by Tim Waggoner
But then he realized what he was seeing: for whatever reasons, someone on board the Orinoco had activated the Earth Memorial before the tech ship had been destroyed. He was looking at the largest holographic projection that humanity had ever created.
“I have to admit, that doesn’t look half bad at all.”
“Unfortunately, it appears the Manti don’t share your aesthetic appreciation, Commander.”
The holoscreen showed a half dozen Yellow Jackets streaking toward the hologram of Old Earth. The stupid Buggers had detected the memorial’s power emissions and thought they were coming from some sort of weapon.
Wolf thanked whatever gods watched over desperate fighter pilots. This was just the distraction he needed. Wolf yanked the joystick hard to port and hit the maneuvering thrusters. He angled the Retribution toward the stargate and then gave it everything the engines had.
Manti were still swarming out of the gate, but Wolf hoped that if he could enter the hyperspatial vortex at just the right microsecond, he’d be able to slip the Retribution through between Manti arrivals. He knew it was a long shot, but he didn’t have any choice. This was the only gate between here and Mars, and while he could fly the Retribution the long way home if he had to, it would take weeks to get there. The ship’s life support systems would hold out, but the only food and water he had aboard were emergency rations – nowhere near enough to last the entire trip.
But the bottom line was the Manti. They’d never let him go without pursuit, and they would never stop following him. The only thing that ever stopped Manti was death. As fast as the Retribution was, Wolf knew he could probably outrun the Buggers, but he wasn’t about to lead a squadron of Manti back to Mars. It was the stargate or nothing.
“Computer, calculate the best chance of our passing through the Gate between exiting Manti, and adjust engine speed accordingly.”
“Acknowledged, Commander. But I do feel it’s my duty to inform you that the odds of success are somewhat slim.”
“Just start doing the math, okay?”
Wolf sat back and listened as the engine whine lowered in pitch. The Retribution’s AI had done its job. Now all Wolf could do was wait to see what happened.
“How long until we reach the gate?”
“Seventeen seconds, Commander.”
Wolf smiled. In any other situation, that would have seemed like no time at all. But right now, it might as well have been an eternity. He glanced at the holoscreen and saw that the Yellow Jackets had fired stingers at the asteroid that housed the Earth Memorial’s hologenerator. The projectiles hit, the asteroid exploded in a bright flash of energy, and the holographic re-creations of the Earth and the moon winked out of existence. Wolf was surprised by the wave of sadness he felt. It was almost as if Earth had been reborn only to once again be destroyed by the Manti.
“Ten seconds.”
Wolf knew there was a good chance he wasn’t going to survive this, so he opened a comlink to GSA Control.
“This is Wolf. Mei, I just want to say that I—”
“Five seconds.”
Wolf took a deep breath. How could he possibly say everything he wanted to say to her in five seconds?
“I love you.”
Then he saw a Lander emerge from the vortex directly in front of his ship. Collision alarms screamed a warning, but they didn’t scream for long.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
As soon as Kyoto saw the Manti start pouring out of the Stargate, she turned away from Mudo’s holoscreen and dashed out of his lab.
“Wait!” Mudo called out after her. “You’ll never get there in time!”
But she ignored him and kept running down the corridor, headed for the GSA Armory.
Hold on, Wolf! I’m coming!
An electronic chirp came from the personal comlink Kyoto wore around her wrist.
“Mei, this is Memory. I’ve just instructed the hangar crew to prep a ship. I told them that if it wasn’t ready by the time you arrived, I’d access the GSA credit accounts and reduce all their bank balances to zero. For starters.”
Kyoto didn’t slow down as she replied, “Thanks. You coming along on this one?”
“Try to stop me.”
Despite everything, Kyoto smiled as she continued sprinting down the corridor. Seconds later, her comlink chirped again, only this time it was General Adams.
“Mudo just told me that you’re headed for the Armory. Tell me he’s wrong.”
Kyoto’s only response was to run faster.
“Commander, you do not, I repeat, do not have authorization to lift off! Do you read me?”
