by Luigi Robles
“The giant battery cells are currently recharging,” Eora said. “T-minus two minutes. I’ll send the status over to you.”
The timer for the Fate cannons appeared on Fain’s dashboard. As he evaded the incoming fire, he kept the ship on a wide, swinging trajectory towards the alien fleet.
“I have successfully located the communication jammer,” Kya said. “It seems to be planted on Earth’s moon, near the area known as the Tranquillitatis Base.”
“Relay the information to Eora,” Fain said. “Send a group of drones to destroy it as soon as we are in range.”
“Understood,” Kya said.
Fain was finally able to see the entirety of the alien fleet as Sodenia neared the moon. By the counts on his dashboard, Fain saw that this would be an impossible fight at best. The fleet comprised one giant flagship, ten to fifteen times the size of Sodenia; 212 large ships; 512 scout ships; and a swarm of smaller ships. For the smaller ships, the dashboard count kept fluctuating, hovering somewhere in the thousands. He decreased the ship’s speed once again, giving himself time to think.
We are just one ship. How can we ever win against an entire fleet? This isn’t a recovery; this isn’t an attack or even an invasion. This is total annihilation. Dammit. No, I can’t let myself think that way. This may be one ship, but it’s one hell of a ship, and we are not only one person. There’s Larissa, Pycca, August, Eora, and the rest of the people on board, and they are the best Earth has to offer. There has to be a way.
“Multiple heavy vessels approaching,” Eora said.
“Keep firing. Don’t let up,” Fain said.
Fain kept maneuvering towards the enemy, now at a much slower speed. The heavy vessels kept coming, and as they got closer, he began to hear Sodenia’s shield groaning. But that wasn’t his main concern. He wanted to line up the Fate cannons directly with the flagship, even if it meant taking fire head-on.
“I’m not sure how much of this we’ll be able to take,” Pycca said. “The shield could fail us at any minute.”
“Do whatever you need to do, but don’t let it fail,” Fain said.
The firing rate of the enemy ships increased as Fain centered in on his target.
“Imminent shield failure,” Kya said.
“Not now, Kya… Eora, get ready to fire the Fate cannons on my mark,” Fain said. “Full power.”
“Shield failure,” Kya said.
Fain felt the moment the fire from the heavy vessels struck Sodenia, but at the same time, he felt just how sturdily she was built.
OK, so that’s good, he thought. At least we aren’t going to get blown out of the air like a piece of paper.
“Fire the Fate cannons,” Fain yelled as the lock-on appeared on his screen.
The behemoth cannons fired, completely engulfing the space around Sodenia in light.
“Pycca, when is the shield going to be back up?” Fain asked.
“Thirty seconds, third floor; I’m changing a fried flux cable,” Pycca said.
Fain didn’t wait for the light to dissipate before maneuvering from his current position, away from any possible direct fire. As he moved, the blinding light engulfed the ship for a few seconds longer before it disappeared.
That had to be at least twelve seconds, Fain thought.
When the light finally disappeared and the enemy fleet appeared once again on screen, he couldn’t believe his eyes. He had to double check with his dashboard that what he was seeing was real. All of the heavy vessels that were heading towards Sodenia had disappeared, and everything behind them as well. That brought the count down to 147 large ships, 392 scout ships, and a swarm of smaller ships, whose exact number was still unaccounted for.
The enemy count had gone down drastically, and the Fate cannons were already well on their way to recharging. Nevertheless, it was unsettling for Fain to see that the enemy flagship was still standing. From the looks of it, the Fate cannons did not do as much damage as last time. To make matters worse, the flagship was on the move for the first time since they had met face to face. The claw-like limbs were moving ever so slightly, transforming into something else. The rest of the fleet was also on the move, with a lot more of the heavy ships heading towards Earth.
That cannot possibly be good, he thought. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think they were making way for the flagship to fire at us while sending the other heavy ships to attack Earth.
