Shadows of the Son

by E L Strife

  “Are they all that way?” Azure asked.

  Bennett shrugged as best he could inside the tight harness. “I only saw it when we lined up.” The image flickered out as they cut to the right.

  “Tell me if you see more.”

  Crackles of voices came over their wristbands. A pause. “We need—edical assistan—on Kyra Two. Ongkrat suf—”

  Bennett leaned closer, trying to place the voice. It wasn’t familiar.

  “A Linéten who wants help sent to Kyra Two—” There was no restraint in Azure’s snort. His steely gaze held no remorse for his sentiments.

  “How do you know it’s a Linéten?”

  “The pompous way they enunciate everything and still manage to hiss through their teeth.” Azure visibly tensed in his seat. “The hell they’re getting our help.”

  A black ship like theirs darted mere meters overhead, red weapons ablaze as it took out three pods. Azure and Bennett jolted in their seats, tracking the movement through the glass.

  Kyra Three’s shield flickered.

  A cluster of Linoan fighters zoomed in toward the falling pods.

  “Azure!” Bennett pointed.

  Azure looped them back through the rain, banking to line Bennett up. “Are they full?”

  As Bennett’s targeting system picked the ships up, he fired. “Empty.”

  Kyra Three’s shields blinked and fizzled again, followed by a spray of metal and explosions. Pieces of the ship’s body, painted with “B-505” and UP’s shield, tumbled toward Earth.

  Azure dove them aside.

  “Shit!” Bennett scoured the skies, looking for the others. One dropped down into the ocean of escape pods, its rear doors opening to space. The bomber, shaped like a stretched diamond, reversed, slowly consuming pods.

  As if Azure knew what Bennett was thinking, he flew them around the rain toward more fighters approaching the rescue.

  “Can collectors capture people through a ship or just air?” Bennett asked, guns lighting up the fighters, chewing up hulls, spraying pieces out into the void.

  Three flashes of light from Linoan plasma pulses slammed into their shield, sending hollow thumps through the cabin.

  Bennett couldn’t help but flinch.

  Azure casually looked over at him. “They can suction pods to the ports underneath when they are in operation. Ours aren’t.”

  But the shield team’s were. Bennett lifted his wristband and opened a channel to Dequan’s old squad. “Shield Team, you can pick up the pods. Just activate your ports.”

  Flying with one hand, Azure grabbed a gun joystick and fired. “Tell them it’s the upside-down V followed by a one. Single tap to activate. Thirty meters is what we need on most planets. I’m not sure how close they have to get here.”

  Bennett relayed his message then called out to the rest of the crews. “Shields are moving in with B-505 to collect innocents. Protect them at any cost!” He tossed Azure a glance. It would’ve been easier and safer just to let the escapees die so the fleet could continue the fight. But that wasn’t who Bennett was inside, nor was it the way of anyone who’d spent time on an Agutra. They understood the consequences of unanswered prayers and the strength of answered ones. “Now let’s take some more heads.”

  They’d just entered the clash of fighters and collectors when Azure rolled them hard, and another flash of a black Suanoan ship tore by their windows. The imperial cruiser lit up the sky with a string of fire which took out one of the ArcString ships sending the other crashing into an M45.

  In a panic, Bennett checked his wristband feed. They weren’t Tanner or Krett’s codes. Still, it sent his heart kicking against its cage.

  “Those are not ours,” Azure growled. “We have to lead them away.”

  “How can you tell? All the imperial ships look the same.”

  “Agutra pilots have no experience flying fighters. We mostly pull from M45 or collector training.” He nodded back toward Agutra and the wide maneuvers of the Suanoan ships. “Clumsy—so they’re careful.”

  “Except you,” Bennett corrected.

  Azure’s nose crinkled in a snarl as he slammed them end-over-nose and barreled after the cruiser. Their seats trembled from the change in velocity. “I was more valuable alive than dead.”

  Bennett homed in on the ship ahead and aimed at the blood-red center of its propulsion. He hoped Suanoan shields were similarly weak there as with plasma zones on Kyras. The second the targeting brackets blinked green, the Suanoan ship darted left. “Damn it.”

  “Hang on.” Azure adjusted a few settings on his screen, and their cruiser hummed, closing the distance between them.

