The darkness was like a blanket again. Soothingly it wrapped him into an aura of cozy warmth and so soft forgetting. The pain was gone, physically and mentally. It was just him, in the middle of nothing. In the middle of darkness. Was he dead? Alive? In a coma? Or just dreaming? He didn´t really care. It was so close to perfection that he would dare to complain.
He would just ask for one thing if he could and that was Kitty. If she could be here, lying next to him adding her light to the darkness, it would be perfect. It would be heaven. But heaven is something he didn´t believe in. Actually there was not much left he believed in with the time he spent amongst the humans.
Every day, something he once believed in, was proofed wrong by science. That was much harder for Dudley than for a normal person. His world was once full of magic and fairies and sorcerers, he was actually a kid than a grown man. And with every day in that science proofed something wrong he grew up a little, what has pros and cons of course.
On the pro side was that he became calmer and more thoughtful. On the other hand he lost this childish vigor and the almost inexhaustible energy a kid has. Something that particularly I approved. Dudley became less annoying through that. He went down from a level close to Meternagel to something that was bearable.
Even if I missed the vigor. After the few years he was here, and after all the things he saw, it seemed that there was only one thing left that drove him and that was the hope to see his home world again. Maybe it was also this drive that made him leave his cozy dark comfort zone and wake up in the cruel loud reality of the Leviathan´s sick bay.
Dudley saw nothing at first. The brightness of a light that pointed into his face blinded him. And after this sense came back and was temporarily disabled another sense had the same problem. As his ears were able to hear again every sound around him was drowned in the loud noise of the ship´s red alarm. Dudley recognized this sound immediately as he heard it. It´s just too remarkable in its annoyingness.
"Turn it off." Dudley moaned blinking away the brightness. The first thing he did as he regained his ability to see again was something unintentionally. He raised his arms and eyed his lower arms. They were healed. The once broken bones were put together again and Dudley didn´t feel any pain as he moved his hands or the rest of his arms.
Dudley sat up a bit and looked around. The hell that opened on the bridge calmed a bit, but was nevertheless there. Doctor Ryan and some assistants rushed around from bed to bed tending wounded people. As he let his gaze wander, still a bit bemused, he recognized some known faces among the wounded.
Meternagel sat on the edge of his bed messaging his wrists. Dudley didn´t know what kind of wounds he had received, maybe something happened after he passed out on the bridge. The pilot looked worried onto another bed in which Casey lay. She was still unconscious but by the way her chest went up and down Dudley could tell that she was at least not dead.
Somewhere on the left side of the sick bay I was screaming at Ryan while carrying a young blonde girl on my arms. He couldn´t actually hear what I was screaming but he recognized the girl. It was Melissa Rogers, the girl that bumped into him in the elevator. She had a big wound in her abdomen and looked even paler than he remembered.
As Dudley´s eye wandered up from here to me he saw that also I hadn´t survived the attack without a scratch. There was a big burn on my left shoulder that not only looked painful. The last person he found was the captain. Powers was sitting with a bandaged head on his bed and looked confused around.
Not like someone who didn´t know what was going on, more like someone who wasn´t even able to grasped the whole situation at all. The blow he took on the head must have been really intense.
Dudley finished his observation and then decided to stand up. He pushed his body to the edge of the bed and was about to set his feet on the ground as Doctor Ryan himself stopped him.
"Wait a second." He raised his hand and tapped against Dudley´s forehead what made the glove Ryan wore emit a lot of holograms. With his trained eyes he read swiftly through them and then said. "Okay, get up."
Dudley nodded wordlessly and stepped to steps away from his bed what let his thoughts become a lot clearer. A question rose that wanted to be asked. "What… what happened?" He mumbled addressing Ryan who was on the way to another patient. "Can´t talk, I have to work." the doctor just barked and walked away.
In the meantime I had my wounds tended and managed it to lay Melissa in one of the beds what gave me the chance to take breath. That also gave me time to look around. I found Dudley quickly standing confused in the middle of the sickbay.
