by James Somers
The horrible stench was only getting stronger as they approached what was supposed to be an auxiliary hangar with a clear designated opening to the outside, at least according to the map.
"Are you sure about this Wynn?" asked Tiet in a low whisper.
"This is what the schematic says. I only hope there are still ships stored down here."
"And that they're in working condition."
Grod stopped ahead of them. "I think there are some controls here," he whispered.
He stepped off to the side as the corridor opened up into the other room. They couldn't see anything beyond the glow of Tiet's blade. It appeared to be a vast chamber and descended downward beyond the railing they were standing near. Grod raised the computer display mounted in the forearm of his uniform and clicked the power on to cast some light on the panel he was looking at. He tapped a few keys on the board and it began to illuminate its own controls.
"Power is coming on," said Tiet.
"They must have an alternate power source for this bay-good thinking on someone's part," said Wynn.
The self illuminating of the control panels began to run off of the panel before Grod and continued on many more along the walls of what appeared to be a control booth for the hangar. The overhead lights blinked on in the booth around them revealing an aerogore waking on the floor near Grod. It screeched and sprang toward the Horva general. He reflexively brought his glove up and swatted at the beast. Its powerful head knocked Grod into the air and over the railing as the lights continued to come on inside the chamber.
Tiet was quick to slash into the beast. He got a strike to the aerogore's face and barely recoiled ahead of its claws as it defended itself. He somersaulted over the reptile, driving his blade deep in between the beast's shoulder blades into the heart as he went; landing against one of the control panels on the other side. He found a place of attachment and clung to the face of the panel as the aerogore went into a wild spasm and died.
Wynn was already at the railing searching for Grod. Tiet grabbed his blade as he jumped over the carcass and landed next to his elder.
"Help me!" shouted Grod as he hung from a lower portion of the railing that spiraled along the chambers outer wall.
The Barudii raised him safely with their thoughts, bringing him back to stand beside them.
"Thank you."
The main lighting for the chamber was on now and they could see that it had been a great while since any humans had been to that portion of the base. There were droppings everywhere; especially along the bay floor below. There appeared to be twenty fighter craft in the bay, although the majority of the ships were ruined. Most appeared to have been used as aerogore play toys and were beaten and stripped apart; chewed on and defecated upon.
The men hurried along the ramp, cautiously investigating their surroundings for more predators. "It looks like the rest of them are all inside the base," said Wynn.
"This is definitely a nest," said Grod. "They love caves and places like this where they can rest undisturbed and then use the dark of night to hunt by."
"How do you know so much about these things?" asked Tiet as they came to the tarmac at the lowest level.
"My campaigns with the Vorn military-we fought on several different worlds. The Vorn home-world of Demigoth also has aerogores indigenous to it."
"That looks like the way out," said Wynn, pointing to an orifice in the chamber above them.
"Now we just have to see if there are three working fighters in this mess."
NINETEEN
MERAB was blasting away at the aerogores, but they were difficult targets to hit. Buildings were being blown to pieces around them by the big Vorn cruiser in the plains beyond Sector City and over a hundred pods were on their way to intercept their convoy of ships.
"I've got the Maelstrom!" shouted Emil over the noise of explosions. "Captain Viche is online!"
"Captain Viche, this is Kale Soone, the son of the king. We have to get everyone away from that cruiser firing on us from the eastern outskirts of the city."
"I understand. We had better head west, away from them. There is a place we can regroup some distance from here; the valley of Sayir," said Viche. "The other rebel forces were rendezvousing there already before coming on to Sector City. I will let them know our situation and have them wait for us there."
"That sounds good. Please transmit the coordinates to the others while we try to provide some cover for you."
"I'll notify all of our ships," said Viche. "Lord willing, we'll see you there, young master. Maelstrom out."
"The coordinates are coming through now," said Emil.
"Good. Keep trying to raise my father. We've got to let him know where we are headed."
"Those pods are closing in fast," said Jael.
"Merab, send the scans of the pods into the auto-targeting system and set it to fire at will!"
"Kale, I've got your father online," said Emil.
"Great!" he said, relieved that his father was safe. "Send him the coordinates for the valley and tell him we'll be meeting the rest of our forces there."
One of the larger vessels exploded a few miles away over the rooftops. The Vorn cruiser had found a nice sized target and obliterated it. The rest of the ships were filing steadily out of the city to the west, leaving behind the aerogores that had driven them out of the base. But the pods were almost to the others still trying to get above ground.
"I'm taking us right at them," said Kale as he brought the Equinox to bear on their position.
He charged the ship toward the pod squadrons. The auto-tracking for the weapons systems came alive as the first pod was picked up by its sensors. Gun turrets all across the hull of the ship blazed into action, tracking and terminating the one man attack fighters.
The offensive attack was wreaking havoc on the orderly pod formations. They resembled swarming insects as they engaged the larger vessel plowing through their ranks.
"Hopefully, we can buy some time for the others to escape," said Kale.
A blast hit the Equinox sending a booming shudder through the ship.
"What happened?!" shouted Jael.
