Valkyrie 4, page 15
“Yeah,” Parks muttered, lowering the box back down. “Years of warfare, and we have no idea what these things look like. All we know is that they use captured humans on their ships, probably as an attempt at human shields. The only thing we ever find are bits and pieces of the prisoners, but no Kull.”
“Maybe they are gaseous in nature,” Connor said.
“Maybe,” Parks said, unconvinced. “At least that would explain why they haven’t communicated before. How do you talk to a cloud?”
Connor didn’t answer, and Parks was bored with his new toy. “Keep working on your translation, but I’m a little worried they will be able to use this thing like a beacon to locate us. Maybe that was the trap all along.”
“I can easily defeat that, captain. If you vacate the room, I’ll hit it with a targeted EMP blast from a repair bot to burn out its long-range transmitter.”
“Yeah, probably a good idea.” Parks paused.
“Captain?”
“It just doesn’t make any sense. The ship destroys several of our ships, then tries to communicate with this pod. Why?”
“Perhaps the lion is trying to tell us something,” Connor said. “It wants to tell the zookeeper a message, but doesn’t know how. Maybe in the world of lions, you bite first, then talk.”
Parks took one last long look at the box and slowly exhaled. “Maybe. But I’m the zookeeper, and my orders are to shoot the damn thing, whether it’s trying to talk or not.”
Chapter 13
As the Valkyrie made its way toward the next targeted system, Parks was happy to receive a SimCom request from home.
“No offense, Connor, but this routine was getting a little old,” he said as he got up from the bridge to head back to the simulator.
“Don’t worry, captain, I can handle staring at the screens watching nothing happen while you are off having fun,” Connor said. “We have a good communication relay signal, so you should have no problems connecting.”
“Great,” Parks said, wondering who was going to see him this time.
He entered the small cabin, quickly slid into the simulator’s bed and activated the system.
***
Fresh air filled his lungs, and he opened his eyes to a sunny day, with random clouds meandering across the sky like white puffy sheep on a blue meadow. Parks stood on the grassy hill, looking down toward the administration building, straining to see who was going to come out. After a few minutes of waiting, he decided to walk toward the building.
There were quite a few other people in the simulator space today, but like him, most were alone and seemed to be looking for someone. After a good fifteen minutes with no sign of anyone showing up, Parks headed toward the nearest man, an older gentleman wearing the fatigue uniform of a fleet engineer.
“Hey, you waiting on someone, too?”
The other man looked wary, as if it were some sort of trick. It wasn’t normal protocol to talk to others in the simulator, because it took time away from the people they were there to see.
“Yeah, maybe,” he said, still unsure of what to make of Parks, as if he were some sort of unknown species.
“Must be a problem with the system. Looks like all of us are flying solo. Hope they get it worked out soon, because time is limited.”
“Yeah,” the man said, giving him the basic courteous answer before slowly turning and walking off.
“Not the talkative type, I guess,” Parks said. He headed back up the hill, knowing his family would look for him there when they arrived. Halfway up, he stopped by a man sitting on the grass, staring at the building.
“I’m Captain Parks,” he said, offering his hand.
The other man, wearing a nondescript fleet-issue work uniform, looked at his hand and nodded, repeating his name aloud. “Parks.”
“Do you have a name?”
“Yeah. Joseph. Joseph Dance.”
“I can’t tell by the uniform -- are you active duty? Though I guess you must be to be using the simulator.”
“Yeah, active duty.” He waved his hand toward the half dozen other people within sight on the hillside. “We all are. Active duty trying to get out.”
Parks decided to sit down next to Dance to wait. “Yeah, I know the feeling. I’d love to leave my ship and get back home. I’ve been away a long time.”
The man, lost in deep thought, slowly bobbed his head. “Yeah, a long time and a long way out.”
“What ship are you serving on?”
The man looked at him, his thinning brown hair falling into his eyes. He ran his fingers through it to push it back into order atop his creased forehead. He was probably in his early thirties, but his eyes appeared much older. “Ship?”
“Yes, what ship are you serving on?”
Dance looked confused, as if he had never heard the term before. After a moment, his eyes lit up. “The Cosmos.”
“Cosmos? That’s a heavy cruiser, right?”
“Sure,” Dance answered, sounding unconvinced.
“Do you see much action where you are at?” Parks asked.
The man looked confused again. “I’m here with you.”
“No, I mean when you aren’t in the simulator, when you are on your ship. Do you see much of the Kull?”
Dance slowly bobbed his head as he stared at Parks with his green eyes. “Sure.”
Parks sighed. “Must be crazy day here at the SimCom center.”
“Yeah, crazy,” Dance said, turning his attention back to the administration building. “You know what’s crazy, Mr. Parks?”
“Tell me.”
“The Kull. Did you know they had a weapon that could destroy the planet?”
Parks grew curious. “I didn’t.”
“Yeah, it’s a bomb that rips apart matter and uses it as a catalyst to set off a chain reaction of nuclear explosions. One minute you are standing here enjoying the sunshine, and the next minute, your atoms are floating in space.”
