Star Trek: Wings of the Renaissance

A Star Trek fanfiction by Andrew Joshua Talon

DISCLAIMER: This is a non-profit fan-based work of prose. Star Trek is the property of CBS and Paramount. Please support the official release.


OTV-561 Aurora, Enroute to American Lunar Colony Tranquility Base

2053


The Earth/Moon roundtrip was routine by now. Zero gravity toilets, the occasional flashes of solar wind hitting your optical nerves while you tried to sleep, and the lingering smell of farts in the air recyclers. Everything she'd studied and worked hard to experience, because space was the future.

Doctor Matsunaga Keiko believed this firmly, with all her fiery heart could muster. And sure, it wasn't a mobile suit but you couldn't have everything all at once, right?

Given the nature of the conflict on Earth between the Allies and the Eastern Coalition, it was looking more and more likely that they'd need another world soon. Most of Europe, a few key places in Asia, the Middle East and a fair amount of Africa and South America had fallen to the ECON: Promises of genetically and cybernetically controlled populaces had seduced so many dictators and revolutionaries. Yet all of them had become nothing more than slaves. Slaves to Colonel Green, a eugenicist monster who kept court in what had been the Hague.

The Orbital Defense Network had kept them in check, from making the final push. A joint effort between the free nations and the nations that didn't want to be slaves to Colonel Green, it was hundreds of laser and kinetic missile armed satellites in the orbitals of Earth. And right now, they were on their way to deploy the next batch around the colonies on the Moon.

Keiko was reviewing the design schematics and the activation procedures for the satellites-Each named after one of her favorite mecha. She was fortunate the head of the project was just as big a Super Robot Wars fan as her.

A head poked its way into her little alcove, as she was wrapped up in her sleeping bag. She typed furiously, the lights flashing against her glasses.

"Can I help you, Dwayne?" She asked. The other technician gripped onto the edges of the alcove, looking nervous.

"Um, Doctor Matsunaga, we need you in the cockpit," he said. Keiko looked up from her screen, eyes narrowed.

"Look: I'm not floating all the way up just to hear something you can tell me now. So what is it?" She demanded.

"I-I just… I just…" Dwayne was deeply shaken, and Keiko immediately regretted her harsh words. She reached out and gripped his shoulder.

"Dwayne? What is it?" She asked. She checked over on her news feed… And it was being flooded. Endless posts from a single source. Her eyes widened.

"Okay, maybe I can float to the cockpit," she decided.

The view was not much better up there. The pilot, Kurosawa Renji, was staring, pale as a ghost, at the flatscreens. Keiko floated up behind him, and took hold of the back of his seat.

"Renji?" She asked. "Renji?" She looked up, and bit her lower lip. The talking head was terrified, gripping his papers hard. Why they bothered with hardcopy anymore, Keiko had never figured out.

"To repeat: Reports are coming in from civilian satellites and from official government release, it is confirmed: The Eastern Coalition has declared war against the Allied Nations, launching from their ICBM sites across West Russia, Northern China, and Eastern Europe. The Department of Defense has ordered full military deployment of the Orbital Defense System and unlocked all defense networks. We repeat, take shelter or begin evacuation immediately if you are in the following cities…"

Keiko took a deep breath. "Shit," she muttered.

"Five minutes ago," Renji said. "I double checked with our satellites."

Keiko was anxious, yes. It was natural, when hundreds of intercontinental missiles were even now streaking for your homelands. Yet she couldn't help her smile.

"Don't worry guys," she said, throwing an encouraging look back at Dwayne. "I mean, this is what we're here for. This is what we worked for. In four minutes, those missiles are going to be turned into harmless clouds of debris by the satellites. Then we'll go Akira on Colonel Green's ass, vaporize him from orbit, and his little gene puppets are going to be begging for peace." Her smile grew, her confidence rising.

"You think so?" Dwayne asked. Keiko nodded.

"Exactly! Exactly! I don't know why that asshole decided to try this shit now, but he's screwed." Keiko grinned, reaching out to squeeze Renji's shoulder. He managed a little smile himself. "And we're gonna be heroes!"

"R-Right," Renji said, nodding with a smile. "Heroes."

Another four minutes passed. Renji checked the satellite feeds.

"... Keiko… They aren't firing," he said. Keiko blinked.

"Excuse me?" She asked. "They're not firing?!"

"Maybe it's delayed," Dwayne suggested. He moved into the co-pilot's seat-Or tried, but Keiko beat him to it. She logged into the satellite uplink.

