One hour later…

Scott and Katie’s Apartment

1:57 PM

Can you believe that after what Katie and I went through, we ended up in a coma? I didn’t realize that when my eyes shot open, my lungs quickly filled with cold air, and my joints creaked.

I choked on the air as my chest felt stiff. My vision sharpened and saw I was in the same position as before—face down, sprawled over the carpet. My head was an inch from the edge of the coffee table, too close for comfort.

My throat felt unused, but became better in a second. Katie came to my mind and I looked across the kitchen, seeing a pair of feet peeking past the fridge. “Oh, no,” I said. “Katie, are you okay?” No answer or movement. Fearing the worst, I got up and trudged to the kitchen.

Katie lay on the linoleum floor, on her back with her mouth open. The fridge’s door had a huge dent and was open a little, the cold air all gone. She was breathing slow and shallow, peaceful, as if nothing happened. I knelt beside her to shake her to life.

“Katie, please wake up.” I shook her head. No response. I felt for a pulse on her neck and found a calm one against my fingers. I screamed out her name in desperation.

Her brown eyes shot wide open and she gasped for air. She coughed hard and her body shook with each one. I felt relieved and sat her up to hug her. “Oh, yes. Please tell me you’re all right?”

Groaning and relaxing against me, she said, “Yeah, I think so.” Her fear surfaced as she moved onto her knees.

Recollecting my memories was easy but remembering that ball of electricity made me look down. I checked my shirt where it hit me, but the cloth was undamaged, no burn marks on the skin or any trace at all. I looked up at Katie, her shirt and back were unhurt save for some wrinkles. She was standing upright with her hands clasped on the sink, staring out to the balcony with fixed eyes.

“Katie, what’s wrong?” I asked.

“Look,” she said, raising her hand to point.

As I looked, my neck creaked like a dry door hinge. “What the hell?”

It was snowing, heavily, with no wind, and visibility down to a mile. From the thickness of the fog and snow, I barely saw past the shopping center and the outline of the monolith crystal in the lake. The snowflakes were big, light and clustered.

“This is getting too weird,” I said, getting up on both feet. “It was mostly clear this morning, even the weather report showed it nice all week.” I grabbed my cell phone from my pocket.

“What in the world is going on here?” Katie asked.

“I wish I knew.” I checked the time on my cell. An hour had passed after we went unconscious.

We walked, holding each other for safety to the balcony, careful not to step on the larger crystals. The snow looked incredible, the best I had seen ever. The air felt colder than before and made my breath fog up. Everything was quiet for a moment until people started to wake up in a dismal daze. Cars started in the distance to try to restart daily life.

Katie ran her hand over the three-inch thick snow on the rail. “Is this Heaven?” Katie said.

“If this was Heaven, Katie, we would have wings by now.” I felt an itch on my right hand and scratched it by instinct. It did go away but I still felt a small pinch. The people outside were either confused like us or happy. From across the complex, a young girl looked at the snow and her face sprung into bliss. It scared me. She should be panicking. Did she get electrocuted like us, or was she just too traumatized?

“Let’s get inside,” I told Katie. She was scared but I was proud that she kept herself steady. I closed the door and noticed the holes where the orbs had entered. Two perfectly round shapes with the edges of the glass cracked and melted. As I traced it from the edge outward, the cracks diminished while the rest of the door stayed intact. It reminded me of a dream catcher, except whatever came through the center was not a pleasant dream.

“TV is out,” Katie said. “And so are the cell phones.” She looked around, then her head dipped and I heard her sniffling. She scratched her left shoulder for a second.

“Hey don’t cry,” I said coming to her. “We’re alive and that’s a good thing.” I brought her head close to me and took her into a hug. Hugging a lot was a norm after a tragedy. I set my hands on the sides of her face, her eyes showing sadness. “Don’t break down on me, honey. We’re almost through this nightmare. We just have to… think what to do next. Okay?”

“It’s not that.” She held up her cell phone at eye level, displaying the lost signal bars. “I’m more worried about my parents. TV’s gone, we can’t call out—we’ve been shoved into the Stone Age. I wish I was home.”

