Sword of Blue (Tales of a Dying Star Book 3)

by David Kristoph

  "Their comms might still be down," Eileen offered. Nobody answered her.

  Jayce led them up, gaining altitude. They rushed past the Olitau's hull, grey and metallic, the windows of interior rooms giving off light. Then they were above her, zooming alongside the great ordnance cannon mounted on the top. Four hundred feet long and powerful enough to destroy any ship it could hit, it connected to the flagship with toothed gears the size of buildings, allowing it to swivel in any direction it wished to fire.

  It swiveled now.

  Eileen didn't notice at first, such was the slow speed of its adjustment. But Oskar pointed it out, and once her eyes focused it was obvious. Instead of aiming forward it was now at a forty-five degree angle. Their Riverhawks circled high overhead as the ordnance cannon continued to twist, until the long, square-shaped barrel was perpendicular to the ship. It tilted down, aiming at the interior of the shipyard.

  A dagger of light exploded from the barrel.

  Another, larger explosion blossomed within the shipyard. Such a blast should have been deafening, shatteringly loud, but of course it made no noise in the moon's vacuum. Eileen shielded her eyes, and when the light faded one of the Tortoise transport ships lay destroyed, pieces of it strewn across the shipyard. Thousands of settlers killed in an eyeblink. Stars... Eileen stared, unable to comprehend the destruction she'd just witnessed.

  Time seemed to speed up, as if they were moving in slow motion before. Turrets on the Olitau's hull flashed, spitting green up at them. Screams on the radio. "All units, evasive maneuvers," Jayce commanded. "It's what we feared. The Olitau is hostile. I repeat the Olitau is hostile."

  Their Riverhawk twisted, and the Latean surface and flagship spun in her view.

  Another voice: "More Riverhawks launching from its hangar. Seven, now eight."

  "Jenny," Jayce said, "pull away from the Chain and engage the Riverhawks. All remaining units form up with me." Everything stopped spinning. Jayce accelerated toward the flagship's ordnance cannon. Eileen was momentarily blinded as the cannon again roared with light.

  Streams of laserfire sought their ships, flying all around them. "Are we targeting the turrets?" Oskar asked.

  "Ordnance cannon first," Jayce said. "If they turn that toward the Chain tunnel..."

  Jenny's ships converged with theirs, bringing their strength to fourteen. The cannon grew as they approached, racing downward with incredible speed. Eileen was supposed to be watching the radar, but none of the enemy Riverhawks were near yet, and she couldn't keep her eyes away from the scene in front of her. Countless turrets across the Olitau's hull fired, an unnatural, vertical rain. Shouts on their radio, then a scream. A ball of orange as the Riverhawk to their left was struck, its cockpit consumed by fire. Eileen's eyes widened, swallowing every detail.

  Stars save us.

  They fell upon the cannon. Beams scraped across the armored gun, sending sparks and debris and smoke in all directions. The strafing run lasted only seconds, and when they pulled back up to regain altitude two more of their ships had fallen. Eileen twisted in her seat to survey the damage. The massive cannon remained intact, bearing little evidence of their attack. It fired again as if to proclaim its life, destroying another Tortoise ship.

  Jayce's voice was hard. "Again."

  "We're not doing much good," Jenny said. "We need some Firehawks to pierce the--"

  "We don't have any Firehawks," Jayce said. He began turning the formation back around. "Again. Oskar, lead units two and eleven on an attack from bearing two-four-oh. Everyone aim for the mechanics at its base." He began giving separate orders to other units.

  Oskar followed the commands, evening out their turn until they were tilted toward the ordnance cannon at the appropriate angle. Their approach was steeper this time, falling nearly vertically. The Olitau's hull stretched in all directions, a dull metal floor without end. Stars is it huge, Eileen thought. She could feel her heart pounding in her shoulders where the suit rested against her skin.

  She glanced back at the tunnel. The Emperor's group was halfway to the Chain, judging by the distant laserfire. He might make it.

