“Sun,” she murmured and the hair on her arms rose in fear. “If I can see the sun at my back…Oh Lord! Back, back, back!”
She killed the engines and made a fast turn, kicking in the landing thrusters, then screamed in pain, trying to resist the sudden change in g-force. Abruptly, the fog disappeared and she saw one of the matte black shells of the Worm’s armor from the corner of her eye. The light of the Sun behind her was the only warning she was about to crash into the Worm’s hull.
“Proximity alert.”
“I know!” she yelled, hitting the main thrusters.
“Warning, ten meters,” the dull male voice said. “Five meters.”
“I said I know!” Carter closed her eyes, gripping the flight stick tight as she grimaced.
“Two meters. Warning, jet blast damage.”
She expected to hear the crashing sound of metal hitting metal but nothing happened. Carter dared to open one of her eyes and looked at the flight screen. The proximity warning was off, showing the distance as ten meters and increasing with each second.
“Yes!” she screamed. “Suck it, you—”
A damaged Eye appeared right before her, coming out of nowhere through the fog and hitting the Avenger hard on the right side, breaking off a wing, before it hit to the hull of the Worm. Carter’s fighter rolled uncontrollably on its axis. Alarms rang over the deafening engine noise of the unstable fighter, madly begging her to abandon the craft. The flight information panel flickered with static and whenever the image of her Avenger appeared, every system was marked in red.
Carter ignored the alarms and the swirling clouds around her, fixing on the flight control computer, but the screen flickered and died. She looked into her left mirror and caught a glimpse of her thruster disappearing into the black fog through the cracked glass. Now, her only hope was to be recovered by a friendly craft.
“Mayday, Mayday!” The ship cleared the fog, and Carter tightened her lips and slowly sank back into her seat.
She was headed toward one of the Spiders a few kilometers away, filling her whole vision like a hulking nemesis. No one would be able to reach her in time this close to another ship. Long before that, she would either be shot down or she would crash into the enemy capital.
Carter closed her eyes and thought of her home down in Los Angeles; her family enjoying the sunny day in the yard with her Labrador running around and her father heating up the barbecue. She dreamt of having a cold beer and chatting about how boring her day had been on the base.
She smiled.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
TRUTH HURTS
Ray jumped from the rails to the second platform under the service bridge. His left arm burned like the fireplace they had back home—when he still had one—but he endured the pain and followed the trail of Caius’ blood all the way to the engine room. Shortly after he left the crew quarters, the Deviator came out of hyperspace and everything went havoc. The ship shook like a wild cradle and Ray heard explosions and deep thumps. He guessed it had been an hour. I must be close.
He saw the engineering teams in the core chamber, trying to contain the damage from the enemy cannons but for each patch they completed, five more ruptures appeared. The sudden jump into the fire zone had caught the crew off guard.
Ray tried to ignore the screams coming from around the ship. He saw a marine trapped under a fallen rail, two levels below him, but there wasn’t time or a way for him to reach the poor kid. If he’d had a gun, he’d end the marine’s pain there and then. Instead, he sent a bitter prayer to whatever god was watching this farce and asked mercy for the marine’s soul, focusing back on the trail. His own arm hung awkwardly but he knew Caius was hurt as well. Please let it be an even fight.
Ray approached one of the ventilation shafts. Huge fans spun tens of meters below him, throwing off his balance in their wind. He grabbed the right railing and something stuck into his palm. He raised his hand and saw the red fluid dripping on the sidewalk.
A sudden spike of pain hurled him face down and he hit his nose hard on the metal floor. Ray ignored the pain and instinctively rolled to his side. The sound of metal meeting metal rang in his ears a moment later, the fierce blow scattering sparks.
Caius held a metal pipe in his hands, bloodied by his grasp. His right leg had been torn apart by the bullet Private Meadows had landed, but somehow the man was still standing. He looked at Ray with maddened eyes and jumped.
Ray pushed his legs against Caius’ chest, catching him off guard and throwing off his balance. The agent dropped his weapon and it bounced once on the platform before falling into the huge fans below, which trashed it into tiny pieces.
