“LEEEEEEEEEE!” Mac screamed, and Lee’s eyes went wide as three Alystierian Phantoms broke loose toward her position.
“MAAAAAAAAC!”
Slamming the throttle forward with such force that it nearly jumped out of its track, Lee shot up straight in his seat, and wrapped his fingers around the stick in preparation for the conflict that was now a heartbeat away. Fighting instinctively against the restraints tethering him to his chair, Lee slid a hand under the belt across his chest, as if somehow lessening it would get him to her that much faster. Reaching the perimeter of the nightmarish scene, he ripped back on the trigger, sending a pair of blue-tracered Eagles plowing into two inbound enemy fighters which detonated on impact, engulfing them in flames as the lone ship sliced through the inferno. No sooner had he cleared the scattered debris, he was instantly met by another four Phantoms, which opened up on him in a simultaneous shockwave of railgun fire, igniting his forward hull plating in a wash of sparks. Sensing an imminent weapons lock, Lee flipped the Mako into a wing-over-wing vertical roll, just in time to avoid a pair of oncoming missiles while locking on to two of his attackers with a pair of his own, and firing. Shards of metal and flaming debris deflected off of his canopy glass like grains of sand, meanwhile the two remaining fighters knifed past him in a blur of silver and black before circling around to regroup with two of their comrades and continue their onslaught from behind. Still, he advanced.
As the others fought to come to his aid, and completely oblivious to their panicked shouts and frenzied commands which filled the comm like staticky white noise, Lee continued to fight his way through fighter after fighter—wave after wave—until finally, he reached visual range of Mac’s position, just in time to witness a lone Alystierian Phantom descend upon her lifeless machine. His engines maxed out and his trigger finger at the ready, Lee blistered toward her in a state of near delirium, terrified as the enemy fighter circled around for what would now be an unprotested kill shot in cold blood.
But to Lee’s shock, when it fired, it wasn’t with a weapon, but rather some sort of magnetic tether that anchored itself to the side of the Mako. Then, through the crescendoing sounds of screaming engines, the anarchic comm, and the steady pounding of weapons fire that would soon cripple his deteriorating ship, Lee’s ears were pierced with a single, bloodcurdling scream.
“LEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!”
A massive explosion rocked his Mako, and the lone fighter, which had fought so valiantly to this point, buckled hard under the blast, slamming Lee’s unrestrained body forward with such intense force that it ripped the air from his chest.
The collision between his open-faced helmet and the canopy, however, was not so gentle.
Crumpling back into his seat, dazed and disoriented, Lee stared blankly through the shower of sparks and demolished instruments around him, his nose filling with the stench of burning electronics as something warm and wet crawled down his face and into his mouth. It tasted like old pennies, he thought.
Hearing the madness of the scene around him fade to a dull, muted hum in his ears, Lee squinted into the distance—through swelling eyes and red-smeared glass—at the foggy image of Mac’s fighter being dragged toward the cruiser, and a shudder ran down his spine when her screams soon subsided. He gave no thought to the trio of battered Threshers that raced by overhead, or their vain attempts to block the ship’s escape. Nor, for that matter, did he acknowledge his team’s fervent cries over the comm, pleading with him for any sign that he was alive.
Instead, he reached out with a lethargic hand and watched—helpless to stop it—as the massive ship vanished once more to black… this time taking a dear friend, and the last of his consciousness with it.
Part Three
Chapter 26: Awakening
Stirring to the sounds of beeping monitors and a liquid drip, Lee squinted awake through the intrusive glare of the florescent lights above his bed, his nose filling with the pungent scents of chemical cleaners and sterilized equipment around him. Fumbling with the cannula in his nose, he felt a mild sting from the cuts on his face, though the discomfort was forgotten instantly as the last five horrifying minutes of his memories came surging back to him in a rush of fear and emotion.
“Whoa, Summerston, relax,” Reynolds said, scrambling to restrain him while Danny and the others jumped to Lee’s bedside to assist her. “Everything’s fine. Just take it easy or you’ll tear out your IV again.”
