Red Sky Dawning

by Ian J. Malone

  C’mon, damn it. Danny rested a fist against his helmet. Then something occurred to him: There were six planets in the Coralin System, which meant that surely one of them had to be close. “Hey Briggs. What’s our distance to the nearest planet if we were to withdraw?”

  The captain checked his tablet. “Eight million klicks or so, to Coralin 3. Why?”

  “Think they’ll follow us in?”

  “Almost certainly, yeah.”

  “Good,” Danny said. “Lay in a course for Coralin 3 at two-thirds sublight and let me know when we’re in orbit. After that, signal our surrender.”

  “What?” Briggs snapped his head around. “No way do we surrender! Tucker, you swore you’d get us to—”

  “Oh, pull your thong outta your ass and relax, bro. I’m not turning you in so just shut up and do it. While you’re at it, signal those Makos to break off and return to base. I don’t want them around when this goes down.”

  “When what goes down?” Zier asked.

  Briggs mumbled another curse and spun back to his console.

  Danny turned to the chancellor. “Once we fly the white flag, I want the two of you to load up in that pralah’s escape pod and punch out. Then, once you’re free and clear of this ship, head straight for the ASC side of the line and don’t forget to flash the code I just used with your lights. That’ll tell them you’re friendly. Someone will come scoop you up from there.”

  Zier scratched his face. “That’s an interesting plan, Sergeant, but what about the four ships holding us at gunpoint? Even if the captain and I did manage to flee this ship, one escape pod is bound to arouse suspicions. Best case scenario, they board us. Worst case, they blow us out of the stars.”

  “Trust me,” Danny said. “You won’t be the only pod in the air when this happens.”

  “And how is that, exactly?” Briggs asked in a flippant voice. “You got some sort of plan to force the rest of this crew off of their ship?”

  Danny shot him a glare then returned to Zier. “You told me you’ve got control of the shuttle’s propulsion system, right? From your tablet?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Think you could use it to overload her engines?”

  Zier tilted his head. “To do what, precisely? The shuttle bay is nowhere near their engine room so the core won’t detonate. You’ll disable her, sure, but we can do that from up here.”

  “Ah yes,” Danny said. “But what if all of this took place while the Axius was locked into a stable planetary orbit?”

  Zier’s eyes flickered with understanding.

  “Not so stable anymore, huh?”

  “You mean to dump this ship into Coralin 3’s atmosphere.” The chancellor’s whole expression lit up. “That’s brilliant!”

  Danny tried to shrug in his armor. “I don’t know about that, but I figure it’ll get people off of the bus, anyway.”

  “Outstanding,” Zier said. “Now when we eject, we’ll be just another tree in the forest.”

  “You got it,” Danny said. “And that’s when you make your break for the ASC side of the line.”

  Hearing the racket outside abruptly drop off, the group turned to see a flurry of sparks ignite atop the CIC’s entrance.

  “Cutting torch,” Briggs said.

  Danny faced the other two men. “We don’t have much time. You guys need to get outta here.”

  “What about you?” Zier asked. “You can’t honestly expect us to leave you here.”

  “Hell yes, I can,” Danny said. “As much as I hate to say it, Briggs is right. If the Kurgorians are in fact the Beyonders, and they’ve forged some sort of unholy alliance with Masterson to come after Aura, then that’s the kind of intel that Wylon and Katahl need to hear first-hand from the source, which makes you two the priority, not me.”

  The cloud of sparks at the door continued to expand, this time grazing the lock.

  “He’s right, Chancellor,” Briggs said. “If we’re to leave, it has to be now.”

  Shortly thereafter, the Axius arrived in orbit of Coralin 3 where, as asked, Briggs locked the ship into a standard geosynchronous orbit then headed for the hatch where Danny and Zier were already waiting.

  “Everyone ready?” Zier asked.

  Briggs and Danny nodded, and Zier gave a single stroke of his tablet. A loud, groaning boom reverberated from below, and the three braced themselves against the walls to keep from being thrown down again.

  “And there it is,” Briggs said of the ensuing alarm, his face cast in the red glow of the alert lighting. “Time to go, Chancellor.”

