Time Throne

Chapter One: The Second Worst Day of my Life

Personal log, Henry R. Bronson, Captain, UPF Sparta, Civilian Transport. 20953.12.27

Is an evil spirit riding on my chest? Am I asleep? Is this a nightmare? Today was the worst day of my life. No. I take that back. The day I die will be the absolute worst day of my life, but today came in a very close second. It is amazing what details are burned into my brain about this day, all the little things like the earthy, the musky smell of the opposite sex, the seam in the crease of my j-suit, the taste of bile in my throat and, above all else, the actual nightmare that I dreamed.

It began like any other day. I awoke at oh five hundred hours, by the light of my alarm. I always preferred the lights in my sleeping quarters to wake by, as opposed to blaring noise, freezing temperatures, funky smell, jolting vibration, or junior officer. I had my pick of alarms to stimulate any sense, but I always chose light. Today was no exception. The simulated sunrise colored patches of dove grays and blues beyond my closed eyelids, wrapping the room in light a bit brighter than the black of my quarters. As I lay unresponsive, trying to shake my dream, the light notched up in intensity. The soft colors of a planet-bound dawn progressed from pinks and oranges to reds and yellows, my alarm warming then baking my eyelids. Forcing me to hit the dimmer to tone down it down before my eyeballs began to boil, I watched Alaine rolled over and put the pillow on her head, effectively blocking the light and blissfully snoozing onward.

I left her sleeping. As always, it was difficult for me to leave, seeing her body under the sheet and remembering the previous night, before we finally decided to actually sleep. Being the only United Planetary Forces Navy couple on board is both a blessing and a curse. We have each other and can enjoy our company all night long, but, if we have fun all night, then we don’t sleep. It’s a fine line in the trade-off. Last night I’d negotiated less sleep which resulted in more extracurricular activities. She now received the better part of the deal, dreaming onward as I sat up in bed.

I couldn’t sleep longer, anyway. After years of waking at the same time, my internal clock automatically took over and, once the alarm warmed my eyes, there was no going back to my dream. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to return to it, anyway. It lingered in my mind, snippets of it, flashes of metal, horses screaming, men shouting, swords clashing, and blood everywhere. I wondered how my imagination managed to think up something so fantastical. It was like no battle that I ever fought.

I looked down at my hand, expecting what? Expecting to see a sword in it, heavy, red, and dripping with some other man’s blood? In my dream, I smelled the death of the man as I stabbed him, using muscle to push the weapon past bone and deep into his body cavity. The man shuddered when the sword penetrated, and he reached to grasp my arm. His bowels voided onto the brown, bare earth as the light of life drained from his eyes. The stink of the man still perfumed my nostrils. I shook my head to clear it of the lingering dream and pushed the imaginary hand off of my arm. I glanced, again, in Alaine’s direction, needing reassurance that I didn’t live in some historical nightmare.

I thought, briefly, about waking her for more of the same of last night’s activities, but she was sleeping peacefully. We get little sleep, as it is, in the Navy. I let her be. She so needs it now. I pulled the covering up to her shoulders and crept out of bed, performing my morning cleansing then slipping into my uniform as silently as possible. Even on a transport ship like this one, we are required to dress for duty. As soon as we hit the Moons of Trion, though, we could and would ditch the j-suits and turn native.

We’d be together five years in another three months and I had Alaine’s father to thank that we could be with each other, at all. Couples did get preference in assignments, but it was Alaine’s father, so high up in command I couldn’t count the ranks between us, that pulled strings to keep us off combat and secure us our honeymoon, finally. With the Galaxy forces creating a constant danger in space, it wasn’t easy for him to finagle our vacation. Why he did this is a mystery to both of us, since I’m pretty sure that Alaine’s father is not my number one fan. It did take five years to get us to where we both were on hiatus at the same time for more than a few days. I’m sure he probably could have worked some magic for us much earlier, but, at least we had it now.

I’m captain of this floating geezer, temporarily. It is a condition of the assignment that I fly this transport to the Moons of Trion. Once there, Alaine and I will disembark and begin our much needed, much anticipated time off. I didn’t mind assuming command, although it is well beneath my station to pilot a civilian transport. Alaine received the much better deal. (She’s always getting the long end of the stick. I see a pattern emerging.) She began her vacation as soon as she stepped aboard this rusted marshmallow. It negated any sticky rules and regulations about one spouse reporting to another. Because I outrank her, my four bars to her three, she’d report to me if she were on active duty, a definite no-no in the rule book, lowly civilian transport or not.

It isn’t like shuttling citizens back and forth across space is not without its dangers. There are always enemy Galaxy ships prowling the cruising lanes. If they put us trained Navy personnel at the helm of these transport ships, and not some commercial pilot that learned how to fly by taking courses at night school, it soothes the populace who, therefore, are willing to pay for transportation among the stars. (Naturally, the Navy collects kickbacks from this deal.) With the Galaxy threat, it is now de rigueur for we servicemen to fly all vessels with more than one hundred souls aboard. If trouble finds us, supposedly our level heads and years of training prevail. If we encounter danger, though, these ships are nearly defenseless. I say nearly, because every passenger liner is equipped with weapons as a deterrent to pirates. Those supposed weapons are rudimentary, at most.

Like running naked through the decks, flying the universes without sufficient fire power is asking for trouble. Using those so-called weapons is akin to giving an enemy ship a mild bug bite. If pirates appear, chances are that they’re going to be armed far greater than we and know exactly what weapons we possess, but Lord help us if we encounter any Galaxy forces. I’ll take pirates any day over an enemy ship.

