Anywhere is Better Than Here...Right?
This hadn’t been the first time I’d been held in the Caprica’s brig.
Actually...I should take a moment and explain the Caprica proper, just so I can do the old girl a bit of justice. Yes, I’m aware that the term “Caprica” is from “Battlestar: Galactica,” and it was the name of one of the planets and not the ship itself. But hey, the name pretty much fit, since that’s what we modeled our planetary defense fleet carriers from. “Battlestar” became their unofficial names in the registry even, underneath the awful term “Type 271-BXR Heavy Carrier.” Similar job too: Jump into an area, launch your fighters, provide cover fire, and blast anything unlucky enough to cross the bow and into the sights of the quad magnetic acceleration cannons. Thing about the Caprica and the other Battlestars is we knocked out more space in the hangers since humanity figured out force fields. Something about aligning an electron fan beam using magnetic resonators to keep the flow in place...I have no idea. I’m just a pilot. It was never my job to know.
Also had some room to put in an arboretum, which then very quickly turned into “Caprica Farms.” They only grew three things: Wheat, barley, and hops. The yeast we had to get from the cooks. We were voted “Best ale in the fleet” three years in a row.
Also got a fancy ship A.I. We figured that one out too...at a pricey cost. Something about tapping into the brain’s neural synaptic energy upon death. Once again, not my job to know. All I know is we would always call her “Des,” and she’d always play annoying country-western music if you didn’t wake up on time.
I should probably explain who I am, while we’re at it. My name is Captain Marcus Frude, callsign “Spartan.”
She’s a good ship, alright. Had been in service for twenty-some years before the Dridens decided to invade the Solar System...for whatever reason, it’s lost to time. Even now their motives remain a mystery to me. They stumbled on humans one day, said to themselves, “Yeah, what they have looks pretty good,” and started setting the colonies on fire.
You gotta understand one thing: The Driden fleet was massive. We’re talkin’ hundreds of thousands of ships compared to the 155 Battlestars the Solar Space Command had. We tried to scramble to get to the outer colonies first, but if it’s one thing the Dridens were known for besides their numbers, it’s their efficiency.
Thousands of cruisers would descend on a colony, and in less than three days, it was hard to even spot a bit of vegetation left on the surface. Ships would try to get up into space, but we could only speculate how many fighters would converge on them before eventually being destroyed. They’d bring in whatever teams they needed to start terraforming the once living colony and move on, knowing we couldn’t do anything to stop their offensive.
Worst part about it, they didn’t let anyone go...anyone. They were hell-bent on killing every single human. And as far as I know, they did...except for one.
I don’t know why I was kept alive. They could have shot me, or stabbed me, or jettisoned me out into open space a couple of hundred times. Some days I wish they would have. I was technically dying after the Battle of Earth. A damn Driden fighter got too close to my squadron’s formation and we bumped...okay, it was more of a crash. Whatever it did knocked a coolant line loose on my Cobra-class fighter, and I had to eject before my core went critical. The image of my floating Sasha, blowing to oblivion before my very eyes, still gives me nightmares.
I had my hand on the recovery shuttle and was about to enter the bay when a Driden ordinance hit the other side. Then the universe started spinning. Earth, dark, battle, Sun, Earth, dark, battle, Sun. I was spinning so fast I finally just shut my eyes. Didn’t open them up again until I felt a thud on my back. I thought someone had finally come to pick me up, then I turned around. I had hit the main bulkhead of the Titan, another Battlestar. I should say I hit what remained of it. Her forward half had been separated, floating uncontrollably toward the upper atmosphere. I managed to find a little bit to grab onto with my fingers before a panel gave out. The compartment decompressed, and I was sent back out into space, but something had punctured my flight suit. I lost air pressure quick, and passed out.
