Chapter 2

Houston, Apollo 11 . . . I’ve got the world in my window.

- Michael Collins

John

Thump. Thump. Thump. His heartbeat is all he could hear in the ocean of dark, his senses failing him as he tried to query his surroundings. Slowly it all came back, first the feeling in his limbs, then the smell. “What an awful smell,” he thought. Charred, burning flesh. BURNING FLESH? His heart started racing. Then slowly light, more and more light. As the light was growing, so was his memory. The last thing he remembered was? He didn’t know. It had something to do with that burning smell. Was he at a campfire? Nope. Wait, he was fixing something. It was necessary, vital, he remembered. Life or death. It must have worked; he’s here, isn’t he? Or is this the end.? Is this life after death? He regained his eyesight, then it all came to him. He jumped up really quick, realizing he was in a immense explosion!

“Commander!” a woman’s voice shouted from across the room.

John looked over at the young woman rushing to him as he woke up, it was Ensign Charlene Carr, the Avenger’s helmswoman.

Unable to control his lungs, which seemed to require an extraordinary amount of oxygen from the adrenaline rush as his brain had instructed his adrenal gland to go into overdrive. “Wha...What... What happened?”

Charlene grabbed John’s hand as she attempted to hide the fountain of tears flowing from her eyes. “We thought you were gone! You gave us a few scares there!”

John surveyed the room, taking note of who was present. He noticed a beastly man. Mahoney, he perhaps? Talking to the beastly man was another tall man in an Admiral’s uniform. Interesting. A third person was participating in the conversation, a woman in a white lab coat. She had the equipment and demeanor of a doctor, and her hair was vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t get a good look at her face. The admiral looked over and noticed the commander sitting up as a nurse walked in to check his vitals.

“Well,” the nurse said, “your vitals look good, heart rate is normal, B.P is normal, just a few bruises, otherwise you are in tip-top shape!”

How? John thought to himself. The last thing he remembers is a massive explosion. There can’t be any way he survived? A complete engine core overload has been known to destroy entire ships, especially a drive core the size of a Dreadnaught’s. The explosion should have at least taken out the Avenger entirely and produced a shockwave to do some more damage to nearby ships. That had to have been what happened. Right? There was no explanation that John could find.

“How soon can he be put back to active duty?” A tall, dark man wearing an admiral’s uniform walked in and asked the doctor, wasting no time.

“Well,” the woman doctor replied while pulling up his chart on her datapad.

As she talked, John knew that voice, but still couldn’t get a good look at her. He knew her somehow. His mind tore with the possibility of who it might be. But if it was her, then why is he there, or why is she here? John’s mind could not process information as quickly as it was being received, still in a haze, a fog of the battle of before.

“He didn’t suffer anything serious, just a few bruises and a few major burns that were nothing to heal with tissue regeneration, honestly he is good to go right now, physically speaking. I wouldn’t want to put him active right away as he did suffer some trauma.”

Those words, the way she said them. The Midwestern accent flowing off her tongue, and the way she moved her arms in the usual “meh” shrug. John knew who she was, it was unmistakable at this point. “What in the hell are you doing here, Mom?” John managed to muster from his dehydrated mouth as he squirmed higher on his bed.

John had been born into a military family. His father was a career Federation Marine, Major David Henderson. He never knew his father, as he was killed in action when John was just a few years old. His mother was always a Navy woman but chose to go to the medical end of it. This allowed her to travel the system to wherever she was needed when she was needed. She had lived a long life, and enjoyed a long career, now she held one of the most sought-after positions in the Navy’s medical division, Director of Sol Medicine. Admiral Samantha Henderson was in charge of the Navy’s hospitals, hospital ships, and medical stations throughout the Sol system.

Admiral Henderson walked to her son, smiling with delight to see him relatively unharmed. “How many times do I have to tell you, son, no heroics!” she replied sarcastically, knowing all too well what the call of the Navy is, and how powerful its effects can be on those who hear the song.

