Friday, August 26, 2011

War Angel: part twenty-six


Gina’s mind was reeling from what Jack had told her. What he suggested was insane, of that she was convinced. There were six able-bodied people on the War Angel. Six. What he wanted to do needed a platoon of the EAD’s best soldiers at minimum.

Yet… the question he asked her was one that didn’t easily leave her thoughts. “Why not?” he shrugged.

Why not, indeed?

She continued reading the material he had brought up on the main screen in the bridge. He had asked her to review every bit of data possible on the Omegans’ B-class warships, and to try and determine any weaknesses. She had, rightly, told him that they had surely taken the time to improve those ships over the last few decades, but it hadn’t seemed to worry him.

“Of course they have. Just look at how we’ve improved this old bucket,” he said, patting the hull gently. “But, we didn’t do any restructuring of the insides- just the shields and propulsion. Kinda wish we’d found someone that had been working on a weapons project, thinking about it… anyway, the odds are that the Omegans haven’t done much in the way of changing the B’s basic guts, and that’s what concerns me right now.”

Gina felt a headache coming on. “What does the idiot think, that we’re just going to land on it and walk right in like invited guests?” Her spine suddenly seized. “Oh, hell no. No, that can’t possibly be it.”

Her attention returned to the sketchy-looking blueprints from the computer archives. The going was slow. “Oh, look- they have a dining area. Yay. Wake me when I find the toilet.” Yet as she went along, she found herself admiring the design of the craft. It was simple, basic, direct in how it was put together. The crew quarters were near the launch deck, making it easy for the pilots to reach their crafts quickly. The bridge area was the most fortified; it would take a hit from the RGC to do any serious damage to thebridge from the outside. The B’s engines were spread around the axis of the ship, preventing any single shot from damaging more than one of the four and allowing for easy navigation compensation. And the ship didn’t have a central computer core from what she could tell. Rather than risk a crippling blow taking out too many necessary systems at once, the B’s functions were spread out across the ship.

The plans continued scrolling across the screen for a moment, and then suddenly Gina jumped out of her chair. “That’s it!” she yelled. She dropped back down and moved backwards through the blueprints. The young woman moved her fingers across the screen slowly, tracing a path to what she was looking for. She studied it carefully, taking her time, and then she finally began to allow herself to smile. This was definitely the weakness they were looking for, she thought. And it might just be enough to allow this insane plan of Jack’s to work.

Friday, August 19, 2011

War Angel: part twenty-five


Wilma Gray leaned over her patient, checking his vital signs and looking for signs of distress that she might have missed on her previous examinations. Despite her worries, Ben was getting oxygen, and appeared to have no internal bleeding near the larynx.

“Poor kid. Might have been better off choking to death on his own blood,” she caught herself thinking. “What the hell’s wrong with me? Hours ago I was thinking he was lucky.”

She sat down at her desk and put her feet up. “Wilma darling, you are one complete mass of confusion.”

Taking a deep breath, the doctor grimaced and allowed the words to sink in. What was wrong with her? Would the death of this boy be an act of compassion? Wasn’t that something she was taught that physicians should demonstrate?

“Didn’t I also,” she spoke aloud, “just condone a cold-blooded murder?”

She would never forget the first time she watched someone die, that much was certain. It was as fresh as yesterday in her thoughts, yet nearly thirty years had passed. Her family had taken a trip together, Wilma, her sister Judith, her parents, and her grandfather. They were exploring the hills of New Zealand, wandering up and down hills and mountains of such majesty she could never have imagined. It was, she reminisced, so, so beautiful.

Until they reached Darren Mountains.

The Gray family was very pleased with its progress. Every bit of toil and struggle had been worth it for the chance to take this journey, to explore this area of the world. They were not rich; they worked. But they had enough, and they knew enough to appreciate that their lives were something to appreciate- their family was intact. Through it all, their family was intact.

Wilma sat down on the ground, looking out over the landscape, marveling at the sight of a waterfall crashing hundreds of feet from the top of a cliff, and her curiosity was insatiable. “Daddy,” she asked, “what would it be like to be under the waterfall? Would it be like taking a really big shower?”

The older man plopped down next to his daughter and put his arm around her shoulder and laughed. “No, sweetie. From that height the water would be pretty painful. It’d push you below, too, and you’d drown.”

She pondered that for a moment, wondering what it would feel like to be pressed down beneath the water, unable to reach the surface, feeling your life slipping away from you one bubble at a time. She felt her father’s arm so slack and move away from her, and missing it, she reached for it, only to find that it was very limp. Startled, she looked up at his face, and it had gone blank, awareness gone from his eyes. Wilma screamed, and her mother and grandfather came running. They began to panic, and for the first time, Wilma realized that the danger of death was frighteningly real. Her mother began radioing for help, but an instinct inside of her told Wilma that it was already too late.