"Wonderful!" I said happily and walked to him. "It is good to see that you survived the attack."
"What happened?" Dudley asked his question again with the tone of someone who just stood up after a sleep that was too short.
"We survived, against all odds!" I laughed with the ease of someone who cheated death. "And we owe that to the quick-wittedness of a man that is unable to peel a banana."
Dudley looked by habit to the man who he thought I meant while I was pointing at Captain Powers.
"I thought you meant Meternagel." Dudley mumbled confused.
"No, even if we owe our lives also to him." I said and looked at Meternagel who now stood next to Casey´s bed still with that worried expression on his face.
"And… why can´t Sly…"
I interrupted Dudley with a sigh. "Well, something hit his head pretty hard. His brain took pretty heavy damage because of that." We both stepped a bit closer to Sly´s sickbed and watched the captain who always exuded a certain authority tilt his head to the side like a confused chicken. The aura of authority was gone. And what was especially weirder, Powers gave them a warm friendly smile instead of his usual dirty grin.
"Hello friends." His hoarse voice sounded soft and smooth. "Want some cake?"
"No, thank you captain." I smiled back what made the captain let them laugh a soft laughter.
"Everyone calls me like that… what does that mean? What is a 'Ceptin'?"
Dudley laid his hand shocked on his mouth and turned away from the bed. I emulated his behavior.
"Shocking, right?" I sighed again.
"Oh my god… is that really Sly Powers?"
"I am afraid it is."
"Dammit…" Dudley whispered, the situation really seemed to get him. It wasn´t surprising that it did though.
Sly was his mentor the last year and something like a friendship grew between them, or at least admiration. But seeing him like that was nothing more than a shock.
"Will he… stay like that?" The dog looked helplessly at me.
"Probably not, but it will take time for him to heal. A year or two… we will definitely suffer some severe defeats while he is recovering."
"That´s at least something." Dudley meant and looked over his shoulder to the captain who had a banana in his hand which he really tried to peel desperately.
"In your society they euthanized people who were this dependent, right?" I asked seeing this 'I can´t see him suffer' look on his face.
"What?!" Dudley turned his head to me and in his gaze mixed dismay and anger. "We cared about them! How primitive are you considering my civilization?!"
"Sorry." I said surprisedly. "I did not know that."
"Then stop talking if you have no idea, Isaac!" He yelled what didn´t really draw any attention of someone on us. "Especially you should know when to shut up."
"It is okay, I understood. I am sorry." I raised my hands in a defending way because Dudley looked like he was about to slap me.
"You better be!" He shouted aggressively. "And now could you explain me what happened on this ship after I passed out?!"
"Dudley, calm down! I will." I said and pushed him out of the sickbay. Maybe the sound of his voice didn´t draw any attention of the assistants and Ryan, but I realized that it scared Sly. And because I didn´t want Dudley to feel sorry later I got him out of there.
"Then do it!" He stomped on the ground and looked gritting his teeth up to me.
"As I said, we owe our lives Powers. He had a plan… or something he thought that would work." I turned left and started walking down the empty dark hallway. "As we were under heavy fire and you lost consciousness…" I stopped my monologue as I realized that Dudley wasn´t following me. "Uhm… Dudley?"
"No, this time I am leading!" He stated and walked past me making me follow him if I wanted to answer his question. And oddly, I followed him. I think it was the authority in his voice that triggered the little soldier in me.
"Okay." I said and ran a bit to catch up with him. "Anyway, after you lost consciousness the ship received more critical hits. The containment control of the reactor core was so damaged at this point that we had to destroy the singularity. But Sly knew that this would happen, it was even part of his plan. As we were at blockade of the enemy ships we ejected the core right onto another ship. And like that wasn´t enough we shot an Einstein ray right onto the singularity." I laughed still impressed by what happened.
