The Return of the Clydesdale 6
Steven Sousa

Most of the colonists had, by that time, come to realize their inevitable fate. There had been no transmissions from either the home world or another colony for almost two years. The malfunctions in the colony’s machinery were becoming more frequent and of a more system-wide nature. Technicians and engineers were working themselves to the point of exhaustion just to keep minimal functionality.

And the monsters’ attacks continued to grow more intense.

Colony Overseer Edward Bolic sat at his desk, staring blankly at one of his monitors. Behind him were the holographic portraits of the previous fifteen overseers. Howard was thankful that their gazes were merely virtual. If they could see what the colony had become, and even worse, how badly his own growing despair had crippled his leadership… what was left of his leadership. He was relieved to be alone.

Edward was still a boy when the demons made their first assault on the colony. He had precious few memories of his father, who died during that first brutal year. And what memories he had were so intermingled with the nightmares that he long ago gave up trying to differentiate between the two.

He spent a great deal of time staring at his predecessors. He often wondered what they would have done in his place. Was it just his bad luck to be named Overseer just as the monsters turned their full attentions in the colony? Or could they somehow sense the weakness in his heart? Would the colony’s fate be any different if a better man had been in charge?

Three years ago, Bolic became Overseer at the age of 44. The previous Overseer, Shelley Dean, had given her life in turning away one of the monsters’ attacks. Her death was a severe blow to the entire colony. The election of a new Overseer was an emotionally charged debate. Some felt that the Overseer needed to be someone with a strong military background, but the majority believed that since there were so few of such people remaining, they were simply too valuable to keep away from their tasks.

His intercom flashed. Bolic waved the door open. Bryant Thompson entered his office. Bryant would have been the Overseer if the minority had their way. Bryant should have been Overseer. Maybe things wouldn’t have been any different, but Bolic knew that he wouldn’t presently look like an old man.

Bryant Thompson stood tall and strong in the center of the room, naturally assuming control of it as he did any room he was in. Bolic wasn’t sure if he loved or hated him.

“You asked to see me, sir?” Bryant asked.

Bolic wanted to scream at him. Like a perfect military man, Bryant never failed to show proper respect to his Overseer. Since he had routinely proved that he didn’t deserve it, it seemed more of an insult than any other he could imagine. He desperately wished Bryant would relieve him of his responsibility, even as he knew Bryant would sooner have cut of his own head. The tension between the two of them only grew tighter every time they were together, but Bryant never betrayed so much as a sideways glance to acknowledge it. Bolic had once considered the possibility that it was all only is his own delusional mind, then quickly dismissed it.

“Thanks for coming so quickly. I thought that you should see this. It’s about the Clydesdale 6.”

“You’ve received word, sir?”

“Yes. Come around here and watch.”

Bryant did as he was commanded. A transmission began on the monitor on Bolic’s desk. The picture was slightly distorted, and the man speaking appeared to be bleeding from a head injury. The bridge behind him had obviously sustained severe damage.

“This is Captain Kyle Robinson of the Clydesdale 6. We are sending out a Class One Distress Signal. We have sustained heavy damage from an unknown attacker. I repeat, heavy damage. We are unable to determine the status or location of our attacker. We estimate our vessel will go critical in approximately twenty minutes. Any ship in the vicinity, please divert to our location. Repeat. Class One Distress signal. Robinson out.”

Bryant asked to see the transmission again. After watching a second time, he stood silently in thought.

“I’m sorry, Bryant. I know how close you and Captain Robinson were.”

Bryant didn’t acknowledge the sympathy. “When did you receive this transmission?”

“Yesterday. There wasn’t another. I’m sorry.”

“You’re acting as if you know their fate with certainty.”

“They’re dead, Bryant. The chance of another ship having been within twenty minutes of them is almost zero.”

“It’s possible.”

“Why wouldn’t have they sent another transmission?”

“They sustained heavy damage. Perhaps after they sent that damage, they lost their communications emitter.”

