by Greg Dragon
“She’ll figure it out in no time, I’m sure,” Retzo said, not wanting to alarm his communication’s officer. “Jenny, task your team with contacting that dreadnought. They have five minutes to respond or I will tell my fighters to engage. Tell them that, and then report when you hear back.”
“Aye-aye, Skipper,” Genevieve said.
“Mr. Ranks,” Retzo said, loud enough for his tactical team lead to hear. “Please have all fighters, including the Revenants, launch with the objective of stopping that dreadnought.” He didn’t wait for confirmation before turning back to Genevieve Aria. “Miss Aria, contact the Aqnaqak and advise them of our plans to hail the new ships.”
Genevieve ran back to her station, and Retzo crossed the deck to his chair in the center of the dome-shaped bridge. He brought up his tactical map. “Cheng,” he said, speaking to his chief engineer. “Put the shields to 70% and divert the rest to our thrusters. We are going to have to execute a turn. I want our starboard broadside on that dreadnought, and move the Inginus to our port. Mr. Ranks, code red, I want all hands on deck. Arm the rail guns and protect the Inginus while we perform this maneuver. Jenny, has the Aqnaqak responded?”
“Captain, we have more incoming,” Toro Hanes said, and Retzo, not surprised, rolled his eyes and looked over at his navigator. If only Jit Nam was here, he would promote him right now, and have him take over the command of the combat situation.
As captain, he should have been on a call with the Alliance, coordinating rescue efforts if they managed to be cornered by the rebels. Right now, with that empty seat, he was doing the job of two people, and it was taking a toll on his health, as evidenced by a tight feeling he felt in his chest.
Jit Nam had taken the SoulSpur to Vestalia, to back up the StarLance in their search for the hub’s survivors. It was a good call when he made it, a thorough call to prevent further loss of life, but now he saw that it left him vulnerable.
“Is it ours?” he said, straining his eyes to get a glimpse of where Toro Ranks was looking.
“It’s a Genesian war cruiser, sir, but it has no Alliance signature.”
“Tell Lieutenant Joy Valance to break her Revenants away from the dreadnought. Hail this new ship and burn it down if it doesn’t respond. That’s a fast ship so she’s to give them exactly one minute.”
Changing objectives on his fighters was the last thing Retzo wanted to do, but he had no choice. He had no infiltrator, and no executive officer to which he could delegate an objective like this. Cilas Mec could do it, but he was traveling back to the Aqnaqak with the prisoner and proof of the MLF’s existence.
Proof. His mind echoed the word, and he activated his tactical pane to see the location of the unidentified ships. The dreadnought had broken off from the Corfist and was moving towards Meluvia. On close observation it looked as if it was going to intercept the Nighthawk’s dropship.
“Can Cilas Mec be reached?” he said suddenly to Genevieve. “I need him on my comms right now.”
Thype, Retzo thought. They needed to move but that was impossible. The Inginus repairs were underway, and unless he abandoned the ship, they were stuck. He thought about his choices and grew angry with Tara Cor. What in the worlds was she doing? Why was he commanding this defense by himself?
As if on cue, his wrist comms shook with an incoming call. When he glanced down, he saw her face, so he answered. “Where have you been?” he growled, impatiently, unable to pretend that he wasn’t angry.
“Captain Sho,” she said, sounding out of breath. “I have Captain Abe Rus here on the comms.”
“Retzo Sho,” said a deep voice. “I understand that you have a dreadnought ghost ship. It is one of ours, a salvaged project that was stolen and reclaimed by Vestalian pirates.”
“Captain Rus, good to hear from you,” Retzo said. “Do you know if that ship has a way to block our scanners? We’re not tracking any lifeforms, which makes little to no sense since it was able to follow one of our assault ships to this quadrant.”
“Highly unlikely, Captain, since as you know, it’s older than time.”
“Then what is this thing? Is it piloted by ghosts? Because it seems to have taken interest in my ESO team.”
There was a noticeable pause on the comms, and Retzo sat back in his chair and stared at the star map. Once we get out of this schtill, I’m jumping us to deep space, he thought. There we can mend and replace our crew without worrying about rebels and other people’s baggage.
