A Warrior's Return

by Guy Stanton III

  This was all his fault!

  Katie’s voice spoke directly into my ear, as if she had been standing at my shoulder, “You do realize Eva, that our simulations are interconnected don’t you? I would appreciate it if you would start taking these dudes out!”

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” I said refocusing on the simulation before me.

  An enemy craft went up in flames. It was almost like a game I’d seen my brothers play as kids. The difference being that this was no game. This was life and death. After a while I started getting the hang of it.

  I had to admit it wasn’t all that hard other than extremely quick paced and requiring of a lot of concentration. I was eliminating the hornets and even managing to take out some missiles for Katie. She had thankfully stopped complaining in my ear, but a headache was beginning to throb in the back of my head anyway from the tension of the situation.

  Thankfully the simulation was over finally and the screens disappeared. The strange reclining chair made of light let go of me. Getting up I felt relieved, but ready to go lie down for a while. I saw that everyone was positioned somewhere in the room accomplishing some assigned task and I realized that the simulation I’d been embroiled in must’ve been even longer than I had realized. Just then the ship shifted and I felt it move upward.

  “What’s happening?” I asked quickly looking around in alarm.

  Eleanor spoke from her elevated chair position, “We’re leaving hotshot didn’t you know?”

  “Leaving! But I need more practice!”

  “You can say that again!” Katie said in a surly tone, from where she leaned against her consol completely drenched with sweat. I ignored her.

  “I thought we would stay here and practice for a couple of days!”

  “No such luck me gel! Captain’s orders.”

  I glanced around looking for Talaric and found him sitting across the aisle from his father, doing nothing!

  “And what are you doing other than nothing?” I said loudly with my hands on my hips.

  He gestured to himself and then to Roric, “We’re the ship’s officers. We have to keep ourselves clear of any responsibilities so we can be in a position to give out orders when needed.”

  Katie muttered something unintelligible, as she glared at the pair.

  “What was that soldier?” Talaric said in a commanding voice.

  “Nothing Sir!” Katie grumbled out.

  “Alright then back to your stations both of you!”

  I turned back to my space in a daze and sat back down my head beginning to pound in earnest. I wasn’t ready for this! I need more time!

  The chair closed around me and leaned me back, as the screens lit up again, only different now because I wasn’t in a simulation. I could hear everyone’s voices now coming through seat-rest beside my shoulder.

  Some voices were louder than others. which I took to be a symbolism of how important what they had to say was relevant to my job. How were we going to get out of here anyway?

  Almost instantly my head screen showed me a clear picture view of the outside of the dome enclosure.

  Oh great!

  The stupid weapon console could read my brain too! I glanced at the screen not able to help myself and saw something quite alarming. The entire top of the dome was no longer bluish white. It was red like the magma on the one side of the dome. What were they doing?

  They thought this was a good idea!

  I started listening to the voices and I heard Ellanara say faintly, “Dome on a measured rate of steady decline.”

  “What are they doing Katie?”

  Katie’s voice spoke loudly into my ear, “There decreasing the dome size. The magma is rushing in and filling the void that’s left. It’s melting the ice above us.”

  After a moment her voice came through again, “Eva a lot is going to depend on us. Everything really I have a feeling.” Katie’s voice was completely serious sounding.

  “I know!” I responded softly, feeling as if the weight of the world was on my shoulders, at least the weight of the ship in any case.

  “Did you get anything to drink Katie?”

  “Yes Levyon brought me something. Stuff’s not half bad actually for being several thousand years old.”

  I watched and listened to the faint voices in my ear and the pounding of my head abated some, as I lay quiet and still in my seat.

  “We’re nearly at full dome retention. I think the ice is weak enough to punch through with the shield.” That was Sparky talking.

  “Refocusing dome shield telemetry.” That was Ellanara talking.

  Abruptly the shrunken dome shield reformed into a cylindrical tube that was only as big as the ship and that extended up through the magma overhead.

