Devastation Class

by Glen Zipper

  “Look,” she urged with a nod of her head.

  I slowly turned.

  And then I gasped.

  A destroyed California sat half-submerged in the lake, its burning fuselage diagonally piercing the water’s surface. Juxtaposed to the natural elements, it looked absolutely massive, dwarfing the canopy of the surrounding treescape.

  The sight made my stomach turn. But the feeling was not unfamiliar.

  Of course. Yes. I understand now.

  “It felt like this,” I said. “It felt wrong.”

  I turned back to Safi. A thin ribbon of energy illuminated the air behind her.

  “Yes. This is all very wrong. But . . .”

  The energy ribbon crept outward until it formed the exact shape of the breach in our quarters, and then, with a pop of light, its interior filled with distant stars.

  “ . . . you can stop this future.”

  “What if I’m not ready?”

  She smiled at me warmly.

  “Fate doesn’t wait for the ready.”

  Without warning, an unseen force grabbed Safi, hurtling her up into the breach and out into the stars.

  I tried to scream, but the ribbon exploded outward and consumed me before I could. I couldn’t see, but I knew everything around me had changed. I was seated. The temperature was warmer, and the air smelled stale and canned. Gone were the sounds of wind and birds, replaced by the ambient hum of an Interceptor’s engines.

  I kept my eyes closed for a few moments longer, hoping my mind’s illusion would return. That it would take me back to Safi and Serenity Lake. But I knew I couldn’t go back.

  What was that dream? Was it my subconscious trying to tell me something? Or was it just my exhausted brain trying to make sense of all my fear and pain?

  When I finally did open my eyes, the stars looked exactly the same as they did before I had drifted off. No matter how fast I traveled, they never got any closer. Always in the distance, they reminded me of the boundless enormity of the universe. And how tiny a space I occupied within it.

  Strapped into the pilot’s seat, I sat before a dizzying array of controls and displays. With the exception of the yoke, throttle, and weapons systems, most everything else was new to me. But it made no difference. In my hands the Delphinium had one purpose: holding off the Kastazi long enough to buy the California the few extra minutes she needed.

  I closed my eyes and gladly accepted the rush of endorphins spilling into my bloodstream, providing me with some much needed chemical bravery.

  The Delphinium’s proximity alarm interrupted my temporary adrenal euphoria. I couldn’t see anything from the cockpit yet, but the targeting monitor displayed five ships approaching in V formation. A glowing red triangle represented each.

  My training told me the three triangles leading the formation were likely Kastazi Strike Fighters. Strike Fighters typically worked together, swarming like stinging wasps—apt, given their three-segmented body shape resembled an insect’s head, thorax, and abdomen. The two triangles behind them were almost certainly Kastazi Destroyers. Strikers came first to paralyze. Destroyers came next to kill.

  Maybe it was childish, but I just wanted my mother’s comfort and protection. I imagined her sitting next to me. My silent copilot.

  I don’t want to be afraid, Mom. Help me get through this.

  And then I saw the tip of the spear. Just as I thought, a Kastazi Strike Fighter led the charge at the top of the formation. Yellow instrument lighting filtered out from its crystalline cockpit.

  Another burst of endorphins arrived to help take the edge off.

  Any last-minute ideas, Mom? Speak now or forever hold your peace.

  For a second I waited, as if actually expecting a response.

  Guess not. Okay, here we go.

  Another alarm. The lead Strike Fighter was almost in firing distance. I scanned through my internal checklist. Lower the blast shutters. Without them, one direct hit to the cockpit would destroy me. My eyes raced across every inch of the control board. There was no obvious activation switch.

  The Fighter fired a controlled field plasma burst. Even from thousands of meters away, I could feel its blistering heat on my face.

  “Blast shutters! Where are the blast shutters?” I cried.

  “Blast shutters activated,” the Delphinium’s computer politely replied. Startled, I probably would have jumped out of my seat had I not been strapped in. Interceptors weren’t supposed to be voice responsive. Must’ve been a Bossa special.

