by Paul Tassi
“I don’t have time to explain. I need a communicator, and I need a ship. You all look like you need an escort to somewhere safer.”
The man cocked his head at that.
“You’re offering to escort us?”
“Just trust me,” Lucas said. “What’s your name?”
“Captain Ozar Torwind, commanding officer of the remnants of SDI battalion 2.903,” the man replied mechanically.
“I’m Lucas.”
“I’m not sure how that’s possible.”
The man’s narrow green eyes stared into his own and searched his face. Lucas could tell he believed who he was, and he didn’t even need to force him to. The two exchanged a stiff Soran salute. Captain Torwind turned back to his men who had now all lowered their weapons.
“You’re not going to believe this,” he called out.
Lucas turned back to the viewscreen and saw that Asha’s message was repeating itself. There was no way to know when it had originally aired.
“We need to get off the street,” Torwind said, and Lucas turned to follow him.
“Jus’ came out of nowhere. Lost comms with the defensive fleet almos’ immediately. Everyone starts running ’round with their heads cut off.”
Lucas was talking to a young female soldier with her head wrapped in a bloody bandage. The unit was holed up inside a building that apparently used to sell high-end personal hovercraft. The two military vehicles were parked in the center of the showroom floor as everyone scooped rations out of plastic cans. The sun was setting. The first day of the fall of Sora was nearing its end.
“Orders started comin’ in from twelve different places,” the woman continued. Her nameplate read “Wisher.”
“No one knew where the hell the damn Chancellor was. Everyone figured he was dead until he showed up on the Stream a few hours ago and said he was transferring power to your, uh, missus.”
The rest of the group couldn’t take their eyes off Lucas. He was a legendary figure in Soran culture, and supposed to be very much dead. And now that he’d reappeared, he looked terrifying between his eyes, veins, and injuries, most of which had been wrapped up by the unit’s surviving medic.
“Now that Miss Asha’s in charge, orders comin’ in more clear now. More or less sit tight. They’re plannin’ something with the rest of the fleet. Everythin’ that didn’t get blown to bits when Xala showed up. Suicide, if you ask me.”
Several soldiers nodded in assent. Lucas was listening, but fiddling with the best comm unit the platoon had, trying to boost its signal to possibly reach Solarion, or wherever Asha was now. Old Lucas would have no idea how to do such a thing, but Shadow conversion allowed his mind to understand every bit of the technology inside the unit, and how it had to be rewired and amplified in order to reach further than outer orbit, its current max range. The other soldiers watched in silence as the fingers on his left hand nimbly danced around the circuits and wiring, with the other still wrapped in cloth. They almost moved independently of his mind.
“Trust Asha,” Lucas said finally, looking up. “From the looks of it she’s assembled quite a rescue squad out there. They’ll be here soon.”
The woman nodded, though looked unconvinced. Her hair was caked in dirt and it was hard to tell what color it had once been. Her eyes were a pale brown, and stared far past wherever she looked. If she’d been stationed in a remote place like this, it was clear neither she nor any of her unit ever dreamed they’d see action like this. The invasion of Sora. It was still unthinkable, even while it was happening all around them. The distant explosions and gunfire never stopped, even as the sun dipped behind the horizon.
“Mind if I ask where you been the last fifteen years?” she said, saying what everyone was thinking.
“Sixteen,” Lucas said, turning his attention back to the comm unit.
“That’s classified,” Captain Torwind said gruffly, just getting off the shortwave radio and returning to the group. Lucas raised his eyebrows.
“You know what happened to me?” he asked.
“Gods no. But I know it’s sure as shit classified. And these grunts don’t need to know.”
They certainly didn’t. Lucas didn’t want to spook them with a lengthy tale about being half-converted into a Shadow, held prisoner by the decidedly non-Xalan Archon, and then by the High Chancellor himself.
“I was captured on Xala. Taken to Earth. Rescued by my sons a few months ago.”
