War Angel: part seventy-one

2142 – The Kan’Tar

The War Angel’s landed in the Kan’Tar’s docking bay with a resounding clang that echoed throughout nearby corridors. The ship was never really built to land, so it lacked the requisite gear that most craft are equipped with. Instead, Gina used the ship’s control thrusters to “gently” slow the ship’s descent to the deck, finally letting them cut out once they were six inches above the pad they had been escorted to. It was, Jack thought, one of the more unusual problems this plan faced.

But it managed to work. The War Angel, a ship only he had seen the potential in at first, was now inside the belly of the beast. And an impressive beast it was.

Jack had read his ancestor’s journals, watched surviving historical footage, read accounts of those who had seen it during the first period, but it matched all of those accounts and more. As they entered the ship’s internal bay, he found himself slightly in awe of the real size of it. The Kan’Tar was the size of a major city, maybe larger than some of the ones the ship had destroyed with its rail gun bombardments. During the War Angel’s descent Jack imagined for a moment that they were being swallowed by a massive beast, and his literary imagination recalled classic stories where such a thing had occurred.

He smiled, remembering that most of those stories worked out well for the smaller creatures.

The ship shook and rattled for a moment, the impact of landing giving the old girl a quiver, then it stopped and settled into place. As it did, Gina muttered a silent prayer and then cut the engines, shutting them down.

“No running,” Sarah whispered.

Jack turned to her. “Not yet, at least.” He stood from his chair. “We’re all clear on what happens next, right?” The crew nodded assent. “Then let’s head for the shuttle bay. It’s the closest thing to a door we’ve got.” He tapped a comm. “Doctor? Please meet us in the shuttle bay. Time for dinner.”

“Aye, Captain,” came her reply.

Jack took appraisal of his crew. They stood in front of him, shoulder to shoulder, and he had to admit that they looked good. “The formal uniforms are a nice touch. I think they’ll be surprised by it,” he said, smiling.

As Jack described his plan, he added a new wrinkle that baffled the rest. “You’re all promoted, by the way.”

Ben leaned back away from the table. “Say what now? How is that even remotely important?”

“We’re going to be walking onto the decks of the most fearsome warship of all time. They think we’re ants to be stomped on. They think I’m a crazy murderer who stole his superior officer’s ship…”

“Which you –“ Sarah started, but he cut her off.

“Save it. They think you’re just a bunch of college students who don’t know anything about flying a boat like this. I want us going in looking the part. No cadet uniforms. Formal uniforms, with formal ranks.”

Sarah interjected. “And if they think we’re just kids playing dress up?”

“Then they’ll be underestimating us in another way, and that gives us another advantage.”

Kate tugged at her collar. “I still don’t like going in unarmed. At least let me take a knife, Captain.

He shook his head. “There are over two thousand Omegans on this ship. As good as you are, I don’t think you alone with a knife is going to do the trick. Besides, if they see a weapon, they might just open fire and shoot us all immediately.” He took a deep breath and then looked at each of them. “Besides, we aren’t exactly going in completely unarmed.” The five of them nodded slowly. “Okay. Deep breaths. Ready?”

Sarah spoke first. “Let’s do this thing.”

Jack turned and pulled the lever to manually open the docking bay. The upper and lower doors broke their seal and slowly began moving apart. As they did, Jack moved forward and the others fell in line behind him. Bright light began to fill the bay, but he refused to shield his eyes. Finally, as the doors finished moving, the War Angel’s captain could see the situation clearly.

Standing outside the ship was a platoon of Omegan soldiers, guns drawn and aimed at the War Angel crew. In front of them was an officer that Jack immediately recognized from the background from when he had spoken to F’ath M’isti. “Ahh,” he thought. “He doesn’t want me to feel important enough for his own presence, but he didn’t want to risk me doing something crazy and not have one of his best men here. Smart.” The Omegan held a small scanning device in his hands and was clearly using it on the crew. When he finished, he gave a small grunt and waived the soldiers away.

“I am M’aschi T’reen. I bid you welcome to the Kan’Tar, flagship of the Omegan Empire.”

The crew gave a slight nod and bow. “I’m Captain Jack Keys of the EAD ship War Angel. We are… delighted… to be your guests today.”

