“In your opinion, are they coming?” Wren asked him.
Flint nodded. “They’ll be here.”
Wren fidgeted with a button on her uniform. “What do you think we’ll find on the other side?”
Flint had no idea, but he could speculate. “I don’t think it’ll be good. We’re going to return to a new life. One I expect we’ll have to scrape and claw to sustain.”
“I wish the Pilgrim could Shift,” she said. They’d been over this a few times.
“They can’t, and we’re not leaving without them.” Flint leaned back in his seat, watching the fighters practice through the bridge’s viewscreen. There had been heavy discussion about using the Eureka to Shift through the Rift, trying to get to safety on the other side, and Captain Hawk of the Pilgrim had been the most adamant that that was the path to take. No one else agreed. They couldn’t leave the nearly defenseless colony ship out there to be destroyed.
Wren gazed toward the training fighter pilots. “Do you wish you were out there with them?”
“Part of me does, but I was brought on to steer this baby, and steer her I shall.” Flint had gotten used to feeling the rush of a fighter again, but there would be ample time for that once they were through the Rift. One thing at a time.
He hoped they’d find some semblance of a thriving society left there. Thirty years was a long time. Humans could have all been destroyed instantly, and the only life remaining might be the Watchers. Or perhaps humans had won the war, and they were sitting there waiting for the Rift to open, worrying about nothing.
Captain Barkley came out of her office and ordered a shift change. “Tomorrow’s the day. Everyone be on alert tonight. Sleep well, but with one eye open.”
“Looks like we won’t have to wait long after all,” Wren said, giving Flint a nod.
As always, Flint was torn between wishing the Rift would just open now and be done with it, and wanting more time to prepare.
Ace
Ace sat in the Watcher fighter, circling the two large vessels in their makeshift fleet. Oliv hung to his side in her EFF-17, and they waited. It was almost time. He could tell Oliv was nervous by her constant chattering to him on a private line to him. He was the opposite: nervous but unable to talk through it.
Serina, I hope you did it. He thought about the girl he’d known and found it was almost impossible to consider she might have really aged thirty years while he was only one year older. That was if she hadn’t been killed right off the bat. He remembered shouting to her to retreat, and she’d gotten away that time. Was there any way she still lived?
“Something’s happening,” Oliv said, snapping his attention back to the viewer.
The familiar maw of the Rift opened before them. All of their fighters hung in formation, ready for an arriving fleet of Watchers from either side. It grew slowly, and nothing came.
“Maybe they aren’t coming,” Ace told Oliv through his mic.
“Maybe,” she said.
Ace took the lead, heading closer to the Rift. He could see the space through it, empty and vast. Home.
An alert echoed through his cockpit at the same second that he saw the radar fill with enemy vessels. They were here, and on the Watcher side of the Rift.
Barkley relayed out orders to all lines. “They’re here. Hold them from entering the Rift if possible. We have a few minutes before it closes, so make it through.”
Ace spun his ship around as a huge alien warship turned toward the Eureka. He watched as the new thermonuclear devices shot out from Jarden Fairbanks’ ship toward the enemy. The first two broke the warship’s shield down, sending it reeling, and the next two destroyed the vessel, along with countless enemies.
Another warship arrived, and Ace raced away as fifty or so Watcher fighters headed in their direction.
The humans were going to be decimated. Ace knew that in an instant. They’d trained hard, but their technology just wasn’t good enough. He fired at one before banking away, chasing another.
All around him, EFF pilots were being killed one by one, their icons blinking out on his console. He wanted to scream at them to retreat, but there was nowhere to run. They’d be caught. Ace saw the Eureka take a barrage of shots from the warship, before they managed to duplicate their success with the new projectiles.
If they could take down all the large enemy vessels, perhaps there was hope after all. The destruction of another warship fueled Ace as he took down a Watcher fighter, moments before its partner Shifted out of his sights.
“Oliv, hang with me!” Ace shouted. He couldn’t let anything happen to the girl.
Dogfights surrounded him, and another warship hung further back, firing pulse cannons at the EFF-17s. It was tough target shooting, but they managed to connect a few times, killing more of Ace’s new friends.
The Pilgrim was taking fire from a formation of Watcher fighters, and Ace urged his ship toward them, trying to distract them. The colony ship’s shield was almost down, and it was only a matter of seconds before it took a shot that would destroy it. If they hit the engines, it was over. Ace focused on the ships there and managed to take one of the Watchers out, making the others warier.
“The Rift is closing. Retreat!” Barkley ordered, and Ace saw the Eureka move deftly toward the colony ship, coming between it and the attackers. This gave enough cover to make for the Rift, which was shrinking with each passing minute.
Ace took a hit and moved his fighter erratically, trying to shake his tail. It exploded, and he saw Oliv’s ship from his rear camera feed. “Get through!” he shouted to her, and she listened, heading past the Rift just under the Eureka.
All went quiet, and Ace realized he was the last remaining human on the wrong side of the Rift. The opening was tiny now, and he keyed in the coordinates he’d been given by Jish Karn a year ago. A few enemy vessels disappeared right before him.
