by Trevor Gregg
A crackling beam of red energy streamed into the arm, and it just disintegrated. Spinning the turret in a one-eighty, he took aim on the other arm. The ship jostled as an explosion ripped through the Custodian, Kyren’s shot missing completely.
Dammit! He thought while scrambling to line up another shot. He held his breath and squeezed the trigger. The arm shattered sending shards of metal spinning through space. “We’re free,” he cried out, but Alis was already in motion, romping on the throttle and sending the ship rocketing forward, just as a final barrage reduced the Custodian to wreckage.
“Kyren, those shields now, if we want to survive longer than the next thirty seconds,” she said urgently. “Their weapons are recharging, we’ve only got moments.”
He was still scrambling to find the shield controls when the Crevak ship’s weapons pulsed again, and this time they were aimed at them. Kyren expected the world to erupt around him as the beams punched through the ship. Instead, the vessel lurched decisively and performed a barrel roll, Alis managing to somehow avoid the beams.
She wasn’t able to miss the second volley, though. Beams of energy dug long, deep furrows in the Ashari’s skin. Inside the bridge, a panel popped open and sparks and smoke poured out. The engines began to stutter as Alis tried desperately to throttle them back up.
There were several flashes from the back of the Crevak ship. Then there were a half-dozen missiles, rocket engines burning bright blue, streaking straight toward the Ashari. Alarms went off on Kyren’s panel and warnings began to flash.
Alis keyed in a new sequence on her panel and the engines stabilized. She pulled up and spun around just as the missiles streaked past. She dodged another volley of energy beams, ducking behind the hulking wreck of the battleship. The missiles curved around the wrecked hull, skimming feet above it, seeking their target without mercy.
The missile alarm sounded again but it was too late to avoid them. They were going to take a missile strike head on. Would the Ashari be able to withstand the barrage, or were they doomed? There! Kyren thought, as he slammed his hand through the holopanel’s controls.
“Okay, I’ve either ejected our garbage, or activated the shields,” Kyren admitted, fear filling him.
With relief, he watched as a bright blue flash filled all the viewscreens. The ship’s shields activated, wrapping them in a protective bubble of electromagnetic energy. The missiles impacted with the Ashari’s shields, detonating in great blooms of fire, whiting out their viewscreens briefly.
“Elarra, where are we at with that jump? We need to get out of here fast,” Alis urged.
“I don’t know, I’m not an organic computer,” she replied with a note of strain in her voice.
The viewscreens flared again as another barrage of energy beams tore into the ship’s shields. The readouts on Kyren’s panel went red and began to alarm. “Shit, we can’t take another hit like that, I think the shields are going to fail.”
“Elarra, now would be good,” Alis implored.
“Got it,” she replied triumphantly, “sending jump heading to your terminal now.”
Alis lined the ship up on the proper heading and hit the thrust. She punched the jump button and the ship winked out of existence, just as the Crevak battleship’s beams tore through the space where the Ashari had just been.
36
Into the Fray
The radio crackled with chatter, but Alis couldn’t make out what they were saying. She knew it was probably important, but she didn’t feel like interrupting nap time… except that it wasn’t nap time, she realized. She had just jumped, it was jump sickness clouding her brain.
She shook it off and took in the situation, as Kyren and Elarra were struggling to come around. The voices on the radio were urgent, she heard a call for mayday. Spinning the ship around, she engaged the sensors.
“Elarra, where’d you send us? Where are we?” she questioned.
As she spun the ship around, a lush green planet with expansive blue oceans came into view, orbited by a massive spherical space station. Arrayed around the station was a shining white Consortium fleet. A fleet that was engaged in a full scale battle with small black triangular vessels. Weapons flashed, missiles detonated, shields flared all through the fleet. Listening to the comms chatter, Alis could tell it was going very badly for the Consortium.
