by C. C. Ekeke
He dropped the gun from limp fingers. The plan had been to stun Gaorr and the others. But ungovernable hatred had overcome him. My brother. My only brother.
Taorr turned and retched out his morning meal. After heaving his guts out, he stood up, feeling thoroughly empty. The sky shook once more. Taorr braced himself, nearly thrown, until the skyquake ended. They were growing worse.
Taorr— Zojje began.
“Not a word.” The Ttaunz refused to think of his former brother any longer. Gaorr was dead to him in every sense. He walked over, lifted Mhir’ujiid’s limp body. Still breathing, mercifully. “Thank you, Zojje.”
Of course. Zojje sounded so sad for his former protégé. Taorr rejected the warm emotions, carrying Mhir’ujiid past the bodies toward Zojje’s shuttlecraft. “We need to leave Faroor before it tears itself apart.”
Agreed, the Kudoban decided. Come quickly.
Chapter 30
“Can you believe this?” Khal wasn’t looking out the mainscreen like the rest of the group.
Habraum didn’t care for what his intel officer believed after the predicament he’d created.
Regardless, this could be mission-related. So Habraum acknowledged him. “Believe what?”
Khal gestured at the viewscreen. “The mass exodus.”
The Cerc folded his arms and watched countless traffic veins rising from Faroor’s greyish-brown surface. Thousands of civilian ships occupied each spacelane, normally insignificant. Faroor was the nexus for the Galactic Union’s two busiest trade routes. Except none of these spacelanes had inbound traffic.
Habraum knew the skyquakes and lightning storms and strange disappearances were devastating Faroor’s city-states. UComm AeroFleet Valkyrie-Class light frigates and TDF Supremacy-Class heavy frigates buzzed around the departing veins of space traffic, maintaining order despite the massive space traffic. Besides a few impatient travelers, Habraum saw no accidents onscreen.
“By the Spheres,” Khrome muttered, equally awed. “Everyone’s leaving. Not that I blame them.”
“Nor do I,” said Solrao. The Ibrisian, her orange skin hairless and segmented, used Star Brigade’s military clearance to circumvent civilian traffic. Now Phaeton had escaped Faroor’s gravity well to head for Qos.
“Five hundred six thousand, nine hundred fifty-three civilian ships are fleeing Faroor’s northern hemisphere,” Marguliese added, at Habraum’s side.
“Of course you counted,” the Cerc quipped. Tyris, V’Korram, and Cortes were down there somewhere. Habraum prayed to the Holy Gemini they remained unscathed.
Beyond Faroor, the Cercidalean observed Qos. He’d once considered it dull-looking. Now, the small moon burned against the twinkling dark—a second sun to Faroor churning with yellow and red light. On the navicomputer readings, Habraum spotted a plethora of UComm Victory-class Hammerjacks with their large ball-shaped heads surrounding the moon, never getting too close nor letting civilian ships near. Already there had been reports of vessels damaged from whatever energy Qos discharged.
Tension infected each member of CT-1. Even the normally imperturbable Marguliese was rigid as they headed for this unknown and possibly unwinnable engagement.
The other Habraum, reclining at a station in the back of the bridge, looked indifferent. “Doesn’t matter where they go.” He pointed at the lone object dominating the viewscreen. “If we don’t stop that.”
“Good pep talk,” Khrome snarked. “You’d be great with sports teams.”
All eyes shifted to Faroor’s moon, Qos, aka the Zenith Point, ripples of energy pulsing across its surface. Somewhere within that structure was their true enemy. Habraum hated entering this engagement with such sparse data. But after what he’d experienced, Star Brigade had no choice.
A quick conference with Admiral Hollienurax and other JSOG officials had given him the green light, despite clear misgivings. “We’ll send two Tatankas with you,” the Galdorian admiral had insisted. “If that moon really is as dangerous as you say, you’ll need the backup.”
Habraum agreed. Hopefully the reinforcements would make some difference. He glanced over navicomputer readings from his captain’s chair’s armrest. Two bulbous Tatankas trailed behind the Phaeton, both AeroFleet Brahma-class battlecruisers dwarfing the Star Brigade ship. Their jobs were simple: provide backup in destroying this Zenith Point after CT-1 dealt with Aut’ala.