“Is there any update on the coms jammer?” Fain said as he was flying past the moon.
“I’ve sent six drones to the site,” Eora said. “They have spotted the object, but it’s still far away; they will engage once they are in range.”
“Shield is up,” Pycca said. “I’ve made some modifications. We’ll have a little more play than last time, but don’t push it.”
“Got it,” Fain said.
Fain felt his heart rate elevate when he saw the first couple of heavy ships begin to enter Earth’s atmosphere on his magnified view. Then his grip on the controls tightened once again as he saw the swarm of smaller ships heading towards them.
We have to move, he thought as he maneuvered away from the moon, swinging in a wide arc towards the alien fleet.
“Kya, I need to know if we have done any damage to that big ship at all,” Fain said. “Can you analyze it?”
“There are indications that their main ship has suffered considerable structural damage due to Sodenia’s main cannons,” Kya said. “I can confirm that the damage caused by the main cannons would have increased significantly with closer range.”
“How much more,” Fain asked.
“It is hard to tell exactly,” Kya said. “But some estimates place the increase in effectiveness within the first 100,000 miles at up to 300 percent.”
“That’s just what I needed to hear,” Fain said as he accelerated the ship.
If we are to beat the enemy, we must come up with a plan, he thought. If not, it doesn’t matter how powerful Sodenia’s Fate cannons or other weapons are; we won’t win.
The swarm of small alien ships was surrounding Sodenia, but their weaponry was too small to do any real damage to its shield, even though their numbers were in the thousands. But the fact that they weren’t getting through Sodenia’s shield did not deter them from attacking. Every small weapon on Sodenia, including the small Gatling turrets, was firing back at the swarm, taking down an enemy ship every few seconds.
“There appears to be a high concentration of energy coming from the enemy’s main ship,” Kya said.
One look at the flagship was all it took for Fain to realize that they were about to fire. And they weren’t going to fire a small shot; Fain knew it would be huge.
“Relay it to Pycca,” Fain said.
As Sodenia moved through space on its wide trajectory towards Earth, the swarm continued to engulf them, and the flagship kept the claw-like limbs pointing directly at them.
“If even a tenth of that energy hits us, we won’t survive,” Pycca said. “The best thing we can do is forward the shield towards the flagship and pray that we can get away to the edge of the blast fast enough.”
“Do it,” Fain yelled, anticipating the blast.
The shield moved forward to face the main ship, leaving Sodenia open to the swarm of small ships. The swarm didn’t waste any time attacking the ship’s shield anymore; instead, they went straight for the unshielded part. But they weren’t just firing their weapons; they were also crashing into Sodenia by the hundreds, causing a large explosion each time. That was when Fain realized that those smaller ships were the enemy’s drones.
“We are taking damage,” Eora said. “There are just too many of them.”
In the blink of an eye, Fain’s screen turned red; Sodenia was being pushed through space with massive force. The Acram flagship had fired its weapon, and thousands of beams shot out through its limbs. Fain felt the heat of the blast all the way to the pilot’s bay. Warning alarms, muffled by the shaking of the ship, were the only thing he coul
d hear. The violent shaking lasted for a good thirty seconds before everything went quiet and dark.
“Kya, what’s happening?” Fain asked.
No response.
“Pycca, are you there?” Fain asked, hitting his dashboard once. Then he tried his coms wristband. “Pycca, can you hear me?”
Fain then tried the controls, and nothing happened. They were stiff, frozen, unresponsive. He was already beginning to unstrap his four-point seatbelt harness when he heard a beeping sound.
“Sodenia is coming back online,” Kya said.
Fain let out a sigh of relief and tried to shake off the dire situation. He needed to concentrate.
“Kya, report,” Fain said.
“All systems are coming back online within the next thirty seconds,” Kya said. “In an effort to protect Sodenia, I diverted most of her power to the forward shield. This caused the brownout, as most of the remaining power went to power life support on board the ship.”
