The Specter Rising

by James Aspen

  Red button, center console.

  Paul pressed it, and a dull vibration rattled the ship.

  Left panel, yellow button.

  Paul looked down to his left and pressed the button on the panel beside his seat. A soft hum filled the ship.

  Top panel, top switch.

  Paul flicked the switch, and the metal panels blocking the viewport slid apart from the center. He saw the battle outside clearly, and it had gotten more intense. More Varanul joined the sharpshooters trying to pin down Edolit on the roof, and a small cluster was running towards the ship. Faint red outlines appeared around them in his vision as they approached. He didn’t take the time to read the text displayed by each one.

  Probably more threat and distance data, he decided, and ignored it.

  “Close the hatch, they are trying to take the ship!” Edolit’s voice was tense in his ear.

  Center Panel, bottom switch.

  Paul reached for the switch and then hesitated.

  “What about you?,” he asked.

  “Close it, now!,” she shouted, the high-pitched wail of her blaster loud in his ear.

  He hit the switch, and the whirring of the hatch closing filled the rear of the ship. The blasts and explosions from outside became muffled by the ship’s hull. The sudden quiet was an eerie contrast to the chaos he saw outside the viewport.

  The cluster of Varanul roared in frustration, firing at the ship. The cockpit shook slightly as the blasts splashed against the hull.

  Shields Up! Left panel, green button.

  Paul was getting flustered and couldn’t keep up. He looked at the array of buttons and couldn’t figure out which one Zyp meant.

  This one, genius. A bright arrow appeared, pointing to a button.

  Paul hit the button and a faint shimmer passed across the viewport. The Varanul’s energy bolts dissipated a few centimeters from the hull and left a faint glow in the air as the shield absorbed and redirected the energy.

  Top Panel, Right Switch.

  Paul flipped the switch down, and the viewport heads up display activated with various gages and meters he didn’t understand.

  “Paul, you need to launch. I won’t make it to you.” Edolit’s voice was grim in his ear.

  “Wait, what? No, we can do this! I can pick you up on the roof,” he said.

  “Zyp, scan for hostiles, we’ve got three ships coming in. If you don’t go now, you won’t get out.”

  Top Panel, Left Switch. Zyp’s voice was no longer steady. The Ambra sounded tense now, too.

  Paul hit it and a set of icons appeared in the bottom center of the heads up display in a small circle. In the center was an icon of the ship with a few tiny dots swarming immediately around it. Further away, a set of three larger shapes dashed towards it from the edge of the circle.

  She’s right, that’s two escort starfighters and a troop transport. She will soon be overrun, and they will destroy or disable us. You must launch. Zyp’s voice had lost some of its mirth. The Ambra sounded almost grim.

  A pit formed in Paul’s stomach. This wasn’t happening.

  “Paul, you must go, I’ll be fine,” Edolit said, her voice strained.

  He knew she was only saying that to get him to leave.

  “I can’t do this alone,” he whispered.

  “Yes, you can. I did it, too. Go. Make a difference.” Her voice was calm and reassuring.

  “I’ll try my best.”

  “I know.”

  Left Panel, Small Lever. Slowly pull the lever towards you to engage lift, Zyp commanded, breaking off their forced goodbye.

  Paul did, and the ship rose off the ground as he pulled the lever. He took the steering column in his shaking hands. The controls fit into them with a surprising familiarity. Each side had a grip similar to a gaming joystick and a series of switches and buttons, easily accessible by his thumbs.

  Left Panel, Large Lever will engage thrusters. Enemy ships 15 clicks out and closing fast. It’s now or never.

  He pulled the lever and was pressed into his seat when the ship lurched forward. He pulled the controls towards him, angling the ship towards the sky. As he picked up speed, the weight on his chest made his breath come in shorter puffs, and his vision clouded.

  The sound of Edolit’s voice brought him back from the brink of unconsciousness. “Zyp, Command Override Code 114.”

