by Barry Kirwan
Now it’s up to you, my friend.
Petra watched the holoscreen, Vasquez at her side, a skeleton crew with them in the cordoned-off room in the Dome, their hastily arranged Battle HQ. The waves of Mannekhi ships tore towards Xenic’s lone Spiker. She zoomed in to see the front line of Javelins.
“Those three,” Vasquez said, pointing.
She saw them. Three of the very front ships had altered course, converging towards Xenic. They were going to ram it – pierce it, slice it apart. “How do they keep managing to dodge the wires so easily?”
Vasquez rubbed the stubble on his chin. “The Mannekhi were born into this kind of briar patch. Nevertheless, it’s impressive.”
She wondered what Xenic was going to do. He hadn’t told anyone. Nor had he fired a single weapon.
It was as if Vasquez read her mind. “Whatever he’s going to do, it had better be fast.” Vasquez walked closer to the holonet, then stepped inside, first through the planet, into the patch of scribbled wire filaments, until his face was right next to the image of Xenic’s ship, needles sprinting towards his eyes. It unnerved Petra, though she knew it was just a holo. Still…
“Commander, please.”
He turned around, looked her in the eye, and then walked back to her side.
“Ten seconds,” one of the aides said.
They watched. Come on, Xenic, whatever you’re going to do, do it now.
But the ship just sat there. Petra’s hand went to her mouth as the three Javelins plunged into the Spiker, at first splintering it, then, as they passed right through the other side and continued on their way, the Spiker shattered.
Petra took a step backwards, but Vasquez took a pace forwards.
“Zoom in,” he barked.
Petra stared, confused. All she saw was debris spilling in all directions, the second and third waves accelerating towards the debris field, and Esperia.
Vasquez grinned. “You sneaky son of a…”
Petra stepped forward. What? What was he seeing? She focused. The debris pattern. It was shifting. Then she noticed the spikes. They were all intact. She moved closer, in front of Vasquez, and like him, stepped inside the holonet, needles flying toward her face.
None of them touched her.
All the drifting spikes except one suddenly flared, each homing onto a Javelin, a needle against a needle, the combined speed destroying the spike but gouging the hull of each Javelin. Flowers of flame blossomed right in front of Petra’s eyes.
A cheer arose from behind her, and Vasquez arrived at her side, his hand on her shoulder. With his other hand he pointed at the single remaining spike.
“No offence Ma’am, but I want to work for that man.”
She let out a short laugh. “If we get through this, remind me to create some medals.”
They both walked out of the net back to the central console.
“Zoom out,” she said. “How many got through?” She tried to count the ones that had been on the periphery, too far for Xenic’s spikes.
“Seven,” came the reply.
Fifty down to seven. Bravo, even if it might not be enough.
She touched a console. “Commander Xenic, are you there?”
“Of course,” came the reply.
She smiled. “That was truly exceptional, Commander.” She cleared her throat. ”What is your status?”
“I wish I had gotten more of them. My crew and I are in a single spike. We are trying to rendezvous with Kilaney. We may be late.”
She thought about telling them both to stay up there, where it might be safer. But she didn’t want to insult them.
She turned to Vasquez. “How long?”
“Twenty minutes till the Dropships land.”
She nodded, then touched another button. “People of Esperia, know that Commanders Kilaney and Xenic have, against incredible odds, destroyed forty-three enemy ships out in space.” She paused, waiting until she could hear cheering outside. “There are seven ships still inbound. The odds are still not even, but far better than before. Prepare yourselves for battle.”
She clicked off comms, and turned to Vasquez. “Commander, I now hand tactical over to you.”
“Yes, Madam President.” He saluted her.
She made an effort to stand to attention, and saluted him back.
Vasquez spoke in a lower voice. “I need your access code, Petra.”
She looked around at the seven aides, who were also standing to attention. “Are you sure?”
“We are all sure.”
