Epic

by Alexander Strijewski

  “That’s weird. I want a team of heavy attack drones to take them out before they get any closer. Aevin and Hekner, you’re on it. Deploy immediately.” Drander made an inconspicuous motion towards a catch releasing a very seldom used button…

  They all watched the screens.

  “Sir, my drone is responding, but it’s a little sluggish.”

  “Mine too” said Hek “I’m not sure what’s wrong with it.”

  Everyone started to get very interested.

  Drander looked through the relays. Something was off. One of the control relay satellites had been disabled. How anyone had located them was beyond him, they were hidden and cloaked. But it meant more of them could be taken out.

  “It’s looks like we’ve been sabotaged. I’m about ready to abort, but Hek, I need you to still neutralize those two interlopers approaching our drone ship. Can you still do that?”

  “Oh not a problem, give me two seconds.”

  Drander started to get very anxious, losing a satellite meant that someone would try to subvert other components of his army all at once to push him and his team into an instant state of disability without much warning. He hung on for the next couple of seconds. Never had he actually worried about his own person before.

  Two very speedy drones shot like a cannon out of the dropship and headed for the two approaching figures. Seconds later a volley fire went straight at them. Direct hit! The two humanoid figures exploded into smoke and seemed to veer away.

  “Toldja!”

  Just as they pulled out to return to the ship Drander went on the global channel and said the most unexpected thing he had ever said.

  “Does everybody have their side arms on them?”

  All 7 combatants in the pod and the remaining in the other two pods looked at each other in disbelief. Drander pushed the aforementioned hidden seldom used button.

  “Side arms? You mean for us personally here!? Why would we ever need those?”

  They fished around for them, they could feel the tension building now.

  “Something is happening that I can’t explain yet.” Drander said.

  More of the unthinkable, he opened a channel to the police outside maintaining the compound, not his team. “The mission is aborted, get the entire crowd as far away from the pods as possible! Now!”

  Right as he said that both drones entered the landing bay of the dropship, but instantaneously, rather than head his ship out of orbit he launched another drone, not his own personal, and headed straight for the smoking wanderers. Once the smoke cleared they found that the two figures were still heading from the ship and hadn’t been destroyed at all. Drander opened up a camera to the outside of his Ops Pod to see what was happening outside in their own ship, the Provenance, from which they did all their remoting.

  At the same time in Antares rather than blast them out of the sky he landed the drone on one of them and seemed to attach it to the figure approaching their dropship two systems away.

  “What’s going on Drand?” said Bilner.

  “Just find your sidearm everybody! Quick.” There was now a scramble in the pods for them as his team unhooked themselves from their control units.

  He maneuvered the drone and attached first figure into the second one and seemed to fly them so they all came together. Using thrusters alone he seemed to be able to commandeer them away from the dropship. It was hard going because without all his control relays in place he wasn’t able to be very accurate with his motions.

  “Just as I thought.”

  Then he expeditiously sent the dropship out of orbit away from the planet. He set a rear camera to follow the three figures now joined in space. The 2 figures were on autopilot and he had managed to hook his drone onto them and deviate their course out into space.

  “We just lost another satellite, we wouldn’t be able to control the drones very well at this point anyways. We are probably under attack now and this is an inside job. We could be in danger.”

  He took a glance outside again, there was a lot of commotion as usual, but the police force was trying to clear everyone out as best they could.

  “It’s pointless to stay in here, we’re sitting ducks. Take whatever weapons you can find and follow me. The same goes for pods 2 and 3.”

  He opened up the hatch to get outside and was interrupted by a huge sound. Pod 3 burst into flame! Someone had planted explosives!

  “MOVE OUT NOW!”

  They scrambled outside and while safe behind the spectators glass they made a mad dash for the common grounds. Both Hek and Aevin were in the pod along 5 others of his best crew. The exit was 50 yards away. It looked like only one or two of them actually had managed to scrounge up a weapon to defend themselves with. Drander had never been under attack before, not in real life. If he just had a drone!

  Within in seconds they had made it out but another pod went up in smoke! Thankfully, it had just been vacated seconds before.

  “WHO IS DOING THIS DRAN?!” yelled Bilner.

  Drander looked into the crowd to see who didn’t look surprised. Then he saw him. He questioned himself as to if he had enough courage to go after him, with his meager gangly 9 year old frame in tow. He yelled into his headset at the police to follow the hooded figure he spotted that had, carried the sign with the bomb threat.

  “I need to secure the dropship with all our drones or we have nothing. And I need to get us to the reserve Ops Pod”

  They made their way through the commotion. The TV cameras had caught the explosion and were all over the Despots now, catching their emotional reaction. This could mean their end if they took heavy losses. There were several contingency plans that they had in place in events like this but they had never really drilled what they would have to do. Working his way into a hidden alcove, Drander beckoned what remained of his team to follow him. They entered an elevator leading down into a level most of them had never seen before.

  “Where are we going?” wondered some.

