“You’re very welcome!” the kiosk replied, politely waving them goodbye. Its grin fell as soon as they were out of sight.
“Fleshies.” It rolled its cartoon eyes. “What a bunch of idiots.”
“Is that it?” asked Klik, pulling a face.
Jack double checked the key fob against the hangar and bay. C113. Yes, this was definitely it.
“Well, she did work for the Ministry,” Jack replied. “Even with a gambling habit, we can’t expect her to have been made of money.”
Jack was no expert on spacecraft. He knew nothing about brands or individual models, let alone how any of them actually worked on the inside. But he liked to think he knew a good ship when he saw one. Right now he was really struggling to find the right perspective.
It was a small, red orb with a transparent windscreen that dominated its entire front. There was just enough space inside for two seats. A pair of measly thrusters stuck out from each flank like misshapen ears.
“Does it even have a skip drive?” asked Klik, tilting her head. “Hell, is this thing even designed to go in space?”
“I guess we’ll find out.” Jack reluctantly stepped up to the cockpit. “Unless you fancy trying to steal a different ship, that is.”
Klik looked around the rest of the hangar. Many of the other bays were already empty; guests were hurriedly climbing into their own ships in the bays that weren’t. Out of all the spacecraft designed for interstellar travel, most looked faster than Minister Keeto’s… but none came with a spare set of keys, and, from the panicked look on people’s faces, Klik didn’t fancy asking around for one.
Jack finally got the door to the ship open – it was vacuum sealed, at least – and they climbed up into its cramped cockpit. The ship’s control stick was in front of the seat on the left. Jack made himself as comfortable as possible. Klik hovered in the doorway, as anxious about the confined space as she’d been during the taxi pod journey from the Pelastar down to the surface of Kapamentis. Jack guessed her fear of enclosed spaces stemmed from being smuggled out of Paryx in a cargo crate.
“We’ll be safe,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Big ship or little ship, it honestly makes no difference.”
She reluctantly sat down, took a deep breath, and then slammed the cockpit door shut behind her. There was a reassuring sucking sound as it sealed them inside. Still, Klik couldn’t help giving it a few cursory shakes to make absolutely sure it wouldn’t swing open again mid-flight.
“Okay,” said Jack as the dashboard whirred into life. “Let’s see what we’re working with.” He swiped through the in-built data pad and tried to remember what little he’d learned about spaceflight on board the Adeona. “Fuel levels are good, it’s got long-range atmospheric filters so that’s promising… aha!”
“What?”
“She’s got a skip drive,” Jack announced, a smidgeon less enthusiastically than before. “Just not a very good one. Small and, erm, economical. We’ll have to go to the Garnidian system via the old subspace routes, but we’ll get there. Eventually.”
“How long?”
“Six hours, give or take.”
Klik brightened.
“That doesn’t seem too bad…”
“It would be three if we were on board the Adeona.” Jack carried on scrolling through the ship’s features. He paused. “This ship has one thing the Adeona doesn’t, though.”
Klik leaned over to look at the screen. She looked confused.
“A multi-channel comm system? I’m pretty sure she does, Jack.”
He pointed at the presets along the bottom.
“Sure… but not access to the official Ministry broadcasting frequency, she doesn’t.”
Realisation dawned across Klik’s face, and she let out a nervous laugh. Jack laughed too. He found the idea of his voice going out across the galaxy kind of hilarious himself.
“I mean, we’re going to need all the help we can get… right?”
“Sure. Absolutely.” She leaned back in her chair, sporting a cheeky smirk. “It’s not like we’re already in a tonne of trouble or anything. Why not hijack a government frequency? I’m sure everyone will listen to you this time.”
Jack hesitated. Then he took a deep breath and pressed the button to record a message anyway.
“This is Jack Bishop. If you can hear this, we need your help. A lot of people do. Charon, the same man who harvested the star from Proxima Delta, is planning to create a black hole in the Garnidia system. We don’t know how to stop him, but we’re going to try. If you can hear this…”
Jack hesitated, unsure what else to say.
