Dark Space (8 page)
“No, because it is a hybrid of two separate viruses and each of them will be recognized separately as a common, non-dangerous type. Moreover, aside from our host, who is carrying a mega dose of both viruses, none of the infected will even present with symptoms. Only subsequent generations of the virus which have resulted from mixing of the two base types will produce symptoms, and although the hybrid virus
will
present as a dangerous type and set off pathogen sensors aboard the ship, by that time everyone should be infected and it will be too late. The hybrid will kill its host within hours.”
Brondi nodded slowly. “Meaning that before the interrupter buoys can be reset, everyone should be dead.”
“Yes, arming the buoys is just a precautionary measure to make sure none of the infected escape with the virus, which is good—just in case, mind you—because the virus is extremely virulent.”
Brondi glared at the doctor. “I thought you said your vaccine will work.”
“It will, of course it will. But it is always good to have a backup plan. Had we not already distributed the vaccine in the rest of Dark Space, this virus would wipe out the last remnant of humanity. All it would take is one of the infected to escape with it. After all, that is the mechanism we chose for disseminating it in the first place.” The doctor held up a bony finger. “One host to kill 50,000. Rest assured, the virus will do its intended work. I must warn you, however, anyone who has recently left the
Valiant
to visit the other systems in Dark Space should have acquired the vaccine through the water supply by now, and they will survive. You will still encounter resistance among the survivors . . . although the number of survivors you encounter will depend on the number which has been travelling beyond the Firean system in the past few weeks.”
Brondi snorted derisively. “Yes, a few squadrons of novas worth of resistance. The rest of the crew never leave their precious ship. The
Valiant
will have a token defense of fighters with no support crew, and I have two full wings of my own fighters to deal with them in case they want to be heroes.”
Dr. Kurlin arched an eyebrow. “What about the fleet’s other capital vessels?”
“They’re scattered throughout Dark Space and still cut off from the comm network. Once they find out about the change in command, they’ll either surrender to my newly-captured
Valiant
, or they’ll be destroyed by it.”
Dr. Kurlin nodded slowly. “And my wife?”
Brondi turned to look at the old man. “She’ll be released to you as promised, and you can go back to engineering more bountiful crops for the agri corps if you like. Not that you’ll need to with all the sols I’m going to give you.”
Dr. Kurlin’s pale blue eyes held a world full of pain. “You didn’t have to take her hostage, you know. I would have done as you asked just for the sols.”
“Unfortunately, I’ve found that a reward is far less motivating than a threat, and I couldn’t risk you developing a conscience, now could I?”
Dr. Kurlin shook his head, and his gaze slipped away to stare out the forward viewport. “A conscience is a luxury that few can afford these days.”
Brondi shook his head and grinned gapingly. “I couldn’t agree more! Don’t be sad, you old grub!” Brondi slapped the doctor vigorously on the back. “I’ll let you visit your wife tonight, how’s that? Better yet, she can visit you. Call it a probationary release, pending the success of your virus, of course.”
“Yes, that would be nice,” Dr. Kurlin said. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” Brondi replied. “In fact, let’s have her brought up here now.” The crime boss turned to his comm officer and said, “Lieutenant Marik, have the doctor’s woman brought up to the bridge to see him.”
The comm officer nodded and began speaking into his headset. Brondi turned back to the doctor with a smile. “There, you see? No evil deed goes unrewarded.”
The doctor gave an unconvincing laugh, while his gaze and his thoughts remained lost within the nebula.
* * *
“Come on, Mrs. Vastra, you have a date with your husband tonight,” the guard said, pushing her roughly down the corridor from her cell. “Hurry it up.”
“To what do I owe this unusual courtesy?”
“Big Brainy must be pleased with the doc’s progress.”
Darla Vastra said nothing to that. She wasn’t sure what Brondi had her husband working on, but she knew it couldn’t be good. Her husband was a biochemist specialized in genetic engineering. His job was to help engineer more productive crops for the agri corps division of the Hydroponics Guild in order to feed the growing population of Dark Space. What Brondi could possibly want with those skills, was beyond her. Maybe he wanted to engineer a more potent stim.
Darla turned to look over her shoulder at the guard behind her. “I suppose you’ll be taking me back to my cell again after this?”
The guard shrugged. “I just follow orders.”
“Yes, I would expect that’s what you do.”
“Move along,” the guard said as he shoved her forward again.
Darla was marched past a handful of empty cells on her way to the waiting lift tube at the end of the corridor. She found herself studying the empty depths of those cells as she walked by, searching for a fellow inmate, but all the cells were empty—all of them except for the last cell on the right. Inside that one was a beautiful young woman. She was sitting up on her bunk, her face hooded with long, dark hair, and her features shadowed by the cell’s poor lighting. Darla felt a pang of sorrow for her. She couldn’t have been more than 20 years old, and she reminded Darla keenly of her own daughter who she hadn’t seen for more than a year now. Darla was just looking away when the woman sitting on that bunk stood and walked up to the cell doors. It was then that her features came into the light.
Darla gasped.
She abruptly stopped walking, causing the guard walking behind her to nearly bowl her over. He tried to shove her forward again, but she wouldn’t be moved. She felt like someone had stabbed her straight through the heart. She willed it not to be true.
“Alara?” Darla asked in a tremulous voice. “Is that you?”
The guard stopped trying to shove Darla forward and instead stood back to watch the developing scene with a thoughtful frown, his gaze flicking back and forth between the two women.
The young woman’s expression became puzzled. “No, my name is Angel,” she said, smiling sweetly. “What’s yours?”
Darla gaped at the young woman. The voice was Alara’s. The face was hers, too. But she didn’t appear to recognize her own mother, and she seemed to think her name was Angel. “What has Brondi done to you?” Darla asked in horror.
Chapter 13
D
r. Kurlin watched as his wife was brought onto the bridge deck. Her hands were shackled and one of Brondi’s henchmen was at her back. Her posture was defiant—her chin thrust out, her back straight, and her blue eyes glittered darkly. Kurlin knew that posture. His wife was furious. The man leading her onto the bridge passed charge of her over to the guards standing by the entrance, while he walked up to Brondi with a grave frown.
Something was wrong.
Kurlin locked eyes with his wife, and she held his gaze silently, but he had the distinct impression she was trying to tell him something. Kurlin turned to see the bodyguard who had brought her onto the bridge walk up to Brondi and whisper something in his ear, to which Brondi whirled around furiously. “Then why did you bring her here? You imbecile! Take her back.”
The doctor turned to eye Brondi suspiciously. “What’s the matter?”
Brondi shook his head. “Nothing.”
That was when Kurlin heard his wife shout out behind him, “They have Alara!”
Kurlin turned to see his wife straining to break free from the pair of guards at the door. A moment later, he felt his own arms seized, and he turned to see a guard on either side of him.
“What is the meaning of this?” Kurlin demanded.
Brondi shook his head sadly. “I wasn’t aware that she was your daughter, I swear.”
“Then let her go!” Kurlin roared.
“I’m afraid it’s not that simple.”
“I did everything you asked!”
The crime lord inclined his head. “Yes, that you did. Thank you, by the way.” Turning his attention to the guards holding Kurlin, he said, “Take them to the detention level and lock them up.”
