“No! Wait for me. That’s an order.” It came out harsher than he’d intended, but he was having trouble controlling his emotions. Something was seriously wrong, he could feel it.
“Very well... Crap—it’s targeting me.”
“Evasive maneuvers, Sarah!”
“Roger, but hurry up. This pilot is using flying patterns completely different from anything we’ve seen so far from the Zarlacks.”
“I don’t think it’s a Zarlack ship.”
“I can’t shake it, Chase! It’s locked and loaded on me, but it still isn’t firing.”
“Hang on,” he assured her, “I’m engaging any second now.”
His heart started pounding in his chest and he pushed his ship even faster. Why would this mystery ship take out her entire squadron but leave her? None of it made sense…
The second he entered firing range, he pelted the ship’s starboard side. Nothing happened. He glanced at his controls again, sure he had misread them. No, he didn’t. The ship’s shields had stayed at one hundred percent.
“This is not good!” he cried in alarm.
“What is it?” Sarah asked, still dodging as best she could.
“Its shields are incredibly strong! I hit it full on and they didn’t even blink.”
“Maybe we need to go at it with missiles.”
“With shields that strong we’ll only waste our ordnance. We need to find a way to lower them first.”
“I’m open to suggestions.”
“Let’s go at it together, like we did with the scout corvette the other day. Try to dance around and stay very evasive. I don’t like the ease with which it destroyed your escort, or the strong signature I’m getting from its shields.”
“Me either. Understood and,” she confirmed, “engaging.”
As they engaged the incoming wing, Chase got his first visual look at the ominous craft, and what a beast it was! It was at least five times the size of the F-140s with a black matted paint that made it look like a shadow in space, erasing the stars behind it.
He and Sarah focused their lasers on a specific point in the shields for about twenty seconds but, to Chase’s intense dismay, its shields dropped by only a single percent.
“We really have a problem here.”
“These shields are way too strong, Chase. What do we do?”
“We need stronger firepower; there’s no way we can take this fighter out with just two F-140s.”
“What about the Destiny?” she asked.
“That’s what I’m thinking too. But we’ll need all the ships we can spare for the next phase of our plan…”
“So what do we do then?”
As if to answer, the black fighter veered and turned to face its opponents, hitting them with heavy fire. The first salvo took Chase by surprise and scorched his aft shields down to thirty percent before he managed to start evading. Not only was the fighter powerful beyond anything that Chase had ever thought possible for a vessel of its size, but it was also incredibly maneuverable, and Chase had one hell of a time dodging its relentless attacks. Forget thinking offensively, it was taking his entire focus not to get blown out of the sky.
“Hang on, Chase, I’ll try to get his attention.”
“No, it’s too powerful. I can manage and keep it at bay until the satellites are ready to fire on the destroyer.”
“But Chase—”
“That’s an order, Sarah. Stop firing at him and engage his escort. The escort is Zarlack in design and I don’t understand why it hasn’t engaged yet, but that doesn’t matter. I need you to dispatch it. I won’t be able to dodge both of them attacking me.”
Sarah was quiet for a long moment, before she finally said, “Engaging escort now.”
The second Sarah locked onto the passive Zarlack ship, it veered away from the dark fighter and engaged in evasive maneuvers. It had one hell of a pilot! Sarah had trouble scoring the few hits she did, and she wasn’t able to inflict enough damage before the tables turned and she became the target.
She danced around and evaded most of the fire and, for a few minutes, both vessels exchanged the roles of hunter and prey—neither managing to inflict any serious damage. All the while she kept a close eye on her radar and she watched as Chase’s fighter got steadily weaker. His shields were already down to fifteen percent. He was the best pilot she had ever seen, but a sense of dread started looming over her.
What if he had met his match?
* * *
In the Destiny’s engineering room, Yanis looked at his terminal and said, “That’s it, we’re ready. Cedric, can you give me the status of the satellites?”
“Eighty percent charged. Another two minutes before they’re ready to fire. I’m entering the code now and locking the coordinates for the transport of the EMP device. Do we know if it will affect our ships as well?”
“I’ve run simulations… Only ships that are in the direct path of the wave escaping the small hole the satellites will punch through the shields should be affected. I’ve already warned Captain Saroudis and he’s positioning the ships accordingly. They’ll also turn off their equipment at the exact moment we beam the EMP to be sure. Simulations are one thing…”
“There’s one thing I don’t get. If the EMP knocks out their systems, won’t the shields collapse as well?”
“They should, but they won’t collapse instantly. They should still contain the bulk of the EMP shockwave.”
“Should?”
Yanis glared defensively. “Well it’s not our ship and I don’t have the exact specs now do I? I just fed the simulator whatever scan parameters we had.”
“So we could end up disabling our ships as well?”
“Yes. That’s why some of the ships are currently repositioning away from the detonation zone. We shouldn’t need too much firepower to destroy or disable the ships once it happens anyway. The ones in the detonation zones will just turn off their power for a brief moment.”
“What about ships with shields that are still up?”
