“What’s going on?” I asked.
He held up a claw, nodding along. “Copy. Stand fast, brothers, we’re on our way.”
When the call ended, he looked up at me with fierceness in his eyes. “A few dozen marines are pinned down outside the city. They’re requesting fire support.”
“Oh we’ll give them fire support, all right, and a whole lot more,” I said, grinning. “Daphne, get ready with that ramp. We’re going to come in hot for a pickup.”
“Whoa!” Jack said. “We can’t just scoop up Kibnali from battle.”
“The hell we can’t,” I said.
“Have you forgotten we’re running minimal shields? For all you know, a scout could sneeze on us and our engines could rupture.”
“Then I guess you better be good on the trigger and shoot every last one that has even the slightest case of the sniffles.”
“And what about all those issues you kept going on about going back in time to save dead people? You’re going to make a paradox and blow us to hell.”
I leaned forward and scratched the top of Taz’s head, who was currently perched on my console. “See that? We’ll be fine. Besides, we didn’t go back in time to save these guys. We’re here now and reacting to the situation.”
“Dakota—” Jack hesitated a moment before throwing Tolby a wary glance and going on. “They’re Kibnali. Old Kibnali. Old Kibnali who probably—and in a sense rightfully—blame you for this mess. What do you think is going to happen when they see you at the controls?”
I sucked in a deep breath and blew it out. Believe it or not, his words were precisely the reason why I was so intent on picking them up. They were old Kibnali, and I was responsible for not only the nightmare on this planet but for the genocide that was about to take place. I might not be able to stop it completely, but I sure as hell could save as many of them as possible and take them home. Such a thing might not earn me redemption in any of their eyes—and honestly, how could it—but I figured if there were a heaven and hell, at the very least I might redeem my soul enough to get out of a total eternity of torment.
Of course, that all assumed they even knew what was going on, which was up for debate. Somehow, I doubt each and every one of them got a detailed briefing of everything that had taken place.
The city crested the horizon, and even though we were still a long way away, I could see smoke rising in countless stacks all around. As troubling as that was, nothing quite compared to seeing the gaping wormhole in the sky, or more specifically, the swarm of Nodari ships that appeared to be on the verge of crossing the threshold.
“Jupiter’s belts, they’re practically knocking on the city door,” I said. “Daphne, any chance you can get an ETA on when that fleet will be here?”
“Attempting,” she said. “But this Progenitor ship has a few quirks to it, and the spacetime anomaly is making accurate predictions problematic. I will let you know when I do.”
“I would like that info before they start shooting at us so I don’t lose my mind,” I said.
“Then for your mental health, I will avoid sending you the next status update,” she replied.
I practically leaped out of my chair. “What?”
“I’m only following instructions,” she said.
“Screw the instructions! Who’s shooting at us?” My eyes scanned the visual displays but saw nothing other than the ocean below us and a war-ravged city ahead.
“Nodari fighters are speeding toward us at approximately eleven hundred kilometers per hour. They should be firing in five, four—”
A spray of lightning-blue bolts of energy zipped by the ship, a few deflecting off our forward shields.
“Oh,” Daphne said with genuine surprise. “Looks like I didn’t calibrate this correctly. You keep us from being destroyed. I’ll tweak the sensors so we don’t have that embarrassing mistake happen again.”
A pair of Nodari fighters came at us, and they shot past in a brilliant streak. Jack yelled with devilish delight as he laid into them with the triggers. The buzz of our rotary blasters filled my ears, and streams of cannon fire leaped from our guns. Sadly, as much firepower as Jack leveled at the Nodari fighters, he didn’t hit a single one of them. The two fighters broke away from the attack, each going wide to either side and curving back around toward us.
“Don’t let them get on our tail,” Tolby said.
“I know!” I said, pulling back on the stick and sending us rocketing upward once more.
Our ship lurched to the side after another spray of Nodari fire went by, harmlessly at first, but then the last several found our port stabilizer and punched a few neat holes into it. I only know the exact location because as soon as we were hit, the damage report flipped on screen.
“I hope we didn’t need that too much,” I said with a grimace.
“It will only be necessary to keep from crashing if the starboard stabilizer is destroyed,” Daphne replied. “But since it isn’t, you should be fine. So go, you, keeping that starboard area protected.”
“I need you to bring us back around, Dakota,” Jack said. “These guns have a limited arc.”
I kicked the pedals so that we rolled completely over before pulling on the stick once again. My eyeballs pressed into their sockets, and I could feel the blood leaving my brain, making me feel lightheaded and woozy. The Nodari fighters were following us, at least as best they could. It was clear that although they were incredibly maneuverable, especially compared to what the Kibnali fielded for an air force, they couldn’t match us in either speed or agility.
I picked out the fighter on the left arbitrarily and went after it. It dove back toward the ocean, and while I figured it was trying to bait us into following so that the other could get a shot, I decided to rely on our speed to bring it down before the others could catch up and followed.
My gamble paid off, much to my delight. Within a few heartbeats we could practically roast marshmallows on its exhaust.
“Eat it!” Jack yelled, squeezing the triggers again.
