by J. A. Scorch
"Rivera. Fellows. Approaching hanger bay."
"Copy that."
"Roger."
Porter swept down in a wide arc, invisible to the Zeal sensors. He kept his canopy roof to the hanger bay door, spotting the flow of Tritons as they piled out of the carrier. He had to time it just right to avoid smashing into an enemy that could not see or detect his presence.
Lining up the perfect angle, Porter slowed when a message came through from Rivera.
"Porter. Fellows' ship has broken out of stealth. He's in the fold with the rest of them."
"Copy that. I am on a direct path to a hanger bay. How should I proceed?"
A long moment of silence filled the cockpit. "Rivera. I repeat: how should I proceed?" The opening into the bay was about to swallow him whole.
"Porter. Circle back around. We can't risk dropping our payloads out of sync. Fellows ordered his fighters to swarm the bay and get him inside."
"What?" Porter shouted to himself. "They'll all be killed." He moved his thumb back to the comm button. "Copy that. We can't keep this up for too long. Every second we waste is another hundred fighters our people have to contend with."
"Circle back around until I say otherwise. Stay on mission."
"Copy that. Out." Porter imagined the sixty Stalkers Fellows just ordered to die. They would be overrun in a manner of seconds. He checked on Briggs as he circled back around. His wingman had pushed himself out of the radius of the Cyclone with fifty plus fighters on his tail. The view from his rear camera was filled with streaking laser beams, each one getting closer to slicing his ship to pieces.
Just as they were about to overrun Briggs, the Tritons came to a sudden, relative stop and retreated to their carrier, spiraling toward Porter's stealth ship. The comms went into overdrive.
"Porter. Fighters inbound on your location," Briggs said. "The Tritons are no longer taking the bait. Orders?"
With a scan of the entire area, Porter could see the Zeal fighters returning to the Cyclone, heading for his position.
"Briggs. Pursue and harass. We need to keep them busy. Pull back and burn the second they change their minds."
"Copy that."
Porter flew in a long winding circle and made contact again with Alex. "Rivera. I've got Tritons inbound. The Zeal are giving up the chase. I will be overrun in two minutes. What are your orders?"
The Cyclone appeared in his field of view as thousands of Tritons streamed in like they were being sucked into a hole.
"Rivera? Orders?"
Nothing but static washed over the comm. "Rivera?"
"Porter. Get inside the damn hanger. Fellows is dead. We need to drop those nukes. It's now or never."
Kicking into gear, Porter brought his ship around with a quick burn, lining up with the hanger bay as his view filled with incoming hostiles.
"Porter," Briggs said over the comm. "They're on top of you. We can't stop them. You gotta get in there, now."
Without responding, Porter burned his X90S as fast it could go toward the hanger bay, slowing up when he came to the threshold. He punched through the gap, avoiding a collision with a returning Triton by a few meters.
Inside, row upon row of the alien fighters hung from metal claws in the ceiling, all lined up and ready for a fight. The recalled ships began to flow in all around Porter, finding their respective locations in the continuous and symmetrical line of hooks.
"Holy shit," Porter heard himself say out loud as he drifted along the single wedge of the hanger bay. The area seemed endless, yet it was only one section of the entire carrier. What else existed inside the giant beast only terrified him further.
With his nuke armed and ready for drop off, he charged forward, aiming to find the approximate center of the vessel. The idea was to detonate the bomb in the middle and take out the ship with the press of a button. A long, intricate spire stabbed down the center of the Cyclone to what Porter called the floor of the ship.
"Bingo," he whispered.
As he lined up the inner sector in his sights, the Tritons continued to rush back home as if someone had hit a big button to demand they all return. The minor threat of the Andromeda and the sixty fighters it launched had passed. But before Porter could anticipate his next problem, the Cyclone changed the game in less than ten seconds.
