The Complete First Season - Episodes 1-5

by J. L. Stowers

  Jag stepped back from the hug and looked at her. She could see the wheels turning in his head before he even spoke. “I have an idea.”

  * * *

  “Okay, everything should be in order,” Bob said as he opened the hatch for his fighter once more. “Is there anything else before I climb back in this thing? I’m old. I don’t want to have to struggle out of there again unless the battle is won.”

  “I think that’ll do it,” Jag said, giving Dani’s hand a squeeze.

  “Alright.” Bob looked between the two of them. “David and I will get into position. Don’t keep us waiting too long.”

  Jag turned to face her once more. “Do you feel better now?”

  “Mostly,” she said with a smile.

  “Mostly?” he repeated.

  Dani wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned in to plant a kiss on his lips. “There, that’s better.”

  He laughed and brushed her hair back.

  “Seriously though, thank you for that idea. I just hope it works.”

  “Me too,” he said before nodding toward her fighter. “You stay safe out there, okay?”

  “Same goes for you. That’s an order.” She winked at him.

  He smiled briefly, then pulled her close just as it slipped off his face.

  “Don’t say goodbye,” she whispered.

  Jag looked down at her once again. “I’ll see you later.”

  With that they separated to the opposite sides of the docking area. Dani didn’t dare look back at him, as she knew she’d just want to feel his arms around her once more. Instead, she climbed into her fighter and quickly sealed the hatch, running through the checks, cloaking, and then disengaging from Evelynn’s Revenge.

  It didn’t take long for her to move into position. She couldn’t see her father, Jag, David or the other pilot’s ships, but she knew they were there. “Ready to go,” she said into the comm. Jag’s voice echoed hers.

  She examined the ships before her as she waited for the green light. The Class As packed the biggest punch, so they were to target their weapons first. It’d be difficult for such a large ship to lock on to a small fighter, especially one so close to the hull. So Dani expected them to release the GC fighters quickly. But if they didn’t at least take out the primary weapons first, then when the rest of the rebel and pirate armada showed up, they wouldn’t stand a chance.

  Once the Class As’ weapons were disabled, they’d move on to the battleships as the rest of the fleet arrived. Osirion would dock aboard the Houston, and Roni, Cruz, and their teams would work from within. As soon as he was able, Patrick would take the Houston into hyperspace and away from the fight with the rebels and pirates close behind. Dani ran the plan through her mind over and over.

  “Engage.”

  Dani pushed her fighter into action as soon as Bob gave the command. First up was the Vermont. The Class A warship was a behemoth compared to Dani’s fighter. She took a deep breath, trying to keep the nervousness at bay in the shadow of the monstrous ship. Despite the fact that the shardstone fighters were extremely difficult to pick up on sensors, it remained to be seen if the latest GC proximity detectors could sense them as they drew near. The rebel ships were mostly decommissioned or salvaged GC ships, so they lacked the latest proximity sensors, and Osirion was too small to use as a test subject.

  None of that mattered now. Dani knew they’d be alerted to her presence as soon as she opened fire anyway. She continued on her path straight for the massive Vermont before pulling back on the controls and turning Paris to fly along parallel to her target. But there was a problem. She hadn’t yet dipped below their shields, and flying any closer would greatly increase the risk of crashing into the massive ship.

  “These GC shields have a tighter wrap than the Vaerian shields. We’re going to have to get closer,” she told her father through the comm.

  “Understood,” he replied.

  Dani gradually decreased her altitude until her sensors indicated she passed through the shield, and she promptly pulled back up. “It’s too tight.”

  “Pop in when you need to fire and pull back out,” Bob instructed.

  She checked her control panel. “Okay, that should work.”

  Dani dipped in beneath the shield and fired at the primary weapons on her side of the ship. An explosion burst outward from the Vermont, but it wasn’t from her shot. “Shit, I missed.”

  “I’m going for the fighter doors. Try again, Dani.”

