Red Survivor Mission Chronicles Box Set 2 Read online

  He had not known until we were already on the transport ship that Watts had asked Ensign Marchant to accompany us.

  “Line up!” Captain Marchant said, issuing an order that none of us had heard since our days at the FEDE Academy. The others all exchanged glances before they got in line.

  The captain glared at me, so I lined up at their head.

  It was a petty move from a petty man.

  “I want a full report,” Captain Marchant said to me, “and you better not leave anything out.”

  So I told him what happened, again, detailing how we were attacked and how we later discovered that the rodents were mere illusions created by a much smaller species of rodent, and how we had brought back the surviving colonists with us.

  “I am most disappointed in you,” Captain Marchant said, “you should not have opened fire on those rodents, even though it later turned out that they were fake, you had no way of knowing they weren’t sentient.”

  I bit my tongue to keep from saying anything because Captain Marchant was looking for anything he could use to rake us over the coals, and he wanted me to say something to give him further ammunition.

  I was not going to let that happen.

  Marchant looked us over, his eyes focusing on me. I stood with my back ramrod straight and my face forward, trying to channel my inner cadet from back at the academy. Just as Marchant opened his mouth, no doubt to continue his criticism of our mission, the alarm blared, and all of our handheld tablets went crazy with notifications.

  2

  Captain Marchant pulled out his tablet and spoke into it. “Ensign Redding, what’s going on up there?”

  There was no response.

  “Captain,” Redding finally said a moment later, “I’m not quite sure. One moment, everything was just fine, in the next, we were surrounded by Plethki ships.”

  The Captain and I exchanged a glance.

  “I will be right there,” Captain Marchant said, running for the lift.

  “As you were,” I said to the others while following after him.

  Before I got to the door of the shuttle bay, I turned back to Doctor Cleverly. “Make sure you sedate that rodent.”

  The doctor almost rolled her eyes. “Of course.”

  “I don’t think you can be too careful,” I said through clenched teeth. “If you suspect anything out of the ordinary, or see anything that looks suspicious, you should not trust it.”

  “Noted,” Cara said while kneeling down and beginning to run a scan. “The creature is completely unconscious, whatever happened down there, it is fully out. I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”

  “Good to know,” I said as I dashed into the lift, which had already disappeared with Captain Marchant before returning. Ensign Marchant, Ensign Johnson, and Security Officer Watts were already there.

  3

  The bridge was in total chaos when we got off the lift. Watts relieved his subordinate and tried to take control of the situation while Captain Marchant screamed at Ensign Redding for another report.

  I looked at the viewscreen and saw that we were facing a group of Plethki ships.

  Ten. More uncloaked. Make that twenty.

  “Hail the closest ship,” Marchant said. “Tell them we are a peacekeeping vessel, dedicated to scientific discovery, and that we are not part of the war effort.”

  “Captain,” I interjected, “are you sure that’s wise?”

  “Do you have a better idea, Commander?”

  “Remind them how we transported the ambassador to the peace talks. We should claim diplomatic status.”

  “Do you see the ambassador with us?”

  “Obviously not, but they don’t know that. We must play that up to protect ourselves.”

  “Thank you, Commander. Do you have any other helpful advice you can offer, or do I have your permission to focus on resolving the situation in a way that will work?”

  “Captain,” Ensign Redding said, her voice high-pitched in alarm. “They have fired torpedoes.”

  “Shields up!” Marchant put a hand out when he saw that I was about to open my mouth again. “Advice is the last thing I need from you, Commander. I suggest you take your seat and stay out of the way.”

  My face went red. Captain Marchant looked at me and then looked at Watts as if he was thinking of ordering Watts to arrest me.

  I clapped my mouth shut and shook my head as I sat down, muttering under my breath as I did.

  Marchant’s eyebrows rose, but he didn’t comment on it.

  “Brace for impact in five seconds,” Ensign Marchant called out.

  I grabbed the arms of my seat, while Captain Marchant stepped forward and took hold of the back of Ensign Redding’s chair.

  A moment later, the torpedoes detonated and the ship rocked.

  “All systems are fine,” Redding said. “Looks like it was sent as a warning.”

  “Send out an encrypted distress call,” Marchant said, “include all the information we know about the ships.”

  “Yes, Captain, I am sending out the distress call now.”

  “Have we had any response from the Plethki?”

  “No.”

  I pulled out my full-size tablet and studied the information on my screen, wondering why the Plethki had appeared out of nowhere. There was now a total of fifty Plethki ships, which was surprising, considering that the last I had heard the Plethki were thinly spread.

  “Fifty ships in one place,” I muttered under my breath. “That’s impossible.”

  “Commander!”

  I looked up to see Marchant standing in front of me. “I want you off the bridge now. You contribute nothing. You add nothing.”

  “Sir?”

  “Off the bridge now!”

  I stared at Marchant for a long moment, then took my tablet and left.

