The debris of the enemy ship hit the back of his F-66 and sent him spinning. The alert sounded again. Despite his efforts, the canopy had been breached. Fortunately, it was a small crack, and he would be able to stay in the fight.
Pickett checked his console. His flight from the enemy fighter’s missiles had taken him away from the main battle area. He reoriented his fighter and fired a short burst from his main engines. It’d take him a while to get back into the fight at that low acceleration, but he’d burned a lot of fuel and needed to save what he had left for an engagement.
Pickett carefully tracked the battle as he made his way back into the fray. His fellow pilots seemed to have rallied, and there now appeared to be nine friendly ships to fourteen enemy fighters. There was a chance Pickett’s side would come out of the dogfight victorious, but with the large alien ship still intact and able to launch more fighters and missiles, the ultimate outcome was certain.
31
SULLIVAN SCREAMED OUT in agony as the entity repeatedly stabbed its tendrils into him. It seemed like it had been going on for hours, but he knew it couldn’t have been more than half a minute.
Abruptly, the attack stopped. Sullivan looked up; the entity was gone. Barely able to move, he flipped himself onto his stomach and crawled toward the alien device on the far side of the cargo hold. He didn’t know what had happened but suspected Allen had managed to overpower the Liz entity.
This suspicion was confirmed as he crawled within sight of the open hatchway. Two black masses were entangled in the corridor, and he felt from the energy coming off of them that one of them was Frank Allen.
Sullivan reached the alien device, and one of the masses stretched toward him. In its features he could see the vague outline of Allen’s face. “Now, Rick!” it said.
Sullivan pulled himself to his knees and leaned over the device. He quickly entered the arming code, repeated it and mashed his finger down on the central button.
Nothing happened at first, but after a few seconds the blue dome on the end of the cylinder began to glow more brightly and pulsate.
Sullivan backed away from it and looked up at the entities in the corridor. They had stopped fighting and were both still. The nearer one shifted in appearance, took on a human shape and resolved into the image of Frank Allen.
“You did it, Rick,” he said quietly. “It’s over.”
“What’s happening, Frank?”
“It feels… I can’t describe it. It feels like I’m just kind of fading away, like a fog when the sun comes out. I think I’m dying.”
“I’m sorry, Frank. I’m sorry it had to be like this.”
Allen and the other entity both seemed to grow less solid.
“No. It’s okay, Rick,” Allen said. “There’s no pain. Goodbye, my friend. It’s been a real pleasure.”
Sullivan nodded. “Goodbye, Frank.”
“Stay out of trouble, okay?”
Sullivan smiled and wiped a tear from his eye. “No promises.”
Allen and the entity continued to fade, and after several more seconds they were both gone. Sullivan was alone.
He got to his feet. With the entities dead, the frigid pain in his body subsided. He had still been battered and bruised, but the internal pain was gone.
He started walking toward the front of the ship when the freighter began to shake violently. He was thrown against the wall of the corridor where he grabbed onto one of the railings and held on. From the open hatchway leading into the cockpit, he saw a flash of blue light. As soon as the light faded, the ship fell silent.
He walked the rest of the way into the cockpit and checked the instruments. He was out of hyperspace. His sensors were picking up the battle between the Earth defenses and the aliens, but as before, he could do nothing but watch. In his slow, unarmed freighter, he wouldn’t stand a chance if he tried to get back to Earth now. He’d have to wait for the battle to end.
Sullivan sat back in the seat. As long as he was waiting, he wanted to try an experiment. He put the freighter in motion and tried to enter hyperspace. Nothing happened. He brought the freighter to a stop again and walked back to the cargo hold. He picked up the alien device and turned it over in his hands. The dome no longer glowed, and there was no power to the control screen. It was inert.
He cradled it under his arm and took it back to the cockpit. There were now thousands stranded in interstellar space, and billions on the other inhabited planets who would have no idea what had happened, only that hyperspace was gone. They were forever cut off from the rest of humanity.
Those stuck in space would be able to last a few months on their stored supplies. Sullivan imagined a great deal of fighting and negotiation as their stores ran low and they tried to decide who would live and who would die.
Those on planets could live on, though. Some non-independent planets like Abilene, who had to have massive amounts of food imported, would undergo drastic changes as they adjusted to the situation. Sullivan figured his old ally Eugene Brain would do just fine as he scrambled to control the few food resources the planet did have.
And Kate was on Faris. It at least had significant agriculture and was mostly independent. She could live a good life. Sullivan saw no reason why people would stop using Stellar Assembly credits, and Kate certainly had a great deal of wealth at her disposal. He was grateful most of her credits had already been transferred from Silvanus to Faris before all this happened. They’d put that in motion even before they’d moved, anticipating the possibility that the Bureau would freeze her assets in an attempt to force Sullivan to surrender.
She would be okay, but he would miss her. He would have to build a new life on Earth without her, and the thought of that seemed almost too much to bear.
