Everlasting - end

 

Caroline watched the last ship burning with a sense of relief washing over her. They had done it, freedom beckoned, and they could finally go home.

Home.

She tried to remember the last place she had called home that had not been a birth on a warship. Maybe it was her parent’s house back on Shire but she had not been there in years. Her thoughts turned to her mother and the sister she hadn’t seen in fifteen years of the garden, the trees blowing in the wind that was like a sigh across the water meadows.
   She wanted to go home now and she wanted to take Jonathan with her. She felt the beginnings of a smile touch the edge of her lips and despite her professionalism ordering it to stop she let it spread quickly.

“Caroline, I’m sorry.” The familiar voice of The Watcher returned now but it was lacking its usual sting of smug arrogance and was leaden instead with a thick sadness. “I tried to warn you, tried to protect you but… I have failed and your actions and choices meant this future was inevitable.”

There was a pause before his voice turned to spiteful bitterness “You should have come with men. You were supposed to chose me not him.”
“What do you mean? What was inevitable?”
Her plea was met with stony silence. Suddenly her heart was racing as she started trying to look for something, anything she might have overlooked or missed.

“Jonathan, I need a fall sensor sweep of the area. Something feels wrong.”

“Yes Captain.” He ran over to the sensor station and began following her orders, his brow furrowed in thought and she could see him using his fighter pilot training to look for anomalies beyond the sensor’s scopes.

“Helm, bring us to point seven five and increase speed.” She did not know what The Watcher had meant but she did not want to find out. She had to get her crew to safety, they ahd been through too much to lose it all now.
“Anything on sensors?”
“No Captain.” Jonathan was staring intently at the screen desperately searching for something, anything when suddenly his eyes fixed on something and widened. “Captain, enemy ship is powering up engines, they’re moving for an intercept course.”

“Gunnery control, target that ship.”
“Yes Captain!”

Caroline whirled around again to watch the approaching derelict, great holes were already rent in the side of the hull and burning atmosphere spilled from unseen ruptures. The impact of the firepower was doing nothing to slow her approach. It looked like the N’kell had forgone shields and were piling all of their power into the engines to try and ram the Indomitable.

“Helm, hard to port. That should bring us clear.”

“Aye Captain.”

It was too late though, and her planned timely manoeuvre failed to escape the sudden burst of speed from the hulk that slammed into the hull of Indomitable with a sickening crash and tearing noise.

“Shields collapsing!” Ethan reported clinging to his consul “hull breaches on all decks!”

“Helm hard over! Get us off this thing.”

She turned to look at Jonathan, his eyes filled with concern and fear but his features set in a steely resistance.  She felt a smile touch her lips and she caught his eye before mouthing “It will be ok.”
Her heart skipped a beat when she saw him smile slightly and she felt herself relax from stress and focus on what needed to be done.
“Ethan, what state are ---”

She never finished the sentence as a further impact caused part of the ceiling to collapse and a great medal support girder fell across her pelvis and she felt the bones shattered like a dinner plate against the wall. The pain that lanced through her was indescribable and she heard herself scream. Within seconds Jonathan was at her side attempting to lift the metal from her, his face flushed scarlet with the effort and his muscles straining.
   She heard Ethan take over command issuing orders and assessing damage. She wanted to bite out at Jonathan to do his duty as First Officer, save the ship and look after the crew but the pain was so intense she could not think clearly and all she managed was a sharp “Leave it!” Her left hand lanced out and grabbed his wrist and squeezed hard as she could.
Lieutenant Carroll rushed up carrying the field medic box and Caroline felt a slight pin prick in her shoulder followed by a wash of cold through her body that doused the fires f pain and she began to relax again.
“Jonathon, you need to get everyone off, get them to safety.” He voice was dry and raspy but she squeezed his hand tighter. “Promise me.”

He kept a steady stare at her but did not reply.

“Captain” Ethan knelt beside her, his features similarly softened as he addressed them both. “The breaches can no longer be contained and reports from the engines are not good. We could be looking at a reactor breach. Can I give the order?”

Without hesitation Caroline nodded and Ethan charged off shouting fresh orders at the bridge crew who sprang into an energised response passing instructions. She was proud of them, she had trained them well for situations like this.
“Can we move her?” Jonathan looked over to Carroll who had just finished a medical scan  and was in the midst of putting the scanner back in the box. Her expression was grim and she almost unnoticibly shook her head but Caroline had seen it and it confirmed her thoughts and fears. She sighed and even through the pain killers her chest burst into flames again. She struggled to look at the medic and with an immense effort managed to croak, “I’m dying aren’t I?”
“Captain, I –“

Caroline closed her eyes and shook her head signalling Carroll didn’t need to speak and instead turned to Jonathan. She felt her heart swell fade into the pain at the thought of losing him which gripped her, she could never imagine not seeing him again, growing old with him, taking him home to Shire, sitting under the autumnal trees or the light in those blue eyes that appeared every time he saw her. She had had such great plans for the future, of spending time with this man and now they were all laying shattered in her mind with only one fate ahead for them.