  Command Override Code acknowledged, Voice authenticated - Commander Edolit Vyn. Training Mode Disengaged. Welcome to the team, Paul.

  A stream of energy coursed through him and his mind cleared. He felt stronger, more in control.

  “Good luck, Edolit,” he said. He felt stupid, like he should say something more profound, but his mind blanked.

  “You too, soldier,” she said. He swore her voice was full of something that seemed pretty close to pride.

  A burst of static in his ear made him wince.

  A message flashed in his HUD: [Communications lost].

  Paul lowered his head. It had to mean that they’d gotten her. He gritted his teeth and steered away from the incoming ships.

  “I guess it’s up to me now,” he whispered.

  And me, Zyp chimed in.

  CHAPTER NINE

  PREPARE TO ENGAGE cloak, Zyp ordered.

  Paul’s sweat made the switch slick against his fingers as he tried to steady his nerves. He kept his other hand tightly gripped on the controls, pointing the ship directly into the fluffy cloud ahead. Two starfighters were gaining on the Specter. With their greater speed, they were moments from firing range.

  The viewport filled with wisps of gray as the ship plunged into the cloud.

  Now, Zyp said.

  Paul flipped the switch, and a faint shimmer flashed across the energy shields around the ship. Nothing seemed to have changed as they continued soaring through the murky gray. He looked down in confusion and gasped when he saw the combat map on the console was dark.

  “What happened?!”

  Cloak tech blocks all active scans from inside and out. They can’t spot us with their instruments and we can’t use ours.

  “What about their eyes? Can’t they see us?”

  Nope. Look outside.

  Paul stood and looked out at the ship’s nose. The ship’s hull now looked like the clouds surrounding the ship. The image crackled and didn’t perfectly blend with the clouds, but was realistic enough to give him the impression of the cockpit flying alone in a cloud without a ship beneath them. The projection was convincing enough to cause a wave of vertigo and make his stomach churn. He scrambled back to his seat, reeling.

  The ship takes pictures of the environment around it and the cloak field projects it over the hull. A sharp eye could see imperfections, especially along the margins, but they’d have to be pretty close to see it.

  Paul relaxed and sank into the pilot’s chair. He veered the ship deeper into the cloud cover to be safe, but the tension faded from his shoulders; they’d escaped.

  And Edolit hadn’t.

  Paul's shoulder slumped. Any relief he had disappeared, replaced by a wave of loss. He’d barely known Edolit, but he certainly would never forget her. He wished he knew more about her, how he could help honor her memory; he’d never even learned the name of her species or where she came from.

  Edolit was a Hylian. She came from the third moon of Hylia. Zyp’s voice was devoid of its usual mirth.

  “Thank you, Zyp.”

  Paul watched the gray clouds spin around the ship, his mind swirling its own chaotic spiral. His body might not be tired yet, but he was mentally exhausted. So much had happened in the short time he had with Edolit. He couldn’t process it all, and he wanted to let himself curl up into a tiny ball. But he couldn’t rest yet. Edolit left him a mission to finish, and he would not let her down. Not the first being to believe in him in a long time.

  “Should we head for space now?” His voice cracked and sounded weaker than he felt.

  Go for it. They shouldn’t be able to track our
drive’s heat signature and trajectory now that we’re deep in the cloud cover.

  For good measure, Paul changed course and waited a few seconds before angling the ship away from Earth. He held his breath, hoping the Varanul’s starfighters wouldn’t see them emerge from cover and shower them in laser blasts. Seconds later, he exhaled sharply as the ship broke through the cloud cover and headed towards the stars. Despite the atmosphere’s dull haze, the stars looked brighter than he had seen in years.

  It was only then that a wave of realization washed over Paul.

  He was going into space.

  A lifelong dream he had given up on long ago was about to happen. So much had changed in a day.

  The air grew thin around and the dusty wisps of the atmosphere faded away as the ship passed the threshold into space. Twinkling stars he’d never known existed stretched before him in the endless expanse, no longer filtered from view by the protective haze of the atmosphere.