A true, but infinitely shorter version of his tale.
“They do that to you there?” the woman asked, gesturing toward his eyes.
“That’s enough, Initiate,” Torwind said sharply. “Man’s been shot and stabbed more times than I’ve ever seen. He’s earned a bit of peace.”
Lucas remained silent and snapped the cover plate back on the comms device. The machine hummed.
“There we go,” he said quietly. He got up from the circle of soldiers and wandered behind one of the armored SDI hovercraft. He punched in a lengthy frequency code Alpha used for emergencies. This certainly qualified as one.
A chime sounded once, twice, three times.
Alpha looked as surprised to see him as the moment he’d been found alive on Earth.
“Lucas!” he exclaimed, gold-ringed eyes wide. “I knew you would wrench yourself free of the Archon’s grasp! What is your location?”
“Good to see you too, Alpha,” Lucas said with a grin. “I’m not sure how secure this hacked-together line is, so I’ll just say I’m on Sora. And you all?”
“In … space,” Alpha said, unable to think of a more specific identifier that wouldn’t give anything away to any Xalans listening. “What of the Archon?”
“I destroyed that cloaking ship,” Lucas said, something that had been confirmed by the squad who saw the massive vessel plunge into the water shortly before they found Lucas. “The Archon could be dead.”
Alpha’s face lit up.
“But I doubt it.”
And darkened.
“He’s definitely not Xalan, Alpha. I don’t know what he is, but he acts like he’s been controlling Xala all along. Not just recently, but since the birth of your race.”
“I do not understand that claim,” Alpha said, the picture fuzzing for a moment.
“Neither do I,” Lucas said. “He needs to take me somewhere on Sora. Needs me alive. I don’t know what he’s planning, but it’s somehow more of a priority than the invasion itself.”
“Holy shit, is that Lucas?” came a female voice from offsceen. “Jesus Christ, Alpha, give me that thing.”
Lucas’s smile widened as Asha appeared in the frame.
“Greetings, High Chancellor,” he said, smirking.
“Thank god you’re alive,” she said breathlessly. “I knew you would be, but I didn’t know if you could get away from Maston and the Archon. Where are you?”
“Sora,” Lucas repeated. Asha nodded, understanding he could say no more.
“Want to tell me how the hell you convinced Stoller to make you Chancellor?”
Asha shook her head.
“Your son’s girlfriend is a piece of work,” she said.
“Which son?” Noah asked.
“I don’t even know,” she said. “It’s all very confusing. But she talked everyone out of a bloody coup and into a peaceful transfer of power. I swear if we put that girl in front of the Corsair she could talk him into slitting his own throat for us.”
“It’s good you’re in command. I saw Kiati and Toruk up there too. Should I expect to see you soon?”
Asha nodded.
“Don’t try to reach us,” she said. “After … what comes next, meet me where they moved Project 11.”
That was code for the colony.
“We need to find Zeta and Theta, and we think they’re there.”
Lucas remembered something the Archon said on the ship.
“Ah shit,” he muttered. “I think the Archon is sending Maston there. He said something about collecting more
humans because I was such a ‘success.’”
Asha ran her hand through her hair and looked away.
“That’s all we need. But maybe that means that damned ship of his won’t be in the air at least. Trust me, we’re kicking things off soon. Just get there as fast as you can and maybe you can head him off.”
“I’m trying to find a ship here, but there isn’t much that isn’t in ruins.”
“You’ll figure it out,” she said. “You always d—”
The transmission went dead. Lucas tried to reconnect a half dozen times before giving up. Either it was being blocked or, if they were on Solarion, natural interference had knocked it out. Eventually he gave up and wandered back toward the group. There was nothing more to say. Except that he loved her. Maybe he wouldn’t get another chance.
“You get through?” Torwind asked, looking hopeful.
“I have a feeling tomorrow this war will be over, one way or another.”
“You’re not as good at speeches as your woman, you know,” Torwind snorted.