"So you left them some kind of deadly lightning emitting present." Dudley summarized the situation scratching his chin.
"Exactly." I nodded. "It gave us enough time to escape. We salvaged ourselves into the next asteroid field. As long as we keep our energy consumption low and keep emitting the interfering field, we should have a few hours."
"Close thing, but… awesome." Dudley said.
"Oh yes. I think that is the Powers maneuver number 12."
"Well, what now Isaac?" Dudley stopped and turned around to me. "We have no one who could lead the ship and we are hunted by the enemy. What´s the next step?"
"What do I know?" I asked shrugging.
"You are the genius!" he meant accusingly.
"And you are the captain´s contender!"
"And what does this mean?!"
"Well…" I took a deep breath and took the lead again. "Powers had instructed me what to do in case he dies or is not able to guide the ship." We came to standstill at end of the hallway in front of a closed door. "Casey is too indisposed to lead the ship, I have no experience or idea what to do, Meliha is needed in the engine room, Ryan on the sickbay and Meternagel is too meternagel to guide the ship. The only one that has a higher rank than the emergency shift… is you."
"What?!" Dudley looked at me in disbelieve. "But… I am just an ensign…"
"Actually, no… that is just the usual game for the newbies here on the ship. No one who serves on the Leviathan is nothing below a lieutenant. You have the rank lieutenant commander actually."
The message hit Dudley like a hammer. First he grinned a bit realizing that he was promoted several times but in the next second everything else broke down onto him. He was now in charge of that ship and all the souls on it.
"But… I don´t have any clue what to do! I have no experi…"
"Dudley we need you now." I intervened before he kept on massacring his self-esteem. However, my only idea to do so was by putting more pressure on him. "You are our only hope!"
"That doesn´t really help, Isaac." He whined scaredly.
"Come on, Powers had tortured you a whole year! You must have learned something!"
Dudley looked breathing anxiously at me. He had no idea what to do, what let the panic rise in him. The panic led his train of thoughts to the terminal station. Fear and depression. And right as he was about to broke down on and start sucking on his thumb the voice of his mentor in his head screamed everything away.
'So this is it?!' The voice of Powers yelled in him. 'Do you know how hard it is to train you?! And now you tell me that this training was fruitless?! I thought you wanted to get back home! Get your ass up now and go kick some asses!'
"Dudley?" I looked confused at the dog who made a weird face for a minute already. "Well, luckily there is a traditional remedy for that." I lunged out to slap him out of whatever state he was but just in the right second, he caught my hand.
"I am fine now, thank you." he said and crossed his arms behind his back, like Powers always did.
"Are you rea…"
"Isaac, we don´t have time for that." Dudley turned to the door next to us and opened it behind it was the bridge. A completely repaired bridge.
The cleaning bots have did fantastic work on rebuilding it. Silently Dudley strode to the captains seat and let his hand ran over the backrest.
"Isaac." he said breathing in the clean air through his nose.
"Yes?" I replied not really knowing what was going on right now.
"Get Meternagel on the bridge, search for someone who can do Casey´s job, before you take your seat here, say Meliha that she should do her best to keep the ship together."
I expected much but not this sudden change.
"Hey! Now would be better than later." Dudley called to me.
I saluted smiling and said. "Aye aye captain!" before I left to obey to my orders. Dudley´s gaze fell onto the empty bridge. There was a chair in the middle that room that called for him now. And he didn´t want to let it wait.
The mutt strode slowly past the place he passed out hours ago threw a glance at Casey´s station and sat down on his new chair while looking towards Meternagel´s place. The chair was oddly comfortable. It wasn´t different from any other chair, actually just a usual chair like he knew them.
A quote of Meternagel struck his mind as he thought about the chairs. 'Our chair technology is lightyears ahead of yours.' Even though this maniac didn´t know the chairs Dudley´s people had, he was right. The chairs mankind built consist out of a special material that looked like white shiny metal and their formed reminded remotely of the letter S with armrests attached to it.