For a little while he could keep himself busy helping to clear out the remaining aliens on the surface, but eventually that job would be done, and he’d be left to mourn the loss of Frank Allen and his separation from Kate.
That assumed, of course, that the alien threat was defeated. If it wasn’t, he supposed he could try one of the small outposts farther out in the solar system. It’d take him months to get there, but the freighter had enough supplies to make the journey possible. If that happened, he’d have to deal with his losses much sooner, as he’d have a lot of time alone to go over what he could have done to bring about a different outcome. He didn’t know if he could deal with that.
But for now he had to wait. He had to hope Earth would find a way to defeat the alien mothership and come back from this crisis. He had to hope there was still something good that could come out of it. If not, everything he had done had been in vain.
V: FRAGMENTS
32
THE ALIENS, IT seemed, had identified Ives’s position as a major point of resistance. There was no doubt there were hundreds, maybe thousands, of such strong points across the planet where military or determined civilians had put up a fight. Ives wondered if the fact that they were now coming after civilians in an apartment building meant all the major military positions had already been defeated. Ives hoped that wasn’t the case. Even with the advanced alien weapons they’d taken off dead soldiers, they wouldn’t last long against a sustained assault.
His other hypothesis at least left a little hope for humanity. New York was the capital of not just Earth but the capital of the Stellar Assembly. It was possible the aliens were focusing extra attention here to bring down the power structure. They would no doubt want any threats in the city, no matter how minor, eliminated.
Ultimately, he supposed it didn’t matter. Alien soldiers had been advancing on their position for the past couple of hours. They had barricaded the street and, with the alien weapons, been able to fight them off. But when a wormhole opened directly in front of the building, Ives knew the tide was about to turn.
The wormhole had appeared between their barricades. A dozen alien soldiers had poured through and attacked the men and women at the barricades, killing many of them and forcing the res
t to fall back into the building. They had sustained their fire on the building’s entryway and blew the door off its hinges.
Ives had seen it all from a second-story window, where he’d put himself on sniper duty. He’d dropped the alien soldiers who’d attacked the barricades, but as soon as they were down, another dozen came through the wormhole. Fortunately, the wormhole was directly facing his position, and Ives and the others on sniper duty were able to force them into defensive positions on the opposite sides of the barricades.
Ives was currently exchanging potshots with the aliens behind the barricades. They were covering more aliens as they came through the wormhole, and over three dozen had assembled at the base of the building, preparing for an assault.
Ives raised his weapon again and popped up from below his window. He blasted a hole in a car that was forming part of the barricade but missed the alien crouching behind it.
He held up a small hand mirror he’d taken from one of the apartments and used it to look out without exposing himself to fire. Another alien popped through the wormhole, but as soon as he cleared it, something strange began to happen. The wormhole was normally just a dark disc, featureless except when something was coming through.
As Ives watched, it began to flicker. Blue lights flashed from within as the flickering increased in frequency. Ives could intermittently see the wall of the opposite building through the wormhole.
Just before the disc of the wormhole blinked out completely, half a dozen mangled forms oozed out from it. Ives guessed they had been alien soldiers, but they had been mutilated beyond all recognition, as though they’d been both blended and pressed through rollers at the same time.
The attention of the other aliens was on the bodies. They were as surprised by what had happened as Ives was. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Ives sprang up and fired off three shots, killing two aliens before they had a chance to turn their attention back to him and return fire.
Ives didn’t know if Sullivan was responsible for what had happened with the wormhole, but it didn’t matter. Something bad had happened as far as the aliens were concerned, and Ives was determined to use their confusion against them.
Gail came into the room from behind him. She had been in the next apartment, also taking shots at the aliens. “Did you see that?”
Ives nodded and smiled. “Yes. And if it means no more aliens are coming through, it’s time to use these.” He held up three of the alien grenades.
“They’re assembled on either side of the entryway,” Gail said. “Give me one, and I can take some of them out on the left.”
Ives handed her a grenade and used his mirror to recheck the aliens’ positions. He was directly over the entryway to the building, but he could lob one to his right and take out the first few aliens. He’d have to move to another apartment for the other to be effective just now, but he also wanted to save it for their assault. The people inside the lobby were well back and behind barricades. If he dropped the grenade as the aliens attacked, he could bottle them up at the doorway and give the people downstairs some good targets.
He heard an explosion and flipped his mirror to look down the other side of the building. Gail had dropped her grenade.
He pressed the arming button on one of his grenades and threw it as hard as he could along the side of the building. The second it went off, he popped up with his gun and leaned out the window. He killed one alien, but the others recovered quickly, and Ives fell back as they raised their weapons. The top and side of the window frame splintered as the shots from the energy weapons gouged deep holes in the wood.
The sound of movement alerted him to the aliens’ advance. Using his mirror, he saw that the aliens at the barricade had moved up to the wall as well. They were preparing to attack. In his mirror, he saw the first of the aliens sweep around into the doorway and begin firing. The other aliens followed behind him to press the advance.