“Just say when, Nwosu,” said Hera Michelman, captain of the Lionheart, macroms ago. “We’re ready.”
“Likewise,” Marshol Lua, captain of the Janus, had added. “Glad to help another AeroFleet brother.”
The other Habraum was ranting doom and gloom. “Nowhere in this universe will be safe if the Dreamer fully merges with the Zenith Point.” He shook his head with that well-trimmed afro, a weird sight for Habraum. “He cannot, CANNOT jump into the past. From what I’ve heard of Aut’ala, his thirst for power is unquenchable. With the Zenith Point at his command, he won’t stop at ‘fixing’ the Farooqua’s fate.”
“We get it,” Khal rebuked, raising a hand to stress his point. “Ease off the space opera melodramatics.”
The other Habraum replied with a venomous glare. “Easing off is why your whoring endangered Star Brigade’s mission. Don’t presume to lecture me, greenhorn.”
Khal turned brick-red and looked away.
Habraum swallowed a chuckle. The lad needed to hear that.
If Lily doesn’t survive… He shook his head, refusing to accept any outcome besides Cortes’s safe rescue.
Several macroms passed as Qos’s churning radiance loomed larger on the mainscreen. CT-1 had gone over their skeleton of a plan. The only thing now was entering the Zenith Point and finding this Dreaming Farooqua. Until then, they had to wait.
The waiting before missions were some of Habraum’s favorite times. The conversations with his fellow Brigadiers could be illuminating, life-changing, sometimes leading to deep lifelong friendships. His conversations with Sam had over the years always gone deep, divulging secrets that neither had told anyone else.
He looked to this alternate reality version of himself, similar yet so divergent. Who was he before being recruited by the Particulate?” Maybe a peek into his mind would explain the hardline approach to everything.
“What do you have to lose,” Habraum asked, “where you came from?”
The other Cerc studied him a long moment with hard, hazel-gold eyes. It was the same look Habraum himself gave when debating what he should tell strangers.
His other self turned back to the main viewscreen. “Two sprouts,” he murmured.
I should’ve had two. Habraum swallowed. That loss, over a year ago, still stung. “No wife?”
The other Cerc shook his head. “Never works out with my line of work.”
“Which is?” Khrome inquired, drawn to the conversation.
The other Habraum gave Khrome a dispassionate glare. “In my universe, I fight for the Resistance against the tyranny of the Kedri-Korvenite Alliance and their Thulican associates.”
That grabbed everyone’s attention. “Wait…” Habraum’s brain grinded to a halt. “In your universe, the Kedri and Korvenites are allies?”
The other Habraum nodded. “The Korvenite Ascendency and Kedri Star Imperium are near equals in size. And the galaxy has suffered under that unholy alliance.” He frowned at the surprised reactions. “Not the case around these parts?”
“The Kedri? Correct,” Marguliese replied, arching an eyebrow. “The Korvenites? Not even marginally.”
“Huh.” The other Habraum scratched his head, befuddled by this.
“No wonder you hate Thulicans,” Khrome muttered.
Korvenites ruling their own empire? Habraum whistled. The notion of a parallel yet alternate universe fascinated him. Roads not taken. Different choices made. He longed to know more, but the chime of Phaeton’s readings demanded his attention. He saw Qos dominating the viewscreen. Its brilliance filed the bridge, jets of bright yellow and deep red lash
ing out across the black of space like whips.
Habraum turned to his other self. This whole plan hinged on him. “What now?”
“Follow the coordinates,” the other Cerc directed. “Then fly right inside.”
Habraum waited for more. “And?”
“We find the Particulate. He’ll know what to do with Aut’ala.”
Marguliese observed the other Habraum through narrowed blue eyes, her distrust plain to see. “That sounds far too rudimentary.”
The other Cerc smirked at her. “The best plans sometimes are.”
“That remains untested,” she countered coldly.
The other Cerc stopped smiling.
“What matters,” Habraum interrupted before he could angrily reply, “is finding this Particulate, yea? Good.” The Cerc didn’t wait for a reply from either party. “Solrao, take us in.”
As they drew closer to Qos’s gravity well, Khrome was transfixed. “Shut. Me. Down.” He was surrounded by floating holoscreens at his workstation, flashing with statistics. “Temporal and spatial energy levels are unlike any I’ve ever encountered.”
