The Solar Flare

by Laura E. Collins

  “Kaden, I need Draves to guide me out of here. . . Kaden!” It was no use. He did not receive a reply from his captain.

  “Forget him, he’s not going to help us! Just get us out of here!” Ranieri, Darius’ mate replied from her post at the assault cannon.

  “This ship wasn’t built for maneuvering in this kind of atmosphere, it’s overheating from the exertion. I’m taking her back up,” he decided. Just then their small ship bucked downwards with the impact of being fired upon from the cannons.

  The small ship dove lower in the atmosphere and the invisible Principia followed effortlessly under Ash’s expert piloting skills. “I’m going to try chase him away from the city, then let him have it!” Ash directed Andre.

  “Sounds like a plan, Draves is toast.”

  Ash didn’t need computers to follow the commandeered ship as they could plainly see it on the monitors from behind due to the billowing black smoke pouring from it. They didn’t get the chance to drive the ship away from the city before it spontaneously exploded and crashed down inside the shopping district. Flames and debris were strewn everywhere and several buildings collapsed or were set on fire.

  The Principia uncloaked itself and flipped, making a sweep over the crashed pirate ship. “Now!” Andre commanded as he and Naomi pegged the grounded foreign ship with their assault cannons. They wanted to make sure that there would be no Asterion survivors within the wreckage.

  The Asterions in the Principia and the members of the ground team cheered as the smoke poured upwards from their fallen enemy. Andre advised the ground crew to monitor the wreckage to make sure there were no survivors after he instructed Ash to take the Principia back up into space to assist the Andromeda in defeating Kaden.

  “Wesley, Draves is dead, were coming up,” Andre announced over the transmissions.

  “Good,” he replied. He breathed a quick sigh of relief that at least half of the enemy threat to their planet and their way of life was defeated. Surely with two of them they could now dispose of Kaden once and for all. The Andromeda sailed slowly towards one of the two moons overlooking Kyanos and picked up on a few faint transmissions, one from Kaden’s ship and another he could not identify. He did not concern himself with the second signal as it was weak and seemed to be growing weaker. Wesley did not wait for the Principia before speeding off towards the stronger signal to engage, he did not want to miss another opportunity of surprise.

  The Draconis hovered close to the moon, waiting for its enemy to appear. Draves closed his eyes and concentrated on trying to read Wesley’s thoughts. His desire to live free on a sustainable planet away from the annoying thoughts of others drove him to focus and pull himself together enough to get the job done. “Robinson doesn’t have a lock on us, I’ve sensed his coordinates. He’s heading this way. Circle around the west side of this moon and attack him from head on,” Draves ordered Kaden. Kaden suppressed his irritated thoughts of Draves as he did not want him to sense them. He hated taking orders from anyone, but did as he was told because his crazy ally had managed to keep them alive this far. He continued to fly with the cloaking mechanism on and picked up speed as he latched on to the transmissions coming from the Andromeda.

  Wesley brought his ship halfway around the moon, increasing the velocity. He let his thoughts wander to Ava; after all, now that Draves was dead, there was no need to keep his guard up. The second faint transmission concerned him, how was it possible that there was another ship in this unknown part of the galaxy? He suddenly became worried, what if the other transmission had come from the Solstice?

  “Fire now before you see them, Robinson is distracted!” Draves yelled to Kaden and what was left of his crew, which consisted of Torian and Cassidy. Kaden issued the order and his team threw out a heavy reign of fire towards the Andromeda’s trajectory.

  The Andromeda flew directly into the line of fire from its invisible enemy and took several direct hits before Wesley could swerve away. The massive ship bucked in order to keep its current velocity. White smoke started pouring out of the ceiling in the hallway adjacent to the flight deck.

  “We’re hit! The shields are down!” Justin roared over the sirens that had started alarming.

  “I know!” Wesley yelled in return. “Hang on to something!” He ordered Justin and Rowan as he rolled the ship to escape what he believed was the expected line of fire.