“Listen to the lady, bro,” Danny offered, placing a hand on Lee’s chest. “You took a helluva bump out there, so do us all a favor and let her help you, okay?”
“How long have I been out?” Lee asked in a dry, raspy voice as Reynolds produced a pen-light to check his pupils.
“A little over six hours,” she answered.
“What happened?” he managed.
“We got ambushed,” Danny replied. “That’s all we know right now.”
“How?” Lee blurted. “How did they—”
“We don’t know,” Danny rushed to explain, “but Wyatt and his guys are on it. They managed to salvage one of the Phantoms that attacked us, and they’re tearing it apart as we speak to see if there’s anything in the computer core that can give us some answers.”
Then, like recalling the last vivid details of a nightmare, Lee’s thoughts flooded with the last thing he heard before blacking out… the shrill, terrified scream of his best friend.
“Mac?” he snapped, jolting upright again only to be met once more by Reynolds. “Is she—”
“We don’t know, lad,” said Hamish from the corner. “All the evidence seems to suggest that it was the Mako they were after, not Mac. She was just along for the ride. It could’ve just as easily been any one of us.”
“But why? How is that even possible?” Lee stammered, cupping his bandaged head, which began to throb. “How could they have—”
“They had help,” Link grumbled beside Hamish. “Reiser and Wyatt think that someone onboard planted something on her fighter before we launched—an EMP of some kind. That’s why all of her systems went dead in-flight, because they wanted the Mako intact.”
“It also explains why none of those Phantoms fired on her when they dropped out of hyperspace,” Hamish pointed out. “They didn’t want to risk damaging their prize.”
Danny turned back to Lee. “Katahl’s not playing around here,” he insisted. “He’s ordered a full-scale investigation to begin immediately, but they’re keeping it pretty hush hush so they don’t tip off whoever did this. When you get right down to it, they need to get that fighter back just as much as we want Mac, and whoever is behind this can’t hide forever. They’ll find him.”
“Yeah,” Lee muttered, placing the heels of his hands over his eyes and pressing. “That’s assuming she’s got that much ti—” His face went pale with the recollection.
“Lee?” Danny asked, like the others, sensing that something was up.
His jaw tight and his eyes narrowed to slits, Lee swung his bare legs over the bedside—teetered hard—then caught himself on the guard rail in time to get to his feet.
Seeing him stagger, Reynolds raced to steady her patient. “Back in bed, now,” she ordered. “You’ve suffered a mild concussion and two cracked ribs. I’m sorry, but you’re in no condition to go anywhere!”
“I appreciate your concern, Dr. Reynolds,” he said, ripping the taped IV from his hand and tossing it onto the bed along with the cannula. “But I’m checkin’ outta here. Now you can either help me, or get outta my way.”
****
“Hand me that soldering iron,” Wyatt instructed the young engineer beside him as he sifted through the demolished computer core on his workbench. Meanwhile, across the flight deck, Ryan and Noll continued their interrogations with a number of the engineering staff. Grunting in frustration as another circuit board popped between his fingers, Wyatt whirled around on his work stool to see Lee Summerston—dressed in a hospital gown—spring from his feet in mid-stride to land fist-first
with the full weight of his body on the unsuspecting chin of one Jeud Aston, crumpling the petty officer to the deck like a rag doll.
“Lee, what the hell are you doing?” Wyatt shouted, running toward the commotion.
“She had nothing to do with this, you son of a bitch!” Lee roared, wrapping his hands around Aston’s throat and laying into him with another closed-fisted volley.
Racing toward the scrum, Danny, Hamish, and Link were tackled in transit by the ship’s security and pinned to the ground.
“There’s the bad guy over there, you dumbass jarhead!” Link protested from his stomach.
“Stand down, Lee,” Ryan yelled, wrapping his arms around the other’s shoulders as he and Noll fought to restrain their pupil. “I said lay off!” Then, with a final, aggressive pull, he unclamped Lee from his victim and shoved him to the side. “He can’t talk if he’s unconscious… or worse!”