“We are in the Tolraga system, that is the planet Echelon. The space station there,” she said, pointing, “is called Regalis. We must go there to rescue a scientist. We will need him if we are to defeat Tharox.”
“Wait, you mean we need to go there, into the middle of that battle?” Kyren asked nervously.
“Indeed.”
“Okay we’re gonna have to come in real hot, folks, so ‘buckle in’ as they say. Kyren, see if you can get a sensor reading to find us a hangar bay,” Alis ordered.
Kyren began to work the scanners, zooming in to try to find an opening around the central band at the base of the giant hemispheres. He panned the screen, his eyes scanning for ingress. He finally spotted what appeared to be a hangar bay and marked it on the viewscreen for her.
This was going to be tricky, Alis knew. Not only would they have to contend with the squadron of ships that were attacking the Consortium, but likely would take fire from the Consortium as well. They were going to be streaking straight through the battle, after all.
Alis hit full burn on the thrusters and the ship rocketed toward the chaos surrounding the station. As they neared the battle, Kyren verified the shields were at full strength. Elarra listened to comms trying to pick up any details. “They’ve been under attack for the last twenty minutes. Seven ships are crippled and thirteen more have suffered major damage, very few ships remain fully operational. Over half the fleet has been destroyed,” Elarra relayed.
As they approached the outskirts of the battle, targeting alarms began to squawk as the nearest Consortium battleship’s weapons locked on. Streams of high velocity ferrous projectiles burst forth from the gauss cannons, bearing down on the Ashari. Missiles burst from launch tubes and left streaking tails of smoke behind them as they sped closer.
Alis took evasive action a split second before the rounds hit. She dodged and rolled, zigging and zagging to avoid the streams of projectiles. The missile alarm screeched at Kyren.
“Kyren, shoot down those missiles quick, or our shields are toast!” Alis exclaimed.
He panned through the weaponry and located anti-missile countermeasures. He activated the countermeasures and several small spheres ejected from the rear of the Ashari. Small jets fired, positioning the spheres in the path of the onrushing missiles.
Kyren watched in the rear screen while the missiles streaked closer. They reached the spheres, and the spheres detonated, destroying the swarm of missiles in a great fiery blast. Kyren cheered, but Alis was too busy concentrating to rejoice. A triangular craft had just flown into their viewscreen, and it appeared to be heading toward them.
As it neared, beams of blue energy streamed from the vertices of the triangular craft, streaking toward the Ashari. Alis dodged the blasts, straining at the controls, struggling to keep her composure. She had just heard on the comms this was the 47th fleet… her family’s fleet.
Faltering, their shields were bathed in blue energy as she failed to dodge a blast, the flash blinding their viewscreens for a brief second. “Shields less than half power, Alis!” Kyren called worriedly.
She pushed all else out of her mind and concentrated on only her adversary. Letting herself become one with the ship, she felt time slow down as she dodged and rolled the Ashari. She blazed straight at her enemy in a deadly game of chicken.
The firing suddenly ceased as Kyren squeezed the trigger for the proton beam cannon. Sparks and flame blossomed on the black surface of the triangular craft as the beam arced into it. It faltered and broke off its advance, dodging starboard and trailing a thin stream of smoke.
Kyren cheered and cried, “take that you bastard!”
She knew this was a nuts maneuver, but they had too much velocity after outrunning the enemy ship. She would have only one chance to line up, and if she messed up, well, they wouldn’t be around to worry about the consequences.
She was quickly approaching the point of no return, so she cut the engine and goosed the maneuvering jets, spinning the ship around so the engines were now pointing at the station. She made tiny course corrections until she was sure she was lined up with the hangar bay, which the ship was rapidly rushing toward.
“Um, Alis, what’re you doing?” Kyren questioned as the ship was spun around.