  “We have to see the General, there is a reserve Ops Pod below and we have local drones, but our first order of business is securing the Provenance and staying alive.”

  They stared at the floors flying by as they waited anxiously. After about a minute the doors opened to a floor which no one except Drander had seen before. They made there way to an operations room, with the adults positioned around a 3D tactical map.

  He looked at General Hawvin. “Is the auxiliary ship control unit online?” asked Drander.

  He strapped himself in before waiting for an answer. The screens came up and saw what he expected. There were bogeys inbound for the Provenance as well as for their dropship light years away.

  “Bil! You and everyone else have emergency drones that we can use to protect this base. The only way anyone could attack us here is if someone is on the inside who knows our codes. So be on alert for anything suspicious. But deploy what you have.”

  It then occurred to him that the code that had been on the picket sign was the launch code for the emergency drones! Somehow someone had gotten access to their systems. Someone must have been bribed. Why didn’t the General answer? Fighting several battles at once was something Drander was used to. He organized defenses for the Provenance while simultaneously plotting a course away from the inbound bogeys for his dropship in Antares. He looked over at the General. He was slumping over, dead. So were the other officers, they must have been poisoned somehow!

  “Listen up you guys. I need you to cover me while I steer our ship into safety. We are about to be attacked. There are machine guns and pistols on the walls. Pick them up before they arrive.”

  Kids handling real live ammunition and guns? No, they couldn’t. They were too heavy.

  “STOP STANDING THERE LIKE IDIOTS! DO IT OR WE’RE ALL DEAD!”

  They rushed at the walls and taking the machine guns pointed them at the elevator which had gone back up for someone else. Some of them had to prop the firearms up over the desks as they were heavy.

&
nbsp; “You need to LOAD THEM FIRST! You know, WITH BULLETS!”

  “Drand do you know how heavy these are?”

  A couple of them had started crying. Bilner slapped them out of it and handed them his small pistol. They fumbled with the ammunition and after several minutes figured out how to load them.

  “They are coming, whoever THEY are. Would you rather die?”

  “The codes are not working. I can’t get the emergency drones online Drand.” Yelled Yarnam, his best programming expert.

  “Then you have to hack them. If someone else has control over them then we are as good as dead.”

  Pretty intense stuff isn’t it? Phew! I need a break. Thankfully as narrator I don’t have to be in the middle of this. OK breathe… OK I’m good, let’s keep going.

  One thing they didn’t realize was that even though they were 20 floors down within the Provenance, that all people had already been evacuated. Drander’s mind was in two systems, in Antares with his dropship, and here. Yarnam was trying to get the reserve drones here working and everyone else was busy training their guns at the elevators. But who was attacking them, and how? Well it turns out, when war is engaged, the right bidder is the highest bidder. This time they were outbid!

  “There is someone that is trying to open a communication channel to us you guys. Should I let it through?” said Yarnam.

  “Yes, we need to find out who we’re dealing with.”

  A heavy set blue face filled their view screen. It was someone that seemed vaguely familiar but Drander couldn’t place it.

  “And how are my favorite captives? You’ll be happy to know that all civilians have already been evacuated from your vessel. Don’t worry, you will soon be greeted by my commandos, they are not humanoid so you have no chance of overpowering them within your bodies. Why don’t you guys put down your weapons?”

  “Just who are you exactly?” replied Drander.

  “Oh you don’t remember the bidding war for the battle between the human colony on Phobos and the Gliese system? You took the Gliese contract over ours and so nearly wiped us out so we decided to raise the money and put a contract on your heads. Now you know how it feels to be a number! And don’t try to escape, we have your entire ship surrounded with our fleet. So don’t try anything funny. Not that you and your boys could do anything anyways now, I mean being little boys and all.” He laughed, the jowls jiggling through the viewscreen.

  Drander had imperceptibly moved back to his console and silently began typing commands to Yar who was still working on the hacks. He seemed to get the response he wanted from him. OK now is where I press the fast forward button actually, it was at this moment that Drander seemed to buy time so he engaged in what would afterwards be regarded as fake blubbering in what would be remembered for a long time in internet memes and put to music and special lighting effects for years hereafter. Interviewed later Drander admitted he invented the whole emotional outburst but suffice it to say he was driveling for his life and that of his comrades for the next ten minutes straight. I think I’m going to spare you from having to listen to all of that. But… oh what the heck, let me give you just a taste…

  “…But we’re just KIDS! How can you do this to us? We can pick up the next contract and make it up to you please please PLEASE! My mom…”

  There you go, that’s about all I can stand, how about you? Once the ten minutes was up, Drander seemed to completely change his tone and went mute in addressing the commander of the Phobos army. He now addressed his crew with a stalwart glare.

  “I need two people to lay explosive magazines in front of the elevators and the rest of you over on the far wall and get ready to abandon the ship” They flew into action and did as they were told.

  “Abandon the ship into what?” asked one.

  The commander stared, incredulous.

