by Ryk Brown
“If he had Mister Yokimah’s access card and control chip, yes.”
Jessica quickly searched Ito’s pockets. “What’s this?” she asked, pulling a small chip out of Ito’s pants pocket.
“It is the control chip for his personal shuttle,” Quory replied. “It will not fly without it.”
“Is there more than one of them?” she asked.
“I do not believe so.”
“Jesus, he can’t be that dumb,” she muttered as a guard and two employees came running into the office.
“What the hell is going on here!” the guard demanded, reaching for his stunner.
Jessica spun around, pulling her knife from the sheath tucked into the small of her back, bringing the blade up against the guard’s neck, causing him to instantly freeze.
“Don’t!” Quory yelled. “Goodness! You are one dangerous young woman!”
“You’ll be executed for this,” the guard warned, not moving.
“She didn’t do this!” Quory yelled, “A surprise, yes, but the truth.”
“What do you want from me?” the guard asked, still not moving.
“Just let me go, so I can catch the guy who did do this,” Jessica said. “It’s either that, or you can join old Ito on the floor, there. I wouldn’t suggest that, though, because I’m all out of nanites.”
“What?” the guard asked, confused.
“She’s on our side!” Quory insisted. “Let her go, and help Mister Yokimah! He is our employer, after all!”
Jessica stepped back, slowly moving her blade away from the guard’s throat, and pulling her comm-unit from her pocket. “I’ll call for a medevac from the Aurora. Make sure they are allowed in to see him, if you want him to live,” she told the guard before she left.
“My aft shields are down to twenty percent!” Nathan exclaimed. “I don’t think your friends are going to get here in time.”
“Six of them just jumped ahead of us,” Master Koku warned. “Prepare to break right, I will go left……Break now.”
Nathan yanked his flight control stick to the right and pulled back, rolling the fighter into a tight right turn. He continued to get slammed by enemy energy weapons fire, but, at least, it wasn’t on his weakened aft shields.
Suddenly, a familiar sight appeared directly ahead of him, weapons blazing. “Shit!” he exclaimed, reversing his turn and diving to avoid a collision with his own ship. “Where the hell did you come from?” he yelled over comms.
“Not bad, huh?” Josh exclaimed. “The Seiiki’s a stealthy bitch now, Captain!”
“I didn’t even see your flash!”
“That’s the idea! Maintain your dive! Four of them are on you, and four are on Koku! I’ll deliver the rest of them to the Gunyoki!”
Nathan continued his dive, pushing his throttles forward to accelerate. At that moment, he decided that going back to Earth to convince Abby to join them had definitely been worth the risk.
In the outer portion of the Rogen system, beyond the orbits of both Neramese and Rakuen, as well as the asteroid belt in which the two worlds had once fought a war with one another, two swarms of opposing ships merged, in a hail of energy weapons fire and missiles. Jump flashes appeared all about as Dusahn fighters jumped in and out of the engagement, denying the Gunyoki fighters their kill shots, time and again. But even as half their numbers fell to Dusahn guns, the Gunyoki pilots did not sway from their commitment. While only a few of them were true Gunyoki, those who were not, were inspired by the bravery and the unwavering dedication, of those who were. It was at that moment, when every young race pilot became a true Gunyoki themselves.
“The Gunyoki are taking a beating,” Lieutenant Commander Vidmar warned. “They’ve lost twelve ships already.”
“I thought they were supposed to be some kind of super fighter pilots,” Lieutenant Dinev said.
“Without jump drives, they don’t stand a chance,” Cameron explained. “How long until our fighters reach them?”
“The first eight are jumping into the engagement area now,” Lieutenant Commander Vidmar reported. “Reapers are locking jump missiles onto enemy gunships, as we speak.”
“What about the Gunyoki on the surface of Rakuen?” Lieutenant Commander Kono asked.
“Again, no jump drives. It will be over before they get there,” Cameron said. “That’s why we knew the Dusahn would make their play at the furthest point on the course from both the race platform and Rakuen. They know how potent the Gunyoki fighters are, but they also know that the lack of jump drives is their weakness.” Cameron shook her head. “We need to end this, now.”
