A Dark Horizon (Final Dawn, Book 3)

by T W M Ashford

  And they still had no idea where they were actually going.

  “How’s it going out there, guys?” he asked. “Anyone got a plan?”

  11-P-53’s voice immediately replied across the comms.

  “We’re outnumbered. We’re even more outgunned. And half of our ships have never had to fire a plasma cannon before, let alone hit anything with one. I wouldn’t say it’s going great.” Jack heard an explosion go off on the automata’s end. “How close are you to the Iris?”

  “Not far.” Jack looked at Klik. “Forty, maybe fifty seconds out?”

  Klik shrugged then cowered as another missile went off overhead.

  “Okay,” replied 11-P-53. “It looks like Charon has locked down all of the hangars so there’s no way in or out. On a positive note, that means all the Raklett attack ships are probably already out here.”

  “What? That also means there’s nowhere for us to land!”

  “Not necessarily. There are airlocks dotted all around the station’s ring. You should be able to dock at one of them. We’ve already managed to get some automata inside that way.”

  Jack glanced across at the tiny cockpit door. Klik shook her head in dire warning, still much too frightened to actually speak.

  “That might not be possible,” Jack replied, banking left. “We’re working with a swing door here. I don’t think this pod is designed for anything except a traditional bay landing.”

  “Ah. Let me have a think and get back to you.”

  The comms went quiet again.

  “We’re definitely going to die out here,” Klik groaned, hugging her knees. “Man, I hate space.”

  Jack listed the pod back towards the Iris, dodging a pair of Raklett attack ships as they doggedly chased an automata starfighter. The ship dropped a bunch of proton mines, and a second later the Rakletts disappeared in clouds of charred steel. Their pod rocked against the shockwaves.

  “There’s one of those airlocks 11-P-53 was talking about.” Jack pointed down at a circular mag-locked hatch nestled amongst the Iris’ other panels and exhaust vents. “We were right. There’s no way we’re docking with it in this thing.”

  “Erm, Jack?” Klik shook him desperately. “I think we’ve got much bigger problems to worry about right now!”

  Jack felt all the colour wash out of him. A Raklett attack ship had looped around the back of the Iris and was making a beeline straight towards them. If he’d been in a flight simulator Jack would have immediately started firing at the incoming threat… but this was real, and they had nothing to defend themselves with. He turned the pod towards the space station instead.

  The attack ship followed. Jack hoped that their proximity to the Iris would deter the Raklett from firing at them. He overestimated their intelligence. A stream of lasers chased after them, raining – harmlessly, Jack noticed – against the space station’s colossal hull. At least the Rakletts were as inaccurate as ever.

  Jack tried to pull an evasive manoeuvre and get the jump on their attacker, but their little pod simply didn’t have the power. He just ended up changing direction.

  This was the first chance Jack had to get a proper look at a Raklett ship. They were almost as ramshackle and primitive as their pilots. Even though they were much smaller, their hulls were constructed from the same industrial metal as the battlecruisers’ outer shells rather than the (faster and flashier) plastic-metal compounds usually adopted by ships of their size. Their thrusters spewed out flames like a dragon. Indeed, the jagged build of their ships roughly resembled the angry head of one.

  But scrappy as the ship was, it was armed, armoured, and quickly gaining on them.

  It rattled off another stream of lasers. Most passed their pod and disappeared into the cosmos, but one carved a groove through the little red orb’s starboard flank. Something important behind their seats hissed. The cockpit was plunged into a dark red light and a deafening siren started to wail.

  “I told you we would die out here!” screamed Klik. “Why the hell did I follow you off Kapamentis? I could have signed up at the Crimson Crosshairs and been safer than this!”

  The Raklett attack ship launched itself around for another run at them. Jack shook the control stick. Their fuel levels were nearly depleted and he was losing the ability to make sharp turns.

  Klik was right. They would die out here.

  He squeezed the trigger for the ship’s thrusters but they fired intermittently, causing him to drift first left and then right. All the while the attack ship drew steadily closer… and closer…

  Jack braced for impact. He hoped, for both his and Klik’s sake, they wouldn’t live to feel it.

