“Hu-man,” a voice buzzed over the comm, but since I was a little busy swooping in and out of the city streets it didn’t exactly seem like a high priority for me to respond. I did however recognize the voice, it belonged to my old pal the sub-ascendant.
Phase canon fire blasted my tail, the first that had managed to find it’s way through my shields, but lucky for me it only did minimal damage. I cursed and glanced down at the display, the destroyer’s reactors had been bubbling and brewing long enough that I figured that it was just about time it’s supply of coolant should have burned away. Which meant it was about time for me to make my leave.
I did barrel roll barely managing to evade a long string of phase fire before diving down a side street where I was forced once again to dive out of the way of an obstacle which took the form of a metal arch with what might have been a statue of a bird atop it. The first of my pursers wasn’t as lucky as me and dove nose first into the arch going down in a blaze of fire. A second and third collided with the flaming debris and both exploded with bright flashes just as brilliant as the first.
“Hu-man, I know you can hear me,” the sub-ascendant’s voice buzzed through the comm system a second time.
“Yeah, well I’m just a little busy at the moment. What the fuck do you want?”
“Only to tell you that if you survive your encounter with my forces when next we meet I will see to it that your death is excruciatingly painful,” he replied his voice taking on a menacing edge.
“Well, I’m just so glad we cleared that up. Load off my mind,” I replied back and switched the comm off. As much as I just loved bantering with the bad guys I had much more pressing things on my plate like the six fighters who were trying to blow me to freaking smithereens. Well that and the massive ball of flame that rose from just a few streets away.
Though, I didn’t have a direct line of sight to the destroyer, I had no doubts it was the source of the massive wall of flamesthat burst outward stretching out through the streets, consuming entire buildings and wreaking destruction in its’ wake. I felt that all too familiar sinking feeling in form in the pit of my stomach. “Just great.”
The other fighters must have seen it too because they immediately ceased fire and put on the speed. I did the same and our dogfight quickly evolved into race against time, one where there would be only one winner. The blaze continued to expand and within the blink of an eye consumed three fighters. I gritted my teeth and sent my craft rolling into a side street just as the wall of fire consumed the final three fighters.
I sent the ship rocketing upward hoping, that I might be able to escape the blast, but the flames just kept coming. Warning lights flashed on my console and I glanced back in time to watch the flames consume the tail of my fighter. I lost all power and as I lost momentum the fighter went hurtling back down toward the ground. I tried to pull on the damn ejection mechanism, but it groaned and an error message strolled across the console indicating mechanical failure.
I closed my eyes, took in a deep breath of air and waiting for the inevitable to come, but then an odd thing happened… I didn’t die. My eyes snapped back open and I glanced around me. I could see the flames consuming the city off in the distance, but somehow I was zooming through the landscape, the nose of my vessel pointed straight down at the ground. I remained aloft, which didn’t make a lick of sense sense until I looked up.
A Pylkar class ship flew in the air above me, and all the pieces suddenly popped into place. I switched the comm on and craned my neck up as a huge smile formed on my face. “Max, is that you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” came her reply.
“Velspatt, I’m impressed. Not many pilots could swoop in like that undetected and grab someone with a tractor.”
“It is as your people say child’s play.”
“Lexa, I really hate to say it, but we’re going to have to make a quick exit. Once we get to safety we can get you outta the fighter an–”
“It’s not a problem,” I replied cutting Max short. “Just get us somewhere safe. I can handle a little more time in this tin can if it means staying alive.”
“Copy, we’ll talk more later.”
I sank back into my seat and let out a long sigh. With the space port destroyed along with all or most of the ships in the vicinity it was doubtful there were many vessels available to offer up pursuit. Of course, those that did survive, assuming any had, were probably a little more concerned about the smoking crater I’d left in the middle of the city.
My fighter in ruins, I closed my eyes and let the world pass me by as a smirk touched the corner of my lips. Any day I survived an encounter with the Qharr was a good one in my mind.
Chapter Eleven
I sat opposite from Mara and waited patiently as she poured us each a glass of Amaretto. I didn’t have to ask her the reason for our meeting since we’d both known it was coming. The mission into Scottsdale had had more significance than either one of us had let on.
Obtaining a ship was important, but there had been another purpose for the trip. One which only Mara and I had known anything about. There was a leak, and we weren’t sure where it had originated, though Mara was adamant that it had not come from the ERF forces. I wasn’t quite so convinced, but hadn’t voiced my dissent. It was better to allow her to think I agreed than let my divisive opinion destroy our partnership which was tenuous at best. We had hoped the mission would help us root out the source but I hadn’t been as successful as I had hoped.
My willingness to sacrifice the Relentless in order to save the Defiant had been the deciding fact, in Mara’s eyes, that I could in fact be trusted. I, on the other hand, didn’t doubt Mara’s desire to retake Earth, but I also knew she’d betray me if it meant achieving her goals. Which was why I was so cautious in my dealings with her.
“Did you uncover anything?” She asked taking a sip of her glass while simultaneously pushing mine forward.
“Nothing,” I said, glancing down at the amber liquid, but at the moment I refrained from partaking.