Nathan pulled his Gunyoki fighter into a dive, then cut his engines, flipped his nacelles in opposite directions, and spun the ship around to the right, to face his pursuers.
“Two more bogeys just jumped in! One five seven, twenty clicks out! Closing fast!” one of the Super Eagle pilots warned.
While he waited for his right engine nacelle to swing back over, Nathan opened fire with the plasma torpedo cannon on the front of the left nacelle, tearing apart the Dusahn heavy fighter following him.
“Fuck! That makes twelve!”
Nathan had no idea who was talking, since he had not yet gotten to know any of the pilots under his command.
“Costa’s hit!” a Gunyoki pilot yelled out over comms; his Rakuen accent easy to recognize.
As Nathan’s right engine nacelle came back over to point forward, he added it to the barrage, as well, sweeping his nacelles left and right as his fighter sped backwards through the crowded engagement area.
“Shit! Somebody get this asshole off me!” Costa pleaded.
“Where are you, Costa?” Nathan called, recognizing the Gunyoki pilot’s name from the race roster.
“I don’t know…”
Nathan touched his tactical display as he spun his ship back around to face forward. IDs suddenly popped up on all the targets on his screen, allowing him to locate the distressed Gunyoki pilot. “Costa! Hang on! I’ll have the fucker in ten seconds!”
The Aurora’s bridge was a blurry of activity, voices, and radio chatter as the battle unfolded around them.
“Eagle Four, left! Eagle Six, right! Two targets each!” Commander Verbeek’s voice called over the loudspeakers on the Aurora’s bridge. “Engage at max range!”
“Forward tubes, locked on Bravo,” Lieutenant Commander Vidmar reported. “Firing all tubes!”
“Eagle One, fox two,” the commander reported, announcing his weapons launch at the twelve Dusahn heavy fighters that had just jumped into range of his flight of Super Eagles.
“I don’t have ten seconds!” the Gunyoki pilot cried out over comms.
“Nathan,” Makani called. “You are the closest ship. You must launch a spread of stub-missiles to protect Amon.”
“The targets are out of range,” Nathan argued.
“The targets will not know that,” Makani insisted. “Fire them now, all that you have!”
“The battleship is firing more missiles!” Lieutenant Commander Kono warned from the sensor station. “From her far side! Thirty seconds!”
“Eagle Four, fox two!” the pilot’s voice crackled over the loudspeakers.
“Escape pattern echo one,” Cameron ordered from her command chair. “On my command.”
“Escape echo one, on your command, aye,” Lieutenant Dinev acknowledged.
“Amon! Punch out! Punch out!” another Gunyoki pilot urged.
“How many missiles are inbound?” Cameron asked, ignoring the desperate chatter of the Gunyoki pilots. They had their fight, and she had hers.
“Twelve… No; fourteen!”
“Point-defenses can handle them, Captain,” Lieutenant Commander Vidmar assured her. “Just give me more guns”
“Helm! Yaw ninety! Roll over, and show the target our topside to bring more point-defenses into play,” Cameron ordered.
“Aye, sir,” the lieutenant replied as she started the maneuver.
“Eight
missiles left!” the lieutenant commander reported. “Ten seconds!”
Robert pulled the nose of his Cobra gunship up sharply, after unleashing a barrage of plasma torpedoes into the starboard side of the Jung battleship. Energy weapons and rail gun rounds slammed into his ventral shields, shaking his tiny ship wildly as they passed over the top of the massive vessel.
“Eagle Six, fox two!” the Super Eagle pilot’s voice announced over Robert’s comm-set as he touched the jump button to escape the incoming fire. “You guys might want to try to target some of their point-defenses when we pass over them like that,” Robert suggested to his gunners as his jump completed.
“Eagle Six, fox two!” the previous call repeated, now that he had jumped five seconds further away from the Super Eagle that had transmitted the call.
Nathan watched in desperation as his stub-missiles ran out of thrust, and were no longer able to maneuver to track their targets.
