by Paul Tassi
Alpha fired the first missile, knowing their range and capability more intimately than Asha. The canister burned a bright blue and spiraled toward a cluster of Sentinel drones. They attempted to scatter, but the detonation consumed two of them while three others spun crazily out of control, heavily damaged. Asha didn’t waste any time after seeing Alpha unload, and launched a missile of her own. The drones reacted more quickly this time, but one was incinerated and another injured so that it fell back, unable to pursue.
It was their turn. The foremost drones fired a stream of shots that Lucas had to dodge entirely through reflex. Without the added neural stimulation of the captain’s chair, he doubted he would have reacted in time, but using the holocontrols wrapped around his arms, he wrenched the ship to the right, avoiding the stream of fire.
The battle escalated quickly as more and more drones caught up. Asha and Alpha were now firing missiles in sequence, and through a pair of small monitors to his left, Lucas could see their targeting systems cycling through possible bogeys and then deploying the missiles once there was a lock. Drones were going down, but they were incredibly nimble, and on occasion would be able to dodge the missiles entirely, which would shoot past them toward Earth, growing ever smaller. Their speed was now well over a million, but all systems appeared to be holding. Lucas spun right to avoid another series of blasts from the drones. Even when the ship was upside down, the internal gravity didn’t change at all, and Lucas imagined he was feeling far less nauseous than he would be at the helm of a human fighter jet.
The battle was fraying his nerves, however, and he could feel his heart beating in his throat. Every split second he was dodging more fire. As increasing numbers swarmed the ship, he couldn’t avoid them all, and the Ark started taking hits. Blasts peppered the hull and readouts flashed at him angrily. He scrambled to try and fix the affected systems on the fly. Mercifully, there had been no breaches, yet.
Missiles continued to rip the drones apart, but some had managed to get along the sides of the ship, despite its ever-increasing speeds. Asha caught on, switched to the manual turret, and unloaded into three on the port side. When they were in pieces, she did a complete 180 and tore apart four more starboard. Alpha too switched to the turret’s cannon and blasted a few spindly drones that were moving dangerously close to the engines.
The Ark was traveling at five million miles an hour, and Lucas wondered what the upward limit was with the new core. Earth was barely visible, and he hadn’t even had time to notice they were approaching a dull reddish-orange orb in the distance. Mars, Lucas realized, but was jolted by another series of blasts connecting with the hull. He spun the ship around for three full rotations to avoid further impact.
“Will you hold the damn thing steady for two seconds?” Asha yelled through the monitor. “I’m trying to kill these things!”
“I’m trying to keep them from killing us!” Lucas shot back. Two more drones blew apart and it appeared Asha was making do.
Lucas switched the main viewscreen to a frontal view once more and his blood instantly chilled as he saw a formation of four drones heading toward him, each unloading all three cannons at once. Their initial volley hit, but Lucas quickly jerked the ship straight up to arc over the rest of their fire. Only stars were in view now, but the Ark was immediately rocked by a huge impact. The readout in front of his face read COLLISION, followed by an even more terrifying notification: HULL BREACH—CARGO BAY. Lucas immediately checked if the seal was still intact on the bay door, and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the rest of the ship wasn’t compromised. Had one of the drones actually hit them? What else could collision mean? Checking readouts, it became clear one of the advancing drones had connected with the underside of the ship, where both turrets were. The monitors revealed both Asha and Alpha were still present and accounted for, but Alpha’s turret had a multitude of warning lights surrounding it.
“Alpha, what happened? Are you alright?”
Alpha launched another missile into a drone cluster.
“This station was weakened by that impact. I must abandon the post before it gives way completely.”
He shot a barrage that tore the wing off a passing fighter.
“I will move to the engine bay and prepare us for our final departure.”
“And when exactly is that?” Lucas asked, dodging another volley from the rear.
“We must be further away from your sun,” Alpha replied coolly, even as the ship took fire all around him. “That will require holding off the Sentries for a short while longer.”
