“Return to house and await squadron launch.”
Ethan began to confirm the order, cutting himself off a second later when his radar lit up. Something massive was materializing only a few klicks out. He looked out into the darkness where the radar had pinpointed the intruder, and saw a Naldím cruiser, easily twice the size of the one that had attacked Voyager Dawn, slipping out of a miniscule rip in space like a blooming flower.
“Negative, negative,” he said, nearly shouting into his comm. “Withdraw sitrep. Tango on my scanner.”
“Copy, Raptor.” The tower did not sound nearly as concerned as they should have been. “Close on house and enter pattern A-oh-two.”
Ethan spun the control sphere, pulling into a tight oval over the Vengeance. Below him, fighter after fighter roared off the Vengeance’s flight deck, turning to match his vector, while the battleship itself barreled forward on an intercept course for the Naldím ship.
The fighters went wide, distancing themselves from the Naldím’s point defense weapons and waiting for the signal to attack. Until the enemy’s defenses were sufficiently weakened, there was nothing they could do but watch. It was a spectacular show.
Rolling plumes of fire belched out of the Vengeance’s guns. Triple-barreled cannons hammered away at the Naldím’s bow, while smaller turrets lobbed arcing, rocket-powered shells at the port and starboard sides. The Naldím returned fire with earnest, throbbing beams of green energy lancing out and pummeling Vengeance’s shields.
From his vantage point, Ethan could see both sides’ defenses waning with every passing second. With just the two ships, both completely exposed, there was no viable strategy to be enacted, and they were forced to endure the full power of each other’s weapons. The fight was not going to last long.
A point on the Naldím hull burst.
At first it looked like a rupture in the hull; hundreds of razor-like shards rocketed out from the wound, spraying in every direction. It was only when the shards changed direction, headed now for the circling fighters, did Ethan realize they were not debris, but drones.
“Well, shit,” someone breathed over the comm. The sentiment was indisputable. There was only one thing to do. Not waiting for the tower, Ethan turned to face the inbound swarm and charged.
“All wings on me,” he ordered, activating every weapon he could find aboard his ship. “Weapons hot.”
The tower did not object, nor did anyone else. The only way they were going to survive now was to face the threat head on.
Ninety gatling guns spun up as one, spitting fire at the tidal wave on approach. The Sparrowhawks’ torrent of bullets ripped into the enemy drones, destroying dozens in the opening volley, but the tide quickly turned when the forces clashed. The drones were small, only half the length of Ethan’s fighter, far more maneuverable, and they outnumbered the Imperial flight ten to one.
Ethan twisted, dove, and spun, his finger never leaving the trigger. A constant stream of searing blue beams lashed out from his wingtips, tearing apart anything that came within his field of fire, and for a moment Ethan thought he was gaining an upper hand. A single look at the battlefield around him, however, told him there was no way his flight was going to win without changing tactics.
The drones were emanating from a single point on the Naldím cruiser’s hull, and while they continued to stream out, the tide continued to turn against the Imperial forces. So Ethan attacked, foregoing evasive maneuvers in favor of a collision course with the porthole through which the drones were pouring out. Nearing the ship, he came under Vengeance’s fire, quarter-meter rounds rocketing past, missing him by meters or less and slamming into the cruiser.
Nearing the drones’ launch point, Ethan pulled back on the throttle, hammering the drones that emerged with an incessant barrage of energy, waiting for a gap in the stream of outgoing hostiles that he could slip through. Finally, he saw his opening; the procession of drones was slowing, one exiting every few seconds, and he took his chance, gunning the engines and darting forward. At the last possible second, he folded in the fighter’s wings, shrinking its width to just under the size of the tube, and slid cleanly through.
Immediately within was a cavernous bay, lined with assembly lines churning out drones by the dozens. As each craft was pushed off the end of the line, it headed for the launch tube. Either ignoring Ethan or simply oblivious to his presence – he didn’t care which – Ethan redeployed his wings and commenced the enjoyable task of demolishing the construction equipment, blasting it apart with ruthless efficiency. Explosions propagated across the bay, each setting off a new chain reaction that had the ship’s interior ablaze within seconds. Ethan continued to fire, caught up in his moment of sweet revenge, heedless of the growing danger around him. Only a shockwave near enough to throw his fighter off balance jarred him back into reality.
