Contagion

by David Ryker

  The Shadow Fighters were all manned by species other than the Dri’kai, as was the fighter bay itself. The Dri’kai suffered from a brief disorientation after dropping out of warp and, knowing time was of the essence, had given up their places on the Shadow Fighters to give us a little bit more edge. They were a proud, boastful race, but they were a practical one too.

  Practical enough that they had insisted that I be in charge of the Shadow Fighters and not Foyle. Just because they needed him didn’t mean they trusted him.

  At least he was off my back for the moment.

  And I do mean for the moment.

  “Good job,” he had said with a smug smile when I had told him the news he wanted to hear. “That’s all for now.”

  Yeah, for now. He could hold my past over me as long as he liked and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. I tried not to think about what else he’d demand. At least getting him aboard a Shadow Fighter had some practical use. If he asked for something that endangered the fleet, like asking for combat command, then I’d really be in a bind. I’d have to draw the line somewhere.

  It might not matter. We were going full bore into the Centaurian fleet after they had had the chance to partially refuel. Our only advantages were surprise, speed, and aggressiveness.

  They had better be enough.

  We had the speed thing down, at least.

  Unlike the last time, when we were the ones getting surprised, we didn’t have to rush to our fighters. Instead we sat in them, the fighter bay already emptied of atmosphere, waiting to drop out of warp and for the bay doors to open. Then it would be show time.

  The plan was simple, and thought up by the owners of this world themselves. Anyone else wouldn’t have dared to suggest it.

  The Chordatids knew their world was lost, and so they had authorized us to nuke every one of those balloon things. If we killed their power supply, the enemy would be fucked.

  But of course they’d know what we were trying to do. There was no way not to make it obvious, so we hit on a nearly suicidal plan.

  The Shadow Fighters would act as escorts, keeping in formation around a cluster of nuclear missiles and flying with them partway through the stratosphere to stop the Centaurians from blowing them out of the sky.

  Yeah, I was going to ride shotgun on several thermonuclear warheads to irradiate a friendly planet as enemy aliens tried to kill me. This was not what I had signed up for. Or what my heart needed right now.

  The rest of the fleet would act as our backup.

  To my everlasting pride, when I explained this plan to the assembled fighter pilots, not a single one wavered.

  Not even Foyle. He looked positively happy.

  Sitting in the cockpit, staring at the blank metal wall of the outer bay door, I felt strangely calm. I suppose the ship had already taken a look at my heart rate and had given me some of that miracle medicine. If I lived through this, I hoped Dr. Stark would figure out a way to replicate it. That would make my life a whole lot easier.

  I felt the strange wavering disassociation that comes with dropping out of warp. It only lasted a second, and then I was ready.

  “Here we go, people,” I said. “Do your duty, do exactly as I say, and we’ll get through this thing together.”

  Not a single one answered, for what was there to say? The neophytes would follow me to the letter, hoping to get to see another dinner. Pros like Qiang and a couple of others didn’t need to be told. And Foyle? I had no idea what Foyle would do.

  A red light flashed on the ceiling. The floor shuddered and, silently, thanks to the vacuum, the bay doors began to open.

  The planet and the entire Centaurian fleet came into view. The enemy was already firing.

  Yeah, we had come out of warp less than ten seconds before and they were already going full bore at us. The main ships spewed out grid patterns of energy pulses, while the fighter ship formations flared up with their connecting green lightning.

  We still hadn’t figured out what exactly these weapons were. They weren’t lasers, which diffused too much over distance to make a viable weapon. They seemed to be some other form of power.

  It didn’t matter as long as we could dodge them and kill the creatures firing them.

  We shot out of the fighter bay and into a hell storm.

  I barely made it out of the bay doors before I had to start dodging energy pulses. Explosions were flaring up all across the fleet. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the Nansen take a bad hit, a deep impact that burst with shrapnel the size of entire rooms, but I was too busy to see the extent of the damage.

  Missiles and slugs were already pouring into the enemy fleet. All along the closest whaleship I saw impacts. Then I focused on my team and what we had to do. We shot full throttle for the planet, steering between a whaleship and a swarm of Centaurian fighters that were facing off against a pair of Subine destroyers. We had to get some distance from our fleet. We had to time it perfectly.

  At the moment not much fire was coming our direction. The Centaurians focused on our main ships, whose heavy guns were pummeling their whaleships.

  Ten kilometers from our fleet. Twenty. The planet loomed closer. The enemy must have been wondering why these squadrons of fighters were charging alone at nothing.

  They didn’t have long to wonder. A Vrimjlen missile battery, loaded with nukes, moved out from behind the Dri’kai battleship from which we had launched. It lit up as it let loose its entire arsenal.

  And I discovered there was only so much this mysterious ship of mine could do for my heart condition. My chest went cold, convulsed. I pressed against the seat, hoping that would signal the AI to give me another shot.

  My heart evened out, and with crystal clarity I saw several thousand megatons of hate come flying after my squad.

  “Protect the nukes!” I shouted into the comm system. “They’re more important than all the rest of the fleet combined.”