T’reen cocked an eyebrow and grunted. “Of course. Very well. Follow me, and stay close, please.” He sighed, something that Jack found himself surprised an Omegan would do. “Dinner,” T’reen said, beginning to walk quickly toward the landing bay’s exit, “awaits.”

War Angel: part seventy

From the Journal of Steven Keys- May 27, 2024

I sometimes wonder what it would have been like if I were a man of faith.

When this all began, I was surrounded by men of faith, and it was (and this is horrible) fascinating to watch so many of them break down and completely lose that faith. Mind you, how could you blame them? If you believed in a loving, omnipotent God, then watching as our planet and our civilizations were so effectively and efficiently destroyed had to be unfathomable. Of course, those that placed their faith in the Old Testament God saw the Omegans as the Almighty’s wrath against people like me: educated, free-thinking believers in personal liberty who didn’t care which adults married which adults.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say I got a jolt of pleasure out of watching those types bite the dust under enemy fire. What can I say? I’m not always a good person.

What kind of person am I? That’s a question that’s plagued me for a long time now. Had I been a man of faith, maybe I could explain how I managed to survive the torture and loss of appendages. I could pin my rescue on divine intervention, smile brightly, and call it good. But that isn’t the kind of man I am. I survived precisely because my mind did break and it kept me from understanding the horror of what was happening.

It’s been three years now, but I still have the dreams. Not every night, but they come. Yumiko remains the most patient, wonderful partner that I could ever imagine having. A man of faith would say that God brought us together, that our finding each other was all part of the plan. But really, what a shitty plan! Millions had to die for me to find happiness? Yeah, I’m not buying that one. If that were true, it would truly put me over the edge. I’d take being a miserable, lonely bastard if it put our world right again and brought the dead back to life.

Oh! Anyway, what kind of person am I? I was a man of letters for most of my life, but that was just a thing that I did; I thought at the time that it defined me as a person, but in hindsight, I could not have been more wrong. I know I’m not alone in this; millions of people felt that way, that they could define themselves through their work. But when my work was taken away – vaporized into dust – I was still here, and I didn’t lack definition. At that point, I was partner to Nadine and tried to tend to her need, her wounds.

I failed. So then who was I?

A freedom fighter. Ahh, bullshit. I learned how to be a terrorist. For the first time, I took the life of another sentient creature. Did that change what kind of person I am? It had to, I think. That’s a line you cross and cannot come back from. And after that, my actions as a terrorist came back upon innocents as the Omegans retaliated. This has happened time and time again that civilians just trying to maintain their meager existence have died because something I was involved in angered our alien overlords. So am I a harbinger of death? Is that it? Am I an evil person?

I like to think I have balanced the scales through the positive actions I have taken as a member of this resistance cell. The projects, the reverse engineering, the dedication to saving our planet… everything we do here is aimed at the greater good. So am I a savior figure? Am I worthy of reverence?

These questions have plagued me. Oh, how they have plagued me!

But today, I think I found my answer. We were called into a meeting, and it wasn’t just those of us in the “brain trust.” There were extra military there, as well as some people we didn’t know, and everyone was pretty tense. I heard whispers of worries that the new guys were followed, but we were never interrupted, so that didn’t pan out. Anyway, the new guys had made their way to us from Antarctica, one of the last places the Omegans had left untouched. Hell, we don’t want to go there, so why should they? Anyway, these guys were engineers, architects, and builders, and for a couple of years it turns out they had been smuggling raw materials down there. Millions of tons of steel. To say we were all pretty impressed would be understating it. The possibilities began churning inside of all of us, but before any of us could speak, one of their architects rolled out a set of blueprints.

It looked like a brick, honestly.

But it was a spaceship design, a design that incorporated some tech ideas we had stolen from the Omegans along with some of the ideas that our little brain trust had come up with over the last couple of years. As the architect spoke about the designs, crude though they may be, I have to admit that at one point I had stopped breathing. I was picturing it in my head, this flying brick zooming through space and shooting the hell out of those Omegan bastards. It filled me with a childlike glee.

As the presentation ended, the plan was laid out to all of us: a small crew of us would be heading back with the new guys and joining the build team in Antarctica. I assumed that our serious tech guys from the brain trust would get the nod, so I was pretty stunned when they called my name and told me I would be going (Yumiko, too, thankfully). When I asked why, the Colonel gave me a slight smile and clapped me on the shoulder. “Doctor,” he said, “do you know what kind of man you are?” I shook my head no.

