Oblivion: The Complete Series (Books 1-9)

by Joshua James

  Ben was determined to break the Shapeless’ feeling of safety. Once the remains of the second and fourth fighter squadron formed up on the Fallen, Clarissa was given the order to speed towards the alien flagships as fast as possible.

  “C’mon, you little bastards, follow us.” Ben was hoping for the Shapeless fighters to follow. At first they didn’t. They continued taking it to the AIC fighter squadrons left behind. “C’mon. Come and get it.”

  About a minute after Clarissa started to make a run past the moon towards the Shapeless flagships, the Shapeless fighters noticed and started their pursuit. Things were going as planned as the Fallen and Reb-1, 2, and 4 attracted the vast majority of the enemy, giving the intended relief to the AIC fleet.

  Though happy that their plan was working, Ben was hit with the realization that they were being pursued by too many Shapeless fighters to count. As fast as the Fallen was, it wasn’t going to be able to avoid and outrun them forever.

  “What in the world is that?” asked Ada. She was the first to notice the bright flash on the moon’s surface, big enough to be visible from space.

  “I have no…Jesus!” Ben saw what everyone else in the space above and around the moon saw.

  The moon collapsed in on itself. And it happened at an alarming pace. As the surface inverted inward, a small black hole formed.

  Then space began to warp around the moon.

  Two of the Shapeless’ flagships were the first to feel the black hole’s pull. They were too close to the moon’s surface. First their outer layer of liquid metal got pulled off into the black hole, revealing the skeleton of the Shapeless vessels, individual aliens being sucked out and in as well.

  “Clarissa…turn back,” said Ben as he watched the two Shapeless flagships get sucked into the mini black hole.

  Clarissa tried turning the ship around, but it was caught in the immense gravitational pull of the mini black hole where Earth’s moon used to be. “I can’t!”

  “What do you mean, you can’t?” Ada said with alarm.

  “I’m telling you, I can’t! It’s already too late!” Clarissa tried as hard as she could to pull the Fallen out of the black hole’s grip, but she couldn’t.

  “You rookies,” Wan said, sounding calmer than everyone else in the ship, which was probably a first for the entire flight.

  “What?” Ben asked in confusion.

  Wan crossed his arms. “This your first time running into a black hole?”

  The cockpit was quiet now as all eyes turned to him.

  “You can’t fight it, you big dummies,” he said. “It’s impossible. But what you can do is make it work for you.”

  “What do you—?” Ben was about to ask Wan to explain himself, but then he saw members of the second and fourth squadron being pulled in as well. They flew past, unable to resist the gravitational forces in any way. “Reb-2, Reb-4, retreat! Retreat immediately! Return to the fleet!”

  “No, forward, idiots,” Wan said.

  “Hurry up and explain, dipshit,” Ada snapped.

  “It’s pretty simple. When you get pulled in it happens kinda like water going down a sink drain. We’ll swirl around, getting closer and closer with each rotation. The key is only rotating once, at most. And once you reach the point you wanna get out, then hit a fold skip. Full compression wave. It’ll pop you right out. You might even get extra propulsion from the gravitational pull itself.”

  “You want to fold skip on the edge of a black hole?”

  “There’s literally nothing to it,” Wan said.

  “We’d arrive right outside Earth’s atmosphere with a good skip,” pointed out Clarissa.

  “If you can control it,” Ada said. “Are you sure of that?”

  “We don’t have a choice,” Ben said. He nodded at Wan. “Good idea, Wan.”

  “Damn right it is,” Wan said.

  “But if we do that,” Ben said, “we’ll completely separate from the fleet and the fighter squadrons. They’ll be all alone as the only thing between the Shapeless and Earth.”

  “What choice do you have?” Wan asked. He nodded at the forward screen, and Ben felt a dull pain in the pit of his stomach as the small fighters that had come along with the Fallen were powerless to pull away from the black hole and were sucked in. More good men and women gone.

  Ben felt anger clawing at his throat. “Do it,” he sharply to Clarissa.

