Galaxy of Heroes

The Craaldan cruiser appeared minuscule as it drifted in the blackness between massive cratered asteroids. Inside, the console displayed the positions of the dark ships manned by Governor Zegra’s trackers. The ships were moving in quickly now, zooming over the periphery of the asteroid belt, zeroing in on the crippled cruiser.

The trackers had pinpointed its location and were systematically maneuvering for their strike.

Grimes sat up in his chair. “I’ve got a plan,” he said. “Genie-baby, you have got to be the luckiest cyborg babe in the universe. How could you ever have doubted me?”

She looked over at him for a moment. “I’m still doubting you.” No doubt about that, she thought.

Genie was exponentially smarter than Joe, infinitely stronger and of perfect symmetry and design. Nevertheless, she was unable to override the programming that pumped her full of endorphins whenever she was in his presence. To be away from him was to initiate the release of a powerful chemistry that produced a bioelectric despair so profound that every passing moment became unbearably miserable. Joe was the organizing center of her thoughts and emotions and the reason behind her every action. He was the purpose for her existence. This human was her burden and her curse.

How could she have been so unlucky as to be bonded to him?

“Altiva Cantos is a binary star, right?” Grimes asked.

“Yes,” she answered.

“And this ship is a Craaldan Five Cruiser.”

“Your point?”

“I served on one of these cruisers when the Craaldans were subduing the Scartaakel System.”

“Yes,” she said. “So?”

“So, here’s what we do. We fire our remaining engine and rocket out of this asteroid belt, and shoot right between the Altiva and Cantos stars. The trackers won’t expect it because they know we’ve only got one engine and won’t have enough power to escape a binary star’s gravitational field.”

Genie looked at him coolly.

He smiled. His pale blue eyes sparkled. “Zegra’s trackers don’t know that these Craaldan cruisers have hydrogen sails.” He stabbed his hand through the air. “We rocket right between the two stars, shoot out the other side, raise the hydrogen sail and we’re light years away from Governor Zegra’s muscle-bound posse before those knuckleheads can even compute that they’ve been outsmarted by your handsome hero, Sergeant First Class Joe J. Grimes!”

Genie sighed. “First of all, Joe, we’ll be in range of their pulse cannons well before we reach Altiva Cantos. Second, this cruiser is not designed to negotiate the radiation and gravitational stresses between the orbits of binary stars. Third, those stresses will play havoc with my internal systems well before we can even attempt to pass between the two stars. And the radiation and gravity fields will undoubtedly kill you.”

“Trust me, Genie,” Grimes said. “I know it will work.”

“How do you know it will work?”

“I’ve seen it done before. I watched three Craaldan Five Cruisers pass through the Scartaakel binary star while in pursuit of a flotilla of Curundu planetary raiders back when I was with the Craaldan 12th Fleet.”

“Did the crews of these cruisers survive?” she asked.

Grimes shifted in his seat. “There were survivors,” he answered.

His hopeful expression turned to doubt as he recalled the incident in the Scartaakel System more fully. “Two crewmembers made it through alive,” he said. “The rest were incinerated. All that was left of them were glowing lumps of carbon.”

Genie turned to the console in front of her. She ran the numbers on Joe’s plan. As she did this, she searched the computer’s database and found the files for the Scartaakel System traversal that he had mentioned.

Three Class Five cruisers had passed through the Scartaakel binary star just as Joe said. The cruisers were in pursuit of a formation of insurgents that the Craaldan Fleet was attempting to eliminate. The captain of the lead cruiser—a Craaldan with a long history of risk taking—had decided to cut off the insurgents by traversing through the binary star. This risky decision was the Craaldan captain’s last. He was killed during the traversal, along with the crews of his ships. Two cruisers were lost when they were unable to escape the gravitational field of the binary star and were pulled into the solar fire. The third cruiser that made it through had sustained crippling damage. In that cruiser, only two crewmembers survived by sealing themselves inside an empty antimatter containment tube. The two survivors were human captives who were later executed for violating the explicit terms of their impressments, which prohibited such unauthorized actions as trying to save their own hides by sealing themselves inside an empty antimatter containment tube.

“We have four courses of action,” Genie said. “We can surrender to Governor Zegra’s trackers. We can plot an egression from the asteroid belt and be blasted by the tracker’s pulse cannons. We can wait here until the trackers find us and blast us. Or, we can try your plan.”

“I’m all for trying my plan,” Grimes said.

The nearest tracker skimmed the edge of the asteroid belt and fired off a missile that zipped between and around asteroids. The missile zeroed in on its target.

“It’s got a lock,” Grimes said. “Take evasive action.”

“We cannot maneuver without being crushed,” Genie said. “The only evasive action to take is out of the asteroid belt and into the range of their pulse cannons.”

They watched on the console as the missile sped around spinning asteroids toward them. It slammed into the hull of the cruiser with a boom. The violent explosion rocked the ship.

“The cruiser cannot survive another direct hit,” Genie said. “It will break apart.”

Grimes watched the tracker on the console. “He’s circling around,” he said. “His buddies are right behind him. Get us out of here now, Genie.”

Two trackers rocketed just above the edge of the asteroid belt and let loose missiles that twisted and turned between the huge, spinning space rocks.

“Surviving a transversal through a binary star is unlikely,” Genie said. “And if we do survive, your plan is entirely dependent on the hydrogen sail remaining operative. As you know, of the three cruisers that traversed between the Scartaakel binary star, all three lost their engines, and two lost their hydrogen sails. The cruisers that lost their sails were unable to escape the Scartaakel gravitational field.”

“So one cruiser made it,” Grimes said. “That gives us a one in three chance. With a little luck, we’ll make it.”

“Luck being the operative word,” Genie said.

“Genie-baby. Luck is what brought us together.”