We were so close that there was no possible way he could have missed. Our shots struck the Nodari fighter’s tail and then ran up the entire fuselage. Large chunks of metal and internals went flying, and sections of the ship exploded. A heartbeat later, what was left of the fighter spun out of control in a flaming wreck. I pulled into a gentle, climbing bank and watched it fall until it disappeared into the ocean.
“You would make any wing commander proud,” Tolby said to the two of us, flashing an approving smile.
“Where’s the other?”
“Struggling to keep up,” Daphne said. “I’m starting to feel bad for it. This is clearly going to be a slaughter, provided you don’t let it shoot at us again.
“No, I won’t,” I replied.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not an ace pilot, especially when it comes to dogfighting skills. But since I was strapped into literally the most advanced warship I’d ever dreamed of, I didn’t have to be an ace. I didn’t have to be good. I just had to not suck, and that was something I could do.
It took a couple of attempts, but I soon managed to bring our ship around and latched onto the Nodari’s six. It weaved and rolled in all directions to try to throw us off its tail, but it didn’t have a prayer. I eased off the throttle so we didn’t overshoot, but instead made slow gains. When we were within no more than a hundred meters, Jack opened up on the craft. His shots sawed through its left wing, and like the first one, it went out of control and crashed into the ocean.
“I think we found your calling,” Tolby said, laughing. “Now let’s go get the others.”
“On the way,” I said.
One moment we were racing across the ocean, and the next we were over the rolling, grassy hills that lay just south of the city. It didn’t take long to find the Kibnali who were calling for fire support. There were three or four dozen of them hunkered down in a slew of stone ruins. A laser light show went on between them and the hundreds of N
odari who had taken up positions on hilltops on three of the four sides.
I eased the throttle and slid our craft sideways until it had a magnificent view of one of the Nodari assault points. It was worse than I thought. While the hilltop had scores of Nodari grunts and a couple of summoners, there were hundreds of swarmlings gathering.
“Jack! Get them before it’s too late!”
“I see them!” he called back.
Once again, Jack pulled his triggers and our rotary cannons sprang to life. The devastation he caused in the Nodari line was unbelievable. Their bodies vaporized under his withering fire, and what Nodari weren’t immediately destroyed had their bodies shattered or limbs melted. They tried to fire back, but we were high enough, and I guess our shields were strong enough, that it didn’t matter.
“Dakota, I am pleased to announce that I have recalibrated the sensors,” Daphne said. “Isn’t that exciting?”
“Yes, but we’re a little busy shooting fish in a barrel,” I said as I side-slipped the ship to the right and turned so Jack could get a better angle on the now-fleeing Nodari line.
“Well unless you pick up those Kibnali soon, it’s going to be us who are the fish in a barrel,” she said.
I tore my eyes away from the carnage that was happening below and checked the monitor that had been set to keep watch over the wormhole. Whereas before the Nodari hive fleet looked like a swarm of insects far away, now it looked like a seething mass of actual warships with one particularly large and nasty-looking one in the lead. “Oh damn,” I said. “How long do we have?”
“Only a few minutes until the battleship gets here,” Daphne said. “Scanners are reading it is at least three times as large as the two cruisers currently engaged in combat.”
“Is there any good news?”
“Yes. It has enough firepower that we will be granted an instantaneous death should it bring its guns to bear on us.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Yseri & The Empress
“Tolby! Get ready to get your guys in here, ASAP!” I said, pushing the stick forward and plummeting us toward the ground.
Jack continued to fire as best he could, but given our rapid descent and our continued shifting angle, most of his shots went wide or high. That said, it seemed to be enough to keep the Nodari from moving in on the Kibnali forces.
We touched down about thirty meters south of the Kibnali position. My bones rattled with the impact, and I hope whatever shock absorbers and struts this thing had were more than enough to take the abuse I was throwing at it. “I really hope there wasn’t anybody under us,” I said with a cringe.
“Thankfully, Kibnali are more aware of their surroundings than you are,” Tolby said, staggering out of his seat. “Daphne, open the ramp.”
“Opening now.”
Tolby raced out of the bridge, rifle in hand. I kept my hands on the controls, ready to get us the hell out of there. With my stomach in knots, I watched the outside monitors. At first, the Kibnali soldiers kept engaged with the Nodari. But then I saw a few of them lob a number of large canisters through the air. They hit the ground, and within seconds, thick, blue smoke poured out, completely obscuring anything and everything. As the smoke billowed in all directions and began to envelop the Kibnali hiding in the ruins, the warriors began a fighting retreat for our ship.
“Portside!” I yelled, pointing to the monitor as a Nodari captain crested the rise.
He lifted a massive bio cannon with two limbs and fired. The shell flew from the elongated barrel in a shallow arc and struck the ruins dead center. Stone and earth vanished in a dazzling explosion. I’m not sure how many Kibnali were killed because there was nothing left but a hollow crater with chunks of glowing debris.
What Kibnali I could see directed all of their combined fire onto the Nodari captain. Their shots skipped off an invisible shield and only served to draw his attention to them. It brought its cannon to bear, but Jack managed to fire first.
