Equilibrium of Terror: Part 1

by Eddie R. Hicks

  “Two more minutes.” Hammer’s voice echoed over the radio as Gavin shot down another interceptor that was chasing after Hammer and the transport.

  Afterward, Gavin positioned his fighter to get a better look at Hammer as he flew alongside the transport. Only one interceptor remained chasing them. He cocked his head forward to get a better look at it. The interceptor in question had several blood red stripes painted cross its hull.

  That’s new, Gavin thought as the red striped interceptor fired plasma at Hammer, with impressive precision, especially at the wide distance it was in.

  “I’m hit,” Hammer said

  “Gladius three needs assistance!” Aura bellowed.

  Gavin checked his HUD. The entire squadron was engaged in complex evasive moves or was engaged in a dog fight. Gavin was the only one free from any enemy contact. “This is Gladius two, I’m going on to assist!” He shot forward toward the fleeing transport and its escort under heavy fire.

  “Copy that two,” Aura said. “The rest of you make way for the transport then get the hell back aboard!”

  His targeting lock beeped rapidly, as he flew behind the red striped interceptor, and his thumb pressed down on the missile fire button.

  “Gladius two, fox three!”

  His fighter shot out a plasma missile. What happened seconds later blew his mind. The fighter spun to face it, shot the missile and quickly returned to its pursuit. The fuck? “Gladius two, fox three.” He fired another missile, with the same result and gritted his teeth. “Guns, guns, guns!” Magnetically accelerated rounds left Gavin’s rail gun, every shot missed as the interceptor dodge rolled around as if it knew what Gavin’s next move was.

  “Gladius three watch your six!” Gavin said as the interceptor closed the gap between it and Hammer. His computer reported another positive missile lock. His fingers quickly loaded a new missile loadout to use, heat seeking plasma missiles. “Gladius two, fox two, fox two!”

  Two missiles away, two missiles mysteriously veered off course and disappeared into the abyss of space. The red striped interceptor continued its relentless assault on Hammer, none of his evasive moves had any effect, the interceptor kept up with him perfectly, always in weapons range, always firing perfectly timed shots that weakened his shields.

  “Fuck off,” Gavin said, cursing under his helmet.

  “Ah hell, can’t shake him, lad!” Hammer said in a panic

  “Full burn, he’s clearly after you not the transport.”

  Hammer’s fighter engines flared its blue light and thrust him away from the action as the transport continued onwards toward the Winston Churchill with minimal issues. The red striped interceptor followed him, while its green bolts of plasma brought Hammer’s shields below twenty percent. Gavin’s fighter began to launch a full burn as well to keep up.

  “Gladius two, guns, guns, guns!” Gavin roared as his fighter unleashed another volley of rail gun fire toward the red striped interceptor. Once again it flawlessly dodged then returned to launch the single shot Gavin feared to see, the one that shattered Hammer’s shields.

  Not only was Hammer’s fighter completely open to damage as indicated by the small fire burning on the aft end of his fighter, he was now at risk of being exposed to traces of solar radiation.

  “I’m losing engine power!” Hammer shouted.

  “Transport is almost aboard you guys gotta hurry up!” Aura transmitted. “Do you need assistance?”

  “It’s just one target, we got this!” Gavin said. “Get aboard the Winston Churchill we’ll meet up with you.”

  Hammer’s fighter pulled upwards into a barrel roll. The red striped interceptor adjusted its trajectory and fired bolts of perfectly timed plasma resulting in Hammer’s fighter flying into the plasma rather than away from it. Sparks and additional flames erupted from Hammer’s now mangled burning craft as he spun around to face the interceptor head on.

  “Locking on,” Hammer said. “Gladius three, fox three!”

  Gavin locked on as he neared. “Gladius two, fox two!”

  At last the red interceptor was enveloped in a gargantuan explosion of fire and plasma as both missiles struck it one after the other. For good measure, Gavin piled on extra rail fire into the explosion before him.

  “Gladius two guns, guns, guns!” As the discharge subsided, they were treated to a horrific sight.

