by L. E. Thomas
The screech of the missile lock faded as abruptly as it started, the translucent clouds dissipating around the fighter. Before him drifted the gray surface illuminating the night sky for mankind since the beginning of recorded history. Slowly pulling back on the throttle, he took in a slow, deep breath and released it as he watched the crater-filled surface of the moon drift in front of him. As the petite fighter dropped to a stop, Josh knew home was just beyond the moon.
Silence surrounded him. He turned around, but nothing trailed behind him except the black void of space.
He pressed his hand to his forehead.
“Thank you, God,” he breathed. “Thank you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
“I know you’re all tired,” Braddock said, stepping to the front of the briefing room, “but I need you all with me right now. I’ve asked our doc to supply you with stimulants if you need them.”
The seven pilots collapsed into their seats and let out a collective sigh. Austin leaned back in his seat, stretching his legs out in front of him. His muscles ached from the hours inside the cockpit of the Trident. An all too brief hot shower had washed off some of the stink from the day’s battle, but nothing had erased the fact Rodon had escaped. Again.
Braddock activated the wall screen. A layout of the ocean floor surrounding Atlantis spread behind him, rising twelve feet over his head.
“Okay,” he said, “here we are. I know you pilots are still wet behind the ears, but the planet needs you now. Atlantis lost its alert fighters earlier today, and our reinforcements are still about eight hours out. There is still the possibility this is all a setup for a larger attack, perhaps even an invasion of the planet. Somewhere out there, the last pirate vessel is lying low. We have every reason to believe they are planning to attack.”
Skylar glanced at Austin. He tried to smile, blinked hard and stared at Braddock’s map.
“I apologize for the lack of technology. We have to use traditional methods for this briefing.” Braddock picked up a laser pointer to highlight sectors surrounding Atlantis. “Since we believe the vessel is currently on the ocean floor and running dark, we cannot pick them up on sensors. Each of you is responsible for searching a sector. You will proceed on your designated route, dropping sensor bursts near the ocean floor. Each burst will search about fifty MUs. You then move off to the next sector and do it again.”
Braddock pointed the laser to the western sectors. “Bear, Toad, PowPow, you take these three sectors to the west of Atlantis. Thrasher, Spark, take the south. Rock, I want you and Cheetah taking the sector to the east while I take the north.” He lowered his gaze. “This final pirate planet-side has nothing to lose at this point, a fact that makes him very dangerous. We must assume he is planning on a suicide attack to cause as much damage as possible.”
Bear raised his hand. “Sir, we’ll have no visual this deep. It’ll be like flying blind.”
“That’s correct,” Braddock said with a nod. “Your training with sensor flying will be put to the test today.”
“What do we do if we make contact with the vessel?” Skylar asked.
“Report in for orders. Your laser cannons are being reconfigured for the water as we speak and most of you will be resupplied with at least a partial load of missiles. Do not engage unless ordered to do so. I don’t want anyone taking this pirate on without assistance. Copy?”
The pilots nodded and sat forward in their seats.
“Questions? No?” Braddock slapped his hands together. “Let’s not waste any more time, then. Dismissed.”
Austin stood and stretched, wishing he had taken pain medicine with the stimulants he took before the briefing. Zipping up her flight suit, Skylar stepped in front of him. She held her trembling hands out before balling them into fists.
“How ya feeling?” she asked.
“Good as can be,” Austin, grinning. He looked her in the eye. “Are you okay?”
Nodding, she bit down gently on her bottom lip.
Austin looked away, his mind wandering to the days of running on the Tizona campus in the heat of the south Georgia swamp. He looked back at Skylar.
“Stone!” Braddock snapped. “Nubern asked to see you. The rest of you, get down to the hangar for preflight.”
Skylar looked at him. “I’ll see you down there.”
*****
More wounded had been brought to the storage bay since Austin left. He found Nubern immediately, rushing to his side. Nubern, his head wrapped in bandages, had his bed at an incline.