“Alright.” She approached a panel, placed apart from the rest, and tapped in the code. Two small circles, a foot apart, lit up, pulsing yellow. Vasquez typed in his own code and their colour shifted to red. Now all it required was to touch both circles simultaneously, and the Battle HQ would be obliterated. They both stepped away from the panel.
Vasquez spoke to his men. “If they breach the Dome, they won’t be adding us to their army.”
Petra nodded. “I pray it doesn’t come to that. Good luck, Colonel.” She held out her hand, and he shook it. She walked to each to the seven other men and did the same, turned to go, then paused.
“Colonel, you’ve not asked where I’m going, what my plans are.”
“You’re going to stand with Blake and the Spiders.”
She smiled as she walked to the exit. She’d left the right man in charge.
Pierre had never killed anyone. That hadn’t been easy, having endured the Third World War on Earth, the fighting against the Q’Roth on Eden and Earth a decade later, and all those years gallivanting around a war-torn galaxy with Ukrull. The Ranger, being telepathic, knew Pierre’s value structure, and had done the necessary whenever they’d been in a tight spot. But Pierre had kept it a secret from his human colleagues. Until now. Jen was fuming.
“What do you mean you won’t take Tactical?”
She got out of her immerser chair where she’d been controlling Navigation, and walked right up to his face, then shoved him backwards, so that he fell into the seat controlling the ship’s weapons. Jen was smaller than he was, but right now he’d prefer a Q’Roth warrior in front of him.
“It’s… against my morals, Jen. I’ve never in my life –”
“Look out the window and tell me what you see.” She shoved his chin sideways so he faced the screen at the end of the compact cockpit set in the front of the Duality, the ship Kalaran had ‘borrowed’ from the Kalarash entity known as Darkur.
Pierre stared at the screen, and felt the blood drain from his face. Three hundred and thirty Nchkani warships, black and white ovoids with feather-like blades brimming with weapons. They circled the supernova concealing the Tla Beth homeworld, in opposing directions, like a coordinated ballet of electrons circling a nucleus. Beyond this inner ring of hostiles were swarms of the immense dark worms, their pattern more erratic, the very randomness more menacing, offering no escape. He couldn’t see how even Hellera could fight her way out of this, and then the galaxy would fall into Qorall’s hands.
“I see our doom, Jen.”
“All the more reason to fight!”
“Jen, I’m sorry, I can’t do it.” He levered himself out of the chair and tried to push past her.
Jen slapped him hard across the face, the shock of it more than its force making him sit back in the chair. Red-faced, her lips quivering, she pinned him to the chair with a firm hand on his chest.
Her voice quavered. “You –” She closed her eyes a moment, sucked in a deep breath. “Listen to me, Pierre. Dimitri is gone, Kalaran, too. They died to save us. They didn’t die so we could lie down and offer our throats to the wolves. You can’t operate Nav. You’re more intelligent than me, but you have no experience flying one of these.”
He studied the interface in front of him, its array of symbols and displays. A touch here, a tap there, and lives would be snuffed out. Why was his life more important than theirs? He had no right…
“You still have a daughter, Pierre. P
etra is on Esperia. They’ll go there next.” Jen pushed off from his chest, and turned away from him, folding her arms as if holding herself. She stood immobile, and the cockpit grew quiet.
Pierre tried to remember who he used to be, before being accelerated to Level Ten, to know what he might have decided then, before he’d set off around the galaxy ignoring Kat and the daughter he still barely knew. But not that long ago Hellera had put him on a downward course, restoring his humanity. He’d thought it had been done as a rebuke, but now he wasn’t so sure. Feelings he’d almost forgotten had been returning. He didn’t know if he could rely on them, but Jen was right, Kat and Petra were relying on him, and he owed it to Ukrull, Jen, and to Kalaran…
He took a deep breath, and placed a finger on the interface in front of him, making it come to life.
“Take your station, Jen. I’ll do what I can.”
