Intersect

by M C I Hinchliffe

"The way things are going, I'll die of shock before Bane or anyone else gets to us."

  "Sorry about that." Ryan apologised.

  "It's a bit late now!"

  As Ryan manoeuvred the Airlantis, due east - towards the Pacific Ocean, the ground passed quickly underneath them as they accelerated to Mach two. Katie enjoyed the sensation of flying and at the height of one thousand feet, she could see the Sydney city lights to the south and the city lights of Newcastle to the north - the view was breath taking.

  The onboard computer interrupted the peaceful scene. "Two Starfighters approaching - bearing north west and closing fast. They are manoeuvring to attack position and have weapons lock. Evasive action imperative."

  A great beam of energy darted over the left wing, searing the top surface and exposing damaged hydraulics. Ryan banked the Airlantis hard right, then increased velocity to Mach four. "It's Bane's Starfighters!"

  "Can't you outrun them?" Asked Katie, or more likely hoped.

  "No, they're many times faster and more manoeuvrable. We won't last long against those guys."

  "That's not the answer I'm looking for, isn't there some way of getting them of our tail?"

  "I'll head back towards the land, we might be able to shake them amongst the mountains." He pulled back on the steering wheel and looped until they were upside down and travelling towards the coast. While shooting off several laser blasts from the nose cannon, he rotated the craft so it was upright again. The Starfighters separated and shot past the Airlantis at an incredible rate as the shore passed under them again with the mountains backing it.

  During all the manoeuvres, Katie had little sensation of gee-forces or the changing direction of gravity. This began to confuse her senses but Ryan continued without any visual signs of effect. Ryan dived into a long, narrow valley and skimmed just above tree level so a rear attack would be more difficult. A red warning light activated again to display that the Starfighters had another laser lock. Ryan's sharp reflexes and dominant flying skills again saved them from a fiery death. He pulled hard left and soared up the side of the valley floor as a lethal laser beam darted across the Airlantis's nose.

  Katie noticed Ryan's injured leg was bleeding again. While he was driving, he wasn't using his left leg because there was no clutch pedal. Now there was a new pedal to push - the left control for the flight rudder and the exertion was aggravating the wound. She looked at his face for any signs of pain but there were none. It was as if he were in a trance and no level of pain could break it. The valley ended rapidly and Ryan dragged on the controls to pull up. The Airlantis shot straight up into a vertical climb with the Starfighters hot on its tail and firing their deadly rays. A laser beam dashed across the rear of the craft, searing the fuselage and shattering the end of the left wing. The craft jolted as the onboard computer compensated for the loss of the left aileron, but total chaos reigned within the cockpit. Several warning lights flashed and alarm units peeped in response to the damaged drive system behind their heads.

  Ryan shouted to the computer over the bedlam while fighting to regaining control of the Airlantis. "Activate the engine bay extinguishers and self-repair system, re-route all reserve power to the drive system and shut these bloody alarms off!" When the cockpit became quiet again, Ryan realised that even if the engine functioned at full capacity, his lost manoeuvrability had signed their death warrant. The dash displayed a flashing reading of thirty percent reduction in flight control response, and even his amazing gift for flying was useless with such badly damaged flight controls. It would be only seconds before they were shot out of the sky.

  Another explosion shook the Airlantis, but this time it wasn't they who were fired upon. In the rear view monitor, the trailing Starfighter erupted in a mighty ball of fire and his comrade quickly broke off the attack. Katie and Ryan sat there, momentarily confused, when a voice sounded in the cockpit.

  "Blue squadron leader to Admiral Williams, do you read us, over?"

  A smile spread across Ryan's face. "Adam Moore you slippery bugger, boy am I glad to see you!"

  Another Starfighter flew up alongside the Airlantis and from the cockpit waved a friendly hand. "Battle Axe and Stinger have gone after the other traitorous slime ball. The Airlantis looks like hell, do you think it will make it to the Endeavour?"