  Her father’s voice was soothing. She nodded to herself as she flew around the Vermont, passing the destruction her father left in his wake. The weapons he hit were completely out of commission. As Dani came around for another pass, she saw the weapon swing toward her. She quickly steered the ship out of the line of fire. The slow gun fired long after she had gone from its path. Dani dipped within the shield behind the weapon and fired on it, this time hitting her mark.

  Her father’s ship darted in front of her toward the fighter bay, firing on the doors before he pulled up and away from the ship. One of the doors remained closed, but the other slid open enough for fighters to emerge one at a time.

  “Here they come, guys,” she said as she turned toward the Arizona. No sense in lingering around the Vermont when their primary weapons had been disabled and their fighters were already exiting the craft. A massive blast from the Arizona narrowly missed Dani. As she recovered and got back on track, she could see hordes of fighters spewing from the belly of the warship. “The transmission, now!”

  Dani, along with the others, punched in a code on their consoles and began broadcasting on all GC frequencies. It was Jag’s idea. It was risky, but Dani felt it was only right to give those fighting in the name of the GC a chance to hear the other side. She continued on course as the transmission played.

  “This is Captain Dani Devereaux, former Captain of Alaska’s Vengeance for the Galactic Conglomerate. I’m alive, and I’m not the only thing the GC is lying to you about.”

  A line of fighters was headed right for Dani, but she stood her ground, shields up and weapons ready. The transmission continued.

  “The GC is responsible for the attack on PS683 and I was their scapegoat. They can do the same thing to you. The corruption runs all the way up to President Penn. We’re here today, not to take your lives but to liberate the Houston, being held captive by a corrupt president. Help us in our mission and we’ll provide answers to the questions you surely have. If you engage in battle with us, we will be forced to fight back.”

  The transmission ended, and Dani waited as she closed in on the Arizona. If they had heard her, they had a choice to make. She just hoped it’d be one that didn’t force her to pull the trigger. She swallowed hard as the fighters coming toward her separated into two groups. Her eyes darted between them, and she aimed for the gap, toward the Arizona.

  The lead fighter in the first group fired at her. Paris responded intuitively to Dani’s touch, rolling away from the energy shots and getting back on track. The other group didn’t fire on her at all. The fighter who initiated the attack came around and was on her six with a handful of the original fighters. Dani began evasive maneuvers, still drawing nearer to the Arizona.

  They fired on her again, narrowly missing as Dani evaded once more. Finally, she was close enough to dip into the protection of the Arizona’s shields. Unable to maneuver as freely in the small space, Dani relied on the ship’s shields to protect her from the onslaught of energy blasts.

  As she zipped toward the energy relay, her sensors indicated there was an explosion behind her and one less fighter. Dani cringed and tried not to pay attention to the tailing fighters so she could focus on her own path. As soon as the weapons system came into view, she fired on it. Her blasts littered the hull before finally destroying the energy guns.

  As Dani pulled away from the Arizona to make a pass at the secondary weapons systems, she could see that the other rebel ships had arrived and were engaged in battle with the battleships. Energy
blasts volleyed between the two sides in a brilliant light show. Near the Houston, intermittent explosions indicated that Jag, David, and the rest of the fighter pilots from Evelynn’s Revenge were still working on the minefield, but progress was slow.

  “Dani, go help with the mines, I’ve got this,” her father said as his ship darted toward the Arizona’s remaining primary weapons system.

  She bit her lip, hesitant to pull away and leave her father behind.

  “Shit! We lost Malone,” David shouted over the comm.

  Dani steered away from the Class A to follow her father’s command and satiate her worry for Jag and the others. Most of the pursuing fighters dropped the chase and turned to go after her father, but the leader was still on her tail.