  The red striped interceptor remained intact, purple waves of light protected it, a sign of a psionic overshield. “What the fuck?” Gavin shouted. Hammer’s fighter took a massive hit and spun aimlessly adrift burning intensely.

  “Hammer!” Gavin cried out “You need to eject!” There was no reply. “Eject, eject, eject.”

  Hammer’s fighter exploded in a massive light show.

  Gavin’s HUD and holographic scanners reported no signs of an escape pod. “No! God fucking damn it!”

  “Sweet Jesus,” Hijinks said. “I’m not detecting a pod.”

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” In a rage, Gavin bashed against his flight controls. Probably not a good idea given their current situation, but the fury and hatred in his body took full control of his thoughts. All that work, all those missiles, all those rail gun bullets, the full burn everything. For what? Why did he have to die? Why the hell did that fighter single him out of everyone?

  “Gladius two—”

  “Fuck this fucking shit!”

  “Gladius two!” Aura’s voice was stern. “Get back to the Winston Churchill now. We’re pulling out!”

  Reluctantly Gavin pointed his fighter back toward the Winston Churchill, as the red striped interceptor ignored him and returned toward the Hashmedai carrier.

  “Penetrator, what’s going on?” Aura asked Gavin.

  “I’m almost there.”

  His trembling hands guided his fighter past the bolts of plasma, rail gun fire from the Winston Churchill and swarms of interceptors. Finally, the hanger bay and flight deck was in sight. The last remaining Gladius squadron member landed.

  ESV Winston Churchill, Uranus orbit, Sol system

  “All remaining ships are aboard sir,” Yates said to Xavier.

  “Mr. Chavez any time now!” Xavier shouted.

  “You got it, Captain!”

  The young ensign input a command on his console. The Winston Churchill spun around while its shields continued to repel plasma fire from all directions and angles. With Uranus behind it, Winston Churchill entered sub light speed and vanished from the AO.

  Earth Cube, Geneva, Earth, Sol system

  As the battle concluded, they sat back in their chairs in a more comfortable posture. Video playback was shut down for the time being as there was nothing new to witness. The central hologram began to update as the Winston Churchill flew away from Uranus.

  “Are they following the Winston Churchill?” Salamanca asked.

  Singh winced. “Doesn’t look like it, but—”

  “Yeah, yeah there’s a delay for the Winston Churchill sensors logs at this distance.”

  “Only their psionic would know,” he said. “How soon can that H3 mine be evacuated?”

  “Does it matter?” Landis said. “Let’s be honest those miners are all dead by now, there’s nothing we can do.”

  “When the Winston Churchill meets with the Wilfrid Laurier, they can both head back and check,” Singh said.

  “I’d rather not debate this right now,” Salamanca said. “The Hashmedai are indeed here, and apparently can appear out of nowhere.”

  “We got that data being looked at now,” said Landis.

  “Viceroy,” Salamanca said to Crimei. “Anything you could do to change the council’s mind?”

  “The only way Radiance will support Earth is if you join us,” he said. “And even then, it will be years before our ships arrive. As it is, your fleet is all that stands before Earth and the Hashmedai Empire.”

  “Ships that will be at a disadvantage without psionics,” she said, adjusting her glasses.

  “I’ll see wha
t I can do, but as a reminder I was given strict orders to have all my people leave your ships and stay out of this conflict. With that said, I need to speak with them.”

  ESV Winston Churchill, interstellar space, Sol system

  Gavin floated in the flight deck while maintenance workers in their orange coverall jumpsuits attended their duties maintaining the Solaris fighters and the transport that just returned. His head never lifted from staring at the metallic floor since he left his fighter and flung his helmet aside.

  Minutes later, he felt Aura’s soft brown hands touch his shoulder in a comforting manner. Looking up he saw that her face was puffy and eyes red.

  “He was counting on me to peel it off him,” he said.

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I... Uh... Fuck man.”

  “Too many people are blaming themselves for this, I don’t need you to join them.”

  “Aura. That pilot.” He paused, as Hammer’s last moments alive flashed back into his mind. “That pilot was a psionic, hundred percent, it had overshields and knew exactly where his fighter was going to be and shot in front of it.”