“That’s your man, Captain!” Lee shouted, shoving a finger at Aston. “He planted the EMP, I saw him do it.”
“What do you mean, you saw him?” Ryan asked, directing a trio of guards toward the beaten engineer who struggled to his feet, his face now resembling the texture and color of minced meat.
“Before we launched, he was screwin’ around inside Mac’s Mako after the other mechanics were done,” said Lee. “That’s why he was so nervous when he bumped into her on the way out, because he wondered if he’d been made.”
Noll stepped in. “For god’s sake, Summerston, the man could’ve just been doing his due diligence. You think of that?”
“Listen, Lee, nobody here is calling you a liar,” said Ryan, “and I’m not saying you’re wrong. But there’s a process here, and your beating the holy hell out of our lead suspect doesn’t exactly expedite that.”
Snatching his arm free from the guard, Lee turned to his commanders. “Not to be blunt, sirs,” he said, “but both of you know as well as anyone the level of security that R&D keeps around these fighters because of what they are. They’re under lock and key 24/7, and no one—I mean no one—goes near them without jumpin’ through a laundry list of hoops first. That means eyes and signatures everywhere. So I ask you, when would anyone else have had a chance to plant that device?”
Crossing the deck from his station—past Ryan, Lee, Noll, and the others—Wyatt halted directly before Aston and stared his best friend in the face.
“Why?” he asked plainly.
Aston averted eye contact.
“You look me in the damn eye when I’m talking to you, Jeud,” Wyatt scowled, turning the mechanic’s bloodied face toward his. “Summerston’s exactly right. That girl had absolutely nothing to do with this war—none of them do. But you just served her up to our enemies on a silver platter. Best case scenario: she’s cold, alone, and scared out of her mind in some brig somewhere with little or no hope of a rescue. Worst case scenario: an innocent girl is dead.”
Lee cringed behind him.
“In either case… my friend,” Wyatt bit out the final word, “that’s on you. So I will ask you one final time… Why?”
Aston heaved a long, thoughtful sigh and spit a glob of crimson saliva onto the ground beside him.
“Someone contacted me five days ago and promised me and my family full amnesty if I opened a back door through our security net to let them grab the Mako,” he said, wiping his face with a rag from his pocket. “Don’t ask me who sent the message, or where your friend is now, because I honestly have no idea. I was given the assignment, the date, and the time—that’s it. That’s all I know. I’m sorry Kris, but I had no choice.”
“There’s always a choice, Jeud!” Wyatt shouted.
“Is there?” Aston glared back. “Well then tell me, sir, what exactly are my alternatives? Huh? Where’s the all-saving, magic bullet solution that everybody seems to see except for me… and don’t tell me it’s these five.” He snorted with disgust. “What delusional world do you people live in anyway, because it’s certainly not this one… where our guys—our friends, our brothers and sisters in arms—are getting slaughtered every time they go out because there simply aren’t enough of us left to hold the line? C’mon, Kris! Tell me that some science geek’s super suit is gonna fix that. Really, I wanna hear you say it!”
Wyatt leered at his former Best Man. “Have you not seen what these people have achieved since they’ve been here?” he defended. “This program has potential, you have to see that.”
“Kris, contrary to what you’re thinking right now,” said Aston, “I’m not proud of this. You’re my oldest and dearest friend—hell, man, you’re Josh’s godfather, for heaven’s sake! So for what it’s worth, I’m terribly sorry for having put you through this—all of you. However, that said… and please, dear god, forgive me for saying this…” Aston hesitated—his eyes filling with an unexpected, though unmistakable pang of regret. “But I refuse, with every fiber of my being, to stand idly by and let my family suffer the same fate as yours. God help me, Kris, I just can’t.”
The color vanished from Jeud Aston’s face upon spotting the massive crescent wrench in Wyatt’s hand. Though for whatever reason—be it guilt for turning on his people, or a fleeting sense of loyalty to the brother he’d just betrayed—Aston offered no resistance when the instrument slammed hard across his face, shattering his jaw and dropping him like a stone to the deck.
