Another volley of missiles slammed into the Ragnar, starting a chain reaction of explosions down the spine of the large vessel. It shook violently and Seth held his breath. It looked like it was going to be torn apart before the Fenghuang warm up its Heilmann Drive.
“Lance, you better be calculating that leap!”
“Just another minute,” he said.
The fighters were getting closer. Fire was spreading across the surface of the Ragnar, followed by streaks of small explosions. They wouldn’t be in the air for another minute.
Seth dug his fingernails into the armrests of his chair. He started planning his surrender. As soon as the Ragnar went down, he would establish communications with Commissar Absalom. If he was lucky, the commissar would see the value in saving the ship, or at least Alena Heilmann, and let them live.
“The Linarians are requesting a comm line,” Caitlin said. “Putting them on screen.”
The command center of the Ragnar filled the view-screen. There was smoke everywhere, sparks flew from the consoles in the background, and bright red alarms flashed across the walls. Sam, bleeding freely from a cut just above his eye, staggered into view. “I… I just want to see you one more time,” he groaned. “I wanted to make sure… Make sure that you were all right.”
Alena walked up towards the screen. “I’m fine, Sam.”
He smiled. “Good. I’ll see you someday, someday beyond the rim.” Sam staggered away. Just before the feed cut off, he started yelling, “Engage weapons! I’m taking them with us!”
The Ragnar reappeared on the view-screen, just in time to see the front of the ship light up with maser and missile fire. They were broken, but they were still fighting back.
“We will not let them die for nothing,” Seth said. “Get us ready to leap, Lance. It doesn’t matter where, the odds are on our side with any coordinates.”
Suddenly, Alena Heilmann stood up. She approached the front of the command center. “Stop!” she yelled.
“We only have so much time,” Seth said. Alena didn’t care. She pressed her teeth together in frustration as she watched the Ragnar begin to fall from the sky. Smoke poured from every surface. The engines were flickering and almost offline. That was her ship, named after her father, and she could not let herself forget him. She could not stand by while everything she worked for was being destroyed.
“Re-calculate the leap,” Alena said. “Take us right through Europa. Let’s end this now.” A quiet chill settled over the command center. Everyone spun to look at Alena.
Seth stood and faced her. “That will destroy the moon,” he said. “Everyone there will die.”
“So what?” Alena hissed. “Those people are the ones behind the Fall. Kill them and that’s a step in stopping this madness. Commissar Absalom will be dead, his men will be dead, and we will have one less obstacle in our way.”
Seth could not deny the truth of what she was saying. All it would take was simple calculation. Instead of leaping away from Earth-space, the Fenghuang could leap through Europa. The moon, and the research facility along with it, would be destroyed. Phaer Absalom and the wing of the military charged with enforcing the Fall would all be dead.
“You can’t really be considering this,” Caitlin said. She’d abandoned her position at the communications console and rushed to Seth’s side. “There are hundreds of people down there who have nothing to do with the Fall. They are innocent.”
“No one in the Republic is innocent,” Alena said. She looked up at the view-screen. A deep breach was just about to split the Ragnar in two. “They are monsters. They would kill anyone in their path… and for what? To keep us from the stars? We will show them that no man stands in the way of destiny. We will begin blazing a path towards a new future today.”
Caitlin could see that Seth was being convinced. She turned her attention to Lance, who was still waiting for a definitive order. “You’re not really going to let them do this are you? He’s not a real captain. She’s… She’s not thinking straight. Don’t let them do this!”
“I… I don’t know,” Lance said. He was frozen. He could not bring himself to disobey Alena Heilmann or kill everyone on Europa. “Captain, what should I do?”
Flames shot up from the ground as the rear half of the Ragnar crashed back to the surface of the moon. The front of the ship was still afloat, still firing every weapon it had to distract the Republic fighters.
Alena could not stand the indecision. “Fine, if you can’t do it, I will.” She grabbed Lance and, with surprising strength, hurled him to the ground. Before he was even down, she started tapping buttons on his console, plotting a leap straight through the center of Europa. With just a few commands, she would compress and destroy the lunar core and send the entire moon either hurtling off into space or to certain destruction in the atmosphere of Jupiter.
“If we do this, we lose Earth forever,” Seth said. He was surprisingly calm. This caught Alena off guard, and she stopped her calculations. “We become just what they feared. We become the reason they never build another Heilmann Drive. We become the reason they shoot down every starship that even comes close to the solar system.”
Alena’s finger hovered over the console. Seth could see that the calculations were complete. “Do we need Earth?” she asked.
“It’s our home. We can beat them another way. The Heilmann Drive is your legacy. Don’t make your legacy into a mass murderer.”
Her finger twitched. She wanted to press the button. She wanted to destroy them. And yet… “You’re right.” She stood up from the console. “But I’m not going to be the one to spare them.”