  “Spinning up the engines now,” she said. “Everyone strap in. This is gonna be a rough one.”

  Ben pulled his restraints tight. He knew that the shorter a fold skip, the sketchier coming out of it could be.

  “Fold skip in five…” Clarissa started the count as she still accelerated backwards, trying to fight back as the Fallen was slowly being pulled into the inner orbit of the black hole.

  “Something doesn’t feel right,” pointed out Ada. She could feel the engines spinning, as anyone on a vessel that size would. But the floor was vibrating. That wasn’t normal.

  “Three, two…” Clarissa got ready to initiate the fold jump.

  “Wait, maybe we should—”

  Ada didn’t get to finish her sentence.

  “Initiating fold jump,” said Clarissa right before doing so. There was a loud banging noise from the fold jump engines on the Fallen, and they went into the fold.

  The Fallen came out of the fold skip spinning end over end.

  “What the hell?” Wan shouted.

  “The local gravity,” Ada said. “It’s not just a black hole. It’s the loss of the moon. It’s wreaking havoc on the gravity here, and the fold must have—”

  “Oh God!” Clarissa cut in. “Hang on!”

  Instead of being taken to just outside Earth’s atmosphere, the Fallen was a couple of thousand feet above its surface.

  Clarissa just barely managed to get the Fallen back under control as it deployed in-atmosphere stabilizers and shifted to the ram scoop engine to provide power in Earth’s thick atmosphere.

  Ben barely managed to keep his nausea at bay. Smoke started to fill the cockpit. “Someone put out that fire!” he yelled.

  “Got it!” Congo shouted, unstrapping herself from her seat and leaping up in one motion. After regaining her footing—the fold skip left everyone dizzy—she hurried towards the back of the ship. She was instantly lost in smoke as Ben watched her go.

  A few seconds later the smoke began to dissipate. He felt a breeze, and assumed that she’d opened the rear loading ramp to vent smoke. A moment later, Ben’s HUD came to life with a message from … Congo?

  He granted her access immediately.

  “Ben, we have a problem,” Congo said without preamble.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m at the back ramp and … well, it’s just, aren’t you from Annapolis? I mean I’ve only seen vids, but…”

  “But what?”

  “Just take a look.”

  Ben leaned forward. “Clarissa, can we get a clear view of the surface?”

  She looked confused for a second, then shrugged. “Sure, I guess.”

  Clarissa descended below some clouds as she slid her hand over her controls, and the image on the viewscreen shifted.

  “What the hell?” Ada breathed.

  Somehow, through some twist of luck or maybe fate, they were, as Congo had indicated, just entering the airspace around the state-sized super city of Annapolis.

  And it was under siege.

  Shapeless fighters zoomed back and forth through the skies above the city, smashing into buildings, detonating on the elevated walkways, and slaughtering civilians as they went. Hovercopters strafed huge spacescrapers at the city center.

  It suddenly made sense now, why the UEF hadn’t flown out to meet the Shapeless in space. They were too busy trying to fend them off near the planet’s surface. Ben had to make a choice. He either returned to space and they continued that fight, or they did all they could to save lives on the ground. It was an easy, obvious choice, but he owed it to Rhule and Thorne t
o tell them what was going on. He opened a comm channel.

  “Ben,” Rhule grunted. “Thought we lost you. Again. How many lives do you have?”

  “Running low,” Ben said.

  “Hope you have some good news for us.”

  “Unfortunately not, Captain. They’ve already reached the surface.” Ben hesitated. “I don’t think any backup is coming, at least not until they deal with the fight down here.”

  Rhule was silent for a moment. This wasn’t the kind of news he was hoping for, Ben knew. He knew Rhule wasn’t going to like what he said next, either, but he must have known it was coming.

  “We have to stay down here, Captain. We have to help protect these civilians. I’m sorry, I know things are even worse out there.”

  “No need for apologies, son,” Rhule said with no pause at all. “Give ‘em hell.”