  She headed for the mines on the side of the Houston that hadn’t been thinned out yet. As soon as she was within range, she fired upon them, explosions bursting outward as she did. Despite their proximity, they weren’t close enough to one another to trigger a chain reaction. The spray of shrapnel occasionally caused a neighboring mine to explode, but with so many, it barely made a dent.

  The fighter fired on her again, each attempt getting closer at making contact. Dani knew he was studying her moves, her fighting style, in order to anticipate her actions and make a hit. She knew because it was something they taught all GC fighter pilots and she, herself, was exceptionally good at it.

  A quick decision took Dani right into the mines. She knew with the same training and the same skill level, her best bet was to throw in something unpredictable. That something happened to be a minefield. The mines would prevent her from making the same evasive maneuvers over and over due to their random placement. She could also use the explosions to her advantage. Dani was still reluctant to kill the other pilot, but didn’t want them to kill her either.

  She fired at a mine directly in front of her and winced as she flew through the shrapnel left behind. Her shields held strong. Dani weaved through the mines, still shooting at clusters that seemed especially dense. Her sensors indicated that the fighter had fallen back some. It was still there, but not as close. The extra distance between them meant more mines as well, which would make it increasingly difficult to miss the mines and fire on her ship.

  Talon’s ship, the Sparrow, along with two other large pirate vessels, dropped out of hyperspace and began to fire on the Class As along with Evelynn’s Revenge. Dani’s nervousness about being outmanned quickly melted away. It was more than a fair fight now. But her excitement was short-lived as the fighter behind her finally landed a shot. The blast was absorbed by Dani’s shields, but they kept coming. The combination of the shrapnel and the fire from the fighter were dropping her shield levels exponentially. She had to either get out of the mines or get away from the fighter.

  Closer to the inside of the minefield than the outside, Dani changed directions and aimed for the Houston itself. The gap between the research ship and the mines looked like an excellent place for Dani to change things up and take out the other fighter. As much as she didn’t want to take another person’s life, she felt as though they had taken away her choice.

  “Dani, you need to get out of there,” David’s voice came through the comm. “Osirion is coming through and a collision will give away their position. You have to get that fighter away from the Houston.”

  Dani growled to herself. She hadn’t even realized that Osirion was already in position. She couldn’t head through the area the rebels already cleared, as she couldn’t pick Osirion up on her sensors, so she was forced to turn back through the minefield. She continued to snake through the undetonated mines when an explosion right next to the Paris caught her off guard. The bright flash made her cringe, and the proximity of the explosion to her ship dropped her shields down to critical levels. Desperately trying to blink away the bright spots so she could see clearly, Dani haphazardly navigated through the explosives.

  “Dani!” Jag called out through the comm.

  “Don’t, Jag, I got this.” The truth was, she wasn’t sure if she had it or not, but she didn’t want him getting involved and risking his life.

  The edge of the minefield was in sight, and so was Bob Devereaux. Dani quickly dipped out of the mines as he fired on the GC fighter. It was a direct hit that caused the fighter to tumble into a grouping of mines with a series of explosions.

  “Your shields are too low, get back to the ship,” Bob ordered.

  “But,” Dani began to protest.

  “Go, we’re almost ready to get out of here anyway.”

  Dani took a breath and turned back toward Evelynn’s Revenge. As soon as she arrived, she docked and hurried inside and to the bridge.

  “Status update?” she asked as she tried to catch her breath.

  Trevor, her father’s first officer, answered, “Roni, Cruz, and their teams are inside. Howard says she’s just about ready to jump. As soon as she’s gone, we’re out of here too. The other ships are doing well against the GC. Since our mission was to draw fire rather than take them out, they all have most of their power diverted to shields with a little on weapons. They’re awaiting our command to leave.”

  “Sounds good,” Dani said before slowly exhaling. She was impressed at how her father’s plan had managed to deliver with relatively few casualties. The large screen showed the status of each ship. It seemed as though less than a handful of rebel fighters had been lost, and all of the large ships, Osirion included, were still in the game.