“I fed that info to the simulator as well; the blast should disable any ship whose shields are under sixty percent in the blast radius.”
“That’s a lot of uncertainty.”
“If you have a better plan, I’m all ears.”
Cedric shrugged. “I don’t. I’m just thinking that it’s one hell of a gamble.”
“I agree, but we don’t have much of a choice. If we don’t destroy or at the very least disable this ship, sooner or later this battle will be over and the wrong side will win.”
Cedric was quiet for a second, and then asked, “What about power?”
“What about it?”
“When you made the calculations, did you reroute enough juice for the beaming to even happen? Since the processing power and storage requirements are astronomical here, we need to make sure we have enough juice to make this work, now don’t we?”
“Isn’t Earth’s electricity grid stable?”
“Are you serious? It’s designed to make our infrastructure run well, but when every computer on the planet starts running at full power all at once, I predict there will be a little problem.”
Yanis paled. “What do we do?”
“Give me another two minutes to hack the planet’s power grid.” Cedric sighed. “Boy, this better count as overtime.”
“You aren’t being paid anymore, remember?”
“Don’t remind me.”
* * *
Chase was losing patience with the black fighter. It was clearly the superior vessel but, for whatever reason, it seemed content to play a game of cat and mouse. A game that Chase, despite his impressive piloting skills, was doomed to lose. It was time to pull another rabbit out of his hat. He hit his comm link, and Captain Saroudis appeared on screen.
“What’s up, Chase? You seem to have bitten off more than you can chew.”
“Sure have. I need to know where we are on the plan. We need that big ship to go away so we can concentrate the rest of the fleet’s f
irepower on this new threat I’m dealing with right now.”
“Want me to start firing our main guns at it?”
“That would put you on the wrong side of the EMP radius, so no. But can you have a squadron of fighters loaded up with my remote control protocols?”
The captain thought about it. “We have two wings of ships coming in for reloading. I’ll dump their pilots and load the programs. But the rest of the ships aren’t ready.”
“Can they fly?”
“Probably.”
“Then load as many as you can with my programs and give me access when they’re ready.”
“Alright, Chase, hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Improvising.” He tried to smile. “Isn’t that what I do best?”
“I hope so. Hang on a second…”
“Roger that.”
The picture emptied but, after a few seconds, Saroudis returned to the screen.
“Alright, we’re ready to fire the satellites.”
“That’s great news! How about the EMP?”
“Locked, loaded, and ready to beam in shortly.”
“Very well. Make sure the squadron of fighters I requested is powered off when the EMP explodes and try to put the Destiny enough of a distance away to stay operational.”
“Still comfortable with improvisation at this point?”
“If I didn’t have to evade a possibly better pilot while talking with you, yes. But right now, it’s getting hard to manage.”
“Hang on just a few moments. I’m already transferring firing controls to you.”
“Thanks, Captain, see you on the other side.”
“Hopefully.”
The holo-display turned off. Time to get away from this part of space, or he and Sarah would get disabled along with the rest of them.
“Sarah, we need to vector away from here. We’re almost ready for the firing sequence.”
“Busy here. This pilot isn’t fucking around. I miss the dumb drones from our test flight; hell, even the scout ships. I’ve almost fired my entire ordnance at this guy; he simply does not want to die.”
“I know how you feel,” he replied. “At least yours is just a skilled pilot; mine is a freaking flying fortress too.”
“Exchange?”
He was about to say no, when he suddenly paused. “Actually, that’s not a terrible idea. My shields are reaching levels I’m no longer comfortable with.” He typed in some commands and sent them her way. “Let’s bring them both to this set of coordinates.”
“Alright. Changing course.”
“Once there, let’s face each other and fire at our respective pains in the butt.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
A couple of minutes and several thousand miles away from the satellites, Sarah and Chase came nose to nose, with their enemies still hot on their tails. Chase reconfigured his firing frequency to an ultra-powerful, single beam. He redirected every bit of energy he could to the weapons, then locked all his remaining missiles on Sarah’s attacker. As soon as they passed each other, his lasers opened a hole in the ship’s shields, and his missiles blew it to kingdom come. Unfortunately, debris from the blast rained down on his ship in the process, draining the last of its shields.
“Thanks for the assist, but you’re out of missiles,” Sarah called.
“One problem at the time.”
At that moment, Chase received the green light that both the satellites and the teleporter were ready and fully charged.
“Satellites two and three, fire now!” he shouted.
A ball of blue energy glowed for a split second on the tip of the main cannon of both satellites, before a laser of enormous proportions hit the main enemy battleship, enveloping every single fighter—friend or foe—that was in its path.
A quick look at Chase’s scans showed that the shields were down at the point of impact.
“Chase to the fleet, power down in three!”
He thought about the teleporter firing controls, activating it in the process. “Transporting now!” he added just before turning off his own systems.
But then something happened. The lights on the satellites and every enemy ship within the EMP impact range blinked uncontrollably for a second, before going black. The same thing happened on the ground and, a moment later, the entire planet went dark. He waited another few seconds before re-engaging his systems. As soon as the F-140 systems came to life, he heard Sarah on the mind link.
