by D. J. Holmes
“Use the point defenses once we get close enough,” Sarah ordered Alexandra. With the upgrades Destiny had received, her point defense lasers were powerful enough to cause Klixar a headache.
“Understood,” Alexandra replied.
Two seconds before Destiny and Klixar’s cruiser passed perpendicular to one another, Sarah swung Destiny around so that her nose was pointing at the area of space Klixar’s cruiser would pass through. Then she stopped any attempt at carrying out evasive maneuvers. It would allow the two frigates attacking her to get several clear shots at Destiny. Yet Sarah didn’t care. She wanted to end Klixar’s pursuit of her once and for all.
“Fire,” she shouted as Klixar’s cruiser entered Kevin’s sights.
With only three thousand kilometers between them, the particle beam crossed the distance in a fraction of a second. There was no chance for Klixar to dodge. As his cruiser’s energy screen had been battered down by Kevin’s attacks, the beam burst through the screen and tore into his ship. The beam instantly vaporized anything it touched and within a fraction of a second, it had torn a massive hole into the cruiser. It then hit a reactor or an anti-matter missile store, for the cruiser exploded in a giant anti-matter fireball.
Despite her elation, Sarah braced herself for the hits that would come in from Klixar’s two surviving frigates. Instead, a fireball erupted not far off Destiny’s port side. Focusing on that section of space, she saw a warship burst through the fireball. One of Hailey’s destroyers had disengaged from whatever duel it had been involved in and come to her aid. The other frigate turned and fled to find protection from a larger Elder warship. As the destroyer fell into formation beside Destiny, Sarah sent a mental nod to its Captain through the fleet cognizance. She received one back in return. They were of one accord, it was time to move onto the battleship.
Hailey directed two more destroyers to come to her aid. When she checked to see where they were, she was shocked to find only fourteen destroyers remaining. Eight had already been destroyed. It looked to her as if the others were all heavily involved in life and death duels, they were unlikely to be coming to her aid right away.
Banking Destiny one more time, Sarah accelerated towards the battleship. Her consort kept in formation with her. Almost at once laser beams rained down on the two ships. The battleship had three frigates protecting it and combined there were thirty-two laser cannons trying to take them out.
“At least they are targeting both of us,” Alexandra quipped.
Sarah didn’t bother replying. She was doing everything she could not to get hit. She had allowed Klixar to hit her, it had been a fair trade for the greater number of hits Kevin had managed to score. Now that wouldn’t work. The battleship could take hit after hit and keep going. Destiny no longer could.
“We’ll use our anti-matter missiles,” Sarah thought to the destroyer’s Captain. Sarah barely remembered his name, it was Mark or Matthew. However, she did remember his ship’s name, Revenge. That was a name she wasn’t likely to forget this day.
“Agreed,” he quickly replied. Through the cognizance Sarah could sense his amusement at the fact she could only remember the name of his ship.
Forgetting about that and everything else, Sarah focused her energy on dodging and jinking. As she had in the past, she felt her vision close onto just the space immediately in front of Destiny. Time seemed to slow, only the next laser beam mattered. Sarah didn’t know how long she dived and weaved as she closed the distance to the battleship. It felt like a few seconds and an eternity all at the same time.
Her concentration was finally broken when Kevin shouted a warning. He had used their meld to get her attention. The battleship was preparing to fire its four particle lances. Sarah instinctively knew they were all aimed at Destiny. The battleship hadn’t managed to hit her once. Sarah didn’t know how she had done it, but she instinctively knew that whoever was about to fire the battleship’s weapons wanted to blow her away.
Just as Destiny’s sensors detected the energy discharge from the battleship, Sarah cut her evasive maneuvers. Four particle beams instantly shot past the Destiny. One grazed her energy screen, decreasing its efficiency to twenty percent. Yet the vast majority of the destructive force released by the battleship disappeared harmlessly past them into space. Immediately after the beams passed, Sarah threw Destiny back into her evasive maneuvers.