“You’re a survivor, Doctor.” He took his hand off my shoulder. “You’ve survived so much shit that I think you must be part cat. This project needs survivors, especially ones who have spent as much time as you have inside the enemy’s craft.”

I nodded my assent. I had my answer, too. I’m not a good person who has had shitty luck. I’m not a bad person who has repeatedly gotten his just desserts. I’m just a guy who has managed to survive. And you know what? I find that I can live with that. I can wrap my mind around it and I can conceptualize it. It makes sense to me. It even takes me back to my old life: “Angels and ministers of grace defend us! Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned…”

Steven Keys is both, yet neither, Hamlet.

Now, on to my to-do list. I think I’m going to need a jacket at my next destination. Too bad the nearest store is rubble.

War Angel: part sixty-nine

2142 – Halfway Between the Earth and the Moon

Drake’s voice trembled. “They are sending us a homing signal to follow in order to land us in their internal docking bay.”

“The belly of the beast,” Sarah said in a flat tone. She walked to the captain’s chair. “What do you think, Jack?”

He exhaled. “So far, so good. He’s probably feeling smug that he kept us out of running position. Classic military tactics.” Jack leaned forward. “Helm, lock onto the signal and follow it at docking speed. Nothing alarming, strictly by the book.”

“Aye, aye.”

Kate sighed loudly from the weapons and targeting system. “All these targets and nothing to shoot at.”

“How accurate do you think you could be without the computer?” Sarah turned and asked her. In response, Kate raised an eyebrow and gave Sarah a disappointed look. “Oh. Right,” Sarah said, turning back to Jack. “Alright, back to business. We land. We walk out. Assuming they don’t immediately shoot us –“

“Which they won’t.”

“Assuming they don’t, then what?”

Jack shrugged. “This guy wants to meet me face to face and get a read on me. I’m sure of it. He wants to know if I’m talking out of my ass, that much is for sure, but his curiosity is piqued in other ways, too. I think we’ll have that dinner, and he and I will have our meeting.” He rubbed his head with both hands. “The rest is timing. We have to buy enough time to put the rest of the plan into motion.”

Ben interjected. “And my father?”

“He is supposed to be at dinner. Give him what he needs – quietly – and make sure he is ready to run at the drop of a hat. When we get the signal, we’re going to have about ten minutes, maybe less. And then…” he stopped visualizing what the final stage of the plan was supposed to look like. “And then Kate will have all the targets she could ever ask for, and hopefully she’ll shoot every last one of them.” He smiled. “While Gina does some fancy flying to get us out of here, of course. Come on, guys… we have gone over this a lot in the past few hours. We can do this. We can. Stage one went perfectly, didn’t it?”

A look passed between the rest of the bridge crew. Stage one had taken a miracle to succeed. Miracles, like lightning, weren’t exactly known for striking twice in the same place.

Richard felt a rumble pass through the shuttle. “What the hell?” he dropped his tools and raced to the pilot’s seat. A quick look through the window told him that his worst fear was coming true.

“Nononononono! You’re supposed to land with us! You’re supposed to land with us you stupid alien bastards! Nonononono!” Droplets of sweat appeared on his forehead and began dripping down his face, and against everything he knew was useful, he began to panic. Richard’s breathing became heavy and labored, and his vision started to blur. Ity was at that moment that he realized just how much trouble he was really in.

“Hyperventilating. Not good. On low oxygen in the shuttle, not good. Pass out and I have no chance. They all die if I pass out. They all die if…” he held his breath for a moment, “they all die if I don’t figure this out right now. Come on, Richard, think!”

He looked through the window again and saw the path the Rea’Cerb was taking. It took a long five seconds, then “Yes!” echoed through the shuttle. He made some mental calculations, offered a silent prayer to the universe that they were correct, and then made his move.

Flicking off the life support system so that the shuttle was little more than dead metal, Richard placed his helmet back on. He gripped the manual release and counted silently to himself. As he neared the end, he wondered what the odds were that he, the unluckiest man on planet Earth, could benefit from a miracle twice in one day.

“Not very damned good,” he whispered.

War Angel: part sixty-eight

2142 – Halfway Between the Earth and the Moon

F’ath M’isti strode confidently to the large window that spanned the length of his quarters. From there he could look over much of the fleet he commanded, as well as cast his gaze upon the small blue planet that had caused his people so much grief and loss. He shook his head, appalled that he was still dealing with these Earthmen, when in a just universe the mission would have been completed a long time ago and he would have conquered many other worlds by now. But no, this was not the existence he had dreamed of as a young warrior.

