Fire Fury Frontier

by Amanda Rose

  Freya reached over to grab the emergency rations when, all of the sudden, she noticed movement on her radar screen. She looked up to see ships emerging from the planet’s atmosphere. “Shit! Raiden, we’ve got company!” she leaned back hard into her seat and changed course.

  Raiden saw them coming, and he could feel a cold sweat break out all over his body, “Omega Squad, this is Raiden, close in on my position. We have incoming hostiles, repeat, incoming hostiles on my position!” Raiden matched Freya’s position, and primed his guns. “Don’t be a hero Freya,” he said.

  “Yeah, yeah. You be careful too,” she said, trying to disguise the worry in her voice. Raiden smiled, in their roundabout way, though they never talked about it, they cared one another, and he could feel it in her inflection. Raiden watched, and waited, laser focused as the ships came on approach.

  Trying different comm frequencies, Raiden tried to make contact with the renegade ships, “This is Lieutenant Raiden Saito, Omega Squad leader. You are to surrender and return to the Saisei immediately, failure to comply will result in the use of force.” No reply, only static, so Raiden moved on to the next frequency.

  The ships were closing in fast, in a V formation. Freya took a deep breath and prepared herself for action. She saw the first of the Omega Squad reinforcements circle around the side of the gas giant, but they wouldn’t be of any use to them for some time. For now, it was up to her and Raiden to subdue to the insurrection forces.

  The first volley of shots was fired from Link’s ship, the head of the V formation, and seconds later, the rest of the insurgent ships fired. A wide spread of bullets rushed toward Freya and Raiden. Immediately they both went into evasive maneuvers.

  “Shit! Guess it’s on… Freya, open fire!” Raiden commanded, his heart thumping hard in his chest. “All ships, open fire!” he relayed to the rest of the enclosing Omega Squadron pilots. Freya went full throttle towards the insurgents, gunning at Link’s ship. The V formation broke, and all of the ships scattered, swarming like flies. Raiden flew into the frenzy cautiously, still worried about his engines. He kept his eyes open and his senses alert. There was a lot happening all at once, and one wrong move could mean the difference between life and death.

  Bullets flew in continuous streams, so Freya and Raiden did their best to use confusing tactics and flight patterns to avoid being hit. They both knew they just needed to buy enough time until the rest of their squad could join the fight. While they aimed to disable the enemy ships, more importantly, they tried to stay elusive to avoid being taken down themselves.

  When Freya and Raiden had been cadets they’d both constantly tried new flight maneuvers and made up their own duo moves. They were competitive, both wanting to be the best, and yet highly innovative as a team. Their skills were unmatched by any of the other cadets.

  One duo they’d created was called the infinity, where each of them flew around the other, each creating a horizontal S that combined formed the infinity symbol ∞. It was a risky move, both ships came in alarmingly close contact in the center of the infinity, but it also kept them in a perpetual dodge, and was excellent for disorienting onlookers. “Freya, infinity!” Raiden instructed.

  Freya grinned wide, “Oh, hell yeah!” she cheered, and got her ship in position.

  Several of the insurgent ships were rushing at them from the front, guns blazing, while another was positioning themselves to attack from the rear. Meanwhile Link was organizing a pincer attack with three other ships; the direct attack was just a distraction. Link knew his pilots would be hard pressed to succeed if they had to face all of Omega Squad all at once, and that their best chance was to pick away at them. Now that the other ships were closing in, taking out these two before the other’s arrived was his only hope.

  “Freya, now!” Raiden commanded, the approaching ships hail of bullets seconds away from taking them down. Raiden pulled hard to the right and started the maneuver, arcing upwards, and accelerating as fast as he felt the ship could take it. The intense force on his body from the sudden high speeds made him wonder why they added gravity plating to the small fighter ships, but then he shook his head and forced his thoughts to refocus on the perilous task at hand.

  At the top of the arc Raiden always felt a sense of fear, even as a so called fearless cadet, although he’d never admit it to Freya. Every time, right before he plunged his ship down to create the near-miss of the two ships meeting in the center of the infinity, his heart leapt into his throat. They’d done this maneuver countless times since its creation, and Raiden knew Freya was an extraordinary pilot, but even so, no matter what he told himself, the vision of colliding in a lethal explosion always played through his mind.

  Fighting through the all-too familiar fear, Raiden took the plunge. Cascades of bullets were flying at them from all angles. Freya and Raiden fired back as best they could while flying their risky ploy. Somehow Raiden managed to check his radar in the midst of it all, the closest of his squad were about 3 minutes away still. C’mon, hurry up! He thought, worried they may come too late. Sweat dripped down his face.

  Then the pass came. Freya’s ship passed under Raiden’s, just a few feet away from each other, at break neck speeds. While it only lasted for less than a second, time felt like it had slowed to a near halt. Freya reveled in the danger, it made her feel alive. The euphoric endorphin rush it gave her made her feel like she could take on the entire insurgency herself.

  Narrowing her vision, the dangerous pass over, Freya focused on taking perfect aim. She targeted one of the ships trying to circle overhead, aiming just ahead of the cock pit to disable the navigation system, she fired. The ship veered right to dodge, but not in time, and the bullets shredded through the O2 cylinder and gas tank, exploding the ship into a flying fireball that surged past Freya’s ship.

