by Justin Sloan
“They’re fast, but we can take ‘em,” Jackal said, his cackling laugh transmitting through his helmet as he started defensive maneuvers.
“You’re a crazy S.O.B.,” Napalm said as the first of the ships exploded in a burst of purple flame. “I love it.”
“Ever seen the turret on this thing really go to work?” Jackal asked. “Against the dragon didn’t count. That thing was too crazy.”
He pressed the screen and then moved the display to reveal the rear of the ship instead of a window view. Samantha had to admit it was impressive. Blasters tore through the sky in quick bursts, ripping apart two more of the ships.
“Damn!” Napalm called out. “Wooo! That’s how you eat your breakfast!”
Everyone turned to him with confusion.
“What?” He laughed. “Oh, just a saying back home.”
Carma turned back to the display, and her eyes went wide. “What’s that?”
They spun to see what she meant. At first it looked like simple darkness, blotting out the stars beyond. But as it grew larger, blocking out more and more stars, it became clear that a large spaceship of some kind was rapidly approaching.
Samantha turned to Jackal, who promptly swore before saying, “Ladies and gents, hold on to your seats, because this ride is about to get fun. That right there is a Set-Class Destroyer. I’ve only seen one before, and what the hell it’s doing in the Entono Fos star system is beyond me.”
“So you’re saying we’re in up to our necks in feces?” Ferder asked. In spite of their apparent predicament, Samantha had to laugh at the translation.
“Yes, you could say that.” Jackal breathed deep, the sound raspy through his helmet, and took the controls as two of the other smaller ships attempted an attack again. He shot them out of the sky as easily as swatting flies, then began pressing the screen rapidly.
“What’re you doing?” Samantha asked, though it wasn’t the best time for questions.
He answered anyway. “My screen shows that they’ve just launched several antimatter warheads our way. If I know anything about the Set-Class Destroyers, that means we’re toast. Unless we figure a way out of here.”
“And there’s an answer in there?” she asked, nodding to the screen.
“Not at all. But I also have to warn the Elders. They’ll know our location, but we don’t have a choice right now.”
“Good call,” Napalm said. “And how many Destroyers do the Elders have at their disposal?”
“The royal fleet has three, but they’re what we’ve termed Achilles-Class Destroyers. Damn powerful, but they’re generally half as strong as that titan coming at us.”
“And the missiles that we have to evade?” Samantha asked, starting to get worried as her eyes traced the incoming signals on the screen at her seat.
“Thanks for the reminder. Signal sent, now, hold on!” Jackal pressed another button and the ship shot forward. He did his best to avoid being hit, flipping around and zooming past the ships to return fire. But the ships kept coming.
Soon, the entire command deck was full, as everyone wanted to watch the action. They murmured, discussing strategies, but as yet no one had spoken up.
“Anyone have any bright ideas, now would be a good time to use them!” Jackal shouted out, warning sounds blaring and lights flashing.
“If Hadrian were here,” Samantha mumbled. The thought gave her an idea. “Napalm, what if… I mean, we did it to the dragon, right?”
“You want us to use our energy manipulation on that destroyer?” he scoffed. “By the time we got close enough, we’d be space debris.”
“Not on it. As a distraction.” She scanned the display, noting an asteroid belt not far off. “Can we make it there?”
“You want to lose them in an asteroid belt?” Napalm shook his head. “Sounds a bit… cliché?”
“First of all, you shut up. Nothing I do is cliché, because it’s never been done by me, so it will always be special. Second, no. I want us to get close enough to see if we can latch onto some of them and then blow those bitches up in the Destroyer’s face.”
Napalm scrunched his nose and Jackal made a “Huh,” sound. Then they were changing course, headed for the asteroids.
“You think it’ll work, then?” Napalm asked.
“What I think is that we don’t have any other options. So... here’s to hoping.”
The ship flew smoothly, even as Jackal took it into the asteroid belt and began evasive maneuvers to avoid any collisions.
At the mid-point, Napalm gave the signal. He and Samantha stood, bracing themselves. They both concentrated, focusing their power to latch onto the asteroids, as if throwing a huge net over them and pulling them along with the ship.
The enemy ships were maneuvering through the belt, but their shots were now being absorbed by the trailing asteroids. As they moved in formation to try and get around the grouping of asteroids, Napalm shouted, “NOW!”
They stopped pulling and instead focused on pushing with explosive energy. Jackal accelerated and pulled sharply on the controls at the same time, aiming to be on the other side of the asteroid when the explosion hit. And then with a shockwave of energy, asteroids were exploding all around them, tearing through enemy ships.
Just before reaching the cover of the large asteroid, Samantha saw the last of the enemy ships slowing, sparks sputtering from its hull. And then they were blocked from view, the Noraldian protected.
For a moment, they traveled on in silence, everyone staring at the display to be sure no more enemy ships showed up.
“That took care of them long enough,” Jackal said, breaking the silence, “for us to at least get the gate open and get out of here. I hope.”
“Get it done,” Napalm said, stumbling back to his seat and strapping himself in.
