Hep shot forward first, eager to prove Wilco and Mao wrong, eager to die first, to not have to watch his friends be consumed. He hoped he would be incinerated, destroyed so completely that he could not be reanimated by the Void. When this was over, he wanted it to be over. He did not want to return. He wanted to no longer exist.
The reanimated Void ships were nothing like human-piloted ships. Hep understood why they were hurling themselves at the Blue like rocks. They moved sluggishly, unable to keep Hep in their sights. He blasted several before one was able to return fire, and even then, the shot was a drastic miss. He felt like an idiot allowing hope to creep into his mind.
Wilco appeared off Hep’s starboard side and immediately showed why Mao made a safe bet. Wilco dove and spun and came up under three reanimated Syndicate ships, blowing them into nothing. They continued on, carving a path through the swarm. The Blue followed, using its own guns to keep the newly-formed canal from closing in on them. As they moved through the Void fleet, Hep felt a sense of claustrophobia grip him. He realized the inside of this black mass was the last thing he would see. He would never glimpse the stars again. Never see a blue sky.
His head jerked to the side and then back again, his flight helmet slamming into the side of the cockpit. Something crashed into him. The momentary lapse in focus opened him up to follow-up attacks. Two more Void starfighters hit his hull, knocking him off course and pushing him from their lane into the thick of the swarm. He fought with the controls, trying to right himself.
“Get right!” Wilco yelled through comms.
“Trying,” Hep said. Another ship hit him. A crack formed in the shielding that separated him from the vacuum of space. The helm didn’t respond. He was dead in the water. “Keep going. Get the Blue to Central.”
The darkness closed around Hep. The swarm blotted around everything that was not the Void. The Void was all there was. He hoped again that they would destroy him completely. He found comfort in believing that his death would go unseen by the others, and theirs would go unseen by him. Everyone should die alone.
But the darkness failed to take him. A light erupted somewhere in the thick of the swarm. It pushed the Void ships back and cleared the space around him, forcing a crack to emerge in the thick mass of enemies. An angel descending to pluck him out of Hell.
Hep pressed his palms into his eyes trying to ease the pain from the sudden shine. When he took them away, he saw a shimmering form floating in open space.
10
“What was that?” Mao shouted. His voice seemed dull, like the bridge had been wrapped in thick blankets that swallowed sound. “Are we hit? I need a damage report.”
“We’ve suffered no damage,” Delphyne said. “All systems operational. Wait—” Her voice cut short. “This can’t be right. Akari, what’s the situation in engineering?”
Mao shot her an expectant and impatient look. Delphyne ignored it.
“The situation is…” Akari sounded like she was searching for the most appropriate words. “…complicated.”
“Elaborate,” Mao said.
“The engines are…glowing? They are running at maximum efficiency, but readings also show that they are empty. They’re running on an energy source that we don’t have the ability to measure. An energy that we’ve never encountered.”
“Captain,” the voice of Dr. Hauser interrupted them. “We have a situation in med-bay.”
“What kind of situation?”
“A stowaway, sir. I think you need to come see this.”
Acid had built up in all of Mao’s muscles. They were permanently tense now. He wouldn’t allow himself to think about how soothing a warm bath would be. Something that he would never again have. And he did his best not to scream at Dr. Hauser over comms for forcing him to walk to med-bay in the midst of a cataclysmic event rather than just tell him what the hell had happened on his own damn ship.
He stopped. Took a deep breath. He did not want his last moments to be defined by anger. He was doing a valiant thing. He was asking his people to do a valiant thing, to lay their lives down for the sake of others. That was what he would focus on. He would be determined and steadfast. Nothing would shake him.
“Hey, Cap.”
The voice that greeted Mao as he opened the med-bay door hit him like a knife in the gut. He didn’t know whether to draw his blaster or throw open his arms or fall dead on the floor. “How…”
Dr. Hauser emerged from Mao’s periphery. “He was just…there. After that light. The ship shook. I closed my eyes. When I opened them, there he was, like he was always there.”