  “Chancellor.” Danny extended a hand to the old man.

  “Do me a favor.” Zier paused before taking it. “Lift the mask. Just once more, I’d like to look into the eye of the man who helped save my life today.”

  Danny heaved a sigh but did as requested. A moment later, Zier’s rainbow of IR features were again replaced by the pronounced crow’s feet and deep-set lines that defined his actual complexion.

  “Thank you, Sergeant Tucker,” Zier said, at last taking Danny’s hand. “Thank you for everything. You had more than one opportunity to go back on your word and save yourself, but you didn’t. You’re a fine solider, and any commander—Auran or Alystierian—would do well to have you at his side. If there’s ever a way I can repay you—”

  “Now that you mention it,” Danny said, “there is something you can do for me. That suit-comm of yours…is it removable? And if so, does it have vid capability?”

  Zier looked perplexed. “Yes and yes, why?”

  “No real reason. Mind if I hang onto it, though? You know…just in case I need to reach you guys later, or whatever.”

  Zier shrugged and removed his hood long enough to pull the loop-shaped device from his ear and give it to Danny. “Camera’s on the front. The mic isn’t very strong, though, so don’t place it very far away from your face.”

  “Will do,” Danny said. “Thanks.”

  Briggs stepped forward. “So am I to presume since you want the chancellor’s comm that you’ve got a plan for getting yourself off this thing before it burns up in atmosphere?”

  “Think so,” Danny said. “According to one of the schematics I dug out at tactical, there’s a row of escape pods a level down from here. Thought I might stroll down there and take a look.”

  “Just a stroll, huh?” Briggs asked.

  “Yep.”

  Briggs shook his head and chuckled. “Like I said, man, you’ve got some kind of shells.”

  Danny threw him a lopsided smile.

  “Listen, Tucker, for what it’s worth,” Briggs said, “I’m sorry as hell for getting you roped into all of this. Really, I am. If I could take it all back, I’d do it in an instant.”

  Danny winced at the apology, but he didn’t lash out this time. Instead, he pointed to Zier. “I’ll tell you what. Get him safely to Aura so he and Wylon can hash out a plan to make Masterson’s reign a short one, and we’ll call it square. Fair deal?”

  “Not hardly.” Briggs extended his hand. “But I will take it. The chancellor’s right, Tucker, you’re a good man. Safe travels and we’ll see you back with your fleet when this is all over.”

  The two men entered the pod’s tight quarters, and Danny waited for the hatch to seal shut around them. After a brief countdown, their tiny evac cube ejected into space alongside dozens of others like it.

  Hard as it was for him to admit, Danny actually found himself rooting for Briggs and Zier to make it. Misguided as they’d been, that didn’t make them bad guys, and Lord knew they’d earned the chance to try and right whatever hand they’d had in all of this.

  Leaving the alcove and re-emerging into the CIC, which was now eerily quiet except for the alarm, Danny dragged his heavy, armored frame across the floor and collapsed into the blood-smeared command chair. He was exhausted, absolutely exhausted—both physically and emotionally—and he wondered if there had ever been a time in his life when he’d felt this utterly exhauste
d…Or maybe “defeated” was a better word for it.

  For one brief instant, part of Danny actually considered keeping his butt parked right there and watching the fireworks from the front row. And why not? Hadn’t he earned that? After everything that had happened…everything he’d seen, and done, and given, and sacrificed…After everything he’d lost, hadn’t he earned the right to punch his own ticket out of it all if he so chose?

  Danny ran a weary palm over his face. He knew Lee would kill him for thinking that way. So would Mac and the others, for that matter. But then again, they all had lives and families to consider…people who relied on them and cared about them. Who did he have? Noll and the 102? Assuming they weren’t all KIA at Kyma or since?

  So much had happened in the last half-decade, Danny thought—the vast majority of it good, thankfully. After years of circling each other, Lee and Mac had finally tied the knot. Now not even the sky was the limit for them, in their relationship or their careers. The same went for Hamish, a guy who’d been stuck behind a desk going nowhere in a Daytona motorcycle shop, only to find his place as a prodigy mechanic with Wyatt and the engineering corps.