“Fantastic,” Asha said, as one of her shots failed to connect.
Alpha left his turret as the danger indicators attached to it continued to look more and more dire. Now the Ark had half the firepower, but it seemed as if the drones were finally thinning out. They still buzzed around the ship, but there were no more large clusters, and their automated formations seemed to be growing sloppy. Lucas wondered if they were too far away from their central stations. Were they even meant to travel this far? Was their own ship?
The Ark was now moving through space at twenty million miles an hour and was starting to shake a bit. Whether it was the speed or recent damage they’d taken, Lucas couldn’t be sure. He kept swerving to avoid fire, and another COLLISION indicator told him he’d clipped a drone on the right, though it was a heavily armored part of the ship and he’d done no actual damage to their craft.
Asha kept picking off straggling drones, and a readout indicated that she was almost out of missiles. They’d launched almost their entire supply in their escape attempt, and as the Ark was meant to be a transport above all else, there wasn’t anything else in the arsenal to turn to. Lining up a shaky formation of three drones, Asha launched a precious missile, and as all three machines erupted, she could see it was well spent.
A new monitor showed that Alpha had reached the engine bay and was swirling controls around near the core. Lucas looked at his turret, and found the danger readouts had reached critical mass.
“Shit.”
The weakened viewscreen of the turret bay shattered and the entire gun was ripped from the bottom of the ship and flung into space. It stunned Lucas, but he quickly saw that there had been no depressurization of the nearby passageways with the area sealing itself off automatically. He breathed a sigh of relief, but halfway through exhaling had to jerk the ship away from another barrage of incoming fire.
Trying to keep track of every angle of the ship via a string of monitors was extremely difficult, and it was compounded by all the floating readouts of the ship’s various systems in differing levels of distress. He was constantly racing back and forth between them, all the while steering the ship away from fire, and he was certain he wouldn’t be able to keep up without his enhanced cognitive functioning. Despite all their weaving, the cables remained embedded to his temples, and were likely the only thing preventing his brain from shutting down due to an overabundance of information. He took a split second to glance back toward Noah’s cylinder bed, but couldn’t see him over the lip. He turned to the other side of the chair, and tried to see if he was crawling around somewhere, but there was no sign of him. Could a child that age even crawl yet?
Lucas was snapped back into reality by another drone speeding at him from the front. He dodged the tri-gun assault and watched it explode as he and Asha were apparently on the same page for once.
Thirty million and rising. Mars lay suspended before him, its red coloring unmistakable. They were a long way from home now, and the planet grew larger as they sped toward it. It was a breathtaking sight, but as it grew bigger, Alpha chimed in on the comm.
“Please refrain from striking that planet.”
Lucas took offense to Alpha’s estimation of his piloting abilities. He veered the ship to the right and watched Mars slowly pass them by in silence.
It was too silent, actually.
Lucas scanned his various monitors and saw that the Sentinel drones had stopped firing,
and had all fallen to the rear of the ship, keeping their distance.
“What the hell are they doing?” Asha said, and she stopped firing as the drones were now too far out for turret fire and too spread out for missiles.
Lucas switched the main viewscreen to look forward once again and saw a strange sight. Of the hundreds of thousands of stars that populated his forward view, there was a distinct section that was completely black. It was like the space had swallowed up everything around it, and all that was left was complete and utter darkness. A black hole? No. Even with Lucas’s limited scientific knowledge, he was certain there were no black holes within the solar system itself. He called down to Alpha, who was still near the core.
“Are you seeing this, Alpha?”
Alpha pulled up a monitor and saw the darkness for himself. He immediately sprinted over to another console and furiously whirred the fingers of both his claws. When he spoke his voice had an urgency Lucas couldn’t remember ever hearing before.
“Asha, fire all remaining missiles in succession at these coordinates!”
He flung some data to a screen and it popped up in front of Asha.
“The computer says there’s nothing at that point,” she said.
“Override! Immediately!” Alpha said, his metallic voice as close as it could get to yelling.