“Wouldn’t the rescuing vessel have sent a message?”

“In the unlikely event that there was another ship that close, it would almost certainly have been a freighter, with no long-range communications ability.”

Overseer Bolic stood. “Damn you, Bryant! They’re gone! Our last hope is gone! The last in my string of horrible decisions has doomed the entire colony!”

“Sir, you did what you thought was right.”

“And I was just about the only one! You know what I told myself at the time? Do you know what I honestly believed? That the colony’s trust in me was so shattered by the attack that destroyed the rest of the Clydesdale fleet that any decision I would have made would have been opposed. I could have formulated a fool-proof plan to kill every last monster on the fucking planet and it would have been treated the same as if I suggested mass suicide.”

“If I may speak freely, Overseer…”

“Say whatever the hell you want, Bryant! It’s long past the point where words will do any good one way or another.”

Bryant continued as if Bolic had said a simple “yes”.

“Dwelling on your past decisions isn’t going to help you or the colony.”

Bolic sat down. “Bryant, you’re absolutely correct. And there’s really only one decision I have left to dwell on. The Clydesdale 6 is gone. They’re not coming back with help. If I really wanted to help the colony, I’d have done this a long time ago.”

Bryant heard the laser rifle go off, and Overseer Edward Bolic slumped, dead, onto his desk.

They both stayed motionless for several minutes. Bryant was not generally a thoughtful man, but he felt the need to process all the new information he had just received. He was not completely surprised by Bolic’s suicide. He had seen it building up ever since the day he had been sworn in. He supposed that now he was the new overseer, although he wasn’t certain at all. A few minutes ago the question of succession was merely hypothetical, and Bryant Thompson didn’t have time for the hypothetical.

But whether or not he was the overseer, he was the only person left on the colony who knew the fate of the Clydesdale 6. He had protested to Bolic that all hope was not lost, but he had to admit to himself that his optimism was merely a soldier’s reflex. A soldier who believes he is already dead becomes a much less effective soldier, and he knew how many times the fierce bravery of already doomed men had turned the tides of battles, and even wars.

There was no war to be fought here, however, and Bryant couldn’t see any benefit to humanity from this colony’s sacrifice, brave or otherwise. They were just one colony out of thousands. Perhaps in a hundred years or two their bodies would be discovered and their logs read. The planet would either be declared inhospitable to human life or be sterilized for reseeding. Whether they all survived for another six months, six years, or only six days made no difference whatsoever. They were all going to die empty meaningless deaths. The only remaining question was whether the other six thousand colonists would die waiting for help that he knew would never be coming.

For the first time in Bryant Thompson’s adult life, he cried.

After he regained his composure, he decided to watch the transmission one more time. Perhaps he would see something in face of his friend that would give him some guidance, some inkling of what he should do.

At first, Bryant suspected some sort of malfunction, because the transmission he was watching contained no static or distortion whatsoever. Kyle was clean, and there were no visible signs of damage on the bridge behind him. Bryant watched his friend Kyle speak.

“This is Captain Kyle Robinson of the Clydesdale 6, sending an urgent message to the overseer of Gamma Colony 1718. We have been saved. Two days ago, as we drifted helplessly in space on the brink of destruction, a ship unlike any I have record of approached us. And its occupants were equally unique. I don’t know how they did it, but they fixed us. Ol’ Six is better than I’ve ever seen her.”

Bryant’s eyes grew wide as a being stepped into view. It could only have been one of the aliens of which Kyle spoke. Bryant was not used to having his breath taken away by something he saw, but he found himself unable to so much as blink.

The being had white skin, and appeared both dwarfishly small and enormous at the same time. Bryant thought its body appeared humanoid in shape, but he was unable to focus on any single anatomical feature. No part of it was moving, but all parts of it appeared to be in constant motion, as if soaring through dimensions imperceptible. It was the most beautiful thing Bryant Thompson had ever seen.

