Descent: Aries Wing

Like an ominous cloud about to rain down on a sunny day, Bryan saw Admiral Gonzalez waiting for them inside the loading bays almost immediately after the air lock was opened. “Oh, great,” he commented to Natalie, “Look who’s come to crash the party. I had to explain to him what happened last time. I ended up asking him what this mission was about, and he flew off the handle as if I had asked him if he wanted a date or something.”

Natalie laughed at Bryan’s dry humor. “He doesn’t exactly seem like the most pleasant person in the world.”

“Yeah,” agreed Bryan, “we’ll live with it. I’ve had to deal with Admirals more anal than he is, that’s for sure. Bryan landed his Magnum and shut it down. Opening the hatch, he assisted Natalie out first, and then followed her out himself.

Bryan did his best to pretend he didn’t notice the admiral in the loading bays, but the Admiral quickly made himself known. “Commander Chambers, Ensign Jacobs, come with me.”

“Yes, sir,” responded Natalie, as Bryan silently followed the Admiral. The walk to the Admiral’s office seemed to take forever to Bryan. He was not ready for another discussion with the Admiral, especially after the one he had earlier in the day. He knew that he would ask what happened on the planet’s surface, and he knew he wasn’t going to be happy.

They finally made it to the office. The Admiral stopped to allow them to enter first, and then entered himself. “Sit down,” he asked. The Admiral remained standing and began pacing behind his desk. “Ensign Jacobs, give me a debriefing.”

“Well, sir, Commander Chambers and I followed the two ships to the planet’s surface. They had entered a mine and we followed them in. When the first ship found us, we were in a large room with an open pool of lava on the floor. It surprised us and got a round of mass driver off on me. Bryan distracted it by firing at the ships, and then after I regained my orientation, I used my plasma cannon, and made several hits on the ship. It started to run, and Bryan chased it down and destroyed it. I never noticed the second ship enter the room, and it, too, fired a round of mass driver at my GY, sending it into the lava. There was no way my ship was going to survive the heat pressure at that point. Bryan yelled to eject, and I did. All I saw after that was another round of mass driver going into Bryan’s Magnum.

“Then I was teleported away from the battle… Kidnapped if you will. The person who teleported me away had a really dark and evil voice…”

Bryan interrupted with, “He had the same voice as the pilot who killed Commander Evans,” recalling the vision the Orb gave him.

The Admiral stopped his pacing for a moment and glared at Bryan. “And how do you know this?”

Bryan’s heart skipped a beat, as it took him a brief moment to remember that he had engaged the pilot in the mine he rescued Natalie from. “He was in the mine that Natalie had called from. He ended up flying away.”

“Okay,” responded the Admiral. “Ensign Jacobs, continue.”

“Anyway,” she began, “he told me a lot. His name is Paul Dravis…”

“…Dravis…?” the Admiral repeated to himself.

“…and is currently running the PTMC. He stated he is looking for something called the ‘Orb of Infinity’, and from what I gather, he’s willing to go through anyone and anything to get the Orb. He is not a part of the rebel uprising, nor is he working with the rebels. But the reason the rebels are attacking the PTMC is because the PTMC provoked them first. Then, they used the provocation as an excuse to get the CED in the area.”

“Oh my,” responded the Admiral. “What else did he tell you?”

“He told me that I would live if I assisted him, so I did. He told me to get Commander Chambers to come and pick me up. I contacted him from the surface, and he came down to get me while Dravis set up the trap. Apparantly, Commander Chambers read right through it.”

“Oh?” questioned the Admiral, looking at Bryan.

“Well,” began Bryan, “an energy center is no place to wait to be picked up. I had rushed into the energy center, charged the fusion cannon, and returned to the hallway just in time to destroy three ships with the one blast.”

“Impressive,” commended the Admiral. “I’ll be sure to watch your tape for that one.”

Bryan continued, “Then Dravis showed up. He challenged me, stating that I should meet up in the room above him. I knew immediately that he was not up there. I faked going into that room, and returned back to the hallway.” He looked over at Natalie. “I was just in time, too, because he was about to send a round of mass driver right through Ensign Jacobs.” Looking back at the Admiral, he continued. “I used my vauss to disrupt his aim, and as soon as he realized I was there with him, he took off. So I picked up Natalie, returned to the ship, and here we are.”

The Admiral nodded and sat down. He rested his elbows on the table and his chin on the back of his hands. “I’m afraid I have a bit of bad news for both of you,” he began. “As you know, the CED requires its members – especially wing pilots – to adhere to a strict code of rules. Unfortunately, the CED has found each of you to be in violation of this code.”