“How,” Kevin began to ask before it hit him what Sarah had done. “You didn’t move. How did you know?”
“It was a gamble,” Sarah replied as she continued to fly Destiny. “I figured they would try and hit where they thought I was going to be, not where I was.” She could feel his wonder at her actions. Sarah mentally shook her head. It had been a gamble, a very big one. Not something to be amazed at. But it had paid off. “Just focus on your task,” she said.
“Right,” Kevin replied. He had been firing off the occasional laser beam at the battleship, when Sarah’s evasive maneuvers had given him the chance. His main focus however had been getting the anti-matter missiles ready. Sarah had sent him and his counterpart on Revenge specific instructions.
Once again Sarah’s focus narrowed. They were less than thirty seconds away from where she wanted to be. To reduce the incoming fire, she took a moment to line up Destiny’s recharged particle lance on one of the battleship’s escorts. Kevin was ready and in an instant, the frigate was destroyed.
Despite the success, Destiny howled in protest. Two laser beams had struck the ship in the moments Sarah had slackened her evasive maneuvers. Her energy screen was down to just fifteen percent efficiency. Any more hits were likely to break through to the hull.
With just seconds to go, Sarah expended every ounce of skill she had as she tried to twist and turn away from the incoming fire. “Now,” she shouted over the fleet cognizance when the time came. Together, Destiny and her consort turned to present their missile tubes to the battleship. Sixteen anti-matter missiles flew out of their tubes and accelerated towards the battleship. The missiles had to cover a distance of less than half a light second.
Ordinarily a missile fired at such close range would be easy to destroy for it would be travelling too slow to take any serious evasive maneuvers. However, when the missiles cleared just enough distance from Destiny and the destroyer to be safe, half of them exploded. The massive tidal wave of electromagnetic energy momentarily blinded Destiny and, crucially, the Elder battleship’s sensors. Vainly, the battleship tried to shoot down the remaining missiles. It did hit three as its sensors cleared. But the missiles needed just four seconds to close the distance. The first four missiles struck the battleship’s energy screen, battering it down, then the one, sensing it wouldn’t hit the battleship’s hull, detonated less than five hundred meters away from the Elder warship. A massive explosive force enveloped the battleship, buckling its armor and causing major internal damage. Sarah didn’t want to destroy her target, just disable it. The proximity hits had achieved just that.
Kevin let out a whoop of joy. Sarah scolded him, he had a job to do. Ignoring the remaining two frigates, Sarah swept Destiny around the stricken battleship. Kevin used Destiny’s lasers to take out all the battleship’s weapon emplacements, then he moved onto its engines and maneuvering thrusters. Soon the battleship was a helpless wreck. Leaving the remaining two frigates to Revenge, Sarah sought a place to dock with the battleship.
As soon as she found a suitable spot, somewhere near the battleship’s bridge, Sarah moved Destiny in. “Take over,” she said to Alexandra. She ordered the interface helmet to ascend. She jumped up and made her way out of the bridge. Kevin followed close behind her.
When she got to the access point, she saw Alexandra had already gathered her combat drones. For the last several days, Destiny and Hope V had been producing tens of them. Disconnecting herself from the fleet cognizance, Sarah linked into the combat drones. In total, there were forty of them. Sarah doubted she had the mental capacity to control any more. Hopefully that would be en
ough to secure the battleship and find the High Admiral.
“The drills have cut through the battleship’s armor,” Alexandra informed Sarah. “I have made a seal. You are ready to go.”
“Acknowledged,” Sarah said. With a thought, she opened the access hatch. Beyond, she could see into the battleship, though everything was dark. It seemed this section of the Elder warship had lost power. First, Sarah ordered more than a thousand nanite drones into the battleship to map out its internal structure and locate all the surviving Elders.
