Ep.#8 - "Celestia: CV-02" (24 page)

Somewhere in the aft end of the ship, his three friends were probably thinking much the same. He wished he could speak to them and discuss the chaotic turn of events that had seemingly changed everything. He knew their mere presence would make him feel better. Devyn would show concern and sympathy, Kyle would ask stupid questions just to see their reactions, and Tilly would make jokes at everything. On the bridge, Luis felt alone, isolated. There were eight of them on the bridge, nine including Lieutenant Commander Kovacic, but he didn’t know them and didn’t feel at ease talking about their situation with them—especially not with the lieutenant commander, who was now, for all practical purposes, the Celestia’s captain.

“How are you doing?” the lieutenant commander asked, startling Luis. “Delaveaga, right?”

“Yes, sir. Luis Delaveaga.”

The lieutenant commander sat down in the navigator’s seat to the left of Luis. “You doing okay?”

“I’m fine, sir, just a little confused, that’s all.”

“Yeah, it’s a crazy situation, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where are you from?”

“South America, sir,” Luis answered. “Old Brazil, actually.”

“Inland or coast?”

“A small village a few hundred kilometers inland from Baia de Marajo.”

“Beautiful country, Brazil.”

“Have you been there, sir?”

“No, not personally. I had a buddy who spent some time there after college. He loved it. Never stopped talking about it.”

“How about you?” Luis asked.

“Gdansk, Europe, on the southern edge of the Baltic. It used to be in Poland before the reformation.”

“Then you went to the European Academy?”

“Straight out of college.”

“What did you rate in?” Luis asked, trying to maintain polite conversation to keep his mind off their situation.

“Materials management,” the lieutenant commander said, a hint of disdain in his voice.

“If you don’t mind me asking, sir, how did you end up in command?”

“I was leading a supply team, techs mostly. We were loading supplies on board. Food, water, EVA suits, medical kits—everything needed to survive a few months in space. We were just about to leave when they ordered us to report back here. Since I had just loaded supplies onto the command deck, I came back here. I ended up being the most senior officer on board.” The lieutenant commander laughed. “Go figure.”

“What do you mean?” Luis wondered.

“I’m a supply officer in charge of a starship. Just between us, I don’t know the first thing about commanding a starship.”

“I don’t know much about flying one either, sir,” Luis said, “yet here I am.”

“Aren’t we a pair,” the lieutenant commander said with a smile.

“If it makes you feel any better, it’s pretty much an empty starship,” Luis added, smiling back. “Besides, you’ve been doing pretty well so far. If you hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have known you weren’t a bridge officer.”

“What, you trying to give me a pep talk, Ensign?” The lieutenant commander laughed. “Truth is, I got a quick briefing from Captain Christopoulos just before he left port.”

“The captain of the Intrepid?” Luis asked.

“That would be him. He pretty much gave me step-by-step instructions.” The lieutenant commander looked at Luis. “You were supposed to be on the Intrepid, weren’t you?”

“Yeah. How did you know?”

“Your voice changed when I mentioned Christopoulos.”

Luis shook his head. “I’ve been waiting two months to start my rotation on the Intrepid. Two months listening to my sister complain about my mother, and my mother complaining about my sister. Finally, we get the call to report, and we just miss her.”

“You should be thankful you had that extra time with them, Ensign,” the lieutenant commander said, his tone becoming somber. “Who knows when any of us are going to see our families again.”

Luis looked at the lieutenant commander. He wanted to know what they were doing, why they were sneaking away in an unfinished, unarmed ship, while their world was under attack.

“Message from Fleet Command, sir,” Ensign Souza interrupted.

“What is it?” Lieutenant Commander Kovacic asked as he stood.

“We’re supposed to go to full power and burn our main engines for ten minutes.”

“When?”

“In three minutes, sir.”

“Same course?”

“They didn’t say, sir,” the comm officer said.

“If they didn’t give us a new course, they must want us to stay on the same heading as before,” the lieutenant commander said. “Tell engineering to spin the reactors up to full power. We’re going to need those inertial dampeners this time.”

