The Forgotten Planet
Chapter 36 – Philip Strikes Back

“How the hell did that work?” Adan asked from the captain’s chair, in between licks from Poochy. The mutt hadn’t left Adan’s side since we returned to the ship. One of the many nice things about Pendragon was that there were no accidents needing cleaning when we returned to the ship. “That was honestly a ridiculous plan.”

“It worked because Vee makes a scary Commander,” Maxine answered from the pilot seat. The view past her seat had just shifted from blue skies to black with stars five minutes ago, and it was five more till we reached the nearest jump gate. We wanted to be away from Lyonel as quickly as possible, so Max had the A-Drive maxed out.

“Mixing stupidity and arrogance with a pinch of cruelty generally does the trick,” Vee added. She looked up from the sensor control station and added, “No pursuit by-the-way.” Then she likely saw the twinkle in my eye and said, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“He probably wants to know if mean Commander Pax can come out and play later,” Adan answered, when I failed to come up with a convincing lie.

“What? That’s not it at all,” I stammered. The skin on my face felt like it was going to melt.

“I’ve been telling you for years, bro,” Adan said. “Just last night-”

“Don’t you dare Adan Castell,” Maxine cut in.

“Ooh, what was it?” Vee asked. “Were there costumes involved? Props? Accessories?”

“Adan... I’m warning you,” Maxine said. He held up his hands in mock surrender and she shook her head as she turned around. We slowed to subluminal, and the transition was so smooth that I only noticed because I could see starscape normalize through the cockpit.

Vee smiled, showing a lot of teeth. “I’ve got a whole script involving a very uptight butler-” She paused mid-sentence. “Two capital ships just came through the gate. Salarian warships, by the look of them.”

Each was roughly shaped like crescent moons, with a bridge like an arrowhead bisecting the middle.

“Get us out of here Max,” Adan said.

“They’re not necessarily here because of us, “Max replied.

“We’re being scanned,” Vee said.

“We’ve been scanned before,” Max answered.

“Not in a ship with diplomatic tags,” I said. I charged the plasma cannons and armed the antimatter torpedoes. “Weapons hot.”

“Taking evasive maneuvers,” Max called, as she threw the ship into a corkscrew. After the first revolution, a blue beam shot out from the lead ship and the Pendragon shook violently and stopped dead in her tracks. Only the inertial dampers saved us from becoming splatters on the inner hull. “The stick’s dead,” Max called out, as the beam began to drag us backwards towards the capital ship.

“We’re being signaled,” I said. “Audio and visual.”

“On screen,” Adan ordered. I turned and looked at him. “What?” he asked innocently.

“Don’t let the chair go to your head,” I said as I opened the channel and put the feed onscreen.

There on the bridge of the capital ship stood Philip Stone, flashing his sterling white, obnoxious smile. He was wearing his black uni with the hawk emblem on the breast. Next to him in olive green military garb was the first Salarian officer I’d ever seen. Unlike the vat grown Salarian foot soldiers I’d grown up avoiding, the man standing on the cruiser’s bridge was the natural, evolutionary form of the Salarian race. He had roughly human proportions, but with light green skin and the recessed nose typical of his race. His shoulders had a harsh, downward angle to them, which might have made him aerodynamic, but not photogenic.

“Human vessel,” the man said blandly, “this is Captain Sabo San of the Empire’s Might. Power down your weapons and engines and prepare to be boarded.”

I wanted to say something pithy and insulting, but I thought better of it. The bear was already awake and showing its teeth. Poking it with a stick wasn’t going to improve the situation. Instead, I fed the vial of tachyons into the intake valve at my console and began the power-up process for Betty. I didn’t know if it would work while we were held in place by their tractor beam, but it couldn’t hurt to try.

“Are you out of your mind Philip?” Max asked. “You’re actually helping the lizards?

“You should have stuck with me Maxine” he replied. A smarmy smile played across his lips. “Now you’re royally screwed. I sure hope you’re happy with your choice.” He really didn’t seem like he hoped she was happy. I wished I had killed him when I had the chance.

“Mr. Stone has informed me that you stole one of his ships and an item from our research facility in an effort to reach Earth and deliver to them advanced technology,” Sabo said. “I was of course surprised by this, considering that the Servine military destroyed Earth a century ago.”

I heard Vee gasp and I felt my face grow hot. Now I really wanted Philip dead. Trying to get back at us was one thing, but selling out both Earth and the Servine race was quite another. Vee looked like she was in shock.

’Hips like Cinderella,

Must be having a good shame,’

“Oh, not now,” I mumbled. I did my best to ignore Frank and my faulty ’Seven and began running through emergency contingencies. The news wasn’t great.

If they took us onboard, there was an 11% chance that I could cold-hack their system from the brig if they forgot to neutralize my implant. I had a number of programs that could possibly break through their firewall if the white hats were jackasses, but I doubted Philip would fall for that trick twice.

