Unity

Chapter 32

The bridge was quiet as I pondered our current situation. It was times like this that I missed Admiral Jones' advice, and I couldn't help but think that things would be better if he were in charge. I pulled myself out of my brooding mind and started composing a message to Dr. Thompson. I'm sure he was as tired as everyone else, so I decided to send a message instead of calling. I wanted to make our battleships more effective in fighting the Zrynt. I decided that having jump drives installed would provide a great tactical advantage. I wrote up the message asking Dr. Thompson to look into integrating the drives into the current battleship design. I sent the message and cleared the screens in front of me.

I was watching the bridge crew quietly go about their shift. The lights seemed to flicker for a split second, I would have blamed it on my tired state, if not for the other confused faces in the room. The lights flickered again, this time more noticeably. I had never seen the lights so much as dim, let alone go out. I had a hollow feeling in my gut, telling me something was wrong. "I want a full system diagnostic now," I commanded. "Call down to the engine room and have them check power output from the reactors and make sure the cores are still available as backup power." I stood up and walked to one of the stations that was displaying the diagnostic data.

"Power grid is functioning normally," the technician replied. "No interruptions have been reported." The lights flickered again.

"How do you explain that?" I demanded, pointing up, but the technician shrugged and began going over the data again.

I was walking back to my chair when I heard someone call out. "Captain," said the communications officer, "we have an incoming message from one of the Tuleeririan ships."

"Put it on the main screen," I said, standing up.

The screen showed a smiling Zalix. "Hello Admiral," he greeted me coldly. "I would like to thank you for your service to the Tuleeriri, but I have one final task for you. You are going to kill Queen Shaniir and the rest of the council. We have been weak for far too long, and It's time somebody with vision took over to lead us to glorious victory over the Zrynt. This is where you come in. I need somebody to blame for our Queen's untimely death. Who better than an alien pest? As I'm sure you have discovered there are some strange things happening on your ship. Don't worry; you will live long enough to see all your hard work come to an end. Good day Admiral." The message ended.

I had a hard time processing what had just been said. I sat down in my chair, and I instinctively knew something was wrong. The chair should have had the same displays up as it did when I stood up. Instead, there was a black screen. Having been forewarned, I immediately vacated the seat. I could feel the discharge of energy as the seat's defense mechanism activated. I was locked out of the captain's seat.

"Sir, one of the forward missile batteries is being armed!" the weapons officer yelled. "It's targeting the Tuleeririan palace."

I swore loudly, which caught many off guard. "Get us out of here," I commanded. "If we go, at least we won't take a whole planet with us." A couple of seconds later, I felt the ship lurch. "Please tell me that was the jump drive."

This time it was the navigations officer who spoke. "Sir, we were able to jump about three billion klicks from Narrisal before we were stopped." As he finished speaking, everything shut down. I looked through the gloom of the emergency lights.

"Is everyone alright?" I asked. Several people started calling out. "It appears the artificial gravity is still on. Can anyone confirm the status of our life support?"

A marine was stationed near one of the vents and held out his hand in front of it. "Air is still flowing through the vents sir," he reported.

At least for now, I thought to myself. I knew we didn't have much time. "You are all to stay here and try to get access to the main systems. I know the consoles are dead, so you'll have to get creative." As everyone started pulling off panel walls, I went back to the commander's chair. I knew that if I could gain access again, we would be able to fight back, so I took the floor panel to the left of the chair off. All those months of studying the Unity's design specs were finally paying off. I removed the shielding panel and froze. It looked like an army of ants had invaded. I knew those were no ants though. There was only one thing that could have spread like this. "Sergeant," I called out. He was quickly at my side.