Ethan let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "Sounds like a plan."
"It's a start. What else did you hear?"
"That was it."
"What about the Icosahedron? Any idea what it is?"
"From what they were saying, it's what you said—some kind of super-ship. They sounded convinced that we wouldn't have a chance against it."
"So this is a lost cause."
Ethan shook his head. "Not lost. If nothing else we may have a chance to rescue our families. Is your father here?"
Something broke behind Atta's gray eyes and he caught a glimpse of her as a child, looking lonely and scared. "No," she said. "You didn't see him on Avilon?"
Ethan nodded. "I did..."
Relief loosened the tightness around Atta's eyes.
"But I also saw you and your mother."
Atta's brow furrowed. "I'm there?"
Ethan nodded.
Atta blew out a breath. "That's frekked up."
"So what now?"
Atta pursed her lips. "We get you your uniform," she said. "And for now, keep what you told me to yourself. We don't want it getting back to Therius's ears that we're planning to find a way to stop him."
"Agreed," Ethan replied.
Atta walked over to the far wall of the utility locker, and Ethan saw row upon row of white uniforms and jumpsuits hanging on a rack.
"Oh," he said. "I thought you brought me in here to talk."
"I did," she said, handing him a squadron commander's insignia and a Star of Etherus to pin on his uniform. "But it was also our destination."
Ethan eyed the insignia in his palm—two gold chevrons and a silver Nova fighter emblazoned in the middle. It was identical to the old ISSF insignia. "How did they get these?"
"It was easier to use the old surplus aboard the derelict ships we refitted for our fleet than to fabricate something new. Uniforms were another matter. Most of them were either shot full of holes or already worn out from decades of disuse. Personally, I would have gone with ISSF black, but Therius prefers white. It's a devlin to keep clean, even with the self-cleaning fibers."
"I see," Ethan said, accepting a dress uniform and a pilot's jumpsuit. "Now what?"
"You get dressed."
He eyed her pointedly.
She rolled her eyes and turned around. "I see naked men all day long. No need to be shy."
"All day long? I wouldn't tell your mother that."
"I meant—"
Ethan chuckled. "I know what you meant." He disrobed and pulled on his jumpsuit. It wasn't the most comfortable thing he'd worn, but it would do. "All right. You can turn around," he said while clipping on his rank insignia and star.
Atta turned and nodded appreciatively. "Now you look the part of a commander."
"Time to act it."
"You won't beat Magnum in a Zephyr."
Ethan grinned. "You sure about that?"
Atta looked puzzled. "You do know who the Black Rictans are, don't you?"
It was Ethan's turn to be confused. "Should I?"
"Well, they're from your time, so yeah."
"My time?"
"Before the Sythian invasion. They were an Imperial spec ops team, and from what I hear, they were pretty famous."
"So you're saying there's no way I'm beating one of them in a Zephyr."
Atta looked thoughtful. "Well... maybe one way."
"How's that?"
"I'm going to help you."
* * *
Hoff sat down to eat with his wife and daughter.
"How was work?" Destra asked, while they waited for their servant drone, Triple Nine, to bring the food. Hoff could hear her clanking around in the kitchen—not that her was a meaningful distinction for a drone.
Hoff shook his head. "Same as usual." What could he say? Omnius was using his family to blackmail him into being the leader of the largest Bliss distribution empire this side of Avilon.
"Good, then?"
"Good. Yes."
Destra gave him an annoyed look. She didn't like how close-lipped he'd been since they'd left Etheria. He'd lied to his wife in the past about what he was doing, and she suspected he was doing it again.
She was right.
Triple Nine hove into view balancing a large platter of food in one hand, and a stack of plates and cutlery in the other.
"Good evening."
Hoff eyed the platter, his nose twitching. "What's that?"
"Tonight we have stonefish fillet and roasted squash with a honey-drizzled snowberry pie for dessert," Triple Nine replied.
"Sounds yummy," Atta said, rubbing her hands together.
