen feet from the enemy ship now. If
they were going to damage it, now would be the time.
The force of an explosion pushed the Dancer away from the larger ship.
“I got the bastard.” Kenji shouted his voice full of excitement.
“Heading 58-671-30!” Rachel shouted.
A chain reaction of minor explosions blossomed all over the massive ship. David typed in the
heading Rachel had given him and slammed the palm of his hand down on a green button that had
just lit up. The Star Dancer’s booster engines fired. The huge booster’s were for a ship five times
the size of the Star Dancer. In just moments, the ship had reached near light speed. The ship
hummed and throbbed as the inertia-dampening field kicked in.
David counted a slow thirty before hitting the button to shut down the engines. The last number
Rachel had shouted was how long they could maintain the boosters. The Star Dancer was not an
intergalactic cruiser, traveling at such speeds would rip the freighter apart if they did it for too long.
“Rachel keep your eyes open, I want to know if they followed us,” The captain said. “Mr.
Tokagara, man the guns if anything comes within one AU, blow it to hell.”
“Aye captain.” They said nearly simultaneously. Rachel’s blonde head nodded, while the small
Japanese man merely glanced over at the captain.
“Hadwick I want to see you down in the cargo hold in five minutes. Run a diagnostic and then
come down.”
“Yes captain.” David said.
***
The lift tube took him to the cargo hold in seconds. The room was in total chaos. The inertia
dampeners had not kicked in. The huge three-ton crates had flown through the air to smash against
the wall, like they weighed nothing. The place had been ravaged by the loose ore, dents and dings
marred the shiny steel facade. Chunks of ore were embedded in every surface. Thick pools of
blood covered the floor and walls, and spattered the ceiling. The miners hadn’t been able to
escape the hold.
David thought he was going to be sick. He had seen his share of death first in the army and then
as a mercenary but he had never seen anything like the gruesome display in front of him. He had
never seen bodies hammered by rock and metal, at near light speed, until they looked like bloody
raw ground meat.
Captain Norris stood in the middle of the mess, supervising the clean up. There were two groups
of men cleaning the hold. One cleaned the blood while the other was gathering the ore. Both
groups wore their sterile landing suits and helmets.
“Damn. That thing’s sharp.” He heard one of the men yell as he walked over to the captain.
“Mr. Hadwick, you’re late. Get a helmet on and help clean up the blood.”
“Damn, damn, damn!” the man from earlier screamed.
David glanced over to see one of the strangest things he had ever seen. Shimmering crystal
encased the man’s arm. He screamed as he pounded the rock-covered arm on the floor. The man
swung his arm wildly, the crystal slicing small scratches in another man’s arm. He began to scream
too, as crystal grew from the slice in his landing suit.
The first man fell to the ground, the crystal began to grow on the floor.
“Everyone out! Out of the hold!” the captain screamed.
There was a maddened stampede for the door, everyone pushing and shouldering their way
through the crowd. The crystal was growing rapidly, by the time David got through the door; it
already covered a huge chunk of the floor.
The door to the hold slammed shut behind the Captain. Her hand flew to the key pad on the
wall. David watched through the window as the hold’s massive doors opened, and the air rushed
out into space. The huge load of ore swept out into outer space, soon the only thing filling the hold
was the vacuum of space, and the crystals, now slowed in their growth but not stopped.
“Captain you need to get to the bridge.” Rachel’s voice echoed over the intercom.
“We’re a little busy!”
“Captain you need to get up here now!” Rachel sounded terrified.
“On my way, Hadwick with me. Someone figure out what the hell that is.”
David felt the cold grip of fear clutch at his stomach. He had never seen crystals grow so fast,
they seemed to have feed on the men. He shook his head, he needed to have his mind on what
was happening now, if Rachel had called them up, the warships must have caught up with them.
In the lift to the captain was silent but literally twitched with her impatience. Her hand slid down
her thigh to the butt of her plasma gun. Her other hand rested on the hilt of her cutlass. The blade
seemed an odd choice of weapon but David had seen how truly lethal the weapon could be in the
close confines of the freighters they usually raided.