Ray tried to stand up and take the advantage but the agent hit Ray in the stomach with a powerful kick with his healthy leg, holding the rails to prevent himself from falling. The heavy impact made Ray throw up.
Caius firmed his grip on the metal baluster and pulled himself to his feet, looming over Ray. “You think you are the hero!” he screamed, spitting out each word. “A shining beacon of salvation!” he kicked Ray again, ignoring his balance.
“At least,” Ray choked out between coughs, “I can look myself in the mirror, buddy.”
“Hah!” Caius wiped the blood off his face with the back of his hand and stood up again, “What do you know of honor?” He tried to keep his balance as the ship trembled with yet another blast. “What do you know of sacrifice!”
“You call killing an eighty-five-year-old man ‘honor’?” Ray snapped. “If there was a sacrifice, it was him doing it, not you.” He was hissing with every breath and coughing blood. This is over.
“He was a sacrifice,” Caius said, his eyes glowing with tears. “One of many.” He raised his head and looked around the huge turbine, his torn cloak waving in the wind. “I served for years. Years!” he cried out. “They took everything from me and asked for more. And for what!”
Ray saw the madness in Caius’ eyes. The man’s soul was shredded. Ray didn’t know his story—not that he cared at this point, but the man’s words and actions were of different worlds. “You don’t have to do this,” he tried to reason.
“Oh, Mr. Harris, but I do,” Caius replied. “Sometimes, to save one, you have to sacrifice a million.” He kicked Ray and whispered “I am sorry.”
“You’re—” Ray coughed blood. “…kidding, right?” He tried to wipe the blood from his mouth. “Buddy, you’re really in la-la land.”
“She was laughing,” Caius whispered and kicked Ray in the stomach again and again, crying out “I am sorry Marianna,” with each hit.
Caius kicked with both his legs, seemingly unaware of the pain. His right one worked more like a flail than a leg but he looked like he didn’t care. He grabbed Ray by the throat and raised him into air.
“He said he would save her,” Caius whispered, staring into Ray’s eyes with a bitter smile. “He said he would. I trusted him and I saw her laugh again!”
“I…” Ray felt the lights dimming. He clawed the air for a breath but his vision was already turning black and white. Caius was still mumbling about some promise he’d been given but his words were slow motion moaning in Ray’s ears. With a final effort, he tried to break free but the assassin had inhuman power in his arms and Ray was already at the edge of death.
“He never told me of the price and I never asked. I did not care, Mr. Harris. She was all I had.” Caius smiled, “And she laughed!”
This is over.
CHAPTER FIFTY
HOME: PART IV
“All right people, we have our orders!” the bearded man said, wiping the dirt from his face with an equally smeared worn-out cloth. “Set the coordinates, take the shuttles and head for the flagship.”
“I worked my rump off to earn Lula,” another man protested over the radio. “She’s my bread-and-butter!”
Several others agreed, none-too-enthusiastic about letting their hard-earned livelihoods be used as artillery shells.
“Look out the
window Gary, you fool!” the man shut down the complaints. “Do you think that thing will let you mine the shines? God knows you’ll be food before the next payday.”
Gary couldn’t argue the logic and fell silent. They were all paid by the Weiner-Johnson Mining Company in Berlin, Earth. “All right, I get it Mike,” he said reluctantly. “No Earth, no salary.”
“Good, now set the coordinates and get your tail off that rusty boat of yours! We survive this, they’ll call us heroes. You can have five Lulas then!”
The hundred and twenty mining craft stood on the far side of Earth, watching the battle from a distance with their holds full of highly volatile, raw niobium.
Their orders were to set their ships to jump near the enemy fleet, and then abandon ship by any means necessary. The captains had no choice in the matter—it was coming from the top—but most of them lent a hand willingly when they saw the situation.
“All right, there she goes,” Mike said, pushing off from the Apple Juice in a small shuttle craft. “See you on board that big girl. Deviator was it?”