* * *
Ethan stood naked and shivering in the stasis room, his eyes drawn to the nearest stasis tube. The room was vast and airy, filled with dozens of the blue transpiranium tubes. Ethan frowned uncertainly at the tube which was being prepped for him and turned to the doctor who stood filling a syringe at a nearby desk. “You’re sure this is necessary, Doc?”
The doctor looked up from his work and tapped the air out of his syringe. “If you want to get better fast, yes.”
Ethan felt the tickle in his throat abruptly shift to his nose, and he let loose a violent sneeze that left his eyes watering and his nose running. “Why don’t you just give me a pill,” he asked in a nasal voice.
The doctor began chuckling. “Listen to you!” He walked over to Ethan and gestured for him to sit down on the stool beside the stasis tube. “Don’t worry, you won’t even be aware of the time passing,” the doctor said as he disinfected Ethan’s arm and searched for a vein to inject the stasis preparation.
“Exactly how long will I be out for?” Ethan winced as the needle went in.
“No more than twelve hours. Possibly less.” The doctor finished injecting him, and withdrew the needle with a small, satisfied smile. “There! You’ll start feeling sleepy soon.”
Ethan was already sleepy; his eyes were slowly drifting shut as he sat there waiting. The doctor moved to key some inputs into the waiting stasis tube, and the blue transpiranium lid opened for him. Ethan peered inside. It looked like a coffin.
“Your stasis tube is ready,” the doctor said. “You may climb inside whenever you feel ready.”
Ethan rose slowly from the stool where he was seated. “What if you forget to wake me up?” He asked as the doctor helped him into the tube.
“There are fail-safes, but we never put the patient inside without specifying a duration for the treatment. Even were the worst to occur, and everyone aboard somehow forgot about you, the tube itself would wake you up.” Ethan nodded as he settled into the tube, and the doctor appeared hovering over him with a smile. “But you don’t have to worry about that. I’ll be here checking up on you every hour, and if not me, then one of the nurses. Someone will be here when you wake up.”
Ethan allowed his eyelids to drift shut, and he stifled a weak cough with his hand. He felt drugged. “Okay,” he said dreamily. “Hurry it up, Doc. I need to . . .” An overwhelming sleepiness overcame Ethan then, and he trailed off abruptly, his lips still moving, but no sound coming out. He heard the stasis tube shut with a distant click and a soft hiss of pressurizing air. The tube grew warm and he felt his mind drifting as though he were floating away on a cloud. Soon, he was asleep and dreaming of nova fighters chasing one another in heated dogfights across the rolling green surface of Forliss, blasting one another to shrapnel and raining fire down on the agri-domes below. Ethan wanted to object, to ask why they were fighting each other, but then he found himself flying one of those fighters and his own hand was tightening on the trigger to fire a torrent of red lasers at another nova as it danced around under his crosshairs. He scored a hit and watched as the enemy’s shields flared blue and then died, allowing a portion of the energy to bleed through. The port engine glow of Ethan’s target suddenly winked out, sending the fighter slowly listing toward the ground. Ethan followed his target, tracking it perfectly in its downward spiral.
His comm crackled then with a familiar voice. “You shot me, Ethan!” It was Alara. Her voice was filled with pain. “Goodbye . . .” She said as her fighter plummeted to the ground.
Ethan’s eyes flew wide, and he followed her down, saying. “Alara, punch out! I didn’t know it was you!”
But the only reply which came back to him over the comm was a hiss of static. He watched her fighter hit the ground and explode in a huge, expanding fireball which shook his fighter with a concussive wave. Ethan screamed, “Alara!”
And then he woke up.
The stasis tube hissed with escaping air as the cover slowly rose. “Treatment complete,” a computerized voice said. Ethan sat up with a shiver in the colder air of the stasis room. Gone was the tickle in the back of his throat, and he took a deep breath to find that he wasn’t stuffed up anymore. The stasis tube had done its job. How long had he been in stasis? No sooner had he thought it, than the current date and time flashed up in his mind’s eye, fed to him by the holo card reader implant behind his ear. Only twelve hours had passed. Ethan shook out his arms which were tingling vaguely with pins and needles, and he took a moment to look around.
The med center was dark, and despite the doctor’s assurances, no one was there to greet him. Ethan frowned and swung his legs over the side of the stasis tube, wondering what had happened while he’d been asleep.
That was when he noticed the body lying face down on the floor, clothed in a bulky white hazmat suit and surrounded by shattered vials of who-knew-what. Ethan abruptly stood from the stasis tube and turned in a dizzy circle. All of the other stasis tubes were full, their blue transpiranium covers dimly lit from within to reveal the faces of their occupants. Deeper into the shadowy room, Ethan could vaguely see the white glove and sleeve of another hazmat suit, peeking out from behind a trolley of medical equipment.
Ethan shook his head, disbelieving what he was seeing. This was a dream. It couldn’t be real. “Hello?” Ethan called out, and waited for a reply, but no one came bursting into the stasis room, and the body on the floor didn’t even stir.
GHOST SHIP
Chapter 14
B
rondi stood at the forward viewport on the bridge of his corvette, watching as the
Valiant
grew large and menacing before them. Beside him stood Doctor Kurlin, shackled hand and foot with stun cords.
“It’s the moment of truth, Doctor. If those batteries open fire on us, your virus didn’t kill the crew, and I kill
you.
” Brondi finished that last part with a threatening look cast the doctor’s way, but Kurlin gave no sign that he had heard. He stood with his shoulders hunched and eyes downcast, studying the deck at his feet.
Brondi felt a small surge of pity for the man. “I’ll tell you what, Kurlin. If all of this goes according to plan, I’ll re-invoke our former arrangement. You and your wife can go free, and I’ll pay you the sols I promised.”
Kurlin turned to look at the crime boss with wary hope etched on his bony face. “What about my daughter?”
Brondi held up a chubby hand to stop the Doctor there. “Don’t get greedy, Kurlin. She wasn’t a part of our arrangement. And I swear I didn’t know she was your daughter. If you want her back, I can release her to you and disable her programming for a fee.”
The doctor set his jaw. “How much?”
“How much do I owe you?” Brondi countered.
“One million sols.”
“Okay, then let’s say one point one million sols.”
The doctor’s eyes bulged. “I don’t have that much, and you know it!”
Brondi eyed him speculatively. “Are you saying your daughter isn’t worth the extra 100,000 sols?”
Kurlin gritted his teeth. “I’m saying I don’t have the money.”
Brondi shrugged. “That’s all right. You can owe me. I’m sure I can find some or other job for you to pay off the debt.”
Kurlin turned back to the viewport and sighed, his shoulders hunching once more. “Very well.”
Out the viewport they could see the bright, multi-colored engine glows of Brondi’s mixed type fighter squadrons, twelve and a half of them in all. Flying around them were a few supporting craft, including Ethan’s precious
Atton
which was serving in this operation as a recovery vessel for pilots—should they encounter any resistance that is. And flying in front of them and slightly off to the port side was a large gallant-class troop transport carrying a substitute crew for the
Valiant
. Brondi hadn’t been able to put together more than five thousand men, which was a skeleton crew at best for the city-sized carrier, but it would be sufficient for the time being.