"No," he muttered. The hanger bays all began to close, the doors slowly lowering, blocking out the light of the sun on one side. He was too far away to escape even if he pushed the X90S to its limits.
Drifting through the center of the Zeal carrier, Porter stared at the nuke on one of his displays. All he had to do was activate the primary detonator and hit the confirmation button to blow up the Cyclone and everything else inside, including himself. He would never see the light of day, but the mission would be a success.
"Porter," Briggs yelled as the bays almost finished closing. "Port—"
Briggs' signal along with the rest of the world outside of the carrier disappeared as soon as the hanger bays sealed shut. Porter was inside the heart of the enemy with the biggest decision of his life dangling over his head like a knife.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Double vision came and went as Teve found himself back inside the Zeal base. He stumbled through the open door—the Stiltz letting him pass as if he belonged. The amount of the tall metal beasts he had shot and destroyed over the last three years didn't seem to be a problem with the aliens anymore.
"Welcome back, T," X said placing an arm around his shoulder. "I see you didn't go far."
"You don't understand. I needed to come back. I needed to see it again."
X smirked as his purple eyes pulsated in the dull lighting. "I do understand. I understand more than anyone out there: human or Zeal. The Orb is more than a driving force; it is your life."
Teve nodded, his skull pounding with every step taken. "The Orb. Take me to it."
X dashed in front of him. "You are not ready. Your system is still too weak to embrace the Orb's power. If you came within an arm's reach of it right now, your human body would die."
"Why? I want it now. Give it to me."
"No. You are not ready." X pulled Teve by the biceps away from the center of the base and placed him against a post after it ascended from the ground below. A series of tentacle claws came out of the pole and wrapped around his arms and chest, holding him in place.
"Do you want to observe what happens when you face the Orb before you are ready?"
Teve didn't answer as he tried to shake off his restraints.
X marched over to the nearest wall and waved up to one of the claws holding a captured human in place. The arm obeyed and lowered the broken person down to the ground and released their body. The man fell to the floor in an instant, possibly not having had use of his legs in months or longer.
"Get up," X yelled as he lifted the man up with ease. He marched him toward the center of the base. The Orb came up through the purple flooring automatically and hummed so loud no other sound could be perceived.
Teve saw the object he craved and felt every muscle in his body strain toward the perfect, round hovering globe. The raw power it exuded flowed out and into Teve's mind, bringing him absolute pain and pleasure at the same time. He couldn't understand its beauty, yet he didn't care to know why the Orb both hurt and loved him.
X pushed the man along, dragging him through the air a few inches off the ground without effort. With every step, the man shrieked louder and louder, clutching at his skull for dear life until blood started to flow from every orifice possible: his ears, nose, eyes, and mouth all streamed red until the man's yelling stopped. His head hung loosely from his neck, dangling like a broken tree branch. X dropped the body into a heap and faced Teve.
"Do you understand? This man has been here for a week, placing him on the lowest level of transformation. He was not ready."
Teve shook his head, not wanting to accept the truth until a moment of clarity allowed him to ask one question through the darkness. "H
ow did you transform?"
X smirked again when he heard the question. He walked over to Teve and fluttered his razor armor out and back in for a moment.
"We are not all equal, T. Yes, we were led to believe we were all the same spirit, acting as one collective, but humanity can never be one. You are a self-destructive apex predator. Failure is your destiny. Unless ... " X paced around Teve, letting him examine his blade-covered face on each pass.
"Unless what?"
"Unless you accept the beings you call the Zeal into your system. And not just be taken over by their chemistry, but embrace their power and prove you are worthy and pure."
"How could I be worthy? I'm no one."
"Do not disparage your value. You T, have purity. And it's not your blood, your body, or your genetic makeup. It's in your mind."
Teve rolled his head from side to side. "My mind?"
"Your mind is the only thing to get you through the pain of the Orb. Why do you think I was accepted? How can I be here, complete and ready to bring about humanity's destruction?" X grabbed Teve by the chin, his sharp fingers cut into Teve's skin, causing a trickle of blood to leak out.