  Inside the Draconis Draves went back to laughing hysterically because he knew that Robinson had no idea where they were. He was a sitting duck. Kaden chased his competition down and ordered his crew to fire at will. Torian and Cassidy pounded the Andromeda mercilessly with their cannons, laughing at the smoke pouring out of the once great starship. Kaden had to stay alert to keep from running in to the debris flying off of his enemies’ ship.

  “Wesley, the ship is breached, we have to descend now. If we keep pushing it we might overheat the core. We could self destruct!” Justin cautioned him.

  “Let the Principia defeat him! We can’t even see them!” Rowan pleaded.

  Wesley refused to give up. Although he could not see his enemy, he had noticed a pattern of assault and started estimating its coordinates, which he called out to Rowan and Justin fire upon. His crewmembers began to fire at will with what was left of their ammunition.

  Draves abruptly stopped laughing as he sensed Robinson seemed to be closing in and cautioned Kaden that he needed to change coordinates. Kaden ignored him, seeing his chance to close in on them and finish the job.

  Although Wesley could not see Kaden behind him, he knew he we there. It’s now or never, the though. Suddenly, he flipped the Andromeda and headed right for what he thought was the Draconis. Justin and Rowan fired heavily on their invisible target. Suddenly an explosion was seen and the Draconis became visible again.

  “They’re hit, the cloaking technology is malfunctioning!” Wesley announced.

  The Draconis had taken a direct hit, right over the power core. Draves began screaming erratically at Kaden, who ignored him as he tried to maintain control over the ship, which began spiraling out of control.

  The Andromeda’s velocity began to slow as the power started to deplete due to the overheating core. Wesley realized that they would not be able to make it back down to Kyanos and decided to plan for an emergency landing on the moon. He used what he could of the remaining available power to shift the ship into reverse propulsion to slow it down even further. “We’re going to have to make a landing on the moon, prepare yourselves!” He shouted to his friends. The ship began shaking violently against the moon’s gravity as it had no way to counter act it at this point. Wesley glanced at the monitors and noticed that the Draconis with a trail of smoke was also headed right for the moon, but at a much faster velocity. His heart soared as he saw small explosions erupt from it as Justin and Rowan continued to fire on it.

  Both ships descended towards the gravitational pull of the moon. The captain and crew of the Andromeda witnessed the Draconis crash into the surface with a large explosion. Wesley slowed and steadied his ship to bring it down as gently as he could without the help of the landing sequence and gear, which had been disabled from the attack. “Get ready!” he shouted to Justin and Rowan who were bracing themselves for the impact. The Andromeda hit the moon at a much slower velocity than the Draconis and after the sudden thud of the impact it began sliding. Alarms began to sound above the noise from the bottom of the ship dragging on the moon’s surface. It slid well past the wreckage from the Draconis before it slowly came to a grinding halt. Wesley immediately contacted the Principia with their coordinates and powered down the ship to prevent the central core from overheating. He called out to his friends in the darkness of the ship, which was growing colder by the second.

  “We have an oxygen breech! Without the power on to keep our oxygen supply flowing it will all be vacuumed out!” Rowan shouted, running towards Wesley with Justin right behind her. “We have about two minutes!” Wesley pulled out his PCD, the Principia was near. W
esley quickly messaged Ash and Andre with his plan for evacuation while simultaneously explaining it to Rowan and Justin. They had no time to don space suits, and would suffocate and freeze to death if they left the ship. Wesley decided the only option for saving his friends would be to teleport them to the other ship.

