The Coming Storm_A Pax Aeterna Novel

by Trevor Wyatt

  Ashley

  Ashley looked at her team. Tira was as calm as could be. She actually looked excited as she flew the shuttle through Udenar defenses, trying to get them onto Galea.

  Lout Sikevic, the big security officer, wasn’t doing so well. His face was pale, some sweat was beading on his forehead, and his knuckles were so white you could almost mistake them for being skinless.

  Adam Cartagena, the other security officer to volunteer, was doing his best not to retch all over Lout, who sat next to him on the bench. His skinny frame became even skinnier sitting next to Lout’s massive muscles.

  Stephanie Boatwright, an ensign assigned as a backup shuttle pilot, but with an extensive martial arts and weapons background, cried out a few times when Tira jerked the shuttle side to side, or when something exploded close by.

  The other three, Joseph Stut, Henry Carter, and Billy Jaxon, were experienced foot soldiers assigned to The Seeker as maintenance personnel. They specialized in hull repairs and laser rifles. They were cracking jokes with one another as Tira bounced them left and right.

  “Easy up there, Ensign, we’re supposed to make it down there without injuries or concussions,” Billy laughed. Tira responded with an exaggerated jerk to the right, bouncing Billy’s head on the shuttle walls. “Hey!” he yelled at her as he rubbed his head. Tira merely smiled, then made the shuttle do a barrel roll to avoid laser fire.

  Flying in near the atmosphere was enough to make them feel the movements of the shuttle. This made for an interesting experience for everyone, especially as Ashley tried to push the comm button. Swearing under her breath, she finally managed to click on the connection to her Hunters. “Powers. Powers, come in.”

  “Powers here.”

  “Powers, you need to get these bastards off of us, or we’ll never make it down.”

  “Ten seconds, Commander.”

  “Make it seven.” She could hear Powers laugh as he ordered Mohamed Sanchez to clear the sky for them. Ashley counted to eight before Mohamed arrived, obliterating the three Bats that were chasing them down. “You’re late, Mohamed.”

  “My apologies, Commander. I had to use the bathroom first.”

  “Number two?”

  “Diarrhea. Ma’am.”

  “You’re a sick son of a bitch, Mohamed. Go take care of those bastards, will you?”

  “As you wish.”

  She clicked off the comm and held back the laughter, but not her smile. Her Hunters were really good at what they did and had learned to joke around with one another as they grew more comfortable with each other. They flew in Jasper and Francois’ honor, and had started to take on a bit of Francois’ personality when they did. He was always smiling, always trying to make someone laugh.

  If you’re not happy, you bring down everyone around you. You must smile, always, it’s just happier that way, he used to say when someone was looking dour.

  Tira flew the shuttle down towards the tiny capital of Galea where the central AI was located in the town hall. “Should be easy getting there,” Tira said as she threw the throttle down, adding even more speed. Three seconds later, they were dodging anti-aircraft fire from the surface.

  “Did you say easy?” Billy yelled.

  “Shut up, Billy!” Tira yelled back as she dodged a missile that exploded a second later. The ground was coming up fast, missiles faster, and the laser fire even faster than that. Tira dodged all but one. One laser blast caught their aft engine, sending them in a downward spiral. Tira and Ashley both pulled back on the yoke as hard as they could, trying to balance out the shuttle and pull it up out of its nosedive.

  “Brace yourselves, we’re going to hit hard!” Ashley yelled as she tried to reroute power. They had about twelve seconds to fix this or they were going to create a decent-sized hole in the ground. Tira pulled on the controls, Ashley practically broke her console hitting buttons, and Stephanie screamed while Adam yelped. Just a few hundred feet above the ground with only a few seconds left, Ashley managed to reroute power to the aft engine and Tira was able to level them out. Everyone let out a deep breath, then shouted again as the shuttle was hit from below.

  “Set this thing down or we’re gonna die.”

  Tira shoved the controls forward, adding speed, then turned it hard to the left and slammed on the brakes. She dropped the shuttle down behind a few buildings, landing between two small warehouses.