“And now here I am,” she thought. “Once again trying to find a way to keep from being pushed down below the water.” There was no chance of staying afloat with Morrison, she told herself. He was going to just let them drown. The Keys kid… he was different. From the moment she had met him, there was something about how he carried himself that set him apart from the other EAD cadets. His family had been in the thick of things in the First Period. He carried around journals and materials from his ancestors, wary of repeating any part of the past. “I think,” she allowed herself, “that he gives us the best chance of survival.”

Survival, after all, was what Wilma Gray was ultimately about.



Richard paced around the engine room, hands clasped behind him, looking very much the mad scientist. Occasionally he would stop, run his hands across his face and then look skyward. It was time to put his life’s work into play, and suddenly there was a lot more at stake than graduating college.

He knew what Jack wanted. Richard had extended the scoop previously as an experiment, and part of the safety setup involved keeping it on a “leash” instead of mooring it to the ship itself. “No need,” Morrison explained, “to have any accidents until it’s time to have one, you understand?”

Park understood.

But whatever Jack had planned, the time for being tentative was past.  It was time to fully attach the scoop and put it to its intended use.

“Faster than light travel. Hot damn!”

The pacing stopped as Richard checked the monitor and observed the progress of the robotic arms. He had spent months writing a proper program for getting them to delicately put the scoop in its permanent place, and the anticipation was almost more than he could handle. If he had screwed any part of the programming up, he knew it would kill his educational career, but now he realized that, if he had screwed any part of the programming up, it would kill everyone on board, including himself. Wherever they were headed, if they weren’t able to put lots of distance between the War Angel and the Omegans, they were toast. Outnumbered, outclassed, and outgunned.

A green light lit up next to the monitor. The robotic arms had completed their task.

Richard moved to a different station and engaged a different computer. One button pushed, and the scoop retracted beneath the safety of the standard engines. Flick- another one pushed, and it moved out from its housing and into place above the engine block. His fingers darted across the screen, and the scoop’s arm maneuvered slightly, changing position. “Okay, so we can move; well, hopefully we can move while we’re in motion. Would have been nice to have a chance to test that. Shit.”

The young engineer continued running through the series of tests he had prepared for the tachyon scoop project, eating up a few more minutes of time. Finally, after multiple tests of each aspect, Richard had a thought that scared him, which was not the emotion he had expected to feel. “All systems are ready. The only thing left to do is fire it up and fly.”

“Shit.”

Thursday, August 11, 2011

War Angel: part twenty-four


Jack walked into the mess, his body feeling almost supernaturally calm. His pulse, his heartbeat, had slowed… amused, he pressed two fingers against his neck and began keeping count. “Forty-two… pretty amazing considering what I’m about to attempt,” he thought.

Richard’s briefing materials were still scattered about the floor and counter space, and Keys made short work of scooping them up and spreading them out on the main table. What he needed was here; it was just going to be a matter of time before he had it figured out. He tossed aside the data and pictures of the RGC; “Later,” he thought. Sifting through the next few sheets, he was reminded of the size of the force surrounding Earth, and once again he muttered a curse beneath his breath.

“I had better be right. I had better be damned right.”

Finally, as he reached the bottom of the material, he saw what he was looking for. Pushing everything else aside, he smoothed out the sheet in front of him, taking note of the time code, relative position of the sun’s light, and all of the other celestial objects he could see. Convinced he had everything he needed, he stood quickly, grabbed the data sheet, and exited quickly. Every minute counted now, and he needed to get the main computer servers working on this immediately.



Kate’s eyes flickered open, the light above her causing black spots to roll across her field of vision. “Ahh! Goddammit. Oww. Oww. Oww.”

“Easy,” Sarah said, using the gentlest tone she could produce. “Give your eyes time to adjust.”

Suddenly, Kate bolted upright in bed. “Where is he?!”

Sarah placed her hand her friend’s shoulder. “Easy, Kate. Breathe, take a moment to collect yourself. Everything is okay.”

Stinson’s head snapped towards Sarah, and before she could react, Kate had removed Sarah’s hand from her shoulder. “You’re my friend, Sarah, and I don’t want to damage that relationship. But I just woke up from a forced sleep- we’ll talk about Dr. Gray next- and I believe I came up a bit short in killing the man I tried to strangle. I’d like to get back to it. So don’t patronize me- I’m not in the mood. Just tell me where Ben is.”

Matto took a step backward from Kate’s bed, and the rapidly waking woman let go of her hand. “Okay, just listen, alright? One: Ben is in medlab, and not going anywhere. He can’t even really breathe on his own right now, and he’s being kept asleep. So unless you’re going to murder someone with that has no chance of defending themselves, I think you can stop worrying about him right now.” Sarah paused, waiting for a reaction, but Kate said nothing. “Two: Captain Morrison is dead.”