I brought her closer. “Yeah, me too.” I was grateful to be alive, but the orbs and the coma, it felt all too wrong to ignore it. Did the whole city fall asleep? Did the whole world get affected? There were so many questions.

And I too missed my parents.

“Look, we have my father’s gun. That’s good enough to protect us. If we can…” My words were cut short when the itch on my right hand came back, but the intensity shot up to a painful level. I scratched the top and it didn’t get better, growing in pain by the second. It felt like heat within my hand, it made me grunt under my breath, and Katie became concerned. I let go of Katie to scratch better. I couldn’t answer, not when my skin boiled from the inside out.

“Ah, shit,” I fell to my knees, gripping my hand. It was as if I had shoved my hand into a roaring fire.

“Scott, what’s wrong?” Katie said, sounding scared. I glanced up and saw her scratching her left shoulder, and then she too fell to her knees, screaming. Under her shirt, her shoulder moved and bubbled all on its own.

What the hell is this? I thought. It wasn’t an actual burn for sure because electricity doesn’t have the tendency to hang out in the body for a long time. Unless you were hooked up to an electric chair and roasted alive. This thing was centralized, where the orb didn’t touch.

The pain grew as I felt bubbles rise from below my skin. My right hand started to literally “steam” like it came from a hot tub. I fell on my back, still holding my hand, grunting and screaming. I heard Katie scream too and jerk her body, up to the point that she was taking her shirt off from a sudden burst of combustion on the sleeve.

It lasted less than two minutes, and then the pain just stopped. My hand felt like something was loose and wet. I looked and I felt my face turn pale. I lifted, and I mean removed, a piece of skin from my hand, uncovering what looked like a glowing mark covering the top of my hand and a few inches past my wrist.

It was a tattoo. The color was a clean, blue-white marble, glowing tattoo in a design very similar to my Celtic pendent.

Did those orbs cause it? Impossible.

“Holy shit!” I yelled.

Katie stopped screaming after her shirt was removed, having left on her cream-colored bra. She removed the skin from her shoulder and revealed a Celtic tattoo, but in a different design than mine.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” she repeated as her face turned white before my very eyes. Katie saw mine and began dipping into a panicked state.

“This is insane,” I said, “what’s going on here?”

Two hours later…

Three miles east of Arrowhead, California

Jaruka’s crashed ship

3:31 PM

As I came back into the realm of the living, I had an awful taste in my mouth. It was dissolved, flavorless gelatin from the life-foam. Another point for using that stuff—to plug up the holes. I groaned as I felt that my body was stiff and still strapped to the chair. I managed to nudge my head a little to break the foam some, spit out the crap in my mouth, make a glob of saliva, and spit it at the foam. As an automatic response to the foam, the saliva made the foam melt away in seconds, reducing it to putrid blobs of goo all over the bridge.

The straps came loose and I was free to rub my limbs and chest to ease the pain. I scooped the goo away from the dashboard and realized a very important piece of information.

The asteroid crashed, and I’m still alive? That’s not good.

The viewport was cracked in three different places. Outside, a forest was covered in snow, and it was snowing. The trees surrounding me looked like Pricania trees of a Ranos II retirement moon, all with green needles, but on Terra Firma they’re called pine trees. My eyesight was a little off and I could have sworn I saw something purple, but ignored it. The monitors were all smashed, one of the passenger seats had been ripped from the floor, my stuff was scattered all over the place, and to my dismay, as I looked up, the Slipspace Drive was damaged beyond repair.

Relieved to be alive, I said one thing. “Lunar Spear, you were one hell of a life saver.” No time to grieve for the sacrifice of my ship, I had to call for help and find my HUD.

I got up and found I had a limp from a bruise in my left knee. I walked towards my living quarters and I budged the airlock open with the manual lock, using my body weight. The ship’s middle was cracked in half but still mostly intact as light crept in from the outside and snowflakes fell. I jumped over the separated floor, wincing from the bruise. My small kitchen was impaled by a steel support rod, my furniture toppled or gone for good, and some of my clothes had made their way outside. A chilling breeze came through the ship, making my backside shiver and a couple of my skin dreads curl a little. I entered my living quarters; my personal desk looked like crap and all my journals were on the floor, most covering the workshop’s airlock.

