Henry Gallant Saga 2: Lieutenant Henry Gallant

A warrior fights with honor.
Pride is his just reward.

Chapter 1 Run
Chapter 2 FTL
Chapter 3 Run
Chapter 4 Rival
Chapter 5 Run
Chapter 6 Ambush
Chapter 7 No more Running
Chapter 8 Hummingbird
Chapter 9 Survivors
Chapter 10 Is Anyone There?
Chapter 11 Elysium
Chapter 12 The Loyal Opposition
Chapter 13 A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
Chapter 14 The Deal
Chapter 15 Brobdingnag
Chapter 16 Mining
Chapter 17 Dealmakers
Chapter 18 Portrait
Chapter 19 Mishap
Chapter 20 Café
Chapter 21 Casualties
Chapter 22 GridScape
Chapter 23 Aristotle
Chapter 24 Probe
Chapter 25 Faustian Bargain
Chapter 26 Treaty
Chapter 27 Prison
Chapter 28 Cyber-assault
Chapter 29 Alert
Chapter 30 Stooge
Chapter 31 Neumann
Chapter 32 Behind the Curtain
Chapter 33 Symmetry
Chapter 34 Alaina
Chapter 35 Dragor
Chapter 36 Showdown
Chapter 37 Duty
Chapter 38 What You Want Most

Gallant ran—gasping for breath, heart pounding; the echo of his footsteps reverberated behind him.

He hoped to reach the bridge, but hope is a fragile thing.

Peering over his shoulder into the dark, he tripped on a protruding jagged beam, one of the ship’s many battle scars. As he crashed to the deck, the final glow of emergency lights sputtered out leaving only the pitch-black of power failure—his failure.

He lay still and listened to the ship’s cries of pain; the incessant wheezing of atmosphere bleeding from the many tiny hull fissures, the repetitious groaning of metal from straining structures, and the crackling of electrical wires sparking against panels.

Thoughts flashed past him.

How long will the oxygen last?

He was reluctant to guess.

Where are they?

The clamor of dogged footsteps drew closer even as he rasped for another breath.

Trembling from exhaustion, he clawed at the bulkhead to pull himself up. His hemorrhaging leg made even standing brutally painful.

Nevertheless, he ran.

The bulkhead panels and compartment hatches were indistinguishable in the dimness. Vague phantoms lurked nearby even while his eyes adjusted to whatever glowing plasma blast embers flickered from the hull.

As he twisted around a corner, he crashed his shoulder into a bulkhead. The impact knocked him back and spun him around. Reaching out with a bloody hand, he grasped the hatch handle leading into the Operation’s compartment. Going through the hatch, he pulled it shut behind him.

He started to run then awkwardly fought his own momentum and stopped.

Stupid! Stupid!

Going back to the hatch, he hit the security locking mechanism.

It wouldn’t stop a plasma blast, but it might slow them down, he thought. At least this compartment is airtight.

Finally able to take a deep breath, he tried to clear his head of bombarding sensations. He should’ve been in battle armor, but he’d stayed too long in engineering trying to maintain power while the hull had been breached and the ship boarded.

Now his uniform was scorched, revealing the plasma burns of seared flesh from his left shoulder down across his back to his right thigh. He had no idea where the rest of the crew was; many were probably dead. His comm pin was mute and the ship’s AI wasn’t responding. He had only a handgun, but so far he didn’t think they were tracking him specifically, merely penetrating into the ship to gain control.

Gallant tried to run once more, but his legs were unwilling. Leaning against the bulkhead, like a dead weight, he slid slowly down to the deck.

Unable to go farther, he sat dripping blood and trembling as the potent grip of shock grabbed hold. The harrowing pain of his burnt flesh, swept over him.

Hope and fear alike abandoned him, leaving only an undeniable truth; without immediate medical treatment, he wouldn’t survive.

I’m done.

Closing his eyes, he fought against the pain and the black vertigo of despair. He took a deep breath and called upon the last of his inner resolve and resilience . . .

No! I won’t give up.

Exhaling and opening his eyes, he caught sight of a nearly invisible luminescent glow of a Red Cross symbol, offering him a glimmer of hope. He stretched his arm toward the cabinet.

“Argh.”

He heard a cry of agony and only belatedly realized it had escaped his own lips as he strained to pull away twisted metal from the door to a medical cabinet. Reaching inside, he grabbed a damaged medi-pack.

Painstakingly, he used the meager emergency provisions to stop the bleeding and to infuse blood plasma. His limited mobility prevented him from reaching awkward areas, but he managed to insert an analgesic hypodermic into his raw blistered flesh. Next, he crudely bandaged his suffering body.

He relaxed momentarily as the medication coursed through his veins working to stifle the worst effects of shock and blood loss. His parched throat demanded . . .

Water.

He looked at more cabinets, but was unable to make out their markings in the dark. Stretching his fingers, he opened the nearest one, groping for something familiar inside.

No.

He opened the next.

No.

And another.

Yes.
He snatched a half-buried survival kit. Greedily he drank and even managed to take a few bites of an energy bar.

A surge of adrenaline helped him shift his position to sit more comfortably as his mind came into sharper focus.

As he examined his surroundings in the faint light, he spotted an interface station. He was about to reach up and patch into the ship’s AI to get an update on the ship’s defensive posture when he was disturbed by the dismal clangor of footsteps.

He held his breath.
Are they coming this way?

FOUR DAYS EARLIER . . .

