Avenging Angels (The Seraphim Chronicles Book 1) (48 page)

She did not know what the opposing force believed, but she really did not care. She wanted to save her parents and their research, and she had committed to die trying.

In the few moments before Evangeline and her squadron were in range of the oncoming slaughter, Jack stared at his holographic battlefield, trying to contrive a way he could improve the odds. The last transport, filled with civilians, had launched from the base, leaving him alone with the pair of sentries who had volunteered to protect him from personal attack outside the bunker. The weight of his loneliness in the virtual arena with Gideon pressed down upon him.

Jack watched the green and white figures soar through the air, heading straight toward the red V. The Leviathan had broken away from the combat area in pursuit of the small escape transports. They were slow and lumbering, yet they continued to climb higher into the atmosphere.

Gideon monitored the communication between the carrier and the red dots. The larger enemy force had engaged Evangeline and her comrades in aerial combat. Their X formation had been broken up in the dogfight. The red and green lights had strafed and swarmed through each other while the Leviathan moved closer to the civilian transports attempting to escape.

Jack leaned against the holographic display with his head bowed. He was wracking his brain, wrestling within himself to find another brilliant idea that would tips the odds in their favor and help his wife and friends cheat death. The anguish on his face intensified each time a green dot flickered and disappeared from the display.

Gideon turned his attention from a schematic of the TRTVs command functions to rest his eyes upon Jack. “What is the advantage of the auto-pilot return protocol?” he asked.

He posed the question in the same innocent way a child asks why the sky is blue. Jack’s attention was wholly absorbed by the cloud of colored dots swirling and interweaving with each other in an airborne dance. He responded without looking up from the hologram.

“I suppose it’s so that if a pilot were unable to return to base by themselves, the TRTV could survive on its own. Why?”

Gideon enlarged the TRTV schematic and moved it to hover above the hologram of the battlefield. When it appeared in front of Jack’s face, he looked up to give Gideon his full attention.

“There is a flaw in the auto-pilot protocols,” Gideon began. “The auto-pilot can be activated and de-activated by the pilot.” Jack glanced between Gideon and the schematic, not seeing the connection.

Jack did not respond, so Gideon continued. “However, if the auto-pilot is remotely activated by the Leviathan, the pilot is unable to regain control. In what situation would it be prudent to deny the pilot control of his vehicle?”

Evangeline’s voice rang through the hurricane of battle noises. “It’s to prevent theft or desertion!” she yelled over the sounds of explosions and gunfire. “It makes sure a TRTV cannot be taken without authorization!”

Felicia’s voice chimed next. “I almost didn’t get away when I tried to steal my TRTV,” she added. “I was out of range before they realized it was missing. We removed that protocol on each TRTV we acquired.”

The sounds of battle continued to echo in Jack’s virtual command center. He started chewing on his lip, deep in thought, when he jolted from his lax and despondent position. He jogged over to the area of the map with the Leviathan.

“Gideon,” he began with rising energy. “Can you activate the auto-return protocol and send those ships back to the carrier?” He stood there with a hopeful grimace on his face. He was not sure if Gideon would be able to fulfill the task. Gideon turned toward the protocol schematics and performed another analysis.

“Yes, Jack,” he replied. “I believe I can.”

Jack gave a fist pump in the air, shouting a triumphant holler, but Gideon’s next words deflated his enthusiasm.

“However, once the Leviathan becomes aware of this, they can simply deactivate the protocol and allow the pilots to regain control and re-engage in the battle. There will only be a few seconds when the enemy craft would be vulnerable to attack.”

Jack felt deflated. The idea had been so promising, to send the enemy ships running back to the Leviathan. To eliminate all other possibilities, Jack decided to press Gideon for additional information on the protocol.

“Gideon, is there anything that might prevent the carrier from deactivating the auto-return protocol?”

