REDEMPTION TRAIL

The view from the forward windows of RQ-733 had undergone a marked change during the final hours of that exiled flight; Capella had already grown in size to resemble a full- fledged sun and the shattered world of Theti was just barley visible in the distance. The weary crew, however, did not notice the pronounced change; they had taken advantage of what little idle time remained and bedded down in hopes of getting some sleep before establishing orbit.
For Krey, however, the hope of getting any sleep was quickly eroding as he tossed and turned near the chair he had been tethered to for nearly two hours. There were plenty of reasons for Krey's lack of slumber; the least of which was the fact that Capella was shining through the forward windows like the sun on a hot desert plain.
Krey had planned on looking up his old flame, Delaina, when they reached Theti but, for some reason, he found difficulty getting Cassie out of his mind. He always had respect for those who were privileged enough to think like a genius and, despite her nasty disposition, he found himself being drawn to her. She was a stunning woman, a goddess by some standards, intelligent, independent, and seemed to have at least some appetite for the kind of adventure that he craved.
Krey rolled himself over in hopes of finding a more comfortable position, which proved fruitless since any position in zero gravity was essentially the same as all others. As he struggled to sleep, he thought about the possibility of starting a meaningful relationship with Cassie; it brought a smile to his face. His mood, however, quickly dimmed when he realized that too many harsh words had been traded between them. While it was true that they had become at least somewhat civilized toward each other, there was still the unchangeable pastas well as a substantial gulf between his personality and hers. Despite the obstacles and differences, he still found himself being attracted to her in a rather odd sort of way.
Krey rolled over again, though he somehow knew that it would make little difference to his tired, restless body. On that particular night, he happened to be sober; by bedtime he was usually in a numb, semicomatose state and sleeping was absolutely no problem.
Beer was also on Krey's mind that night. He thought about the time wake and how he had placed their lives in danger by drinking all morning. He thought about the letter from Delaina, he thought about his promise to Cassiethen he thought about the cute, fuzzy badgers printed on each and every canister of Milwaukee Brew. His mouth began to water.
Krey popped up his head and looked over toward the refrigerator. They were in there; at least twenty four of the friendly, smiling badgers; each one of the little beggers had four hundred milliliters of smooth, cool, frosty Milwaukee Brewjust for the taking. Krey licked his lips as he thought about the prospect; what would one lousy beer hurt?
Krey could almost hear the little badgers calling his name, begging him to come and drink their famous Milwaukee Brew. He cautiously glanced over to the bunk; Cassie was sound asleep and had not stirred in hours. He slowly, and quietly, untied his tether, then glanced at Cassie one more time.
Satisfied that Cassie was asleep, and that he could pull this thing off without recourse, he quietly, and carefully, made his way to the rope that lead all the way back to the refrigerator filled with beer, beer, beer. He could almost taste it already; a cool, sudsy `Brew' would cap him off nicely for the night.
Hand over hand, Krey carefully made his way to the refrigerator, pausing every so often to glance at Cassie. True, she was a genius, but Krey was confident that he had the necessary stealth to pull it off; he could grab a beermaybe twothen drink them without her ever knowing.
When Krey reached the end of the rope, he slowly maneuvered around the refrigerator, being careful to make as little noise as possible. He reached down for the handle of the refrigerator, then cautiously glanced at Cassie; she still had not moved. Krey looked down at the refrigerator, then licked his lips one more time as he thought about the twenty-four dancing, smiling badgers and their cool, frothy Brew.
"Don't even think about itcaptain!"
Krey let out a disgruntled moan as he took his hand off of the refrigerator. He glanced at Cassie, who had spoken without moving so much as a muscle, then reluctantly decided that he should honor his original promise; no beer for the remainder of the flight. Disheartened, as well as somewhat disappointed with himself, he reached for the rope then started back to his restless place next to the dilapidated seat.

The dirty, crumbling surroundings of the disaster shelter seemed to fit the failing optimism of Theti's sole survivors. Fenton and Chellaina had spent several persistent hours at the radio in a futile attempt to summon help; the receiver had been equally persistent in remaining silent. It was apparent by their uneasy, worry-filled faces that hopes for a rescue were quickly fading.
Despite their dim view of the future, The General relentlessly continued the futile task of reaching out to no-one. He switched frequencies on the transmitter, then keyed the microphone.
"Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is General Fenton S. Raver seeking emergency assistance. Is anyone out there? Please respond."
