Fan Fiction ❯ Blaaaagh!!! (no title yet...remind me to get one) ❯ Act One: The Third Planet ( Chapter 1 )

Act One: The Third Planet

-1-

I was never really sure why so many lives had to be wasted, just so that one party would be able to fulfill its wishes over another party. Such was war, a terrible thing. It sucked in the life of those hopeless enough to become involved in it, like a black hole, taking them to some unknown point elsewhere - if they survived. Destiny, or fate, seemed to be all that we could blame for these things besides the perfect Deity that we worshipped, and no one dared to blame our deity.

In that little known section of space, a place uncharted and unknown to even the explorers of the deepest space, I found myself in an investigation crew. Lieutenant, J.G. Cylo Drake of the Wembley Starship Serrated Stone of the Galactic Navy of Wembley, I had responsibilities as a liaisons officer and pilot-captain, taking the helm when the pilot-major rested. But here in the vast reaches of space, the pilot-major never slept and I found myself bored at the silent communications array, no incoming or outgoing traffic.

There was a war being fought between the Wembley Alliance and the Empire of Cyril. From a recent battle, several starships had scattered to avoid destruction, and at the Stone's home port of Outpost Kristin, they had received a distress message that Admiral Stark, who was currently aboard the ship with us, decided we should answer. And so, after taking a week to set preparations for the small crew, we were off to the location given in the distress signal.

The Stone was a small ship, designed for our small crew. It was a slender triangular figure, with two wings extending from its stern curving downward with a tail at a vertical diagonal. The bulk of the slender cone of a ship was the energy cannon, the most significant feature of the frigate. A portion of the bow of the ship could retract itself to allow for the energy cannon to be fired. The part of the ship in which the crew operated was above the energy cannon and more to the stern, where there were the bridge, battle stations, living quarters, and everything else.

I was friendly among my fellow crewmen, and they were friendly toward me - especially because my father was the Fleet Admiral. They were all hypocrites I knew, treating me well only because they knew the power that my father held. But how he attained the rank of Fleet Admiral, I did not bother to care about. I had been close to my father before, but during my adolescence, we drifted far apart, due in most part because of his long absences from our home. I had grown much closer to my mother, and I was glad she was alive and well somewhere.

And I was surely glad that she was not out here. The only people I had become close to were Rico Weslast and the twins Ash and Troy Becker. Ensign Weslast was junior quartermaster on the ship. When our shifts were over, we usually found ourselves in the rec. room playing poker. When he wasn't with me there, I could find him courting the love of his life, a young ensign like himself. I met her a few times, and we considered ourselves friends, but we never spent too much time with each other. She was often busy in the engine room, making sure the ship was running.

The Becker twins were something different. They were like a comedic duo, not complete with each other. And both were gunners. Troy was assigned to the operating of the energy cannon. Ash manned one of the Stone's laser turrets. Neither of the two had had anything to do since our mission began, and they were usually found at the dining hall with a beer or two, or maybe singing folksongs from their home when they were completely and utterly drunk.

It was the seventeenth day of our mission and the eleventh day out of hyperspace. There was no sign of the starship we searched for. Called the Minion, it was a battleship that had been on the front line of assault in the most recent battle at Howler's Moon, many hundred parsecs away. It had jumped blindly into hyperspace to avoid being destroyed, but blind jumps were suicide enough. It arrived somewhere here, in the middle of nowhere, and we were trying to find it.

The bridge was dimly lit. The crew currently on shift was refreshed for the day after a good night's sleep. I was yet to sit down at the comms array, first taking the time to admire the view of the nebula off to the left of the ship. Several others of the bridge crew had taken the liberty to see it, including Admiral Stark himself.

Admiral Allan Stark was a good guy, and I liked him a lot. Chivalrous and selfless, the needs of the crew always came before his. He was an officer and a gentleman, as Rico had described him. I had been under Stark's command for two years now. And being apart of the 2nd Reconnaissance Regiment, the small crews Stark was given found themselves to better cooperate with each other than they would be able to in larger numbers.

"A beautiful nebula," Stark said aloud, "and we're the first to see it." There was wonder and awe in his voice, and though he was an aging, well-disciplined man, I knew that there was still some childish curiosity in him.

"All right, to your posts," Stark said after a few moments. "We've a ship to find, her crew be dead or alive - though I hope for the latter more than the former."

