Avenging Angels (The Seraphim Chronicles Book 1) (47 page)

The message droned throughout the motor pool several times. Evangeline had to create a noise-cancelling sound wave to dampen the tension of the ominous broadcast. Her anxiousness at the task before her began swirling in her head.

She needed to fill those last precious minutes with calmness. She suddenly yearned for Jack. She created an encrypted, private channel to Jack so they could speak openly and unheard by anyone in the base. She envisioned him sitting in a chair with his neural interface on his head, just as he would be working at home. She had walked by his office so many times to see him plugged in, busy working throughout the day on some new AI or feature for the Ground Zero arena. She had always wondered what it was like for him in his virtual workshop, but she had never asked to join him and see for herself. A strong wave of regret swept over her that she had not taken enough interest in his world.

“Jack?” she whispered into the dim glow of her instruments. “Are you there?”

“I’m right here, baby!” he answered. His voice was full of the rich, tender warmth he always used when she woke up panicked from a nightmare. “I’m right here!”

SEVENTY-NINE

High overhead in the stratosphere, the Leviathan loomed into position above the desert. Reynolds relished in the thought that below him, awaiting annihilation, was the greatest threat to the Quorum’s way of life.

              “Soon,” he thought to himself, “soon the Dissidents will be no more, and the Quorum will continue to improve ourselves and the entire Human race.”

He stood in the command center with his arms crossed behind his back. He watched his command staff continue their analysis of the enemy below, finalizing their plans for the impending attack. In his mind, the battle had ended before it even began. Within, Reynolds was already celebrating his victory. Check and mate.

“General!” The executive officer interrupted his reverie with an exaggerated salute. “We’ve reached the coordinates. Scans show an extensive structure below the surface, but we’ve detected minimal defenses.”

Reynolds could not help the wicked smile spreading across his face. He loved the thrill of battle, but what he loved even more was the unfair advantage, the stomping of his boot on the ants beneath him. The Dissidents should have known better than to leave themselves so vulnerable; it was their own fault for being ill prepared for their inevitable demise. The hour had finally come to exterminate their infestation.

“Excellent, Commander,” he said with a pompous wave of his hand. “Begin preparations for the assault.”

For Reynolds, the final moments before ordering the attack would be like watching an anthill under the scorching, focused rays of a magnifying glass. These rebels were as insignificant as insects, scurrying about to find cover or some way to attack the superior force striking from above. Soon, he would unleash his forces, obliterating the last vestiges of the thorn that had been festering under his skin for far too long.

The bustle on the command deck increased as each crewmember relayed orders to the flight squads on the hangar deck. This elite crew of TRTV pilots was loyal to Reynolds. They had been under his direct command and had enjoyed nothing but victories for several years. Kevin Turner had also trained many of them, but none of them knew that he was part of defense force that would meet them in the air.

The Leviathan buzzed like a hornet’s nest. The communications officer had a difficult time keeping up with the amount of data transmitted back and forth between the carrier and Olympus. Neither he, nor any of the junior technicians noted the large AI program that had download into the ship’s network servers.

Once Gideon had downloaded, he burrowed his way into the carrier’s communications systems and then partitioned himself within a ghost drive, complete with a hidden channel. With the extensive amount of network and communication traffic, the encrypted signals he sent to Jack in the Dissident facility below went unnoticed.

Residing in a veiled section of the Leviathan’s core network, Gideon opened up a display to monitor every system on the ship, including all of the attacking TRTV’s.

His channel linked up with Jack’s neural interface; he could hear Jack speaking to someone he did not recognize on the other end.

“Jack,” Gideon said, as he sorted the displays in order of perceived importance. “I’m aboard the carrier.”

Jack’s voice resonated in the virtual space into which Gideon had partitioned himself. “Let’s give them Hell!” he said with a tone of giddy determination. There was a low buzzing sound and then Jack appeared on the other side of a full-height two-way display in front of Gideon.

Gideon stepped through the full-height display like Alice through the looking glass into the virtual command center that Jack had been constructing.

Jack’s digital version of himself beamed with anticipation all the while knowing his physical body exhibited the sweaty palms of someone scared to death. As nervous as he was, and knowing their chances were miniscule, Jack dispensed with every pleasantry his mother had taught him.

