Traitor

by Scott Bartlett

  “Yes. Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good.”

  Keyes’s fingers tensed as he laid them on what he’d identified as the shuttle’s attitude controls. On the tactical display, Fesky’s Talon grew larger.

  “Wait for it,” she told him. “Wait for it…”

  Her Talon took up most of the display. A collision seemed inevitable.

  “Now!”

  He slid his fingers forward. The shuttle’s nose dipped, and Fesky’s fighter screamed overhead, guns roaring. Her ordnance exploded the missile seconds before impact—so close that her fighter flew through the explosion before the vacuum could quench it.

  “Yes!” he yelled, but didn’t activate his transponder. He knew better than to break a pilot’s flow state during battle.

  Fesky wasn’t done. She hurtled toward the Ixan corvette, deploying her fighter’s entire missile payload in quick succession. That lessened the pressure from the warship’s point defense turrets, allowing her to target its main engine with kinetic impactors.

  Even as her missiles were picked off, Fesky didn’t waver. Her last missile exploded, and Keyes held his breath as he watched her maintain course, focusing fire on the corvette engine.

  The point defense turrets turned their fire on her, and she zigzagged slightly to lessen the number of impacts.

  But he knew some had hit home. Her Talon couldn’t survive that level of abuse for long. She—

  The corvette’s main engine exploded, and the resulting fire was sucked away by the void almost instantly. Fesky maxed out her own engines, then, shooting past the enemy before rotating around her short axis, thrusting in quick, powerful bursts so that she winged around the warship and soon was shooting back in the opposite direction. Toward Keyes. Toward the wormhole.

  “Holy shit,” Keyes screamed into his transponder. “Fesky, you are incredible. That was the best flying I’ve ever—”

  “Cool it, human. You’re embarrassing yourself. Let’s leave this system.”

  “Roger that.” Other than the maneuver to avoid a collision with Fesky, he hadn’t altered his beeline toward the wormhole.

  Something on the tactical display caught his eye. “Fesky—Fesky, the corvette just fired three missiles at you.” He did a double take. “God. Make that seven. And it’s firing more.”

  “I see them, human.”

  “Can you take them all out?”

  “I can try.” She ceased her engine burn to point and shoot at the pursuing rockets while her Talon continued to careen toward the wormhole.

  One missile went down. And a second…then three more exploded in quick succession.

  She’s doing it. She’s going to make it.

  Another missile exploded.

  The seventh hit her Falcon in the center of its cockpit, right where the pilot sat, and the fighter blew apart.

  Keyes’s breath caught in his throat, and his vision went blurry. “Fesky,” he muttered. “Please, God, no…”

  “Don’t cry just yet, human,” the Winger said. “I ejected in your direction, and I still have my momentum. Think you can catch me?”

  “I can try,” he said, and switched to a two-way channel with Ralston. “Chief, one of us needs to go for a little walk outside, to collect the Winger who just saved our asses. I would do it, but someone needs to pilot this ship.”

  “All right, Lieutenant,” the Scot replied, and his voice contained a tremor it hadn’t before. “I’m headed for the airlock now.”

  Keyes didn’t like how unsteady the man sounded, but he’d agreed, and that was enough for Keyes to take back every negative thing he’d ever thought about the man. “The shuttle’s sensors won’t sync with our heads-up displays, but I can guide us into Fesky’s trajectory and tell you when she’s coming. Make sure your tether is secured, and nab her if you can.”

  In order to let Fesky catch up, he slowed the shuttle, gradually ramping up its speed again as she approached, so that she didn’t simply zip past them.

  Ten minutes later, Ralston had caught Fesky and she was sitting with Keyes in the cockpit, no worse for wear.

  “Good to see you, Wingtip.”

  “And you, Lieutenant.”

  “Thanks for rescuing our sorry asses. Anywhere you’d like a lift to?”

  “For now, outside of this system sounds great.” Fesky eyed the tactical display, which showed several more Ixan warships bearing down on their location. The corvette drifted in space, stranded without its main engine. “After that, I have no idea. My people certainly won’t welcome me back. I defied Flightmaster Korbyn’s orders to follow you here, and Wingers don’t tolerate insubordination of any kind. No second chances, for that.”