  Then there was Link…

  Danny had to chuckle there, mostly for his friend’s legendary defiance over even the notion of settling down back home. In truth, though, it’d all been a front. Link had been just as miserable as any of them by the time they’d left. Miserable over his job, miserable over his career, miserable with the single life…everything. But then had come Layla, and shortly thereafter, those two beautiful little boys. Link’s life had never been the same.

  And then, Danny supposed with a hard sigh, there was him.

  Closing his eyes and letting the rage wash back over him, Danny clenched his fists at his sides, teeth gritted, and allowed himself for the first time since its occurrence to relive in his mind that most horrifying of events, in all of its gruesome detail. The sparkle of those majestic blue eyes…the glint of the blade…the crimson stain on her blouse…and then finally, the look of pure, sadistic satisfaction on that wraith-bastard’s face when, in the blink of an eye and with a flick of his wrist, he’d deprived a loser-grunt from Miami of the one real thing he’d ever truly given a damn about.

  Oh, yeah…He had a reason to live, all right. And in that instant—where fear, madness, and sorrow converged into the perfect storm of hate—Danny remembered the real reason he’d asked for Zier’s comm. Moreover, he remembered the message he meant to send with it…the very personal message that would set off a chain of events, which would very much preclude him from forfeiting his life here today. He had no choice but to live…for her.

  Now, Danny thought, teeth bared at the four ships in his view port—three Alystierian warships and a Kurgorian cruiser. Now, this war truly begins. He rose to his feet, not bothering to re-drop his mask, and marched back to tactical, where he locked every weapon he could find onto his aggressors.

  A low metallic howl keened in the distance as the Axius dipped into the Coralin atmosphere, and Danny felt another shudder at his feet. True, he’d made a promise to Briggs and Zier that he wouldn’t fire on any Alystierian ships. But seeing as how they’d trained their guns on him first, Danny felt his actions were justified. As long as all eyes and weapons were locked on him and not on the escape pods or the ASC, then that was just one more reason to do it.

  Once he’d painted all of the targets he could find, Danny produced Zier’s comm and laid it on the console-top—facing him so he could look directly into the lens. Then, with one finger on the fire button and another on the comm-key, he pressed both but only released the latter. “Ah yeah, testing one, two. Testing one, two, three…Hopefully this damn thing is on.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter 40: Dead Man’s Play

  “Daredevil, incoming!” Mac screamed in Lee’s ear, causing him to rip his stick hard to port as a trio of Phantoms blistered past his starboard wing amid a spark-filled chatter of ricochets.

  “Damn, that was close,” he growled once he’d leveled out. “Railhawk, Jonesy, where in the blazes are you guys? Northern Star and I are sittin’ ducks out here without help!”

  “We’re coming as fast as we can, Top,” Jones said, “but we’re swamped over here in 51.3. Sorraia, what’s your twenty?”

  “Sorry guys, but the Two-Nine is locked down tighter than a drum in 41.3,” Lindsay said of her own squad. “On the upside, though, I’ve got a clear line of sight to that last Kurgorian ship and it appears to be pretty well occupied with all of those jettisoned pods. Here’s hoping it stays that way, too, until the last of our ships jump away.”

  “Status on that?” Lee asked.

  “Twenty-two to go,” Lindsay said. “And the Praetorian’s one of them.”

  Come on, Admiral, get my sister outta there. Lee knifed in hard to pick off two Phantoms that were diving for his squadron then keyed his comm to a command channel. “Blazer, you got a copy?”

  “Go for Blazer.”

  “What’s the word on that rogue pod you guys picked up? The one that flashed Danny’s signal.”

  “Just touched down on the Praetorian,” Hastings said. “Sad to say, Daredevil, but your boy wasn’t aboard. You’ll never believe who was, though.”

  In a different place and time, Lee might’ve cared. But right now, his focus remained on the pod-littered horizon before him in the hopes that one more cube would break loose toward the ASC side of the line.

  “Lee, as much as I want to hang out here for Danny,” Mac said, “we’ve gotta fall back with the rest of our forces, or else we’ll be stuck out here on an island by ourselves.”

  “I know, I know. But if he wasn’t in that last pod that broke ranks toward our fleet, then that means he’s gotta still be out here somewhere.”