Since the Drive was busted, I had to get my portable GSD HUD comm. device from my closet. I rustled through the crammed closet to get the darn thing out of its drawer, near my emergency grenades and rifle clips. It’s a scaled down device with a similar Slipspace Drive, a handy little thing that can be used to talk to people without relying on the ship’s systems and also serves as a targeting aid for my rifle. Onboard cameras, microphone, and those all-important health monitors were included on the HUD too.

Somebody buy the HUD’s inventor a skrill for being a complete, utter genius.

I clamped it to two dreads and plugged it in my ear hole. I pressed a button and it activated by growing in size, incorporating my right eye for the screen and extending the microphone to my cheek. I grabbed a pair of dark brown cargo pants from the rack. The bruise on my leg was nearly gone.

“Make connection with Brill of the Endeavor,” I said as the device registered my speech and performed the command. I had the pants on my legs and waist when Brill’s grey face came on the screen, taking up half my sight. Last time I saw him he was half asleep, now he was under heavy stress.

“Jaruka?” He asked. “Oh thank the gods you’re all right, we’ve been trying to contact you…” He looked away from me. “Private Pico, has Captain Obi woken up yet?” Small talk between them occurred, but I was too busy putting on a tan tunic from the rack with the cuffs bunched up and tight around my wrists. The tunic displayed my Nova Company rank and a couple of commemorations from other well-known factions. I heard more familiar voices, all strategic and barking about a Class Three Alert. That’s never good. Brill turned back to me with a disappointing frown. “Get a hold of him. No questions asked. Sorry, Jaruka, but you’ve been out of contact the past four hours. We thought you…”

“Brill, you better have a plan to get me off this rock. My green ass is getting colder by the minute,” I interrupted.

“We were about to give up and report your whereabouts with Republic officials, but since you are hopping about, that’s one less thing to worry about. Is the ship operable?”

“Ha. Lunar Spear is cut in half, power is gone, I do not dare want to see the condition of the fusion core, and I’m marooned on Terra Firma. Long story short—I’m officially boned!”

An all too familiar voice face popped into my HUDs view screen. The red face belonged to Commander Nodus Kantra, senior tactical officer and high-ranking shadow walker. “I knew it. That proves he’s the main course of a human science fest.”

“Thanks for the tip,” I said harshly. We don’t get along. Ever.

Brill pushed Kantra’s head away. “Duly noted. Jaruka, you have to get into hiding if you are going to be disc…wait a minute, did the asteroid strike the planet a while ago? Where’s the aftermath?”

That’s when I felt those thoughts from before quiver up my spine. Not the kind when a cold wind comes and makes me shiver, but a chill that was caused by Brill being dead on correct. I was so busy concerning myself with getting a hold of him that I never sat down and thought deeply about the asteroid. After a strike, it was proven that a sizable rock could eradicate all life on a planet, including microbes. It takes a long time, a decade or more if I’m not mistaken, to show any signs of life. It was a one in a billion chance that humans would show up again and the cycle repeated.

But the real question was why was I still alive?

“All I can tell, Brill,” I started, “is that there is no sign of destruction outside, which means that the humans are still alive. I’m not at liberty to act like a scientist and figure out this mystery, but when I’m well in the shadows, I will wait for your rescue team to come and pick me up.”

“Out of the question, Jaruka. You know the law: no civilian or citizen of the Republic shall enter restricted space without written consent. We must rely on the navy to get you.”

I grabbed a pair of leather boots and sat on the bed to slip them on my three-toed feet. “But that will take weeks, months even for those bureaucratic dunderheads to authorize a rescue. No. I want you to do it, Brill, end of story, even if it means breaking cardinal rules to get me. I’m not ready to die with my ass chopped up in a government science lab and my innards in jars.”

Once my feet were finished, I pulled on more clothing, including a specialty made shirt to block projectile bullets from human weapons. Terra Firma weapons are based on ballistics; they weren’t even close to laser tech at their rate of progress. I zipped the shirt up, and then pulled my utility vest on over that. I grabbed plasma, fragmentation, and EMP grenades, stuffing them in my vest and cargo pant pockets.