“Wait,” Solrao’s dozy voice sounded alarmed. The Ibrisian turned in her seat, white and red concentric eyes bulging with concern. “Habraum—”
Habraum turned. “Yes?” He looked sideways at the other Habraum, who had replied simultaneously.
Khrome chuckled, a metallic racket rumbling from deep in his chest. “That was inevitable.”
Solrao grimaced. “Apologies. My Habraum,” she pointed at the Cerc. “I’m detecting higher than normal radiation on the side of Qos where we need to be.”
Habraum’s eyes narrowed. “Take us there.”
The Phaeton rode on Qos’s orbit—running into a firefight between several warships.
Habraum leaped to his feet, quickly assessing the back-and-forth flashes on the viewscreen.
Thirteen ships, five of them Victory-Class UComm Hammerjacks with their long bodies and ball-shaped heads against eight warships of unknown origin. The Cerc had never seen their model before, sleek and jagged with multiple dagger-like edges, nearly as dark as space compared to the gunmetal grey of the Hammerjacks. Definitely not some foreign invader, from Habraum’s assessment. But why attack UComm? The firefight lit up the black around them, which in turn was dimmed by the increasing yellow and green churn from Qos’s increasingly agitated surface.
“Abdullah. Khrome,” Habraum ordered. “Give me something on those hostiles.”
“Definitely aren’t Union ships,” Khal answered from his station, speaking for the first time in a while. He appeared cowed by his recent humiliation. “No broadcast of their origin or affiliation.”
“They’re masking up their energy trail pretty well,” Khrome muttered, his noseless face a mask of frustration. “And any data on their ship’s tech. I’m thinking a defense contractor.”
“Same here,” Habraum grumbled. Oh, rogguts. After watching the battle for half a macrom, the five UComm destroyers were visibly holding their own against the eight attackers. But by the enemy’s numbers and devastating arsenal, the eventual winner was unclear. The other Habraum gave him a warning look that said, stay out of it. The Cerc ignored him. “Michelman. Luo. Are you both seeing this?”
“Yeah,” Michelman replied angrily over the coms. “Heading over now to provide support.”
“Likewise,” the Bhuun captain added. “Stay on mission, Nwosu.” Onscreen, both vessels rushed toward the conflict, the burn of their flight trails leaving ripples.
“Seven on eight,” Khal said. “Seems like more even odds.”
“No doubt.” Habraum sat back down on the captain’s chair. “Khrome, make sure our engine can handle whatever that moon is pumping out. Sollie, take us down to the coordinates our guest provided.” Phaeton turned from the firefight and closed in on Qos, skimming the surface. Jets of scorching yellow leaped from the surface at Phaeton. Solrao weaved and looped around each one. Her gaze focused on the naviconsole and mainscreen, totally dialed in to keep them in one piece. Habraum smiled. Still one of the best pilots in or out of AeroFleet.
“Sir,” Khal’s voice broke his reverie. “Detecting five more ships around the set coordinates. Smaller but similar to the larger warships. They are…” Khal gaped at his readings. “Siphoning energy from Qos.”
The other Habraum gaped. “What?”
Habraum kept calm. “Onscreen.” The mainscreen showcased a quintet of dagger-like ships in circular formation, silhouetted against Qos’s blinding surface. “The larger ships are a distraction,” he muttered.
“This is parallel to that Faroor energy plant,” Marguliese noted, tossing her ponytail over her shoulders.
One ship broke from formation, spitting a flurry of searing energy bolts at the Phaeton.
Solrao craftily zigzagged around the volley.
Khrome looked scandalized. “They just fired at us.”
“Yea, I was there.” Habraum grimaced. “Solrao, engage.” He turned to his alternate universe counterpart. “You much of a pilot?”
The other Habraum eyed him as if he’d gone mental. “Not remotely.”
Certainly not like me. “Sit tight.”
Solrao barreled in at an angle to meet the other ship. She dipped down, then pulled up over its torrent of energy blasts. “Fire.”
Marguliese, at Tyris’s workstation, complied. Phaeton peppered the dagger ship’s shielding on starboard. The shields lit up with minimal damage.
“I detect weakened shielding on the other side of the ship. Direct the ship there,” Marguliese said.
