by Charles Nall
“Sounds good to me,” Jacob replied. “Aiden, set a course toward the vampire ships. Ensign Stewart, get your trigger finger ready, I want a coil cannon shot straight through one of those cruisers.”
“Sir, I don’t know if I can hit them,” Stewart said. “They are starting to move erratically.”
“All I need is for you to try your best,” Jacob said. “Coordinate with Amaterasu. I want coil cannon shots across any of those cruisers you think you can hit. If you can get a good shot on Dolos, take it.”
“Enemy fighters incoming,” Hydrus reported.
Amaterasu and Empyrean unloaded weaponry onto the enemy forces. The coil cannon slugs unfortunately sailed over their targets. The vampires retaliated with their beam weapons. One beam cut into Okinawa causing moderate damage. Okinawa luckily remained structurally sound. The other beam sputtered out on Empyrean’s shields. The last vampire cruiser missed as Hashi barely managed to evade the beam. The energy weapons began recharging.
Elijah Shepherd’s Peregrine sped out of the hangar. He called out to the squadrons under his command, “Alright boys and girls, I want the corvette squadrons keeping an eye back on home base. Protect Empy from enemy fighters. Delta and Zeta Squadron, I want you to hang back and keep the vamps off Empy as well. Every other fighter squadron is on the assault with me. Remember, take out the shields, then take out generators or any other sensitive equipment. Kill enemy fighters if you have to. First target is Iblis! Fangs out!”
“Fangs out!” Skids repeated. “Hey, Mouse, you ready for some action, man?”
Mouse did not reply.
“Cat got your tongue?” Skids laughed. “Always the same with you. Alright, bloodsuckers, bring it! Woo-wee!”
Jinx snickered. “You sure you can handle yourself out here, Skids?”
“Sure can, babe!”
“Don’t call me that, effing asshole. I hope you crash and burn out here, I know you have the crashing part down pat!”
“Hold the chatter,” Vera “V” Takahashi said. “Let’s get going. You two can kiss and make up after the fight. Fangs out!”
Amaterasu and Empyrean approached the Blood Dynasty warships. Dolos broke off from the vampire ships to try to attack Hashi. The Confederate jumpship was trying to remain safe behind Okinawa.
Stewart looked over his console. “Hey, Lance! Hit me with a 180! Move the bow Zero-Zero-Zero... Dot Three Hundred!”
“Gotcha!”
“I got you now...”
Empyrean slowly shifted to its side, still barreling toward the vampire cruisers. The warship angled downward, aligning the forward coil cannons onto Dolos. The cannons fired. Two of them missed completely, but the other two crashed straight through the shields of Dolos and into the ship itself. The force of the impact caused the ship to violently flip over and over. Okinawa finished off Dolos with mass driver fire. The ship that betrayed the Resistance broke apart.
“That’s what you get!” Stewart yelled enthusiastically.
“Great job, Stewart!” Sharon said.
Arnold “Grizzly” Lawrence and the rest of Empyrean’s fighter force slammed into the enemy fighter squadrons. The fighters weaved between mass drivers shots. Tracers from the rotary cannon fire lit up the battle like thousands of fireflies. Empyrean’s force tried to get by the enemy fighters to get to the enemy warships.
While en route to Iblis, an enemy Peregrine maneuvered itself behind Arnold’s Peregrine. The rotary cannon bullets began scattering off the shields of Arnold’s fighter.
“Warning: Rear Shields at 20%” announced the computer.
Arnold had a clean shot on an approaching enemy Raptor directly in front of him. Arnold fired a mass driver round that broke apart on the enemy’s shields. What was left of the round rained onto the cockpit like a shotgun blast. Arnold then fired another mass driver round that struck the Raptor in the damaged cockpit. Arnold quickly maneuvered out of the way of the approaching fighter. The enemy Raptor collided with the Peregrine that was pursuing him. Both fighters exploded into shrapnel.
The Empyrean squadrons broke through the cloud of enemy fighters and began their strafing runs of the vampire warship Iblis.
Arnold flew past the hangar bay of Iblis. An ISF corvette rushed out of the hangar and began firing upon Arnold’s Peregrine.
“Shit! I got an effing corvette on me!”
