Known History

Chapter 3

    “This power cell is good.” Jonson said to Turco as she tossed it to him from the shipping area of Waking Flight.

 Turco was on the mend from the past two days. His broken leg was now in a flexi-cast and healing quickly thanks in no small part to some experimental medicines that Mandy had been developing. He felt strong and had insisted that he help others salvage the destroyer.

When Quinn crashed the escape pod, Turco had broken his leg. But due to his fierce loyalty to his squad, he had ignored the pain until Quinn and Dermal were safe. Then after his bones had been set the first time, he narrowly killed a red-striped tiger, and fainted, falling and re-breaking his leg. However, after two days of bed rest Turco began to feel restless, and needed something to do.

Jonson and Wince worked with the others of the station, as well as the surviving crew to salvage Waking Flight. Jonson stated that any help would be welcomed. So Turco was helping as best as he could. Pushing a trolley around carrying power cells between the destroyer and the station.

The whole plight that Dr. Grove had gotten into with Quinn was to thank for an inattentiveness on a science experiment. Unfortunately the station’s marines were out of the station at that time, thus causing unneeded panic. They went out with Jonson to start the salvage operations.

Turco placed the core into the wagon that he was pulling behind him. He looked around the near deserted shipping area. With its smashed boxes and litter strewn every which direction, the place looked nothing like the previous glory that even a small destroyer, like Waking Flight, once boasted.

“Hey, LT, catch!” Jonson called out to grab Turco’s wandering mind. A core crashed into his chest. He huffed as he caught it.

“Go easy, sergeant, I’m still recovering.”

“Oh, I know, sir. Sometimes you need to push yourself a little.”

“As if I need to push myself any harder.” Turco said scoffing at the idea. “The wagon’s nearly full. We should start getting ready to head back.” 

Jonson got down off of the pile of power cores, most of them were broken. She helped Turco pull the wagon to the center of the room. The other teams saw that they were ready, finished up rather quickly with their loads and met up with Turco. 

Dermal was there with the other marine from Waking Flight, his name was Donny Thrin. They had been in charge of gathering small arm weapons from the armory

 The second team consisted of two research aides and a marine from the research station. Mandy made sure to tell them exactly what crate that was supposed to be delivered. Her special order. They also gathered any spare medical supplies that they could find.

And the third team was two marines from the station. They were in charge of gathering rations and water. 

Power, food, weapons and medicine; the teams all gathered around the middle of the hanger. Wince was in charge of piloting the skiff. It had been somewhat of a challenge to open a hanger door, but Dermal with a couple of pounds of explosive, opened the door rather easily. 

The crews placed the food and power cells on the skiff first with their corresponding crews first. The skiff took off, and Turco left Waking Flight for a second time and took off back to the Stallion. 

The skiff struggled with the load, but it did maintain a low altitude. The skiff was being pushed far beyond what it was originally intended for. But it handled as well as could be expected and it made trips unfailing back and forth.

As soon as they had all regrouped on the Stallion, Mandy had called together a team meeting.

“Now, as our groups have come together in our ragtag bunch, we should probably start heading to the north volcanic fields to the long range radio  to inform the Nursery of what happens to Waking Flight.”

 “And stay as far away from the crash as we can.” Quinn put in. “Those pirates may come down for some scavenging of their own.”

“Are you sure that we don’t need anything else?” Dermal asked. “It may be a long time before a rescue ship is sent.”  

“No, we need to get going.” Turco stated. “If those pirates have an ounce of thought among them they’ll be down here soon enough to plunder the ship. In fact, I am surprised that they haven’t been down here already.” 

Mandy led the way to the control room of the hovercraft. Major Quinn and Turco followed her. The rest stayed in the bay area to reorganize the supplies except for Wince, he had asked Quinn for a break and made his way to the crew quarters to get some sleep. 

The three commanders entered the small room that had only two chairs in it. Mandy sat in the pilot’s chair and Quinn with a look of greed in his eyes quickly tried to take the navigators chair. Turco saw the greed, and with a soft, quick jab to the Major’s broken arm, he distracted him long enough to get to the seat first. 

The Major groaned in pain.

Mandy looked back at the Major as he rubbed his arm. “Please try to refrain from breaking his arm again. I just set it two days ago, and he doesn’t heal like you do.”

“Sorry,” Turco said, “But I didn’t want a repeat of his piloting skills so soon. It didn’t end well last time. You know, you saw the injuries.

As she turned the boat on, she chuckled. “You Two act more like brothers than you do commander and subordinate.” 

Quinn responded to that statement as he found a jump seat hidden in the door. “Turco is what some at Whiskey High Command would call a special case. How old are you Turco?”

“Twenty-seven.” Turco answered.

“Twenty-seven. Now to you and me, that may sound pretty young. But, Turco as a Whiskien, is still in the spring of his youth and will likely remain in that spring for the next sixty-three years. But he has already outlived my lifetime several times over. At least fifteen, from what I have been able to tell. The fact that he is still a lieutenant, means he is that way of his own volition. And so I am more subordinate to him as he will experience life a lot more than me. But I have more ambition than he does.”

“You see Mandy.” Turco put in. “Whiskey Home Star is a white dwarf. A star that will remain new for at least ten million years, but during that time it puts off a special type of radiation that enriches local biological life. Causing it to heal quickly and live for a much longer time. And since Whiskey is so far away from the star, our years are much longer than those of other worlds, hence we live much longer than humans from other worlds. 

“But it doesn’t mean that we treat others wrong, I mean that was a staple for our space exploration in the first place. When my great great great grandfather was a young man he set off for the stars in hopes of reaching new alien worlds, studying them, mining others, and further our knowledge of the unknown and perhaps finding some trace of higher beings, you know like a creator.