  Suddenly, just as the attack ship reached firing distance, a line of ballistic rounds peppered the length of its hull. First it cracked, then exploded. The orange embers quickly extinguished to reveal a set of charred, broken remains.

  A friendly face drifted to a stylish stop alongside the pod’s window.

  “Hi, Jack! Hi, Klik!” The reassuring voice of the Adeona cut across their comms, dimming the emergency siren slightly. She sounded uncharacteristically excited. “It looked like you needed the help. Sorry if I stepped on anyone’s toes.”

  “No, please, step away!” Jack and Klik both broke into grins of relief. “Is Rogan with you?”

  “I dropped everyone off a few minutes ago,” she replied, letting loose with one of her rotary cannons. A Raklett ship way off in the distance exploded. “It’s just me here, flying free!”

  Jack tried accelerating again. The spluttering thruster propelled them forward, but they were a crawling tortoise compared to everyone else dogfighting around the Iris.

  He had an idea.

  “We’ve got to get in via one of the airlock hatches and this pod isn’t going to hold together much longer. Do you think we could…?”

  “Way ahead of you,” replied the Adeona. She spun around to reveal her loading ramp already half-descended. “Hurry up and get in here. Mind the paintwork.”

  Jack pushed the pod forwards as fast as it would go. It was only when they were mere metres from her ramp that he realised he had very limited ways of slowing the damn thing down. He ignited every one of the pod’s meagre air thrusters as he squeezed it into the Adeona’s cargo bay. Even inside the pod he could feel the ship’s artificial gravity kicking in.

  The pod screeched across her metal floor and came to a clattering stop against one of her reinforced pillars. The Adeona was fine, but the chassis of Minister Keeto’s ship buckled from the impact. Luckily, everyone inside its interior cockpit was safe. A little bruised in Klik’s case, but safe.

  The siren continued to wail. Klik reached for the pod’s door handle, but Jack stopped her.

  “Wait,” he said, pointing at the closing loading ramp. Only once it had fully clamped shut and the Adeona’s artificial atmosphere generator had kicked into life was it safe to step out without suffocating. When they did clamber out, Jack was amazed by how much richer the air tasted. Perhaps it was the adrenaline. Perhaps it had been growing more stale inside that pod than he realised.

  He grabbed his gloves and helmet from its cabinet and, with great relief, fastened them onto his suit. Complete at last. Klik spread herself out across the cargo bay floor, wrapping her fingers around the metal grating and breathing deeply to calm herself down.

  “Room,” she gasped. “There’s so much room!”

  Jack laughed with nervousness rather than humour. It was easy inside the Adeona to forget the very real danger of the battle raging outside. A large part of him desperately wanted to stay inside the comparative safety of her cockpit and take part in the dogfight, but he still had a job to do. And besides, the ship really didn’t need him getting in the way.

  “I’ve identified an airlock on the other side of the Iris station,” came the voice of the Adeona across her speakers. “It’s not particularly well-guarded. Setting a course for it now.”

  “Come on, Klik.” Jack pulled her to her feet. “We
’re not done yet.”

  They raced down the corridor that ran parallel to the ship’s port side flank. This was where the Adeona’s own airlock lay. The only time Jack had ever used it before was when he met with Scara Li Ka on his Mansa battlecruiser. As foreigners, they hadn’t been permitted to land inside any of its hangars. Other than that they’d always used the loading ramp to come and go from the ship. The airlock always seemed so… surgical to Jack.

  “Approaching the hatch in approximately twenty-one seconds,” said the Adeona. “Cannons are primed for incoming ships. Are you ready?”

  Jack suddenly thought of something.

  “Be right back,” he said to a startled Klik.

