Invasion (Contact Book 1)

by David Ryker

  “I don’t want to hear it, Cavs.”

  “Admiral”—now the kid’s voice was beginning to anger—“I must say–”

  “Keep it, Cavs. I need these guns. I need you. Help me, Cavs. People are depending on us.”

  A burst of static made Loreto look up at the map. They were about to wade into the breach. Cannons began to fire in the rest of the fleet. Cavs was saying something and the ship began to shake. Loreto couldn’t hear the officer’s words. Debris and wreckage hitting against the shields, exploding on contact.

  “Cavs, listen,” he shouted into the comms. “Just hit those targets.”

  He cut out the call and looked up. The nervousness, anxiety, fear, dread, terror, excitement; it was all inside him. An orchestra playing every note at once in the back of his mind.

  “Forward!” he shouted. “Get me to that ship!”

  The Vela led the charge, faster than any other ship. The rest of the Fleet tucked in behind and Loreto felt the entire vessel shake as she took the brunt of the fire. The shields held, clearing a path through the wreckages for those behind. But we’re not firing, Loreto noticed. Cavs had to be working on it, he reasoned, resisting the urge to call down and demand an answer.

  The Vela hurtled into the fray and the Symbiot swarm swallowed them up. The Vela lurched to the port side, avoiding collisions and calculating a path to the skeleton ship. The Wisps ran interference, distracting the fighters enough while the Exiles shot anything that got too close to Sparta.

  The entire ship rocked. Loreto’s breath caught in his throat every time but the shields held. That Exile infection was a beautiful curse. Even if the ship was erratic, it could fly forward. Straight to the Pyxis.

  The Spartans tucked in behind the Vela while the Fleet slowed down, miring into the battle against the bigger enemies. The Symbiot forces were mostly fighters and they buzzed and zipped through all the available space. Loreto watched the Suhail track behind two fighters locked in a dogfight; he saw Lyor rattle her cannons and he saw the bogey flicker red.

  The biggest threat were the corrupted human ships. They hung at the head of the forces, huge Kraken -class battleships with gaping wounds. The damage they’d taken had been repaired, mechanical holes filled with dark material, like a rot holding together a dead tree. Their guns still worked and they fired at the Wisps, shooting them out of the sky. Loreto had placed a great deal of faith in his team, giving them free rein to slice through the enemy as they saw fit. Just occupy them, he’d ordered, keep them from the planet while I take out the Pyxis.

  The Spartans flew in the trough carved out behind Loreto’s ship, moving into the slipstream. But our guns need to be firing, Loreto knew. The path ahead was even more congested. They couldn’t duck and weave and dodge forever, they needed to clear space.

  “Sliti,” he shouted into the comms. “I need you to help me cut through.”

  There was no acknowledgement of the order but Loreto watched the projection. The Spartan ships moved out from behind him, spreading into a circle. They fired ahead. Their powerful guns had help from the Exiles, he knew.

  The force of the fire cut through the Symbiot shields. The corrupted human ships died a second death, their shields too weak to stand up to the new weapons. Loreto’s crew found him a path, plunging deeper and deeper into the heart of the battle. The Vela rocked again. He held the pulpit tight.

  “Shields taking a lot of damage,” shouted Cele from above.

  The path ahead cleared. The Spartan ships still fired, clearing and shooting. The wreckages hit incessantly against the Vela. As their ammo exhausted, they ducked back into the slipstream, recharging their weapons.

  “Hold the course!” Loreto shouted back.

  They were nearly there. His eyes were fixed on the projection. The rest of the world died away. He didn’t hear, he didn’t taste anything. He couldn’t feel his fingertips or the recycled cold air of the bridge. He just stared.

  “This is a suicide mission!” Menels squealed. “I can’t watch!”

  Loreto couldn’t look away. It was there. All there. On the projection, in real time. The song of the Sirens. His ship, his people, piercing into the heart of the enemy alien fleet. Rip out their heart, he told himself. Rip out the thing they love the most. A plan for any enemy. They were almost there.

  “Cavs,” he screamed and punched the comms. “Fire now! Everything!”

