Battlenaut Crucible

Chapter 6-2

Scott stowed his gear in the billet and followed Donna across the Sun Tzu to the Command Deck. When the big double blast doors swept open before them, Scott started forward...then froze, instantly disoriented.

The chamber in front of him looked like it was open to space. Instead of walls, floor, and ceiling, he saw stars and darkness all around. Instead of floor-mounted chairs in front of wall-mounted consoles, black-uniformed crew members floated in antigravity harnesses, surrounded by holographic controls in all the colors of the rainbow. He knew only one person in the room--Vic Fong, who seemed to have more control holos around him than anyone else.

As Scott took it all in, he had chills; he'd never seen anything like it. The command decks he'd been on in the past had all been crowded, cramped, and packed with equipment. This one, on the other hand, looked like something a hyper-advanced alien civilization might have installed on an intergalactic vessel.

Donna bumped his shoulder, snapping him out of his reverie. "Pretty cool, huh?"

"That's putting it mildly," said Scott.

"CORE gets all the best toys." Donna giggled. "And we put 'em to good use."

"This is way beyond anything else I've seen in the fleet." Scott shook his head. "What if the Rightfuls got hold of it?"

"Not a prob," said Donna. "We've got self-destruct systems you wouldn't believe. Not that we'd ever need them, the way this baby handles."

Just then, the blast doors shot open behind them, and Scott heard footsteps and a familiar voice.

It was Perseid. "It's time, people!" He brushed past Scott and Donna without acknowledging them and headed for the center of the Command Deck. When he stopped walking, a circle of white light pulsed to life under his feet. "Launch in five minutes!"

Without being asked, the crew members floating in their mid-air harnesses shouted out status updates in quick succession. Some of the updates were familiar to Scott, but others were new, referring to things he'd never heard of before.

Finally, Vic Fong spoke up. "Negative mass drive ready. Maneuvering thrusters ready."

"Engage thrusters." Perseid waved a hand in front of him, and several holos appeared. From where Scott stood, they looked like an assortment of readouts and monitors. "Take us out to launch distance."

"Aye, sir." As Fong said it, the starscape started sliding past all around. The ship was moving forward, away from planet Ovid, in preparation for full-blown launch.

"Hey, Solomon." Donna leaned close to Scott and kept her voice low. "Ever watch a star-jump from up front like this?"

Scott looked around at the scene drifting past, as if the prow of the ship were transparent. "Not like this."

She elbowed him in the side. "Then you're in for a treat."

"Coming up on one minute," said Fong. "And mark."

A red digital countdown appeared in midair at the front of the room. It was already whipping through seconds, racing toward zero.

As the countdown continued, Scott heard a low hum building. The decking beneath his feet--solid enough though it showed an image of the starry space outside the ship--began to vibrate with quickly increasing strength.

"Thirty seconds!" said Fong.

"You'd better hold on to something," whispered Donna, and then she took Scott's hand. "Trust me on this."

"Ten seconds!" said Fong. "Nine...eight...seven..."

"Charge the grid," said Perseid. "Position masses."

"Grid charged," shouted one crew member.

"Optimum mass positioning achieved," shouted another.

Meanwhile, Fong kept counting. "Four...three...two...one..."

"Launch!" said Perseid.

Suddenly, the starscape seemed to explode. The darkness of space bloomed with millions of streaks of light, the distended tracks of stars surging past the hurtling ship. Each streak was a spectrum unto itself, running from nearby blue to distant red.

The view was beautiful, something Scott had never seen in quite the same way before. His heart pounded, and chills dashed up his spine; he felt as if there were no ship around him at all, as if he were sailing through the cosmos under his own power, drinking in the magnificence of the universe.

Just then, Donna squeezed his hand, reminding him she was there. "See?" Her breath was warm in his ear. "Didn't I tell you it was better to hold on to something?"

Scott smiled at her, watching as the multicolored light of the passing stars played over her face. He had to admit, she was cute...and the hand-holding had been a good sign. But he knew he should get his footing among the Diamondbacks before jumping into anything.

"What a view." As he said it, he let go of her hand. "It really takes your breath away."

"People say they get used to it," said Donna. "But I never do. I bet you'll feel the same way." She smiled, and her eyes drifted up to meet his.

Scott swallowed. He thought he should look away, but her gaze held his in place as if with magnets.

Fortunately, Fong's voice broke the mood. "We are now underway, sir. Shall we maintain the heading you requested earlier?"

"Affirmative," said Perseid. "Best possible speed to Shard, in the Veda system."

"Aye, sir." Fong's fingers flew over the holo controls glowing and blinking around him. He spun around in his antigrav harness, worked a bank of holos behind him, then spun back around to face forward again. "Estimated time of arrival is 72 hours from now."

"Excellent." Perseid stepped off his glowing disk, and the light at his feet went out. "That gives us more than enough time to get our Marine friend fit to fight." He turned and smirked in Scott's direction.

Scott frowned. Since when was he not fit to fight? He'd been fighting the civil war for the past nine months, ever since the first shots were fired.

Perseid strolled over and stood stiffly in front of him. "What do you say, Corporal? Ready to give one of our Battlenauts a try? We're sure as flux not putting you in the middle of a hotzone without armor."

Scott nodded. "I'm fully rated on all combat armor, sir."

"No you're not." Perseid smirked and shook his head. "Believe me, you're not."

Donna laughed, and so did half the Command Deck crew. Scott got a sinking feeling in his belly as he wondered what the hell was so funny.

"Driving a tin can is one thing." Perseid put a hand on Scott's shoulder and led him toward the doors. "Driving a high performance piece of bleeding edge super-tech equipment is something else entirely."

Scott was annoyed and trying not to show it. "Is that so?"

The doors opened, and Perseid guided him through. "You know how to crawl, Corporal. Now it's time to get your scudge together and learn how to run."