by Mark Tufo
“I would agree with that statement,” Porter added. “Are you ready?” He was talking to Cedar. “When you open the door, count to three and close it. The calculations I have performed say that will be enough to get us into a moderate drift. Nothing that should be picked up by their sensors.”
“Here goes everything.” The lights in the ship turned from white to red; we could hear a loud whooshing behind us. The ship jumped a little. Whether we were moving, it was difficult to say. “Three.” The sound stopped and the lights returned to normal. “It worked, Porter!” Cedar was excited. “Though we seem to be moving more toward them and not the cleared space.”
I had undone my straps and gone to the cockpit. The Iron Sides did indeed seem to be getting larger. “Umm, guys, I’m not much into drama, I like to leave that department to Tallow, but shouldn’t we be going under, or at least over, their ship? Because it really looks to me like we’re heading right for it.”
“Funny, Win.” Tallow’s eyes grew wide as he looked out at the same thing I was.
“I’ll redo the calculations; the door was closed within the parameters.” He paused. “It will work out, we should be going under her, missing by a mile or more.” Porter was looking at his read out.
A mile sounded like a good distance when avoiding an enemy on the ground; out here, where everything was measured in terms of millions, I didn’t feel quite as good about it.
“Can I see that?” Cedar had her hand out for Porter’s tablet.
“You can read Genogerian?” he asked, reluctantly handing it over.
“What else was I going to do while they were looking for us?” she replied as naturally as if she had merely been combing her hair out. “The buttons, Porter. What good would it be if I didn’t know what they meant? I’m not proficient yet; another couple of days and I’ll have it down.”
“What happens if we hit that thing?” Tallow asked.
“We are not going fast enough for any structural damage to either of us, but it will ring like a bell inside here and there. They will most assuredly know at that point something is out here.”
“Space: the final f…” Lendor started.
“Lendor!” I said.
“What? You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“I think I know what happened.” Cedar’s fingers were a blur on the device she held. “The door opened from the bottom; enough air blew out to force us upward just enough. Your calculations were based on the door being completely open the whole time.”
“This is a dreadful time to discover I made an error.”
“Just enough for what?” I asked her.
“Just enough that the next few hours are going to be extremely tense.” She looked up to the Iron Sides.
“How tense?” Frost had found her way through the tangle of legs and was in between Porter and Cedar.
Porter looked to her. “I thought the ‘speaking in the mind’ only a myth; I am happy to see that is one rumor that has been proved wrong. Welcome, Frost.” She swished her tail at him. I think she was still waiting for an answer.
“Well, there’s a margin of error of about ten feet. We either miss by eight feet or we don’t.” Cedar kept tapping, hoping for a different outcome.
“How is it possible to go from having a hard time finding enough blueberries to eat, to crashing into a spaceship, millions of miles away from earth? Is such a thing even possible? No offense, Win, but right now I’m kind of wishing you’d been able to get out of that mud hole on your own. Or better yet…never even stepped in it.”
“Tallow, I don’t want to state the obvious, but there’s a very good chance, you, me and Cedar would all be dead right now if you hadn’t helped me.”
He ran his hands through his hair and turned back to the crew area, attempting to reconcile what was happening as best he could. I could hear a protein bar wrapper being removed.
“I eat when I’m nervous!” he shouted up. “A good old-fashioned belly ache should keep my mind off things.”
An hour crept by, then another. The laser grid was fast approaching us, as was the wide, white underbelly of the beast we were trying to avoid. Without any enhancement to the viewing screen, we could begin to see individual sensors, towers, and gun emplacements as they came into focus. It would not be long before we could see the ship’s portholes and individual people walking past them or staring out.
“I have been updating our trajectory as we move forward. We are now more likely to hit than not. It has changed to a three-foot miss window with a five-foot margin of error.” Porter looked up.
“Okay, we need to think of a solution. I can’t just sit here and hope for the best. When I was learning how to fly the shuttle, I realize now that it was antiquated technology, but it talked about the sensors and the range that they employed. It talked about how far they could reach out, but it never discussed how close,” Cedar said.
Porter was thinking. I could see the consternation on his features. “It’s…” He stopped and thought some more. “It’s possible. Risky, but possible.”
“Could you flyboys explain it to someone that loves to find her feet on the ground?” I asked, looking from Cedar to Porter. Both were grinning with a smile that I would say bordered on lunacy.
“Your sister’s intuition continues to astound me. It is likely that the Iron Sides’ sensors are calibrated so that they only start picking up data from a set point away from their ship, otherwise, the vessel itself could cause interference.”
“Okay?” I had an inkling of what they may be talking about, but it is difficult to ascertain what crazy people are truly thinking.
“When we get close enough, we can start our engines and give us a small burst that will be enough to keep us from banging off their hull.” Cedar was excited that she had offered a solution.
“That’ll work?” I asked, hopefully.
“It is better than waiting for Providence to decide,” Porter said cryptically.
“Nobody’s going to see that?” Tallow asked.
