The enemy fighters weaved back and forth, trying to avoid Seth’s precision shots, but unbeknownst to them, the counter maneuvers of the Protector and the turret gun’s lack of mobility had made it impossible for Seth to lock on his targets.
They continued to trade fire in an attempt to gain better positioning. Fighting off the glaring sun, Seth squinted, trying to track the fighters as the Protector yawed upward. The inaccuracy of the turret guns enabled the fighters to move within close proximity of the Protector. Seth was helpless to stop them.
One of the fighters swept in toward the turret.
Seth grimaced as he watched the bullets fly over his head and strike the hull above him. The plasma shield fizzled.
Unable to capitalize on his failure, the fighter left itself exposed for the kill. Seth’s helmet visor signaled he had locked the target, and he returned fire.
The fighter attempted to avoid the counterattack but was too late in realizing its error. The bullets ripped the right engine apart and twirled the fighter like a pinwheel into deep space.
Only one fighter remained.
On the bridge, Jan fought with the controls while Eamonn tried to locate the fighter with only secondhand information from the plasma gun signatures. The radar couldn’t find it, frustrating him.
"We’re almost out of the gravity well of the moon," Jan said, "but with that fighter so close to us . . . we can’t activate the magnetic field for the quickdrives."
Eamonn scanned the Protector's speed controls. "Can we outrun the fighter?"
"No! I need the quickdrives activated to outrun it," Jan said.
Eamonn looked at his visual display of the rear of the ship. "If we don’t lose the fighter soon, that battle cruiser will attach tow cable."
"Why doesn’t the fighter take out our engines already?" Jan said. "I would."
"Keep avoiding him—"
"I don’t see anything I can do. He’s too nimble. As of now, I have been flying straight."
"Straight!" Eamonn cried. Then an epiphany hit him. He stared at the viewscreen. "He isn’t trying to shoot us down! He is trying to slow us so we surrender. They want us alive. Those three fighters could easily take us out. This last one wants us to stay close so we can’t make a jump to Mars. Disabling a ship at the first sign of escape is always a prisoner escort’s first priority. They never would attempt to cut us off in those small fighters."
"Why would they want us alive?" Gwen said.
"You are on the ship," he said. "The chancellor’s daughter, a kidnapping attempt. That makes sense."
"This wouldn’t be the first time an attempt has been made, but this is too elaborate. Any plays against my father’s power would only result in pain for the person kidnapping me. The solar system is too small to hide. If I were to bet, I would say the medical personnel sent by Minister Cortez are the reason. The timing makes perfect sense. I don’t believe in coincidences."
"You’re both wrong," Jan interjected. "The invasion is all about the metalor, and the Protector is the only ship in the fleet that can handle the meteors coming in. They don’t want it harmed. When we were called away, their timing turned bad."
"My bet is still an attempt against Gwen is intertwined in this," Eamonn said. "Perhaps one of the nonaligned colonies orchestrated a power play. Castor and Pollux would be my guess."
"Castor and Pollux couldn’t administer their way out of a Martian crater," Gwen replied. "No way they could pull off getting this many ships. My guess: a splinter faction from Aethpis Colony if this is an attempt on my life."
The Protector pushed forward.
"We need to get them off us," Jan said. "No matter their cause. I think I can bump the fighter. Use our size to push them away."
"A collision would destroy us, too," Gwen replied. "The fighter shouldn’t have much fuel left. We can outrun them."
"The battle cruiser is gaining on us." Eamonn exhaled a quick breath. "I don’t know how, but it is gaining on us."
The cruiser pressed toward them, looming only kilometers away. Bullets flew past the nose of the Protector.
"Don’t react to the fire," he said. "Our goal is to keep our distance. I don’t think they will shoot us down."
Seth gripped hard on the handle of his weapon’s control stick. The enemy darted all over the screen and a lock was nearly impossible. He adjusted his hands on the grip and flicked off the autolock. He would have to trust he was better than the computer. It had failed him so far.