  We slowed, allowed the missiles to catch up, then had to hit the thrusters full to full power to keep pace with them.

  At that moment, the Centaurians realized the threat. Several formations broke off from fighting the Subine destroyers and the nearest whaleship launched a broadside at us.

  The broadside hit us first. We ducked and wove, my fighter lurching, its readouts winking out for half a second as an energy pulse shot by, missing me by meters. The missiles, steered by remote control, also tried to dodge. A fighter spun out, nearly colliding with me in its death throes. Right behind me, a missile took a hit. I tensed, thinking it would detonate, but only saw its thrusters gutter out and the impact send it off on the wrong trajectory.

  A quick check showed we’d lost three fighters and the same number of missiles. We still had enough to complete the mission, but we couldn’t take many more hits like that.

  The whaleship launched another broadside. The Centaurian fighters were closing in.

  Just as the matrix of energy pulses descended on us, the sky lit up with flickering lights and the energy pulses fizzled out. I blinked, unsure what happened, and had to look at my readouts to find the answer.

  The Chordatids had launched a fleet of drones to put themselves between us and enemy fire. Every one of the drones got destroyed, but they had saved us.

  At least for the moment. Now the Centaurian fighter formations got in on the game.

  “Left flank, shear off and engage enemy fighters,” I ordered.

  Foyle was in charge of the left flank. Even though I was in charge of the fighters, he had insisted on having some sort of command. I hadn’t told the Dri’kai.

  “We got it,” he said into the comm link.

  You better.

  A squadron of Shadow Fighters moved off in an arrow formation with Foyle at its point. He was leading a mixture of humans, Subines, and Vrimjlens. I hoped none of his alien pilots had heard his crack about zoo animals.

  He had nine fighters, and he was facing three enemy formations totaling about twenty of those nearly inde
structible clam ships.

  Foyle and his wingmen didn’t hesitate.

  In an instant they were entangled in a swinging, gyrating mass, like two swarms of bees fighting over a hive. I saw too many hits to keep track of. Ships on both sides got shattered.

  But I had to pay attention to the surface of the planet that was growing bigger and bigger on our viewscreens. We had gotten past the whaleship, which couldn’t fire after us because the Dri’kai had woken up from their disorientation and were peppering it with their own fighters as General R’kk’kar’s flagship moved in for support. Below us, down on the surface, floated our target—the red balloon creatures sucking up energy from the water. There were a dozen of them. If we destroyed them, then hopefully we would hamstring the enemy fleet. If we could get the nukes down to them and annihilate them, we would have gone a long way to winning the war.

  The only problem was, the Shadow Fighters weren’t designed to enter a planetary atmosphere, and no other fighter ship in our fleet was tough enough and fast enough to be trusted with this job. We could get down to the lower stratosphere before the heating would get too much and we’d have to pull away. Plus, the heat of entry meant that the remote controllers of the missiles wouldn’t be able to communicate with them. They’d have to switch them to autopilot for their final run. The missiles would be alone and vulnerable. If the Centaurians had set up any planetary defenses, this whole thing could turn sour really damn quick.

  And of course they had, because that’s just how my luck worked.

  I spotted them as we approached the outer edges of the stratosphere, a strange cluster of shapes moving up from the balloons at us, moving impossibly fast.

  I switched to long-range sensors. The atmospheric distortion made it hard to see, but they looked for all the world like a school of fish swimming in the air. Except they flew like jets.

  “Keep an eye on those things,” I said, sending the coordinates to everyone. My human pilots, still a bit wet behind the ears, might be too busy looking at the battle all around them to pay attention to what was going on down below.

  I flicked a last glance at the fight Foyle was leading. They looked like they were losing. Several individual Centaurian fighters had broken free and were pursuing us.

  I wondered how deep they could get into the atmosphere. I guessed I was going to find out.

  “Ship has entered the planet’s stratosphere,” my computer intoned. “Hull is within safe temperature parameters. At this vector, you will need to ascend in forty seconds.”

  “Thanks for the safety tip,” I grumbled.

  The school of flying fish were coming up fast and I could get a clearer look. They were like tubes with giant mouths and fins on every side of their body. Weird things. And huge. The computer told me they were a hundred meters long.

  “I don’t know much about biology,” I said into the comm, “but I don’t see how they can fly.”

  “They must be very light,” a Vrimjlen pilot said.

  “I hope that makes them vulnerable,” Qiang said.

  “Let’s find out,” I replied.

  “Hull is beginning to approach median temperature danger levels,” the computer said. “It is advised that you ascend.”

  “No can do,” I told the computer. “Besides, I don’t even know what the fuck ‘median temperature danger levels’ is supposed to mean.”

  “It means—”

  “Quiet.”

  I hate computers.

  Now they were getting close enough that long-range scanners could pick them up clearly. They had smooth, tan skin, their mouths open in a big circle. To either side were oval red eyes.

  Then I saw something that made me do a double take. Their stubby rear ends were trailing air jets.

  “Computer, are those things sucking in air and acting as jet engines?”

  I could almost not believe my own words.

  “The process appears to be a bioengineered equivalent of a jet engine, that is correct.”