  Wesley’s PCD beeped, indicating that the Principia was hovering overhead. Wesley shut his eyes and took a deep breath. He had to have a good feel for the ship in order to estimate the time and energy to teleport there through dead space. After a moment, he nodded to the others that he was ready. Justin insisted that Rowan go first and she walked up to Wesley and they wrapped their arms around each other. Justin watched as Wesley and Rowan disappeared, leaving him alone in the dark ship that was quickly losing oxygen. A few moments later they reappeared inside of common area inside of the Principia where Naomi and Mia waited for them. As soon as Wesley saw that Rowan seemed okay, he disappeared again, only to re-materialize back inside of the Andromeda. Teleportation drained his energy faster than anything else did. Traveling through space had always been more difficult for him than on a space station, or on Kyanos, and he was out of practice. He leaned over with his hands on his knees and took a few deep breaths, sweat dripping down his face. Then he stood up and signaled to Justin that he was ready. Wesley put his hands on Justin’s shoulders and after a moment the two men disappeared. Since Justin was larger and had more energy to reconfigure, it took a few suspenseful moments for them to re-join the group in the Principia. Wesley released Justin and wiped the sweat off of his forehead, breathing deeply. Once he recovered he ran to the flight deck to join Andre and Ash with a report of Kaden. Ash had maneuvered the ship to hover near the wreckage, but not too close. He did not want to risk being hit by any drifting debris.

  “What news?” He asked the others, still out of breath. He looked at the monitors with the image of Kaden’s wrecked ship meeting his eyes.

  “There is no movement. I can’t see how he could survive that,” Andre reported. “Besides, if the crash didn’t kill him, he will either suffocate or suffer hypothermia.”

  Wesley looked over at the Andromeda, a dark metal shape laying on the surface of the moon, peppered with damage all over the top. “How bad is she?” Ash inquired.

  “The power core almost overheated, and the landing programming malfunctioned. We also had an oxygen leak. She’s not beyond repair. Once the core cools off, which won’t take long out here, she may be functional again.” He sighed and rubbed his forehead. The Andromeda had been his favorite starship and served him well over the years. He was sad to see her in such a state.

  “Well, she was due for a face lift anyway,” Andre joked. “Let’s head back to Kyanos. It’s obvious that Kaden is dead and there’s nothing more we can do here tonight.”

  Wesley nodded. “Once things are secure on Kyanos we can come back for the Andromeda and tow her to the main hangar and get started fixing her up.”

  “Affirmative,” Ash replied and powered up the Principia, heading back down towards the Kyanos city and the thunderstorm that was still raging on. After a short flight, Ash brought the new starship down into the main hangar where the Andromeda had once been. After exiting the ship, Wesley observed that it had come through the fight relatively unscathed.

  “Ash, when we fix the Andromeda, I want you to apply that cloaking technology to her as well.”

  “We’ll have to re-configure a lot and install a ton of sensors, but it can be done,” he assured him.

  Trevor Vance approached the group of Asterions with a big smile. They had learned of their triumph over Kaden with Ash’s transmissions.

  “We have victory,” an exhausted and worn-out looking Wesley informed Vance.

  “The sacrifice of the Andromeda and the damage to the city was worth it in order to bring us peace,” Vance replied as he put a hand on Wesley’s shoulder, congratulating him on a battle well fought.

  At Wesley’s request Vance proceeded to tell the Asterions about the extent of the devastation the city sustained under Draves’ low flying attack. He also informed them that two bodies, badly burned beyond recognition, were being pulled from the wreckage.

  After a short debriefing, Wesley regrouped with the others to discuss a few things. Everyone agreed that it would be best to wait until the morning before they flew to Ibis to collect Ava. They all needed to rest.

  Chapter 14: Missing

  Ava inhaled deeply, sensing Wesley’s warm hand in hers. She squeezed it gently and opened her heavy eyelids, only to gasp in confusion after she realized it was not Wesley’s hand that she held. She immediately pulled her hand back out of Xavier’s soft grip, eyeing him suspiciously, unable to hide her disappointment. He said nothing, although she thought he looked a little let down as he stood up and moved away to allow Melanie by, who greeted her and informed her she was there to take a set of vital signs. She noticed that the IV in her arm had been removed and replaced with a small bandage. Her eyes went to Bryant as she noticed him standing at the entrance to the small room she was in. He seemed to breathe in deeply through his nose.

  “It’s so peculiar. She reeks of Justin Gaines . . . he’s all over her. How is that possible?” He said flatly to no one in particular. Suddenly everyone’s eyes were on her, awaiting an explanation.

  “I guess that’s probably from the blood transfusion I had a few months ago,” she replied coolly, not wanting to tell them about the whole story.

