Chapter 1: Bellum Be Damned

Blinking lights and flashing monitors. Every morning for the past ten years, David had to endure the chaos and the cacophony of glimmering readouts, pulsing images and people in white coats. He resented himself for volunteering for this job. The same, monotonous, routine day in and day out. In retrospect, he probably would have agreed to the contract, had he had the same choice, for in these ten tenuous years David constructed humanity’s crowning achievement, the first faster-than-light ships, capable to cross light-years in a blink of an eye.

The first drones he outfitted with these amazing drives were expensive and their loss was unfortunate but the data gleaned from these failed experiments were invaluable. And today they are outfitting the last ship with its FTL drive, The Bellum. David walked over to his workstation and booted up his computer. Sipping on his already cold coffee as the pass-coded prompts appeared on the dusty screen. He entered his personal passcodes and put his cold mug on a sticky coaster. Today was going to be a long day, he mused as his practiced fingers danced over the keyboard as David input the last of the FTL source code that allows for these massive energy outputs to be converted in super thrust. People started arriving at their workstations, some of them stretching and yawning.

“Good morning Professor. Pulled an all-nighter?”

“Yes I did Malcolm. Did you finish those FTL drive output calculations I asked for yesterday?"

Malcolm sheepishly toyed with his tie.

“No Professor I forgot” Malcolm replied

“I know. I just did them. Report to Dr. Summers, I’m sure she can use your help in doing the data stream up-links wiring to the drive core”

“Already there Professor” Malcolm said as he hastily beats a retreat.

These students were starting to irk him. They are more in the way than actually helping. The only scientist here on his crew that remotely had any use was Summers. She was doing her internship for her doctorate in physics and engineering. She seemed timid at times and he suspects that her social skills seemed undeveloped for someone so stunning. Sometimes he would catch her staring at him. She would abruptly turn away, her cheeks burning, being discovered. He would just smile and carry on with his work. Romance never held any sway over his life and he was not planning to sweep anyone off their feet, least of all her. His reverie came to a crashing halt as someone yelled out a warning and a flash of light ripped across his face. David shut his eyes quickly and dropped to the floor with his hands over his head.

“We have a core breach! Someone shut down the main power!”

He risked a glance to his left. The energy flash was a flare from the breach coming from the drive core. He knew that anyone within twelve feet of it was incinerated instantly.

“Summers! Are you alright?” David called out, trying to yell above the agonized screams of the injured.

“Yes David, but we have a problem!”

“What is it?”

“The flare melted down all the insulators linked to the core! We have to get off this ship!” Diane yelled back.

He scrambled to his feet and ran over to the nearest com set. Alarm klaxons sounded and choking smoke hung thickly in the air, all mixed with the sweet stench of charred human flesh. David nearly ripped the phone set from the wall in his haste to use it.

“This is Professor David Birch. I am issuing a general emergency evacuation order. Get to your evacuation points and board your designated escape pods.” He hoped he sounded calm enough even if he did not feel it.

“Summers. Organize the wounded for evacuation. Leave the dead. There isn’t enough time to get to them all!” David commanded.

She just nodded in acknowledgement and helped up a man. He was clutching at his eyes and screaming like a stuck pig.

“What’s going on? It sounds like the world has gone to hell in here!”

The first thing David noticed was the man’s scar over his left eye, running down vertically toward his cheek. His uniform was neatly pressed and his beret neatly tucked into his shoulder guard. He found it amazing that he could pick up such minute details under mental duress.

“The core is melting down!” David yelled. He was struggling to breathe, the smoke doing its job, suffocating everyone in the room.

A marine ran up to the eye-scarred man and saluted him crisply.

“Commander, we have successfully evacuated all military personnel and hardware from the Bellum. We are currently assisting the civilian contractors in their departure. We should leave too sir.”

He looked at David. He had a calm attitude towards this crisis that was slightly unnerving. How can any man be so calm in the face of danger?

“Professor how long before the meltdown occurs? The commander asked.

“We have five minutes at most sir.” He fervently hoped that Summers made it off the ship, feeling the sudden urge to see her face. He shook it off, angry with himself for his lack of focus.

“Get out.” Was all the commander said.

“Pardon me sir?” the marine looked at him in, what looked like to David, reverence instead of confusion.

“I said get out!”

The marine took David by the arm.