“Then are you considering using a DNA mask? All humans aren’t used to meeting space travelers.”

Anger flared in my words. “Do I look like I want to spend two minutes snapping and cracking my body to blend in with these monsters? Crog no. I’ll deal with that when I’m not stressed the crog out.” I kneeled next to the airlock, pushing away books and turned the manual lock to break the airtight seal.

The Endeavor’s bridge erupted into protest. The sound made me wince and almost deaf in one ear.

“Jaruka, you idiot,” Nodus said, “that is a one way ticket to the ass probe with that attitude of yours.”

“Up yours, Nodus. Scream any louder and they might hear you.” Could he ever shut up?

“Everybody, calm down,” Brill yelled while waving his small arms in the air. “Focus on your jobs. We need to figure a way out of this. Jaruka, I urge you to slow down and think rationally about this before…”

I heard a loud boom. It wasn’t from the Endeavor’s bridge or the fusion core; more like something was breaking the planet’s sound barrier. My severed ship shook moderately and debris clanked on the hull above my head. I froze standing over the airlock. What was that?

“Guys, shut the hell up,” I commanded, sounding concerned. They settled down and I heard nothing but the sounds of their computers. Brill paused and squinted at me while Irna the elf peered from the side. “Turn it up on your end, Brill. I might have company.” He motioned somebody to his right with a quick, quiet command.

The porthole was obstructed by a mountain face, dirt and snow falling, so I went to the starboard porthole, just left of my desk. I looked outside to see white snow, grey clouds, trees, and severed ship pieces. I noticed I crashed near a road carved out of the mountainside, continuing with a bridge stretched over a frozen riverbed. My heart skipped as I saw more than twenty human vehicles, making me grip the porthole’s edge with anger. All were military vehicles: eighteen black vehicles, one large white cargo truck with no distinguishable markings, and one large brown vehicle with a barrel sticking out in front. Thirty humans I counted that were covered in black clothing and biohazard gas masks, gripping long barreled projectile rifles, and aiming at my ship. One human raised his finger at my ship, and the brown vehicle belched fire.

At least I turned on the camera, the Endeavor’s officers made loud yelps.

I hate my life.

“Tanker!” I yelled. I ducked into the hallway for cover. A massive explosion engulfed the living quarters in flames and bent the metal. I covered my head as I hid behind the small kitchen before any debris hit me. My hearing rang.

I came out and a huge hole occupied where my closet and half of the engine room had been. My ship’s hull was solid titanium ten inches thick; those were armor-piercing rounds, no doubt. The fusion engine squirted coolant as and it flowed over metal, crystal, and non-active isotope tubes.

“Jar… Jaruka… you hear m… happened…” The Slipspace transmission was failing. Brill’s voice was in shock and the commotion from the bridge made the noise worse. I crawled to the airlock fast, ducking to not be seen. My hatred towards humans was boiling inside me. I needed to concentrate to keep my state of rage under control to survive.

I detached the camera—still broadcasting—and looked directly at it and yelled, “Brill, listen, you have to rescue me at any cost. You hear me? At all cost!”

I closed the eye monitor on the HUD, reattached the camera, grabbed the airlock with both hands, and raised it with all my strength. The incoming voices were still there and I had to turn down the volume.

I headed down as my bed exploded in a spray of water, sponges, and cloth from the human’s bullets. I slid down the handrails to land straight up in the workshop as the airlock closed behind me. My boots crunched on something fragile. The main exit was bent a little but the small porthole let in light. I looked down at a glass littered floor, the light seeping through to make the glass shine in a rainbow of colors. I made a mental note to rip ten human heads off their necks and blow up a farm town for the glass steins I had slaved over.

I went straight for my weapons locker and ripped the lock off with my bare hands. Inside held the two weapons that kept me sane and secure for the last seventeen years: my Custom T31ZK plasma rifle, and my handcrafted katana resting in a high-quality fukel leather sheath, sewn in black trim. I smiled imagining the carnage the two could do to the human’s weak bodies.

