by Jason Letts
To say they had the element of surprise was an understatement. Loris couldn’t imagine what a luxury it would be to sit beside a target for so long with impunity.
All at once the squadron activated their weapons, triggering a series of explosions easily visible to the Magellan. Though many of the armada’s biggest guns were knocked out, countless smaller ones began firing in a futile attempt to counterattack. The Zero Cadence fleet effortlessly avoided incoming fire and began to unload on the various command towers, communications arrays, and docked fighters.
It was hard not to smile as one massive cruiser after another was chopped to bits. The casualties had to be catastrophic, disarray was setting in, and the knowledge that they were being paid back on behalf of billions and billions of lives was taking hold of their minds.
“We’re being hailed,” Sonia Firth said, looking over her shoulder at Loris.
It was about time they came groveling at his feet.
“Hoping we’ll call off the attack dogs, I bet. They’re going to be disappointed, but you can bring it up on screen.”
They were once again treated with the sight of the festering, oozy creatures that had engineered the destruction of Earth. This one Detonan looked the same as all the others, though Loris couldn’t help but feel that he alone was responsible for the deaths of his father, Kid, Lopez, and everyone else who’d fallen victim to their malicious actions and vicious creations.
Behind this Detonan, others of his kind hobbled about in a loping but frantic fashion. Their distress came through in shaky hands and bobbing heads, but the one facing the viewer seemed to have no concerns whatsoever.
“Submit to us or death be to you all,” he said at last.
Strange translation aside, Loris found the foolish defiance he was witnessing to be laughable.
“If I’m not mistaken, you are the one taking massive damage as we speak and facing certain destruction. Stand down now or every one of you will perish,” Loris said.
The Detonan lowered its crusty eyelids a little, and if Loris had to guess he was simmering with hatred. It was very possible that they’d have to wipe out all of these creatures regardless of what promises were made.
“Submit or your friend will die!” the creature said in a more adamant gurgling that remained audible even while the translation played.
While Loris scoffed at the idle threat, there was something about it that ate into his confidence. What friend was he talking about? He looked around at the rest of the crew for help trying to figure it out.
“The rest of the armada and the red dwarf will be arriving shortly,” Firth informed him.
Loris suspected that the Detonan misspoke and was threatening everyone he knew, rather than one specific person. As far as he knew, not a single one of them were exposed to any form of attack. It might’ve been false hope on account of their reinforcements, but soon enough all of them would be defanged and defeated.
“We’ll all be better off once you are extinguished from the galaxy,” Loris said, cutting the channel.
Talking was pointless, especially when watching the dark matter squadron tear through another huge cruiser with its green waves had so much more entertainment value. A few more minutes passed as Zero Cadence went about their work with surgical precision, and Loris was becoming convinced that sitting back and enjoying the show was the best course of action after all.
But his fun ceased immediately with a sudden flash of light. The remaining Detonan ships fired at least fifty of their cannons simultaneously upon a single point in their midst. Through the screen, Loris saw a very different kind of green rippling wave as one of the fighters ruptured into a dazzling explosion. The enemy fire was concentrated on a spot so close to them some of the shots went clear past and further damaged some of their own ships. But by the time the light and the waves died down, it was clear that the fighter had been completely destroyed.
“Holy mackerel,” Kelly Reid howled, his mouth gaping open. “How’d they do that?”
Other expressions of shock echoed around the room. The remaining dark matter fighters scrambled, abandoning their flight paths and disengaging their weapons. The answer hit Loris like a bat to the head.
“The tablet. They were able to locate and lock onto the tablet. That was the friend the Detonan threatened,” he said.
It was painful to say the words. He hadn’t considered the leader of Zero Cadence to be a friend before, but right now it sure felt like he’d lost one. The question remained about whether things would continue to unravel or if they would regroup and continue the fight. The fighters were now well clear of the Detonan armada and keeping a low profile. How they made their decisions was unknown, and communicating with them was now impossible.
Shapes came into view behind the cruisers and carriers, many of them severely damaged. The remaining Detonans and the Silica fleet was arriving, vastly increasing their numbers. In their midst, Loris could just make out the triangular apparatus and the star it enveloped in the rear.
Quade’s voice came over the com.
“Our hands are still tied. Whatever has locked up the system is still intact,” he said. “What’s worse is, we’re slowly inching toward them even though the engines haven’t been reactivated.”
Loris put his hand over his mouth as he watched the four dark matter fighters looping about the area. If things continued as they were, the Incubator and the Magellan would get pulled in by the star’s gravitational force. The danger of getting destroyed by the sheer number of enemy ships, even if the rest of Zero Cadence went full tilt, was very real. Something had to be done, and they couldn’t count on others to win their fight for them anymore.
“Now that they’re up close, can you get me more detailed schematics on the structures around that weapon? I was told it operated on a form of nuclear fusion and that it takes a tremendous amount of energy to constrict the star like that. Trying to rupture it might be the only move we can make,” Loris said to Firth, who began running additional scans.