She sounded far away. Eventually, her words reached Mao’s ears, but they couldn’t be true. “I don’t understand,” Mao said.
“Me neither,” Sigurd said. “Last thing I remember was flying into the Inferni Cluster.” He closed his eyes like he’d just remembered something. “The rest… Everything since… It’s like a fading dream.” His face turned sour. “I did…horrible things, didn’t I?”
“No,” Mao said. “Not you. The Void.”
Sig clutched his chest at the mention of the name. It was a piece of shrapnel lodged in his heart. Something foreign that would always be there, threatening to shake loose and rupture his arteries, filling his insides with blood while draining him of life.
“What can I do, sir? To help end this?”
Mao smiled as he placed a hand on Sig’s shoulder. The chief recoiled slightly at first before melting into the touch. “You can rest.”
Sig relented with a nod, his ordeal written plainly in the slants of his body. The man who’d served as Chief of Security on the Royal Blue would never have obliged an order to sit out of a fight without resistance. He would have eventually, of course, because he was as upstanding a sailor as there ever was.
The atmosphere on the bridge was expectant. Delphyne was the epicenter. She radiated unasked questions like an anxious sun.
“He’s okay,” Mao whispered to her.
Delphyne’s eyes welled. She dabbed them with her sleeve, quickly wiping away the signs of emotion. “We have something interesting to report, Captain.”
The rapid-fire change in intention caught Mao by surprise. He wanted to relish in the return of their friend, the first good news they’d received in what felt like years. He nodded, his joy turning to grief.
Delphyne raised an image on the main monitor. Mao squinted at what looked like a sea of white light, a sun exploding into existence. He looked deeper, his eyes straining and burning. In the center of the light was a dark spot. Mao stepped closer. “Is that…a man?”
“I believe so,” Delphyne said. “And look at this.” She zoomed out far enough to show the entirety of the battle zone. The light had created a space the size of the Mjolnir in the thick of the Void fleet. “We took an energy reading. It matches the reading from the engine cores, the ones Bayne supercharged. Partially, anyway.”
Mao touched the dark spot on the monitor. “That’s Bayne?”
Delphyne shrugged. “I mean, I guess? Does that sound any more impossible than anything else?”
“No,” Mao said. “Seems right up his alley. Can we get a live view of that area?”
“Bringing it up now.”
The monitor switched from a captured image to a real-time view. They watched a dogfight in progress. Void ships ducked and dived and rolled as they tried to avoid the barrage of cannon fire. Cannon fire from a triple-masted dreadnaught, a massive ship that would have been the scourge of the seven seas in the Golden Age of Piracy. From the huge muzzles of the cannons came blasts of energy that tracked the enemy ships like a savannah cat running down its prey.
“I think it’s safe to assume that’s Bayne,” Mao said. “He’s created a foothold. We need to get in there and join him.”
“Allow us,” Hep’s voice came over the bridge comm.
Two ships emerged from the thick of the Void fleet off the Blue’s bow. Mao knew somehow that they were piloted by Hep and Wilco, though they w
ere not the same ships they had they left in. These new starfighters were a considerable upgrade. They shimmered with the same kind of light as the other constructs Bayne had manifested, but their solid bodies were a different color—one was blue and one was black. Mao would later see the names of each etched into their respective hulls: Benevolent and Malevolent. Each was equipped with weapon systems that Mao had never seen before, systems he’d never even heard spoken of in theoretical terms. Blaster turrets and cannons that fired devastating bolts of energy in several directions, as if targeted by several people at once. Maneuverability that seemed equally impossible. Bayne’s imagination was impressive.
“Lead the way,” Mao said, hope clawing its way into his chest despite his best effort to keep it at bay. “Unleash hell,” he ordered Bigby and Horus. At his command, the full force of the Blue’s frontal assault systems opened up. Still with some residual power from Bayne’s initial boost, the ship cut a wide swath through the Void fleet. Hep and Wilco wove effortlessly through the attack, hummingbirds dancing circles around their flowers.
