by J.P. Yager
Trevor couldn’t take his eyes of the radar display; the moon-sized blips grew closer. Sensors indicated the giant battleships were closing in on the planet, sweeping it for signs of them. They were both screening it from the other side of the world, working their way toward the Wrath.
Sweat had either accumulated from the heat generated by the cockpit equipment or from blind fear. It didn’t really matter what the cause though. Things were tense. Either way, Trev did his best to clear the moisture off with his sleeve.
Nathan pulled up on the stick so they’d miss a collision with a stream of Florian ships. They were flying out like scared minnows down a creek. Docking stations were bursting open with countless spacecrafts. Those on approach into the planet were turning around.
“What is going on?” Kaida asked from the backseat. “Are they leaving because of the Ruverans?”
“No. It’s worse.” Nathan set his radio headset down and turned on the intercom speakers.
“Attention…attention…Protocol 3 Warning is in effect.” The prerecorded message played over and over again. Nathan flicked it to guard frequency. “It’s an evacuation order.”
Kaida still didn’t understand. Florian Ecaths weren’t afraid of Ruvera.
“Where to now?” Trevor asked, keeping his focus on the mission at hand.
Nathan joined the flurry of ships escaping the planet, unfazed. “I don’t care. Wag it for now.”
Trev shrugged. “All right.” He punched in a random point and locked it in. The ship calculated the best route to get there. When it gave him numbers, he typed them into the flight computer. “Destination set.”
The Wrath tore through the atmosphere. Thousands of ships were all around them from horizon to horizon along with them, scrambling in different directions. They exited the thermosphere and hit space. Nathan dialed up the force drive.
“What is that?” the radio crackled.
“I’ve never…” came another.
The guard frequency erupted with fearful calls.
Trevor couldn’t figure out what they were all looking at. It couldn’t be the Ruverans.
The flight crew kept looking forward, their attention focused between the two planets they were going to light-jump through, when they saw something on the back video. Nathan hit a switch and enlarged the view.
Flora was alight with ships taking off and bursting into light speed. The Breakers were closing in on the Wrath; one of them was opening its fighter ports. But behind them, something else was happening. The energy ribbon they had traveled through was…changing. The end that ran toward the Milky Way galaxy had shadows screaming through it toward them. Beyond the infected energy ribbon was a mass of darkness that no words could describe. It was a living mass of moving shadows.
“We need to move,” Trevor said in the quiet.
Nathan turned the back screen off. The transition between the two engine modes was nearing completion.
Trevor tried his best to put it out of his mind and help fly the ship. The radio crackled with worsening accounts, and the radar was showing the impossible. Everything the “anomaly” hit…disappeared.
One of the Breakers blew past them at light speed, its captain smart enough to get out. The fighters from the other were on top of them now.
Nathan reengaged regular flight to dogfight away from them. Watching the darkness coming had cost them a clean escape. He pulled the stick around into clumps of other ships. The fighters came from all directions, and a large band blocked them jumping.
“What are you doing? Don’t worry about them. We need to get out of here.” Trevor saw the mass of disappearing blips getting closer. The darkness was fast.
A wild look passed across Nathan’s face. “We have to have a clear jump.” He flipped his guns on and broke toward the ships blocking their way.
Trevor was now more afraid of his uncle than the Ruverans.
The ship turned toward Flora, and Kaida covered her mouth when she saw the darkness hit the planet. As it contacted the surface of the planet, it surrounded it like a closing mouth until the jaws completely closed. Not stopping for a moment, the arms of darkness continued off in spires, enveloping hundreds of ships in its wake.
“He’s right. We have to go!” she cried. “Light-jump through them.”
Trevor saw the blip for the Breaker completely vanish. When he looked up, he only saw oncoming blackness where it had been.
The fighters had disengaged from them and were making a run for it, while other ships were taken into the mass.
Trevor knew they were going to die if he didn’t act. In one motion, he took flight control from his uncle, who was still wildly fighting them and then pulled the circuit breaker killing Nathan’s side of the jet so he couldn’t take control back.
He aimed the ship as best he could toward blank space, as missiles streamed at them.
Ships were sucked in right behind them as the darkness came for them. For a moment everything seemed like it was about to hit.
Without another thought, Trevor hit the jump switch on his uncle’s side. Outside the ship, a spire of seething, hungering blackness reached out to swallow them too. Just as it licked the back, the craft shot off at light speed and disappeared. The darkness did manage to absorb the rouge missiles and Ruveran ships and anything else that hadn’t escaped in time as it continued its path of destruction.
Chapter 9