Mahoney and the dark admiral walked in at the same time, all looking at John, smiling and happy to see their star awake and responsive. Charlene Carr let go of his hand at this point to allow John to talk to his visitors.

“Son,” stated the admiral.

One of the few words John repulsed at when hearing. Only his mother had the right to call him ‘Son.’ Still, his military training and discipline took over, forcing John to stiffen up to perform the most proper salute he could while still lying in the hospital bed wearing only the hospital gown.

“At ease, commander,” The admiral returned his salute. “I’ll also pretend I did not see your lack of salute to Admiral Henderson here.” The tall admiral half-joked, half-serious. John couldn’t precisely tell. However, his mother’s evil look at the admiral told him everything he needed to know. “How exactly did you pull off that stunt of yours? Whatever you did, you pretty much killed the Avenger. The strange part is, her Life Support systems were fried before the drive core blew, how is that possible?” John noticed the admiral’s nametag, Admiral Briggs. John’s eyes grew wide as he realized who he was. Fleet commander of the Navy’s First fleet, and his flagship was the infamous F.W.S. Independence, one of the Navy’s few Juggernauts.

John had hoped no one would have looked into what had happened, especially that deep into the systems. Investigation teams rarely looked at the life support systems when a drive core suffers a critical event, especially one from an emergency burn. The life support systems on any Federation ship are entirely independent of the main systems, even drawing power from a completely separate fusion reactor. It has so many backups that it is nearly impossible to fry. It was designed this way for situations that require the crew to survive when the ship itself would be otherwise unable to.

“That was exactly it,” John begins to explain, “I tied the Hyperdrive into the Life Support system.”

John had just knowingly and willingly admitted to a crime within the Navy. To tamper with a Life Support system is punishable by no less than a dishonorable discharge, and in worst cases, life in prison or execution. Depending on the damage done, it could be considered treasonous. Routing an insanely power-hungry system through the life support relays was damaging enough to be considered treason. John had performed the task in full knowledge of what punishment would be present, which is one of the reasons he risked his life by doing it directly at the source. In the most dangerous part of the ship, the only section that would, without a doubt, explode when he plugged everything into place. The main engine room. He still could not figure out how the core did not turn into a miniature star for a brief time, and how he had managed to survive the explosion itself. John would do it again, with or without surviving the blast. With or without military execution for acting on one of the most heinous crimes on the Navy books. He did not do it out of malice; despite the number of lives lost in the explosion, his treasonous actions saved hundreds of lives that would have otherwise perished at the hands of the Legion.

Life support systems have an insane redundancy built into them, including their own power generators and processors and sub-processors. The system is designed so a warship can sustain substantial damage, in multiple parts of the ship, even render her crippled, and the life support would still remain useful to a degree. Oxygen, Co2 scrubbers, and heating are the most redundant. John, who had his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering and served as chief of engineering, knew precisely how to get the system up and running in the time frame he was given. In the Engineering room, across from the central fusion reactor, there are two rows of panels. One side holds various controls, including the Hyperdrive system. The other row houses the Life Support relays along with other vital systems. The Life Support relays held the main cable line that went directly into the main power generator and computers for life support. It was the only system that was utterly unaffected by the various explosions and damage the Legion was creating.

Commander Henderson simply took and merged the two systems into one, forcing the Hyperdrive to feed off of the power generators of the life support, and running a series of commands on the life support systems to initiate power transfer and Hyperspace jump procedures. Hyperdrive Generators consume an astronomical amount of power. Most ships house multiple fusion reactors to comply with the demand. Life Support generators cannot produce enough power output to power a Hyperdrive, however, in short bursts, it would be enough to kick-start the generators. As soon as he initiated the commands to start the Jump, the Life Support systems were fried. Oxygen production had ceased, Co2 scrubbers were now useless and no longer removed the toxic gas from the atmosphere. The environmental controls, mainly the heaters, were gone and no longer producing lifesaving heat for the ship. The inertia and graviton systems were destroyed, removing all artificial gravity and now unable to remove the effects of inertia and momentum, even to the slightest degree. Everyone on the ship was floating for a brief moment. But none of that mattered to John; the next few moments, the fate of the remaining crew of fifteen hundred souls would be decided. They would either perish at the hands of the Legion or make it home to Earth, on a floating hunk of metal that couldn’t even make a cup of coffee.