He was placing a lot of faith in the fact that the virus he’d set loose aboard the
Valiant
wouldn’t pose a threat to them, but all of his crew had been inoculated with Kurlin’s vaccine, and just in case, they’d be going aboard in hazmat suits.
Behind Brondi, his comm officer called out, “Reaper Squadron is in range of the
Valiant
’s batteries!”
“Good,” Brondi replied, and watched intently for the
Valiant
’s long-range beam cannons to open fire on the squadron, but the carrier lay dark and unresponsive in the distance. Also a good sign was the fact that the
Valiant
hadn’t tried to hail them as they approached, and as yet there were no novas flying out to greet them. To all appearances, the
Valiant
had become a ghost ship.
Brondi’s mouth dropped open in a grin. “Alert the troops, Lieutenant Marik. We’re going aboard.”
* * *
At first, Ethan had a hard time understanding what had happened, but between the doctors and nurses collapsed on the floor in their hazmat suits, and the fact that he couldn’t leave the med center because the ship was under quarantine, Ethan began to realize that there had been some type of epidemic aboard the ship. A quick query at the control panel beside the entrance to the med center confirmed it. “Emergency quarantine in effect. Only properly authorized medical personnel may enter and leave the med center.”
Ethan frowned. How was he supposed to open the doors if all of the properly authorized medical personnel were dead? The waiting room floor was littered with motionless med workers in their pristine white hazmat suits.
It seemed like a mighty big coincidence that the mission Brondi had given him had been fulfilled without him having to do anything. Making matters even more suspicious, 12 hours ago, Ethan had been the only one who was sick. Now he was fine, and everyone else had died of a mysterious pathogen.
Ethan’s frown deepened. He wasn’t a big believer in coincidence. His gut told him that this was no accident. Ethan’s mind flashed back to the fiery red cocktail that Brondi had prepared for him, and he felt abruptly sick.
If it was true, and he had unwittingly brought the deadly pathogen aboard the ship, then why had
he,
of all people, survived? Moreover, if he had been the carrier of the plague and Brondi had engineered that, then it seemed like a waste of effort for the crime boss to have used Lieutenant Adan Reese as a cover identity. Why not just capture one of the nova pilots, infect him, and release him? Ethan supposed that doing things that way, Brondi would have had no guarantees that the pilot would head straight back to the
Valiant
, or that he would be able to take the carrier by surprise. A nova pilot being captured and then released was sure to draw a lot of suspicion from the fleet. This way Brondi had more control over the spread of the plague, and he had been guaranteed of results.
To Ethan the more disturbing part of all this was that if it were even half true, Brondi had never had any intention of honoring their deal, and Alara’s life was already forfeit.
Ethan’s eyes narrowed to deadly slits. “All right, Brondi, round one goes to you, but in the second round all bets are off. I’m going to find you and kill you with my bare hands.”
For the moment, however, his primary concern was getting out of the med bay and off the ship before the same thing that had happened to the crew happened to him. Ethan hurried from the waiting room, back the way he’d come. He was still naked, so he went to retrieve his clothes from the locker in the stasis room which corresponded to the number of his stasis tube. After that, he began searching the med center for survivors. The other stasis tubes were all lit up, indicating that their occupants were alive, but Ethan wasn’t about to risk letting them out. If they were in there, it was for a good reason.
Still searching the med center, Ethan eventually found himself standing inside a vast medical supply room. But here, like everywhere else he had gone, there were dead med workers lying face down on the floor and no survivors anywhere to be seen. Ethan eyed the nearest body with a frown. If the med center had already been compromised, why were all of the medical personnel wearing hazmat suits? Maybe not everyone had been exposed. . . . But the number of dead med workers Ethan had encountered belied that theory.
More likely . . .
Ethan’s mind flashed back to the med center doors.
“Only properly authorized medical personnel may enter and leave the med center.”
Perhaps the suits allowed the med workers to move freely through the ship despite the quarantine. It made sense, but Ethan hadn’t found any free suits. His eyes were drawn to the nearest body, and he shuddered with revulsion at the idea which occurred to him then.
Before he could change his mind, Ethan got down on his haunches beside the nearest body and began unsnapping the seals on the hazmat suit.
When Ethan pulled off the med worker’s helmet, he saw that there were no visible signs of what had killed the man. Just in case the man was merely asleep or unconscious, Ethan pressed a hand to the med worker’s forehead. His skin was ice cold to the touch, and Ethan recoiled from the body.
“Definitely dead,” Ethan muttered to himself. He quickly finished pulling the suit off the dead med worker and then climbed into it himself.
When Ethan returned to the entrance of the med center, now properly clothed in a hazmat suit, the doors automatically swished open for him, and he stepped out into a dimly-lit corridor. Ethan looked around, while listening to the sound of his canned breath reverberating inside of the helmet. There were a couple more bodies beyond the med center. One of them had on a white hazmat suit, while the other was clothed in a black fleet uniform. That meant the incident wasn’t limited to the med bay.
Ethan walked cautiously up to the officer, and then he bent down to steal the man’s sidearm. On a whim, he rolled the man over, but as with the med worker he’d stolen his suit from, there were no visible signs of what had killed the officer. With a frown, Ethan stood up and started down the corridor, winding his way around to the rail car system he’d arrived on just over twelve hours ago.
When the rail car arrived, Ethan stepped inside and found a few more dead officers slumped over in their seats or splayed out across the floor. He tried to ignore them, and instead focused on his destination. Using the directory beside the doors, he looked up the bridge deck and keyed that in—if anyone was still alive and in charge, that was a logical place for them to be. Access to the bridge was restricted, so the plague might not have had a chance to spread there. The rail car accepted his destination and quickly accelerated up to speed.
Ethan went to find a seat as far as possible from any of the bodies inside the rail car. Even if the bridge were similarly filled with bodies, Ethan planned to check from there using the life support systems to see if there were survivors anywhere aboard the ship, and if not, he’d abandon the ghost ship in one of the novas before someone came snooping around to ask him awkward questions. His excuse that it was all Brondi’s fault was bound to sound mighty thin to a fleet interrogator, and that was to say nothing of what they’d do to him when they found out he was actually wearing a holoskin and impersonating a fleet officer.
Brondi’s scheme had worked out just great for him. Without the
Valiant
in the picture, he would be rid of the vast majority of the fleet. The scattered remnant that had been stationed elsewhere would be hard-pressed to police Dark Space if some major upheaval were to take place—such as an open war between Brondi’s forces and those of the fleet.
Ethan realized that was likely what the crime boss had been planning all along—some sort of coup d’état which would install him as the governing head of the sector. He didn’t want to be rid of the government. He wanted to
be
the government.
The rail car arrived at the bridge after a few minutes of travelling through the network of tunnels which traversed the ship. The doors opened, and Ethan stepped out into a short, broad gray corridor lined with pipes, glow panels, and lift tubes. The double doors at the end of the corridor were jammed open with a half-crushed trolley full of hazmat suits and the remains of the suited med worker who’d been pushing that trolley.