A few minutes later, the whole mining fleet was a ghost town, ships awaiting their jump timers finishing countdowns. One by one, the mining craft disappeared with small bright flashes, to reappear randomly near the enemy fleet.
The explosions were blinding. The SAM sites over the Moon targeted the abandoned ships, firing their missiles at the fuel-loaded craft. When the first ship exploded, it took out three unsuspecting Baeal destroyers, scattering debris in every direction. One of the ships’ husks changed its course with the power of the blast and ended up crashing into a fourth one, crippling it, the merciless mortar fire from the Garrett finishing the job.
“Yee-haw! You saw my Lucy take down that thing?”
“And my Jack-O-Lantern!”
Soon, the enemy fleet flashed with bright orange explosions, chain reactions caused by the raw niobium burning the enemy fighters and bombers alike, like flies caught in bug zappers.
***
“Admiral, the miners have started their run,” Lieutenant Jong informed Rebecca.
“On screen.”
The blasts looked marvelous to her eyes. Each mining craft hit by a missile had a punch much more powerful than what the Kronos warheads could bring. As she expected, it wasn’t enough to penetrate the Worm’s shields but the strategy proved sound, delivering a serious blow to the enemy ranks.
“How is the evacuation going?” she asked, not addressing anyone in particular.
“Seven hundred liners took off so far,” a female officer answered. “Close to three million people, ma’am.”
Rebecca closed her eyes. Earth’s population had come somewhat under control since colonization of other planets became feasible, but over twelve billion people still lived on the rock.
“How much more can the civil fleet launch within the next hour?” Rebecca asked.
“Five thousand or so, ma’am,” the woman said.
Rebecca shook her head slowly in acknowledgement. It was the hard truth; they had a chance to evacuate one in every five hundred citizens and then, the planet-killer would be close enough to take down their home or the Worm would be in range to do whatever it had come to do.
“How many mining ships jumped so far?” She looked at Ga’an.
“Twenty-seven,” the Ancient answered, keeping his eye on the tactical map.
“Reprogram the rest to jump near the planet-killer and ignore the mother ship. If we cannot take the Worm, let us take down the next ugliest thing.”
Ga’an bowed his head, passing the orders through the console before him. “We must retreat to Grid Two.”
“That is too close to the planet.”
“There will not be anyone left alive to care about it, Admiral Conway.”
Rebecca nodded in defeat. “Do it.”
Each grid was two thousand kilometers in length squares and grid one was Earth’s higher orbit. The fleet was battered. More than two-thirds of the dreadnoughts had been destroyed and they had just over two thousand fighters and bombers left. The defense drones were doing their part, but their firepower was no match for the enemy craft, only creating a distraction for the Consortium pilots to get a better shot. Still, it was something.
“Deviator, this is the Galileo,” a man’s voice echoed through the speakers. “How can we assist, Admiral Conway?”
Rebecca gave a relaxing sigh. “God, I am so glad to hear your voice, I could kiss you, Thomas.”
“I may keep you to your word after this, Rebecca,” the man chuckled. “We received your message at the edge of Carpathian Nebula. Came as fast as we could.”
“Better late than never. How many wings do you have?”
“The standard twenty squadrons of fighters and two squadrons of bombers,” the man replied. “Oh, and the Blade will be here shortly.”
“I will definitely keep my promise. Position the Galileo near grid three, together with Admiral Ashton, and follow our targeting solution.”
“Roger that, Galileo out.”
It probably wasn’t enough to turn the tide, but two additional super-dreadnoughts would give them time to evacuate more of the planet’s inhabitants.
“Ma’am, the mining ships are near the enemy planet-killer.”
Rebecca gestured to show it on screen. A few of the mining fleet had jumped to the old coordinates—the captains had disembarked and were already warming up their jump drives when the override coordinates were sent—but more than eighty craft were near Pendar’s destroyer.