Almost at once, the nanites came under attack by Elder nanites designed to protect a ship from such an attack. As Destiny had similar defenses, Sarah was ready. She ordered in another five thousand nanites. These ones weren’t Elder nanites, they were human ones. Ones designed specifically to neutralize a warship’s nanites. Soon the Elder nanites were beaten back and parts of the battleship were being mapped out in real time. Moving forward, Sarah ordered two thirds of the combat drones to take the lead. They were to make for the bridge.
As soon as her first drone stepped foot onto the battleship, the Elders reacted. All across the sections of the battleship that Sarah was monitoring, Elders moved towards her position. She split half her drones into five groups. Then she sent them off to set up blockades along the various routes leading to her position. With the rest of her drones, she continued to move forward.
Almost immediately, her forward most drones came into contact with Elders. Sarah was surprised by their speed and agility. Having the appearance of massively overweight semi-upright worms, Sarah had always imagined they moved slowly. Nothing was further from the truth. Carrying a blaster in each hand, the Elders slithered across the battleship’s decks with remarkable speed. Their aim was also proving devastating for an increasing number of drones.
Nevertheless, they were dying as laser beams burnt through their bodies and Sarah urged her combat drones on. Just ahead of Sarah, an emergency door shut. It crushed a drone under it and narrowly missed Sarah. She jumped back in alarm.
“That was close,” Kevin said as he let out a deep breath.
“I know,” Sarah replied. “The artificial intelligence must still be operational. Sarah had hoped the damage to the battleship had incapacitated it. “Connect Alexandra and help her out. I’ll leave some drones here to protect you.”
Kevin looked like he was going to protest. Sarah knew he wanted to go with her. However, a sharp stare cut him off. With a reluctant nod, Kevin knelt and took off his backpack. Reaching in, he pulled out a specially constructed COM unit. He removed an access panel and connected the COM unit to it. Then he pulled out a small datapad and connected it to the panel as well.
“I’m in,” Alexandra said as the emergency door whined open. “Though the artificial intelligence is fighting me. Let’s hope our preparations work.”
“They will,” Sarah said. In anticipation of having to storm the battleship, Alexandra and the Hope V scientists had been working on smaller viruses and attacks that Alexandra could use to gain control of the battleship. It was unlikely Alexandra could win outright, but she could stop the artificial intelligence from hampering Sarah’s advance. Trusting Alexandra and Kevin to their task, Sarah spun around and moved forward.
Due to her distraction, her drones’ advance had stalled. Two of her blocking forces were also in trouble. As she moved, she ordered both blocking forces to fall back to a common position they could both protect. Then she renewed the advance to the bridge.
It took her just thirty seconds to reach the forward drones. Ten of them were pinned down in a large hanger. She could go around it, but the schematics of the battleship suggested that would increase the distance she had to cover to the bridge by twenty percent. Her nanites were also telling her that Elders were moving to block off those routes too. Over fifty Elders were moving to intercept her.
She told Alexandra what she was planning. Then, she broke into a sprint. With the improvements Director Simmons’ nanites had made to her physiology, Sarah burst into the open hanger like lightening. Before they could react, she gunned down two Elders. With just a slight change in direction, Sarah bounded towards a closed hatch. Throwing herself to the ground, she slid across the smooth Elder deck. Just in time, Alexandra opened the hatch and Sarah slid under it. A trail of laser beams followed her and then burned into the hatch as Alexandra closed it.
Even before Sarah regained her feet, she ordered her drones forward. Distracted by the sudden appearance of a new adversary, and the death of two of their comrades, the drones quickly overwhelmed the remaining defenders. Three escaped, but the rest were killed.
Looking ahead, Sarah saw that more and more Elders were moving to block her, they had probably realized where she was headed. Throwing caution to the wind, she ordered the drones to move forward as fast as they could. Sarah followed close behind. Stealth was no longer an option, she needed to get to the bridge fast.