"I don't know. I don't understand why. Tell me."
X walked back and away, waving a hand to lower the Orb down into the depths. He turned to one of the Stiltz and said nothing, yet an order had been issued by some form of silent communication.
The Zeal soldier left the area and returned a moment later with a human Teve recognized a lot more than the hybrid standing in front of him. The X Teve had spoken to only a day ago, stood by the Stilt with a wrinkled brow, staring up and around the odd space as if it were the first time he had seen it.
"It can't be? I don't understand?"
X dashed over to the former X and pulled him farther into the base. He placed the man down in front of him on his knees. "This is the future. This is the new beginning for your species. Hybrid clones of the chosen few will become the very thing to save you from your own destruction. You, T, are one of the select few worthy of replication. I have studied you through his eyes. I have seen your past and future collide as one. Embrace this now or die here knowing you were worthy of greatness."
The tentacles released Teve and let him drop to the ground. The clone of X moved back into the shadows as a weakness coursed through Teve's veins, making every movement ten times harder than it should have been.
"I am not worthy," he whispered. "I am nothing but a soldier of Earth."
A blade extended from the X's arm and found itself around Teve's throat. "If you are a soldier of Earth, prove it to me. Kill me now or accept death."
Without thought or reason, Teve's mind blocked out the threat and drifted toward the Orb. The glowing sphere connected with his mind and took control of his every thought until only one image occupied his mind: Bradley. He had no way of knowing if his brother was still alive, but at that moment, he couldn't think of anyone else. Visions of Bradley sitting alone in a darkened place full of tentacle claws saturated the forefront of his consciousness.
"Kill me," X yelled.
Teve's mind snapped free and forced his eyes to stare at the clone master in front of him as X held his life in the balance. The next words out of his mouth would be his last, and he was okay with that.
Chapter Forty-Eight
"This is Porter. Can anybody read me? I'm trapped inside the Cyclone."
Static met his words. It had been almost five minutes since the hanger bays sealed his X90S in the Zeal carrier without warning. The nuke stared out at him on screen, waiting patiently for detonation. The device had no other function than to destroy all things within a five-kilometer radius. To deny its capability was a waste of time.
"Come on, dammit," Porter said out loud as he scrambled through comm channels. He tried to send a short-range text message, but the thick walls of the carrier prevented any signal from getting through.
The last of the Tritons fell into place, docked with their designated claws as if they acted as some sort of charging facility. None of the fighters regarded Porter drifting around due to the X90S' stealth modules. He could continue to float inside the enemy ship, invisible and untraceable, for another three hours according to the stealth clock. It was a long enough to make a decision about what to do next.
With the worst problem he envisioned hanging over his head, Porter decided to scan the area in a slow-moving circle to see if there were any possible solutions to his problem that didn't involve dying. The thought of taking out the Cyclone in such a heroic manner sounded good on paper, but the act of actually hitting the button and ending his life felt impossible.
A scan of the ship revealed much of the same. All Porter found were the Tritons in their thousands. The three prongs of the fighters appeared almost foreign compared to the sleek layout of the Stalkers the MAF utilized. He wondered how it came to be that each species arrived at a decision as complex as a ship's design. Humanity and the Zeal were not that different in the grand scheme of things, each fighting for what they believed to be right. Porter knew then in his heart he had to detonate the nuke above all other options.
He found no other obvious ways to drop the bomb and escape, so he activated the next step of the nuke's detonation, readying it for the final press of a button. The original plan was to let it out with a timed detonation while all the fighters were busy chasing Stalkers across space. Since they had all returned, he couldn't risk letting the nuke float out the back of his ship and be destroyed before detonation could be completed.