I put my headset on and sat on the comfortable chair before the communications array. I pressed a few buttons and typed a few passwords so that the system would recognize that I was there again. There was nothing new in the logs, no communications had come or gone. I had already been informed of this from the person taking his position while I rested, but it wouldn't hurt to check through everything manually.

"We've been floating around this same place for six straight days," said the navigator to Admiral Stark. "With all due respect, sir, we should have found Minion by now. That is unless it's been destroyed - but we've found no debris indicating such an occurrence. And Lieutenant Drake hasn't received any traffic concerning any distress calls or emergency signals or anything of the sort. In fact, he's heard nothing at the comms for seventeen days."

The navigator - Ensign Trawk - had apparently had his fill with the mission. He was one of the newer members of the crew, and perhaps the most rebellious as he had been assigned to Stark's command from another admiral's due to his misconduct - and the other admiral just didn't want to deal with Trawk anymore.

"What is your point, ensign?" Stark asked coldly. No commander ever wants to deal with mutiny of any sort.

Trawk could see Stark's anger but did not cower down any. His defiance was something of courage. Foolish courage, though. And most likely, he'd be reprimanded after the mission was over because of his behavior. Stark was a good commander, but he swiftly dealt with those that defied him I had been told. This was the first case of defiance I had seen among the crew against Stark since I came under his command.

"We have to leave. There is no point in wandering around aimlessly here when the Cyrillian Navy is making its move toward our home space," Trawk spat. A red light began flashing on the navigation console. The pilot-major, sitting next to Trawk's console pointed it out but no one else seemed to notice.

"You will do as I command you to do and we will continue looking around here until we find out what happened to the Minion. Our Navy is powerful enough to hold back the Cyrillians for a while, and we must rescue the crew of the Minion. And yes, there is no debris of their ship outside, meaning that they are still alive. They sent out the emergency transmission with all the statuses of their ship's systems. Lieutenant Drake," Stark called to me, "how well does your memory serve you?"

"Well enough, sir," I replied to him. I knew where he was going with this. "They've not enough power left in their engine to make a jump for hyperspace anywhere else, meaning that they're here somewhere. Their shields have been weakened by the lack of energy, but they're still up. Food and air supply are still sufficient to last them perhaps another week or two. The environmental regulator is keeping everything at a comfortable temperature and pressure." I paused for a moment. "And their communications system is still operational. It's weird that I haven't received any contact from them lately."

"That may be so, lieutenant," Stark said, "but you have reported that they should still be alive. And indeed they are. We just haven't found them yet. We will continue to keep looking until I say that we stop. We've got enough power left in this ship to keep us alive for four more weeks. I intend to use every second of that time."

The pilot finally stood up. "Trawk, take a look at your console!" ordered the pilot.

"What's happening?" Stark asked as he leaned from the captain's chair to get a clearer view of the navigation console.

Trawk began to sweat uncontrollably. I could see a great panic in his eyes from where I was standing a few feet away. "There's some kind of anomaly out there sir…a black hole I believe. And we're heading to it too quickly!"

"Captain Idal, can you avoid it?" the Admiral asked. Idal was already in the process of make the attempt to avoid the black hole.

Idal tried to reverse the thrust, hoping to get the ship to slow down. He rotated the ship to port and hoped for the best. "Full power to reverse!" Idal yelled into his headset, which sent a direct communication to the engine room. "We're getting sucked in! All power to reverse now!"

The ship began to rock violently and I sat down in my seat and strapped myself in, gripping the edge of my console to keep my balance. The lights illuminating the small bridge began to flicker on and off. I looked outside the windows to the surround space, seeing a maelstrom of black swirling around in space, eating everything that came to close to it.

"Prepare for a jump to hyperspace!" Idal yelled.

"No, too dangerous!" Stark replied. "If we make that jump when we're inside the black hole, we'll be torn apart."

"It's the only way sir!" protested Idal.

"It's the wrong way." Then Stark ordered, "power up the shields. We might just survive to see the light of stars again."

I wasn't surprised that we weren't expecting a black hole to be here. But from my studies, black holes were said to lead the objects drawn to it into an eternally dark space, a "bottomless pit." Fear struck me. If the ship happened to survive the initial impact with the strength of the black hole, we would be lost in an eternal void of darkness with no way of escaping. This too appeared to be the fate of the Minion.