“Fuck! He’s coming apart!” a Gunyoki pilot cried out over comms.
“Damn it!” Nathan cursed. Another explosion went off only a few meters off his port side, the result of an errant missile fired by some unseen foe, who had missed his original target.
“Costa’s coming apart!”
“Makani! Where are you?” Nathan called out over comms.
“Your nine, two kilometers, just above. I’ll be passing over you in ten seconds. Be ready to turn to starboard to…” Makani’s transmission was suddenly interrupted.
Nathan glanced to his left, spotting six flashes of light, the color of which was slightly different than those of Alliance ships. “Makani!”
“Gunyoki Two Four is hit,” Makani reported, his usual calm surprisingly intact. “Six heavies just jumped in on my tail. I am attempting to shake them, but I am taking damage.”
Nathan instinctively turned toward Makani’s ship, ready to defend his leader. Four more flashes of light appeared behind Makani’s fighter and the Dusahn ships pursuing him. The flashes were the familiar blue-white, and they opened fire on Makani’s pursuers a split-second after they arrived.
“Nathan!” Makani called out in warning. “Behind you!”
It was uncommon for the Gunyoki master to raise his voice in alarm in such a way, and it had a startling effect. Nathan’s ship shook violently; his back end shifting hard to port as something exploded to his right. Alarms went off all over his cockpit. He glanced out the right side of his canopy as what was left of his starboard engine nacelle came apart in a series of secondary explosions that began working their way through the body of his ship, toward his starboard missile pod and his cockpit.
“EJECT!” Makani ordered.
Nathan felt frozen in time, watching in horror as the explosions reached his starboard missile pod. In the blink of an eye, his canopy was gone, and he was rocketing away from his fighter, while the mighty Gunyoki ship blew apart below him. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, fighting to breathe as he rode his rocket-powered seat into open space, clear of the fireball below.
The funny thing was, he didn’t even remember pulling the ejection handle.
Makani watched in horror as Nathan rocketed across his flight path at a slight angle. Makani had ejected once in training, and he knew that it was a bone-jarring experience.
But there were other problems to deal with. Not only were damage alarms sounding in his own cockpit, but the Dusahn gunship that had just destroyed his student’s, his friend’s, fighter, was targeting the captain, determined to kill the pilot, as well as the ship. It was at that moment that Master Koku decided the Dusahn truly had no honor, and that was what scared him the most. Men with no honor were the most difficult to defend against. He feared that this did not bode well for his world. “Nathan! Do you read me?”
“Captain!” Lieutenant Commander Kono called out urgently. “Gunyoki Seven Five is down hard! But I’m picking up the captain’s transponder, moving away sharply! He must’ve ejected!”
“Nearest ship capable of rescue?” Cameron demanded.
“The Seiiki!” the lieutenant commander replied. “But the gunship that took him out is pursuing him, and there are at least six other Dusahn fighters in the vicinity!”
“Seiiki! Aurora Actual!” Cameron called over her comm-set. “Nathan’s fighter is down hard! He’s accelerating away in his ejection seat, with the Dusahn in pursuit!”
“Aurora Actual, Seiiki. We’re on our way,” Loki replied.
“Seiiki! Aurora Actual!” Captain Taylor’s voice crackled over Makani’s comms. “Nathan’s fighter is down hard! He’s accelerating away in his ejection seat, with the Dusahn in pursuit!”
“Aurora Actual, Seiiki. We’re on our way.”
Makani struggled to force his damaged Gunyoki fighter to turn to a heading, in order to intercept the Dusahn gunship about to lock onto the rescue beacon on Nathan’s ejection seat. By now, the seat’s propulsion system had run out of propellant, and the captain was drifting out of the engagement area. “Nathan, please, respond,” he urged.
“I’m here,” Nathan finally replied, his voice sounding dazed and confused.
“Cap’n! This is Josh! We’ll be there in thirty seconds!”
“Nathan!” Makani called. “Are you injured?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Nathan replied, still sounding unsteady. “Negative. I’m good. Jesus!”
