by Joe Vasicek
“No!” Aaron said, pounding his fists against the control panels. After eight sleepless hours of suspense, the setback was more than Aaron could bear. He curled up with his forehead on the keyboard and began to quietly sob.
“Paladin wing, this is Commander Noah again. Central command is telling us to stand down to yellow alert. Repeat, yellow alert. Put your ships on standby and come back to base.”
Profanities flew in the cabin behind him, but Aaron barely heard any of them. His brother—the mission. It was all he could do to lift his head and power the systems down.
* * * * *
“So what happens now?” Lino asked. He spoke between mouthfuls of bland, unflavored synthmeal. Everyone knew they had to eat fast if they wanted to eat at all.
“Don’t know,” said Jason, dangling his spoon in front of him. “I think we are trying to mass for attack.”
“The other ships can’t be far,” said Phoebe. “We all had the same coordinates. They can’t be more than a light-hour or two away. Right?”
Everyone looked at Aaron, who suddenly realized how little about the Flotilla he knew. “Don’t know,” he said. “Might be. But if Aegis is biggest ship, has most mass, don’t know. Maybe others overshoot.”
Tzaf swore and mumbled something in his native Iayan, probably about how he wished he’d left the platoon at Iaya. It was plain enough to see in his eyes. Before anyone could call him on it, though, Mara spoke up.
“We’re going to die,” she announced calmly. “I hope you’re ready, boys, because this is how it ends.”
Half the table swore at her, with Tzaf storming out. “What are you talking about?” Lieutenant Castor asked. “Why would you say that?”
Mara shrugged. “Because it’s true. We’ve lost the jump beacon and the element of surprise, which were the only real advantages we had.” She went on to explain how even if they did gather the Flotilla, the Imperials would be ready for them. Aaron caught most of it, but the words all blurred together in his head.
“We’ll find a way out of this,” said Castor, but he sounded less than sincere. The others voiced their objections too, but they were all clearly dispirited by the recent turn of events.
“You are one crazy woman,” said Jason, wagging his finger at her.
“Of course I am,” said Mara. “We’re all crazy, coming to fight in this rag-tag flotilla against the most powerful military force in all of settled space. But now, we get to see who the cowards are. Now, we see what it is we’re actually fighting for. Now comes the reckoning.”
Her words made Aaron think back to the dream he’d had just before the campaign, back when he and Aaron were still on the Medea. Running through the cargo hold of the Starfire, searching desperately for the cryotank with the henna girl. Finding it, only to watch her die and the Imperial soldiers shoot him to pieces. Was this what it all came to, then? Was this his premonition?
The lights in the mess hall turned red, and alarms began to blare. Everyone jumped to their feet.
“Red alert! Red alert! All crews to battle stations!” an officer’s voice sounded over the intercom. “All platoons, board drop-ships and prepare for assault.”
Adrenaline surged through Aaron’s body, and chills shot from the back of his neck to the ends of his fingers. Before he knew what was happening, he was in the corridor, sprinting for the ship with the rest of his platoon. The pounding of boots mingled with the blaring of alarms, and the smell of sweat and adrenaline and fear all mixed together.
The final battle of the campaign had begun.
The Reckoning
Aaron slammed back against his seat as Paladin-4 launched. The second he was clear from the Aegis, he engaged the engines at full throttle, tearing away from the ship. He checked the scanners and saw the enemy ship bearing almost fifty degrees to his right—a big one, by the looks of it. The course correction made his stomach turn, but that was unimportant. The only thing that mattered was getting the platoon to the enemy ship alive.
“Paladin wing, this is Paladin-1. We have an Imperial battle cruiser at sixty klicks, bearing fifty-nine at thirteen from the Aegis’s bow. Keep a loose formation and burn engines at maximum. We’re going in hot, boys—hotter than ever before.”
“Has central identified that battle cruiser?” one of the pilots asked. On the scanners, the Paladin-4 took off ahead, but not by too much. Aaron throttled down slightly to let the others catch up.