“Captain Sho,” said Abe Rus. “I believe the ship is functioning as a Geralos scout. I’m being told that the Geralos attacked that ship, then boarded and took prisoner everyone in the crew. It’s likely they left a Cel-toc to probe for other derelict ships. Easy pickings for the lizards, without any Alliance help.”
“Salvage, then?” Retzo said, with some relief. “Here I thought it was armed with a nuke or intended to suicide to kill off my Nighthawks.”
“Captain!” Genevieve shouted, but he was already seeing it with his own eyes. The Revenants were firing on the Genesian striker, whose shields deflected everything that they threw at it. Fighters deployed, but only a few engaged the Revenants. The bulk of the squadron were flying for the Vixen, which was making its way to the Aqnaqak.
“This man, Wolf,” Retzo said. “He must be very important to these rebels. Jenny, where’s my—”
“I have Lieutenant Mec on hold for you, Captain,” she said quickly.
“Never mind that. You tell him what’s coming and send some fighters to protect that dropship, Mr. Ranks.”
30
Cilas Mec sat in the back of the Vixen with an oxygen apparatus attached to the front of his helmet. They had broken atmosphere, but this wasn’t the reason for the air. A run across the desert after the hoverbike had run out of fuel sapped him of the rest of his energy, causing him to pass out.
He had woken up next to Wolf, strapped in tight and with a strip of fabric wrapped across his mouth. There was no need. All of the fight within him had been knocked out, even before they boarded. The ex-ESO looked pained, as if the reality of his situation had finally reached home. There would be a long trip back, and his injuries had to be painful, but there would be no care coming, just intense questioning followed by the airlock.
Cilas felt no sympathy for this man. Regardless of how he felt about their cause, as a boomer he could never understand. But he wondered what the rebellion would mean for planet-born future Marines.
Would the Alliance look at them skeptically, knowing that like Wolf, they could defect to steal weapons for a fight “back home?” What about the other planet-born still on the Rendron? What would they do once they learned about this mission, and how Helga Ate, under his command, had wiped out their arsenal in the desert?
Cilas cursed inwardly. She’s probably upset with me about something, he thought. She had been quiet the entire trip, which was absolutely frightening considering her nature. A happy Helga was a talking Helga, and a neutral Helga was always telling some sort of joke.
Silence after a successful mission while flying one of the sleekest dropships in the galaxy? That indicated anger, or worse. He worried about his feelings for the young Nighthawk. He knew that his incessant need to protect her stemmed from feelings that were not professional.
He was her lieutenant, and he allowed an informal attitude to fester. Cilas wondered if he should come clean to Retzo Sho. He looked up to the captain as a mentor, and he knew that there was a mutual respect between the two of them that would allow him to ask off the record.
Retzo Sho had the reputation for being a playboy back when he was just a spacer, and Cilas could use some of that knowledge to steer him straight on his feelings. At his rank, he did have peers, but none the sort of friend that he could confide in. The only one was Joy, the woman who should have his heart. But if he was honest about their relationship, it was purely physical and convenient.
There were feelings, yes, and he wanted to keep
her happy, but lately it was Helga that dominated his mind. Speaking to Retzo Sho off the record would reveal the connection between the two of them. The captain, if he deemed it dangerous, would have to make moves to have them separated.
Helga would probably be made to retire from the Nighthawks, but for something prestigious, like a role on the bridge. Since Dyn she had become something of a celebrity, and Retzo Sho would leap at the opportunity to parade her around as an icon.
The half-alien warrior woman who defied all odds to rise despite her young age. It would do wonders for her career, and in ten years or so, she could find herself in the running to become CAG on a smaller ship. Cilas dreaded the thought. What would the Nighthawks lose if that were to happen? A more than capable pilot, gifted—if he was being honest—and a damned good ESO.
Still, he knew she was hurting, blaming herself for what she believed to be mass murder. She hadn’t seen the files he’d come across inside of the hut where they held Misa, and she hadn’t seen the tools of torture they had intended to use.
