by Jake Bible
Yet, as she sent a wave of plasma bolts into a passing quad while simultaneously sending her skiff into a power dive to escape the six disruptor missiles on her tail, she couldn’t help but notice there was a pattern to the quads’ attack. The quads were good, but they were too textbook. It was as if the Estelian pilots refused to take any risks, refused to fight on instinct and go for the kill even if the odds were against them.
“Demon?” Valencio called out as she flew under one quad then up and over another, banked her skiff to the right, curved around a third quad, then let her last missile fly into a fourth, ripping it in half and sending it careening into a fifth. “Demon, you seeing what I’m seeing?”
“We’re getting our twats handed to us,” Zenobia replied.
“No, the battle pattern they are using,” Valencio said. “It’s classic second tier tactics. We would have been teaching our cadet pilots the same thing in a week.”
“Well, it’s working,” Zenobia said. “They’ve got me cut off from the rest of the squadron. Every time I try to get back to the cadet pilots to help out, my way is blocked.”
“I see it,” Richtoff stated.
“Of course you do, brown-noser,” Zenobia replied. “Fuck!”
Valencio watched Zenobia’s skiff get clipped by a plasma bolt and six quads descend on her position.
“I’m coming!” Valencio yelled, but she wasn’t.
The quads around her own skiff closed ranks, forcing her to do an overhead roll and change directions immediately or get cut in half by a wall of plasma bolts.
“Demon!” Valencio yelled.
“Hey, boss? We got company,” London said. “The platforms’ ETA is five minutes, tops.”
“Not now, London!” Valencio shouted. “I need to get to Zenobia!”
But she could see it was too late. The Estelian quads had crippled Zenobia’s skiff enough that the vehicle lost its advantage. Without the ability to fly around the quads, the fighter skiff was easily separated from Valencio and Richtoff, forced out in the open where the quads no longer had to take caution when they fired for fear of hitting each other.
It was over in a flash as three missiles and a sun’s worth of plasma energy obliterated Zenobia’s fighter skiff.
Valencio screamed over the comm until her throat was hoarse. She pushed her thrusters to full and roared at the quads that had killed her comrade, sending plasma bolt after plasma bolt at them. Quad after quad exploded, the fire extinguished by the vacuum almost as soon as it erupted from the broken metal. But no matter how many she killed, there were still more. So many more.
“On your three!” Richtoff yelled over the comm. “I got it! I got—”
Richtoff fired two missiles, destroying the two quads that were coming at Valencio from her side and below. But in her haste to save her commander, she missed the three quads that attacked her from above.
Valencio screamed again and slammed her fists against her control panel as Richtoff’s skiff was ripped apart. She took out one quad, but couldn’t engage the others without being destroyed herself. She angled her skiff in a long arc, hoping to draw some after her so she could backtrack and send them into each other. None of the quads took the bait.
“Where the fuck are you going, cowards?” Valencio shouted. “Come back and fight me!”
“It’s the platforms,” London said, his voice choked with emotion. “They’re going after the platforms in case the weapons are online and can take out the warships. I won’t be able to get there, boss!”
With the quads changing their targets, Valencio was able to pursue them and pick one off here and another off there until she was back in the thick of things with her cadet pilots. She tried not to focus on the fact that only eight cadet pilots were left and instead focused on the fact that of the Estelian warships that punched into the area only one battleship and two destroyers were left.
Her cadet pilots had done her proud even if the destruction was caused more by a lack of training and careless flying than actual skilled attacks.
Valencio flew in front of the eight fighter skiffs and took the lead.
“We concentrate on the battleship first,” Valencio said. “If we can focus our fire on the aft section, we could rupture the containment around the thrusters’ power cores and get them to detonate. Our plasma cannons are too weak on their own, so when I fire I want all of you to aim for the exact same spot. You hit that spot enough and we’ll take the thing out. Understood?”
The responses from her cadet pilots were less than enthusiastic, but there was nothing Valencio could do about that. She didn’t have the luxury of coming up with a rousing call to arms speech. She probably didn’t have the luxury of living through the hour.
Finding the spot she wanted, Valencio pushed her thrusters to full then aimed straight for the battleship. She waited until she knew she would hit her target perfectly then unloaded everything she had. It took less than forty seconds for her skiff’s weapons system to be completely depleted. Valencio pulled up on her flight stick and hoped that the cadets could at least come close to where she hit.
Valencio banked hard and changed her trajectory so that she was aimed directly for the bridge of one of the destroyers. Her only weapon left was her own skiff and she knew that she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t give the same sacrifice so many of her cadet pilots had already given.
“Get ready to kiss my albino ass, you doubleganger fucks,” Valencio snarled. “Fire all you want, but you won’t get to me in time.”
The destroyer’s plasma cannons took aim and glowed red. The vacuum erupted in a blaze of plasma bolts, but Valencio was surprised that they didn’t come from the destroyer. The plasma cannons on the destroyer in front of her were ripped apart as the platforms’ plasma cannons hit their mark. It looked like the platforms had their weapons systems on auto already.