Parks stared intently at the man. How did he know of the planet-killing bomb? Was this some sort of trick? And it wasn’t the Kull’s bomb; it was the fleet’s.
“Who told you that?” Parks asked the man, trying to sound nonthreatening.
Dance shrugged. “Lots of people know it now. The Kull, they designed it and were going to use it on us. But then we stole it.”
“We?”
Dance became agitated. “We. The fleet. The good guys. We stole the technology from them.”
“How? We don’t know anything about them or how they communicate or how their computer systems work.”
“I don’t know. That’s beyond my pay grade to know that. All I know is that they designed it and we stole it.”
“What else do you know about it?”
Dance shrugged again. “That it’s bad news for whoever gets bombed first.”
“So the Kull have one?”
Dance shook his head angrily. “I told you, they designed it. We stole the plans, but they created it. Hell yes they have one.”
“You know this for sure?”
“As sure as anything you are told in the fleet. I was told I was going to get out soon, but that hasn’t exactly worked out, has it? I’ve been in for four years now. I think they are lying about sending me home, I really do.”
Parks was unsure of what to do. Did this man really know the Kull had a bomb? But how would the fleet even know how to decode anything it found? No, this wasn’t possible. It had to be one of those fleet rumors that has a tiny kernel of truth to it. Most likely, someone at the fleet research center leaked word about the planet-killer bomb, which got twisted around to it was the Kull’s technology. Based on what most people knew about technology, it would make sense they would assume that only the aliens could come up with something that advanced.
“Someone told me the Kull are like us,” Dance offered, still staring aimlessly at the building below them. “They think like us and look the same.”
Parks was now sure this was a man believing everything someone told him. War did that to people. You were always searching for some sign of hope. If they were like us, maybe they would negotiate. Maybe they wouldn’t drop their doomsday weapon. Maybe everyone could just be friends.
“I don’t think they are like us,” Parks said, pulling himself to his feet.
“Why not?” Dance protested, looking up at him, pushing his hair out of his eyes again.
“Because they don’t talk. They don’t communicate.”
“There are lots of animals that are pretty smart that don’t talk either, at least in ways we understand,” Dance said. “That doesn’t mean they aren’t like us.”
“I don’t think we are the same as animals. We are more intelligent.”
Dance strained to look up at him, squinting his eyes against the bright sun, then shifted his gaze to the administration building. “The Kull probably think the same thing. Especially if they are like us.”
Parks forced a smile. “Thanks for the conversation, Mr. Dance. Good luck on the Cosmos. Perhaps we’ll cross paths for real someday.” Parks secretly hoped that wasn’t the case and walked away.
He meandered down the backside of the hill, wishing the system would fix itself so his family could arrive.
“You lost today?” a woman asked as she approached from behind him.
Parks turned, seeing a woman with dark hair and eyes with a long nose on a narrow face, flanked by deep blue eyes and a wide smile.
He smiled back, pausing his pace so she could catch up. “No, just waiting on someone.”
“No visitors today, by the looks of things,” she said. “Odd that no one got any. Must be something holding everyone up somewhere, or maybe they are all caught in traffic.”
“The transmitter is probably faulty, or we have a bad relay more likely,” Parks said.
“I don’t really know what any of that means,” she said sheepishly. “When it comes to tech, I’m a bit of a Luddite.”
“With all the headaches it causes, sometimes that’s not such a bad thing,” Parks answered, drawing a laugh from her.
“My name is Pam. Pam Sievers. I serve on Stackell Station in the medical department.”
“Pam, nice to meet you,” he said, shaking her hand. “I’m Captain Thomas Parks, commander of the Valkyrie 4, currently on assignment. I’ve been at Stackell Station many times.”
“Oh, wonderful,” she said. “It’s a great assignment, or at least it was.” Her demeanor changed to sadness.
“Was a great assignment?”
“The Kull attack,” she said. “It,” she hesitated, trying to build the strength to tell the story. “It severely damaged the station and killed a lot of people I knew, including my brother and his two daughters. After that, I requested a transfer and was assigned to the Fly.”
Parks was confused. “So you aren’t on Stackell any longer?”
“No, I’m on the Fly.”
“Sorry, I thought you said you were stationed on the Stackell now. And I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you. I’m on the Fly now. I must have misspoke.”
“Oh.”
“Sorry.”
“No big deal, I was just confused.”
They walked in silence for a few moments before she spoke again. “The Fly was my first ship assignment. It was a destroyer escort that had a large medical pod attached to it. We supported a lot of the larger missions, including ones that ventured deep into Kull space.”
“I see,” Parks said, waiting for her to make a point.
“We ran into some serious trouble when several Kull cruiser squadrons hit us at once.” She looked at the grass. “Casualties were heavy, but we survived. All the Kull were either destroyed or self destructed.”
“They’re known for that,” Parks said. “We don’t even know what they look like.”
She looked up at him, a wistful look on her face. “Don’t you think that’s odd?” she asked. “Fighting them all these years, and we’ve never captured one or found a dead one?”