Ethan swung wide around the remains of his handiwork, patching into the Vengeance’s comm for a report. “Enemy deployment, uh… disrupted,” he said, his voice and hands shaking slightly as he came down from the thrill.
“Are you inside that bloody thing?” Briggs said, halfway between yelling and laughing. “Dammit, Walker, you’re a crazy sonuvabitch.”
“Sir!” another voice on the bridge called. It sounded like Newton, the tactical bridger. “Sir, abnormal energy spikes from tango alpha. Recommend distance.”
“You heard the man. Turn us around. Ethan, get the hell out of there.”
Ethan did not need to be told twice. He flew back the way he came, this time not having to worry about an errant drone blocking his path. Upon escaping the ship, he could see his comrades had already scattered, hot on the tail of the retreating Vengeance. With far less thrust on their side, the Naldím drones were left behind, instead choosing to round on Ethan. He fell into an evasive pattern as their weapons lit up, returning fire whenever a drone was unlucky enough to pass in front of him. Slowly, Ethan was forced to tighten turns, his room to maneuver shrinking as the drones closed in on him from every angle. Even in the chaos, he could see that his skirmish was far too close to the collapsing Naldím ship. The ensuing detonation would take out the drones, which worked well for the Vengeance, but would also burn him to a crisp. He could not see any way out.
Frantically, Ethan opened a new comm, this one reaching out to the Scotts.
“Rick Scott, extraordinaire.”
“Rick-”
“How can I help you this fine day?”
“Rick, shut up and listen. Is there any way to increase shield power on this thing?”
“Pols or refs?” asked Rick, entirely oblivious to Ethan’s predicament.
“All of them!”
“Sure. Those are all voice-activated, so you just say ‘shields up’ or something, and it’ll-”
“Shields up!” Ethan yelled, his voice nearly catching in his throat. New energy surged through the shields, bathing the fighter in blue light. A second later the light shifted to green as the Naldím ship exploded, disintegrating into a million deadly projectiles. The cloud of drones around Ethan were caught up in the explosion, vaporizing into even smaller bits of debris. Ethan’s fighter only just survived, the shields pulsing and draining with each impact. He rode the shockwave outward, hoping to minimize the damage, and only when the last of the shrapnel had darted past him did he reorient himself and limp back home.
*
Leaving the bridge to his commander, Damidar Borschev, Briggs came to greet Ethan and his men in the hangar, along with a contingent of excited engineers and marines.
“Ripping good job,” Briggs boomed, slapping Ethan heartily on the back. “Think that’s quite the test run, eh?”
Ethan merely laughed in reply, nerves still winding down from his near-demise. Briggs seemed to understand, taking charge of the situation and dishing out orders to the maintenance crews that had followed him onto the deck.
“Alright, off to work,” he barked over the din. “I’ll get the boys settled for some chow.” Briggs look
ed back at the pilots surrounding Ethan. “Hawking knows you deserve it. Round of drinks on the cap!” The pilots cheered in response, each as high as Ethan on the thrill of their victory.
Walking out of the hangar towards the mess, Ethan finally caught his breath. “How’d the ship do?” he asked.
Briggs grinned. “Better than I thought she would. Thirty-seven percent refs by the end of it. And we laid in some good shots.”
“It looked amazing.” Ethan paused, then asked, more reserved, “Did we lose anyone?”
“Not a one.”
Ethan stopped in his tracks, turning on his heel to face Briggs. “Really?”
“Really.” His grin only growing, Briggs led the way down the hall to the door of the mess. The crowd of pilots congealed behind him and he opened the door. Much to his surprise, as well as Ethan’s and everybody else’s, two men were waiting within, clad in black suits. Ethan barely noticed a third figure, standing motionless in the corner, wearing skeletal armor he had seen only twice before. It was unmistakably a Wraith.