"We've been hit by one of the cruisers," replied Emil as he quickly sifted through the various alarms and information pouring onto his displays. "We're losing the engine control systems!"
Kale was battling the controls to keep the ship stable. "I'm losing the helm!"
"How did they get through the shields so quickly?"
"Shield Frequency Capture… it's a system that was developed for the cruisers back during the Baruk war," said Emil as he tried to bring the engine control backups online. He tried to reroute power to auxiliary systems but everything was failing under the power load. "It's no good, Kale-I can't get helm control back up yet. I should have taken you up on letting me drive the next time."
The ship was beginning to tumble out of control and lose altitude.
"Load the coordinates for Sayir and activate the transgate!" shouted Kale.
The Equinox's shields bounced them off of the side of a burnt out sky scraper as they continued out of control in their descent.
"Man, I'm getting tired of landing upside down," said Emil, frustrated.
"What's going on up there?!" shouted Mirah through the intercom.
"Hold on Mother-it's going to get rough!"
The ship began to tumble over again in its descent. The pods that had been engaged with the vessel were trying desperately to remove their selves from its path. The pavement was approaching fast. Emil hammered away at the computer controls from his upside down position strapped inside his flight chair.
"Talk to me, Emil!" shouted Kale desperately.
"It's tricky! We don't want to land on our backs somewhere else, you know?!"
Their flight chair harnesses strained against their bodies to hold them firmly in place. Kale hoped they were strapped in well enough in the med-lab.
"I've got it!" shouted Emil triumphantly.
The
Equinox was enveloped in a pocket of bright light and vanished.
0
TIET sat in the dusty mold infested cockpit of a relic. The ship was Barudii made, a predecessor of the Viper class aerial fighter. He completed the login of the coordinates that had been transmitted by Emil from the Equinox. He powered up the engines and they gave only a slight choke before coming online fully. Boy, these were well made.
A few ships down, Grod had his fighter's engines warming up and Wynn was outside of his ship tinkering with a regulator. He made a final manual adjustment that set the engine cycle into a nice purr. He looked at Tiet with satisfaction.
A screeching noise could be heard from the hallway near the control booth-the aerogores were coming back to their nest.
"Get in!" Tiet shouted.
Wynn fumbled with the lock on his canopy, it was stuck. Aerogores began to march through the hallway into the chamber. When they saw the aircraft, powered up for flight, they became enraged. Wynn finally got the canopy to open up again as Tiet and Grod began to lift off of the pad.
The aerogores took to the air, sailing over the railing toward the hovering ships. Tiet instinctively went for the guns and set them blazing, rapid fire. Several of the beasts fell out of the sky, chewed to bits by the onslaught of the aerial fighter's guns. Tiet brought the nose of the ship to bear on the hallway's opening in the rock and launched a small rocket into it which shattered the stone to pieces. The entryway was mostly blocked to the others coming back to the nest.
Wynn was airborne and following Grod's fighter out of the underground hangar bay through the cave that had once served as a launch point. The guns of Grod's ship blazed to life, taking out oncoming predators that were returning from the outside. Grod cleared the way and all three aerial fighters shot into the open air above ground.
They were immediately faced with the awesome sight of a Vorn battle cruiser hovering above the grassy plains where their ships had emerged.
"Switch on your sensor cloak!" shouted Wynn through their cockpit speakers.
"What?"
"Lower left on the panel-quickly. I don't think they've spotted us yet."
Tiet obeyed his mentor and tapped the switch that was labeled Sensor Cloak. The indicator lit up green in color.
"What does it do?" Grod asked.
"Just what it says. We're masked from their sensor scans, at least if they're working properly," said Wynn. "Now, we can head toward Sayir and they won't even realize we've been here."
Tiet studied the ship ahead of them. Lucin could be on that ship. Also on his display, was payload information. He was carrying fifty rockets minus the one he had used inside the hangar and one laser guided smart bomb.
"We're not leaving just yet," said Tiet into the cockpit microphone.
"What are you talking about, we have to rendezvous with the others at Sayir," said Wynn.
"And we will. I just want to give them a little present before we bug out," said Tiet. "Are your ships armed?"
"Mine is; I'm in," said Grod quickly, a lust for revenge in his voice.
"Wynn?"
He hesitated. "How do I always get outvoted?"
"Just your luck old friend," said Tiet as he brought his aerial fighter on a course for the Vorn cruiser.
The others fell in line at his wings and armed their weapons.
"If they don't know we're here then they probably don't have their shields up."
"We'll have to hit them with everything at once before they have an opportunity to put them up," said Grod.
The fighters were closing in on the target fast at subsonic speed. They looked like insects swarming a large animal, but their sting would be nastier.
"Let her have it!" shouted Tiet as he triggered every weapon to fire on the hulking cruiser ahead.
The triple volley was heaved away from the fighter group almost simultaneously. The ships shuddered heavily as all weapons released their payload at once. The rockets sailed ahead of them at a slightly faster speed, like a prey outrunning its predator. The group pulled up just in time to clear the hull.
