Starcrasher (Shades Space Opera Book 1)

by Rock Forsberg

  She looked back, but did not stop moving. ‘Come on, we’re almost there!’

  Aino disappeared behind a corner. Eddie walked after her, catching his breath. When he saw her, his heart was beating fast and hard.

  She stood by a door with a sign – ‘Grid Room’ – and tapped her foot. Seemingly unaffected by their sprint, she said, ‘They are here.’

  How does she know this place? Why do the others sleep here? What’s behind this door? Questions flew around in Eddie’s head, concluding with the one that kept him from asking these questions out loud: Is that really Aino?

  Aino made a gesture on the control panel, and the door opened. ‘Come, they’re here.’

  Behind the door was a small room, with metal railings for the floor and the ceiling. The green emergency lights emitted a faint glow from between the railings. In front of them was another closed door. The walls had large screens, which were displaying a map of sorts, an image of hundreds of small capsules connected together like an electrical circuit. Most capsules on the screen were green, except two, one of which was inactive grey, and the other which was blinking a silent red alert. The door closed behind them.

  ‘What is this place?’ Eddie asked looking around.

  ‘This is where they are,’ Aino said. She touched the controls on the screen, and then the door in front of them opened. ‘Help me get them out.’

  Eddie followed Aino to the next room, an expansive storehouse filled with human-sized metallic capsules, each with a transparent top and a green indicator on the bottom. The rows of capsules continued far and on multiple levels on top of each other. One of them had no lights – the grey one on the map – and one that was blinking red had its cover open.

  Eddie went by the closest one – with a green status – and peered in through the glass pane. He gasped as he saw what was inside. It was a girl. Her eyes were closed, but he could recognise the features. It was Aino.

  ‘What the…?’ Eddie said, and ran to the next one. It also housed a sleeping Aino. He turned around. The Aino he had come with stood in front of her.

  ‘They are all here,’ she said, smiling. ‘My sisters. Help me get them out.’

  Eddie thought of the hundreds of capsules, all housing identical copies of Aino. The thought of it was dizzying. He wanted to ask her, but before he could say anything, darkness fell upon him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  WITH TREDD GONE, Evie was left alone with Aino while Henning and the white-clad Avalonians played the war game. She was not sure what to make of them – at the outset they looked like monks, but now they were running something that seemed like a military operation. There was something about these yoga-warriors that just didn’t feel right.

  They seemed to be focusing on running the defence operations, or simply monitoring them. A few seemed to be dozing off, or perhaps they were meditating –in the middle of a battle? Then she realised. They are controlling the robots with their minds. Weird. You’d think pure computing power would trump an individual, even a gifted one.

  Evie knelt down by Aino’s side. ‘How are you?’ she asked, trying to comfort her, but perhaps more than anything, trying to comfort herself.

  Aino replied with a hint of manufactured cheerfulness. She grabbed the railing and swung below to the other side. She raised her knees up and hung down, looking up at Evie. Then she planted her feet on the floor and pushed herself up. ‘After they’re gone, I never want to leave Avalon again.’

  After they’re gone, Evie repeated in her mind. She could only hope that was the case, but wanted to keep it positive. ‘Your father looks to be in charge.’

  Aino leaned against the railing with her forearms, her chin against her hands, head tilted. ‘I wanna stay here, and take care of our rhengos. We’ve got a beautiful drove, did you see them?’ She looked up at Evie with wide eyes.

  Evie shook her head. She knew what a rhengo looked like, but had absolutely no interest in getting close to one. ‘Aren’t they dangerous?’

  ‘They’re the gentlest creatures,’ Aino said with a content expression. ‘Let me show you the stables.’

  The floor shook beneath their feet. The rumble of it roared louder than before. ‘Perhaps this is not the best time to—’

  ‘Move power to the side shield generators!’ Henning shouted.

  He seemed to radiate confidence and bravery, making Evie feel better about their situation. In comparison, Tredd was always so concerned about everything. Henning knew what to do and then did it.

  Looking at the screens, Evie could deduce that the biggest shield generator was severely damaged. It was the one at the top of the tower, blinking red, whereas the other, smaller ones around the wall glowed static green or yellow. The video image showed that the tower was on fire. More and more black Dawn Alliance Navy fighters were whizzing around the walls, firing missiles and laser beams at the defences.

  Evie watched a tracking screen of a laser turret. It followed a small fighter, which turned up and gained altitude; the turret lost it target, but locked on to another fighter flying straight at it. The turret shot blue bursts at the fighter and the fighter released two missiles. One of the missiles exploded in front of the fighter, its shields deflecting the scatter and the turret’s bursts. Then the fighter turned hard, and the screen went blank. She heard the muffled thud of an explosion. The other missile had hit the turret.

  The same happened with multiple turrets; the shields were going down, and the fighters just kept on coming. Evie hoped Henning knew what he was doing. And she hoped Tredd would hurry back.

  Then, after a huge explosion that boomed even in the underground centre, the huge shield above the Garden was gone. A swarm of navy fighters and other ships flew in.

  ‘Enter the robots,’ Henning called.