"Why are they not firing… They're not even-!" She began calling up the command list. "It says they're firing. Are they?"

"According to the observation satellites… No," Renji said. He looked over at Keiko, eyes wide. "Are we-What's wrong?"

"Is the ground station reporting the same thing? Are they reporting it to the DoD? To anyone?!" Keiko demanded. "Find out! FIND OUT NOW!" She looked over at Dwayne. "Start activating the backups!"

"Yes Doctor!" Dwayne responded, getting back to another computer console.

Renji tapped into the military communications net, while Keiko tried to get into the satellite network. Every time she tried to activate a satellite, the system responded it was functioning just fine-And yet nothing happened.

"This doesn't make any sense!" She raged. "Renji!"

"They've been trying the reactivation codes-Nothing's happening!" Renji shouted back. "The President's activated the network with the orbital football-Nothing's shooting!"

"Okay," Keiko sighed. "We've tried rebooting the computers, we've tried the backdoors, it's not working…" Her fingers paused. "Sabotage," she immediately deduced. "But where? In what-"

"Keiko!" Dwayne called. "I've got it! I've checked every satellite in the network and I've found it! AMS-47! It's too heavy!"

Keiko isolated the satellite in question, and looked over the diagnostics. It was too heavy, and judging from the accelerometers the weight was right over the CPU.

"Parasite microsat?! But it can't be that small!" Dwayne gasped. "There's no way it could-"

"They did, and it's the only explanation," Keiko said grimly. "How long until the missiles start hitting their targets?"

"Ten minutes for Japan and Britain, fifteen for targets in the Americas and Australia," Renji replied, a scared, sickly laugh leaving his mouth. "Th-They're launching the counterstrike right now-"

"We still have enough time to get these online and stop this!" Keiko insisted. She began typing furiously. "We just have to self-destruct the satellite and reset the network!"

"How?" Dwayne asked. "We're running out of time-!"

"I'll figure it out!" Keiko barked. "Just help me!"

"I've got the laser comms ready! The satellite's coming up!" Renji said.

"Locking in the laser comm," Dwayne stated. "Getting return signal, I…"

"It's targeting us!" Renji shouted. He pushed the throttle on the rocket-One powerful enough to boost the ship all the way out to Mars, if necessary. "Keiko! Keiko, get in there and turn it off!"

"I'm trying!" Keiko replied, lines of data dancing before her eyes as her fingers went all over the keyboard. The code kept changing, the AI of the parasite nanosat fighting her every single time! No, she could beat this! She could stop this, she had to-!

"It's firing-!" Renji bellowed, and the ship rocked hard. Keiko held onto her seat, the restraints holding her in tight. Renji kept fighting with the ion engine, even as one of the fuel tanks went up in a massive blast. Dwayne was tossed around, having forgotten to strap in due to nerves. He grabbed onto a harness, holding on for dear life.

"It's charging up for another shot!" Renji shouted. The blast struck another fuel tank. Renji grimaced. "Shit! Reactor's exposed! Another hit will melt us down!"

"Eject the engine module! Do it!" Keiko shouted. Renji nodded, and tapped in the sequence. He hit the final button, and the whole ship jolted and spun from the loss in mass. Renji hit the attitude controls, managing to right the ship and keep it from spinning-Keeping it pointed at the engine module behind. Another bright, strobe like flash and the module exploded, the laser hitting the reactor core. Keiko and Renji covered their eyes.

"Keiko! Can you get it fixed or not?" Renji cried urgently. "We're just at the edge of its laser now!" Keiko growled and ran through the data, one more time… She found a sequence she hadn't tried, entered it… She beamed.

"I've got it! Control established!" She cried. She set the reaction controls on the defense satellite to spin the AMS-47 at high speed. "Come on, come on…!"

"What are you making it do?" Dwayne asked.

"If I get it to spin too hard, the communications system will fail," she explained. "The comms fail, it can't control the rest of the network anymore! Reset it, and we're back in business!"

She could see warning messages all over her screen, as the satellite's electronics were put under more and more strain. She started up every system, maxing it out, to drive the heat up. She set the radiator system to go into test mode, ignoring the heat building up. Every sensitive piece of electronics in it had to be dying now. She checked the clock-five minutes until impact.

"Come on, come on, come on," she chanted, eyes locked onto the screen. "Come on!"

The terminal error failure lit up her screen. Any and all feeds from AMS-47 died. She grinned brightly.

