by Lee Guo
“He’s still breathing, ma’am!” the ensign called out. “Help me get this off him!”
“Will do!” Vier got up. Every part of her body hurt like hell. She limped to where Captain Shenks lay. Shenks... She stared down at her friend’s body. She couldn’t believe it. He’d always been there for her. When she’d been captured by Black Geary’s pirates, he had defied orders by the admiralty and rescued her. Shenks...he had done everything he could do to push her career further. Shenks...He had to get through this! Just like she’d gotten through all her troubles with his help!
She tried to lift the equipment off his body—to no avail. “Help!” she cried.
A third crewman came. Ensign Saeda. He was big...bigger than most. With his help, the trio lifted the gigantic heavy piece of metal off.
Vier stared down at her friend.
Shenks groaned. His torso had been shattered. Blood ran everywhere on his uniform. A pool of blood collected around him.
“Help me carry him! Get the medics in here!” Vier yelled at the top of her lungs.
“Admiral!” Sensor Lieutenant Fredericks said. “The enemy fleet has reached our disruptor platform’s range. We’re firing!”
Supreme Battlecruiser Usha'Tera
Bridge of Light…
Hal-Dorat watched in amusement as the puny human defenses readied their primitive nadion pulse technology at his warships. Useless! He eyed his sensor displays as all fifty of his Ga ships entered the human’s nadion disruptor range. The disruptor beams sped towards his big feline warships. They crashed into his shields, and...nothing! They splattered against matter that was light-years above anything these species had ever encountered. His warships’ shields, for the most part, held.
Hal-Dorat Al-rim laughed, his big toothy grin curling his feline-lips. He had seen it all before, and it amused him that once again, another species struggled against death and yet, they would join so many others perished.
Then, he thought better about it. There was no humor in laughing as thousands of beings died...only a sense of duty. Duty to his sovereign. He felt...satisfaction, instead.
Maybe one day, the Great Commander would see him befit for a different type of battle, against a different type of Pra? One that could fight back?
This...was like fighting newborn kittens.
He watched as the first of these kittens’ missile waves came closer and closer to his ships’ shields.
There were thousands of these missiles from these Pra, but he worried little. With the technology that this primitive race had shown so far, he very much doubted these missiles could do anything against his shields, let alone his armor. They might prickle him, but his fleet was a mighty beast, the best that the Great Commander had. And him? He was the Great Commander’s most trusted lieutenant.
This entire engagement was a show of force, demonstrating that nothing these Pra had could withstand the Great Commander. If any of these Pra could escape this battle, he was sure they’d report what had happened here to their specie’s leaders. Surely, when such news reached those ears, the entire species would surrender rather than be obliterated?
Still, Hal-Dorat had met several species in his experience—species that never surrendered—despite the devastating odds. Hal-Dorat had been forced to wipe out those species. He certainly hoped that wasn’t the same here. He hoped these Pra would soon understand reason and bow to the Great Commander’s will.
Then, suddenly another part of him actually wanted this Pra to be stubborn and stupid. It would mean he could garner more battlefield victories and become more respected in the eyes of the Great Commander.
No, thought Hal-Dorat. That was a senseless desire. No amount of battlefield victories against bare kittens could garner respect. It would be full-scale slaughter, none of which would amount to anything but routine dirty work for him. It would be a mere test of his operating procedure, not his intellect, or his ability to persevere.
Hal-Dorat sighed, one paw twisting his whiskers. He hoped that this battle would be finished soon. He wanted it to be done with. One day, he hoped he would face a real enemy. An enemy that could withstand the blows of the mighty fleets of the Great Commander. That would be the day.
That enemy may only be the Ga Empire itself. Maybe the Great Commander would one day fight another rival clan, one worthy of his skills and abilities. It had happened before, but that was before Hal-Dorat had reached his post as the Great Commander’s leading lieutenant.
He shook his head and groaned. He wished he’d been there for that, to command great navies against worthy opponents, but he had only been a mere Skra then...not a Subjugator as he was now.
He returned his attention towards the battle taking place before him. He hissed and licked his cat-lips.
Routine dirty work, indeed...
Battlespace…
Twelve hundred human fusion-warheaded missiles sped through space towards the invading fleet. The alien warships fired off their own version of anti-missile countermeasures, taking down a third of the missiles before those same missiles smashed into the shields of the invasion force warships at half the speed of light.
Alien shields flashed as white-hot detonations splashed against them. For the most part, they held. The shields took in the full blow of the nuclear detonations.
Out of fifty warships, only one of the alien ships had its shields fully wiped out, and only because it took on a relatively large number of nuclear missiles compared to the rest. This lone Ga warship had its outer hull cratered with explosions, but its armor was truly light-years ahead of humanity’s ability to inflict damage. Its crew, for the most part, remained safe.
When it was all over, the alien fleet continued heading inward with bloodlust.
Orbital Station Meerlat-01
Command Room…
“Help me stop the bleeding,” Doctor Hayes yelled.
Shenks’s body lay on a stretcher, and medical crews were all around him.
There was crying and moaning everywhere in the room.
Chaos.