  The steep angle gave the searching turrets an easier target. A spray of beams came dangerously close to their Riverhawk. Eileen stiffened, waiting for one to hit home. Waiting for one to kill them. We're vulnerable, she thought. We should be dead by now. Why aren't we dead? Somehow she knew they were doomed.

  When they were three hundred feet away Oskar fired another volley. His aim was true, and there were smaller puffs of explosions where his beams struck the cannon pedestal, causing visible damage. Oskar pulled the Riverhawk level with the flagship's hull, skimming just above the surface. Jayce's ship was at the edge of her vision, doing the same on the other side of the cannon. Turrets spewed everywhere, chasing them across the hull.

  "Again," Jayce said, voice gritty with focus. "Give me one or two more runs, Gold. That's all we need. Just one or two more."

  Eileen focused on the radar, spinning the view in three dimensions. The enemy Riverhawks were still distracted by Brynn's group on the other side of the Olitau, though she was outnumbered and losing pilots fast. More occasionally drifted from the flagship hangar to join the throng. Stars, how many are there?

  On the next run she was too scared to look. She kept her eyes glued to the radar screen, paralyzed with anxiety. Their Riverhawk vibrated as Oskar fired.

  A hesitation, then cheers on the radio.

  Eileen pulled her eyes from the screen, twisting to look behind. An explosion was still spreading at the ordnance cannon's base, and the barrel now careened sideways. She cheered along with the others. We did it! Now they just needed to distract the Olitau and enemy Riverhawks while the Emperor--

  An explosion knocked her head inside the helmet. With her suit disconnected she banged against the glass of the cockpit before landing hard in her seat.

  Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. There was noise in her ear, Oskar and Jayce. Her helmet looked broken, until she realized it was the glass of the cockpit, cracks spreading like spiderwebs. Condensation formed on the glass and quickly froze.

  "Eileen! Eileen you need to--"

  She blinked. Oskar was talking to her. She tried to focus on his voice, on the computer screens around her, but it was becoming difficult to see. Black smoke drifted from behind her seat, filling the cockpit. She waved a hand to clear her view. Nothing changed. Soon she could only see the inside of her helmet, her pocket of clean air.

  "--your suit."

  My suit is fine, the thought drifted. I just can't see.

  She waved her hand some more. Abruptly the smoke was sucked away. She could see the computer screens, though everything was flashing too much for her to focus. Her suit pressed against her skin, a strange sensation at first. Until she realized the smoke was being sucked out of a hole in the cockpit glass.

  That was okay. That's why we wear flight suits. Hers seemed fine. Yes, the screen on the left confirmed it: full pressure, no problems.

  More screaming in her helmet.

  With the smoke gone she looked around. The Olitau was now on their right, dozens of fighters darting across its surface, lasers spraying across her view. The flagship looked like it was leaving, gaining altitude. The Chain was still visible in the distance, though it tilted at a weird angle now.

  "Damnit Eileen, connect your suit and brace for impact."

  She pulled her eyes down. There was the tunnel on the ground, growing fast. The Olitau wasn't leaving; their Riverhawk was falling.

  We're going to crash.

  The realization sped everything up. She fumbled to connect her suit to the seat, her motions clumsy with panic. She could hear her comrades in her ears, screaming in pain and death, adding fervency to her clumsy fingers.

  Oskar's face appeared, leaning over his seat to help her, guiding her into place. She heard the suit click to the seat.

  Behind Oskar the ground rushed toward them. "Your seat!" Eileen yelled. He ignored
her, grabbing the harness straps from over her shoulder to fasten them in place. It only took a heartbeat before he was turning back to his own seat.

  The Riverhawk smashed into the ground.

  Chapter 16

  She opened her eyes to grey and black. That she could open her eyes at all shocked her. She shouldn't have been able to, a distant part of her mind insisted. She gazed around like a child, uncomprehending.

  The moon's surface stretched away from her. To the left was a building, a few hundred feet away. No, not a building. The tunnel leading away from the shipyard. There in the distance was her confirmation: the Chain, sprouting vertically from the horizon. She followed the Chain up until it disappeared behind something else.