  “God damn, I think I got a frickin’ concussion, a whiplash, and bruises on top of bruises. Where the hell did you learn to fly, girl?” Billy laughed as they unbuckled.

  Ashley cut in before Billy could open his mouth again. “Tone it down and cut the chatter. Where are we, Tira?”

  “About five blocks ma’am. But the Udenar are overrunning the area. They know we’re here.”

  “Got it. Load up everyone. Billy, since you like to run your mouth, you get to be on point. Lout, Henry, you two are up next. Then it’ll be you, Joseph and Stephanie. Adam, Tira and myself will bring up the rear. Stick close, but not too close. We don’t want to be caught all together.”

  Ashley grabbed her gear, shouldered the pack Tira handed her, belted on her ammo belt loaded with grenades, and charged her laser rifle. Looking up, everyone was ready. Henry and Joseph were at the door, ready to open for Billy and Lout to head out. With a nod, they opened the shuttle doors and the eight of them started streaming out.

  They could hear Udenar soldiers in the distance, but none were close by. “As little talking as possible, and keep it to a whisper if you do. Move out,” Ashley said in a low tone. Billy took the lead, Lout and Henry a few paces behind. Stephanie and Joseph counted to three, then started after, leaving Ashley with Tira and Adam at the shuttle.

  Ashley counted to four, then motioned for them to head out. She could see Billy just ahead, motioning for Henry and Lout to follow him. They crossed a small street, staying low, and jogged past a small building.

  Stephanie and Joseph crossed when the first three were at the midpoint of the building. Ashley stopped at the corner and glanced around it. Two streets down, a small patrol of Udenar looked their way. Jerking her head back, she motioned for the other two to get low. She mouthed the word patrol and held up four fingers, then used two fingers to point behind her.

  Tira dropped to her belly and creeped to the corner, barely peaking around. She held her breath, then got up and whispered, “They’re looking the other way. We can make it if we’re quick.”

  Ashley nodded and motioned for Tira to go first. Tira looked around the corner, then sprinted across the way, with Adam right behind her. Ashley hesitated for a moment, then ran toward the group. The others were at the end of the building, and Billy motioned for them to catch up.

  “We got problems,” he whispered when the three of them caught up. “Two patrols around the corner, and they outfitted a local truck with a damn machine gun that’s pointed in our direction.”

  Ashley looked around, not seeing anything that could help them, when Joseph tapped her shoulder.

  “Stephanie and I can get up top. Stephanie on that building over there,” he said, pointing at the building behind them. “And me on top of this one. If I’m quiet enough, I’ll drop a grenade or two on them. If I hit it right, it’ll take most of them out and give you guys enough of a distraction to get across. Steph and I will catch up after.”

  The building was only a little over twenty feet up, and there was a ladder leading up, but Ashley didn’t like it. However, she knew that there was no other way to get past.

  Nodding her head, Stephanie ran off to the far building and started climbing. Joseph scrambled up the nearby ladder. Within seconds, both were on top of the buildings and Ashley could see the tip of Stephanie’s sniper rifle rest on the roof. Another three heartbeats went by before three explosions rocked the street.

  Risking a quick look around the corner, Ashley could see what was left of the truck up in flames, and a few Udenar soldiers picking themselves off the ground. Four silent gunshots later,
nothing moved except the flames of the fire.

  “Move, move, move!” Ashley said with an urgent tone. The six of them ran by the destruction and made their way towards the Town Hall. With one block left, Joseph and Stephanie joined them.

  Billy led them to the back of a small store across the street from the Town Hall, then motioned for them to stop. He headed for the corner and peaked around. A gun shot rang out and Billy dropped to the ground, his head almost gone.

  “Fuck! Lout, Henry, Joseph, get to the corner and lay down cover fire. Stephanie, you and Adam get behind that truck over there and see if you can start picking them off. Tira, you’re with me.”