“Alright, here’s what we’re going to do!”

eighty

From their respective locations, Jack and Gideon shared the virtual command center, a topographic display of the entire area illuminated before them. They could see every vehicle from any angle at any given time. In their joined virtual space, Jack and Gideon discussed the battle plan from both sides in hopes of giving the Dissidents as much advantage as possible.

“The Seraphim prototype,” Gideon offered, “is not currently in the Leviathan’s database. They are unaware of its existence.”

“That’s good!” Jack replied. “But the first thing we have to deal with is the incoming waves of HATs. The carrier’s initial bombing campaign will make it impossible for the transports to escape intact, let alone undetected. We need some kind of diversion.”

Jack paced the room. “Gideon, use your deception and camouflage protocols to trick the HATs into thinking there are large anti-aircraft batteries on both sides of the Leviathan. Make it look like they were somehow cloaked and undetectable. Then, once the HATs are otherwise occupied, it’ll be less for Evangeline and the other pilots to deal with.”

A visual display popped up over the area map. Evangeline was hailing from the Seraphim.

“Jack, can you hear me?” From the monitor’s view of the background behind her, Jack could see she was walking the Seraphim into launch position underneath the large hangar doors. “Jack, we’re about to take off. Do you have an update on the plan?” she asked with a hopeful pleading in her voice.

Jack filled her in on their plan to fool the carrier’s sensors. “We’re going to have to wing it,” Jack said with regret. “Unless there’s someone else out there that can link up and be in here with me, you’re kind of stuck with just the two of us.”

Evangeline did her best not to smile. She was entering mission mode and needed to focus, but Jack’s humor and self-deprecation had always been able to get past her defenses. “You’re going to do great, Jack. I believe in you.”

Jack knew she was doing her best to make him feel better about the position he was in. However, he was adept at making battle plans that involved players in a game, not real lives with real consequences. There were going to be losses of life, but those losses were non-refundable. He longed for the tools and systems he had in his arena, the systems he used to cheat and create an advantage over other players.

Inspiration flashed across Jack’s face. He lit up like a beacon and held up his arms like goalposts. He looked at Gideon with a broad smile on his face.

“We’re going to cheat!” he announced.

Gideon tilted his head in confusion. “How so, Jack?”

With no warning, the holographic ship burst to life like a hornet’s nest, the HATs launching out of the lateral hangar bays. The swarm of ships emerged, forming a large V in front of the carrier and moving toward the Dissident facility.

“Gideon!” Jack yelled, staring at the hologram. “The anti-aircraft batteries. Now!”

Gideon thrust his hands within the hologram. From the desert floor on either side of the carrier, two columns of large cannons emerged, taking aim and firing upon the Leviathan. The virtual rounds of course inflicted no damage upon the ship. For the final part of the plan, Gideon accessed the scanning systems of the carrier and created a falsified report of damage received to the systems housed on the Leviathan’s belly. The HATs split into two smaller groups and changed their course to engage the fictitious gun batteries.

“It worked!” Jack pumped his fists in the air and grinned. “But it’s only going to work for a little while. Once they realize the batteries are taking no damage after all that gunfire, they’ll realize that there’s something wrong and start using their eyes. I don’t think we can get away with using that trick more than once.”

“I believe it’s time for the Dissident forces to launch their counter-strike,” Gideon offered.

Jack turned his attention to the display of Evangeline’s image. “Okay, babe,” Jack said with a note of sadness.

Evangeline had been mo-nitoring the battle, and she spoke before Jack could finish his sentence.

“I know,” she stated. “It’s up to us now!” She paused, and then tried to speak with boldness, but the crack in her voice betrayed her resolve. “I’ll see you soon, my love!”

From her cockpit, she watched the hangar doors slide apart. The desert floor opened up before her eyes, the bright sun flooding the hangar and casting stark shadows of every vehicle onto the floor beneath them. She could only imagine what it must look like from the carrier, to see a large square hole forming where just seconds before it was a flat, empty nothing.

She heard Jacobs’ voice come across her headset. As the highest-ranking pilot, he was leading the assault. “Okay, people,” he said with the tone that never failed to encourage his subordinates. “This is our day. We have to get our people out of here safely. There’s no other option. Agreed?”

Every eager voice echoed their response in unison. “Yes, sir!”