I grabbed the sword and slung it across my shoulder and back, then grabbed the rifle and three clips of plasma ammunition. I loaded one clip, powered the thing up, cocked it in place and the internal generator warmed my fingers. Fire from the humans still rang out and I felt another blast from the tank hitting my ship, probably destroying the bridge. “Stop blowing holes in my ship, assholes!” I screamed.

I did have a plan after all, and it all was contained in a box at the bottom of the locker. I kneeled and opened it, revealing a syringe and a small canister of black liquid in its cartridge. I combined them both and said, “Decathan, if you’re hearing this, I’m using your prototype nanites to help find me.” I aimed the gun at my neck and pulled the trigger, feeling the liquid run through my veins. Once done I aimed my rifle at the workshop’s main airlock, fired a couple of plasma shots at the metal hinges, let the door fall over, and ran out screaming.

As bullets flew, I hid behind a severed thruster. The snow was an odd feeling as the cold crept up my legs and back side, remnants of not experiencing new sensations after months of useless survey work. Ignoring the small pain, I peeked to the side and used my HUD to zoom in. Three humans held rocket launchers near the tank and prepped to fire if they saw anything alive in the rubble. At least they hadn’t seen me coming out. The masked human near the tank barked orders, I assumed it was the leader, and the rest kept on firing. Each bullet pinged on the hull like tiny bells.

I ducked back under cover and pulled out a lightning grenade. I cracked the pin, set the timer for a few seconds, jumped up, and threw it at the tank before it sent another round my way. I ducked again. The humans saw me and focused all their power on my shield, making my ears ring.

A loud crackle came as a shower of electricity slithered through the area. With the snow covering the ground and vehicles as perfect conducting material, bolts of pure electricity harvested by magic sailed through both metal and human flesh, lighting up the whole road and air like engine coils. Most of the humans died as they cooked inside their armor, smoke seeping through the seams, the rest got up and tried to regain their senses. The tank was immobilized.

Time to make my move.

I took a few quick breaths and ran from the thruster to the dislodged stabilizer, lying several feet from the stern. I slid on my knees in the snow, but my knee hit something hard causing me to fall on my chest. I yelled in pain and dropped my rifle. Rolling onto my back, I saw a glimmer of purple near my foot. As such I ignored it, grimaced, and got back up.

With effort, I grabbed my rifle and peeked to the side of the wreckage, picking out my targets with the HUD. They were still firing at the ship as if it was a living entity.

Anger rushed through my veins, releasing every scrap of adrenaline in my system. The comm. chirped and I overheard Brill scream in my ear, “Jaruka, don’t do it!” I pretended he wasn’t there.

“Goddess, if you’re there, get off your green ass and give me focus,” I whispered.

I kneeled and aimed down the sight, took a deep breath, and pulled the trigger.

A bright green ball of plasma shot out of the barrel, brighter than the white snow and hotter than molten magma. It made the sound of a screaming banshee as it zipped through the air, leaving a trail of charred oxygen and ozone. The first shot hit a human with a rocket launcher, straight into his head, making it explode in a fountain of blood, brains and bone. He dropped like a doll while the humans near him gawked at the corpse. I fired another round at a rifle-wielding human and he too lost his head in a cloud of green plasma.

To make them more pissed off and have a sense of accomplishment on my end, I trash talked in my native, tongue-filled language. “Come on you sons of bitches, I got all day!”

I fired several more shots at the sharpshooters and took out the pilot in the tank. Feelings of revenge made me smile. It was easy enough to take on the whole group.

Then something hit my head and bounced off the stabilizer, landing in the snow. I cocked my head, seeing a canister-shaped grenade in yellow paint.

“Oh, flip me!” I stood up but before I could jump, the grenade exploded. A cloud of white smoke enveloped my body and vision. My lungs suddenly burned when I inhaled and I felt extremely dizzy all of a sudden. I gagged, making my footing erratic as I waddled away from the cloud. The damn smoke was following me. The soldiers stopped firing.

My muscles went limp in a matter of seconds as the gas entered my blood stream. I wanted to throw up but my body refused.