It was, however, the existence he had been granted, and in his heart, he knew that complete and utter glory was to be his if he were to finally solve the problem of the mudball below.

A comm. signal chirped, and M’isti sighed gently before acknowledging it. “Speak,” he said in unusually quiet fashion.

“They are within visual range, Supreme Commander. Your orders?”

He rubbed his chin and closed his eyes, taking a moment to think about what he truly wanted. After a long pause, he responded “Give them a guidance signal to land in the internal bay. I don’t want them in the external bay where they might try and run.”

“Yes, Supreme Commander!”

“Oh! And redirect the Rea’Cerb to a scouting expedition around this system’s innermost planet. Make sure they are there for a long period of time.” He paused. “A very long period.”

The voice on the other end of the comm. gave a slight snort of derisive glee upon hearing the punishment the wayward commander had been given. “It will be done.”

M’isti crossed the room to his desk and activated his main set of controls for the Kan’Tar. As the machinery came to life, he placed the incoming feed of the War Angel’s arrival on his viewscreen. “Unbelievable,” he muttered. “Remarkable.” He magnified the image and looked at the damage that had occurred as the trip began and he shook his head. The commander of the Rea’Cerb did not understand. But F’ath M’isti understood all too well.

“The enemy ship is on fire!” the tactical officer yelled out. M’isti wiped blood from his brow and charged toward the front of the bridge. He let out a primal scream of rage aimed at the viewscreen and spun around to face his gunner.

“Target the fire with everything we-“

The screen behind him flared red as all four cannons on the Earth vessel fired at once, striking the B-class cruiser in its engines, weapons systems, and, to M’isti’s immediate dismay, bridge. The bulkhead behind the gunner gave way to the cold, stark depths of space, sucking the warrior out to his death. The crew did their best to hang on, but two more met the vacuum before the emergency bulkhead dropped into place and saved the rest of them.

M’isti started righting himself, but as he did he saw the enemy ship – still burning and beginning to list – fire again, this time on the Omegans’ companion vessel. This time the results were far more spectacular. The ship, named the T’Brion, exploded into millions of pieces. F’ath stood transfixed for a moment, stunned at what he had just seen. He felt a swell of rage boil up within him, a strong desire to avenge those he had just seen begin their journey to Erestia.

It allowed him to forget himself for a moment, as he screamed “Gunner! Fire everything we have left! I want that ship destroyed!”

A beat passed, and only when F’ath M’isti realized he had no acknowledgment of his order did he turn around and remember that his gunner, as well as all targeting controls, was gone. And regardless of the enemy ship being on fire, it was still armed and capable of blasting the Omegans to atoms. The crew left on the bridge eyed him carefully, some with an honest bit of fear in their eyes. The Earthmen were supposed to be sniveling cowards, creatures unable to match the savage ferocity of even the lowliest Omegan warrior. This was a lie that they had been fed. They all knew this now. What would their fate be?

“That ship,” M’isti said slowly, “is classed by the enemy as a ‘Revenge-class’ vessel. While we have not won this battle today, I assure you of this: we will have revenge of our own upon them.” The rest nodded in agreement, and he saluted them. Then he activated the ship-wide comm. “All warriors, this is your commander: abandon ship. Repeat: abandon ship.”

Five minutes later, the last escape pod, containing only F’ath M’isti, separated from the ship. As it drifted away, he watched as the Earth ship fired again and finished destroying his vessel. Suddenly, all of his rage and anger drained away.

He couldn’t explain it, but a peaceful sense of calm came over him. He watched as pieces of his command flew past him, and he listed as they bounced off the hull of his pod. But he knew in that moment that he would have another chance, and it buoyed him. But even better, he watched the enemy ship. It was still on fire, and as he studied it, the fire grew. Suddenly, it lurched and tumbled on its axis. Clearly, it was far more damaged than they had been able to determine during the battle. M’isti watched intently as it faded closer and closer to the surface of the Earth’s moon, and he felt a smile cross his face. After a couple of minutes he could no longer see it with his eyes and had to switch to using the systems aboard the pod. As he did, he watched as the ship leveled out above the surface but continued downward, finally crashing to the surface, sending an enormous dust cloud into the sky.