“Well, there was one theory that they were gaseous in nature,” he said, feeling like he was repeating his earlier conversation with Connor. “We know they self destruct both their ships and their suits, if needed, so I guess the thinking now is whatever they are, they are secretive and don’t want us knowing what we are up against.”
“Doesn’t that bother you? Killing the enemy when you don’t even know what the enemy looks like?”
Parks shook his head and looked out across the expanse of grass toward a clump of shade trees that was starting to look inviting now that the temperature was heating up. “No, it doesn’t bother me. I just kill them because they are trying to kill me, and currently, they are what stands between me and rejoining my family.”
“The Fly went really far,” she said.
“What?” he looked at her, but she had a far-off stare and had lost track of their conversation.
“So far,” she said. “Farther than I thought possible. When I started thinking how far away I was from home, my brain started to hurt. Then, things on the Saber got really weird for me.”
“Saber? What happened to the Fly?”
She looked at him, confused. “Fly?”
“The ship you said you were on.”
“I said I was on the Saber.”
Parks rolled his eyes. “Is everyone whacked out today? What the hell is going on around here?”
She shrugged in response. “Nothing is going on around here. You just aren’t listening. I never said I was on the Fly.” She paused, her eyes narrowing. “Are you feeling okay, captain? Perhaps you should get some rest.”
Anger welled up within him as he wanted to reach out and strangle her. “I’m fine, but I think you are the one needing the rest.” He quickly walked away from her, heading back toward the top of the hill, hoping there might be some sign of his family by now.
There was no sign of his family, just a man wearing sunglasses near the bottom of the hill looking up at him.
Parks stared at him, but the man appeared to hold his gaze, never looking away.
“He’s a strange one, that fella,” said an older man who had come up to stand next to him atop the hill. His hair was thin and nothing but white wisps hanging about a wrinkled forehead that had seen many years of stress. His clothes were that of a civilian, but he carried his old frame with the confidence of a man who had seen battle. “All he does is watch, and he takes particular interest in you for some reason.”
“I can’t say I’ve seen him before, though I usually don’t pay that much attention to those around me when my family is here.”
“Well, I can tell you he’s been watching, and he’s always wearing those glasses. Never trust a man who hides his eyes, you know?”
“That’s good advice,” Parks said, glancing back to the man.
“Name’s Joe. Joe Kerstan, or Joker for short.”
“Joker, huh? I like that.”
The man smiled, revealing a row of yellow teeth. “Most people find it amusing. Obviously my mom did, too, though growing up, it wasn’t always the funnest name to have.”
“I can imagine,” Parks said, remembering how cruel young boys can be to their classmates. “You haven’t seen a woman my age or any little kids, perhaps with an older gentleman?”
“Oh, no. No visitors today at all. Not sure why, but that’s what they said..”
“Shit,” Parks muttered. “I don’t get it. I got a request to be here, that someone wanted to talk to me, but no one showed. Now you’re saying no one is visiting?”
“Nope, not a one. And what did you mean that you got a request to be here?”
Parks turned his full attention to Joker, ignoring the strange man in the glasses who continued to stare up at him. “You know, a SimCom request. It lets me know when someone wants to talk to me so I can enter the simulator.”
Joker nodded along. “I see. Sounds like a visitor request to me, but call it what you want.”
“Are you fleet? I thought we all called it the same thing.”
“Ex-fleet, retired,” Joker said. “I was the chief engineering officer on the Trident for almost twenty years. Saw a lot of action on that old bucket and lost a lot of friends along the way.”
“Retired?”
“That’s right. What about you?”
“Active duty. I’m the captain of the Valkyrie 4.”
Joker grunted. “Bad luck to be the captain of a ship with a number. Means the previous attempts didn’t work out so well, though I guess they are bound to get one right eventually, eh?” He snickered.
“If you are retired, how do you have access to this place?”
“Fleet takes care of its own, even those past active duty,” he said, matter-of-factly.
“So you can use this facility whenever you want?”
“Sure. That’s why I’m here. I get a little mixed up at times. They say it’s the space sickness that comes from too much radiation and being a long way from home. But this place helps straighten me out.”
“How does the simulator straighten you out?”
Joker’s eyes narrowed, and he looked slightly confused. “Well, I’m not sure what you are getting at, but … ”
“You visit family here? Your wife, maybe?”
“Wife’s been dead for almost ten years now. My son is grown, but he’s also a fleet man, so he’s usually on deployment.”
“So you come here to talk to your son?”
“Well, it’s more like he comes here to talk to me, but yes.”
Parks relaxed a bit. Joker was starting to make sense, which is more than the other two had done. “Where’s your son deployed?”
“Marcellus Station.”
“Hmm, not familiar with that one.”
“Sort of a backwater assignment, but he says it’s quiet.”
Parks smiled. “Quiet is good.”
“We could all use a little more quiet in our lives. Too much noise gets everyone all mixed up in life, and we forget the difference between right and wrong. That kind of thinking can lead to regret, you know?”
“I do,” Parks said softly.
“Living with regret is one of the hardest things to do. The bigger the regret, the bigger the stone around your neck that you carry each day. Do you have any regrets, captain?”
