The Scalian Legacy

Jack didn’t know how much power was in that battery or even what would happen if he pulled it out of the slot he had placed it in and then put it back in, but given the situation it seemed worth the attempt. And it worked! The Pendoran fighter simply rebooted itself again and performed the same commands it had been programmed to perform. This time the blast vaporized the hangar bay floor and at least a few levels below it, causing the fighter to fall into the hole it had created within The Seguura. Jack could not have hoped for any better.

To prevent what happened to him the first time, Jack held on tight to that same grip he used while he was in zero gravity when he placed the battery back in. He was still bounced around a bit, but at least he didn’t lose consciousness. He now dangled from the grip in complete darkness. It was now time to find a computer terminal.

Jack slowly maneuvered himself downward until he stood on the front window of the fighter, which now also acted as the floor. He quickly took off his suit. He was drenched in sweat and couldn’t be happier about taking this thing off, finally. However, Jack soon realized he had new challenges. Not only was he in complete darkness, but he also had no idea how deep into The Seguura he had fallen. His preparation of memorizing the schematics of the ship seemed rather useless now. Jack tried to orient himself, so he could find the manual door lock to at least get out of the fighter.

Then, Jack remembered his FPE gun had a small light on it. He took out the FPE gun from his pocket. The solid blue light on top of the FPE gun wasn’t very bright, but in the complete darkness around him, it was quite effective. Jack made his way to the manual door lock and forced the door open in the way he had briefly been shown. However, the door would not open fully. It was crashing into something. Jack shone the light into the area, and he could see the opening appeared big enough for him to get out. Except that the opening was above him, instead of below, because of the fighter’s orientation.

Using what little leverage he had available, Jack climbed up the side of the opening. Soon he was able to get to the top, which should have been the bottom of the ramp door. He pulled himself up and could just barely see that the blast had cut through several levels of what appeared to be rooms within the Scalian ship. As Jack exited the fighter, he was hit with a strong odor of burnt metal and other substances he could not easily identify. His eyes began to water from the smell and dust as he stepped down into what appeared to be a small bedroom: half of a bed seemed to have been turned into ashes and there was debris from the upper levels all about.

Jack sensed he was breathing in some materials and covered his face with his right forearm to protect his nose and mouth. He pushed debris out of the way and searched in the darkness for anything resembling a computer terminal. Jack remembered that Scalian rooms were all supposed to be equipped with a computer, but he struggled to find one. He tried to exit the room, but without power he couldn’t get the door open.

Then, Jack noticed a reflection at the far end of the room. He quickly maneuvered towards it. He moved what seemed to be a piece of a wall from in front of the reflective object. It was a computer terminal and it was smashed pretty badly, but Jack didn’t actually need to see anything, so it may still suffice as long as the backend connections weren’t damaged.

Jack took out the nanobots out of his pocket. He remembered that the connections for this particular model would be just behind the terminal. He separated the damaged terminal from the wall and placed the nanobots in position. Jack found it amazing to see the wiggling wires test out each cable, fusing into it and the disconnecting and moving to the next. After performing this procedure on several cables, the nanobots ceased to continue to try. It wasn’t working. Why?

Of course! Jack thought. There’s no power. The nanobots can’t determine which cable is the right one if they can’t get any feedback from it.

Jack tried to decide whether to move on and look for an area of the ship that still had power, or wait. There was no way of knowing when power would be restored.

The bridge of The Seguura was circular and sat atop of the great battlecruiser. The roof of the bridge and curved walls down to the floor consisted of a reflective glass, providing a clear 360 degree view of the surrounding space, while remaining opaque to outside viewers. The inner part of the bridge was also circular with stairs on one side leading down to a turbo lift opening and eight fully staffed stations with seats facing outward towards the windows. The stations had waist-high touchscreen displays and input panels as well as holographic displays at eye level. Aside from the individual station holographic displays, there was also a larger holographic display just off center and in front of the captain’s chair, which could swirl around 360 degrees. However, Rauug was not sitting in his chair.

Rauug was nervously pacing. He knew Admiral Tarza was on his way to the bridge, and he did not want to have to keep giving him bad news. “What’s taking so long to get power restored to that section?” Rauug yelled at his communications officer, Yurg. Rauug stared at the large holographic display in front of him that was showing a large section of his ship. A square section of the display was missing, as if the ship had a big square hole in the middle.