And even if they didn´t look like that they were all much more comfortable than anything from Dudley´s homeworld. But this chair was even more comfortable than all other chairs. Dudley didn´t know why but he knew that he could get used to that comfort.
"Uhm…Captain." A voice called behind Dudley what made him turn with his chair. Meternagel stood saluting in the doorframe.
"Hello John." Smiled Dudley friendly.
The pilot gave him a serious nod like he wanted to say that he knew what to do and walked to his station. Dudley didn´t turn back to the front of the bridge yet. He wanted to greet everyone he would work with on the bridge. The next who appeared on the bridge was a woman with dark skin and black short black hair.
She wore the leather jacket with red indications with a pair of same looking pants, uniform of the security officers. The same one Dudley had to wear. The woman saluted and the called with a voice that should sound firm but actually was trembling. "Olivia Bennett. I am here to… help with your staff problems."
"Nice to see you." Dudley smiled. "You know where to go?"
"Yes." She said quickly and then walked to her station.
The last one who appeared on the bridge was me. I, like the others, saluted before I raised my voice.
"Dudley… I mean Captain. Everything is ready. But Meliha notes that we are running on anti-matter now. So we should be careful with our energy consumption."
"Noted and understood." Dudley nodded. "So, mount your station and we´ll start."
"On it." I said and jumped onto my chair.
"Uhm… Captain, I need a course." Meternagel said as Dudley now turned his chair to the front of the bridge.
"Well, I could need a map or something." Replied Dudley.
Meternagel nodded and pushed a button what let a holographic star map appear in front of Dudley.
"Have I ever told you that I love your holographic technology?" Dudley asked looking smiling at the map. "It´s so awesome."
"Dudley." I said stepping next to his seat. "We are here." I moved my finger in the hologram until a blue dot appeared in the middle of the map. "The problem is." I whirled my finger around. "The enemy is blocking this area." I drew with my finger a half circle around our position.
"Let me guess, the fastest way home is through that area?"
"Right." I nodded.
"What about the area behind us?" He pointed at an area that was just empty. Not even stars filled the map there.
"Unknown space."
"Wait…" Dudley said. "Unknown space… so maybe…"
"Dudley I know what you thinking." I said conciliatingly. "But we just have no time to find your people now. I know it sounds cruel but we have to get this information home! Otherwise your world is in danger too."
"Yeah but my people can help us!" Dudley protested.
"And how? They are not even close to us when it´s coming to technological advance. They have nothing to help us!"
"Nonetheless they can help us! We have a lot of injured crew members! We could bring them down to the planet to keep them save there."
I wanted to come up with another counterargument, and believe me I have had dozens of them, but Dudley had this idea in his stubborn head now. And there was no way to get it out of him. So I sighed and tried to make the best out of the situation.
"Okay… give me as second." I said going back to my station. I accessed the astrometry data base and put it onto the front screen. "Okay… 2 galaxies and 30 billion relevant stars, Dudley, one of them is your home star. I will calculate a course on which we can scan the most with the long range scanners and also sneak around our enemies." I typed some more commands into my station and now a red line appeared on the star map in front of Dudley. Somewhere on this red line a yellow dot was flashing bright.
"What is that?" Dudley asked gazing at the dot.
"That is the point where we can stop scanning. If we had not received any data until that point… it is pointless to go on." I explained sitting down on my chair.
"Don´t worry, I bet we received something before we reach the point." Dudley meant smiling anticipating. "Okay John, get us out of here."
"Hmm… works as a catchphrase." John meant and accelerated the ship.
"Not to fast John, we´re running on emergency energy." Dudley said. "Oh and…uhm… Olivia, hold the weapons down. And Isaac the shields…"
"Are actually not my field of business." I replied rechecking the route.
"Really? I had to control the shields as I was on your station."
"I guess Powers just wanted you to give him the status of the shields."
"Yeah…" Dudley confirmed my assumption.
