17 CRASH!
The Orion Swift slowly made out of the wormhole, near the earth’s moon. The majestic ship continued to move towards the earth and started orbiting the blue planet.
After getting the emergency notification in the Intelligence office, Gingerpotts rushed returned to the Command Bridge, already feeling tired because of some medical condition he possessed, getting him out of work most of the time. The only reason he was being tolerated for his medical condition aboard the Command Bridge, was because he possessed a very large forehead, just a tad larger than Kru’s.
“Captain!” said Gingerpotts, suddenly alarmed as Rutgers made a dramatic entry into the Command Bridge.
“Status report, officer!” said Rutgers, proceeding towards the Voidshield, looking at earth which looked as healthy as it had once been fifty thousand years ago.
“We have successfully arrived at our target location and also are successfully accelerating one side of the wormhole to achieve time dilation.”
“Have the Volski taken the trap?” asked Rutgers.
“It’s not clear, sir,” replied Gingerpotts.
Rutgers breathed out loudly and asked again, “How much of time dilation have we achieved?”
“We are currently at six months, sir.”
“Tsokay,” said Rutgers, scratched his head and sat on his chair. “Just keep all our sensors peeled!”
“Yes sir!” said Gingerpotts and furiously worked on his Holotab.
The environment was tense. All the officers on deck seemed completely drowned in their work, while Rutgers nervously tapped his feet on the floor.
“We’re detecting anomalies in the dark matter flux gradient, sir,” announced Gingerpotts suddenly, with an alarmed expression.
“They’re here!” said Rutgers and sprang up into action.
These people must be really smart!”
“What do we do now, sir?” asked Gingerpotts.
“Do we have the time to escape through a wormhole?” asked Rutgers.
“No, sir!” replied Gingerpotts. “The two anomalies in space are moving towards us at twice the speed of light and will reach us in less than three minutes, we have no chance of escape, sir.”
“Then we have to fight,” yelled Rutgers. “Start firing!”
“Sir! Yes sir!” chorused the officers on the Bridge and set to work.
“You do know it’s impossible to shoot them down, sir,” said Gingerpotts dismissively.
“At least it gives us some hope!” said Rutgers. “There’s no choice left to us, but to fight albeit in face of sure death.”
“Sir! I got a visual!” reported a young Albein officer.
“Put it front of the Voidshield for everyone to see, officer!” replied Rutgers, clutching his fists.
The officer brought up the visual in front of all. The video showed two small black ships shaped like drones, with a drooping back, standing stationary about some distance from the Orion Swift. Those enemy ships were a little larger than Cruiser ships that the Albeins possessed.
“They reached much faster than I had anticipated,” gasped Gingerpotts, looking at the visual feed.
“Those are Volskian ships?” asked Rutgers, breathless.
“Affirmative, sir!” said Gingerpotts. “I mean, it has to be them.”
“Sir!” said another officer. “What do we do now?”
“Stand by for your instructions, officer,” said Rutgers, his voice raspy as he drew near the holographic live video feed showing the two spaceships.
The black drone-like ships didn’t seem to contact them or shoot any weapons at the Orion Swift. They just remained stationary.
“What’re they waiting for?” muttered Rutgers and then suddenly without any warning, one of the Volskian ships sprang into action. A white glowing light shone from the navel of the Volskian ship, before it reached its maximum luminosity and fired a fiery white projectile at the Orion Swift. The white projectile looked like a comet with a head and a tail, reaching light speed. Everyone aboard the Bridge gasped in disbelief as the white projectile made towards them with great fury and speed and before Rutgers could shout any commands, the white projectile hit the Orion Swift’s energy shields.
It looked as if the Volskian weapon had hit an invisible shell and the white projectile broke up to cover the Orion Swift’s entire energy shield in glowing white for a couple of seconds before the energy shields blasted, rocking the Orion Swift like a cradle.
“We’ve lost all our energy shields, sir!” reported a young Albein female officer aboard the Bridge.
“All of them?” coughed Rutgers in disbelief.
“Yes, sir!” replied the officer with a look of desperation.
At that moment, Rutgers’ mind seemed clotted and he clutched and freed his fists repeatedly as he was trying to come up with a decision.
“FIRE ALL WEAPONS!” cried Rutgers at last.
“But, sir-” said Gingerpotts, before he was interrupted harshly by Rutgers.
“JUST DO IT, SON!!” he cried.
The Orion Swift aimed all of its weapons and unloaded a dozen of their best weaponry at the two small Volskian ships, which seemed to have again slipped into a period of inactivity. Rutgers expected the two tiny ships to blow up as their dozen warheads made it to their targets but instead they all hit their targets like a paper plane hitting a stone, crumbling in the process.
“What just happened?” heaved Rutgers, flailing his arms helplessly at the hologram.