Then she fired the engines full power, as the ship barreled backwards toward the hangar opening. A tremendous crash reverberated through the ship as it smashed through the force field holding the vacuum at bay. The thrust from the engines sent a few smaller shuttles tumbling in its wake as the ship streaked toward the rear wall of the hangar bay. The Ashari finally arrested her momentum, coming to rest just a few feet from the back wall. Alis touched the ship down lightly and killed the engines. And then finally exhaled.
37
Squiggly
“That was quite a landing, Alis,” Kyren said shakily, still feeling residual panic.
“Yeah, sorry ‘bout that, but I didn’t see any other way to decelerate in time,” she replied apologetically.
“We have no time to waste, there is a good chance Tharox is on this station already,” Elarra lectured.
Kyren tucked Theo’s ion blaster into his belt and motioned toward the airlock. “Then let’s get going. Um, where are we going?”
“We need to find this,” she said, opening her journal and pointing to a page.
A strange tentacled alien being worked in some sort of engineering bay or tech lab. On the wall above him was a strange signet of some sort.
“That strange alien being is a brontian, and that symbol is that of the Qurian Society. They are an order of knowledge seekers and scholars, and are spread throughout the galaxy,” Elarra explained softly.
“So you don’t know where on the station that creature is? Maybe I can program a search. Alis, can the ship link up to the station’s network?” Kyren asked.
“Yes, it should be able to. Hold on…” her hands flew over her control panel. “There, you should be linked now,” Alis replied.
Kyren pulled up the interface and began to build a search algorithm. He kicked the simple algorithm into action and within moments had a result.
“There, results show a brontian member of the Qurian society, named Benjam Antares,” Kyren read off, an image of the brontian creature displayed next to the data. It had tentacles at the top and at the bottom, and its face was placed in the middle of the creature’s torso. It had blue and purple skin, large yellow eyes, and a beak-like mouth. “His laboratory is Underdeck Sixteen, Sector Five, Room two-oh-nine.”
He pulled up a map with the route, and quickly memorized it. He had always had a spot-on sense of direction, and was grateful for the talent, especially now. “Alright, let’s go!”
As they entered the station, Kyren was overwhelmed by the pandemonium. People ran every which way, seeking lost loved ones, rushing to the hangar bay to escape or heading for one of the station’s many escape pods. They struggled to push further into the station against the press of bodies.
“We should avoid the elevators. Looks like there’s seven decks up to the main street level,” Kyren said as they made for a stairwell Alis had pointed out.
Panting and out of breath after the stairs, they stood on a sidewalk at the edge of the great city-dome. Lining the streets all the way to the center of the dome were progressively taller and taller buildings, until there were towering skyscrapers in a ring around a central park.
“The entrance to the Underdeck is about halfway to the center,” Kyren said, starting out.
“The energy usage of the station must be astronomical. I mean, just to power a grav-plate the size of a city, you’d need something like a valence generator or quantum oscillator, and even then on a massive scale.” Alis marveled as they trotted along.
“A quantum violence operator? What’s that?” Kyren asked Alis.
“Okay, fine, I’ll spell it out for you real slow. It has a really huge power plant. Do you get that?” She lambasted him playfully, as he smiled at her.
They were several blocks away, when a mass of people burst from one of the side streets, stampeding in panic. The sounds of high velocity rounds tearing through the air reached their ears. Skittering into sight, a deathbot fired both weapons pods, spraying the fleeing inhabitants with a storm of rounds.
Kyren was horrified as bodies were pulped right in front of him. The deathbot continued scurrying after the fleeing crowd, unleashing a hail of death every few seconds. Kyren snapped into action, grabbing the Oracle and Alis and darting down an alley.
They circumnavigated the deathbot, darting from street to street, checking around corners to make sure the way was clear. After some time, they reached the entrance to the Underdeck region of the station. They descended sixteen flights of stairs, Kyren’s legs trembling uncontrollably by the time they reached their destination.
Roaming the twisting halls of the Underdeck, Kyren finally located Sector Five. Reaching the door for room two-oh-nine, Elarra reached out and rung the bell. The door was opened almost immediately, Benjam Antares the brontian framed in the doorway.