  The path ahead was thick with ships. Corrupted human vessels, the black plague spread across them. On board would be people with boils on their skin. Wretches, fiends; the fearful dead. The Vela shuddered. The guns sang. Loreto knew the song so well but not at this volume. He held on.

  The shots missed. The path lay clogged. The ship rocked hard. Loreto fell, his body hitting against the pulpit walls.

  “Again!” he shouted, standing up and glancing at his readout.

  The cannons fired again. Missed. If they charged on, they’d hit hard into a corrupted ship. The Vela wouldn’t hold against a shield-to-shield collision. The battle raged on around them. The Exiles funneled everything into a tight kill zone, just outside of Sparta’s orbit. The Wisps dived into the swarm, luring out the Symbiot fighters, dragging them into the range of the Fleet. Loreto watched the human kills again. It was almost working but there were so many enemies, it couldn’t hope to last.

  We have to stop them, Loreto told himself. We have to. Cut out the heart. A thin line of ships separated them from the skeleton Pyxis. Big ships, right in their way. They had to be destroyed.

  “Cavs,” Loreto shouted again. “Hit them! Hit them now!”

  The rocking of the cannons. The Spartans spread out again and joined in. They concentrated their fire on a human supply ship, floating upside down and corrupted. The neon splash of the shields glowed. They hit it harder. It exploded.

  “Space!” Loreto called out to the bridge. “Squeeze us through there!”

  He held on as the Vela lurched to the starboard side. The Spartans followed in the wake as the remnants of the exploded ship crashed against the shields. Loreto clung desperately to the pulpit as the whole ship rocked harder than ever, juddering so hard he thought she was going to fall apart.

  And then, there was nothing. They were through, past the debris and into the area beside the Pyxis. The skeleton ship was ahead, floating free in a pocket of space. They sped toward the vessel and then past it, Cavs laying down inaccurate fire. Two Symbiot fighters fired back but hit nothing.

  “Slow down,” Loreto shouted. “Bring me broadside.”

  I’ll get you so damn close accuracy ain’t gonna matter, Cavs, he thought to himself. The Vela moved around the rear of the Symbiot ship.

  “Closer!” Loreto demanded.

  “Sir,” Hertz pleaded, “we can’t. We’ll crash into–”

  “Closer!” Loreto banged his fist on the pulpit wall. “I want us a hair away from it.”

  He glared at the projection. The Vela and the Pyxis were alongside one another. Almost touching. Almost grazing. He felt his body lighten, his heart hammering against his chest. So close to the larger ship, their gravity was being affected. He gripped the lip of the pulpit. The crew adjusted their belts.

  “Now,” he shouted. “Cavs, now! Fire everything!”

  The weak points were the same on most human ships. He’d sent them to the whole Fleet. The Vela passed on the broadside and the cannons unleashed.

  The whole ship shuddered so hard he thought it would rip apart. The lights dimmed as power diverted to the forward guns. People tripped and fell. He heard screaming. Pain. Hertz tumbled down from his pulpit and on to the dais, his shadow cast all over the projection as he rolled along the holo-plate. He had to see this up close.

  We’re moving too fast, Loreto realized. We need more time. We haven’t killed it yet.

  “Reverse thrusters!” he shouted and hoped someone was listening. “Then cut the engines. Slow us down! All power to guns and shields.”

  “Sir…”

  “Do it
, Menels.”

  The man was worried. Cut everything and they’d have no escape plan, especially with the Vela so jittery, so clogged up with alien tech. But they had to kill the skeleton ship.

  The Vela slowed to a crawl. The lights blacked out, leaving only the projection to light up the bridge. The guns fired. Everything thundered around them. The skeleton Pyxis took the hits. The Spartans joined them but still the Symbiot vessel chugged forward, ignoring the barrage.

  Loreto reached out and zoomed the projection in tight on the Pyxis. He could see her close. Time slowed down as his infectious memory crawled over the shapes. He knew every line of that ship. He’d studied it, seen it built. He’d cackled and laughed when Fletcher announced it. The entire affair had been his death sentence, killing his career. He’d always hated that ship, and now it was the beating heart of the enemy, waiting to be ripped out.

