by Trevor Wyatt
The tempo of the battle seemed to slow down. Everyone was enthralled by the destroyed ship that has come back to life—as if the dead were coming back to life.
And then The Ghost began to fire.
“Evasive maneuvers!” Jeryl blurted, out of habit.
A second later, he realized he was the one at the navigations station. He twisted the controller, sending The Seeker into an unholy dive. As the vessel trembled terribly at the exertion and the CNC officers tumbled through the air, Jeryl fought the wave of fear that rippled through his mind.
Suddenly, the open channel descended into chaos. Everyone was talking at the same time. The pilots were jittered by The Ghost, while the boarding shuttles of The Ghost Fleet seemed to have rallied around their flagship, emboldened by the Vessel of Death itself.
Shit! What next?
“We’re taking heavy fire!” one pilot screamed through the comm, and then was silenced by a heavy explosion.
“We lost him,” shouted Guillermo. “We fucking lost—”
“I’ve got enemy bogey on my six!” another pilot cut through the chatter. His voice carried a definite terrified edge, such that made Jeryl shiver, even as he brought The Seeker around.
“I can’t shake him off!” the pilot continued.
Jeryl felt his skin crawl with a coldness.
That’s just a kid in there, he thought at the voice.
BOOM!
The screen flared yet again as another Hunter was raptured in a sphere of fire and debris. Another pilot gone.
“We need an attack plan, Captain!” Ashley cut through the haze that was forming in Jeryl’s mind. “Kaine is laying waste to our forces. We need to do something.”
We are doing something, Jeryl wanted to shout back. We’re fighting!
But even as he romanticized about that, he knew that Kaine and The Ghost’s presence had left him mentally incapacitated.
Jeryl’s first mistake was to have taken control of the helm, when Ferriero, the navigations officer who was especially skilled, was well capable of flying the ship into battle. Also, by slaving the weapons control to the navigations console, he had relieved Adachi Tomoe, the tactical officer of duty.
Jeryl had two highly trained officers standing by and practically useless.
What commander leaves two of his best officers out of a dog fight? Yours truly, apparently. Fuck!
Jeryl was beginning to realize that he had let his fear of Kaine control him. The assumption was that Kaine was helming The Ghost—but what proof did he have of that?
It was all his almost arrogant notion that Kaine thought him worth a dime to personally want to finish him off.
Shit!
Jeryl needed to stop thinking like a pilot and start thinking like a fleet commander. But he wasn’t about to relieve the weapons and tactical consoles. He didn’t want to seem unstable to his CNC crew.
“All Hunters fall back and regroup around The Seeker,” Jeryl commanded.
“Roger that, Captain,” Powers replied.
“All fleet vessels, arrow formation,” Jeryl said. “We’re going to punch a hole through The Ghost fleet. Their strength is in their tight formation. I want to keep them scattered and uncoordinated.”
“Divide and conquer, eh?” one of the captains in the fleet asked.
“Damn right,” Jeryl replied.
Jeryl saw on the main viewscreen that his orders were being executed with finesse. The Hunters were falling back with grace and taking outlying boarding vessels down as they did. Until now, none of the transport vessels had been successfully boarded, and Ashley had skillfully led the convoy to a defensive position behind the Armada fleet.
“Fleet report!” Jeryl said.
“We’ve lost a third of our Hunters, sir,” a reply came.
“The Seeker’s, or the Armada fleet’s combined?” Jeryl asked.
“The Seeker’s, sir” replied Adachi, who was monitoring the battle from a secondary tactical console in the CNC. “We have a few damaged starships, but none has been destroyed. The Ghost fleet has taken a minor beating, but they’re still strong.”
“In other words, we haven’t achieved anything?” Jeryl asked.
Adachi was wise enough not to reply.
“Powers,”
“Sir.”
“I want you to lead the Hunters’ squadrons on a shoot and run swoop as the fleet punches through The Ghost fleet’s formation,” Jeryl said. “Don’t stick around for a dogfight.”