“I’ll take the lead,” he ordered. “Once we’re in the air, everyone form up on me. Boots up in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1, launch!” The thunder of engines resonated in the hangar as fifteen TRTVs launched one by one toward the sky. With Jacobs in the lead, the Dissident pilots fell into position forming an X-shaped attack formation. As they rose higher and higher from the desert floor, the Leviathan launched its own wave of TRTVs to meet them.

Jack watched the two opposing squadrons of TRTVs as they approached each other. On the illuminated map, red dots represented the Leviathan’s TRTVs and the Dissidents’ as green, with the Seraphim represented as a lone, white star. Jack became lost in thought for a moment as he watched the little star get closer and closer to the red V.

Jack found himself yearning for the remote control joystick from his arena gloves. He was not accustomed to being so helpless in his mock battles. He imagined aiming his ‘God-Mode’ rifle at each red dot and picking them out of the sky, one by one.

The visualization made Jack freeze in place. He could not believe it the answer could be so simple. His eyes flashed toward Gideon in manic desperation.

“Gideon!” he said, leaning over the holographic map. “Can you access the carrier’s forward weapons systems and fire on the incoming wave of TRTVs?”

Gideon ran a simulation of the scenario and calculated the most probable outcome. “If I access the forward cannons and aim them at the opposing TRTV squadron, there’s no telling how long I’ll have control before the gunners manually override the system and cut off my access.”

Jack was pleased. Even a few shots would be good news. “Get as many shots off as you can before they shut you out, hurry!” Gideon thrust his hands into the holographic carrier. Weapons fire began emanating from the holographic Leviathan, eliminating several of the enemy’s TRTV squadron.

“Eighty-nine percent of the enemy squadron has been destroyed or have lost power and fallen the desert floor below,” Gideon reported. “The Dissident forces are reducing the number of surviving TRTVs.” The hologram showed the remainder of the red dots disappearing from the map. Two of the green dots also flickered and faded from the display.

Jack was grateful that Kevin and Felicia were not among those eliminated. He felt a tinge of guilt for being glad it had been someone else that had died. It was easier to cope with the losses if the fallen were someone he did not know. The most important thing to Jack was that Evangeline survived. Her brilliant white star on the display still shone bright, charging and weaving among the red and green.

Once all the red dots were gone, the white star took the lead position among the green dots as they regrouped, forming back into their X and assaulting the carrier.

To the dismay of all the Dissident forces, a second wave of red dots emerged from the Leviathan. Jack felt he had the wind knocked out of him. He turned to Gideon. “How many squadrons does that carrier have?” he asked with a sigh of defeat.

Evangeline was in the lead. Her prototype shield had held up against the enemy fire, though the experimental SINs had been otherwise untested outside of a firing range until she had launched the Seraphim from the hanger.

According to the maintenance logs she had accessed during her pre-flight check, the Seraphim had never made it off the ground before. Up until the battle, the Seraphim had only been a theoretical design, fabricated and shipped part by part, and then assembled at the Dissident base. She was impressed with the design, and yet anxious that no one had any idea what design flaws were yet to reveal themselves, but she could not give those concerns any more of her attention.

Her HUD indicated that the oncoming wave was comprised of standard TRTVs and HATs. The assault against the non-existent anti-aircraft batteries on the desert floor below had ended.

“I guess the HAT pilots finally realized they were firing at ghosts,” Felicia chimed in Evangeline’s headset.

The HATs circling the desert floor had ceased fire on their ghost targets and made their way up into the sky to join the V formation heading toward Evangeline’s X. On her HUD, she watched as the escaping transports launched from a hangar bay to the west of the entrance mound. She wondered if her parents had made it onto one of them. If they had escaped, would she ever see them again?

“Okay, people!” Jacobs called out. “The escape transports have launched and are making their way off-world. Let’s give these guys a fight to remember!” Over the channel, Evangeline could hear hoots, shouts, and various battle cries. When the hollers began to simmer down, she heard the soft voice of Kevin Turner in her ears.

At first she could not make out what he was saying, nothing more than subtle murmuring; but once everyone else had stopped talking, Evangeline could decipher the words coming out of his mouth.

“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.”

              The mood of the squadron became somber as Kevin closed his prayer. Multiple voices echoed “amen” over Evangeline’s headset when Kevin had finished.

              She respected Kevin’s religious beliefs, even though she was not religious herself. Her parents were scientists and they had raised her to believe in the difference between right and wrong, moral and immoral, good and evil, and it seemed to her that her parents believed the Dissident cause was good, right, and moral.