“Well, yeah. Somebody needs to stop him. Please.”
He finished the recording and just sat there, far too nervous to press send. Klik reached across and did it for him.
“Nicely done,” she said, giving him a pat on the shoulder.
“Thanks.” Jack strapped himself in and flipped a row of switches to start the tiny spacecraft’s engines. “All that’s left is to hope we can make it there in time.”
He grabbed the control stick tight. The orb rose and its thrusters ignited. Klik clutched at her seat with her eyes scrunched shut.
They rocketed out of the hangar as fast as the ship could carry them.
23
Ouroboros
Six hours, twelve minutes and forty-six seconds later, the tiny ship lurched out of subspace.
Jack woke with a start. He’d been having the dream in which he was stood on the beach again, the one with the burning gull and the vengeful sun that boiled the seas and glassed the earth. Only this time it hadn’t ended when the star’s rage washed over him. His skin hadn’t blistered; his organs hadn’t melted. He’d been left to wander humanity’s ruins untouched and alone.
He blinked and stretched while their little red orb clunked and gurgled, adjusting to the change of pressure between subspace and regular reality. His mouth tasted dry. Klik was still out cold in the seat beside him, curled up like an ammonite and lightly snoring.
They’d been on the go for almost two days straight. It was little wonder that, when faced with the quiet boredom inside Keeto’s ship, they’d both quickly fallen fast asleep.
Jack’s shoulder gave a satisfying crack. He chose not to wake Klik just yet and inspected the ship’s vital signs on the dashboard monitor instead.
Their fuel levels were already running low. One of the starboard thrusters was only operating at eighty-five percent efficiency, suggesting he may have pushed the ship a little too hard getting out of Kapamentis’ atmosphere. At least the oxygen recycler was operating within optimal parameters, much to Jack’s relief.
He swiped at the screen to view the NavMap, then zoomed in on their approximate location. They were in the Garnidian system, all right. Close to the star too, apparently. He looked out through the large domed windscreen that dominated the front of the pod but saw nothing except dark, empty space.
Terror gripped his gut. Did that mean Everett was already done here? Had he harvested another star and left a second system to tear itself apart in his wake?
No. He tried to calm down. Everett wasn’t interested in stealing any more suns and besides, he only had the one Solar Core. It was a black hole Everett was after – a massive, semi-stable black hole – and Jack suspected they would know if they were sitting on the edge of one.
Still. Something didn’t feel right. They’d been forced to take the slow lane to get there – if Charon left first, how could they have possibly arrived before him?
A shadow passed over the top of their little pod. The hair on the back of Jack’s neck stood on end.
Slowly, his hands trembling, he gripped the control stick and turned the ship around.
“Klik,” he hissed, prodding his sleeping companion. “Klik, wake up!”
“Another five minutes,” groaned Klik, sluggishly gaining consciousness. “Eh? Stop poking me, I’m…”
Her black eyes suddenly grew wide and alert. She scrambled
backwards against her seat.
“What in the galaxy is that?” she screeched.
The small, elderly white dwarf known as Garnidia was still in the centre of the star system. But circling her circumference like a ring around Saturn was an immense space station at least twelve thousand kilometres in diameter. The inside of its industrial grey shell glowed a silvery-blue under the star’s pale light. The nuclear glare of gigantic yellow fusion reactors shone through the darkness on the curved sides where the trapped sun couldn’t reach.
Jack had never seen anything like it… except he had, hadn’t he? Back on Gaskan Troi’s battlecruiser. A computer monitor had displaying the stolen blueprints retrieved from Tuner’s head.
“That, I believe, is the Iris.”
“No. No way. Are you seriously telling me that Rogan, Tuner and Brackitt built this?”
“Well I think they might have had a little help,” Jack sarcastically replied. “I get what you mean, though. It is a bit, erm, bigger than I was expecting.”
“A bit?” Klik clasped her head in both hands. “How the hell are we supposed to even get on board that thing, let alone find Charon and shut it down?”