  On the screen Evie saw the huge robots stomping through the Garden ground, shooting lasers from their arms and missiles from their hips. A fighter was hit on the wing and started spinning furiously. It spiralled down, screeching, and exploded on collision with a white building in the Garden, setting nearby trees on fire. One of the ships had been able to land, but was quickly squashed by the heavy foot of a giant robot.

  On both sides of the bridge, in neat rows of six, Evie could see young men and women dressed in white, sitting in trance-like states with wires on their temples. Until now they had been sitting silently, but now they twitched and shuddered. She realised they must be connected to the robots.

  She saw it on the screens. The robots fended off the navy crafts, shooting them, hitting and kicking them to pieces. Their feet drummed the ground with deep reverberations. Then a missile hit one of the robots on its head. In the room, a young man woke up from his trance and screamed out loud, holding his skull. Out in the Garden, the robot fell back on top of a tree and a small building, which crumbled under it in a grey cloud of dust and rubble. It sounded like thunder above. Simultaneously, the young man fell on the floor.

  Evie dashed to the man. He was blonde like Henning, but his face was round and he had fair stubble on his chin. He lay face down on the floor in front of his chair. No one else seemed to take notice that he had fallen – they were focused on their screens or in their meditative state. Evie touched the face of the man. His eyes were closed but he was breathing.

  Evie laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Are you all right?’

  The man opened his eyes. The whites were bloodshot, and he seemed to have trouble focusing his gaze. He shook his head, and pushed himself up, the muscles in his arms shaking as he did so. ‘There are too many of them.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘System shock at B-22… Heavy drain, I must recharge.’ The man struggled to get up to sit.

  Evie gave the man a hand. ‘Were you controlling the robot?’

  ‘Controlling…’ The man shook his head, and with help of Evie, stood up, still shaking. ‘No. I was the robot.’

  Whatever he meant, Evie could see he had somehow been connected to the robot, and liv
ed through it being hit in the head by a missile. It was almost if he had been hit too. The others, sitting in what looked like a trance, Evie observed, matched the robots in number. While their bodies sat there, their minds were in the robots.

  Now standing by Evie, the man stared with watery red eyes. ‘When I was little, we bonded… We learned and grew together… I was part of it and it was part of me, but now it’s gone, and I’m alone.’ He pressed his palms to his face, and sobbed.

  Evie wrapped her arms around him. ‘It’s gonna be all right,’ she said to comfort him.

  He lifted his head up, and wiped his cheeks. ‘B-22 is gone,’ he whimpered, ‘and we are not going to make it. We can’t hold long against so many.’

  Before Evie could say anything, Henning bellowed, ‘We must not let them in. We have to get each and every one of them!’

  Evie recalled what Aino had done when they had escaped the navy, the thing that made everyone want her. She turned to Aino and said, ‘I saw you scatter fighters, and you’ve moved stars. Could you do the same here?’

  Aino avoided Evie’s gaze, playing with her hem between her fingers. In a soft voice she said, ‘I’m still tired from the last time…’

  The screens showed a gloomy picture. There were bigger ships headed towards them – how many, Evie could not count. They were set to obliterate this fort, and she was beginning to believe they would. Evie could see other white-clad folks, their minds inside the robots, focusing intently, with veins on their foreheads becoming visible, gleaming from sweat under the white lights.

  ‘Try, at least?’

  ‘I used so much energy with Yedda,’ Aino said, and sighed. ‘Sprinkling the fighters used up almost all energy I had recovered.’

  Evie set her hand on Aino’s shoulder and said, ‘I believe you’re stronger than you even know, and your father can use all the help he can get – we all could.’

  Aino looked straight forward, past Evie, and bit her lip. ‘Maybe I could try…’

  Evie smiled. ‘You show them, girl!’ She took Aino by the hand and led her to a vacant chair.

  On the live screen, the fighters circled and howled above the Garden. The robots moved quickly, hitting their targets and smashing them down from mid-air with their laser-firing arms.

  Aino sat down and closed her eyes. She drew a sharp breath, and gently touched the tips her index fingers to her thumbs. She froze on the spot, like a statue, and then the muscles in her jaw tensed and her fingers clenched into white-knuckled fists.

  Evie tensed too. Looking up at the map screen, she saw dozens, perhaps hundreds, of dots, signifying bigger and smaller navy crafts surrounding Avalon.

  Aino trembled as she sucked air in through her teeth.

  She’s gonna do it.

  Just like the navy Eagles, the dots big and small around Avalon started moving away, slowly at first, and then suddenly they shot away in every direction, vanishing from the reach of the radar.

  ‘Boom!’ Henning cheered.

  The live cameras showed some of the fighters hit the ground and explode in the distance, but some of them got back in control and turned around. Furthermore, the main forces at a greater distance out stayed put, unaffected.

  Aino breathed heavy and drooped down. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, weeping. ‘I’m too tired.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry,’ Evie said, her hand on Aino’s shoulder. ‘You did your best, and at least you gave us some time.’

  As Aino slumped in her seat, Evie looked up at the screen and saw the harsh reality. The navy was closing in again with even more crafts than before.

