As the Protector leveled off from its bank, and he felt the gravitational forces lessening, he realized Shannon had made a looping turn to avoid the MSA fighters pestering them. It had saved his life, sending both men to the other side of the bridge.
Jarret convulsed, and judging by the gash along his temple, he had suffered a concussion. He put his hands against his head, trying to shake it off.
Eamonn surged with excitement. Jarret’s hands were empty. The knife! He looked wildly for the six-inch blade. He swung his head, hoping to spot the shiny blade. There it was! He lunged for it, but Jarret’s weight pressed him into the deck. He pulled himself along the floor. Reaching, inch by inch, he stretched his arms, extending his fingers to the maximum. Still, he was a good meter away from the knife.
His movements stirred Jarret, who grabbed at Eamonn’s jacket, pulling him backward. Eamonn kicked futilely with his sore leg, wincing as the pain overwhelmed him.
Both were hurt, but not seriously. Eamonn was in the worse position—with Jarret’s weight on his good leg and torso, but Jarret’s concussion had upset his balance and scrambled his concentration. Eamonn crawled along the floor like a wounded animal scurrying away from the teeth of a predator, thrusting his body and fighting with his legs. Getting closer to the knife, they were in constant battle.
The cries from a helpless Shannon echoed throughout the bridge. Eamonn pushed harder.
He was centimeters from the knife. But again, Jarret mustered enough energy to pull him a half meter backward. This is pointless, he thought. He had to get Jarret off him.
He turned to the viewscreen. The Protector was approaching two MSA fighters. Shannon would have to dodge down. That meant the knife would tumble toward him! He stabbed his arm out. He was still several centimeters short, but he kept his hand open.
The Protector banked downward as expected, but he didn’t expect the rattling of the hull. The knife bounced into the air and flipped end over end several times. He adjusted his hand and caught the hilt squarely.
Right away, he squared himself toward Jarret, who brought his fists up, thrusting them toward him. Without hesitation, Eamonn drove the knife into the man’s chest, right between the third and fourth rib on the side of his lungs.
Jarret didn’t whimper. He couldn’t without air. He exhaled a series of blood bubbles and then slumped to the side, dead.
For only a moment, Eamonn savored the relief of winning the struggle. Instantly, the next challenge came. How were they going to get enough distance to engage quickdrives?
He twisted his body out from under Jarret and staggered into his captain’s chair.
"Status," he said.
"Thank the day, you’re alive," Shannon said, apparently too focused on her flight path to notice the outcome of the fight. "Seven MSA fighters. They were a little hesitant at the start, but they aren’t shy. I can’t survive much longer. Why did you make us come into here? The atmosphere is dragging my maneuvers."
"That drag is going to save your life."
"How?"
"Drag means friction, and friction means heat."
Shannon’s voice came alive. "Infrared scanners. They’ll light it up like stars beaming in a cloudless night’s sky. The MSA will flash on radar."
"Exactly, and our turret guns can be programmed to automatically take them out," he said, swiveling his chair to the targeting computer. He transferred the infrared data into the computer, using the heat signatures as a guiding point.
The hull groaned. He shot a quick glance at the integrity screen, which read that the temperature was reaching the melting point of the ship’s nonmetalor hull. He hoped it would hold. He didn’t dare leave the atmosphere for fear the MSA fighters would disappear from their sight.
He activated the turret gun. A chill coursed down his body. He gripped the handles of his chair tightly, bracing for the return fire. Nothing came.
Five of the blotches on the infrared screen were gone, and the other two were trailing farther behind.
"I hope we got them. Take us out of here," he said. He looked at his navigational screen. "We should have enough distance to beat them to the gravity well."
Shannon nodded, pulled back on the control stick, and activated the quickdrive’s magnetic containment field. The gravity alerts chirped in their ears. Shannon silenced them instantly. She focused on her sensors, waiting for the signal from the computer to engage the drives.