Cilas felt no remorse for having ordered the destruction of that camp, and if Joran Wolf was to not make it back to the Aqnaqak, he would be quite okay with it also. As a Nighthawk, he shouldn’t have these feelings; they were personal and could influence his actions on a future mission. But he had seen the MLF up close and witnessed what they did. They were terrorists, no better than the Geralos, who ate their own to establish dominance.
At least the lizards did their evil to other species. Here they had an organization hurting the Alliance from within. He reached up and pulled the oxygen mask off the attachment on his helmet, then secured it in the console, which had been opened to allow the tube to extend.
He heard the blast doors opening, and when he looked out the window he saw the familiar sight of space and all that came with it. We made it, he thought. We’re finally off that planet. It was the first pleasant thought he had allowed himself since waking up.
The beauty of space didn’t seem to move his Nighthawks as he watched Raileo Lei and Quentin Tutt speak quietly to one another. Neither paid attention to the fact that they had made it off Meluvia, and through the open doors of the cockpit, he could see that Helga was sitting next to Misa Veil.
There was a tone in his pack, and a vibration that told him it was his discarded wrist comms. He pulled it out and strapped it on, placing the ear-piece around his ear. “This is Lieutenant Mec,” he said, expecting to hear the voice of the Aqnaqaks executive officer, Cinnila Tye. But it was Genevieve Aria, and she sounded flustered.
“Cilas, the captain wants to speak to you,” she said.
“Don’t tell me we have another mutiny that he needs me to disrupt,” Cilas joked. Genevieve had once been his lover, and still had a special place in his heart, but she didn’t laugh or find his words amusing, as evidenced by the sigh she responded with. “What’s going on up here?” he said after a time.
“We’ve got a strange dreadnought in Meluvian space, and … hold on, Cilas,” she said, and then he was left with dead air.
“Ate,” he announced. “Defensive maneuvers. It looks like we have a hostile fighter incoming.”
“Try plural, Lieutenant. We have hostile fighters in Genesian ships. I would say it’s strange, but after these last few days I am ready to accept anything.”
Cilas exchanged glances with Quentin and Raileo, and he saw the same look of helplessness that the other men had. Here he thought that the drama had settled and they would only have to dock and put Wolf in the Aqnaqak’s hands. Now there was a chance that they would never make it home, and it was all due to treachery at the hands of the MLF.
Frustrated, he lifted his boot and placed a swift kick into the side of Joran Wolf. “You did this, didn’t you? You piece of schtill.” He pulled off his restraints and stood up, reaching into his pockets and giving him a thorough search. “Help me out, Tutt. He’s wired, I’m sure of it. How else would those thypes know that we broke atmosphere just now?”
Quentin Tutt got to his feet, and together they stripped Wolf down. “Lieutenant, Sergeant, I would advise you to strap in,” Helga said. But Cilas was too angry now. He was tired of the tricks and the surprises. They removed all his clothes, boots, and socks, and that was when he saw the strange sore behind his ankle.
“Hey, Tutt, does this look like any injury that you’ve ever seen?” he said, pointing to the growth, which was flesh-colored but not the same as the rest of his skin. Wolf started to struggle hard when the big man knelt down to examine it, and Cilas silenced him with a fist to the stomach. Quentin brought out his knife and placed the blade below the growth, cutting upwards to make a small incision. When a tiny mechanical button fell out, he slammed the blade into the deck, frustrated.
“All this time, and they knew where we were,” Quentin said. “How did we miss this, Lieutenant? I say we throw him out right now, and those fools aiming to kill us can collect him.” He stood up and looked Wolf in the face, holding him up by his throat. “If we were still down there, brother, where we still had the option of leaving you, I would skin you alive and watch you bleed out. You better pray that nothing happens to that old man.”
“Yeah, well I hold out hope that Ati Lars is safe,” Cilas said. “After all, we did wipe out their whole camp. I doubt that they’re thinking about him right now since they have no leverage without those weapons.”
“Lieutenant,” Raileo said, surprising him, since he had remained quiet the whole time. “I think that the ships trying to stop us have more to do with the files than the traitor. Whatever is in there is probably huge, and someone doesn’t want it in the hands of the Alliance.”