"Well, that´s also the only thing I can do." I grinned. "Olivia has the power over the shields."
"Oh, okay, thanks." He cleared his throat. "Olivia, just if necessary. We need to save energy."
"Aye aye, captain." Olivia called out loud. So loud that it startled Dudley a little.
I watched amusedly how the dog twitch a little before I turned back to the displays in front of me that had started to flash violently.
We had just entered the first galaxy, a spiral galaxy with a diameter of about 30,000 lightyears, and already the instruments started to go haywire.
"Dudley I´m receiving something."
"Signals?" The dog asked excited.
"Yeah but no signals that points to a civilization… it is different somehow." I said.
"Okay, keep scanning." Dudley meant and then activated the communication implant in his brain to communicate with Meliha. "Meliha? Status."
"Seeing the course makes me a bit worry. We could have enough energy for that but we are damned if someone´s attacking us."
"Any suggestions where we can get more fuel?"
"Well… we could get some if we get the anti-matter out of some of the torpedo warheads." Meliha suggested in a pensive tone.
"Sounds good."
"Woah, wait." She said refusingly. "That´s just a thought. We could do that, yes but if we make a mistake we blow up the whole ship."
"But we need that energy." Dudley insisted sternly.
"Well, then at least send down Isaac. I could need his help."
"Agreed." The dog meant nodding, ended the communication and turned to me. "Isaac, Meliha needs you down in the engine room. Go there."
"Aye captain." I said and left. I didn´t want to discuss this order, although I had no idea what was going on and even if it would drive cold sweat on my forehead. But this weren´t the times to discuss orders. I would maybe do so if I didn´t trust the captain but that wasn´t the case. So I left the bridge.
"Well then… Meternagel, do you also have access to the scanners?"
The pilot answered the question by putting the scan results on the main screen. Like I mentioned it before the data was confusing. Weird signals that seemed to be non-natural but also not like anything either our or Dudley´s species could have created. They were simply weird.
"Any suggestions what that is?" Dudley asked and turned to Olivia who shook her head.
"No idea captain." She said again with that loud voice. "Never seen anything like that. Maybe these are your people."
"I… I´ve seen this kind of signal…" Meternagel stammered and as Dudley turned to him he saw that he was ashen-pale. If Dudley hadn´t known that Meternagel was completely healthy he would swear that there was a dead person sitting in front of him.
"You saw them?" probed Dudley worried about the reaction of Meternagel.
"Yes… I think… my memory…" In this second the doors to the bridge swung open and Powers entered the room manically screaming. "I CAN´T SHUT THESE VOICES UP!"
Behind him ran Kate who was trying to stop him. "Sly, please you need rest!"
"GET AWAY INFAMOUS DEMON WHORE!" Powers screamed at her and pushed her away.
"What is going on?!" Dudley gazed utterly confused at 'The tick' waiting for an answer.
"Sly freaks out!" Kate tried to obstruct the handicapped captain by dragging him away but the captain was just too strong for her.
"I see that! But an explanation would be nice."
"I brought him to his room to put him into his bed for a while. But as he saw our position on the star map in his room he just went apeshit."
"I CAN´T SHUT THEM UP!" Powers screamed again. He got his arm loose from Kate and then ran towards Meternagel with his fist raised up high in the air. But before he reached him or even could hit his fist on the still pale and defenseless pilot he spotted the signals on the screen.
"No…" he whispered seeming oddly clear in that moment. "You fools… how could you…" his voice became higher and sounded fearfully. "How could you bring us back…"
"Back?" Dudley asked.
"800 hundred years ago…" Sly mumbled.
"Sly could you…"
But the captain seemed to sink into some kind of trance again. He sank on his knees and mumbled "Decoding dealt Q. Lower hyperspace." then the captain fell over onto his belly.
"Sly!" Kate said worried and rushed to him and checked his pulse. "He´s alive." she said in relief.