Ethan walked up to the doors with a grimace. He stepped over the body to climb up onto the trolley and from there into the bridge. On the other side of the doors he found himself standing on a long silver gangway leading out to a vast array of forward viewports which stretched several stories high and wider than a seraphim-class corvette was long. Out those viewports he saw the Firean-Chorlis space gate and the Firebelt Nebula beyond, while below the gangway he saw a few dozen dead officers slumped over the twenty plus control stations of the vast warship.
But what drew his attention most of all was the lone man standing small and forlorn at the end of the gangway, his back turned to Ethan while he gazed out at the stars. The man was clothed in a distinctive, pure white uniform with gold epaulets and tassels. Ethan felt a jolt of recognition. Only one man wore a uniform like that. He walked up behind the man in white and hoped his eyes weren’t deceiving him.
As he drew near, Ethan felt a small spark of hope flicker inside of him. “Supreme Overlord?”
Chapter 15
“O
verlord Dominic!” Ethan called out again, but whoever that man was, he didn’t turn around. Ethan walked up beside him, and gently turned the man by his shoulders to get a look at his face.
He was gratified to see a familiar, ancient-looking countenance—the cheeks were sunken with age, and the man’s hair and eyebrows were a brilliant white. His nose was pronounced, but thin and aquiline and hanging low upon his face. His eyes were fairly unwrinkled, as though he was too serious to have ever laughed, but his brow was etched with enough permanent furrows to portray a perpetually skeptical look. The old man’s face perfectly matched the holos Ethan had seen of Supreme Overlord Dominic over the years, and the insignia on his white sleeve also matched the part; it was the symbol of the Imperium of Star Systems, with the six gold stars of the prime worlds arranged in a circle around a clenched golden fist in the center. What didn’t match the holos was the shell-shocked look of terror in the old man’s blue eyes.
Ethan gently shook the overlord by his shoulders. “What happened here?” he asked, gesturing to the reams of dead lying slumped over their control stations all over the bridge.
The overlord’s lips began moving, but no sound came out.
Ethan shook him again. “Snap out of it!”
The overlord smiled faintly and said, “They’re all dead.” With that, he turned back to the viewport and pointed out into space. “Company’s coming.”
Ethan followed the overlord’s gesture to a faintly glimmering silver cloud which was just visible against the dark background of empty space. From a distance, he’d mistaken those specks for stars, but here, so close to the black holes which rimmed Dark Space, the stars were never so densely clustered, nor so bright. These were in-system objects, glimmering in the light of Firean system’s pale red sun. They were the glimmers of an approaching fleet.
When he looked closely, Ethan was able to pick out the more distant engine glows of the larger ships in that fleet, and he thought a few of them might be a considerable size. Ethan nodded to the approaching enemy and then turned to look at the overlord. “Bring up a magnified view of those ships.”
It took a while for the overlord to respond, but when he did, he didn’t even have to say the command aloud; the magnified view just appeared on screen as though the overlord had a command chip implanted—which, Ethan considered, was probably exactly the case.
The
Valiant
’s targeting computer began highlighting known hull types. It was unable to recognize most of the enemy ships, since they were cobbled together from spare parts. But Ethan was able to recognize at least two, and once he did, his jaw dropped and his gaze filled with loathing. The first ship he recognized was Brondi’s corvette, the
Kavarath
, and the second was his very own
Atton.
Ethan shook his head, unable to believe it. “That kakard! He stole my ship!”
“Where?” the overlord asked almost disinterestedly.
“There!” Ethan pointed to his ship. The SID code was still broadcasting his name for it, too. “That one! The
Atton!
Brondi’s come to take charge of the
Valiant
, and he’s brought
my
ship to the fight. I’m going to kill that dumb frek!”
The overlord’s wide, shell-shocked eyes abruptly narrowed, and he began nodding his head. “The
Atton?
That’s your ship?” The overlord’s gaze was locked on Ethan’s face, studying him rather than the approaching armada.
Ethan ignored the question and shook his head irritably. Abruptly he abandoned his tirade to search the myriad control stations behind them. “Don’t we have any guns on this crate?”
“Oh, plenty,” the overlord said, finally sounding more lucid.
“Well?” Ethan demanded. “Aren’t you going to open fire on them before they reach us?”
“The gunners are all dead.”
“There are no autos?” Ethan asked, incredulous.
“None that can be operated from here. This ship was not built for a crew of two, I’m afraid.”
“You mean there were no other survivors?”
The overlord gave him a blank look, and Ethan sighed. “If you don’t know, query the ship’s life-support systems!”
“Right,” the overlord said, and abruptly a holographic representation of the
Valiant
with the decks exposed appeared hovering in the air before them. The diagram was peppered with thousands of tiny red dots. The overlord began shaking his head, and turned to Ethan with a return of the shell-shocked look he’d been wearing a few minutes ago. “They’re all dead.”
Ethan squinted up at the image, watching for a green speck to appear which would signify that someone was alive aboard the ship, but that didn’t happen. The red dots were so thick that it was impossible to see anything in between. Even the bridge deck where they were was a solid wall of red. “Wait a minute,” Ethan said, realizing what they were missing. There should have been at least two green dots on the bridge, but the diagram wasn’t precise enough to display each individual crewman with a dot. The sheer masses of red dots must have been overlaying the few sparks of green which represented the living. “Zoom in.”
The overlord complied, and the image they were looking at grew larger, quickly looming over them. There were over one hundred floors on the carrier, and all of them were crowded with red dots. Not even one of them was green. But then Ethan saw it—
“There!” Ethan pointed to a lonely green speck. “Magnify that area, and bring up a tally of the living and the dead.”
Two numbers flashed up beside the hologram, one in green—double digits—the other in red—five figures. Ethan tried to focus on the green number, and then on the rapidly growing number of green dots which appeared as the overlord zoomed in. “Hoi!” Ethan exclaimed. “We have 97 crew members among the living—counting us, I guess.”
The supreme overlord shook his head. “How are we supposed to mount a defense with 97 men on a ship that requires a crew of over 50,000?”
Ethan turned to the old man with a patient smile. “Doesn’t the
Valiant
carry two venture-class cruisers?”
Overlord Dominic began nodding slowly, and his eyes sharpened with resolve. “One of them is out on a mission, but yes.”
“That leaves one for us. Those cruisers can get by on a crew of just over 200. I’m sure we could manage on a skeleton crew of 50 and launch a few nova squadrons while we’re at it.”
The overlord snapped into action, hurrying down the stairs from the gangway to the control stations below. “You’re right.”
Ethan followed the overlord. “So, disable the quarantine and tell the survivors to meet us in the ventral hangar. The
Valiant
is not going down without a fight.”
“My thoughts precisely,” Dominic said, already keying the ship’s comm system to life.
DEFIANT
Chapter 16
“T
his is Supreme Overlord Dominic, to any survivors who can hear me aboard the
Valiant
. As you may or may not already know, we are in a state of emergency quarantine. The epidemic which swept through the ship only hours ago has left us devastated, taking the lives of almost everyone aboard. We are the sole survivors. But it appears this was only the prelude to a full-scale attack. We have an enemy fleet incoming, ready to take advantage of our weakness. In order to mount an effective defense, we will fly out aboard the
Defiant
. I am disabling the quarantine now. Meet me in the starboard ventral hangar bay. We launch in fifteen. Dominic out.”