Austin stood over his mentor, unsure if the captain was awake or not.
Nubern’s eyes opened slightly. “Hello, Lieutenant.”
“It’s good to see you, sir,” Austin said, pulling up a stool and sitting next to him. “Glad to see you awake.”
“I have quite a hangover.”
“What are they saying?”
Nubern shrugged. “Concussion. I need to be observed for a day. The ocean’s not soft.”
Austin laughed. “No, it’s not.”
He looked at his mentor, trying not to stare at the bandages wrapped around his forehead. Turning away, he looked at the rows of wounded. A woman slept on the bed next to Nubern, burn marks covering her shoulders.
“We really got hit yesterday, didn’t we, sir?”
“Worst I’ve seen in a while,” Nubern said, wincing. “They really got hit hard here. I’ve heard the ground battle turned hand-to-hand by the end.” He sighed. “I really need to stop ending up like this when we work together, Lieutenant. I’m starting to think you’re bad luck.”
“Nice, sir.” Austin clenched his teeth. “Why did this happen?”
“Rodon wanted to disrupt our operations. Who knows why. I don’t think he hoped to take the entire planet, but I really have no idea. He did this for a reason. I know it. I feel it in my bones. There has to be more to this.” He motioned for Austin to come closer. “You need to end this, son. That final sub must not be allowed to carry out any kind of attack.”
Austin nodded. “We’ll do what we can, sir.”
“No,” Nubern said, shaking his head. “There’s no one else. If this final sub is allowed to carry out an attack, Earth will never be the same.”
Austin frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve seen dark worlds on the border attacked by warlords, pirates and other scum of the galaxy,” he said, coughing. “Society as you know it will collapse. The people will turn on their governments when they realize they cannot be protected by what lies beyond their own atmosphere. It’ll be pure anarchy if this attack happens.”
Austin’s stomach twisted. If Earth was attacked by an otherworldly technology, the governments would first search for some terrestrial explanation. When word reached the people the attack came from beyond Earth, he could imagine the planet descending into chaos.
“I understand, sir.”
Nubern placed his hand on Austin’s flight suit, pulling him close. “You need to end this. Today.”
Austin looked at him. “But Rodon got away.”
Nubern lowered his gaze. “How do you know?”
He wiped his hand over his face. “We pursued him to the moon. I tried, sir, we all did. But he got away.” He looked at his hands.
“You are still a rookie pilot, and you can’t save the world, Austin. You’re good, but do not beat yourself up.” He waved his hand in front of his face. “He’s lost his power. It’ll take him years to recover. If ever.”
Nubern’s face grew rigid, his brow lowering. “Your enemy is out there, somewhere in your oceans. Find him. End this.”
Austin nodded. “I will, sir.” He squeezed Nubern’s hand. “Get some rest.”
Nubern nodded and closed his eyes.
Taking one last look at his battered captain, Austin stared around the rest of the storage bay. Men and women cried out as nurses and staff did what they could to help. A tangible feeling of dread fell over the room.
Austin looked at the floor and h
urried out into the hangar.
Crews with loud pumps removed the standing water from the hangar floor. The standing water had dropped to mere puddles. Welding torches flared all over the hangar’s ceiling, sending sparks falling down like a fiery waterfalls. The water had ceased falling like rain, reduced to sporadic droplets. Atlantis had started to mend. Somehow, Austin knew it would take years for the base to reach its former glory, but it had at least survived.
Austin jogged through the coordinated chaos, nodding at crews as they carried tools and scrap metal into piles. The battered remnants of the Trident squadron charged with defending Atlantis lined up between the various types of star freighters. Gan Patro stood on the wing of the closest Trident, a grim look on his face. Austin nodded at him, but Gan gazed off into the distance, his mind elsewhere.
“Lieutenant!”
Austin turned to see Tyce emerging from beneath a Trident. “What is it, Tyce?”
As he approached, Austin saw Tyce’s face for the first time. Even through the grease covering his face, Tyce had dark circles under his bloodshot eyes.