“You want us to play the ghost, sir?” Powers replied, a hint of humor in his voice.
“Yes, Lieutenant,” Jeryl said. “Might as well turn the sides.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Powers replied. “Powers out.”
“Fleet, prepare to attack on my cue!”
One by one, each captain replied with an affirmative.
Jeryl threw the controller forward. The Seeker leaped into motion, its sub light engine roaring against the sudden move.
Ahead, The Ghost fleet approached, a cacophony of starships and boarding shuttles. It looked like a motley mix, yet Jeryl knew it was infinitely deadly and powerful. But was it powerful enough to take down an Armada attack fleet?
Convoys were one thing. Attack fleets were another.
I guess we’re about to find out.
The element of surprise was gone. They were left with tactics, fire power and good old battle luck.
“We’re in position, sir,” Powers said. “Ready to swoop in.”
Jeryl noticed that the entire Hunters had divided themselves into two teams, one at each verge of the Fleet’s formation—high up and ready to come down hard.
Good.
At the center of 'the Ghost fleet' was the needle-like monstrosity. It was so sleek that its motion betrayed the eyes. One would wonder if it was actually moving.
Jeryl had pored over The Ghost’s schematics to ensure he was familiar with the ship’s design, because looking at it through space made it hard to tell where what was—be it the CNC, the engine room, the life support systems, and so on.
It was ghostly that way, so dark and ethereal that it could’ve very well been a black hole, sucking into itself all light and life.
“Sir, we’re being hailed by The Ghost,” Mary Taylor exclaimed.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Jeryl muttered to himself.
“All weapons fire!” he boomed a second later.
The Armada attack fleet, which had formed into the shape of an arrow, met The Ghost fleet head on. The Seeker maintained its knife-like approach, tearing through the forward defensive vessels like paper.
Explosions filled the void of space, metamorphosing into a spray of expanding balls of orange fire and showers of miniaturized halls, from one corner of the space battle to another.
Screaming of orders and yells of terror filled the open comm channel as the Hunters started their attack dives.
For a moment, everything descended into complete chaos. Jeryl maintained his forward motion, cutting through the clutter of ships until he was face-to-face with The Ghost.
Dive, his mind screamed at him.
No! Jeryl replied back. This ends today!
But that’s not the mission! his mind screamed back.
“Captain, you have to dive!” Ashley’s voice came through the comm channel.
Jeryl didn’t see it until it was too late.
To the aft of The Seeker were three enemy starships swooping down on him. Jeryl’s eyes widened as he recognized the move—it was a move he and Kaine had designed and perfected during the Earth-Sonali War. It was the perfect trap, one that Jeryl had been too blind to see.
“The Kaijer Offensive…” he muttered, utterly awestruck. “Kaine, you fucking bastard.”
“Retreat!” Jeryl bellowed. “All vessels, retreat!”
But it was too late. He had led the entire fleet into a trap. He thought he had knifed right through The Ghost fleet’s formation, whereas The Ghost fleet had actually lured them into a zone of deat
h and had covered up their exit.
The three ships let it rip on the Armada fleet.
Jeryl threw The Seeker into a starboard dive, sending everyone that wasn’t tightly strapped in into the air. Jeryl’s safety straps jerked under the strain as he was thrown forward, the engines’ roar drowning the whine of the artificial gravity.
A sudden explosion rocked The Seeker, sending it into an uncontrolled spin. Instantly, they lost power, as well as their antigravity field.
Someone screamed in the CNC. Smoke wafted into Jeryl’s nostrils just as there was a sharp spark of electric power somewhere behind.
“Engine room!” Jeryl shouted, wrestling with the controller to restrain the ship’s dangerous spin. He could hear the deep groan of the ship’s hull. It could come apart under such high magnitude stress
“We’re doing all we can, sir,” the chief engineer replied via the comms. “But we were hit badly. We lost all engines.”
“I need to steady the ship!” Jeryl complained.
“You’ll ha—to do—out the engi—”
The comm system was failing.