They brought in Riki Lala, who took a close look at the new imagery and attempted to make sense of it along with Loris, Panic, and the rest of the senior staff.
“It would be impossible to imagine this working if all three of them didn’t house full-scale reactors. Damaging any one of them should be enough to destabilize the other two,” she said, but Loris noticed something that made him doubt that it would be so easy.
“Do you see these projectors on the exterior? They look awfully similar to what produces the anti-ballistic shields on their fighters and ships, but larger. I have a feeling they could take a lot of punishment, possibly much more bombardment than we could give them. The only way to do anything is to either thwart the shield by attacking from multiple angles or by getting in close with the Cortes’s arms to manually attack it.”
When he finished speaking, he finally noticed the uncomfortable looks he was getting from Riki and Panic.
“You’re not talking about actually trying to make a run through all of those ships to attack these reactors, are you?” Riki asked. Panic’s glare was particularly scrutinizing, but this time Loris didn’t back down.
“I’m not going to ask anyone to do anything that I wouldn’t do myself. We can’t sit back and expect to win any longer. Do you see the squadron standing by out there? If they’re anything like us, they might be feeling lost and confused about what to do next, maybe angry as well. The only way to draw them back in is to make a move ourselves, and it needs to be done before it’s too late.”
Loris waited for Panic to open her mouth and tell him it was a terrible idea and that he shouldn’t do it, but the strained, intense look in her eyes gave him a sense that she understood that their dire circumstances required desperate measures.
“They are looking for a leader,” she said at last, nodding slightly. Loris could tell that she was, too. He was the best pilot they had, but even that might not be enough to get past the armada and make it to the red dwarf. Their pros
pects were grim and the odds were long.
“Do you feel afraid?” Riki asked him.
The question made Loris pause. It had been so long since he’d had a free moment to determine how he really felt.
“I’m afraid of what’ll happen if I don’t go.”
Having his suit on cut down on the prep time, but it turned out he wasn’t the only one who’d anticipated that they’d be saddling up for another ride. Redhook had been waiting on the docking bay like a bachelor being stood up for a date. He smiled and cracked his knuckles as he stood up.
“It’s about time you got here. Let’s do this one for Lopez,” he said.
“You take the Hudson. I’ll be going solo on the Cortes.”
Redhook nodded and they met up with the pilot of the da Gama, Rice, a woman with hair spiked out in twist ties. Her professionalism was impeccable, even in the face of such danger.
“This is what we trained for at the academy,” she said.
Loris couldn’t ever forget those early days in the Unified Academy classrooms, when old has-beens would make scary proclamations about half the students in the room dying in space fights. Had their time finally come?
CHAPTER 14
The Cortes detached from the Magellan and began increasing velocity as it made a wide arc in the general direction of the sprawling enemy fleet. Its shields weakened, its photon cannons depleted, and charges were under fifty percent of capacity. The Hudson and the da Gama were following along in tow, three mid-size vessels standing before a force the strength of which Loris had never imagined could exist in space.
“What’s the plan, Commander?” Redhook asked, sounding as bloodthirsty as ever. “You hit ’em high and I hit ’em low?”
The Hudson was in the worst condition of the three ships, and Loris was afraid it’d go down quickly under any sort of sustained fire.
“No, just follow me until we get in range, then both of you peel off and attempt to be as much of a distraction as you can. If things get rough, turn tail back to the Magellan.”
“I can’t say I care much for that plan,” Redhook protested. Loris knew he wouldn’t hesitate to go down in a blaze of glory if he got a chance at it. But he was afraid, by the time it was all over, it’d be all blaze and no glory.
That would be especially true if the remaining members of the Zero Cadence squadron didn’t get their act together and join them. Loris’s flight path was intended to swoop by around them to make sure they were noticed. Through the screen, they were still huddled together and motionless. He knew if he were in their position, that seeing a trio of banged up ships heading into battle alone it’d be impossible not to help.
It was quiet being in the cockpit all alone. Loris performed the various necessary functions at the appropriate times to carry out his plan, but it was strange to feel lonely and be alone when he was doing something for so many other people. Something rattling in the back broke the monotony of the humming engines. Loris glanced back, wondering if his slight arc had been enough to cause an unrestrained item to fall.
Instead, a small figure in a brown cloak emerged. It was the boy, who nonchalantly strolled into the cockpit, hopped on Lopez’s seat, and began kicking his legs playfully against the chair. All Loris could think was that he’d picked the worst flight to be a stowaway on.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. At least the boy didn’t attempt to meddle with the controls.
“I told you, Loris,” he said with his raspy voice. “Our destinies are linked. What we do now will echo through space and time.”
They were approaching the dark matter fighters and had already gotten the attention of the enemy fleet, which began to reposition itself in expectation of their attack. Smaller fighters were being deployed and the bigger guns were being charged. Behind them all was the red dwarf and the large fusion apparatus. Loris had a lot to pay attention to and couldn’t spare much notice for the boy, who continued to speak intermittently.