  “Um, okay.”

  The flying fish swooped up in formation. I locked on the front one with my targeting systems and gave it a burst of explosive slugs from my nose gun and both turrets.

  They had a better effect than I hoped. The thing writhed, convulsed, and the side of its gaping mouth tore open about a quarter of the way along its length.

  That took the wind out of its sails, or at least its gut. It dropped like a stone.

  My wingmen opened up, tearing up more of the flying fish, but not enough. The things banked and zigzagged, dodging like crazy. We got about a third of them.

  And then I saw the most disgusting sight of my life.

  26

  The flying fish flew right into our position, bypassing the missiles and going straight for the fighters. One came at me, its giant maw widening as if it wanted to swallow me whole. I gave it a burst down its throat and banked to the side.

  Just in time to see one of the weird creatures swallow a Shadow Fighter whole.

  “Oh fuck! That ain’t right.”

  The impact nearly tore the bioengineered creature apart, and it fell, obviously dead, with the fighter inside it.

  It had done its job.

  “Focus on avoiding them!” I shouted into the comm, not like my people needed any encouragement. “Use your turrets to fire at them while you’re performing evasive maneuvers.”

  Our entire formation broke up, dodging the bizarre threat. One other fighter got swallowed, but the rest managed to bank and come back around, firing as they went. The flying fish began to fall out of the sky.

  “We got them!” I shouted. “Now we’re home clear.”

  “It was a trick!” Qiang shouted.

  I looked down and saw he was right. As we were engaging the flying fish, the missiles had gotten below us, streaking for their targets on the planet’s surface.

  And another wave of the giant creatures was coming up for them.

  “They’re like kamikaze planes,” Qiang said. “They had to get us distracted so they could take out the real threat.”

  “Dive with full thrusters!” I ordered.

  “Such a move would endanger hull integrity,” the computer said.

  “Fuck hull integrity!”

  “Command not understood,” the computer replied.

  I didn’t reply. I had no time to explain Earth swear words to a computer from some unknown species.

  I dove straight down, hitting the thrusters, feeling like my stomach had moved past my throat and had lodged somewhere in my thick skull.

  “Hull integrity will be compromised in thirty seconds.”

  “Qiang?”

  “Right beside you, buddy.”

  My gaze flicked to the rear camera. Every one of the surviving pilots was following me on this death dive. I would have felt proud if I hadn’t felt so fucking terrified. Mortal fear tends to drown out other emotions.

  Through a viewplate that was beginning to redden from the friction of reentry, I could see the bright pinpoints of the missiles as they shot for their targets. Below them, approaching fast, were the flying fish, and, far below, the red balloons floating in the boiling sea.

  I locked on to one of the flying fish and fired a missile at it, watching the dwindling flame as it descended.

  It got about halfway there before breaking up.

  “Missiles are not designed to take current atmospheric conditions,” the computer stated. “Hull integrity will be compromised in twenty-five seconds.”

  “Will the autocannon slugs make it to the target?”

  “With a 65% probability.”

  I locked on my target and fired. The slugs fell like meteors at the target. The flying fish twisted to the side and fell end over end back toward the surface.

  The rest of my team opened up. The school of monstrously bioengineered sea creatures fell one by one until they were all gone and the path was clear.

  Then, through the glow on the viewscreen, I saw a third wave coming up.


  “Hull integrity will be compromised in fifteen seconds.”

  The viewscreen began glowing more brightly now, the computer having trouble compensating. I was flying half blind, burning up my ship, and trying to fire at a bunch of targets below the missiles I was trying to protect.

  One of the missiles flared up, the engine exploding and taking out the one next to it. A fault in the design had meant it couldn’t take reentry any more than my damn ship could. I gritted my teeth. The bright orange ball was just a normal explosion. The warheads had not gone off.

  But there was now a big ball of flame in our way.

  Then, with a horrible revelation, I realized what was about to happen.

  The flying fish, when they collided with the missiles, would set them off. The Centaurians must have calculated that it wouldn’t harm the spheres on the surface too badly. Maybe they would be resistant to the radiation. Maybe they could move away before the radiation reached the surface. Maybe they were already moving away. I could barely see a thing.

  But one thing I did know—if those missiles went off, we’d be atomized.

  I pulled on the controls to dodge the expanding ball of flame, my ship bucking in the atmosphere, the controls almost ripped from my fist.

  I barely made it, the flame expanding and taking out the last two people in our group, their ships flaring up like match heads, the heat-resistant hulls finally reaching their breaking point.

  We spun back around and got into a dive.

  “Hull integrity will be compromised in fifteen seconds,” the computer said.

  Didn’t it say that before? Leveling out must have eased up on the friction and bought us some extra time.

  All of five seconds.

  It might just be enough. Going around the explosion had brought us to a slightly different angle. The flying fish weren’t hidden beneath the missiles anymore.

  But they were still almost invisible beyond the white hot sheet of ionized air covering my viewscreen.

  I fired anyway, all three autocannons and the missiles. I was vaguely aware of Qiang on my right firing too. I had no idea if the others were. I couldn’t see enough to tell.