One of the SAMs reached a nearby mining ship and the niobium on board flamed with a massive explosion. The chain reaction made the whole fleet of mining ships flare bright white, illuminating the darkness of space like a bonfire. For a second, it looked like Armageddon as the flames grew to match the size of the dark cloud surrounding the Worm, even challenging the bright light of the Sun.
The flames died down a few seconds later and Rebecca felt the cold sweat running down her chest, freezing her heart when she saw the planet-killer standing in one piece.
“Mr. Jong?”
“Nothing’s happening!” Lieutenant Jong reported.
“Come on,” Rebecca whispered. “Come, on.”
“Ma’am, nothing—”
The sudden brightness filling the bridge was blinding. The huge arachnid ship’s legs separated forcefully from its hull and towering flames erupted at the junctions. The massive parts scattered, hitting the other Baeal craft at random, damaging everything on their path like rogue bullets in ricochet.
“Yes!” Rebecca screamed. The crew watched the destruction of the planet-killer in joy, trying to live the moment as best and as long as they could. Some hugged each other, some smiled. Some had tears shining on their smiling lips. Even Ga’an had shown somewhat of a reaction, narrowing his eyes.
Their excitement was short-lived; the deep, mechanical warning sound of the mother ship firing its weapon reverberated on the bridge and a second later, another bright flash, much closer to the super-dreadnought, filled the main display.
“Report!” Rebecca barked, holding on to a nearby rail as the ship shook with the force of the blast.
“Ma’am, it was the Garrett,” Lieutenant Jong said.
Rebecca’s head dropped. With every positive step they managed, Baeal returned with five more.
“Ma’am, it is Chief Simmons,” an officer called.
“What is it, Chief?”
“Ma’am, I have Captain Samir and Sarah Davis here,” the man said. “They arrived on a transport under Garrett’s banner. His team is in real bad shape but he says the package is safe.”
“Roger that, send him to the bridge.” She ended the call. At least, they had the stone and she sent a silent prayer to whatever god was listening. I do not think any are, but still…
A violent explosion rattled the ship. The emergency lights went down, leaving the bridge dark. Cables hung from the ceiling, their ends flaring with rogue sparks, and several termina
ls were on fire, filling the bridge with smoke. Cries came from every corner of the bridge but it was impossible to see where.
Rebecca found herself on top of a staff sergeant, his neck broken. The man looked like he’d been crouching when she landed on his back. Such a young face.
“Report!” she tried to say but started coughing blood, the smoke surrounding her making her eyes water.
Two large hands came out of the smoke and pulled her up. Ga’an carried her to the far end of the bridge where it was least-damaged. She saw at least a dozen still bodies. The door of an elevator had burst outward as if they’d blown up a grenade inside. Rebecca saw one of the cartographers—Lieutenant Commander Morris—almost split into two, trapped in a collapsed walkway, hanging by his chest from the upper platform.
“What happened?” she asked after another spasm.
“We were hit by the mother ship,” Ga’an said. “The Blade tried to cut the beam and took the main blow, saving us.”
“The Blade?” Rebecca asked but Ga’an simply shook his head. “All right,” she tried to lean against the wall, coughing blood, “we need…a game changer, Mr. Ga’an.” Rebecca coughed blood. With a last effort, she grabbed Ga’an by the collar. “Find…Mr. Harris!” her words dying in her mouth as she could no longer keep her eyes open.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
YOU DIE WITH YOUR CHOICES
One of the turbines below the platform exploded with a deafening sound, flames rising to where they stood and the force of the blast throwing them apart.
Ray clung to a pole, desperately trying to catch his breath. The sudden oxygen filling his lungs dizzied him, returning his senses in a flash. The blast had broken one of the support chains, and the platform teetered.
Below the metal grills, one of the fans was broken, the smoke filling the floor. The flames washed up the levels like waves of an angry ocean, crisping everything up to the level below the one they stood on. He saw the trapped marine two levels down, drowning in the orange wind, burning in pain. Eventually, soot would cover the whole turbine and they would run out of oxygen anyway.
Shadows Bear No Names (The Blackened Prophecy Book 1) Page 35