  “Not an easy task with the distances we deal with here in space.”

  “And my missiles. It used telekinesis on a set I fired,” he said. “During the invasion, they had some fighters that had psionics with them, but they were piloted by normal Hashmedai, the psionic was just there for extra fire power. Psionic fighters flying solo in an interceptor though, that’s a tactic we’ve never seen.”

  “I don’t think Radiance has either from the intel they used to share with us.”

  Video playback from the last moments of the Uranus outpost projected from a rear computer station on the bridge. Chris, Sarah, Tom, Karen, their rescued station worker, and Xavier stood around the holo screen and watched.

  In the playback Chris saw the crew panic as a small Hashmedai scout ship appeared. Suddenly a psionic teleported aboard with several Hashmedai and chaos ensued. Data records indicated that seconds before the Hashmedai teleported aboard, the stations mind shield shut down, thus allowing them to teleport over. After the carnage ended, a lone Hashmedai placed the strange cylinder device they found at the computer workstation in the command center. As Chris recalled, a team in the labs were tinkering with that device, trying to figure out its purpose.

  “What the hell,” Sarah said.

  “During this time, I ran toward my space suit fearing a breach,” said the lone survivor of the attack.

  “Well you did the right thing as the whole place ended up getting vented anyways,” Sarah said to him.

  “How did you survive?” Chris asked. “Sorry, forgot your name.”

  The lone survivor grinned. “Terry, Petty Officer Lex Terry. But yeah, once we picked up that transmission that was the end of it.”

  “You guys picked up a transmission?” Xavier asked.

  “Yes, a Hashmedai signal.”

  “That explains the ambush, they probably knew you heard it and went to silence you.”

  “Well whatever they found out in the transmission,” Karen said. “It should be in the download I got.”

  Xavier faced their android with his arms crossed. “EVE?”

  “Standby,” EVE said as her processors skimmed through Karen’s download. “I found the message in question, and yes it was an audio message being transmitted.”

  “What does it say?”

  “Unknown, it is spoken in the Hashmedai Taxahan dialect, I only understand small parts of it, not enough for it to make sense.”

  “Hold on, I thought you were programmed to speak all languages?”

  “That is correct, Captain Xavier, however the Taxahan dialect is a rare Hashmedai language, even Radiance knows very little of it.”

  “But surely someone documented how to speak it so that they can learn it with those language learning devices?”

  “Most of that data was stored on the data banks of the Radiance fleet, which as we all know got Swiss cheesed months ago.”

  Chris tried to hold back a laugh. EVE’s attempt at humor was cute.

  Xavier grimaced as he realized what EVE’s statement entailed. “The data was archived in their fleet. Bloody hell, it’s gone.”

  “Well, there’s Hashmedai on Earth,” Sarah suggested. “Maybe one of them knows how to speak it?”

  “Only a small percentage of Hashmedai speaks it,” EVE said. “Even then given how we’ve been treating the Earth based Hashmedai since the fall of the HLF, there is a thirty-three point three recurring percent chance they will cooperate.”

  “Not to mention most have gone into hiding thanks to the surviving HLF cells,” Chris said. “The only Hashmedai we know of are the ones in jail, so yeah they’ll most likely tell us to fuck off.”

  “Assuming they even know how to speak it,” Sarah said. “It would be like going to Japan and asking random people if they knew how to speak Swahili.”

  “Well,” said Xavier. “There is one person that comes to mind that could help.”

  UNE black site, Titan, Sol system

  Ella Lynn sat cross-legged on the floor of her cell. Her long and messy blonde hair covered the back of her white hospital gown. The palms of both of her hands were wide open as a Rubik’s cube hovered above each one. Both cubes were turns away from being solved as the invisible force of telekinesis was at work.

  A guard wearing a UNE uniformed stepped toward the force field that kept her locked away in her cell and looked on impressed that two Rubik’s cubes were finally solved simultaneously then levitated toward a pile of completed ones in the back corner of her cell.

  “Well,” the guard said. “It seems you have visitors coming.”

