Chapter 10
Jordy did his best to focus on his work, rechecking the navigation instruments and making minor course adjustments. There was certainly enough to keep him busy, but still, he kept finding himself looking over his shoulder to Yumi, at the communication's station.
Her long brown hair reaching just below her shoulders, her body filling out the body-suit she wore very nicely. And he hadn't managed to say two words to her.
"Give it up, Venture," Adam Row said. In contrast, Row had very little to do just then, although they both knew that would change if the ship saw any action. Row, too, cast a sideways glance at Yumi. "You can go ahead and consider her mine."
"You think so?" Venture glanced over at his friend. "I don't think you have a chance. That woman has an eye for class, you just don't qualify."
"Ha. Ha. You will pay for that remark. Remember, I know what music you like. Class, indeed."
"So, Row, when do we begin?"
Row thought for a few seconds. "We can't do anything during duty hours, so what say we begin at the next meal."
Eager broke the relative silence of the bridge, and the banter taking place at the front bridge stations. "Radar Reports large debris field up ahead."
Sandor raised his head from his own station to cast a glance at Row.
"Venture, slow to 1/4th combat speed," Row's first order didn't come out as easily as he would have liked. "Sandor, what have we got?"
With half a smile, Sandor turned back to his own screens, focusing the sensors, and analyzing their readouts. "I'm reading Gamilon alloys, Ship wreckage, as well as organic matter. I think this is what we came for."
Row stood and began walking towards the bridge elevator, "Ill inform the Captain."
Lucas, at the secondary science station looked over at Sandor. "Organic matter?"
Sandor nodded. "Bodies."
On the uppermost level of the ship, Row had the barest hesitation, before knocking on the door to the Captain's cabin. The Anchor molded onto the door giving it an almost antique look.
Captain Wildstar's response was immediate. "Come in."
Taking a brief second to figure out how to turn the oddly shaped door handle, Row entered. Wildstar was sitting at his desk with a cup of coffee and a stack of paperwork. He also couldn't help noticing the carved portrait of a bearded man wearing a Captains jacket and hat. There were a few framed pictures, one of the Captain, only much younger, standing next to a beautiful woman, who was slapping his hand away. Another picture was of a slightly older version of the same woman holding two children. Finally, there was a picture of Jordy's brother Mark that Row easily recognized; it was a copy of the picture Jordy kept on his own desk.
Row pulled his attention away from the photographs and focused on the Captain. "We are coming up on a large Gamilon debris field."
"Thank you, I'll be right down." Wildstar replied, but then hesitated, "Adam, you know Jordy pretty well, don't you?"
Suddenly uncomfortable, Adam Row shifted his footing. "About as well as anyone, sir."
"You don't have to answer, but what kind of a man is he?"
"He is a good man, sir, a bit hot headed at times, but very passionate," Row said.
"What is it that…"Wildstar started to ask, but stopped after glancing at his row of photographs. "Never mind. I'll be right down, and have the Gamilon captain and the bridge crew join us on the second bridge."
Row nodded, then left for the bridge.
Outside Yamato, random pieces of green painted hulls and oddly shaped pieces of metal gently drifted. A chair, a helmet, parts of Gamilon Fighters, and pieces of metal and plastic that would never be identified drifted in and around the larger hulls. The largest piece of hull was dwarfed by the space battleship Yamato.
The bridge crew watched each bit of debris as it drifted by on the second bridge's oversized monitors. They were transfixed, as if watching a horror film, expecting something to jump out at them from behind each piece of metal.
The Captain's chair, with Wildstar on it, lowered from the ceiling. It was Wildstar's direct lift to each of Yamato's command areas. A short time later Knox and another marine arrived with the Gamilon captain, Noble. While Wildstar and the marines took the view from outside in stride, Noble's composure slipped away to reveal a horrified expression. "How could this have happened?"
"We are about to find that out," Wildstar answered.
"Image from the Time Radar is ready." Eager called from his station. The Time Radar operated by collecting light neutrons that had long since dispersed and reassembling them to get images of things that had taken place in the resent past, a device that had proven invaluable to the Yamato many times in the past.
"Put it on the side panel," Wildstar said as Sandor, Noble and the rest of the bridge crew gathered around to see the image.
The screen showed a blurry image of what was beyond doubt a most impressive Gamilon fleet. As the video continued, the images became much sharper.
"That is the home fleet," Noble said.
To the side of the fleet, space seemed be rippling. It almost looked like space was a pool of water during a rain shower. From each ripple, emerged an alien ship. Some were fighters, some were destroyers, and others were battleships.
The Gamilon fleet was taken completely by surprise, as the ships scrambled to launch their fighters, and turn their guns on the attackers.
Despite the home fleet's size and strength, it was a pitifully short fight. One by one, each of the Gamilon ships was destroyed until finally, the image went black.
The second bridge was silent. No one quite believed the carnage they had just witnessed on the Time Radar.
Captain Noble stood rigidly still, his head down, and eyes closed, with his fist firmly clinched. Wildstar wasn't sure if Noble was trying to hold back tears, or to contain his anger. More likely, he thought, it was both.