  4

  I seethed as I stepped out of the lift. I had even obeyed his order and had taken my seat and said nothing. In the heat of the moment, it had seemed like my only option was to leave but I wasn’t sure if I had made the right choice.

  Marchant had looked ready to murder me if I didn’t obey. It was as if all the pent-up anger over his son were about to be released. Fear had likely overwhelmed him too, and while it had seemed like the right decision to go, had I just sealed our doom?

  It was impossible to forget how close he had come to killing us all in a vain effort to rescue his estranged son.

  I pulled up my tablet and looked again at the Plethki ship formation, but was surprised to see that there was nothing there.

  I rechecked the display, just to make sure that my eyes were telling the truth, but it seemed as if all the Plethki ships had disappeared.

  I pressed the communicator button on my tablet. “Redding, can you confirm that all the ships are gone?”

  There was no response. I tried again, but she ignored me.

  Who wouldn’t after a scene like that with the captain?

  Cursing under my breath, I went back up to the bridge using the lift. When I got out, the situation was much as it had been before.

  “Load torpedo bays one through five,” Marchant yelled, “if we die, we’re going out in a blaze of glory.”

  I assumed this last part was meant to rally the troops, but it only made them more afraid.

  I brought up my tablet and saw that the ships were all back.

  “Very interesting,” I muttered as I stepped back inside the lift and went down to the next level. When I got off, my tablet’s display was the same as it had been before I had returned to the bridge.

  There were no Plethki ships.

  “Is it all in our heads?”

  I headed towards the infirmary.

  5

  “Doctor Cleverly,” I said as I walked into the infirmary. “Can you confirm that the rodent is still sedated?”

  Cara looked up from the examination table where the rodent was laid out before her.

  “Quiet,” Cara said. “I’m trying to save this thing’s life! Didn’t you guys say it was sentient?”

  I came closer and studied the rodent. Its eyes were open, but they had glazed over. Its mouth was ajar and its tongue hung out to the side.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m trying to pump it up with liquids, hoping that will make a difference.”

  “Are you sure that’s the right thing to do?”

  “Do you have any better ideas?” Cara snapped, her words an echo of Captain Marchant’s. I poked the rodent, it did not respond.

  It looked like it was out.

  Appearances can be deceiving with these things.

  I shook my head and wondered if I shouldn’t just kill the creature.

  “If you do that again, Commander,” Cara said, “I’m going to ask you to leave.”

  “I just touched it.”

  “It’s blood pressure spiked and it almost had a heart attack. Don’t do that again!”

  I stared down at little creature and felt like this whole situation was spinning out of control. Things were not what they seemed, and I didn’t like it one bit.

  6

  When the door to the bridge opened again, I stepped out of the lift and into chaos that was even worse than it had been.

  “Ensign Redding,” Captain Marchant said, “fire torpedoes one through five at the closest Plethki ship!”

  The torpedoes zipped away in rapid succession on the viewscreen in front of us.

  The Plethki ship exploded, pieces flying everywhere.

  “That should not have happened,” I said aloud. Nobody seemed to have heard.

  I approached Watts.

  “Watts,” I said, whispering into his ear to avoid drawing the attention of Captain Marchant. “Does anything about this seem off to yo
u?”

  “The whole thing is a terrific mess. What doesn’t seem a little off?”

  “I think our little rodent friend is at it again. I’m going to need your help.”

  He looked at me as if I were crazy. “I’m sorry, I would like to help, but I just can’t, not when we’re facing things like this.”

  “Even if it’s all pretend?”

  Watts opened his mouth, looked at the screen, and then looked at me. “Can you prove it?”

  “Come with me. You’ll be gone for less than twenty seconds. I promise.”

  Watts and I stepped into the lift together and descended to the floor below. When we got out, I gave him my tablet.

  “Take a look.”

  “Oh crap,” Watts said. “They just fired twenty torpedoes at us.” He disappeared into the lift and went back up to the bridge. When I looked at my tablet, I saw that the ships were back.

  Smart little critter, isn’t it?

  I stepped back into the lift and went up.

  I emerged just as the torpedoes hit.

  7

  For the briefest moment, I wondered if my analysis was incorrect as alarms blared and the ship shook, and the chaos grew worse. However, the very fact that the ship still stood after being hit by so many torpedoes gave away the game.

  There was no way that we could survive so many Plethki torpedoes.

  Furthermore, Captain Marchant destroying a Plethki warship with our light torpedoes was equally unbelievable.

  They would see it if they just took a moment to think.

  I surveyed the room, hoping that others would come to the same conclusion as me, but the blaring alarm seemed to sound even louder as I tried to find anybody to help pierce this illusion. I returned to Watts who looked up as I approached.

  “Thanks to you, we’ve been hit by so many torpedoes that is it only by luck that we are still alive.”

  Rather than answer him, I went past, looking for somebody else. Ensign Johnson or Ensign Marchant might be able to help pierce through this fog.

  Johnson was not on the bridge, but I spotted Ensign Tonya Marchant at a station that was usually unmanned.

