by Jason Letts
“You’re cleared for departure,” Firth said over the com, startling him from staring blankly at the dark screen. Loris felt like he’d been doused with cold water. Bereft of any means to fight, his confidence wavered.
“If we’re not able to hold them off, we need to prepare for the possibility that we will have to leave before we’re done evacuating the planet,” he said.
It felt strange having those words come out of his mouth. Defeat tasted so strange, but he couldn’t sacrifice everyone on the Magellan and the Incubator for those left on the surface. At least it didn’t stop him from racing back to the surface as fast as he possibly could.
When he got there, it was like everyone knew that he’d been shaken. The people filing on had grown quiet in the night. Those that looked at him quickly looked away as if they knew they were the substance of his impossible burden. Even Kid had a sense that it was more than just fatigue.
“I’ll stay behind. Maybe some others will volunteer to join me,” she said.
“There’s no reason to think…” he began, but she cut him off.
“It’s too late for lies and I don’t want your sugarcoating. I’ve been watching the time just as you have. What you’ve done for us is astounding, but there are those of us who’ll be at peace resting here in the moon dust with Gallow. He was wrong about you, and so was I.”
Loris couldn’t do more than nod before closing the ramp and squeezing his way back to the cockpit. He didn’t say a single word during the entire flight, or the next.
Over the com, he listened in as Panic took charge and deployed the slow burn missiles, which sailed as far into the distance as they could before their propulsion fuel ran out. There the isotopes rigged inside began to overheat, radiating light and heat that might’ve been a glimpse of something a million times stronger a few light years away.
“They’re taking the bait!” Panic called, so overjoyed she was nearly yelling over the com. They tracked the change in the Agarthanons’ trajectory, counting every minute they went in the wrong direction as one more they’d have to rescue the Novans. Loris was able to nearly complete an entire trip by the time they reached the floating missile and gobbled it up. Panic had perfectly timed another one to go off in a completely different area, hoping to make the gaseous creatures chase one after another long enough for the mission to be completed.
The tracking on the console told a different story.
“They’re not falling for it twice,” Firth said. Panic was silent.
“Hey, that was still great. It might just be enough to make it,” Loris said. He wasn’t just trying to sound optimistic. Based on his calculations, there was a chance they’d pull it off. It all depended on what the puffy pink clouds did when they reached the planet.
Loris wasn’t about to wait to find out. He steered the Hudson back toward the planet, leaning on a depleting feeling of adrenaline to keep him awake. After eighteen hours it seemed like a struggle even to move his hands across the console. Something red flashed on the screen, jarring him to attention. The da Gama was veering erratically toward him as it came in from the opposite direction.
The Hudson jerked out of the way just in time to avoid a collision. The da Gama straightened itself out, but it hinted to Loris that there were others in the fleet crews who were worse off than he was. The cold truth of it was that the backup pilots were relatively inexperienced, possibly becoming liabilities as their enemies approached. It went without saying that they couldn’t afford to lose a ship.
“Make a pit stop at the Magellan after unloading. We’ll have a fresh crew relieve you,” he said.
It was only a few more trips. Landing and docking shouldn’t be too much for even a green cadet to handle.
While an extra stop from the da Gama slowed their pace, the Agarthanons also seemed to reduce speed.
“They’re taking a different formation for the last stretch,” Panic said before adding something he couldn’t catch. Loris had trouble hearing what she was saying because of a mixture of chatter and sobbing on board.
“What was that last bit?” he asked.
“It’s like an umbrella, with a long chain of them pointing toward the planet.”
“This might give us an indication of how they intend to siphon energy from the planet,” Lala said.
Loris didn’t feel the need to stick around and watch them suck the life out of Nova, but if there was any way possible to rescue the remaining humans on the ground, he was going to do it. He unloaded his cargo and turned around for what was to be the final trip whether they liked it or not. The Hudson had barely accelerated to full speed when some unwelcome news came over the com.
“They’re starting to get close, and some are breaking away from the main group. They’re coming toward us. We’ll take as close an orbit as we can, pick up the da Gama and the Cortes, and you can dock later once we’ve gotten clear,” Firth said.
Loris gritted his teeth, squeezing the console in a vain attempt to move faster. They were running out of time, and now they were cutting it too close.
“How many of them are left down there?” Loris asked.
“Not sure exactly,” Lopez said. “About a hundred maybe.”
That was all Loris needed to hear. It was there, the finish line to this marathon. All he needed to do was pick up the last batch and then blow dodge. The escape route was set, he could beat the Agarthanons before they reached the planet.
When he landed he was in a cold sweat. He’d extended the ramp even before touching down in an attempt to buy a few more seconds. Running through the ship, he looked out at the crowd in the first light of day as they hustled forward. More and more streamed aboard. He was too tired to count.
“This is it, isn’t it?” Kid asked, though it wasn’t really a question.
“Yes.”
“Look,” she said, pointing up.
