Through the Abyss

by Daniel Litchfield

  Surrounding Caruso, who sat directly behind Euphretes, was a wide array of Offensive and Defensive systems to operate. Like the aviator’s seat, two controls sat next to each leg while a smaller handle for controlling the front cannon sat between Caruso’s knees. In order to fight against multiple enemies, Caruso could toggle between six different kinetic projectiles by using his left hand’s two peace sign fingers. On the right was Caruso’s missile tracking systems, the same toggle feature enabling him to select through missile variations with his right hand. When engaged with multiple enemies at once, Caruso could quickly scroll through targets by shifting his right hand’s controls in toward his body or away from it. Utilizing exterior sensors that could sync to Through the Abyss’s tracking systems, Caruso’s position also enabled him to be another set of eyes and ears for Euphretes.

  “I forgot how clear the projections are in here; might as well be glass!”

  “This is amazing!” Caruso blurted out, answering Euphretes’s previous question about whether or not the Steward Operative had seen the updates to the Huron fighter. With a satisfied expression, Euphretes answered the excited outburst,

  “Your tax dollars at work!”

  “It’s about time your family does something right with that money,” Caruso fired back.

  “I see why you like him.”

  Euphretes couldn’t help but laugh out loud at the brutally sarcastic answer from Caruso. “You know us Royals, always needing a helping hand with how to spend your money.”

  Before the snide Noncommissioned Officer could reply,

  “All stations, this is Sierra Whisky Six, report in,” Euphretes commanded the other six fighters using the team-wide connection.

  “Hunter One Zero, clear across the board.”

  “Hunter Two Zero, clear across the board.”

  “Hunter Three Zero, clear across the board.”

  “Hunter Four Zero, clear across the board.”

  “Stalker Eight Zero, clear across the board.”

  “Stalker One One, clear across the board.”

  “Good Copy,” Euphretes acknowledged. “Hunter Three Zero, you are good to begin movement.”

  Euphretes followed Hunter Three Zero out of the bay and into a short holding pattern.

  “Nice and easy.” Neuma calmed Euphretes’s racing mind as he broke from the holding pattern and began his approach.

  “How’s our flight path looking?” he asked Caruso.

  “Flight path is heading to your HUD now,” Caruso responded as a faint, but distinct blue line popped up on Euphretes’s heads up display and helped guide him through the mine field. While disarmed, he preferred to play it safe and keep as much distance between them as possible.

  “Trackers are still clean. Not a single response to our movement yet,” Caruso informed after a few moments of flight time.

  Out of nowhere, Euphretes banked the Hunter hard right and pushed the craft at 6,000 miles per hour at an angle of sixty-five degrees toward the Orbital Defense Platform. A tight squeezing sensation from Caruso’s suit hugged his legs and chest to keep blood in his brain during the tight maneuver while the feeling of his stomach’s contents sloshing around made him regret his pre-flight snack. While the Hunter was not subjected to gravity in interstellar space, the interior still had to overcome the inertia of the dramatic movements at such alarming speeds, forcing all inhabitants to wear protective equipment.

  “A little warning next time,” Caruso barely managed to say as the Hunter eased out of its maneuver.

  “You got it,” Euphretes calmly replied as if the Hunter hadn’t even made a turn. “Oh, and your medicated air flow is off,” he said chuckling, referring to the Hunter’s ability to add in anti-nausea vapors to the individual’s oxygen supply.

  “Flight One, go ahead and break off here,” Euphretes directed to his two Stalkers, officially starting his team’s offensive maneuvers and immediately ending the jovial atmosphere. In the back ground, Euphretes could hear Caruso mumbling. “Where the bloody hell is that thing?”

  CLICK

  “Ahhh, gotcha,” Caruso whispered to himself, as the medicated air relieved his nausea.

  Less than a minute later, Neuma warned, “Tally two, left seven o’clock, ten degrees low, eight-seven miles.”

  “See em, thanks.”

  “Sir, two long range missiles of undetermined class are coming off the objective. Thirty nine seconds and counting until impact,” Caruso informed, having forgotten the avionics portion of his Special Forces training.

  As Euphretes was about to react, “Hunter Six, break left. I’ve got a friendly. Tally, one, coming in ninety degrees high,” Stalker Eight Zero guided. A split second after Euphretes banked Hunter Six left, the friendly Stalker’s missile blew past the Hunter at 110,000 miles per hour. Aimed directly toward the much slower incomings missiles, it exploded once it got within distance and obliterated them.

  Seconds later, more missiles began shooting out of the Orbital Defense Platform. “Keep your turn coming Hunter Six. We’ll handle those missiles. Focus on that Platform,” Stalker One informed while firing more of his own missiles past Euphretes. In a matter of seconds, Zeiyan’s outer atmosphere went from motionless and uneventful to full blown pandemonium. Explosions burst everywhere as missiles and turrets unleashed their fury against their opponent.

  “Five seconds for effective firing range.”

  Inside his gloves, Euphretes’s hands were already drenched with sweat as he made slight adjustments to his joystick.

  “Three seconds,” Caruso cautioned.