Asha unleashed a stream of five missiles, their last five, and they shot out into space ahead of them. They trailed each other in a helix pattern until the lights of their propulsion systems were too dim to see and then disappeared into the black void.
“So what did—”
Asha was cut off by an explosion that lit up the viewscreen. The missiles had collided with their target, and the dark void flickered ahead of them until a distinct shape came into a view. A ship.
It was sleek and black, and though the missiles had disabled its cloaking field so it was now visible, it reflected the surrounding starlight so well that it was still camouflaged. It was longer and thinner than their craft, but Lucas couldn’t estimate its true size. He turned to his holoscreen, but there was no data for the ship the way there had been for the mothership and Sentinels. Just a jumble of incomprehensible symbols. As they drew closer, Lucas could see where they’d damaged it with their blind missile barrage. But even injured, blue lights were beginning to spool up in the front of the ship. Suddenly, the viewscreen changed.
Omicron.
The menacing black creature growled something, and Lucas’s readout gave him an extremely rough translation. Only two English words appeared out of the mess of symbols.
“RETURN . . . HOME.”
On the monitor, Alpha flicked his claw through a virtual switch. The white core glowed brightly and every light in the ship went out, the main screen along with them. In an instant, everything came back online and the viewscreen exploded with blinding white, purple, and blue light that seared Lucas’s retinas. Omicron’s ship was nowhere to be found. The neural enhancers detached themselves from Lucas’s temples, and he immediately lost consciousness in the chair.
12
He was jostled awake on a bench by a blurry shape in front of him. A face soon came into focus. Adam.
Around him was a grassy park and, in the distance, a recently risen sun. Another reality, one already past. Adam spoke.
“Hey Lucas, you alright?”
Adam flashed a brilliant smile as he put his hand on Lucas’s shoulder and sat down next to him. He was in his dress blues that echoed his eyes and had a slew of decorations on his chest Lucas couldn’t identify, though he’d heard tales around the dinner table of what he’d done to get them. The fact that he was here at all was a miracle in itself.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Lucas replied. “It’s just been a long week.”
Lucas adjusted his bow tie; his shirt was too tight around the neck and felt like it was choking him. He undid the top button in surrender. Adam was still tan from his trip overseas, though his blond hair had grown back and was not the close-cropped buzz cut it had been when he left. It was perfectly trimmed and swept in an arc to the side, his white hat in his other hand. His ceremonial sword was perfectly polished. Not a fiber of his entire ensemble was out of place.
“That’s understandable. It’s been a whirlwind, I imagine,” he said.
“You have no idea.”
The Portland breeze grazed his face. July was one of the few months it truly felt like summer here. It really was a perfect day, and they couldn’t have been luckier.
“How are you feeling after last night?” Adam asked.
Lucas rubbed his head instinctively.
“I’m good.”
“Things got pretty out of control there for a while. Even for a bachelor party.” Adam’s smile dimmed a bit.
“I know, I’m sorry.”
Adam looked out toward the city.
“She’s my sister. I need to know you’re going to take care of her when I’m away.”
“I will, I promise.”
“I know you will,” he said earnestly, without a hint of a threat.
Behind them, men and women scrambled around setting up white folding chairs in an outdoor park. A gazebo was coated in more flowers than Lucas could count. A tiny, barefoot girl in a yellow dress went running down the empty aisle. Lucas turned back toward Adam.
“I’m afraid,” Lucas whispered. He was ashamed to admit that to someone so brave, but he had no one else to turn to. Adam had been a good friend during the past few months, and Lucas couldn’t help but admire him. He was a greater man than Lucas could ever hope to be.
“He who sees all beings in his own self, and his own self in all beings, loses all fear.”
Lucas looked at Adam incredulously.
“Where’d you get that from?”
Adam laughed, his broad smile returning.
“It’s Hindu. Don’t tell my mother.”
Lucas chuckled.