Hoff favored his daughter with a smile. She was almost seventeen now, and more beautiful than ever. She wouldn't change much from this point on. Omnius had frozen the aging process for all the clones at twenty-one. As a result, he and Destra looked more like Atta's siblings than her parents. Unfortunately in the Null Zone their youth and beauty made all of them targets. They looked out of place, and immortal clones were not welcome among mortals. If it weren't for Triple Nine, they'd all have been killed several times already.
Turning to the living room, Hoff waved the holoscreen on. It was already set to the local news, so he didn't need to change the channel. An aging Null reporter appeared in front of a burning building on the surface of Avilon.
"The White Skulls struck again this morning in what appears to be yet another retaliatory gesture. At nine o'clock this morning, a firebomb exploded, burning up this convenience store in seconds, with its owner still inside. According to Enforcer reports, the storekeeper turned in a pair of local Bliss pushers just two days before the incident occurred, and eye witnesses confirm that they saw known White Skulls members exiting the store less than an hour prior to the incident. The message seems to be clear: you blow the whistle on us, and we'll blow you up."
"Switch that off, Hoff. This is family time."
Hoff waved the screen off and turned away slowly, his cheeks slack, his face pale. He didn't order that retaliation. In fact, he'd specifically ordered everyone to stop all the unnecessary violence. Omnius was forcing them to distribute Bliss, but they didn't need to go around killing innocent people to do it.
"Hoff? Are you okay?"
He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut. "I'm fine, just tired," he said, rubbing his eyes with one hand.
Destra placed a hand on his arm and squeezed. "You've been working too hard. You need to take a break."
"Yes... I think you're right." Hoff looked up to see Triple Nine staring at him with her glowing white photoreceptors. "Would you like some wine to ease your nerves, sir?"
Hoff stared into those artificial eyes. Nine's face was expressionless, but he could have sworn there was amusement shining in her luminous eyes, as if Omnius were looking through her and laughing at him.
"Yes, please," he said.
"I'll be right back," Nine said.
Hoff watched her go clanking off, her mirror-smooth armor throwing off sharp slices of light as she moved. That drone wasn't just a guardian; she was also an insurance policy to keep him in line. Triple Nine was a deadly reminder that he had no choice. Either he led the White Skulls and took part in their crimes, or Nine would turn on his family, and he would lose his wife and daughter forever.
Hoff looked away, his eyes wide and staring. Visions of that convenience store burning danced before his eyes, making him feel sick. At least the storekeeper was free now.
Freedom is overrated, Hoff, Omnius said, slithering through his thoughts.
"Hoff?" Someone was shaking him. "Hoff!" He blinked and noticed Destra staring at him. "Are you okay?"
He shook his head. No. "I think I drifted off. Too little sleep."
"Then we're going to bed right after this, and you're going to take a sedative to make sure you get some rest tonight."
Hoff nodded stiffly. "Yes, rest would be nice...."
* * *
"Jump successful. All systems gre
en, Captain Hale," a mechanical voice said.
Farah nodded at 767's report. She was annoyed with him, but she didn't allow that to show on her face. Bretton Hale was definitely floating around somewhere inside that shiny casing, but he wasn't the man he used to be. Now he was a pliant, efficient, emotionless machine. He was a shadow of himself, and a painful reminder of everything she had lost.
When Admiral Therius had first introduced her to 767, she'd wondered why—why get her hopes up, why bother rescuing a man from Avilon who was no longer a man at all? Then she found out that he'd been appointed as the ship's XO—her own second in command while Therius was off deck. It hadn't taken long in 767's company for her to realize that his purpose was to feed her outrage over everything that Omnius had done, to forge her into a deadly weapon of retribution.
Farah gazed out the forward viewports, her hands clasped behind her back, waiting. She heard 767 shuffle up beside her, his footsteps clanking against the deck.
A shimmer of light appeared between the stars, like a shoal of fish changing direction. "There they are," Farah said. Thousands of warships of all different sizes and strengths had just jumped into the system.
"Report!" Farah called out.