“Yes, sir,” Ensign Souza answered.

Lieutenant Commander Kovacic turned back toward Luis who was still sitting at the helm. “Be ready to put our nose back onto our heading when the time comes. And throttle up slowly, just in case. Like you said, it’s mostly a big, empty ship.”

“Yes, sir,” Luis answered, swallowing hard.

* * *

Chaos had enveloped the streets of Winnipeg. As the sun had begun to set, a third wave of aerial attacks struck the city. Without power, the streets were quickly becoming a dark and terrifying place, lit only by portable lights and the frequent flashes of distant explosions.

Synda darted from cover to cover, avoiding Jung attack squads that had already landed and were roaming the streets, slaughtering anyone who appeared even remotely threatening. She had already seen two such squads, both from a distance, and had managed to hide from them. Her only hope was to get out of the city, to find someplace to hide that would be of no interest to the invaders.

Synda ran quickly down the street, dodging debris from damaged buildings and items strewn about by fleeing citizens and crazed looters alike. She took temporary cover behind whatever she could find: a parked car, a dumpster in an alleyway, a shadowy entrance to a shop—anything to temporarily hide her from the masses.

It was not only the Jung that she had to avoid; it was also the opportunistic criminal element. They were the worst kind, taking advantage of an unruly situation to commit acts that would normally get them incarcerated. While it had not yet happened to her, she had already seen several assaults and had even broken up what appeared to be an attempted rape in plain view of everyone. That had nearly gotten her stabbed by the assailant, and she had vowed never to put herself into harm’s way in such fashion again, at least not on this night.

Synda finished a longer than normal sprint down a relatively empty street, ending up in a recessed doorway and lurking in the shadows as she peered out into the night. There were the sounds of heavy boots, like the ones she had seen worn by the Jung troops, coming from the far end of the street. The Jung boots had some metal running under the arch and up both sides of the boot that made a recognizable clicking sound on the pavement as they walked. She wanted to get as far away from that sound as possible.

As soon as the sound faded, Synda peered out again, checking both directions. The street appeared to be clear, and she started moving down the street once more—slowly at first, her stride quickened once she was sure that the sound of the Jung soldiers was gone. She looked back over her shoulder as she came to the end of the street, stopping and leaning up against the corner of the last building.

Synda slowly inched out and peeked around the corner of the building, finding a man’s face only inches from her own face. It peered back at her. A short squeal left her lips. She immediately stifled it as she turned to run the other way, but a hand reached around the corner and grabbed her, pulling her toward him. The man’s other hand went up and covered her mouth from behind to prevent her from making any more noise. Synda instinctively rammed the back of her head into the face of her assailant, eliciting a subdued cry of pain from the man. As his hand left Synda’s face to cover his wounded nose, she rammed her free elbow into the man’s gut, causing him to double over.

“Wait,” the man cried in restrained fashion.

Synda spun around to kick him in the face, her back leg cocked and ready when she stopped herself. She looked at him again, her eyes squinting to see better in the darkness. “Tony?”

“Who the hell did you think it was?”

“I thought you were a rapist,” she said, relaxing her stance.

“A rapist? What kind of a nut would be raping someone at a time like this?”

“You’d be surprised,” Synda said as she reached for his bloodied face to check on his injuries. “Are you all right?”

“I’m pretty sure you broke my nose,” he said.

“Well, why did you grab me?”

“I was trying to keep you quiet,” he protested. “You started to scream, and there are Jung troops all over the place. Or haven’t you noticed?” Tony touched the bridge of his swollen nose. “Damn! That hurts!”

“Stop whining,” Synda told him.

“Whining?” Tony objected. “You break my nose, and I’m whining? Jesus, Synda.”

“I’m sorry, all right?”

“Where were you going, anyway?” Tony asked.

“Out of the city.”

“To where?”

“Anywhere,” Synda insisted, “anywhere the Jung don’t care about, at least. I figure that’s the safest place to hide.”

“Why? You think they’re going to execute everyone?”

“I’d rather not hang around to find out, one way or another,” Synda insisted.