  He sprinted up the nearby stairs and opened the door to his private quarters. It was exactly how he’d left it, right down to the unmade covers on his bunk. He tossed everything on the top of his storage chest – the totems, his small bag of credits, the license plate from Earth – onto the mattress and wrenched the chest’s heavy lid open. Inside were three noteworthy things. One, his old spacesuit – the one he first wore through the wormhole. Two, the charred remains of the photograph of him and Amber standing on a sunset cliffside – he gave it a quick kiss for good luck. And lastly, Gaskan Troi’s handgun. It was the only weapon left on board the Adeona, and he needed something if he expected to storm the Iris and survive. He hoped it still packed the same punch as when he’d been on the receiving end of it.

  The was a loud clunking sound as the Adeona connected with the space station’s airlock. The whole ship shook. Jack jerked upright.

  “Get moving, Jack!” The Adeona sounded frantic. “I’m a sitting duck out here!”

  “Sorry!”

  He sprinted out of his quarters, back down the stairwell and caught up with Klik just as the Adeona’s airlock doors hissed open. A short and disconcertingly fragile metal corridor had extended from their ship to the Iris’ airlock on the other side. It would only open once the Adeona’s own door had closed again.

  “Attack ships incoming,” said the Adeona. Jack jumped as her voice boomed across the comms unit in his helmet. “I’ve got to move.”

  The airlock door on the Iris’ side hadn’t finished equalising the atmosphere inside their temporary corridor. The circular mag-lock in its centre kept turning and turning.

  “Just a few more seconds,” Jack insisted.

  “I’ll be a smoking heap in a few more seconds! Sorry, Jack. Got to go now!”

  The door in front of them shot open just as the Adeona began to detach her temporary corridor from the Iris. Jack and Klik leapt through the opening a split second before it could automatically lock shut behind them, then watched through the airlock’s slitted windows as the Adeona swerved out of the path of two speeding torpedoes. They erupted in purple explosions big enough to make even the hull of the Iris tremble.

  “Please tell me you’re still alive,” said the ship a moment later.

  “I was about to say the same to you,” Jack replied, leaning against the airlock door. “Stay safe out there, okay? Somebody needs to come and pick us up once all this is over.”

  They broke radio contact as the Adeona went back to picking off Raklett ships. An infinite corridor resembling the interior of an iron foundry stretched out before them.

  Jack equipped Gaskan’s pistol. Klik extended her bone-blades.

  “Right,” said Jack. “This space station is only a few thousand kilometres long. How hard can finding Charon be?”

  They started running.

  25

  Something Monstrous

  It turned out they didn’t have all that far to go.

  “Are you inside the Iris?” came the urgent voice of 11-P-53 over Jack’s comm system. “The Adeona told us she dropped you off a few minutes ago.”

  “Yes, we’re here.” Jack stopped running and held up his hand for Klik to do the same. He was out of breath already. “How are you guys doing?”

  “The Rakletts have stopped chasing the smaller ships and are hitting our cruiser pretty hard. Her shields are holding for now. But that doesn’t matter. Some of our more nimble ships have managed to get close to the Iris and confirm that Charon is in a command chamber overlooking the plasma beam being fired into Garnidia. The airlock the Adeona dropped you off at should have been only a couple of klicks from his position.”

  Jack looked both ways down the corridor. It was wide, grey and empty, its walls covered in steel girders and bolted together with industrial rivets. The inside wall was curved and warm to the touch – Jack suspected the power of Proxima Delta’s harvested star was being channelled through an immense tube running through the interior of the ring.

  “A couple of klicks in which direction?” he hesitantly asked.

  “Let me triangulate your position…” The sound of automata panicking rose to the foreground as 11-P-53 checked something on its computer terminal. “Presuming the radiation from Charon’s plasma beam isn’t throwing your signal off, you’ve been headed in the right direction since leaving the airlock. Keep going.”

  “Thanks, Captain. Will do.”

  “Make sure you stop him, Jack,” added 11-P-53. “Garnidia is starting to swell. No matter what it takes, don’t let that star collapse. You hear me?”

  “I hear you. We won’t let that happen.”

  Grateful for the moment to catch their breath, Jack and Klik resumed sprinting down the corridor.