  "Yeah, she's a tough one. We should make it now that our tail is clear."

  "You've either got a lot of guts or little sense taking on those boys in the Airlantis, I'm surprised you lasted this long."

  "I pulled a couple of moves from my magic box of tricks. What are you guys doing here anyway?"

  "Charlie has been tracking you since you left Bane's hideout. When he decided that you had finished your business with old metal head, he sent us on the bombing run. I'm packing a pair off photon spark missiles, we figured they would do the trick."

  "Well don't let me hold you up soldier, you've got a mission to complete."

  "Yes, Sir." The Starfighter banked away and disappeared into the distance.

  Ryan steered the Airlantis up toward the sky, then accelerated to maximum velocity and left the Earth behind them.

  ********************

  Colonel Adam Moore manipulated the twin horizontal joysticks that controlled his highly sophisticated Starfighter. Gone, were the days of the single, vertical control stick as were found in the twentieth century jet fighters. Purely because one control stick wasn't effective enough when travelling at vast speeds. Now, both arms and feet went into controlling a fighter and with most of the vital buttons incorporated into the hand joysticks, the pilot had a level of control never previously achieved. Before him was a highly advanced digital console, with five screens displaying whatever information or view his mind commanded. His helmet sent mental signals to the on board computer so the pilot need never remove his hands from the controls. Although the ground surface was obscured in darkness, his helmet projected an infra red image onto his visor so it was clearly defined at all times.

  The low hills passed under him at a vast amount of knots as he maintained a flight level of two hundred metres. He mentally called up the weapons system and armed the two photon spark missiles. With every thought command the centre screen displayed the orders and the execution of that order.

  A familiar voice spoke to him within his helmet. "Battle Axe to Blue squadron leader, second bogie has felt the pain of Stinger's guns and is now finely spread across a remote valley."

  "Well done lads. I am approaching target and will need cover to make the bombing run, move into the Y formation."

  "Coming up alongside you now." Two Starfighters, identical to the Colonel's came into view and positioned themselves one ship length ahead and slightly higher. Their mission was to attract the potential ground fire and destroy anything that posed a threat to the bombing mission.

  The voice of the on board computer sounded in Adam's ears. "Locked on target, missile release in eight seconds." Superimposed on his visor were white crosshairs that indicated the target location and two red vertical lines approached the crosshairs from either side to indicate the optimum point of missile release. Four anti-aircraft guns sprayed the sky with deadly beams of fire, but the Starfighters were coming in too fast. Air to ground missiles launched from Battle Axe and Stinger's ships and obliterated the locations of the anti-aircraft guns. On the console, a light flashed "missile release" and a beep sounded in Adam's helmet. He pressed the launch button with his right thumb and two missiles dashed towards their target. A moment before impact, a large transporter took off from the secret base as the two missile warhead's erupted into fire and shrapnel. A billowing cloud, similar to an atomic blast came up from the ground as the base was totally obliterated. In the time of the twentieth century, such an explosion would indicate nuclear fallout, but the weapons from the thirty first century were void of any radioactive harm.

  As the Starfighters flew through the black cloud at Mach ten, they changed their course to tail the escaping transporter.


  "Give the transporter some lead, we don't want it spraying shrapnel across half of Australia. We will take it out when it reaches the outer atmosphere." Adam ordered.

  To maintain pursuit, the Starfighters increased their airspeed to Mach thirteen and in a matter of seconds, the chase had reached the ionosphere. All three fighters let loose a pair of photon missiles at the target and with an explosion that was brighter than the Sun, the transporter erupted into a billion particles.

  "Blue leader to Endeavour, mission completed and retuning to base."

  A face of a woman in her early twenties came on the top right screen. "Roger, blue leader. Your flight path is clear for landing."

  The Starfighters sped off in the direction of their home base.