Ethan watched the overlord close down the comm, and abruptly the dim emergency lighting of the quarantine was replaced by a comparatively-blinding brightness as glow panels all over the bridge brightened. A second later, the red alert sirens came on, and the lighting switched back to a dim, but now red glow.
“Let’s go,” the overlord said, striding back from the comm station to the gangway above their heads.
Ethan kept pace beside him. “You think we have fifteen minutes before that fleet arrives?”
“If they want to land to take this ship, they still have to blast their way into one of the hangar bays. The hangars’ shields should hold them out long enough.”
The doors at the back of the bridge automatically swished open for the overlord, and Ethan followed him through. Dominic stopped at the nearest lift tube. Abruptly he turned to Ethan and smiled. “I suspect you know who
I
am, but we have yet to be formally introduced. I’m Supreme Overlord Altarian Dominic.”
Ethan nodded and stuck out his hand. “Second Lieutenant Adan Reese.”
The overlord hesitated. “Lieutenant Adan Reese of the Rokan Defense?”
Ethan raised an eyebrow. If the overlord knew about him, his performance had been better than he’d realized. “Yes.”
“Impressive scores. A pleasure to meet you, Adan.” With that, the overlord accepted the handshake, but their hands missed, and the overlord grabbed him by the wrist instead. The overlord’s grip fastened directly over Ethan’s bandages, and he winced from the pressure.
“I’m sorry,” Dominic said with a small smile. “I didn’t mean to be so rough.”
The lift tube arrived to take them down and they stepped inside as the doors swished open.
Ethan shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. You’re pretty strong for an old man.”
The overlord quirked an eyebrow at him. “And you’re pretty soft for a young one.”
“Fair enough,” Ethan said, watching the overlord punch in a floor number—deck nine. Suddenly, the floor dropped out from under them, but Ethan felt only the slightest sensation of falling as the lift tube dropped almost 100 floors through the ship’s artificial gravity in a matter of seconds. The doors opened a few seconds later, and they walked out into a broad concourse which lay directly before a massive wall of transpiranium. Beyond that, they could see the starboard ventral hangar bay with the pristine gray hull of a venture-class cruiser clearly visible on the other side. The ventral hangar was truly massive to accommodate the 280-meter-long cruiser.
Ethan whistled his appreciation. “There’s the elegance to this beast’s brawn! Right where you’d expect to find it—hiding under her skirts.”
The overlord smiled. “Indeed. Normally there would be another one right behind us.”
Ethan turned to briefly gaze through a matching transpiranium wall to the empty port ventral hangar bay. After a moment, he turned back to the starboard hangar and walked up to the transpiranium wall to get a close look at the cruiser lying there. He couldn’t help but run his hands along the cold transpiranium barrier separating him from the ship on the other side, as if to caress the vessel’s rugged lines. “Whenever I see that ship, I see the ISS. I see 10,000 years of accumulated civilization. I see the endless beaches and crystal blue waters of Hanlay; the urban utopias of Advistine, Gorvin, and Clementa, but most of all I see the soaring, snow-covered mountains of Roka IV, the skies purpling just before a storm; I see the canyon cities and the glacier parks. . . .” Ethan turned from the transpiranium to find the overlord standing beside him, looking at him curiously. Ethan shook his head sadly. “And then I try to imagine it all gone, but I can’t. I wasn’t even there when the Sythians invaded. I can’t imagine what one of them looks like or sounds like. Of course, I’ve seen the holos of the war, like everyone else, but they don’t seem real.”
The overlord smiled. “You speak of Roka IV as though you’ve been there.”
“Roka was my home.”
The supreme overlord raised his eyebrows and smiled. “You’re a Rokan? What a coincidence, so am I.”
Ethan turned to the overlord with a frown. He hadn’t realized the overlord had been a Rokan. In fact, he felt quite sure that the overlord was supposed to be from Advistine. “You mean you lived there for a few years?” Ethan asked.
“No, I was born there, Adan, just like you.”
Ethan’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t say I was born there. I said it was my home.”
“Oh—” The overlord’s smile faded. “My apologies, I just assumed. . . .”
Ethan nodded. So the overlord was actually from Roka. Advistine must have just been the official line—it would be more politically advantageous to be from a place which the majority of your public could relate to. “Were you there to watch Roka fall?” Ethan asked.
The overlord shook his head. “No, like you I also have to struggle to imagine that the galaxy as we once knew it is gone.”
“Well, at least you saw some of the war.” Ethan turned back to the transpiranium, his eyes glazing over as he looked out the hangar to the starless void of Dark Space beyond. “You witnessed the destruction,” Ethan said distantly. “You know what it is we ran from. I keep thinking that someday my sentence in here is going to end, and I’ll wake up back in my bed to find that this has all just been a bad dream.”
He imagined that he’d wake up back on Roka IV, lying beside his wife Destra. He had nightmares like that. But then he’d wake up and realize that the dream had been a good one and it was reality which was the nightmare. In those dreams his son Atton would come running in and jump on the bed. He’d tell them that they had to get up or they’d miss it. Miss what? He’d say. The avalanche! Atton would reply. Then Ethan would groan and roll over like he always did. There was an avalanche every other hour on Roka, thanks to the mining in the mountains. Soon as the miners woke up, they started blasting, and then the snow came cascading down from those rigid peaks. Ethan smiled sadly.
Then Atton will ask me to take him gliding, and I’ll remind him that he has to be at least 10 before he can go gliding with me.
Ethan sighed. “I wish I could see Roka again, the way it used to be.” He wasn’t just talking about the cities and the landscape, but the overlord couldn’t know that.
Ethan felt a hand land heavily on his shoulder, and he turned to see the overlord staring at him intently, his blue eyes shining with suspicious moisture.
“I know,” Dominic whispered. “Immortals willing, we’ll see it all again someday.”
“Right,” Ethan nodded. “Someday.” But he was never going to see his son again. Or his wife. There was no someday that could bring them back.
A few seconds later, they heard a screech of brakes and the swish of doors opening which drew their eyes to the far end of the concourse and the rail car tunnel there. They watched as the first pilots began streaming into the concourse.
“By the Immortals, I don’t believe my eyes! Is that the overlord?” one of them asked.
“I think so,” another said.
“I haven’t seen him in years!”
“We saw him just yesterday in the holocasts.”
“I meant in the
flesh.
”
The group stopped before the overlord and stood at attention. “Sir!” They saluted as one.
“At ease,” Dominic said. “How many of you are there?”
One officer took a step forward and said, “Twenty-three, sir.” The rank insignia on his shoulder marked him as a Lieutenant Commander. A second later, Ethan recognized him as none other than Vance “Scorcher” Rangel. Ethan’s gaze quickly skipped over the group of assembled officers and he found four more familiar faces: Gina, Ithicus, Deck Commander Loba Caldin, and the curly blond-haired pilot named Taz. Ethan frowned. Most of the survivors were nova pilots.
The overlord appeared to notice that, too. “Nova pilots to my left,” he said, gesturing with his left hand. “Starship crew to my right,” he went on, gesturing with his right. “Engineers and technicians in the middle.”