They patrolled the circumference of the supernova once an hour, checking that the Nchkani had not approached from their own farther orbit. The Nchkani and the dark worms stayed out in the blackness of space, whereas Jen and Pierre skated along a perimeter of purple and blue ionised clouds of deadly radiation that concealed a dwarfed star at its heart. The star itself sheltered the Tla Beth homeworld – or asteroid – using unknown spatial manipulation techniques for shielding. Pierre guessed the Level Sixteen Nchkani would prize such know-how, wanting to steal the secret from the Level Seventeen Tla Beth before exterminating them. Perhaps that was why they hadn’t yet attacked. No new ships had arrived in the past two hours, and he assumed their fleet had reached full strength.
He glanced across at Jen, her brow smooth, eyes closed but twitching as if in REM sleep, her mind immersed in the neural interface. Occasionally the corner of her lip lifted a fraction, coinciding with the ship threading through a loop in the cloud layer, or surfing a wave of radiation unleashed from the ongoing starburst reaction. She was clearly enjoying the challenge. Good, take what pleasure you can from all of this, Jen. He turned back to his instruments, unable to use a neural interface because of his nannites; the ship didn’t trust them, though he wasn’t sure why.
There was the usual outpouring of higher atomic weight molecules, the denser metals only given to the universe by supernovas. But there were odd concentrations. He found a particularly dense metal, far heavier than plutonium, streaming out and pooling in the neutral zone between them and the Nchkani, forming a molecular cloud. As the Duality completed the next circular tour, he identified six such streams and clouds, equidistant from each other.
Pierre hadn’t heard from Hellera or Ukrull for some time. He wondered what they were up to. Ukrull’s face suddenly appeared on the Hohash, making Pierre jump.
“Telepathic, remember?”
It was good to hear the reptile’s growly voice. He recalled Ukrull once confiding that telepathy attenuated less over distance than other forms of communication, though he’d never disclosed its range. He’d also said that the longer a Ranger was in close proximity to another being, the stronger the bond became. That was why all Rangers ended up becoming nomadic, usually travelling alone. Pierre had asked Ukrull how he could tolerate his presence. He had laughed, saying that Pierre’s thoughts were so dim, being only a measly Level Ten, that he could tune them out as random noise.
For the first time, Pierre began to wonder.
“So, Ukrull, are you going to tell me the plan?”
“No. If works, you see something always wanted, since small.”
Ukrull never talked of Pierre’s childhood, saying that the intellectual difference was so minimal, he could only discriminate between a human adult and a child in terms of physical size. Pierre had always appreciated Ukrull’s sense of humour. A knot formed in Pierre’s stomach, as he realised how much he would miss Ukrull, having spent nearly half of his ‘tall’ life with him.
He’d once asked Ukrull why he spoke such broken English, given his intelligence level. Ukrull had replied, “Less words, you listen harder. Redundancy comes from emotional weakness.”
Pierre had pondered that a lot. He’d also tried Ukrull’s form of speaking a number of times, but Ukrull had laughed off every single attempt. He thought of trying now, since this might be their last conversation, but he gave up on the idea.
“What do you want us to do, my friend?”
“Live.”
Pierre smiled. “Is that all?”
“To live, must kill many worms and destroy one hundred Nchkani vessels.”
“Oh.”
Ukrull’s yellow slit eyes narrowed. “Up to it?”
“If it’s what I have to do in order to see what I have apparently always wanted to see, then yes.” The knot in Pierre’s stomach tightened. “What about you?”
Ukrull glanced at something Pierre couldn’t see, then turned back to face Pierre. “Tell Manota…”
Pierre leaned forward. “The female Ranger? Tell her what?”
Ukrull flicked his forked tongue over his eyes. “Have to go now.” The image vanished on the Hohash. Pierre’s worried face reflected on its mirror surface. Take care, Ukrull.
“Pierre,” Jen said, eyes open, her features soft. Had she been watching him?
“Pierre, they’re coming. I’m bringing the Duality about.”