“I’ve done the best I can with your fighter’s tail,” he said, his expression darkening. “She really went through it.”
“That she did.” Austin nodded. “Can she fly?”
“Refueled and rearmed. She should be ready. The rear thrusters might be a bit sluggish.”
“I understand. I can handle it.” Tyce turned to leave. “And Tyce? Good job.”
Tyce nodded. “Thank you, sir.”
Austin climbed the ladder to his cockpit. For the first time, he felt too tired to get behind the stick of the Trident. He shook it off and fell into the cockpit. Going through preflight, his fingers flew across the controls. His hands trembled. Must be the stimulants. The engine hummed, the dashboard coming to life.
He thought of Nubern’s words, the warning his captain had probably learned from a dozen other worlds hit by an otherworldly force. Earth must not meet the same fate.
The fatigue faded, his adrenaline pumping as the stimulants rushed through his body. He strapped on his helmet, looking to his right at Gan as he dropped into the cockpit of his nearby Trident. Austin offered a thumbs up. His eyes weary, Gan returned the gesture as the canopy closed over the fighter.
Austin activated his gamma wave. “Tower, Rock. Are we cleared for takeoff?”
“Whenever you are ready, Rock.”
“Copy. Leaving in sixty seconds.”
Braddock’s Trident lifted off the hangar, the thrust sending swirls of water shooting across the floor. Crew scampered around, most gazing at the fighter as it hovered. They waved.
“Good hunting, Tizona,” Braddock said. “Mission clock starts now. Take your sectors and report any contact. Send your data back to Atlantis when you have it. Use the Whisper. Otherwise, maintain radio silence.”
The pilots acknowledged. The Tridents lifted off one at a time. When Austin’s turn came, he lifted off the hangar floor. He looked over the edge of the canopy, watching the crew wave. He waved back and eased forward to the exit airlock. The Tridents lined up on the far side of the hangar. Austin tucked his Trident into the airlock next to Skylar.
She stared at him. Austin saluted as the airlock closed and filled with water. She returned the gesture.
“Let’s go get this guy,” Braddock said.
A minute later, the outer door opened. Bubbles fluttered around the canopy. The Tridents left the airlock and entered the complete darkness of the ocean floor. Each Trident shot off in its designated direction.
Focusing on his sensors, Austin used his navigation computer to move toward his search sector. The sound of water rushing around his shields made moving the Trident underwater much louder than flying through space. He stared at his sensors, moving the Trident around a series of mountains stretching out from the ocean floor. They loomed on the sensors like invisible giants.
He reached his designated point, dropped a sensor burst and watched the result. An energy wave pulsed from his location, providing a detailed view of the ocean floor as it moved away from their position. Debris littered the ocean floor. Some of it looked like pieces of crashed spacecraft. Probably the result of the day’s battle. He passed a destroyed submersible, the nose buried into the slush of the ocean floor. He scanned for movement. He scanned for electronic pulse. He scanned for gamma waves, for running engines, for any sign of the missing sub.
Nothing.
Transmitting his data back to Atlantis via the whisper, he continued forward and eased the throttle. He leaned back into his seat and sighed. Fighting the urge to look through the canopy and into the darkness, he focused on his sensor readout.
An hour passed, flying from one spot to the next, dropping sensor bursts as he did so. He searched a deep trench and maneuvered through a mountain range, seeing nothing with his own eyes but a few creatures glowing in the darkness. The farther he moved away from Atlantis, the less debris he found from the battle. He reached his sixth marker and dropped another sensor burst.
The pulse shot out from his location, mapping the ocean floor. Leaning back in his seat, he sighed and watched the data come back to the Trident. Perhaps the other fighters were having better luck.
The sensor flickered.
Wait a minute.
Austin rolled his head around, felt his neck pop. An indentation in the ocean floor popped up on the scan. Strange. He pinned the location in his navigation computer and veered to the right, bearing down slowly on the location. Stopping fifty-feet directly above the location, he checked his global coordinates.