  Freya’s eyes bulged at the near miss as the ship whizzed past hers, and she let out a shaky exhale. After taking a second to regroup Freya noticed that there were 2 ships coming at her from the side. It was Link and another insurgent, speeding up, and putting their pincer attack into action. She was about to turn her ship to face them, when she saw there was another ship closing in from behind. “Fuck!” she yelled, feeling trapped, and abruptly shot the nose of her ship down and tried to speed away.

  The other ships were in full pursuit of Freya. Raiden watched as Freya broke formation and then saw the ships enclosing on her, their barrages barely missing. Just as Raiden was about to go help, he saw 2 ships on approach towards him; the other half of the pincer attack. “Slimy bastards!” Raiden grunted through his teeth. There was no time to think, he immediately set into pulling the nose of his ship straight up and pushed the ship’s speed to its limits. He did a full circle and pulled in behind both ships, then fired before they had a chance to escape.

  He managed to disable the first ship, but the second ship had only taken superficial damage, and was coming around to counterattack. Raiden rushed to try and match the pilots flight path in order to stay behind him and to avoid having to dodge the guns. Continuously firing, Raiden was hoping for a hit.

  Meanwhile, Freya was in the fight for her life. All three ships were enclosing on her. She accelerated, trying to gain some distance, but they were quick to adapt. Fuck… there’s too many… I can’t… Wait! Freya felt a sense of empowerment wash over her. She may have been outgunned, but she had more piloting skill than the entire insurgency put together. “Let’s play…” she muttered under her breath and bit her lip. Changing her heading, she began to fly right towards the nearest arc of the mega-structure, her pursuers not far behind.

  Something about a challenge enlivened her. It was the rush that she found herself so easily addicted too. It was almost sensuous; the power trip, the complete and utter control, and the risk of it all. One wrong move and she’d be dead. She accelerated even more.

  Freya was in the zone. It was as if she had access to her sixth sense, she felt almost out of body, and had complete awareness of everything; her
ship, their ships, the swaths of bullets, the distance to the structure, everything. She could feel the rise and fall of her chest as the air came in and out, and it felt slow, even though everything was happening so fast.

  Around or through?... Through, she thought. She was less than 30 seconds away from a collision with the large arc she was speeding at. It would be safer to make a wide birth and go around all of the entwining arcs, but that would also be easier for the insurgents too. Zig zagging in and out of the arches was a master pilots game at these speeds, and Freya was ready for the test.

  Just a couple seconds away from running full speed into the metal arc, Freya pulled hard left, narrowly missing it, and then sharp right, maneuvering through the arcs. One of the insurgents followed closely, with much less precision, catching his wing on the metal arc which savagely ripped it off and left him spinning out of control towards the gas giant. The second panicked after seeing the first not make it, and froze up, crashing directly into the arc in a massive ball of fire that was quickly snuffed out by the vacuum of space.

  Link had intended to follow Freya, his skills reasonably sharp, but the explosion had thrown off his concentration, and he had involuntarily pulled right instead of left, and was now going towards the center of the mega-structure. As he neared the center, the particles sped up, and then a miraculous burst of colors occurred, and the sky blurred into a vortex that distorted the view of the stars. Link tried to pull away, but it was too late, the vortex pulled him in, and then it disappeared as abruptly as it had begun. Link was gone, and the small particles in the center began to innocently dance around again just as they had before.

  Raiden had watched it all in horrified-awe. What in the world?! He couldn’t make sense of it. Seconds after the vortex disappeared he heard a terrified voice come over his headset, “I surrender!” it screamed, strained with fear. The ship he’d been struggling with slowed down and powered off.

  “Freya, are you alright?!” Raiden asked. Silence. “Freya?!” he felt his heart sink into the pit of his stomach. Shit, oh, shit! Was she pulled in too?! He feared the worst.

  “…Did you …ucking see that?! Tha… ship just poof…. gone!” Freya’s voice suddenly came in, distorted in static. Raiden let out a sigh of relief.

  “Yeah, no shit I saw that! Fuck, I was starting to think you were a part of it…” Raiden replied, still feeling his uneasiness at the thought of losing Freya.

  “It was close, that vortex opened up right next to me. What the hell was it?” she asked, not expecting an answer, the static clearing up in the signal.

  “Hell if I know, but my scanner was running when it happened. We’ll see what the science team can figure out back at the Saisei,” Raiden said, then, “Oh my god, the Saisei, the insurrection, we need to get back!”

  The rest of Omega Squad had just arrived. Comm chatter took off as everyone incredulously gave their account of the vortex incident. Raiden did his best to calm them down and get them organized. He had one of the ships tow the surrendered ship back. They scanned for the ship that had lost its wing in its assault against Freya, but it had disappeared into the gas giant, and they could not find it. After giving up their search they set their course back to the Saisei at top speed.