A heavy stream of rotary cannon fire poured into the monstrosity. Its personal shields flared a moment, sending arcs of lightning all around, and then collapsed altogether. Jack ripped apart its left side at the shoulder, sending it staggering back.
A high-pitched alarm blared in the cockpit, and Jack cursed several times over before slamming the bottom of his fist into the armrest. “Guns are overheated,” he said, looking at me apologetically.
“That’s not your fault,” I said.
“No, but they’ve been overheated for a while,” he said. “I might have hit the override.”
“You hit the override? Why the hell did you do that?”
“Because they were shooting at us. Why else?”
“No, I mean…gah! We better not be touting around slag for barrels.”
“Damage unknown,” Daphne said. “Complete system reboot is in effect.”
I opened a comm to Tolby. “Bud, what’s the sitrep down there? Weapons are offline.”
“Soldiers are loading now,” he said. He paused for a moment as he rattled off a few shots and chuckled darkly. “Heh. Stupid scout.”
I’m not sure if it was bad luck, or that the Nodari sensed our weakness. As soon as Tolby had finished, I glanced at the hilltops to see hundreds upon hundreds of swarmlings charging our position.
“Holy snort, that’s a lot,” I gasped.
Jack drummed his hands on his legs. “I think they’re going to get here before our guns come back.”
Nodari scouts and grunts followed the charge, and since the ruins were completely obscured by smoke and we were not, we were the ones that took the brunt of their fire. At first, our shields flickered white, but it wasn’t long before that white started to take on more and more of a redshift.
“Daphne? Are our shields coming down?”
“I prefer to think of it as increasing airflow potential,” she replied. “Very important for comfort and general well-being, you know.”
“How is that increasing airflow potential?”
“With all the new holes in the ship that will undoubtedly soon follow, I would think the answer to be obvious.”
I groaned. “Tolby, we’re about to be Swiss cheese, bud. Tell me we can dust off.”
“Two left,” he replied.
I flipped the monitor to display a view looking out of the ramp. My bud was at the bottom along with a few others, and they were relentlessly firing at the incoming Nodari horde. They were clearly waiting for the other two, but with all the smoke, I couldn’t see where they were.
The Nodari captain crested the hill once again. Apparently being half-dead meant that he was still half as deadly and more than capable of using his super cannon. He brought it to bear on our ship and fired. As before, the shot made a shallow arc, but thankfully, it didn’t hit. It sailed wide and impacted somewhere behind us. Though we didn’t suffer any damage, it was close enough that I saw Tolby and the other Kibnali security force reflexively duck for cover and bits of debris hit their backs and necks.
“Tolby, we can’t wait much longer! Where are they?”
“I don’t know, Dakota,” he said. “I can’t see through the smoke any better than you can.”
“Punch it, Dakota,” Jack said. “For all we know, they could be dead already.”
The incoming Nodari fire seemed to intensify, and our shields seemed to be in a perpetual state of red. A couple of heartbeats later, large holes formed in the shell and then the shots began to rip into our fuselage and wings. Going by the readouts, the damage was negligible, but I knew it wouldn’t take long for that to change, especially if the captain, who was readying his cannon once again, landed a shot on us.
“We’ve got to go, Tolby,” I said. “Get in!”
“There’s still—” He cut himself off, and in the display, I could see him shaking his head. I don’t know what he said, but he shouted to the others and waved them in. The moment the last one’s feet hit the ramp, I raised it up and swung the ship around. Hopefully, like most ships I’d eve
r known, the shield generators had at least been designed to handle forward and backward arcs separately, and thus I’d give our foes a relatively fresh section to shoot up.
The ship rocked forward with a tremendous explosion from the rear. Instinctively, I slammed the throttle as far as it would go and somehow managed to keep us from driving through the ground at the same time. As the ground raced beneath us, a new damage report came through with a single glaring red line:
Aft shields offline.
“At least it wasn’t engines,” I said with a nervous laugh. “Do we have guns yet?”
“Negative,” Jack said.
I eased off the throttle and banked the ship into a gentle turn so that we would soon be headed back toward the city.
“Nodari battleship has crossed the threshold of the wormhole,” Daphne announced. “According to onboard ship data, it should be within firing range of its main cannons in four minutes, assuming it takes note of us.”
“Then I suggest everyone rub their lucky elephants so it doesn’t take notice of us.”
“Onboard ship libraries are without virtual pachyderms,” Daphne said.
Tolby raced onto the bridge. His brow dropped, and his pupils had narrowed. It was a look I was unfamiliar with, despite how much time we spent together since we’d met.
“I had to go,” I said, swallowing hard.
“I know,” he replied before jumping into the last seat. “We need to get Empress and Yseri.”
“Where are they?”
“Trying to raise them now,” he said.
I kept the ship low and fast along the ground and in its sweeping arc, tensely waiting for him to raise them on his comm. I kept us deliberately a good way away from the city, thinking it was an excellent idea to let our shields rest as much as possible from any sort of fire and build back their strength. As I sat there waiting for Tolby to find Empress and Yseri, Jack shouted in triumph. “Guns back online,” he said with an enthusiastic fist pump.
“All of them?” I dared to hope.
So Close to Home Page 22
