37
Celestial Strider
Jenny raised her hands to keep from hitting the ceiling as she floated weightless in the stolen Tyran spaceplane. Adriana and Kensei followed her lead and unbuckled their harnesses. Soon the three of them were laughing as they tumbled through the air, bumping into one another. After a few minutes of floating in zero gravity, Jenny grabbed on to a safety bar to rest. She looked out the window. It was black and littered with stars, but one star glowed brighter than all the others.
“Hey Jack, what is that?” Jenny asked.
Jack unbuckled from his harness and flipped backward out of his seat. He redirected himself around Kensei and Adriana to land gracefully next to Jenny. He peered out the window. “Oh, that’s the Tamarack, Tyr’s warship.”
Kensei joined them at the window, which was getting crowded. “It must be huge.”
“She’s got a crew of over ninety-six thousand,” Jack said, “and enough firepower to subdue an entire planet.”
“Oh, is that all?” Adriana said.
“No,” Jack answered honestly. “She’s also carrying a squadron of capital ships and hundreds of fighters.”
“Is that’s why she’s so dangerous,” Kensei said.
“Not entirely; she can also teleport.”
“Is that what they are using the Selkans for?” Cobol asked.
Jack nodded.
“Do you think they know we’re here?” Kensei asked.
“I doubt it,” Jack said. “At least not until this spaceplane fails to arrive. Still, that gives us some time to prep the Strider before we launch for the Terminal.”
Suddenly, red lights flashed around the cabin. Something inside the cockpit beeped.
“What is that?” Jenny asked.
“We’re approaching the Strider. I have to turn the spaceplane around to decelerate.” Jack flipped, pushed off the wall, and floated back to the pilot’s seat.
“Why do we have to turn around?” Adriana asked.
“There is no friction in space,” Cobol said. “So, the only way to decrease velocity is by accelerating in the opposite direction.”
“Ah, that makes sense.”
“Sit down and buckle up,” Jack said. “We’re coming in hot.”
Jenny fastened her seat restraints just as the spaceplane spun around. As they turned, a strange-looking ship came into view. It was white and black, with two arms running in parallel to its fuselage. It kind of looks like a sleeping swan, Jenny thought.
“I thought you said your ship was a fighter.” Kensei peered through the window.
“Yeah,” Jack said. “What of it?”
“It looks so new.”
“Of course.” Jack looked at them, confused. “She has a self-healing hull. She’d be a mess of dents and holes otherwise.”
“Is that a body?” Jenny pointed at an object floating a hundred meters from the rear of the Strider.
Jack initiated the auto docking program and drifted out of the cockpit. He peered out the window and sighed. “That’s Hocco, an old friend of mine. Victus possessed him and tricked me into coming here.”
“I’m sorry,” Jenny said.
“It’s okay,” Jack said. “We weren’t that close.”
“Still,” Adriana said. “It’s a terrible thing to do to anyone.”
Jenny sat lower in her seat. It wasn’t so long ago that she did something similar to Sadi. Am I any better than Victus? What if he started out just like me?
“Victus leaves a trail of death everywhere he goes,” Kensei said. “We have to stop him.”
“We will,” Jenny said, then pointed at the pilot, Sona, and her unconscious copilot. “But first, what do we do with them?”
“We’ll leave them in orbit here,” Jack said. “And we’ll come back for them after we’ve unlocked the Terminal.”
After the spaceplane had docked to the Strider, Jenny and the others passed through its airlock into Jack’s ship. Overhead, a spinning light changed from red to amber, then green, giving hued glimpses of the Strider’s industrial interior.
Jack swung the hatch open and inhaled deeply. “Ah, it smells like home.”
To Jenny, it smelled of grease and burned metal. Pipes and electrical wires ran along almost every surface. Several crates were locked magnetically to the walls. “Your home looks like a storage container.”
“It’s the cargo bay,” Jack said. “What did you expect?”
“A state-of-the-art military vessel,” Jenny said.
“Well, next time we can take your spaceship.”