“Lieutenant Walker,” one of the men in suits said, standing and moving to intercept Ethan. “We need to talk.”
The Intelligence
Cam, First Recorded Dialogue
“Status?”
“Eight thousand klicks. Holding.”
Rebecca sighed. They had been at eight thousand klicks for the last three days. They were no closer to intercepting the alien vessel.
Rather admirably, the Phantom showed no signs of strain, despite how hard the helmsman – who, Rebecca had finally learned, was named Parker – had been pushing it. The ship continued to slip silently through space, not a whisper escaping its hull.
For Rebecca, however, it was too quiet. The silence left her alone with her thoughts, and since Prasad’s lecture, they were not pleasant ones. Regardless of how hard she tried to maintain her calm, flashes of anger surfaced more and more frequently. She could feel Eve’s judgmental glare on the back of her head each time she flushed or snapped or even made a sarcastic remark. Evidently the younger Wraith had not reached the point of emotional freedom Prasad had described – she was still locked in her indoctrinated ways. Rebecca wished she could return there.
Whether it was just his nature or he had noticed Rebecca’s down-trodden mood, Kahlo was extremely friendly towards her, offering to introduce her to a new part of the ship whenever she had free time. With the pursuit progressing the way it was, she had plenty. Before long, Rebecca was intimately familiar with the most inner workings of the Phantom, save one. That one, Kahlo had said, was best saved for last.
Rebecca turned to leave the bridge, intending to collapse on her bunk and stew a while longer, but Agent Kahlo had other ideas. As the bridge’s bulkhead hissed open, Rebecca found herself face-to-face with the excitable agent.
“Ah, Agent Blizzard! Or Blizzard, or Agent Winters, or whatever you prefer,” Kahlo said, practically shouting, his mouth split into a grin. Rebecca waited silently, if not entirely patiently, for him to speak his mind. “You got a minute?” Kahlo asked after a second. “Still got that big secret surprise to show you.”
Rebecca was about to mutter an excuse when Kahlo said something that piqued her interest: “He’s been asking about you.”
“Who?”
“The surprise. Ah, dammit, that sort of gives it away, doesn’t it? Alright, come on. I’ll show you.” Not waiting for a reply, Kahlo bounded down the hall, Rebecca hot on his heels.
The room was crammed in the aft end of the ship, stuck between the thruster block and Engineering. From the outside, it looked entirely unremarkable, almost as if it wasn’t meant to be noticed.
“Agent Winters,” Kahlo said slowly, concentrating on entering the correct passcode into the door’s control panel, “meet Cam.”
The door slid open with a blast of cold air to reveal a small circular room beyond. Within the room, mounted on a central pedestal, was a human head. It was grey, hairless, disturbingly flawless, and lacked any extremities below the brainstem, but it was undoubtedly a real head. Rebecca stepped forward to inspect it, and it spoke.
“Hello, Agent Winters.”
Rebecca suppressed a flinch. “Hi,” she said curtly.
The head cocked slightly to look around Rebecca at Kahlo. “Agent Kahlo. Hello.”
“Hey there, Cam!”
Rebecca looked back at Kahlo. “What is it?”
“I am a supercomputer designed to run all critical, non-critical, and secondary functions aboard the IMS Phantom,” the head answered, “including avionics, power regulation, electronic warfare, physical warfare…” It continued, listing more functions than Rebecca had ever heard of. She watched it closely, more fascinated by the thing itself than its computing capabilities. The lack of expression it exhibited was unnerving. The mouth moved, and with it most of the face, but it failed to convey any emotion, simulated or otherwise. Rebecca squirmed slightly, discomforted.
“…and, when necessary, I brew the coffee,” Cam finished. It – or he, as might have been the case – looked Rebecca in the eye, ever more disconcerting. “Is this answer satisfactory?”
Rebecca paused, realizing she had asked the wrong question. “Who are you?” she corrected.
“That is a question with complicated existential ramifications,” Cam admitted. “The organic central processor-”
“Head,” Kahlo interjected.
