The Siege of Sirius: A Splintered Galaxy Space Fantasy Novel

by Eddie R. Hicks

  “Awesome, our gravity masters have arrived,” Chang said.

  “If our plan is to work, we’ll need them to focus on everything but bridge gravity.” Foster glided back into her captain’s chair. She strapped herself in and faced the psionic duo as they assumed a comfortable posture in preparation for their deep trance. “You guys ready?”

  Tolukei nodded. “I am.” And then looked down toward Nereid as she softly chanted strange words at her Voelika, a prayer to Tiamat, Foster figured. “As for her . . . we shall see.”

  Proximity alarms began to beep and alerted the bridge crew to get their game faces on. Chang pointed to the top right corner of the windshield. “Captain, Marduk’s ship.”

  Marduk’s ship dropped out of FTL and came into view in front of the Carl Sagan as it continued to plunge toward the blazing, hot surface of Sirius A. The mind shields of both ships rippled due to the constant bombardment of heat and radiation the closer they got.

  “The final player has arrived,” Foster said, grinning. “All right folks, put on ya doom ’n gloom faces.” Foster gestured at EVE’s hologram. “EVE, if you will.”

  “Please stand by,” EVE said as she contacted Marduk using the communication link the rogue EVE had used.

  Marduk’s hologram materialized before the bridge’s crew, he shot a smug grin and gaze at Foster. “Captain, time is up for you and your gallant crew. Have you made your decision?”

  Foster brushed back a lock of floating hair away from her face. “On behalf of myself, the crew, and the human race . . . Marduk, go fuck yourself.”

  Marduk’s face grew angry, his mouth was about to open as EVE cut the connection. “You think that got his attention?” Williams asked.

  “It better,” Foster said as she returned to her chair at the front. “Mr. Chang, let’s do it!”

  “You got it, Captain!”

  The Carl Sagan altered its course slightly. It sped toward the upper layers of Sirius’s corona rather than directly through it and onto its surface. Marduk’s ship veered and pursued them as its energy weapons discharged, streaking toward the aft of the Carl Sagan only to be deflected by their psionic overshields. The overshield barely flickered as the first salvo of Marduk’s attack arrived. The overshields were much stronger. The psionic duo with their new bag of tricks was holding up better than Foster had hoped, considering the amount of work they needed to do. It wasn’t just creating a powerful overshield to protect the ship they were tasked with, but also using their minds to help prevent the Carl Sagan from being dragged into the intense gravity well being produced by the massive star, and keeping said intense gravity out of the ship so that the crew and equipment didn’t crush under their own weight.

  “Status?” Foster said.

  “Overshield is holding,” Tolukei said, temporarily breaking his trance. “But, Captain, we require complete concentration during this maneuver, please refrain from speaking to us unless it is urgent.”

  “Their abilities are incredible . . .” Pierce said as he eyed the reports being outputted to his computer. “It’s like there’s no gravitational pull tugging against the ship.”

  The Carl Sagan plunged into Sirius’ corona, and waves of plasma energy splashed across their overshields creating a perpetual purple bubble around the ship. The dimming feature of the windshields struggled to keep the bright light out, basking the bridge and its crew in white light casting their dark shadows behind them on the floor. The surface of Sirius raged like a cauldron in hell, rays of light shining up from all angles across the horizon.

  The heat, radiation, gravity, magnetic fields, none of it had an effect on the Carl Sagan so long as the overshields worked. Foster’s plan was coming together nicely, the playing field was even, and Marduk would have to force his psionic powers to enter a deep trance to follow, thus limiting his ability to command his ship. If it was too much for him, he would be forced to withdraw to a safe distance all while the interference from the star would make it impossible for sensor scans to work correctly.

  The same applied to the Carl Sagan, as they ventured deeper into the corona. ESP was off the table. Both Tolukei and Nereid needed to focus on keeping the overshields up and strong at all times. Should the overshields fail, even for a second, it would mark the end of their journey. A direct hit via a solar flare or continual direct hits from Marduk’s ship could help bring that about. Not to mention their time within the corona was limited as their psionic duties slowly drained their mental energy. Marduk, of course, had to deal with the same challenges on his end, this was a battle to see whose overshields would fail first.