  “Ensign Marchant,” I said quietly but she did not respond. I tapped her on the shoulder. This time she turned around.

  “What is it, Commander?”

  Her eyes narrowed. She glanced at Captain Marchant but didn’t rat me out.

  “Does anything about the situation seem a little strange to you?”

  “I dunno, I don’t have much experience on the bridge.”

  “Think about it. We were just hit by over twenty Plethki torpedoes. Shouldn’t we be dead?”

  “I don’t know, Commander.”

  “Listen to your instincts, what do they tell you?”

  “They tell me that something is wrong.”

  “Like this is all an illusion?” I prompted.

  She nodded.

  “And what did we just bring onto the ship that can cause illusions?”

  “That’s impossible. The thing was unconscious. I saw the top of its head. It had—”

  “A gunshot wound that it impossibly survived. Sound familiar to you?”

  Marchant swallowed. “I see what you mean, sir.”

  It seemed like it galled her to add “sir” on at the end.

  I was certain now my suspicion was correct, so I took a gamble.

  “Go tell your father what is going on. I think you are the only one he will listen to.”

  Ensign Marchant’s eyes grew big, but she did not try to deny her affiliation with Marchant.

  “I’m not sure—”

  “Your father just fired five torpedoes into empty space. Don’t you want to save him further embarrassment?”

  Ensign Tonya Marchant nodded.

  8

  As Ensign Marchant walked up to Captain Marchant, I couldn’t help but feel a thrill at having confirmed that she was his daughter. When Marchant looked over at her, his eyes did not narrow as they might have if a different subordinate had approached during a situation like this. Instead, he protectively put an arm around her.

  Double confirmed, I thought, he slipped up.

  I watched as the two brought their heads close together. Tonya spoke urgently while pointing at the screen.

  Then she turned and pointed at me.

  Captain Marchant’s eyes narrowed but he didn’t order me off of the bridge again as I had feared.

  Instead, he approached.

  “It seems we have been bamboozled,” Captain Marchant said gruffly as if he were trying to think of a way to make it seem like this was all his idea. He stared at me, as if not wanting to say what he was gonna say next, but he finally did. “Is that your assessment of the situation as well—” there was an uncomfortable pause “—Commander?”

  He acted as if he expected me to let him have it, but I just nodded.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Captain Marchant clapped his hands and turned away. “Listen up, everybody. We have all been taken in! We have been suckered by an illusion.”

  “Captain,” Redding said, “the Plethki have just launched another volley of torpedoes at us. It is their largest yet.”

  Marchant licked his lips and nodded without looking back at me. “Shields down.”

  “Sir?”

  “You heard me, Ensign Redding. Shields down.”

  Redding gave me a dirty look as if I was at fault, but then she did as the captain ordered.

  “Ten seconds until contact,” Redding said.

  “Five seconds until contact.”

  “Contact.”

  The ship shook, the alarms blared, the screen flashed, but nothing else happened.

  We were alive.

  “It would seem, Commander,” Captain Marchant said, “that we are correct in our assessment.” He gave me a look as if daring me to challenge him.

  I nodded. “It does indeed, sir.”

  9

  Captain Marchant, Security Officer Watts, and I all walked into the infirmary together.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” Captain,” Cara said breathlessly. “This thing, this creature, it’s just hanging onto life. I’ve never dealt with something like this before.”

  “Step away from the rodent,” Captain Marchant said. “That is in order.”

  “You don’t understand, Captain, it is seconds away from death. It’s amazing it’s held on so long.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with the rodent,” I said, coming around to the side of Cara, stooping until she looked me in the eye. “It’s an illusion. That’s what this rodent does. Ask the others.”

  Cara stepped back and looked at Captain Marchant, who nodded. Watts did as well.

  “We just saw some of the craziest illusions you could ever imagine,” Watts said, “none of it was real.”

  “But it’s... so believable.”

  “Yes,” Captain Marchant said, “but it is all an illusion. Step away from the rodent.”

  After a deep breath, Cara took another step backward, and we all looked down. The rodent still looked dead, but then it grew in size, looming over us in the infirmary.

  10

  They stepped back. I stepped closer. I poked the engorged rodent. My hand pierced through the illusion as I touched its flesh. I remembered how a fake rodent back on the planet had attacked me, and it had seemed like I was going to be scratched up afterward but I had been fine.

  It had all been in my head.

  I ripped my hand back. “The kracked thing bit me!”

  The illusion disappeared. The rodent was alive and healthy, without the wound on top of its head.

  “You pretended that I hit you in the head, hoping for what?”

  The image of the man that Watts and I had seen before reappeared. “I came to give my message in person since I was sure it would be lost in translation.”

  “Then why have you been messing with us?

  The man smiled, a wicked look crossing his face. “I needed to get your attention, didn’t I? If you guys leave us alone, we’ll leave you alone.”

  “That’s not gonna fly,” Captain Marchant muttered under his breath while stepping towards Cara and saying something I did not catch.