What Love Began - Part I

24 Years Before the Launch of the starship Salient


*********** Command Garrett on board alien starship ************

Five monolithic shining black rectangular cubes towered towards the ceiling, side by side in the otherwise bare circular chamber inside the alien ship. Yellow glowing mists slowly drifted around on the inside providing the only light in the ruined starship. The floor, ceiling, and walls were all composed of the same black marble looking material and dimly reflected the glowing gases.

“Commander, report!” Came the crisp order inside Commander Garrett’s helmet.

Ignoring the Captain for a moment Garrett continued his scanner sweep of the inside of their mysterious find. Inside the privacy of his mind he cursed the stupidity of their Captain. It was only a matter of time before one of the local mining platforms sent a party to investigate. And out here that meant a shooting match, and one the they couldn't win.

“Weapons are locked,Commander, report!” The impatient voice of the Frigate Barmellow’s Captain rang in Garrett’s ears.

“It appears to be deserted except for some sort of luminous gas that seems to provide internal lighting.” Clicking a button on his space suit Garrett continued “Transmitting visual imagery now.”

While they reviewed the images, Garrett made a slow sweep of the circular interior. Approximately one hundred meters high and wide at the center, the alien object was an enigma. The engines, power source, electronics, life support were all missing from the black tear shaped vessel. Whatever the craft was made of, it simply didn’t register on any of his instruments. This is probably why the strange object had remained undetected for such a very long time, or at least that was Garrett’s assumption for the moment. Two entrances at either end of the craft opened into deep space and led to the two corridors that opened up into the central chamber. For the moment, the source of yellow mists, both its purpose and origin, was a mystery.

“First Specialist Andrei believes that it might be a death barge of some sort.” The smooth voice of the Barmellow’s Captain was always three or four decibels too loud.

In the background Garrett heard Andrei protesting. No doubt she had been speculating out loud.

“Tell Andrei to keep her pants on” Garrett retorted “If she can, that is.”

Without even being on the frigates bridge he knew Andrei was now blushing and looking helplessly up at the ceiling. Smiling to himself, Garrett knew that he’d pay for that one.

“Look for markings, indentations, anything that might yield a clue as to what this thing is” the Captain ordered, "Death barges are part of some Earth cultures death rituals in which they set their dead on ships and set them adrift. That might explain the lack of power, though it does not explain where it came from."

Crouching down with some difficulty in his yellow and silver space suit, Garrett slowly reached out his hand towards one of the monoliths. Mere centimeters from its shining black surface an invisible force threw his hand back with great force. His stifled cry was heard back aboard the frigate.

“Commander, you really should leave exploring to the experts!” Garrett heard Andrei’s sweet voice echoing inside his helmet.

Over the top of an odd twirping sound in the background, Garrett heard her add softly, “You might lose something important, something I care about.”

The Captains voice returned “Garrett, I think your time is about to get cut short. Long range scanners detect a small squadron of corporate stingers… they’ll claim salvage rights no matter what we say if they find this thing.”

Slowly getting back up again, Garrett ignored the pain that was screaming through his arm. Torn ligaments probably, maybe worse, but for now he had no choice but to ignore it.

“Okay, Andrei keep the bed warm.” he joked.

The day would come when he was the one giving the commands. Only an idiot would have ordered him to explore an alien artifact without securing the vicinity or making deals with one of the surrounding platforms for backup in case of attack.

“I’m going to bring something back” Commander Garrett said with absolute confidence.

“Make it quick Commander.” The Captain's voice responded, “You’ve got minutes not hours.”

*********** Second Specialist Sirons Glaudistro on the bridge of the Barmellow ****************

While the long range detection alarms twirped in the small bridge area, Sirons studied the holographic image of their ship. The silver and white porcupine class frigate, the Barmellow, was built for patrol and reconnaissance. Considered both antiquated and slow by modern standards, she was still a powerful warship as long as the fight didn't go on to long. A raised bridge, thrusters, launchers, and antennas poked from every exposed surface she possessed. The twitch in his leg told him that disaster was about to strike. That was how it had worked so far, his leg twitched, then boom! Everything fell apart.

A short man of Indian descent, Sirons turned around to watch Andrei carefully. The tall thin woman in her emerald-green skin-tight uniform and flaming red hair was bad news and every sane man on board already knew it. Why she toyed with Garrett and wanted to carry Garrett’s baby to term was a mystery to him. At this point the only thing he wasn't sure of was exactly who would ruin whose life first. Shaking his head Sirons turned back to watching the information coming back from Garrett’s suit.

“Extensive bruising around Garrett’s right arm socket. He’s not going to be playing with a full deck here.” Sirons informed the Captain.