We could ram the ship that was pulling us in and maybe take the other out in the blast. I rated our chances for that at 3% at best. We’d need to knock out their beam array before we were boarded, and our weapons were all in the nose and facing the wrong direction. There was one option, but I wasn’t ready to mention it just yet.

Sabo was in the middle of an evil villain monologue when Adan said, “Vee, mute that asshole.” He turned to me and said, “Little brother, tell me you’ve got something?”

“Nothing good,” I answered. “Even if Betty opens a portal, we can’t go through with that emitter dragging us towards their ship.”

’Talking sweet about nothing,

Cookie, I think you’re,

TAME!’

“I’ve got to warn high command,” Vee said. She was breathing so quickly and so shallowly that I was afraid she was going to hyperventilate.

“They’re jamming us Vee,” I answered. “It was the first thing I tried.”

“I’m not letting them take me alive,” Maxine said evenly. I was surprised to replace I felt the exact same way.

TAME! TAME!

TAME!’

“We can let them draw us into docking range and then set off all the antimatter in the engine compartment,” I said, loud enough to drown out the music in my ears. “Once that goes, all our torpedos will go as well. If the blast is big enough it could take out both ships. It’s possible they’re the only ones that know the truth.”

The room went quiet, and we all just sat there for a few moments. I almost jumped when the sensor system began to chime.

Vee tapped the screen and the sound stopped. “The ship was warning us that we’re on a collision course.”

Which meant we were almost close enough to dock. “So,” I asked. “Does anyone else have an idea or is that the plan?”

No one spoke. “Finally, Max said, “I think that’s the plan kid.”

Everyone nodded his or her agreement. Then I realized Betty was online and I thought of something else. It wouldn’t save us, but maybe it would save Veesil’s people.

“Vee, what if we open up a gate to your homeworld and shoot a probe through. We could get them a message that they need to start preparing a defense.”

’I’m making good friends with you,

When you’re shaking your good frame,’

She brightened slightly and nodded. “I’m on it.”

“Adan,” I said, “Can you disable the antimatter safeties?”

Antimatter is a lab-created mirror-image of normal matter. Matter and anti-matter don’t play nicely together, and scientists have learned to use that fact to their advantage. Mix just a little antimatter – in this case an anti-hydrogen atom – with a “normal” hydrogen atom, and what you get is a powerful explosion of pure radiation. In the case of our engines, that controlled explosion is vented out the back end of a spacecraft, producing an enormous burst of thrust.

Antimatter is so volatile, that it has to be stored in containers lined with powerful electromagnets, so that the unnatural particles didn’t interact with their own storage container. The special containers have layers of built-in safeties to keep what we were planning to do from happening under any normal circumstances. There was no way I could tell the computer to disengage the magnets, but nothing could stop Adan from breaking the field generator with a blunt object.

“Yep.” He slid Poochy off his lap and stood. “Call me when you’re ready.” I nodded. Then he came over and hugged me, and the music in my head came to a screeching halt. In most cases, I would have given him the manly back-pat, but this time I hugged him back. Then he went to Maxine, drew her to her feet and kissed her.

I turned towards Vee and found that she was staring at me. She smiled, and in that moment, in the glow of her smile, I knew that I was staring at the most wonderful woman in the entire universe.

“Vee,” I said. My voice was shaky, not from fear the looming fireball of death, but of something far, far worse. Rejection. I took a deep breath, thought about putting on a song, then couldn’t think of an appropriate song, let out my breath. Vee stood and cocked her head to one side. “Um, yeah,” I continued stupidly. She raised her eyebrows and put her hands on her hips. It was literally now or never. “Vee, I’ve loved you since the moment I first saw you, and I’ll love you till the day I die… which may be today actually...” Luckily, her lips stopped me from speaking any further.

I heard the sound of Adan running in the direction to the engine compartment, as well as Max loudly clearing her throat, but neither noise make us look up. But we both broke off and laughed when we heard “Dammit Poochy,” from a compartment away.

“Hey lovebirds, we have incoming,” Max called out. “Multiple ships… and I see the red hawk emblem on their hulls.”

“Why the hell would Philip be calling in the cavalry?” Max asked. “It’s not like the Salarians need backup to capture our little ship.”

“You think he’s double-crossing the Lizards?” I asked.

“That probably wouldn’t be a smart thing to do while he’s standing on their deck,” Vee replied.

“Yeah, there’s that,” I answered. “Whatever the reason, it looks like the entire fleet is here.” There was that massive capital ship with the equally massive railgun on the bow, countless frigates and destroyers and swarms of mismatched fighters.

Then the universe went crazy. “Missiles launched from the Cabal ships,” I studied the telemetry and added, “at the Salarian ships, not at us.” Then I decided that maybe Adan didn’t need to blow up our ship after all.