“I’ve told you about the mission, but…” I trailed off finally lifting my glass to sip at the drink.
“But there was something you wanted to add?” Mara asked finishing off her drink and placed the glass down on the desktop.
“Yes, everything happened as I described, but it seems odd to me that the sub-ascendant just appeared as he did. Someone had to have tipped him off and to be honest it seems a little strange that the ruler of a Qharr controlled world would drop everything just to hunt a trio of humans who fought their way into a city. Something more is at work here.”
Mara paused pushing her glass away with the back of her hand before clasping both appendages in front of her.
“I agree, it’s very obvious that there is a leak, but I’m not sure if it’s taken the form of a traitor. This whole situation has a different feel to it. The Qharr obviously have information they shouldn’t, having received bit and pieces, but if they knew the full extent of it, I think they would be taking much more drastic action to find us.” “What is clear, is that the sub-ascendant has taken a very keen interest in you. Though I can’t say I am surprised, the fact that humans can be joined with K’teth symbiotes represents a danger to the Qharr ideology. It suggests a similarity to the gray skins that I’m not sure someone like him would be comfortable with.”
“That’s it,” I snapped my fingers, before downing the last of my drink as I studied my aunt’s clone. “He sees me as a threat. I’m bonded to a symbiote and assuming that he did previously know that humans are the progenitors of the Qharr that would be very good reason to want me dead. I still can’t guess why he might want to keep this knowledge under wraps, but so long as I’m alive his secret isn’t safe. I’m a link to the truth and he knows it.”
“An interesting theory, one in which I’m inclined to agree with, but it’s conjecture without any proof.”
“Does it matter? It changes nothing. We are still set on the same path, aren’t we?”<
br />
“To be sure,” Mara said with a quick nod. “Though I will urge caution. There is an information leak whether it be in the form of a traitor or something else entirely remains to be seen. Speak of our meeting to no one, not even that lover of yours and definitely not your sister.”
I gritted my teeth and nodded. Although Mara had shown remarkable trust in me, it had not extended to Lily and especially not my sister who she believed was being influenced by her symbiote. I stood to leave and had my back turned to Mara before I spun back to face her.
“I would urge you to do the same,” I said matching her gaze.
She didn’t even so much as blink and a slight smile touched the corner of her lips. “Be ready. I intend to call a meeting tomorrow. Bring that little mechanic friend of yours and that foul tempered fellow. I’ll worry about the rest of the invitations.”
I nodded, but didn’t say another word before disappearing from the room. It was, after all, time to pay my little mechanic friend a visit.
“We have two weeks,” Morris said setting his tablet down at the center of the table, around which Mara, Arianne, Farris, Lily, the doctor and I were seated, and turned to a seemingly ordinary section of the wall. He tapped his fingers against it and the whole thing flared to life with all sorts of holographic images.
“Two weeks?” Arianne asked folding her arms across her chest as she studied the Colonel. “Isn’t that a bit… quick?”
“It doesn’t give us much time, true, but Ms. Brigg’s actions in Scottsdale City have presented us with a unique opportunity,” Morris said glancing back over his shoulder. “Nearly a fifth of the Qharr warships here on Earth were destroyed. If we can attack before they are able to replace them we would have an enormous advantage on the battlefield.”
“Battlefield? Jesus, you guys sure talk big, but I ain’t seen nothing that makes me believe you have the sorta fire power that needed to retake Earth. This ship of yours, what did you call it? The Defiant? Is impressive, but it takes more than a single ship to win a war especially when you’re dealing with a society of warriors like the goddamned gray skins,” Farris said pounding a fist against the table.
Farris was just as charming as ever, but still it was nice to see he had recovered even if he could be a lot to take in. It certainly seemed to put a smile on Becca’s face which made it all worth it. I wondered why Mara would elect to invite Farris, my sister’s boyfriend, and not allow Becca to join the meeting. He would certainly share everything with my sister which pretty much defeated the purpose of leaving her out in the first place.
It was clear, that even in spending all that time with my sister Mara had not come to trust her, but at least they’d seemed to have been successful in easing the tension with the nesters. More importantly rangers from other nests were willing to join the fight and had started to descending upon Sanctum. The place was becoming positively crowded and I’d elected to spend my time away from the nest whenever possible.
Morris narrowed his eyes and clenched his jaw, but it was Mara who replied. “I must say I am rather surprised to hear that sort of talk coming from someone who has fought with the resistance for so long. We are well aware of difficulties involved in retaking Earth, but suffice it to say that we have enough reason to be optimistic about our chances.”
“I fight the gray skins cause I ain’t good at much else,” Farris replied folding his arms across his chest. “Besides I never said I wasn’t going to fight. I just wanted to know if we stood a reasonable chance. That’s all.”
“Yes,” Lily spoke up from her corner. “You people have been quick on promises, but I think it’s time you showed us some proof.”
I watched Lily, my cheeks burning just a little at the memory of our little reunion celebration and shivered just a little as a consequence. It had one of our more passionate couplings, and things took an interesting turn after Lily had brought out a new toy. I bit my lip and forced those thoughts aside. They weren’t, after all, conductive to the business at hand.