I dropped to the ground and pinned myself against the ship, slumping down onto the cold blanket of snow. The comm. device in my ear screamed as Brill and the others ordered me to run for dear life. Too late. I was coughing up a storm and on the edge of my watered vision, a black figure emerged out of the cloud and falling snowflakes.

He wasn’t military but was dressed in a black suit, white shirt, black tie, and pressed pants. He didn’t wear the proper footwear for outdoors, but moved through the ankle deep snow with ease. He wore a gas mask just like the riflemen. I sure hoped Brill and the guys got a good view of him because my sight started to go.

The human looked down at me and I loosely gripped my rifle, struggling to move. Tears fell from the corners of my eyes and made me blink. Feeling overwhelmed with rage, I said the last thing in my language that came to mind. “You all should be castrated for what you are. The Galactic Council will burn your planet for your crimes. Die by my blade you… blood-eyed human.”

Desperate, I struggled to unsheathe my katana from behind me. The human saw it as pathetic and took action, taking two steps forward and kicked me in the chest, forcing all of the air out of my lungs. I screamed in pain and slouched to the ground, the left side of my face submerged in snow.

The human reached and grabbed to the comm. device, ripping it from its grasp on my dreads. The camera faced his gruesome gas mask. With his voice muffled, I could barely make out what he was saying before I passed out. Odd enough, I heard a female tinge in the human’s voice. “Sorry, but your alien friend is not available at this time. Please leave a message after the gunshot to the head.”

My brain was too tired to figure out what he said, but it was obvious: Oh… screw… me.

The human pulled out his sidearm, aimed it at my head, and pulled the trigger.

Battleship Endeavor, Bridge

Creos Orbital Docking Platform 12FC

5:03 PM Terra Firma Pacific Time

All of us—the pilots, strategists, weapons supervisors, ground unit commanders, navigators, and myself—saw the horror before us on the bridge’s main view screen. The black masked human made his small, menacing speech while taking up the camera’s view, then pulled out a black pistol from under the jacket, aimed it at my friend beyond the frame, and fired. The sound vibrated through the bridge and it made everybody shutter and cry out. Without mercy, the human threw the camera against Lunar Spear’s hull, severing the video feed.

Connection Lost.

The entire bridge went into an unprofessional uproar in sadness and fear. The lead communications officer and recent recruit of Nova Company, Private Arilla Pico, suddenly raised one of her six limbs to her mouth, leaned to the side, and hurled her supper all over the floor. She was very sensitive to the sounds of ground unit battles, but bless her for controlling radio and Slipspace chatter faster than anybody else on the ship.

“Henfa Pi,” cursed the male Octocre named commander Nodus Kantra, the senior tactical advisor and lead shadow walker commander, in a low-pitched voice. He stood a few feet to my right and was gripping the chair of the non-present senior engineer. “This is not right. They just killed him, right there with in cold blood. Guess the stories from the Archives were true.”

“Distress beacon is decreasing in signal strength, captain,” Private Pico said as she wiped her mouth. That made everybody fall silent.

I was not taking it well. I still sat in my command chair, slouched over and gripping the arm rests with all the strength I could muster. The monitor at my own console showed the same message. I just witnessed the death of my friend, a friend that I, and the rest of Nova Company, knew for a long time; a young Halcunac mercenary, full of energy and endurance, killed by the human violence on Terra Firma. My black eyes were wide, my body shook from the shock, my knuckles turned white, and my left foot was going stiff. One distressed bag of unstable emotions, ready to crack from the pressure. I leaned back.

Pico kept calling out the signal’s deterioration. Then the signal went dead, like a heart stopping in the emergency room. Pico’s voice shook with every breath of air. “The… the Lunar Spear’s beacon is gone, captain. Corporal Jaruka Teal… is lost.” She broke out in tears. Her crying and the dead signal filled the bridge. Poor girl, wonder if she knew him.

I slouched more, releasing my grip on the chair to wipe my face. My knuckles creaked. Thoughts of calling Jaruka’s oldest sister with the news would be most troublesome, not to mention a possible Galactic Council uproar if word got out. My assistant, Irna, came next to me and laid her hand on my shoulder. It made me depressed losing him, but I thanked her for assuring me, for what it was worth.

