by James Aspen
Paul double checked the navigation screen to make sure the coordinates for the Gate were entered and turned off the cloaking field. “Mark.”
The sound of Edolit’s recording filled the cockpit as Paul engaged the engines. He knew their burn would send starfighters scrambling towards their position. With Zyp’s help, he had programmed a route that would take them behind a Jovian moon before the starfighters could intercept. The moon would allow them to make a course correction burn under the moon’s sensor shadow and burn hard for the Gate. He checked the sensor feed as the cloaking field dissipated. The ship surged forward under the power of the drive.
“People of Earth, I am Commander Edolit Vyn, of the planet Hylia. I bring you dire warning of imminent danger to your world. Your world has been under assault from a force from the planet Gryx. The Gryx are responsible for the tragedy that consumed the city of El Paso, despite our best efforts to stop their attack. Now their base ship is en route to claim your world for their own.” Paul cringed at the mention of El Paso, but kept his focus on the combat map, watching the starfighters change course towards their position.
Edolit continued. “My ship is powerless to stop the advance of this warship ourselves. We are in transit to rally reinforcements to help your world, and will be back in a matter of days. Encoded in this message is a technical analysis of the weaknesses of the Gryx ship. Though their weaponry outmatches yours, perhaps you can defend your world. Regardless, I hope this gives you the chance to get as many of your people to shelter as possible before we return with support. We will not abandon you in your time of need.”
When her message was completed, and the tech data sent, Paul shut down the drive and engaged the cloak. He looked down at the combat display and frowned. Most of the starfighters were out of range now, but two seemed to be follow them closely.
“Looks like we picked up two shadows,” he said.
Edolit nodded. “We’ll lose them when we make our course correction. Did you pick up anything else? Check long range sensor data.”
Paul hit a couple of buttons on the console, and the viewport display brought up a representative map of the system. He spotted the cruiser and six of the interceptors en route to Earth and saw another two interceptors had broken away towards their location, moving to join the pair behind them. He also found the angular shape of the gate station, beyond the orbit of Saturn.
“Sensors aren’t picking up anything else.”
“Good. We stick to the plan and make for the Gate. Prepare for hard burn.”
Paul was quiet while he entered the new set of maneuvers. Edolit noted he still cocked his head to listen to Zyp speak. She knew his brain hadn’t quite figured out where the voice was coming from yet, and needed to apply some directionality to it. If he stayed with her team, he’d have to work on that. She didn’t think he’d end up on her crew, though, at least not completely. He showed too much promise as a pilot to be sent on scouting missions and covert ground strikes. Command would see his performance and put him in a starfighter. The thought of losing him as a team member pained her, but she suspected they’d need all the pilots they could get soon enough.
I wish we could access the network. I need to see what is happening out there. Edolit knew that her flood of the Syndicate materials and her scouting reports would reveal their plans. Would it be enough to motivate The Federation into action, or would they just form an investigative committee while the border planets burned? Next to her, Paul was jittery, anxious to get behind the Jovian moon and shake the starfighters. He was focused on making it through the Gate as fast as they could and bringing back help for his world.
Edolit couldn’t help but worry for all the worlds of the border at that moment, alone and without warning. Some would be dead cinders, targeted for resource extraction like the Syndicate seemed to have planned for Earth. They would send others to labor for the Gryx, used to fill Gryx coffers and build their war machine. As Paul engaged the primary drive, she felt it deep in the pit of her stomach. As the dampeners compensation the inertial forces, the pressure in her stomach lingered. Deep down, Edolit knew the shadow war had become real. She hoped she had gotten the warning out in time to change the outcome.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
PAUL DIDN’T KNOW what to expect from the Gate. He’d tried to get Zyp to explain it, but the number of words he didn’t understand in the first sentence alone was enough to make his head spin. However it worked, he’d imagined a glowing vortex of energy harnessed by some technology he couldn’t hope to understand.
