Far From Home: The Complete Series (67 page)

And now we’ve lost the galaxy’s most devastating weapon,
Singh thought.

He swallowed hard. His throat had turned to dust.

7.

When Commander King returned to the bridge, the engines were back. But in the time it had taken to fix them, the enemy vessel was long gone.

Captain Singh updated her on their situation. “We’re now trying to locate their trail.”

“But the sensors are all jammed up, aren’t they?” King asked, hands on her hips.

“They are, but we have enough to work with,” Chang said.

“Try looking for their residual wake through the ion storm’s dispersal patterns,” King suggested. “Think of an old-style boat cutting across a lake.”

Chang’s eyes lit up. “Great… working…”

Her hands flew over the console controls.

“Well?” Singh asked impatiently.

“Got it!” Chang said. “Tying in with navigation now.”

“Excellent,” Singh said. “Push her as hard as you can, Banks.”

* * *

“Approaching the system,” Vilik announced as Sonjiin strode onto the bridge.

“The device is now tied in with the
Retribution
‘s main power banks within the sealed containment room,” Sonjiin said with satisfaction.

Belosh looked nervous. “Sonjiin, you’re certain this is where you want to use it…”

Sonjiin closed the gap between them. “You doubt me, Belosh? I have led you this far and you doubt me? Brother… don’t start to question me now.”

“I’m… I’m… not…” Belosh stammered.

The others looked on. Sonjiin rested a hand on Belosh’s shoulder. “Proceed to the system,” he ordered firmly. “And we will show the full measure of our resolve to these Union dogs.”

“Yes, Sonjiin,” Belosh said weakly. “Right away.”

* * *

They left the last of the ion storm behind them.

“Where’s he headed?” Singh asked. He joined Lieutenant Commander Greene at Ensign Rayne’s station.

“It appears to be the Xilin system,” Greene said.

“Inhabitants?” Singh asked him.

Greene deferred to the Ensign. “An estimated thirty billion,” Rayne said.

The Captain looked up at Greene. “Time?”

“At their current speed…” the Lieutenant Commander said, “they’ll be there in under an hour.”

Singh walked away, his hands at the bottom of his back. He worked the kinks out of his neck. “Will we be able to catch them up?” he asked no-one in particular.

“No,” Banks answered.

The Captain turned around. “Spool up the Jump Drive, Lieutenant. Prepare for a short burst.”

“What’re you thinking?” Jessica asked him.

“A former Captain of mine did it once. Increase elevation, then calculate how much Drive you’ll need to cut the distance between you and the other vessel. With any luck you end up just ahead of them. But if you get it wrong…” Captain Singh explained.

“Road kill,” King said with obvious distaste.

“Nice,” Singh said with a roll of his eyes. “Okay, everyone buckle up! Prepare for Jump! Del, I want you at the weapons station ready to fire at my command.”

* * *

Belosh peered over Vilik’s shoulder at the readouts from the helm console. “Ten minutes till we reach firing distance.”

“Target their sun and prepare to -” Sonjiin was cut off by the helmsman.

“
Defiant
dead ahead!” Vilik yelled.

Sonjiin’s head snapped about. He glared at the hulk of the Union vessel before them. It blocked their path directly. Vilik threw the ship into a nose dive.

* * *

“We don’t want to destroy them, sir,” King said. “There’s no knowing what will happen.”

“Agreed. Del, target their propulsion systems with the forward batteries only,” Singh said.

“Aye!”

The Captain sat forward in the command chair. “FIRE!”

Lieutenant Commander Greene’s hands flew across the controls. The
Defiant
reverberated from the action of the ship’s guns. They watched on the viewscreen as the enemy ship ducked beneath them. The guns traced their progress, unable to meet their mark.

“She’s fast,” Greene said, tongue between his teeth as he worked the controls. “Switching to lateral batteries.”

Lieutenant Banks brought the
Defiant
around to pursue. There was less than a ship’s length between them.

“Easy, Del,” King warned.

Their fire glanced the rear of the craft. A minor explosion knocked the ship off course, but it recovered quickly.

“She’s not firing back. She doesn’t have any weapons,” Greene said.