  Dani stood and watched the scene when she started noticing something peculiar. “Why did the GC stop firing?”

  “What?” Trevor asked as he joined her up near the screen.

  She narrowed her eyes as the Vermont and then the Arizona both jumped into hyperspace, leaving behind their fighters. “That’s weird.”

  “They’re retreating,” Trevor shouted with enthusiasm. The rest of the crew in the bridge cheered.

  But Dani felt as though something was off and continued staring at the screen. Not long after they were gone, the other GC ships started to jump one by one. A sick feeling washed through Dani’s stomach. “They’re not retreating. This isn’t how the GC pulls out of a fight.”

  Bob hurried into the bridge and sat in his captain’s chair, accessing his console. “Something’s not right.”

  Dani shot Trevor an ‘I told you so’ look, then hurried to her father’s side. “What’s going on?”

  “They’re just leaving their fighters out there. That’s not normal.”

  Dani lifted her eyes from her father’s console to look at the scene before them once more. As she did, the largest ship she’d ever seen exited hyperspace where the Class As once were. The ship was large enough that several Class A warships could dock inside. In fact, it dwarfed some planets Dani had seen. When the surprise wore off enough for her to be able to work her mouth again, she muttered out loud, “What is that?”

  Chapter 9

  The bridge was silent as everyone in the room stared at the monstrosity. There were no words to even describe the enormity of the ship.

  The silence was finally broken by the communications officer. “Incoming transmission.”

  A man with a squareish head and beady eyes appeared on the left half of the screen. He stood, shoulders back, in GC attire. “Robert Devereaux… and his daughter too.”

  “President Penn, quite the ship you’ve got there,” Bob said through gritted teeth.

  The communications officer waved Dani over and whispered, “Howard needs just a little more time.”

  “No problem,” Dani whispered back. “Signal all fighters to return to their respective ships. I have a bad feeling about this.”

  The communications officer nodded and got to work.

  Dani rejoined her father, who was staring down the short-statured man on the screen.

  “Yes.” President Penn smiled as he gestured to the ship around him. “It’s new. I quite like it myself. Lots of bells and whistles.”

  “What do you want?
” Bob glowered.

  President Penn signaled something to someone off camera, but Dani didn’t quite catch what it was. “Funny you should ask. It seems there’s a bit of a mess to clean up here. You told a sizable portion of my fleet that I’m a liar.”

  Bob continued to stare at him, unblinking. Dani glanced at the communications officer, who held up two fingers.

  “Sounds like the truth to me,” Dani said.

  Penn’s jaw shifted from side to side in irritation. “It doesn’t matter now. Soon all you rebels will be no more. And it looks like we get to take out a few pirates too.”

  Penn blipped off the screen and Dani scrunched her eyebrows together. “What does he mean by that?”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Bob answered. “Jump to the rendezvous point.”

  “I can’t, sir.”

  Bob turned his head toward Trevor. “Why?”

  Trevor threw his hands up in the air. “It’s just not doing anything, sir.”

  “I’m picking up extremely high energy readings from President Penn’s ship. It appears to be targeting the Houston.”

  “No…” Dani’s voice was a whisper. “They have to get out of there.”

  “Reports are coming in from the ships of similar problems. No one can jump into hyperspace.”

  Dani grabbed her father’s forearm. “The weapon.”

  “Fire on that weapon! Relay the message. All ships, fire on the massive energy output weapon.”

  Evelynn’s Revenge led the volley as both the rebel and pirate ships fired at the weapon, but the shields absorbed every blast, leaving it intact.

  “This can’t be happening again,” Dani muttered to herself as she watched in terror. Her pulse and her breathing quickened as the ship began to spin around her.

  “Keep firing!” Bob yelled as he took Evelynn’s Revenge closer yet.

  “We’ve got it, boss,” a voice said through the comm Dani still wore over her ear.

  Dani shot her father a confused look, not recognizing the voice immediately.