As the ship approached the Gate, Paul found it was far more unspectacular than he had imagined. In fact, the Gate looked like nothing. From a distance, the Gate was a void, a dark spot in space only visible because of what it blocked from view. The Gate’s dark structure blotted out the stars behind it, giving it the appearance of a hole in the fabric of space itself.
“Well, I guess that’s why astronomers never saw the Gate with their telescopes,” he muttered. When he was younger, conspiracy theories about a dark planet deep at the edge of our solar system had amused him. He’d spent hours on message boards laughing at people convinced a lost planet was responsible for the strange pull of gravity found in the outer reaches of the system. Paul suspected he was now looking at the true source of the strange gravity in the outer system.
As the ship got closer, he saw dark metallic structures with faint lights on their surface dividing the dark void of the Gate into cells over the surface. Roughly the size of a small moon, the Gate was covered in dozens of cells, each the size of a small city. The angular honeycomb of interlocking darkness gave the entire structure the shape that reminded him of a gaming dice.
Each section connects to another node in the Gate system. Zyp answered his silent wonder about the structure.
Does it connect to every world in the civilization? He asked. It still felt weird having a conversation in his head, but he was in awe of the strange structure ahead and didn’t want to break the moment with sound yet.
No, each Gate connects to 24 nearby systems, together they create a network that spans the systems of the Federation and the expansion zones.
The clattering of someone coming into the cockpit made him jump.
“Ah, almost to the Gate,” Omaro said, stopping to stand next to Paul and looking out the viewport. “I always get the chills when I see them.”
“Yeah, it’s not what I expected.”
The tall alien looked down at Paul and nodded. “You’re taking all of this pretty well, all things considered.”
Paul shrugged. “I guess part of me always dreamed about being out here and seeing the galaxy. It’s enough to keep me from curling up into a ball.”
Omaro’s maxilla chittered in a distinctive pattern that Zyp displayed as amusement in his HUD. “You know, as strange as all the beings of the galaxy are, that’s one thing uniting us all.”
“What’s that?”
“All sentient beings look up at the same stars and wonder what’s out there, and part of them wants to see for themselves. It unites all sentient beings.”
The Scyllarian tensed and let out a warbling growl, its dark eyes staring at the Gate. Paul looked out the viewport and frowned.
Didn’t we just leave this party? Zyp groaned.
Two large ships were appearing at the edge of a cell of the Gate, cutting through the blackness as if emerging from a pool of water. One was the familiar shape of a Xyanthin-class cruiser, like the one he had rescued the crew from. The other was a large, half-dome shape, like a metallic jellyfish. The curved edges of the ship were dotted with weapons blisters and towers, mounted behind armored plating. Nestled in the recessed underside of the ship were dozens of menacing-looking smaller ships attached to the platform bristling with weapons towers.
What’s that second ship, Zyp? Paul asked.
A Harrier-class carrier. Most species use them as a mobile ground assault platform. Would you like me to display its stats?
Not now.
“Ka’ilk! Those are Gryx reinforcements.” He moved to the console and checked the computer readout. “It will take them a long time to get to the planet but if we can’t get back with reinforcements then...”
“Then my world is lost.”
He nodded. “I’ll go wake the Commander. Keep our heading, but do nothing to alert their sensors.”
The firm hand of the Scyllarian patted his shoulder as the alien left the cockpit, a gesture Paul decided was intended to be reassuring. Paul was left alone, staring out at the assault force picking up speed as it moved away from the Gate.
***
Edolit burst onto the bridge and settled into the copilot’s chair.
“Is there anything we can do?” Paul looked at her pleadingly.
She shook her head. “Not with what we’ve got left on the Specter. We need to get through the Gate and bring back reinforcements. We can make it back in time to help the fight for your world.”
She started programming the navigational computer for a series of short micro-thruster bursts. Paul watched her, his mind racing for another option. He wasn’t ready to run away yet, but there was little he could do, and he knew it. Within moments of revealing themselves, there would be a dozen starfighters scrambling towards them. He suspected that if they somehow dealt with the starfighters and stay out of range of the cruisers’ point defense cannons, the troop transports would join the fray.