  Ella’s face twisted at the news, while she picked up two more unsolved Rubik’s cubes.

  With her mind.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Silver Raven, Rasi orbit, Barnard’s Star system

  A damaged power conduit exploded, raining tiny sparks down toward Veloshira and Eupiar. Their escape from Rasi was marred by the behemoth sized Abyssal Pelican. Smoke was starting to flood the cockpit triggered by a small fire from the overhead power conduit.

  Destiny watched hidden from them as the Abyssal Pelican came in and out of view from the Silver Raven’s cockpit windshields. From time to time Veloshira used the Silver Raven’s plasma cannons to fire at the ship. Destiny figured by the sound of Veloshira consistently hissing in frustration that their weapons had little to no effect.

  “Why do I get the feeling we’re not getting out of this one?” Destiny asked.

  “Vel says its shields are too powerful,” Eupiar said, brushing away floating and burning material from the ceiling. “And it’s weapons.”

  “I can see that.” Destiny stepped behind Eupiar. “Now what?”

  Eupiar and Veloshira spoke in the Hashmedai language. Destiny only caught a few of the words, none of them sounded promising.

  “She... says she doesn’t know.”

  “Fuck it, we should surrender. Didn’t come all this way to get blown the fuck up by these assholes.”

  Eupiar and Veloshira once again spoke. Veloshira’s tone of voice was a negative one.

  “Well?”

  “She’s really pissed off, but agrees.”

  Signs of the Silver Raven moving from the windshield came to an end as they made a full stop and their weapons power down. Two back to back blasts from behind sent a thunderous tremor throughout the interior of the Silver Raven. Destiny’s head ducked as another spark filled explosion went off above her.

  “Of course, if they don’t accept the surrender we just transmitted,” Eupiar said. “Then we’re fucked anyways.”

  The Abyssal Pelican flew in front of the Silver Raven. Destiny’s lips formed into an ‘O’ shape upon seeing the sheer size of the ship. The stars were completely blocked from sight.

  “They could have shot us that time,” Destiny said as the Abyssal Pelican continued to hover in front of them. The shields
of the Silver Raven shattered after another unexpected blast of plasma hit them. I guess I spoke too soon.

  “Looks like a tractor beam is pulling us inside,” Eupiar said.

  She was right, Destiny saw Abyssal Pelican get closer from the front, despite the fact the Silver Raven’s engines had long since powered down. Veloshira unhooked her seat belt and floated free above her chair before activating her cloaking device.

  “Not a bad idea.” Destiny grunted and floated back toward Jazz’s room. Inside, his black trench coat style armor and plasma katana floated. Destiny quickly swiped his gear then returned to the cockpit with it, tossing it toward Eupiar.

  Eupiar gripped onto Jazz’s gear with a puzzled look on her face. “Uh, I can’t fit into this.”

  “Do your best,” Destiny said then pointed toward a small computer on the wrist of the outfit. “I think he presses this button to activate the cloak.”

  “Des—”

  “Don’t argue with me on this one.” Destiny looked out of the windshield at the interior of the Abyssal Pelican docking bay. As the Silver Raven crossed the threshold into the Abyssal Pelican, gravity took hold unexpectedly. Destiny fell to the floor face first. “Fuck’s sake,” she said, crawling back to her feet.

  Eupiar’s small teenage form slipped into Jazz’s suit which was clearly made for a man of his height and body. Despite the trouble they found themselves in, Destiny found the motivation to smile at Eupiar as her hands couldn’t even fit to the end of the sleeves of the suit.

  “Radiance doesn’t know you are aboard, let’s keep it this way,” Destiny said.

  A holo screen upfront displayed exterior camera footage from the Silver Raven. Destiny and Eupiar saw a group of Radiance rangers decked out in combat armor surround the ship pointing their magnetic weapons at it.

  “Open the door and let them in before they rip it open themselves,” Destiny said. Eupiar nodded, her hands from inside of the long sleeves hit a button, opening the main entrance. Footsteps of marching rangers could be heard from the lower deck. “Now vanish, and stay low.”