Striker replied over the link, “I think I can assist. On my way!”
“Good!” Arnold said as he evaded mass driver fire. “It’s an effing California II-class!”
“On our way! I’m going to tear that ship a new asshole!” Jinx yelled.
“Thanks, I could use all the help I can get!” Arnold said.
“You got it, Grizzly,” Ox said.
Ox gunned down an enemy Raptor. The enemy fighter tumbled out of control and slammed into the hull of Iblis. Ox then turned around and headed toward Arnold’s position.
Arnold tried desperately to dodge the mass driver rounds that the corvette was firing at him.
“Rear Shields at 2%,” announced the computer.
“Activate auxiliary coolant tanks!” Arnold shouted. “More power to the shields!”
“Rear Shields at 4%.”
The loud sound of bullets impacting the hull nearly made the next computer announcement inaudible.
“Rear Shields Down.”
“Shit.” Arnold thought a moment. He studied the readings on his HUD display just inside his helmet. Arnold flipped his Peregrine around so that his cockpit was facing the assaulting corvette.
A mass driver slug was deflected off the front shields of Arnold’s Peregrine.
“Front Shields at 13%.”
That was a dumb idea. Saved me a few seconds, though.
“Get off of him, bitch!” Jinx screamed over the link.
Striker, Jinx, and Juke’s fighters came into view and fired upon the corvette. The rotary cannons on the corvette stopped firing upon Arnold and began firing on the new pests. All of the fighters focused on one side of the corvette. The corvette tried to shake off the fighters but it was to no avail.
“Shields down on her port side! Focus on the generators!” Juke said.
The fighters continued ripping apart the port side of the corvette. A mass driver from Striker’s fighter ripped through the wing section, disabling the thrusters on that side. The corvette began to spin out of control. It descended onto Iblis and crashed into a shield generator, disabling shields in the vicinity.
“Yeah! Bloodsuckers, eat my shit!” Jinx yelled.
Juke laughed. “There is something wrong with you.”
Osprey bombers exploited the weakness and passed over the exposed area. Explosions danced across the ISF corvette. The corvette’s hyper-drive was pierced and a huge explosion tore a gaping hole in the side of Iblis.
Elsewhere, an explosion caused Empyrean to tremble.
“Damage report!” Jacob yelled.
“All three cruiser beams converged on us. Our shields are down on our port side, one of the beams managed to cut through our ship. Heavy damage on Hangar 1. I’m sending damage control there. Empy will be okay, sir.”
“Good. We’re coming up on the ships,” Jacob said. “Position her so that the port side is away from those ships.”
Alexander nodded. “Aye aye.”
Leviathan dueled against Okinawa and Hashi. Amaterasu and Empyrean clashed against Iblis, Abaddon, and Sagitta. The forces flew past each other. Weaponry was being unloaded at a fierce pace between all the combatants. The warships then turned back around for another assault.
“V! You got bogeys on your tail!” Skids yelled.
Vera “V” Takahashi’s Peregrine was being pursued by two enemy Raptors. “Yes! I can see that,” she replied. “I can’t shake them!”
Skids got behind the two enemy Raptors. “I got these bloodsuckers...” He pressed the trigger and sent mass drivers toward the Raptors. “Woo-wee!” he yelled as one of the Raptors exploded.
A
vampire Locust fighter nearly collided with Skids as he was celebrating. The sudden appearance of this fighter caused Skids to over-compensate on the controls to try to dodge the Locust. Skids lost control of his fighter. “Shit! Shit!”
“Attempting to Auto-Stabilize,” chimed the computer.
The Locust looped back around and began unloading mass drivers toward Skids.
Locust fighters were extremely agile and deadly. The majority of Blood Dynasty warships still used Peregrines and Raptors, but the top fighter pilots were given these agile fighters. Their armor plating was flimsy, but it generally didn’t matter—they killed their prey before it could even react.
A mass driver hit one of Skids’ maneuvering thrusters. Skids went to a spin and couldn’t compensate. Skids’ Peregrine started spiraling toward the hull of Iblis.
“Come on, baby. Come on, girl, not like this.” Skids frantically pulled on his control stick. “Computer, turn off all maneuvering thrusters, stop trying to compensate for the spin.”