  Brackitt looked up from over on the other side of their sentient battlecruiser’s massive bridge. He’d been communicating with the Lexi via a comm cable, just as he used to with the Adeona before he installed her speaker system. She was growing tired from the constant Raklett bombardment. Sooner or later, something was going to get through her shields.

  “How close are they?” he asked 11-P-53, morosely.

  “Not close enough.” 11-P-53 stared out at the swarm of Raklett attack ships buzzing between their ship and the Iris. Clouds of fire bloomed and faded as both enemy and friendly ships were destroyed. “There are too many of them. If we can’t hold them off, everybody we managed to get on board the Iris will be overrun.”

  An attack ship came hurtling towards the vast windows of the bridge. One of the huge railguns on the front of the Lexi swivelled towards it and blew it into pieces no bigger than paperclips.

  “And we can’t just blow the Iris up?” asked Brackitt, a little hopefully.

  11-P-53 shook its head.

  “Even if we had the firepower, all that would do is release the harvested star into Garnidia even more quickly. The Iris has to be shut down, not destroyed.”

  Brackitt nodded with glum acceptance.

  “Then we’d better hope we can buy them a little more time.”

  Two Raklett guards stood with their backs to Jack and Klik in a doorway at the end of the corridor. The two intruders snuck up close. Jack aimed Gaskan’s pistol at the back of one guard’s head and winced as he pulled the trigger. The recoil almost knocked him off his feet.

  The other Raklett spun around, snarling and drooling. It raised its plasma rifle, but Klik was quicker. She leapt forwards with her bone-blades out and carved a deep gash through the creature’s stomach. It collapsed to the floor, convulsing.

  Jack turned his head away from the two bloody corpses. He felt guilty, even though he kept telling himself they were only rabid Rakletts. But there wasn’t time for hesitation or regret. There were far too many lives at stake.

  He stepped into the hall on the other side of the doorway and immediately checked the corners. Confident it was clear, he beckoned for Klik to follow. The hall had a different design to the rest of the space station. A large crane hung from a track running along the ceiling. The industrial walls were covered with white, plasticky panels that gave the hall a somewhat clinical appearance. Jack guessed this was how Everett would have liked the whole Iris to look if there’d been more time. It was much cleaner and brighter, too. They must have been getting close to the command chamber 11-P-53 de
scribed.

  “Woah,” said Klik. “Would you look at that…”

  She was stood beside the Raklett bodies, just as mesmerised as they had been moments before. Almost the entire exterior wall was a reinforced viewing window, ever so slightly domed from the curvature of the space station. The view was breathtaking. Somehow, what with everything going on, his adrenaline-surged brain simply hadn’t acknowledged it.

  Raklett and automata ships still fought one another in a scrappy free-for-all. But what really caught Jack’s eye was much closer to the glass – the violent surface of the white sun, rippling and gushing and bursting in geysers from the deluge of younger, orange plasma being injected into it. It looked beautiful and yet furious, as if it were fighting with itself.

  He squinted down past the window’s edge. The beam from the Solar Core was being fired from almost directly beneath their feet. Not far to go now.

  Klik turned around and screamed.

  “Jack, watch out!”

  Half a dozen more Rakletts had stormed through a set of automatic doors on the opposite side of the hall. What they lacked in wits they made up for with a disconcertingly keen sense of smell and enthusiasm for mindless violence. They had their rusty firearms raised before Jack even had a chance to spin around and see what the hell Klik was warning him about.

  The Rakletts opened fire.

  Klik grabbed Jack and pulled him towards a bulky generator back beside the door they came through. Jack let off a couple of blind shots with his pistol as he sprinted into cover. Its hearty booms deafened him to every other sound in the room, and he didn’t dare look up to check if he was actually hitting anything.

  Something certainly hit him, however. He felt a heavy thud against the side of his hip like he’d been whacked with a sledgehammer, and then the next thing he knew he was skidding across the floor on his back. He scrambled behind the generator with Klik and inspected the damage.