  “I hear ya, but—”

  Lee’s fire controls screeched an alert. “Man, you have got to be kiddin’ me!”

  Tearing back on his stick, Lee sent his Mako soaring into a full-burn climb-out before looping back in toward the reeling pair of Phantoms who’d almost succeeded in locking him down. He dialed up his last two diamondbacks and leered at both of them through the canopy. “See ya, fellas.”

  Click.

  “Daredevil, Daredevil, get your people outta there, now!” Floyd barked on an open channel. “Sensors show a massive energy buildup occurring in the planet’s atmosphere where that Kurgorian ship just went down. According to our scans, her core is set to go at any—”

  A nova-bright flash rippled out from the sphere, sending a shockwave of nearly Alaskan-sized proportions rolling through space toward them.

  “Lee, we have got to go, and now!” Mac yelled. “C’mon!”

  Starting to pull away so as to steer his Mako free of the danger, Lee’s eyes caught sight of a single gray spec moving away from the blast. “Please break right,” he said, leaning forward in his seat and watching like a hawk to see which direction the craft would turn—right, toward the ASC or left toward that last Kurgorian ship. “Come on, break right.”

  A split second later, it did exactly that.

  “We’ve got another pod inbound! Swing around to—” Lee stopped short when his scopes showed the pod’s evasive speed as being nowhere near that of the cresting wave behind it. “Mac, that pod’s gonna eat it in about thirty seconds if we don’t do something. You with me?”

  “Hell yeah!” She split back hard to re-form on his wing.

  “Daredevil, this is Jester. Looks like the Alystierians see it, too. You’ve got three Phantoms screaming to intercept. Layla and I just wrapped up with Charlie Wing and are inbound to assist.”

  “Copy that, Jester,” Lee said. “How’s your cable hangin’ these days?”

  “Swingin’ free and low, brother!”

  “Glad to hear it,” Lee said. “That puts you on lasso duty. The rest of us will fly cover versus the Phantoms—me on lead. Once it’s done, fall back to fifty-one-point-two for a stacked-escort return vector to the Praetorian. Everybod
y clear?”

  “Ruah!” they all shouted.

  Lee switched back over to his command channel. “Praetorian, this is Daredevil. In about five mikes, we’re gonna be comin’ your way like a bat outta hell. You ready to jump or not?”

  * * *

  Wincing hard at the imaginary pins and needles that bristled through his right thigh, Wyatt stared down at the nurse who fumbled past the bandaged fleshy bulb where his knee used to be. As she worked, the persistent audible mud of the Praetorian’s comm flooded through the speakers over Wyatt’s recovery bed, according to her request.

  “Hsss.” He winced again.

  “I’m sorry, Chief,” the nurse said, fingers racing to adjust the cybernetic leg Wyatt had been assigned. “I know this isn’t comfortable, but we can’t construct your permanent prosthesis until we process the data from the temp mold. Now please, stay still.”

  A massive boom shook the floor at his steel-skeletal foot, and Wyatt jerked his attention to the ceiling as a familiar voice cut through the noise.

  “We’ve got him, Admiral, go!” Lee shouted past the violent, screeching cacophony of what sounded like an emergency crash-down on the flight deck.

  “Simpson!” Katahl’s voice barked back. “Captain Summerston and his team are in with the second pod. What’s our status?”

  “I’m almost there, sir, but there’ve been a lot of changes made down here since I left!” Wyatt’s old AC responded. “Right now, I’m hung up in the converter relay. I just need a minute!”

  “Damn it, Jon, you’ve gotta reverse the flow to…” Wyatt slid off the side of the bed and got to his feet, nearly collapsing to the tile in the process when another surge of pain sizzled through his amputated limb.

  “Whoa, hold on, Chief.” The nurse bolted upright to steady her patient. “That’s just a temp mold you’ve got there. It’s not built for extensive movement, and besides, you’re in no shape to—”

  “Sorry, Miss, but I have got to go, and right now this thing’s all I’ve got.” Wyatt leaned against his bed to pull on some trousers. “Now you can either help me or get out of my way. But whatever you’re doing, do it now.”