  Euphretes scrolled through the Hunter’s Rapid Decent programs, “Flight two, we’re up!” Switching to the Hunter’s internal comms, he yelled, “Hang on,” before slamming Hunter Six into another hard right descent. All of sudden, the cockpit lit up in a terrifying array of colors as explosive energy rounds burst all around the fighter. For Caruso, all of the available targets for the Hunter’s turrets and missiles to lock on to added their highlighted colors to the cockpit’s kaleidoscope.

  “We’re running out of time before a response team arrives.” Neuma knew they were more vulnerable than the Ship Yards they were attacking.

  BBBBBBBVVVVVVVVRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTT! BBBBBBBVVVVVVVVRRRRTRRRTTTTTTTT!

  Caruso squeezed down on his trigger mechanism, sending hundreds of heavy rounds at the Platform’s softer maintenance bay entrance. “Watch your firing please. Shorter bursts. We don’t carry infinite amounts of ammo,” Euphretes sarcastically directed. At the same time, a turret on the Platform quickly zeroed in on Hunter Six and started taking more precise shots at Euphretes.

  “WARNING. MOVE OUT OF FIRING LANE. WARNING. MOVE OUT OF FIRING LANE.” The cockpit urgently alerted.

  Euphretes glanced over toward the enemy turret and shouted back to his non-flying aviator, “Can you handle that?”

  “On it!” Caruso immediately answered as he returned fire.

  “Flight two, circle back around and draw some of their fire, I’ll clear an opening,” Euphretes commanded, sending the Hunters to his right and left on a recycle pattern. Instantly, Hunter Six started to violently shake as other enemy turrets began ignoring their original targets and zeroed in on Euphretes.

  “WARNING. MOVE OUT OF FIRING LANE. WARNING. MOVE OUT OF FIRING LANE.”

  “Sir, we need to circle back around for another pass! I can’t get a clean shot at those turrets!” Caruso shouted over the noise.

  “WARNING. MOVE OUT OF FIRING LANE. WARNING. MOVE OUT OF FIRING LANE”.

  “She’ll hold. Just get me a bigger hole in that bay door,” Euphretes responded, masking the urgency in his voice.

  “She won’t hold much longer though.”

  BBBVVVRRRTTT! BBBVVVRRRTTT! BBBVVVRRRTTT! BBBVVVRRRTTT!

  “That’s better! Good stuff!” Euphretes shouted back to Caruso as his left hand firmly held the control stick to maintain the curved descent. Just then he turned to see that the maintenance bay door was starting to get ripped to shreds
…

  EEERRRIIII! EEERRRIIII! EEERRRIIII! Deafening alarms and warnings suddenly flashed throughout the cockpit as the Hunter desperately tried to get Euphretes off of his suicidal collision flight path.

  “Hunter Six, end descent and move sixty high. I say again, Hunter Six, end your run!” Stalker Eight Zero’s voice broke through the confusion.

  EEERRRIIII! EEERRRIIII! EEERRRIIII!

  “Keep your curve coming, those rounds are landing behind us. We’re going too fast for their turning mechanisms. Just don’t miscalculate.”

  “Thanks for the advice. I guess I won’t crash into the giant Platform now after all.”

  EEERRRIIII! EEERRRIIII! EEERRRIIII!

  “SIR! GET OUT OF THERE!” Captain Astoria’s voice screamed through Euphretes’s helmet.

  Ignoring the outburst, “On my mark Caruso!” Euphretes shouted, switching to fingerlifts on his throttle to match up with his Hunter’s afterburners. On the outside, Hunter Six was a rotating blur, squeezing in and out of unseen firing lanes. Neither Captain Astoria, nor anyone on the Bridge, had ever seen such precise flying out of a Hunter, or a Pilot for that matter. Regardless, they were all certain that their fearless leader was on a one way collision course.

  EEERRRIIII! EEERRRIIII! EEERRRIIII!

  “Now!” Euphretes bellowed.

  Assuming he was a breath away from death, “WOOHOO!” Caruso roared as he started to unleash every missile the Hunter had.

  EEERRRIIII! EEERRRIIII! EEERRRIIII!

  “NOW!”

  Neuma’s voice felt as if it had erupted from Euphretes’s very soul. Out of instinct, his right arm yanked the Hunter from its trajectory before his consciousness could give the command. Unleashing the fingerlift, the Hunter’s afterburners finally matched up and propelled the fighter out of the danger area at incredible speeds. A fraction of a nanosecond later and the crash would have been unavoidable. In the process, two of the twelve missiles fired by Caruso made it past the barrage of anti-missile defenses because of how close the Hunter was. A Series Two Bravo Implosion Projectile and a Series Four Bunker Buster absolutely pulverized their target.

  VVRROOOUUUPPP ……. KABOOM! The Orbital Defense Platform underwent immense inward gravitational forces that ripped its insides apart before the Bunker Buster exploded, sending the Platform into vacuity.

  With the threat neutralized, Hunter Six’s cockpit immediately shut off all of its alarms, leaving the pair sitting in complete silence. Caruso stared ahead in stunned disbelief. While Euphretes’s ears couldn’t pick out the precise words, he could’ve sworn he heard the Steward Operative whisper to himself, “Really hope he can’t smell that,” as an unpleasant odor drifted in.