Once everyone was clear of the airlock, Jack closed the hatch and set Tyr’s spaceplane loose. He ushered them into the next room, where eight blue lockers lined the walls along with eight black spacesuits.
“If you’re going to fly in my ship, you’ve got to wear a pressure suit.” Jack opened three lockers and handed a bundle to everyone but Cobol. “Put these on first.”
Inside each bundle was a skintight dark-gray bodysuit. Jenny and Adriana went to the airlock to change while Kensei and Jack stayed in the locker room. The zero gravity made things difficult, but working together, Jenny and Adriana managed to get their bodysuits on. Jenny pulled the hood over her spiky black hair, leaving only a small opening from the top of her eyes to her bottom lip. Something rigid lined the fabric along her jaw. Adriana tied her blond hair into a bun and pulled on her hood. With their bodysuits on, Jenny and Adriana joined Jack and Kensei.
Jack took a black spacesuit off the wall and gave them a brief tutorial on its use. The rigid lining along the jaw was for communication by bone conduction. Jack said it could pick up a whisper underwater. “Jenny, since you’re going to be out there walking along the Terminal, let me show you how to control the magnetic strength of your boots.”
After Jack taught her the magnetic-boot-strength controls, Jenny and the others each floated into one of the stiff, armored spacesuits. Then, they spent a couple of minutes practicing what they’d learned. Thanks to the ADD, they were all quick learners.
“Now that you have your suits on,” Jack said, “I’ll need each of you in a gun pod.”
“Gun pod?” Adriana asked.
“There are couches in the pods that will cushion your soft, squishy bodies under high acceleration,” Jack said.
With the spacesuit tutorial over, Jack led them out of the locker room and into the hub of the ship. “This is where the arms attach to the fuselage. From here, you can go that way up to the cockpit”—Jack pointed as he talked—“or back to the engines. Two of you will go into the starboard arm, and the other two into the port-arm.” Jack pointed to his left and right, at hatches set into the wall.
Jenny was first into the hub, followed closely by Cobol.
“The ship looked bigger from the outside,” Jenny said.
“She’s not as cozy as the Endeavor.” Jack pounded on a wall, which sent him flying off in the opposite direction. “But in a battle, you’re gonna appreciate the two meters of armor, shield, and active defense system a lot more.”
Jack opened a hatch and backed away. “Jenny and Cobol, you take the starboard arm.”
Jenny held on to the hatch and stuck her head inside. Her breath came out in white puffs. “It’s cold.”
“It won’t be after I store the air.”
“‘Store the air’?” Jenny asked.
“In case we get hit,” Jack said. “Don’t worry. You’ll be safe in your pods.”
“Okay.” Jenny crawled into the tunnel. “If you say so.”
Cobol followed behind her, and Jack closed the hatch behind them.
Jenny struggled with the basic task of pulling herself through the corridor. It was tight, and zero gravity made it difficult to grasp each rung. She quickly reached the end of the arm joint, and the path branched left and right into the arm itself. Jenny went left and floated down a longer corridor until she reached another hatch.
The lights turned on as Jenny entered the gun pod. She closed the ha
tch door and locked it with the spin of a wheel. The pod was small, about two meters in diameter. Large yellow warning labels depicted stick figures suffering a range of maladies from asphyxiation to explosive decompression. How comforting, Jenny thought. “I thought Jack said we’d be safe here,” she said out loud.
“Better than floating in space,” Jack answered over the comm.
Jenny flinched. I’ll have to be more careful with what I say. There are probably cameras in here too. She stuck out her tongue just in case.
The crash couch, which looked like a futuristic dentist’s chair, occupied most of the pod. Stubby joysticks and controls were built into the arms. Jenny sat down and grabbed one of the joysticks on the arm of the chair. Suddenly, the walls of the pod seemed to disappear. To her left, she could see the fuselage of the Strider. In front of her, twin gun barrels pointed out to open space. A green target reticle appeared between the gun barrels. Three blue reticles, numbered “one,” “two” and “four,” came into view along with a top-down diagram of the Strider.
“Whoa,” Kensei said through his comm. “I feel like Luke Skywalker in the Millennium Falcon.”