It wasn’t, M’isti remembered, a complete loss that day. They had removed an enemy piece from the board.

But he also remembered that no matter how wounded that ship was, it had managed to destroy both Omegan vessels first. He had no intent at all of letting that happen again. The impetuous young commander of the Rea’Cerb lacked the proper understanding of just what the enemy could do, even when outmatched and outgunned. But as soon as that ship was inside the Kan’Tar? It was never going to be a threat again.

War Angel: part sixty-seven

2142 – Leaving Phobos

Jack flipped the comm. switch. “Supersonic? Status?”

The channel stayed silent for a moment, long enough that Jack suddenly began to worry she had been sucked out of the ship through the hole. Finally a small crackle of static washed across the line, and Sarah responded. “It was a close one. We…” she stopped herself, mindful that the Omegans were likely keeping ears on them, “were lucky. Could have been a lot worse than it already is. We lost… a lot. But repairs will hold fine. We’re spaceworthy.”

“Good to know. Finish up and return to station. Desperado out.” Jack’s thoughts turned inward. He went through the mental checklist for the mission, repeating the steps over and over in his head, fretting over the near-disaster they had just experienced. No room for error, that was the guiding principle at work, and yet it had almost literally blown up in their faces at the starting line. “Not an auspicious start,” he whispered.

He looked around, watching his crew, and he could feel their anxiety rippling through the air. Gina was drumming her fingers across her console, while Ben was bouncing his leg uncontrollably, vibrating his entire body. Kate leaned back in her seat, staring at the ceiling like it was an enemy. Dr. Gray paced back and forth along the back wall. Sensing that he needed to do something, Jack cleared his throat. “I don’t know about you all, but I could use a beer.” That got a small laugh out of them, and Jack relaxed for a moment. As he did, Sarah entered the bridge, carrying a small stack of documents.

“Captain, my report on our situation.” She handed them to him and stepped aside. Jack leafed through them slowly, taking time to absorb the details of what he was seeing. Finally, he studied the last page and then began to smile, nodding at her in acknowledgment.

He handed the stack to Gina who perused it skeptically at first, but soon began to brighten. She passed it over to Kate who snorted and uttered a short “I’ll be damned” before giving the documents to Ben. As he finished, Wilma took them and read them intently.

“Wow,” she offered. “I can’t believe…”

“Understood, Doctor,” Jack cut her off. He stood up and pointed forward. “Signal the Rea’Cerb that we’re ready to go. We have a date to keep.”

J’rwa R’ybt strode onto the bridge of his ship, clearly not a happy man. His officers snapped to attention and he moved briskly to take his seat. “Helm! Status of enemy ship?”

“They have signaled readiness to depart.”

K’Darl moved to his commander’s side. “The Kan’Tar, my commander?”

The warrior charged with the leadership of the Rea’Cerb cracked his knuckles loudly. “The Kan’Tar forbids that ship’s destruction. That was made… clear… to me. So we will fulfill our mission as stated.”

“Pity,” K’Darl replied.

“Yes. Pity.” R’ybt muttered, sinking deeper into his chair. “For them.”

It shouldn’t have worked. The odds of it working were ludicrous. The timing, the luck… no one in their right mind would have thought it was a good idea, let alone an idea worth trying. Yet somehow it had.

The autopilot course had executed perfectly, plotting a path through fire, debris, and a small amount of open space. Disabling life support and every other system on board except for maneuvering thrusters and the navigation computer left an electromagnetic signature that looked like background dust and solar wind.

It shouldn’t have worked.

Yet wedged between a rear bulkhead and the engine housing of the Rea’Cerb sat the War Angel’s shuttle. Magnetic clamps held it firmly in place in an area where the ship’s own sensors would never look for it. It was, Richard thought, an absolute miracle.

“Scratch that,” he caught himself. “Only the first part of a miracle, assuming we can do this.” A small lurch pushed him back against the pilot seat, and he realized that they had just kicked the ship back up to speed. They were underway for the Kan’Tar.

He released himself the seat and made his way back into the cargo hold. Looking over the material he had been entrusted with, he began to break into a sweat. Three containers and three jobs… that was his entire world at that moment. The one holding his baby, the tachyon scoop; that was easy. He could re-attach it to the War Angel with ease, assuming he had a little privacy. But the others? “Impossible” felt like the right word.