  Bennett focused on the pattern as they followed. Left turn. Up. Dive. Right. Dive. Up. Left. The constant jerks of force on his body made him glad he’d had exposure to space flight in recent weeks or he had a feeling he would’ve been sick. The pattern then took the same shape, rotating the starting point. UP. Right. Left. Dive. Left. Right. Up.

  “Right!” Bennett commanded.

  Azure banked at the same time as the Suanoa, and Bennett lit up its tail. The ship peeled open back to front.

  “Booya!” Bennett let out a whoop. “Flip a bitch, and let’s find us another!”

  “Flip a—”

  Bennett circled a finger in the air. “Turn around. Sorry. Panton’s jargon filters through sometimes.”

  Azure turned them back toward the battlefield. “Jar-gun?”

  “The way he says things. Never mind.” Bennett pointed out a cruiser swerving through the fight toward Kyra Two. Several M45s bobbed and circled through the Linoan collectors, fighting to keep a wall of security around the loading pods. The fourteen remaining Shield units had collected the escape pods on the sides of their underbellies.

  The ships before him blurred. Steadying his hands on the controls, Bennett squinted at the scene. Feeling dizzy, Bennett released his fingers from the gun controls and closed his eyes. The same fiery image of the Slashgate spread through his thoughts like a terrible daydream. “Azure—”

  “Bennett, shoot!”

  “I-I’m seeing it again.”

  “What? Now?” Azure continued, but Bennett couldn’t force himself to stay and listen no matter how hard he resisted.

  Shards of glass melted together, reflecting the shapes of the Kyras, the dying ships, and a burning Earth. Debris followed an invisible mass as if it had its own gravity. A shockwave traveled through Bennet’s body, one after another. Through the mirage, Bennett saw a slender figure standing in a backlit window, watching him.

  A firm whack against his chest snapped Bennett awake. He gasped and rubbed a crick from his neck. Every light flared at ten times their normal luminescence: from the ships outside, the plasma gun statuses, the dash controls. Bennett winced and tried to shield his face, feeling intoxicated. Azure’s blue eyes smoldered as they glared over at him. “They’ve—caught—on.”

  Proximity alerts flashed on Bennett’s helmet display, spiking fear and hot adrenaline in his stomach. The world rushed back into normal speed. Tightening his grip around the joysticks, Bennett surveyed the ships as they trailed behind them like a segmented snake. Five imperials were locked on. “On my mark, flip.”

  Adrenaline flooded his veins with hot golden light. The Suanoa ahead of them swerved left then right and back again. “Mark!”

  Azure pulled them into a hard nose-over-tail switchback.

  Looking up at their adversaries as they arced, Bennett fired. Bright red pulses slammed into the fourth and fifth Suanoan ships, their shields solidifying and flickering out. Bennett didn’t stop until they were out of range. Two flashes behind them sent shield alerts blinking on the dash. Two down.

  Shots whizzed by Bennett and Azure’s ship, one making contact. Their shield rippled red, disbursing the energy, then fell colorless again. Azure banked left and whipped them through the wreckage of Kyra One. He dodged globs of cooled plasma and darkened fragments of the ship until they were free on the other side.<
br />
  Frozen workers drifted helplessly by. It made Bennett cringe and squeeze his eyes shut for a breath. We didn’t know. I’m so sorry.

  Azure put them into a dead sprint headed for outer space. “Hard to shake them. They’re better at this than me.”

  “Can you brake low? Let them intentionally outrun us?” Bennett asked. “All I’ve got to pull from are dogfights on Earth. And I’m not a pilot.”

  Azure flicked a switch on the right side of his main screen and inspected the readings, dropping down on the left. Readying a hand over a set of oval buttons, he gave Bennett a nod.

  “Mark!”

  Clouds gushed from the nose thrusters, and they sank beneath the string of imperial cruisers. Slung forward in his seat, Bennett struggled against the pressure to pull back on the joysticks so they’d lift high enough. Bracing a foot on the dash, he got his entire body into it. Teeth clenched, he saw one ship eek into his zone and tapped his triggers.

  Three shots to the propulsion systems and the ship poured into space like tiny black crystals in a red plasma soup. The remaining two broke off to circle back.