“Just the one,” Captain Singh said ominously. He turned to Jessica. “Anything from Salnow?”

“He’s still questioning Russell, but so far nothing. Apparently Doctor Russell knew nothing about it. But I didn’t hold out much hope for info anyway,” King said.

“Me neither. If he’d been in on it, they would have left together,” Singh said. He slapped his thigh in anger. “I can’t believe we were fooled like that.”

“We weren’t to know, sir,” she assured him. “This is obviously bigger than all of us.”

Singh turned back to the viewscreen. The
Defiant
’s guns trained in on the enemy ship again. It’s starboard engine flared white and burst into flame.

“Good shot!” Singh cheered.

“Maintaining speed,” Chang said. “Damage to their engines but they’re not slowing.”

* * *

“We’ve lost one engine,” Vilik said.

“Keep us out of reach of their guns! We’re so close…” Sonjiin said, his face eager with anticipation.

“But, Sonjiin… with only one engine, how can we hope to outrun a Union starship?” Belosh cried out, unable to contain his worry.

Sonjiin rounded on him, grabbed him by the jacket and shoved him across the command deck. He went flying into the far wall.

“Weak fool! In the palm of our hands we have the power to kill a star!” Sonjiin said. His outstretched hand closed into the tight knot of a fist.

8.

Thirty seconds later, the
Retribution
came into range. Sonjiin fired the
Sun Hammer
. A bright orange glow lit every nook and cranny of the ship, as if she were ablaze.

A beam of energy stretched from the front of the craft to the fierce sun at the centre of the Xilin system. At first it seemed as though nothing happened.

But within the heart of the sun, where the
Sun Hammer
‘s blow had struck true, nuclear reactions of unfathomable magnitude were accelerated to millions of times their normal speed. The sun swelled white hot in a blinding flash as it erupted, doing in moments what would have normally taken billions of years.

The expanding energies of the resultant shockwave consumed all that stood before it. It tore through the orbiting planets, vaporising their atmospheres in seconds. The billions of sentient beings on their surface didn’t have a chance to know what had taken place. The shockwave shattered each planet as it blasted through. Entire cultures and civilisations were wiped from existence in a matter of seconds.

And in the presence of all that destruction, Sonjiin smiled.

“This is our message to the galaxy. That we will not be toyed with. That we will not accept anything but total and utter surrender to our terms,” Sonjiin said to the other Raiders aboard the
Retribution
as they watched the explosion on the command deck. “Brothers and sisters, we have arrived!”

9.

Everything else was forgotten in the afterglow of the supernova. The fleeing ship ahead of them, everything that had happened. All of it. There was only that sun, growing in size, spreading itself out to the farthest reaches of the system.

“Cutting speed to avoid collision with that shockwave,” Banks said, but Singh did not hear him.

He stood, speechless before such wanton devastation. So many lives . . . needlessly taken away. It was barely conceivable that an entire star system had just been wiped from existence before them. Singh staggered back and ended up back in his chair, unable to stand any longer. He closed his eyes.

His heart was an empty ache in his chest. He felt a hand on the back of his neck. He opened his eyes and looked up. Jessica smiled. She didn’t need to say anything.

Singh nodded. No words. No explanations. No rationalisations of what had happened. The Captain stood again. His strong, firm voice rang out. It pushed everything else away.

“Attention all hands!”

They all turned from the horror before them to look at him, and he regarded each of them in turn. Now their mission was simple, and he would see to it that this time there was no failure.

“Increase speed. Every ounce of power to the bow hull plating. We’re not letting these animals escape,” he commanded.

“Aye,” Banks said.

10.

The enemy vessel broke through the remnants of the shockwave first. The
Defiant
tore through shortly after. It sounded like a brick wall breaking over the nose of the ship.

Already the sun was shrinking. Withdrawing back into itself. Collapsing. Multiple shockwaves rippled away from it, as if it were a stone’s thrown into water.

“The pull of that sun is strong, sir,” Banks said. “It’s getting hard to manoeuvre the ship.”

“That’s why they’ve not changed course. If we can’t move, they can’t either,” King said.