Gideon reexamined the protocol in further detail, and then returned his attention to Jack. “If there was an interfering signal that blocked the TRTV from receiving the override command, the auto-pilot would remain in control of the vehicle and follow its last received flight instructions.” Jack’s eyes widened with a crazy thought.

“Gideon, can you remote pilot the ships?” he asked with hopeful intensity. Gideon tilted his head and calculated the variables.

“Once the auto-return protocol has been activated, I would only be able to block the override command and maintain control of one TRTV,” he responded. “What good would one TRTV be?”

Jack’s face beamed with excitement. He had a brilliant idea. It was crazy, but brilliant.

“You’re going to override them all,” he said with fierce determination. Jack strode through the holographic map to stand next to Gideon. The TRTV protocol schematic disappeared as Jack opened a virtual console on Gideon’s back and began typing at a furious pace. His virtual fingers blurred as he programmed a new function into his creation. When Jack finished, Gideon closed his eyes for a moment. When they reopened, his pupils had evolved from a single iris into a compound lens, giving him an insectoid appearance. Gideon turned around and looked at Jack.

“I understand, Jack,” he said, turning his attention back to the holographic battlefield. He reached out with one arm and touched the Leviathan. He then extended his other arm, touching one of the red dots flying through the air.

The moment his finger touched the red dot, Gideon’s body began vibrating and shimmering like light reflecting off the surface of rippling water. A ghost image of Gideon appeared, stretching between the Leviathan and the enemy TRTV. Suddenly the phantom image withdrew into the red dot, turning it green. It changed its course and began flying toward the carrier.

One by one, Gideon repeated this process until every red dot had vanished from the map. Now there was one large swarm of green dots heading toward the Leviathan. A smaller group of green dots swarmed behind, a single white star hovering in the middle.

“Evangeline!” Jack shouted with excitement. “I’ve just hijacked some additional recruits and sent them to destroy the carrier. Feel free to join in! They have all defected to our side.”

There were shouts, cheers, and sighs of relief over the channel.

“Are you serious?” Evangeline asked. “How in the world did you do that?” Jack explained what he did to Gideon, giving him a replication protocol in order to commandeer all the enemy vehicles at once.

“So, now there will be more than one of him?” she asked.

“Unfortunately, no,” Jack replied. “He is only able to replicate a small portion of his program and transmit the copy with a limited set of commands… such as fly back to the carrier and shoot it down.”

Evangeline and the other Dissident pilots smiled and cheered. They had taken heavy losses in the battle. Losing even a few of their pilots proved detrimental against the countless forces against them. Evangeline, in her shielded prototype, had done her best to provide cover and protection for her fellow pilots. Their platoon of fifteen TRTVs had been whittled down to a mere six.

Off in the distance the re-tasked enemy TRTVs and HATs barraged the Leviathan with all their combined firepower. The carrier had ceased its pursuit of the Dissident transports and returned fire on its own squadrons.

The losses on both sides saddened Evangeline. Those were Olympic pilots losing their lives, unable to do anything about the cannons firing at them from their own carrier. Some ejected their vehicles and escaped destruction, but most of them died in horrific helplessness.

The damaged Leviathan managed to destroy all the mutinous ships, renewing its pursuit of the Dissident transports. Evangeline watched the carrier race after the fleeing Dissidents, worrying that the carrier would still overtake the transports and destroy them before they could escape through folded space.

She knew the other TRTVs in her squadron would be unable to withstand the carrier’s defenses, but with her shielding, she had the best chance of inflicting further damage before the Leviathan could get close enough to kill her parents.

She throttled the powerful engines to their maximum output and shot toward the smoking carrier. Jacobs, Kevin, and even Felicia shouted their protests across the channel.

“What are you doing?”

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“It’s in God’s hands now!”

Evangeline’s would not be deterred.

“I have to try, B.B.!” she shouted back. “Your TRTVs won’t stand a chance, but I may be able to do something. I don’t know; I just need to slow them down enough to let the transports get away!”