  The heavy silicon carbide shutters slammed closed just before the Kastazi blow landed. The Delphinium tolerated the hit unexpectedly well, its exoskeleton not just repelling the energy but also absorbing it.

  Okay, Mom. Let’s disrupt their formation. That’s where you’d start.

  I punched my throttle and zoomed directly at the Fighter. It veered away just before the collision, forcing the tightly aligned squadron to scramble in every direction.

  All right, I’ve got them separated. Now I can take the initiative.

  I chased the closest Fighter as it bobbed and weaved trying to avoid my targeting systems. Anticipating its maneuvers and matching its trajectory, I locked it in my crosshairs and fired the Delphinium’s forward cannons.

  Direct hit. Immediately upon the plasma’s impact, the Fighter exploded into a thousand flaming pieces, rattling the Delphinium with turbulence from the ensuing blast wave.

  Whoa!

  The Delphinium’s weapons shouldn’t have been that powerful.

  Pushing forward through the Strike Fighter’s cloud of decimation, I felt a hard crash against the blast shutters. Blood from the Kastazi pilot suddenly obscured my peripheral viewing aperture. Just hours earlier we had obliterated an entire Destroyer, but this was the first time I felt the full consequence of taking a life. I felt sick to my stomach.

  Another alarm. This time it was one of the Strikers locking target on the Delphinium. Blind to the predator stalking me from behind, a chill ran down my spine. With no time to think, I instinctually adjusted hard at ninety degrees. The hostile sailed underneath me.

  If you couldn’t outgun them, what would you do next? You’d concentrate on the objective. You’d do anything you could to buy the California more time. Stretch this out and make them give chase.

  I reversed course, and the Kastazi immediately pursued. The Delphinium shuddered as I gunned her engines to their limit. She wasn’t designed to tolerate such sustained acceleration, but as long as the Kastazi were following me farther away from the California, I was prepared to fly her apart.

  The two remaining Strikers gained speed, closing on my position. Once more they locked on me, but I couldn’t make an extreme trajectory adjustment because I was moving too fast.

  What now? What options do I have left?

  A different alarm sounded. Louder and shriller. Missile launch. My monitor revealed four projectiles stalking me. Even if I could’ve maneuvered, the missiles were already locked and would’ve adjusted along with me. There was no escaping.

  You wouldn’t panic. You’d push down the fear. Focus.

  Countermeasures. The Delphinium had to have countermeasures. Every Interceptor did. I just didn’t know where they were or how to activate them.

  Voice command?

  “Launch countermeasures!”

  There was no response, only the creaks of the ship unhinging around me.

  I had five seconds to live.

  My hand squeezed the throttle like a vise grip.

  An abrupt jolt jarred the ship. It was the Delphinium carrying out my command, launching four charges. “Countermeasures away,” she finally confirmed. My targeting monitor showed three of the Kastazi missiles quickly scuttled by my countermeasures—but the fourth sailed through them unscathed and came right at me.

  No. I’m not ready.

  Impact. The Delphinium tumbled end over end out of control. Thrown free from my harness, I crashed hard against the airlock. I heard a snap before I fe
lt anything. Intense pain soon followed. My arm was broken clean, its fractured bone grotesquely pushing out from under my skin.

  Help me. Help me, please. I didn’t know it would be like this.

  My forward monitor revealed one of the Strikers circling back to come at me head-on. An instant later, it fired its missile. Facing death was so much worse than anything I had ever imagined. Not because of pain, anguish, or fear. Because it felt empty. Barren, vacant, and without meaning.

  I waited for the void to fill with something, and it finally did—rage. The same rage I felt kneeling opposite the hull breach where Safi had been sucked out into space.

  If you’re going to kill me, you’re going to have to look me in the eyes!

  “Open blast shutters!”

  The Delphinium’s shutters retracted to reveal the dagger of fire that would end me. Its brilliant corona filled the ship with blinding white light.

  Once more, my life was reduced to but a few final seconds. Except this time there would be no reprieve.

  Three.

  My heart pounded with ferocity I never knew it possessed.

  Two.