The fighter began spinning faster. Skids looked straight ahead at the fast approaching hull of the cruiser. He tried to focus while the entire fighter spun around him. He started to black out.
“Now! Full power to vertical thrusters!” he yelled as he pulled back on his stick.
Skids’ Peregrine streaked away from the hull. Skids finally regained control. “Shit, I’m gonna lose my lunch.”
The Locust returned and fired upon Skids.
“Effing bloodsucker! Leave me alone!”
The Locust suddenly exploded into pieces. Mouse’s Peregrine emerged from the center of the debris cloud unscathed.
“Mouse! You son of a bitch!” Skids exclaimed. “You saved my life!”
“Woo-wee!” Mouse yelled.
Vera “V” Takashi’s Peregrine streaked by Skids. “Great shooting out there! Mouse took out the Raptor on my tail, too. I need to buy you both a beer!”
A bright white flash illuminated the battlefield.
“Shit,” Hydrus said. “We lost Okinawa and Hashi. The Leviathan is disabled for now, it got caught in the EMP of the exploding jumpship.” Hydrus clutched the side of his head. “We just lost coil cannons three and four and a host of other weaponry systems.”
“I don’t know how much longer we keep this up,” Sharon said. “There is extensive damage all across our ship. Amaterasu isn’t faring much better.”
“What about the enemy ships?” Trevor asked.
“Iblis is showing signs of moderate damage. Abaddon is lightly damaged,” Sharon reported.
“Keep it up,” Jacob said. “We can do this.”
As the warships were approaching yet again, Abaddon fired its beam weapon. The beam grazed Empyrean, melting some upper plating of the hull but causing only slight structural damage. However, Iblis’ strike was a direct hit. Iblis began raking its beam weapon into the fore section of Amaterasu. The beam began boring into the Resistance battle cruiser. Empyrean fired its two functional forward coil cannons. One slug missed, but the other shot impacted Iblis straight in the front of the warship. The angle was perfect—a huge explosion emanated from the front section of the Blood Dynasty cruiser. The beam abruptly stopped. Amaterasu was saved.
Shepherd’s Peregrine glided over Iblis, peppering the bruised hull of the vampire battle cruiser with mass driver and rotary cannon rounds.
As the warships flew across each other, ripping into each other, Abaddon fired its forward beam weapon. A coil cannon blast had broken off a chunk of one of the focusing structures, but it did not seem to cause a major change to the damage output. The beam raked across Empyrean, causing tremendous damage.
Elijah Shepherd glanced out toward Amaterasu. He noticed one of the coil cannons fire. Although the pace of the battle was at an extremely fast pace, everything seemed to slow down. The slug tore into Iblis, directly in front of him. It had broken through the rear section which housed the engine systems. “Shit! Everyone get off of Iblis!” He had a good idea of what could be coming next. Shepherd’s Peregrine and several other friendly craft scrambled to get away from the doomed Iblis.
A huge explosion ripped through the vampire battle cruiser. This blast sent debris everywhere. Abaddon passed through the debris field and managed to take only light damage. Many fighters were not so lucky. Another beam weapon then cut into Empyrean from the other side. Leviathan was back in the fight.
The Mjolnir-class destroyer Sagitta skirted along the edge of the battle. The destroyer launched a hailstorm of mass driver slugs and torpedoes toward the Resistance warships. Amaterasu’s fighter squadron swarmed the Blood Dynasty destroyer.
A stray chunk of metal that used to belong to the frame of Iblis smashed into the back of Elijah Shepherd’s fighter. The force knocked him into a spin. Elijah wrestled with the controls and managed to stabilize the fighter. When he had finally gotten the fighter back under control another small piece of debris crashed through the side of the cockpit. It entered through the side but stopped short from breaking all of the way through. Elijah remained unscathed but stared at the shard of metal that had broken through his fighter and impaled into the other side of the cockpit, luckily not breaking through it completely.
Although Elijah was unhurt, air forcefully escaped into space through the wound. “Warning: Decompression,” chimed the computer. “Heavy Damage. Warning: Decompression. Oxygen Levels Critical. Warning: Ejection System Malfunction. Warning: Oxy—”
And then everything went completely silent. Elijah couldn’t hear anything. He couldn’t breathe.