Still, Alaine’s father wouldn’t put her in danger, so he made sure to gift us our honeymoon and arrange our transport, although I was more than a little disappointed, at first, with this bucket-of-bolts passenger liner, even if we are destined for the Moons of Trion. Well, who wouldn’t want to go to the Moons of Trion? That part isn’t so bad. I hear there are miles and miles of beaches, and sparkling green seas so vivid it is difficult to take your eyes away from the water. I can’t deny that I’m looking forward to our long-delayed furlough once we get there. I’m sure all my mates are having a good laugh at my assignment on this ship while they are out there in the thick of things, in the latest and greatest technology, helping to keep the universes safe. We can’t get to those Moons soon enough, so I can put this assignment behind me.

I gotta admit, for a rickety flying egg, it is pretty cushy on this ship. I probably shouldn’t complain too much. There is nearly nothing for the pilot, me, to do except let the autopilot fly. The crew goes through the motions, drilling in case of attack, and the passengers form lines at the life pods once a week, but other than that, it is boring. (Well, not quite so boring at night, as I previously mentioned.)

Anyway, I shook off my dream and desires. I left Alaine sleeping in our quarters and proceeded to the bridge. Since I am the captain, I will take over and relieve my junior officer, now in charge. Work is fine, easy even, compared to bridge duties on a regulation service vessel. After hours, when my shift is done, and before we call it a night, is another story. I don’t get into gambling, so hitting the casino is not any fun. Alaine and I stopped into the nightclub a couple of times, but even that is now mundane. We finally settled into a routine whereas I exercise my role as captain during normal waking hours, then turn over the command to my relief and leave extensive, mundane instructions before exiting the bridge. Alaine wanders the ship, reads copious amounts of texts, studying for her next set of bars, and quizzes me endlessly about those texts when I return after my shift. We go somewhere for dinner or have it delivered, and then spend the rest of the time exploring each other. The evenings still haven’t gotten old, but everything else is dull and humdrum, until today, the second worst day of my life.

So far into the journey, she, our ship, alerted us several times about the potential of overheating engine number one. If the thing boiled, that could be disastrous. Luckily, the ship knows enough to broadcast an alert so that we can take the engine down for repairs when it begins to show adverse signs. It might be an old ship, but she is built well. I shouldn’t call her a bucket-of-bolts.

This day, two hours into my shift, the ship alerted us to an overheating drive, again. It was number two this time. I gave the command to go ahead and take it off line and have Engineering perform the necessary repairs. It is risky, taking the engine down in the middle of the shipping lanes. We are dead in space, drifting with the last of our energy, until the engine is up and running again, but there is no choice, and it isn’t the first time we’ve had to do this. The floating marshmallow required both engines to make sufficient progress. The ship can run on one, but it would take eons to fly to those Moons using only one engine. With two good engines, they feed off of each other and give us the necessary boost to make good progress across space. Twenty minutes after Engineering confirmed the shutdown my second worst day began...

Enemy to port, sir! my second in command shouted.

Wouldn’t you know it? As soon as that damned engine is down for repairs, a Galaxy destroyer shows up in our shipping lane! It had to be a destroyer, too, not anything less. Destroyers are as large as small planets and consume little transport ships, like this one, for breakfast, whole.

Take evasive action, I ordered.

Everyone had practiced the drill many times. They, and I, knew what to do.

We can’t, sir. The engine is down. Engineering won’t have it back up for another four hours, at least, Number two informed me.

Shit. That engine was still down. We could move, but only about as fast as a three-spined Leptipdian striped snail, which was not fast, at all. We might move faster if we all got out and pushed. It would take far too long for help to arrive, as well. What now? What was I going to do?

Stay tight, everyone. Let’s buy some time. Tell Engineering to make it quick, I said.

On the outside, I issued the commands like I was strolling in the greenhouse. On the inside, my guts were in knots. With three thousand souls on this ship to protect, if both engines were operational, we could move. If we could shift this floating blob, we would be safe. I was calm and collected with my orders, despite overly smoothing the white stripe on the side of my j-suit.

Sir, we’re being hailed to identify ourselves.

Go ahead and identify, I said. No visual.

It was routine orders for a ship facing the enemy. If you can’t move, then you sit tight and don’t make trouble. Adhere to their requests and they will eventually leave when they find out you are a regular transport, not a war ship. And whatever you do, don’t say you are UPF! Of course, our ship wasn’t technically UPF, but plenty of our Navy personnel rode along and manned it, myself included. We couldn’t let that destroyer get a look at us on our bridge. It would be obvious once they spotted our uniforms. No visual, absolutely.

Galaxy forces didn’t flinch at taking out United Planetary Forces ships. Any war ship was fair game for them, as it was for us. The fact that this ship, a civilian liner, transported and utilized Navy personnel would be a red flag for the enemy and permission, in their eyes, to fire at will. I sweated in my polished shoes. To broadcast a visual with response to the hail, a normal reply, would issue our death warrant. As soon as the Galaxy destroyer viewed our transmission, they’d see me and five others on the bridge, all wearing our Navy-issued j-suits. We could smile and wave, but the situation was not good. On the other hand, to abstain from a visual broadcast was also highly suspicious, since this was not normally done.

Sir, they’re giving us ten minutes before they fire, I heard.

Didn’t you identify us as a civilian transport? I barked.

I switched to Engineering, Any chance of repairs within ten minutes? Can we go? Even a short distance? Anything fast?

No can do, sir, came the reply from Engineering. We’re working it as quickly as we can! We have half of it apart. Putting it back together, then getting it up and running will take several hours. We can’t start propulsion without both engines. Sorry, sir.