  CHAPTER EIGHT - ENDEAVOUR'S WORLD

  DATE - APRIL 11TH 1995 TIME - 10.05 PM

  LOCATION - 500 KILOMETRES ABOVE EARTH

  It only took a few minutes to reach the upper atmosphere where the life giving gases were too thin and the formidable domain of cold space reigned supreme. At a height of five hundred kilometres, the earth was a blue green haven far below and continents appeared as map size. Outside was cold, silent space.

  "Where are we going?" She asked.

  "To the main centre of Intersect."

  Katie had no idea what he was talking about, so she kept her questions for a later date and sat quietly while enjoying the spectacular view. The Sun broke the Earth's horizon and flooded the Airlantis cockpit with unshielded light. The windscreen darkened automatically to compensate for the bombardment of white and ultraviolet light. Ryan banked right and followed the line on the Earth where day became night. To Katie's left was blue water, brown continents and swirls of white cloud and to her right were the countless city lights surrounded by utter blackness. "If only I brought my camera," Katie thought." A shot like this could make the front page of life magazine."

  "We have a few minutes to spare, look under your seat for the medical kit." Katie found a small red box and she handed to Ryan. He removed a sheet of sticky, transparent material that looked like rubber and he covered the wound with it. Instantly, the wound stopped bleeding and before her eyes, it healed. All that remained of the wound was a slight discolouration. Ryan closed the box and returned it to Katie.

  "That's incredible! It looks like the paramedics of the thirty first century have an easy job."

  A small speck in the distance appeared in direct line with Ryan's flight path and quickly grew larger. "Is that where we are headed, to that tiny speck?" Katie said as she pointed at the growing dot.

  "Yes, but it's a bit bigger than a tiny speck. We are still three thousand kilometres away."

  Their destination grew in size to a point where the shape was discernible and one end was sharp like an arrow head and the back was square. Katie assumed they were approaching the side of the object as if it were laying on the invisible atmosphere beneath it. It continued to grow and grow and grow until it filled the scene before them. Soon, she could no longer see the bow or stern of the vessel as they disappeared beyond the horizon planes.

  "Oh my God?!" Katie gasped.

  Ryan could see that thousands of questions were running through her inquisitive mind and he decided it was time to answer some of them. "Before you lies the Battleship Endeavour, the most powerful fighting machine ever built by human hands. She's one hundred and fifty kilometres from bow to stern, eighty kilometres wide and twenty deep with a crew of one hundred and thirty thousand. She is also the largest battleship ever made."

  "No kidding! How come no one has seen this monster floating around above Earth? It sticks out like an elephant in short grass."

  "Normally the Endeavour is moored outside the solar system, but for the past two days we've kept her in Earth's orbit since the arrival of the Warrians is now imminent. She is totally invisible to twentieth century tracking systems, so all we have to do is keep her out of visual range. The Endeavour also has a feature that no other vessel has before her, the ability to "D" jump. This means that she can go anywhere and at any point in time in the known universe in a matter of seconds. Hyperspace travel is now obsolete." Ryan pressed a button and spoke to the thin air. "Admiral Williams to Endeavour, request permission to land."

  A face of a woman in her early twenties appeared on one of the monitors. "Admiral, the landing flight path will be free in five minutes. Do you mind a small wait?"

  "No, that will be fine, but we would like to take a bow to stern inspection of the Endeavour?"

  "Proposed fight path is clear, proceed when ready." The face disappeared and the monitor returned to the previous screening of their relative position to the Earth's surface.

  "Even with all this technology, you still get traffic jams." Katie said with a smug expression.

  Ryan banked the Airlantis to the left and travelled along the port side of the massive battleship. Two enormous arms extended from either side of the ship and reached forward towards the bow and way ahead were two arrow shaped structures that met at a single point to forme the bow itself. From the amount of the activity around the two arms, Katie assumed they were giant landing bays that housed countless spaceships. Slowly they crept by until they passed the furthest point of the Endeavour and Ryan manoeuvred the Airlantis to fly straight down its axis. From the front, the Endeavour had an aggressive appearance that revealed its true nature of a fighting machine. As they negotiated the upper arrow head structure, they passed the nerve centre of the entire vessel - the bridge. It was situated in the middle of the arrow head while jutting out from the main structure. Upon the end of the projection was a large window through which Katie could see numerous people in a hive of activity, and as she looked up at the full view of the ship the true immensity of the Endeavour became apparent.