  The Carl Sagan continued to drift through the corona for ten minutes, passing by alluring waves of plasma and radiation from the surface of the star. There was no sign of Marduk’s ship, as expected he had no reliable sensor data nor could he risk using his ESP. Both ships were effectively partially invisible to each other as they flew about looking for one another. The windshields became the only reliable means of seeing what was outside, even then with the insane rays of light that were shining through, it was hard, EVE was the only one who was able to look at the windshields without covering her eyes.

  Fifteen minutes of silence ensued, everyone kept their focus on their jobs, eying what little reliable computer data they were able to receive. Foster wondered if the feelings she was experiencing were the same as World War II submarine commanders during battle, lurking around looking for an enemy you can’t see, knowing they can’t see you either.

  Until it was too late.

  “Full stop!” Pierce yelled, breaking the silence.

  “Captain?” Chang said, looking at Foster for approval.

  Pierce panicked. “Now, now!”

  Shit, did he find us? Foster thought, then gave the official order. “Do it, Chang.”

  Chang carried out the order and brought the Carl Sagan to a full stop. An enormous solar flare plowed upward in front of the ship. The heat and energy that bled away from the violent arch crashed against the forward section of the overshields until it subsided. The event made Foster grimace and bite her lip.

  “That would have been bad,” Chang said. “Can we go?”

  Pierce nodded and double-checked his computer. “Yes, we may proceed.”

  Foster’s eyes caught a glimpse of a small metallic object far above the horizon as the last remains of the solar flare passed by. “Wait.” She jammed her index finger at it. “There! Follow him.”

  The Carl Sagan moved to follow Marduk’s ship as it slipped away out of sight behind the veil of bright light and smaller solar flares. They carefully flew past, and skillfully moved around flares, or spots where flares might potentially erupt, hoping to close the gap and get the drop on Marduk.

  “So, I didn’t get the memo on weapons,” Williams said as he turned away from the limited tactical data from the holograms. “Wouldn’t they just vaporize in the heat as soon as we fire?”

  “Rail guns, yes,” Foster said as the rear of Marduk’s ship reappeared. “Missiles on the other hand, well our psionic friends are gonna help us out with that. Fire at will, Chang.”

  Chang accessed the Carl Sagan’s main weapons control, an error message appeared over the computer screen. “Got no targeting scanners, Captain.”

  “Fire from the hip, Tolukei and Nereid will do the rest.”

  A blind salvo of missiles exited from the Carl Sagan’s opened ports. They soared away as the invisible psionic minds of the two psionics guided them to their intended targets. Miniature psionic barriers had been erected around the missiles, providing them with temporary protection from the chaotic environment that engulfed them.

  The task of keeping the Carl Sagan safe, guiding missiles, and protecting them was no easy task for the duo. The barriers protecting against missiles were nowhere near as strong as the overshield around the Carl Sagan, some missiles had the barrier fail prematurely causing the missiles to detonate and blossom outward before them. Other missiles had to be psionically hurled at
Marduk’s ship rather than guided, giving the duo time to focus their minds on newly launched missiles. The missiles that missed their target as a result blossomed outside of Marduk’s overshields when their barrier’s failed.

  The Carl Sagan’s overshields flickered rapidly during the exchange, the focus of Tolukei and Nereid was wavering with every missile fired. Minimal progress was made, only 10 percent of the missiles launched hitting their target, a target whose overshields remained solid as if nothing happened. Foster ordered the barrage to halt as Tolukei and Nereid took the time needed to refocus and get the overshields strength back up to where it needed to be.

  Foster watched the aftermath in anticipation, hoping that their assault at the very least caused enough of a distraction to break Marduk’s focus. One crack, it was all they needed, and Sirius would do the rest.