The destroyer is preparing to fire, sir! I heard from behind me on the bridge.

I thought we had ten minutes?! Hold fast, everyone! I yelled.

We had no time to ready for a blast, except to hang onto something. I chewed the inside of my cheek. Were they bluffing about blasting us? Orders said all we needed to do was sit tight and eventually they would back down, but what if the destroyer wasn’t kidding?

In response to my thoughts, they fired a warning shot too close for comfort. It hit somewhere outside the third-class cabins. Residual leaks were sealed automatically, but the ship now lurched heavily with several stabilizers damaged and the gravitational field in jeopardy.

The blast also solidified my thoughts. We were going to have to abandon the ship. Some of the life pods wouldn’t be able to get away until the last possible moment before the destroyer decided to fire upon us, if they got away, at all. There wasn’t much time to move three thousand souls to the life pods, but if they moved now, they could all make it.

We drilled on this emergency, many times, but no one expected it would actually happen. The shipping lanes to the Moons of Trion were supposedly the safest in this part of the system. (Technically, we weren’t exactly in one of the lanes, since we’d drifted off course with the engine repairs in progress.) On one hand, if I issued the order to abandon ship and the destroyer didn’t fire, we could dock the pods and continue on our journey when the engine was repaired. On the other hand, if the destroyer did fire, I reasoned, most of the crew and passengers would be fine, safely away in the life pods...as long as the destroyer didn’t try to pick them off, one by one, that is. The destroyer shouldn’t be firing on a helpless civilian transport in the first place, but I wasn’t the one commanding that enemy ship and issuing their orders. They must have received a tip that our ship wasn't entirely an innocent transport. I wouldn’t put it past them to eliminate defenseless life pods, if they fired a warning shot and now threatened to blast us into teeny tiny pieces in another nine minutes. Somehow the destroyer knew this ship was commanded by the UPL. How they knew, I know not, but they did know. Firing upon the life pods was fair game, because all is fair in war, and we were definitely at war with the Galaxy Forces. A UPL warship would do the same if faced with this situation.

All these thoughts and plenty more whizzed through my brain. I weighed the options and reasons, no matter how far-fetched.

Sir, they are telling us that we have eight minutes before they open fire.

Damned if we do, damned if we don’t. Better safe than sorry. Give the order and get on with it. You’re the captain so start acting like one, I told myself.

Activate emergency procedures. Issue the order to evacuate. Get everyone loaded in the life pods, I said.

Sir? Issue command ten? My junior asked me, to make sure he heard correctly.

It looks like we don’t have a choice. I’ll stay with the ship and try to divert attention away from the life pods. If we want to save as many people as possible, we need them to move, and move now. Alert the passengers and crew.

Alarms blared. Move to life pods. Do not take anything. Do not stop for any reason. Move to life pods. This is not a drill.

If everyone proceeded, minding the ear-splitting alarm, then there was time for them all to reach their pod and launch. Some might not make it if they were delayed and some may ignore the command, thinking it another drill, despite the warning. I couldn’t help that situation. Officers would board last and activate the launch procedures. They were instructed not to wait for stragglers. My bridge crew raced for their own pods, not needing me to reinforce the gravity of the situation.

Alaine. Would I have time to say goodbye? If they really did blast the ship to pieces, did I have time to get to her pod for one last farewell? I didn’t have to stay on the bridge once I’d given the order to abandon ship. I could issue commands from anywhere on board. If I was quick, I could make it down there in time to wave her off. After all, it may be the last time we had a chance to see each other. I could be blasted to bits in a few minutes, along with the rest of the ship when the enemy opened fire.

Of course, the Galaxy ship might be bluffing and in a few minutes I could be answering an inquiry from high command as to why I decided to take such a drastic move and abandon ship. If I was wrong it could mean a demotion for me and a reprimand to a permanent land job somewhere on a remote planet. Alaine’s father would probably force her to end our contract and I’d never get to see her, again.

Did I want to float through eternity never having said good-bye, or work a gravity-bound job with no chance to see her, again?

I ran. I needed one last glimpse, however short, of Alaine.

While I ran, my thoughts skipped to our first sight of the Sparta and how, even then, we had our misgivings about our arrangements. Did I regret the assignment for this particular ship? You bet! No one in the Navy wanted to be on any ship named Sparta. Bad luck haunted that name. It was a well known fact, and this ship was now living up to her ill-fate. For what seemed like a thousand years, any UPF ship with this name fell onto misfortune. This transport, however, was not a Navy ship. It had sailed this universe for so many years, no one outside of our forces gave the name a second thought.

Our Sparta wasn’t all bad, as far as civilian transports went. More than one hundred of her home planet years old, when I first gazed upon her, tied down at the docks, she looked her age. Rusty connections held together composite plates comprising her hull. The fact that she was bolted was a dead give-away for her age. Painted white sometime in the last twenty planet years, the rust ran in bloody streaks of dull red down her sides to merge somewhere underneath, out of sight of the crew and passengers boarding her. The ferrous oxide blush wouldn’t matter up in space. As long as the ship’s plates were sealed, she was as worthy to ply the universe as any other rust bucket. In fact, I’d seen much uglier ships, but still, as I stood on the dock gazing up at her, reading the name boldly affixed to her stern in stark, black letters against the white, I couldn’t help but shudder.

My father had to pick this ship, Alaine said, standing next to me looking up in the same direction. Not only is it significantly older than both of our ages added together times two, it has that unlucky, auspicious name plastered on the side of it.

She pointed at the black lettering and I sighed.