“Chase, did it work?” she asked breathlessly.
“I think so, but I don’t know. Hang on.” He hailed the Destiny. “Captain, package delivered. Concentrate all firepower on that big ship. Make it go away, or make damn sure it doesn’t get the opportunity to recover from this.”
“Systems rebooting. Engaging with every ship still capable, maximum firepower.”
Then every remaining Alliance ship started firing at the indestructible enemy battleship, which seemed to have been temporarily disabled by the EMP.
In a matter of seconds, they could see the impact they were having. Debris was flying, decks were taking fire. Before long, the Droxians joined in and the “indestructible” battleship didn’t stand a chance.
A strange voice echoed in Chase’s ship. “Very impressive, but it will cost you, boy.”
“Who is this? Identify yourself!” he demanded. But then, with an ominous chill, he checked his controls and realized the message hadn’t been transferred via communicators, but directly into his mind. He put his hand up automatically to his face and gazed through the view screen at the black fighter. How was that even possible?!
Then everything started to turn very bad.
Chase’s controls started blinking rapidly and he looked down to see that the fighter was gaining on Sarah, pelting her with maximum fire. It quickly tore through her shields and bits of debris started floating away into space. He immediately angled his ship to intercept, transferring all power to the engines, but even so, she only had a few seconds. As he looked on in terror, the black fighter which wasn’t affected by the EMP blast turned around to deliver the final blow.
“Sarah, eject!” he cried.
“I’m trying, Chase, help—”
But time seemed to stop in Chase’s brain. He realized that even at maximum thrusters, he would never arrive in time. Every moment that he and Sarah had spent together seemed to flash before his eyes and, before he realized what was happening, he was making his ship jump on instinct, shouting at the top of his lungs.
“NO!”
He re-appeared a split second after in front of Sarah’s disabled ship, taking the hit that was meant for his beloved. His instruments exploded and flames shot out the sides of his cockpit, and then…darkness.
He never realized how lonely it was, floating there in space. With all his systems down he had no way to evade his attacker and no way to call for help. He could only watch, through his cracked canopy, as the black fighter swooped around for another pass. He also felt the weightlessness of zero G now that his ship’ systems had been disabled.
At least he and Sarah would die together. The thought comforted him. But then the familiar voice of the goddess echoed in his head.
“It’s not over, Chase.”
He looked around in wonder, but then his eyes fixed on the ship. The black fighter had stopped right in front of him, so close he could almost touch it; but it paused, waiting.
“Do it already, you motherfucker!” he screamed.
“Not today,” came the same mysterious voice as before.
Then all at once, the ship turned to the side. Sarah was floating there in her cockpit. She’d been able to eject, but was now sitting there as helpless as he was. Chase watched in impotent rage as a red tractor beam seized her cockpit and lifted it to the ship.
“No!” he shouted aloud, and he began pounding on the weakened glass of his cockpit.
He punched it again and again, trying in vain to get to her, as drops of his blood floated inside the
cockpit. He had to stop this! He had to save her! He had never wanted anything so much in his life.
And then all at once, his situation changed.
As if he had willed it so, he opened his eyes and found himself onboard a Manticore Alliance fighter, with his wing of remote fighters at his side onboard Destiny. He gasped and clutched automatically at the sides of the cockpit. Losing no time he launched out of the Destiny, his remote-controlled wing following once he slaved them to this craft. Was this even real? Was he hallucinating? A second later, he decided that it didn’t matter and, as soon as he entered firing range, he launched every missile he and his squadron had at the black fighter.
Of course Chase didn’t want to destroy the ship, just disable it, but no matter how many times he fired, its shields were still holding. Out of options, he started throwing the remote-controlled ships on a collision course, one by one, still to no effect.
The dark voice inside his head chuckled. “Let her go. She’s mine now.”
Chase made a noise somewhere between a shriek and a growl.
“I told you it would cost you.”
“Destiny! This is Chase. Fire on that ship with everything you’ve got!”
“Understood. Firing now,” Saroudis answered.
Streaks of blue laser fire and salvoes of torpedoes approached the target while Chase braced himself and hoped with all his heart that they wouldn’t blow the ship out of the sky, but at least manage to disable it.
But just before the lasers impacted with it, the black fighter disappeared, simply blinking out into nothingness instead.
Chase’s mind went black and he lost consciousness. All the fighters he was controlling turned off instantly and floated in place, becoming still more pieces of debris, drifting aimlessly in the darkness of space.
Chapter XXIV
When Chase opened his eyes, he was lying on a bed. His vision was blurry and everything sounded garbled. He thought maybe he heard a voice. It was too muffled for him to understand. His hands were throbbing with pain, though, that much was clear. He remembered how he’d pounded them to shreds upon the glass in his F-140. His head was also ringing like someone had tried to pry it open.
Earth Last Sanctuary (Universe in Flames Book 1) Page 27