There weren't enough medical crews to go around, Vier thought. But luckily, the captain of the space station had priority over the others.
Vier gazed momentarily at the work being done on her friend, then realized she couldn’t do anything to make the situation better for him. For now, everything was up to the medics and God. She headed back to her command chair. “What’s the status on our first missile wave, lieutenant? Did we get them?”
“No, ma’am,” Fredericks replied. “No...”
Vier stared at the main battlemap and sighed. The situation looked impossible now. It looked like she would need more than miracle against these new aliens. “What’s the damage? Tell me.”
“Our missiles broke the shields on one of their warships and scratched its outer hull. The rest are undamaged. They are heading towards us with no change in acceleration, ma’am.”
Vier brought her hands to her face. Desperation. Lack of hope. She had never faced these odds before. Judging from everything she knew, her remaining warships would be utterly destroyed when they entered weapons range of those alien vessels and whatever god-forsaken weapons those had.
She stood like a lone pebble within a sea of disaster. In this moment, she was caught in the process of decision making. She worried that she might make a mistake and that future generations would forever remember her for it. But then, she weighed the facts together and knew she’d be judged correctly because she was acting on what she knew, not what God knew. Who was she kidding? She had no choice. Any sane person would do what she was about to do. “Lieutenant Browder?”
“Yes, ma’am?” the communications officer said.
“Order a general withdrawal. All ships. All fighters are to head to the outer system and try to dock inside any hyperspace capable ships they can find.”
“Ma’am?” one of the officers asked.
“I know what you’re going to say, Lieutenant. Our warships do not have the acceleration a
nymore to outrun those alien warships. But we have to salvage as many of our warships as we can. The best case is a general withdrawal. We can’t fight them, can we? Hopefully, several of our ships will make it back to Betelgeuse.”
“Yes, ma’am. But—”
“No buts, Lieutenant. I know we’re supposed to defend the system and the civilian population against any hostile attack, but God knows we can’t defend against that. Central command will understand my decision and if not, I’ll take the blame. There’s no point in sacrificing innocent lives and crew in a battle we cannot win.”
The lieutenant nodded.
Vier turned towards her com officer. “Browder, order a general evacuation of the space station. We’re all gonna try to make a run towards the hyper limit.” She turned her attention to the room and shouted, “Everyone! Get out of here! That’s an order! Any evacuation shuttles that make it to the hyper limit is to head towards Betelgeuse at maximum speed. Lieutenant Seetch?”
“Yes, ma’am?” he answered as his dust and soot covered face turned her way.
“Take the remaining five thousand missiles and attack the alien warships. However, do not use the preexisting priority targeting orders. Try to ram as many of those missiles onto a single enemy warship...as many as possible. We know for a fact that fifty missiles per enemy ship won’t do any damage past their shields, so try two hundred or three hundred per alien ship. Let’s try to take out as many of their ships as possible, however few that might be.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Admiral, what do I tell CAG to say to the fighters that are heading towards them, right now?” Browder asked.
“Tell them—good luck, may God be with you. Full withdrawal. Any fighter that can make it to a hyper capable ship should do so. “
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Out! Everyone, out! Get to the evacuation shuttles!” Vier yelled.
The evacuation alarms suddenly sounded. Lieutenant Browder’s overworked voice filled the entire space station. “Priority A Evacuation procedures! Priority A Evacuation procedures!”
The entire room thundered with sound as officers and ratings abandoned their posts and headed towards the exits. The commotion brought a mixture of bittersweet feeling to Vier. She had learned to love this command center, for she had been the sole controller of it for the past year. Now, she would probably never see it again. She eyed the 3D displays all across the room, the fires, and the crewmen helping injured crewmen get out.
Goodbye...
Despite all the commotion, the ash-faced Vier limped over to where her friend Shenks lay on a stretcher.
The medical staff still surrounded him, but one of the nurses respectfully gave way to her presence.
“Well, Anton,” Vier said, looking down at her barely conscious friend. “Looks like it’s just you and me and the rest of the universe, again. We’re gonna make a run for it. We’ll make it out of this alive and in one piece, we will, like always...”
Human Drop Fighter 22, Wing A
Cockpit…
“Good luck, everyone. Make it out alive. The admiral wishes you all the best of luck and may God be on your side. Michio out.”
“You hear that, D?” Brigum tried to cheer up his copilot. The cockpit’s flashing instruments and displays were all that separated him and his love interest. “CAG has called off the attack. We’re not going to die after all. We’re going to make a run for it.”
“I’m too—drunk to see the good either way,” Darcy’s slurred voice replied back in his helmet. “Should I be relieved?”
Brigum laughed. “Well, if there’s any way to die, it’s best to be drunk.”
“You drunk five beers, too. I got you to do that. I’m quite proud of it. Changing course, 327 mark 215. Happy?”
“Gorgeous,” Brigum mouthed.
“What?”
“Let’s see... Those aliens are firing some type of anti-fighter countermeasure at us. It’s like a miniature ship-killer missile but it’s not. Sensors can’t make heads or tails of it. There you go! One of those alien warships fired another one. Another.”
“Who they aiming for?”
