Liam said, “When we make it back to Garuda, remind me to make some alterations.”
“You mean if we make it back,” Saturn jeered.
“If we’re dead we won’t care about the heat,” Liam reasoned.
“Comforting.”
Liam ignored her and focused his attention on the glowing holographic projection in the center of the console. The Nightstalkers flew side by side, the leader’s nose sticking out slightly ahead of the other. They were within 750,000 kilometers now. Liam cursed. The Kraven were almost within targeting range. Out of the corner of his eye, a third dot flashed briefly on the outside of the scanner’s range, disappearing almost as quickly as it appeared. Liam hit the console trying to make the dot show up.
“What was that?” Saturn asked.
“I don’t know, it could be nothing. But we’ve got bigger problems to deal with.”
Liam’s left hand found its way to the throttle. Saturn eyed him with a dangerous look. He wrapped his hand around the handle and pushed it forward as far as it could go, which was hardly any farther than it was already pressed. The cockpit was bathed in flashing red light and groans emanated up through the floor, shaking the consoles violently. The Garuda wasn’t amused.
Saturn yelled over the din, “Nix, are you sure there’s no way to cool us down?”
“Not without sucking us all into space. I told you, the ship wasn’t meant to accelerate this fast.”
“We just need to hold out a little longer,” Liam shouted.
They were approaching the moon now and Liam turned the ship into orbit. He felt his hand shift ever so slightly, surely the work of The Garuda adjusting his aim. It wasn’t the first time the ship had made adjustments on its own, but every time he saw it Liam found himself surprised. It was good to know The Garuda practiced the art of self-preservation.
Narra’s rockiest moon grew before them and its massive canyons came into view. Liam kept an eye on their speed, which continued to climb as the moon exerted its pull upon them. They were traveling along the dark side, coming up on the bright horizon. Liam got ready to make his move, but when he went to move the controls he found the control handle moving on its own once again, breaking the moon’s orbit and shooting toward Narra. When he checked the readout on his screen, Liam noticed that they’d broken orbit at precisely the right angle to maximize their acceleration. It made him wonder why he even bothered driving.
“We’re headed for the surface?” Saturn asked.
“Not exactly.”
They were traveling far faster than Liam had ever gone before. The Nightstalkers were matching their course, beginning to come around Narra’s closest moon and closing on The Garuda. Liam’s heart beat faster, swiftly pumping blood to his extremities. He’d thought about using the moon’s canyons to force a chase, but it was too risky. With two ships they could split up or attack from a higher orbit, negating the risky maneuvers he was taking near the surface. He had a better idea. It was the only thing that made sense to him and the only way he could think to have the advantage over two Kraven Nightstalkers.
“They’re closing,” Saturn said. “I don’t know how but they’re moving even faster than we are.”
Liam directed the ship to the steepest angle of descent he could. The Garuda tried to shift the controls away but Liam held firm. The stream of purple energy overhead grew enflamed, angered by Liam’s denial. The roar of the engines became louder in protest.
“Easy,” Liam said to the ship. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Who are you talking to?” Astrid asked, confusion coloring her voice.
“All Captains talk to their ships,” Liam hedged.
Astrid said skeptically, “Is that right?”
Nix pointed to Astrid’s console and told her, “Drop it. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep your eyes on your screen.”
Astrid was silent. Liam caught her face in the reflection of the cockpit’s window and saw her close her eyes and clench her jaw. Astrid’s demeanor could very well have been a ruse. He had to be ready to act. It had crossed his mind that she was hiding whatever power she held until after they dealt with the Nightstalkers. Revealing herself before would be suicide. It had also occurred to him, but seemed far less likely, that perhaps she was telling the truth. Maybe she didn’t have the same alterations as her sister and she was innocent in all of this. It seemed far-fetched, but stranger things had happened.
Liam heard Ju-Long’s woozy voice over the speakers in the console, “What’s going on?”
“Just sit tight Ju-Long, things are going to get a little bumpy from here on out.”
“You didn’t even buy me dinner first.”
Liam laughed and replied, “Just hold on to something.”