You know I hate the man, but in all fairness, your father probably didn’t know what the name of the ship was when he pulled our forms and enacted our get-away, I said. I didn’t have a good feeling either, but I wasn’t about to admit it to Alaine. It is a passenger liner and not standard Navy. Let’s hope our time on it is uneventful and we make it to those Moons. Eyes on the prize, my dear. Picture yourself lying on a pristine, sandy beach, gazing into those green seas and soaking up the suns, a drink in one hand and me in the other. The waves roll in, tickling your toes, tinting them the same color as the sea, and a slight breeze advertising to your nose that there will be something exotic and delicious, besides me, for dinner.

Hm...not a bad picture, she said.

Both of us stood on the dock with slightly lewd smiles on our faces, thinking about our long overdue furlough until she spoke.

But the ship is named Sparta, Henry.

We’ve got no choice, Commander. Let’s board. Perhaps she looks better from the inside than she does on the dock.

Aye Aye, Captain, she said.

Everyone in the Navy knew the story of the first UPF Sparta. She focused on military excellence, as did the original city for which she was named. She was a training ship for the Navy and a darned good one, at that. Those that were lucky enough to be assigned to her learned from the legends of command. Commodore Esterhoff, who single-handedly took out a class ten battle carrier, sailed that original Sparta. At the time, Commodore Esterhoff was over two hundred years old but still fit for training duty, a legend among legends. And then there were Captains Breaux, Morrison, and Yoon, all exemplary and all in charge of recruits on that ship. Yes, drawing that vessel for training was like winning the Gentrillion lottery. As the name implied, it was a one in a trillion chance, but what a jackpot if you won. While the Sparta flew the universes, she produced some of the best pilots, engineers, and flight crew in the service. She sailed, turning out class after class of top-notched recruits, until she was lost somewhere in space.

One minute she was undergoing routine exercises and the next she disappeared without a trace. Command suspected that she was in the process of performing a high-speed maneuver when something happened. No one knew what befell the Sparta for more than a hundred years. Search parties combed the galaxy looking for her, or her debris, but there was nothing to see nor hear.

Those of the Sparta were lucky, though, if you could call it luck. During their exercise, they experienced a rent in one of their engines, causing the other to blow. The move went horribly wrong, killing many. With that ancient technology, high-speed runs required careful computation and exact flying. When the ship completed the maneuver, because of the engine disaster, three quarters of it was gone. The remaining portion was so crippled, it was sucked into the gravity of the nearest planet. Miraculously, there were survivors from the crash and it was a life-sustaining planet. Disastrously, the planet was too primitive for any effective extrication.

Stranded, they waited for rescue, confident that someone, somewhere would figure out what happened and come get them. And someone did...over one hundred of that low-class planet’s years later. Commodore Esterhoff, Captains Breaux, Morrison, and Yoon, all survivors of the crash, were dead and buried by that time, victims of old age, disease, or accidents. Rescued too late for the original survivors, their offspring made sure their story was heard.

After that, any Navy ship christened the Sparta seemed to be doomed. Many were blasted to bits by Galaxy forces or sustained tragic accidents. There was one ship that didn’t even make it out of dry dock into space. It blew up dockside as soon as the engines pulsed, killing more than a thousand unlucky recruits that thought they were going on their first mission into space. They never left that planet. Their bodies littered the ground in pieces to tiny to recover. Plenty of other ships called Sparta had their share of equipment failure out in deep space, and one wandered without power for months until another transport, a civilian ship, happened to sail near enough to hear their hail.

The universes are vast, and beyond the regular shipping lanes, in sparsely populated areas, somewhat uncharted. Sometimes a ship can wander off of the normal route. Equipment failures may push a ship off an intended lane. Space debris, shifting asteroid belts, comets, and even exploding giants can cause re-routing. Flying far enough off of the lanes, by accident, though, is a rare occurrence, but ships have been known to disappear, never to be seen nor heard, again. The charts are littered with the last known locations for many vessels. For a hundred years the maps included the last position of that first Sparta, and the others with that unfortunate name followed soon, thereafter. After the last incident with the final Sparta, the Navy finally decommissioned the name, relegating it to the halls of history and fueling superstition.

Civilians still used the name, though. The people here apparently associated it with their own history. They christening our assigned bucket of bolts after their capitol city, not any ill-fated military ship.

Maybe it isn’t doomed because it is a civilian transport, not Navy, I said, gazing bug-eyed around our quarters after we boarded, at least we’ll be comfortable before we die.

The inside of the ship was, indeed, better in appearance than the outside. Corridors gleamed with polished, simulated mahogany. No stark white for us this voyage, the inside was totally unlike that of a Navy ship. Whereas our cruisers only held the bare minimum needed for survival, little color and few comforts, this civilian transport was equipped with anything and everything any individual could want or desire. Exercise rooms and spas, a full buffet in the galley serving dozens of dishes round the clock, several sit-down restaurants, a gambling casino for those inclined, even three bars and a night club had me wondering if I was going to throw drunken Navy personnel in the brig on this ship, the victims of too much indulgence. (Turned out it wasn’t an issue. After the first two weeks, everything was the same and boring.)

Our quarters were ten times the size of a standard issue room on a Navy ship. And, joy of joys, tucked into its own temperature controlled alcove, the bed was large enough to share! Alaine and I would not have to squeeze into a bunk barely wide enough for one. This was sumptuous living quarters, indeed! (Later, I found out that all cabins had their own temperature controlled sleeping berth, including all crew quarters.)