“Mr. Antares, we need to speak with you, and there isn’t much time,” the Oracle said plainly.
“You’re right about that, there isn’t much time,” he echoed in a high-pitched, nasally voice. He left the door open and squiggled away on the mass of tentacles at the bottom of his torso.
They stepped into the room, and Kyren knew immediately Alis would’ve been captivated, had they not been in such a hurry. The room was filled with components, gadgets, and other parts unidentifiable to Kyren. The brontian was rifling through shelves and cabinets, grabbing devices and shoving them into a large case lying open on the floor. He stashed smaller items in a satchel he was wearing.
“You need to come with us, we have a way off the station,” Alis said. “I’ve got a fast ship…”
Alis was interrupted by a tremendous blast that reverberated through the station, nearly shaking them from their feet.
“I’ve got a way off the station, thank you very much,” Benjam replied confidently. “I have been instructed to make my way to the escape pods.”
“The quantum oscillator powering this station is enormous. I know you understand the scale, being a scientist, right?” Alis proposed. “How big a boom do you think it would make if it were breached?”
“Oh dear, we would be vaporized!” Benjam cried. “Please, excuse me, I really must finish packing. Perhaps we could meet another time? Who are you lot, anyway?”
Kyren jumped in, “I’m Kyren. This is Alis and this is Elarra the Oracle.”
“I must insist that you come with us for your own safety. You’ll agree when you’ve seen this,” Elarra said, holding up a page in her journal and showing it to the frantic brontian.
“Let me see that.” Benjam’s yellow eyes narrowed as he pored over the page briefly. He then went to a screen on a nearby wall and began keying in commands. A similar grid to what was on the Oracle’s page appeared. Tentacles flew over the holopanel as dots and lines were rearranged. Suddenly the entire structure went green and Benjam let out a whoop.
The stunned brontian asked quietly, “How’d you do that? How’d you solve my design matrix? I’ve been working on it for the last five years.”
“I saw the solution in a vision. I am Liadi and I have foreseen you, Benjam Antares. You will join us in our quest,” Elarra said, her voice confident and clear.
; “Don’t worry about what she says, she gets a little dramatic sometimes. Like I said, we’ve got a fast ship. I’ll get us out of here much safer than any escape pod,” Alis boasted.
“Have you ever ridden an escape pod?” Kyren asked pointedly. “It’s not pleasant, the deceleration and final impact.”
“Final impact? I don’t like the sound of that,” Benjam replied nervously. “If I go with you, where will you take me?”
“If you choose not to remain with us, we will drop you wherever you request,” the Oracle said convincingly.
“Never mind, I’ll take my chances with the escape pods,” he said timidly, closing his case and hoisting it with several tentacles.
As he squiggled toward the door, Alis stepped in his way. “Please, Mr. Antares, we’ve come a long way and risked our necks just to get here.”
“And for that I commend you, truly. But I don’t know you folks, as nice as you might seem,” he replied sincerely. “Now if you’ll kindly step aside.”
Looking undeterred, Alis continued, “Listen, if you knew what we were up against, you’d feel differently. The force that is attacking the fleet and station, the guy controlling them, he tried to kill me.”
“Oh I’m terribly sorry to hear that, it must have been disturbing,” Benjam said in honest surprise.
“But we can stop him, we can stop the force that is assuredly destroying the Consortium and burning whole worlds. But we need you, Benjam. We can’t do it without you,” Elarra pleaded.
“How can I do anything to stop this enemy? I’m just a simple scientist,” Benjam retorted.
“Your design matrix will lead you to the answer you need,” she spoke plainly, but with a firm edge to her voice.
“Hmmm, let me try it. I don’t think it will work, the two quantum equations are different, they shouldn’t line up,” Benjam admitted as he squiggled over to his holopanel.