  Its thunderous beating filled my ears, drowning out the calamity of the Delphinium’s proximity alarms.

  One.

  And then the light was eclipsed by something. It was so close and so enormous I couldn’t make it out. But I knew.

  It was the California.

  CHAPTER 30

  JD

  EVERY LAST RIVET ON THE CALIFORNIA RATTLED as we absorbed the impact from the missile intended for the Delphinium. Our grids were barely strong enough to take it.

  “Ohno, now!” I yelled.

  “Launching!”

  Our two hastily weaponized probes streaked through space toward the attacking Strike Fighters. Each hit its target with a glancing low-yield detonation, just enough to force the Kastazi bogies into a temporary retreat.

  I triggered the ship-to-ship com on my console. “Viv, give me your status.”

  There was no response.

  I stared at the Delphinium on the Holoview. She was battered and bruised. Half of her fuselage was on fire. Our rescue attempt was putting the ship at far more risk than we ever could have justified. The deafening silence on the com told me it might all have been for nothing.

  More alarms sounded as two Kastazi Destroyers adjusted their trajectories to intercept the California. The Strikers circled back around as well. Together they assumed an attack formation.

  An angry voice crackled through my com. “Get out of here!”

  “Viv!” I shouted. She was alive!

  “You’re going to get everyone killed!” she screamed back at me. “Go now!”

  “Too late for that. Stand by.”

  On the Holoview’s split screen, I could see the Blink Reactor’s lights strobing in an increasingly synchronic, ordered pattern. Nick was eerily quiet and still.

  “Report.”

  Bix stepped into the frame. “It’s as ready as it’ll ever be.”

  My attention snapped back to the Strikers as they broke formation and came diving toward our ship.

  “Evasive now!”

  “Aye,” Lorde answered before yawing the California hard right and punching the throttle. His maneuver eluded the Strikers, but they swiftly altered their course toward the vulnerable Delphinium.

  “Viv, you’ve got two Strikers coming at your six. You gotta move now!”

  “I’m dead in the water.” Her voice barely broke through the interference. “Total engine failure.”

  With the Delphinium paralyzed and defenseless, I turned to the unlikely ally standing beside me.

  Bossa.

  Saving his ship was the only motivation he needed. The pulse pistol Anatoly was holding to the back of his head probably helped too.

  Bossa took a small step toward me. “Open the com.”

  “It’s open.”

  “Listen to me closely, Nixon—”

  Viv abruptly cut him off. “Bossa?”

  He rolled right over her. “If you’re sitting in the pilot’s nest, you should see a red light underneath the engine temperature gauge. Do you see it?”

  There was a pause that seemed to last forever. Perhaps that’s how long it took for Viv to accept we weren’t going anywhere without her.

  “Yeah, I think so. It’s blinking.”

  “Right. Beneath that you should see a switch. It’s the antimatter reserve. Flip the switch now.”

  “Copy.”

  The Strikers neared firing distance on her. More proximity alarms rang out on the bridge.

  “Destroyers at ten thousand meters and closing,” Ohno reported.

  “Take us out in front of the Delphinium,” I instructed Lorde.

  “Aye,” he confirmed.

  “Talk to me, cookie,” Bossa shouted.

  “Nothing! She’s got nothing left, Bossa.”

  “She always saves something,” he replied. “On the count of three, I need you to punch the throttle to max.”

  “It’s not going to work!”

  “Just do it!”

  The Strikers fired four more missiles at the Delphinium.

  “One.”

  I could hear alarms blaring inside Viv’s cockpit.

  “Two.”

  Bossa leaned forward, resting his weight against my chair.

  “Three.”

  The Delphinium shot forward like a bat out of hell, avoiding the missiles at the last possible second.

  “That’s my girl,” Bossa proudly cooed. I wasn’t sure if he was referring to Viv or his ship.

  “Strikers closing on us,” Ohno hollered. “One thousand meters!”

  The California was too weak to tolerate much more punishment. Just one Kastazi warhead might’ve been enough to breach whatever was left of our grids. We needed to get Viv back on the ship, and we needed to do it fast.