  “Shield has breached through to the surface and generators are all on board.” That was Ellanara again.

  “It’s all yours Eleanor. Take us out!” Talaric’s voice was louder than most of the others were.

  “You don’t have much time Eleanor before the shield starts breaking down from loss of power.” Ellanara said speaking again.

  Abruptly on the tail end of her words the bar-Seth jerked upward through the narrow dome corridor like an elevator gone mad.

  I screamed. I think I heard everyone screaming.

  The mad ride came to an abrupt stop several seconds later and I swear I felt my stomach hit the floor. I wanted to throw up so bad that I didn’t know how I kept from not doing it.

  Maybe it was the thought that I might have to lay in it in this reclined position, because I wouldn’t have time to clean it off before the action began. That was a powerful motivator not to puke.

  Eleanor’s voice sounding quite queasy and terribly apologetic sounded out next to my ear faintly, “I’m awfully sorry about that everyone! The old girls a bit more touchy on the throttle than the old crates I’m used to.”

  Katie sounding very green said huskily, “Somebody needs to come clean this up. I’m afraid I’ll slip on it.”

  Well it appeared that there had been at least one casualty. Fortunately for her, she had at least been standing.

  The screen in front of me was dark and then I realized it was because we were hovering above the surface of Antarctica. Dark was how it looked day or night this time of year.

  “Captain, which beacon array do you wish to head for? The one off California or the one off Western Europe.” Eleanor asked now sounding completely herself again.

  “Head for Europe it’s slightly closer.” Talaric’s voice said.

  From somewhere in the background I heard Krista say, “I’m registering multiple radar locks on our position, whatever that means.” She finished sounding puzzled.

  “It means they know we’re here and will be along directly to touch us off!” Katie responded sourly.

  “Stow it Katie!” Came Talaric’s sharp reply.

  “Yes Sir!”

  The bar-Seth started increasing speed in both direction and altitude, but thankfully it was a gradual increase this time. The screen before me started making me feel dizzy and just like that it was gone to be replaced with my battle screen showing the ship model outlined in green lines with my gun options and firing positions expressed in purple.

  “How fast are we going Eleanor?” Talaric’s voice asked.

  “Roughly Mach 3 Sir. I could go a good bit faster Sir, but I’d eat into the backup power supply and I wanted to leave as much of that as possible for Katie to use if need be.”

  “Carry on, good thinking Eleanor.” Talaric responded with.

  I wasn’t sure what Mach 3 was, but I was pretty sure that it meant fast. Which was surprising because I could have sworn we weren’t moving at all. Had to be some feature of the ship that kept us from feeling how fast we were going.

  Time passed by and I spent it studying my weapon system. There were other options available than just my primary firing platforms. I did my best to figure out what they were and when and if to use them at all.

 
Everyone was silent for the most part during the flight. Krista’s voice broke into the peace of the moment, “The long-range scan has turned up multiple contacts grouped around the destination point.”

  There was a brief moment of silence during which I cringed, as I considered what could be ahead of us.

  “How many is multiple mother?” Talaric asked.

  She sounded like she’d rather not say when she spoke out hesitantly.

  “There are thirty-seven surface contacts and one hundred and eighty-seven air contacts. There are more units headed to the area as well Talaric.”

  Oh God! One hundred and eighty-seven and counting!

  Oh God!

  “Eva calm down!”

  I was puzzled for a moment because the voice wasn’t coming from the back of my seat as it normally did. I looked over and saw Talaric squatting down in the aisle beside me. I was about to lose it.

  “Hey, none of that now! You can do this Eva! I know you can!”

  “Yeah like how? There’s so many!” I said frantically.

  “You alone took out three of Victor’s bodyguards, while tied to a chair and then you came blazing out of nowhere to save our butts back there in the desert! Eva I don’t know any other woman that could overcome the situations that you have! You can do this! Will you trust me honey and believe you can do it, because I do!”

