Transient Signal

Chapter Eleven: Retribution

CCSV Scholar

Bridge

Jack had to fight back his first instinct to shoot Nishi. He had no way of knowing if the detonator had a dead man's switch—a secondary feature which would cause the bombs to detonate if pressure was released off the detonator—or if it did not.

That did not stop him from keeping his rifle trained on her. "Alright Nishi," he said, her head firmly in the cross hairs, "Ten seconds to explain yourself before I blow a hole in your head."

Nishi chuckled. "I'm sure you would, Sergeant. But fine I'll pay your little game. I tried explaining it to the dearly departed Captain here, and he was extremely receptive. However, rather then revel in the truth I enlightened him with, he chose to break down. Pity, but I guess some minds aren't ready for the truth."

"And what truth is that?" asked Jack through clenched teeth.

"Humanity is a prideful creature and it's about time our pride blew up in our faces," replied Nishi with scorn lacing her voice. "When we looked to the stars, we thought we could take anything we wanted. We never thought of what else might be out there and could potentially stop us. I showed the Captain that humanity was doomed to be consumed by creatures such as the one that cut through your platoon of highly trained commandos in only a few hours. He felt that sacrificing everyone would make up for it; serve as a warning for future expeditions or stop them all together."

"He was right," declared Jack. "All our mission data is stored onboard the Morrison. Anything happens to us, it jumps back to Confederate space and let's the higher ups know what happened."

Nishi laughed. Sharp and scornful. "I must admit, Sergeant, for a battle-hardened veteran you're almost as naïve as the Captain. Didn't you find it odd that despite everything that has happened, the Morrison didn't send its detachment of marines over to assist? Or why you've had almost no contact since your mission began?"

Jack paused for a moment. He realized he had not really noticed that they had had no COMs with Morrison since boarding the ship. "I had thought that they were only speaking to the Captain."

That got another scornful laugh from Nishi. "They're dead, Sergeant. Every last one of them." A smile of wicked glee formed on her face.

"What? How?"

"There were two creatures on board this ship," she cackled. "One of them stowed aboard one of your dropships that I convinced your Captain to send back to the Morrison for medical supplies. It slaughtered the crew."

"You bitch."

"The other Sergeant called me something worst before I killed him too," replied Nishi, motioning to the dead body of Sergeant Willis. "I was strangely expecting more from you. I didn't have you pegged for a coward that hid behind name call—"

Nishi was interrupted by two rifle rounds taking out her knee caps. She fell to the ground in a scream of pain, the detonator still in her grip however.

"Move in," ordered Jack as he slowly approached Nishi. Vine and the surviving members of the platoon entered the bridge, securing it as best they could. Much to Jack's dismay, there were only a handful left. Corporal Vine, Corporal Burns, Corporal Parker and two more from 2 Section, Corporals Coleman and Gale.

As Jack walked up to Nishi, he fired another shot into her off-hand shoulder. As she laid there gasping in pain, he stepped on the arm that held the detonator, and when her hand was about to release it because of his boot cutting off the circulation to it, he grabbed the detonator out of her hands.

"You fucking bastard!" she screamed. "You fucking cocksucking bastard! Humanity is doomed, do you not fucking understand?!? Why fight it!?!"

"Because it's what I do," Jack said. He put another round into her head. He turned to face what was left of his people. "Okay so not to make anyone worry, but I'm holding the detonator for a pair of nukes wired to destroy this ship."

Vine looked at him with the most straight face possible. "Well Sergeant...what do you propose with do with that?"

Jack smiled. "I'm glad you asked. We need to get back to the Morrison. However, Ms. Nishi pointed out that it currently has an unwanted inhabitant. So here's the plan: we take a dropship back to the Morrison, we trick the creature over there back into it, send it back to here and then detonate the nukes."

"Sergeant, that's crazy," remarked Burns. "But it could work. The dropships fly remotely, so we can program the autopilot from here. Hey Arvin, didn't you cross train to do exactly that?"

Corporal Gale seemed to think about it for a minute or two. "Yeah I could program in a flight plan for a two way trip. I'll need ten minutes."

"You got them," said Jack. "Let's make this happen, people."

For the next ten minutes, Gale worked away at programing a flight plan into one of the dropships docked in the Morrison. Everyone else made finally preparations to leave the Scholar, one of which included taping the detonator of to Jack's hand so he did not drop it because of muscle fatigue. Finally when everything was done, the dropship made it' way to the Scholar.

It took thirty minutes for it to arrive. Thirty of the most nerve-racking minutes as everyone who was left waited, hoping nothing would go wrong in transit. Jack caught himself holding his breath more than once. At long last, the dropship arrived and docked with an access hatch on the exterior of the ship.

"Alright boys and girls," declared Jack. "Last one out gets the lights. Let's end this."