  It was breathtaking. Tears formed in his eyes as he looked out at the eternal expanse. He let go of the chair and waited to float away.

  Uh, you’ve got to disengage the grav coils if you want to do that, bub.

  “Oh. Right. Grav coils. I knew that.” He wanted to ask where the switch was, but a flash of guilt made him hesitate. He’d have plenty of time to goof around later. Edolit had trusted him to complete her mission, and he owed it to her to see it through. Plus, those starfighters were still close by.

  The Gate’s location is programed into the navigational computer, it can calculate the best route. Hit this switch on the console.

  A flashing arrow appeared in Paul’s vision, pointing to a square button at the top of the console. Zyp’s ability to anticipate his needs was another thing that would take Paul a lot of time to get used to. A detailed map of the solar system projected on the viewport HUD, complete with a haze of tiny dots to represent the asteroid belt and objects of the Oort cloud at the boundary of the system. The number of objects in the outer systems far exceeded any map he’d ever seen released by scientists on Earth. The solar system was way more crowded than they knew.

  Tap this point on the screen. That’s the Gate. Zyp projected another arrow towards a small object just beyond the orbital path of Saturn.

  Paul tapped the object and a message box appeared: [PLOT COURSE? YES/NO].

  He hit ‘yes’ and a series of dashed lines branched out in dozens of directions between their position and the hyper gate as the computer cycled through potential paths.

  The ship will take a moment to calculate the course. Might be good for you to rotate the ship so you can see the planet before we go. It will give you practice on the controls, too.

  “That’s awfully thoughtful of you, thanks,” Paul said, surprised the artificial construct in his head had thought to see his own planet from space before he did.

  Just doing my job. Plus, it’ll keep me from having to listen to you whine about not seeing it before you left.

  Paul sighed. He’d enjoyed the moment of concern from Zyp, but it seemed to have passed already. He supposed their relationship had to start somewhere.

  A tap of the screen minimized the course calculations to one corner of the viewport, and Paul gripped the controls and experimented with their responsiveness. The ship dipped and jerked side to side until he got the hang of it, and then he spun the ship on its axis. A heartbeat later, the view of his home world filled the viewport.

  The ship was still over North America, the continent only visible by the twinkling lights of city sprawl dotting the shadowy landscape. To the east, the sun peeked around the horizon, illuminating the edge of his world in a large crescent. The brilliant blue of the Atlantic and the greens and browns of Western Europe and Africa slowly passed beneath them as their orbit brought them closer to the light side of the planet.

  All the pictures he’d ever seen of Earth from space had never quite done it justice. Now that he was seeing it himself, he decided the majesty was impossible to capture in any image.

  “Wow,” he whispered, wishing some of his friends were there to see it.

  The thought hit Paul in the gut when he realized he hadn’t said goodbye to anyone. He was leaving everything and everyone he had ever known, and no one would know where he was. All they would know was his apartment had been destroyed by a mysterious fire and he’d disappeared. Frantically, he scrambled for his phone and tapped the screen.

  Your phone won’t work.

  Paul felt stupid. Of course it wouldn’t work in space. He started to put it back in his pocket and paused. He took a quick picture of the spectacular view before he shoved the phone in his pocket. The photo might not capture the majesty, but it would be a good reminder of it. Surely an advanced alien civilization would have a way to charge his phone so he could see pictures of his planet. And his family.

  Actually, we’re in low enough orbit that you might pick up a satellite if it weren’t for the cloak field. For the first time, you weren’t being completely stupid.

  Paul considered dropping the field to check for a signal, but he knew it wouldn’t be worth the risk of discovery. Besides, who was he going to call? At this hour, almost no one he knew would be awake unless his father was drunk in some bar. While well in the realm of possibility, he wasn’t going out of his way for that kind of goodbye.