“Sir, you may not have the engines but you’re already moving,” a calm voice said behind him.
Jeryl looked over his shoulder to see Ferriero standing behind him. There was a gash across his forehead. Coagulated blood had formed a crusty seal across the gash, reducing bleeding to a slow trickle. He didn’t seem aware of the injury.
“…use the movement to control the ship,” Ferriero was saying.
Jeryl heaved a sigh and got up. “You have the control, Ferriero.”
Jeryl retreated to the familiar Captain’s chair. Settling into it gave him a feel of power he didn’t know he’d lost, trying to pilot the ship.
As he felt for the arm controls, Jeryl never took his eyes off the main viewscreen. In a matter of seconds, Ferriero had canceled out the spin and steadied the ship. The Seeker was now drifting lifeless in the heart of The Ghost fleet’s formation.
The zone of death, as Jeryl had suggested to Kaine years ago.
Most of the Armada attack fleet had limped out of the zone of death and were now retreating to the edge of the system.
“We’re sitting ducks here, sir!” Adachi exclaimed, who had returned to the main tactical console now that Ferriero had unslaved it.
“What are your orders, sir?”
“We’re trapped,” Jeryl said. “We’ve lost our engines and most of our power. We’re flying dark. There’s only one thing left to do…”
“Sir, scanners show that boarding shuttles are converging on our positions,” said Dr. Taft Lannigan, the science officer.
Jeryl didn’t miss the hint of a question in the Dr. Lannigan’s voice—why would Kaine want to board us, when he has just decimated a chunk of our fleet?
Because he wants to capture The Seeker.
“He’s not going to fire on us,” Jeryl said to Dr. Lannigan. “Computer, establish a ship-wide broadcast.”
“Complying…” the computer’s reply came. “Proceed, Captain.”
“Crew of The Seeker, listen up,” Jeryl said. “We have a few minutes before we’re boarded by the enemy. We’ve been bested. We’ve lost. There’s no shame in running, as long as we’re going to live to fight another day.
“And that is what I want you to do. Live. So we can fight again tomorrow.”
Jeryl paused to take a look at his CNC crew. Most of them looked at him with wide-eyes. He had never given this speech, even during the Earth-Sonali War. They always stuck with The Seeker to the very end, and all the time came out on top.
But this is different. This is Kaine.
“Abandon ship,” Jeryl said. “That’s an order.”
That’s the order.
Chapter 25
Ashley
Ashley threw her shuttle to the right, avoiding a blast from one of Kaine’s shuttles.
What the hell are we going to do? They’re tearing through us like we’re nothing, she thought to herself. How in the hell did Kaine manage to train his people so well, so fast?
She dodged another blast, returning fire and gaining slight satisfaction as she saw her target careen into a nearby shuttle, putting a hole in both ships.
But as she looked around, she realized—just as Jeryl must have—that this was a lost cause. Somehow, someway, the Armada was losing. Three of her Hunters were gone, not just down, but gone.
Henderson, Sano, Joshua—all gone. Sano had just gotten married a few weeks before, Joshua just found out he was going to be a father, and Henderson just got promoted—and now, they were all dead.
Kaine had outsmarted them again. He had known where the convoys were going to be. He had known Tira was a spy. He had known Jeryl was coming for him, and had beaten Jeryl badly for it.
Dodging another round of fire in a shuttle that had shitty maneuverability, Ashley did her best to get back to The Seeker with the rest of her Hunters. Then, the fleet came together in a V formation and charged, knifing through the enemy.
The Seeker headed the charge, flying directly for The Ghost. Jeryl wanted to end this. He wanted to put a stop to Kaine and the Syndicate, and he knew The Seeker was capable of taking down The Ghost.
Then Ashley saw the trap. Kaine had his ghost fleet line up and act a certain way, drawing Jeryl and the Armada fleet in. She saw The Ghost staring down The Seeker as three other ships came in from the aft side. Jeryl must’ve not seen them, as he was still making a bee-line for Kaine.
She clicked on her comm, “Captain, you have to dive!”