  “I’m sorry, Captain—”

  “I said no apology needed. We’ll be fine without you. We were fighting just fine before you showed up.”

  Ben knew that they were in no way going to be okay. If something miraculous didn’t happen, and fast, they were all going to die fighting.

  “Besides,” Rhule said, “I didn’t like the idea of counting on the UEF anyway. Even if a snake is on your side, he’s still a snake.”

  Ben could hear the smile on the captain’s face. Death might be coming for him, but this was the way he wanted it to come.

  “Godspeed, sir,” Ben said.

  “And you. Rhule out.”

  The comm went dead, and Ben returned his thoughts to the horror show unfolding in his home of Annapolis. He was sick watching what was happening, and he was sure that Ada was, too. There were people in those stacked buildings. Thousands were dying every second as Shapeless fighters dove into the city infrastructure with abandon. “Clarissa…”

  Ben didn’t even have to finish. “Way ahead of you, boss.” Clarissa pushed forward on the throttle, and the Fallen sped towards the city.

  Ada wasn’t conservative when it came to ammo usage, pouring fire into everything that looked even remotely alien. As she shot down Shapeless fighter after fighter, Clarissa kept low, close to the buildings, trying to put her crewmate on the trigger in the best positions possible to stop the aliens from purposefully crashing into another structure.

  “I’m not sitting here,” Ben snapped as he leaped out of the command chair and hurried towards the ladder that led to the turrets on top of the Fallen.

  “Abandoning ship?” Wan asked.

  “Go to hell, Wan,” Ben said as he shot past.

  “I think I’m already there,” Wan said with no hint of sarcasm.

  Knowing that every wasted second could mean an untold number more of civilian casualties, Ben moved as fast as he could. As he put on his seat belt, strapping himself into the domed turret, he turned it on.

  “Keep this up,” Ben said to the Fallen’s crew through his HUD. “We don’t stop until every one of those damn fighters is shot down. Understood?”

  Wan gave the least enthusiastic response, but a moment later Ben heard him talking to Ada as he began to take some of the load off her at the tactical board, helping to paint her next targets as they went.

  Ben hit a couple of Shapeless fighters as they flew by, slightly leading them so that the rounds from his turret hit their mark right in the middle of the alien vessels. His seat swung around and nailed two more ships behind them. With a three hundred and sixty degree view he could pick off the creatures one by one.

  “Animals!” yelled Ben out loud as he saw a hovercopter hovering near one of dozens of small inset side rooftops that dotted the edges of a central spacescraper, the ones that went miles above the super city. Cultists inside it were shooting civilians, who retreated to said rooftop to try to call for safety.

  Ben swung the turret towards the hovercopter. His first rounds missed, as Clarissa was flying pretty damn fast. Spooked, the pilot of the hovercopter tried to fly away, but not fast enough. A steady stream of the turret’s rounds blew up its engine and Ben watched, satisfied, as the vessel spiraled towards the city floor.

  Clarissa’s artificial eyes rapidly darted all over the place, trying to anticipate and predict the movement of every ship in the air so she could avoid colliding with any of them. The machines implanted in her did the math flawlessly, but it was still up to her to regulate her speed and make the required maneuvers. It was taxing. To make matters worse, there were a hell of a lot of ships. Not only were there Shapeless fighters zooming around in every direction, but the city sentinels did their best to fight back with their cruisers. And slowly but surely, the UEF military did start to respond.

  About thirty UEF fighters, the legit human version, had joined the fight at that point. It wasn’t much. They were in no way prepared. But they took some of the attention off the Fallen.

  “Attention UEF ships! UEF ships, please respond!” Ben opened up all military communication channels he remembered from his days as an officer. “Please respond! You need to know what you’re up against!”

  “Unknown ship, this is Corporal Holt. Identify yourself! How do you know this channel?” a woman’s voice replied back on Ben’s HUD.

  “This is former…hold on.” Ben saw two Shapeless ships bearing down on a poor hapless City Sentinel cruiser. He shot them both, the second just in time before it took out the cops. “This is former Lieutenant Commander Ben Saito.”