He tapped the button, closed his eyes, and hoped he wasn’t too late to Shift.
Serina
Grand Admiral Serina Trone couldn’t believe her eyes. Her carrier Shifted to the Rift, ready to fire on anything coming through. What she hadn’t expected was a colony ship that had been sent off ninety years ago to peek through, damaged and in need of assistance. “The Pilgrim,” she muttered under her breath. “Hold fire!” she said to the crew, who were more used to shooting on sight and not thinking.
Seconds later, old EFF-15 and EFF-17 models raced through the opening, followed by a massive vessel that was far more advanced than the colony ship, but still clearly man-made. She crossed the bridge, hardly able to believe what she was seeing. Earth Fleet ships coming back through the Rift. She’d expected a full assault by the Invaders, not their own people.
Eighty percent of their remaining Fleet was holding off the Invaders deep in the solar system at that moment, not allowing them to join a fight at the Rift. It would cost them a lot, but maybe with the new help, they could let themselves cling to a dream of a future.
She clenched her metal fist, pumping it in the air. Serina felt something she hadn’t in years. Hope. It filled her chest, and she fought back tears. She’d been through too much to shed any more. They all had. Thirty years of constant struggle would do that to anyone. Many had given up along the way, which was something she could never do. It wasn’t in her DNA.
Mixed among the Fleet fighters, she spotted some enemy fighters. “Target the Invaders,” she told her crew. “On my mark.” She waited, noticing they weren’t in dogfights with the others; they seemed to be in formation with them. Her hope turned to despair as she considered this. Maybe they were all Invaders. Perhaps they had stolen human technology, like Karn had stolen theirs all those years ago.
“Pull back. I have a bad feeling,” Serina started, and saw one last ship appear on the other side of them. It was a single Invader fighter. They targeted the ship and were about to fire on it, when a familiar voice shouted through their speakers on a known Fleet communication line.
“Don’t sho
ot! I’m on your side!” the voice cried.
“Ace.” Serina plopped down in her seat, and only then did she allow herself to believe it was true.
The End
BY
NATHAN HYSTAD
Copyright © 2019 Nathan Hystad
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Cover art: Tom Edwards Design
Edited by: Scarlett R Algee
Proofed and Formatted by: BZ Hercules
1
Serina
“Ace,” she whispered. Serina felt every one of the last thirty years press against her at that moment. His voice. It sounded so young. She didn’t understand.
“Ace, what happened?” she asked, waiting for a reply as the Rift sealed up, about to disappear for another thirty years. The moment before it closed, a group of the enemies hiding on the other side appeared, firing with everything their small cluster could manage.
An alarm rang out quietly on the bridge of her carrier, and she set to giving orders. The crew were each battle hardened and took the directions with ease. A long time ago, this incursion would have struck a chord of fear into Serina, but not any longer. She’d faced death far too many times to concern herself with it anymore. Now she fought for the crew, and for the people on Earth she was sworn to protect.
Ace.
The name was so far in the past that she hardly understood what it meant now. They’d returned. Against all odds, she was going to see a man who’d once been a skinny little boy who cried his first night at training because he had a full belly and a bed to sleep on.
She pushed the thoughts of the past away from her mind and set to her task. She had some enemies to kill before she could talk to these newcomers. The fact that the Pilgrim was back with them was interesting. They might be able to finally turn the tides with some new blood and news from the other side.
“Should we destroy it, Grand Admiral?” Lieutenant Adams asked.
The warship was beaten up, but they needed every advantage in this war. Serina shook her head, tapping her metal finger down on her console. “No. Lower the shields and send the EMP. We’ll take the system down and board later. Waste not, want not, right?”
Serina stood confidently as the battle commenced.
Ace
Ace heard Serina’s voice and couldn’t believe it. She’d made it. He’d half expected to arrive and find everyone he’d ever known was dead, with a fleet of Watcher vessels ready to destroy them all on sight. Instead, he’d immediately run into the one girl who’d helped him survive boot camp on the moon.
Before he had a chance to say anything else, the Watchers arrived. His screen showed at least six of them: one warship and five fighters. They’d sneaked through the Rift the moment it was closing.
“Black Squadron, with me,” he ordered into his headset.
Oliv’s voice was the first responder. “I’m at your side, Ace,” she said as he raced toward the incoming enemy vessels.
Barkley sent a communication to cover all lines. “The Pilgrim is damaged, shields disabled. Protect her with everything you have.”
Ace would do just that. They’d come too far to let Captain Hawk and her crew down now. Their twenty-seven remaining fighters took to the battle.
Ace watched as the Eureka started to fire on the Watcher warship. It was clunky, but powerful pulse cannons fired from the enemy ship, pounding into the huge ship’s dying defenses.
The carrier Serina Trone was leading arrived in the middle of the skirmish, firing quick shots at the enemy before Shifting away. Ace saw the icon for the ship appear on the other side of the enemy warship, and its pot shots took down the enemy shield while Ace chased a Watcher fighter into a trap. Oliv ended the target, and Robin took down another.