Porter flew the X90S up to the central spire and settled into a position he deemed suitable for his last mission, lining up his view with a row of perfectly aligned Tritons. The number of these ships he'd blown up on delivery runs seemed insignificant now. Did anything Porter do before this moment matter to the war? He couldn't explain why, but the thought reminded him of Teve. His brother, stuck on a dying planet, had almost become a ghost to Porter. But now, above all other things, he swore he could feel him sitting inside the ship beside him as he drifted through the Cyclone.
Without another thought, Porter came to accept what he needed to do. There was no turning back or easy way out. He lifted the safety lid on the detonator Garcia had built into the Stalker. His thumb hovered over it, ready to start a chain reaction so powerful it would wipe out the entire carrier in the blink of an eye.
As his thumb descended toward the button, a bright flash stabbed into mind, seizing control over his body. His hand stopped as a vision entered his brain.
He was in another person’s body as a man covered in blades held a knife to his throat. The terrifying thought sent a pang of sweat to Porter’s forehead until he realized whose body it was he had fallen into.
"Teve?" Porter muttered. The single word out of his mouth sent him back to reality, back to the detonator below his frozen thumb.
Without another second to delay, Porter pressed the button and squinted his eyes shut. When he opened his eyes, a timer on the screen came alive with two minutes on the clock. He assumed the detonation would have been instant, but remembered the original plan to drop the bomb and run.
A glow from the front of each Triton blinked on as every claw swiveled down into action.
"Come on," he said as fighter upon fighter dropped out of their claws. He thought the final arming of the nuke had set them off until wave after wave of Tritons sped off toward the now opening hanger bays.
"You've got to be kidding me," he said as every door opened at once. Something had spooked the fighters into action, giving Porter a slight chance to escape. With a few furious commands, he shot the nuke out toward the spire, setting it to grab the central column and keep as low a profile as an active nuclear bomb could have.
With the payload out, he punched the throttle forward and burned toward the exit, falling in with the Tritons as they scrambled to leave the Cyclone as if they too knew it was about to explode. The timer ticked away on screen, showing only one minute remaining.
Porter burst out of the Zeal carrier and looped up and away from the doomed ship as fast as possible.
The timer read less than thirty seconds to spare as he wondered how much clearance would be required to escape.
"Porter. This is Briggs. Hope we're not too late."
"Briggs. Thanks for the assist. Clear the area. The payload is detonating in twenty seconds. All Stalker pilots e-burn, now."
"Wilco. We're out of here. Good luck, Sosa."
Applying full pressure on the throttle, Porter depleted his e-burn charge as he felt the rumble of the nuke's blast radiate throughout the X90S' core. The vibration rattled his body to the bone, increasing in intensity every second. He yelled out loud, convinced the blast might still claim him, but the destructive wave subsided as his ship cleared the nuke's deadly range.
With the Andromeda in his sights, a blue glow temporarily lit up the universe as the Cyclone transformed into a radiant ball of destruction.
With this one small act of defiance, Porter's team had managed to destroy a third of the Zeal fleet in a manner of seconds. Cheers broke out over the comm as he eased up his approach to the Andromeda. Once the bright ball of death burned down to fragments of its former self, Porter noticed some Tritons outside of the blast radius drifting in space. The surviving Stalkers swept in and cleaned up the mess left behind. For reasons no one fully understood, the Tritons died the second their carrier exploded.
"You did it," Briggs yelled over the comm. "You crazy bastard, you did it."
"We did it," Porter said. "And you just saved my ass, again."
Briggs continued to celebrate over the comm as the group of twenty-three pilots returned from their successful mission. The losses were considered less than expected.
When Porter climbed out of his stealth ship, he was met with a round of applause by the deck crew and other pilots. Someone handed him a tall bottle of Martian hard cider as the crowd demanded he give them a speech.
Porter stared around at a sea of faces, only thinking about how close he had just come to death. The slightest change in his timing would have ended the mission under different circumstances, especially given the proximity of the Stalker pilots when he hit the button.