Jacobs came to her support. “She’s right, people!” he interrupted. “She has the best chance of preventing our cause from dying today.” He let out a slow, grave sigh. “God speed, Little Star! The rest of you, head back to the base and get on that last transport.” Half-hearted arguments and rallies chorused for following Evangeline back into the fray, but deep down each of them knew their efforts would be futile. They were no threat to a carrier by themselves, and Jack seemed to be out of tricks.

EIGHTY-ONE

Jack watched the little star rocketing toward the Leviathan, gaining ground as the carrier inched closer to the fleeing transports. He was fresh out of ideas. Gideon had reported that he lost all his access to the carrier’s combat systems, with the obvious exception that the encrypted communication channel he shared with Jack had continued to go unnoticed.

Jack noted the green dots descending down toward the base in which he sat, the thunder of their engines roaring overhead. One freighter remained in the hangar, intended to carry all remaining Dissidents, along with as many TRTVs as it could fit, off world.

“Jack?” Evangeline’s voice broke through the muted engines above. “Are you still there?” Her voice was shaking and Jack could see her chin trembling on the display of her cockpit. The catch in her throat betrayed the stiff resolution in her lips she fronted every time she tried to say something difficult or emotional.

“Yeah, baby,” his soft reply broke through the rumble of her engines. “I’m still here.”

There was a long pause. This might be their final goodbye, but neither of them knew what to say. They did not know if she would survive her final assault. Gideon stood on the opposite side of the holographic map, analyzing the Leviathan’s damage.

Evangeline continued to chase the smoking ship through the sky. She knew the odds were not in her favor. Even in the advanced prototype, she was a lone pilot heading straight toward a battleship that, in spite of all its damage, still had superior firepower.

“Jack?” she whispered. “Have I ever told you about the day I fell in love with you?”

The question caught Jack off-guard. Over the years, they had often enjoyed moments of deep, emotional bonding, sharing the most intimate details about themselves. However, it occurred to Jack that she had never mentioned a specific moment when Evangeline knew she fell in love with him.

Jack cleared his throat as tears formed behind his eyes. “No,” he said as he cleared a lump in his throat, trying in vain to sound lighthearted. “You’ve never shared that particular detail. I always assumed it was the first time you came to my office holiday party and I sang that awful karaoke duet by myself.”

Evangeline smiled and a laugh escaped her throat. Jack’s humor was one of the many things she loved about him. No matter how bad her mood was, he tried to brighten her day.

“It was the night of our third date,” she began, her eyes brimming with tears. “We were at Tishia and Sam’s apartment, right after she had her baby. Remember that stupid game we played, the one where you tried to get someone to tell you they loved you without smiling? You had just lost to Sam, who had just failed to get me to smile. You walked over to me, knelt down, looked me right in the eyes, and said, ‘Baby, you know you love me….’” She had to stop and take a breath. She was having trouble keeping her lips from trembling.

“That was when I knew,” she said in a whisper, with tears finally escaping from her eyes. “I knew that what you just said was true. I loved you! I knew that no matter what, I would never feel the need to keep any secrets from you. I knew that you would love me and respect me for the rest of my life.” She sniffled and let the tears run down her face.

Evangeline glanced down at the map on her HUD. The Seraphim was closing in on the Leviathan. She did not have any more time left.

Jack quietly wept in his command center. He was on the verge of breaking down into sobs as he watched Little Star approach the carrier when Gideon spoke up for the first time in several minutes.

“I’m terribly sorry to interrupt, Evangeline, but the Leviathan has sustained significant damage to its port side power distribution systems. There is a possibility that if you focus your assault on the port rear quadrant, it may cause an overload and bring it down.”

The only sound in the command center was the thunder of the Seraphim’s engines until Jack heard Evangeline give one more sniffle.

“Goodbye, my love,” she said in a choked voice as the display of her cockpit vanished. The channel cut out before Evangeline heard Jack’s faint response. He spoke aloud anyway, and stared, longing, at the little star accelerating toward the carrier.

“Until we meet again,” he whispered.