“Kya, you are a genius,” Fain said, sighing in relief as he was able to see the space around him once again.
Fain checked his newly refreshed dashboard and saw that the flagship’s weapons had moved back, just passing lunar orbit. He also took note that the enemy ship count had gone down once again to 131 large ships and 355 scout ships, and finally there was a clear count of the smaller drone ships—only 300 left.
This isn’t exactly good news, Fain thought. This means they won’t hesitate to sacrifice their own in order to win. Dammit, this complicates things even more.
“Kya, monitor their flagship as best you can,” Fain said. “The second it starts building up energy again, I want to know.”
“I will do as you say,” Kya said.
“Larissa, Pycca, August, Eora,” Fain said. “How are you doing down there?”
“The damage caused by the smaller ships didn’t pass Sodenia’s armored hide. But there were some casualties near the containment bay,” Larissa said. “It looks like some people decided it would be a good place to go and hide. There’s also a large air leak in that area. The med team, August, Pycca, and I are headed there now.”
“Try to get it done fast; there’s something else I’ll need you to do,” Fain said.
“Fain, I know it was unavoidable,” Pycca said, “but I don’t think we can survive another hit like that. The system won’t be able to handle another massive power transfer. At least not anytime soon.”
“I understand,” Fain said. “I’ll do what I can.”
“All weapons seem to be functioning properly,” Eora said. “And there might be some good news amidst all of this. The communication jammer has been destroyed. We can expect to reestablish communications with Earth shortly.”
“If that was their only jammer and we can communicate with Earth once again,” Fain said, “that will indeed be good news. We need to know what’s going on down there.”
Remembering the heavy ships that were heading to Earth, Fain didn’t linger. He turned Sodenia towards the Acram fleet once again. He was determined to see this through; there were too many lives at risk. He had long known that doing the same thing over and over again, trying to achieve a different result, was the definition of insanity. But this time he had a plan. He had seen the capacities of the alien fleet, and he knew what they could and couldn’t do. So, he decided to pursue those ships that Sodenia could, in fact, take out and leave the flagship for last.
“Kya, I’m going to need a little bit more speed,” Fain said.
“I will try to accommodate that based on your pilot control,” Kya said.
“Eora, I need you to shoot down everything you can in our path,” Fain said. “Get ready for maximum firepower and deploy new drones. I want every weapon we have apart from the main cannons firing on them as soon as we come into range. But don’t waste any fire on the flagship.”
“Got it,” Eora said. “We’ll do everything we can down here to make that happen.”
“Incoming communication from Earth. It appears to be Colonel Green,” Kya said.
“Patch him through,” Fain said.
“Fain, please tell me that you are alive and somewhere near Earth,” Green said, clearly agitated.
“Those two things are correct, Colonel,” Fain said as he began to dodge fire. “We’ve already engaged the enemy fleet here in space, but things are not going as planned.”
“Things are going to hell pretty quickly down here as well,” Green said. “Fain, listen, we are under immense fire, our heavy artillery is nearly depleted, and I’m afraid we cannot hold them back any longer. We managed to evacuate as many people as we could from the larger cities, but they are simply pushing too hard. We need help and we need it badly.”
“I’m on my way, Colonel,” Fain said. “You think you can manage to hold them off for a few more minutes? And at the same time, try to put some distance between you and them so we don’t have to hold back.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Green said. “But things aren’t looking too good. Over and out.”
“Kya, give me the best trajectory to engage the greatest number of enemies, including those attacking Earth,” Fain said. “We need to try.”
Within seconds, the near-Earth trajectory appeared on Fain’s dashboard, and he began to follow it at full speed.
“Fain, we’ve done everything we can down here,” Larissa said, sounding a bit winded. “What do you need us to do?”
“I need you three to strap our biggest missiles onto as many drones as you can,” Fain said. “Get help from wherever possible. The way I see things, you have about twenty minutes.”
“OK, we’ll get going on that right away,” Larissa said. “But would you care to share why exactly we are doing that?”