“What’s wrong?” the captain yelled stepping from the lift.
“Sir you said to call you if anything came into view.”
“Is it one of the Devastators?”
“No captain it’s fifty of them.” Rachel’s voice sounded hollow and lost.
The Captain ran over to the navigation screen. David slipped into the pilot’s chair. The pilot
consol felt cool and reassuring under his fingers, a sharp contrast to the white-hot terror the view
screen was showing him. Rachel was right, there were about fifty of the huge ships, enough
firepower to level a galaxy. Each one would hold between a hundred and three hundred Strikers.
“Damn.” The captain whispered. “See if you can open a communications channel. Why the hell
would they send that many ships?”
“Captain, who do you want me to communicate with? The EF, the AC, and the USA all have
ships out there.”
“What the hell? They should be too busy blowing themselves apart to bother with us. Just send
an open signal and see if any of them will respond.”
“Captain they’re all responding.”
“Play them.”
“Pirate Black Beth, you are carrying a potential biohazard. You will submit yourselves to the
European Federation.” A powerful male voice rumbled.
“You have 3 minutes to vacate your ship before we destroy it.” The electronic voice of the USA’
s ship stated.
“Prepare to be boarded, if you submit then you will not be harmed.” A woman’s voice said in a
cold unfeeling voice, from one the Asian Coalitions ships.
“Rachel broadcast those messages over all channels. Let them fight over which of those they’re
actually going to do. Hadwick, you think you can get us out of here?”
“I don’t think so Captain. We could try, another Boost would take us to the edge of the asteroid
belt. We could try to lose them in there but the Strikers shouldn’t have a problem keeping up with
us, and there must be a few thousand of them on those Devastators.” David said.
“Rachel where is the closet habitable planet?”
“Not far, Hordoor, a neutral Australian planet, is just a few minutes away, actually. But they
would just follow us.”
“Navigator set a course for Hordoor. Hadwick can you get us there?”
“Yes.” David responded not sure, if he was telling the truth or lying.
The Star Dancer darted forward, David took the ship into a zigzag spiraling turn. One of the
Devastator’s fired on them. David banked the ship sharply; a shiver ran through the ship telling him
that he had not avoided cannon blast completely.
The view screen erupted in plasma fire. Striker’s darted from the bigger ships like bees leaving
a hive. David spun the ship around changing directions, forcing the ship to twist and turn in ways
the heavy freighter had never been designed to do.
“Rachel how much longer on the coordinates?”
“23-343, you can’t use the boosters there are too many small erratics.” Rachel screamed.
“You mean too many ships yeah I see ‘em, we’re just going to have to do it the old fashioned
way. Changing coordinates.” David said.
The Star Dancer lived up to its name, as David nimbly piloted the ship through the battlefield.
The ship rocked as blast after blast exploded near them. Strikers’s darted by loosing small sprays
of plasma.
“Damn, there’s so many of the little bastards. It’s like trying to kill mosquitoes with a shot gun!”
Kenji yelled the ship’s guns spraying the darkness of space with plasma.
“Keep trying Mr. Tokagara. Hadwick how much longer?”
“Captain we’ll be entering orbit in under a minute. I don’t think it’s going to be safe. The fight is
moving with us. Hordoor is going to be the center of a cosmic battlefield!”
“Hold it steady Hadwick.” The captain hit one of the buttons on the arm of her chair. “This is the
Captain speaking, we are under attack, everyone be ready to enter the life boat, that is all.”
“Captain, one of the Devastator’s is right behind us.” Kenji said.
David tried to shake the massive ship but their relatively straight course made them sitting
ducks. David tried to spin the ship hoping to avoid most of the fire. Star Dancer rumbled and
bounced off course.
“Captai-” Rachel said before her control panel exploded in a shower of sparks.