“-was donated to SWORD by one of their top analysts, a man named Dylan Sanjay, upon his death. In anticipation of a common question, I retain no characteristics of Mister Sanjay. I am a fully unique artificial intelligence. The crew calls me Cam.”
“Human brain’s still a hundred times faster than any computer we have today,” Kahlo supplemented, “and more efficient to boot. When you’re running the most advanced ship in the fleet, you want a good computer on your side.”
“It’s impressive,” Rebecca said mildly. She still could not tear her gaze away from Cam’s blank face.
“Aye,” Kahlo agreed, his mind seeming to wander. In an instant, he snapped back into reality. “Anyway, Cam wanted to talk with you, so I’ll give you some alone time. Cheers!” With that, Kahlo disappeared through the door, humming a ditty to himself as he went, and Rebecca found herself in the singular company of the most disturbing thing she had ever seen. It was even stranger to know that Cam had requested her presence.
“What did you want to talk about?” she asked, struggling to get the words out.
Cam twitched. “As the more experienced of the two Wraiths aboard the IMS Phantom, you are theoretically more adept at identifying and regulating emotions.”
Rebecca’s stomach twisted. She had a sneaking suspicion Prasad had something to do with this. “Why do you care?”
Cam twitched again, as if as uncomfortable with the situation as Rebecca. “I have recently encountered a number of unforeseen variables in my routines that I believe are stemming from Mister Sanjay’s remnant memories. Judging from my research on the matter, these memories are eliciting emotions.”
“Your monoamine system isn’t active, right?” Rebecca responded. It was the only thing that came to mind.
“Correct. I should not and do not experience emotion. I am experiencing the memory of emotion.”
Rebecca could not picture what that might have been like. Her own emotions were much too turbulent at the moment to even imagine otherwise. “What do you want from me?”
For the first time, Cam hesitated. “I would like to know how to repress these memories. To remember emotions without being able to experience them first-hand is distracting. Can you help me?”
Rebecca returned Cam’s longing gaze, a frown tugging at the corners of her mouth. “No, Cam,” she said quietly. “I can’t.”
*
Rebecca found Eve on the bridge, flipping through a collection of training videos on her tablet. The young Wraith was draped over the captain’s chair, looking completely at ease, though the assault rifle nestled in the crook of her arm seemed to say otherwise. The unrelenting diehard Wraith persona she put on irked Rebecca, but she bit her lip and chose not to mention it.
“Report?” Rebecca ordered. Her voice cracked slightly.
“Nothing,” Eve and Helmsman Parker reported simultaneously. Eve pulled herself to her feet and nodded over Rebecca’s shoulder.
“Where were you?”
“Talking with Cam.”
“Who?”
“Artificial intelligence.”
“Oh.” Eve looked only mildly surprised. “Didn’t know we had one.”
Rebecca shrugged in reply and stole Eve’s perch on the captain’s chair. Eve surrendered it silently. “Did Prasad talk to you?” Rebecca asked after a moment.
Eve looked up from her tablet, already reabsorbed in her work. “About what?”
“About…” Rebecca trailed off, wondering how to describe her conversation with the captain. “About the two types of Wraiths.”
“No. But I’ve heard it before.” Eve switched off the tablet and stood squarely facing Rebecca. “I disagree. There are three types of Wraiths.” She held up her fingers to tick each type off as she listed it. “There are the Wraiths who have never screwed up, the Wraiths who are overcompensating because they screwed up, and you.”
“Me?”
“I read your debrief after Dawn Six. Even the Director didn’t call the mission a failure. So, you didn’t screw up. But you’re still overcompensating.”
“You don’t know why, by any chance?” Rebecca asked darkly.
“Something happened to you. You might not even know it had an effect on you, but it did, and you’re trying to hide the fact that it changed you.”
“That’s profound,” Rebecca said sarcastically. She stood, turning away from Eve. “For a Wraith,” she added under her breath. Eve heard her anyway.
Vengeful Dawn Page 8