“They are rerouting the backup distribution center now. It should be …”

Yurg stopped as the holographic display changed. Instead of a large square hole, there was now an only slightly smaller jagged, cone-shaped hole, with a Pendoran fighter at the bottom of it.

“Power has been restored, sir,” Yurg concluded.

“Life signs?” Rauug said.

“They are coming in now,” Gargke replied.

The holographic display in front of Rauug changed to show the life signs detected. The area was mostly devoid of life. The hologram showed a handful of faint life sign signals from injured or dying Scalians and one strong non-Scalian life sign in the room next to the Pendoran fighter.

“What kind of life form is that?” Rauug asked.

“It’s registered in the system as ‘old human’ and is noted as an enemy,” Gargke said. “Once he enters an area that doesn’t have a damaged defense system, he will be automatically targeted.”

“Old human?” Rauug swallowed dryly. He realized that there was a chance this “old human” was somehow his fault, although he couldn’t imagine how. Rauug could see Scalians beginning to converge from several areas around the damaged section, but debris and missing sections of the ship seemed to be impeding progress. “How long until our guards can get to him?” he said.

“Squad twenty-six seems to be closest,” Gargke responded. “The commander says that he should be there in a few minutes. He’s in section…What? Are you sure?” Gargke had received new information on a separate channel.

“What’s going on, Gargke?” Rauug asked nervously.

“I just received word from Space Fort Three that section D47 of our shield has been lowered and the Pendorans are entering!” Gargke replied.

“What?” Rauug’s nervousness became nearly paralyzing. “Have them close it up immediately! How did this happen?”

“They are working on it, but the command was locked in. It will take a minute.” Gargke continued to listen to the separate channel. “They say the command came from The Seguura! From terminal 334.”

“That terminal is located in the room where the old human is now,” Yurg called out.

“Lock that terminal immediately and suspend access to remote commands,” Rauug ordered.

“Already done, sir,” Yurg replied.

Just then Tarza burst into the bridge with his two aides. “Your ship is a mess, Rauug!” he yelled. “Why did it take so long to get the power back on? I couldn’t get through to the bridge without rerouting several times.”

“Sir, section D47 of the shield is down and the Pendorans have entered.” Rauug winced as he completed the rest of his quick update: “The command was initiated by the intruder. We have locked him out.”

The bridge turned eerily silent all at once as everyone looked to see what Tarza would do. Tarza did not seem to either become upset or distraught. He actually became calmer and slowly moved towards Rauug.

“I will take it from here, captain.”

And with that Tarza assumed command of Rauug’s proud ship. Rauug breathed deeply and moved to the side to allow Tarza to move to the center of the room. The motion was more symbolic than anything else, but it pained Rauug nonetheless.

Tarza issued his first command. “Yurg, open an emergency channel with all command centers.”

“Done,” Yurg responded almost immediately.

“All, we are under attack,” Tarza began evenly. “Execute Formation Delta and launch all fighters. Protect The Seguura at all costs as we complete project Redemption.”

“But, sir, the paradoxes,” Hargue said. Tarza just raised his hands and shook his head. He knew the risk, but there was no choice now. Completing the mission was now much more important than avoiding the paradoxes. If they didn’t complete the mission, they would likely never get another chance.

“Gargke, execute command sequence Redemption,” Tarza ordered. “It’s time to end this.”

“Started, sir,” Gargke said. “Sir, more ships are entering through section D47!”

“Yes, I’m sure it will be the entire local fleet,” Tarza replied without expressing much concern. “They do not have enough time to stop us. We just need to focus on completing our tasks.”

“Sir, command sequence Redemption has ended in error!” Gargke reported.

“What?” Tarza’s voice finally seemed to express some concern. “Why?”

“The repulsion system was deactivated by the intruder prior to him opening section D47.” Gargke replied. “I will have the command overridden in a couple of minutes, sir.”

“Excellent,” Tarza said. “Then, we are still on schedule,” he added, once again in a calm fashion. “Now, show me the attack ships coming into our protected zone. Let’s see what they have in mind.”