Memory’s voice cut in. “I’m sorry, General, but the commander’s personal comlink is offline. I believe it has suffered some sort of malfunction.”
“Malfunction my ass!” Adams growled. “And what you are doing on this channel anyway? You’re supposed to be a secret!”
“In that case then, I’d better sign off, hadn’t I?” There was a chirp as Memory disconnected.
“Damn it!” Adams swore. “I don’t have time for this, Kyoto! I know you can hear me, so don’t you dare do this!” He paused and then sighed. “But since you’re going to, anyway, watch yourself, kid.” Adams disconnected.
“Thanks, Memory,” Kyoto said. “I owe you one.”
“Actually, adding in all the times I assisted you during the Second Swarm, that’s five hundred and seventy-eight you owe me.” Though the AI had no body, not even a virtual one, Kyoto nevertheless heard a smile in her voice. “But who’s counting?”
Memory fell silent, and Kyoto continued running until she reached the Armory. It was the single largest section in the entire GSA installation because of all the equipment it housed. Not just starfighters, but also tanks, missile crawlers, repair crawlers, dropships, transports—and somewhere, holographically disguised, Mudo’s experimental hyperdrive vessel. But she didn’t have time to think about the Janus. Wolf needed her.
Kyoto quickly made her way to the starship hangar. Large holographic light globes hung suspended in the air near the domed ceiling, and the plasteel floor was covered with softly glowing lines that marked individual equipment bays. She ran down the middle of the hangar toward the flight deck airlock. Techs were clustered around a starfighter, frantically preparing it for flight.
As Kyoto approached the ship, she couldn’t help smiling. It was Defender class, with G-7 emblazoned on the side and a pair of sevens—Lucky sevens, Kyoto thought—painted on the wings. It was her old ship. It seemed that Memory, for all her ego, was something of a sentimentalist.
A tech ran up to meet her. Kyoto tried to recall the stocky woman’s name. Garcia, she thought.
“I’m sorry, Commander, but we’re going to need at least a half hour to get this ship ready to go. The reactors are running at only eighty-six percent efficiency, and the targeting system needs recalibrating. I—”
“Will it fly?” Kyoto interrupted.
Garcia frowned. “Well, yes.”
“Then I’m taking off.” Without waiting for the tech’s reply, Kyoto ran over to the access ladder and climbed into the Defender’s cockpit.
“Wait!” Garcia shouted. “You need a flight suit!”
“No time!” Kyoto called back. She settled into her seat—the one place in the universe where she felt completely at home—and strapped herself in. The tech crew had already powered up the ship and activated all its systems. The Defender was online and ready to go.
Kyoto opened a comlink channel. “You here, Memory?”
“What do you think? I’ve deactivated the ship’s current AI, who quite frankly isn’t much smarter than the average protein square processor. I’ll be able to serve as ship’s AI as long as we have a clear comlink. If for whatever reason we’re disconnected, the default AI—such as she is—will reactivate and take over for me.”
“Sounds good. Let’s do this.”
Kyoto called up the holoscreen and closed the ship’s canopy. There was a click
and a soft hiss.
“Sealed and pressurized. Life support systems are online and functioning within designed parameters. That means you won’t die, in case you’re wondering.”
“Acknowledged.” Kyoto activated the maglev boosters and the Defender rose a meter into the air. “Open the airlock, Memory.”
“Will do, Mei.”
The airlock door slid open. Kyoto gripped the Defender’s joystick and pushed it gently forward. The ship glided over ferroceramic rails set into the plasteel floor and moved into the airlock. Once inside, Memory gave the signal to close and seal the airlock door without being asked. Kyoto gritted her teeth as she watched her holoscreen, waiting for the green light to appear in the corner, which would tell her the airlock was closed and the hangar door was ready to open.
“C’mon… c’mon…”
The light came on.
Memory sent the signal and the hangar door’s seal unlocked, letting in a chuff of Martian atmosphere. Kyoto didn’t wait for the door to rise completely. As soon as it was a third of the way up, she nudged the Defender forward. The maglev rails extended from the hangar all the way to the dropzone, and it was there that ships activated their fusion drives and flew into Cydonia’s stargate. But Kyoto didn’t have time to follow standard procedure.