  “Former?”

  “That’s not important. You need to listen to me. These things that are attacking the city, they aren’t human. You can’t try to engage them like terrorists or rebels.”

  “Not human? Then what exactly are they, ‘former’ Lieutenant Commander Ben Saito?” she asked mockingly. “Alien?”

  “Yes. But that’s not important. What is important is that you get in contact with all the other bases worldwide. We need a coordinated counterattack or these things are going to reduce everything to ash. Just like Vassar-1.”

  “What do you think we’re doing? Sitting on our hands?”

  “You’re losing! Badly. And I know you saw what just happened to the moon. Trust me when I tell you the Earth will be next.”

  Ben didn’t try to explain the details. Hell, he didn’t have the details. He didn’t really think what had happened on the moon was done by the Shapeless. They’d been caught off-guard as much as everyone else. But whatever it was, it was a fine metaphor for what was going to come to Earth. There were more of those Shapeless motherships out there. And one only one of them could do all the damage needed to destroy the planet.

  Corporal Holt was silent for a moment. Then she broke that silence with somber unwelcome facts. “We’re doing the best we can. Most of the docks in and around the city have already been hit. Haven’t been able to scramble many fighters, only those on airstrips or that were already out on training exercises or patrols.”

  “How about the City Center Docks?” asked Ben. He was referring to the largest docks in Annapolis that not only housed fighters, but also battleships and even dreadnoughts.

  “Haven’t been able to….cultist sons of—!” From Corporal Holt’s line Ben could hear gunshots and shouting. Then the line went dead.

  “Clarissa,” Ben said in his HUD, “I need you to go check out the damage to the City Center Docks. Ada should know the way.”

  The Fallen shifted quickly and slipped through a handful of buildings as Ben fired on every Shapeless craft he saw along the way.

  When they got to the City Center Docks, Ben’s heart sank. The biggest UEF ship dock in Annapolis was in flames, black smoke rising into the air in a colossal plume. The cultists and Shapeless must have hit it first to prevent the hundreds of ships inside from coming out to respond to their threat.

  “Dammit!” Ben had been really hoping that there was something left there.

  The battle wasn’t going well. He looked around through the thick bulletproof glass dome of the Fallen’s turret and saw nothing but destruction. Spacescrapers
and apartment towers were missing windows where flames and smoke bellowed out. Even from the sky in an airtight ship, he heard screaming and yelling. City Sentinel cruisers either crashed into the endless skyline full of buildings or through the elevated walkways that connected them. More and more Shapeless fighters flew in from above, making the odds even worse.

  “We can’t take them all on, Ben,” Clarissa said.

  She was right, of course. And who knew how long she could keep up her virtuoso piloting? But they had to try.

  “We don’t stop,” Ada said with venom in her voice. She sounded so angry that she was actually chewing on the words before she spit them out over the radio. “We take out as many as we can until we’re dead.”

  Ben felt somehow energized by her simple proclamation. “We just need to hold on,” he said.

  “For what?” Wan asked. “A miracle?”

  “If that’s what it takes,” Ben said.

  The line went silent before Clarissa sighed and spun the ship around back the way they’d come, deeper into the city under siege.

  “C’mon, Dad,” Ben whispered to himself. “If you’re gonna save us, it’s now or never.”

  Ten

  A Hero’s Destiny

  Lee lay down on the lava rock surface of the Shapeless’ home planet. He stared up at the sky, looking at three moons. But they weren’t bright like Earth’s, or even green like Europa. All three were blood red.

  Coming into Lee’s view was the occasional but steady sight of Herald Stones being fired up into orbit. Black oil dripped off them as the dark mini comets sped towards the atmosphere. He was so tired, so sore, but he had a job to do.

  Lee crawled up off the ground. His breath came shallow inside the spacesuit. As he looked over the vast ocean of black alien oil, he saw the Herald Stones propelled upward by some force of this planet’s nature that was completely beyond him.