“Negative, Paladin-3. We’re getting an ID on it now.”
The starfield outside the forward window was awash with explosions. The battle cruiser had opened fire with long-range missiles, and the Aegis’s countermeasures were responding. The barrage was too thick, though. A missile got through and exploded with a brilliant flare near the ship’s engines. Aaron cringed, but the flagship held.
“Entering enemy projectile range in twenty seconds,” said Commander Noah. “Prepare to cut engines and make evasive maneuvers on my mark.”
The ETA clock counted down rapidly as the hard acceleration continued to press Aaron against his seat. Five minutes, four minutes, three minutes—
“Holy shit, it’s the Starfire!”
“Cut the chatter, Paladin-5. Entering range, fire engaged—mark!”
Aaron cut the engines and swerved hard to one side. All around him, the other drop-ships did the same. His stomach practically fell through the floor at the sudden maneuver, but the projectile fire coming from the Starfire scattered in all directions. Without the threat of concentrated fire, there was a much greater chance they’d get through.
It was only then that he noticed the distance on the scanner. Fifty-four klicks to target—that was longer than the training simulation they’d all failed. His cheeks went white, and his vision started to blur around the edges. There was no way they were all going to get through this alive.
“Commander, the Starfire is launching drone waves!”
“I see them. Hang on!”
Hundreds of missile-sized drones poured out of the Starfire’s launch bays and began accelerating toward them just as the first burst of projectile fire hit their position. Aaron had little trouble evading it, though the closest shot missed him by less than a dozen meters. A fresh new salvo of projectile fire issued from the Starfire’s guns, along with tracers and plasma bursts.
“Paladin wing, increase forward throttle to thirty percent maximum—we’ve got to get through that fire!”
“At that rate, will we be able to slow down in time?”
“We’ll be sitting ducks!”
Commander Noah shouted something in reply, but the rattle of debris and projectiles against the Paladin-4’s armor plating cut him off. Aaron reengaged his engines and went into a wild barrel roll, plasma bursts and tracer fire flaming all around him. Alarms began to blare, but there was no time to check them—not when they were under heavy fire. Cold sweat chilled the back of his neck, and his hands were so clammy he could barely feel the flight stick.
“Drones!” someone shouted over the channel. Aaron suddenly remembered the autolasers and hurriedly fumbled with the controls to turn them on. They came into action the instant they were powered, whirring as they filled the space outside the window with piercing red laserlight.
The first drone wave hit them like a juggernaut. Aaron gasped as one passed within only a meter or two of his ship. Its laser scorched the forward window, leaving a black burn mark that seriously impeded his view. On the scanners, the other drop-ships rolled and scattered. Paladin-2 winked out.
“Paladin-2! We’ve lost Paladin-2!”
“Hang on, boys! Covering fire!”
A brilliant soundless flash outside the forward window made Aaron squint and cover his eyes. The auxiliary screen with the rear video feed went fuzzy and filled with static, then blinked back on to show the after-glow of a second explosion. On the scanners, the first and second wave of drones blinked out, just as the third one broke to avoid the debris. The path was clear for them to get through
But then, a thi
rd explosion caught Aaron’s eye. In the auxiliary viewscreen, the Aegis had taken another hit. This time, the engines didn’t hold. A stream of fire breached the outer hull and erupted from the ship like blood from a headshot, just as another missile struck the bow of the ship, followed by another. In horror, Aaron watched as explosions tore the ship apart, turning the once-proud flagship into a rapidly expanding field of debris.
There was no way out now. If they couldn’t take the Starfire, they were all going to die.
“Paladin-6! Paladin-6 is down!”
“Incoming!”
Another salvo hit them like a wave of fire, fresh on the heels of the third drone wave. Aaron couldn’t avoid it all. Explosions rocked the hull, setting off a cascade of new alarms. His vision was fuzzy, and a terrible headache began to grow. It was all he could do to focus on the scanners and dodge the enemy fire.