Bryan gave the Admiral a curious eye, having absolutely no idea what he had done to prompt this.

“Ensign Jacobs,” the Admiral continued, “you should have learned early on in training that disobeying a commanding officer’s orders is strictly prohibited, and is grounds for immediate termination. Yet that’s exactly what you did in the first battle here at Fieradia. Commander Chambers order you to return to the ship, yet you continued to battle, disobeying his direct order.”

Natalie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It was as if the Admiral had just completely shattered her dreams.

“Commander Chambers,” said the Admiral, “leaving the ship without proper permission is also against CED code. When you went down to pick up Ensign Jacobs, you did not obtain permission from anyone on board, and were considered AWOL for your time gone.

“Thus, I am forced to discharge you both from the CED…”

Bryan had heard enough. “Hold it right there,” he began. “Disobeying orders is something that the officer’s direct commanding officer must report. I never filed such a report with anyone.”

The Admiral rebutted, “Commander, I am still her commanding officer, and I’m in…”

Bryan began to shout, upset he was being interrupted. “With all due respect sir, you are most certainly not her direct commanding officer. I am, and unless you have forged some documents in my name, you have no right to take any action against her on this matter.”

The Admiral also raised his voice. “Commander, I…”

Interrupting again, Bryan shouted in anger, “Furthermore, CED code permits a wing commander full authority at any time to assist a wingman if they are in need of help. I certainly do not need to get your permission, or anyone else’s permission to assist Ensign Jacobs.”

The Admiral was getting angry as well. “Commander, I advise you to…”

But there was no stopping what Bryan had started now. “And finally,” Bryan shouted over the Admiral, “I find it to be extremely poor judgment to send pilots out on a mission that many have not returned from, and they don’t even know what they died for! Never in my twelve years as a CED officer have I not been informed of the details of a mission for any reason, and not wanting to answer my questions about the mission is no reason whatsoever to react the way you did and make yourself look like an asshole!”

“Commander!” the Admiral screamed at the top of his lungs.

Natalie had unconsciously backed away from the table, but for a long pause of time, Bryan and the Admiral just stood there staring into each other’s eyes.

Bryan broke the silence, finishing his argument with a sarcastic and angry, “Sir.”

The Admiral had had enough. “I want the two of you off this ship immediately. There is a transport in the loading bays that will take you back to Jacobs Station. Do I make myself clear?”

Bryan turned around, motioning for Natalie to follow him out. As he left, he said, “You really don’t have to ask, sir.”

As soon as they were out of the office and the door had closed, Natalie instantly began breaking down into tears. “I can’t believe he did that!” she cried. “He has no right to take away our lives like this!”

Bryan, still angry about what happened, stated firmly, “He’s gone way over the line on this one, Natalie. I’ll make plenty sure that he’s the one without a career once we got back to Jacobs Station. He’s through.

“Do you need anything from your quarters?” he added.

Trying to fight her sobbing, Natalie only shook her head.

“Then let’s get the hell out of here,” he said as he began heading towards the loading bays for one last time. Natalie, still in disbelief, followed him. At the loading bays, Bryan motioned for Natalie to stay behind while he got his personal belongings out of his ships.

As Bryan was going through the items still in the Magnum-AHT2, he realized he still had the old twenty-first century radio in his cockpit that he used to communicate with Jared in their missions together. Bryan paused for a moment, as if holding a silent service for Jared. Then he collected his thoughts, and began to remove the various pictures of family, friends, and Jared from the ship. He grabbed both the radio and the chest, and made his way over to where Natalie was waiting for him. Finally, a security officer collected their weapons and motioned them towards the transport that would carry them back to the station. Natalie and Bryan boarded.

The transport was very small, with only three decks, a tiny loading bay with room for only one ship, and three quarters. Because of the two officers on the ship having their own quarters, Bryan and Natalie had to share the remaining quarters to the ship’s starboard side.

It didn’t take them very long at all to find their quarters. Bryan put his stuff down on the only table in the room and sat down on the bed. Natalie sat down next to him. Neither of them talked or moved. They just stared into each other’s eyes, unsure of what the future holds for them.

About fifteen later, the ship jarred gently indicating that they were ready for takeoff. Shortly after that, there was a knock at the door. “Come in,” said Bryan.

The door slid open, revealing a man who appeared in his fifties. He appeared very strange, being a bit overweight with thin, fading, gray hair, sinister brown eyes, and an expression that sent chills into Bryan’s spine. “I am the captain of the interplanetary transport Demetri. My name is Timothy Bellows. Meals are at 0700, 1300, and 1900 hours in the dining room on this deck. Our travel time is expected to be three and a half days.