  Ashley kicked the back door of the store and walked in, rifle at the ready. Tira came in half a pace behind her. Gunfire played outside as they made their way through display racks of clothing. The store was empty, and no one was inside. “They were waiting for us to get here. Dammit!”

  “Ma’am...”

  Tira pointed out the windows. Three Udenar soldiers were crouched down, looking as though they were ready to rush around the corner. Ashley looked at Tira and held up three fingers, then two. Tira nodded, took aim, and counted to zero in her head. They shot at the same time, each hitting a soldier in the head, then shot again, putting two holes in the one in the middle.

  Rushing to the door, Ashley could see about ten Udenar grunts, the small brownish-green skinned ones with one large gray one yelling out orders to them. Ashley clicked on her comm. “Stephanie, do you see the big gray one?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “He’s the officer. Take him out.” She clicked over to Joseph. “Joseph, as soon as Stephanie takes out the officer, I want one of you to throw a few smoke grenades, create some cover.” She clicked off her comm and looked at Tira. She wondered how she had come to trust this girl so well, so quickly, but just knew that she did.

  “As soon as the smoke grenades go off, we rush out here and shoot every last one of those bastards.”

  Tira nodded at the same time that the gray one’s head exploded. Then the smoke grenades went off. They rushed out, rifles firing. From their right came Lout, Henry, and Joseph, each of them laying down heavy fire. The Udenar grunts that remained were cut down quickly. Ushering everyone into Town Hall and only waiting a few seconds for Adam and Stephanie, the group went inside.

  “Jeryl?” Ashley said into her comm as she checked her map. The servers’ room, where the centralized AI operated from, was nearby.

  “Status?”

  “It’s ours.”

  Jeryl

  The human brain is a thing of brilliance.

  But still, as Jeryl looked around CNC, it just annoyed the shit out of him. He couldn’t stop thinking about an old quote from Dalai Lama, an old spiritual leader from Earth’s Golden Age.

  We may say prayers when are trying to solve problems we face, but it is up to us to put an end to violence and bring about peace. Creating peace is our responsibility. To pray for peace while still engaging in the causes that give rise to violence is contradictory.

  Jeryl found it funny that he thought of that quote at a time like this. He had tried so hard to end the violent Earth-Sonali war and bring about peace, and yet here he was.

  Still fighting, still at war.

  They hadn’t been even able to make the proper repairs before jumping back into the fight. His ship and his crew were in serious danger. His wife was on the planet trying to gain control of the computers that ran the transport ships. His new head of nav was good, his whole nav crew was good…but Ferriero still needed more experience. Sure, Ferriero had Petty Officer MJ Montrose to assist him, as she had been learning under Docherty…but still, Jeryl was relying on two crew members that still needed more experience under their belt.

  He looked around the bridge. Lieutenant Mary Taylor, an ebony powerhouse that drew everyone’s attention, was trying to monitor communications with the ten remaining Hunters, engineering, sickbay, and him. Her protégé, whom Jeryl had assigned despite Mary’s arguments, was monitoring the comms for Ashley’s team and the rest of the ship.

  Ferriero, who Jeryl knew was an experienced nav officer and was more than capable for his job, was flying The Seeker as best as he could, doing everything he could to keep from getting surrounded by the four Udenar cruisers. He was doing good, but they were still taking damage.

  He couldn’t even think of who his current security chief stand-in was, but he was sure that person was doing his job.

  Actually, everyone’s doing their job well. They’re doing it even better than me, Jeryl thought to himself.

  He felt like he was losing control. He was shouting out orders, helping his navigators see things that they might have missed, trying to point out possible weak points in the Udenar attack, but it seemed as though he was a simple bystander as he went through the motions.

  The doors opened behind him and three more officers came onto the bridge. They were Daniel and his tech team, the ones that would take over the AI that controlled the transport ships on Galea. As soon as Ashley and her team got control of the computers, the three would jack into them remotely and send them to all the different places they were needed.

  He was trying to save as many civilians and rebels as possible. His orders were to glass the planet, to obliterate the entire rock, to blast the thing with particle beams and torpedoes until there was nothing left of it.