"All battle groups arrived with near-perfect synchrony, ma'am," the sensor operator replied.
"Are they in formation?"
"They are in a spherical formation with a diameter of 13,500 klicks. That would put them 585 klicks above the surface of Avilon, with a mean variation of 350 klicks."
Farah shook her head. "If that's the mean variation, then how close is the nearest ship to the hypothetical surface?"
"We have over six hundred vessels that jumped in just ten clicks above the surface, ma'am."
"Unacceptable. That would put them inside the atmosphere. The tidal forces of the jump will rip them apart. We can't afford to lose that many."
"We could widen our jump parameters, loosen the formation."
"We need to catch the drone garrison by surprise. To do that we have to be close enough to open fire the instant we arrive."
"Then we may have to concede some losses, ma'am."
Farah shook her head. "No. Comms! Have the captains who jumped too close make further refinements to their jump algorithms. We're going to try again."
"Yes, ma'am."
Chapter 30
Ethan watched as the simulator's opaque canopy swung shut over his head. Magnum waved to him from the pod next to his. Then Ethan's pod sealed, and holoscreens glowed to life all around him. Space dazzled with a million pinpricks of light, and control surfaces shone bright blue all around him. The controls were familiar, but it had been a long time since Ethan had flown a Nova. He had three main displays in front of him, throttle controls on his left, and rudder pedals underfoot to control the maneuvering thrusters—or control surfaces while in atmosphere.
Ethan took a deep breath and flexed his right hand around the flight stick while his left hand gripped the throttle. As he moved the stick, he actually felt the push and pull of his inertia fighting sudden changes in direction. The simulator was so realistic that he had to remind himself it wasn't real.
"You ready, greeny?"
"That's commander to you, Lieutenant."
An affirmative comm click was Magnum's only reply.
Ethan glanced out the side of his cockpit to see Magnum right there beside him. The simulation was a simple one—the simpler the better to prove who was the best pilot. They were on the same team against a superior number of drone fighters. Ethan had never had a chance to see what a drone fighter could do while he'd been in the Null Zone, but he'd seen a few of them on the news nets, so he had some idea. He guessed that they would be faster and more maneuverable, but he hoped they might be weaker in some other respect—armor and shielding perhaps.
Ethan thumbed over to Hailfire missiles and primed his triple "Lancer" lasers. He set them to single fire, and waited. The enemy should be appearing any second now...
He had no warning at all, just a faint chirp from his threat detection system, warning him about a suspicious anomaly, and then bright red lasers flashed out toward him.
A handful glanced off his forward shields, hissing like water on a stove top. Ethan stomped on the left rudder pedal and slammed the flight stick to the same side, sending his Nova into a corkscrewing roll to evade enemy fire. The drones flew past him with a thunderous roar.
"They came out of nowhere!" Ethan growled.
Laughter jackhammered through the comms. "They're cloaked. Our sensors have been upgraded, but the little frekkers still don't show up 'till they're right on top of you. Gets the blood pumpin' don't it?" In the background Ethan heard the simulated roar of an explosion, followed by Magnum hooting and roaring with delight. "That's one!"
Ethan scowled; he killed thrust and pulled up hard to flip his Nova 180 degrees and put its tail where its nose used to be. He bracketed the nearest enemy target and let loose a dazzling stream of fire. Lasers flashed to all sides of him, provoking a screeching roar from the sound in space simulator. Ethan's first half-dozen shots hit, eliciting bright flares of light from the drone's shields. Then it exploded with a burst of light and a belated boom that rattled his cockpit's speakers. Ethan went straight from that target to the next one and switched to Hailfire missiles.
The enemy fighter was too close and coming about fast. Ethan dumb-fired two missiles without a proper target lock, estimating where the enemy would be. The missiles raced out on hot orange contrails and each split into four smaller "shards" just before reaching their target. Then the drone set off their proximity fuses and all of them exploded at once, engulfing the enemy fighter in a firestorm of shrapnel. The drone raced through the explosions, both wings sliced off, but still flying.