Samantha, too, felt drained. She hadn’t realized how much using her energy would take out of her. Instead of answering, she simply sat back and let it happen, watching the display from under heavy eyelids.
“Stay with us you two. We might not be out of it yet!” Jackal shouted, turning on extra thrusters to bring them in toward the moon.
“One question,” Carma asked. “Does anyone know how to activate the gate?”
Silence followed, as everyone turned to Jackal.
“I might have seen it done a couple times,” he said, voice low.
“And if you don’t remember how, in the short window of time we have, we’re toast, right?” Napalm asked.
“Pretty much.”
“Well, isn’t that just amazing.”
Samantha shook her head, trying to clear away the haze of exhaustion, and sat up. “We have no choice but to make it work. I trust you, Jackal. We all do.”
The faceplate of his helmet cleared to show his appreciative smile, though his eyes were full of doubt.
“Thank you, Sam.” He nodded, then made the faceplate go opaque again. “I’ll do my best.”
7
The Thirteenth Moon
Jackal had just brought the Noraldian down for a smooth landing on the thirteenth moon when he called out, “Samantha, we have incoming.”
“I thought we got them all?” she said, standing to better see the display.
He was silent, simply staring.
“We need to activate the gate, get out of here,” Samantha stated. “If we’re gone before that Destroyer gets here, we won’t have anything to worry about.”
“Do it,” Jackal agreed. “But we’re bringing weapons just in case.”
“We?” Samantha asked.
“I’m the only one who has a clue as to what we’re doing,” he replied. “So, yeah, I’d say it’s gotta be we.”
Samantha shrugged, and Napalm grinned.
“Let’s get moving then, lady and gentleman,” Napalm said as he made his way to the armory.
When they were all geared up and ready for action, the three of them followed Jackal’s lead, moving out to the thirteenth moon. Their suits kicked into a
ir-supply mode while also providing warmth with a natural heating-and-cooling system. Breathing in the suit was still awkward for Samantha, though she was getting used to it.
Each step brought them up into the air, then down with a slow descent. Gravity was greater here than she understood it to be on Earth’s moon, but it was still quite the experience. The scenery here was similar, though, with deep craters and barren landscapes. As they moved away from the ship, they came upon great fissures in the ground, areas where a fall could be disastrous.
Or perhaps not. Samantha realized she wasn’t sure how a fall would work with this gravity. At what height could one fall without having to worry? She decided not to try and find out.
“There,” Jackal said, pointing to a high point along the ridges. “I couldn’t land too close and risk settling on brittle soil or going over the edge by mistake.”
Within a few minutes they were almost there, but Samantha wasn’t seeing anything that could act as an opener to a gate—whatever that should look like.
“Here comes the fun part,” Jackal said, his voice carrying through their helmets. “I’m not exactly sure where he put this one, but… knowing Hadrian...”
Jackal slowed down ahead of them, beginning to poke around. Finally, he stopped at a hole in the ground and swore. “Yep, this’d be it, I figure.”
“The hole?” Napalm asked.
“Well, within the hole, yeah.” Jackal glanced over at Samantha and shrugged. “Ladies first?”
“Are you serious?”
“Well, maybe I should say people wearing magic robes first. Going in with our blasters is not a good idea, because we could fry the machinery or whatever he set up down there. But I figure that crazy robe will protect you.”
Samantha reached the hole and leaned over, glancing down into the darkness. “You guys suck.”
Without bothering to argue the point, she turned her focus on her energy, hoping to latch herself to the sides of the hole, if that was possible. She was about to find out. Slowly, she inched her way down. The latching seemed to be working, the air around her feeling a bit like water, keeping her somewhat buoyant.
“What am I looking for?” she asked.
“A temple, some fancy dials… that sort of thing.”
“In a place like this?” She shrugged, now bracing her feet and hands against the side to keep herself steady in case her energy latching failed.
She wasn’t super fond of the dark, but at least her suit gave off a blue light that wasn’t visible to attackers. It allowed her to see the cave walls, and as she reached the bottom of the hole, she could make out the outline of some sort of structure ahead.
Her feet touched the ground, and she made her way over to see that it wasn’t so much a temple as an outpost. The space contained caches of several types of weapons, likely kept by Hadrian as a fallback point in case he ran into trouble. One particular weapon glowed brighter the closer she got to it, and bore a distinct resemblance to a shoulder cannon. She decided to leave them alone, focused instead on her primary objective.
Turning to assess the room, she saw nothing resembling a dial or anything like what Jackal had described.
Until she looked up. “I’m going to need some guidance here.”
Just above her, barely at head level, was what was clearly a star chart engraved into the stone ceiling. As she took a step away to better see it, she noticed that the glow had actually come from something underneath the weapon. She picked it up, carefully moving the cannon aside. The object glowed brightly, made of a metal that shifted in her hand like mercury.
“Guys, I think I have… a key?”
“Ah, yes, the liquid metal,” Jackal said, excitedly. “It connects with you on another plane… kind of. It’s complicated.”
“Get back here!” Carma shouted through the helmet. “Whatever we saw incoming, it’s gaining faster than we thought. No time for sightseeing.”