“Strap in. I am not going to say it again,” Helga announced, and through the window Cilas saw that several fighters were trying to bring the dropship down. Helga was maneuvering the Vixen like a ship half its size, while Misa Veil was on the cannons, doing what she could to hold them off.
“Cilas,” someone was saying, and he remembered the comm-link in his ear. “Cilas, can you hear me? We’ve sent help, so please stay alive,” Genevieve said.
“Got it,” was all he could manage before he clicked off the communication. “Misa Veil, how are we doing?” he said, wondering if she was able to speak.
“Not good, Lieutenant, but not so bad that I can’t do my part,” she said.
“She’s doing great,” Helga said. “And it looks like Joy has brought the cavalry too. There’s a chance we will make it out alive, so strap in, Lieutenant, and let me focus on what I have to do. If you can keep the captain informed of our situation, I think that will more than help.”
Cilas grabbed Wolf and threw him down on the deck. “Let’s get him dressed,” he said to Quentin. “At least now we know why they’ve been ahead of us every step of the way.”
The odds weren’t in their favor. They were low on fuel, and the Vixen moved at half the speed of your standard fighter. This made dogfights an especially difficult task against five Genesian Spitfires, whose goal was to deplete her shields to send them back down to Meluvia.
Helga recognizing this put most of the power into the shields, giving Misa enough to inflict damage with her cannon. While Cilas and Quentin took their anger out on Wolf, she had seen the fighters coming and had time to make these adjustments. The shields that were maxed from the little resistance they had at the camp had only dropped to 40% from the Genesians first barrage.
It didn’t stop the Vixen, but it put them in a critical place, where sustained cannon-fire would eventually crack the hull. Helga shifted 10% to weapons and got on the focused energy cannons, which the fighters avoided easily, but slowed their attack since it put them on the defense. Misa had better luck against the ones that tried to flank them since she kept catching them by surprise.
The Aqnaqak was firing on the Genesian war cruiser, and the Rendron was making a maneuver. There were more fighters in the space than she had seen since their fight with the Geralos, and the Genes
ians, outnumbered, were making desperate maneuvers.
At one point the cruiser sent a tracer that not only wiped out several Alliance fighters, but one or two of their own. Helga saw it coming and was barely able to avoid it by staying ahead of its swipe. One touch from that laser would have zeroed out their shields and knocked them right out of the fight.
But Joy Valance had seen it too and split her Revenants to send a small team after the cruiser’s hard points. They intended to cripple it, so that the fighters were their only threat, but the cruiser seemed to have nothing to lose as it pushed power to its cannons. Now the Aqnaqak was the target, and the two ships swapped blows back and forth. Helga considered flying to Rendron to dock away from all of the action, but the fighters would see what she intended so she decided to focus on survival.
“Splash one,” Misa exclaimed suddenly. “Focused fire on the aft sent that cruta to the maker. They’re weak there, Ate. It’s almost as if the shields only cover the front. Cheap Genesian cockroaches, I don’t think those ships are meant for warfare.”
“They’re not,” Helga said, trying to fire on the aft of one of the fighters trying to lead her. “These are from Satellite Security. They’re meant to defend our hubs.”
The silence that followed was expected, since it was hard for any boomer to hear that their own security force were now enemies. Why would they jump into Meluvian space to make a suicidal attack on two battleships? she thought. That part was what eluded her as she watched the Aqnaqak deplete the shields of the war cruiser.
“How we doing, cruta?” Joy Valance said, after Helga saw the call coming in and accepted. Despite her insult, which was about as affectionate as one could get with a slur, her voice was honey on an otherwise bitter reality.
“Couldn’t let me get the glory by myself, huh? You just had to come play the hero. Who are these Genesians, Lieutenant? Do you know?”
“Traitors. That’s all I care to know. They’re traitors trying to sabotage your mission, and the Revenants are going to stop them. Now, it sounds like you’re still kicking in there, so I’m going to ask you to make the most difficult decision of your life.”