So It Begins (50 page)

  It was Vega’s Altairian half that regained enough control to attempt choked, but calm speech.

  “She was an excellent Science Officer. Major Sommers will be a great loss to the Celestial Navy.”

  “And to you,” D’Aquilla said quietly.

  “And to me.”

  Vega’s commdisk beep twice, shattering the silence like a broken crystal. Even as he removed the device, Vega was psyching himself back into the mold of the efficient Security Chief and acting commander.

  “Security Chief Vega here.”

  “Astrogator DeSalle here, sir. The Republic and the two tugs have just popped out of Nth space. Commander Ramon extends his compliments and wishes to know when we can start transferring casualties and personnel?”

  Vega listened to the voice of the junior astrogator fresh out of the Space Academy on her first deep space assignment. An Admiral’s daughter, a military brat Vega had expected to fold at the first major crisis. In ninety hellish hours she had proven herself as capable as any cosmonaut onboard, filling the billet of Chief Astrogator due to the man’s death when Arcturia‘s bridge had vaporized in the first nine milliseconds of battle. He made another note to recommend that Christine DeSalle be awarded the post permanently with the appropriate rank once they arrived back at Atmor.

  “Very well, ensign,” Vega said. “Return compliments and inform Commander Ramon that as soon as the Avengers can link our number six and number one airlock, we can commence crew transfer. Inform Doctor Masters to start moving her patients to airlock number one. Pass the word to abandon ship, then pull all the record tapes on this incident. Captain D’Aquilla and I shall meet you at airlock six. Out.”

  “Acknowledged and out.”

  “I can’t believe we’re abandoning the old girl…“

  “Sentimentality, D’Aquilla? I would never have thought you would be sorry to leave the Arcturia, however short the hiatus will be.”

  “It‘s small things, Vega. Memories of good time and good people—and the best quadralude synthesizers in the Celestial Navy.”

  “You would think of that noxious drug at a time like this.”

  “Well excuse me! Can you think of a better time?”

  “In fact I can. Onboard Republic’s shuttle on our way to some modicum of comfort.”

  Vega shoved the Terran clone in front of him, trying to avoid the emotions of leaving a ship that had been home since he had graduated the Weapon’s Academy fifteen years earlier.

  Irrationally, he made a promise to stay with the when repairs began at Atmor and to be with her when she sailed into the blue black void again.

  It was a promise both his human and alien half could agree on.One Year Later

  A pair of muscular legs stuck out of an access hatch, the rest of the polarized plastic-armored man was hidden within the bowels of the Main Converter Circuitry Junction tube on C deck of Engineering.

  Through the latticed deckplates could be seen the massive Ship Service Nuclear Reactor, lying dormant four decks below. The machines were waiting for more defects to be corrected in order to begin producing their megawattage for Arcturia.

  “Okay, Sahn, hit it,” a muffled voice called from the access hold.

  “Aye, sir,” Major Sandra Comaneci acknowledged from the sleek, curved Operations Monitoring Station. Her reflection played little games on the stainless steel as she slowly started turning two dials. Her pale blue eyes rested on three neutron detectors as the delicate instruments started their inextricable rise into the power range.

  Nearby on B deck, a group of technicians jumped from a cluster of half opened consoles as energy was suddenly routed into them.

  “The least she could do was warn us,” Janice Addams spat, her high-boned Indian features screwed up briefly by the mild electrical shock.

  “Perhaps the Major determined that there would be no danger to us,” Ensign Horace Logan reasoned calmly. Until recently, the thin, soft-spoken scientist had been a well-paid instructor of University World, until the Celestial Navy called him off reserve status in order to pay off an education loan.

  His calm words took the anger out of her voice. “I hope to Horace that the Commander was right about the location of that overload. Because if he isn’t, we’ll probably be working overtime taking this engine apart again.” Janice picked up her calibrator, dismissed the other two technicians who were still nursing wounded prides, and walked to the railing overlooking C deck and the O. M. station.

  Sandra was still watching the neutron detectors, ready to scram the reactors at the first sign of trouble. She constantly glanced over her muscular, yet feminine shoulders, her close-cropped hair barely perturbed by the nervous movements. “Are you all right in there, sir?”

  “Fine. I was right. The problems was in the dykstron moderators. How are the neutron detectors?”

  “Functioning. We’re still subcritical thought. Should I bring them up to power range?”

  “Aye. I’ll keep an eye on things from here.”

  More rapidly, Sandra rotated the knobs with an almost joyous exuberance. For the well-built, mature woman, the surge of building power from the hulking S. S. N. R.s was the pinnacle, the ultimate orgasmic experience. A melding between her flesh and the hell fury unleashed in the fission-fusion reactors.

  And she, Sandra, controlled every joyous moment.

  “We are stable in the power range,” she announced. Sandra wiped a few beads of sweat from her brow. “You should have been an engineer, sir.”

  The tall, muscular Negro shimmied out from the access hatch, blinking a bit as his eyes readjusted to the florescent lighting. “Coming from you, Sahn, that’s a compliment,” Commander Juan Carlos Mendez said, wiping lubricant off his gloves and onto his flexible body armor.