The second time I felt a thud, it was someone’s palm coming across my cheek. I shot up from the bed I was laying on, finding my wrists secured to the table. I was onboard a Battlestar, but the Dridens were there, laughing. One of them said that Earth had fallen, and the Caprica was going to be taken back to their homeworld and offered to the highest bidder. That’s also the moment they told me I was the only human left alive.
Which brings me back to the beginning of the story. This wasn’t the first time I was in the brig. Another one of the Cobra jocks was starting to get a bit too frisky with an uninterested C.I.C. officer, so I put him in his place. This time around, there wasn’t blood coming out of my nose and my hand didn’t hurt. A Driden infantrymen was watching me from the desk of the brig, and I was just sitting there, re-reading “The Green Mile.” Another Driden showed and said some words in their language. They came over to my cell and opened the door. “Up,” one said. “Boss wants to see you.”
I complied, naturally. I had no real reason not to. It wasn’t all bad being in captivity, despite losing my entire species. They at least fed me three times a day, got me my books from my quarters, and let me run around the ship for some cardio (under guard, of course). I figured it was some component or some instrument they needed me to clarify for them. That’s why I thought they kept me alive. And on this occasion, I was right. They needed to know where the anti-matter injectors were for the jump drive. No big deal; I pointed it out, asked if I could return to my proper quarters, being disappointed after they said no, and went back to the brig. I did this day in and day out for about a month.
Something interesting happened one day. I was heading back to the engineering section with a team of Driden techs when a bulkhead slammed shut, separating me from the team. Normally this doesn’t happened unless a section of the ship has lost air pressure. I started pounding on the door when I noticed they were gasping for air. I looked to the pressure indicator dial and saw it had gone to near zero for their side. The Driden team fell to the ground, and I saw one of the docking ports open. The Dridens flew out into space, as well as the command staff from the C.I.C., and a few others that had been in various parts of the ship. The dock shut, and the pressure dial equalized.
“Thought I would get rid of our uninvited guests.” I heard a voice say as the hatch opened again.
“Yeah, I hate the people who hang around after the party’s over.” I joke back. “Good to hear you, Des.”
A hologram materialized in front of me. Des had a slender build, chest-length hair that she let fall wherever, high cheekbones and a smile that lit the room up...literally. She told us that’s what she remembered herself looking like in life. It’s almost a shame she wasn’t real. She always had her lab coat on, looking very professional even in holographic form. “We have to hurry.” she said in a commanding tone. “If I was able to pick up those Dridens on my sensors, it’s logical to assume they did too.”
“Warm up the jump drives.” I said as I started sprinting down the corridor. The C.I.C. was at least six sections away from where I was, and on the next deck up. I managed to run through four sections when a compartment door opened. I quickly took cover behind a corner. When I peer around, Des is standing there, asking me what I’m doing. I whisper-shout back, “Taking cover from whoever opened the door!” Then she tells me she opened the door, and that I’m the only lifeform on the ship. I turn from around the corner, complimenting her on her efficient killing, to which she tries to slap me on the face.
I’d only been to the C.I.C. a handful of times during the fighting. It always seemed so small, so crowded with people sitting in front of their command consoles. There was at least one person shouting at someone across the room. The only person who had ever looked composed was the commander. He would just be standing at the center console, hands folded, either looking down at a navigation map or up at the scanner readout screens. Fairly sociable guy, too. He’d always sit with a group during our downtimes in the rec room. Didn’t matter who it was. Could have been anyone from the C.A.G., the executive officer, and a bulk of the officer core, down to the lowest enlistees whose jobs was to scrub the gunk off our helmets. Always in a high spirit despite the chaos, always pushing us to do our best.
When he was killed, I heard from a Driden it was quick. He deserved that much.
Now the C.I.C. was devoid of life, looking bigger than it ever had. And it was quiet. That had shocked me the most. A beeping from the tactical command station broke the silence. Three Driden heavy cruisers caught wind of what I was doing, and would be on me in ninety seconds. I jumped into the helmsman’s seat, popping up the console. The jump drive countdown clock read “2:43.”