Valencio barely got out of the way of the deadly barrage and could almost feel the heat of the plasma bolts on her ass as she rolled her skiff over and dove down under the destroyer, watching as flames erupted from its belly. The warship slowly broke apart, a series of small explosions sending chunks of metal into the vacuum.
Chunks of metal that came right at Valencio.
“Fuck,” she swore as she flew left, flew right, climbed, dove, flew right again, all in order to get out of the growing sea of debris coming off the destroyer. “Fuck!”
A sparking strut and hunk of an airlock clipped Valencio’s left wing, sheering most of it off and sending her into a spiral. She couldn’t tell which direction was which and soon her world was a swirling mass of stars, Mars, platforms, debris, and warships. Valencio squeezed her eyes closed afraid she would vomit in her helmet.
Then it stopped.
She felt her skiff lurch and shudder and suddenly she was no longer in the fighter, but flying through the vacuum, strapped to her pilot’s seat, her cockpit hatch exploding away from her, leaving her completely exposed and unprotected. Completely exposed and unprotected in an ocean of battle debris that threatened to shred her to bits at any second.
“I got you!” London yelled. “Just hold tight, boss!”
Valencio tried to orient herself, tried to see from which direction London’s cargo skiff was coming, but all she saw was junk and wreckage. Then her visor dimmed to almost black as the battleship far above her exploded. Even the vacuum couldn’t kill the flames fast enough, the detonation was so great.
“Good for you, cadets,” Valencio whispered. “Your lives were not in vain.”
“Right behind you, boss,” London said.
Valencio tried to look over her shoulder, but her seat was yanked back so fast that her chin smacked into her chest and she saw stars.
“Fuck, London,” she gasped. “You almost broke my fucking neck.”
“Sorry,” London said as Valencio was reeled into the open cargo hatch of the skiff. “Sometimes I don’t know my own strength. It’s my abs, you know.”
Once secured in t
he cargo bay, the hatch closed and Valencio felt the skiff pressurize around her.
The hatch from the cargo bay to the skiff’s cockpit opened and Valencio quickly unhooked her harness and jumped up on shaky legs. She stumbled her way into the cockpit and plopped down in the co-pilot’s seat.
“Thank you,” she said, her hand squeezing London’s shoulder. “I mean it.”
“No problem,” London said. “What is a problem is that the platforms have gone dark. They aren’t firing on that destroyer anymore.”
“Shit,” Valencio said. “Then it’s up to us.”
“I’d love for it to be,” London said. “But this baby is out of ammo. No plasma, no missiles, nothing.”
“Then our aim better be good,” Valencio said nodding to the destroyer far above them. “We’ll only have one chance. If this destroyer gets past the Perpetuity then all is lost. It can set its core to critical and point straight at the Earth. Even if it explodes before impacting with the planet, it’ll end up poisoning the atmosphere. Humanity will have to hide underground for a hundred years to stay alive.”
“So, what you’re saying is we have to kill ourselves to stop the Estelians,” London said. “Two lives to save billions.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Valencio replied.
“You sure?” London asked. “You could be saying we should punch out of here and go find a nice, quiet colony to drown our sorrows on. I know of a few bars in the Truglio System that would never even bat an eyelash at the fact that two healthy, service age folks like us aren’t out fighting for the cause.”
“You’d rather hide and die like a coward?” Valencio growled.
London sighed. “No, of course not. I just thought I’d throw the idea out there. You’re my CO, so if you’d wanted to hide and die like cowards then I’d have to follow your orders.”
“Take us at the destroyer,” Valencio ordered.
“Aye aye, boss,” London said and hit his thrusters.
He aimed directly for the Estelian destroyer’s belly, his lips mouthing a silent prayer over and over.
Then the destroyer flickered and was gone.
“No!” Valencio said. “It’s punched! Follow it! Take us to the Perpetuity now!”
“I can’t!” London yelled. “I don’t have the power to punch all the way. We’d only get halfway.”
“Then take us halfway!” Valencio growled. “We’ll refuel at the supply rocks!”
“By the time we do that the destroyer will already be at the Perpetuity,” London said.
“Just do it!” Valencio shouted.
London stopped arguing and engaged the interspatial drive. Nothing happened.
“Why aren’t we punching?” Valencio asked.
“Drive is down,” London said. “We don’t have the power to punch out.”
Valencio did have the power to punch the console in front of her, which she did over and over until she couldn’t move her arm.
“You’re going to need ice for that,” London said, staring at Valencio’s limp fist. “There’s some in the back. You go get it while I try to hail the Perpetuity.”
Valencio didn’t move, just held her fist to her chest while London tried to get the Perpetuity on the comm.
“We’re jammed,” London said. “The station’s communications system is locked down tight. I’m trying every protocol I know as well as all the sub-channels. Nothing is working.”
Valencio nodded towards the platforms that still floated above Mars. Some were taking severe damage as wreckage crashed into them, but one had gotten clear and continued its orbit around the red planet.
“Take us there,” Valencio said. “Get me to the main comm console and I can override the Perpetuity’s jam. I can’t do it from here, this skiff doesn’t have the right interface. Get us there now and we may have time to warn them of what’s coming.”
London nodded and sent the cargo skiff flying out of the wreckage and to the only whole platform left.