  The Olitau.

  The battle still raged above, the motion of fighters and fire, of green and red death. The sight brought her back to the moment, shocking her to alertness.

  The glass carriage of her Riverhawk was mostly gone--only the jagged glass along the edges, where it connected to the fighter's frame, remained. The computers in her cockpit were black, some missing altogether. Smoke drifted from behind her. Her suit was fine. Something was missing, and it was several loud heartbeats before she realized what.

  Oskar was gone.

  She disconnected her harness and suit, jumping up. The ship shifted at her motion, settling. Carefully, she stepped over the broken glass, dropping to the Latean surface, slow in the reduced gravity of the tiny moon. The ground felt like hard sand under her boots, or maybe broken rock. There was debris all around too, from her ship or another. Some distance away another wreckage smoldered, its black smoke drifting apart in the semi-gravity.

  She saw his body.

  In two long leaps she was there, dust and rock kicked-up from her landing sliding across the landscape. Oskar was face-down, his body still. She didn't need to turn him over. His suit was gashed at the back of one knee, and the glass of his helmet was scattered on the ground around his head.

  She was numb, her senses shocked, standing there with a battle raging above her and her co-pilot laying dead. Why don't I feel anything? drifted a thought across her consciousness. What do I do now?

  Beams of light pummeled the area around her, a strafing line that tapped across the ground toward her ship. She dove to the ground--wasn't that what you were supposed to do?--as her Riverhawk exploded. Eileen felt the ground shake as pieces fell around her. None hit her.

  She raised her eyes in time to see the enemy zoom overhead, its blue paint accented with silver.

  Nothing would move. Her body was content to stay there on the ground. Get up, she told her legs. They would not obey so she pulled herself along the ground, crawling. There was a crater a short distance away, maybe twenty feet wide. She slid over the edge and fell inside, the dust and rock crunching against the glass of her helmet. She sat up and pressed against the crater wall, accepting as much cover as she could. The crater was only a few feet deep but at least it was something.

  With her back against the wall she felt footsteps approaching. Then dust exploded throughout the crater; not footsteps, the thumping of laser fire. Again the Riverhawk darted through the air, just above the surface. She watched it gain some distance, moving toward the Olitau, which still hung in the air like some metal sky. There were dozens of ships now fighting, maybe even hundreds, a brilliant show of swirling light and machinery.

  The Riverhawk curved in the air, slowly coming back around until it faced her crater again.

  If you stay here you will die.

  She understood it logically, but staying inside her little hole was easier than moving. "I'm a failure," she said out loud, just to hear her voice.

  You're not a failure to us, she knew her mother would say. Being in the Gold Wing is a marvelous honor, even if only for a day.

  "No," she said, "that's not good enough. There's no honor here in this crater."

  Then make your own honor, her father said. You know what you need to do. Stop delaying and do it.

  Slowly, one foot came up under her body, then the other. And then she was over the crater wall, running.

  She was in the open, nowhere to go. Her ship was burning freely, and the only remaining cover were other small craters. The tunnel was ahead, bouncing in her view as she leaped from one foot to the other in long strides. Up against the structure she would be protected from only one side, exposed to the rest. She stole a glance to the sky: the Riverhawk was still bearing down on her.

  This was a terribly stupid idea.

  Another ship smashed into the ground far to her left. Its nose caught in a crater and it tumbled end-over-end, scraping across the moonscape before coming to a stop. Briefly, she considered going to it, checking for survivors, using it as cover. Then it exploded, erasing the thought.

  Eileen returned her eyes to the tunnel, focusing. Just keep running. But her breath was already ragged in the helmet, her throat constricting with panic. Soon she stumbled and fell, panting.

  She looked back up in time to see her death swoop low.

  Another Riverhawk appeared, flying across, destroying the enemy ship in a lance of laserfire. Its remains soared over Eileen, falling to the ground behind her with muted thumps.

  She watched the friendly ship loop in the air. Only then did she see the three other ships following it, matching the pilot's maneuver, spitting green. It wheeled away from them.

