The Ghost Fleet

by Trevor Wyatt

  “Good,” Commander Gavin said, stepping between Tira and the captain. She reached for Tira and squeezed her shoulder. “We’ll crush it.”

  “We will.”

  “Right,” the commander continued. “Did you review all the changes we’ve made to the Hunter?”

  “I did, Commander,” Tira nodded, mentally checking off every single thing the engineers had changed in Hunter 9.

  To make sure they wouldn’t be detected by the Udenar, stealth equipment had been installed on the small Hunter, and there was a frequency jammer as well, in case they were spotted. If that happened, they’d have some time to shoot down whoever had spotted them before they could communicate back to their base.

  The co-pilot’s chair had also been adjusted, so that there was some space in the back—that allowed them to carry some equipment down onto the planet, instead of having to face potential hostiles with nothing but a side gun, a flight suit and a helmet. As far as Tira was concerned, a side gun was all she needed...if needed be, she’d just make her way through the Udenar using nothing but her fists. But if she didn’t need to rely on her fists, all the better. Tira didn’t want Commander Gavin to see how truly good she was.

  And Tira was good. Really good.

  “Ready?” Commander Gavin asked, and Tira nodded her assent. In silence, the two of them climbed up the ladder that lead to the Hunter’s cockpit. Then they put their helmets on and adjusted their seats so that they could reach the control panel easily.

  “Try to stay away from the Udenar,” Jeryl said, looking up at them from the ground. “But if you come across any of those assholes, you know what you have to do...give ‘em hell.”

  “We’ll give them seven different hells to consider,” the commander replied, then pressed a button on her panel. The cockpit’s cover slid down to protect Tira and her from the vacuum of space.

  “Lift off,” Tira confirmed, checking on her dashboard as Commander Gavin turned the Hunter’s engine on, making it hover over the flight’s deck. Tira grabbed her controls tightly, and pressed her back hard against the seat as Ashley maneuvered the small raider out of the flight bay and across the hangar deck.

  The Seeker was already in Confederation space, hiding behind the cover of an asteroid belt, and now it was Tira and Ashley’s responsibility to make it through the rest of the way and land on Galea.

  Preliminary scans had given them some information on how the Udenar were patrolling Galea’s orbit, and so Tira was somewhat hopeful that the landing would be uneventful. She had no expectations, though—in her experience, whenever something could go wrong, it usually did.

  Twenty seconds later and they were cruising through empty space, making their way toward Galea. They were a good two hours out, and the Hunter was going slower than it usually did. That was no wonder, since they had to sacrifice speed for more fuel capacity, another change the engineering crew did.

  Still, it wasn’t that bad of a trade-off; even though Hunter 9 wasn’t as quick as it usually was, it sure was enough to face any rusted out Tyreesian raider the Udenar piloted.

  Two hours passed remarkably fast. Despite Commander Gavin being Tira’s superior, she was approachable enough, and they split their time chit-chatting about their childhood and going over the operation’s plans. By the time they saw Galea in the distance, a green and blue orb that reminded them of Earth, Tira felt she knew the commander much better. Much like Tira, Ashley was a hard woman, one that didn’t know the meaning behind the words ‘give up’.

  “Sensors?”

  “Nothing so far,” Tira confirmed. As if on cue, four red dots appeared on her screen, right on the fringe of the sector her sensors could pick up. “Shit. I stand corrected, Commander—we got four hostiles.”

  “Have they detected us?”

  “I can’t say for sure, but their flight trajectory matches ours. I’d say so.”

  “Are you running interference in their comms?”

  “Yes,” Tira confirmed after checking her dashboard. “They won’t be able to transmit anything long-range...as long as they remain this close to us.”

  “Let’s light ‘em up, then!” Ashley said, and Tira could feel the excitement in her commander’s voice. There was no fear nor nervousness. Sitting behind the controls of Hunter 9, Commander Ashley Gavin was at home.

  I can imagine why, Tira thought to herself as she manned the weapons controls, this shit’s fun.

  The four Udenar raiders she had detected previously were now right behind them; they were moving fast, but that didn’t matter.

  “Hang on!” Ashley said, and then maneuvered the Hunter fast, forcing it to spin and gluing Tira’s stomach to her back. Before, they were moving away from the Udenar. Now, they were on a collision course with the four raiders.

  “They’re coming in hot!” Tira shouted as the raiders opened fire, their laser beams missing the Hunter by just a few meters. Ashley didn’t even respond; she just kept her trajectory, positioning the Hunter right in front of one of the Udenar raiders.

  “Target locked!”

  Gritting her teeth, Tira opened fire. She aimed straight for the raider’s cockpit, and what happened next didn’t disappoint. The cockpit’s protective glass shattered in a fraction of a second, and then a ball of fire engulfed the whole raider and its pilot.

  “One down, three to go,” Tira whispered as the raider she shot down drifted away, a bead of sweat rolling down her forehead.

  “Hang tight,” Ashley warned Tira, and then changed the Hunter’s course once more, this time taking it in an arch toward the Udenar. The three hostile raiders were circling back to meet the Hunter, but Tira had the vantage point. Without even blinking, she locked her weapons on two of the raiders and fired away.