“Are you saying you deliberately destroyed the life support on a Federation warship?” Admiral Briggs began to ask, “...you do realize that by itself can be considered an act of treason!” Everyone in the room looked at him. Mahoney was about to speak, but the Admiral cut him off.

“But you saved three-thousand and fifteen lives by doing what you did, I have a feeling that little maneuver will go in future engineering manuals,” Briggs gave with a smile.

“Orders, Sir!” John saluted, ignoring the hero worship, wanting to continue his duties as a Federation Naval Officer.

Mahoney handed him a datapad that contained his new orders. It read;

“JULY 23rd 2465 COMMANDER John Henderson IS ORDERED TO REPORT TO SPACE DOCK 14, MANHATTAN SECTOR, NEW YORK NEW YORK BY JULY 26th 2465. HE IS THEREBY ORDERED TO BOARD HOPPER ALPHA-GAMMA-NINE EN-ROUTE TO UTOPIA PLANITIA SHIPYARDS FOR FURTHER ASSIGNMENT - PER APPROVAL FROM FedNavPers”

John stared at the datapad for a few long moments. He hid the look of confusion in his face well, as no one in the room was able to read it. He did not understand why he was ordered to Utopia-Planitia shipyards. That facility is a highly classified Naval Research and Development Shipyard. All prototypes and new classes of ships are built there first before making it to line production. The only explanation was he was going to serve on a brand-new ship. A glimmer of a smile did come through, as he realized Charlene was part of the prototype pilot program, she had first dibs on piloting any prototype starship that came off the line. If he was assigned this new class of ship, it was likely she would be there as well.

“You know,” Henderson began to say with concern on his face, facing toward both Carr and his mother.

“How did I end up here?” The Commander set down the datapad, going back to the one question he had lingering in his brain since the moment he awoke.

“Well, all I know,” Ensign Carr chimed in, “is that Lieutenant Ramsey sacrificed himself, threw you into an escape pod and launched it right before the drive core blew.”

Lt. Chance Ramsey was always a lazy man, from everything John had experienced. And a very self-centered person. Not the right choice for chief engineer. John tried to replace him on several occasions but was always overruled by The Naval Department of Personnel. John was indeed surprised to hear what happened, as Ramsey was never the type for self-sacrifice.

“He will be honored for his sacrifice!” Feeling sad and ashamed to be alive, he continued, “but still... How did I get HERE?” Henderson asked again, emphasizing ‘here,’ begging the question everyone seemed to be ignoring.

“All I know is we received a request from central command, someone high up personally requested you to get treatment here,” Doctor Henderson replied.

The Navy Medical Station in orbit around Luna was the standered place hospital ships took Navy personnel. However, John had been placed at New York Mercy Medical Station, in geosynchronous orbit above New York, New York. The hospital was a civilian-run and operated facility that accepted anyone, not being limited to military personnel. It is regarded as one of the best hospitals in the system, having more funding available to the network that the defense budget could send to the military facilities. NY-Mercy on Earth and in orbit had access to the best treatments, doctors, and equipment across the Federation. Doctor Henderson was a Navy doctor, not a civilian doctor, and was not assigned to NY-Mercy for her standard practice. She was an Admiral in the Navy and in charge of military medical facilities and had no real base of operations. High political pressure somewhere unknown to John, or his mother, pulled some strings to get him where he was and to allow Admiral Henderson to treat him. John paid no attention to the question that loomed in the air, the question that no one could really answer. He was alive, and the majority of the crew of the late Avenger were safe. His mission was completed, he had succeeded in his duties.