“I am to inform you that you are restricted from entering the bridge or the loading bay, punishable by a maximum of twenty years in prison. Are you clear with these rules?”

Bryan looked directly at the man and said, “Perfectly.”

The man turned around and left the quarters…

He was a very stubborn man to do business with, and he knew he was going to take a loss on this one. “You do understand, Admiral, that I am essentially a man of business. I cannot and will not perform any actions that will result in a loss of profit. Surely, you understand that.”

“Captain,” began the Admiral, “may I also remind you that I have evidence of over twenty homicides you have performed over the past ten years. My price stands. If I have to go elsewhere, I can guarantee you that your hit last year will be your last hit, period. Do I make myself clear?”

The captain was stunned. This is the first time the Admiral had ever brought up such a proposition. Not knowing how to respond, he stated, “Fine, one point five million credits for the guy and half a million for the girl.”

“I knew you’d see it my way,” said the Admiral coldly. “Now, there may be a very good chance that you may not even have to do this, Timothy. I will have my people working tomorrow in an operation to lure them away from the ship. If all goes well, I will have them in my custody. This is strictly a backup plan. Like I said, you’ll be paid a hundred thousand credits either way, and if all goes well for us, I’m sure you can use the extra free cash.”

Timothy smiled widely. “You know it.” He shook the Admiral’s hand…

The doors closed, and Bryan practically jumped to his feet.

“What is it?” asked Natalie.

“They are going to kill us!” said Bryan.

“What?!?” responded Natalie in a shocked tone.

Bryan turned to look at Natalie. “The Admiral hired this Bellows guy to kill us.”

“Oh my god,” said Natalie, her voice wavering. “What do we do?”

“Well,” Bryan said, “we don’t sleep together. One of us needs to stay awake at all times so that we are prepared for their actions.”

“Okay,” stated Natalie, obviously shaken. “I’m wide awake, so feel free to sleep now if you want.”

Bryan, a bit worn out from the whole day, decided to take her up on the offer, “Okay, sounds good. Wake me up the second you notice something strange happening.”

Natalie responded, “Definitely.”

Bryan laid down and looked out the view port into space. Bryan loved to look at space while in faster than light travel. Everything looked so much different, light was bent and stretched and made space seem almost like a tube. Bryan focused on the relaxation he found outside of the ship and slipped off to sleep.

“Bryan!” whispered Natalie, stirring him from sleep. He must not have been asleep long, as he felt like he got very little sleep.

“Bryan,” repeated Natalie, “what is that?”

Bryan turned on his side and looked out of the view port. For a few moments, all he saw was the tunnel of faster than light space travel. But then he saw an unusually large object approaching the transport in the distance. “What the hell?” he said as he sat up in an attempt to get a better lock.

The closer it got, the clearer it became. Now Bryan could tell that the object heading their way was an orange spherical object. He was unable to tell how far away it was, but watched as it got closer and bigger in his field of view. He first tried estimating the size of the object as that of the transport, but as it got closer, he found out he was wrong. Slowly, it became obvious that this was not a normal object in space, and it continued to get closer and closer.

The transport came out of faster than light travel, and it was then that Bryan first got the full appreciation of what was approaching them. Normally, if a ship was alongside another ship that came out of faster than light travel, the other ship would severely overshoot the other. This one did overshoot the ship, but by the time it corrected its course, it was still well within the field of vision.

“Oh my god,” said Bryan, “that thing has got to be the size of a planet!”

The object continued to move closer and closer to the transport, and to counteract gravity, the pilot had to put the ship into orbit around the object.

Natalie was nearly speechless, but was able to let out, “That’s… not a normal starship, is it?”

Before Bryan could answer, the door to their quarters opened. Immediately, both Natalie and Bryan turned around to see Captain Bellows aiming a laser pistol at Bryan. Bryan reacted just in time so that the laser beam narrowly missed him.

“Bryan!” Natalie shouted as the captain turned his pistol towards her. “No!” She instinctively fell to the floor, as a second laser beam passed harmlessly above her.

Before the captain could get off another shot, Bryan rushed the captain, and kicked the laser pistol out of his hand and across the room. Captain Bellows was surprised by the sudden rush, and was stunned long enough to meet a right cross from Bryan in the face. The captain fell backwards to the floor.