Jenny was just getting comfortable when she heard a whirring sound, and her pod rose above the fuselage of the Strider. The arm is rotating, Jenny realized. When it came to a stop, it was perpendicular to the main part of the ship. Jenny could now see the ship’s port-side arm. She waved and said, “Hi.”
“I see you,” Adriana said over her comm.
Jenny smiled at hearing her sister’s voice. She experimented with the control until she figured out how to select objects on her display. She chose the blue reticle labeled with a one, and a camera view of Adriana appeared in the bottom right corner.
“I see you too.”
A loud crunch followed by the sound of chewing played inside the hood of her bodysuit.
“Which one of you is eating?” Jack asked.
“I am,” Kensei said. “I found some chips in here.”
“You should know, those are probably a few years old.”
“Gross,” Adriana said.
“They’re good,” Kensei said. “Vacuum packed.”
“Enough chatter,” Jack said. “All doors are locked and sealed. Close your helmets and connect the umbilical under your seat to your chest valve.”
Jenny pulled her helmet down and twisted it until it clicked. There was a whooshing sound, and Jenny breathed in the stale air of the suit. She felt around under her seat and found the umbilical. She lifted a hatch on her chest plate and attached the nozzle. Immediately, the couch latched onto her spacesuit from her shoulders to her feet and pulled her into its embrace.
“I see positive connections from each of the human passengers.” Jack paused. “Evacuating the air now.”
A pump hummed from somewhere in Jenny’s pod. It quickly grew quieter inside the pod until it was utterly silent. Not like the quiet of a bedroom at night, but the complete absence of sound.
“You all ready?” Jack asked.
Jenny jumped at the sound of Jack’s voice. Her heart raced, and her body vibrated with anticipation. “Ready.”
One by one, each of the other passengers said, “Ready.”
“Suit pressurization in three, two, one…”
Jenny gasped as fluid flowed through the umbilical and into her suit. The bodysuit created a watertight layer, keeping the liquid from her skin. But the warmth spreading down her legs felt like peeing herself.
“Something’s wrong,” Kensei said.
“Yeah,” Adriana said. “Something’s flowing into my suit.”
“Calm down,” Jack said. “That’s your oxygen supply.”
“What?” Jenny said. “It’s liquid. Aren’t we going to drown?”
“No, you won’t,” Jack assured her. “I know it’s strange at first, but I promise you can breathe it.”
“I’ve seen plenty of space movies,” Kensei said, “and this isn’t in any of them.”
“Why do we need to breathe liquid?” Jenny asked.
“To prevent your bodies from being crushed when we accelerate to fifty Gs.”
Kensei made a choking sound. “Fifty Gs?”
“Okay, I get it,” Adriana said. “Still, a little warning would have been nice.”
“Sorry,” Jack said. “I just forgot that you guys have never flown in a spaceship before.”
Jenny tried to imagine she was in a warm bath. But once the liquid reached her neck, the illusion faltered, and she panicked. She took one last gulp of air as the clear fluid covered her cheeks.
“Let it in,” Jack said. “With the CO2 scrubbers, you can breathe normally, and we can’t go anywhere until you’re acclimated.”
Jenny opened her eyes, and to her surprise, she could see clearly through the watery fluid. It was slightly salty and effervescent. Then she gagged. She needed to breathe, but her mind wouldn’t let her breathe from her mouth. The fear of drowning was too ingrained, too primal. Her lungs began to burn. If my mouth doesn’t work, then I’ll try my nose. At first, it felt like rinsing out her nose with a neti pot. The fluid filled her nasal passage, then flowed down the back of her throat. She kept inhaling until the fluid entered her lungs. She fought against her instincts as she coughed, letting the air out in a bubbling rush. She gulped a breath in, expecting to choke, but sucking more liquid into her lungs. Then she was breathing the liquid in and out. Jenny sighed. It worked.
Jack always hated breathing in the fluid, but he at least had years of training on his side. As he gulped the liquid into his lungs, his brain only protested briefly before he was breathing in and out as usual. They’re just kids. Younger than I was when I first enlisted, he thought. The console beeped. It was a message from the Tamarack. Precisely on time, he thought as he pressed the play button.
