Chapter III of Lands Beyond

     They left me alone for nearly two whole days, only opening the door to give me food and to take away the empty tray. I noticed that it was always the commander, (for such I assumed he was), who entered my room. Everyone else stayed in the corridor. He never tried to speak to me, although I spoke to him a few times. Whenever I did, his lips would compress and he would give me a brief glare before spinning on his heel and striding from the room.

     I was not bored during this time. Far from it actually. I had found some paper and colored pencils in a drawer at a writing desk. The pencils produced the most vivid and lifelike color that I had ever seen. With utensils as fine as these, there was only one thing that I could do with them. I drew a portrait of my parents together, on one of our happiest picnics.

     I was putting the finishing touches on my portrait when the door banged open. I was startled, but kept a firm grip on the pencil as I finished the last line. A hard hand clamped my shoulder and pulled me out of my seat. It was the commander. He tried to propel me out the door, but I resisted. I turned to him and slowly, deliberately, reached up and removed his hand from my shoulder. I threw it down and stepped back to the desk.

     Carefully, I put everything back in its place and placed the portrait under a light. Once that was done, I turned back to the commander, who was seething, again. I smiled at him and walked to the door.

     He barked a command and two guards took up positions on either side of me. The commander stalked past us and led the way down the corridor. Even though I was quite lost, I sensed that we were heading in the direction of the landing bay. This proved to be true.

     Upon entering the bay, the first thing that I noticed was that my shuttle was practically in pieces. I gasped in outrage and rushed forward only to be stopped by the guards. I struggled against their iron grip.

     “What did you do? Why did you tear it apart? You better not have broken anything!” I cried.

     One of the guards laughed and said something to the other. He laughed as well. It was not a nice one. The commander glanced back and frowned. The laughter ceased immediately. Apparently, he was not someone you wanted to cross. At the moment, I did not care about that. My only thought was to get to the shuttle and make sure that they had not ruined my only chance to get back home.

     With a vicious jerk, I freed myself from their grip. When they reached for me again, I punched the first one right behind the ear, dropping him in his tracks. The second guard was more cautious, and more experienced. The commander stood by, seemingly unconcerned with the outcome. This warned me, and I was careful not to overextend myself.

     I soon discovered that he was far more trained, disciplined, and dangerous than I. Not that I was dangerous, for I had never had any reason to fight before, but I did know martial arts. I had only used it to practice balance and agility, but I did it every day, so I had become somewhat proficient at it.

     After three minutes, I was sure that I was going to lose.

     After five minutes, I knew that I was going to lose.

     Less than ten minutes after the fight began, I stalked over to my shuttle, a dazed guard sitting on the floor behind me. I had not won by being better than him. I had beaten him through sheer determination.

     The commander stepped in front of me, put his hand in the middle of my chest, and shoved. I acted instantly. Before his hand even touched me, I stepped backwards, reaching up to grip his wrist in the same instant. I twisted to the side, bending and pulling at the same time, using his momentum against him. He landed hard, but recovered quickly.

     I spared him only a brief glance before beginning my inspection of the shuttle, effectively telling him that he wasn’t worth the effort. This angered him, but he let me continue and did not try to stop me. As if he really could. I would probably lose the battle, but I would eventually win the war.

     My inspection took an hour, but at the end of that time, I was satisfied that no permanent damage had been done. I walked back to the door that we entered from and stood there, waiting for the guards. They approached and took up their positions alongside of me.

     The commander approached as well, and I gestured imperiously for him to lead the way. He glared at me with clear disdain. I grinned impishly and fluttered my eyelashes at him. He looked away, and then back at me. Slowly, a faint smile appeared on his lips.

     I have no idea what he really thought of my behavior. To be honest, I didn’t either. The situation was one that I was entirely unaccustomed to. The one thing that I could not figure out was why I had been brought to the landing bay in the first place. Our next destination was not my cabin, as I had expected, but the bridge.

