Ultima

May 13, 2167

New Substance Found!

Guntar, Fellion Kingdom – Race leaders have gathered today to announce a historic finding. A substance some have labelled a super element has been discovered in an asteroid field inside of Fellion territory. The properties of this element are still unknown but the Rynec believe that it may be the same substance the ancient, extinct Cravens used to power their ships and colonies.

“We don’t want to make any assumptions yet,” Rynec’s Chief of the Sciences, Wal’Ken, said. “Further study is needed as we check our records.”

If it is the same element, this could move technology forward 200-300 years. We would be able to travel between star systems instead of our current method of wormhole jumping. Space travel could be more pleasant for the common citizen and no longer be restricted to those that pass the necessary physicals. Not to mention what this substance could do to terraforming projects and colonization.

“It’s too early to start dreaming of what we could or could not do with this new substance,” Lord Luthar of the Fellion Kingdom said. “At least until we get a better understanding of what we are working with.”

With all the positive energy and excitement here, the question of everyone’s lips is “What will happen next?” Could we really be looking at the future of our technology or will the mistakes of the extinct Cravens fall upon us?

“We can’t be certain until the Rynecs have had a chance to study it,” Prime Minister Frank Wallows of the Human Alliance of Nations said. “If this substance is the real deal, protecting it is our first priority.”

The Serpentus Empire gave no comments on the situation.

-- Galactic News Centre, Earth.

I sighed and turned off the tablet. I’d been through every site the infonet allowed twice and nothing was going to change. I was beyond bored with this journey. When Dad asked me to join him, I was ecstatic. I’d wanted to join Dad’s space deliveries and adventures since I was ten. Six Earth years later and I was bored out of my mind on my first delivery.

“There isn’t much to do at this point, is there?” I asked, sliding the tablet back to Bor.

He shook his big head and returned the tablet to its spot on the wall.

Bor, short for Bor’Gard, was a Rynec and my Dad’s best friend and first mate on the freighter. The Rynec are three metre tall giants shaped like body builders with faces resembling rhinoceroses. Despite their physical appearance, they are very tranquil, focusing their time on living the monk’s life or studying the universe. It seemed out of place for him to be here but Bor never talked much about his past.

“Calm your mind and listen to the music of the universe,” Bor said in the deep, monotone language of the Rynec people.

I’ve been around Bor my whole life. I’ve studied and like to think that I understand the Rynec language quite well. That doesn’t necessarily mean I know what the hell he is talking about. He had a tendency to be vague and metaphorical when he talked but I was convinced he only did it to screw with me.

“There isn’t much music out there today,” I said, looking out the bay window by the table. “Nothing but silence.”

“Too bad the same can’t be said in here,” he said with a curl of his lips.

I chuckled. “I can take a hint. I’ll go annoy Dad and leave you to your music.”

I stood up and left the lounge towards the cockpit. The giant freighter was made larger by the lack of crew. It was just my Dad and Bor running everything. As a birthday present, Dad made me the third member by assigning me as Bor’s assistant, which really just meant doing the jobs Bor was getting too old to do.

He looked good for eighty-six Earth years but he had started to lose a step. He still was in charge of maintenance, but some parts of the ship were getting a little old and worn out. There were some parts of the ceiling that just downright scared me. I wanted to help, but Bor still held to the job with pride so I stuck to cleaning the floors and preparing the food.

Our delivery, originally, was supposed to be simple: dropping off of medical supplies to a hospital station orbiting Neptune. Everything changed when we received a phone call for a simple ”pick up and drop” for the Fellions. The pay must have been good because we dropped everything to do this, and Dad isn’t exactly the drop everything type.

With the keypad, I opened the door to the cockpit. Dad was sitting in the pilot seat working on the tablet containing his shipping manifests. I slid into the massive co-pilot seat and Dad dropped the tablet onto his lap.

“How’s it going, Jason?” he asked, crossing his fingers and resting his hands on his portly stomach. “I trust you aren’t bored yet.”

“A little,” I admitted. “This isn’t the highlight of the trip.”

Some said Dad and I look a lot a like but I was never sure how accurate that was. Except for the same light brown hair, there were still plenty of differences. I was tall and lanky and Dad was short and getting a bit round these past few years. He’d always been a bit on the hefty side but he was starting to catch up with Bor in size around. Throw in the fact that his face’s features had doughed out while I spent my days worrying about where the next zit will be and you clearly have two different people.