As Natalie was getting up, she was able to see a much larger man outside of the quarters with a laser pistol of his own. He aimed it at Bryan, who never saw it coming. Immediately, the room flashed white, as the energy released disbursed the laser’s energy harmlessly into nothingness. Bryan’s attention immediately turned to the man, who towered above him. Bryan stared angrily into his eyes as the larger man took aim and fired again. Again, a bright flash of white energy filled the room briefly. But this time, the laser beam was stopped, inches away from Bryan. The larger man’s eyes grew wide in disbelief.

Bryan, feeling in complete control of his surroundings, raised his right hand. As he raised his hand, the laser beam ascended in front of him. “You are the devil’s child!” screamed the man. Bryan only smirked, and continued to raise the laser beam up to the height of the man’s head. Then, as if he were conducting the beam, he motioned forward, and the laser beam shot back at the man, right into his forehead. The man, already dead, fell backwards onto the floor.

“Bryan!” yelled Natalie, as Captain Bellows tried crawling back over to his laser pistol across the room. Bryan turned around to see what the captain was doing. Then, in a powerful burst of energy, Bryan was able to control the laser pistol. He moved it off the ground, keeping it out of the reach of the captain, and then sent it hurling at Bryan. He caught it just right so that it was aimed directly at the Captain, who after watching the laser pistol mysteriously fly into Bryan’s hand, was horrified.

Bryan had killed men using his Magnum before. But he had never even considered killing someone in person, until now. “Mercenaries like you have no place in this universe.” And then he pressed the trigger…

“Captain, something strange is happening with the sensors.”

Timothy swiveled his chair over to Commander Jordan’s station. “What is it?”

“Look,” said the commander.

The captain looked over the readings on the sensors. “Unidentified planet?” He thought little of it, and then swiveled back to his station.

“But sir,” nagged the commander, “it’s on an intercept course with us.”

The captain chuckled, amazed at the commander’s stupidity, before responding, “How can a planet be on an intercept course with a ship in FTL travel? It’s just not…”

A beep came from the communications system. “Sir! It’s hailing us!”

“What?!?” The captain was confused. “The system must be malfunctioning, it probably thinks it’s a planet, when in reality it most likely is a starship of some unknown kind. Open a channel.”

As the commander opened a channel to the incoming vessel, the screen altered views from the starry black of space to what appeared to be a small humanoid figure. It spoke, and the computers began to translate the ancient dialect. “Your ship contains an object that I am in search of. Turn over such an object, and you will be spared…”

Brian stepped backwards at the same time that the laser shot that had just killed Captain Bellows caused him to collapse to the floor. Brian had a blank look in his eyes. The legends were all true. The superior creature had returned to reclaim what was once his. Brian, for a moment, was horrified.

But then he realized that he was in control of the sphere. There was no possible way that anyone could take the sphere away from him. Brian turned to look out the window, at what no doubt was about to become his biggest adversary ever. An adversary, who was billions of years old, which he had no doubt in his mind he would soundly defeat.

And then he noticed Natalie huddled over in the corner. “Are you okay?” asked Brian.

Natalie was shaking from fear of not knowing what was going on. “You’re scaring me,” she said.

Brain walked over to her. “You have to trust me here. We need to leave this ship, now.”

“How?” she asked.

“Come on,” Bryan insisted. He grabbed the chest containing the Orb of Infinity, and then turned around and left the ship’s quarters as Natalie followed him. He led her to the bay, which contained a single Phoenix-SP. Bryan ran up to it, opened the hatch, and climbed in. Then he motioned to Natalie, and said, “Get in.”

“But Bryan,” she said, “the SP is only designed to hold one person!”

Bryan’s patience was wearing thin. “I have no time to explain what’s going on right now. You have to trust me on this one. There’s plenty of room, now get in!”

“Oh, Bryan!” Natalie protested as she climbed aboard. There certainly wasn’t as much room as Bryan claimed there was, but it was enough that both of them were comfortable, albeit a bit close.

“Hang on,” said Bryan, as he investigated the SP’s payload. After reviewing the selection of weapons, he chose an impact mortar, aimed it at the bay doors, fired it, and blew the doors clear off. As loose items began to flood into the void of space, the transport’s shields gave way, allowing Bryan to pilot the SP out of and away from the imploding ship. After about half a minute, what was left of the tiny craft exploded, and dissipated into space.

“What are you doing?” asked Natalie insistently, as Bryan piloted the ship closer and closer to the surface of alien craft.

Bryan found an external entrance to the huge planet-like ship, maneuvered into it, and stated drying, “Granting an old man his dying wish.”