Container two’s lid slid off gently. Inside, Richard looked at the War Angel’s main computer core. Everything truly important about the ship, every piece of data that simply could not be allowed into the hands of the Omegans, that was now in his possession, and if they were to escape their upcoming predicament, Richard was going to have to find a way to get inside the ship and reinstall that core, a process that takes hours.

“Like we’re going to have hours!” he said to himself, breaking the silence in the shuttle.

Moving to the third container, he shook his head and began swearing lightly. He sat down and rocked back and forth for a minute, wondering just how the hell Jack had expected him to deal with this on top of everything else. For a brief moment, Richard found himself thinking that he’d rather eat the computer core than go anywhere near the contents of container three. Finally, he stood and released the latches holding container three together. The walls split and fell to the floor, revealing what was inside. He took a deep breath and then pointed and spoke in his harshest tone.

“I. Hate. You.”

War Angel: part sixty-six

Alarms and claxons roared across every deck of the Rea’Cerb. J’rwa R’ybt leapt forward from his command seat and began barking commands of his crew. “Report! I want to know what just happened and I want to know right now! Send to other ship to go to all stop!” He took a breath, and whispered to himself. “Did we open fire without my permission?” Shocked Omegan faces did their best to concentrate on the tasks at hand, each warrior focused on the data being retrieved by their instruments, not a soul wishing to turn and face the commander with potentially life-ending news. Finally, a single brave warrior spoke up.

R’ybt cast his steely gaze at the young warrior. The commander made note of how the young subordinate was taking the time to steady himself and calm his nerves. “My commander?”

“Speak!” R’ybt began to feel his patience slipping away. “I await answers!”

The young warrior coughed. “My commander, indications are that their port side cannon mechanism exploded. They caught fire and ventilated atmosphere for almost a full minute, but it stopped.”

J’rwa R’ybt paced the bridge slowly. “You are certain, warrior?” He nodded assent. “What is your name?”

“R’kah K’darl, commander.”

The Rea’Cerb’s leader strode to the warrior’s side and clasped a hand to his shoulder. “You have done well. It will be noted.” R’ybt turned to face the rest of the bridge crew. “What are they doing now?”

Each of the Omegans doubled their efforts with their instrumentation, all hoping to find a way for them to join R’kah K’darl on the list of commendables from this mission. The main screen flared to life, and suddenly the damage to their foe was easily seen. A four-foot gap in the War Angel’s hull was readily apparent. A closer look revealed a figure moving within the enemy ship, and R’ybt realized that the earthers were making emergency repairs.

“Fascinating,” he muttered to himself.

One of the other warriors spoke up. “My commander? Should we not use this opportunity to destroy them? They are weak. Their defenses will not hold against us.”

R’ybt waived him off. “Bah. As if they would have at full strength. No, we are charged with bringing them to the Kan’Tar, and that is what we will do. Supreme Commander M’isti wants this ship and this crew in his grasp. Our glory lies within his plan.” He frowned. “Still…” he tailed off… “Hail them.”

“This is Captain Jack Keys. I’m a little busy at the moment, commander.”

“We can see that,” R’ybt replied calmly. “Do you require assistance?”

The face on the screen looked sad and puzzled for a moment, and R’ybt felt like he had caught the young earther off-guard. “Huh. Umm, no, I don’t think so. The fire is out and we’re working on plugging the hole.

A wide smile crossed R’ybt’s face. “Yes. A cannon-sized hole. Most… unfortunate.”

Keys scowled. “The cannon was unimportant.” His face sagged. “But the man we lost was our friend.” He wiped sweat from his brow. “Anyway, we’ll… be patched soon and be ready to get back underway. I know we’re due at the Kan’Tar.” He paused. “We’ll mourn on our own time, not yours. Keys out.”

The channel closed, leaving the screen on the Rea’Cerb empty and its commander intrigued. “I want a scan of that ship for life signs immediately!” he barked.

“My commander, I show six life signs.”

R’ybt lifted an eyebrow. Indeed, there were seven around Saturn and seven as they approached. He had just watched his enemy become crippled before his eyes and lose a member of its tiny crew in the process. As his crew noted, there would never be a better time to remove them from the board.

He swiveled and headed for the bridge exit. “Keep an eye on them. I will be in my quarters.” The bridge crew saluted him. “I need to talk to the Kan’Tar.”