“What I mean is that once you marry her, you’re one with her. If you can see yourself in her, and realize that she’s now a part of you, the fear will fade, as you can conquer it as one.”
He adjusted his decorative sword, which was poking through the slats of the bench.
“It may sound like crap, but it’s helped me a lot with Grace when I’ve been away. She’s what helps me get past the fear over there. It’s not only about survival; you need something to be fighting for.”
He took a breath, and ran a white gloved hand over his hair.
“I know you have your own struggles, but now you’re fighting for her. You’re fighting to be the man she needs.”
Adam was such a stand-up guy it almost made Lucas sick. Or perhaps that was the handle of Jack from the previous night. But he was right.
“Anyway, we’ve got to go. Sonya’s almost ready.”
“Thanks, Adam.”
“Any time.”
“No really, I mean it.”
Lucas extended his hand. Adam shook it firmly, then stood up and hoisted Lucas to his feet. He stood a few inches shorter than Lucas, but he never felt like the smaller man.
Ahead of them, people were starting to trickle in and take their seats. In the distance, a large white tent stood rooted to the ground by a few dozen stakes. A bridesmaid opened the flap to walk in and Lucas caught a glimpse of her. Sonya was standing there in her radiant white dress as women swirled around her touching up her makeup and making sure her blond hair remained in place. Even at this distance, the sight was breathtaking. The flap closed and Lucas turned back to Adam.
But he was gone. In front of him, the guests had all disappeared as well, and the entire park was empty. The blue sky turned red, a nearby fountain evaporated in a hiss of steam.
Lucas awoke in a pod, a halo rising up from his head. Another memory, which he’d realized as he’d been living it. But again, the sound of Adam’s voice and the breeze lingered for a moment before all traces of them faded. At least this thing wasn’t necessarily a nightmare machine. That had hardly been a tra
umatic moment, though it was one that stayed with him. It was the last time he would see Adam before he shipped off to Afghanistan again the next day. At least the pod hadn’t thrust him into the terrible day six months later when Sonya got a phone call and collapsed to the floor in a crying heap. Lucas’s stomach knotted even thinking about it. Adam deserved better than to die in a desert during a conflict no one understood. Had he lived until the creatures showed up, no doubt he would have been leading the first retaliation strike force as soon as they opened fire. It would have been a slightly more noble death. As strong as he was, he wouldn’t have survived in the world after the war. He had too much honor, and the wretched souls who remained would have killed him for it.
And Sonya. The memories were so vivid it was like he’d actually gotten to see her again, if only at a distance. Before the fights, before the tears. The day in the park had been fantastic, one of the best of his life. But reliving it? It pained him to see Sonya and Adam again, especially when they’d seemed so real. Even if it didn’t constantly plague him with the horrors of his past, this machine was still dangerous.
The translucent door slid up and he found himself facing Asha in the pod across from him. She was visibly upset, and as she stepped down from the platform her legs buckled and she had to steady herself.
“How the hell did I get in that thing again?” she asked, her voice shaking.
Lucas’s legs were a bit wobbly as well, and he reached out and grabbed a nearby pod for support.
“I’ve no idea. What’s the last thing you remember?”
“That ship, the message, that light.”
“Same here, then I woke up in a memory.”
Lucas turned to notice one of the pods had been ripped out of the wall and placed horizontally on the ground. It was still connected to the wall with cables, but the door was shut, and the inside appeared to be filled with some sort of gas. A dark shape moved within.
“Holy shit!” Lucas exclaimed as he dropped to his knees, understanding what was in the pod. As he drew closer, he could see the door was trying to open, but the mechanism was stuck. He gripped it and pulled upward with as much force as he could muster, which wasn’t a lot given that his arms felt as weak as his legs. Finally, the door popped open on his third try and the gas dissipated in an instant. In the gelatinous backing lay Noah, looking groggy but unharmed. He thrashed his hands and feet around and let out a large yawn. It was as active as they’d seen him. His burned arm and shoulder looked noticeably better.