“I got a heartbeat!” Someone yelled. “That crazy coot did something right!”

I peered from my hand’s comfort to see the Mucanti senior medical officer, Sergeant Russ Decathan, jumping from his seat. The bridge had eight command centers, each reserved for the high-ranking officers of the Endeavor, including a wizard energy overseer. Three rectangular glass windows, each a meter thick, gave the view of the ship’s front convex end, the covered ports of the defense cannons and lasers, the oversized dock clamps, and the windows of the space station. Next to us was the carrier ship Assassin, going through the last of its repairs, fully aware of the recent events. The sergeant was the only person who appeared oddly excited.

“What are you talking about, sergeant?” I asked, feeling exhausted. “We just saw him get killed on camera. What more do you need to know?”

“Permission to speak and explain, sir?” He said turning to face me.

I rested my arms on the armrests, still feeling grief. Whatever Decathan was addressing, or why he said that there was a heartbeat, it would not fix anything. “Go ahead.”

“Well, let me first say that all of you are missing one crucial clue. While Jaruka was loading his rifle and us hearing Private Pico’s childish screaming every time an explosion happened… no offense, miss.” Pico nodded. “The video went dead for a second, but audio was still working. I heard him, clear as day, say he used my prototype that I gave him before he left for that hellhole.”

Kantra shifted and remembered. “Slipspace Tracker Serum?” He said. “I thought that technology was still with your R&D team?” Everybody else was left out, except me. I knew what he meant.

“That was over a year ago when half the bugs were gone. I just failed to mention it was ready for testing, and Jaruka seemed to be the perfect candidate. Once those nanites entered his bloodstream and began transmitting his vitals, I went to work locking on to the secure Slipspace frequency while the rest of you witnessed that horror.” He raised his chitin-shelled arm to his chest, hit himself in self-congratulations, and grinned behind his white mandibles. “From what I can read, I’m getting a true, steady heart beat, brain patterns, blood composition, the works. Am I a miracle worker or what?”

I raised my head up and straightened my posture. I knew Decathan liked to run his mouth and loves to gloat at his accomplishments, but he had a point. I’d seen the technology and I had been impressed during the initial tests. Taking a GSD, shrinking it to a third the size of a medical nanite, and sync them all to broadcast a signal of the host’s stats and location turned out to be an engineer’s dream, and nightmare. I, Captain Obi, other battleship captains, and select admirals witnessed a somewhat successful test. It stopped after the first subject, a Lurosian gunslinger, started hearing music stations and personal civilian conversations in his head.

I cleared my throat and said, “First, you are a miracle worker, but big mouthed. And second, you must not keep this sort of information hidden from us anymore. Take more responsibility from now on.” My hand now gripped my small grey chin. Others on the bridge exhaled in relief of the good news and felt a little hope. “So, he’s alive on Terra Firma, where does that leave us?”

“In the belly of a volcano controlled by magma goblins,” Kantra answered.

I turned with my brow creased to see the Octocre, arms across his chest and the spikes on his back rattling. His shadow was shifting in and out of our realm. Whenever he is disturbed, he shows it. The bridge went silent again.

“That depends. Explain,” I ordered him.

He began to pace between me and the empty senior engineer station, odd that Wringheart didn’t show up. “Don’t you see it, captain? Jaruka is alive but beaten by a fairly strong human in black. On top of that, the humans mysteriously survived an asteroid strike with no signs of post-strike destruction around the ship. The Lunar Spear is marooned on a Red Flagged, Protected planet, carrying hundreds of thousands of capas worth of tech far more advanced that the human’s, and may I ask what is his current medical condition, Decathan?” He pointed at the Mucanti.

Decathan peered over the incoming data then looked back. “Ah… blood content reads high levels of tranquilizers, brain waves are steady, and heart is working below the norm. In a matter of speaking, he’s in a coma.”

Kantra continued. “And he is now captured behind enemy lines, a prisoner of war, sleeping. Tazas. They did not kill him for the sake of sport. They wanted him alive.”

All of a sudden, I saw what he meant. It was clear as day in my mind, but it made every organ in my gut twist in a hundred different knots. Everybody else shuttered in sequence, including Irna. When you hear the same vocal reaction from twelve different species, it is like a poorly executed choir song.