The fighter shot again, burning metal on the hull. All the lights flickered in the rear compartment. Parker frantically worked at the control station, trying to fix whatever was wrong.
The fighter pilot sensed something was wrong, too, but Seth sensed his greed first. He sent a volley of bullets to the heart of the ship, right under the engine mount.
Fatal hit. The main fuel lines burst into clouds of exploding blue orbs. The pilot immediately ejected into space; his ship twirled uncontrolled away from the Protector and exploded with a brilliant blaze.
"We got it!" Chloe shouted and turned to the intercom. "Eamonn, get us out of here!"
"This will be close," Jan said. "I need a few seconds to power the magnetic field up before I can switch on the quickdrive."
Eamonn gripped hard against the armrests of his captain’s chair and urged the Protector to go faster. The battle cruiser closed in and was within a few kilometers. Trying to keep as much distance as possible from the pursuers, Eamonn ordered Jan to veer away. They were keeping enough distance, but it might not last.
"They are extending their grappling arms; we need to leap in a few seconds before they fire the tow ropes!" Eamonn shouted to Jan.
"They still request we surrender," Gwen said. "Escape is not an option . . . if we believe them."
"I don’t. Stow the comm updates for now," he said.
The battle cruiser kept up the relentless pursuit, firing bullets and exploding missiles in front of the Protector.
Eamonn admired Jan as she concentrated on powering the quickdrives for launch to Mars. He clenched his teeth hard, wanting more than anything to order her to evade the incoming fire. But that would cost them their freedom.
The cruiser closed to within range of the tow ropes and fired immediately. They shot out straight toward the belly of the Protector.
Eamonn’s nav screen showed Jan plotting the course into the navigation computer.
The computer flashed.
Jinx, he thought. No time left. Doesn’t this computer have any sense of urgency built in?
The claw of the tow cable glittered in the viewscreen as it flew toward them.
Gwen gasped.
Eamonn glanced at the nav computer again.
Then he looked back to the tow claw, which was only two hundred meters away and closing.
The computer chimed.
Instantaneously, Jan punched the controls to ignite the quickdrives. The Protector lurched forward, and after an initial jostle, stabilized into a consistent push into the depths.
The cruiser’s tow ropes snapped to a halt as they ran out of cabling and only caught empty space.
"There we go, two hundred and fifty kilometers per second," Jan said, clapping her hands together, exhilarated. Gwen and the rear crew shouted in triumph.
Even though he, too, felt euphoric, Eamonn didn’t sit around patting anyone on the back. Then a sense of dread suddenly gripped him.
Next stop, Mars.
Chapter 9
In the crew cabin of the Protector, Seth fought the urge to sleep. The terror of returning to Mars ate at his psyche, and his dreams had been mostly nightmarish reminders of what had happened to him and Chloe. He had not been on Mars in almost fifteen years, since he was a scared, ten-year-old boy who survived on the planet during a revolutionary war, without a home or a family. He wanted to forget that time, but his subconscious would not.
&nbs
p; His eyelids grew heavy. He couldn’t fight the urge any longer; thirty hours without sleep was too much for him. He fell into a deep sleep, and instantly a nightmare captured him.
"Lock down your houses! Raiders are here!" the mayor bellowed from the center square of his small Martian town.
A young boy watched, cowering behind a bench only meters away, as the mayor tried to create order in the chaos. The boy knew it was futile. No one was listening, most were already dead.
Before the mayor uttered another warning cry, a hammer, propelled by a passing raider, smashed into the side of his head with a hollow thud, knocking off his breathing mask and throwing him to the ground. The mayor flailed his arms, trying to locate his air supply. The mask lay out of his grasp. With large gulps, he gasped a series of whimpers as his lungs searched for oxygen.
The boy, paralyzed, wanted to tell the mayor that the mask had been flung into the collection of rocks, but his drying mouth wouldn’t allow him to speak. He struggled to find the courage that would allow him to form the words that would help, a simple instruction to look in the opposite direction. But how could he call out? A raider might find him, too. His mother had told him not to wander away from his house because disobedience would cost him his life. He had to get home.