Screams and shouts filled the channel, but he couldn’t understand what any of them were saying. Another green dot on the scanners blipped out, but he couldn’t read the label at all. The alarms, the radio, the controls—it was all a jumble of words and letters to him, ones that he couldn’t make any sense of. He glanced in panic at the ETA clock, but it was unreadable as well.
Now the green dots on the scanners were starting to slow down. Aaron realized that he had to decelerate soon, otherwise his drop-ship would overshoot the Starfire and fly out into certain doom. He nosed the ship around, nearly passing out from the g-forces. Vomit rose to his mouth, and fatigue seized every muscle in his body.
In that moment, as the g-forces threatened to overwhelm him, he imagined he could hear the henna girl from his dream.
Come for me.
The words cut through the head-splitting fog and confusion like a laser. The words on the scanner stopped swimming before his eyes and came together to make sense and meaning. Their trajectory was tight, but they were still holding it, still—
The blood drained instantly from his cheeks as he read the alarms. The reactor had a breach, and the coolant system was malfunctioning. Any second, the whole thing would go critical and blow them all to pieces. It was just like the training simulation, except ten times worse.
In panic, he cut the throttle and flipped the switches to flush the coolant. The system didn’t respond. He tried the auxiliaries, but they didn’t work, either. The ETA clock was less than thirty seconds from zero. They had to decelerate now, or they’d overshoot the target. He started pulsing the engines, but a new alarm went off indicating a breach to the outer hull. Systems were failing left and right, with plasma bursts flaring all around them.
An explosion rocked the bulkheads, throwing him against his restraints. A new alarm showed that the ablative armor was almost completely gone. Miraculously, though, the auxiliary backups for the cooling system had come back online and were flooding the reactor with much needed coolant. The gauges were still in the red, but no longer heading toward critical. Perhaps they would get through this after all.
Come for me.
“Hang on!” Aaron shouted, for his own benefit as well as the rest of the platoon. With one hand firmly gripping the flight stick, he engaged the throttle to begin a hard engine pulse. The g-forces knocked the wind right out of him, and when he threw the ship into a barrel roll, he nearly passed out. With one eye on the reactor alarm, though, he pulled back just before the system rose to critical and returned them to freefall.
Someone in the cabin threw up explosively, and the stench filled the whole ship. Aaron hardly noticed it, though, he was so focused on the scanners. The maneuver had thrown off the enemy countermeasures, but Paladin-4’s trajectory had gone wild. Twenty seconds to target. They were going to overshoot if they didn’t find some way to drop their momentum, fast.
He made two more engine pulses, flirting with the critical point on the reactor each time. Now the soldiers were moaning and yelling at him to stop. It wasn’t enough, though—they were still coming in too fast.
A crazy idea came to Aaron’s mind. He deployed the docking clamps and turned the directional engines around, even though he was coming in too fast. He pulsed again with the main engines, altering his trajectory so that they’d ricochet off the Starfire’s hull. At the last second, he turned the ship so that the docking clamps were squarely facing the ship. The gray-black hull sped closer into view on the auxiliary screens, and he braced himself for impact.
The collision rammed through the bulkheads with bone-shaking force, setting of a whole new series of alarms. Aaron fired the directional engines at the moment of impact and kept them at maximum burn. The ear-splitting grind of metal on metal made his stomach turn as the mangled drop-ship slid along the Starfire’s hull. The noise filled the cabin and made the bulkheads shake so hard it felt as if the whole ship was about to break apart. Perhaps they were.
The docking clamps worked desperately to grab hold as they slid, but the ship was moving too fast. With his sweaty hand still pressing the throttle to maximum, Aaron checked the auxiliary screen. Two of the six clamps had stripped off on contact, while another had broken under the stress of the grind. As he watched, another one broke off, leaving just two. If either of them failed, they wouldn’t be able to get a grip on the Starfire, and without any way to attach, they would get flung off like a fly with no legs.
