“Angelus Erarre”
Stardate 74001.4;
January 01, 2397
Episode 49
Written by Chris
Adamek
Chapter Six
Ka’Tula Prime was dead.
The blackened and charred remains of the
once great world stretched from the horizon, across the distant plains, to the
ground beneath Alan Christopher’s boots… and then back to the horizon in the
opposite direction. A thick cloud of
dust hugged the terrain like a blanket, blotting out the delicate sunlight and
tainting the air with fetid acidic overtones.
Christopher suppressed the urge to cough as
he pulled in a lungful of the rancid air and slowly knelt down beside a small
cairn of ash-laden rocks. He carefully
brushed away the thin layer of dust covering the rocks near the head of the
cairn, and then reached into his pocket.
Moments later, his hand emerged clutching a shiny metallic brooch—a
communicator. He inspected it for a
moment, and upon seeing the initials “R.M.” engraved on the back, he lowered
his head in honor of his fallen comrade.
Rachael Meyer had been one of Christopher’s
closest friends, second only to Erin Keller.
She had served with him on his first command, and relentlessly stood by
his side through his darkest moments.
And now she was gone, her life mercilessly taken by the hand of the
nefarious Overseer Xi’Yor.
Xi’Yor…
The mere thought of the hated Overseer made
Christopher’s blood boil. It was Xi’Yor
who orchestrated the attack that had leveled Christopher’s homeworld. It was Xi’Yor who had smiled deviously as he
had taken Rachael Meyer’s life, and it was Xi’Yor who would continue to unleash
chaos upon the Federation until his thirst for conquest was quenched…
Christopher’s jaw clenched and his eyes
narrowed, slowly focusing on the cairn of rocks before him—but as thoughts of
Rachael started to flow through his mind, the malevolence faded. “It was fun while it lasted, wasn’t it?” he
asked, gently placing her communicator atop the rocky grave. “I know that we have drifted apart over the
last few years… things change, I suppose—and I probably should have told this
to you earlier, but, now is as good a time as ever—I have always thought of you
as one of my closest friends… if not more than that. And I always will. Perhaps one day, in a place free of enmity and
malevolence, we shall meet again…”
It was certainly a warm sentiment, one that
Christopher very much wanted to see fulfilled, but deep down in his heart, he
knew that he would never again see Rachael Meyer alive. He shook his head somberly; it took all his
strength to fight back the tears welling in his eyes, but ultimately he
succeeded, and managed to pull together a few more coherent thoughts.
“I promise you, Rachael,” he said softly,
“you didn’t die in vain. I will find
Xi’Yor on your behalf…” He paused, licked his lips, then added, “Then I’ll make
him pay for what he’s done…”
In his mind, Christopher knew that his
objective was clear. Unfortunately, it
was far easier to plot such vengeances in the mind than it was to actually
exact them. Xi’Yor could be light years
from the Ka’Tula System by now… or he could be a scant kilometer away. But until he got away from the carnage
surrounding him, Christopher had no way of knowing.
He sighed, and then tapped his
communicator. “Christopher to Starlight,
one to beam up.”
Nothing happened.
Christopher frowned at his seemingly defunct communicator and
touched it again. “Christopher to Starlight!”
Still nothing.
A wave of panic rushed over Christopher’s body as the worst-case
scenario played out in his mind: amidst
the battle to take Ka’Tula Prime from the Federation, Elorg forces obliterated
the Starlight, killing every—
Nonsense, he interjected. The
battle might have been brutal, but as his better judgment took over,
Christopher realized that the Elorg had been firing numerous particle weapons
into the atmosphere. The more likely
scenario summarily came to mind: all of the radiation caused by the assault was
simply jamming the communication frequencies.
Still, Christopher couldn’t help but wonder what was going on in
the great firmament above…
* * *
“Starboard phaser banks are offline!”
“Switch to auxiliary, Lieutenant!”
“I can’t, the EPS grid in that section has failed!”
“Curses!”
“All power to forward shields!”
“Damn! We just lost power in that section!”
As he listened to the cacophony of words shooting through the air around
him, it was clear to Ryan Landsberg that the crew of the Starlight
worked well as a team. He also noticed
that they weren’t afraid to make decisions on their own, a problem he had
infrequently encountered during his tenure on the Merrimac. Thus far, Landsberg had been content to
observe the harmony of the crew at work, but with the situation suddenly taking
a turn for the worse, he felt compelled to finally say something.
“Brace for impact!”
Landsberg quickly grabbed the arms of the command chair and held on
tight as a vibrant purple plasma torpedo hurtled at the Starlight, death
on its unseen mind.
Seconds later, a sonorous explosion rocked the ship. Landsberg was thrown back into his chair
with incredible force, his head crashing into the back with a powerful THUD before
being thrust back in the opposite direction.
Still, Landsberg managed to keep his tight grip on the command chair,
and was spared the wrath of the floor.
“We have wide-scale hull breeches on decks four through nine!”
shouted Lieutenant Bator over the rumbling.
Angered, Landsberg shook his head and turned to the Phobian,
peering at him through ominous cloud of smoke and billowing white plasma. “Forcefields?”
“They are in place… for now.”
“If this battle continues much longer,” said Harrison from his
seat next to Landsberg, “we shall most likely find ourselves thoroughly
quashed.”
“Quashed?” asked Landsberg curiously.
“Blown to hell,” clarified Lucas Tompkins, who was hovering over a
rapidly failing engineering station.
Shaking his head, Landsberg quickly ran his fingers through his
sweaty blonde hair. “Load all torpedo
bays and fire at will!”
Seconds later, a string of blazing blue quantum torpedoes streaked
across the viewscreen, furiously hunting down the myriad Elorg Destroyers
before them. To Landsberg’s chagrin,
the Elorg were clearly ready for such a barrage, and several of the torpedoes
completely missed their targets as the Destroyers moved out of the way.
Landsberg cursed under his breath and watched as the scant
remaining torpedoes crashed into the shields of a passing Destroyer, absorbed
with little consequence to the assaulted ship.
“Again, Lieutenant!”
“I’m trying,” the Phobian shouted, “but that last volley
overloaded the tactical system!”
Suddenly, a streak of purple light blasted across the viewscreen,
impacting a lone Prometheus-class starship and blowing it to smithereens. As the attacking Elorg vessel eclipsed the
dying starship, the entire battle blinked away, and the unpleasant image of the
portly Alexis O’Connor filled the viewscreen, her lips already moving despite
the fact the commlink had yet to establish audio.
“...xis O’Connor to the Federation fleet: Due to unforeseen
circumstances, Command has given me orders to completely withdraw from the
Kilka Sector at once! All Federation
starships are to fall back to Starbase 241 at once! I repeat, the Federation is withdrawing from the Kilka
Sector! Again, I repeat…”
As O’Connor’s continued repetition began to numb Landsberg’s mind,
a grim feeling washed over his body… This was the first nail in the
Federation’s coffin, and as he gave the order to withdraw, Ryan Landsberg knew
that there were more to come…