She watched as The Seeker dove to get away—but things were too late. It only took a few seconds before Jeryl sounded the retreat. Ashley’s shuttle took a shot to the starboard side, but it was a glancing blow. Her concentration shifted to her own survival and she forced the shuttle into maneuvers it wasn’t built for.
Nowhere near as agile as a Hunter, her shuttle was still better at moving than the Syndicate’s shuttles, and better shielded too. That’s what saved her ass. If she didn’t have the shields that she had, that last shot would’ve torn a hole in her hull, sucking her lifeless body out into space.
Dodging and weaving as best as she could, she called out to Powers to get a shuttle off her tail. As soon as she was clear, she blasted another shuttle before risking a glance back at The Seeker.
It was dead in the water, so to speak. She could see the engines were dark, and it was drifting aimlessly through the fracas. Within seconds, she could see escape pods blasting out of her hull.
Eyes wide and breath coming in short bursts, Ashley’s mind raced. The Seeker had lost, and Jeryl had ordered his people to abandon ship. That had never happened. No matter how bad things had gotten before, they always found a way, even if it was just a way to get away.
They must’ve lost the engines, Ashley tried to convince herself. Jeryl would never have abandoned ship unless it was completely hopeless. I need to get to him!
She changed direction, blasting another shuttle out of her way. Syndicate shuttles were already attaching themselves to The Seeker. She could picture Syndicate soldiers rushing aboard, sweeping the halls, making their way to engineering and the CNC.
If anyone was left on board, they’d be mowed down—it was doubtful that Kaine would be willing to take prisoners. Her mind told her there was nothing she could do, but her heart sent her racing for The Seeker anyway. She had to know about Jeryl.
Then, without warning, her shuttle changed direction and her engines shut down. She was left to drift away from The Seeker, drift away from the danger.
“No! No, no, no—God fucking dammit!” she screamed, tears falling down her face, as she pounded her fist on her console. She left her chair and headed to the back of the shuttle. There was an emergency porthole used to connect to another vessel if there was no way to dock at the back. It was hard to see through, but she was able to see enough.
Union ships were blinking out, their FTL drives engaged and taking them away from the destruction.
The Ghost was floating just above The Seeker, waiting as the four shuttles that had docked with her disconnected and made room for six other shuttles.
The six new shuttles connected themselves to The Seeker with a variety of robotic arms, then engaged their engines and began pushing The Seeker away. Within seconds, The Seeker was gone, followed by the Syndicate fleet. The Ghost was the last to leave, waiting an agonizing minute before vanishing into the vast emptiness of space.
What do I do? What do any of us do? How the hell do we beat Kaine? How do we fight a ghost of a man that commands a ghost of a ship? Ashley panicked, her tears continuing to flow down her cheeks.
She forced herself to slow down her breathing. She needed to calm down for the baby. A heightened level of stress wasn’t going to be good. She closed her eyes and cleared her mind as best as she could.
Not everything was lost. They had a plan, after all.
However, what was not part of the plan was shutting down Ashley’s shuttle. Her jackass husband, in all his wisdom, had forced her away and shut her down so she couldn’t chase after them. She wasn’t going to chase him—she wasn’t that damn stupid. She was just going to make it look like she was going to try something. But no, her husband had to rig her shuttle to shut down.
She ranted and raved, screamed and yelled, and cursed in whatever language she could think of for several minutes before power returned to the engines. “Asshole. Fucking asshole. I married a complete moron of an asshole. I’m pregnant with the kid of a moron of an idiot of a dumbass of an asshole!” Her breath was ragged, her heart was racing, and then she fell to her knees, sobbing uncontrollably.
She tried to stop her mind from spinning into pure madness, but it wasn't easy. What if Jeryl died? She would be a widow and her child would be fatherless.
“Please live through this, Jeryl. Please don’t die,” she said through hacking sobs.
Ashley forced herself to stop panicking. She managed to regain control of herself, wiping her face clean with the arm of a space suit and standing up slowly.