  “Where’s the Delphinium?” I frantically asked.

  “Behind us,” Lorde responded. “Four thousand meters at five o’clock.”

  “Open the hangar doors now!”

  Ohno confirmed my order.

  “Hangar doors are open, Viv,” I said. “Bring her home.”

  “You’re not broadcasting a beacon,” she replied. “I can’t lock on the California’s trajectory.”

  “Our landing beacon must’ve been damaged by the last hit we took,” Ohno said.

  Without the beacon, Viv was on her own. She’d have to pilot the Delphinium into the California manually, requiring near-impossible precision. It was like landing one speeding bullet on top of another.

  I went back to my com as the Strikers circled for another attack. “Where are you, Viv?”

  “I’m coming in hot. Hold her steady.”

  Lorde worked the piloting controls. Viv’s life was entirely in his hands. One wrong move, a fraction too far in one direction or another, was all it would take to send her crashing into the California’s hull.

  I had grown deaf to all the alarms ringing in my ears, but the next siren got my attention with its shrieking intensity. The Holoview switched back to its primary bow view. One of the Destroyers was coming at us head-on.

  Lorde glanced over his shoulder at me. The options were clear: hold steady for Viv or evade.

  “Hold her steady.”

  Not inclined to indulge in a game of chicken, the Destroyer veered off—but not before launching a phasing torpedo at us.

  I couldn’t instruct Lorde to adjust our course. If I did, Viv was dead.

  “Reroute all emergency power to forward grids!”

  Ohno implemented my order just in time. The torpedo rocked the California somewhere below Alpha Deck, but the additional power from the reroute was just enough to protect us from catastrophic damage.

  “Grids at zero,” Ohno reported. “One more hit and we’re dead!”

  I looked down at my console and saw exactly what I was afraid of. The explosion had pushed us out of alignment with the Delphinium. V
iv was going to crash right into us. She was too close and moving too fast.

  “I can do this,” Lorde loudly declared. And then once more, softly to himself, “I can do this.”

  I held my breath as Lorde rolled the California slightly starboard.

  I checked the Blink Reactor on the other side of the split. Its lights still flashed sequentially, but their pattern had evolved into a beautiful kaleidoscope of fractals. It was as if it was speaking to me. Telling me it was alive. It was ready.

  “Bix, stand by for Blink.”

  “Standing by.”

  Everyone turned toward the same thing I did. Both Destroyers coming at us at twelve o’clock, each flanked on either side by Strikers.

  Viv was so close. I silently counted the time I estimated we had left.

  Fifteen seconds.

  More alarms blared.

  “Kill that noise!”

  Someone muted the alerts. The bridge fell silent.

  Ten seconds.

  I saw the launch combustion of countless missiles and torpedoes from every one of the Kastazi vessels.

  Five seconds.

  The California slightly shuddered, and the Delphinium disappeared from my console. I didn’t know if she’d made it home safely or smashed fatally into our side.

  Two seconds.

  The deadly column of missiles and torpedoes sailed toward us through the empty void.

  One second. Now or never.

  “Commit to Blink!”

  CHAPTER 31

  VIV

  BLINDED INSIDE A CLOUD OF THICK BLACK smoke, I knew I was still alive only because of the burning pain of each labored breath. I struggled to push myself out of the pilot’s nest, but my right arm was useless, dangling limply by my side and shooting inconceivable waves of agony up into my shoulder and neck. Totally disoriented, I had no idea which way was up, down, left, or right. I was slowly suffocating, helpless in the dark.

  All I had left was the instinct to survive.

  Got to get up.

  Got to get out.

  But there was nothing I could do. I was trapped.

  The heat of an electrical fire singed my skin. Perspiration mixed with soot dripped down into my eyes, stinging them like acid. Desperate for oxygen, my heart raced uncontrollably. My spiking blood pressure only intensified my panic and shortened the intervals between stabbing rushes of pain. At least a Kastazi missile would’ve been quick and painless. Asphyxiating inside the Delphinium’s smoldering carcass was torture.