“Back off, Carma,” Samantha shouted. “I’m trying! Now, Jackal, what’s the deal?”
“You need to imagine it taking the shape it needs to take, and then place it on the dial.”
“And how the hell am I supposed to do that?”
“Yeah… that’s the part I’ve never seen. You got me there.”
Samantha stared at the strange object, wanting to run back up to the surface and punch Jackal in the head for sending her into this without enough information. When it formed into a fist, she nearly dropped it in surprise. That must be the link he’d mentioned.
Turning to face the symbols above, she considered the constellations. Knowing Hadrian, he would leave some sort of clue as to how to use the key, in case someone—like her—wound up here without him. Certainly, he expected they would be smart enough to figure it out.
But that still didn’t exactly help.
She tried simply replicating the star chart as she placed the glowing metal to it. But the key just plopped to the floor when she let go and took on the shape in which she’d found it.
Analyzing the patterns, she paused. Orion’s belt had been one she had always liked to find with her mother as a child. The Three Guardians, Quinn had called the stars that made up the belt. Maybe related to the Guardians they were looking for now? The space dragons…
Samantha imagined the three stars and held the metal up to the location where the belt should be. But again, nothing.
Wait. If the stars really were representative of the dragons… Of course! The belt had been referred to as the Three Kings! She remembered it now that she saw this, piecing it together with the mental message Hadrian had sent as she’d fled.
This time she imagined the dragons, three of them, and repeated the motion. The metal took on their forms, connecting with the chart on the low ceiling, and then glowing so brightly they made Sam step back and squint. And then it was all shifting, and Jackal’s voice came through her helmet.
“You did it! YOU DID IT!”
“Now, get up here so we can get the hell out of here,” Napalm said, his voice betraying his smile.
Samantha quickly climbed up and out of the cavern, using her upgraded grip to make the ascent as fast as possible. She emerged from the hole to see star nodes above them beginning to light up. As they turned back to the ship, lights of turquoise and bright purple rippled through space, forming gates like those they had traveled through with Hadrian.
Only this time, it looked like they would be going without him, and that terrified Samantha.
“MOVE IT!” Jackal shouted, and Samantha and Napalm took off after him, sprinting as best they could in the low gravity.
Sam glanced over her shoulder to see that the enemy destroyer had just become visible again.
“They found us,” she shouted.
“Dammit,” Jackal replied, pulling his rifle to be ready. “And with that unknown incoming almost here, it looks like it’s going to get messy. We need to…”
He had stopped talking, and Samantha glanced up and saw why. Whatever the unidentified object was, it had started firing massive blasts at the destroyer. Another step and push off, and they were almost at the Noraldian.
“We’ve got a friendly out there?” Carma’s voice came through their helmets. “Looks like… Oh, you two have got to see this!”
Two leaps later they were at the ship. Jackal darted for the controls to get the Noraldian airborne, then froze, staring at the display. Samantha was right behind him, and what she saw made her whoop for joy.
The unidentified object had huge blasters in each hand, still approaching them but unleashing hell-fire on the destroyer. Wrapped in shining blue armor and a golden cloak, there was no doubt that it was Hadrian.
Somehow, he had escaped and come for them! As they settled into their seats, he turned toward them. With the combined power of the blasters from his boots and a surge of flames from his weapons, he began flying straight for their ship.
“Hailing the Noraldian,” his voice came through the ship’s speaker system.
“Go for Jackal,” Jackal replied, voice sounding giddy.
“Why aren’t you flying? I want you heading for that gate now.”
“But sir, you’ll—”
“I’ll board her on the way,” Hadrian assured him. “Just get moving, or we might not have a shot at this.”
Jackal took off for the gate as the destroyer opened fire on their location, exploding bits of the moon and forming dozens of new craters. As they flew, Samantha couldn’t take her eyes off of Hadrian and the approaching destroyer. When three more forms appeared on the screen, she was glad she hadn’t missed a second of it.
“There we go, baby!” Jackal shouted, slamming his hand on the side of the display in excitement.
“What is it?” Hadrian asked, focused only on reaching them.
“I don’t know if they got my signal or were pursuing you, but that destroyer’s about to get a taste of its own medicine.”
“Let’s hope it burns going down,” Hadrian replied with a chuckle.
Sure enough, the fireworks began—a display of shields and explosives unlike anything Samantha had ever seen. As Hadrian drew close and finally pulled himself into the loading dock at the side of the ship, several successful hits had already been scored on each side.
“I’m going for Hadrian,” Samantha announced. Leaping from her seat and rushing past the automatic doors, she darted down the halls to the loading dock. The doors had just closed behind him and she heard the sound of the docking port pressurizing, when she caught sight of Hadrian stumbling toward her.
He pressed the button at the back of his neck so that the helmet retracted into the suit, and then stood there, smiling. He clasped her on the shoulder and said, “How about we check in on Earth then, shall we?”
The others had all caught up with Samantha now, minus Jackal who was currently flying them into the gate.
“Well, it’s a bad situation, but we’re all here.” Hadrian nodded at Carma and Napalm. “Let’s make the best of it.”
“That’s your idea of an explanation?” Carma replied, arms crossed.