His eyes fixated on the dying mayor as the screams and chaos around the town’s main square flowed past his ears. He could hear his heart thumping. In front of him, a man was suffering, and yet he did nothing.
The mayor slumped over, and their eyes met.
The boy flinched backward, trying to avoid the mayor’s pathetic eyes, but his body, fully wedged under the bench, had no escape.
The mayor said: "Go, find safety, be brave."
With a jolt, the boy ran as fast as his legs could take him toward his home. He darted between houses and slid under gaps in fences too small for grown men to follow.
Bedlam consumed the town. He tried to block the screams of men and women pleading for their lives. The chaos surrounded him, and there was no escape in sight. But he had to find a way to survive.
Shaking his head, he attempted to toss the nightmare from his mind. His focus had to be on getting to his mother. She was all that mattered to him; she was the only person he loved. He kept repeating what the mayor had told him—Go, find safety, be brave.
But he wasn’t brave. He had left the mayor to die, and if he didn’t get home to protect his mother, she would die, too.
After navigating through most of the town, he arrived in an alleyway off the main road of the colony. He was at the nearest crossroads to his house, which was only a few hundred meters away.
Up and down the road, the raiders were loading medicine and food supplies into their cargo vans and large flatbeds. There were too many of them stalking the street for him to avoid. He counted four and could hear several more yelling orders around the blind corner to his position.
He moved back behind the garbage receptacles in the rear of the alley. He rested, biding his time, trying to shake the images of the journey across town, but the horrors would remain in him. What was happening? Why is the town so weak and not fighting back? Then he recalled his own fear when he had done nothing for the mayor. That fear was haunting him already, consuming his mind with horrible visions, including an unnerving paranoia that made him believe every raider in the town knew where he was and would find him. The nightmare would never end. He cursed himself for being a coward.
He heard a scream come from one of the buildings close by. He tensed and stayed still as he heard the scuffling of boots and saw the shadow of two large figures pass by the alleyway. He pressed his shoulders against the wall.
Footsteps pattered toward the alley and stopped at the entrance. He tried to hold back the tears. Too late, the cool streaks trickled down his cheek. The paralysis of fear took over his muscles again. The men remained silent. He sensed their presence and wished a thousand times that they would disappear.
The footsteps backed off and continued on. The boy relaxed and wiped the tears from his face. He couldn’t get the fear out of his head.
"She is safe. She has to be," he muttered. "The security system is on, and she is safely in our house."
He had to find a way to get home.
Unable to hear the raiders anymore, he decided to try another route. He slipped back under the fence and circled around the yard backing the alley.
Rounding the corner of the last house on the row, he stopped and held back a cry of horror. He reeled against the nearest fence, his spirit sinking like a torpedoed boat. The dead woman stared up at him with an unmoving face; eyes had never seemed so lifeless. He reached down to take off her breathing mask to reveal her face. His hands shook as he discovered that his greatest fear had been realized. In his heart, he knew she wouldn’t stay behind their security system without him. She had come looking for him. Why did he wander so far from his home? She had told him a thousand times to keep near the house.
"Seth, don’t wander off." Her words echoed in his mind.
His mother had died because of him!
"No!" Seth shouted. He was back in the crew cabin aboard the Protector, Chloe snug in his arms. He rested his head on the pillow and sighed.
"What’s the matter?" asked Chloe, squeezing his hand. "You are sweating."
Seth wiped the sweat from his brow with the cuff of his shirt. A cold chill ran across his body. "Nothing, just a dream."
"Something is the matter."
"I’m going to find a way to block you eventually," he said, pushing his finger playfully into her ribs.
She squirmed and giggled. "Stop that. I won’t read your thoughts again."
"Promise," Seth said, digging harder along her torso.
"Promise!" Chloe said. "No more."