Several more skirmishes occurred. Sarah had to get involved in two of them herself. She also sent off two more squads of drones to block vital corridors. She was down to just eleven drones with her, and another twenty scattered across the battleship. Thankfully, Alexandra was winning her battle against the battleship’s artificial intelligence. Several groups of Elders had been trapped by closing emergency doors before they could attack Sarah. Other groups had been sucked out into space when Alexandra had vented sections of the battleship.
One more drone was destroyed as it rounded a corner in the corridor approaching the bridge. Before it was blasted, through its link, Sarah saw a makeshift barrier set up across the corridor by a number of Elders. They all looked to be wearing funny hats.
“Flag officers,” Alexandra explained. “They must be the last Elders left to defend the High Admiral. I have sealed the bridge. There is no way he can escape.”
“But we have to go through that blockade,” Sarah finished, guessing what Alexandra was about to say.
“Yes. Any other way has more Elders you’ll have to go through,” Alexandra said.
“Then we have no choice,” Sarah replied. She ordered all her drones with grenades left to hurl them up the corridor. Adding a grenade of her own, Sarah ordered them to charge as soon as the grenades exploded. With everything riding on this final assault, she charged right behind them, counting on the drones to soak up the first Elder shots.
For the first couple of seconds, everything was calm. Then, as the Elders popped their heads up from their cover, Sarah’s world seemed to explode. Waves of laser beams were exchanged by both groups. Three of Sarah’s drones were destroyed by the first shots, then more and more began to fall. Sarah had to dance around their broken bodies as she sprinted forward. Several explosions seemed to go off, either from grenades thrown by the Elders, or from ones thrown by her drones. Sarah couldn’t tell. Here and there, she saw an Elder taken out by one of her drones, but the weight of fire from the barrier in front of them didn’t seem to be diminishing.
When she had just three drones left, Sarah felt a searing heat burn its way into her leg. She let out a scream of pain as she crumpled. For a second she thought she was going to black out. The pain was unbearable. Sheer force of mind was the only thing that kept her eyes open. Then, after a couple of seconds, her medical nanites kicked in. First, they numbed her leg, taking away much of the pain. Then they stopped the heat from spreading while repairing the most critical damage.
As soon as Sarah knew she wasn’t going to faint, she reached down and took her last grenade off her utility belt. With a heave, she flung it over the barricade. In all the fighting, the Elders didn’t notice the grenade until it was too late. The force of the grenade lifted four Elders into the air then dumped them on the ground, a slimy goo oozing out of numerous holes in their bodies.
Sarah ordered her last drone to hurdle the makeshift barrier and make sure no Elders were left alive. Once she was happy the way was clear, she struggled to her feet. Despite her medical nanites, every step sent shooting pains up he
r thigh. Reaching down, she picked up a drone’s arm. It had been burnt off by a laser. Using it as a crutch, she hobbled forward towards the bridge. At the same time, she gave orders for the drones spread across the battleship to converge on her and Kevin.
When she came to rest in front of the double doors leading into the bridge, they retracted to her left and right. Powering down her laser so as not to kill the High Admiral, Sarah took a deep breath to prepare herself. She sent the drone in first and followed close behind. Two streams of laser beams reached out to try and destroy the drone. It dodged the first few shots, fired off two shots of its own and then exploded as it was hit by two beams at once.
As Sarah dived in, she saw three Elders in the bridge. All were armed. Before she could track one of them with her pistol, the drone killed it. She shot the second. The startled Elder gave out whelp, yet it didn’t drop its weapon. Her laser had only burnt a small hole in its chest.
She went to pull her trigger again, but just before she did, she looked into the Elder’s face. She froze. In an instant, she was transported back to her dream. In her dream, and in reality, she was looking into the face of the Elder who had been present at her mother’s execution. This was the one who forced my father to kill my mother, Sarah though as rage swept through her veins. She wanted to kill him.