Elijah ripped off his helmet and tried his best to put it over the hole while still using his controls to continue flying his Peregrine toward Leviathan. Finally, the helmet sealed the inside of the fighter from space.
“Oxygen Levels Normalizing,” chimed the computer.
Elijah Shepherd took a deep breath and examined the readouts on the small computer screens. He had lost the heads-up display and status messages in his helmet.
Empyrean fired upon Leviathan. Leviathan shuddered from the impacts but remained functional. The beam weapon began charging again. Amaterasu and Abaddon traded weapon fire between each other.
Elijah Shepherd approached Leviathan and formed back up with Alpha Squadron. Beta swarmed over Leviathan as well. Gamma defended the Sigma and Tau Osprey squadrons that were approaching Leviathan for a bombing run. A few nuggets from Zeta Squadron got their first taste of a starfight as they defended Empyrean alongside Delta Squadron. Epsilon, not to be confused with the planet of the same name, danced with enemy fighters above Leviathan.
Shepherd hit some buttons to allow access back onto the squadron’s fighter link and patched it through a small speaker rather than the helmet.
“You okay, Ghost?” Ox asked.
Shepherd pressed a small button next to his control stick to reply. “Yeah, I’m mostly in one piece. Damage report for Leviathan?”
“Most of the shields port side are down,” Jinx replied.
“Alright, take out any exposed shield generators,” Shepherd said.
“Not so fast, Ghost,” Juke said. “I’m detecting an energy surge; shields will be back up in any second.”
“Oh, alright. I can’t tell. My HUD is...” Shepherd glanced at his helmet that was sealing the hull breach. “Offline. Hey, is that one of our birds up ahead under the shield zone?” Shepherd calmly asked while dodging fire from enemy fighters that buzzed by.
“It’s Grizzly, sir,” Ox said.
“Grizzly! Pull up at once! You aren’t safe there!” Shepherd flew into the exposed area and followed Arnold.
“I’ll be fine!” Arnold yelled. He continued firing upon the hull of the cruiser.
“Pull up!” Shepherd commanded.
Arnold ignored the command and began firing upon the generator that was fast approaching. “Just a little more...”
Arcs of electricity started to appear over the generators.
A mass driver round ricocheted off the plating of Elij
ah Shepherd’s fighter. The sudden hit jolted the fighter and Shepherd slammed his head against the side of the cockpit. A memory suddenly flashed into his mind. A vampire battle cruiser was attacking him but a ship full of crystals somehow saved him. What Shepherd assumed to be alien beings surrounded him. Shepherd had a hard time focusing on his saviors and couldn’t quite figure out what they looked like.
“We are removing you from this part of the strand. You are not needed at this point in your time stream,” said one of the beings.
“What? Where am I?” Elijah asked.
“Outside of your time. Your fourth dimension is yet another road for us to travel. We see the entire strand and we despair. There is only one chance for the survival of both of our species. Out of countless possibilities, it’s the only course of action that shows promise. You must meet the Destroyer. Once you meet the Destroyer, your time will quickly come to an end. You will make an impact and potentially strengthen the strand of our mutual survival.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That is to be expected,” the being stated. “Your primitive brain will be uploaded with special data that you may require. Forward is backward.”
“No, I have to fight the vampires! Take me back to my time! To my family! Please!” Elijah pleaded.
“You understand this must be done,” one of the beings said. “You will fight another war. A war that will alter your dimensions. Your life force must be snuffed out before the war concludes. But you will make a necessary impact.”
“An impact for good?” Shepherd asked.
The being sighed. “No.”
Elijah snapped back into reality. Mere seconds had actually passed. He knew what he had to do. His Peregrine went to full burn and glided right under Arnold’s fighter.
“What are you doing?!” Arnold yelled.
“Saving your life!” Elijah said.
Elijah’s fighter flew straight up and collided with the underside of Arnold’s fighter. Elijah fired the maneuvering thrusters and both fighters rose up away from Leviathan.
The shield generator returned to operational status. A bubble of energy quickly emanated from the generators. Elijah’s fighter was overtaken by the energy. Arnold’s fighter continued flying above the shield zone out of harm’s reach.