  “Keep her coming Hunter Six. We’ll guide you back,” Stalker Eight Zero instructed, his tone laden with surprise and relief that he was even talking to his leader.

  “Good Copy. Thanks; and good work everyone,” Euphretes said before switching to Captain Astoria’s channel, “Is the shot lined up?”

  “Primary Cannon is chambered and waiting for your orders,” Astoria responded.

  “The two parked Capital Ships are undocking and I’m picking up in-coming jump sequences; tally thirteen, six six high, four two zero miles. Expected time of exit, two minutes ten seconds and counting.”

  “Couldn’t have timed that better,” Euphretes’s grateful voice answered Neuma before giving Astoria the command, “Clear to engage.”

  Once Euphretes had finished speaking, “Sir, I’m seeing thirteen potential jump sites and those Capital Ships are starting to gear up. Oh, and not at all in a bad way Sir, but, you’re crazy!” Caruso exclaimed.

  VVVVRROOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMM! Through the Abyss’s cannon’s round rocketed past the small group of Huron fighters racing back to its bay, coming within a mile of Hunter Six.

  “It’s times like this that I’m really glad that we have good targeting systems.” Neuma knew how difficult it was to aim a straight line shot in space.

  “No kidding. That was almost too close for comfort, even for me,” Euphretes replied before turning to Caruso. “We’ll be long gone before they can mount a counter attack, so no need to worry about those incoming jumps just yet. And I’m hurt Caruso. I thought you already knew that all of us Royals are a little bit crazy; it’s just part of the gig.”

  Caruso laughed, “My bad Sir, won’t happen again.”

  VVVVRROOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMM!

  Another massive slug flew past the group, this time from a less extreme angle as the fighters approached the bay door. Without the Orbital Defense Platform to destroy the massive rounds before they reached the Ship Yard, the structure didn’t stand a chance. The first round cut the entire doughnut shaped structure in half, creating a debris field that was filled with more vaporized elements than chunks of physical matter. With the second and third projectiles, the orbiting Ship Yard looked like a waffle fry; parts free floating in straight lines from the heavy rounds’s inertia.

  “Destroyed, move to surface target.” Neuma, able to see the tracking equipment through Euphretes’s field of vision, directed just as the last Hunter crossed into the bay.

  “Captain Astoria, you’ve got one shot to take out the surface Ship Yard before we enter Jump!” As if his name was the cue, Astoria immediately fired the cannon when Euphretes gave the directive.

  VVVVRROOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMM!

  Once Euphretes was safely inside the Ship, “Didn’t want to interrupt, but you missed two Communications Requests during mission. One from your scout team on Koram, their cyclic report was due. The other was from Carpathian, purpose unknown.” DI6 informed through the Hunter’s cockpit.

  “Roger. Are we in a jump sequence yet?” Euphretes asked.

  The Delta Infiltrator’s primary RAI’s voice quickly answered, “Done and Done Sir.”

  Still hovering above the bay’s floor, Euphretes did not feel the Delta Infiltrator slip into jump. “Thanks for the heads up. I’ll grab a CMDS on the Bridge before the debrief,” he responded while setting the Hunter down on its designated parking spot.

  Heading directly for the Bridge’s Communications Section, Euphretes grabbed a Classified Message Display System and slipped it over his head. Once on, the helmet modified its shape to create a perfect seal over the top of his trapezius muscles, creating a soundproof barrier. Along with providing three hundred and sixty degree views of the communicator’s environment, the device had the ability to generate scents and wind. Originally designed to provide ground combat Senior Leaders a better picture of what was happening on the front lines, the CMDS was modified to also receive sensitive and classified information.

  After scanning Euphretes’s face, confirming his DNA, and receiving a voice recognition, the Classified Message Display System opened his profile. From there, a quick spoken command and the world around him went dark as the CMDS connected him to Carpathian’s message. Less than a second later, the Emperor’s face filled up the helmet. Dark circles under Carpathian’s eyes and disheveled hair told Euphretes that more bad news was on the way.

  “Euphretes, my team finally unscrambled Emperor Lesos’s message. I need you to get back to Ozark immediately. I’m assembling an Expeditionary Armada and I want you to Command it.”

  “An Armada? Carpathian has never commissioned one before. Why now?”

  Armadas were authorized Huron Military units that were utterly free of outside authority except for the Emperor himself. While still falling under the Military’s Uniform Code of Military Justice, Armada’s could only be given orders by one person, the Emperor. “I don’t know, but he sounds afraid,” Euphretes answered Neuma while listening to his father speak.

  “Indus is looking for something that we absolutely cannot allow him to find,” Carpathian’s tone shifted to low and apprehensive. “But that’s all that I can say for now. Just know that Admiral Sentago is compiling more information for me to pass along to you. So, hopefully, more information will follow once you return to Ozark. Oh, and congratulation
s Empirical Admiral Euphretes.”

  Euphretes’s eyes widened as Neuma said what his facial expression was already vocalizing.