  I nodded yes, as several tears streaked down my face.

  He got up and moved off and my eyes met Titus’s across from me, “I’ze got your back Missy!” Came his deep voice from across the aisle.

  ‘You better have! You got me into this!’ Is what I thought, but I didn’t say it.

  The screens in front of me were still devoid of the enemy. Katie’s voice came through sounding remarkably consoling and yet firm as she said, “Lock and load sister! They’re coming in hot!”

  Multiple red dots and red diamonds appeared on my screen all at once. The battle was before me. I thought back to when I had seen my team and the man I loved being shot at as they were pinned down and now, like then, I felt a surge of anger rise up in me. I just couldn’t allow the enemy to succeed in messing up my life or my friend’s lives.

  My fingers clicked and slid on the controls, as my mind moved in place of the dance that I had done with my legs in the hanger bay courtyard.

  The chair shimmied and dipped and spun, so that I didn’t know if I was right side up or facing down, as I tried to respond to every possible threat that was streaking toward the ship with deadly speed.

  The only voice I could make out was Katie. She was breathing hard into the mike and so was I probably. The other voices seemed a distant murmur as Katie and I called out to each other, as we defended the bar-Seth.

  Roric shook his head back and forth, as he gripped his hands together tightly.

  “Oh my word son!” He said, as his eyes were glued to the large overhead screen that showed the defensive battle the ship was embroiled in.

  The screen showed the 3D action, while the explosions and the ship’s fire, as well as the enemies could be seen for real, as it arced across the glass front of the ship in a horrifying spectacle of abject onslaught.

  “I know! Those two are the most gifted warriors I’ve ever been around when they’re in a groove!” Talaric echoed, as he glanced from the rapid outward pulsing of the ship’s gun platforms and protective shield pulses, to the two women, who were keeping them in the air.

  Katie was spinning back and forth like crazy, her fingers flying as she adjusted the shield for strikes that slipped past the blazing guns of the bar-Seth. Talaric wondered worryingly how long such a crazy intensity of human endeavor could be prolonged and prayed that it would be long enough.

  Just to look at the motions of Eva’s chair, as it stopped and spun only then to turn upside down before moving on was nauseating. It had to be the ultimate seasickness machine!

  It was a range of motion that Eva hadn’t even practiced during the simulation that had featured all head-on targets. Somehow her mind had grasped what needed done and the ship’s programming had done the rest.

  The bar-Seth charged on barely feeling a ripple, as many of the intended strikes were blown apart before they could reach the shield and those that did were fully blocked by correct usage of the flexed power of the shield’s capacitors. To the enemy the ship must have looked like an unstoppable juggernaut, which was thanks to two women’s efforts.

  Most of the missiles were coming from the surface ships which were now in range.

  “Titus take out those ships!”

  “It’d be a pleasure, Captain!”

  Two great arcing beams of concentrated blue light shot out from the forward wings of the bar-Seth and split through the air like thunderbolts toward the surface of the water ahead. Any enemy aircraft that had the misfortune of colliding with the beams of light exploded.

  As the twin tracer beams hit a missile destroyer it exploded massively, the concussion of its destruction echoing across the surface of the ocean for miles.

  As easy as counting one-two-three all the way up to thirty-seven the rest of the ships followed the way of the first victim, as the surface of the ocean was set ablaze by spilled oil.

  “Should I help out Eva?” Titus called out.

  “No Titus! Your particle energy beams use up too much energy, if we hope to keep the shield!” Ellanara screamed out hoping to be heard by Titus.

  She was working as feverishly behind the scenes, as the other two women were, but no one knew it except for Sparky, who stood near her and was watching unbelievably as arrays of screens and diagnostic reports slipped by at a blazing pace.

  Dimly he began to be aware that the bar-Seth was functioning better than it had ever been created to and it was because of Ellanara. From her screens he glimpsed some of what she was up to.