We entered the black hole.

"The pressure's killing the shields!" Idal reported. "Seventy-five percent."

"They'll hold!" Stark promised.

The Stone rocked from side to side. I saw one of the crew puke. Another was thrown from his seat and tossed at the ceiling.

"Sixty."

"Hold together, damn it!"

There was no light to be seen outside. Some of the crew began screaming, including me.

"Shields are at forty-five."

The pressure in the black hole was eating at the shields rapidly. All the lights went out and we were in complete and utter darkness, being fed to the monster of a black hole.

"Are you still getting a shield reading?" Stark called out.

"No sir, all power's dead. But the shields are still alive I think. We're alive, aren't we?"

"Not for long!" Trawk yelled.

The Stone continued to be rocked as if being played around with by invisible hands. All the electrical power was out but the shields were miraculously still holding. I could hear some men crying and I sympathized with them. I could feel a tear coming from my right eye as well, but I fought to keep it in. Some people have said that when you're about to die, your life flashes before your eyes. It didn't happen for me. So I reasoned I was going to live.

There was one more violent shake and then I felt myself pushed toward the aft of the ship, but safely strapped in my chair I stayed in one place. One by one, streaks of light flew past the ship, leaving trails of white in their wake. Soon, the bridge was filled with the brilliant light. The violent rocking had already ended, but no one seemed to notice. We were all admiring the fact that we were still alive.

Power was restored to the ship and everyone looked to Idal and Stark. "Shields are at ten percent. They held, just like you said, Admiral," Idal congratulated. "It appears that we've entered some kind of wormhole and we're speeding toward the end of it, wherever it may be. But we're alive, and I hope that the Minion was able to survive this as well."

-2-

I don't know how to describe the end of the portal we had entered. I don't know how we even exited it. All that I can remember seeing was the bright streaks of white light that had been flying by us suddenly began to shorten into tiny dots as stars in the endless void of space. And when that happened, I just knew that we were out of the wormhole.

"Trawk, can you tell me where we are?" Stark asked the ensign.

Trawk pushed a few buttons on his console and then sharply reported, "The computer has no idea where we are, sir."

Then, suddenly, the pilot yelled, "Asteroids!"

We had been sent right into an asteroid field with our shields almost dead - which was what we would be if we weren't able to navigate through the field successfully. Of all the pilots that I had flown with, I knew that Idal was probably the most reliable and experienced one. But about his abilities of flying through an asteroid field, I didn't know. I watched as he said a quiet prayer to himself and then piloted the Stone into the field.

"Power up the turrets," the Admiral ordered, "and I want the energy cannon prepared for firing. We might just be able to blast our way through the field."

"It's being charged, sir," I heard Troy Becker report through his headset. "We'll notify you when it's prepared to fire."

I held my breath as we passed by the first few asteroids, all of which Idal was able to dodge. Red bolts of concentrated light energy flew by, hitting and destroying the asteroids as they came. The shields were still at ten percent and would not recharge unless they were disabled, but that was a chance that Stark would take, and we all knew that. Stark wasn't much of a gambler. He went with the odds and chose the safest ways possible.

A group of small asteroids, barely larger than heads, flew quickly at our ship. The turrets began to concentrate fire there but some of the asteroids got through. They hit the ship's shields and pierced through, breaching the hull. Red lights began flashing in the cockpit and throughout the rest of the ship, but we continued on. The shields were failing quickly as more and more small asteroids began to hit.

The violent rocking began again and I was glad that I had kept my straps on, for I surely would have been thrown from my chair to the floor. I could see Idal sweating uncontrollably now as panic struck him as it had everyone else. I turned my attention to what was ahead of the ship, finding a pair of large asteroids hurtling to our weakened ship. There appeared to be no way of dodging them.

"What's the energy cannon's status?" Stark demanded.

Troy replied quickly, "At forty-two percent sir. No good."

Stark muttered a curse that was inaudible and turned his attention to the objects coming at us. "Idal, full speed ahead," he said, subdued.

"I beg to differ," Idal replied. "We'll hit it dead-on and we'll explode. Our shields can't take anymore damage. They're at two percent now."