“Freya” her voice was almost a a whisper “you have to go. Leave me here.”

“You know I can’t.” he squeezed her hand tighter and she could see tears welling up in his eyes whilst his voice fought back the grief.

“You will, you have to get the crew to safety. They look to you Captain.”

The ship shook again and more debris fell from the ceiling landing around the emptying crew pits. Jonathan turned to Ethan and called over the din and confusion. “Abandon ship, get them to the Swiftsure!”

“Yes Commander.”

“Your turn. You must leave me.” She tried to put as much force into her voice as she could but he was unmoved.

“Would you leave me if our positions were swapped?”

“To do my duty? To save the crew? Because you begged me to? Yes… What happened to that cocksure pilot who was always diving into trouble? I haven’t got long left. I don’t want our last conversation to be an argument.”

He half laughed “Like our first?”

Through the pain and growing darkness she laughed remembering the docking bay, Captain Wright insisting that they would work well together. She had been right though.

“I love you.” He whispered and she could see the pain and emotional torment that ravaged him.

“You know I love you too which is why I can’t let you die here with me. GO now before it is too late.”

He lent over and she felt his lisps on her cheeks, the soft prickle of his stubble and warm moisture of his tears. She bit back her own and squeezed his hand.

“Go… leave me. Be the best man you can be…”

She watched him stand noticeably reluctantly letting go of her hand and take a slow step backwards. She felt another sharp pain in her arm as Carroll gave her another dose of painkillers.

“How long?” she whispered to the medic.

“Hard to say Captain but not long.”

“Get him out of here, you’ve done all you can.”

Carroll nodded and grabbed Jonathan’s arm and despite her smaller stature gave him a solid push towards the door where Ethan was stood anxiously.

Her heart breaking she turned to look at the starfield, the glare of the system’s sun catching the edges of her vision as great golden arms stretched out in flares of erupting gas. She took a deep painful breath and exhaled in a long sigh.

Her mind was clear of all the usual chatter and life stresses, reports that needed filing, rotas, petty politics and all the rest of the nonsense. There was only her and her most important thoughts. She closed her eyes and she was under the autumnal leaves falling from the tall oak trees, the soft smell of foliage and moss underfoot as the sunset’s last warmth touching her cheek.

“Caroline?”
A familiar voice cut through the scene’s serenity and there he was. Jonathan was wearing dress uniform, his boots a mirror shine, his trousers pressed into fine creases and his three awards shined on his breast.

   Caroline looked into his eyes and saw the warmth and love, the soft smile that touched his lips, the one he reserved only for her. She stepped towards him and fell into his arms pressing her head against his chest and squeezing him tight feeling his arms wrap around her around her and hold her as tightly.

She opened her eyes and the woodlands scene had dissolved into a candle lit ballroom, he took her hand and rested his other hand on her back as they started to slow dance to the gentle piano music in the background.

“I will always love you.” He said.

She felt her heart swell with a happiness she could now fully embrace and she allowed herself to grin int a way she had not in almost two decades and her walls disintergrated and she rested her head on his shoulder again.

“I will never leave you.” She whispered “I will always be at your sides and in your heart.”

She closed her eyes and listened to the music slowly die away and all faded to black.

NaNoWriMo Part 1

 Captain Baumann stood in front of her, one hand up in salute, his field-grey uniform shirt was creased and partially untucked and marred with sweat stains, his forage cap off centre and he clearly hadn’t shaved in a few days. He did not look like the clean cut ambitious officer who had been at the briefing a month ago. Not that he would have seen her in the shadows of the room, and why would he notice a woman when the second most powerful man in Barhoemia was there giving him his orders unless she was serving him a drink? Internally she rolled her eyes again at the attitude these Barhoemians had towards women, she’d seen it time and again and she tired of it, tired of proving them wrong and embarrassing them. They did pay well for her services though.

The jungle heat was oppressive and humid and she could hear the bird calls and animals even over the whine of the helicopter’s engine as it powered down. Marshal of the Empire Georg Petersen, Count of Spitzen, high protector of the Imperial order of the Dragon, Commander of the Imperial Legion and a host of other somewhat meaningless titles was grinning next to her, his leather gloved hand outstretched to the younger Captain though as she studied him from her peripheral vision she thought he would be regretting wearing full powder blue dress uniform within five minutes and she could see the beads of sweat forming like pearls on his forehead and his well-groomed moustache was already beginning to whillt. This would be a brief visit.