Think it’s safe to say my hopes had been blown out into space with the rest of the Dridens by then. I fell back into the seat, defeated. Outgunned, outmanned, and unable to outrun. I put my head in my hands and awaited whatever fate I had coming.
Des’s voice came back, saying if we yawed the ship toward the cruisers, it might just buy us enough time. “And just what are we gonna shoot with?” I shot back. “You think they were dumb enough to let all the ordinance we had stay on the ship?” The console in front of me went black, then reappeared as a tactical screen. It showed me the 576 half-ton heavy ordinance shells that had never left the ship. Best still, there were shells cocked, locked, and loaded.
“You’re only going to have a couple of rounds before they realize you’re armed.” Des said in my ear. “I can only do so much without human intervention.”
“We only need two rounds.” I say as I pop back up. “Yaw to zero six five mark zero eight two of current plane and fire thrusters to all ahead full.” Dials start rotating to indicate my turn. A targeting scanner shows the three cruisers coming into sight range. A standard and foolish formation, all three of them lined up like ducks at a carnival. “On my order, fire at the outside cruisers, then charge at the center.” I could feel a sly grin come across my mouth. “We’re gonna see who can play chicken.”
I waited until they came within five kilometers before firing, giving them no time to react. Seeing the cruisers blowing to bits through the scopes brought a celebratory “Hoorah!” from me. But I still had the third, which was coming up fast. Not to my surprise, it broke off from its heading, passing right over the upper deck.
I looked back down at the jump countdown. “0:45” it read, just enough time to get out of range. Another alarm started beeping, coming from the communications post. I answered its whine, putting the headset on. I was speaking to the Lord Admiral himself, commander of the Earth offensive. To save you the details, I got the usual “Turn the ship around.” “Power down your engines and we’ll let you live.” “Power down and prepare to be boarded.” “Reverse course and we might just let you keep your ship.” “Rever-” Wait, what?
That last transmission warranted a response. “What do you mean ‘Keep my ship?’” I asked.
The Lord Admiral was slow and methodical in his speech. “We will let you keep the Caprica. All we want is the A.I. that you have running around.”
Des’s hologram materialized in the C.I.C. I turned my gaze to see she had gotten taller since the last I saw her. I muted the mic. “My, my, goodness you have grown.”
The sarcasm wasn’t effective. “Please don’t let them take me.” If she had been a person, I almost would have thought she was about to tears. “They s-s-sell us on the open market to engineers, where they do experiments on us.” The light coming off of her dimmed. “Another A.I. managed to get a message from the Driden homeworld.” I saw her bring her hands to her face, and she began to sob. “I could hear his screams.”
I don’t know what sparked inside of me. Call it maternal instincts or a sense of duty to not let assets fall into enemy hands, I pressed the mic button hard enough that the screen cracked. “You are NOT getting your filthy hands on Des, or me, or this ship ever again! And if that means dragging you to Hell with me, so be it!” I yanked the cable from the station, disconnecting any communication from outside. Another hop back over to the helm, my clock had hit all zeros. Then inspiration struck. “Des,” I half shout to my artificial counterpart.
She formed right beside me, glowing at full strength again. She saluted, “Yes, captain!”
“Have you ever heard of a jump-slip singularity?”
“I have.” she responded. “In theory, two ships entering slipspace at the same time in close proximity will create enough of a spatial and temporal distortion that a singularity will form, collapsing anything within the circumference of the jumping ships.” Another tactical alarm. It looked like the whole damn Driden fleet was coming after me. “This was theorized when a supply convoy had to make an emergency jump after coming under siege from pirates, before an official investigation claimed it was improper mounting of the jump drives despite no wreckage found.” She paused after her lengthy explanation. “What’d you have in mind?”
“It’s the only way to assure your complete destruction.”
She looked away, and I could see her “mind” was buzzing with activity. “We don’t have two ships, though.”