  His ship remained where it was then pulled forward into the veil of bright coronal light. Visual contact was lost. Pursue or hide, Foster had to choose, and it had to be right now, and its execution had to be flawless.

  She ordered for the Carl Sagan to dip closer to the surface, creating a large enough gap should Marduk circle around for a counterattack. They descended closer to the burning surface, blue white waves of solar energy rippled before them via the windshield. The Carl Sagan leveled off before it dipped too far down and resumed their hunt for their foe.

  A foe that found them first.

  The two ships met head-on, face-to-face. White beams of light blasted away from Marduk’s ship toward them. Chang’s fighter pilot training kicked in, forcing the Carl Sagan to roll, narrowly avoiding the assault. Like the Carl Sagan, Marduk too had targeting issues, though because he used energy weapons he had an advantage, he didn’t need to use his mind to protect or guide the energy discharge.

  Marduk’s ship accelerated past them then vanished over the horizon behind once again. The Carl Sagan came about with its missile ports opened and ready to fire. With the two ships in a closer proximity, it should be less work for Tolukei and Nereid to deal with, or so Foster hoped.

  Marduk’s ship appeared again, its elevation lower than the Carl Sagan, much closer to the surface as it fired its weapons randomly. None of his shots hit their target, they instantly collided into the surface of Sirius. Chang was seconds away from aiming the Carl Sagan at their prey when he caught sight of small solar flares rising. The Carl Sagan broke off its attack and moved to evade the flare, only for another one to rise, then another. The super-heated jets of energy singed the sides of their overshields, the amount of extra focus Tolukei and Nereid displayed on their faces was frightening.

  “Where the hell did that come from?” Foster shouted.

  “Below,” Pierce said. “He’s closer to the surface. His weapons are increasing solar flare activity.”

  Each flare started from a section of the surface where Marduk’s weapons had landed. Foster was wrong, Marduk had indeed hit his target.

  The psionic duo was struggling to keep the ship in one piece, and Chang was struggling to keep the ship from plunging downward into the surface as the deadly hands of gravity tried to grab a hold of the Carl Sagan. Tolukei and Nereid’s focus hit a low and it was unlikely they were going to recover quickly anytime soon.

  “Let’s face him, bring us lower!” Foster ordered.

  “Captain, we might want to consider leaving,” Pierce said. “I don’t think our protection is going to last any longer due to the extra heat being generated by these flares.”

  “Dr. Pierce is correct, Captain,” EVE said. “Our overshield strength has dropped seventy percent. We will not be able to maintain our current position for long, let alone venture deeper at this rate.”

  Pierce concurred. “Indeed, the surface directly below us is being extremely unstable.”

  Foster’s lips curled. “Define unstable, Pierce.”

  “Our plasma missiles could probably trigger a flare at this rate,” Pierce said as Foster watched the Carl Sagan dodge four new pillars of raging energy from the surface, created due to Marduk’s weapons. It gave her an idea. “And no, we can’t do that from here if that’s what you’re thinking. The range of Tolukei’s and Nereid’s overshield for the missiles is limited; we would need to lower the Carl Sagan to get in range, which as I said before is not recommended.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “The closer we are to the surface, the harder it’s going to be for us to escape now that we’re having issues repelling the pull from the gravity well. We get lower, it’s just going to be that many more kilometers for us to travel to a safe distance, and that much more work to pull away from the gravity. We need to get out of here soon; we don’t have much time left.”

  “We pull out now with him close enough to see, there ain’t gonna be anything that will stop him from catching up with us.”

  “We stay any longer, and we die.”

  The bridge began to rumble violently as if there was a small earthquake in progress, signs that their protection was coming to an end. Foster looked behind at Tolukei and Nereid, their faces full of stress and agony, like someone was forcing them into experiencing a nightmare, beads of sweat floated away from them.

  If they left, Marduk would capture them in their weakened state, Earth would fall quickly, and then the rest of the galaxy. Staying meant they’d be tossing their lives in the garbage, but at the same time make Marduk’s invasion of Earth harder to achieve. Foster began to think about the people of Earth, how they’d suffered enough during the Hashmedai invasion. She thought about her mother, what she would have to endure should Marduk arrive. Mike . . . oh god how she missed him and his charming attitude.