Holding his breath, Eamonn closed his eyes, resisting the urge to look at his scanners. He listened to his ship. There! It had been contracted by the coldness of leaving the Earth’s atmosphere, and he heard the hull groan as it cooled. He opened his eyes and looked at his control terminal. The temperature gauges read normal again. The structural integrity was in good enough condition to engage quickdrives.
But he didn’t dare breathe yet. The MSA fighters were still trailing, farther and farther now, but none the less, still on their tail. He leaned across Shannon’s shoulder and pointed to the veering course he wanted her to take. She adjusted readily.
Then, as if the MSA didn’t matter, the Protector shot toward Mars, two hundred and fifty kilometers per second. And finally, he let out a breath.
He slumped back into the captain’s chair and wept…for Ty.
Chapter 6
With merchants shopping in all corners of the market avenue, consumers bustling from vendor to vendor, and passengers packed in trains traveling to and from Trivium Port, Aethpis colony had never been more prosperous, Gwen Arwell noted, looking out from her yacht. She had beaten Sarah McCloud in the propaganda game. The people of Aethpis appreciated the prosperity and rejected the failed Alliance. Sarah was alone in her quest to topple the MSA, and Sarah’s feigning interest in current Alliance activity was a clever façade.
The yacht swung around and set down to a soft landing on the pad leading to Sarah’s offices.
Gwen’s entourage scurried out of the shuttle to prepare for her arrival in Aethpis colony. The guards formed a line on either side of the landing path leading into the reception area of the hangar. Her delegates hurried themselves to various destinations around the colony to make sure everything was ready for her inspection.
Gwen Arwell’s objective for her visit was to prod Sarah McCloud for information on her activities with the splintered Alliance forces, especially those around the asteroid field. If it went as planned, Seth would arrive at the Alliance base in less than four hours, but she was hoping to avoid the entire battle and the destruction of such a strategic base.
Gwen and Samantha had uncovered no evidence of Sarah’s involvement, but Gwen’s gut told her that Sarah McCloud still actively helped the Alliance. Sarah had concealed her efforts well over the last two years, especially lately. The Alliance had destroyed a little under a dozen freighters around Jupiter, an alarming increase in activity Gwen no longer ignored. Her postwar campaign to hunt down and execute high-ranking Alliance members had been successful; over forty men and women with bullets in their skulls proved it. Traitors had to be dealt with swiftly and efficiently to maintain the control the MSA needed of the population. Her bribes and rewards for allegiance only went as far as the credits went deep. Fear kept the people loyal for far longer.
A wave of a hand from her assistant signaled her to proceed down the gangway. She stepped down it.
Sarah stood erect and stolid, facing Gwen. There was a radiation of hate pulsing from Sarah’s body, and Gwen could have sworn she felt the heat cutting through the cool Martian breeze.
Gwen ignored Sarah’s discomfort and patted her hand against her pulled-up brown hair as the breeze gusted. Her eyes, big and green, looked narrowly at Sarah, probing her for a clue to her many suspicions.
"I trust you have been taking care of my colony," Gwen said.
"I believe your treaty puts me in command of my colony," Sarah said.
"And you should hope that I don’t alter the treaty any further."
Sarah bristled. "Did you come to argue the
specifics with me? I don’t have the time to waste with your bravado."
"I’ll waste your time as I see fit," Gwen said, ushering Sarah out of the hangar and down the hallway. "Where is Parker? I haven’t seen him in a long time."
Gwen suspected Parker was at the asteroid belt, but she had no proof, and Sarah’s insistence that he was working in the Martian deep-tunnel mines had proved a successful cover as it was impossible to regulate the workers within the miles-deep shafts.
"He is working with the miners in our deep Martian exploration campaign. He’ll be gone for weeks."
"I’m sure," Gwen said, annoyed that Sarah remained so opaque. "I hoped he was around. Make sure he is here for my next visit."
"I can’t assure you he will be. He doesn’t wish to see you anymore."
"Oh," Gwen said, and her eyes widened.