Ethan gaped at it even as it opened fire on him in a dazzling crimson stream of energy. He slammed the throttle up past the stops, and jerked the stick in a circle while applying the rudder randomly. One laser hit home, a direct hit on his canopy. His shields flared and blinded him, the hiss of dissipating energy roaring deafeningly loud in his ears. Ethan fired back blindly, shooting another hailfire.
Boom!
It exploded almost immediately after it was released, and Ethan's Nova rocked in the explosion. A siren screamed, warning that forward shields were in the red. He stabbed a button to equalize them, and then set shields to auto-equalize so he wouldn't have to micromanage them. The drone raced by in a blur, clocking in on his HUD at 315 KAPS.
That was almost double his Nova's maximum acceleration. He'd been right, drones fighters were blindingly fast.
Another boom rumbled over the comms. "Whoop whoop!" Magnum crowed. "That's three!"
Ethan grimaced. He had some catching up to do. Magnum was an excellent pilot, much better than Ethan had expected from a stomper. He glanced at his star map to find the nearest concentration of enemy fighters. He found just three more within range, but another dozen were screaming in toward the engagement in two separate waves. When those waves hit, neither he nor Magnum would last long. He needed to play this smart if he was going to win, but how to outsmart a drone?
Ethan heard the warning screech of an enemy laser lock, and he jerked his Nova into a quick dive. A stream of enemy fire streaked by overhead, followed a split second later by the drone fighter that had been burning up his six. The enemy fighter's thrusters glowed a dazzling red as it roared away. Then, without warning, it flipped 180 degrees and opened fire. More shots went hissing off his shields, but Ethan took advantage of the enemy fighter's inability to maneuver while under zero thrust and fired back. He managed to score a few hits, but the drone gunned its thrusters and shot away before he could do any damage.
Ethan disabled his own thrusters and flipped his Nova around to track the enemy fighter. He scored two hits back-to-back on the drone's thrusters. One of those thrusters exploded and ripped the back half of the fighter apart in a fiery cloud of debris that quickly went cold and dark. That's two, he thought while r
eengaging thrust.
But Magnum was still beating him with three kills, and there were only two drones left besides the dozen incoming. He was about to lose this contest spectacularly.
Think smart! Drones were computers with limited intelligence—particularly these drones, since Omnius wasn't actually the one remote-piloting them—so what would defeat their programming?
He had an idea. He wasn't sure it would work, but it was worth a shot.
Ethan pushed his fighter into overdrive, setting course for the incoming wave of enemy fighters. He thumbed over to Silverstreak torpedoes and set a proximity fuse of one klick. Silverstreaks were no good at tracking fighters, but they packed a much bigger punch than Hailfires, and they could take out several enemy fighters at once if they were flying in close formation—such as the oncoming waves of drones.
Ethan watched on the grid as the drone that had been harassing him came back around for another pass. Perfect, he thought. He nudged his throttle up another notch, pushing it even further into overdrive. The Nova's thrusters became a deafening roar in his ears. The fighter rattled and shook around him.
Then came Magnum's voice: "You're skriffy as a space rat, Commander! You can't handle two or three at a time, so you thought you'd try a dozen?" An explosion came roaring over the comms. "That's four! What you at? Two? Damn, I thought you were a good pilot. I guess I—"
Ethan muted the channel. He needed to focus on what he was doing. He saw a drone coming up fast on his six, and dead ahead the first wave of enemy fighters had almost reached firing range. Another minute or two and they'd all open fire on him at once, vaporizing his Nova before he could put his plan into action. He had to time this perfectly. There was no room for error. He toggled through displays on his left holo display until he found the engineering panel. Then he selected all of the Nova's critical systems.
An alarm sounded from the threat detection system, followed by the hiss of enemy lasers burning up his aft shields. The drone on his six had caught up. Ethan went evasive, but not too evasive. Shots kept getting through. He watched carefully as his shields dropped from blue to green, to yellow, to red, and finally... black.
Dark Space- The Complete Series Page 201