Eight hundred miles southwest of California.
He licked his lips and thought for a moment. The indentation in the muck formed a dip in the ocean floor about two hundred yards long. Whatever had stopped here was large enough to be one of the submersibles. Deciding it was worth the risk, he hit the lights.
The ocean floor stretched out. He tilted the fighter forward, the lights of the Trident hitting rocks and casting long shadows over the floor devoid of life. The indentation came to a point, angles forming together like a large triangle. Nothing in nature could have made this shape. The enemy submersible definitely stopped here.
He checked the data of the ocean floor for the next fifty MUs. Nothing but sweeping flats with no trenches or mountains all the way to the coast of California. If the pirate vessel had headed this direction, there would be no obstacles.
He wiped at his face, feeling a cold chill pass through the cockpit. He wondered at the temperature of the water just outside his shield.
Checking the whisper, he saw Atlantis had transmitted nothing in the time since he left. Neither had Braddock or the other pirates. This had to mean they had found nothing. The dip in the ocean floor had to be the best evidence they had found.
Powering forward into the darkness, he skipped his next sonar burst marker and dropped one late. The pulse shot away from his Trident in all directions. At thirty MUs, the pulse smacked into something metallic, something two hundred yards in length. He jolted forward at the site, his eyes wide.
The submersible!
His missile detection squealed in his ears. An incoming projectile appeared on his scope.
“Crap!” he yelled, yanking back on the stick. He pressed forward on the throttle and dropped countermeasures, the sound of water rushing around his shields as the Trident shot through the depths of the ocean. “Tiger, Rock. Do you copy?”
Nothing.
“If anyone is hearing me,” he said, his voice straining as the force of the Trident’s thrust mixed with gravity pushed him into the seat, “I’m under attack. Track this transmission to my location. I repeat: I have found the pirate vessel and I am under attack.”
The pirate missile hit the countermeasure behind him and exploded. The bubble illuminated the darkness of the depths. The Trident tumbled, its nose spinning end-over-end. Austin’s helmet smacked the dashboard. He shook his head and corrected his course.
“Rock, Tig
er,” his gamma wave crackled. “Do you copy?”
“Copy, Tiger.”
“SITREP. We detected a blast and are in route.”
Austin looked at the dashboard, the submersible driving hard to escape the reach of the sensor burst. “The enemy vessel is heading for Base Prime, for San Francisco, sir.”
“Maintain your track,” Braddock snapped. “On our way. Tizona, break off your search and head for Rock’s point. I am just to the north of the position and on my way.”
The sensor image of the submersible flickered on Austin’s gauge. A projectile emerged from the submersible’s signal, breaking away and blasting toward the surface.
“Tiger!” Austin yelled, leaning forward. “The pirate has launched a missile! I repeat: a missile has been fired and is heading toward Base Prime!”
“Rock, you have to take down that missile,” Braddock said, his voice calm. “The rest of us will target the submersible.” Braddock paused. “You have to take out that missile.”
Austin swallowed, adjusting his power configuration. “I copy.”
Diverting all his power to the engines, Austin buried the throttle. The Trident lurched forward. He adjusted his course to a forty-five degree angle, driving hard for the surface. The sensors showed the missile screaming away from the submersible. As he passed high over the enemy vessel, Austin dropped one more sensor bursts, painting the pirate for the other Tridents.
“You have your target, Tiger,” Austin said.
“Copy,” Braddock said.
The missile shot away from him, the distance growing. Austin swallowed, willing his Trident forward. He pursued, his speed greatly reduced in the drag of the ocean. The missile broke through the water’s surface and adjusted course, flying parallel with the ocean. After a moment, the missile disappeared from his sensors.
Austin’s Trident broke through the ocean’s surface and into the dusk sky. He rolled twice, the water flying off his shields. The Trident increased speed, free in the open air. Leaving enough energy in his lasers for a volley, he dropped his shields to nothing and watched the energy banks drop, effectively turning his Trident into a flying missile.