After seeing the inside of the Sparta, all the Navy personnel changed their minds about sailing aboard her and we began to look forward to the voyage. Life on a civilian ship wasn’t too bad a way to travel, we reasoned. So what if the ship packed very little in terms of armaments. Who would come after a civilian ship, anyway? Chances that we would be attacked were very slim. Five civilian ships were fired upon in the last month, and, of those, only one was lost. That one, unlucky enough to be blasted, acted foolishly, trying to shoot at the enemy. We would never be that stupid.

As a precaution, we were briefed on our ship’s position, should we be attacked. We first were to take evasive action and remove ourselves from the danger. If we couldn’t, then we were to stand fast and not pose any threats, answer all hails by providing our ship information, cooperate and sit tight. Eventually the Galaxy Forces would leave us alone, or that was their track record, anyway.

I wasn’t worried, in the least, about encountering the enemy. I knew what to do, should that happen. After all, the primary reason I and my crew were aboard was to ensure the ship reached the Moons of Trion in one piece. With enough threatening encounters by Galaxy Forces, civilian ships were more than happy to take on Navy personnel to pilot their vessels through dangerous space.

I shuddered, in that split second while I raced to see Alaine, thinking of the day we boarded this ill-named ship, and ran faster. I had to say good-bye before the pods were launched.

With enough life pods for every ship passenger and personnel, all were equipped for ninety days in space. The thinking was that in that amount of time the pod would be able to either hail a passing ship, or make it to orbit of the nearest inhabited planet or moon. I’d never, in my short years as a commanding officer, had to abandon ship. I wasn’t planning on abandoning ship, in this instance, either, but I was about to send everyone else adrift in space. A captain always stays with the ship, I’d been drilled. If I didn’t stay, and some miracle happened that we weren’t shot to smithereens, an abandoned ship would be fair game for the space junkies. High Command would court-martial me if a ship with Navy crew was claimed by pirates, even this old passenger liner. I was prepared to sit tight and die, if necessary. It was one of the downfalls of being the captain.

I collided with Chief Shelly, the ship’s head corpsman in the hallway as I rushed to Alaine’s pod. Shelly and I were friends, in as much as the captain can be friends with his close command. We’d often discussed different scenarios happening in space. As I bounced off the wall in the lower gravity after the nudge from Shelly, my mind flooded with one of our conversations about this very scenario not too long ago.

Wouldn’t you rather have one of us stay behind and you go with the life pods? I mean, you’ve got your spouse to consider and she’s how far along? Leaving her without a mate and your baby without a father is pretty shitty. In all due respect, sir, it is fully within your scope of authority to leave one of your officers and assume command of the life pod flotilla, Mr. Shelly said.

Why, exactly, would I trade places with you? You'd risk death by staying on the ship? It is near-certain life in a pod, I questioned. Isn’t that a little morbid?

I don’t think so. Look at it this way. Galaxy forces don’t take out passenger liners, unprovoked. Who would be so dumb as to fire our itty-bitty weapons on an enemy ship? That’s asking for it, he said. No, I’d sit tight, up in the bridge, all by myself, and wait it out. Once they left and everyone returned to the ship, I’d be a hero. I’d get a promotion out of it, maybe a medal to add to my rack, too. I see no downside.

Oh yeah? What if they decided to blast? I said. I see death as a huge disadvantage.

Shelly shrugged. If I went down with the ship, my family really wouldn’t care except to make sure they received survivor benefits. We all have to go, at some point. If it didn’t work out for me, my family could squabble over my credits and have a memorial erected in my home town. If it does work out, I’d be an instant hero, and still get that statue in the main square.

It isn’t right to ask anyone to potentially go down with the ship while I save myself, I said.

But the ship probably won’t go down, he said. Statistics are in favor of it staying afloat. Besides, by the book, it’s within the rules for you to assume command of the life pods. For that matter, it says in the book that all circumstances should be taken into consideration when determining whether to stay with the ship, or go to the life pods. I think family circumstances are specifically mentioned. I can pulse the book and quote you.

Please, no more quotes, Shel. I know you’ve got that thing memorized. We all do. It does say that, somewhere, but circumstances aside, we all know the duties of a captain, and one of them is never to abandon the ship.

You have my word, sir. If the situation ever arises, I hereby officially volunteer to assume command on the condition that you recommend me for promotion after it’s all over. I shouldn’t put my life on the line and not get something for it, in the end. I insist, with all due respect, that you utilize me in this arrangement.

We’d argued back and forth for several minutes before we both finally gave up, each obstinate about the course of action that he would take.

I had to admit, now, as I ran, assuming command of those life pods was looking pretty enticing. Who didn’t want to chose the better option for staying alive? Shelly was a fool if he thought he could get a promotion out of it. He’d be lucky not to get demoted. He wasn’t taking over, anyway. I was remaining with my ship. I could still say goodbye to Alaine, though. I might have enough time for one last look at her face before her life pod was away. I ran to her station, hoping for that glimpse.

Halfway there, Mr. Shelly slammed into me from an intersecting corridor. We tangled, briefly. I pushed him off and in that one moment when my eyes connected with his I had the most horrible vision. That’s all I can call it. Nothing like that has ever happened to me, unless I wanted to count the strange dream that I experienced this morning that set the tone for the day.

When I looked into Shelly’s eyes, for that one brief instant, I saw the end of his life only minutes away. I know it was crazy, but somehow I knew that Shelly wasn’t going to live more than a few more minutes. I didn’t know how he was going to die, but there were numerous ways I could guess. He could have a medical emergency in his life pod and there wouldn’t be a trained corpsman able to respond. His life pod could be blasted by that Galaxy ship. I could continue guessing, but I had no time.

In the split second that pondered all this, I knew I was going to miss Alaine’s life pod if I stayed with Shelly. I continued my run and decided to think about Shelly later. He wasn’t important, in the moment, dead or alive.