Once the assembled officers had been divided, Ethan noticed that there were only two crewmen and one engineer in the entire group.
The overlord shook his head. “Well, we have a few squadrons of novas here, but not much else.”
“Let’s wait for the others to arrive,” Ethan said.
That was when Gina chose to speak up. “Adan, what are you doing up there?” The overlord turned to her. “Sorry, sir, but you should know that he’s a nova pilot, not a command counselor.”
“I’ll decide what he is and what he isn’t, thank you.” The overlord’s gaze moved on as another rail car arrived and spilled men and women into the concourse. The overlord called out once more as they approached, telling them to divide into nova pilots, engineers, and starship crew. Now there were just over fifty officers assembled, fully twenty of whom were nova pilots.
Dominic turned to Ethan. “How much time has passed?”
“Ten minutes, sir.”
“They have another five, then.”
By the time the third rail car arrived, all 97 survivors were assembled in the concourse, and
six
more minutes had elapsed. “That’s it,” the overlord said. And as if to punctuate that pronouncement, a violent explosion rocked the deck beneath their feet and rumbled ominously through the walls around them. Ethan saw the transpiranium wall of the starboard hangar jitter with residual vibrations, momentarily blurring his view of the venture-class cruiser beyond. Everyone turned to look out the empty hangar on the opposite side of the concourse just in time to see a whole squadron of Brondi’s junk fighters begin pouring bright yellow ripper fire into the port hangar’s shields. Lying in wait just beyond those shields were an old beat up troop transport and Brondi’s gleaming black and silver corvette.
The overlord turned back to his crew. “Looks like we’re out of time. Anyone with even partial experience in bridge control systems, follow me. Nova pilots, head to the hangar aboard the
Defiant
and get ready to launch. Sentinels, you can either come with us or stay back to slow them down, but I can’t guarantee we’ll be able to come back for you. Engineers to the flight deck with the pilots. Ruh-kah!”
Death and glory.
And with that, the overlord turned to the starboard hangar door controls and passed his wrist over the scanner. The first set of doors opened, followed promptly by the second, and then the entire group rushed into the hangar and on for the waiting cruiser.
Chapter 17
E
than Ortane hurriedly peeled out of his hazmat suit, leaving the constituent pieces on the hangar deck aboard the
Defiant
, and then he rushed into the cockpit of the nearest nova. It was a Mark II, an interceptor, but Ethan didn’t have time to switch to one of the more familiar Mark I’s. At least the speed of the interceptor would come in handy keeping him alive. As the canopy closed, Ethan punched the ignition and the fighter’s reactors spun to life with a soft
whirring
that quickly rose in volume and pitch. Ethan hadn’t had time to find a flight suit; he just hoped nothing happened to compromise the integrity of his cockpit.
Display screens flickered to life inside the cockpit, followed by the glowing green of the heads-up display. System reports bubbled up from his displays, and Ethan quickly skipped through them all in order to complete an abbreviated preflight check. His fighter faced out the hangar bay of the cruiser. Through the opening he watched as the half a dozen sentinels in the carrier’s concourse began suiting up in zephyr light assault mechs. One of them had even managed to find a giant, 150-ton Colossus to pilot. Those six sentinels had chosen to stay behind and guard the
Valiant
. But they didn’t stand a chance. The most they could hope for would be to buy time for the
Defiant
. Ethan took some comfort in knowing that at least the mechs’ armored exoskeletons would protect the sentinels for a time against Brondi’s thousands of troops.
Suddenly, the
Defiant
’s static shields snapped to life, turning Ethan’s view a fuzzy blue. Then came the not-so-distant roar of the
Defiant
’s thrusters firing, and they were sliding out of the carrier’s massive hangar bay and falling freely toward the ice world of Firea, far below the carrier.
In the next instant Ethan’s comm system flared to life. It was Lieutenant Commander Vance Rangel. “All right, pilots. I’m sending you your squadron designations now. Most of us are strangers here, so don’t complain about your squad and wing assignments. Guardian Squadron will fly out first, followed by Avenger Squadron. Guardians, you’re flying in the Mark II’s. The Avengers are flying in the Mark I’s. Our primary objective is the troop transport. The Avengers will take it out with their torpedoes while the Guardians keep enemy fighters off their backs. Any questions?”
Ethan watched as his own wing assignment came in, and he saw that he was designated Guardian Five, and flying beside him would be Marksman Gina Giord, Guardian Six.
Great,
he thought, casting a quick glance out the side of his cockpit to see Gina already scowling at him from the interceptor adjacent to his.
Ethan gave her a mock salute and then keyed his comm to ask the squadron leader, “What’s the
Defiant
going to be targeting with her beam cannons?”
“Same as the Avengers, if she can,” Vance replied. “We have a shortage of officers with gunnery training aboard, but hopefully the crews will pick it up fast enough.”
“Roger that.” Ethan watched with a frown as a junk fighter roared past the open hangar of the
Defiant
, spitting golden ripper fire through the static shields and rattling a few novas in their docking clamps before they even had a chance to takeoff. Fortunately the novas had their shields engaged.
In the next instant, Ethan heard Vance yelling over the comm. “
Defiant
, get those hangar bay shields up before they pick us off the deck!”
Another voice came on a moment later, “Sorry about that.” It was the supreme overlord. “Shields are up now. The launch tubes are energized. You can takeoff whenever you’re ready.”
“Roger that, Command. Send the launch codes. We’re ready.”
Ethan’s fighter beeped at him and the nav began flashing with a message saying,
autopilot engaged,
which was repeated by a female computer voice that sounded just beside his ears.
“You heard the overlord!” squadron leader Vance Rangel said. “Get ready! Guardians will be the first ones out the launch tubes. Remember to keep those enemy fighters busy!”
Ethan watched as the foremost pair of nova interceptors in his squadron began rising on their grav lifts. They ignited their ternary thrusters in a starburst flare of blue ion emissions, sending them jetting toward the glowing red launch tubes in the side wall of the hangar. Ethan watched out the side of his canopy as the interceptors disappeared into those launch tubes with a brilliant flash, and then the pair of fighters directly ahead of him began rising on their grav lifts. He and Gina were up next. Ethan’s comm flashed with an incoming message from his wingmate, and her voice filled his cockpit. “Don’t frek this up, Adan. I’m counting on you.”
“Likewise,” he commed back.
And then they were both automatically rising on their grav lifts and jetting toward the glowing red launch tubes. Ethan saw the opening of his launch tube rushing toward him, looking impossibly tiny for his interceptor, and he had a sudden, visceral vision of his nova missing by a narrow margin and exploding on the rim.
But the autopilot didn’t miss, and he glided straight in. A second later the glowing red tube flashed brightly with a release of energy, and he was pinned against his flight chair as his nova rocketed out the back of the
Defiant
and into space. A quick glance at his HUD showed he’d already reached his interceptor’s top acceleration of 185 KAPS. Ethan’s targeting computer flagged half a dozen red bracket pairs for him straight away—six junk fighters flying toward him in a staggered line formation.
“Incoming enemy fighters!” Gina screamed.