  Mendez was a handsome man, rugged and muscular, with a lean, angular face that seemed to have been chiseled out of fine marble, his Olympian visage was adorned by a think black beard and complementing moustache. A mass of hair that seemed determined to remain unruly no matter what Mendez did to it.

  He walked over to the O. M. station. He looked over Sandra’s shoulder, catching a whiff of the woman’s natural perfume—sweat and deodorant.

  “Besides,” he continued glibly. “We can’t have two Chief Engineering officers.”

  “Shame about that,” Sandra sighed.

  Mendez gave her a double-take on the last statement. In the short weeks that he had known her, those three words had been the closest thing to an admission of affection for something other than the titanic Quasar drive.

  He became aware of an unnatural silence amidst the beeps and buzzes of Engineering, as if the woman were waiting for something. Or had Sandra already withdrawn back into her safe world of tachyon equations and warp generators that produced enough power to light a small planet?

  “Well, at least we can go off-shore power again, Sahn. Switch over when ready and write up a full report. I’m going to nail some bastard at GSK to a tree for this.”

  “I still don’t know how you knew it was the dykstron, sir.”

  “The Kingsland experienced similar difficulty. We had to run on batteries all the way from New Paris to Delta Barnard. It took the combined Yardbird and engineering staff two weeks, working around the clock to—”

  “Wrruan.“ called an exotic felinoid, wearing a red and blue tunic and dark blue slacks, from the doorway to Engineering. Even in her duty uniform, there was a touch of the forbidden, the sensual, the wild animal about the alien.

  “Yes, L’Prawla?” Mendez responded.

  “Admiral DeSalle wishes to talk to you personally as soon as possible.”

  “Oh, good grief. Doesn’t she know that we’re up to our collective butts trying to get this ship launched again?”

  “She said it was an orderr, Wrruan.”

  Before Mendez could respond, Janice and Logan walked up. They both saluted Mendez and turned as one to face the Chief Engineer.

  “No problems with the engineering computers,” Logan reported.

  “The Commander found it,” Sandra said with mixed admiration and jealousy. “Return to your stations.”

  “Aye, aye,” the two junior officers answered in unison.

  “Tell her,” Mendez finally said. “Tell her that I’ll be in her office in about an hour. Sahn, when can you light off the Quasar drive?”

  A wide grin split the woman’s face. “Twenty minutes age, sir.”

  “Light her off. If there are any difficulties, contact me immediately. Coming, L’Prawla?”

  The two officers walked down the gleaming cylindrical corridor to the travel tube station.

  “Ship status, L’Prawla?”

  “The astrrogation elements arre prrogrrammed and aligned. All brridge stations arre functional. Engineerring seems to be fully operrational. Main Computerr, and Missile rroom Two could use a few hourr morre worrk.”

  “In other words, we’re ready to leave Atmor?”

  “Affirrmative,” L’Prawla purred softly as they reached the travel tube station.

  Her slitted emerald eyes watched the light that would signal the car’s arrival with almost catlike curiosity.

  “Tau Eridani,” D’Aquilla said, gesturing at the pinprick of red-orange light on the mainscreen. “The armpit of the galaxy. Where men are men, women are women, rocks are…”

  “Enough,” Vega said sharply. He looked back at Mendez. “Perhaps the intelligence reports were wrong about the Mephistan concentration.”

  “Sure they were. And I’m a Caucasian in disguise,” Mendez retorted.

  “Well now that you mention it, skipper,” D’Aquilla began before the alert klaxon sounded.

  “Combat stations. Vega, what’s coming in?”

  “Two warships. Delta class cruiser—Mephistan design. Probably on patrol.”

  “Null screens to full power,” Mendez ordered. “Main di-atomic cannon battery on standby.”

  “Vessels have spotted us. They are closing in,” Vega reported.

  “Major D’Aquilla, ready Avenger Squadron. Stand by to launch.”

  “Aye, sir,” the large man said, shouting orders into his intercom. He then took off at a run for the hanger pod.

  “Hold your fire, Vega. Let them make the first move,” Mendez said calmly.

  Seconds later the null screen repulsed a multi-megawatt laser salvo.

  “Fire di-atomic. Destroy them.”

  Vega’s hands flew over his console like objects possessed. The forward cannon battery glowed briefly before it discharged its energy into space.

  The white beams washed over the hive-like Mephistan ships, destroying the forces holding the warship’s atoms together.

  “Scratch two ruddy warships, Commander,” Vega said.

  “Remain on alert. First Lieutenant, take us in, full space normal speed.

  While Christine complied with the order, the portside access doors to the bridge opened, admitting a dinosaur.

  Well not really a dinosaur. He was reptilian, had a mouth full of carnivorous teeth, and enough scales on his greenish yellow body to render him invulnerable to anything short of laser fire.

  Yet despite the monstrous appearance, there was an intelligence about him. The calmness of a seeker of knowledge who knew more than most people about the physical Universe, yet considered even his vast store of information a mere scratching of the billion light years of deep surface.