  “What!? What are you doing?”

  Just then the elevators opened.

  “Shoot the magazines!” he shouted.

  They did and the result was a huge explosion! The two boys standing who set them off flew back in and one got impaled in a piece of debris. There was smoke, one couldn’t really see who was on the other side coming through or if they were still alive. Just then there was a huge roar and the entire space seemed to shake. Before the commandos stepped through the smoke from the elevator, a hole was ripped into the wall and an atmosphere bubble encapsulated the space on the opposite side of the Pod. All the boys were in blinded and in shock. Drander concentrated his efforts and shone a light guiding his team through the debris. He looked at the overall map of the area as best he could, the whole space was a mess of sound and smoke and dust, but there were eleven new blips on the screen just outside his ship now. Everyone knew their role. They had a few more seconds of fallout and as one they all made their way to the hole in the wall while there was still cover from dust. It was very likely that their visitors from the elevator were not human and could easily kill them all. They jumped through and into the arms of Dranders transport drone.

  “Do we have everyone?! Let’s get out of here!”

  He was about to speed the ship away into space. He wasn’t sure if they all made it. But before they got too far, they were met by a series of ships right in front of them creating a blockade. They only had four drone command posts inside the transport but it was better than nothing, and Drander could command three of them by himself. The new reserve drones which had appeared were identical to the ones they had employed in war so they were used to the controls.

  There is a recording of the ensuing battle in many vids online, but this time Drander used his 3 drones and his left remaining foot to control the transport ship they were in to avoid fire and stay alive. You’ll have to wait until the end of the story to really figure which drones he was really controlling and where. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves too much. Explosions and high speed fire and movement filled all four of his screens, and with all his crew onboard he yelled his orders during the heat of battle.

  There was a flurry of activity and after 15 minutes, they had held the enemy in check long enough to at least make a getaway through the barricade. They headed for the magnetic null point of the nearby moon where they had been stationed the previous few days and hung low for a few seconds.

  “Jeez Drand, where did all those new drones come from? I didn’t know we even had them.” said Bilner while commandeering his own unit.

  “Hold on, we’re not out of this yet. We can talk later.” He answered.

  They were being pursued and the tactical map showed a much larger force heading in their direction. They were outnumbered 7 to 1.

  “Great what do we do now, we’re cornered!” cried Spilner.

  “We have to make a retreat but where we go they can follow us so we have to go somewhere they can’t follow. I need everyone to strap themselves in fully. This is going to be dangerous, you have probably never experienced this much G forces before in your life and you may lose your lunches. You guys did great up to now, but hang on, our lives depend on it.”

  Everyone did as they were told and Drander started up the FTL drives knowing they may die in the acceleration. With all their drones in tow, they made their way to a nearby nebula in a hurry while dodging fire. It’s moments like this I like to rewatch in slow motion, normal humans have difficulty following exactly what takes place in real time in the heat of battle.

  Bilner was starting to look blue in the face, “We need to rendezvous with our dropship, then we could fight a real battle, but now with we have here we have no chance!”

  “No I put a general distress, the UFHP will want to protect their investment in us. They are our best hope now. The dropship will take days to get here and there is no time. So far they haven’t answered us however. Maybe they don’t want to become hostile towards Phobos. Blue boy here is throwing everything they at us all at once. I think tactically this is one battle we can’t win! We were set up.” said Drander.

  They all watched the map
view screen. They were beginning to be surrounded and the forces were growing. They were hopelessly outnumbered. All the eleven drones were fleeing a much greater force with no hope of turning around and firing back without being disintegrated into so much space dust.

  “What do we do?” yelled Bilner while weaving and dodging shots. “I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up.”

  “If UHFP isn’t coming that means they must have been bought out! Man now I really do know what it feels like, we were the lower number!” Dranders keen eye spotted something just outside his line of sight, “There!”

  He indicated one of the ships that was under guard and behind several other ships, it was a corvette, but it didn’t appear to be heavily armored. If they made a mad dash for it, they could potentially attack it, but it would probably be suicide with all those other ships around.

  “These eleven drone are all the reserves we have left. Yar, can you do your best to unscramble from where the comm was originating when the Phobos commander had opened a channel to us?”

  Yar was still knee deep into his computer terminal, they didn’t know if he was even listening..

  “OK I’m on it, but I think I found out something just a little more interesting guys.”

  Everyone turned their heads in his direction.

  “Here take a look at that. What do you think that is?”

  He zoomed in on an anomaly on the outskirts of the opposite side of the moon they had just left. It was spherical in shape.

  “Is that what I think it is?” muttered Drand

  “If it, is it would explain a lot.” Bilner said, still dodging a myriad of deadly munitions behind him.

  “OK guys, that’s our play. We have only a few minutes before they converge on us and it’s all over. Let me give you the game plan on each of your terminals. This transport we’re in is extremely manueverable, so you’re going to have to fasten yourselves in hard. We’re gonna have to make this fast. We can’t miss on this.”