  And she did beat, Loreto thought. She shimmered. She was almost alive. The corruption, it was almost organic. Scab wounds repairing ruined vessels. His mouth hung open, his lungs stopped pumping. He watched the skeleton pass them by, the cannons doing nothing to slow it down and the enemy shields held.

  It’s gone, he thought. He looked past the Pyxis and saw Sparta looming in the distance. We can’t land a glove on her. It’s going to get there, it’s going to spread. It’s going to call the rest of its rotten species and wipe us out or enslave us and destroy everything we love. I will be the guiding light which shields humanity from the darkness. That same oath, broken twice.

  “Sir!” Hertz shouted. “Look!”

  The Pyxis was shaking. The skeleton, the corruption of humanity’s greatest vessel, was being eaten alive from the inside. A panel blew out into space. It began to split apart, wrenching itself in two. The same thing happened along the length of the ship, random panels and bodywork blowing out rivets and firing off into space.

  “It’s been hit!” Hertz ran and grabbed Loreto’s shoulder, shaking it. “We did it, Richard!”

  Loreto just stared, his whole body numb. He saw it all, the Pyxis jutting streams of fire out of every panel, lurching to the side and drifting, propelled only by its former momentum.

  The crew cheered. The bridge thundered with applause. We’ve done it, Loreto thought, and the words meant nothing. We’ve done it. He looked up at the projection and the dying ship. The Symbiot heart ripped out but none of the other fighters seemed to care. The battle raged on around them, the enemy still plunging towards Sparta.

  Maybe I was wrong, Loreto realized. Now we have to fight our way out.

  32

  Cavs

  Cavs heard the cheering as he ran toward the bridge. The crew’s delight echoed through the corridors but he couldn’t celebrate. He had only Loreto on his mind.

  Fire everything, he’d said. Now the guns were overcooked and useless and they were stuck in the middle of a battle. Loreto wouldn’t listen over the comms. He didn’t know a damn thing about fire rates, kinetic energy refresh, or nano-trajectories. Cavs was determined to give the admiral a piece of his mind.

  Fire faster or harder or better wasn’t tactical thinking. Only the dumb luck of getting far too close to the target had helped, Cavs told himself. The admiral’s a threat to our lives; he’s taking too many chances.

  Even as Cavs ran, he saw the alien corruption in the walls. Once shiny metal surfaces had dimmed and dulled and drained. He’d been on the Exile ship; those aliens were inside the Vela, making it their own. He didn’t trust the alien tech. He didn’t trust their entire goddamn species.

  “Loreto!” he bellowed as the bridge opened up ahead of him.

  “Cavs?” The admiral turned around from his position up in the pulpit. “Good work on the guns. Hertz, restart the engines.”

  Loreto had already turned away, watching as the Vela moved beyond the dead Pyxis and closer to Sparta.

  “Two minutes, sir,” Hertz called out to his superior. “Power drain. All in the shields and guns.”

  “Too long,” Loreto quacked from his perch. “Make it quicker. We’ve got a battle to finish.”

  “Loreto!” Cavs shouted louder. The whole bridge watched.

  The admiral’s hands shivered as he glowered into the projection.

  “Cavs.” Loreto looked down his nose, turning around. “You have a minute of my time. What do you want? Praise? A pat on the head?”

  Cavs looked past the admiral to the projection. He spotted the Spartan ships flying in formations, carrying out Loreto’s orders. The Vela was locked in the middle of the battle and they’d have to fight their way out, past the shattered shell of the skeleton ship still disintegrating next to them.

  “We might actually win this, Cavs.” Loreto’s gravelly voice sounded strained. “We know we can kill them. Thanks to you. Is that what you want to hear?”

  Snapping back to attention, Cavs felt his anger boiling over again. His righteous fury had propelled him all the way up from the forward guns, driven him all the way to the admiral to deliver a piece of his raging mind. Vanis and Day had encouraged him, Rucker had tried to stop him. But he was determined to finally tell the admiral exactly what he thought.

  He looked around and saw all the people on the bridge, bustling. The Spartans and the humans waited in the ships. There was a cost to this. Loreto was risking them all, needlessly.

  But I’m doing exactly the same, he realized. I’m distracting the man leading it all. I’ve put my emotions at the center of everything, taking a risk when I should be doing my job. I’m just like him. It was a horrible revelation. Cavs felt his jaw hanging open.