Both Fenton and Chellaina listened carefully to the silent receiver. After fifteen or twenty seconds passed, The General, again, keyed his microphone.
"Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is"
He was silenced when Chellaina gently placed her hand on his. The General looked at Chellaina's fragile, uneasy smile, then lowered the microphone.
Chellaina's voice was light and gentle, yet filled with despair, "There's no-one left, Fenny. There's no- one out there to talk to."
The General did his best to sound positive and assuring for Chellaina's sake, though he too was beginning to think that the peaceful world of Theti no longer existed.
"Nowwe don't know that for sure, Chelly."
Chellaina's gentle, convincing tone persisted, "Try again later, Fenny. Please."
The General reluctantly nodded, then stowed the microphone in its proper place at the equipment's control panel. After drawing a heavy breath, he turned to Chellaina; a look of distress was clearly evident on his face.
"I've been trying to put this together..." He shook his head, "I can't figure out what happened."
Chellaina shared The General's look of concern, "Maybe there's a war going on. Maybe you were right and the security council was wrong. Maybe the UN should have rebuilt the Space Force."
The General shook his head, "Even if there was a war, this mess still doesn't make sense." He gestured toward the crumbling ruins of the surrounding disaster shelter. "This kind of damage could only be caused by a direct nuclear hit, or maybe by a large spacecraft cratering into our back yardbut that would only explain the destruction here." He gestured with the fingertips of his open palms pointing toward the floor.
"What do you mean, Fenny?" There was an uneasy pause as Chellaina's eyes swept across the floor. She looked up at The General, "Do you think other places on Theti were hit?"
The General reinforced his position with a slow, shallow nod.
"Why?"
"Because there should be some kind of reply from the radio; if not from the ground, then at least from space."
"Hmm..." The disturbing look on Chellaina's face deepened.
The General continued, "Even if the whole planet were somehow destroyed, there should still be orbiting spacecraft."
"Maybe it was antimatter," Chellaina suggested, "that could destroy a planet and everything in orbit."
The General shook his head, "Then we wouldn't be herewe would have been annihilated into energy. The planet still has to be in one piece; if we were somehow surviving on a fragment of Theti, then we would have felt a change in gravity."
Chellaina nodded in agreement; The General continued, "What bothers me more than that is the fact that we're going on our fourth day... Where is the rest of the realm? Why haven't emergency vessels and rescue ships converged on Theti?"
Chellaina's eyes widened with fear as a terrifying thought came to mind, "Are you saying that the whole realm might be gone?"
The General shook his head, "I don't see how." He let out a sigh of despair, "It just doesn't make any sense at all."

It had been an extremely restless night for Krey. After tossing and turning for hours, he finally decided to get up and watch the approach to Theti from the comfort of the pilot's seat. He had never been to Theti before and had never seen it first hand, though the dismal, brown world certainly didn't live up to pictures he had seen of it in various magazines and news reports. He was surprised by how deceiving pictures could be.
Krey glanced down at the instruments and noticed that they had something on the order of fifteen minutes before the ship's computers would automatically bring the Star Saber out of the time continuum and establish an orbit around Theti. He thought that it would be prudent to wake Cassie up before the transitionjust in case a mishap were to occur. He had already heard her stirring about at the rear of the bridge and decided that now was as good a time as any to wake her.
"Cassie!"
He waited, but there was no reply.
"Cassie! We'll be in orbit soon."
Again, there was no reply. Krey simply assumed that Cassie was still asleep. He unbuckled his flight harness, then started down the rope that led to the rear of the bridge.
As Krey approached the makeshift bunk, he realized that Cassie was not in bed. He stopped, then carefully looked around the bridge.
"Cassie!"
After some searching, he spotted her near the rear of the bridge; she was not moving and almost appeared to be in some kind of trance or hypnotic state. She hovered motionless near the refrigerator with her eyes gazing at an arbitrary point on the wall. Krey immediately realized that something was amiss; he hurried down the rope.
"Cassie!"
When Krey reached the refrigerator, Cassie slowly held up a hand to stop his advance. A look of confusion came over him.
"What's wrong, Cassie?"
Cassie's response was given in a cold, frightened whisper.
"Look."
An uneasiness crept over Krey as he turned his eyes in the direction that Cassie was looking. He carefully studied the wall that her eyes seemed to be fixed on, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.
"What?" he whispered.
"Don't you see it?"