  She heard the Commander's voice in her mind: so long as you draw breath you will protect the Emperor from his enemies. With renewed constitution, Eileen got to her feet and ran the rest of the way to the tunnel.

  She fell against its side, once again out of breath. She was no more protected than before but it felt like an accomplishment. Was it her imagination, or was her suit oxygen running low? These suit helmets had no computerized display built into the glass; there was a gauge somewhere on her arm to show the oxygen level, but at that moment she couldn't remember where. It was difficult to catch her breath.

  She examined the wall. To the left, in the direction of the shipyard, it remained flat until it disappeared out of sight. To the right there was something built into the wall. She hobbled there, still sucking air. It was a rectangle raised off the smooth metal, with a computer screen on the side. It took her several seconds--far too long--to realize it was a door.

  A door!

  Eileen touched the computer. It came to life dutifully. Her fingers moved automatically to unlock it, the muscle memory from her training strong. White mist puffed around the frame as the door opened horizontally. Eileen fell inside.

  The airlock was small like a closet, with another door with a window in front of her. A soothing, feminine voice in her helmet: "Speak command."

  The sound was crisp and harsh after the silence of the Latean surface. Through crumpled breaths Eileen spoke whatever she thought would work: "Door close. Airlock engage. Repressurize. Docking sequence."

  One of the commands worked. The outer door closed.

  She pushed herself to her knees, looking around. She felt the artificial gravity tug on her feet. A screen on the wall showed the room's pressure levels. Eileen waited for it to complete, and not a moment longer, before ripping off her helmet. Her lungs drank deep, desperate, noisy gasps. Within seconds she felt normal.

  A few taps at the screen and the inner door opened. She darted out of the airlock.

  The tunnel felt like a spacecraft hangar; the clear ceiling must have been a hundred feet above, supported by vertical and then diagonal walls, giving the tunnel the shape of a half-octagon. The corridor was wide enough for even the largest vehicles to pass through, though there were none now. Metal crates and construction material were stacked against the walls. Colossal doors spaced every few hundred feet segmented the tunnel into individual compartments. The walls, like the ceiling, were made of clear material.

  To the right, toward the Chain, the tunnel was empty. To the left, one or two compartments away--it was difficult to tell for certain--were flashes of l
aser fire. Fighting.

  With a groan of massive gears the door separating that compartment opened vertically. Eileen dove behind a metal crate before cautiously peering over.

  Three Flameguards led the way, sprinting down the corridor. There was no colorful mist sprayed now: they ran with intense purpose, eyes searching all around. Eileen couldn't help but notice their colorful gowns were transparent, immodestly displaying their genders: two men and one woman.

  A pair of Shieldwardens followed close behind, arms held parallel to the ground, extending their protective electric barriers as they ran. They were imposing in their armor of interlocking blue plates, tall and beautiful. There was no need for them to sprint; their long strides easily matched the speed of the Flameguards.

  And there He was, between two more Shieldwardens. His gown was made of lengths of red and orange thread, his face covered by some strange veiled hat. He looked small, frail, almost like a child. Your perspective is warped, she told herself. Even the burliest man would appear tiny next to the towering Shieldwardens. But his gait was laboured and slow, as if He were injured.

  Eileen couldn't look long. One of the Flameguards pointed in her direction. With a series of leaps and tumbles that sent her red hair swirling the guard was suddenly there, knocking Eileen to the floor and kneeling over her, pressing her to the ground with a nude leg. The Flameguard pointed gloved fingers at Eileen's face. She didn't think harmless water would shoot out of them, now.

  One of the Shieldwardens appeared over her shoulder, looking down at Eileen. "Who are you?" the woman bellowed. "Are you one of them?" She kept her hands spread wide, ready to initiate her electronic barrier.

  They hadn't killed her yet. She didn't know whether to feel honored or lucky, so she settled for confused. "I'm... I'm just a pilot, my ship crashed," she said. Across the floor the other guards and the Emperor continued down the tunnel.

  The Flameguard never took her eyes from Eileen. "Do you think she's telling the truth?"