Multiple impacts of the smaller missiles swept across the hull like a swiftly moving rain. The three smart bombs sailed elegantly after, crashing heavily against the armor of the hull. Each one erupted in a devastating display of fire and shrapnel, breeching the ship's exterior hull. The strafed side of the great vessel was a huge patch of fire burning on the hull surface with more damage throughout the lower layers.
Tiet whooped aloud at the impacts, but it was a very small victory. The Vorn cruisers could take much more before being crippled, but at least they had struck back. The trio brought their fighters back around; it was time to head for the rendezvous. From the belly of the vessel, smaller ships were birthed into the air and they quickly set their collective sights upon Tiet and his group.
"Here they come," said Wynn.
"Split up!" shouted Tiet.
The trio rolled away from one another as a group of pods shot through their formation with all guns blazing. The enemy divided up at a three to one ratio.
"We're a little outnumbered," said Wynn as he took evasive maneuvers.
"And your point?" asked Tiet.
"We've got to get to the rendezvous, for one."
"These pods are a bit more maneuverable than our fighters," said Grod as he barely evaded incoming pulse bursts.
"Head away from one another," commanded Wynn.
"Why?"
"An old war maneuver from before you were born," said Wynn.
The trio each put their aerial fighters on a flight path away from the other two and pushed the ships into full throttle. The pods were more maneuverable, but not quite as fast. Each of the old Barudii aerial fighters was trailing three enemy pod fighters as they continued on track away from the area around the Vorn cruiser.
"Now, what?" asked Tiet.
"When we reach a fifty-mile distance from each other, we'll turn back from our course and head for an intersect point."
Grod laughed into his headset. "I think I've heard this in one of your old war stories, Wynn. I never get tired of hearing them."
"And he never gets tired of telling them," added Tiet sarcastically.
"Alright men, on my mark. Three, two, one, and come back on a heading of.0729," commanded Wynn.
The old aerial fighters each pulled a hard turn and came back on their pursuers who had been lagging only slightly. The pod trios split away into their own hard turn maneuvers and came right back into formation as they pursued the Barudii fighters.
"We're coming in fast," said Tiet.
"Use the rockets you have left and lock onto each others pursuing pods," said Wynn. "As we close the distance, everyone turn down and right 30? after we fire rockets at the locked targets. They'll be so preoccupied trying to catch each of us-"
"-that they won't realize they're heading into rockets fired from a different fighter than the one they are pursuing," Tiet finished.
"Exactly."
"Remind me to pay closer attention to his stories, Grod."
The Barudii fighters were closing the distance fast at supersonic speeds, each with a trio of pursuing pods in tow.
"Here we go," warned Grod as he kept an eye on his comrades approaching on his scanner.
"Lock targets and fire on my mark," instructed Wynn.
"I've got mine," said Tiet.
"Me too."
"And three, two, one, fire and turn!" shouted Wynn as he fired his own rockets.
Each fighter loosed its rockets and ducked away according to Wynn's instructions. They crossed the point they would have intersected with the pods in tow, not realizing that they had been locked in as targets of fighters other than the one each pod trio had been following. The rockets plowed head on with each of their intended targets as the Tiet, Wynn and Grod reformed their group.
"Now, let's get out of here and meet the others before we have any more company," said Wynn.
"It's odd that the cruiser is alone out
here," said Grod.
"And that they only sent nine pods after us," Tiet added.
"I wonder what has become of the other ships that were said to have been with this one," said Grod.
"I'm sure we'll find out sooner than we want to," said Wynn. "Let's get moving while we can."
The aerial fighter trio adjusted their course and speed and headed away toward the Valley of Sayir.
0
JUST above a remote portion of the Valley of Sayir that began to slope upward toward the mountain bearing the same name, the Equinox burst into reality with a snap of white light. The ship was right side up according to Emil's lightning quick jump calculations, but it was still plummeting toward the ground in a crippled condition.
"Hey, we're not upside down!" shouted Kale.
"See what happens when I take the wheel?" replied Emil confidently.
The controls jerked hard in Kale's hands. "We're still falling!"
"Problem!" Emil focused on his instrument panels. "100ft…60ft…30ft."
Kale slapped the docking thruster's control. The ship lurched, struggling against gravity with all the resistance it had left-it wasn't enough. The Equinox slammed into the valley floor with a massive Boom!
The shields collapsed, sending random blades of energy ripping into the ground away from the impact. When the cloud of dust began to settle again, the ship was intact but was unlikely to ever get airborne again.
"Is everyone okay?" Kale asked.
"Present," said Emil.
"We're alright," said Merab and Jael.
Kale tapped the intercom, perhaps the only thing still functioning on the ship. "Mother, how are you, back there?"
It took a moment, but they replied. "I think we're all in one piece," said Mirah, "I take it, we crashed?"
"Yes, but we made it to the rendezvous point," joked Emil from the background.
Kale shot him a weary look. "We're down in the Valley of Sayir, Mother. It's probably a good idea if we abandon the ship, just in case we were to have an explosion."
"We can't move Ramah right now," said Mirah, "I need to monitor her for a while, especially after that crash."