“Interrogation,” I muttered.

“Correct. Not for being a classic asteroid hitchhiker, but they will grill and torture him…” I felt his presence come closer to me, “…until he spills out how the Lunar Spear’s technology works, including the fusion engine and the Drive. They live off of reverse engineering.”

The air felt stagnant. “By the… Pillars…,” Irna said.

“Kantra,” I started, “are you guessing or suspecting that they will attempt to study the ship to gain a closer date to human expansion?” The worst fear any civilian and citizen of the Republic has ever known about Terra Firma and its dominant inhabitants. It leads to predictions, stories, scenarios, and death whenever it comes up. In the education system, Red Flagged Protected planets are the last subject to study before graduating.

“Suspecting, sir, on the dot. If I’m right, then it’s too late to attempt anything for Jaruka.”

I saw an escort vessel pass over the bridge and glide to the gates. Kantra was right; I didn’t like it, not when the battle group’s reputation was on the line. Thinking for a couple of seconds and deciding what to do, I shot out of my chair, courage sweeping through me. “Crashing on Terra Firma wasn’t what Jaruka wanted. We must honor his word!” I yelled.

“What?” Pico said looking up at me.

“Yes, you heard me. We’re going to rescue Corporal Teal!”

Pico gasped, as did everybody else. “Ah, no offense, sir, but do you remember what you said to him? We can’t, its Republic law.”

“Forget what I just said, private. We’re doing it. Know this, I have connections, ‘high’ connections in the government to mitigate those laws.” I looked over the rest of the crew except Kantra, because I imagined he was either infuriated with me or on my side. Their faces produced the same, silent outburst: Are you out of your damn mind?

The weapons coordinator was about to speak but I raised my arm to prevent him. “Look, if Decathan is right about Jaruka being alive, we might have a chance to turn this nightmare around. The humans have a way to leave their home world that will take Kai knows how long to figure out, then concur Creos if desperate. I too despise their species and I’m sure you do. Do you want humans in a Council seat or anywhere else besides their home world?”

“No!” they shouted. Good enough convincing them.

“That’s right, crew.” I pointed at Pico and Irna. “Irna, cancel all upcoming missions for the time being and I want both of you to go to the Assassin personally to tell Captain Obi to be ready for a War Room meeting. I don’t care if he has to take his two-day meditation, just do it.” They both nodded.

“Weapons.” The officers in charge erected in attention. “Look over our inventory and prep the ship for a P.O.W. heavy duty rescue. Get with Kantra and understand everything about the planet, especially the country of Jaruka’s location. Decathan, you and your team must inoculate everybody with disease immunities in the next twelve hours. That gives us a week to be ready.”

The medical officer nodded. “It will be done before you know it, sir.”

“Once were set, I, Kantra, Decathan, and select officers will meet in the War Room when we have solid data of Terra Firma. I believe we can do this. We went through some hairy missions before but this might be a challenge. Jaruka is our main focus, to get him before their bullets do. Before we part, what is our motto for all Nova soldiers?”

“Bring on the pain!” Kantra said before cracking his knuckles and his shadow quivering around him. The crew cheered in favor, others snickered.

I rolled my eyes. I always hated that quote, but Kantra liked it for some reason. “I meant the other one.”

“You mess with one Nova, you mess with our wake.” Irna said with no pause. Everybody cheered at her—using the supernova metaphor—and smiled, leaving Kantra out of the loop.

“Exactly, Irna. Jaruka Teal is part of our battle group, our family, a brother among brothers and sisters, and we must protect our family no matter what. This is a level three rescue operation. Make me proud. To your stations!”

The bridge snarled, howled, cheered and went to work, moving in a pace with no trace of sadness. I sat back in my chair again, heart pumping and smiling, seeing my crew fueled with determination.

Kantra went to his station and rallied his troops to meet in the hanger. I touched my computer screen to make a ship wide announcement, including the Assassin. Not one word of what we learned mustn’t get out, security was a priority. Before I talked, I whispered to myself.

“Don’t worry, Jaruka, we’re coming for you.”