Sarah’s lip curled. "You feign surprise poorly. If you haven’t realized, your old crew doesn’t like you. I don’t know why you pretend that nothing has happened."
"If you have ever been part of a crew, you would understand our bond. Frequently, we risked our lives with one another."
"And your hunt for Eamonn Dalton explains what about the dynamics of your bond?"
Gwen’s lip twitched, and then she smiled. "He needs to understand what he did was wrong. I’m serving justice."
"I’m sure," Sarah said, mimicking Gwen’s tone. "Is there anything in particular you wished to discuss on this visit? I can assure you that our records are up to the minute. Aethpis prides itself on our top efficiency rating within the MSA."
"Too efficient," Gwen said. "It makes me wonder if you are hiding something."
"Hiding?" Sarah smirked. "The members of the Aethpis cabinet are completely loyal to the MSA. As am I."
"Your loyalty runs as deep as your civility does toward me. Sarah McCloud, you are part of the Alliance and traitor to the MSA."
"Then you are here to arrest me?" Sarah replied in a ragged tone.
Sarah’s confidence was steady, and Gwen knew she had no evidence to implicate her with any Alliance involvement. Sarah acted through Parker, and he would never betray her. For most Alliance members, suspicion was enough to implicate their involvement, but Sarah was too well known, and Gwen wanted proof to churn her propaganda machine. Sarah’s clear involvement would collapse the Alliance forever.
"Obviously," Gwen said. "I would execute you if I thought you had any real power in the Alliance anymore. Your loss at the Battle of Mars sealed your fate. At best, you will run this pathetic colony until you die, and with that, I have peace of mind in knowing that Aethpis will never be the colony it once was."
"Arrogance will be your undoing. The Alliance has shut off your water supply from Jupiter."
"Only Alliance connections gain you that knowledge. Parker perhaps, his mining expeditions are quite convenient."
"Parker’s service records are impeccable," Sarah said. "The water interruption is detailed in the Zephyrian reservoir reports. It is clear you have failed to replenish your supply. I gather your crop fields are drying up. Once your food supply runs out, so will your support from the people."
"Don’t be so sure," Gwen replied. "The MSA controls everything in the solar system. We expect another shipment of water within the week. Your Alliance failed in its latest attempt."
"My Alliance died two years ago. The remnants are only left in my spirit."
"Your spirit? I have nothing to worry about then," Gwen replied. "Show me to your economic center. My people tell me your colony has a unique way of distributing the returning capital from the vendors."
"Yes, my lady," Sarah said in her ever-increasing condescending tone.
Chapter 7
The distance from Mars to the Alliance base inside the asteroid belt was a little less than two hundred million kilometers, approximately halfway between Mars and Jupiter.
The asteroid belt consisted of a maze of exceedingly unpredictable jutting and darting asteroids. The main difficulty in navigating the belt was approaching the massive collection. Determining how far the asteroids extended from the main belt or whether an errant one careened outward was nearly impossible for the computers on board to calculate. It was a pilot’s nightmare.
Additionally, the pressure from collisions of the larger asteroids propelled hard, dense, pea-sized microasteroid bullets. The pint-sized meteors were undetectable by any scanners but were capable of tearing through a ship’s hull—unless you had plasma shielding, an innovation that had helped extend human colonization to Jupiter only one hundred years earlier.
Seth shifted in the cockpit of his MSA fighter. Even with his plasma shield at full power, lurking in the background noise was the puffing sound of the microasteroids disintegrating against his shielding, and it rattled his nerves.
The absence of the MSA cruiser Victory in their fleet troubled him as well. The Victory, the battle planners determined, waited a million kilometers behind them, safely in the openness of space. Seth counted on its firepower to destroy the Alliance base, but the flying asteroids zipping through the asteroid belt allowed only the MSA fighters to traverse the ever-changing space where unpredictability dwelled in uncountable quantities. Seth checked his distance gauge. Only a few kilometers remained from the belt’s threshold.
