Sodenia- The First Space Bastion

by Luigi Robles

  “Eora,” Fain said. “I need you to look for visuals of the enemy at all times; even traces will do. Keep all weapons at the ready, fingers on the trigger if possible. We are going to fly in guns blazing.”

  “You can count on me, sir,” Eora said.

  “Kya, keep scanning all radio frequencies,” Fain said. “If you hear something, I want to know about it.”

  “I will continue trying all channels,” Kya said.

  Fain traveled through space for one hour and twenty-four minutes straight, trying to look for the enemy, trying to read its mind. There was the occasional interruption from Kya, letting Fain know what she had found, but it was more of the same. Explosions and a call for help. But still, he kept focused.

  Two bright dots appeared next to each other on Fain’s surrounding view screen, then seconds later, they were highlighted as Earth and the moon.

  “Eora, anything?” Fain asked.

  “Negative,” Eora said. “We are still too far away.”

  We should be able to at least hear them by now, Fain thought. What the hell is happening?

  “I have been able to determine that there’s a powerful signal jammer in place,” Kya said. “And I believing it’s orbiting around the moon.”

  “Make sure of it. Keep on trying to track it,” Fain said. “If we know where it is, then we can destroy it.”

  Wait a minute, Fain though. Orbiting? What if whatever is attacking Earth is not on the side of the planet that is visible to us?

  “Hold on tight,” Fain said. “We are going around Earth to take a look.”

  Fain began steering Sodenia sixty degrees portside; the maneuver was tough on the human body. His body felt like it weighed a ton as he maneuvered the speeding ship. But once they were going in a semi-straight line, things normalized.

  Earth was coming rapidly into view, but Fain did not want to slow the ship down until he saw the enemy. He knew that if they were to survive this, there had to be no holding back and no hesitation.

  “Several enemy ships spotted.” As Eora said it, they appeared tagged on Fain’s screen. “They are near Earth’s atmosphere.”

  “I see them,” Fain said as he kept Sodenia turning. “Can you fire now?”

  “They are still too far away,” Eora said.

  “Keep the weapons hot,” Fain said. “Everyone else get ready.”

  As he kept turning the ship, more ships kept appearing on screen, quickly reaching the hundreds. As the ships came into view, Fain realized with a sinking feeling that they weren’t small. Judging by the size of the smaller ships that were buzzing around them like flies, Fain could tell they were massive.

  “Get the Fate cannons ready. Full power,” Fain said as the mother of all ships came into view. “Fire everything when we get a clear shot.”

  Sodenia’s Fate cannons began to extend and separate themselves from the ship in order to fire. Fain took the speed down to a tenth of what it was when he saw the entirety of the alien battle fleet. It looked like a downpour of rain over Earth, but instead of rain, it was the alien fleet, and instead of a storm cloud, their flagship loomed threateningly over the planet. Their flagship was crimson, with a rounded, eight-limbed trucker sticking out of it like a giant claw.

  “Kya, revert all unused power back to the battery modules,” Fain said.

  “We have a clear shot,” Eora said.

  “Fire, fire, fire,” Fain shouted. “Don’t hold anything back.”

  Sodenia’s Fate cannons fired, unleashing a slew of energy on the enemy fleet. For a few seconds, Fain was engulfed in a bright orange light as the ship recoiled from the shot. When the bright light finally cleared, Fain saw that the cannons had ripped a clear circular hole through the fleet and its flagship. But the flagship did not look compromised, as the hole that the Fate cannons had made was in a limb of the ship. All the cannons that could reach the fleet were actively firing.

  Fain’s screen lit up with dozens of warnings of incoming enemy fire. Without thinking, he began to maneuver through them as best he could while not losing sight of the alien fleet. His years of combat training in the simulator were paying off. Sodenia responded like a dream to Fain’s commands, almost instantly moving from one place to another.

  “Eora, when can we fire the Fate cannons again?” Fain asked as he kept maneuvering away from the incoming fire.

  “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 swar
m 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 Gatlin 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 could 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 c
an 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.”