“Not only have they repaired our ship, but having learned of the reason for our departure, they have agreed to follow us back to the colony. Their technology is far beyond anything I’ve ever seen. Their capabilities are breathtaking. We’ll be there in less than two weeks, and those vicious fucking beasts won’t ever bother us again.”

Kyle’s voice dropped from a commander’s tone to a more human one. “Sir, I know I didn’t want to go on this mission. Suicide, I called it. But you’ve been vindicated. You’ve saved the colony, Edward, and when we arrive the first thing I want to do is shake your hand. See you soon, sir. Robinson out.”

The screen went blank, and Bryant blinked his eyes. He looked with regret upon Bolic’s still-warm body. Then, for the first time in months, Bryant allowed the slightest hint of a smile to come upon his face. He would not allow himself to be happy that Bolic was dead, but neither would he mourn the man. He had been too weak to survive, and had missed the greatest moment of his own life. Rarely did fate give men what they deserved, so Bryant felt pleased to be present for one such occasion.

Bryant wanted to view the transmission one more time. He wanted to view it a hundred more times, and he was certain that he would do so over the next two months. He pushed Bolic’s body to the floor and sat in his chair. He opened the overseer’s transmission log.

There had to be some mistake. There was no record of the second transmission. Only the first. Bryant replayed it, and it was as hopeless as he had remembered. There had been no transmissions since. Or so said the log.

He closed and reopened the log. Still the rescue transmission was not there. Why was it not there? Every transmission, both incoming and outgoing, was permanently saved to the overseer’s log. It could be no other place. He knew the system well enough that he would have said it was impossible for a transmission to be erased. Or, he would have said that two minutes ago.

He examined the log details of the first transmission. It had arrived 51 hours ago. Didn’t Kyle say something about being rescued two days prior? Why would he not send word immediately? Bolic killed himself because he believed Six was lost. If Kyle had sent word sooner, Bolic would still be alive. Now he found himself feeling sympathy for Bolic.

Unless.

Was it possible?

Could he have hallucinated the entire second transmission? Was it nothing more than a stress-induced hopeful delusion? He thought he knew himself well enough to say that was impossible. Or, he would have said that two minutes ago.

Bryant stayed there, in Bolic’s office, in Bolic’s chair, for a long time considering those two impossible possibilities. There was no third possibility. Kyle had spoken of this race’s highly advanced technology. Could they have repaired Six’s communications panel in such a way that the transmission could be played but not saved? On that question, he had to admit he had no way of knowing. When dealing with a technology far more advanced than one’s own, anything was possible.

But why would they modify the transmission so it couldn’t be saved? Was it possible that it was an unintended side effect of some other change? Again, he had to admit that he had no way of knowing. It was highly unlikely, however.

Still, how could he have imagined something so vivid? He had known of soldiers experiencing waking dreams. It was a sign that the soldier needed rest, badly. Bryant Thompson didn’t feel tired. And the transmission he saw wasn’t dreamlike at all. He remembered it in an unbroken continuum from the moment he stepped into this office until this very moment. There were no gaps in his memory. It was burned into his mind’s eye as vividly as the sight of Bolic taking his own life.

But without the transmission, none of the other colonists would believe him. They’d see only the first, hopeless transmission, and despair as Bolic had. They might not even last the two months. Bryant suspected that he couldn’t get the colony to believe a story of which he himself wasn’t certain despite having seen it with his own eyes.

Did he dare hope?

Yes. If hope was all he had, he would embrace it with all the passion he could muster. He looked down one last time at Bolic’s body, then at his own hands. Only one course of action was possible. He would tell the colony that he had found Bolic already dead, with no clue as to the reason. Not many would question that in the slightest. He would be the next overseer, effective immediately, and therefore no one would ever learn that Clydesdale 6 had encountered any trouble at all. The colony would go on exactly as before, and only he would know of its imminent salvation.