“No,” I said as I brought up a schematic of the Caprica. “But we have two jump drives.” I zoomed in on the engineering section. “Can you isolate both of them off the central nav computer?”
“Working.” was all she said. Flows of information went from toe to head, and back out again before the ship rattled. The lights flickered. “Ion burst. They’re trying to disable us.”
“Keep going.”
“Done. Both jump drives are now off the central navigation hub.”
“Perfect. Now…” I jumped up to the center console, looking over a starchart. I soon realized the futility of it, and tossed it away. “It doesn’t matter where we go,” I say to Des, “but we need to input a set of coordinates in the first jump drive, and then a second set in the opposite direction for the other.”
“What will that do?” She asks as her mind again is relaying information.
“I’m hopin’ if this messes up and does nothing, it’ll twist the ship apart.”
“So we have an untested theory, based completely on conjecture and a word-of-mouth story.” I nod. “At least the Dridens will know what happens. I hope they’re scanning.” Another rattle of the ship, “We have to go...now!”
Now, I’m not a superstitious man in any respect. Never really was. But call it cliché, as my hand was coming down to jump the ship, time slowed. It felt like it took ten seconds just for me to turn my head to see Des’s shining face for what I thought was going to be the last time (Yeah, I know it’s kind of a spoiler that we survived, but if I wasn’t here today you wouldn’t be readin’ this anyway). I saw all those packets of information on her, moving in what you could say would be a rhythmic cycle; info would go in, and info would go out. I couldn’t even tell that the lights flickered one last time until they powered back on again. And during that time, I made peace with my gods, and accepted whatever fate they had awaiting me.
I snapped back when my hand hit the screen. “Jump!” I yelled. Immediately I felt the effects of the two slip fields fighting over space. I would describe it as feeling like you’re being stretched out and compressed at the same time. The hull began to creak, and something pulled me over the back of the helm’s chair. I don’t really remember what happened next.
When I finally came to, I was marveled that I came to. I expected I would be floating in some kind of purgatory, staring out into endless white or black. I, instead, stood up...in the C.I.C. of the Caprica. The sudden shift in body weight brought a pain to the back of my head. “It’s about time.” Des reformed on the deck. “You’ve been out for an hour.”
“What happened?” I asked. “Did the drives fire?”
“They did,” she replied, “but I’m afraid the shear force of the slipspace field has rendered them useless.” My heart sank. “She’ll never jump again.”
“I’m sorry, love.” I announced to the ship. “I didn’t mean to clip your wings.” I brought my attention to the tactical panel. “How we doin’?”
“We’re mostly here.” She pointed to the starboard landing pod. “The shearing force also knocked a couple of fighters loose from their moorings. Other than that, we’re structurally sound.”
“Good.” I walked back to the center console. “How did we survive?”
“I don’t know.” Des said, with a hint of disappointment. “There’s still a great deal of slip drives we don’t know. We could have created enough of a disturbance that we made an Einstein-Rosen bridge.”
“A wormhole?”
“Precisely. But,” she waved a hand over the screen I was hovering over with my arms and brought up a starchart. “Notice anything?” Normally it would identify recognized stars and other celestial bodies, but other than illuminating the stars themselves, they were blank.
“We jumped to an uncharted sector of space.” I realize, turning back to Des.
She raised her arms. “We could have jumped to another dimension for all I know.” She started turning yellow, a sign that usually meant she was getting frustrated. I was about to tell her to calm down before another alarm went off. “Proximity alert!” she said, returning to her normal color.
“Did we drag a Driden with us?” I asked as I jumped back to the helm.
“No,” she sounded confused, “It’s a planetary body. It’s still a couple of hundred thousand kilometers off the port bow.”
I pulled up the visual scope, and there she was. Big, beautiful, and most important, green and blue. “Start your scans.”