  “Spin us around!” Bennett directed.

  Azure’s fingers raced over the controls. “I can’t! It’s out of equilibrium from the last maneuver! I need thirty seconds at least before I can restart!”

  Checking the radar, Bennett freed his harness. They had fifteen, maybe twenty, seconds at most. His body floated up inside the cabin. “We don’t have time. You air-tight?” He glanced at Azure’s helmet before thrusting himself into the back of the ship.

  “Yeah, why—”

  Bennett slammed his fist on the storage compartments the way Azure had earlier. Glowing red cylinders caught his eye. “Open the gate.”

  “We’ll vent if you—”

  “Fucking open it, Azure!” Bennett grabbed a canister in one hand and wrapped an arm through a strap on one of the crew seats.

  Two peeps from Azure’s position led to the door at the rear cracking open. Every cabinet automatically slammed shut, the doors solidifying again. It only took a second for the air to leave. A light blinked on in Bennett’s lower-left corner. He couldn’t tell what it said as he flung the canister out into the darkness. The segmented status bar was clear enough.

  Spreading his feet on the wall as their ship helplessly rotated, Bennett drew his SI and counted down. The Suanoan ships approached fast, growing larger as the canister shrank.

  He aimed and fired until his SI was empty, the blue-green shots storming out into the void. Bennett prayed one would hit. There was nothing else he could do. “Close the doors, and get us out of here as soon as you can.”

  The doors shut. “Coming back into sync now. Engines reigniting. Turning us around in five, four—” Azure’s hollow voice said through the speakers in Bennett’s helmet.

  The Suanoan ships drew closer, their pairs of plasma weapons heating in preparation.

  Shots pelted Bennett and Azure’s ship. The dash flashed with warnings. Red alerts scrolled across Bennett’s display.

  “I know; I know!” Azure frantically slid his fingers over the thruster screen.

  Bennett started to climb his way back to the co-pilot’s seat when the ship careened forward, canting dorsal-first into space.

  The strap slipped from Bennett’s arm, and he was thrown against the air-lock door. All around them, the endless night-sky dyed red. The ship shuddered and broke into a side roll. Bennett tumbled to the floor as the gravity assists came back online. Then he was weightless again.

  A row of cabinets reminded him of his mass, sending bruising punches into his shoulder and side. The spinning continued, bouncing Bennett around. He caught the back of Azure’s seat in the stomach and latched on.

  “Azure!”

  “Working on it!”

  Thrusters burst out clouds of white, leveling the ship on the third roll.

  Bennett set his feet on the floor and swallowed his nausea. Body throbbing, he plopped himself in his seat. “Fuck me. Did we get them?”

  Bringing them around to their recent position, Azure pointed to the debris. “Not on the schem, either.”

  “Nice.” Bennett lifted a fist.

  Azure squinted at him.

  “You bump it with yours. It’s a gesture of celebration.”

  A brow arched on the man’s face, but he lifted his closest hand and fist-bumped Bennett.

  “See, not so bad.”

  “Bennett, Atana. If you can hear me, I need you on K—a Two! There are too many—mperials! Oomuas and his crew converged with Marlit’s! Shields—down. Dock Fi—pha. I repeat, dock Five Alph—”

  Giving Azure a wary glance, Bennett called back, “Understood. On our way.”

  Chapter 52

  A SUFFOCATING QUIET spread between Bennett and Azure. The deeper furrow to the warrior’s brows had Bennett convinced Azure was wondering why Atana hadn’t called him. The man was good at concealing his thoughts for a telepath, but his face always let a hint slip. Bennett could see it easily after Azure had shown him the button to fold his helmet back into his armor.

  “I’m sure she thinks you’re monitoring Semilath,” Bennett offered.

  “That’s an odd statement when you can’t hear her thoughts.” Azure’s glare in response didn’t lift high enough to meet Bennett’s eyes. “She could have asked. You are supposed to be on Hope. It’s gone. Why doesn’t she think you’re dead?”

  Bennett felt their friendship diverging again. “Maybe she heard some of the com feed. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. We’re both going to show up. You can ask her why later.”