Again, Krey turned his eyes to the wall; after a moment or two, they widened with disbelief.
"What is it?" he whispered.
There, clinging to the wall by an air duct, was a World War Five carnivorous robotic insect. It was only about two inches long and hardly more than an inch wide, but it looked formidable never-the-less. It was a shiny, metallic black with an overall appearance of a large ant. It was supported by six needle- like legs, each of which terminated in miniature grippers, and its head was dominated by a large pair of shear-like mandibles. In between the mandibles was a retractable, conical-shaped auger, which was specifically designed to bore through human flesh. It sat motionless, for the most part, moving only its antennas and occasionally refocusing its miniature cameras as it studied the leery onlookers.
"Its a carnivorous robotic insect," Cassie's whisper was marred by shear terror.
"A what-the-hell?"
"Sh..." Cassie begged, "It sees us." She carefully reached for Krey, then slowly drew herself toward the protection of his body. Her horrified eyes stayed locked on the micro robot as visions of The General's accounts haunted her imagination. Krey noticed that Cassie was shaking with fear; he didn't know exactly what the device was, or what it was capable of doing, but Cassie's fear of it certainly seemed to creep into him as well.
The leery crew watched the artificial creature in silence for quite some time. At one point it took several steps to the side, which appeared to be for the sole purpose of getting a better vantage point of its potential victims. Then, without warning, the damnable device disappeared down the air duct in the batt of an eye.
Krey and Cassie could hear the robot's tiny legs scurrying down the vast network of air passages as it retreated deep into the bowels of the ship. They just drifted there in place, staring at the air duct until well after the metallic echo of its scurrying feet diminished to nothing.
Krey's voice was marred by concern, or perhaps even alarm, "What the hell was that?"
Cassie swallowed hard, "Its a carnivorous robotic insect."
"Never heard of it."
"It's a World War Five weapon. Those robots were designed to kill people by boring through them."
Krey cringed at the thought. "What do you mean, `Bore through them'?"
Cassie never took her eyes off of the air duct; her voice was clearly shaken, "It was a weapon planted by the opposition. Those retched things would case the crewthey'd hide in boots, helmets, under toilet seatsanywhere where they could find an opportunity to penetrate a body. They'd bore through one side of a person, come out the other, then disappear down the plumbing and wait for a chance to do it all over again."
Krey's uneasy eyes looked up at the air duct, "No shit?"
Cassie nodded; her voice echoed with certainty, "No shit."
"Do you think it knows the war is over?"
Cassie shook her head, "I doubt itI think it was casing us for a kill."
The vigil at the air duct was suddenly interrupted by a series of beeps coming from the pilot's console. Krey's eyes widened as he recalled the reason that he came to get Cassie in the first place.
"We're ready to establish orbitwe better go up to the front. I want you in the copilot's seat in case something goes wrong."
"What about the insect?"
Krey tossed up his hands in a helpless gesture, "I don't know. I guess we'll just have to deal with it later. Right now, the transition back to the real world is more important."
Cassie nodded, "Good, we'll establish orbit, then take the shuttle down to the planet. I'll go on about my businessand you can worry about what to do with this death trap." She shook her head to emphasize her position, "I don't ever intend to come back on board."
Krey reluctantly nodded; he was somehow hoping that Cassie would see fit to stay on. He realized, however, that the original agreement was limited to taking Cassie to Thetiand nothing more.
"Come on," there was a noticeable trace of sadness to his voice, "We'll be in orbit soon."
Cassie detected the disappointment in Krey's voice; she watched with intrigue as he turned and started down the rope toward the flight controls. Krey's response made her feel warm inside, as well as somewhat uneasy. She had never allowed herself to get close to anyone, and the thought that someone actually cared about her made her feel likelike a normal woman. An uneasy thought came to Cassie as she followed behind Krey; could she be missing the golden opportunity of her life? She had read about relationships and whatnot in numerous stolen romance novels, and often wished that she could pursue such a relationship. True, Krey was a little on the dense side, somewhat irresponsible, arrogantbut he had several good points as well. He always managed to keep a cool head during an emergency, he was resourceful, bold, good-looking, andmost importantlyhe seemed to move her in some kind of way that she just couldn't describe.
Still, there was her secret of Tripolean Syndrome to protect; any kind of relationship was just simply out of the question. Cassie let out a distant, disheartened sigh as she realized that it would be best to stick to her original plan; there would be no romance for Cassella R. Hempton. Besides, she was not about to stay any longer than necessary in a ship with a man-eating robot at large.