     The commander went straight to the center console and seemed to be asking for a status report. Whatever he heard did not please him. He issued an order and two people set to work at their computers. He himself sat down in what I assumed was the command chair and began to punch buttons and flip switches.

     As my guards stayed near the door and made no effort to stop me, I began to wander around the room. It did not take me long to recognize the function of many of the workstations. I stopped near one that looked like it was a radar screen. There was no technician at this station and I took the opportunity to look closer.

     Suddenly, I sucked in my breath and leaned in close to study the screen. There it was! I had not imagined it. A tiny blip that appeared for only an instant before disappearing. I watched for it to appear again and it did, slightly closer to the ship.

     “Commander!” I called over my shoulder and pointed to the screen. “Look!”

     Sighing, he got up and came over to me. I indicated the screen again and he bent over to look. Seeing nothing, he shot me an angry glare and turned to leave. I grabbed his arm and jabbed my finger at the screen, where the blip was just reappearing. He stiffened when it disappeared. I tracked its course with my finger and paused where it showed up again.

     The commander spun around and began rapidly issuing orders. I had no idea what I had seen, but whatever it was, it was bad. When I noticed everyone else buckling themselves into their seats, I did the same. Once strapped in, waiting was the only thing that I could do. We did not have long to wait. I could feel the ship turning and slowing.

     Suddenly there was an explosion and the ship rocked unsteadily. I grabbed the armrests and looked around fearfully. No one looked concerned. In fact, they looked quite at ease. I looked back to my screen and saw that the little blip was now completely visible.

     I surmised that we had fired at it and had somehow either destroyed its cloaking ability, or had forced it to appear some other way.

     Since I did not understand anything that was being said around me, I relied upon the radar screen to tell me what was going on. I saw several of what I guessed was enemy ships. Two of them were cloaked like the first one. I was sure that the commander would want to know about them, but how could I tell him?

     The problem solved itself, for the commander came over to my chair and gave me a questioning look. I held up two fingers and pointed to the locations on the screen. He nodded and went back to his own chair.

     Twice more the ship rocked and the cloaked ships became visible.

     The battle continued for several hours. There were a few times when it seemed as if we were being bombarded on all sides. During these times, everyone was hushed and tense, going about their jobs with an intensity that told how serious the situation was. I kept an eye on the screen, but I did not see any more of the invisible ships.

     The commander was an efficient and able leader. Several times his calm directions saved us from a dire situation. He did not get ruffled or overly hasty, and his decisions were well thought out and every angle considered before the order was given. Not that he was slow, for he was not. In fact, I have never seen anyone who could come to a perfect solution in such a short time, as he did.

     I am no expert on battles, but even I could see that we were faced with an insurmountable obstacle. We were only one ship, and a large one at that, while the enemy had eight small and agile ships.

     And then I noticed something strange. There were numerous little specks detaching themselves from the side of our ship! After inspecting them closely, I realized that they must be something like fighter jets being deployed.

     My guess was not far off. In fact, as I discovered later, they were a single seated fighter craft equipped with specialized weaponry designed to inflict severe damage upon certain points in a ship that would either disable or destroy it. Of course, you had to actually hit these points in order to be successful.

     And then you had similarly designed and equipped enemy craft to contend with. So then you have something like a dog fight going on all around you as these crafts fight each other and attempt to reach the opposing ship in order to drop their deadly bombs.

     Our advantage in a battle like this was our superior number of small fighter craft. While half of them engaged the enemy, the other half made for the ships. Our ship engaged these others and prevented them from attacking our fighter craft. Since we were bigger, logically we had more weapons and were able to fend off any attacks made upon us.

     Not long after this, I saw one ship retreat, two others ceased fire, signaling disablement, and one seemed to erupt before disappearing. I correctly assumed that it had been destroyed. The remaining four continued to fight, but it was evident that they would not last long. And they did not.

     When it was all over, no one cheered like you might expect. Instead, they smiled and nodded to each other as if to say, well done. The commander stood and said a few words, and then turned and left. Since I did not know what I was supposed to be doing, I followed him.