  “Well…I won’t soon forget that you saved my life. Not to mention this mission. I plan to do everything in my power to repay you.”

  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Lieutenant. We’re not out of this system, yet.”

  “Oh, we’re getting out of this system. You’re not the only one who knows their way around a flight console.”

  He gunned the engine to resume their former acceleration, the wormhole growing larger on the display. It occurred to him that this was likely the first time in history an Ixan and a Winger shared a craft with humans. And as they sped homeward, with the seeds of a powerful new weapon aboard, for a moment Keyes felt sure he could feel history taking shape around them.

  Perhaps the future was bright after all.

  Epilogue

  20 Years Later

  Warren Husher sat with his shoulders slumped in a cramped, gunmetal-gray room. It didn’t matter. “It’s all the same place,” he muttered, though there was no one there to hear. Except, there is, isn’t there? “It’s all the same place.”

  He missed his crew. For the first few years, he’d still thought of himself as Captain Warren Husher, to keep up his spirits. But he was no captain. Not anymore. “I’ll never get back my command,” he whispered to himself. “And my wife…my son…”

  His voice trailed off into nothing. Memories of his family caused him the most pain. How they must hate me. He’d turned their names into dirt.

  “I didn’t do it,” he mumbled. “My likeness did. A video…”

  The memory of Commander Vaghn’s shocked face hurt almost as much as the fact that he could no longer recall what his son looked like. Certainly not what Vin would look like now.

  No one had known the Ixa possessed the technology to doctor audio and video in order to simulate a subject that faithfully. They possess many technologies we knew nothing about. “They played us,” he whispered. “They played us. They’re playing us. They—”

  “Shut up, Warren,” Baxa said.

  Husher’s head snapped up. Baxa sat on the other side of a table the same gray as the room. When had the Ixan entered? Was that table always there?

  “You’ve grown pathetic,” Baxa said. “You let your sanity drain away, didn’t you, ape?”

  “You took it.”

  “No. You lost it yourself, because you are weak. Let’s test your memory. Do you remember what I told you humans now call your war? Hmm? Think, Warren.”

  Husher squeezed his eyes shut, leaning over in his chair until his forehead touched his right knee. “The—the—”

  “Futile. They call it the First Galactic War. Do you know what your species will call the next one?”

  Knocking his head against his knee repeatedly, Husher curled his dangling hands into fists. “The Second—”

  “They won’t call it anything, fool. Because they’ll be dead. Ironically, humans think I’m dead. They think I died during your war. Ironic, because I will kill them in my war.”

  “No,” Husher said, his head still down. His voice sounded nasal.

  “Yes. All has been foretold. By me. Another update for you: I’m no longer Scion Baxa. The son has become the father. I am legion, in fact, and I have given unto my children a set of Prophecies. I will reshape you as a tool to implement them.” Baxa stood. “Look at
me, Warren.”

  Husher raised his head, and when their eyes met, his mind cleared. He straightened in his chair. “I…I’m me, again.”

  “For the moment. I’ve restored your sanity to you. The time has come to bargain for your freedom. I will have the Ixa release you, in exchange for one small favor.”

  Slowly, Husher shook his head. “How can you know I’ll keep up my end of the bargain?” He knew Baxa wouldn’t let him go without safeguards in place, and so it was better to learn what they would be, if he could. Not knowing would not mean they wouldn’t be there.

  Baxa smiled. “Don’t worry. When the times comes, you will be compelled to obey me.”

  Thank you for reading!

  Ready for Book 1 of the Ixan Prophecies Trilogy? Click here to check out Supercarrier.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to Sam Bauer, Inga Bögershausen, and Jeff Rudolph for offering insightful editorial input and helping to make this book as strong as it could be.

  Thank you to my family - your support means everything.

  Thank you to the people who read my stories, write reviews, and help spread the word. I couldn’t do this without you.

  Dedication

  To my amazing readers.