They watched as the first two Guardians cruised through the enemy fighter formation, roaring at them with a stream of red dymium pulse lasers. Guardian Two attracted too much attention to herself and the enemy fighters zeroed in on her with their ripper cannons. Streams of golden projectiles converged on her.
“Get clear Two!” her wingmate, Vance Rangel, yelled over the comm. A second later, Ethan watched her fighter explode in a brilliant orange fireball, and he heard her dying scream echo through his cockpit.
Seeing that outcome, Three and Four quickly peeled off from their head-to-head with the enemy formation, leaving Guardian One alone behind enemy lines.
“Form up, Six,” Ethan said to Gina. “We’re going to rescue Lead. Switch to Hailfires. These junkers have strong hulls, but they’re not fast enough or maneuverable enough to evade tracking weapons.”
“Switching now. . . .”
Ethan followed his own advice and began acquiring a missile lock on the nearest junk fighter. It was flying toward him at a pitiful 68 KAPS, and at 3.5 kilometers away, it was just out of laser and ripper range. Abruptly Ethan’s targeting computer gave the solid tone of a missile lock, and his targeting reticle turned red. Ethan pulled the trigger and let fly two Hailfires. He watched them jet out on cold blue contrails, and then in his periphery he saw another two launched by Gina. The missiles quickly dwindled into darkness as their primary thrusters burned out. Just moments later, bright sparks flew as those four missiles burst into sixteen smaller warheads and their thrusters engaged, each of them locking onto and tracking a separate enemy target. Almost immediately following that came a blinding pair of explosions as two of the enemy fighters flew apart. Their shrapnel caught a third, sending it careening off toward the planet below.
“Ruh-kah, kakard!” Ethan whooped.
“Nice work, Guardians,” Vance replied. “Two and Three, you’re with me now, form up.”
Ethan watched on his scopes as the two fighters which had peeled off earlier arced back into the fray just above his and Gina’s position. The three remaining enemy fighters turned and ran, and a moment later they began firing a steady stream of ripper fire at Guardian One.
Vance came back on the comm, sounding tense. “A little help here?”
“On our way,” Ethan commed back. “Fire your afterburners, Six.”
Gina clicked her comm to acknowledge, and then Ethan fired his afterburners to catch up to the enemy fighters. He heard his thrusters roar suddenly louder, and he felt his nova begin to shudder and shake. The acceleration pinned him against his seat, since the inertial management system was set to 90%. The exhilaration of it was a palpable force rising up in Ethan’s chest. He’d been born for this. He felt at once powerful, free, and incredibly vulnerable—surrounded by deep space, not even clothed in the protective layers of a flight suit. All that separated him from the abyss was a thin bubble of transpiranium and his skill in the cockpit. One sustained burst of ripper fire to his canopy and his fighter would crack open, spilling him into space. In minutes his blood would boil and his body would freeze as stiff as a duranium sheet.
Ethan gave an involuntary shiver and grinned.
What a thrill!
The comm crackled. “I can’t . . . keep this . . . up . . .” Vance said.
That brought Ethan back to the moment. He found Guardian One on his scopes. Vance was juking and jinking desperately in order to evade the converging torrents of ripper fire from three enemy fighters at once.
Ethan’s range to the nearest of the three ticked down to five kilometers. “Hold on, Lead. We’re almost there,” Ethan commed back.
A few seconds later, the range dropped from five klicks to four, and Ethan began hearing a missile lock tone beep-beep-beeping from his targeting computer. He released the afterburner switch in order to steady his aim, and as soon as the computer gave him solid tone, Ethan let fly two more Hailfires. He watched the bright orange glow of their thrusters dwindle into the distance, holding his breath and chewing his lip as he saw Guardian One taking fire.
They’ll make it,
Ethan thought as the Hailfires reached 500 meters to target.
They have to make it.
And then Guardian One exploded in an angry red fireball.
Chapter 18
“I
’m trying to call for reinforcements, sir, but the comm relays are down.”
“Again?”
“Yes , sir.”
Supreme Overlord Dominic glared out the
Defiant
’s forward viewports at the roiling fireballs of fighters which were exploding all around them—both enemy junkers and imperial novas. He paced up to the captain’s table and studied the holographic displays there. He saw a 3D projection of the
Defiant
in the center, with clouds of angry red junkers swarming around her while a small compliment of green novas flitted through those, spitting red pulse lasers and streaking Hailfire missiles. Even as the overlord watched, one of those green novas exploded as three enemy fighters converged on it from behind. That was Guardian One. Dominic grimaced and shook his head. Here he could see the battle from a bird’s eye view, and already, at just five minutes in, it wasn’t looking good. There were six junkers to every nova, and half of the novas had instructions to ignore enemy fighters and line up for torpedo runs on the enemy troop transports, which meant the 12 interceptors of Guardian Squadron were facing down 12 whole squadrons of junkers all by themselves. Twelve to one. No nova pilot was good enough to survive those odds for long.
The overlord saw the enemy troop ships—a corvette and an old gallant-class hovering in the near-distance off the
Defiant
’s bow. They were perfectly within beam range, but the gunners were still below decks getting their training from the solitary officer who actually had any, and it would be a few more minutes before they could open fire.
Dominic watched a whole squadron of junkers lining up on the
Defiant
and he had a bad feeling crawl into the pit of his stomach. “Comms, get the Guardians on missile defense, now! We have an enemy squadron, bearing 9-7-11 coming about on a torpedo run.”
“Yes, sir!”
The overlord watched for a few tense minutes as the enemy fighters grew closer and closer to their port side. The Guardians came about and closed to within missile range of the enemy fighters, but before they could do anything, the enemy squadron dropped a volley of twelve torpedoes on the
Defiant
’s tail. The Guardians were too far away to shoot those warheads down.
“Deploy EM flares!” Dominic yelled. A sparkling cloud of flares shot out behind the ship, but it only caught five of the twelve torpedoes. The other seven were still racing toward the
Defiant
’s thruster banks. “Brace for impact!”
Suddenly the
Defiant
rocked with an explosion and Dominic saw the aft shields turn red. A damage report came up, warning that the port thruster was damaged and now operating at 56% efficiency. The enemy squadron roared out over the bridge, causing everyone on deck to reflexively duck. “Engineering, equalize those shields before they line up for another pass!” Dominic said as he watched the bright orange wave of the enemy fighters’ thruster trails diminishing into the distance.
“Yes, sir,” Dominic’s chief engineer, a Petty Officer named Delayn replied. Without the cruiser’s pulse lasers firing to shoot down enemy missiles, the
Defiant
was practically a sitting duck. Shields were meant to be a last line of defense, to catch enemy lasers and rippers and the few strays missiles that got through—not whole volleys at a time.
“Deck Officer Gorvan,” Dominic began, speaking to his gunnery chief. “Tell our gunners that if they don’t start firing now, we’re not going to survive this.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll try to hurry them, sir.”
Dominic looked up from the captain’s table to see his XO staring grimly back at him from the other side. She was Deck Commander Loba Caldin, a complete stranger, young, but still the most experienced officer left among the survivors. She was just three pay grades below a captain in bridge crew rankings, which meant she was probably the only one on bridge with any command experience. As Dominic looked around the bridge, he couldn’t say that he recognized more than one man of his crew—maybe Petty Officer Ashril Grames at the comms, and only just barely at that. He thought that maybe they’d had a drink together once in the Star Dome, an officer’s lounge near the bridge. On a ship like the
Valiant
, with more than 50,000 crew, mostly automated systems, and vast amounts of space, one could never hope to get to know more than a few hundred officers personally.