  Chapter 6: Control

  The battle to reclaim the ship had turned into an all-out fire-fight in the flight bay. Captain Gin Yoshini had lead the infiltration team. Strategically they’d enclosed on Bay A, and on Gin’s command, they had all entered simultaneously, surrounding the insurgent troops. Before Gin had had time to call for a surrender, Niko had screamed at his unprepared men to attack. The peaceful surrender Gin had hoped for had turned into an assault within seconds. He commanded the men and women he led to run for cover and to fire at will.

  The precision shooting of the military troops gave them an edge, but the sheer numbers of the insurgents had kept them in a powerful position. Niko was fearless, gripped with the feeling of righteousness, he bellowed his freedom speech through the Bay A speaker system. His voice rang above the deafening gunfire that echoed horribly off the metal walls.

  Zavion and Dr. Takei had been out in the center of the room, under gun point, at work on the navigation system computer when the assault had begun. The man who had kept them under watch ran off to join in the fight. Defenseless and out in the open, they had decided to run to the far corner of the room and dove behind a stack of storage crates.

  Shots fired were out of control, and the imprisoned diplomats found themselves dodging stray bullets that came in between the cages bars. “Get down!” Merrick Uda had yelled, after he had narrowly missed being hit. The petrified politicians were frozen in place, they’d never seen such violence. Once Merrick was on the floor and realized only a handful of the others had listened, he yelled again, with a sense of authority ringing in his voice, “If you want to live, get on the damn floor!” The sheer shock of the tone of his voice got the attention of the others, and they quickly made their way to the floor.

  There were many casualties on both sides, however all in all the military forces were succeeding at suppressing the uprising; and Niko knew it. His mind was racing, seeking a solution. Niko was unwilling to lose, to let his ideals die and kowtow to imperial government, let alone to rot in prison indefinitely for treason. Niko had been near the entrance to the storage unit where they kept the prisoners when the assault had begun and had locked himself in the large wrap around station next to it. This was where Bay A was controlled from, anything from the electronic locks of the storage unit, to mechanic maintenance scheduling, to the ship launches, was done from here.

  After careful thought Niko knew there was no way escape. While eccentric, Niko was not willing to die for nothing, and the idea of living to fight another day, regrouping stronger, was the first thought that had crossed his mind as the situation became dire. But that wasn’t an option. Every exit was covered, and the enemy would certainly gun him down the second that he made an attempt to get away. If only there was a way to distract them… an explosion… Oh! It was suddenly so clear.

  Niko, on his knees, keeping his head down, sat up to access the bay’s computer system. He cycled through the systems quickly until he found what he was looking for and activated the launch sequence, overriding the safety features, he disabled the outer force field, and opened the exterior door. The Bay A pneumatic door clunked loudly, the yellow lights lit up, and the door began to open. The very second the most minute gap in the exterior door occurred, the incredibly strong pull of the vacuum of space began to pull everyone and everything towards it. The fire-fight immediately ceased; everyone was now fighting desperately to survive.

  Survival instinct kicked in before Gin even had time to fully realize what was happening. The second the yellow lights popped on he stopped firing, and ran full tilt, with no regard for being shot at, towards the nearest Bay A exit. He was 10 feet from the door when he began to feel the intense pull of space. Gin dropped to the floor, knowing full well there wasn’t enough time for him to make it to the exit now. He pulled his riffle’s shoulder holster off from around his neck, and deftly looped it through the metal grating on the floor. Once it was through he wrapped it multiple times around his right hand, and then held on for dear life.

  Private Rei Davis, a petite woman, had watched Gin use the floor grates to hold on, and while she had dropped her riffle, her delicate fingertips were tiny enough to fit between the slats in the floor. She was holding on with great difficulty, but she was determined to live. Fear gripped at her, and she closed her eyes, wishing to be anywhere else.

  The suction worsened exponentially as the door continued to open. Soldiers and insurgents alike tried to run, but they were no match against the force pulling on them, dragging them helplessly towards a grim death. That’s when the screaming began. Horrified men and women struggled, grasping to hold onto anything to stop themselves from being pulled out into open space, but there wasn’t much in the bay to grasp.

  Seto and Zavion
behind the storage crates were right next to the exterior door. The creates were secured to the floor with a ballistic fiber net that had been bolted down at the corners. They had grabbed onto it immediately, interlacing their hands behind the weave. As the suction became worse they found their bodies lifting up off the floor.

  The diplomatic prisoners were pulled unceremoniously into a pile against the steel bars. The pain was excruciating, but no one could move. Jona had been next to the metal bars before the doors had opened, leaving him at the bottom of the pile of all the bodies. He was being crushed by the immense weight and was unable to breath under the intense pressure of all of the bodies. The cold metal bars the dug into his side. He desperately tried to speak, to cry for help, relief, anything, but he couldn’t make a sound.

  Hovering in the air, gripping tightly and watching horrified, Gin saw, as one by one, the soldiers and insurgents were pulled out into space. Guns and debris flew out too. An unfastened storage crate slid screeching across the metal floor towards the outer door. It was on a direct path to hit Private Rei Davis. “Hey!” Gin had screamed to get her attention. Private Davis looked up and saw the massive heavy crate scraping against the floor coming like a freight train towards her.