“The monoliths are free standing” Garrett reported from on board the alien ship, "I'm going to try something here."

Sirons could barely make out the smaller alien ship on the bridge's viewer. With no discernible energy signature be it heat or electro-magnetic, it made sense that it had remained undiscovered for this length of time. Instinctively he knew what was going to happen next. Garrett would not try to preserve this for scientific study. A man who really cared would have contacted one of the Research Labs either locally or back on Earth. Maybe arranged to split the rights to any discoveries in exchange for technical assistance and protection. But Garrett was more selfish then that and everyone knew it. He wanted his piece of the glory.

‘Sir, Garrett has attached manual tow lines to one of the monoliths.” one of the lower ranked crewmen on the bridge informed the Captain.

Swearing the Captain responded “Damn! I wish he’d let me do my job.” The Captain's face turned a slight shade of red. “I’ve got half a mind” the Captain started to say something but stopped in mid sentence.

“Sir, the stinger’s are five clicks out and closing fast. They will be in here in less than fourty-five seconds on my mark. Approximatly 35 ships in a packed flat spherical formation. Mark.” The lower ranked crewmen spoke up again. “Sir, Garrett has attached gravitational anchors to the hull of the alien ship.”

“That’s it, prepare to engage engines. Emergency speed on my mark!” The Captain commanded, "We are out of time and the entire ship is now at risk."

Sirons gritted his teeth. Even for a bastard like Garrett this Navy’s tendency to throw away life grated against every fiber of being. Glancing over at Andrei’s face he had the feeling that this emergency escape wouldn’t happen that fast.

“Mark!” The Captain ordered.

Nothing happened. Purple with rage the Captain turned to Andrei, but then quickly calmed when he saw the panel in front of her smoking from some sort of overload. Wanting to help her, Sirons grabbed an emergency aid pack and began moving over towards her but a gesture from the Captain stopped Sirons in his tracks.

“Posts!” the Captain snapped, “Prepare missiles for point blank defense mode!”

The crew hurried to obey. Looking out the starboard view port, Sirons saw the squadron of small cylindrical stingers appearing in the distance. No more than twenty to thirty meters in length they were basically single pilot starships equipped with cutting lasers, a small extractor, and an engine. But they were fast, cheap to build, and damn good at cutting anything, including larger ships into scrap metal.

“At one hundred meters from our position I want an umbrella of missiles before they separate.” The Captain knew what he was doing. Once they closed they would be impossible to hit, and at a distance they were to fast, to mauverable, and to many of them. The trick was to take them out when they were too close to escape but not so close as to be un-hittable.

“Sir, Garrett is signaling for us to move out slowly!”

Sighing the Captain responded, “Reverse at station keeping plus minor impulse. I want a straight line on the tow cables going into the alien ship maintained at all times. Smooth increase in acceleration to one tenth impulse.”

“Sir, umbrella of missiles launched.” Almost as an after thought the crewman added “This is going to hurt.”

“Brace for impact!” The Captain ordered.

************** Commander Garrett in space between alien starship and the Barmellow ***************

Jetting back to the tow cable, Garrett used magnetic restrictor clamps to attach himself to it. Over his head he could see the stingers closing now. Behind him the tow cable disappeared into the opening of the alien ship. Ignoring the pain in his shoulder he wondered what sort of insanity he had just pulled off. An umbrella of missiles blasted out of the Barmellow. Suddenly panic flooded Garrett’s mind as he realized that he was in the blast radius of an explosion that big. Rage briefly filled his mind, and a decision. If he lived through the day, the idiot Captain of the Barmellow wouldn’t.

Switching his helmet to a different communication mode he aimed an encrypted message at one of the incoming stingers, “Break off.. you’ve got an ally here. base three encrypted contact at ” and then he included a special com address that only he would receive. The narrow beam transmission would be automatically encrypted with the stingers encryption key and no one but the incoming stinger would be able to read it.

Explosions rocked the Barmellow. Antennas and clusters of various array’s were vaporized or blown apart. The bridge side of the ship seemed to compress as the blast wave tore through launchers and ripped into the infrastructure of the ship itself. Under the force of the explosion of the raised bridge twisted sideways. A number of the stingers simply disintegrated from the force of the blast and many of the others were flung off in various directions. One of the stingers tumbled end over towards Garrett and the tow line. Watching it tumble closer Garrett closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable.