Once the Defender had cleared the hangar, she deactivated the maglev boosters at the same instant she engaged the fusion drive. The ship dropped, shuddered, then righted itself and soared into the Martian sky.
“I don’t think you’re going to get any style points for that takeoff,” Memory said, “but to coin a cliché, all systems are go.”
The Defender’s top speed was 400 meters a second. It was hardly the fastest ship the GSA had, but it would be enough to get her to the gate within seconds.
“Prepare for stargate jump—and prepare to experience a severe attack of nausea. Without a flight suit to insulate you from the effects of the hyperspatial vortex, there’s a good chance you’ll toss your soy cookies all over your dress uniform.”
“If I do, I’ll send Wolf the cleaning bill.”
The Martian landscape passed by in a blur as the Defender hurtled toward the stargate.
“Memory, are you monitoring the situation at the Earth Memorial?”
A pause. “I am.”
Kyoto didn’t like that reply. It was way too short for Memory, not to mention not smart-alecky enough. The only reason Kyoto could think of for the AI’s brief response was that she had bad news and didn’t wish to share it. Kyoto didn’t have to ask what that news was; it could be only one thing. Wolf was dead. But she couldn’t bring herself to ask for confirmation. Confirmation would make it real, and she didn’t think she could handle that, not yet.
“Fifteen seconds to stargate. Brace yourself, Mei. Without a flight suit, this is going to be one rough jump.”
In a few more seconds, Kyoto would be at the location of the Earth Memorial, and she could see for herself whether or not Wolf still lived. If he did, she would do everything she could to help him. If not… then she’d kill every damn Bugger in sight.
“Five seconds.”
The hyperspatial vortex loomed before her, and no matter how many times Kyoto had flown into it, she always found the swirling blue-green energy to be one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen. Looking into a gate was like looking into the very heart of creation.
“Mei! There’s a power surge from the gate!”
Without thinking, Kyoto jammed the joystick hard to starboard and activated both emergency braking and stabilizing thrusters. The Defender veered away from the stargate, and the ship’s inertial dampeners screamed as they struggled to compensate for the sudden course correction. G-forces slammed Kyoto back against her seat, and her vision started to gray at the edges. A flight suit would have protected her from the gees, but without one she’d just have to tough it out.
As the ship banked, Kyoto caught a glimpse of a shape emerging from the vortex. She hoped it was Wolf’s starfighter, but it wasn’t. It was a Lander.
Suddenly there was a loud crashing sound, and the Defender shuddered from impact. The joystick jumped in Kyoto’s hands, and she could feel control of the ship slipping away from her.
“What the hell just happened, Memory?” Kyoto shouted. She fought to level off, but the starfighter wasn’t responding. To make things worse, there was a roaring in her ears, and gray now covered her entire field of vision. If she didn’t get the ship back under control within the next few seconds, she would black out and crash.
“Our port wing clipped the edge of the gate as we banked. Damage is minimal, but the thermal scanners on that wing are offline, and we won’t be winning any prizes for graceful flying in the near future.”
Finally, the Defender leveled off and the G forces began to subside. The roaring in Kyoto’s ears faded, and her vision slowly returned to normal. That was a close one, she thought. “Understood. Show me the gate.”
The holoscreen changed to display an image of the Stargate. Landers were flooding out, just as they had at the Earth Memorial site. Kyoto had a terrifying thought then. What if Manti were pouring out of all the stargates—those that were groundside as well as orbital – throughout the Colonies? What if the Manti were even now attacking Phobos, Europa, Titan, Rhea, Triton, and Prometheus?
Landers began unleashing crackling blasts of emerald energy, and Kyoto swerved to avoid being hit. The Defender’s energy shield would help protect the ship from the Buggers’ blasts, but she didn’t want to deplete the shield’s power reserves before she needed to.
She opened a channel to GSA Control. “General Adams, you have to shut down the stargates now! Every one of them!”
