"Where are they?"
"On the outer edge of the shielding field. They spotted our shielding before a couple of them bounced into deep space."
"I was hoping it would fool them," he replied.
Terry nodded.
"By our count, twenty-eight ships in total. Five are bombers," the deck officer called from across the command station. "They are out of range again."
"Will those MSA ever fight openly?" Terry said, sharpening his tone. "Always plotting something."
"They’ll be back," Parker said.
"Of course they will. You don’t think they took over Mars without some adeptness in battle," Terry said, rushing from terminal to terminal, checking various systems twice and sometimes three times. "I will be ready."
"Where are—"
Parker didn’t get a chance to finish his statement. His three pilots—Olympus, Red Dust, and Quartz—entered, followed by Grove several paces behind. Parker’s eyes hardened; he had ordered the men to the hangar, at ready for flight duties.
"I told you to be in the hangar," he said.
"That is just it," Quartz said. "They won’t let us in."
"What?"
"The flight controller is telling us we are restricted from all essential locations," Red Dust said.
"It’s true," Grove added. "I tried to convince them, but they weren’t allowing them into their fighters. They—"
Parker didn’t stay around to listen. He rushed over to Captain Terry. "Why aren’t my pilots allowed to board their fighters?"
"Because there was a security breach on your last mission. They are under investigation for treason."
For a short moment, the casualness of the accusation took Parker aback. But he pressed Terry with a firm tone. "So they must prove their innocence. If you don’t have any evidence, let them fight."
"I won’t allow the MSA to deceive me again. They might be involved."
"Hey," Quartz shouted. She stepped toward the commander, but Red Dust pulled her back before she caused any damage. "Let go—"
"Quartz, back off!" Parker said. He turned back toward Terry. "Let them fight."
"So they can run around and play traitor."
Parker’s face turned redder. "Sarah left me in charge of the Alliance—"
"I have served with your wife longer than you have," Terry said. "You are her liaison. Nothing more." He stepped past him, to a bank of consoles. Parker followed, next to his hip. Terry stopped, shifted his feet, and turned to Parker. "I run this base. We won’t need you. Our shielding is impenetrable."
"Don’t be so confident—"
"Your squadron is under investigation. Return to the pilots’ lobby or prepare for your arrest. I will not argue my decisions with the enemy looming over our base."
Parker still doubted Terry’s tenacity against him. "Even me?"
"You had the best opportunity of anyone. No one is immune to my investigations."
"Do you know who you are accusing of being a traitor?"
"I’m not accusing anyone of being a traitor," Terry said as he waved his hand toward deck guards.
"You just said I was under investigation."
"It only means you could potentially be a traitor."
Parker threw his arms up. "One failed mission, and we are grounded—"
The deck guard moved beside him.
Terry thrust his finger toward the doorway. "Escort Mr. McCloud and his crew to the pilots’ lobby."
Parker bristled. "This Alliance will never survive if we can’t trust each other."
"Exactly," Terry said. "Thus my investigation."
Then he pointed to the exit. It was all Parker could do to stop himself from thrusting his fist like a missile into Terry’s jaw. Instead, as he turned, he made sure Terry saw the sourness on his face before he stormed out of the command deck. He had other plans.
As the MSA sat outside of the ominous shielding, Seth brainstormed inside his cockpit. He started by scanning the force generated by the shielding and came up with the same conclusion as the fleet’s chatter. The shielding was pushing out from the base, preventing the incoming asteroids from hitting it. But the funny thing about this electromagnetic field was that it was pulling the metal away from it rather than toward it.
"The base is impenetrable. Our weapons contain metal and our ships are metal," Decker said.
"That is obvious, but we have to get by it," Seth radioed. "I was thinking. If we fire an ion charge without its metal-focusing case, we should be able to penetrate the shielding. It is pure energy."
"The electromagnet will disperse the energy instantly. That is why it has its casing."
"It will only push against matter."
"Wouldn’t they have thought of that?" Benedict replied.