“What? How?”

“Jack shot him.”

Kate swung her legs up and around, sitting up and to the edge of the bed. “What happened? That why I’m awake? You need me to strangle your boyfriend, too?”

Sarah let out a short giggle. “No. Not yet, at least. No, there’s a long story, and I’ll fill you in on the way. I woke you up because Jack’s captain now, and he says he has a plan. One that requires you.”

“Oh, really?” Kate said, sounding wary.

“Yeah. Plus, we all kind of miss you.”

Stinson broke out laughing, Sarah joining her. “Ahh… good one. Do I have time for a shower? Scratch that- I need one. Clear the cobwebs out, that sort of thing. If we’ve got a mission, and Jack thinks I’m key, I’d better be in top-notch shape for it.”

“We’ve got a little time. Richard’s readying the tachyon scoop. Won’t be ready to go until that happens.”

Kate got up and began stretching. “Okay. Off to the shower I go. You hanging here or coming to help me soap those hard to reach places?”

“Smart ass. I think I’ll stay here- if I did that and things went too far, I might run the risk of strangulation when I least expect it.

“Touché.”

Thursday, August 4, 2011

War Angel: part twenty-three


“What have you done?????!!!!!”

Gina leapt out of her chair. “You shot him! You shot him!”

Jack rose from his crouch next to Morrison’s body. “Yes,” was all he could muster. He stared at his former captain, the man lying at his feet, and then moved his gaze to the gun in his hand. The rest of the bridge crew was frozen into place, either terrified of what Jack would do next or simply waiting to see what would happen.

The astrophysicist, though, showed no such hesitation. “You didn’t have to kill him, Jack!” Gina began to shake uncontrollably, and tears of anger and sadness began to slide down her cheeks. “You didn’t have to… to do this!”

His face took on a haunted look, and Jack again eyeballed the gun and its handiwork on the ground before him. He took a deep breath, exhaling slowly, and suddenly threw the gun across the bridge and out the door. “Yes,” he had said, teeming with regret, “I did.”

Dr. Gray walked over to the body and began a cursory examination. Jack raised an eyebrow at her, and she said “Just checking to be sure.” Wilma checked for a pulse, tested for signs of breathing, and gave the wounds a cursory glance. Jack’s aim had been true. The first shot would have disrupted Morrison’s nervous system, the second causing massive internal bleeding and organ failure. Keys was efficient, she had to give him that. He’d wanted to kill the man, not make him suffer. And from her examination, her guess was that he had succeeded in both of those goals.

Sarah broke her silence. “Doctor? Your findings?”

“Official medical report: Albert Morrison died in the line of duty,” she said, parsing her words carefully. Gray then nodded gently at Jack.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Gina screamed. “He murdered the captain!” she continued, pointing at Jack.

“No,” Richard said, his voice barely above a whisper, “he saved our lives.”

She shook her head violently. “Nonononono! We could have locked him in his quarters. Like we did with Kate. Or put him in the brig. This ship has a brig!”

“And then what?” Sarah asked.

Gina’s mouth opened to speak, but no words came out.

“Feed him when he’s doing nothing to help keep us alive? Give him the chance to continue trying to push his ideas of giving up on the rest of us until someone breaks?” Sarah paused. “Or do we maximize our own chances of survival? Save the food and water he would have used for ourselves. Keep the ship focused on the single overriding goal we all need to keep our eyes on right now: our survival.”

Sarah’s words hung heavy in the air between the two women, and movement on the bridge came to a standstill. Finally, Gina sat back down and placed her head in hands and began gently sobbing. “I know you’re right, Sarah. In my head, I know you’re right.” He head snapped up. “But murder is never right.”

Their conversation only hours earlier popped back into Sarah’s head. “That isn’t what you said a couple of hours ago,” she said.

Almond’s eyes went dry and her skin turned ashen. Embarrassed and ashamed, she remembered her earlier feelings and wondered for the first and not last time exactly what kind of person she was.

As Sarah’s words sunk in for Gina, she turned her attention to Jack. He was still standing in precisely the same position he’d assumed after Gray delivered her version of what happened for the official record. “Jack?”

Startled from his reverie, Jack’s head twitched and he began trying to pull himself together. “Jack?” she continued. “Where’s your head?” He began to absently rub his temples.

“My head?”

“You’ve done this, Jack,” she said, trying to be gentle. “You’ve done this. So we need to know: what now?”

He nodded. “I’ve done this. Yes.” Suddenly, his body began to spring back to life. He began stretching and twisting, moving his body around, trying to start the endorphins moving in his system. The crew watched him, beginning to wonder if his actions had caused Jack to dissociate from the situation.