“Would you believe me if I said I hadn’t thought that far ahead?”
Jack checked the open comm channels.
“Nothing,” he said, looking blankly at Klik. “Not even one response to our message. Maybe they couldn’t get through while we were in subspace?”
“And what’s their excuse now, then? Face it, Jack. Nobody out here cares about anything except themselves.”
Jack sighed and stared out at the empty solar system. There wasn’t a single other ship in sight.
“Yeah. I guess you’re right.”
A sudden flash of orange light washed over their pod. Jack and Klik quickly shut their eyes. Filters in the windscreen ensured they weren’t blinded by looking at the sun head-on, but this burst was especially bright. A faint glow of it remained whenever Jack shut his eyes for quite some time afterwards.
“What was that?” Klik shook Jack by the shoulder. “Is that star about to go supernova or something?”
“I’m not sure a white dwarf can go supernova…” Jack grew frustrated as he rapidly swiped through the windscreen settings. “For God’s sake, Keeto. Couldn’t you have invested some of your winnings into getting a better… Ah. Here we go.”
A small window popped into the middle of the windscreen, and the surrounding glass darkened further. It showed a twin feed of what was already in front of the ship, only much more zoomed in. The picture quality wasn’t up to scratch, but it would have to do.
“There,” said Jack, pointing at the screen. “That orange line up in the top left. Do you see it?”
A violent, pulsating stream of nuclear plasma was billowing out from a vast funnel on the inside of the Iris ring. It looked strikingly similar to the deadly beam the Mansa had deployed from the bottom of their battlecruisers to glass the Krettelians’ moon after their last encounter with Charon. The other end of the torrent bore into the star’s white-blue surface.
“Goddammit,” said a breathless Jack. “He’s started already.”
“Started what already?” asked Klik.
“Everett is using the Iris to shoot the star he harvested from Proxima Delta into Garnidia.” Jack hurried to strap himself back into his seat. “A white dwarf star is one of the most dense objects in the universe, behind only neutron stars and black holes. The combined mass of both suns must be enough to trigger a gravitational collapse to the exact specifications he’s after.”
“So, we’re too late?” Klik copied Jack and fastened her own seatbelts. “Charon’s won?”
“Not if we shut it down before the sun hits critical density.” He grabbed the control stick dramatically and shrugged. “Whatever that happens to be.”
“Yeah, about that.” Klik peered through the darkened glass around the tiny zoomed-in window in the centre of the windscreen. “Does this non-existent plan of yours have a way of getting us past them?”
Jack pressed a button and the large domed windscreen turned clear again.
“Oh.”
Hundreds of ships swarmed out from hangars all around the outside of the Iris ring. They looked like a flurry of tiny silver-black snowflakes. Jack couldn’t imagine the Raklett attack ships would appear quite so welcoming up close, somehow.
Klik shook her head. “We need to turn back. Even if we knew where we were going, there’s no way we’d ever get past them. We don’t have shields. We don’t have guns. A single hit and we’re dead.”
“If we do nothing, a lot of other people will be dead too.”
“So? Killing ourselves in a suicide run is hardly going to change that. I’ll hunt Charon down some other time.”
“Everett plans on flying through the black hole once it’s open,” snapped Jack. “I highly suspect this is the last chance you’ll ever get. And besides, we can’t just give up on everybody in this solar system, and the next, and every other system his black hole ends up devouring. This isn’t some stranger’s problem we’re asking to get involved in. You see that plasma stream he’s shooting into Garnidia? That wouldn’t be possible if we hadn’t stolen that Solar Core for him. We’re responsible for this. And we’re going to try and put it right, even if it kills us. Got it?”
Klik glared at him without saying anything. He half expected her to extend one of her bone-blades and commandeer the ship. Then she sagged back into her seat.
“Fine,” she sighed. “It’s not as if either one of us has got much else to live for, anyway.”
“There’s that wonderful attitude I love so much.” Jack took a deep breath and wrapped his hands around the controls again. The Iris and her Raklett entourage loomed ahead of them. “Ready?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Three… two…”
“Wait!”