"What the hell…" Dudley stared perplex at the Powers and then at the others in the room who seem as confused as he was. "Isaac…" he activated the communication implant again. "Back to the bridge immediately."
"But we almost done with…"
"Now Isaac!" Dudley meant.
"Okay, I think Meliha can do it alone now." I meant and then made my way to the bridge as fast as it was possible to me just to see the collapsed Powers lying on the ground surrounded by a lot of puzzled face and Meternagel who was still pale.
"Wh… What?" I stammered looking at the scene confusedly.
"Isaac… lower hyperspace, coding delta Q. Does that ring a bell?" Dudley asked.
"That could be a transmission… wait." I walked to my station and checked the scanners. "Indeed, here is something… it looks like noise on the first sight but it isn´t. What did you say about the decoding?"
"Delta Q."
"Okay… That´s odd. Delta Q is an old Union standard coding. Let´s see…" I started the decoding process and then checked the data again. "That´s a holographic transmission. Wait, I´ll project it."
Behind the unconscious Sly Powers the hologram of a younger nervous looking Sly Powers in a Union uniform appeared. The holographic Powers looked tensed, harried and afraid. Neither Dudley nor I could recall when he has seen the captain like that.
"To all ships entering this sector." The hologram started as soon as it was visible. "This is a warning. I advise you to leave as fast as possible. You entering an area that´s under quarantine." The hologram stopped and looked behind him like someone whose pursuers are already knocking on the door. "We encountering an outbreak of an unknown virus… I have never seen anything like that… I…" He shook his head trying to concentrate on what´s important. "Just flee! And don´t look back until you passed Korohna Prime. Don´t look back until… just never look back again…"
"Commander, we got to go." A voice from the off said to Powers and the hologram nodded.
"I agree..." the captain meant and the transmission ended.
We all glanced confusedly around for a while before someone could say anything. And it was Olivia who was the first one who found some words. "What does that mean?" she asked quietly.
"That… was definitely unexpected." Was the only thing I could say overwhelmed by a wave of questions that all wanted to be answered.
"Indeed…" said Dudley and then looked at Kate. "Do you know something about that?"
"I am as surprised as you." She replied with an expression in her face that confirmed what she said.
Dudley´s gaze now fell onto the only person that stayed silent. "Meternagel…"
"We should have never come back here." Growled the pilot with an, for him, unnatural expression of disgust lying in his face.
"What do you mean with that?" Asked Dudley standing up from his seat. A feeling of discomfort spread in his stomach. Whatever Meternagel would tell, it would just be the worst kind of news.
"This part of space isn´t undiscovered… just abandoned." He said with an eerie tone of voice. "800 years ago, on a planet 40 parsec away from us there was a secret Union military base. On Zeta Hadar."
"Never heard of that?" Kate said skeptically with her arms crossed.
"How could you? It´s the most jealously guarded secret in the Union´s history." Meternagel giggled. But not sounded like the giggle of a person who was amused, it sounded more like the sound of a person that wanted cover up the pain. "Do you know the sound when shit is about to hit the fan? It´s the patter of thousand feet on the ground that comes closer to you."
"Meternagel, stop speaking in riddles." I called rolling my eyes.
"The Cekirges!" Meternagel shouted out. "Have you never asked yourself where they came from? Have you never asked yourself why they just popped up out of nowhere?"
"Of course but we thought that…"
"Wrong!" Meternagel meant cutting me short. "Every theory, every plausible scientific way to explain that. WRONG!"
"Then what is the truth?!" Dudley, sick of the unclarity flooding all our minds, yelled.
"WE CREATED THEM!" Powers, suddenly awoken from his unconsciousness, squalled and was within the next seconds on his feet again. "IT´S ALL OUR FAULT!"
"Captain, that´s not true, there was nothing we could…" Meternagel´s attempt to calm the captain was crushed by Powers.
"NO, IT´S NOT! It´s not…" The captain´s voice became more and more silent while he lay on the floor and got in some kind of fetus position.
