Scout vessel Exosia
Kursican Badlands
Earth date August 12th, 2097
Lina was unable to answer as she stared at the scene in front of her. There were close to thirty alien vessels arranged in a battle formation. Even with the powerful weapons at their disposal there was no way they could destroy or disable this many vessels.
‘Open a channel to them.’
‘You’re on,’ she replied.
‘This is Captain Tannis of the Ocampan Ascendancy vessel Exosia. Please state your intentions.’
No face appeared on the screen, but a hissing voice emanated from the speakers. ‘I am in command of 285th Cha’lav Destroyer Fleet and your upstart power has been scheduled for annihilation.’
Tannis swallowed. This was the first time he had felt real fear in years, but it was his family he was worried about. He was about to plead for safety when his daughter moved in front of him, standing close to the pilot’s console.
‘You are in violation of Ocampan territory. Withdraw or you will be destroyed. This is your only warning.’
‘Pathetic creatures,’ the voice replied and the channel went dead.
‘Linnis, what are you doing?’
The young girl turned to her father, her pale blue eyes now sparkling with intensity. ‘We are the last of our people and we will survive.’
The Exosia shook with the impact of weapons fire and Linnis turned back to the screen.
‘Linnis, honey, don’t do anything silly.’
‘We will live,’ she shrieked and pressed her hand to the pilot’s console.
Instantly, the closest Cha’lav vessels began to disintegrate, their molecular bonds fragmenting, and the bodies inside them followed the same fate. Tannis and Lina watched in awe and fear as their daughter destroyed the entire fleet, leaving behind no trace that they ever existed. In moments, the space in front of them was empty.
‘What have you done?’ Lina asked of her daughter.
‘I have protected us. It is time, that we fulfil our destiny,’ she replied and headed for engineering.
‘What is she up to?’ Lina asked her husband.
‘The temporal core,’ he answered, ‘she’s reactivating it and programming it.’
‘Where is she taking us? What has happened to her?’
‘I have a feeling that she has tapped into the genetic memory that we all carry. She knows her destiny.’
‘And we’re along for the ride?’
He nodded. ‘I don’t think there’s anything we can do.’
‘Yes, there is,’ she said and moved to the environmental controls. ‘I’m going to flood engineering with gas and then we’re putting her in stasis. She’s too dangerous.’
‘You’d better do it quickly then. The temporal core is charging. I’ve fixed the stasis pods, there should be no more leaks.’
‘Good, flooding engineering now.’
‘Temporal core at forty percent...forty-nine...fifty-eight...sixty-seven...’
‘She’s unconscious, come on.’
Reluctantly, they placed their daughter in the stasis pod and then strap themselves into their own pods, knowing that it would be a bumpy ride. The computer would wake them later.
Scout vessel Exosia
Ramajuan salvage yards
Stardate 56801.5
Linnis was trapped in stasis, unable to use her mind to help her parents. Their latest trip through time had been programmed with precision, but she hadn’t counted on a surviving ship from the Cha’lav fleet remaining in this galaxy to take revenge on her. Although the Cha’lav on board had died, their technology fell into the hands of the Minister for Space Exploration on New Xyril and with it, the information on her parents’ ship and what had happened to the Cha’lav fleet nearly three hundred years ago.
The stasis pods had been damaged and her parents were as trapped as she was, until a Xyrillian mercenary crew boarded the ship and woke them up. She could sense and hear everything that happened but was unable to do anything. Her parents had adjusted the parameters for stasis to dull her mind as well, but they hadn’t done enough. Linnis knew that for a few weeks after she was woken, she wouldn’t have full control of her abilities, but she would be able to seek her revenge on the space minister.
He had nearly derailed her destiny, and...
Linnis flinched as she felt her mother’s life force fade. She was dying and her father could not help, for he was being held securely by the Xyrillians and did not have the mental abilities that Linnis did. She sensed her mother’s death and vowed revenge, even as her father was returned to his stasis pod by the aliens. She prayed that when her father was next woken, he would issue a voice command to wake her up so she could help, but in her heart she knew that he wouldn’t. He considered his daughter too dangerous, even to avenge his wife’s death, and that saddened her.
She didn’t intend to destroy all the Cha’lav ships, but she got carried away.
Time had no meaning for her in stasis, all she could do was sense the movement on the ship and knew when the Xyrillians had returned. This time, her father was woken and made to watch as his wife, her mother, was dissected by a doctor.
‘Alpha one zero,’ Tannis said loudly, his eyes narrowed in hatred.
He was hit across the face by a Xyrillian but nothing else happened and he wondered if the computer was still accepting his demands.
‘What were you hoping for, alien? Help to arrive? You’re alone,’ his captor said after a while.
‘No, he isn’t,’ Linnis said, dressed in a military uniform she had cut down to size. ‘This is an Ocampan Ascendancy vessel and you are trespassing,’ she added, not looking at her mother. ‘Leave, now!’
‘Pathetic little girl,’ the captor said and raised a weapon to her.
It evaporated.
The captor smiled thinly and before Linnis knew what had happened, the Xyrillian had pierced her father’s heart through his back with a blade. Tannis collapsed and Linnis howled, running to her father’s side.
‘Nooo, father, nooo!’
She turned to the aliens and all but one of them collapsed to the floor in agony. ‘Take your people and leave,’ she said to the one who killed her father. ‘I will kill the next one of you that steps aboard this ship.’
The Xyrillian nodded and helped his comrades to their feet. They left the ship as fast as they could. Linnis lay her father beside her mother, said a prayer for them and then disintegrated their bodies. She could not give them a proper burial but would they would assist her in getting revenge against the man responsible for their deaths.
Linnis knelt on the floor, and stayed there for some time, waiting for the day when the pale-haired man would grant her revenge.
END
The crew of the Dauntless will return in...To Serve the Unwise