  “Blood transfusion? They infused Justin’s blood into you? Were you injured, . . . or sick?” Melanie asked curiously. “That potentially could have killed you. . .”

  “I caught a virus and I was very ill. They transfused Justin’s blood to me to save my life. That’s it,” Ava said definitively, not wanting to discuss her personal health issues in front of these people who were nothing but complete strangers to her.

  “I see. I sensed that something was off about your energy.” Melanie said, looking at her, beginning to wonder about Bryant’s story of her abusive treatment from Wesley and the others. Ava looked away from her and practically glared at Bryant.

  Xavier noticed Ava’s hostile attitude towards Bryant and changed the subject, asking her how she was feeling. Ava didn’t know how to respond to them. She felt betrayed, lost, exhausted, and a little apprehensive about her new companions. “I have a headache,” she replied honestly, rubbing her right temple. Ava looked down at her clothes. Her cargos were smudged with dirt and moss stains and also torn in various places from her unsuccessful attempts at climbing out of the crevice. Then she realized that she didn’t smell very fresh as well, with an odor of sweat and dried mud on her clothes. I must look terrible, she thought. They seemed to notice her looking herself over. Lucas arrived with a protein shake for her to drink, which she did slowly, as her appetite seemed to have vanished. Afterwards they let the recliner down so that she was in a sitting position.

  “Ava, if you feel up to it I could show you down to your quarters. Would you like to have a shower and re-dress into some fresh clothes? You and I seem to be about the same size,” Melanie offered in a gentle tone.

  “That would be great, thank you,” Ava replied softly, deciding that now was not the time to argue with them about taking her back home. She wanted to save that for after she had another night of good sleep to give her time to think of a way to be more diplomatic about it. After a few minutes Melanie walked with her down a level to the living quarters. She opened the door numbered “5” and they entered a small room with a bed, table, closet, and bathroom. Melanie demonstrated how to operate the controls in the shower and explained the time limits to conserve water. All very similar things to the Andromeda, Ava thought. Melanie pointed to a small stack of clothes that she put out for her in the closet. After she left, Ava headed straight for the shower. It felt so good to have a hot shower and to wash her hair, which she noticed, had not felt very fresh either since she had left the crevice. Afterwards she toweled off, brushed her teeth, dried her hair, an
d dressed in the borrowed clothes, which felt strange, but she was grateful they were clean.

  A tap on the door interrupted her thoughts. “Yes?” Ava answered, wondering who it could be. The door slid open revealing Xavier standing there holding a small tray of food.

  “Melanie said that you should start with something small to see how you feel. If you’re still hungry afterwards you can have more,” he said with a casual friendly smile.

  “Thank you, but I’m really not hungry right now.” Ava replied. She watched as he slowly walked past her to set the tray down on the small table on the other side of the room. He turned and gestured for her to come and sit down at the table. She noticed that she did not feel afraid of him and decided to comply. She studied him closely for the first time since she met him as he sat down opposite of her at the table. He appeared a few years younger and was taller than Wesley by about an inch with a much different build. While Wesley was more muscular and athletic, Xavier was well built but seemed more slim and toned with broad shoulders and long arms and legs. His hair was every bit as black as Wesley’s but worn differently. Parted in the middle it fell below chin length and it appeared to be rather thick, to the point where it had been thinned out by trimming it up in the back.

  Next, Ava noticed his striking large almond shaped eyes. They were a beautiful shade of blue Ava wasn’t sure how to describe. They almost seemed to be lit from within. He appeared, like all Asterions, to be in good health. His skin was perfectly luminous and flawless. He had an angular straight nose and flat cheeks over a nicely shaped mouth. He did not wear the typical attire Ava was used to seeing on Wesley and some of the other captains and crews she had encountered in some of her travels. Dressed well entirely in black he looked very much like a musician. She did notice that he wore a nice sized antique cross on a simple black cord around his neck. The cross looked in good condition but very old, much older than the cord it hung from. Wesley had never talked about religion so Ava found this interesting. Overall she could not deny that he was a handsome man.