Caitlin smiled and breathed a sigh of relief, though it was short lived. On the view-screen in front of them, she saw as one final explosion rocked the remaining fragments of the U.S.S. Ragnar. Their shield was gone. The fighters would be gunning for them now.
“Lance!” Seth exclaimed. “Get those original calculations back up!”
The navigator quickly returned to his seat at the helm of the Fenghuang. “Done… and done. Don’t know where this will take us, but we aren’t gonna kill anyone in the process.”
Seth squinted. He could see the missiles coming for them. They were little specks of light amid the smoke from the Ragnar. Just in the nick of time. “Leap!” The specks became vapor trails. Seth almost thought he could see the tips of the warheads, aiming right at the Fenghuang. He counted down in his head, waiting for impact. Three… two… one…
A brilliant flash and then, for just a split second, everything went black.
Seth opened his eyes. He was still in the command center. He looked around. Lance was covering his face with his hands. Caitlin was clinging to one of the consoles with an iron grip. Alena was leaning against the back wall, arms crossed, as if she knew full well that they would leap in time.
“We’re… We’re alive?” Caitlin asked.
Alena scoffed aloud. “Of course we’re alive. If their missiles got close enough to us during the leap, they’d just be compressed and turned into fuel just like anything else.”
Seth arched an eyebrow and looked at her. “Really?”
“Thank God I’m here,” Alena said. “Because I don’t think I can trust my legacy to any of you.” She turned towards the door and left the command center.
Epilogue
The development of the Heilmann Drive changed society. In the years of interstellar travel, humans became Homeworlders, Yuanians, Linarians, and dozens of other identities. Despite that, they were all tied together by two things. The first was a common origin. Even the most sectarian society told reverent stories of Earth, the home of all humanity. The second was the Heilmann Drive itself. Almost anyone could step foot on a starship one day and be on a new planet the next.
The Fall marked the end of that freedom. Now, every planet was an island. Many were already prepared to deal with this. Worlds such as Airlann had little contact with the rest of the galaxy for hundreds of years and proceeded as if noth
ing had changed. Others, like NewPasTur, had been thrown into chaos.
After centuries of unity, the galaxy was splintered. In their explorations of the universe, the humans had never encountered another sentient life form. The long search for “aliens” had been fruitless. But now, they were aliens to each other. The Airlanni built their society around a planet, the NewPasTurians built their world around a technological niche, the Linarians worshiped a mortal woman, and the Yuanians worshiped the financial markets.
The People’s Interstellar Republic was so successful at controlling the old economy because there was no unity among the other planets. Had a few worlds allied, demanded the plans to the Heilmann Drive, or threatened military action, the Fall may have never happened. But they were diverse, they were hostile, and this chaos allowed the Republic to control the destiny of the entire human race.
If anyone was going to take it back, they would need to bring these worlds together. They would need to find some common ground, some reason to cooperate. Naturalists would have to ally with capitalists, technocrats with theocrats.
They still had one thing in common. They still had Earth.
*
“What now?” Alena asked. She poured herself a glass of Yuanian whiskey from the decanter in the conference room. Seth watched her. She was the first person on the crew to pour herself a drink. This made him smile. He’d left the bottle out in every meeting and none of the others were willing to bite.
“That’s a good question,” he said. They were alone. He thought of telling her the truth. He still didn’t have a plan, his theft of the Fenghuang had been more impulse than anything, and his ultimate goal was the destruction of the People’s Republic. “I suppose we should figure out some way for you to get started on a safer Heilmann Drive. Gather resources and scientists, set up a lab somewhere sympathetic to our cause.” Telling her was too risky. She was more than capable of taking over his command. As much as he respected her, Seth was not willing to turn everything over to her.
Alena took a drink. She cringed. Seth repressed a chuckle as he realized that, after hundreds of years traveling between Earth and Linaria, she’d probably never had anything quite as bitter as Yuanian liquor. “Tell me the truth, Captain Garland,” she said. “If that’s your plan—have me rebuild the compression drive—what would you have done if you never found me?”
“I was going to unite the planets against them,” he said. “I’m still going to do that. It’s just going to be a lot easier.”
“I’m glad you’re ambitious,” Alena said. “I’m ambitious.” Seth sipped from his glass, being sure to hide his own reaction to the strength of the whiskey. “I hope you understand why I spared Europa. We can’t let them make us the villains. Not yet, at least.”
“It was the wrong decision,” Alena said. “But it was your decision.” She drank again, this time without flinching. “They’re going to come after us. They still have the Heilmann Drive plans. They can build more, they can hunt you down.”
“Let them come. I’m not afraid of them.” He lifted his glass towards Alena. “The future is no place for fear.”
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