  I wonder how long it would take him to notice I’m missing? The thought left a bitter ache in his heart. Paul and his father had never really talked long before he’d even left home. Not since Paul’s mother had died and his father stopped trying, anyway.

  Rachel would probably be the one to notice he was missing, other than whoever was investigating the fire in his apartment. Even then, she’d only notice because he wouldn’t show up to work tomorrow. His other friends, well, they’d probably find out in a couple of weeks after he didn’t show up to one of their game nights or return a random call. Thinking about it now, regret gnawed at him, at all those years spent without close connections.

  Then again, it would make leaving his world behind easier, wouldn’t it? Maybe he’d come back one day and try to build better connections. First things first. He had to ensure there would be a world left to come back to.

  The flash of an alert appeared on the viewport screen. The computer had plotted their course. Paul took one last glimpse at the swirling clouds of his home, trying to etch it into his memory. Before he could change his mind, he spun the ship on its axis and pulled the controls towards him. The stars streaked past as he vectored the ship back toward deep space. He was somber as he tapped the screen and brought the system map back to full size.

  Tap anywhere on the course and confirm in the box to engage the autopilot. Unless you want to stay awake for days.

  “How long will it take to get there?” Paul released his grip and set the autopilot. His stomach lurched as the ship corrected its vector on its own and engaged thrusters. The sensation faded after the ship’s inertial compensators balanced the forces.

  At little over five days, I estimate.

  “Five days?! Isn’t there a warp drive or something on this thing?”

  Zyp filled his head with a sound that reminded him of a scoff. Aren’t you even a little impressed you’ll travel over a billion kilometers in a few days when it would take your planet’s technology months, if not years?

  “You’re right.” Paul sighed. “I’m just worried I won’t make it in time.”

  You’re doing fine. Go get some rest or explore the ship, there’s nothing more you can do. Besides, I need to focus my processing power on finishing this damned assessment scan.

  Paul had barely noticed the small icon in the corner of his vision move since Edolit had given the command for Zyp to release his training mode, and he hadn’t really had time to ask about it.

  “What exactly is this ‘initial scan’ thing you’re doing?” he asked Zyp.

  I’m analyzing your memories, knowledge, skill set, and basic physiology.

  “Memories? L
ike everything that has ever happened to me?” He leaned back in the chair and tried to imagine what the Ambra would dig from his memory.

  Yes, everything. Even that time Chris Jenkins flushed your head in the toilet. You really should have punched the jerk.

  “Great. That seems a little invasive.”

  Well, I am in your head, after all. The more I learn about you, the better off we both are.

  “I guess so. Then what?”

  Then I can augment your abilities and make up for your weaknesses.

  “What do you mean?”

  Ugh, I was hoping you weren’t as dense as these memories seem to indicate. I mean, you never noticed Rachel was trying to get you to ask her out, right? Are you blind? I can augment your physical and mental abilities. Like today, when I made you able to run longer than a block without nearly passing out.

  “Okay, so you can give me super speed or something?”

  Well, I might if we’re bonded for a long time and you actually exercised once in a while. The longer we’re bonded and the more experience we both have together, the more I can augment your abilities.

  “Kind of like an RPG?”

  Exactly like that. Only, well, I can’t do magic. I wish I could. That sounds pretty sweet.

  “Okay, so what about my weakness? What can you do about those?”

  The first thing I’m doing after I finish this scan is uploading the control layout of this ship’s cockpit so I can stop giving you directions like an eight year old. You know, it’s a miracle your species doesn’t eat their young with how dense you all are.

  “You can teach me things directly? Load me up with everything I need to know, now!”

  Sure I can, if you want to be a turnip. I don’t know what a turnip is, but it sounds terrible. Anyway, I can encode knowledge into your brain, but only smaller amounts at once. Too much can overload your neural pathways and cause some… problems.

  “What problems?”

  Well, death for one. Stroke, blindness, incontinence. Should I keep going?

  “So, it’s the same for everything else, too?”