“Ah, Baumann. Good to see you again. How is the dig going? Have you found the Gate stone yet?”

The other man lowered his hand and took Petersen’s proffered hand.

“Sir, we’ve been working round the clock and found the temple three days ago.”

“Excellent! I told you that he’d find it and your concerns were unwarranted.” He turned with a bombastic laugh and grinned at her briefly. Her expression never shifted, frozen in stone but she managed a hushed but venomous “Indeed”

“So, what is the latest update?”

“We have broken through the main doors, through several ante chambers and this morning we used the dynamite to blast into one of the inner chambers. Last night we discovered an under chamber that led into a secret area. Doctor Kauffman is certain this is where the artefact will be.” The man’s confidence was returning after originally being shaken by the arrival of his superior. “We expect a return in the next few hours.”

Fools, she thought, amateur fools. It was never that easy, even with the Barhoemian military’s approach to archaeology.

“Tell me Captain, have your men seen any red painted statues?”

Baumann seemed to notice her for the first time and he looked flustered by her interjection. He looked at Petersen who nodded his approval to answer her.

“Yes, in the outer chambers. Kauffman believes they mean nothing, a cultural fashion from four hundred years ago.”

“And the panels with blue water marks?”

“Yes, last night. Just some ancient hieroglyphs, nothing for us to be concerned about.”

“Finally, in this final chamber were there any statues?”

“Lieutenant Thiel reported several Harpies standing in there. Why?”

“What does all this nonsense mean?” Petersen’s good mood was starting to fray. She didn’t expect the military to have done any serious research, they would use  dynamite and sledgehammers where ever possible and this Kauffman had been at the Capitol’s Antiquities Museum for thirty years and hadn’t done a day’s field work since university. He knew no more of the inside of Sintar tomb than of the dark side of the moon and even if he did, Baumann would have just ignored him.

“I assure you, Sir, Thiel is one of my best officers he will appropriate your prize.”

“How long?” She snapped.

“Excuse me?” Baumann bit back acidicly.

“How long have they been in the chamber?”

“Two hours. They started work at nine this morning”

She took her rifle off her shoulder and checked the sights and barrel out of habit before reaching into her belt pouches and withdrew a strip of bullets.

“I’m going in. Don’t send anyone else, I should return within the hour.”

Petersen understood after all this is what he paid her for. In the three years she had been working for him she had only failed him once and the scar on her left forearm was the penalty, a constant reminder that although the rewards were vast the punishments for failure were severe. He could have ordered her death just as easily, she had seen it happen for less but Petersen must have seen her usefulness, her skill set and after that incident her abandonment of a moral compass. She had been allowed to live that time but next time… Baumann was protesting still “But my men?”

She looked up, her cold grey eyes venomous and silencing him mid-sentence.

“Captain, your men are already dead.”

Working title - trying to think of something cool...

 

Thirteen years I’ve been stationed out here. Thirteen years of the same monotony with no hope of getting off this rock and back to a normal existence or to a world with opportunities and life.

My name is Lieutenant Commander Michael Johnson, more often than not referred to as John by my colleagues and superiors who get confused by my surname and after all of this time I’ve lost the will to keep correcting them after all of this time. I’m in charge of the day shift security detachment at the SE1 colony out in the Bulgarum sector and I’ve been doing this for the last three years.

I arrived out here when the colony still had a name, New Limberg, as an enthusiastic young sub-lieutenant with dreams of an accelerated promotion then transfer back to the fleet. The planet was a blooming agricultural world with around five hundred thousand farmers, a garrison of twenty thousand or so army and navy personnel under the command of a military governor. It all started fantastically but then around nine years ago the “blight” set in and killed the crops and livestock. It started slowly on the outlying farms but within six months it had taken most of them, even killed some of the colonists’s children. It was a dark time to be here, saw so many folks just pack up and leave, can’t say I blame them and I would have done the same if I could.

For those of us at the garrison times became wane as well with the death of the colony. Slowly detachments were reassigned then the regiment until there was a skeleton force of technicians and two platoons of soldiers mostly coming up for retirement age or fresh out of the academy for some basic training, either way they are never here for very long. My superiors left before the ink on their transfer slips had dried and I found myself promoted quickly as my requests to leave were quietly filed away and now I’m stuck here on this planet which no longer has a name beyond the colloquial moniker of “Lambdeath” after the blight’s devastation.  