  When the Airlantis approached the centre of the vessel, a structure spanning fifteen kilometres across loomed up before them.

  "What's that?" Katie inquired.

  "That is the housing for the upper main battlement. Inside is an automated, four barrelled turret that can obliterate an entire battle cruiser in one shot. Each barrel has a bore large enough to drive an oil tanker through, without touching the sides."

  Katie gasped at the spectacle, she couldn't even imagine anything that big if it wasn't right in front of her. As the structure widened below to a point that the metallic plane could support an entire city, she tried to comprehend the task of constructing such a massive machine, but her mind only met bewilderment. "How can you build something this big in such a short time span?"

  "Well, a good part of the work was done by androids. When we completed the android production line in late eighty six, we were making one hundred a day. In no time at all we had all the workers we needed, so constructing the Endeavour with the help of one hundred and fifty thousand androids in eight years wasn't so difficult. Mind you she still has a couple bugs to iron out. For instance the External matter transport system is still out of order and that's why the landing docks are in total chaos."

  "Why the need for recruiting the dead?"

  "Androids are only useful for medial tasks. To fight a Warrian takes skill, imagination and lightening reflexes and these qualities are difficult to program into a machine, especially imagination. We have been reasonably successful with some designs but no machine can compete with the human mind, no matter how advanced. So we required the help from the people of the twentieth century."

  Finally they approached the end of the Endeavour. As Ryan turned the Airlantis around to face the rear of the vessel, Katie looked down at the four trapezium shaped exhaust ports that dominated the stern of Endeavour. Each covered hundreds of hectares and Katie could only guess at the size of the massive engine that drove them.

  The same woman that appeared earlier on the monitor, was back. "Landing flight path is now clear, you are free to initiate docking sequence for port one thousand and twelve."

  Ryan manoeuvred the Airlantis towards the rear of the starboard landing complex, the
n headed for one of the many entry points. He backed off on the gear leaver - come - throttle until the speedometer read nine hundred kilometres per hour. When they entered the docking bay, Ryan backed off the throttle once more and the air speed reduced to one hundred. Instantly, the silence of space was pushed aside by the continual clamour of the bay's activity as hundreds of ships docked and unloaded. He brought the Airlantis to a stop, ten metres from the bay floor and it hovered magically in the air while he extended the wheels. At a press of a button it gently lowered and came to a passive halt on the floor.

  As they alighted from the Airlantis, Katie stared about in marvel at the immense chamber they stood in. It was some eight hundred metres in height and at least a kilometre in depth, while it extended in both directions as far as the eye could see. Ships of all different shapes and sizes were docked and a countless number of crew carried out their specific duties. Compared to this, Bane's complex was a shoe box.

  Two men approached Ryan; one was garbed in the same outfit as Ryan who was middle aged, overweight and possessed a large white moustache while the other was half his age and wearing A.A.E.E.V. suit minus the helmet.

  "Admiral on the ship." Shouted the youngest as they both stood erect and saluted. In reaction, so did everybody else within earshot.

  Katie looked at Ryan and tried to comprehend that he was in charge of all this.

  "At ease!" Ryan replied and the docking bay returned to its normal activity.

  Katie could see that the older man was annoyed about something but the young pilot spoke again. "Glade to see you in one piece Admiral, you had us worried there for a moment."

  "Worried my ass..." Said the older man as his moustache twitched with his words. "....you've got a real hide pulling a stunt like that. You could have jeopardised the future of the whole planet!"

  "Settle down Charlie, I knew what I was doing."

  "Yeah, right!" He replied with a distinct sarcastic tone.