The Quantum Leap - Part 25

Daniel’s voice flooded through the bridge.

“Roger that!” a male voice declared over the comm-link as he eyed the viewscreens with a steely look on his face.

“Acquire targets!” the Admiral commanded.

He entered a series of commands into his console, “Roger! Acquiring targets!” the response echoed on the comm-link. The trio of tactical viewscreens was virtually alive with targeting reticules and blurs of target tactical data. In seconds, each airborne target had layered blinking red circular reticules around them. 10, 20mm rectangular batteries protruded from the ventral-starboard hull, angled at their targets.

“Targets acquired!” he snapped, then hovering his pointer finger over the button lit red and directly declared, “X-Ray-One-Five-Seven-Lightning missiles are standing by for launch order, sir,”

The Admiral looked at the squadron of hostiles approaching the compound and then barked, “—FIRE!”

“Launch order confirmed!” he declared, pressing the fire button, watching circular indicators on his console light up simultaneously, “Missiles away, missile’s away!—Fox-Ten!”

The missiles shot from their rectangular housings in a blinding flash of white light and distorted the space immediately surrounding the mouth of each battery. The ship’s tactical sensors tracked the missiles as they soared at Mach 50 toward their targets and gave an accurate ETA for the missiles’ impact.

It began to rain in the surrounding area.

In a seeming blink, Daniel watched as Odyssey’s tactical sensors showed a crisply straight bright blast of lightning tear through the aircrafts’ fuselage, instantly violently exploding each aircraft into scattering metallic, flaming debris.

“Confirm targets are down,” Daniel commanded.

“Confirmed! All hostile aircraft are down . . . Showing ejection seats falling from the hostile aircraft!”

“Roger that,” Daniel acknowledged dismissively as he turned his attention to group two’s phasing toward Captain Winter.

In a seeming blur in time, group two passed through the layers of rock and then they were less than five feet from Winter, swiftly sweeping the room with their rifles as group two’s lead snapped to aim at a hostile alien’s back and fired three shots. The alien crumbled forward onto the right shoulder of the chair and then rolled onto the floor nearly motionless. Aaen closed his eyes and recoiled away from the action, cringing. Several other pops negligibly echoed from around the corner to lead’s right.

Group two’s lead thumbed a signal to disengage the phase. Each Shadow quickly appeared as a magnified distortion and then became visible.

“Kill the lights,” lead commanded accompanied by a hand gesture. The rest of group two snapped and precisely shot out any visible light sources in the room with a single shot each.

Lead lowered his weapon as he turned to Captain Winter, “I am Lieutenant Alexander, Union Shadow Forces Corps,” Aaen noted the Lieutenant’s voice was deep, and he had a slightly southern accent, “Are you okay?”

Aaen didn’t answer, only looking at Alexander with a confused look.

“Are you okay?” Alexander asked again, this time more directly as he knelt down, activating his tactical helmet light, shining it on Aaen’s face and holding Aaen’s chin to check for injuries, then Alexander activated his comm-link, “Two-lead to Alpha Lead. Confirming hostage is in-hand. Repeat: confirming hostage is in-hand.” The announcement echoed through Odyssey’s bridge and New Horizon’s.

New Horizon’s bridge and Odyssey’s was abuzz with celebration.

Daniel looked at Odyssey’s viewscreen and commanded, “Group-Two: RTS with downed hostiles. November-Hotel will coordinate local friendlies on Oscar with prosecute hostile Charlie-Oscar. Departure in five mikes, over.”

“Copy that.” Alexander acknowledged. Two other members of group two lifted Aaen from the chair. Alexander turned to the rest of group two and signaled to move out to gather the downed hostile aliens.

The Shadow behind Daniel read the new tactical data on his computer screen then turned to face him, “Sir, group two reports hostage is secured, hostiles are in-hand. Receiving signal to RTS,” the Shadow in front of Daniel began disconnecting the extra computer equipment.

“Execute,” Daniel commanded, watching the tactical readouts on the viewscreen blacked out, then read “Systems Restarting. Returning to Flight Operational Mode.”

Daniel turned around and faced the first officer. The ship’s doctor rushed to deck two through the internal phase pad.

“Group-two: you are clear to RTS,” the Shadow behind Daniel declared, watching the indicators on his screen seemingly blink from one area to another. There was chatter over the Shadow’s headset, “Roger that,” he acknowledged turning around, “Group two is safely back on-board, sir. CMO is securing hostile aliens in stasis and attending to Captain Winter,”

“Very well. Secure station. We’re Mike-Oscar,” Daniel acknowledged, gesturing to move out.

“Aye, sir,”

Daniel looked at Odyssey’s first officer, “I relinquish command to you, sir,” he said, shaking his hand. “Computer,”

The computer chimed acknowledgment.

“Return full starship command privileges to the first officer,”   

The first officer nodded, watching as Daniel led the other Shadows on the bridge to deck two.

The first officer took the center seat, noting the main viewscreen’s principle functions had been restored and the bridge computer stations looked like they had been returned to their normal functions. He faced forward.

“New Horizon, this is Odyssey X-Ray-Oscar, requesting new orders.”

*****

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