“There is no way to tell for certain; all we can do is try.” Porter was once again doing calculations on his tablet. “When I am done, Cedar, I would like you to look over my work and see if you notice anything. I have entered in the distance from which I feel it will be safe to power up, the amount of thrust it will take, and how long we have to once again shut down so that we do not show as a heat signature.”
“So even after we stop the engine, they can see the heat?” I asked.
Porter nodded.
“I like the plan, I do,” I began, “but it seems to me of all the scans and sensors they may have on that ship that anything that deals with heat would be pretty sensitive, especially that close.”
“That is a valid point. It is very likely they will notice something; we can only hope that they believe it to be an anomaly of some sort or their own faulty equipment.”
Porter and Cedar were going over the information they had at hand, constantly revising and practicing what they needed to do. I, for one, could not keep my eyes off the approaching ship and the sweeping lasers.
“Um, guys,” I said, “we have another problem.”
All eyes were on me when they should have been straight ahead.
“That can’t be good,” Lendor said as we watched hundreds of fighter ships pour out of the Iron Sides.
“Have they found us?” Cedar asked.
“Seems like an over-response,” Porter said. “I believe we can expect company. My father said that he had called for assistance.”
“There’s about to be a war here? We’re going to get squashed like an ant under horses’ hooves,” Tallow said.
“Any chance we could escape during the din and confusion?” Serrot asked.
“Screw leaving! I want the Iron Sides to pay for what they’ve done,” Cedar replied.
We all held that sentiment to varying degrees. Cedar likely the most, but probably because she could actively do something. Besides Porter, the rest
of us could only be observers.
The grid stopped as more fighters moved into position. The Iron Sides moved as well. We were now staring straight down the front of it, which meant the Genogerian ships were going to show right behind us. If it came to shots being fired, we were in the thick of it.
“This is crazy,” Tallow said. “I can almost feel them looking at us, makes me itchy.” He absently began to scratch his arms.
“How long until we reach them?” I pointed.
“An hour.” Cedar looked concerned, caught in the crossfire between goliaths was never a good place to be. The fighters were moving out in front of the ship in what I could only describe as a disturbed hornets’ nest of activity.
“Anyone change their mind about how much space sucks?” Lendor asked.
“If we start up and fire our engine now, Porter, one of those fighters is sure to see it. Gonna be hard to pass that off as an anomaly,” Cedar said.
“This is getting exceedingly complicated,” he replied.
“Just now you’re thinking it’s getting exceedingly complicated?” Tallow looked ready to jump out of his skin; I understood the sentiment.
“We have another problem,” Porter said. We all looked at him. “It is unlikely that they can see this ship, but what they will be able to notice is that as we move, we will block out stars in the background. From this distance, we are too small in their field of vision to make a difference in the expanse, but the closer we become, the more light we will block.”
“Win, what is he talking about?” Tallow asked.
“It is a dark night on Earth. There is a quarter moon that sheds very little light. Not even enough to see your hand in front of your face, unless, of course, you hold it up and block the moon from your sight,” I said quietly. “Then the outline of your hand will be perfectly visible. This ship will be just like that.”
Tallow held his hand up; he got it now and he looked none too pleased about it.
“We have a difficult decision to make and I would like for us to either agree on it or let the majority rule,” Porter said. “We either make a stand when it becomes necessary or we run. I do not believe either choice offers us much of a chance. If we stand and fight against the fighters that will be upon us soon, we have less than a five percent survival rating.”
“And if we run?” Lendor asked.
“If the confusion is great enough, it could go as high as twelve.”
“I would rather die being hit from the front as I fire than shot in the back running away,” Lendor said. “I vote we stay.”
“As do I.” Cedar put her hand in the air.
“Any harm to them is good,” Ferryn spoke. It was such an unusual occurrence; it halted the discussion immediately.
“If my mate is for fighting, I am by his side,” Frost replied.
“Wait, wait,” I interceded before the deciding vote could be made. “I also want to make them pay for what they have done, more than anything. But we need to reason this out. The chances of making it through the day are slim and I would imagine that the chances we can inflict any serious harm are even more marginal.”
Porter nodded in agreement.
“We need to live; running nearly triples that. We find another way to strike out when we have a better chance of hurting them. I vote run,” I said.
“Well, I’m with Win. I’ve always been with Win, and not just because she’ll kick my butt if I don’t vote her way, but because she always makes sense,” Tallow said, placing his arm around me.
“These are all valid arguments, and, as much as I would like to avenge my father, it may be better to plan a more forceful counterattack.”
All eyes turned to Serrot; he was either going to deadlock it or send us into oblivion.
“Much like Tallow, I am afraid of what Cedar would do if I went against her.” There were strained smiles. “There has never been a fight I have shied away from, but Cedar, Lendor, Frost, Ferryn…I don’t think this is the time.”
Cedar had undone her straps and was either heading over to him to punch his arm or hug him for his stance; this was when everything changed dramatically. We had been listening to the background chatter as the fighters got into position; it had all been routine—right up until it wasn’t.