Every day starts much the same rising at 0500, shower, shave, breakfast and report to duty at 0700 in the Naval security office where I receive the handover from the night officer which is usually devoid of anything beyond things that he could report himself but is too lazy to. I then spend the next hour or so checking the security systems are still working, compiling the morning reports and then supervising the duty operators all of whom have longer experience than me and trained me when I first arrived. Ultimately my day consists of me watching people watch people farming their sheep.

That was until this morning…

As I said, I wake up at 0500 and take a hot shower and shave before having the same bland naval issue breakfast rations in the mess before taking my usual soul crushing walk down to the “bunker”. When I arrived McIntyre was in his usual form. I liked Clive, I’d always got on with him but over the last year he’d taken a dislike to something I’d said or done and now spent a lot of time just being abrasive to me and I had no idea what the cause was. He’d obviously got himself worked up over the last twelve hours and was red in the face with droplets of sweat forming on his brow as he waved a report under my nose.

“What is this?!” he shouted. “How can you give this order?!”

I tried to shift my usual expression of disinterest to something akin to concern. “Which order?”

“This one about the intercom system procedure….” There followed five to ten minutes of constant shouting and waving of papers whilst I calmly repeated that the order had come from Major Dexter, had nothing to do with me and that I was the same rank as him and couldn’t order him in the first place but I might as well have been talking to the wall. In the end I just closed my mouth and let him continue his rant until he ran out of steam and stormed out.

With a heavy sigh I collapsed into my office chair and began sifting through the reports and issues from the night duty – most of which they could have reported or dealt with but with yet another sigh I began filing and answering each individual in turn. Just another day.

A flashing red light caught my eye coming from the front of the Control room. The deep space proximity alarm had gone into alarm.

“Sergeant, what’s that?” Despite my bored lethargy that had infected most of my working shifts suddenly I found my adrenaline spiking and long dusty training coming out.

“Probably another comet” Sergeant Zero was leaning back in his chair staring blankly at the monitors without seeing. To be fair he was probably right as we had comet warnings every other week but usually we’d have had a heads up from the Stella cartography department.

“Do you want to look into it?” I urged firmly. “Now please”

As the Sergeant sat up and started scanning through the system and analysing the alarms I started doing the same thing but faster. Something had tripped the outer system sensors at speeds too fast for a comet. I tried to bring up the camera feeds but they were interrupted by static moments before whatever it was passed through it.

Something was not right here...

I reached for the comm and dialled the only extension I thought would be of use. Major Dexter was useless most of the time anyway, my superior Commander Vervain was off duty so I contacted the deputy Garrison commander Captain Celine Vesper.

“Good morning Garrison command” the familiar voice filled my ear and I fought back a smile as I pictured my friend at her desk knowing full well she was about to say; “what have you done now?”

“Morning Sir, we’ve got an issue that I thought I should raise. Something has just tripped the outer system proximity alarm.”

“Its probably a comet” she began “though we had better check it out. Anything on the cameras?”

“That’s the thing, they went dead just before the alarm went off.” Whilst we were talking I was rocketing through the other systems to see if I could find anything else on the inner system security systems or cameras but one by one they were dropping off. “The rest of the system seems to be going down quite quickly to”

“Strange” she sounded like she was disappearing into thought. “Ok, I’ll get one of the fighter patrols to go and take a look. Hopefully its nothing.” She paused again. “Mike, bring us to amber action stations just to be on the safe side. We could always do with another drill, just leave Dexter to me.”

“Thanks Celine.”

Every call to her left me reminiscing about how long we had worked together, how many issues we had dealt with together. We had started at the colony at the same time both fresh out of the academy with aspirations and ambition. We’d worked together and socialised together over the years and been close, not as close as maybe I would have liked a long time ago but it is what it is. I watched her strive and achieve her position through hard work and sheer strength of will against the immovable object that is the superior officers here at SE1. Whereas I sank into bored lethargy and surrendered to the system that ground me down she had clung on and fought it as best she could and I admired that strength.

“Sir” Zero waved at me to pull me out of my daydream. “I’ve spotted something on the inner most sensors before they went offline. The image is blurry but on the IR it looks like a vessel of some sort.” He brought up the images for me to look at and I could immediately see what he meant.

“Right.” I walked over to the alarm panel and hit the Amber action stations alarm which began playing the repetitive message that should bring the armed forces to alert and warn the colonist to stay in their homes. I hurried back to my desk and dialled Dexter’s number to report the intruder and that’s when the first explosion erupted.