  In less than a minute, the buzzing fighters filled the airspace above the Garden. Two small crafts landed on the ground, and before a robot crushed them, they had dispersed two groups of infantrymen. They vanished in the midst of the trees and before long shot a burst of missiles, hitting the arm of one of the robots. The robot turned to the trees from where the burst was fired and lunged forward. But before it got to the infantry, it stepped on a mine. As the mine went off, it engulfed first the robot’s left leg and then whole body in a blue burst of energy, filling the screen. A lady beside Evie woke up from her trance, gasping for air and falling on the floor.

  Evie stepped back from the screen of white light. ‘What was that?’

  ‘Bloody plasma-mines,’ Henning cursed, and switched the viewpoint.

  The battle continued, with more and more crafts landing, and many being destroyed trying. The fighting shifted from skies to the ground, with more assault ships trying to land and bring in more infantry. The rumbling noises grew in volume and became more frequent. The ground trembled. The robots kept their ground – with only one falling, others suffering minor damage – and were able to systematically destroy the landing troops. Evie started to think that, after all, they might just have a chance at winning.

  Then the big ships appeared. They hovered above the Garden like dark thunderclouds, blocking the sun with their obsidian metal plates. With massive cannons pointed down, they fired blue lightning beams screaming through the air. The beams hit the robots with precision, smashing down on each and every one of them, resulting in massive sequential explosions that boomed through the loudspeakers and through the vibrating ground. One after another, like dominoes, the robot crew in the command centre fell shaking, panting or silent down to the floor.

  ‘They’ve brought a whole blasting division,’ Henning said.

  Aino stood right beside him. ‘Daddy, will it be all right?’

  ‘I saw what you did – you were very brave– but now I need you to recover your power. Meanwhile, I will do whatever it takes to make sure you are safe, even leave Avalon, if it comes down to it.’

  ‘Leave Avalon?’ Aino asked, looking up at her father with a puzzled face.

  The booming noises from above subsided, as the robots were all gone and the navy corps were emerging from the landed ships, seeking to secure the premises. Entering the buildings, they would find them all empty, as everyone had already been evacuated underground. However, it was not going to be long until they found the hidden entrances to the underground settlements, shelters, and the base.

  ‘Yes, darling,’ Henning said, letting his focus on the battle go for just a few seconds to look at his daughter. ‘The men who are looking for you, they will be here soon. I thought I could stop them…’

  They were coming from all directions. ‘How are you going to get out?’ Evie asked.

  Henning touched a few controls and pointed at a screen with a view that flew over a 3D-map of the compound. ‘There are multiple secret passageways, but we will take the bullet capsule, made especially for situations when evacuation of leadership is required… it takes me ten kilometres away to a hidden satellite base with a spacecraft ready to board.’

  It sounded grand, but failed to move her. She had seen too much weird stuff already. ‘Can it take all of us?’

  ‘It’s a small ship, but perhaps…’ Henning said vaguely. ‘Where is your captain?’

  Indeed. Evie realised Tredd was still looking for Eddie. He might have run into trouble with the bombings, or with the invading soldiers. She felt a chill, and stammered, ‘I – I don’t know. He went to seek out Eddie…’

  Henning pushed his lips together. ‘We must go now. Skyla! Prepare to enter code black.’

  A round-faced woman, with a blonde shingle bob and blushing cheekbones, turned around. ‘Starlight, to confirm, enter code black?’ She looked unsettled.

  ‘Yes, code black,’ Henning said with a heavy sigh. ‘We can’t let them have it. Make sure to commence the final phase only after all of the civilians have reached their designated outer evac sites.’

  ‘Understood,’ Skyla said with a stern expression, then turned around to work on the command terminal.

  Evie had never heard of code black in Momentum 6. ‘Why was she all flustered about it?’ she whispered to Henning.

  ‘We’ve never done it for real before. You see, in the first phase of code
black, civilians leave the compound through dozens of underground lines. In phase two, the active service personnel arm the time-activated explosives and move out. In the final phase, all of this,’ Henning said, looking up with his arms open and turning around, ‘will blow up in massive display of fireworks for anyone who’s left to watch. Where code red is all about securing human life by mobilising civilians underground, code black is about securing our data. It’s not to be taken lightly.’

  Evie stared at him with wide eyes, feeling shocked. Avalon was a magnificent place, and home to so many people. ‘You’re going to destroy Avalon?’

  Henning waved the air. ‘Only the underground research centre and certain other areas, like this room—’

  ‘Why don’t your people use their powers?’ Evie asked. ‘Surely Aino’s not the only one.’

  Henning spun around. ‘They’re useless against a naval fleet attack,’ he said. He produced a small card and placed it on an interface platform by the screen. Then he made a few gestures on the screen. ‘So far, Aino is the only one with a grid.’

  She touched her jaw and looked up at the main radar screen. ‘A grid?’

  ‘It makes her stronger… Just a moment now,’ he said, leaning against the terminal with both hands.

  Evie understood he was downloading something from the central system to take with him on the memory unit. Evie hadn’t seen anyone download data locally for a long time. Why would he need to? Everything is online in the network. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I can’t leave without my research,’ he said, and glanced at the screen. ‘It’s the grid.’