“To the pilot of the Celestial Strider. Please proceed to the Tamarack, hangar five. You have two minutes to comply before we open fire.”
Jack zoomed in on the Tamarack and noted the hundreds of torpedo holes, cannon blisters, and launch tubes that marked the hull of the Defender. He checked the status of his passengers. Two of them still hadn’t acclimated to the fluid. After two minutes, the console beeped three times, and a red light lit up. The Tamarack had them on target lock. Time’s up.
Lasers fired from the Tamarack only to be reflected tangentially back out to space by the Strider’s shield. Muzzle flashes lit along the Tamarack’s flank as it fired guns and torpedoes. Impacts lit up the Strider as the energy dispersed in a blue glow. The cross-section diagram of the Strider flashed and displayed damage to the aft section.
“Is someone shooting at us?” Jenny asked.
“The Tamarack,” Jack said.
“Isn’t that bad?” Kensei asked.
“Yes, but we’re out of range of her primary weapon.”
“What weapon?” Kensei asked.
“The nuclear lance.”
“The nuclear what?” Adriana asked from her picture in the bottom right of Jenny’s display.
“It’s a focused atomic explosion that can punch through any armor with a massive particle beam. Fortunately for us, it’s not effective at this distance.”
“That’s good,” Kensei said.
“I hope you’re all ready.” Jack’s voice sounded muffled and distant through the fluid, but the communicators built into their bodysuits were able to transmit and receive sound through bone conduction, even while submerged in breathable fluid. “We’re burning, in twelve, eleven…”
A woman’s voice picked up the countdown from ten. When it reached three, Jack said. “Engaging thrusters…now.” I’m going to be sore tomorrow. Jack clenched his body as the thrusters ignited. He grunted as the seat slammed into his back, and every vertebra realigned. I’m not as young as I used to be.
Flashes of blue lit up outside, and the ship rumbled. Jenny’s spacesuit became rigid as the Strider jumped into motion like a bullet from a rifle. The remaining air squeezed out of her lungs, and
it felt like a million needles stabbed her body. Sudden changes in acceleration, like what the Strider had just initiated, were more common in head-on collisions. Incredibly, the liquid-filled spacesuits did their job and none of the Strider’s passengers turned to jelly.
Jenny sank deeper into the couch. It feels like a speeding train hit me. No, more like being crushed under a train. The ship hummed and vibrated through her seat. There was a flash of blue light, and her pod rumbled. Then, there was a bright orange explosion, and the ship shook like an earthquake. All Jenny could do was hold on and focus on her breathing. It was frustrating to be so helpless.
Just then, a swarm of targets appeared as red dots on the edge of Jenny’s display. Finally, Jenny thought, there’s something I can do to help. She gripped the joysticks and selected one of the crafts to target. A diagram with details manifested in the bottom right corner, replacing her view of Adriana. They were small, uncrewed spherical ships, equal parts weapon, and thruster.
“What do we do?” Jenny was thrown to the side as Jack spun the ship.
“Nothing,” Jack grunted. “Drones are too small for you to hit.”
Too small to hit. Jenny puffed up her cheeks and blew out. Which didn’t have the same effect in her fluid-filled spacesuit. The drones entered Jenny’s target range, and her fingers itched. They strafed the Strider’s vital systems, and red dots appeared on the ship’s diagram. To hell with it, Jenny thought. I’m not going to sit here and let them pick us apart.
Jenny targeted one of the drones and activated her gun. The pod spun to track the target. Gas blew out the pod’s twin gun barrels and ignited into purple plasma. A low vibration ran under Jenny’s seat as tungsten slugs fired. The drone disappeared in a tiny orange explosion.
“Nice shot, but save your ammo. The PDCs will take care of them.” Jack spun the Strider in a tight spiral to prevent the drones from focusing their fire on a single zone. As he did, the point-defense cannons fired and destroyed the remaining drones with ultimate efficiency.
The Key of Astrea Page 44