“Damn it. Rachel!” The captain yelled jumping from her chair to the ruined navigation consol.
Warning lights and alarms filled the bridge with harsh red lights and loud squeals. The controls
were growing sluggish. The Star Dancer was not responding, they needed to get out of the fire
field before the ship was pulverized.
“She’s dead.” The captain said, bouncing into her chair.
There was a loud crunching noise and the ship jumped. A glance down at the view screen told
David he could ignore the controls. The huge shipped had docked with them, they were going
wherever the Devastator took them.
“We’re docked captain.” He said in a quiet voice.
“Prepare to be boarded.” The captain shouted through the intercom.
“Tokagara, Hadwick, come on, to the life boat. We are going to have to abandon the dancer. Is
the remote consol working?”
“I think so.” David said with a glance at the small removable keypad, that would give someone
very basic control of the ship.
“Bring it along and start the boosters, if we make it off, kick the Boosters on full and we’ll see
how the bastards like it when the fusion generator blows and incinerates there damn Devastator.”
“Aye Captain.” David said with a smile. That was just like the Captain, if she could not keep the
Dancer no one could have the ship.
Hulking figures in thick Assault Armor thundered their way up the stairwell. David pulled out his
plasma gun. He had an ancient glock 9mm in a shoulder holster. The common ceramic shielding
that could stop a plasma gun would shatter from the force of a single bullet but the Assault Armor
was different. Nothing David had could hurt the men.
He looked over at the captain and Tokagara. The Japanese man had his own plasma gun out,
the fuel chamber open. He was working furiously on the side arm.
“I’ll say hi to Rachel for you.” Kenji shouted throwing himself down the stairwell. A thunderous
blast rocked the ship, a glance down the stairwell told them they would have to chance the lift, there
was nothing left of the stairs but melted slag.
“Captain, it is time to surrender.” A voice called from the stairwell.
A group of men stood on the lower landing. They were Asian Coalition Guardsmen, wearing the
ceramic armor created to stop plasma fire. The speaker stood a few steps back from the rest, his
armor had been stylized to mimic a samurai.
“Our Strikers wait outside, none will be allowed to leave this ship. If you surrender now, I may
be able to let some of your crew live, fight on and everyone will die.”
The captain drew here cutlass, turning with a grim smile she jumped to the landing below. David
swallowed hard, drawing his 9mm he jumped after her. He rolled to his feet as he landed. The
glock barked loudly as he fired.
The Guardsmen’s armor would stop a plasma blast. However, it could not stop the ancient
9mm or the captain’s cutlass. The yellow clad men were in a panic.
David replaced the clip in his gun but found he didn’t need it. The only person left standing of
the small force was the leader. He whimpered and cried the captain’s sword at his throat. David
thought he should be ashamed to wear the Samurai armor.
“You’re going to tell me what the hell’s going on.”
“Okay, please, please don’t hurt me. We had to stop you, the Crystal Blight is on board. It was
a weapon, a trap. It will eat and grow out of any carbon-based material. Even if you destroy it, the
particles get in your lungs and can start growing years after they attach. The European Federation
was supposed to start a mining operation on the planet. But the United States found out about the
Blight.”
“So the USA and EF came to destroy it and you came what to study its growth before you
destroyed it?”
“No we needed a sample. We could not replicate it no matter how hard we tried.”
“Thanks.” the Captain said before slicing the man’s throat. “We need to get to the life boat and
get the hell off the Star Dancer.”
“Aye captain.” David said running down the stairs. The lifeboat was only three levels down.
They made the trip faster than ever before.
Plasma fire thundered against the door. Through the view window they could see most of the
crew pinned down right outside the door, the AC’s soldiers between them and the lifeboat.
The Captain didn’t hesitate, kicking open the door and she ran straight at the soldiers, her
plasma gun in one hand her cutlass in the other. David followed firing the 9mm with his left hand the
plasma gun with his right. The crew followed them in their mad charge down the hallway.