“Why would they want to kill everyone?” Tony asked. “What sense would that make?”

“Are you coming with me or not?”

“Fine, lead the way,” Tony agreed, still holding his bloody nose. “Damn, maybe we can stop at a store and pick up an ice pack or something.”

Synda ignored him, making her way farther down the street and stopping for cover along the way as before. Tony followed her from cover to cover, although in a more relaxed fashion.

“Where’s your roommate, Nikki?” Tony asked.

“Dead,” Synda answered coldly.

“Jesus, what happened?”

“Our building got hit. I barely made it out alive. She didn’t.”

“Damn, that’s rough.”

“What about your sister?”

“I have no idea,” Tony said. “I was at a bar with some friends when the bombs started coming down. We were watching the news and getting drunk, celebrating the end of the world and all that.”

“Well, that was certainly a constructive use of your time.”

“Yeah, well, it made sense at the time, I suppose…”

Synda stopped cold in her tracks, listening intently.

“What is it?” Tony whispered.

“I hear something,” Synda said. She listened more intently. There was a distant engine, like a large truck, but there was also the familiar sound of metal on pavement in the rhythmic fashion of boots walking down the street. “Come on!”

Synda ran down the street with Tony following close behind. They ducked behind a car with shattered windows. She peered up over the car, looking back down the street in the direction from which they had come. A truck full of local militia sped through the intersection. She heard the screeching of tires as the truck came to a stop. A second later, she heard the sound of Jung energy weapons fire mixed with gunfire from the militia. The intersection flashed with light, and the occasional energy weapons burst flew through the intersection. Another truck screeched to a stop before it even reached the intersection.

Weapons fire flew back and forth across the distant intersection, energy weapons from the right, gunfire from the left.

“We need to get out of here,” Tony declared.

Synda continued to watch in fascination as the battle raged on. Within seconds, Jung troops started advancing into the intersection from the right as they drove the Winnipeg militia forces back.

“Synda, come on!”

She heard more tires screeching. Seconds later, the Jung forces were backing up into the intersection again, only to be caught in a cross fire as more militia forces attacked from behind them. The Jung soldiers, with no other exit, turned and started running down the street toward Synda and Tony, firing their energy weapons behind them at the pursuing militia.

“Synda!” Tony yelled, grabbing her arm and pulling her so hard she nearly fell. They ran down the street, turning to the left and running around the corner without so much as slowing.

“Wait! Wait!” Synda yelled, coming to a stop halfway down the street. “This is a dead end!”

Tony looked to his left down an alleyway. “This way!”

“Are you sure?”

“It comes out behind the bank on the corner!” Tony insisted, charging down the alley.

Synda spun around to look behind her as Jung troops entered the intersection. They took no notice of her as they stopped and spun around, dropping to one knee as they returned fire from their pursuers. She followed Tony down the alley, both of them at a full run. Just as Tony reached the end of the alley and was about to turn right, two Jung soldiers came around the corner and ran headlong into him, knocking him down. One of the soldiers stumbled over him and landed face-first in the alley. As Tony scrambled to his feet and turned to attack the soldier that was still trying to get up, the other Jung soldier fired two shots of his energy weapon, one of which struck Tony in his left thigh, spinning him around and knocking him back to the ground.

Synda screamed and continued charging toward the two Jung soldiers, kicking the one that was on his hands and knees in the face, which flipped him over. As the Jung soldier flipped over onto his back, his weapon left his hands and skidded across the pavement. The soldier lay unconscious in the alley.

The other soldier, the one who had shot Tony, swung his weapon around to try to strike Synda in the face as she charged toward him, but she ducked quickly, leaning unnaturally backward to avoid being struck by the butt of his energy rifle. As she bent over backward, she extended her left arm, rotated her body, and swung her leg upward, her foot heading for the soldier’s face. The soldier reacted quickly, blocking her leg with his weapon, moving it quickly in a circular sweeping motion, and catching the strap around her extended foot. He twisted the weapon around, making it impossible for her to free herself, and yanked backward, pulling Synda forward and causing her to fall onto her left side.