As the door closed behind him, the crew exhaled with relief, and each smiled at the other. Perhaps the Kan’Tar would change the nature of their mission after all.

War Angel: part sixty-five

2142 – Approaching Phobos

“Putting them on screen,” Sarah’s voice echoed softly through the silent bridge. She took a deep breath and held it for as long as she could, exhaling slowly. “Visual confirms two B-class ships orbiting Phobos.”

Jack slid forward in his chair, leaning his elbows against his knees. “F.A., you reading anything else?”

“Negative, Captain. We have ourselves a devil’s threesome.”

“Sounder,” Jack’s said, his tone deepening, “Any chatter?”

Drake took his time, maneuvering every button and dial in front of him. “I’m picking up nothing unusual, Captain. Except for the fact that they have to have seen us by this point and haven’t hailed us.”

“Maybe they’re waiting on us to break the ice?” Sarah asked. She stood from her station and walked over to stand next to the Captain’s chair. “What do you think? Should we say hello?”

The War Angel’s captain leaned back in his chair. “I don’t want to seem too eager. They need to buy this.” He looked down to Gina at the helm. “Hime, how long ‘til we rendezvous with them?”

She swiveled in her seat to face him. “Eight minutes. Unless they start moving towards us, of course. Or they decide to open fire and kill us right now. Which they would probably succeed at. Which…”

Jack cut her off. “I know, I know… I get it. Okay, two minutes. If we haven’t heard from them, we’ll send the first hello.”

Gina pushed a button and a countdown clock appeared on the screen, just below the looming sight of the two Omegan battle cruisers. It showed seven minutes and twenty three seconds, then began counting down. Silent tension returned to the bridge, as the five of them watched, transfixed, as the enemy grew nearer and nearer. Ben found himself absently biting his nails, while Sarah began to gently tap her foot against a nearby railing. Finally, as the clock his 4:40, Jack broke the quiet. “Sounder, open a channel to the Omegans.”

Drake pushed a button and then gave Jack a thumbs up. “This is Captain Jack Keys of the EAD ship War Angel. We have arrived under flag of truce to be escorted to the Kan’Tar.” He paused and looked around the bridge. The crew looked back at him blankly. He shrugged and continued. “I bid you greetings.” He gestured to Drake to cut the channel. “Now we wait, I guess,” he said, exhaling.

A minute later, the comm. activated. “Captain Keys, this is J’rwa R’ybt, commander of the vessel Rea’Cerb. You will place your ship between our vessels and be escorted to the Kan’Tar. You will maintain speed and comply with all commands, or you will be destroyed. Understood?”

Jack smiled. “Charmingly so. Lead the way, commander.”

Gina and Kate worked quickly, analyzing the tactical data and moving the War Angel into a parallel course between the two Omegan ships. “We are in the corridor, Captain,” Gina said, her teeth gritted. “Coming up to position between them.”

“Right into a perfect ambush point,” Kate added.

Ignoring her, Jack turned to Sarah. “Is the package ready to be delivered?”

She nodded. “Timing is crucial. But everything is in place.”

Kate spoke up. “Captain, they are revving up their engines and starting to move.”

“Helm, match them!” Jack said with gusto. “Keep us on plane with them!”

The War Angel lurched forward as Gina kicked the engines back into speed. The three ships began moving towards Earth at a slow but steady pace. It almost felt, Jack thought, normal. As normal as could be, anyway. He stood from his chair and walked over to watch the tactical readout. The numbers spun and spooled their way across the screen, and he knew that the critical moment was coming. Suddenly, he looked up and over at Sarah. She gave him a subtle nod and turned to a nearby workstation. “Steady as she goes, Hime,” he said, placing a hand on her shoulder. She started to respond, but before she could, the red alert system kicked on throughout the ship.

The bridge crew’s intensity levels hit maximum, but there was nothing they could do about what came next. A massive explosion tore through the port side of the ship, sending chunks of the old battlecruiser flying through space and bouncing off of the Omegan escort on that side. Fire blew out of the War Angel, aided by an oxygen supply that had not been shut off yet by the ship computer. Finally, the ship’s systems began to compensate for its wound and the engines screeched to a halt.

After a moment, the fire suppression equipment, combined with the vacuum of space, extinguished the blaze. But the result was still the same: the War Angel was dead in the water and surrounded by enemies.