Seconds later, space opened before them as they crossed into the clearing Bayne had created. Mao felt like he’d stumbled upon an oasis in a crowded city park, the secret heart that only the locals knew about, where a beautiful fountain stood, a monument to a forgotten history.
“Are we able to communicate with him?” Mao said, pointing to the glowing figure on the screen. Bayne on the deck of his ship, arms outright like he was holding back a storm.
“Comms are all screwy,” Byrne said. “This energy flux is throwing them for a loop.”
“I can do it.”
The bridge tensed. The cousin the family had written off long ago after the latest in a series of destructive choices had just walked into the reunion. They held their collective breath, unsure whether the man who’d fallen into a seemingly bottomless hole or the one who’d climbed his way out stood before them.
“I can talk to him,” Sig said.
The crew quickly released their breath. They couldn’t have been so sure of who this man was in so short a time, but they wanted to believe he was their old friend, the man they served with, their family. They welcomed him like he’d never done a thing to wrong them. This was just another in an infinite supply of chances.
“How’s that?” Mao said.
Sig put a finger to his temple. “Can’t really explain it. But I can, I don’t know, feel it? Like he’s whispering in my ear. I think he can hear me too.”
“Better than nothing,” Mao said with a shrug. “Tell him we’re here. What does he need from us?”
Sig closed his eyes. He concentrated. “Lead the charge.”
“What charge? We’re the only ones here.”
“The fleet.”
“Again,” Mao said, his voice straining. “What fleet? They’re trapped on the other side of—”
“Sir!” Delphyne shouted. She changed the image on the monitor to explain.
Mao squinted trying to see through the field of stars, trying to sort out the information and make sense of it. As understanding came, Mao felt a tightness in his chest. Those weren’t stars. They were ships. Hundreds of ships just like the ones piloted by Hep and Wilco, starfighters designed to the specs that danced through the depths of Bayne’s imagination.
“I can’t hold this for long,” Sig said. “You’ve got a few minutes. And I can’t pilot them all. They’re drones, following your lead. So what’s the plan, Captain?”
“Open a lane,” Mao said. “Send a detachment of ships back to rendezvous with the Mjolnir then escort the entirety of the coalition navy here. The rest of us are charging ahead. We’re attacking Central. We’re ending this now.”
11
Energy surged through the fleet. They felt like conduits, interconnected batteries, funneling energy into each other, feeding each other, fueling chemical reactions that amplified their power exponentially. They fought like demons, like heroes, like gods. They fought without vigor, fearless, cutting through the enemy with righteous, flaming swords.
It felt like the old days.
Standing on the deck of his imagined ship, Bayne remembered what it felt like to be a Ranger. Standing on the edge of the void and spitting into it.
He reached out from inside himself and felt the fibers of connection extend into each construct. He felt the ships he’d willed into existence weave through the dark, cutting through their enemies. He was aware of it all, but not acutely. He had a sense of what was happening. He knew they were winning. He knew the human fleet was pulling together. He knew the Void was fighting back like a wild animal taking its dying gasp. But he did not know how Hep and Wilco fared in the battle. He didn’t know the Blue’s position. He didn’t know how Mao was treating his ship. He was looking down on the battlefield from a million miles up. Or looking up, having shrunk down to the size to a grain of sand. The perspective shifted with each passing thought.
Bayne was struck with a sudden sense that he needed to shift the perspective further. He drew the connecting threads back into himself. He found himself standing on the deck of his ship, alone, the feeling of awareness gone, leaving him with an empty, cold feeling. He crashed back into the present moment and felt like throwing up.
He remembered reading that when sailors got seasick, they would focus on the horizon. He looked up. The Void fleet was scattered. The human ships had formed a perimeter around Central. The combined might of the UNS and Byers fleet was a sight to behold.
