Prologue

Setting the stage

            The crew of gun number thirteen had always been extremely lucky. The crew members, regardless of the ship there were assigned to, always ended up on gun number thirteen. Even when they were assigned to a specific gun other than thirteen, they had always managed to be forced to it. As a result, the crewmembers began calling gun number thirteen, “Old Faithful”.

            ‘Old Faithful’ had a reputation that preceded the crew. Without fail, in every major engagement, it had been damaged, destroyed, misfired, or broken with or without reason. Even in the more spectacular deaths of ‘Old Faithful’, not a single member of the gun crew had ever been injured. Eventually, the crew had picked up the collective call sign of “Lucky”.

            The crew, dubbed ‘Lucky’ and called that by everyone, consisted of the gunner, the loader, the mechanic and the spotter. Once the war got into full swing, these four crewmembers were inseparable. The gunner, Seaman First Class David Jensen, was a religious man and attributed the survival of the crew to divine intervention. The spotter, Petty Officer Rebecca Smith, discounted Jensen’s religion as ‘holy-mumbo-jumbo”.

            Whatever the case, all four agreed that they were ‘lucky’ or ‘had someone upstairs watching out for them’. This mostly held true for the multitude of assignments they received. The Defense of Luna was a prominent display of the crew’s uncanny ability to survive. After their ship, Hammer of Retribution, arrived to battlefield two hours after the start, ‘Old Faithful’ seemed to be proving its reputation wrong. However, a stray anti-aircraft round from a defense turret slammed into the barrel of the gun. The heat and fire from the explosion cooked off the loaded twenty-pound round and caused, according to the Navy, a catastrophic failure.

            Fortunately, the explosion did not kill anyone. It did, however, rip a fifty yard hole into the hull of the ship. Three other crewmembers, of gun twelve, were sucked into the vacuum of space. Two more crewmembers, of gun fourteen, died from lack of oxygen. The entire crew of ‘Old Faithful’ escaped without serious injury.

            As the war went on, it seemed that the crew had an infinite amount of luck to survive on. It became widely believed, within the entirety of the Navy’s Second Fleet, that those four crewmembers were indestructible. As it turned out, their luck had a limit and it was rapidly nearing the end.

            The Hammer of Retribution had been assigned a normal patrol route near Saturn when it was attacked by rebels. Of course, ‘Old Faithful’ lived up to her name and malfunctioned as soon as the first shots were fired. Earlier, to keep the crew of ‘Old Faithful’ busy while gun repairs were being made, they had been trained as part of a light security force in the slim chance of boarding. The crew had never expected to put that training into use.

            Within minutes of the destruction of gun number thirteen, the rebels launched several boarding craft towards the Retribution. Combined with one of the main guns not firing and suspected inside help, the rebels boarded the ship just short of the main guns. After a vicious firefight on the gun deck, the rebels left without destroying the ship. They had gained a far more significant prize �" the surviving crew of gun thirteen.

            After the dust had settled, two members of ‘Old Faithful’s’ crew were dead and two were missing. Petty Officer Smith and Seaman First Class Jensen had been captured and taken away by the rebels. During the initial hours after the attack, the Navy attempted to bargain with the rebels in exchange for the prisoners. As hours dragged into days, days into weeks, and weeks into months, hope was lost for the two prisoners.

            When everyone had given up on the two prisoners, they emerged into our world again. Some six hundred and eighty-seven days after being captured, the two crewmembers emerged tired, hungry, malnourished, dehydrated and near death clutching stolen weapons in a small cargo ship. They were found floating in the dead of space near Mars.

            In the following pages, their story will be told by the ones who witnessed it firsthand. Their tale is heartbreaking and sad, punctuated with brief moments of loneliness and despair. It is the tale of two heroes.

 

 

                                                                               Vice Admiral Thomas A. Nyugen

          Office of Naval Intelligence