When Krey reached the end of the rope, he quickly positioned himself in the pilot's seat, then strapped himself in; his voice still reflected his disappointment as he glanced down at the instruments.
"Goodstill have three minutes left before the transition."
Cassie was immediately behind him. A disturbing look came to her face as she studied the dull, brown planet looming ominously in the distance, "That's not Theti!"
Krey looked up at the planet, "It's not?" He glanced down at his instruments, "The computer thinks it is."
Cassie shook her head as she positioned herself in the copilot's seat, "No, Theti is green."
"Green?"
Cassie nodded as she strapped herself in, "Yes, green. I've been to Theti, and that's not it."
"Well, we can't be too far off," he pointed to Capella, "That's definitely Capella."
Cassie nodded in agreement, "Yes... The computer must have locked on to the wrong planet." There was an uneasy pause as she studied the situation, "Butthe distance from Capella seems about right for Theti."
The discussion was interrupted by a series of beeps from the pilot's console. Krey looked down at his instruments, "Too late to do anything about it nowhang on!"
The Star Saber's ancient, dilapidated hull began to creak and moan as the time distortion engines started to wind down. The eerie creaking of the hull escalated, then a low, hollow rumble set in as the distortion around the Star Saber began to loosen. Krey and Cassie anxiously watched the dense star field beyond the forward windows as, second by second, the stars appeared to move farther and farther into the distance.
"Any odds on whether or not she'll break- up?" Krey shouted.
Cassie did not reply; she just clutched the armrests and anxiously waited for RQ-733 to finish its transition back to the real world. Her fear began to ease somewhat as the universe appeared to return to its proper size. Gradually, the expansion began to slow, the rumbling stopped, then the shifting, moaning hull began to settle down.

High above the dismal brown world, among scattered ruins of satellites and smashed remnants of space vehicles, was the hazy, ghosty image of the mighty Star Saber. The image became clearer and more pronounced as the ship gradually left the time continuum and slowly materialized in the real world. Within seconds, the infamous RQ-733 was once again solid and real as it entered a lop-sided orbit around the shattered ruins of Theti.

Cassie let out a sigh of relief as she relaxed her grip on the armrests. She looked to Krey, "Any damage?"
Krey glanced up at the overhead panel, "No... Not yet anyway."
"Goodlet's leave before the insect comes back."
Krey turned his attention to the forward windows, then a sudden look of horror swept across his face.
"What the hell!?"
Cassie also turned her attention to the terrifying sight. There, drifting dangerously close to the Star Saber, was the partial remains of a large spaceliner. The spaceliner appeared to have been torn in half; several lifeless bodies were still strapped to its seats and various pieces of cadavers and luggage drifted aimlessly in the hollow, empty shell of its hull. It was surrounded by a drifting collection of tattered metal, fluids that had collected into several large balls, and various pieces of human bodies, which were frozen in the empty vacuum of space.
There was a cold, ominous tone to Krey's voice, "My God!"
Cassie shook her head as tears clouded her eyes, "I don't like this!"
Krey's horrified eyes frantically surveyed the darkness above the planet, "Look! There's more." He pointed off into the distance where another large, crippled spacecraft drifted aimlessly among the ruins, which littered various orbits, "And there too!"
Cassie struggled to get a good look at the planet's surface, "Maybe this is Theti." She shook her head, "I can't tell for sure. I don't like this KreyI want to leave!"
"What the hell happened here?" Krey's voice was shaken as his nervous eyes surveyed the drifting sea of destruction. "Is everyone dead?"
Their attention was drawn from the atrocities beyond the forward windows when an alarm and flashing light came to life on the infamous overhead panel. Krey looked up at the panel in disgust, "Now what!"
"Where's the damage this time?"
"Hold on..." Krey studied the panel's indication, then wrinkled his brow in confusion. "No damage..." He pressed several keys on the panel's keypad, then his eyes widened with surprise, "We're receiving an emergency beacon!"
"What?" There was a slight pause, then Cassie quickly turned her attention to the computer keyboard and began entering commands. After a moment or two, she glanced up at the screen, "It's being generated by a piece of World War Five equipment!"
"World War Five equipment? That's odd. Is it an automatic signal?"
"Just a minute..." Cassie entered several more commands at the keyboard, then drew an excited breath, "No, it was manually activated." She turned to Krey, "There's survivors down there!"