Saturn pointed at the hologram and stated, “We’re approaching the outer atmosphere but we’re coming in too fast, we need to change our angle of descent.”
A green laser shot past the cockpit, breaching the atmosphere and causing an explosion on the surface of the planet below. Liam held their course. It was hard to see out the cockpit’s window now, with a glowing orange trail of rushing air flowing over The Garuda’s curves. The effect only lasted a moment and they were free of the upper atmosphere. Liam fired the reverse thrusters in an attempt to slow their descent.
The Garuda’s angle changed from nearly ninety degrees to sixty, still steep but much more manageable. Liam was able to fire the remaining thrusters underneath the curved belly of the ship and slow their descent further. More green lasers found their way past them, one of them grazing the hull behind the cockpit and jolting the vessel.
“Open the vents, get rid of the excess heat,” Liam ordered.
Saturn hesitated before finding the right controls on her console. The heat levels began to drop and several of the warning lights stopped flashing. Saturn checked the holographic image of the surrounding area and said, “They’re breaching the atmosphere. They’ll be on top of us in seconds.”
Liam flipped a hard switch and released The Garuda’s long wings. He felt his insides jump as the wings slowed their descent to a crawl. Liam punched the accelerator and used their new maneuverability to turn the ship around. The plummeting Nightstalkers were in their view and firing on them. Liam spun The Garuda around in a spiral, minimizing the hits to the wings.
“Are you crazy?” Nix asked incredulously.
“Fire everything!” Liam commanded.
The crew complied and Narra’s tinted green sky was colored with blue lasers. The Garuda sputtered and then released a volley of its electric napalm substance from deep within the ship. The lasers were ineffective against their armor, but a portion of their main weapon found its way to the hull of the rear ship, corroding the top of the ship and forcing fragments of metal to break off into the sky.
Liam turned hard to the right and accelerated out of the Kraven ships’ flight path. The Nightstalkers were desperately firing every thruster trying to slow their descent, but they were less effective than The Garuda had been. Their angles began to level out but they were falling too fast. Liam brought the ship about and watched them drop beneath the jungle’s high canopy. He waited for an explosion but one never came.
“Is that it?” Saturn asked. “Did we get them?”
Before Liam could answer her, the Nightstalkers shot up from the thick jungle and rose into the sky. Liam cursed and broke hard to his left, avoiding the incoming Kraven vessels. They were still fast in Narra’s skies, but their maneuverability was compromised. In space the shape of their ships wouldn’t have mattered, but over a planet, with gravity and wind and all the rest, their ships were at a disadvantage.
“Hold on,” Liam said before pulling up on the controls and taking them upside down.
Liam looked up and saw the green jungle canopy below him. Soon they’d gained on the rear Nightstalker and could see the damage the main gun’s corrosive substance caused. The hull was down to its struts on top and bits of blue still ate at the sides
. The ship was limping along.
“Saturn, Astrid, get ready to fire on my mark.”
Liam flipped the ship right-side up and said, “Now!”
Blue lasers fired straight down into the open cavity of the Nightstalkers hull. Saturn’s gun fired pellet after blue pellet of bright light at the other ship. On Liam’s console he saw explosions below them and the Nightstalker losing altitude. Moments later it crashed into the jungle below, setting fire to the lush green landscape.
Liam adjusted course and brought them down behind the last Nightstalker. The ship moved left to right, avoiding making itself an easy target. Liam said, “Aim for the thrusters, they shouldn’t be as armored as the rest of the ship.”
The crew fired their weapons, Astrid’s laser and Saturn’s deadly gun concentrating on a single thruster. The main gun never fired. Nix hit his console with a clawed fist and The Garuda sputtered in protest. Still, the Nightstalker’s thruster began to fizzle out and the Kraven ship rocked back and forth.
“Get ready for another blast,” Liam said.
Saturn and Astrid fired their weapons again but hit only air. The Nightstalker shot toward the ground, firing its remaining thrusters. Liam turned the ship and followed them as they clung to the forest canopy. The Nightstalker was flying erratically now, soaring far too low over the top of the jungle.