“All that matters is stopping them from leaving this star system,” Singh said. “They cannot be allowed to use that weapon against another system. If they used it against our own sun… the Union would crumble.”

“That’s their intention,” King said. “It has to be.”

“Increasing speed now we’re through the bow shock,” Banks said. “I’ve diverted power from other systems. Engines are straining, but…”

“Don’t worry about it. She’ll hold together,” Singh said.

Hear me baby? Hold together
, he thought to himself.

“If they’re headed straight for what’s left of that sun, then so are we. I don’t see how we’ll break free in time,” King said.

Captain Singh’s jaw set with determination. “Either way they’re not getting away with it.”

11.

“I was a fool to doubt you, Sonjiin,” Belosh said.

“I can’t break free of the sun’s gravity. It’s increased tenfold!” Vilik said from the helm. “And with only one engine…”

Sonjiin paced back and forth. Then he stopped, deep in thought.

“I want you to increase speed.”

The other crewmen looked on in shock.

“This is madness!” Vilik exclaimed. “Fly
toward
it?”

“Perhaps it is mad,” Sonjiin said. He broke into a grin. “Or perhaps not. If we race towards it, then activate our Jump Drive at the last second, we can shift our trajectory just enough to Jump over it.”

Vilik swallowed, then pushed their only working engine to full power. He charged their Jump Drive with grim determination.

* * *

The sun was little more than a spark of light in front of them, dimming with every passing second.

“Now a white dwarf,” Chang said.

“And still shrinking, I bet,” King said.

Chang nodded. “The gravitational pull of that thing is unbelievable. I’ve got every recording device monitoring the sun’s degeneration.”

“Look at that,” Greene said.

They raced past the feeble remains of what had been a planet, reduced to a field of debris and broken atmosphere. A world once home to billions… now little more than a slew of dirt running down a plughole.

“It’s unbelievable,” Commander King said.

“That’s the problem Commander,” Chang said from behind her. “It’s not.”

“Lieutenant, any sign of that sun’s gravity starting to wane?” Singh asked.

“Only marginally.”

“Time to impact?”

“Minutes, Captain…” Chang said.

Captain Singh got back up. He stood behind Banks at the helm. “What’s the other ship doing? Speeding up?”

Banks nodded. “Yeah.”

“Slowly reduce speed, Lieutenant. Very slowly. When you hit half engine thrust, apply the braking thrusters,” Singh said.

King came to stand next to him. “D’you know something we don’t, Captain?”

“Only a hunch. With their damaged engines, they don’t have the power to break away. They think they can overshoot it if they keep racing toward it at increased speed. That’s what I thought, at first. But if that thing is dying down, I’ve a feeling we’ll be able to break free of it simply by hitting the brakes.”

“Sometimes you have to act on a hunch,” King said.

“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Singh said. “And, if I’m right, we’ll fall short of that thing and they’ll end up shooting straight into it.”

“Bullseye,” Greene said.

* * *

The star died completely, faded to nothing in the wink of an eye. The last of what had once been a bright, youthful sun sputtered out suddenly. One moment there was something there. The next…

A dark hole where the sun had been, no larger than a planetoid.

“It’s gone,” Vilik said.

“Hold your course,” Sonjiin said. “Soon we will escape this system then strike at the very heart of the Union. And the dogs will know what it is like to never feel the sun of home against their skin. To feel the wind against their skin. They will know our pain, and we will conquer them all.”

* * *

The enemy ship raced ahead as the
Defiant
lagged behind.

“Firing braking thrusters,” Banks announced.

The
Defiant
lurched as it slowed, at the same time resisting the gravity exerted by the fallen star.

“Star’s gravitational pull fading away,” Chang said. “In no time it’ll just be an empty hole in space.”

“The enemy are making contact,” Ensign Boi said.

Singh looked at Jessica. “On screen.”

The former Dr. Grissom appeared in front of them.

“Greetings. By now I am sure you realise I am not a doctor. My brothers and sisters and I are a part of an organisation you may be familiar with. The Outland Raiders. I am Sonjiin of Nyular,” he said.