“Out of respect for Maria and Josh, I won’t kill you,” Wyatt seethed, tossing the wrench skittering to the side and hovering over the motionless engineer whose blood now gushed in a river of red from his mouth. “But I swear to you right here and now, Jeud, everyone on this ship—everyone in this fleet—is going to know what you are… starting with them.”
Then, motioning to security that he was done, Wyatt stepped aside and allowed the pair of guards to drag the brutalized petty officer to the infirmary.
“Thanks, Chief,” Lee said, grateful.
“Right on, Chief!” Link added.
“What are the odds he was telling the truth when he said he didn’t know anything else?” Danny wondered aloud.
Wyatt dismissed the idea. “I’ve known Jeud for over 20 years,” he shook his head, “and while he might be a traitor to this fleet, he’d have told me if he’d known anything else. Besides, he’ll never see another day outside of a prison cell after this, and he knows that. So why hold anything back now?” His thought concluded, Wyatt turned with the others to see Katahl enter the hangar.
“As you were,” the admiral commanded, halting next to Ryan. “Well, Captain, so much for a quiet investigation.”
“That’s my fault, Admiral,” Lee said ruefully. “I figured out that it was Aston and I didn’t exactly give anybody the heads up that I knew. That is, until I got here anyway.”
“It’s alright, son,” Katahl assured him. “I’ve been where you are, and it’s not easy. Just know that we’re doing everything we can to find Miss McKinsey. On that, you have my word.”
Lee nodded. “Thank you, Admiral.”
“Sirs?” Wyatt’s assistant called from the workbench, his hands still buried in the wiry mess of the salvaged computer core. “I think you’d better get over here.”
“What is it, Simpson?” the chief asked.
“Well, sir, I managed to get the core back online, but it was heavily encrypted with a BXT-134 subnet algorithm that required a dylexi-morphic—”
“Get to the point, son,” Katahl interrupted.
“Sorry, sir. I’ve managed to access the fighter’s flight log, and it looks like the cruiser that jumped you originated from these coordinates.”
Connecting the core to the desk’s computer terminal, Simpson swiveled around on his stool and pulled up the image of a gridded star chart featuring six, single-file planets in orbit around a yellow sun. With a few strokes to the keyboard, the image zoomed in on the fourth planet; a large, sphere comprised of various shades of green.
“That’s in the Myrick System,” Wyatt said bewildered, leaning in for a close
r look. “What could they possibly be doing out that far?”
“What’s so significant about the Myrick System?” Danny asked.
“Nothing, that’s the point,” answered Katahl. “It’s way too far off the beaten path of Auran or Alystierian space to offer either side any kind of real strategic relevance. Honestly, the only people who ever show up around there are smugglers and illegal supply runners looking to stay off the grid.”
“Wait a second?” Ryan thought out loud.
“Captain?” the admiral raised a brow.
“Rumor around the fleet is that tensions have been brewing for some time now between the commandant and the chancellor,” said Ryan, “and if that’s the case, I wouldn’t put it past Masterson to keep a little something off the books, i.e. the Mako, particularly if he thinks it could behoove him strategically.”
Katahl threw him an agreeable look. “Fair enough,” he said, “but where are you going with this?”
“Well, I’m thinking that if Masterson wants to take a look at the Mako without the chancellor’s knowing—”
“Then where better to do that than an isolated system where only the dregs of society tend to hang out,” Lee concluded the captain’s thought.
“You got it,” said Ryan.
“Well, alright then, what are we waiting for?” Link exclaimed. “Lock and load!”
“Admiral, sir,” Noll snapped forward. “I can have a strike team assembled and ready for deployment within the hour. Just give the word.”
“The Five-One’s got your air support, Sergeant Major,” Ryan added
“I hate to interrupt, sirs, but that’s not all,” Simpson chimed in. “Once I figured out how to access the rest of the system, I did some more digging and found this.”
He gestured to the blue planet on the screen, and Lee watched as the expressions of everyone around him went deathly cold.
“What is it?” he asked.
Mako (The Mako Saga: Book 1) Page 40