Union/Salient

The Union was the first global bond made to join together Earth’s major nations and find more planets to relocate the population from the already over-populated Earth. The Union wasn’t meant to just bring together all the countries and nations around Earth, but also to ensure that there will be more space for Earth’s population to live and breed, without the thought of over-population.
The Union originated of China, Russia, the United States of America and the British Commonwealth in two thousand and seventy six. They had grown more and more powerful ever since they came up with the goal of expanding their empire away from Earth and out into the Universe. This lead to the Union meeting and enslaving lesser civilizations for labour camps, though the Union did meet more advanced races. The Salients had been their first encounter with an advanced civilization; they had advanced to Earth’s state before the Union was created, with cars, phones and electrical items, they also possessed a device which could teleport beings from one spot to another. It was this that caused the war between the Salients and the Union. The Union wanted it for themselves to research its possibilities, but the Salients refused, leading to the Union stealing it for research,
this lead to war.

Year 2323 (December 23rd): orbiting the planet ‘Honour’

The mess hall was empty, only few people remained in the dull room; the night had been slow for the soldiers working at the back, cooking the food that no one was interested in; leaving it to sit there for hours on end, waiting for it to go cold so they could cook again.
Three friends sat in the corner of the room; the booth was secluded from the others, it was furthest away from the entry door and in the darkest section of the hall, there was a shallow light hanging over the booth’s table. The three friends laughed and shared jokes with each other. They had been there for two and a half hours, talking about their day and what they had been up to.

Mack slowly rose to his feet; he was the eldest of the three, this lead to him being the most respected of the three friends. The two looked up to him for guidance and always wanted advice from him.
The three had banded together, they met through the Union; joining to fight and explore for its cause.

“My shift starts in six hours, need some sleep…”
The two stared at Mack, thinking of what their next actions would be. In unison they both rose up and jumped to their feet.
Sarah and Ricky were both twenty two, they had passed through the recruitment process and flight simulations together, graduating at the same time. They met in twenty thousand and seventy seven, before the ‘Union’ decided to go to war with a far more superior race.

Sarah looked up at Mack and grabbed his hand.
“So we will see you tomorrow, same time?”
Mack reluctantly removed his hand from hers and smiled.
“Yep, sure to see you guys then… let’s keep our booth don’t let anyone else in there.”
Mack finished his sentence with a slight smirk on his face.
“But, right now I gotta go…”

Ricky slowly edged his way out of the cramped booth.
“I’ll walk with you; I got something I want to talk to you about.”
The two made their way towards the exit, leading to the private quarters. There was a buzz with the speaker system above Sarah, she jumped and almost tripped over a chair to her left.
“All hands on deck, this is not a drill… I repeat all hands on deck, this is an emergency”

The three friends looked between each other, stunned and not knowing what to do.
Sarah slowly began to walk over to the other two, before Ricky turned to the exit and shouted at the two.
“Guys! See that? That’s not one of ours, let’s get to our fighters; don’t want to miss the action.”

Ricky darted out the room and sprinted down the corridor, leaving just Sarah and Mack staring out the window towards an alien ship. Sarah froze, almost falling over from shock. Mack stepped closer to the window, about to walk straight into it.
“Isn’t that a Salient ship?”
Sarah remained silent, gazing out the window towards the massive structure firing at the space station they were in; unleashing fighters to attack the emergency pods trying to evacuate the doomed Union station.

The emergency doors closed down; cutting off the mess hall with the main corridor of the space station. The alarm remained active, filling the room with red and black, the primary alert colours used within the Union.

Sarah and Mack darted for the door, smashing the solid wall that had trapped them in the dark flashing room.
“Someone open the door! We’re still in here!”
The two pleaded for someone to answer their call, no one came; they remained helpless.
Mack ran up to the enormous glass window separating them from the vacuum of space beyond. The view gave an overwhelming view of the raging battle lurking outside.