  He was trying to save the civilians, but there was going to be a lot of nature that was going to be destroyed and lost. Galea was home to flower that they still hadn’t found anywhere else in the galaxy, and it was going to be destroyed. Animals, vegetation, and everything that these people had put their hard work into for so long was going to be gone—just like that.

  He directed Daniel and his team to the consoles designated for them. They logged in, brought up the screens they needed to keep track of the automated systems that reloaded the Hunters as they came in and out of the hangar, and brought up secondary, or tertiary, screens that would allow them to take over the AI for the transports.

  “Captain! Shields are flickering out. Something’s wrong with the power grid!”

  “Mary!”

  “Engineering’s trying to figure it out sir, but they can’t find the reason.”

  MJ glanced back, “Sir?”

  “What is it MJ?”

  “Sir, I have experience with this from when I was on the Washington. I can fix it!”

  “What do you need to do?”

  “I need to get down to Engineering, then into the primary power cycler and…”

  “Do it!” Jeryl interrupted her. She jumped out of her seat and raced for the lift.

  Jeryl jumped into her seat and took over the weapons systems. It had been a while since he had done this, but this was where he had started long ago when he was first on a ship. Controls had changed a lot since those days, but he knew the basics, and that was all that was needed at the moment.

  It was weird—but not being in the Captain’s seat and not being in charge calmed him. He felt relaxed despite the adrenaline. He was relieved despite the insanity happening around him. He found himself focused despite the myriad of things that demanded his attention. It felt good to not be in charge—to be in control of just one thing. It felt damn good.

  Mary’s voice killed that feeling. “Captain, I need you to see this.”

  Jeryl got up and went to her station, and Mary pointed at her helper’s screen; he had managed to tap into Ashley’s HUD and had turned on her viewer.

  They were in atmosphere but looked to be crashing.

  Jeryl’s heart jumped into his throat—he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think. Everything disappeared except for the screen. If anything happened to her, he didn’t know what he would do.

  If that shuttle crashed, not only would the mission be a total waste, but the love of his life would be dead, or so badly wounded that she’d die before help got to her…

  Jeryl shook the bad thoughts off from
his head and forced himself to concentrate on what was going on. He could see Ashley’s fingers pounding furiously on her console, most likely trying to get their shuttle under control. Then, as the ground got closer and closer, the shuttle stopped dropping and changed direction. The display moved like she had just let out a deep breath and it swiveled to look at Tira, who was smiling as she flew the shuttle.

  “Jesus, they’re both insane.”

  Mary shook her head and chuckled slightly. “It’s like they’re both adrenaline junkies.”

  “Yeah. How’s MJ doing with the shields?”

  “She’s gotten them stable sir, but we’re dropping fast.”

  Jeryl grunted and turned back to the viewscreen. One of the cruisers was down, three giant holes in its hull. Another was limping along with only one engine, but the other two were continuing their bombardment on The Seeker, staying as far away from one another as possible.

  Two of the Hunters were destroyed, another was out of commission, and a fourth had lost one of its pilots. Out of the ten Hunters that had gone out, five were still fully operational while the other three had some level of damage.

  On the bright side, of the two dozen raiders that had started the attack, only seven remained.

  Jeryl went back to his chair and called up his screen. Shields were under thirty-five percent. They were dangerously low on torpedoes, and he had to save those for the planet. Both starboard side rail guns were gone.

  “Ferriero, I got a stupid idea,” Jeryl said as he looked up from his screen.

  Without taking his eyes from his screen, Ferriero turned his head slightly. “What’s your idea, sir?”

  “Battering ram.”

  That made Ferriero and everyone else on the CNC turn to look at Jeryl.

  “Not an actual battering ram, but we floor it and rush one of the carriers as though we’re going to ram it, then break off at the last second, hitting it as hard as we can with as many of our laser cannons as possible, along with the particle cannon.”

  Ferriero’s eyes lit up and he smiled, turning back to his screen. The security officer mumbled something under his breath.