Liam asked anxiously, “Where’s my main gun, Nix?”
“She’s not responding. I don’t know what’s wrong.”
“Keep working on it. Saturn, Astrid, focus all fire on their engines. Fire at will.”
Blue lasers and countless blue pellets of light lit up the Nightstalker’s rear. Several shots went astray and started fires in the dense green rainforest. The sun had begun to set over Narra and the sky was turning from green to the same orange as the fires below. They had to finish this quickly because they would lose their advantage after dark. The Nightstalker’s dark coloring would make them a challenge to track.
Astrid’s precise laser caught another one of the Nightstalker’s thrusters and it quickly faded to black. Liam heard Astrid give a muted victory squeal.
The Nightstalker veered off to their left. Liam turned in pursuit, but lost sight of them in the dimming light. He cursed and ordered, “Check the scanners, find them.”
Saturn pointed at the holographic projection of the planet’s surface. Their two dots were overlapped, flashing a brilliant yellow against the orange backdrop. Liam looked up and saw nothing. The realization struck him too late.
A bright green laser cut through one of their wings, nearly tearing it off its thick metal foundation. Bits of flayed metal flapped in the wind. The Garuda made a terrible noise from within and warning lights flashed in protest. Liam cut hard to the right. Without Liam’s command, The Garuda retracted its wings as best as it could and fired extra thrusters to keep them aloft.
“We can’t take another hit like that,” Liam said. “This needs to end, now.”
“Get me in position, I think I’ve got it working,” Nix said.
Liam steered the vessel erratically, trying to throw off the Nightstalker. Without their wings it was increasingly difficult to evade their pursuer. Green lasers flew past them at every turn.
Liam had an idea but enacting it wasn’t going to be pretty. He pulled up on the controls and led the Nightstalker up a thousand meters, leveling out and flying fast over the trees and vines. He told the crew, “Get ready to fire. If for some reason this doesn’t work, it’s been nice knowing all of you.”
Liam cut power to all of the thrusters and they dropped from the sky, traveling forward in a long descending arc. The Nightstalker flew right past, unable to make an adjustment in time. Liam turned on the power once more and nothing happened.
“No, no, no,” he said before hitting the console with his fist.
The thrusters jumped to life and, overcoming his surprise, Liam forced the accelerator to full. They were coming up underneath the Nightstalker when Liam roared, “Now.”
Each of the crew fired their weapons at the Nightstalker’s engines. The main gun crackled and then spit out a small amount of the electric napalm substance. The fiery lightning struck one of the Nightstalker’s thrusters and corroded it instantaneously. The Kraven ship broke off and accelerated up into the sky putting every ounce of power into their thrusters and making for outer space.
“They’re retreating,” Saturn said in a surprised tone.
“Pursue them,” Nix said.
Liam turned and told the Dinari, “We can’t. We need to set down and assess the damage. If we’re not space-worthy it would be a real short trip.”
Liam moved The Garuda over the jungle looking for a clearing big enough for their vessel. After a minute of searching, several of their systems went haywire. The Holographic image fizzled in and out, replacing it with another image. The cockpit lights dimmed and they were face to face with the blue-faced Kraven.
The projection before them was shrunk to fit inside the cockpit, but from experience Liam knew he was far larger, standing at more than four meters tall. His thick neck supported a massive bald head, rife with scars and patterned with a deep shade of blue. Compared to the Dinari and the Ansarans, his eyes were small, but they clearly resembled the golden orbs so familiar of the Dinari. The image only showed him from the waist up but was intimidating nonetheless. He wore a hard leather wrap from his waist up to mid-belly, where several straps came over his shoulders at various angles to create the appearance of a large ‘X.’
In a deep voice indicative of the Kraven’s massive frame, he said, “I commend you, Liam of House Kidd. Few could have stood against my Nightstalkers and lived.”
Liam turned on the autopilot and sat back in his chair with his arms crossed. He replied, “It seems I’ve been seeing a lot of you lately. I like what you did with Ragnar by the way. So what do I call you?”