“Our weapons seem to have been neutralized, sir!” said Gingerpotts, who looked like as he was fighting with his Holotab as he spoke.
“Sir, look at that!” shouted one of the officers nearby, almost with joy.
Rutgers turned to look at the hologram. It showed one of the Volskian ships attacking the other with shots.
“What’s happening?” breathed Rutgers, his heart beating a little slower. “Take us out!”
Gingerpotts looked at him with a wide eyed expression and asked, “Do you want us to open another wormhole?”
“Yes!” replied Rutgers swiftly, without thinking.
“Time is not on our hand-” argued Gingerpotts.
“Will you stop questioning me and do what I tell you!” yelled Rutgers, his face red with rage.
“Will do, sir,” replied Gingerpotts, his head hung down.
The two Volskian ships started chasing each other in the space around the Orion Swift.
“Make it quick!” yelled Rutgers at everyone on the Bridge.
The officers aboard the Bridge, jerked as if jolted with electricity and worked fast to get the wormhole open.
“Destination, sir?” asked Gingerpotts timidly.
“SOMEWHERE SAFE!!!” shouted Rutgers, like a mad man.
Gingerpotts knew that this was the worst situation that any captain feared the most in their entire lives, the fear of certain death and the helplessness that comes piggybacking on it.
He selected the Sombrero galaxy as their destination and forwarded the choice to the other officers.
Shortly, in a matter of seconds, the work was done and a tiny wormhole started to develop below the Orion Swift. The Volskian ships seemed to be still busy fighting off each other.
Rutgers sweated heavily, the salty water pouring down his face in waves.
“COME ON, COME ON!” muttered Rutgers to himself, as he kept his eyes fixed on the hologram, which was showing the developing wormhole.
“Four minutes to enter the wormhole!” announced one of the officers.
“Good! Good!” muttered Rutgers again to himself, comforting himself with the little details.
“Two minutes to enter the wormhole,” came shortly the next announcement.
“We’ve got trouble, captain!” announced Gingerpotts.
Gingerpotts brought up the two Volskian ships on the hologram. One of the ships seemed to be damaged and stationary, while the other one was as damaged as the other one but it was moving towards them.
“Damn!” said Rutgers. “Are our shields up?”
“Yes sir!” answered Gingerpotts.
“That’s the ship that was helping us?” asked Rutgers, pointing towards the damaged ship.
“I frankly don’t know,” confessed Gingerpotts. “They both are identical.”
The Volskian ship fired again. The fiery white projectile hit the Orion Swift’s energy shields and destroyed them like it had done before.
“If they hit again before we can regenerate our shields again, we’re goners!” said Gingerpotts, holding the captain’s chair for support as the Orion Swift rocked again.
Rutgers instinctively looked at Gingerpotts’ Holotab, it showed forty seconds to regenerate the energy shields and then he looked at the Volskian ship, whose core was heating up again to fire.
“FIRE AWAY!” yelled Rutgers at the top of his lungs.
Another dozen antimatter nuclear warheads shot from the Orion Swift towards the tiny Volskian ship.
The fiery white projectile shot forth from the ship, making to the Orion Swift, by making it through the gaps in between the oncoming warheads.
“We’re done!” gasped Gingerpotts, hugging his Holotab to his stomach.
In a split second, before the white projectile could hit the Orion Swift, something moved in front of it, to take the hit.
Before he closed his eyes, Rutgers had expected the Bridge to blow apart and throw his lifeless body across the endless space along with the others, but when he opened his eyes again, he found that nothing like that, as perceived by his overly active sinister imagination, had happened.
The hologram showed the other tiny Volskian ship that had been playing their savior ever since they had reached this place. With its core damaged and the starboard side completely crushed, this tiny space vessel looked as if it had done more than its capacity to protect the humans’ lives. It started firing at the other Volskian ship, with something that looked like black vapors that moved faster than light. The black vapors seemed to have a devastating effect on the other ship, as sparks started to fly from the damaged parts of the vessel. In desperation, that ship locked all its weapons at the Orion Swift and let go of a triple dozen different weapons.
Some were black vapors, while some were small white comet like-projectiles, while the rest were tiny glowing yellow pyramids. The battered Volskian ship that stood in front of the Orion swift moved quickly to neutralize all of the weapons but it seemed too much at last for that tiny vessel. Some of the white projectiles made it past the savior ship, along with some of the black vapors and hit the Orion Swift, scourging the energy shields and smashing onto the Orion Swift.
“We’re hit!” cried one of the officers aboard the Bridge.
“STATUS REPORT!” cried Rutgers as he hugged onto his chair for support as the ship started to fall down towards the earth.
“Levels seven to thirteen are out, sir,” reported an officer
“We’ve lost our main engines, sir, we’re in free fall!” reported another officer.