“Adan,” I called over the intercom.

“Go time?” he answered.

“No, no, no-,” I exclaimed. I could feel my blood pressure spiking, and my ’Seven couldn’t seem to do a damn thing about it. “Don’t mess with the antimatter. Come to the bridge. The situations… changed.” Then I took a few deep breaths.

One of the Cabal ships signaled us, and I put it on screen just as Adan entered the room with Poochy fast on his heels. When Adan stopped, Poochy plowed into the back of my brother, almost upending him. “Dammit Poochy,” Adan said softly, while keeping his eyes locked on the screen.

The image of David Hernandez filled our view. We all started yelling questions at the same time and he held up his hands.

“Wait, please – we’re here to help,” he said. “Not all of us agreed with what Philip was up to. When he involved the Salarians, he lost most of his support. There’s been a change in leadership.”

“You’ve got to let my people know what’s happened,” Vee pleaded.

“That message has already been sent,” David said. “I’m not sure they believed us, but they probably will soon enough.” When gunships showed up in orbit around her home world, he meant.

The railgun on the big ship thumped and then Sobo’s ship began to vent atmosphere. Our ship shuddered as the Salarian vessel began evasive maneuvers to minimize exposure. After improving their position, their anti-missile guns began to open up on the incoming projectiles. Beams of light flashed out, and orange explosions bloomed in the distance. A few missiles got through though, and explosions pocked the ship’s smooth surface.

“We’re free,” Max called out. “I’ve got stick.”

“Get out of here,” David said, “and warn Earth if you can. We’ll provide the cover.” After that, he closed the channel.

“You heard the man,” Adan said.

“One second,” Maxine said as she brought the nose of our ship in line with the bridge of the lead Salarian ship. “We have a debt to repay first. Vee-”

“All weapons on-line,” Vee answered as she nudged me aside with her hip.

“Good. Target the bridge,” Max ordered.

The Salarians were engaging multiple threats, and had probably forgotten all about us. At near-point blank range, Vee fired all weapons. Plasma bolts and antimatter charges streaked towards the bridge section, and Max pulled us up just in time to miss becoming a permanent feature of the enemy ship’s exterior.

“Direct hit,” Vee called, then added, “moderate damage to the bridge.”

Fighters began to swarm out of the enemy ships, and a few started firing in our direction.

“I’m making another pass,” Max said calmly.

“No, get us out of here,” I yelled. “If we die here, there’s no way to warn Earth….” I turned to Vee and added, “or your people.”

Vee nodded and said to Max, “If Phil isn’t dead, then he’s wishing he was at this point.”

Maxine grumbled, then spat out, “Fine.”

She pulled the nose of the ship away from the planet and the battle and keyed up the engines. Unfortunately, we had a small flock of fighters on our tail and a number of Cabal ships in front of us.

“They’re closing on weapons range,” I said.

“We can’t engage the A-Drive in this mess,” Max replied. “Hold tight.”

Then I just about lost my lunch. When the spinning in my head stopped, I said, “Why don’t we just go somewhere they can’t.” I powered up Betty, and moments later the panel lit green. The coordinates for Earth had been programmed into the Pendragon’s navigation system since our pre-tachyon trial-run, so all I had to do was send the execute command and hope for the best. I engaged the system, and the hull shook violently, circuits blew and lights began to flicker. It took me a moment to realize it wasn’t because of Betty. Then I noticed I was floating.

“We’re hit,” Max said. “Adan?”

“I’m on it,” Adan answered. He pushed off from his chair and sailed out the bridge and down the hallway.

Sure, now he knows what 1.21 kilonewtons of force looks like. I shut my eyes and held on for dear life as the corkscrews began again in earnest. When my world stopped spinning, I looked up to see Poochy floating upside-down while trying to run. After watching for a few mesmerizing moments, I yelled, “Poochy, sit!” and he immediately assumed a sitting position. I reached up and dragged him down by his collar and was rewarded with a vigorous face washing.

“This is fun and all,” Max quipped, “and I’m a really good pilot, but even I can’t keep this up forever.”

“Adan,” I called over the comm. “How are we doing?”

“We? I’m busting my ass, bro. How are you doing?”

I chewed my nails for two minutes while Max flew Pendragon like a kamikaze pilot and Vee emptied the ship of every form of projectile. I was proud, impressed and terrified all at the same time.

Just when I was about to bug Adan for an update, he bellowed, “Boom,” over the speaker and suddenly we had gravity and Betty had a power supply. I slammed down on the big green button, three blue beams converged, and a distorted sphere of alien stars opened up in front of our ship. The ship rocked from another impact just as we hit the event horizon, sending us into a violent tailspin. Maxine regained control brought the craft to a halt in an empty field of stars.