  “Ad-mir-al.” A flat voice came across the comms. Those Exiles, Cavs thought. He felt a flash of anger again but kept quiet. “Levi-a-than grows.”

  “Yeah,” Loreto leaned over his pulpit and said. “We killed it for you, you can thank us later.”

  “No,” the alien rasped.

  “Yes,” Loreto smirked. “My man Cavs hit them dead to rights.”

  “No.”

  There was something in the alien’s voice. Not a tone, not an emotion. Cavs could feel the atmosphere on the bridge change. No one was cheering. He could read Loreto’s face, a contorted mix of confusion and worry. Their eyes locked and then the admiral turned around to his projection. His flurried hands dragged the view in tighter, getting a closer look.

  The skeleton ship, Cavs saw. It had been falling apart, the metal skin shedding. The panels floated away, drifting through space. But there was something underneath. It moved.

  Loreto dragged his hands wide again, trying to zoom the projection in closer. The Sirens were too far away. The image was fuzzy, the resolution too low, but he could see into the still-beating heart. It was alive.

  “Oh God,” Loreto whispered and everyone heard. “Oh God.”

  “It’s corrupted!” Cavs shouted. “It’s still alive!”

  “No,” Loreto pleaded. “I killed it. We killed it. It’s Fletcher’s damn ship.” Loreto thumped his pulpit, shouting into the open comms channel. “It’s moving again.”

  “Ad-mir-al.” The Exile leader rumbled and switched into a recorded, human voice. “Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning.”

  Everyone had heard. Cavs stared at the projection. The ship grinded and flexed like a creature waking from an ancient slumber. It was the Pyxis but missing its skin. Exposed mechanics and thrusters met the coldness of space, coated in a thick, dark coating. At the rear, a chunk of the hangar bay had been gutted, replaced by satellites and probes, welded hastily into place. It looked like twisted metal and death.

  The ship surged forward and pushed through anything in its way. Symbiot fighters, Spartans, floating wrecks; it barged them all aside.

  “Ship’s online, sir,” shouted Menels as lights flooded the bridge.

  “It’s some kind of Symbiot communication device,” Cele called to Loreto. “It’s the way they’re going to communicate with… whatever they want to communicate with.”

>   Loreto’s tired face turned an ashen pale in the blue light of the projection. The dreadful ship moved forward. The Exiles called it Leviathan, Cavs recalled. It actually seemed to scare them. Ships exploded against its hull as it drilled out through the battle toward Sparta, picking up speed.

  “Stop that ship!” Loreto shouted.

  The Vela lurched forward.

  “It’s coming right toward us,” cried Hertz. “It’s moving too fast!”

  “We’re still in range,” said Cavs, his eyes glued to the projection.

  Loreto spun around in his pulpit, spittle flecked to his lips and eyes red.

  “Why are you still here?” he screamed at the gunnery officer. “Get me my cannons! Now!”

  Cavs was already running. Skeleton ships, Leviathan, alien tech, all corrupted. It overwhelmed his thoughts. As he chased down the hallway, sprinting as fast as he could, he couldn’t help but feel the thought nagging at the back of his mind: This is Loreto’s fault. Somehow. I’ve got to get those guns working. He tried to think straight. That… Leviathan ship. That whatever. It’s headed for us. For Sparta.

  His mind burned with ideas. They could fire in alternating patterns, reducing the heat buildup and increasing their fire rate. But that only worked against weaker targets. They could cook the rounds in the chamber longer, give them more potency. But he needed to fire faster; Loreto demanded it. Day and Vanis argued constantly about barrel velocities and programming cannon curve. They’d have ideas. They had to.

  His feet pounded through the corridors, interfering with his thoughts. A shaking hand snatched the page from his pocket and he held it to his mouth.

  “Vanis!” he gasped. “Day!”

  He turned corner after corner, past the crew quarters, and through the engine rooms, deeper and deeper, toward the forward guns right at the front of the ship.

  “Rucker!” he shouted. “Whoever’s listening… get me kinetic… shell energy… I need power, damn it.”

  “Sir–” Vanis began.

  “Don’t argue!” He ran faster. “Do it!”