“Come with me sir, we have to go. Now!” The Marine yelled.

They both ran down the main corridor that led to the escape pods.

“Who the hell is that man?” David shouted, labouring for breath as he ran.

“He is a psyon! Now get moving!”

Horror filled his eyes.

“You want that guy to stop this with his so-called powers? We have to get him out of here!”

David started to run in the opposite direction, but the marine smoothly pulled him backwards and delivered a right hook to his jaw. He went down like a sack of potatoes. The marine hoisted him onto his broad shoulders.

“Good luck sir.” Was all he could say....and started running.

---

The room started to shake. The bulkheads were groaning under the stress, caused by the expanding energy put out by the drive core. The psyon stood there, an impassive look on his face as lights exploded and screens and machinery started to crumble. He closed his eyes.

“If my sacrifice validates my kind then so be it.”

The eye-scarred commander drew a deep breath and slowly extended his arm towards the fractured drive core. Closing his eyes and letting his inner calm take over. All sound faded. The mind falling free from his corporeal form. And in his body’s empty shell, allowed the universe to fill him up until it filled to bursting point. All was silent. The commander knew his body would be rent asunder under the pressure of all this energy. He stood there, a spectator outside his own flesh, knowing his demise was imminent. He took this moment in time to say a prayer and hoped this will work. Like a film, being played after a lengthy pause, reality seemed to shift inside the room.

The whole room darkened as if all light drained from it. The commander’s whole body began to vibrate as he started the focusing process. His body began to take on a kind of luminescence, a bright, white light that was expanding from his core being. The psyonic pressure caused him to vibrate harder and faster now and he struggled to maintain the energy field he was projecting. He sank to one knee in an attempt to centre himself, to maintain his inner balance.

“Core meltdown imminent.” A robotic voice sounded. He never heard it.

He knew the time was right. Haggardly standing up, his whole body was wet from perspiration. Gritting his teeth as he focused the field around the fractured core. Bulkheads started to tear and he heard the rending of steel behind him.

“Please God let this work.”

He heard an agonized scream, like a cry of pain and anguish, torn from tortured lips. Only to realize that the cries were coming from him. Trying hard to disconnect himself from the pain and the radiation slowly seeping into the deck, he felt moisture running down his cheek. After another rending tearing of steel ringing in his ears, something strong and cold try to sweep him off his feet. Willing his body to remain firmly planted on the deck as the vacuum of space tried to take him in its cold embrace.

“It is done. I’m going home.” The commander whispered with a smile, letting go.

---

" Summers. Has anyone seen Dr.Summers?” The professor tried to raise his voice above the clamor in the escape pod. He winced. The pain in his jaw was unbearable

“Professor Birch, she was one of the first to use the escape pods. I’m sure she made it safely to Earth.”

David felt waves of relief wash over him. Thank God, she is alive. He scanned the seats of the survivors and recognized the marine that helped him off the Bellum.

“You! Why...” David started to say when an announcement came over the intercom.

“We are about to jump to Earth in twenty seconds.”

The pod shot out of the launch bay at breakneck speeds that the G-force pushed him back into his seat. The pilot then steered the pod so it came to a standstill a few kilometers away from the doomed ship. Watching in pure horror and profound sadness as he awaited the searing flash of super atomic energy that will obliterate his work, and the lone soul on board trying to stop it. Even if the pilot tried, he would not outrun the blast radius.

The speakers of the intercom cut through the silence. “Core meltdown in five, four, three, two...”

David covered his face and prepared to shield his eyes against the would-be flare that could blind them all and in turn incinerate them. The pilot tried to put as much distance between them and them and the Bellum. It was a futile gesture. He knew the FTL was not ready yet and he hoped against hope that the marine’s faith in this unknown savior was not misplaced. A few seconds passed.

Nothing.

He slowly opened his eyes.

All onboard the pod suddenly gasped as the engine deck exploded into a million pieces of steel and debris, engulfed in an ocean of flame. A strained dumbfounded silence followed. David looked at the Marine in askance. He bowed his head and made the sign of the cross, then wiped a solitary tear off his soot-smeared cheek.

Slowly David started to make the sign of the cross and thanked God that he and most of his crew had survived.

He released his pent-up breath and let his mind go adrift. His thoughts returned to Summers. A smile slowly started to creep across his rugged features.

“Absurd.” Was all he said.