“Well, that’s why she’s in charge,” Lucas said with a weary grin. Exhaustion was setting in to his aching muscles and he felt lightheaded.
“Sir,” the young medic said, approaching him nervously. The kid didn’t look older than Erik, and also had dark curly hair. “Probably should get that changed.”
He motioned to Lucas’s right hand, still wrapped in the rags of his flight suit.
“Oh right,” Lucas said, and started pulling the cloth away as the medic dug into his back for a fresh bandage.
Once the first patch of skin was revealed, his heart stopped.
“Kyneth save you,” the young female soldier from earlier said. “That don’t look right.”
Lucas furiously tore off the rest of the bandage as the medic, Torwind, and the rest of the group gaped.
His right hand was pitch black. Charred and dry skin camouflaging the dark veins underneath. It wasn’t a burn any longer. Not in the same sense. The darkness had even started to creep up his wrist past where the original burn had been. His skin was dark, rough ash, the way Maston’s entire body had been when he’d seen him last. He thought of the burned, disintegrating woman in Dubai. The pool of charred bodies.
His power was starting to consume him.
Full Shadow conversion.
The final stage had begun.
35
Noah had never seen so many ships. They stretched far and wide out into space on either side of him. Ahead of him. Behind him. If this was their crippled, hacked-together fleet, Noah wondered what the scene might have looked like if the Xalans hadn’t destroyed the vast majority of the system’s SDI force upon their arrival.
And still, no one was sure it would be enough. Sora was a blue dot in the distance, and though they were too far to see it, a Xalan fleet at least three times their size was waiting for them out there in the blackness.
Noah had turned off comms chatter. He already had his orders. “Find a gap and go through it,” his mother had told him. They’d gotten a hold of Lucas, who said the colony was in imminent danger. Noah was to reach the surface as fast as possible and report what he found. For absolutely no reason was he to engage the Corsair or any other enemy force before back-up arrived.
All of this was provided he could make it through the hordes of Xalans that stood in his way.
“This godsdamn ship won’t give me full access to all the ordnance,” came a voice through his local comm. It was Erik, seated behind him in the gunner’s seat of the prototype, technically illegal, AI-infused ship called “Natalie” after their father’s famed rifle.
“Alpha said it might do that,” Noah said. “Try asking nicely.”
When it was revealed that the rag-tag force actually had more working ships than live pilots, Noah pleaded with his mother to let him fly one. He’d scored well in flightsims at the colony—the highest in the group, other than his brother. Asha only agreed to the idea when Alpha suggested they take the prototype fighter. Alpha promised the AI assist would keep them safe and allow them to contribute substantially to the fight in the process. If any light craft could punch a hole in the Xalan fleet and race through it, it was this “Natalie.”
“I’ve got autocannons and two types of missiles, but I’m pretty sure this thing is full of firepower it’s keeping secret.”
The other condition was that Erik would be his second. His brother wanted his own ship, but there was no way that was going to happen.
“Is there something you’re looking for?” chimed the friendly AI. It sounded like a female newsreader from the Stream. A real person, but a bit … rehearsed.
“What is this ordnance labeled EH-130?” Erik asked impatiently.
“I’m sorry, that’s classified,” replied the AI cheerfully. Erik let out a long groan.
Noah’s personal comm chirped. He muted Erik so he could speak privately.
“How are things going out there?”
Kyra. Noah smiled automatically.
“Erik’s arguing with the ship, but otherwise pretty good.”
Noah kept the fact that his insides were all but permanently frozen with fear to himself. He was terrified of the void in front of him, and what it contained. He didn’t want to think that he’d possibly seen Kyra for the last time.
“That ship is supposed to be far smarter than either of you,” she said, “so listen to it.”
“That’s the plan,” Noah said.