“Scanning.” She began to rattle off information as it came in. “M-class planet...nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere in the right amounts...in-atmospheric carbon dioxide amounts are one hundred and fifty parts per million. I am detecting several settlements, but based on the quality of the atmosphere, they’re pre-industrial revolution...or just know how to keep themselves clean.”
I took the moment to lean back and think. “Any other planetoids in the system?”
“Scanning.” Des said again. “None that I can see.”
“Let’s...fall into a standard orbit. See what the nighttime side looks like.” I don’t know what possessed me to say it. I blame curiosity, but I was surprised when I saw the night side look just as black as empty space. “When was the last time you saw that?” I pointed to the scope, noting the absence of planetary light.
“It’s been awhile.” She sounded just about as awestruck as I was. “There is power being transferred, but not in the amounts we are used to. It could be a…”
I turned when she stopped. “Could be a what?”
“Something’s coming up at us from the surface.” she finally sputtered.
“Surface ordinance?”
She raised an eyebrow. “No, it’s energy, but...it’s not plasmated. It’s not losing any volume, if you can call it that, from thermal expansion.”
I stood, going back to the center readout screens. Whatever it was, it was coming fast, and shot right past the bow in the blink of an eye. “Des,” she turned to me, “I have a hunch. I think they might know we’re here.”
“Do you know what the odds are for a pre-industrial society to find a Battlestar in orbit?”
I brought my hand to my chin. “It’d be improbable to discount the possibility. Yaw the ship fifteen degrees to port.” I saw the dials move, and when they stopped, another projectile came into view. It shot past the bow in the same manner as the first. “Yaw thirty degrees to starboard.” Same result. Turn complete, one more ball of energy past the bow.
“That’s more than coincidence.” She admitted.
“Suppose first contact is in order now.” I announced as I turned to head to a flight pod.
“Are you sure?” She reformed in front of the hatch. I simply walked through her. “What if they’re hostile?”
“Then you are to destroy the ship. Fly it into the nearest star.” I ordered as the latch closed. I stood, thinking, then went back in. “I lied. You are to come get me first, then we’ll blow them up.”
“Better idea, sir.”
“You think a Hopper would look less intimidating than a Cobra?”
“There’s a Hopper being prepped for you in the port landing pod.”
A Hopper is a light, two-man craft that's used for scouting. It's about the smallest thing you can put a jump drive on without it tearing apart. When I leave the pod, I flip on my scanner just in time to see another energy reading coming from the surface. Seeing on a scope is one thing. Seeing it go by with eyes is another. It was bright and purple, and it exploded in a display almost reminiscent of a firework. I quickly triangulate its point of origin and begin my decent.
It takes me twenty minutes to break into the troposphere. Along the way, I saw two more energy bolts streaking through the sky. They were both a little further away, and evenly timed in their appearance. I adjust my course to give a more accurate heading. As I begin my final decent I run into some clouds. Not a big deal, until I came out the other side. In the silhouette of the moonlight, I see several towering spires that are coming up from a city that looks to be built in the side of a mountain. One last purple bolt of energy comes up, away from the settlement, and I make one final correction.
The area where I detected the final bolt is a large clearing, right outside the city's wall. There are figures, but it's too dark to see. Other than the landing lights, not much else is lighting the area. My Hopper touches down, and the figures don't move. As my engines are powering down, I flip on the visual inspection/surface rendering tool in my helmet, and about took off by what it revealed. The figures looked to be equines, draped in metallic armor. Some of them had spears...that seemed to float in the air. I didn't give the last observation much thought. I was still trying to get over the fact that I was going to be meeting intelligent ponies.
Their formation in front of the Hopper broke, and two others that stood taller approached. A third that looked to be important accompanied them. I turned and pointed to the left bulkhead where the hatch would open. I undid the harness, and walked back to the hatch. I look through the little slit of a window on the hatch door. There they stood, waiting for me. Helmet still on, I pop the hatch. One step for mankind. I think as the door hinges up. That's how it went, right?