“This is Lieutenant Summers. I’ve got something here, directly in front of me. It’s the weirdest thing. It’s not showing on any of my scans, but there is something moving out there.”
“Whatcha got?” Lieutenant Ned “Pounder” Summers asked his sister.
“I wish I could tell you,” Lt Susan “Beachie” Summers replied.
“Lieutenant, this is Commander Breeson. Can you identify the object?”
“I cannot, sir. It’s moving slow, drifting, but it’s headed straight for me. Permission to leave formation.”
“You have eight minutes before you’re in no-man’s land; I expect you to be back in tight formation with your squadron long before that.”
“Aye, aye sir.”
“You heard the commander,” Squad Leader Captain Yamato said. “Sacks, you watch her six,” he said to Lieutenant Phil “Sacks” Dentrof.
“Been doing that for a good long time now,” Sacks replied. “Sorry, Pounder.”
Susan laughed while her brother groaned.
“Uh-oh.” Cedar had sat down and was getting ready for whatever came next. We all watched as the fighter sped toward us.
“What if she fires on us?” Cedar asked. “She saved us.” She looked back to me.
“If she saved us just to kill or capture us, sis, then you know what to do,” I replied coldly. She nodded, but I don’t think she was quite as sure of herself as she had been a moment earlier.
“Can she see us? I mean, us specifically, not just this ship?” I asked.
“The port is as black as the rest of the ship. There is a way to change that, but for what purpose?”
“She’s going to discover us soon enough; maybe we give her a reason not to see us,” I said.
“But she will see us, Win.” Tallow was clearly confused. Cedar got it, though.
“Sure, she was nice, and she did help to save us on that mountain, Winter, but what makes you think she would go against her kind to continue to help us?” Cedar asked.
“What other choice or chance do we have?” I asked.
“There is definitely something out here. I’m about two miles out. It’s drifting toward the Iron Sides. Moving in for a closer look,” Summers said.
“Five minutes, Lieutenant, then I want you back here,” Captain Yamato ordered.
“Yes sir, Captain.”
“I am projecting the interior of the cockpit to the portal; it will look very much like a standard viewing area,” Porter said.
“I don’t like this at all,” Cedar said as we were staring down the business end of a sky fighter.
The lieutenant was maneuvering so she could get in closer. Her eyes grew big as she took us in.
“Safe to say she can see us now,” Tallow said.
“Commander, this is Lieutenant Summers, I have…” That was the end of her transmission as a beam as thick as a tree trunk obliterated her ship; the shock wave sent us spiraling away. Tallow had grabbed Cedar’s seat and me to keep us from pummeling against the wall. Serrot and Lendor disappeared from view from the centrifugal force. Frost and Ferryn seemed fairly rooted to their spots.
Porter’s arms were jumping as he wrestled with the controls. Cedar was helping him while also manipulating things I had no idea the purpose of. We were coming back under control but above us, a battle was waging.
“Noooo!” came through our speakers; it sounded a lot like Beachie’s brother. His scream was cut short when I believe he joined her in the afterlife.
“Stryvers and…and something else,” Porter said. “Now would be a good time to make our retreat.”
“I’m going to see what’s going on out there. How do I get it up on the screen again?” Cedar asked.
Porter qui
ckly pointed and then started the ship. I don’t know how fast we were going, but I think it was nearly to its maximum.
“We’re alright back here. Thanks for asking!” Serrot grunted.
“Help me up,” Lendor said.
“You’re on top of me,” Serrot replied.
I had my hand over my mouth as I watched what was happening. The Iron Sides, while seemingly our enemy, was now on the defensive as two Stryver ships and something I couldn’t even identify were firing on the Iron Sides’ fighters and the mothership herself.
Barrages of blues, greens and yellows battered each other. Tiny explosions dotted the space where the fighters were. Great pocks were forming where the traditional ships were sustaining damage.
It was impossible to say if the unknown vessel was taking any damage whatsoever. The ship was loosely shaped like something I had seen on one of the covers in one of the books in the library. The center was a pulsing yellow, though the outer fringes, which were continually expanding and contracting, were more of a blue color. From that fluctuating rim, what looked like impossibly enormous tendrils surrounded the entire structure, and at the end of each were white puffs that appeared suspiciously like dandelions gone to seed. Occasionally, one or more of these would detach and engulf a fighter or head straight to the Iron Sides. Wherever they made contact, the ship would glow a dull red.
“Do you know what that is?” I asked, hoping for and simultaneously dreading an answer. “It looks…familiar.”
Tallow looked like he had swallowed his tongue. “That looks familiar?!”
“The Iron Sides is spinning up their buckle drive,” Porter said.
“The fighters—they’re not going to make it back.” Cedar was confused.
“The good of the many at the expense of the few.” Lendor had made it back up; he had a knot on the side of his head but looked a sight better than Serrot, who was bleeding from his nose.
“They’re not even heading back,” I said.
“They are trying to give as much cover as they can in the hopes that their ship can get away,” Porter said.
“They’re sacrificing themselves,” Frost said.
“Just a little longer,” Porter said. “The more they fight, the better our chances of escape.”