‘We’re stuck in here aren’t we? The Salient ship will just tear us to bits, we’re sitting ducks.’
Sarah turned away from the window to reassure Mack, grabbing his hand and placing it in hers.
‘We’ll be fine, we’ve worked too hard for something like this to happen to us, don’t worry we’ll be fine, just have hope; for the both of us.’
Mack released his hand from Sarah’s and slowly made his way to a chair which had been toppled on its side by a serviceman who had quickly exited the hall. There was an engraving on one of the legs of the chair, ‘Eight’.
Mack picked it up and held it in his hands; he kept it off the ground thinking about what he was going to do next.
Sarah quickly turned around and watched as the chair flew through the air and came in contact with the heavy emergency door.
“I was the strongest; I was supposed to be there for you two, wasn’t to let anything happen to either of you. But I have a breakdown and let Ricky run out and risk his life without me there to help.”

Sarah stood silent, speechless, watching the tears slide down his cheek, to build up on his lower lip. She slowly turned around and moved over to the window and began to gaze out, witnessing a destroyed Union frigate steer helplessly into the path of the Salient war machine. A name was painted on each side of the frigate, “Joyful Night”.
Sarah stood, shocked at what was about to happen, she began to shout at Mack to get up and see what was going to happen, to see the brave men and women sacrifice their lives for the rest of them.
She constantly turned around to see if he had gotten up to make his way over to the window. Sarah saw that he had moved to a nearby chair, he had gone into shock, Sarah could see it in his eyes, he didn’t know what to do, he wasn’t ready for this.

Sarah turned back around to face the frigate and the Salient ship seconds away from collision, she stared in horror as the frigate scraped alongside the Salient vessel causing small fires and explosions along both ships. The frigate had lost its armour plating and had revealed its engine to the Salient ship, the Salient vessel constantly fired at the vulnerable spot in the weakened ship.
Sarah stepped back, to see the whole force of the explosion. The Salient ship had successfully destroyed the frigate’s engine, the ship immediately exploded, causing both ships to be destroyed.
The eruption engulfed the space around the two ships, taking with it all the fighters who were involved in the defence. The space station rocked, causing fire and emergency alarms to activate, filling the mess hall with warning of ‘loss of pressure’ and ‘unstable activity’ in various sections of the station.

The explosion vanished leaving just floating debris and fragments of the two destroyed ships floating seamlessly in space. The Union frigate had vanished; leaving just wreckage behind, the Salient vessel had little power remaining; trying to crawl its way from its once powerful advance.

Sarah watched as a Union fleet appeared on the other side of ‘Honour’, answering the space station’s distress call, though it was too late; the battle was over. Sarah stared threw the window and watched the Union fleet close in on the crippled Salient ship.
She shook off her gaze on the closing battle and turned to face Mack.
“It’s over, we made it Mack, we won.”

Her voice was low, trying not to startle her shocked friend. Mack looked up; there were tears in his eyes and down his face. There was relief in his actions, he looked calmer.
Sarah slowly began to move towards him but stopped to watch the emergency doors slide open, back to their original position.

Sarah looked back down at Mack and met his gaze. She watched as he nervously rose to his feet and quickly walked out the room, leaving her standing there alone. She moved back over to the window and watched as the emergency ships gathered the left over rubble from the battle, clearing the way for more Union fleets flying in to secure the planet and clear all the forces they sent down to hold the surface. She looked down at her feet and thought about what had happened, her eyes were closed shut, a tear began to form in her eyelid but was wiped away almost instantly.

She knew Mack needed help but she wasn’t the one to give it, she had tried to help friends with emotions in the past but had failed causing to their problems to increase and turn worse. She looked back outside and pulled a photo of her and Ricky at their graduation for joining the Union. It was on a planet back in her old solar system, she hadn’t been there since she was seven.
Sarah continued to look at the picture and closed her eyes but failed to withhold the tears, her mouth began to slowly move, trying to get words out but couldn’t quite manage.
“Where are you Ricky?”

She looked back down at the picture and held it closer, her grip was firm. She stared blankly back out the window and watched the sun disappear behind the lush green planet; leaving just darkness.

(Word count: 1783)

-Sean Williamson