The most terrible prison

The most terrible prison Part 2

"Sighting confirmed!" the officer exclaimed.

The Captain withheld a motion of joy:

"Are you sure, Lieutenant?"

"The probe has hooked the signal twice just before the frequency was encrypted again. We have it, Captain!" he answered, choking back a gesture of pride.

Lieutenant Solo was one of the youngest officers of the space fleet. So young that his rapid career had aroused much envy both in its peers and in some superiors. If it were impossible, given the strict rules of the Academy, someone would have thought of some irregularity.

Captain Kirby had been the first one to offer him a place in his crew and Solo was more than happy to repay his confidence. Of all the ships in the fleet, the Esperanza was the first to hook the most sought after signal of the sector, perhaps the whole universe.

The Captain stood, then he hurried to inform the General Command of the Fleet their small but significant victory; he had been able to verify with his own eyes Lieutenant Solo's precision and he had never been disappointed: if someone would be able to get the signal in the myriad frequencies occupying the immense space, this would be him.

What followed was hectic even for Starfleet parameters. The bridge was occupied by a holographic semisolid projection which integrated the signal received with other fragments transmitted by countless probes now destroyed by the enemy or dispersed in spacetime.

Omicron, the fortress planet within which General Simeon was imprisoned, seemed strictly guarded and incredibly complex. Countless hours of observation and several lives were lost to complete the reconstruction, and their time was coming to an end.

They knew the Skrullgon interrogation techniques and that the psychic defenses of the General could not resist forever. They could take it for granted that the most terrible inquisitor, Orius the android in person, was operating on the prisoner. It was already a miracle, as well as a proof of the ability of the General, the signal that he had managed to send by taking advantage of a momentary breach in the security of the prison planet.

Sooner or later, however, the inevitable would happen and their military secrets would fall into the hands of the most cruel and destructive species of the multiverse. What the Skrullgon should have done then to erase them from existence would be so simple as to wait for the fall of a ripe fruit.

"There is no other way" declared Captain Kirby, serious. Around the table with the holographic projector he had collected the most trusted among his officers. In addition to Lieutenant Solo, for the first time at that table as a reward for his outstanding discovery and struggling to hold back the emotion, there were Superior Lieutenant Munroe, the blonde navigator, and Uri, the tip-eared alien.

"There is no other way" the Captain repeated as to convince himself. "The trojanhorse must work".

No one knew what the name given to the expedient meant. There was no sign, not even in the most remote historical chronicles, of a place called Troy, barely it was known what a horse was thanks to its mention in the literature of the early millennia before, stored on some holodisk. Probably the name referred to the first time that the ruse had been employed or the most popular.

In any case, it was perhaps the only way that someone could have been close to Omicron and not being atomized before he has accomplished his mission.

"Are you sure you can disguise the ship so that we will not get recognized by the Skrullgon defenses?" asked Munroe to Lieutenant Solo.

"Certainly not the whole starship" admitted the Lieutenant. "But a rescue shuttle should not be a problem..."

"We'll need much more than a plausible certainty" Uri objected, in his cold and calculating tone.

"I guarantee for him" Captain Kirby urged. "If Lieutenant Solo says he can do it, I have no reason to doubt his words".

Few standard hours later, the four were on the spaceship. Omicron's gravitational attraction was such that the fortress planet was surrounded by a cloud of asteroids. The spacecraft approached the planet mixed to space debris. At the appointed time it made a rapid signal that disturbed detection frequencies just enough to allow it to enter in one of the commercial hangars, now disguised as an ally of the Skrullgons.

Once inside, the conspirators disguised themselves as Wakandiani, since their mass allowing them to fully blend in. As they walked, silent and undisturbed, the corridors of the base, they followed the map that Solo had been able to reconstruct from the fragmented communications of dozens of spies and came to the room where the General was held.

Strange as it seemed, everything went smooth until then. Even getting rid of the guards was easy. Almost too easy. The General was lying on a bed suspended in the air, with probes and tubes that tormented him, violated him. One in particular seemed to immerse in his head: they were going to turn him into an android.

It was clear that they would not be able to free him.

In that, the door behind them opened and they were terrified from what emerged: Orius the android was studying them from behind his yellow visor.

It was a trap!

"Do it!" a voice cried.

It was the General. If he could not be released... All four looked at each other and there was no need for words. Captain Kirby pressed a button on his remote and with a roar and a blinding flash the hydrogen engine of their ship reversed the flow and turned into a nuclear device that shone like a star, obliterating the Skrullgon command, the crew of the Esperanza and General Simeon himself.