Suddenly, the XO spoke up, “We’re grossly outmatched, sir,” she said, as if he needed to be reminded. “We could retreat and come back later with reinforcements from the other systems.”
Dominic shook his head. “By then they’ll have control of the
Valiant
. It would take dozens of venture-class cruisers to bring her down. Even if we succeed, we’ll just have a gutted derelict.”
“Incoming!” gravidar called out.
Dominic’s gaze dropped to the captain’s table just in time to see four fighters drop out of a dogfight with the Guardians and drop a volley of torpedoes on the
Defiant
at point-blank range. The ship rocked with another explosion, and the port shields turned yellow. Dominic saw one of the enemy fighters disintegrate as it was caught in the explosion from its own torpedo.
Amateurs,
he thought.
We’re being torn apart by amateurs!
Dominic whirled around to face the comm officer. “Tell the Guardians they’re going to have to do better than that!”
Petty Officer Ashril Grames looked up helplessly from his comm control station. “They’re down five pilots already, sir, and we’re being swarmed by dozens of junkers. If we keep this up, there won’t be any of them left.”
“What about the Avengers? Haven’t they completed their run yet?”
“They took heavy fire from enemy fighter screens and pulse lasers and lost four pilots before even firing their torpedoes. More than half of that volley was shot down by junkers and AMS—only two got through. We inflicted minor damage to the troop transport’s port side, but the sections sealed off almost immediately, and I’m not sure they took many casualties.”
“Well get the Avengers to make another pass!”
“They’re coming under heavy fire, sir, I doubt they’ll survive to make another pass.”
Dominic grimaced. He didn’t have the command experience for this, even though everyone on deck likely took it for granted that he did. Dominic briefly considered yielding the floor to Deck Commander Caldin, but he decided against it, since that would doubtless compromise his authority in the future.
“It’s too late, sir!” another officer chimed in from the other side of the bridge, and Dominic turned to see Corpsman Goldrim, the gravidar operator, shaking his head. “Look.” The corpsman pointed out the forward viewports as both the gallant-class transport and Brondi’s corvette began sliding into the
Valiant
’s port ventral hangar, eliciting a violent wave of blue from the hangar’s shields. The beam and pulse shields on the hangar were now weak enough that they couldn’t stop the enemy ships from muscling in. Making matters worse, the hangar shields would quickly strengthen once the enemy was inside, effectively preventing Imperial forces from flying in after them or making attack runs on them from the outside. They were about to be locked out of their own ship while enemy troops overran her.
“Weapons! Get our gunners to concentrate fire on the hangar shields and bring them down. They’ll be sitting ducks while they’re in the hangar. If we miss that opportunity, the
Valiant
will be forfeit!”
“Gunnery crews are still prepping, sir,” Gorvan replied.
Dominic gritted his teeth. “I don’t care if they miss and hit the side of the carrier, just get me
something!
”
“Yes, sir!”
Dominic watched as two more Avengers and another Guardian winked out of existence with roiling fireballs that looked as small and insignificant as glow bugs beside the
Defiant
.
The battle was not going well.
* * *
Five minutes earlier . . .
“Frek!” Gina said. “We’ve lost Lead! Frek!”
“Can it, Six. I’m Lead now. Form up,” Three said. It was the voice of Ithicus Adari. “We need to protect the Avengers from enemy fighters, so use your speed to outmaneuver those junkers, and catch up to the Avengers before they have to make their attack run alone.”
In the next instant the comm crackled with a message from the
Defiant
: “Guardians, we need anti missile support, bearing 9-7-11, please acknowledge.”
“Roger that, Control,” Three replied. “Guardians on me!”
Ethan disengaged his thrusters and flipped his fighter to point it in Three’s direction before reengaging thrust. He spared a quick glance at his gravidar and found that the enemy fighters at 9-7-11 were more than 10 klicks distant. “We’re never going to get to the
Defiant
in time, Lead.”
“Orders are orders, Five.”
“With respect, these orders are stupid. We need to defend the Avengers or this will all be for nothing.”
“Stay the course! We defend the
Defiant
first. That’s final, Skidmark.”
Ethan gritted his teeth and shook his head. By the time they caught up to the
Defiant
, they’d be too far from Avenger Squadron to provide cover.
When the range to target had dropped from ten klicks to four, and Ethan was beginning to acquire a missile lock on the nearest fighter in the enemy squadron, he saw them erupt with a staggered wave of torpedoes. “We’re too late, Lead!” Once their torpedoes were away, the enemy fighters angled off, skillfully jinking to avoid missile locks. Try as he might, Ethan couldn’t get a solid tone. He watched the
Defiant
deploy a glittering cloud of EM flares, and half the torpedoes blossomed into blinding fireballs as they collided with the flares. The other half went around and through the cloud, angling for the
Defiant
’s thrusters.
“Krak!” Ethan said, and then the torpedoes exploded. When the explosions cleared, they saw the
Defiant
cruising on, still alive, but one of her thrusters was trailing smoke and flaming debris.
“Frek!” Guardian Seven chimed in. Ethan thought he recognized the voice as belonging to the curly blond-haired pilot he’d once briefly met in a rail car—Taz. “This is a suicide mission! We’re all going to die.”
“Hoi, if those had been navy-grade munitions, the
Defiant
would be venting atmosphere!” Ithicus shot back. “She’s still OK. We don’t stop flying until they clip our wings. We’ve still got a good chance of pulling this off. Ruh-kah! On me, Guardians! Let’s show these kakards they can’t draw our blood for free!”
“Ruh-kah!” The rest of the squadron chorused over the comm. Ethan stayed silent. He privately agreed with Seven, but he didn’t want to hurt morale any further, so he stayed in formation and fired his afterburners to keep up.
The Guardians rushed up behind the squadron which had attacked the
Defiant
and began raining torrents of red dymium pulse lasers on the enemy fighters’ tails. Ethan lined up his target and pulled the trigger. One laser bolt hit with a blue splash of shields, and then the enemy fighter jinked out of the way, letting the next six bolts miss. Ethan worked hard to bring the aggressively jinking target back under his targeting reticle for a solid lock. Briefly attaining a lock, Ethan pulled the trigger again, and this time he held it down, trying to track and anticipate the enemy’s movements. He felt his ship vibrating subtly with the rapid release of energy as his pulse lasers cycled at maximum speed. The sound in space simulator (SISS) in the cockpit screamed with the continuous laser fire. One in every ten bolts hit home, eliciting a blue flare from the enemy’s shields. Ethan tracked his target expertly, drawing on simulator training from his youth. Moments later the blue ripples of shield impacts were replaced with chunks of debris spinning off into space. A split second later, he hit the junker’s reactor and his target exploded brilliantly. Ethan grinned and started through a slow, arcing turn to find a new target. He saw a series of three more explosions blooming in the dark as other Guardians cracked open their targets. They were making the enemy pay.