“Come on!” he shouted, his voice drowned out by the grind. The friction was definitely slowing them down. He had no way to know whether they had enough length left on the target ship, though. It was as if the Starfire had become sort of an aerial runway, and he was landing a plane with no wheels on it.
As they slowed down, the drop-ship began to spin. The grinding was so bad, Aaron had to press his shoulder against one ear just to make it bearable. He wanted to cover his ears with his hands, but now, of all times, he needed them to work the controls. The spinning pressed him up against one armrest and nearly threw him from his seat, but his restraints held. Back in the cabin, someone was screaming.
The grinding gradually fell in pitch, and the spinning stopped, leaving them pressed up against the hull. Alarms blared on every screen, but the two remaining docking clamps connected successfully, pressing Paladin-4 up against the enemy’s hull.
Exhausted, Aaron fell back against his seat and pulled back the throttle, turning off the engines. He almost forgot to activate the hull-piercing drill, but the sound of the soldiers unfastening themselves brought him back into the present. The whir-whir of the autolasers mingled with the blaring of the alarms, and he checked them over to see if Paladin-4 would ever fly again. Even from a glance, it was clear that she never would.
“Here,” said Jason, pressing a rifle into his hands. “You take, you come?”
“What?”
“The Aegis is gone,” Castor answered him somberly, somewhere outside of his view. “We need every man we can get, ‘cause we’re not coming back.”
Aaron’s stomach fell, and his vision began to blur once again. Images from the aftermath of the first firefight came flooding into his mind, threatening to overwhelm him with fear. But then, he remembered the henna girl and the fact that she was somewhere on that ship. His resolve hardened, and his vision cleared.
“Let’s go.”
* * * * *
The drop from the shaft was longer than Aaron expected. He stumbled but managed to stay on his feet. Because he was the last one out, the soldiers were already deployed around the walls and corners in either direction. No one was shooting, no one had been shot. The battleship was silent, except for the hiss of escaping air around the edges of the hull breach.
“Testing channels,” said Lieutenant Castor, touching a finger to the earpiece on his helmet. “All squad leaders, report.”
The hallway was eerily still for the next few moments, everyone pressed against a wall with their guns at the ready. Next to the breach, Pallas nonchalantly put his sniper rifle together. He seemed surprisingly unconcerned about the air escaping from the ragged ring of pulverized metal surrounding the sha
ft from the drop-ship. Everyone did.
“Copy,” said Castor, stepping forward. Without knowing what else to do, Aaron followed him.
“Jason, do you have a map of the battleship for us?”
“Negative, sir,” said Jason. He was the only one with his rifle strapped over his shoulder, working instead on a handheld computer unit.
“Are you in the network? Can you get us one?”
“Sorry, sir. Network is locked. I will need direct connection.”
“Then let’s get you to one. Deltana?”
Aaron jolted a bit as he realized the lieutenant was speaking to him.
“Uh, yes sir?”
“Do you have a map of this ship on your wrist console?”
It took him a second to understand what Castor was asking. He spoke so softly, it was hard to hear over the venting air.
“I am sorry, sir. I go into ship, can get—”
“Not enough time. Stay with Mara. We’re heading out.”
Castor motioned to the squad captains and said something that Aaron didn’t catch. The squad leaders nodded and split up, each taking five or six soldiers. Still speaking into his earpiece, Castor headed back to Jason. Aaron stood around for a second, unsure what to do until Mara tapped him on the shoulder and gestured for him to come.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“Shh!” she said, motioning for him to stay down. “We’re fanning out across the ship. The platoon AI will map out the corridors for us and let us know where the others are in case we get into trouble. We don’t know where the other platoons are, but we think they’re up near the command section since there aren’t any Imperial soldiers down here.”
The squad leader, Lino, stepped forward, with Tzaf and Pallas following close behind. Mara stepped softly and rounded the corner after them. Aaron followed.
“Do you have an earpiece?” Mara asked.
Aaron shook his head.