They were all new to mutiny, murder, and armageddon, Richard thought. Who could blame him if he had?

Finally, Jack took a few steps away from the body and headed to the front of the bridge. When he was in the position he sought, where he could address them all at once, he began to speak.

“I’m sorry. I am. I’ve never killed anyone before. Never even killed so much as an animal, either. It isn’t who I am. Wasn’t, I guess.” He stopped and looked around, making sure his words were reaching them. “But what Sarah said was right. Even more, though, is my commitment to keeping us all safe and away from those camps. If the Omegans have our fellows in their camps, I can only assume one of two things: they’re already either developing a plan for insurgency or they’re wishing they were dead.”

“The best way we can help them is to stay alive. I did this to help us stay alive.”

Heads nodded in agreement, some more than others. “Captain Morrison was a good and decent man.” Jack’s voice halted. “His death will stain my soul for the rest of my life. If I never point a weapon at another human being, it will still be too soon. The enemy…” He turned his body halfway towards the front of the ship. “The enemy is not us. It’s those bastards who’ve parked their ships in our home’s orbit.”

Jack turned back to face the group. “I want to point my gun at them. Every last damned one of them. And I want to pull the trigger until we never see them again, and we never have to live in fear of them again.”

“I assume then,” Sarah spoke up, “that you have some sort of idea, some sort of plan?”

Keys nodded his head a single time. “I do.”

Richard began to feel the blood moving in his body again. Finally, something sensible was about to happen. Yes, he thought, let’s just put this ugly business behind us. The idea put a little bounce into his spirit. “So what’s the plan, Jack? What do we need to do?”

The Man With the Plan held up his palm in a halting gesture. “Hold up. First things first. Jack walked over to Gina’s station and crouched down next to her so they could see eye to eye. “Gina, I need to know if we can all count on you.”

“Why? If I say no, you’ll shoot me?”

His face registered no surprise; Jack had assumed that might be her response. “No, Gina. I’m not going to shoot you. Like I said- I don’t ever want to point a weapon at another person again. But if you would rather not come along and would prefer to stay here on Pluto, or you’d rather stay here and just sit things out in your quarters, I’d understand.”

Gina felt a rush of skepticism. “If we’re leaving the system, making the run, why would I want to do either of those things?”

Jack didn’t answer. He moved across the bridge to address Richard. “Clover, how soon can you have the tachyon scoop ready for travel?”

Park’s response was quick. “Thirty minutes, max.”

“Excellent. Have at it.” Richard left the bridge, and Jack turned his attention to Sarah and Dr. Gray. “Supersonic, Doctor… what I need from you is a little trickier, maybe.”

Sarah was puzzled. “What do you have in mind, Jack?”

He cleared his throat. “What I have in mind requires a component we’re missing right now… F.A.”

“Oh, hell,” Wilma said, grimacing. “You realize she might not be feeling too charitable when she wakes up, right? Especially since I’m going to have to stimulate her awake.”

“Keenly, doctor,” Jack replied. “But” he said, jabbing a thumb at Sarah, “once she starts hitting consciousness, the first face she sees should be a friendly one. So you exit, Sarah takes over…”

“I catch her up on current events, et cetera et cetera. What if she isn’t happy to see me, either?” Sarah asked.

Jack shrugged. “You might want to take a gun.”

“Fabulous,” Sarah said, her attitude dripping with sarcasm. She took a moment to see if Jack had anything else to say to her, wondering why she thought this might be the time for an emotional declaration, but he made no effort to speak. Giving up, she beckoned to Gray. “Come on, doctor, we have to wake the Pluto Strangler.”

After they were gone, it was only Jack and Gina left on the bridge, and the young woman was visibly nervous.

“You’re shaking,” he commented.

“I honestly have no idea what you want from me, Jack. You’ve murdered a man, taken control of the ship, and everyone seems to be fine with it.” He gave her a blank look and shrugged. She continued. “This is completely insane.”

He coughed, stifling a laugh. “Hime, sanity has suddenly become very overrated. We may well be the last humans alive and free in the entire universe. We’re low on supplies. And you’re right- I killed our captain. Not long after another crew member attempted to choke another one to death.”

“In a universe gone insane, maybe the maddest of the mad are those that survive.”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s an impressive amount of crap, Jack. Fine. Count me in for now. What do you need from me?”

Jack began to smile in a way that made her shudder. “Honestly, nothing much different from what Morrison wanted. Your assignment is the helm, and I need you to pilot this old beast.”

“Ohhh-kay,” she said, beginning to worry. “Where exactly are we going?”

“Set your course,” Jack said with barely contained glee, “for Saturn.”

“WHAT?!”