He rippled his fingers across the control stick; the final strike against the Alliance was nearly upon him. Adrenaline coursed through his veins. Destroying the last stronghold of the Alliance meant that his opportunity to create the perfect society was close. The MSA would have total control of Mars, and his influence over Gwen would put him in position to guide the planet. The thought filled him with glee, and he never wanted life to be any different. He—the scared boy from an algae farming colony—controlled the supreme chancellor of the human race. And after this victory, Chloe and Alexandria would live in paradise—on his Mars.
An alert blatted.
Twenty-five MSA fighters and five bombers flung themselves into the asteroid belt. To shorten their journey while keeping the element of surprise, the mapping engineers had devised a path down the vertical axis toward the Alliance base. This path, given to numerous larger asteroids, offered unconventional courses. The flight leader indicated that the path cut their travel time.
Seth’s green eyes widened to the size of Saturn’s rings. He studied the space in front of him. He weaved through the asteroids, barely avoiding one before the next one appeared. In constant motion, he jerked his control stick from side to side and forward to backward. His shielding fizzled as the asteroid dust pelted his ship. He glanced, only for half a heartbeat, at the power levels. He was already down to eighty percent.
Staying behind the flight leader, he followed along an asteroid and then darted into a massive donut-shaped hole. Sweat pooled on his brow. The asteroid surrounded him, and as quickly as he entered, he was through it.
Abruptly, the fleet leveled off into an open expanse. The chaos of the ever-shifting asteroids was distant in this oasis. In disbelief, he checked his status screen; everything read positive. Truly, no asteroids existed in the space.
"The Alliance is here," flight leader Lorne Benedict radioed to the fleet. "Reorient your formations."
"This is Decker," a young voice radioed. "We lost Baker and Johnston from our squadron."
Seth recognized the voice but didn’t remember his face.
"Affirmative," Benedict replied. "You still have your bomber. Revert to a V formation."
"Affirmative."
"Anyone else missing?"
There was no reply.
In the midst of the oasis, Seth kept thinking the same troubled thought. He opened his radio channel. "Why aren’t there any asteroids in this area?" He glanced above him to his proximity sensors. "Not even small ones."
"Could be why they picked this place," Benedict replied.
Seth’s fighter rumbled like it had entered atmosphere, but there was no sign of energy drain on his shielding. He keyed his radio on. "My ship ju
st shook but I wasn’t hit," he said. "Scanning the area again."
"My velocity is slowing," Decker radioed. "Impossible, too, none of my retrorockets are firing—"
"The whole fleet is experiencing the same thing," Benedict said, a slight panic in his voice.
The scanners told Seth something wasn’t right, and he listened to the alarmed chatter of the MSA fleet with silent caution.
A quick analysis of the chatter and his scanner showed that the polarities in the rocks were pointing away from the base, as if the station was pushing it away. He did another quick scan. No asteroids were in the area with enough mass to create a gravity to pull the fragments toward it.
Unless…it was artificial. His ship shook again. The velocity lowered, this time twice as much as the first time. He scrolled through his scanners. Of course—
"Turn the fleet back," Seth radioed. "They have electromagnetic shielding. Our bullets and missiles will be useless against it."
"How do you know?"
"Look at your polarization scanners," he said. "Everything is pointing away from the Alliance base. That is why there are no asteroids in this oasis."
"Ingenious. The shielding is pushing the metal in the asteroids away."
"Exactly, and if we attack the base—"
"Our missiles and bullets will be pushed back toward us."
"And if we continue to fly farther in, our ships will fly back…in a thousand different pieces. Order the fleet back. We have to rethink this."
"Everyone regroup at the edge of the expanse. Wait for further instructions."
Parker rushed down the corridor and arrived in the command deck of the asteroid base Alpha a short moment later. Without stopping, he moved toward the command position.
"Captain Terry, MSA coming in," he said.
"Unfortunately," Captain Terry replied, listening loosely, focusing his main attention on the radar screen in front of him.
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