"They built this shielding for the asteroids," Seth said. "Now that we are here, the base is useless to them. They’ll abandon it even if they stop us. It was never designed to be a fortress."
"True," Benedict replied. "But the ion pulse will be weak. It is futile. Assuming it doesn’t dissipate before impact."
"It’ll work," he said. "Once the shield is down, I’ll go in and destroy the generators."
A half hour later, jaded, frustrated by the knots tied around his hands by Captain Terry, Parker stared out of the window in the pilots’ lobby. Behind him, his squadron was still complaining to one another about their treatment. He was a leader within the Alliance and understood Terry’s motives, but he didn’t have to like them. It had been his planning and his hard work to stop the freighter shipments from Jupiter. The Alliance’s network of secrecy was backfiring…into his face.
Yet, maybe Terry wasn’t too cautious. Listening to the voices behind him, Parker realized that one of them could be a traitor, signaling the MSA fleet before their last mission. But how? he agonized. The Alliance tracked communications from their fighters and from this base. There hadn’t been time for his squadron to send the signal, and the logs, which as part of his security protocol he dumped and scanned three times, revealed no stray transmissions. He checked them after each mission.
No, the traitor was out there, past the open expanse made by the electromagnetic shielding and hidden between the circling asteroids that barricaded their base. The twisting DNA symbol of the MSA painted across their hulls. It didn’t take a tactical genius to recognize the MSA was waiting for them. They didn’t need a secret transmission. His squadron had destroyed a number of freighters around Jupiter already, so it wasn’t a stretch to imagine they would set a trap.
He eased his clenched teeth. Devastator and Grey Cloud died on that mission. How dare Terry accuse him of treason! He had already lost Jan. He could never do anything to harm the Alliance she died to protect.
"Jan," he whispered under his breath. His gut had told him to keep her from the Megacruiser, but he hadn’t listened. The need to exterminate the MSA as quickly as possible had troubled him. It clouded his judgment, like so many other Alliance leaders. Perhaps that had been the downfall of the Alliance, their impatience.
"Parker," Atalo said, coming up beside him. "What are your orders?"
"There aren’t any for now," Parker said. "We don’t have a reason to fight until the MSA starts its attacks."
"Terry is right, though. The shielding, it is impenetrable. The MSA won’t attack."
Parker shook his head. "To asteroids it is. To MSA fighters, flown by humans, there is a weakness. It just has to be found."
"I don’t understand," Atalo said. "Their weapons are metal. They can’t breach the perimeter—"
A bluish-green light flashed into the pilots’ lobby.
The asteroid field remained unchanged. The light had come from where the MSA fighters were last spotted. Then, in the distance, Parker saw a speckle of light, like a star in the background. It grew in size, heading toward the base.
His first thought was that he was seeing a sensor baseline, an energy flash designed to mimic weapons fire and retrieve data about the enemy’s defensiv
e system, but the glow was brighter than any baseline tracer he had ever seen.
Atalo leaned in. He had noticed the speck, too. Parker’s breath shortened. The lobby was silent. Behind him, his squadron stood and took a step toward the window.
Now, covered in green, the streak moved faster and faster toward the base, heading toward the west end. On the other side of the colony from him, where they housed the power cells for the shielding—
"Turn off anything electrical," he ordered.
But it was too late. The streak struck the asteroid. Parker braced for an explosion, but nothing came. Not even a rumbling shake. The only indication of anything wrong was the blanket of green lightning crawling across the base.
Seconds later, the lightning reached the pilots’ lobby. The light forced his eyes closed. He pushed his hand to his face as the brightness seeped through his eyelids.
Instinctively, feeling his balance shifting, he took a short step toward where he thought Atalo had been. He was hesitant though, fearing he would contact metal. He didn’t know if it would be hot, cold, or statically charged. He had never experienced a pulse before.
"Is it over?" someone screamed from the other side of the lobby. He thought it was Olympus, but he wasn’t sure.