Loris glanced around the edge of the ship to see a mass becoming visible in the sky. The Agarthanons had grown brighter, excited by the possibility of such a ripe meal. Their appointed hour had come.
He looked back at his new passengers, and a gnawing feeling festered in his stomach as the remaining space in the ship disappeared and there were still so many left standing on the ground. Kid swallowed and blinked, a blank look came in her eyes as she stepped back, and she suddenly looked like a light breeze would be enough to knock her over. She joined a group of about fifty who made no motion toward the ship. Lopez had been way off.
Loris had to get inside before it’d be too tight to reach the cockpit, but he guessed that another ten or so would be left stranded against their will, and that was assuming all of them made it up from the caves.
As he turned to enter, there were cries and pleas that seared his ears. Some were desperately trying to grab hold of the ship’s ramp while others held them back. With one last glance, he caught sight of Kid.
“Take them home,” she said.
Loris ducked inside and squeezed his way forward. If the wailing outside wasn’t enough to pulverize any sense of success, the hysterics that suddenly came over the com sure were. The channel was flooded with voices, making it impossible to tell what had happened or what anyone was saying. He could barely pick out Panic.
“Commander! Commander!” she kept calling.
“What is it? What’s happening?” he said, unable to keep himself from shouting back. He shoved his way into his seat, raised the ramp without knowing if everyone was clear, and activated the engines. Riki Lala’s voice, normally so passive and measured, was filled with unmistakable urgency.
“There are so many more of them than we thought. The peach ones are just for the energy transfer. We picked up bits of metal, shrapnel. They’ve covered this entire quadrant. We’re trapped.”
The Hudson began to liftoff, though to what purpose was unclear. The Magellan and the Incubator weren’t following the escape route. Instead, they acted as though they were pinned against the planet’s atmosphere.
“W
e can just make a run for it and hope for the best,” Loris said.
“I don’t think so,” Panic said. “If any of them get near the reactor we’ll lose power and become sitting ducks.”
It drove home how futile a charge would be if even Panic thought it was a bad idea. Meanwhile Loris watched through the windshield’s side panel as the umbrella-shaped formation broke through the atmosphere. There were gasps when an unrelenting stream of lightning bolts from all over the surface shot up at the creatures, which went from peach-colored to pink and ever closer to red. On the surface the effect was so powerful that there were no fires, no smoke. The nearest section of jungle seemed to be instantly disintegrated directly to ash, such was the force with which the Agarthanons purged energy.
Loris’s jaw dropped while others around gasped. Though the amount of ash made it difficult to be certain, even the ground seemed to harden and crack as the lightning storm raged and the creatures’ assault delved deeper. Making sure they didn’t get near the ships’ power sources made a lot of sense.
The voices continued to babble over the com. When Loris shouted to be quiet, it fell silent along with everyone crammed into the cockpit. They were at risk of losing everyone if they didn’t come up with a solution fast.
“Is there anything we can do to fend them off?” he asked. The line remained silent too long for any sense of optimism.
“What if we kill the reactor? Shut the thing down and turn off the power station wide. Maybe then they’ll leave us alone,” Marta Aylward suggested.
“Can that be done quickly?” Loris asked. It was hard not to immediately leap at any suggestion.
“I’d have to figure out how to do that here,” Trynton Quade added. “It’s probably impossible, but I should be able to do it.”
“By my calculations there are too many of them to hope that they wouldn’t collide with us simply by heading toward the planet’s surface,” Lala said, dousing the idea of trying to hide.
“We’ve got to do something,” Loris said.
The Hudson was nearing the atmosphere. Once they passed through, he was going to have to slow down almost immediately or risk blowing by the Magellan and running straight into the encroaching aliens. He waited for any kind of a suggestion to come through the com, but the silence persisted.
It wasn’t hard to imagine the nearly invisible puffs passing through the station and causing the same kind of heat death as they did to Nova, leaving everything as cold as space.
“Are we trapped, then? Is there nothing we can do?” he asked.
They had pulled up alongside the Magellan and the Incubator, which were uncomfortably close. It was hard for Loris to tell where the approaching enemies were or how long they had left.
“Wait, something’s happening,” Riki Lala said. “Look at the planet.”
Loris craned his neck to peer out the side of the windshield, where flashes of light spanned from the surface to beyond the atmosphere a fair distance from the umbrella formation. After a moment of scratching his head, he figured out what was causing it.
“It’s the probes.”
The flashes grew in intensity until they were a steady stream of light. The sliver extended outward into space until it formed a right angle triangle. Suddenly, the light faded except along the edges, revealing the empty blackness of space that blocked part of their view of the planet.
“It’s a window, like the one we saw inside Detonus. The probes cause them,” Lala said.
“You said that a probe had been sent to the Agarthanons. Their bringing it here produced the third corner,” Panic said.
Loris recalled that the orbiting probe only remained in range for a short time, requiring him to make a split-second decision. But since it was their only option, it was no choice at all.