"Full speed ahead, pilot," Stark reiterated, "and vector in at the top of one of the asteroids. We'll use the hit to change our heading so that we can get above the field. No sense in cutting through it, so we'll fly over it. There is no way for you to get us above or even out of the field without hitting an asteroid. So why don't we just use that to our advantage?"

Idal sighed. "The impact may be enough to kill us, or at least destroy the shields and much of the ship. And there's no guarantee that we won't get above the field without getting hit again."

"True, but it's the only option that we have other than flying straight through the field and dying anyway," Stark said. "Hit the asteroid."

Trawk suddenly began to point wildly at something up ahead. "Sir," Trawk said, "ship debris up ahead. It appears to be…"

"…the Minion," Stark finished. What was left of the Minion was just beyond the two incoming asteroids. The large warship was broken into several pieces with three large chunks floating dead in space. Debris from the ship flew with the asteroids. It had been ripped to pieces by the asteroid field, its crew dead as well. Stark looked at me and said, "Lieutenant Drake - though I highly doubt it, find the Minion's comms channel and see if there are any survivors in there."

Following orders, I found the channel on which the Minion sent and received transmissions and said, "WS Minion, this is the WS Serrated Stone. Please respond if you are receiving this message." There was silence and I tried again, receiving the same results. I looked to Stark and shook my head. "It's no good, sir."

"Brace for impact!" Idal suddenly yelled. I didn't even know that we had gotten so close to the incoming asteroids. The initial impact was a great one, and I felt as my body was tossed in every direction. But I was able to stay in the seat as the ship continued to scrape its way along the deadly asteroid. After the initial impact, which emitted a loud thud, I heard as the metallic hull scraped against the rock. The ship bounced up and down, side to side, until finally we had cleared the asteroid. But we were yet to get out of the field.

Stark looked about the bridge and then looked to the console before him to check the ship's vital stats. The entire bottom of the Stone was practically destroyed, he told us, and the shields were beyond repairing. The energy cannon would not be able to fire as it had sustained considerable damage at the collision with the asteroid. But Stark's idea to alter our heading worked, and we were heading straight up and out of the field.

Idal craned his neck to look at Stark and said, "Good idea, I'll admit, Admiral."

"Thank you for your cooperation," Stark replied quietly, relieved that Idal had done what Stark wanted him to do. "Trawk," Stark said aloud, "analyze the bodies in this area and find one with habitable conditions. We will attempt a landing there and establish contact with the intelligent life to see if we can find out more about where we are. Hopefully, they'll be a more advanced civilization and will have a means for us to return home."

Stark's last comment was a great wish, I knew, for if they were an advanced civilization such as ours, then we would have already made contact with them and would have all the information we would need regarding our surroundings. The most that I was hoping for was that we encountered intelligent life and not some blood-thirsty civilization race that would kill us as food when we landed.

After a few moments passed, Trawk reported, "I've found a habitable planet. It's the third planet from the single star around which this solar system rotates. It rotates on its axis so it has different seasons. It runs on a two hundred forty-nine day cycle and is relatively small. The air is breathable and doesn't seem to be polluted as much as the more industrialized planets. Heck, it's not very polluted at all. Estimated population of inhabitants is at eight to nine hundred million."

"So it's an undeveloped planet," Stark inferred. "If it lacks pollution then it hasn't been totally industrialized. Idal, set the ship's course toward that planet."

"Aye-aye, sir!" Idal replied happily and, making the adjustments based off what his console was fed from the navigator's console, the ship began its journey to Planet 3. "Estimated time to arrival is at forty-five minutes on full thrust, sir."

The ship violently rocked again and I heard an explosion somewhere at the stern of the ship. The hit thrust the ship forward at an incredible speed and I knew that an asteroid had hit the ship dead-on at the stern. The explosion meant that it penetrated the hull and had destroyed many things. I had been told that the rear of a craft by its tail was the safest place in the entire craft. But after that hit, I realized that every part of a craft was just as dangerous.

I could hear the pressure locks beginning to seal doors behind us. I hoped that neither of the Becker brothers nor Rico is stuck behind the pressure doors. Idal tried to reverse thrust but wasn't able to. The engine had been disabled by the hit somehow and we were flying helplessly toward our destination. The pressure in the bridge began to drop rapidly and I knew that the hit from the asteroid had been a deadly one.

I blacked out, as did many others, as our ship hurtled its way to Planet 3.