Fifty-Seven
“Why is this here?” North asked as he followed Dornan from the server tower shaft then to the hatch that opened onto the hidden communications room. “Has this always been here?”
“It’s been here since Commandant Terlinger took over the Perpetuity,” Dornan said, his hands on the wheel of the hatch. “He knew the right time would come when we could release the truth to the galaxy and let humanity know the real war it has been fighting.”
“Couldn’t he do that at any time?” North asked. “Why wait?”
“Because he needed to be able to prove the claim,” Dornan said, as he spun the wheel and the hatch popped open. “Now he can.” Dornan looked at the hatch then at North. “What you are about to see and learn will destroy everything you know. It will destroy everything all of humanity knows. There will be chaos, there will be rioting, there will be mass deaths. But if we can get through this as people then we will truly know freedom for the first time since the war with the Estelians began. Possibly for the first time ever. Ready?”
“Just open the hatch,” North said. “I’m ready.”
Dornan pulled the hatch all the way open then stepped into the small room. He stopped short and North bumped into him as he followed.
“What?” North asked then saw what Dornan was staring at. “Oh. Seeing that does destroy everything I know.”
Before them, seated at the console was Wendt, dressed only in a pair of boxers.
“Hey,” Wendt said, holding a wrench above his head. “I’m really hoping you guys aren’t here to kill me. But if you are, just know I’ll take at least one of you down with this thing. I’m in maintenance. I know how to use a wrench.”
“What the hell are you doing alive?” Dornan barked.
“He was with Linklater,” North said. “This is what Link was trying to tell me. It’s why he wanted the key too.”
“You survived the gas,” Dornan said. “Good for you.”
“You sent that shit at us?” Wendt snapped then jumped up from his seat, ready to swing the wrench at Dornan’s head. “You fucker!”
“Whoa! Same side!” North said, jumping between the two men. “Calm down!” He turned and looked at Dornan. “Did you really try to kill them?”
“I didn’t know what they were up to,” Dornan said. “I couldn’t take the risk of them finding this place.”
“Well, we did,” Wendt said. “And I’ve already figured out you have a data loop transmitting and receiving continuously. I just don’t know what’s in the data.”
Dornan watched Wendt for a second then nodded. “You’re about to find out.” He held his hand out to North. “The medal, please.”
North handed him the medal and Dornan tried to step past Wendt, but the maintenance chief wouldn’t move.
“Wendt, let him by,” North ordered.
“But how do you know this guy isn’t an Estelian spy?” Wendt asked.
“There are no Estelian spies. There are no Estelians,” Dornan said. “It’s all bullshit. All of it. We’ve been fighting each other for centuries upon centuries all so the people in power could keep their place. War is profit and profit must be had at all costs. The ones in control never had to sacrifice, they never do. What was the death of billions upon billions when it meant they could stay in charge and their descendants could stay in charge?”
“Bullshit,” Wendt said. He looked at North. “You fought out there. You killed Estelians. You know they’re real.”
“I killed doublegangers. Things that looked exactly like humans,” North said. “No one I know has ever actually seen an Estelian in their raw state.”
“Because we wiped them out in less than a decade of war. The combatants on both sides of this war for nearly two thousand years have all been human,” Dornan said as he held up the medal. “This will unlock all the information to prove that.”
“All humans?” Wendt asked. “Why? Why would we do that?”
“Because once the war was over, once we’d beaten the
Estelians, the outer colonies wanted more,” Dornan said. “They had banded together, learned to organize and work as one. Back then the conditions were horrible. People were basically slaves sent out to mine and reap whatever raw materials they could from the outer systems. After fighting for humanity’s freedom, they realized humanity was them and they needed to keep fighting.”
Wendt shook his head. “I… I don’t…”
“The CSC created the idea of doublegangers,” Dornan sighed. “The outer colonies’ rebellion was classified as alien corruption. The enemy now looked like us and they had to be stopped at all cost.”
“But the colonies weren’t stopped,” North nodded. “They kept fighting.”
“Oh, no,” Dornan said. “They were wiped out pretty quickly. They didn’t stand a chance against the CSC. But the powers that be saw a never ending chance to keep the profits going. If the enemy looked like us then the war didn’t have to ever end. As long as humans bred then there was a perpetual supply of fighters. For both sides.”
Wendt eyed Dornan for a second then gripped his wrench tighter. “That doesn’t hold up. In two thousand years, someone from the colonies would have told us. They would have exposed this. That’s too many people that knew the truth.”
“But no one knows the truth,” Dornan snapped, brandishing the medal in Wendt’s face. “The colonies don’t think they’re fighting the CSC anymore! They think they are fighting the Estelians that took over Earth! They think they are the last hope for humanity’s survival! What I hold in my hand will unlock the data loop and send it all out into the galaxy! The truth that there are no Estelians will finally be revealed and humans will stop killing humans!”
“You’re being a bit optimistic,” North snorted. “I know humans. They’ll always kill each other.”
“But not because of a grand, constructed lie,” Dornan said. “If people decide to kill people then at least they’ll know it’s people they are killing, not some extinct race of aliens that haven’t existed for a very long time.”