“I’ll explain later,” Fain said. “I promise. But for now, you have to get it done.”
“Alright, we’ll do it,” Larissa said.
As Sodenia got near the enemy fleet, she began firing back, and the enemy ships began to fall. One by one, they dropped away, exploding in space left and right. It was then that Fain noticed that Sodenia’s cannons weren’t like the ones on the Acram ships, not even close. Where Sodenia’s cannons, even the smaller ones, took only a few shots to take an enemy ship down, the enemy weapons couldn’t penetrate Sodenia’s shield unless she was stationary. But it was the opposite when it came to their main flagship.
Why so much of a difference? Fain thought. Could it be that they are used to having less resistance from other species? Is this why the Herrion almost won? Could they really be so arrogant? So proud?
Fain did his best to avoid enemy fire, but sometimes it was downright impossible. Each time Sodenia’s shield got hit by one of the enemy’s weapons, it reverberated throughout the ship, and the shield lost a percentage of its integrity.
As he neared Earth’s atmosphere, the firefight intensified as more heavy ships zeroed in on Sodenia. At the same time, the gigantic mess Green was in revealed itself to Fain. At least twenty-four heavy ships and a large number of scout ships were attacking the nearest shore. The cities by the shore were gone, most of them just a swath of ashes, and what was left was engulfed in flames.
“Eora, deploy all drone pilots,” Fain said as he slowed the ship and skimmed the atmosphere. “Have them concentrate on the scout ships. And let’s fire everything we’ve got at those ships down there and the rest up here.”
Fain knew that slowing the ship down wasn’t a great idea, as it would increase their target size exponentially. But he also knew that if they missed the target, they would hit Earth. Sodenia would be Earth’s shield, and he wasn’t going to abandon those people down there.
The area around Sodenia was engulfed in a scorching exchange of firepower. The ship was firing all its weapons at the Acram fleet—missiles, cannons, Gatling turrets, and drones—and did not stop for a second. All the while, Sodenia’s shield was beginning to fail.
If this keeps up, we aren’t going to last much longer, Fain thought as he watched t
he numbers on the dashboard decline. They were making incredible progress, and the enemy fire was decreasing, as there were fewer of them, but their shield had only five percent integrity remaining. Plenty of enemy fire was getting through, damaging the ship’s hull and possibly the armored hide beneath it. They had to get out of there, and they had to get out of there fast.
Come on, Eora, come on, you can do this, Fain thought as he eyed the last two heavy Acram ships remaining on Earth. Sweat was beginning to form on his forehead as the tension built up.
“All heavy ships have been destroyed,” Eora said as the last two explosions appeared on the surrounding view screen. “There are only six scout ships left.”
“Eora, monitor them closely. Have the drones continue to engage them,” Fain said as he accelerated Sodenia out of the target zone. “Try to buy us some time while our shield recuperates.”
“Understood,” Eora said.
Fain took the ship on a wide, curving course, at the end of which they would come face to face with the flagship. But he didn’t do so at full speed; he was buying Sodenia some time to restore her shield. The numbers on his dashboard looked promising. Seventeen large ships remained, along with fifteen scout ships—including those on Earth—and all the smaller ships had been destroyed. But Fain knew better than to celebrate, as the flagship remained, and it was following Sodenia’s every move.
“Larissa, talk to me,” Fain said. “How is it going down there? Any good news?”
“You know, Fain, this isn’t exactly a walk in the park,” Larissa said, sounding busy. “But we’ve managed. So far, we have seven missiles strapped onto drones.”
“I think that will be enough,” Fain said. “Get them ready to launch and come back to the bridge.”
“OK, that will only take a few minutes,” Larissa said.
The seventeen remaining heavy ships kept attacking Sodenia as she moved through space, but just like the rest of the enemy fleet, they too fell to her mighty cannons. But something wasn’t right; it was as if they knew they were going to get destroyed but they went along with it anyway.