He turned back to his console, and watched as a section of the outer layer of Nchkani ships moved aside, leaving a circular gap. Dark worms poured through, straight towards him.
“Do we retreat back into the nebula’s clouds for cover?” He still couldn’t see a way out of this, nor any practical offensive move they could make. It all felt futile.
“Pierre, look at me.”
He tore his gaze from the screen.
“This is the Duality. It is a Kalarash ship. Today we fight for the Kalarash, the most powerful beings in the universe. We do not retreat. Ever. Is that clear?”
He nodded, reminding himself she’d been a captain of one of the refugee ships that escaped Earth. For the first time he could see why.
“I’m immersing now, I won’t be able to talk to you until… after. And, Pierre, if you can’t fire, I under–”
“I will fire.”
She gave him a measured stare. “See you on the other side of whatever.” She closed her eyes again and was immersed, in direct mental contact with the Duality’s navigation and engine control systems.
Pierre shrank back into the chair as they burst forward towards the flood of leviathans. Wondering which weapon to fire first, he noticed a red disk light up in front of him. It said “Assist?” He almost laughed. Kalarash indeed. He pressed it.
It was like swimming up a waterfall. Each worm was three times the length and breadth of the Duality. The ship’s weapons punctured the space around them, fans of light cascading from the ship as it twisted, its crossbow arms flailing superheated plasma beams like whips, lacerating the worms as they tried to engulf the ship. The aft of the Duality sprayed beams in its wake, aiming to finish off wounded worms. But there were so many. The screens could hardly see beyond the worms’ huge hides. Pierre noted an indication of shield integrity. The worms were leaching energy, a few per cent a minute, not helped by the deluge of weapons fire, but if he stopped firing, the ship would be trapped, drained, and crushed. The bar already showed only fifty-five per cent of reserves left.
He selected an external view from a probe they’d released earlier, and saw that many of the worms had bypassed them and were heading straight into the heart of the supernova. The Nchkani were also edging closer. Jen must have noticed it too, because suddenly the Duality swung sideways away from the avalanche of worms, vectoring towards a group of Nchkani warships.
A panel indication lit up: gravitic net. He knew what it was, and recoiled at the idea. But he took a deep breath, and launched it. He watched it writhe its way toward the ships. That was when it all went wrong.
At around halfway point, the net slowed, stopped, and then headed back toward the Duality. Merde!
“Jen!” he sho
uted. At first he thought she hadn’t heard him, but the Duality suddenly veered toward the flood of dark worms. With the gravity net on their tail, she aimed straight for a worm cluster. Pierre fired at them to get their attention, to bore a hole through them. It worked, just, and as they sped through the gap, the worms closed behind them. He switched to aft screens, and saw a group of worms caught in the net, squirming as they shrank together, crushed into oblivion.
“You told me Kalaran used a net on a group of Nchkani before he was killed, but at least one ship got away. They must have recorded data, taken it back to Qorall, and –”
“Hellera is using us to test their defences,” Jen remarked, temporarily out from immersion, rubbing her eyes. “Makes sense, though she’s off my Christmas card list.”
Pierre stared at her. “How can you be so blasé at a time like this?”
“I hung around with Kalaran for a year. He had a very subtle form of humour I’m finally starting to appreciate. Back to work, Pierre. No more nets, please. Think of something else.”
She was back ‘in’. He recalled studying battle tactics during the American civil war. Often there would be two lines facing each other across a wasteland, neither side wanting to charge. Occasionally a lone rider would be sent out into no man’s land to draw fire, and to try and goad the other side into attacking. Of course, in most cases the rider was shot dead before he got back.
Jen slung the ship around for another pass. The ‘assist’ button lit up again, but he didn’t press it. They drew closer to the Nchkani ships. The assist disc changed colour from green to red. Still, he left it. He wanted to draw their fire, deciding that was what Hellera needed, and that it made strategic sense, even if he and Jen were the bait.