The soldiers were dropping quickly but not as fast as the crew was. The captain was hit in the
shoulder her plasma gun flying across the room. But she didn’t slow down until her cutlass bit deep
into the flesh of the man in front of her. David holstered his 9mm picking up a chunk of broken
metal to use as a club.
He smashed it into the face of one of the soldiers. His plasma gun fired again and again. He
spun around cracking the kneecap of another soldier with his make shift club.
Burning plasma lanced into his side sending him flying through the air. He crashed into the
bulkhead with a loud crunch before falling to the floor. His hand reached for his wounded side,
blood spilled over his hand. He grunted in pain reaching out, searching for his lost plasma gun.
He felt more than saw someone standing over him. He turned, pulling the 9mm from its holster,
only to see that it was the captain.
“They’re dead Hadwick. David they’re dead. Can you fly us out of here?”
“Yes captain.” He whispered in a voice tight with pain.
David slid into the pilot’s seat of the lifeboat with a soft moan, as white-hot pain shot through
his side. He tossed the Star Dancer’s remote pilot consol to the captain. The small ship was
crowded with about fifty people. Most had some wound or other to deal with.
The lifeboat left the Star Dancer with a groan of metal on metal. David’s vision began to blur,
he had to land the ship. He shook his head forcing the world into focus.
Through the view window they could see a huge crystal formation growing from the open cargo
hold on the Star Dancer. It seemed to pulse and throb, like a beating heart. The captain hit the
button on the remote pilot. Star Dancer’s booster engines flared a brilliant golden yellow before a
massive explosion obliterated the ship. The Devastator took the brunt of the explosion spinning
into space, before it too was engulfed in a fiery inferno.
“Brace yourselves!” The captain shouted seconds before the shock wave hit the lifeboat.
The tiny ship bounced and skidded along the shock wave, entering the planet’s atmosphere.
Warning light flooded the interior of the ship with a harsh red glow, as the lifeboat’s speed
increased.
David maneuvered the small ship for a landing. They were coming in too fast, and there was
nothing he could do about it. He kicked on the forward thrusters hoping to slow the ship and aimed
it for a stretch of empty beach, the sand should help buffer the landing.
The ship hit with a gigantic spray of sand, digging a huge furrow along the beach. Everyone in
the cabin flew through the air to fall into a tumbled mass of bodies. David remained seated
strapped into the pilot’s chair.
The ship groaned to a halt in the thick sand. The view window showed the crashing waves of a
tropical island. Hundreds of explosions in space illuminated the twilight of the setting sun.
“Land, ho.” David whispered weakly. “Everyone alive?”
“A little worse for the wear but we’ll live.” the Captain said standing.
“What now?”
“We patch up our wounds and make out way to New Sidney. Then we acquire a new ship, I
hear the Australian security measures are rather lax on their colonies.”
“Aye, captain.” David said with a smile, she would never change.
| The Crystal Blight |
| March 2011 |
| Fiction |
| Copyright 2011 by Alva J. Roberts |
Editor's Note: This short story, The Crystal Blight, first appeared in the January 2010 issue of Outer
Reaches magazine. Mr. Roberts has been writing for about two years and has had over thirty stories
accepted for publication.
Alva J. Roberts lives in western Nebraska with his wife and two dogs, when he is not writing he works a
librarian at the local public library. He and his wife own Pill Hill Press and he has edited a number of
anthologies--most recently Zero Gravity: Adventures in Deep Space. For an up to date list of his publishing
credits check out his blog: http://alvajroberts.blogspot.com/
Reaches magazine. Mr. Roberts has been writing for about two years and has had over thirty stories
accepted for publication.
Alva J. Roberts lives in western Nebraska with his wife and two dogs, when he is not writing he works a
librarian at the local public library. He and his wife own Pill Hill Press and he has edited a number of
anthologies--most recently Zero Gravity: Adventures in Deep Space. For an up to date list of his publishing
credits check out his blog: http://alvajroberts.blogspot.com/