*********************** Second Specialist Sirons Glaudistro on the bridge of the Barmellow ************

Chaos reigned in the darkened bridge of the Barmellow. Fire suppression equipment was online and a fine cold mist sprayed out onto the bridge. Lying on the floor Sirons could feel blood pouring from a gash on his head. Twisted beams and torn metal seemed to fill the dim interior. Groaning, he slowly pushed himself up right. The holographic image of the ship had blinked out and chances were most of ships operations had been disrupted. Crawling towards an emergency exit panel he brushed someone’s leg. With a shock he realized it was Andrei. Pushing her in front of him he worked his way towards safety. Not that it would matter much if more than a couple of the stingers had survived- they were all as good as dead.

******************************* Commander Garrett in space between alien starship and the Barmellow *************

The magnetic grips holding him to the tow line failed and Garrett was tossed violently out and away. Now explosions rocked the alien ship as one of the monoliths yanked by the force of the impact on the tow line came bursting through its hull tumbling end over end. The other monoliths freed from their resting place tumbled away into the blackness of space. But in a miracle of sorts the tow line remained connected to both the torn hull of the Barmellow and to the monolith at the other end. Setting his emergency transponder on Garrett relaxed and everything faded away.

******************************* Commander Garrett in the mess hall of the Barmellow ***************

“He’s coming too “ the voice sounded faintly familiar, “Commander are you okay?”

Groggily he tried to sit up but pained lanced through his body. That wasn’t going to happen yet so he stopped trying and just lay there.

“How many have we found?” Now he recognized it, it was Sirons voice. A useless waste of a navy career if he had ever seen one, Garrett had little use for the weak.

“Most of the upper deck weapons and surveillance crew are dead. You and I were the only survivors from the bridge.” Andrei’s sweet voice was always calm and reassuring. “Other than that the engine crew and lower deck, weapons and surveillance crew appear to be okay. Wounded are being gathered here in this room, as it’s the largest we have. For the moment we are leaving the dead where they are. Confirmed dead at the moment somewhere around eighteen, about sixteen injured.”

Mentally Garrett tallied what that meant. Six bridge crew with three survivors. The upper decks had twelve crewmen so that meant two had lived. The engine room had six, and the lower decks had twelve as well. With three support crewmen that meant that out of a crew of thirty-nine almost half were dead and nearly the entire remainder injured to some degree.

“Give me something for the pain!” Garrett managed to grit between his teeth.

“I don’t think you're up for it now” Andrei’s voice was teasing but at the moment it mostly irritated him.

How that woman could try to joke about sex at a time like this was beyond him.
Fortunately, Sirons, sensing the problem injected something in his arm. Relief washed over him. Now he was able to sit up and look around more properly. A bandage soaked in blood was affixed to Sirons forehead. Andrei’s hands were wrapped in antiseptic gauze of some sort and her complexion was white as ghost. Burns seemed to be seared into her checks, but not even that could mar her good looks.

“Commander, we are working to regain control of the ship. The stingers appear to have left for the moment. Though… “ Sirons paused “It is more than possible that they will be back.. this would be great salvage for them.”

"Good", Garrett thought to himself ,"that means my message got through." No way to tell exactly what the locals would do next, but at least he had gained time.

“Do we have the alien artifact?” Garrett asked.

“Yes” Andrei hesitated, “And we now know what was on the inside….” Her voice trailed off.

Sirons spoke up “It was… human looking… and alive. In fact other than some odd differences on the inside she appears to be a twenty something adult female.” Sirons paused for a moment before continugin, “Speaking English as a matter of a fact. The moment we got the black monolith on board it opened of its own accord and she sort of just fell out”

Damn Garrett thought to himself The cost of this was way to high. Already he could imagine the board of inquiry and as the only surviving senior officer it would be his butt on the line. He would be the one having to answer for what the Captain had done.

“Can we proceed under our own power?” Garrett asked.

“I don’t think so.” Andrei answered, “The ship's not in much better shape then you. I don’t think the structural integrity is strong enough for us to get under way, though we may be able to move her very slowly.”

“Can we call for help?” Garret asked.

“Already taken care of, and oddly at that it was not us that called for help. A local group, a J D Droomers, contacted one of our sister ships, a porcupine class frigate, the Twisted Sister. She is en-route. ” Sirons hesitated “ETA one week.”

It was time to take charge, swinging his feet off the bed he managed with some effort to stand up. "Sirons ,take charge of interrogating the female alien, Andrei ,assign someone else with medical knowledge to helping the wounded, then come with me. We need to do an assessment of the entire ship."

“Her name is Yai” Sirons paused “Yai Dandell”

Garrett ignored him and headed out of the room with Andrei.

********* TO BE CONTINUED IN WHAT LOVE BEGAN – PART II ************

Part II -

What Love Began - Part II  (E) A crippled starship is faced with impossible tasks as events spiral out of control #1178264 by SigmaWind

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