Dad chuckled. “The Nathar Strait never is. But it still is the shortest way to the Rynec Collective wormhole. Does Bor have any jobs for you to do?”

“Probably,” I said, leaning back into my chair. “He’s enjoying the ‘music of the universe’ right now and I didn’t want to bother him.”

Dad laughed and sat up in his seat, grabbing the tablet before it fell. “Always the spiritual one, that Bor. Go check our package. It’s secure but it never hurts to be cautious.”

“Alright,” I said dramatically.

I knew Dad was just trying to get rid of me so I made a performance of dragging myself out of the chair and walking away, slouched over and groaning.

Dad laughed. “Alright, kiddo, how about this? Once we’re done this run, we’ll go for a victory lunch. I have a great place in mind.”

“Works for me.” I smiled, straightening myself up. “How long until we hit the wormhole?”

“Two hours,” he responded.

I started groaning again and staggered out of the cockpit. Dad’s laugher followed me out. I straightened up to walk normally for the rest of my trip.

I’ve always been able to make him laugh but that was mainly due to him just having a great sense of humour. We had bonded over many films featuring the type of stupid comedy that just makes my mom shake her head. She had always been the serious one but it seemed to work well with Dad’s personality because they’ve built a respectable delivery company over the years.

I arrived in the massive cargo hold in no time. It seriously took up more than half of the ship and was one of the reasons Dad had been attracted to this ugly old thing. He was able to go out into the field and deal with each customer face to face. I was pretty sure the reason we got so much return business was that people wanted to hear another one of Dad’s wild stories.

The special crate from the Fellions was secured in place along the far wall of the cargo hold. It was the only thing we had in the hold other than a few crates of emergency supplies, and it made the cargo hold look like an empty warehouse. I wasn’t told what was inside of it. Everyone was acting really suspicious and weird about it. My curiosity had been peaked and I tried, rather unsuccessfully, to get some information from Bor.

‘What’s in any crate?’ he had asked hypothetically while I rolled my eyes.

With a final look, I told myself that the crate wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry and I moved across the hold to check our provisions. Dad always carried more than enough emergency food and supplies, in case the freighter died in the middle of space and we were left stranded.

His paranoia comes from when he and Bor had to make an emergency landing on a cold remote planet. The two were forced to ration the small amount of food for twenty days before rescue. I think that was the thinnest I had ever seen him.

Everything checked out and a shiver ran down my spine at the thought of being stranded and waiting for rescue. I remembered the parts of the ship that were starting to look bad and I vowed to start learning to fix things.

The ship shuttered slightly before an alarm sounded in the warehouse. It took me a second to realize that it was the proximity alarm. My eyes widened in shocked as a single thought ran through my head over and over again.

We are under attack.

I sprinted through the cargo hold so I could look for Bor. Before we left, he told me to find him if we were attacked and he would help me through it. The sight of him running towards the cargo hold was a great relief to my mind.

An alien language broke through the speakers and made me stop. The voice was low and throaty with a little bit of a slur on ‘S’ sounds. It sounded like a drunken lizard trying to read poetry.

“We have Serpentus fighters,” Dad said through the speakers, after the message was over. “Bor, I need you in the defence room.”

“Why have they ventured so far into the Kingdom?” Bor muttered, stopping in front of me. “Jason, follow me. I will deliver you to your quarters.”

I nodded and followed Bor closely. We passed by a window as a pulse of light lit the whole hallway, blinding me. I blocked it out with my hand.

“Torpedo,” Bor shouted, tackling me to the ground.

The torpedo hit the freighter above the window causing the whole ship to shudder violently. If it hadn’t been for the shields, the whole section would have been destroyed. The vibrations still caused the ceiling above us to collapse.

I pushed myself out from under Bor and turned to him. He had taken the blunt of the attack and lay unmoving. I scrambled over to him and checked for a pulse. His heart was still beating strongly but his breathing was strained.

I shoved the debris off of him to make it easier for him to breath and noticed that a large titanium beam had pieced his leg. I wanted to remove it but I would probably only make it worse. I had to leave it and let Dad know.

The ship shuddered again and I realized that with Bor out, I would be needed to defend the ship. Nerves froze me in place until the ship shuddered again. If I didn’t do something, the ship was doomed. The nervous feeling left me and I broke out into a sprint towards the defence room.

The ship’s defences were all tied into a special room where all the turrets could be controlled at once. This had been one of the modifications Dad and Bor had put into the ship so it could be run by the two of them. When I first saw them, I had begged Bor to let me try them. It looked like I was going to get my wish.