The current moment blended with one from his past, merged into one beautiful thought. He remembered the Ranger fleet, a group of disparate captains once driven by nothing but the desire to make their own way, now joined in one purpose. They had come to the final stronghold of the last remaining warlord. What would become the United Navy was by their side. This was the end of the era, a turning point. This was the moment when the freedom the Rangers fought and died for would become the standard. They wouldn’t need to kill for the opportunity to take their own path, it would be the foundation upon which the new order was built.
Bayne shifted from that moment to the one before the Ranger war drew to its ultimate conclusion, when they were betrayed, and their dream was scattered across the stars.
“This is it.” Bayne plucked the voice out of the ether. Admiral Mara Jeska addressed her people, standing on the edge of a new era. “This is when we finish it. All ships, target Central. On my order, blow it to hell.”
She believed this was a turning point, a shift in the tide. It could have been. UNS ships, Byers ships, divided by war just weeks ago, now unified in a fight for survival. Maybe they would stay united, build a future that meant something. Maybe they would put their knives to each other’s throats as soon as this was done. Maybe they’d repeat all the same mistakes, over and over, until every sun burned out and there were no people left.
Maybe they would do something new.
People often surprised Bayne.
Energy built in the air, turning the empty void of space into a thick soup. Bayne felt it congeal around him. He wanted to drink it in, feel recharged. He wanted to connect to it and feel like he was part of this final attack. He wanted to blast Central apart himself, but all he could do was cut a path for others. Now, at the finish line, all he could do was sit and watch.
The ether split open, and energy spilled out in one massive wave. A sudden concussive force, like a sun had died lightyears away and its heat-death was just now reaching the creatures it once kept alive.
Central disappeared behind the blast. It looked like the heart of its own sun, a cauldron of nuclear explosions. Bayne did not shield his eyes. He wanted to watch it all. He reached out with the little energy he had left, connected to the web of destruction. He wanted to feel it just a little. But he did not feel what he wanted. Beneath the devastation of the once prominent space station, the hub of the United Systems, there was a pulse, like a heartbeat, that he knew as his own.
Ayala.
12
A prick to the heart. As the lights faded into darkness, and the wreckage of Central was revealed, Mao didn’t feel the joy and relief he’d been hoping for. He felt a needle in his chest, making his breathing shallow and accompanied by quick stabs of pain.
“We’ve done it.” Delphyne spoke it like a question, hesitant to believe. “It’s over.”
“Scan the debris,” Mao ordered. “Make sure.”
“No need.” Bayne appeared as if from nowhere. Maybe he had. Perhaps that was within his power now. The thought sent a chill down Mao’s back. “She’s still alive.”
A second shiver coursed through him. “Ayala. How?”
Bayne shrugged.
“What about the rest?” Mao pressed through his frustration.
“All the Void ships seem to have gone dormant,” Delphyne said, hunched over her panel. “No activity. No energy readings.”
Bayne shook his head. “She’s still alive. I can feel it.”
“Without a fleet, is she still a threat?” Mao said.
“Always.” Bayne didn’t speak with the derision he might once have. His words sounded heavy with pity rather than contempt. “She can rebuild. She will rebuild. Faster than you think, too. There is no shortage of death in the systems. She will find ships and people and she will have a new Void fleet sooner rather than later.”
A moment of hesitation in Bayne’s voice rang like a church bell next to Mao’s ear. “What? You’ve thought of something.”
“She’ll be depleted. She extended herself.” Bayne touched his hand to his chest, like reminding himself of the truth of his words. “She’ll need to recharge.”
“And how would she do that?” Delphyne stepped away from her panel. “We blasted you with a concentrated shot of your own energy. Can she draw that energy back from the rest of the fleet?”
Bayne closed his eyes as he spoke, almost like he was relinquishing control of his body, allowing something else to speak through him. “She could, but it would take time and leave her exposed. She’ll seek out a powerful, concentrated source of Void energy. A well that she can tap into.”
The Deep Black Space Opera Boxed Set Page 81