“The ability to squeeze a star and amplify its gravitational field is a stunning achievement, but it’s nothing compared to the breakthroughs of my own kind. We discovered that who we are and what we know lives on in the universe after we are gone. You might call it the metadata in the fabric of reality. If the worst should happen, we will not truly be lost.”
For Loris, creating a strong force of gravity in the middle of open space struck him as being much more impressive. Already, it was having an impact on the Cortes, making it harder to stick to his flight path. It was possible the enemy fleet was stuck close to the star, forced to wait for it to lure in their prey.
“Keep an eye on that pull,” Loris said to the other captains. “If it starts to get too strong, that’s your cue to get out before it’s too late.”
The Zero Cadence squadron was dead ahead, about to pass beyond the edge of the screen rigged up against the windshield. Loris was tempted to slow down and wave to get their attention as he went by, but it turned out he didn’t need to. The ships began to accelerate in the direction he was going before he passed them. He wished he had a free moment to grab another panel and see if they’d taken position behind him, but instead all he could do was trust they were there.
Loris remained focused on the fleet before him that was waiting for him to get tangled in their web. The larger cannons began firing first, requiring sudden shifts every few seconds to dodge. Loris and the boy rocked in their seats as the Cortes pursued an approach along a lower trajectory, where they would be exposed to fewer turrets and cannons.
To his surprise, the four dark matter fighters moved out in front and took a blistering pace toward the arrayed enemies that even the Cortes and the da Gama couldn’t match. Loris watched as they slipped right by the unaware fighters and began homing in on the larger cannons preparing to deliver additional blasts. He breathed deeply as the massive bursts diminished in volume, requiring fewer life-or-death dodges.
But there simply weren’t enough invisible allies to cut through the swarming Detonan and Silica fighters, which were lining up along the outskirts of the armada, constantly shifting their position to anticipate the Cortes’s exact point of attack. Their fire was one thing to worry about, but the risk of collision was another serious threat that couldn’t be withstood. Breaking through the front line in one piece was going to require some fancy piloting, and some luck.
The Hudson and da Gama began to break out in different directions, which effectively reduced the awaiting herd. Loris peered hard at the jostling fighters ahead, searching for an opening. They began firing at him, forcing him to react before he was ready. The Cortes executed a barrel roll and spun toward the starboard side, continuing to spiral until making a sudden jerk in the opposite direction.
Loris maxed out the engines and the ship kicked like an angry mule, lurching forward faster than the opposing fighters could react. The Cortes tore by them only to find that more were streaming in to join the fight from above and below. It took everything he had to dodge their fire without bumping in to the sides of two carriers that were closing in on him.
The end of the tunnel looked like it would offer some relief and more room to breath until another large vessel moved to block the opening. He was going to have to risk rising straight into the stream of enemy fighters until Zero Cadence appeared ahead to slice the thin blocking cruiser clear in half. He watched the gap widen and decided to stay the course, judging that it would be enough for the Cortes to fit through.
A moment later he was flying between the broken halves, catching glimpses of hallway shafts, sparking conduits, and Detonans floating in space. Inwardly, he gave a nod to his invisible allies, who he realized were also having difficulty making movements away from the tiny star. They probably knew long before he did that getting out would be impossible, and it hit him hard that they chose to join the fight anyway.
Even after passing a few larger ships, there were many more littered across the plane of space ahead in front of his target. He moved to assume an attack
position against one of the cruisers looming ahead, hoping not to make it too obvious what his real target was. A few photons were all he could spare, and their impact caused slight explosions that quickly fizzled into nothing.
Zero Cadence packed a more powerful punch, obliterating the command tower on what seemed to be one of the largest carriers packed into the middle of the field. A few moments later, the com lit up.
“Something happened. We’re regaining control over the Incubator’s systems. The communication channels are live, but it’ll take time for the engine to heat up,” Quade said.
“Do what you can to get clear of the area,” Loris said. His hand twitched to initiate a maneuver just in time to avoid a missile sailing his way.
The next voice he heard was Brina’s.
“I always wanted to carry on this fight with you,” she said. “But I understand you have to go this one alone. I’m proud of you and I love you. I really do. There isn’t a doubt in my mind about it now. No matter what happens, I want you to believe we’ll be together again soon.”
It was difficult to listen and let the feeling sink in when a lapse in concentration could ruin everything, but he allowed himself one moment to appreciate hearing those things he’d wanted for years, even if they were now nothing but a fairy tale. Being together wasn’t going to happen, not when he had this job to do.
“I love you, too,” he said. “If it’s a boy, will you name him William after my father, or Carinna after my mother, if it’s a girl?”
“I promise I will,” she said.
It was comforting to have that straightened out, and he tried not to think too much about the chances their child’s day of birth would never arrive.
More of the Silica ships from the newly arrived cohort were ahead. His instinct was to use the ship’s hijacking program, but their ringed dampeners and modified code took that option off the table. Stopping to dismantle them with the Cortes’s arms wasn’t possible either. As it was, flying solo and trying to operate the hijacking program anyway was a dangerous proposition. It was like piloting two ships at once, which wasn’t easy to do in the middle of a fight.