I’m not certain where the rocket struck or even what size it was. I only knew that the force of the blast caused the bunker ceiling to collapse and I was thrown across the room and against the wall. I managed to pull myself up briefly before my legs gave way and I fell back amongst the rubble. My ears were ringing and my vision blurred from the white flash of the explosion, my legs and chest ached from the force of the impact and I was struggling to breathe. In the distance I could hear shouting but I couldn’t tell you who it was or what they were saying all I could think of was the pain and getting my breathing under control.

Suddenly a face filled my vision and a pair of gloved hands gripped my uniform hard pulling me up by my chest. I recognised the eyes but my brain still felt like wet bread and able to comprehend anything. He shouted at me and I barely heard the voice over the ringing and I blinked vacantly at him until I felt a gloved hand slap me across the cheek.

“I said, are you alright sir?”

I shook my head to try and clear my brain and I felt that spike of consciousness return. “yes, I’m fine” I mumbled slowly pulling myself to my feet. I realised it was Corporal Bettesworth the Control guard. “thank you Corp.” He steadied me and ran down the room to check on Zero but it was clear even with my impaired vision that he was dead. I heard other explosions erupting around the facility but I had no idea where or what was going on. Another pair of hands grabbed me and pulled me out of the door and into the corridor which was usually lit with harsh bright white halogen but now glowed soft green with the emergency lights. The trooper pulled me along through the security doors deeper underground to a cavernous storage silo that had been set up as an emergency triage. All around me lay the wounded and the dying and the smell of blood and death filled my nose.

 I kept muttering that I was fine but the trooper ignored me roughly putting me down onto a canvas fold up bed and handing over to an orderly before dashing out. I continued to remonstrate that there was nothing wrong with me but the harassed orderly didn’t take any more notice than the trooper had and was doing something to my arm. I couldn’t see what he was doing but I could feel something abnormal and a quick stabbing pain that came and went fairly quickly.  I laid where I was for listening to the screams and moans grow louder as my hearing returned slowly. After what seemed like an eternity a nurse stooped over me and began checking my vitals.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
She shushed me.
“I need to know”
“Not now Commander, rest.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me.”
“You’ve got a six inch gash in your left arm that barely missed the main artery, between Trooper Flood and Orderly Baxter they stemmed the bleeding and resealed the wound. You need to rest.”
I looked at her in confusion. Surely I would have felt such an injury? Surely there would have been blood… I glanced down at my uniform and saw the dark stains all over my jacket and the ripped and torn sleeve, the blue stitches and angry purple wound. I just couldn’t process it, why had I not felt it.

“You’re in shock but you’ll be ok. We’ve given you an injection of suppressant and we’ll get the knitting gel up to you as soon as we’ve done the priority cases.”

I mumbled my thanks and laid back on the canvas bed and closed my eyes. Beyond the repetitive question of “what the hell is going on?” the only thing I could think of was Celine, where she was and was she alright? It seemed strange that of all the things that I could or should have been thinking all I could think of was her.

 

I must have fallen asleep for a while whether it was due to the shock or maybe I had a concussion from the impact, I don’t know, but when I came to there was another medic administering a smelly purple gel to my wound and removing the stitches.
“Sorry if this stings sir.” He muttered rather unconvincingly “but Command has ordered us to treat the walking wounded quickly and get them topside for action. We don’t have enough gel to go around so I can only give you a cursory amount to stop it bursting open again. This will be tender for some time so be careful.”
“Thank you.”
He didn’t seem to register my words and just kept talking. “Give it ten minutes then head back up that hall way and you’ll find Major Dexter’s briefing room where you’ll be given your assignment.”

I looked across the silo to where he was pointing and saw a well lit corridor

I lay on the canvas bed for what seemed an eternity but when I looked at my watch it was only about ten minutes before an orderly came up and looked me over with a rougher bedside manager than the trooper who carried me down.
“You’re fine.” He barked “Why are you here?”
I looked at him blankly for a second as I reworded my original thoughts. “I was brought.”
“Well you can go. Head up to Level 7.”
“Level 7 is a large place” I muttered absently
“Just go, make space for those who need to be here.”
I knew there was no point arguing with this man so I just stood up as best I could, ignoring the aches and pains that wracked my body from the impact, mainly around my rib cage and left arm but at least I was moving. I looked around the room at some of the others who looked like they would be lucky if they ever moved again.
I kept asking myself “what is going on here?” but couldn’t get past that we were under attack some how. I watched soldiers streaming past and the busy medical orderlies and knew there would be no answers there the only thing I could do was head up to level 7 and see if I could get answers there.
Suddenly a thought struck me and I was filled with nervous panic. Where was Celine? She