"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!" Dudley now yelled and everyone except Powers became silent.
Meternagel answered with a sustained sighed before he took a deep breath and raised his voice. "Here is nothing Dudley… just the birthplace of the Cekirges. Zeta Hadar, that was the place where they were created. That was the place where we created them."
"And… my people?" Dudley stepped towards Meternagel and looked, him afraid of what he would say now, into his eyes.
"The sector was crowded… but with humans. Just humans… here was never anything else."
Dudley felt like just somebody dropped a ton of bricks on him.
He stumbled backwards and fell into his seat again. Deep heavy breaths dominated his breath which were just a desperate attempt to fight the rising panic in him.
"No that… that cannot be!" I said protesting. "The Cekirges´ DNA do not even have the slightest similarity to our anything we have ever seen."
"Well, that´s just what a good subsidized genetic lab can do with enough time." Meternagel replied baldly.
"But they…"
"Isaac." Said the pilot interrupting me. "Do you just don´t want to believe me, or do you really have no doubts that what I say is a lie?"
"I… do not want." I sighed in defeat. "I mean seriously? It was our own fault? We have created our greatest enemy ourselves?"
"The simple and stupid truth." Meternagel mumbled.
"That´s so typical for us." Olivia meant with her loud voice. "Story of mankind."
"Kind of…" sighed Kate who knelt next to the unconsciousness Powers and stroked over his head like a mother would do with her sick child.
"But..." Dudley´s voice was silent but we nevertheless heard it all. "…where are my people?" He stared down at his hands. "Or did they never existed, was everything wrong? All my memories? What am I then?"
We all were silent. Our lips sealed all of the sudden like someone glued them together. We couldn´t answer to that because we simply had no answer. It was really awkward standing there staring at him but no matter how weird that felt for us it was thousand times worse for Dudley.
The dog looked up from his hands and then glared at us screaming. "ANSWER ME!"
But we just stood there frozen by the fear that any word we say to ease his pain could just break his fragile soul in thousand pieces. Only Powers, in his delirium, mumbled words that probably just made sense because of pure coincidence. "What do you think you are? It´s easy…" Then Powers laughed dirtily and went back mumbling nonsense again.
"What?" Dudley asked and walked towards the lying man. He grabbed Powers by his uniform and lifted him up just to ram him against the white shiny wall of the bridge. "What did you say?!"
Powers just looked at him, a bit confused and then smiled softly, not knowing what was going on around him.
"Dudley, leave him alone." I said and stepped closer.
"Tell me what I am, Sly! Tell me!" Dudley yelled at Powers and pushed him again and again against the wall. "Give me an answers! What am I, WHAT AM I!"
"Dudley he has no idea what you are talking about!" I screamed but the dog still didn´t want to listen.
"You knew that here was nothing all the time! YOU LIED TO ME ALL WHAT SLY!" Dudley screamed into Powers´ face. "You know something! What am I?! A side product of your disgusting mutations experiments?! With false past and false memories? TELL. ME. WHAT. I. AM!"
Powers looked at him with clear eyes and giggled. "You are the Captain, what else?"
Dudley stared at the Powers not knowing if he should scream at him or beat him to death. But nothing happened. He hesitated. And the longer he hesitated the more thoughts burst in. More and more voices in his head spoke out things he didn´t want to hear.
'Is my live a lie?'
'Have all this people I remember never existed?'
'What´s with my family?'
'Are they just products of my fantasy?'
'What´s with Kitty and my kid?'
Dudley´s breathe accelerated and he stepped back from Powers letting the former captain fall to the ground and back into his delirium.
"Captain, we receive something on the long range scanner." Olivia raised her loud voice.
"Seems like they found us." Meternagel sighed and cracked the joint in his neck before he turned to his terminal.
"Dudley…" I said and tried to sound as calming as possible.
"Was everything a lie, Isaac?" asked Dudley and looked at me like I could give him all the answers he needed so much. "Am I a lie?"