Seth smiled, then his face became somber and sad. "I dreamt about the death of my mother." He swallowed hard. "Now, with Lunara being taken from us and Ty probably dead, I’m disillusioned again. Ty is, or was, as close to a father as anyone. Why does this keep happening to me? I just want you to be safe. Back during the battle, right before we were about to fire upon those ships. I wished us to another time, another place. I didn’t care what happened to anyone else."
"We were put in this time and place. You can’t simply escape the reality because you want a different life. We are upset and shaken. We’ll arrive on Mars soon and find out what happened."
"Mars took something away from us last time. That is why we left. I can’t forgive Mars. What if nothing changed?"
"The new government changed a lot of things. Gwen told us about those changes, and you’ve read the news reports. Why don’t you listen to it?"
She smiled in an attempt to alleviate his fears. He looked away, disgusted at the thought of Mars. He would never forgive Mars. Not even a little.
The hatch to the cabin clanged open; Jan and Parker slid through the opening. Chloe moved over to Jan. "How are you doing?" she said. "Ty is a fighter. The colony is huge, and only Lunarans are aware of the labyrinth of crawl spaces." She placed her arm around Jan’s shoulder, comforting her.
"Ty will stay alive until we return," Parker said as he tapped the control panel. The food repository dispensed a warm vitamin drink.
"I hope you’re correct. I’m sick with worry," Jan said, sitting down at the dining table.
Jan’s eyes reddened.
Since Seth arrived on Lunara, Jan had watched over him and made sure he stayed committed to his goal of becoming a top pilot. She had taught him everything about space flight. And after he almost crashed into the towers of Lunara in a dangerous stunt—a figure eight weave through the colony to impress Chloe—Jan was the one who humbled him, taking away his wings for over a year. That was seven years ago, when he was a teenager and incapable of assisting her. Now, a man, he could help her.
"I will fight for Ty, even to our death," Seth said.
Chloe and Parker nodded their heads in agreement.
"I know you all will," Jan said. "You a
re all like sons and daughters to me and I don’t want you getting into any danger. Is that clear?"
"Understood, but we would fly to the sun in a waxed ship to save Ty," Chloe said. "I’m afraid you’re stuck with our help no matter where we end up." She put her arm around Jan.
"You grew up too fast," Jan said.
They sat in silence for a while. The ship swayed as the ion drive pushed toward Mars. Between Mars and the Earth—the most heavily traveled route in the solar system—Seth felt alone. There was no sign that anyone existed. Only the celestial bodies of the sun, the thousands of smaller specs surrounding them, the fading Earth, and the increasing red hue of Mars indicated the existence of something beyond their ship. He wondered how the early pioneers had traveled without the subspace communications. He could never stand the radio delays.
"The Protector really took a pounding," Parker said.
"You did a good job," Seth replied to his friend. "The Protector performed more than admirably."
"Thanks."
When Parker first arrived on Lunara, Seth had realized straightaway that he would be a good friend. Not only did they both love space flight, but also, Parker’s passion for the Protector and Seth’s rabid desire to be the number one starwing pilot meant they would spend a lot of time together in the hangar bays. The Protector wasn’t the newest ship out of Mars, but Parker made sure it was the most capable. Had he been on Mars, his abilities would have revolutionized how maintenance and reconfiguration engineering was done on the older vessels, but Lunara put Parker in the dimmest of lights. Martian engineering accolades didn’t travel this far out. And Parker didn’t mind.
On more than one occasion, Seth had asked Parker if his life was unfulfilled. Parker always answered that his love for the Protector was enough for him. But at one time, Parker had been a top recruit at the military academy on Mars, specializing in tactical ground assaults. However, military life didn’t satisfy Parker, and he moved into the engineering field, where he also excelled. Yet he never worked in the shipyards on Phobos, where he would have gained prestige. He wanted the Protector. Seth suspected that Parker loved the solitude involved in maintaining his own ship. The shipyards made the breakthroughs in design, but shipbuilding involved teams of hundreds working on the ship. Parker could never have survived that environment.
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