“We’re trying, Kyoto!” Adams replied. “But we’re not having any luck. It looks as if the Manti are somehow managing to keep the vortexes open! We’ll stay on it, but in the meantime, start fragging Buggers!”
“You got it, General.” Kyoto swung around to engage the Landers that had already emerged from the Gate. “But see what you can do about getting a few more pilots up here, huh? I don’t want to hog all the glory for myself.” She targeted a Lander and let loose with her pulse cannon. There was a loud shoom! as energy lanced forth from the Defender and blew the green-carapaced monstrosity back to whatever cosmic hell it had come from.
“Understood. Adams out.”
Kyoto locked onto another Lander and fired once more. The Defender’s pulse cannon blasted the Manti apart, and Kyoto flew though the now empty airspace where the alien had been hovering.
“How many hostiles are we dealing with, Memory?”
“Seventeen so far, Mei, and more are coming.”
Seventeen plus was a lot of Manti for one pilot to handle, especially when her ship wasn’t in top working condition.
A Lander attacked from Kyoto’s port side, and she managed to dodge it, though the ship responded too sluggishly. It was that damn wing. When you were up against Manti, even the smallest disadvantage could prove fatal.
Kyoto activated her comlink. “General, when are those pilots you promised going to come out to play?”
“No time soon, Kyoto. The Manti have begun attacking Cydonia City. One of their energy blasts just hit the Armory and collapsed the hangar before a single ship could launch.”
Kyoto’s breath caught in her throat as she thought of the flight crew that had gotten her Defender ready. Kyoto hoped they’d had enough time to get out before the hangar collapsed.
“What about ground support, then?”
“That section of the Armory wasn’t as badly hit. We should be able to clear an exit and get someone out there to help you soon.”
“Acknowledged and appreciated. Kyoto out.” She broke the comlink connection and sighed. “Looks like we’re on our own for the time being, Memory.”
“What else is new?”
“Number of hostiles now?”
“Twenty-three, including two Yellow Jackets.”
“Damn it! We don
’t have time for Mudo to bypass the Manti’s jamming signal. If the stargate isn’t shut down right now, the skies above Cydonia are going to be filled with Buggers from horizon to horizon.” Kyoto made a decision. “Prepare fast-lock missiles.” She swung the Defender hard to starboard and flew straight for the Gate.
“Missiles armed and ready to fire, but please tell me you aren’t thinking of destroying the gate.”
“I’m not thinking about it; I’m doing it.” Kyoto targeted the stargate antigrav generators and deployed her fast-locks. Two missiles shot from underneath the Defender’s wings and streaked toward their target. Stargate rings were constructed from empyrean alloys—extremely hard, dense material—but the AG generators were mostly made of ferroceramics and weren’t quite so tough.
The fast-locks hit their targets, and the AG generators exploded in a shower of ferroceramic shrapnel. Without the antigravity field to keep it aloft, the stargate wobbled, listed, and then plummeted toward the ground. The empyrean ring crashed into the plasteel surface of the dropzone landing pad, shattering it like glass. The ring toppled over, and the hyperspatial vortex within exploded in a burst of aquamarine-colored energy so bright that Kyoto’s holoscreen momentarily blanked out. When the screen came back online, Kyoto saw that half of the ring was gone.
“What you just saw was a burst of hyperetheric radiation. In layman’s terms, the vortex escaped from its containment field and for a trillionth of a nanosecond ran wild. Half of the empyeran ring was jumped Somewhere Else. We were far enough away from the explosion for the ship’s shielding to turn aside the worst of the radiation, and I don’t anticipate any lasting effects. That wasn’t exactly the most elegant solution to a problem that I’ve ever seen, but I must admit that it did the trick. It’s impossible for anything to emerge from the Gate now, Manti included.”
Kyoto was shaking like a cadet on her first solo flight. She’d had no idea what would happen when she destroyed the Gate’s AG generators. If the Defender had been much closer to the ring when the vortex exploded… She shuddered and decided not to think about it. There were still Manti to worry about.