Jack relinquished his grip on the control stick and let out a growl of barely-restrained rage.
“What now?”
“Look!”
Klik pointed to the right of the superstructure. Little flashes of white light blinked in and out of existence like shooting stars streaking across a desert night sky. First one by one, then dozens at a time.
Jack quickly zoomed in on them, his heart racing.
Ships were bursting out of subspace and into the Garnidian system. Some of them were barely more than shuttles and retired starfighters, while others were mighty battlecruisers and frigates that made Gaskan Troi’s Confession look like an armoured dinghy. Their number almost rivalled that of the Raklett forces.
“Who are they?” Klik watched in stark disbelief as more of them arrived. “Are they here for us?”
Jack broke into an enormous grin.
“It’s the automata, so yes. Yes they are.”
The comm channel crackled into life a moment later.
“Hello?” came the unmistakable voice of 11-P-53. “Jack, is that you?”
“Yes!” Jack enthusiastically yelled into the dashboard’s microphone. “It’s Jack and Klik here. Can you hear me?”
“Loud and clear! We picked up your message on the Ministry frequency and came as soon as we could. Wait. Who’s Klik?”
Another familiar voice on the other end. “Don’t worry, she’s with us.”
“Brackitt, is that you?” Jack laughed. “Is the whole gang here? Where’s Rogan?”
“She’s on board the Adeona,” replied Brackitt. “We’re at the helm of one of the battlecruisers. Doc and Kansas are on another ship. I tried to tell him to stay home but the little tyke was having none of it.”
“That’s quite an armada you’ve brought with you.”
“Yeah, well. There’s a fair few of us who want to bring Charon down. And I think some of the older warships just fancy blowing stuff up on their own terms for once. If we end up saving a few fleshies in the process, so be it,” he added jokingly.
“Well, the two fleshies sitting right here are very
grateful for the assistance,” Jack replied. “Can you see the plasma beam Charon is firing into the star? He’s started already.”
“Right.” It was 11-P-53 again. “I think everyone’s here now. We’ll keep the Raklett attack ships distracted while you find a way to get inside that station and shut it down. Good luck, Jack. We’ll see you when it’s over.”
The comm channel went silent. The weight of the star system’s fate hung in the pod’s artificial air.
“Right.” Jack ignited the ship’s thrusters and gritted his teeth. “The Rakletts have been itching for a war since forever. Let’s give them one.”
24
The Battle for the Iris
Jack and Klik’s pod wasn’t even halfway to the Iris when the automata and Raklett ships started trading blows. The cosmos was soon peppered with streaking lasers and the short-lived explosions of ballistic missiles.
It was hard to tell who was winning.
Despite the sudden appearance of the automata fleet, Jack still felt like he and Klik were on a suicide mission. She was right – they had no weaponry with which to defend themselves, not even flares. And without even the most basic shield system, a single shot on target would leave them suffocating to death in a shattered, smouldering wreckage… if the pod didn’t blow up and kill them instantly, of course.
It was about as smart as driving up the beaches of Normandy in a Mini Cooper.
As they drew closer to the Iris, Raklett attack ships began to notice them. Luckily for Jack and Klik, the automata kept an eye on their pod’s location and took out any attack ship that got curious before it had the chance to alert any of its friends. But sooner or later one of them would get through the automata’s defence, and Jack wasn’t exactly sure what they would do when that happened. It wasn’t as if their pod could outpace even the slowest of Raklett fighters.
It was hard enough dodging just the wayward lasers. Every now and then a rocket would detonate like a firework and throw out clouds of shrapnel, forcing Jack into breakneck dives that punished their ship’s thrusters and pushed his ribcage to its limits. Once, he almost crashed into a sentient mini-corvette as a torrent of rotary cannon fire cleaved it in half. Fuel alerts and collision warnings started to go off across the pod’s dashboard.
A Dark Horizon (Final Dawn, Book 3) Page 17