Ives armed and dropped his last grenade. As before, he sprang up as soon as it went off and began firing. He saw a flash in his peripheral vision and knew Gail was also firing from her window.
Despite their efforts, the aliens managed to break through into the lobby. As soon as the last alien had left the street, Ives ran for the stairs. He met Gail and two others in the hallway and quickly communicated to them that he would take point as they went down the stairs. He pushed open the stairwell door, and the sound of the fighting grew louder.
He swiftly moved down until he could see the door leading into the lobby. He paused. The small rectangular window in the door was lit up by the discharge of energy weapons. Ives knew the people at the barricade would hold that position as long as they could. If they did have to retreat, they would come into the stairwell.
He waited, and after less than two minutes of intense fighting, the stairwell door was thrown open and three people rushed in. They paused for a second as they saw Ives but continued past him. A few seconds later, two more came through the door.
The lobby was quiet. The aliens had breached the barricade, and now they were planning their next move. If they did what Ives expected, they’d also be coming through that door. He adjusted the grip on his energy weapon and waited.
33
AN EXPLOSION NEAR the large alien ship caught Commander Pickett’s attention. It looked like it had been a stray missile from a dogfight, but it had moved beyond the alien ship’s shield and exploded against the hull.
Had it been a lucky shot that got through as the aliens launched more fighters? He didn’t see any fresh fighters moving away from the ship.
Several squadrons of F-66s had been launched from Earth bases to join the battle, and the tide had momentarily surged in their favor. A fight with an alien fighter had taken Pickett around behind the alien ship while the main battle still raged in front of it.
Taking advantage of his relative solitude, Pickett swung his fighter around and zeroed in on the alien ship. He fired off a single missile and watched it approach its target. It moved beyond the threshold of the shield and hit the ship, gouging a hole in its side.
“All pilots, this is Commander Pickett. The main enemy vessel’s shield is down! Repeat, the alien ship’s shield is down!”
As soon as he heard the chatter that indicated his message had been received, he fired off two more missiles and sped his fighter forward. The missiles met their target, and he banked in behind them, strafing the side of the alien ship with his cannons. He fired along the hatches that launched the smaller fighters, hoping to either jam their opening mechanisms or breach the launch bays so they’d have to be sealed.
Three more F-66s reached the alien ship as he finished his strafing run. He flipped his fighter and fired his thrusters to slow his momentum away from the enemy ship. He watched as the three F-66s wrought significant damage to the alien ship then prepared for another run.
Before they could attack again, the alien ship began swinging around, away from Earth. The fighters retargeted and fired again as the alien ship propelled itself forward, away from the threat.
A dozen missiles from the three F-66s reached the alien ship, striking a single location and causing significant damage. Four or five seconds after the last missile detonated, another explosion went off at the site of impact. This was followed by several more explosions farther up the hull.
Pickett flipped his fighter back around and accelerated away from the alien ship. On his display, he could see that the other fighters had the same idea as they rushed to get themselves clear.
Pickett’s aft-facing camera showed him that the explosions inside the alien ship were continuing. Some sort of chain reaction had been set off.
After over a minute of near-constant explosions, the ship went quiet. Its momentum was still carrying it away from Earth, but it was no longer accelerating. The ship appeared dead in the water.
Pickett checked his instruments. He had one missile left. Several more fighters reached him as he joined up with the F-66s who had made the last attack
.
“Set missiles for long-range detonation,” he said as the other pilots fell into formation around him. He leveled the nose of his fighter at the alien ship and targeted it. “Fire!”
The ragtag squadron fired their missiles and quickly banked to put more distance between them and the alien ship. The missiles struck and restarted the internal explosions. A particularly large explosion near the center of the ship tore it in half, and Pickett could hear cheering in his headset. An even larger explosion in the nose of the ship obliterated the front half of the alien vessel. The rear half slowly spun away into deeper space, leaving a trail of debris and vented gasses in its wake.
Pickett looked down at his display. A handful of alien fighters were still in the engagement, but some fresh F-66s from Earth looked like they had the situation well under control. A warning light began flashing. He had only a minute or two of fuel left—not enough to enter the atmosphere and land at one of the ground bases.
Using as little thrust as possible, Pickett maneuvered his fighter into a high Earth orbit. He’d be able to sustain the orbit long enough for rescue to come. As he slowly orbited, Pickett listened to the chatter in his headset. The last of the alien fighters had been destroyed, and rescue operations were beginning. There was also word from ground-based forces that the alien wormholes had all closed. There were still significant alien forces on the ground, but it seemed that no more would be coming through.
Pickett switched his display to show only emergency beacons. He zoomed in on each one. After the first few, he found Lieutenant James Kern’s signal. Of all the original pilots on the Vigilant, they were the only two survivors. The others had been shuttled up from Earth after the first battle.
Sullivan Saga 3: Sullivan's Watch Page 14