The ships mounted on the Harrier-class carrier looked clunkier than the sleek starfighters, but he could tell they were heavily armored and clearly sported a rotating laser cannon similar to the Specter’s. While he was confident he could out-fly a handful of them, an entire wing of them would be too many to handle. He’d inflict minimal damage before being vaporized, and his death wouldn’t change the outcome for Earth.
Resigned, he nodded and kept his eyes locked on the slow-moving ships. Two pairs of starfighters left the launch bay of the cruiser simultaneously, swooping out both sides of the ship’s hangar in unison and looping around to take up escort positions on either side of the two cruisers. A moment later, four more fighters launched and split into escort positions in vectors above and below the troop transport carrier.
Edolit studied their movements. “They’re being cautious. Whoever is in command here is much more competent than Captain Numoh was. See here, they’re setting up a fighter screen to protect as many vectors as they can. Command has alerted them to our possible presence. We couldn’t get off more than a couple missiles before they were on top of us, even if we had more in the tubes.”
“So let’s get to the Gate.”
With each burst of the micro-thrusters, Paul held his breath, expecting the starfighters to spot them. Even under direct sensor scans, the small bursts of vented gases were virtually impossible to detect on scanners, Edolit assured him. He couldn’t shake his feeling of imminent doom. It didn’t help they had to cut speed to approach the Gate because of something about the gravity field he didn’t understand. The result was a painfully slow approach as the Gryx ships pulled away and picked up speed.
After what seemed like hours, the Gate was filling the viewport as the autopilot nudged the ship towards a particular cell of the strange honeycomb structure with precise bursts. Closer now, Paul could see that the surface of each cell rippled like a murky wave of pure dark energy. He felt a tinge of panic, his instinctual lizard-brain afraid of the dark unknown.
Paul nearly screamed when a dozen points of light burst through the darkness ahead of them. The points expanded over the surface of the Gate in rippling waves of energy, and from origin points metallic objects burst into the space around them like metallic fingers reaching from the blackness.
“Pull up!,” Edolit yelled as a bright point appeared in the rippling dark directly ahead of the Specter.
Paul’s stomach lurched as the main drive kicked on as he engaged thrust and pulled on the controls, narrowly avoided the hull of the large ship emerging from the Gate. Ships emerged in the space ahead of them as they flew parallel to the rippling edge of hyperspace. Some were small transports similar in design to the Specter, but most were cruisers of various shapes and sizes.
“That’s the Adamant,” Edolit said, her voice full of excitement as she pointed to the largest ship emerging from the rippling black. “De-cloak, now!”
Paul switched off the cloak and set them into a course alongside the ship Edolit had pointed out. The combat display filled with a dozen ships surrounding them. The Gryx cruisers still pulled away from the Gate, their shields already glowing as the new arrivals sent streams of laser fire toward them.
“Commander Vyn of the Specter to Adamant. Good to see you,” Edolit said into the comm.
A moment later, an authoritative voice answered. “Commander, this is Adamant actual. Sorry we couldn’t get here sooner. That message of yours sure stirred things up. Looks like the Gryx reinforcements beat us here.”
“General Thriss, I’m glad you’re here. Where do you need us?” Edolit said.
“Get to the hanger, your team has done their part. Now let us do ours.”
Paul paled and looked to Edolit. He wasn’t ready to be out of the fight. Not until he knew his world was safe. He met her eyes and shook his head, pointing to the new targets appearing around the Gryx ships as they launched their starfighters and troop transports. He wasn’t going anywhere.
“Negative, Adamant, we’ve got a pilot from Earth now. We’ll see this one through,” she said into the comm, with an approving nod towards Paul.
“Understood. Help keep transports and bombers away from the cruisers. I’ll redirect a flight group to provide cover. Good hunting. Adamant out.”