“Let’s go through it,” he said, immediately pulling the Hudson around and gunning it for the window. Part of why he wanted to get there first was if it wasn’t what it seemed, the larger ships might have a chance to turn around. He barreled straight for the dark expanse, where starlight was visible throughout in tiny specks.
Some part of him expected it to be a mirage that would vanish, like he’d been toyed with in his moment of most dire need. He half expected to crash, though against what he didn’t know. But they approached the plane and sailed through it like it was nothing. Loris swung the ship around to get a glimpse of the others coming through. From this side it was all empty space, and Nova was only visible in the bottom corner of the triangle. The Agarthanon umbrella continued to eviscerate the planet in the distance, but it seemed far away and unthreatening like something in a film.
He was breathing deeply, hoping that the others would make it through in time.
The Magellan crossed over and the Incubator came right behind it, though the huge ship barely fit through. As they slowed to a halt, Loris continued to watch the window twist slightly with the orbiting probe. It stretched and then all at once the light and the image of Nova disappeared.
The window was gone, and they were now somewhere different than they were just moments before. But the question remained, where was that?
CHAPTER 7
The com was silent. The people around him were silent. Even Loris’s mind was silent as he waited for some sign that they had escaped the danger. Moments passed.
“Is everyone OK?” he finally asked.
“I think we’re clear,” Panic said. He sat back in relief as the weight on his shoulders diminished. Someone patted him on the head, which was a little weird.
“We’re detecting some unusual gravitational force for being out in empty space, but it’s nothing to be concerned about,” Riki Lala said. “I’ll get to calculating our location.”
He waited for someone to freak out and say how amazing and unbelievable it was that they had just been transported to a completely different part of the galaxy, but it never came. Things were happening that no human had ever experienced before, and no one understood it, but somehow it all felt strangely normal.
Loris just went on with the next thing he had to do, which was deliver the rest of his passengers to the Incubator. As he’d done so many times in the past twenty-four hours, he docked, opened the airlock, and waved good-bye to the rest of his refugees. Bleary-eyed with exhaustion and thinking about falling asleep inside the Hudson as soon as he docked it to the Magellan, he was about to shut the airlock when he noticed someone sneaking back onto the ship.
It was a young brown-haired woman whose pregnancy was starting to show that had a squirming turtle in her hand.
“You wouldn’t mind one more passenger, would you? I think I’m ready to head back to the station. The staff in the medical ward probably thinks I’m avoiding them.”
Loris forced a smile as she came forward and wrapped an arm around him. He pulled away abruptly, drawing a concerned look from her.
“What’s wrong she asked?”
He’d avoided talking about it with her so many times while she was away, but feeling her touch made him think of that unsettling conversation with the boy. He couldn’t hide from it any longer.
“The boy said that I might not be the father of your baby,” he said, wanting to see the answer on her face more than in her voice. She laughed, reaching out to him for balance.
“I haven’t been sleeping with anyone else while I’ve been up here, so you do the math,” she said. There wasn’t a hint of hostility or defensiveness in her, which went a long way to settle Loris’s fears that something was amiss. While she was innocent, it did make him suspicious about the accuser.
“That’s twice he’s tried to put one over on me. I’d say I have a bone to pick with him.”
“What did he say exactly?”
“He said he wasn’t sure if I was the father,” Loris said. Brina squinted, wrinkling her brow in a way that was impossible not to find charming.
“My sense of it is that sometimes he has to be taken very literally. Saying he didn’t know wasn’t an invitation to re
ad doubt into it. He seems to only have access to top level thoughts similar to what he projects. So unless I’d deliberately thought, “Loris is the father,” that might not have been clear to him.”
Loris nodded at her absently. In this particular moment he couldn’t muster much mental energy to sort through the ins and outs of their alien passenger. Getting back to the Magellan was more appealing, and he escorted Brina into the cockpit where she took a seat next to him.
“So did you figure out all of the scenes?” he asked.
“I did the best I could with it, but who knows if it’s actually correct. It is an amazing system and I have no doubt that living things could be made out of it. That kind of power would be too much for me to wield, though. I don’t know who could be comfortable doing something like that. There’s actually a mechanism for entering an exact genome. Did you know it can create specific individuals?”
“No, I didn’t know that,” Loris said.
“It’s so far beyond anything I thought was possible,” she said.
“Sort of like passing through a portal into some far-flung corner of space?”
“Exactly.”
The Hudson arrived at the Magellan’s docking bay, where Loris hobbled out of the ship in search of his bed. He was oblivious to much more than where he was in the galaxy. The time escaped him, and he couldn’t remember the last time he ate anything. He mumbled something at Brina as she departed for her own quarters with Survivor. On the way to the lift, he happened to pass Lopez.
“How you hanging in there? You’re looking pretty ragged,” Lopez said.
“I’d still fly circles around you in a fight,” Loris boasted, thinking he did have more in the tank even if his eyelids were awfully heavy.
The door to his quarters slid open and in an instant he was face down on the bed. He thought about his plan to sleep forever and closed his eyes.