“Eagle Leader, Aurora Actual!” Captain Taylor called. “Engage targets near Captain Scott’s transponder signal, and keep those Dusahn ships off of him!”
“Eagle One copies. On my way!” Commander Verbeek replied.
“Eagle Two copies.”
“Eagle Seven copies.”
“Eagle four copies.”
Makani began trying to bypass his damaged systems in order to regain basic maneuverability, but with marginal success. He looked at his tactical screen. To his left was his student, the man known as Na-Tan, the legend. The man who was Rakuen’s best hope for survival. To his right was the Dusahn gunship that meant to steal that hope from his world. After doing the math in his head, he brought his engines up to full power. “Captain, it appears you were correct,” he admitted.
“What are you talking about, Master Koku?”
Makani smiled at Nathan’s show of respect, especially at such a moment. “The Gunyoki are not capable of defending Rakuen against the Dusahn.” Makani swallowed hard as his ship accelerated on an intercept course with the Dusahn gunship closing on his friend. A tear formed in the corner of his eye as the old man spoke. “I am not your master, Nathan. I am not even sure I am your equal.”
Nathan tried to turn his head around, hoping to spot Makani’s ship. After a few jerks, his seat began to rotate slowly to the right, bringing the Dusahn gunship that was closing on him into view, as well as Makani’s Gunyoki fighter, its engines at full power, speeding toward the enemy gunship, on a collision course.
“My only hope is that this sacrifice will make me your equal, in the eyes of my people.”
“Makani, what are you doing?” Nathan asked, fearing that he already knew the answer.
A blue-white flash appeared in the distance, beyond the approaching gunship. “Eagle One is engaging!” Commander Verbeek reported as he opened fire on the gunship. But Nathan knew it would take more than a single Super Eagle to take down the Dusahn vessel that was coming to get him.
“We’re right behind you, Cap’n!” Josh called. “Half a click! Ten seconds out!”
“Josh! Forget me!” Nathan ordered. “Target that gunship! Target that gunship!”
“Marcus!” Josh called over the Seiiki’s intercom. “Get ready for a Palee!”
“Oh, God,” Loki muttered.
“Fire on the fucking gunship!” Josh ordered his gunners. “I’m flipping this bitch over to catch the captain!”
“We can take it out with our new plasma cannons, Josh,” Loki reminded him.
“Fuck that shit!” Josh insisted. “I didn’t spend the last five years babysitting his clone
d ass just to let him die now!”
“But he ordered us to…”
“NOT happening, Lok!” Josh insisted. “You ready, Pops?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Marcus replied.
“Eagle Two! Engaging!”
“Makani! Don’t do this, damn it!” Nathan insisted as he disconnected his restraints, and pushed himself away from his ejection seat, continuing to drift helplessly through space.
“Tell my family I died bravely, defending our world,” Makani pleaded, his voice full of sadness.
“Makani! I’m ordering you to veer away! Do not engage!” Nathan cried out as he watched the crippled Gunyoki fighter open fire with the last of his stub-missiles, hoping to get the gunship’s attention off of their prize, long enough for the Seiiki to snatch it away.
Nathan watched in horror, plasma bolts from the Seiiki’s gun turrets streaking over his head from behind as Makani closed on the approaching Dusahn gunship. “Makani! God damn you! Listen to me!”
Makani’s right hand moved to his reactor control panel, initiating an overload condition as the Dusahn gunship filled his forward canopy. “Save my world, Na-Tan,” he begged. “Make your teacher proud.”
“NO!” Nathan yelled at the top of his lungs as the Seiiki’s cargo bay swallowed him up. The bay suddenly filled with a brilliant flash of light, signaling what Nathan feared most. Then he slammed into something hard, and everything went dark.
“Oh, my God,” Cameron gasped, her eyes welling up. She had never met Master Koku, but she could tell by Nathan’s voice that the man had meant a lot to him.
“Captain!” Lieutenant Commander Kono cried out in excitement as the pounding from the battleship continued to rock the Aurora and drain her shields. “The battleship’s shields have fallen!”