"Hold your eyes shut," he said. "It shouldn’t last more than fifteen seconds.
Boom! The shaking of the room forced him to adjust his feet. The electromagnetic generator’s fuel cell must have overloaded. He staggered to the side, struggling to keep his balance.
The rumbling stopped.
Sensing the light fade, he opened his eyes. The brightness was gone, but streaks of light remained, following his field of vision.
"Get to the hangars," he said.
"I can hardly see past these spots," Red Dust said. "How can I fly a ship?"
"You have no choice." He hoped the spots would lesson by the time they launched. "Get to the hangar. The MSA fighters are coming."
The invasion claxon roared down the corridors of the base and then the reverberating swooshes of the launch tubes sounded. Parker spun around. The Asterfighters zipped out in columns of three toward the incoming MSA fighters. Then the plasma shielding fell across the structure.
BOOM! Another impact against the base, and this time, it was only meters from him. The plasma shielding fizzled, and a rippling of energy swept across the window, like a stone thrown into a pond. The floor shifted, sending everyone sprawling.
Parker’s brain felt shaken like an ice cube in a martini mixer. His head spun and his spotty eyes lingered from the pulse’s flash. He surveyed his body, and aside from his aching joints, nothing was permanently injured.
Through his warped vision, he saw Atalo staggering toward Red Dust.
Able to prop himself against an errant chair, Parker wobbled toward Quartz and reached out with his hand. She took it and pulled herself up. Her head was bruised, and her lip was fat. She shook off his further assistance.
By the time his head cleared and he regained his bearings, the crew was around him. Everyone was fine, aside from tattered hair and bruises.
"We need to get to the fighters," he said, tasting a bitter pool under his tongue.
"Our orders?" Red Dust said.
"The fighters, I said."
"You clear the squadron for takeoff," Atalo said.
"No, we don’t need to get official clearance. We can slip past. The guards will be finding transport out of here."
Quartz put her hands on her hips. "Transport out?"
"The base is worthless if the MSA knows about it. Terry is probably boarding a ship as we speak."
"You and Atalo can’t take the Iron Chunk into battle," Quartz replied. "It is too slow for in-close battling, especially within an asteroid field."
"I know," he said. "That is why Atalo is setting up a rally point for our squadron outside of the asteroid field. I’ll fly an Asterfighter into the battle."
Atalo’s face dropped. "But I have to fight—"
"We need you to assist our retreat. If we all fight, we will have no exit ship. It is a long trip with only ion drives."
"I understand," he said, but the hardening of his eyes told Parker he was furious with the assignment. He wanted to hurt the MSA. But Parker wanted to kill them all.
"Let’s stop debating our assignments and do something," Quartz said. "They’ll blow up the base before we can get out."
"Let’s go," Parker said.
"You aren’t going anywhere," a voice said from behind them.
Parker spun around.
Six guards, each with a sonic rifle pointed at his squadron, signaled them to halt. Their posture said all that needed to be said. They would either detain or kill them. Parker glared at each one of them as they circled to his flank and sealed off any attempt to run. He stepped toward the head guard, where he was met by jabbing rifles telling him to stop.
He straightened his back, enhancing his height advantage over the head guard. Overall, the head guard’s appearance was crisp, telling Parker he was a career military man. His hair was cropped short and neat, and aside from the extra stripes along his right shoulder, he dressed in the usual black tunic and pants with red trim of the Aethpisian military.
The man stepped toward him and spoke in his firm voice. "Captain Terry wants you on his transport."
"I don’t take orders from you," Parker barked. "You are my subordinate."
"My title of head of base security says otherwise. You’re under my realm of power. Come with us." He waved his hand.
"And if we don’t, Head of Base Security Sweeney?" Parker read his name tag with a bitter tone, and his gaze cut through the man.
"I’ll detain you by force."
"Detain allies to the Alliance?"
"As far as my orders are concerned, you are traitors. You’re to follow us to the transport ship. Captain Terry is waiting for you."