I was just glad her little outing with the ERF had been successful and she had returned safely. Her party had encountered trouble at every turn, but had managed to bring the parts needed to fix the Relentless. She’d told me all about it, the first leg of their journey had been more or less uneventful, but the moment they’d stepped out onto salvage yards they found themselves pursued through the scrap heaps. For two days they had played cat and mouse with the enemy patrols before finally giving them the slip.
Forced to retreat, they’d made another run at the salvage yards, this one was successful, but after returning to the Defiant they found themselves once again pursued by gray skin ship. It was only by using the Rhianon device that they were able to escape.
I shook my head and gritted my teeth as I turned my gaze to Morris. “I for one am not going to go marching into battle without some assurances you can actually provide the sort of forces necessary. The resistance is almost non-existent. I won’t risk the few of us left without good reason.”
“There’s good reason,” Mara stood and joined Morris next to the holo screen. She reached for the wall, but the Colonel put his hand on her shoulder and held her in place.
“Colonel it is time,” Mara said placing her hand over his and looking up at her with a gentle smile that seemed just a little alien coming from her. “Don’t you think?”
“Very well.” Morris nodded and backed away taking a seat at the table.
Mara cleared her throat and tapped her fingers against the wall. An image flared to life, trickling across the display revealing an image of a ship, but the like of which I had never seen. “This is the Valiant, the flagship of the Earth Return Fleet, and the most powerful of our ships. It is roughly analogous to a Qharr destroyer and has more powerful shields and more fire power than anything the Qharr can throw at us.”
She tapped the screen again and an image of a similar ship appeared on screen. “This is the Dauntless, another destroyer-class vessel, we have five more ships which are virtually identical along with twenty cruisers, like the Defiant, and more fighters than I can count. We’ve managed to make a number of allies and they’ve each made sizable contributions to our fleet. If we can bring down the shields around Earth, we stand a chance of retaking our world, but we can’t do it without you.”
I nodded glancing around the room in hopes of determining what the others might be thinking, but unfortunately their faces were unreadable masks. “Lily, you know more about this than I do, what do you think?”
She pursed her lips and thrummed her fingers on the table, and glanced up at Mara. “Taking down the shield won’t be easy. I’ve done the calculations, and as near as I can figure the absolute minimum number of shield emitters necessary to maintain a functioning barrier around Earth would be eighteen–one of which would have to be a control station–there are at least twenty-four that the resistance was able to find which means some of them are probably redundant. Assuming that we were able to account for all of them that means we’d need to simultaneously bring down at least seven of them to destabilize the entire grid.”
“We’ve determined that there are thirty-two in total, but you’re right a good number of them are redundant,” Mara replied tapping her fingers against the wall again calling up another display showing the Earth and a bubble surrounding it. “We’ve analyzed the grid array and found a weakness and have been able to determine that we will only need to bring down three in total.”
“How the hell did you figure that out?” Farris asked. For once his voice was devoid of its’ harsh tones, but wide-eyes and arched eyebrows suggested that he was probably just curious.
Mara eyed Farris her face devoid of all emotion, just before a smile cracked at the corner of her lips. “You don’t think we’ve spent the last twenty-four years doing nothing, do you? We’ve made considerable advances in our technology since the war. You’ve seen firsthand our stealth technologies, but another big leap has been in our
sensors. In short, we can see through Qharr shields and have had several successful scouting missions in which we were able to make detailed analyses of the shield grid and the defense forces here on Earth.”
She tapped two spots on globe, indicating a place near the Eastern edge of North American and a second in South America. “There are two control stations, one for each hemisphere, when either is compromised the other is more than capable of compensating for the first, and the system can, for short periods of time, function without both, but if we simultaneously take them out along with a standard emitter it will be too much for the system to handle and the entire grid will come down.”
“These control stations…something tells me they’re not going to be easy to get to,” Arianne said running a hand through her long tresses.
“New York, New York, and Orsorno, Chile,” Morris said clasping his hands in front of him as he glared across the table at Lily.
“Specifically, the Sub-Ascendant’s Palace and the second would be the residence of Gydaresh Hykarr, Overseer of South America,” I said relaying the information provided by Khala. “Neither, will be easy to get into, but we’d already figured we’d have to make a run at Jykarr’s palace. Of course, you knew all this already, didn’t you?” I turned to Mara and studied her.
“There is only so much our sensors can tell us, but we did believe that both structures must have been of some significance beyond being control stations. Some of our analysts suggested that they could be residences of Qharr authorities, but we never had any way of knowing for sure. Much of their communications traffic is encrypted.”
“So all this business about retrieving another ship was because of this?” Farris shook his head and gritted his teeth. “Why the hell didn’t you people just bring more with you?”
“Because the Rhiannon device is still experimental and the Defiant was the only ship with a working drive. There are several that were scheduled to be fitted with one, but the process can take weeks because each must properly calibrated to the ship it’s installed in. Given the circumstances we believed it was best to join the resistance here on Earth as soon as possible.”
Battle For Earth Page 60