I heard feet close behind me and assumed it was he as he hurried to catch his own life pod. He was late. He’d better run faster or he and I would both wait it out on the bridge. It wouldn’t be so bad with Shel to help pass the time. He could argue with the best of them, but he was a good guy, deep down...that, and he knew some terrific, hilarious stories from some of his past assignments. I could appreciate a little humor to keep the situation from becoming too morbid. Were we both going to die in a few minutes? I shook my head and ran. Right now, I needed to see Alaine, not Shelly.

Alaine! I yelled when I approached her station.

From behind me something sharp stabbed my shoulder and I spun around.

I’m sorry, Captain, but I’ll take the bridge, Mr. Shelly said. It is within the rights of the second in command to take over if his captain isn’t thinking logically. You have your spouse and child to consider, and I don’t. I have no one. I’ll keep watch until that destroyer leaves and you return. You can court martial me after you are safely back on board.

The last few words were said from far away and faintly as the ship went dark around me.

When I came to, I was spinning out of control. My brain reeled inside of my head, and my surroundings whirled, counter to that activity.

Henry! You’re awake! Alaine shouted in my ear. Henry! We need you. I can’t fly this life pod properly, and the autopilot isn’t responding. Wake up, Henry!

She slapped my face a few times, trying to knock some sense into my head. Life pod? I was in the life pod? Then I remembered what Mr. Shelly said to me in those last moments before I blacked out.

Shelly mutinied? He’s darn right about that court martial. If he isn’t dead, I’m going to make sure he will be soon.

Henry! Never mind about him. Fix us! Alaine cried. She hit me, again. Wake up! Motivate your brain, sailor!

Extraneous sounds entered my head, alarms, plenty of alarms. Weaving like a couple of drunks, Alaine helped me claw my way to the pilot’s seat and I examined the controls, my head trying to shake off the effects of the sedative that Shelly had pumped into my shoulder. Everything was blurry. The lights on the com blinked in a festive, fuzzy rhythm. I laughed, I think, until Alaine yelled at me, again.

Get a grip on yourself, Henry! Captain Bronson, take the con! she yelled into my ear.

Aye aye, sir, I said, then giggled. I mean ma'am.

I gripped the controls automatically and hit the con to take it off of autopilot. The ship spun faster. This, more than anything, helped to clear my head. Imminent death does wonders to bring one to ones senses.

Examining the controls, I saw a malfunction with the port reactor. Compensating for this, I at least managed to right the ship and ease out of the spin, but the pod continued to drop, caught in the grip of the planet below. We were going to burn and crash, in that order, unless I could slow the speed, somehow.

Assume crash position! I yelled. It’s going to get hot and bumpy in here. Hang onto something. I’ll try to deploy the chute as soon as we’re through the upper atmosphere. With luck that will give us some drag...enough so we can reach a manageable speed.

Enough? We’ll crash with the chute deployed too soon, Henry! Alaine yelled.

Ow, not in my ear, Alaine, I said.

I think I was still under the effects of the drug. She was beginning to tick me off, all this slapping and yelling.

You have a better idea? If we don’t burn to a crisp passing through the upper atmosphere, then we have to figure out how to negate our speed, afterward, so we can survive. If we deploy the chute after the burn, it will help to slow us down. It will be tricky, but I can try to fly this thing with the added drag. We’ll crash, but not as hard as we would without it. We need that chute, Alaine, I said, then I laughed, again. What the heck? An upper atmosphere sauna might be just the thing to kick this monster headache of mine.

She slapped me, again, but I deserved that one.

I’d try to make it as soft a landing as possible, but these life pods weren’t meant to fly in any kind of atmosphere except the absence of one in space. The stubby little wings that protruded on either side of the craft wouldn’t provide enough lift to keep it airborne for any length of time, even with the drag of the parachute behind it. Where we punched through the atmosphere was where we’d land, and I hoped it was going to be land. These craft were meant to float only in zero gravity.

Finally the clouds parted and I saw green directly below, a sea of green. It wasn’t fluid, at least, but there didn’t seem to be any clear spot to land. I assumed the planet was blanketed by trees, as far as I could see, and getting closer with each passing second. I fought to maintain control as I desperately scanned the terrain and the con for a suitable place to drop. I’d have to put the pod down on top of a few trees, if they were trees, and that would be very bumpy, indeed.

On my countdown, brace yourselves! Five...four...three...two! I yelled.

The little pod rocked and jolted as it raced through tree branches, limbs, then mowed down trunks and finally came to a halt. The stubby wings were no longer attached, the trees ripping off everything on the outside of the pod. At least we were all alive, inside. I turned from the command chair and surveyed the rear. Yes. We were all still living. Some of of us were puking, and I’ll admit it wasn’t the smoothest of landings, but we were alive.

Some things on the con still worked, to my delight. Life support functioned but the communications only provided static. I had no way to find the other life pods. I could only hope that they were able to land safely, if they, too, were forced here, and that their pods still functioned enough to find us.

The con was telling me that the atmosphere was safe to breathe without any assistance, which was a miracle. The ability to maintain any sort of air filtration without a fully functioning pod was next to nil. Who, exactly, designed life pods to have all the support functions affixed to the outside, where they could shear off at the slightest provocation? When I got back to command headquarters, I was going to make sure a few of those design engineers had an earful or two of my mind.

Where are we? someone asked.

Navigation still functioned, so I brought up a display. It says we are on a sparsely inhabited planet called Ipto IX. It isn’t part of the United Planetary Forces, nor is it within the Galaxy dominion. It’s off the shipping lane, unfortunately, and it is an unclaimed class three planet.