“Break the fall! Switch to auxiliary engines and initiate the crash landing protocol seven O one!” cried Rutgers.
“AYE CAPTAIN!” answered a couple of officers together harmoniously.
“Gingerpotts!!” called Rutgers, straining his neck sideways, to look at him.
“Yes captain!” replied Gingerpotts, as he held tightly onto Rutgers’ chair.
“What about the vessel that was helping us?” asked Rutgers.
Gingerpotts looked confused at Rutgers’ question, and answered, “I don’t under-”
“Just answer the damn question, Potts!” snapped Rutgers.
“It’s in free fall, one and a half miles away from us, the distance could be more than a thousand miles by the time we reach the ground,” answered Gingerpotts, looking at his Holotab.
“When we land, send our Intelligence team to investigate the ship!”
“But sir, it could be probably very dangerous-” debated Gingerpotts.
“Do as I say!” cut in Rutgers again very rudely.
“Right, sir!” said Gingerpotts, commenting no further.
“How’re we doing?” asked Rutgers, as the ship seemed quite stable.
“So far so good, captain! But we’re still going to hit the ground with a thud!” replied one of the officers.
“Damn!” swore Rutgers, “How much damage we’re looking at!”
“It’s not going to be any greater than the damage we’ve already received, sir!” replied the dark haired officer.
Rutgers rested back on his chair and breathed out heavily.
“Fifteen thousand meters to impact!” announced a blonde officer.
“Gingerpotts!” said Rutgers. “Instruct the residents to stay within their cabins!”
“Yes captain!” replied Gingerpotts, leaving his side.
“Twelve thousand meters!”
“We need to slow down even further!” said Rutgers.
“We’re maxed on our available engines, captain!” announced the dark haired officer.
Rutgers didn’t say anything anymore. He finally got his seatbelt on. It was a X shaped seatbelt across his torso, with the Albein emblem at its crux.
“Nine thousand meters!”
“Five thousand meters!”
“Two thousand meters!”
With a mighty thud, the Orion Swift crashed onto the hard earth, creating a huge epicenter.
Rutgers was thrown out of his seat and fell onto the hologram projector, breaking it.
“Is everyone alright?” he asked, lifting his burly body.
“Yes sir!” replied Gingerpotts who was a few feet away from, across his left.
“Report!” coughed Rutgers.
“We’ve got a situation in the Arkylum, captain! Other than that, we’ve no resident casualties!” replied Gingerpotts.
“What about the enemy ship that shot us down?” asked Rutgers, tapping his huge forehead.
“It’s nowhere on our sensors, captain!” replied Gingerpotts.
“The other one?” whispered Rutgers, at once.
“Nine hundred miles from here, captain!” said Gingerpotts.
“Send the team in,” said Rutgers, standing to his full height.
“Tsokay, sir!” said Gingerpotts, in an apprehensive tone and ran out of the Bridge.
Soon, on level fifty-five, the five were assembled inside the Intelligence office along with Gingerpotts. It had taken him a good ten minutes to explain to all of them what had exactly happened.
“We’re as good as dead then!” exclaimed Holloway, on hearing Gingerpotts’ version of the truth.
“Heroes are neither born nor created but resurrected,” said Kru, with a serious look, recalling the line from a famous Albein story, called ‘Heroes among the Villains’.
Holloway let out a blast of hysterical laughter, the kind that mental people often come up with.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean, Kru?” she asked.
“Are you implying we’re heroes?” asked Troy, while at the time, trying to control his laughter.
Kru seemed embarrassed and hung his head.
“It’ll make sense soon,” he mumbled.
“Alright!” interjected Gingerpotts. “Your mission is to locate this Volskian ship, investigate thoroughly and take captive if possible.”
“You’re joking, right?” asked Troy.
“No, I’m not!” replied Gingerpotts, with a serious look.
“When do we start?” asked Emilie, who seemed the only person paying any attention to Gingerpotts.
“Now!” replied Gingerpotts. “Are you sure you want to take along the little guy as well?”
Sniffles understood the reference and tightly clung to Emilie’s legs and cried, “BUA!”
“I’m afraid so,” replied Emilie. “He’s attached to us now.”
“This is a dangerous mission,” insisted Gingerpotts, almost staring at Emilie.
“No where’s safe, Gingerpotts,” said Emilie.
Troy sniggered. “Sorry, your name is exceedingly funny!” he apologized.
Gingerpotts gave a cold look at Troy and he left the office.
“Let’s start, shall we?” asked Kru, who was lost in the excitement of the mission, getting stuff inside his waist pouch.
“Troy and Holloway, you two have to learn manners!” said Emilie, with a faint smile and left the office with Sniffles. “See you in the Cruiser bay!”
Troy and Holloway exchanged grins and followed Kru out of the room, allowing the Disappearing door reappear behind them.