There were six monitors along the wall for each turret on the ship. The console under the monitors was mainly for keeping an eye on damage to the ship as well as the state of each turret. The best part was the chair, a large swivel chair with a joystick on each arm rest to control two turrets at once.

“Dad!” I called into the intercom. “It’s Jason. I’m in the defence room.”

“Jason?” Dad asked confused. “Where’s Bor?”

“The ceiling collapsed and he protected me from it,” I answered. “He’s knocked out and hurt by the cargo room. I’m here to help. How do I get it started?”

“On the console is a yellow switch next to the word ‘auto’. Flip it,” Dad responded.

I flipped the switch and the turrets immediately began firing on any ship that came on camera.

“Good,” he replied. “They have horrible accuracy but they will keep the fighters busy while you manually pick your targets. Control the turrets with the joysticks.”

I started to play around with the joysticks and quickly picked up how to move, fire, and switch between them. “Ok, I can do this,” I said, mostly to myself.

“There are four fighters. I guess they thought we were sitting ducks,” Dad chuckled. “I’m cutting the engine and sending all available energy to the shield. Take them down quickly while I get Bor. I’ll keep my earpiece in so we can still talk.”

While tracking the fighters, I couldn’t help but admire the sharp design. The body was a thin cigar paired with equally thin wings starting from the back and angled out towards the front of the ship. The tip of the wings glowed as they fired their lasers.

I started shooting with the left joystick at the closest fighter. In the bottom corner screen, another fighter was lining up so I switched turrets and tried to shoot him down with the right joystick. It was hard to try and balance my attention from one screen to the next. I could see why they had installed the auto button now. You would have to have amazing reflects to master that thing.

It was probably only a minute, but it felt like an hour before I shot down my first fighter. They were so quick and I was sure I would just end up shooting at space until we were destroyed. It was a huge confidence boost to see the fighter go down. When another fighter tried to sneak up from under the ship, I was ready and destroyed him before he could launch a missile at the turret.

I focused my attention on a fighter lining up for a torpedo run and caught him in a cross fire of my turret and the auto turrets. The last remaining fighter must have been the leader. His skill set had kept him alive when I was sure I had him.

“I’ve got Bor in the medbay,” Dad informed me. “How are we doing, Jay?”

“Down to the last one,” I answered. “I can’t seem to get him.”

“I’m heading back to the cockpit, we might be able to escape if we have enough power.”

“I’ll turn off the auto turrets then,” I said, flipping the switch. The auto turrets fell silent. “Should give you some extra power.”

“Thanks. I’ll do what I can with the shields,” he said.

I scanned the cameras looking for the last fighter. Every camera showed nothing but empty space until the ship rumbled as the last fighter flew past one of the turrets. I kept him on camera as best as I could. Alarms sounded in the defence room and the lights dimmed.

“Our shields are down,” Dad said, panicking. “I’m almost at the cockpit. It’s time to get out of here.”

My mind raced as I tried to think up a plan. If we use our remaining energy to try and flee, there was only a small chance we would get away. I noticed the fighter heading for the back of the freighter when our engines started powering up. An idea came to mind.

“Give me a little power for the auto turrets and just start the engines. I have a plan,” I said

“Let’s hope it’s a good one, son,” he replied. “We are running out of options fast.”

“Trust me,” I said.

With one joystick, I moved the turrets so they would all face behind the freighter and with the other joystick, I moved the camera to watched the fighter. The fighter was circling around behind us waiting to line up for a shot at the engines. I reached out with my foot so it was resting on the auto turret switch. The freighter started rumbling forward slowly and the fighter flew towards us picking up speed. When it was in the range, I flipped the switch.

The auto turrets roared to life and caught the fighter by surprise. He turned up to escape the auto turrets as I shut them off. With the two turrets I was controlling, I swept the fighter and caught the wing, sending him spiralling out of control. With a couple well-aimed shots, the fighter was space dust. I breathed a sigh of relief and heard Dad do the same.

“That was some good shooting, son,” he said. “Bor would have been proud.”

“How’s he doing?” I asked.

“He’s tough,” Dad answered. “He’ll pull through. His leg, however, could be a different story. We’ll get him to the hospital when we reach our destination. For now, we need to get this boat back up and running. It’s time you learnt how to fix something.”

I smiled. “Alright, Dad.”