Kyra, Sakai, and Malorious Auran were all inside Asha’s command ship, a Guardian dreadnought called the SDI Colossus, which was the most heavily armored craft in the fleet. Asha wanted to pilot an interceptor or fighter, but her advisors convinced her that she had to stay aboard and coordinate the assault. She and Alpha were commanding the entire fleet from the bridge. Noah could see the craft out of the corner of his eye behind him. He imagined Kyra was at the viewscreen looking out at him.
“How is she?” he asked.
“Asha is a rock,” Kyra replied. “They’ll tell stories about what she did here today until the end of time.”
“Unless the end of time is today for all of us,” Noah said, choking out a laugh.
“You’ll make it through. So will we. Sora is our home, and nothing will keep us from it.”
“Well, then I’ll see you at the colony,” he said. “Provided you’re right.”
“I’m rarely wrong,” she said with an unseen smile.
Noah paused.
“Can you put Sakai on for a minute?”
“Of course,” Kyra said without hesitating. There were footsteps and distant voices.
“Hi,” came a quiet voice finally. Sakai’s.
“Hi.”
Noah let the silence after that drag on for too long. He didn’t know what to say. The two of them hadn’t spoken privately since the night he’d almost died on Solarion.
“I’m sorry,” was what finally came out.
“It doesn’t matter,” Sakai said with a sigh. “All of it stopped mattering the moment the Xalans showed up. You have to know that.”
“I know, but I just wanted to say—”
“Noah, if you ever did care for me, just make it to the colony. Find the only family I have in this world. Make sure they’re safe. That’s more important than your brother’s insanity. More important than me watching you fall for another girl right in front of my eyes.”
Noah froze.
“I—”
“You don’t need to explain. Like I don’t understand Kyra’s effect on people. Her effect on you. It’s … I just … I’m fine. There are much, much larger issues at stake than my feelings. And that’s the last thing you need on your mind right now. I love you enough to let go of you, and I can tell she loves you enough to hold on no matter what. Take that with you into the stars, and nothing else.”
Noah was speechless. Sakai deserved better than him. How he’d treated her.
“I will,” he finally said, and he meant it. Something dissolved
in his chest and he could breathe easier. Still, he didn’t feel like he’d earned that relief.
“Here she is.”
Kyra came back on.
“Things are starting up here, you should have orders any minute.”
“I’ll see you on Sora,” Noah said.
“I know.”
She didn’t say she loved him, and neither did he. If she was next to Sakai, she didn’t need to have that thrown in her face. But it was implied in every word they’d spoken.
The comm went quiet. Ships were starting to move into formation with one another. A massive squadron of a hundred or so fighters closed in around their own ship. This was their unit. No one was flying solo.
Noah reached down to unmute his brother’s comm, expecting to hear him continuing to shout at AI Natalie. Instead there was silence.
“Good to go?” Noah asked.
A long pause.
“Yeah,” Erik said sharply. And that was all.
Noah’s main comm line squealed and overrode his mute.
“Time to take this goddamn planet back,” said Asha’s voice. “You all have your orders. Move out.”
Despite the comfort Noah had received talking to Kyra and Sakai, as Sora grew bigger in his viewscreen, the fear rose up inside him, filling his stomach, lungs, throat, and eventually flooding his mind completely. He wasn’t ready for this. No one could be ready for this. Erik had been similarly quiet, and since even thousands of engines made no noise in space, it was eerily silent.
“You alright back there?” Noah finally called, content to let autopilot keep him in formation with the squadron.
Erik was motionless in the cam feed floating to Noah’s right. He was simply staring to the side at the line of warships that seemed to stretch to infinity.
“I’m ready,” he said, overcoming his recent quiet streak. “This ship could have been to Sora and back three times already. You wouldn’t believe the specs I’ve found in the internal logs.”
“As long as it gets us there once, that’s good enough for me,” Noah said. He thumbed through a collection of data readouts, most of which he didn’t understand in the slightest.
“Just so you know, there’s no one I’d rather have back there,” Noah said.