Edolit hit a switch on her console, switching control of the forward guns to her station. “You fly, Omaro and I will shoot.”
Edolit switched over to the ship’s comm. “Omaro, strap in Ja’el, and get on the dorsal gun, we’re going in. Concentrate on the transports and bombers, but keep those starfighters off our tail.”
Paul veered the Specter towards the rapidly advancing swarm of enemy fighters and transports and set shields to double front. He felt a calm certainty wash over him as he angled towards a cluster of transports. This was where he belonged.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
PAUL HAD A hard time processing the battle as it unfolded around the Specter. His previous encounters in space were orderly compared to the swirling chaos of a full-scale battle. Caught by surprise, the Gryx ships reacted like cornered predators, flailing wildly at the newcomers with desperate zeal.
Three dozen troop transports dropped from their docking clamps beneath their carrier ship and scattered towards the Resistance cruisers in chaotic flight groups. Starfighters and bombers streamed from the dual hangers of the Gryx cruiser as it came about, trying to angle its heavily armored bow toward the newcomers.
The Adamant delivered devastating broadside attacks, flanking the lumbering Gryx cruiser before it could come about. Resistance starfighters streamed from launch tubes and hangers on the four capital vessels, and the battle was raging. The tactical screen was a swirling mess of data that Paul couldn’t make sense of. He regretted his decision to join the battle until Edolit began acting like the commander he needed.
“Break towards those transports, and keep us away from our frigates’ fields of fire,” she ordered, pointing toward the Gryx troop carrier. Paul saw the ship was rotating on its axis, bringing more of its cannons to bear on two smaller Resistance frigates tearing into its hull from beneath with concentrated cannon fire.
Paul set course for the cluster of troop transports heading toward a Resistance gunship, a small, needle-like ship moving toward the Gryx cruiser.
“Omaro, concentrate on the lead transport. I’ll dissuade the others,” she growled into the comm.
“Copy, Commander.”
A steady stream of fire poured into the lead ship from the Specter’s dorsal cannon, while Edolit sent short bursts dancing
between the other three ships in the group. Her calm demeanor kept Paul from breaking as defensive fire from the transports began splashing against the forward shields.
With grim efficiency, Edolit made the crosshairs dance across the viewscreen, rotating the forward turret to match the transport’s motion as they bobbed and weaved, trying to complete their bombing runs. The lead ship broke apart under Omaro’s concentrated fire, catching its distracted squad mates in the shock wave of its explosion. The remaining transports wavered, damaged by shrapnel and tumbling out of control into the gunship’s field of fire. The gunship mopped them up with two precise blasts.
Before Paul could ask for more direction, Edolit pointed out another group on the combat map. “Okay, same thing on this flight group.”
Paul spun the ship towards the targets, noticing the shaking in his hands subsiding. He was no longer alone, reacting to situations by instinct alone; he had help. Edolit guided them, and Omaro made them more deadly. Paul was more comfortable knowing all he had to do was keep flying.
***
As he walked down the ramped of The Specter onto the flight deck behind Edolit, Paul noticed the mood aboard the Adamant was more grim than he expected for the victors of a battle. He assumed the hanger would be full of elated starfighter pilots jumping from their cockpits and hugging each other, surrounded by techs and crewman celebrating the outcome of the battle.
You’ve seen too many movies, Zyp scoffed at him.
Instead of celebration, Paul watched a somber crowd gathering in front of a screen with scrolling text. Zyp translated the alien script for him without comment, and Paul got a glimpse of the news feed. Damage reports, names of the wounded and the dead, names of ships lost, and locations of life pod recovery in process. His face burned as the reality of war set in.
Outnumbered and cut off from escaping through the Gate, the Gryx had lashed out, attacking viciously to attempt to break through. When breaking the blockade had proved hopeless, the Gryx settled for causing as much damage as possible. The Resistance frigate Kaddi had been destroyed, along with a transports ship and half a squadron of starfighters. Victory had been costly.