“Then when his son left Whiskey for the first time, those explorers came across a new and highly upsetting discovery. They found the Nursery for the first time. The Splinter, was the name of the encounter.”

The hovercraft was gently sailing along the desert topography. The new cells seemed to give it a good ride. Quinn exited the room to talk on his radio to the rest of the crew, who sounded like they had finished their chores and were moving to different parts of the ship to rest and guard.

“I have heard of this event from my uncle,” Mandy said. “He said that it was one of the most important discoveries for the Nursery.”

“And who is your uncle?” Turco asked.

“Doctor Albert Thorne. He taught me most of my field experiences and I reported to him on a weekly bias of all my discoveries on HarBack.”

“An important discovery for the Nursery, true enough, but a terrible price to pay for Whiskey and all of their uplifted planets. Whiskey at the time had never even heard of war, or battle. Their technologies were meant for prolonging life and terraforming unlivable planets. At the introduction of the Barbaric Nursery who saw fit to hack, slash, blow up, and burn through star systems without a moment’s hesitation about how many that they may be killing. My people had a choice at this point, learn to fight and defend what they had worked so hard to build up, or ignore the Nursery and hope that they didn’t find Whiskey. They chose the first option, and for a time it seemed to work.”

Dermal snuck into the room and sat in the jump seat. He was sweating, but quiet. Turco continued his tale.

“They soon found that warfare was hard to master, but easy enough to understand. Fire burns, water drowns, wind cuts, earth suffocates, plasma disintegrates; they used the natural part of terraforming to halt the progress of the known Nursery. It wasn’t long until the Nursery brought in starships and blockade platforms. That halted the uplifting of planets for a short time, about five years or a hundred to standard Nursery time. 

“Within that time, Whiskey had figured out how to produce kinect and energy based weapons, they had small arms, tanks and vehicles, as well as a small fleet of cruisers, frigates, destroyers and transports. It was with this fleet, led by Paragon Snap, that Whiskey began its three year counter-attack. The paragon had studied the tactics and strategies that the Nursery had thrown at him five years ago and he had perfected them into hit and run tactics. 

“And for a time it seemed to be working. Nursery ships were destroyed, and planets were recaptured and allowed to return to their peaceful lives. But the fleet was spread thin and the Nursery kept coming and with every victory, the ships fell into slight disrepair and it came to the point that even the most sturdy ships, needed to be pulled away and repaired.

“The land wars restarted, men fighting desperately for each acre. Bren, Gebra, Favre, Hemil, Troud, Jeamil, and Frur, to name a few these worlds became desolate wastelands where nobody would be able to live for decades. Then as the Whiskien Fleet returned in force, with the original ships along with bigger, stronger, and faster ships all being led by Tobias Snap in the newest Command ship, The Harbinger. However, the new numbers of the Whiskien’s fleet of 120, paled in comparison to the thousands that the Nursery had sent. Some of them new, others looked to be just barely holding together.

“In a show of good faith the Nursery sent out a small transport with instructions to Tobias to meet for a rendezvous, to try and settle things peacefully. Tobias did go to greet the transport and there a truce was settled upon. Whiskey and the Nursery would share resources and technology and continue branching out and uplifting lower grade humans to our levels.”

The hovercraft was silent. The engines ceased function. It was then that Turco had noticed that Mandy, Dermal, Quinn, and all the others were as tightly packed into the small room as they could fit, all listening to the story. For they all enjoyed a retelling of history as well as the next.

“So what happened next?” Jonson asked from somewhere behind Quinn.

“Next, the Nursery was good to their word for about twenty years. Then there was an upset of power and conquest began again. And for another ten years it was hidden from Whiskey, as that was one of the laws that was never to be broken as long as the truce was to remain stable. No world conquest was to be put ahead of uplifting. But a splinter group felt that all the new technology should have really been tested to the fullest degree.

“When Tobias Snap had heard of this treachery, he called together all of his fleets some six thousand ships and with Harbinger, he commanded them all to war yet again. A war thirty years in the making, and costly for both sides. Tobias had no to little backing from Whiskey Base. The Base was heavily influenced by the assumed spies and cowardly officers. But there were other dry docks that did offer their support, planets beyond the Nursery’s grasp that still maintained their uplifted status. But it was still the undoing of the Snap family that caused the eventual defeat of the navy. Families of Whiskey Base held hostage and the shared technologies meant that Tobias had very little advantage over the Nursery’s navy and their limitless supply of ships and men. I mean how much did Whiskey decide that Tobias was not worth supporting to openly shame him by not sending support. Thankfully, his captains, commanders and admirals did not see his ways as being archaic. They remained faithful to the treaty and pursued a peaceful solution. But any time they tried to halt the fighting, the Nursery would take a cheap shot and destroy one of their ships forcing more bloodshed and more useless violence.

“Slowly over the years, and after constant pleads from Whiskey Base to cease fighting and give up, Tobias did. He gave up and surrendered. But no trial was ordered, no punishment given except for the most perilous patrols through uncharted sectors. And there he stays in that dark of space, and my father is his chronicler,  that is why I know so much about this conflict.

“And Whiskey Base and the Snap family continue to have a strained relationship, for it is the Snaps that could rally Whiskien forces again if any were still alive or not banished.”

“Kind of a sad story, when you think about it.” Dermal said.

“Whiskey ended up losing in the end.” Turco added for his last bit. “So, I suppose that could be a reason why I seem so unmotivated.” 

The men and women stood or sat in silence for a long while, thinking about the story.