Instead of the warship getting destroyed, like Ace expected, it remained motionless, engines dead, while the Fleet carrier fired something else at it. Ace’s screen showed a blip; then the warship disappeared from his sensors as if it had vanished. But he could still see it out his viewer, large and menacing.
Just what was Serina doing with it?
“Good work, everyone. Bring it in,” Captain Barkley ordered, and Ace was happy to see that not one of their pilots had lost their life in the recent fight. Maybe the Fleet had things under control over here after all.
He entered the Eureka docking bay, unable to think about anything but Serina. Now that she was so close, he wanted to see her, to ask her a million questions. Just what had happened over the last thirty years?
His alien fighter touched down beside the EFF-17 Oliv flew, and the young Fairbanks girl threw her mask off and clambered out of her ship. She didn’t give him a chance to get all the way to the ground before she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him passionately. The other pilots threw out catcalls at them, some jeering and some cheering. Someone patted him on the back as Oliv’s lips continued to press against his.
She finally broke the contact, and Ace stood there stunned. His first kiss had come in front of his peers. What did he care? It was great. She was about to say something, but he cut her off, kissing her with the same energy she had given him.
“I thought we were going to die,” she said, breath heavy.
“Me too,” he returned, their foreheads pressed against one another. Her eyes were amazing, galaxies in their own right. He didn’t want the moment to end.
“Ace, Fairbanks, you’re wanted in the meeting room,” an officer called from the doorway. Ace sighed as the hangar wall slid closed, concealing them from space.
Ace would have rather explored his newfound relationship with Oliv as they wound their way to the room where Barkley and the others would be waiting for them, but he held back. Her kiss could have just been a reaction to the near-death experience. His heart rate still hadn’t slowed to normal after the insanity of the last hour, and running down the corridors of the large vessel didn’t help.
Oliv glanced at him as they arrived, and gave him a smirk before entering the room. A few people were already inside. Ace spotted Flint, Wren, Charles, and the captain in discussion. A 3D map of the region they were in was displayed at the far end of the table. There were no enemy ships visible.
“Come in, you two. Ace, great work today. You’re quite the asset,” Captain Barkley said, and Ace accepted the praise without flourish.
“What’s happening here? Shouldn’t we be hiding? What if more of them arrive?” he asked, sitting down opposite Flint. The older man met his gaze but had a distant look in his eyes. He’d been through a lot recently. They all had, and Ace knew the others wanted answers as much as he did.
The doors slid shut, and a voice behind Ace’s seat answered his question. “They aren’t coming because we have them holed up near Saturn.”
Ace spun in his seat, recognizing the voice at once. Sure, it was deeper, raspier, but the professional cadence of Serina’s upbringing was impossible to wipe away. It was her.
“Serina,” he said, standing up. She stopped dead in her tracks.
Serina was flanked by two large guards, both gruff-looking men who reached for guns on their hips. “What the hell is going on here?” She grabbed her own gun, a mini version of a stunner, and pointed it at Ace.
“What are you doing?” he asked, confused by her reaction.
“Serina, calm down. We can explain everything,” Captain Barkley said calmly from the head of the table. She was crossing the space and came to stand in front of Ace, pushing him into his seat wi
th her hand.
“You better start talking,” Serina said, and that was when Ace noticed the changes in her. Gone was the youth from her face. Lines crinkled on the edges at her eyes; her mouth tilted down, as if it had forgotten how to smile. Her hair was pulled into a tight braid, and it hung over her left shoulder. Her hand lifted up and down a few inches, nervously, and Ace spotted the glint of metal on her arm.
It wasn’t noticeable at first from this distance, but once he saw that she had a mechanical arm, it was clear. He looked down and realized her ankle was metal too, her uniform pants coming just short of her boot. He couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to her. She hardly seemed like the easy-going girl he’d known.
“The Rift has a time dilation effect. On the other side, a year passed for us. We found the colony planet, only to discover they’d only been there two years, while sixty years had passed for Jarden Fairbanks since he’d seen his wife and kids,” Barkley said, glancing over at Oliv. “This is Jarden’s daughter.”
Serina peered over the captain’s shoulder at the young girl, and her jaw dropped in disbelief. “This can’t be,” she said, lowering her gun. The guards followed suit. Serina walked past Captain Barkley, straight for Ace. He didn’t budge as she neared. Her natural hand went to his face, gently skimming his cheek.
“Ace. So much has happened. I’ve done too many things…” Serina broke eye contact, staring at her feet for a moment before lowering her hand.
Ace didn’t know what else to do, so he pulled the much older woman toward him and squeezed her tightly. “You did what you had to do. We’re here to help now,” he whispered into her ear, and caught Oliv giving him a strange expression.
“Thank you, Ace. I’m forgetting myself. I apologize for my behavior. Seeing someone from my past has somewhat changed my perspective. Let’s talk.” Serina walked away, heading to the seat beside Captain Barkley’s. Ace shoved down a spot, closer to Oliv. “Where is Jarden?” Serina asked, scanning the room.
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