“I can’t tell for sure. Distances between our fighters are too small. It could be any of us...or all of us. I don’t know what these missiles can do.”
“We’ve got the state-of-the-art ECM suite.”
“Nothing’s state of art when facing aliens with God-like technology, babe.”
Darcy was silent for a while. The silence in the cockpit made it nauseating. “Who’s coming with us, Brim?”
“About twenty other fighters are also heading in our direction. That slow moving freighter you picked that’s about to hyperlight transit seems to be an attractive target.”
Darcy went silent, again.
Both of them knew the odds of them making it out of the system was small. The enemy could just fire a missile at the human freighter and boom, the freighter would be gone, and all the fighters heading towards it would be stranded inside the system. Fighters were not equipped with hyperlight technology. That type of bulky equipment couldn’t be carried on small crafts. Usually, a carrier conveyed fighters in between systems. But there was no carrier in this system. They had launched from an orbital space station, a place they couldn’t return to.
This time, Brigum broke the silence, “Well D, if there’s anyone I’d want to be with, it’s you. I couldn’t think of a better person to spend my last moments with.”
“D-don’t get sentimental, Brim. We’re not dead yet. You and I have much more time together. I’m the best flyer in the parsec, remember? Alcohol might dim my feelings, but not my skills.”
Several minutes later, Brigum observed that one of the missiles was definitely heading towards his group of fighters. The com chatter in between the fighters sounded noisily in his head. One voice was saying all the fighters should split further apart. Another voice said that if the fighters closed themselves together, they would stand a better chance at knocking the missile out with their combined countermeasures.
A third voice said one of their fighters should go attack the missile before it touched the group. But nobody volunteered.
In the end, the voices were split. As a result, some of the fighters tried to distance themselves as far as possible from the rest. Other fighters huddled close together to attack the missile when it came.
Brigum opted to be as far away as possible.
As the missile came closer and closer, it veered towards the densest group of fighters. Before even reaching the range of the countermeasures on board the mark nine fighters, the missile detonated.
For one moment, everything was fine. The next moment, all electronics everywhere in the cockpit turned off. Suddenly, his helmet display blackened. He couldn’t see through his nanoscreen anymore, and he couldn’t hear the electronic chatter from the other pilots. He was in complete darkness. He took of his helmet.
The cockpit was in pitch blackness. None of the cockpit displays were on.
“D?” He could hear the sound of Darcy’s helmet unlocking as well. “D?”
“Brim?”
“Good, you’re okay.”
“That was some sort of EMP. All my controls are gone. I can’t see a thing. Switching on emergency lights.”
Suddenly, the cockpit glowed blue.
“Can you reset the cockpit controls?” Darcy asked.
“Trying.”
Several minutes later and no avail. They were dead in the water.
“We’re running on the remaining oxygen,” Darcy said. “As far as I can tell, the oxygen recycler isn’t working. Nothing is. We’re drifting in the direction of the freighter but it’s only our momentum.”
Silence.
“I’ll keep trying,” Brigum said. For the next few minutes, he tried everything he knew about the mark nine fighter to reboot the cockpit controls, but nothing worked. “How much oxygen we got, D?”
“I don’t know. Whatever is left in the spare oxygen p
acks.”
Silence.
More time passed. Eventually, Brigum said, “I can’t do it, D. I can’t get the cockpit controls working. They’re all dead. Everything is dead. I can’t get us out of here.”
Darcy was silent.
Brigum sighed. He couldn’t believe it. So this was how he would perish, not in a flare of light against pirates but in suffocation. He wondered how the other fighters were doing. What was Gerry doing, now? And Slim? And Pack? Were they all in the same situation as he—isolated from the universe in a pit of death with time slowly trickling away?
The seconds ticked. It was only a matter of time...
All was silent in the cockpit as Brigum tried the same thing over and over again, to reboot the electronic systems. Nothing. But he kept trying and trying...
Supreme Battlecruiser Usha'Tera
Bridge of Light…
“They run, subjugator.”
“As expected,” Hal-Dorat replied. “We will soon chase and kill each of the fleeing units. However, all lance commanders, follow shield wall procedures for now. Wait until the Pra’s main missile arsenal has been depleted before chasing their warships down. Proceed.”
“Yes, subjugator!”
Hal-Dorat grinned inside his interface tank. As expected, the Pra ran instead of meeting their deaths head on. But no matter, they would all die. They did not have the acceleration to evade his warships. However, by some sheer luck, one or two of those warships might escape. His battle doctrine wasn’t perfect by any means, but he intended to kill as many of them as possible.
He eyed the battle display with precision. Something did disturb him. He saw the five thousand missiles aiming at his warships. Something about those missiles gave him pause. They were clustered in a very odd formation, and if he wasn’t careful, he felt he could actually suffer some minor damage. “All lance commanders, deploy phase nets. Shoot those missiles down.”
He remembered how much minor damage one of his warships had suffered as a result of being overwhelmed with missiles. He hadn’t lost a single crewman in that encounter. But against a missile wave that was four times as large as the previous one? If the Pra were smart, they could very well target only a few of his warships with a much larger number of missiles.