"Eager, give copies of that data to Noble and Sandor," Wildstar ordered. "Sandor, I want you to study that, and find out exactly how it happened. I don't want the same thing to happen to us. I also want Sakagage go over the video to catalog the enemy ship types."
Wildstar paced the bridge, lost in thought, his path taking him from the captain's station to his old combat chief station and back. The Gamilon home world had been attacked, and the home fleet sent out to intercept the attackers. Instead the home fleet had been ambushed and eliminated. That would have left Gamilon practically defenseless. Could Gamilon have already fallen?
Not likely, Wildstar knew from experience that Deslock was not that easy to kill. But he wanted to know if the enemy's next move had been to move in on the Gamilon home world? Surely it must have been, he couldn't think of any other reason to go to all that effort to take out the home fleet if not to move against Gamilon immediately, unless it was a move to wipe out as much of their space fighting strength in one shot as possible. In order to cover the loss of the home fleet, Gamilon would be pulling their resources from other worlds, weakening their defenses elsewhere. It was just the beginning then, a first move in a game designed to wipe out the whole of the Gamilon Empire then.
Why attack Earth then? Did the enemy think that Earth was an ally of Gamilon? What of Earth's fleet then that had set to intercept the enemy, just as Gamilon's home fleet had? No doubt, a similar fate awaited them.
"Yumi, are we within communications range of either Earth or Gamilon?"
"No, Captain."
Wildstar exhaled deeply. "Captain Noble, we are no longer going to Gamilon. If you want to go home, I will lend you the Cosmo Hound. Or, if you stay out of our way, you can come with us. I need an answer."
Noble, too was silent for a few moments as he thought his choices over. "I will stay with you, Gamilon interests are at stake, and I must do my part to protect them." Turning, and followed by his Space Marine escorts, Noble left the bridge.
"Venture, we have the course our defense fleet was using to intercept the invaders. I want you to use that and plot a course that will let us intercept them as quickly as possible."
"Aye, Captain."
On Earth, a young policewoman walked from house to house. She was tired of her task, it was far too repetitive, and mundane… and painful.
She checked the house number, and then compared it to the census data she carried. House number 321 belonged to the Toban family, One adult male, one adult female, and two children. She knocked on the door and waited for an answer.
Quickly, a middle-aged woman opened the door, her face filled with hope and worry. Obviously, the policewoman was not who the woman was hoping to see, as the worry lines increased once she recognized the police uniform.
She swallowed, this job didn't get any easier. "Excuse me, I'm doing a check to see if anyone in your household is unaccounted for."
The woman nodded, "My husband hasn't been home since the attack."
"Where was he suppose to have been on the day of the attack?" she asked.
"He was working at the museum, downtown."
An enemy squad had been reported in the area of the museum. "I see. What is his name?"
"Alan, Alan Toban."
She punched the name into her database, which checked it against the names of the confirmed dead. It did not match, so the name was added to the list of the missing. On a second list she listed the names of the people who were still in the house, so they would be listed as safe, just in case anyone else reported them missing.
"Thank you. We will be in touch if we learn anything."
The policewoman walked away, and headed for the next house. There were no lights on in it, which was a very discouraging sign. She hoped she would not have to force her way in to ascertain weather or not the entire family had been taken.
On the bright side, she was glad that she didn't have to go through any of the apartment buildings downtown.
Homer was hunched intently over the plots and warp figures taken on the enemy fleet by every sensor that had been able to take a reading. If he just went by the most basic information, then the course the Andromeda II had taken was the best one to intercept them.
Unfortunately, something didn't add up. There were too many anomalous readings for Homer to simply take the readings at face value. Even after re-reading some of Sandor's earliest warp theory papers, and some of his theories about changing course mid warp, he still wasn't quite sure he knew how to decipher the readings, but he was beginning to get an idea.
He would have to cross check his theories with some other experts in order to come to a more decisive conclusion, but there was no hiding from what he had already found.
"Commander, I've found something!"
Mizutani hurried over as soon as he could disengage himself from the aid who was busy chewing the Commander's ear off about proposed evacuation plans. "What have you found, Homer?"
"I don't think the Andromeda is following the right trail. I will need to take the figures down to R&D to make sure."
Mizutani scowled. "Do it, but I hope you are wrong. The Andromeda is too far out, there is no way we can contact them to warn them if you are right."
Back on the Yamato's first bridge, Venture looked up from his calculations. "I have the new course plotted, sir, but the only way we can reach the fleet before they expect to intercept the enemy is to warp continuously."
"The engines can handle it," Orion called from the Engineering station.
Wildstar nodded to them both. "Very well. Warp."
Venture aligned the ship along its new heading, and increased speed to maximum, before bringing online the Warp computer. A steady beep sounded as a small dot moved from the top to the bottom of the readout, moving across a series of parallel lines. The dot moved past them to a point where the lines were no longer parallel, but crossed and intersected with each other before going parallel again. He began the count down.
"10. 9. 8." Gradually the dot continued to move.
"2. 1. 0." The dot intersected with the lines at the point where the lines all converged. "Warp!"
The ship rippled, and faded out of reality.