I heard a few groans in the pod. A class three planet, unclaimed, was one that was off the grid, so-to-speak. There were many types of planets, but those below class five were deliberately left alone. Those planets with no potential of ever providing technology, forces, or useful resources were of no use and no one wanted to claim them for anything. They were rarely visited, even by scientists, because they had nothing of value. Class three was inhabited, at least that much was known, and supported life. Inhabited by what was another question.

We were off the shipping lane, too. That meant that while our engine was under repair, we’d drifted quite a bit. Once the engine was up and running, it would have been only a matter of minutes to get back into a lane, but being a distance away from one didn’t bode well for us.

We’re stranded. Great, I heard.

Not necessarily, I said. If the communications are still working on another life pod, they’ll be in the vicinity and they can hail someone.

Who says the other life pods landed here?

At least one other pod landed, and it is somewhere south of us. I can’t locate it, but they might be able to locate us, I said.

This was true. At the con, I could scan back in time. As we burned into the atmosphere, the signature of another pod was clear. I couldn’t tell what had happened to it, though. The con showed it nearing a landing, but that was all, and that was before we lost all our own outside communications. They could have made it or they could have crashed. I had no way of knowing. I elected to take a positive approach to things and assume they made it with communications intact.

Chapter Two: Castles Can Be Colder Than Dreams

Ranulf shivered in the cold. This castle was freezing! That it was built to house the most important person in the realm was ironic. Did the people want their monarch to live uncomfortably? Perhaps they thought that if he was continually chilled, it would keep him on his toes, assisting his mind to remain sharp. Ranulf much preferred a manor house or an estate. Made of wood and well insulated, his father’s estate could be heated so much more efficiently than these cold stone walls. He ran his hand along the rough surface of the stone as he waited, the cold seeping into his palm. Why was everything so frigid? The walls, the castle, even his heart had turned to stone. It had been months since he smiled. His facial muscles no longer remembered how to move into anything resembling a pleasant expression. All the dreams for his future, his hopes for the throne, were like the stone walls, unyielding and impossibly cold.

Ranulf shrugged off his depressing thoughts. Nothing was going to stop him from his task tonight, however cold. It was turning out to be a perfect night, in his opinion. The storm that began only a few hours ago as a gentle rain, already picked up in intensity. Even through these thick walls, Ranulf could hear the wind outside howling and the thunder clashing close by. Ranulf smiled at the approach of the tempest.

Making sure to close the heavy wooden door without a sound, lightning flashed as Ranulf left his room. He carried no candle or lantern. Why bring one? He knew the castle intimately having lived here for the past eight years. His lack of a light source provided him the added benefit of being able to easily note anyone approaching and melt into the shadows should someone pass him in the hallways or on the stairs.

He proceeded silently down the carpeted corridor. Now that he was out of his room, the storm sounds were further away. If he accidentally strayed off of the thick rug and onto the stone floor, someone might hear his step, so he carefully kept to the carpet. He wanted no one to know where he was going, but he was fortunate to encounter not a soul this late at night. All the castle, it seemed, was asleep. He wondered how anyone could sleep with such a fiendish storm raging. He stuck to the middle of the hallway and moved silently to the stairs.

There was a moment when the lightning flashed that he thought he was discovered. A shadow along the corridor looked exactly like a man, a very large man. He nearly laughed when he remembered the antique suit of armor that guarded the hallway, across from the base of the stairs. Some king, a Henry, naturally, wore that suit of armor long ago. Ranulf had received a history lesson about it at some point in his years at the castle. He forgot the significance of the suit, used in some glorious battle or another shining moment for the realm. It wasn’t important. He didn’t need to remember it for his future. When he was king, he would create his own epic moments and deeds that people would remember and tell their descendants.

This next act, though, was one he would keep to himself. No one was a party to his plan and, if all went well, his problem would be eliminated. If things didn’t proceed as intended, he had any number of excuses prepared that would put him in a favorable light. He would be the hero in the situation, and not the villain. His scheme had no downside to it. It was a win-win situation for him, and Ranulf knew, deep inside, that it would be good, his deed, for everyone, in the long run.

He crept up the stairs to the next level of the castle. The nursery was down the hall, the third door on the left. The other children slept on this floor, as well, along with their governesses and nursemaids, but his attention was only for the infant. The other children were female. They mattered little in the long run, only suitable as pawns for marriage alliances. True, King Henry still could put one of his daughters upon the throne. She wouldn’t be the first to rule as queen regent. There had been other Henry queens in their long line. Ranulf was fairly certain, however, that this king would never designate one of his daughters as his successor when there was a son available. As well, King Henry already promised his three daughters, however young, to suitable political matches. He’d have to go against his promises and that would not make good politics, which was the whole reason for the matches, in the first place.

Ranulf's own father approached King Henry with a marriage alliance between Ranulf and one of the younger princesses when Ranulf was small, but Henry had other plans. His father was slighted when the king turned down the request. Henry said his daughters were destined for suitors in other countries, and would not marry within the realm. Ranulf’s father did not object, though, to Henry’s counter proposal, and eight years ago Ranulf moved to the castle to spend the rest of his life in service to the king.

Ranulf was hurt when his father told him that he’d be living at the castle. Why did his father want to let him go? Didn’t he want an heir? The midwife said that Ranulf nearly killed his mother and another one would, so Ranulf remained an only child. Why would Ranulf’s father want to give him away in service?

The king requested you, and I cannot refuse him. To do so would be political death, his father said. Don’t worry, Ranulf. Kings don’t live forever. If you and I are still alive by the time of Old King Henry’s death and you are not next for the throne, then I will bring you home. In the meantime, I will designate your cousin as my heir.