“I am Garrick, Lord of the Kraven Throng. I have no quarrel with you, Outsider, but your ship is another matter. If you knew its evils you might not fly her so freely.”
“What’s he talking about?” Saturn asked.
Liam put up a hand to silence her and replied to the Kraven lord, “Don’t be ashamed to fear our ship.”
“I am not as vapid as Crius, Outsider. Your guile will get you nowhere with me.”
Liam smirked.
“I expect I’ll be seeing more of you, then?”
“Count on it,” Garrick said before terminating the transmission.
Normal light levels returned to the cockpit and the hologram of Narra’s surface reappeared.
“This ship,” Astrid began. “What was Garrick talking about? It’s clearly not like the other ships I’ve seen.”
“What did you tell me once?” Liam asked. “Some secrets are not meant to see the light of day.”
Astrid lowered her gaze and asked, “Now that it’s over, are you going to kill me?”
Nix got out of his chair and approached her. Liam stood up, watching the Dinari closely to see what he would do.
Nix bent in close to her and breathed out, “You’re lucky. You have too much information I need to kill you just yet.”
The Dinari took off down the bowed corridor without looking back.
Liam rested his arm on his seat’s headrest and said, “If you had the power Nix spoke of, we might all be dead right now. You’ve helped us against the Kraven, and if you continue to help us, I’ll let you stay.”
Saturn jumped to her feet and objected, “What do you mean? I thought we were dropping her off on the surface.”
“The plan’s changed. I think she deserves time to prove herself. I didn’t say it was going to be easy. Eventually, you and Nix are going to have to come around or we’re going to have trouble.”
Saturn gazed into Astrid’s eyes and her cold gaze softened. Liam felt a tension in the air release. Whatever Saturn thought of the Ansaran, something about her reaction was different. She’d given up her protests so easily. Perhaps some pa
rt of her wanted the Ansaran to stay.
Liam observed Astrid’s expression and asked, “Do you still want to come with us?”
Astrid looked to her lap for a moment and then back to Liam. She nodded.
“It’s settled then. Anyone who lays a hand on our guest will have me to contend with. Do I make myself clear?”
Saturn crossed her arms and averted her eyes. She nodded and said in a soft voice, “Perfectly.”
“Then take your seat, I’m going to set us down and we can start on repairs. We’re going to have a long trip back to Garuda.”
Ju-Long’s queasy voice filled the cockpit once again, “Is it over?”
“Yeah, buddy,” Liam responded. “It’s over. We’ll be back to check on you in a minute.”
“Super. Hey, just out of curiosity, did you happen to put a catheter in when you were playing the hero?”
Liam said questioningly, “No, why?”
“Oh, no reason, no reason. But, when you come by, you might want to bring a rag or two.”
EPILOGUE
One Month Later – Garuda Colony, Planet Garuda
Ju-Long Ma dabbed his fingers over his puffy lip, wiping the blood away to keep it from running down his chin. Sweat burned his eyes and the glare of the sun forced him to squint to see the outline of his opponent in front of Garuda’s near permanent sunset. He tightened his fists and the barbs over his knuckles sizzled with electricity.
The crowd of Dinari onlookers were rabid after waiting so long for the final bout. Riken was a popular fighter, but Ju-Long was beginning to grow his own fan base. Cheers for both contenders fought each other for prominence in the mass of spectators. Zega sat atop the raised platform with the leaders of the other sectors of Garuda Colony, overwhelmingly pleased that both of his fighters had made it to the final round. His fat neck giggled as he fed himself strips of raw meat. The rest of the Dinari emissaries appeared bored and were chatting amongst themselves.
Riken spat upon the packed dirt and circled Ju-Long, hands held loosely at his sides. The large Dinari fighter was bloodied, red dripping down his broad scaled chest in a sickening sluice leading all the way to his legs. Bits of his skin were scorched black by the electric barbs, but he didn’t seem to notice. His focus was singular in nature. It must have been embarrassing for a fight with an outsider to go on for so long.
The Corsair Uprising Collection, Books 1-3 Page 32