The cold midnight black of space was indifferent to the warp distortion of the United Planets’
Intrepid
on its maiden voyage to Tau Ceti. Exotic dark matter fueled the ship’s warp drive to create a space-time distortion bubble around the ship. Even while exceeding the speed of light, everything within the bubble appeared normal, including the perception of time.

One of Earth’s nearest cosmic neighbors, Tau Ceti is a yellow dwarf star at about 11.5 light-years distance. The star’s brilliant radiance beckoned the
Intrepid
deeper into its gravity-well, while the ship’s forward view port allowed the bridge crew to witness its inner fusion turmoil, converting over six hundred million tons of hydrogen to helium each second.

Officer of the Deck, Lieutenant Henry Gallant, stood at the center of the
Intrepid's
bridge. Tall and athletically built, he seemed perfectly at ease as the focus of attention. His symmetrical facial features and square jaw made him appear forthright and earnest. His steely gray eyes might have deemed him overly intense, but in a curious way; a single careless curl of brown hair drifting across his forehead hinted at a youthful exuberance which combined with his good-natured smile left a reassuring impression.

In stark contrast to the vast emptiness outside the ship, inside the
Intrepid,
the dozen members of the bridge crew were crowded into a circular hi-tech equipment-packed bridge with three inner concentric circles. The innermost circle was around the command chair with its virtual support screens. It was normally occupied by the commanding officer, but the OOD was currently sitting there. The next circle was the command and control, and weapons stations, while the outermost ring consisted of sensor, navigation, and communication consoles.

One hundred and eighty degrees of the bridge’s circumference was occupied by a front wall displaying a high resolution view screen showing the star system ahead of them.

From their demeanor and casual posture, the team gave the air of routine—nothing remarkable going on here. Yet there remained eagerness in the faces of the men nearest Gallant, causing him to savor the moment before issuing the next series of orders. The crew was so well coached on the ship’s evolutions they could predict his exact words.

That was Gallant’s perception as he stood at attention, careful to display a neutral facial expression while anticipating the coming maneuver.

He turned his attention on the youngest member of the team—the twenty-year-old helmsman—only one year younger than Gallant.

“We’ve reached the system threshold, sir,” reported the helmsman, as if prodding the OOD to end the FTL flight. Within the star system they would be limited to sublight drive to avoid passing through a consequential field of matter; a planet, a large asteroid, or even worse, the star itself, which would bring their voyage to a swift and fatal conclusion.

“Very well, prepare to exit warp,” said Gallant. On the ship-wide communication system, he announced, “All stations, standby to collapse warp bubble. Standby to collapse warp bubble.”

Turning to Chief Howard, he said, “Chief of the Watch, sound three blasts of the drive alarm.”

Chief Howard complied and the racket the alarm made ensured the whole crew knew what event was about to transpire.

“Helm, collapse warp bubble,” ordered Gallant, ostensibly monitoring the virtual screens surrounding him, but in actuality, his attention was keenly focused on the actions of the helmsman, cautiously checking every movement to ensure exact performance—waiting, watching.

“Aye, aye, sir,” responded Second Class Petty Officer William Craig. Short and wiry, with a ruddy complexion, he was young for a second class PO, but his outstanding performance and Chief Howard’s recommendation had spurred his advancement. Using a methodical touch on the controls, he listened to the AI’s prompting and made subtle adjustments. He watched as the three dimensional image projected on a virtual screen showed the warp bubble as it writhed and gyrated in response to his manipulations.

The
Intrepid
dropped smoothly out of warp. The subtle changes to the surrounding space-time fabric were inconspicuous to the crew; nevertheless Gallant detected a subtle difference to the ship’s rhythmic vibrations beneath his feet.

The intricate operation complete, Craig reported, “Warp bubble collapsed, sir.”

The bridge crew’s placid response to the event, prompted Gallant to strike a similar blasé pose.

“Ahead standard,” he said.

“Aye, aye, sir,” said Craig, registering the signal on the AI display, which alerted engineering to start the sublight antimatter fusion reactors. As the reactors went critical, the ship ejected minute particles that produced only a tiny amount of acceleration, nevertheless the thrust compounded over time and the ship was soon propelled by the fusion engines.

“Nicely done, Helm,” commented Gallant a few seconds later when the ship was operating on fusion drive.

“Thank you, sir,” said the petty officer, unable to suppress a prideful nuance in his voice. He was one of the most popular young men on the ship. His bubbly personality and gregarious nature made him welcome, wherever he went. Even now, while on duty, he exhibited a contagious joyful excitement.

Gallant was pleased with the maneuver, but as the ship’s Engineering Officer, he would withhold final judgment until he conducted a thorough series of tests to review data and garner more details on the performance of both propulsion systems. After probing the Faster-Than-Light, FTL, frontier, busy evaluation days were ahead.

He waited expectantly for the keen observations and appraisal of his captain, but Dan Cooper made no historic comment.

Instead, Cooper sat relaxed, leaning against the bulkhead, quietly chatting with the ship’s senior chief.

“What do you think, Chief Howard?” he asked.

“Oh, she’s shiny and new, I’ll give you that, sir, but I’ll take old Repulse any day of the week. They don’t make ships like her anymore.”

The captain chuckled. “I was asking about the FTL performance.”

“Well, I’ll wait until my engineering gang finishes tweaking and fiddling before making my official report, but my first impression is, she’s”—the chief paused and looked over the bridge with a sweeping glance then finished begrudgingly—“okay.”

“That’s good enough for me, Chief,” concluded the captain, giving him a good-natured slap on the back.