But what does Henry want with me? Ranulf had asked.

I don’t know. I only know that he requested you. Perhaps, with luck and time, you will win Henry’s favor and be named next in line for the throne. I doubt he will name one of his daughters. They are much more important to cement other alliances and Henry told me as much. You will need to work hard and worm your way into the king’s heart. Become his favorite, Ranulf, and all could be yours, his father had told him. Know that you are not the only family member invited to the castle. Make sure, though, you are the only family member that stays. Do this, and, as long as there are no male heirs, when Henry dies the Empire will be yours. After all, you are a Henry, too. The crown will only be passed down to one with Henry blood, no matter how removed you are from the royal line. Even as a distant cousin, you still count because you have noble blood.

Ranulf paid attention to his father’s words. He stayed at the castle, by the king’s side. He sat through all the lessons from the myriad of tutors, councilors, and advisers. He put in his time and thought he played his hand wisely, being attentive to Henry, completing his every command. Henry had seemed pleased with the progress Ranulf was making in learning all there was to absorb about ruling the Empire.

Things changed, though, with the announcement of the queen giving birth to a son. Once another Henry arrived at the castle, even though the child was only a baby, the king began to distance himself from Ranulf and openly make plans to move him, but not back to his father’s estate. He’d still be needed at the castle, Old King Henry told him. He would become the infant’s First Adviser, the infant’s right hand man.

It was a slap in the face to Ranulf. One day he was next in line to take over the throne, and then he was a dog. He’d been thrown the scraps and was supposed to be happy about it. First Adviser was no humble position, but Ranulf didn’t want it. While it held nearly as much power as the throne itself, in the long run, it was not the crown. Old King Henry’s own First Adviser, Sir Marcus Braxton, was probably the most influential man in the Empire, behind Henry. Being the First Adviser to the young infant was, most likely, the best the king could do for Ranulf, given the fact that he would not be the king’s appointed heir.

Ranulf appreciated that the king was looking out for him, but it would have been better, in the long run, if he’d been able to go home. At home, he would inherit all of his father’s estate and titles and, out of sight and mind of the castle, marry, have children, and live a comfortable life. First Advisers did not marry. They devoted their life to their king. No distractions, such as an estate, a wife or children, came between the First Adviser and his ruler.

And when, exactly, would that infant need a First Adviser? Yes, it was possible that some accident or illness could befall Old King Henry, but chances were that the king would live to a ripe old age before the younger Henry inherited the crown. At that point Ranulf would be old. He was now nearly twenty years older than that baby. What if the current King Henry lived to be eighty or ninety? It was possible. One of the past kings lived to that ripe old age, although the last Henry died in his sixties. The current King Henry, Old King Henry as he was called, rose to the crown at the age of forty. If the baby Henry inherited the crown when he was sixty, Ranulf would be eighty years old as a First Adviser! He’d probably be dead before he saw the baby sit on the throne.

Holding his breath, Ranulf put his hand on the third door to the left and slowly pushed the handle. The door swung silently on its hinges. In the flash of the next lightning strike, he took in the room. A nurse, the baby’s caregiver, slept on a cot near the wall. He could see the bed and the lump under the covers. As he watched, his eyes accustomed to the dark, the nurse’s form rose slowly up and down with every breath of her deep sleep.

Scanning the rest of the room, he searched for the infant. The baby’s cradle must be here, somewhere, probably not far from the nurse, but he didn’t see it immediately. Ranulf had never entered the nursery rooms, so everything was foreign. The smell of milk, wet diaper, and lavender from freshly laundered linens assaulted his nostrils. It took another flash from the storm for him to pinpoint the infant’s sleeping place at the foot of the nurse’s bed. He nearly mistook it for part of her own bed, but the cradle, more of a simple square box, rested on a stand, pushed up against the bed.

He was surprised to see the baby in something so austere. He was expecting a grand cradle with a canopy overhead and a thick rug underfoot. Swathed in yards and yards of expensive silk and furs, he thought the baby would be sleeping in the lap of luxury. Instead, the infant rested in a swaddling of plain linen blankets. He wondered if this was really the correct baby, but it must be because there was only one in the entire castle. Perhaps the child was too small for a grand cradle, and maybe it messed its diapers too much for finer coverings.

He bent over the small cradle and watched the infant sleeping. It was on its stomach, its head turned to the side. The little mouth was wide open and moved back and forth as if sucking an imaginary nipple. Ranulf was so fascinated watching the infant sleep that he nearly forgot his mission. Shaking his head to rid his brain of the infant’s seduction, he examined the coverings and then, in one quick motion, scooped his hands underneath the infant and brought the baby to his chest.

Holding his breath, Ranulf stood as still as a statue, not knowing if the infant would awaken and start squalling. If it did, then there were those excuses to utter, but no, the baby did not fully awake. It made rooting motions, moving its head as if searching for something to latch on to and feed. He needed to move quickly before the baby woke fully and demanded its milk.

He never thought of the baby as anything but an it and it would not be here long, anyway. He wasn’t going to kill it, although that would be wonderful if Ranulf thought he could get away with murder. Imagine if the baby was dead. Ranulf would be back in his position to take over the crown, as King Henry’s designated heir. Perhaps he should wring the neck of the little shit right now and be done with it. Forget the other plan.

Ranulf raised his hand and flexed his fingers. It would be so easy to take the child’s life. Squeeze that weak little neck until the baby turned blue and stopped breathing and it would be all over. Or Ranulf could simply put his hand over the nose and mouth of it and achieve the same result,