"I do not know Dudley. But I promise you, I will do everything within my powers to find out. And I promise you I we will find an answer. You have my word. But to do that we have to get out of here."
Dudley looked at me, not knowing if I said the truth or if I was just another guy who lied to him.
"They come closer. Ten parsec away." Olivia meant sounding more and more nervous.
"Dudley this ship needs a captain." I meant and laid a hand on his shoulder. "I beg you."
"And you promise me to find out?" he asked and I could hear the hesitation in his voice.
"I do what I can. I swear. Whatever I can find out I will." I nodded and Dudley nodded back. He strode slowly to the captain´s armchair and sat down.
"Let´s get this started." Dudley took a deep breath and closed his eyes to concentrate. "Kate, get Powers of my bridge. Isaac, analyze the surrounding area we can´t find but maybe something near us can help. Maybe another asteroid field we can pass to get them off us. Olivia, we don´t have much energy so forget about the weapons. But keep the shields ready, activate them on my command. And Meternagel… set a course to the outpost. Activate engines when I say."
Meternagel started grinning. "The fast course captain?"
"The fastest." Dudley replied emotionlessly and turned his head to me. "So?"
"That is interesting." I said and laid a picture of a purple nebula on the screen. "I found this fantastic nebula 0.5 parsec away from here. And what is really great is that it is energetically charged."
"And how can we use that?"
"Well, it is in some kind of metastable state. And it does not take much to make it discharge." I explained grinning.
"Hm… that´ll come in handy." Dudley grinned back. "Meternagel, bring us into this nebula. Oh, and be as noticeable as possible for our pursuers."
Meternagel nodded and activated the ship´s engines. He nodded and set course to the nebula. It didn´t take the pursuers long to notice the Leviathan. As the armada of wolves started to follow their prey into the nebula Dudley started grinning evilly.
"We can hold this speed too long, Dudley. Not even with the extra energy from the torpedoes." I said looking with a worried eye on our energy reserves.
"We don´t have to, we just have to hold it till we are out of the nebula." Dudley meant almost amused.
"20 seconds to the nebula´s edge." Meternagel updated us all.
"As soon as we are there stop the engines." Ordered the dog.
"What?!"
"Just do it." grinned Dudley showing his teeth.
The pilot looked a bit confused but shook it off and concentrated on his work again.
The ship moved swiftly out of the gigantic purple nebula. While losing speed it turned with a slow move 180 degree so that it face the nebula waiting for its pursuers to arrive.
"The shields, now." Dudley ordered and this was not a second too late. A green ray shot out of the nebula hitting the Leviathan what gave the ship a good shake. But the effect that the ray had on our ship were nothing compared with the effect it had on the nebula. The whole nebula suddenly glowed in bright white. It was so bright that we had to turn off the screen so that we don´t get blinded.
As soon as the photon emission has decreased we turned it back on. The ships inside were suddenly gone. A whole armada atomized by the tremendous energy the nebula emitted.
"Well… that was impressive." I meant nodding.
"You just destroyed a whole fleet without shooting!" Olivia exclaimed, even louder than the loudest sound we ever heard of her, staring amazedly at the screen. After a while of loud laughing and celebrating the fact that she was still alive, what we actually all did, she shook her head wildly and laughed. "We have to call that the Puppy maneuver."
"Well, I helped." I meant giggling and then we all had another fit of laughter. Well, we all did except Dudley. The dog sat in his chair with a petrified expression and waited for us to calm down again.
"Meternagel…" He said as our laughter has become just soft giggling. "…get us out of here."
"Aye aye captain." Grinned the pilot and brought us back on the fast course back home. Home… Finally in safety. The thought of coming home let us all forget the fact that we were bringing bad news with us.
-Well, one chapter left and I don´t think that I can´t publish it this year but I´ll try to come up with it as soon as possible in 2015. Until then, happy new year. :D -