  “It does matter,” Azure said curtly, docking them at Kyra Two’s Five Alpha. He freed himself from his harness and, in a huff, left the cockpit. Twisting the Clio emblem protruding from the metal cuffs of his suit, his gloves illuminated a deep rose.

  “What does that do?” Bennett asked, unbuckling.

  Azure stalked to the airlock without a word.

  “In the short time I’ve known her,” Bennett said as he opened a weapons compartment and eyed the available tools of his trade. He grabbed a rifle—an arm-sized sliver of slate—and reeled at its lightness. His touch triggered a radiant red split down the middle, a digital sight popping up at the top, and a grip unfolding at the bottom. Selecting a handgun of similar appearance, he tapped a gloved finger to his temple. “She’s always tied up in things much greater than herself, and us, which is why she understands unspoken things no one else does. Don’t blame her. She’s not you.”

  Turning toward Bennett, Azure closed the distance between them. His sapphire eyes burned bright through narrowed slits.

  Bennett held his ground.

  “Prospector or not, until you have suffered the way we have, you will not understand us or the true significance of what we’re doing.”

  It was the truth, but the warrior didn’t know his story, not his real one. “Why didn’t the Suanoa just use this during the mutiny?” Bennett asked, impassively raising the weapons.

  The airlock doors parted. Azure’s hands curled into incalescent red fists. “Because they did not think we would win.”

  Before the hatch was halfway open, Azure bolted inside, slinging threads of fire that punched boiling holes through Linoan after Linoan.

  Bennett hustled through the charred stench of Azure’s wake, the matte black rifle in his hands. Smoke curled up in clouds around the bodies as they fell, blood still sizzling in their wounds. For Azure, life was about surviving to hold on to love. But Atana, in Bennett’s eyes, lived to create balance by defying those who forced the odds in their favor. Judging by the growing body count and melted metal of the halls, Azure had figured out they didn’t see eye-to-eye as he’d hoped.

  A grimace tightened Bennett’s face. With the rifle wedged in his shoulder, he called Atana over his headset. “We’re on board. I think Azure’s got a bead on your location.” He didn’t mention the mood Azure was in because it had already proven useful.

&nbs
p; Bennett’s wristband peeped softly in rapid succession, a diagram of the ship’s interior loading in light blue lines against a navy background. A dot labeled “Atana” blinked in red with a message.

  Automated: Co-shepherd Needs Medical Assistance.

  Team Downloading…

  Bennett pushed himself fast toward her location, disregarding the path Azure had mowed down into a hall on the right. Tapping open the health monitor built-in for Team Leaders, Bennett saw Atana’s heart rate climbing to a rapid 180 beats per minute. Adrenaline redlined in the chart and pulsed in warning. “Shit.” Hang on, girl.

  The hallways blurred as Bennett sprinted toward Marlit’s main bridge, his chest thumping, pulse racing in his ears. Portrait icons of Atana’s crew appeared on his screen. He opened a channel. “Will someone please tell me what’s going on?”

  Lavrion was the first to respond. “Imara and Rimsan are leading rebel assaults on Linoans. I was tasked to follow Yari and Klézia to diable the Slashgate generators. Yari’s still working on it. We were supposed to stick together. But Atana changed her mind.

  “Klézia took a stack of ten or so plasma bullets. She cleared a room of thirty-three Suanoa on her own. I don’t know how she survived. I’ve got her stabilized but am unsure how long I can keep her that way.”

  Glancing at the team statistics as he rounded a corner into a large open hangar, Bennett saw Lavrion had an additional status bar indicating Life Force. It had dropped far past the Healthy mark was falling dangerously close to Shock.

  A blaze of red pellets ripped by Bennett’s face and slammed into the wall beside him. He spun behind the cover of a vertical I-beam, silently cursing himself for losing focus. Glancing out, Bennett saw Linoans crossing the empty floor. Their sparks faded into his vision like angry red sores in the structures. Above them, a green shield wavered like ripples in water, stars glittering beyond. Hangar, I’m in a hanger.

  Sparks sprayed out around his body, the pillar deflecting another hit. “Lavrion, you’ve drained your life-force trying to save hers. You need to let her go.”

  Laviron’s retort rasped with exhaustion and defeat. “What? No! This is what Sahara brought me for!”