“Handled.” Solrao came in at an angle, attempting to loop around. The other ship, wise to the act, retaliated with nasty volleys of rapid-fire. Habraum watched the moves and countermoves intently. Good as Solrao was, he could see many better approaches to this battle. Let her work, the Cerc reminded himself. The other ship unleashed a thick white beam that sent Phaeton reeling.
“Shields at eighty-three percent,” Khrome called out.
Solrao then played possum, as they called it on Old Earth, making Phaeton appeared more damaged than it was. Their jagged-shaped adversary, bristling with glowing batteries, closed in for the kill.
Then Phaeton sprang to life. Marguliese needed no order to relentlessly hammer the weak points of the ship’s shielding. The other vessel tried to zoom away.
Solrao stayed on them until Phaeton’s blasts shredded through shielding and then hull like woodpaper. The hostile burst apart, the vacuum quickly snuffing out the smolders.
Habraum beamed. “Top marks, Sollie.”
“INCOMING!” Solrao cried. Several potent blasts rocked the Phaeton, shaking the bridge. The four other ships siphoning off Qos advanced. Solrao tried overshooting them, and got cut off by walls of red bombarding fire. Phaeton’s shielding was strong, yet a dozen blasts shaved off another fifth of them.
The Ibrisian veered away in another direction, only for churning jets from Qos below to shoot upward and block her path. Phaeton was sandwiched.
The Ibrisian panicked, steering wildly through the opposing forces. “Can’t get through—”
Habraum had seen Solrao traverse hairier encounters in Star Brigade and AeroFleet. But these past several orvs, her piloting seemed off. No time to pep-talk her through this.
He instinctively rose and took the copilot seat. “I got this, Sollie.” The Cerc immediately pulled closer to Qos’s churning surface and banked hard to starboard, shooting them away from the four ships. He juked around three towering jets of light, further from their coordinates.
“Where are you going?” the other Habraum objected.
“Shhh,” Habraum scolded, clicking his tongue. One hostile had the stones to follow, which he’d been hoping for. Divide and destroy. At Habraum’s side, an embarrassed Solrao wrung her hands with two opposing thumbs on either side.
Their lone pursuer closed in. Habraum u-turned with a kick of speed, then again to face the attacker’s rear. “Now!” Phaet
on’s photonic discharges peppered the hostile’s rear shields enough to make the larger ship wheel around.
But Habraum was already soaring Phaeton under the ship’s belly, unleashing saber torpedoes. Those dimmed the other ship’s shields. Phaeton looped back and hurtled in the other direction, peppering the ship’s topside to rupture the hostile’s shields. Before Habraum could finish, a spray of blistering light spouted from Qos, causing him to recoil. His adversary was less fortunate, sliced in half and spiraling in two separate directions.
“Rogguts.” Habraum shuddered, veering away to face the remaining three vessels.
He turned Phaeton around and bolted again, betting on at least two following.
The bet paid off. Two ships climbed in pursuit. Habraum soared higher and higher, zigzagging around weapons fire and jagged torrents shooting out of the Zenith Point’s surface.
“What is he do—” Khal began.
“Silence yourself,” Marguliese snapped.
Just when Habraum gained enough distance, he made a tight U-turn and plummeted. “Khrome, increase forward shields. Maggie, light these squits up. Keep one salvageable enough for UComm to investigate.”
And Habraum plunged toward the two ships, both unloading blistering volleys at them.
The Phaeton shivered from a couple direct hits, but the shields absorbed the brunt. Habraum would rather avoid too much damage, though. The Phaeton blasted back, finally puncturing the shields of the nearest hostile ship. It veered away from the onslaught, but not from Phaeton. The Cerc t-boned the ship, the resulting tremor nearly sending everyone on Phaeton’s bridge flying.
But the brute-force attack did the job, driving the other ship into its counterpart. The lower ship attempted to dodge, but got clipped at the nose. It went spinning away—and got impaled by a brilliant gold-yellow fork. The jet-black void snuffed out yet another explosion.
Two ships left. A smile tugged at Habraum’s mouth. He rose up to intercept the first ship hurtling toward open space. It responded with a flurry of searing blasts, trying to circle and attack the Phaeton’s port side. Its companion then rose up, unloading four longsword tracker torpedoes.