  She was somehow directing anti-gravitational momentum from the ship’s geo-sync engines into Eva’s chair to help buffer her from the shifting force of the chairs motions enough so that she could remain aware and conscious.

  She was also fine trimming the ship’s power supply in an unbelievable real-time application of power distribution, as she made the available power go longer and respond better. Titus’s beam strikes had used thirty percent less power than they normally would have, yet they had been just as effective.

  She was even doing the math of dialing up Katie’s shield defenses so all Katie had to do was touch the squares needed for the power distributions. The ship’s air circulation system was pumping out heavily concentrated oxygen overtop of Katie to help feed her starving lungs.

  Ellanara was doing all this and perhaps a thousand other things almost simultaneously!

  Ellanara had taken over thinking and reacting for the entire ship.

  She was the ship!

  Sparky watched as a scarlet drop of red blood slipped from her nose to splash onto the keypads and the controls of the ship’s primary control console causing her fast-moving fingers to spread the blood across the interface as other drops soon followed, “You can’t do this Ellanara!” Sparky said pleadingly, as he came to her side.

  “I can and I will!” She responded stoically.

  “You’re killing yourself!” Sparky screamed.

  “Even so I must! For my God, my country and my family I will do anything! Anything Sparky!”

  He stared at her, as tears rolled down from his eyes. He saw a tear mixed with blood seep out from her eyes and stain her cheek red. Something had to be done, but he feared it was already too late. If she was already hemorrhaging from her brain what could be done?

  His wild eyes caught Roric’s in desperation and Roric jumped out of his chair and within seconds was behind Ellanara laying his big scarred hands on top of her shoulders, even as Krista’s arms slipped around her daughter’s waist from the side.

  Parents prayed in a language known only to God and claimed promises given to them by God over their youngest girl’s life. The bleeding abruptly stopped and Ellanara’
s abilities increased even more so than before.

  Sparky’s faith increased that much more as well, as he watched the Divine power of the God, who had called his people out of Egypt so long ago and given everyone the gift of His Son.

  Sparky, who was a Jew by birth, was proud to know and serve God’s Son right along with so many gentiles that God had mercifully brought into the fold by His great plan of redemption, available for all those willing to believe in what His son had done for all mankind.

  “Sparky get ready to initialize the beacon array.” Ellanara said.

  “You mean I finally get to do something to help you?” Sparky said sounding skeptical that she needed his help at all.”

  “You’ve already done a lot to help me Sparky.” She responded slightly smiling at him, as her parents still stood closely around her.

  Just then Katie’s voice rang out in a desperate scream that drew everyone’s attention, “Stop that missile the shield can’t handle it!”

  The shield icon was flashing red all over, and not just in a selected target zone.

  “Why is it doing that? We have plenty of power for the shield!” Exclaimed Sparky.

  “Not for this missile! It’s ballistic and it came from the water. Titus the next missile that pops out of the water put a beam in that location!” Ellanara said commandingly taking the lead again.

  “Sure thing Miss Ellie!” He yelled just before letting go with a beam directly at the water ahead, where a second missile popped free of the water.

  Chapter Twenty One

  Full Shield! Now!

  Some of my weapon platforms were no longer working. Their icons were flashing red indicating some kind of malfunction. Most of them were along one side of the ship. At Katie’s scream in my ear my eyes redirected out to the huge red dot that was just now coming onto my screen.

  I left all the other targets go unchallenged and for the first time the bar-Seth began to shake and tremble as it received weapon fire that slipped past Katie, as there were just too many strikes all at once to block. What forward guns that were left I brought to bear on the big target dot, but it wasn’t enough. The missile was staying together.

  Eleanor must’ve seen what was going on, because she changed the flight angle and peeled off to the left, which allowed me to bring all my remaining weapon platforms to bear. Within seconds as the bar-Seth bucked all around me the missile exploded and cast out a red cloud.