A Sword Among Others

By J. L. Young

The ship shuddered. Then the co-pilot’s voice thundered into my earpiece. I winced at the sudden aural onslaught. “Captain, we’re under attack!”

“On my way,” I replied and pulled myself out of my bunk. With practiced movements, I put myself into my armored EVA suit. “Simone, open an encrypted priority channel to command.”

“Comm channel open.”

“Command, we have engaged the enemy. Repeat, we have engaged the enemy.” I tapped my wrist computer and continued, “Current location, four hundred thousand kilometers from the target. The enemy parameter has expanded beyond the third planet’s moon.” I closed the channel. “I hope they get that.”

Another shudder and the hull creaked loudly. “Simone, damage report?!”

“Engines three and four are unresponsive. One is intermittent. Ordinance sensors are inoperable. We’re hemorrhaging atmosphere in the aft section.”

I looked aft. The dorsal corridor looked visibly twisted. I called the engineer, “Marisa, do you read?”

Her comm activated automatically. I could hear flames. “Marisa, reply.” A high pitch squeak attacked my ear, followed by silence.

“Mauro, do you read?” I called our cook.

“I read you, Cap.”

“Get to the engine room. Check on Marisa.”

“On it.”

I continued climbing forward toward the bridge. Another shudder wracked the ship, inciting a metallic moan from the frame. The rupturing bulkheads sent reverberations that threw me to the deck. The artificial gravity plating reversed polarity and slammed me into the overhead before shorting out.

After coming to, this section of the ship had depressurized. We weren’t moving. I made it to the flight deck, or what’s left of it. I found Simone, dead. The nose of the ship took the brunt of the impact. Volatile fuel was leaking from the starboard pod. My fervent calls to the remaining crew went unanswered. Frustrated, I stumbled from the wreckage.

I wasn’t far when the remaining ordinance blew, sending shrapnel. Two pieces of hull hit me as I turned. I fell and witnessed the ship erupt in flame. The flames danced and diminished. I struggled to remain conscious as shock settled in.

When I came to, I was drawing from the oxygen reserve. It was laborious to move. The emergency seals around the wounds held. Debris, like fangs, had penetrated deep, one in my chest and the other in my thigh. The suit automatically administered an analgesic. I found my feet. The wound and the regolith made it difficult to walk.

Lights appeared on the horizon. I grabbed for my sidearm. My heart ached. It wasn’t there. Not long after, the lights found me. As my fingers found the suit interface at my wrist. The purposely complex button sequence to initiate suicide was time-consuming. A boot pressed my arm into the regolith and a weapon pressed against my visor. I offered resistance, but it proved futile. I was forced into the back of a rover. There, I was stripped of my suit, frisked, and chemically restrained.

Despite my flaccid state, I could see I was transferred through a hardened umbilical into a facility. Ports presented the picture of a gray desert. A white woven fibrous sleeve filled with a flesh and blood arm had taken a portion of my weight and that of a litter.

The anesthesia wore off. It surprised me at first. My eyes opened, and I looked at my surroundings. Depressingly gray and rough vacuum-cured concrete, possibly many meters in thickness, made a three-meter by three-meter room. A thick vacuum-tight hatch painted black and yellow was built into one of them.

My hands were restrained. I pulled at the gown and revealed the debris had been surgically removed. Only bandages remained. I replaced the garment as the hatch unlatched and opened. A man entered, followed by one that bore the weight of authority. Familiar faces, familiar only in that the beings wearing them were the same species as me.

My confusion was no doubt written on my face. “What is this?”

“That is what I want to know. I am Major Garrett Archdeacon. We studied the debris from your ship. Who are you, and what was your target?”

“I am Captain Horus Beck. I am a sword among others.”

“Are we at war?”

My confusion deepened. “We have been for centuries. You aren’t what I expected.”

“What did you expect?”

“Basilisks. That’s what we call them. They’re aliens from who knows where. Serpentine, with massive mouths full of teeth and cybernetic arms strong enough to crush the very life from your body. History is written that four hundred years ago, the Basilisks came to Earth to colonize her. Humans became refugees. You’re not a Basilisk.”

“Your capacity for observation is astounding, Captain.”

“The Basilisks aren’t a joke, Major.”

“Neither is an armed spaceborne vessel approaching this facility. What was your target, Captain?”

“I am Captain Horus Beck. I am a sword among others.”

“Four hundred years?” The Major struck the hatch twice. It opened. “We’ll talk again soon, Captain.”

The guard closed the hatch behind him as the Major approached a tall being. Its skin was the color of onyx and shimmered in the artificial light. “He has divulged no significant intel. The Captain will break.”

The being’s permanent and insidious smile separated. It raised a black chrome hand before itself. “A Captain, how fortunate. You might make Colonel yet.”