Parker couldn’t muster any words. Since the start of this war, Captain Terry and he had had a close relationship within the Alliance. Something must be troubling Terry now. His paranoia must have overridden his loyalty to Parker and Sara, or maybe he was protecting the Alliance from something. Had the MSA infiltrated them, and Terry didn’t know who the infiltrators were? He must simply suspect everyone, including his most trusted allies.
"Look, Sweeney," Quartz said from behind. "We can help. Why are you stopping us?"
"Be silent. I’ll speak only with your commanding officer," Sweeney replied. He turned to his guards. "Check them for weapons."
"Don’t be a fool," Parker said. "We aren’t the enemy." He believed it, too. He trusted his squadron with his life, and more importantly, with his family.
Sweeney’s jaw hardened. "You are going to come whether you are conscious or not. How will it be?"
"Let me speak with Captain Terry—"
Sweeney stepped toward him, and fortunately for Parker, simultaneously, the room shook, and a long drawn-out rumble reverberated along the floor. Sweeney staggered sideways.
This was Parker’s chance.
Bending and shifting his feet, making short steps to keep his balance, Parker thrust his shoulder into Sweeney, bull rushing him into the wall on the opposite side of the window. Fists swinging and legs tangling, he and Sweeney wrestled. Parker, using the element surprise to his advantage, had all his weight on Sweeney, pinning him. Infuriated and trapped, Sweeney growled.
He knew the surprise wouldn’t last for long. Reassessing his plan, scanning for any indications of help from behind, he felt the jab of Sweeney palm slam against his chest. He wheezed. Hand-to-hand combat with Sweeney seemed pointless. No doubt, Martian Command had trained him very adeptly. But Parker continued to press Sweeney harder against the wall, using his extra weight to stymie any attempt of the other man to gain advantage over him.
Then…
Quickly, forcefully, Parker grabbed the man’s pistol that was holstered on his right hip. He drew it, pressed it against Sweeney’s abdomen, and said, "Stop."
Sweeney obeyed. Parker turned him around and took a quick glance over his shoulder. "Drop your rifles."
"Shoot him," Sweeney said. "He is MSA."
"I’m not. Terry is wrong, and we’ll prove it."
"By holding a gun to me?"
"Shut up," Parker said, waving at the guards to raise their weapons. They obeyed.
Parker swung his head toward Quartz with an unspoken order.
She collected all the guns. Then he ordered Atalo to handcuff each guard to the railing against the window. He did so.
"What have you gotten us into?" Red Dust said. "I signed up to fight the MSA. Not be a traitor."
"You aren’t a traitor," he said. "We have to prove it."
"Maybe Sweeney is right," Red Dust replied, his young face stricken with horror. "We should talk with Captain Terry."
Parker shook his head. "No chance. We have to prove our innocence. Captain Terry has already found us guilty."
"We are innocent. Our hearing will prove it."
"It doesn’t work that way anymore. He was going to leave us here, and claim we are traitors to the Alliance. I’m sure of it."
"Leave us to die on the base?"
He nodded. "We have to prove our innocence to him."
Scanning the faces of his squadron, Parker knew he had put them in a difficult position with his decision to subdue the guards. He went to speak, but he found no words to express his gut feeling. Captain Terry was going to kill them as traitors, and he had an obligation to the Alliance and his squadron to prove they weren’t. To let everyone know that the Alliance was still strong from within.
Atalo, seeing Parker’s uneasiness, put his hand on his shoulder, reaffirming to the squadron his support for his leader.
Parker smiled, wearily and uneasily, back at Atalo. His squadron didn’t speak further. Instead, they hastened for the hangars, and that warmed Parker’s spirit.
Five minutes later, after blowing past the empty guard station and readying their fighters, the squadron was ready to blast down the access tube and get into the fray. Parker hoped they wouldn’t be too late.
He inserted the launch codes for Quartz, Red Dust, Olympus, and himself. In the next instant, his body pressed against the seat and the ship flung itself into space.
Lunara: The Original Trilogy Page 71