"Reset the system! NOW!" She shouted. Dwayne was elated, as Renji cheered. Keiko let out a laugh herself. She'd saved the world, she'd saved the-

The ship was stuck again. The vessel tumbled frantically, and bright shiny debris filled the viewports like shards of glass. Her screen went dead, as did Renji's.

"Main power's off! Something hit us!" Renji shouted. "DWAYNE! Keiko, get back there!" His own screens lit back up and he again got to work trying to right the vessel. Keiko pulled her restraints off and grabbed onto a handhold, fighting nausea from the inertial difference. She crawled, keeping her eyes on the bulkhead of the ship. Dwayne crawled ahead of her, covering his mouth as he barfed up chunks that flew off into zero gee. He still made it to the next module, opening the hatch and pulling himself through. She followed, closing the hatch behind them. It locked firmly, and they both kept moving through the tunnels into the engineering module. It held the manual controls for the solar panels that kept the ship going.

The emergency batteries kept the screens online, but a quick look through the external cameras revealed the cause of the power disruption-Something hit one of the solar panels, crumpling it like the broken wing of a bird. Keiko quickly shut off the feed from the damaged panel, and ejected it. It spun away from the damaged Orpheus, another shudder and alarm going off.

"Damnit! Okay, okay, we've got power," she said. She looked through the rest of the diagnostics, her face becoming grimmer. "But the main recycler's been hit, we're on the tanks for air. We've got momentum but no main drive to slow us down… Maybe we can manage an orbit…" Her heart stopped.

"Keiko?" Dwayne asked. Keiko shook her head, adjusting her glasses with shaking hands.

"The comms array is gone," she whispered. The external cameras showed it all: The mast full of antennas and dishes had been ripped clean away. Dwayne's lips thinned. Keiko took a deep breath.

"What… What if they don't-?" Dwayne asked, but Keiko cut him off.

"There's enough smart people back home that can reset the system," she said firmly. "Enough people… Maybe…" She hit the intercom. "Renji? Renji, it's Keiko. We've got power, but we've lost a lot. I've done the rough math, we might manage an orbit around the moon. What do you think?"

Silence greeted her. Keiko frowned, and hit the intercom again.

"Renji? Renji, are you there?" She checked the internal comms-No, that seemed to be working. A horrible thought occurred, and she switched the external camera view of the cockpit module. She sucked in a deep breath.

"Oh God," Dwayne murmured.

A large, gaping hole, the size of a bowling ball, was in one of the cockpit's viewports. A very recent development judging from the debris still floating like a cloud of dust surrounding it. Keiko checked the internal sensors in the cockpit: They all read zero pressure, and zero oxygen. Her fingers gripped the screen, as she breathed hard, in and out.

"We… We have the telescope feed still," Dwayne managed. "Maybe… Maybe it's back online. Maybe they fixed it!"

Keiko nodded. Renji was a friend, but he would sacrifice himself to save the Earth. He had, hadn't he?

The telescope feed came online, showing Earth. Still the bright blue marble the Apollo astronauts had described, even with everything that had happened. Everything humans did. She saw the familiar shape of her homeland, and zoomed in as far as she could.

Keiko could make out the large, bustling metropolis of Tokyo, her home city. The Nerima Ward, where she'd grown up. Reading manga, playing video games, working on motors and drones and dreaming of a life among the stars. Where her older brother had walked her to school, her father taken her on piggyback rides. Her mother had cooked her dinner, her little sisters had stolen her toys and they'd fought over them, many times. So many times, all flashing in her mind as she prayed, prayed that fate was kind. Prayed that she had done it…

A bright flash nearly blinded her, and she looked away. She kept her eyes shut tightly, trying to convince herself it was just a malfunction with the telescope. Catching a reflection of sunlight off something. Dwayne's horrified murmurs made her open her eyes and turn back.

The city was engulfed by a gigantic cloud, spreading over it. She could just make out shockwaves screaming at the edges. Massive plumes of heat erupted, red and white hot fires so huge they were visible from space.

A part of her, cold and disconnected, calculated the force of the explosion-fifty megatons, at least. The chances of survival within twenty miles of the epicenter was in the single digits.

"Keiko?" Dwayne murmured from somewhere to her right. "Keiko? I… Are you…" He trailed off, realizing the stupidity of his words. She really couldn't blame him though.

There was nothing to say. She didn't know if there would be anything to say ever again.


More to come.