  Earth needed a fighting chance, even if it would cost more lives. If there was a chance that even one person might deal that finishing blow to Marduk, they needed to create that platform for it to happen. The Carl Sagan could not fall into Marduk’s hands, the Carl Sagan still had one last opportunity to prevent an all-out invasion in the first place.

  “Chang, get ready to take us closer and launch as many missiles as you can,” Foster said.

  “Seriously, ma’am?” Chang said.

  Foster grinned. “Yes, Siriusly.” She faced the psionic duo and hoped that what she was going to ask wasn’t going to cause them to have an aneurysm due to all the work their brains were going through. “Tolukei and Nereid if you can hear me, do not protect or guide the missiles let them orbit us until I give you the signal.” Foster’s gaze returned to the front. “Pierce, direct Chang to the most volatile area below us.”

  Marduk began to step up his effort in triggering more solar flares. His ship circled around discharging its weapons, creating a flaming circle of hell around the two ships as the Carl Sagan descended closer toward the surface. Dozens of plasma missiles orbited around the Carl Sagan like tiny satellites within the quickly failing protection of their shields and overshield. The now unstable surface began to erupt constantly like a volcano, waves of heat and flames shot up toward them as they neared. Marduk’s ship pulled in closer behind them and tried to aim its weapons at the unstable surface directly below the Carl Sagan.

  He was right where Foster wanted him.

  “Now!”

  Tolukei and Nereid quickly irised the shields as they allowed the missiles to fall naturally due to Sirius’s gravity. The missiles quickly fell and exploded over the top of the surface of the star one by one as the Carl Sagan continued to move forward, carpet-bombing the surface in their wake. The missiles blossomed brightly and ignited pillar after pillar of solar flares, each one rising upward seconds after the Carl Sagan flew past.

  Marduk’s ship was directly behind when the carpet-bombing began, a single solar flare rose up and consumed his ship, shattering his overshields, turning it into a hulk of melted metal that instantly vaporized.

  Too bad Marduk managed to get one last unfocused shot off seconds before his ship was engulfed.

  The Carl Sagan moved upward away from the surface, away from the flaming cat
astrophe growing behind them and toward the stars of space. Sirius gravitational pull was stronger than ever, the psionic duo had all but exhausted their minds. Despite the sub light speed engines engaged, the Carl Sagan was not moving fast enough from the newly created solar flare, one that was four times larger than the area they had been battling in.

  Must have used too many missiles . . . Foster thought amongst the rumbling of the ship and computer terminals overloading.

  They continued to push onward, the blinding light that enveloped them for so long, slowly fading away into the darkness. Space and cooler temperatures were near, they just needed to break free.

  It wasn’t happening.

  The massive solar flare caught up, crashing into the rear overshields. Electronics started to melt, the hull began to melt and buckle as exterior temperatures reached critical levels. The heat within the ship began to rise, as the red hellish hue of flames began to appear outside of the windshield, blocking out the darkness of space that was so close, yet so far away.

  Tolukei collapsed, his head smashing against his terminal while Nereid remained standing, and chanted another prayer into her elegantly crafted psionic staff weapon.

  41 CHEVALLIER

  Lyonria Travel Hub, Tropical Rain forest

  SA-139, Sirius A system

  May 23, 2050, 01:49 SST (Sol Standard Time)

  Chevallier, along with the rest of her alliance of Hammerhead and Poniga fighters were one room away from clearing the Lyonria hub of all hostile forces. Casualties on their side were acceptable, as room-to-room gun battles raged while they fought their way back to the top spire and the wormhole still feeding them enemy forces.

  New overlords had arrived and began to mind-control their dead, only adding to their misery. Should a Hammerhead or Poniga fall in combat, their alliance had to push on without them, Chevallier long gave up hope that reinforcements from the colony would arrive.