  “Nice!” Ashley exclaimed as the two raiders exploded, but then she sank back into silence as the remaining raider started moving fast—and away from them. “The fucker is trying to get away!” Ashley bellowed as she turned the Hunter around to follow in pursuit.

  By now, the raider had already gained some distance, and it was a big possibility that it could get out of range, which would mean it’d be able to communicate back to the base.

  “I got this,” Tira whispered, more to herself than to Ashley. She narrowed her eyes into slits as she watched the small screen in front of her and focused on the vanishing thermal signature of the raider ahead. The moment her sensors were centered on that signature—something that didn’t last for more than a tenth of a second—Tira fired one of the torpedos.

  “We’re too far. It’s impossible to lock on the—” Ashley started to say, but she never got to finish her sentence. “I’ll be damned,” she whispered as the torpedo reached the raider, blowing it up into a thousand shards of bent metal.

  “Done,” Tira grinned. “Now let’s put this Hunter down. I need to stretch my legs.”

  Tira

  “How do I look?”

  “Like a badass farmer,” Tira responded, patting the front of her ragged pants as she looked at Ashley. They were both wearing clothes similar to the ones Lydia had been wearing when they brought her aboard The Seeker, and they hoped that would be enough for them to blend with the crowd.

  The duo landed Hunter 9 on a secluded spot out in the woods, and now they were facing a five-mile trek before they could reach Galea’s major settlement. After they dispatched the four Udenar raiders that had spotted them in orbit, getting down on the planet had been a piece of cake. Hunter 9 had been equipped with state-of-the-art stealth apparel, and there was no way the Udenar could seriously control a whole planet.

  It didn’t even matter if the Tyreesians were backing them. There was no way in hell the Udenar would be able to coordinate a planet-wide defense grid. Although Tira had to admit, they weren’t doing that bad of a job. After all, they had been locking horns with The Seeker, not to mention that they had dispatched an entire Confederation fleet.

  “Let’s get going,” Ashley said, hiding a side gun and a small rifle und
er her garb. They had elected to bring a mantle with them, just like a poncho, so that they could hide their guns underneath. According to Lydia, there shouldn’t be a problem, as a lot of Galeans used similar clothing.

  The trek through the woods took them almost four hours, as the terrain was irregular and the vegetation was thick. Galea wasn’t heavily populated—in fact, it was just the opposite, and that meant that much of the planet remained untamed. Fortunately for Tira and Ashley, and as Lydia had told them, they had nothing to worry about. There were no major predators lurking in the woods, and none of the flora seemed to be poisonous.

  After their uneventful trek, they finally reached what seemed like an industrial zone. The air was thick with smog, and the sky overhead seemed to be in a permanent grey mood. Old warehouses rose all around them, and aside from the distant rumble of an aircar engine, there was only silence.

  “I thought Galea was a farming colony,” Tira said, looking back over her shoulder at Ashley. “These seem like industrial warehouses, or even factories.”

  “Nope, they’re meant to store the crops,” Ashley corrected her, stopping to take a closer look at one of the larger warehouses, one so massive that three raiders could enter it side-by-side. “They look like industrial warehouses because…well, because the whole place looks like shit. There’s smoke everywhere, and it seems that these buildings have been abandoned. Besides, take a look around…even the vegetation around here seems to be turning grey.”

  Ashley nudged a small patch of weeds growing through a crack in the pavement, then looked up at Tira. “I bet that if it weren’t for all the smog and pollution, this place would look entirely different.”

  They had to walk ten minutes through the deserted area until they finally saw someone. It was a young man who couldn’t be older than eighteen, and he was piloting a farming transporter. Instead of crops, his shuttle was carrying what seemed like an immense amount of dirt.

  He slowed down as they closed in, and Tira and Ashley eyed each-other before the shuttle finally stopped next to them. The young guy lowered the window of his transporter, and then looked down at them.

  “You’re not from here,” he simply said, then looked from Tira to Ashley. “Rebels?”

  “Not exactly,” Ashley replied. “But we’re friends.”

  “I have no idea what that means, lady,” he said, his elbow resting on the door.

  “That means we’re down here to take a closer look at what’s happening,” Ashley continued patiently. According to the brief Tira had received a few nights ago, it was a safe to assume that all humans down on Galea would be friendly to rebel parties. As far as they knew, the Udenar hadn’t managed to have anyone rat on their fellow human beings, and the rebel groups that were struggling (and failing miserably) to keep the fight going only managed to endure because of the population’s constant eagerness to help.

  This transporter pilot, though, seemed more bored out of his mind than anything else. Still, Tira couldn’t help but notice his hollowed out cheekbones. The guy could be bored, but he was also hungry.

  “Here,” Tira said, grabbing one the rations she had on her belt. She threw it at him, and saw the pilot’s eyes widen as he reached for the pack. He didn’t even say a word as he unwrapped it, and then proceeded to immediately devour the cold rations.

  “Fuck, I was hungry,” he finally proclaimed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Where are you headed?” Ashley asked.

  “I’ll be unloading this,” he pointed with his thumb to the back of the transporter, where a pile of dirt had been deposited. “Then I’m to return to the drilling site.”

  “Is that far?”

  “Nah, not really. Just a five-minute drive. If I shut the engines off, you’ll probably be able to hear the drills from here.”

  “Any idea what they’re mining?” Tira asked, even though she knew it was very unlikely for the pilot to have any kind of reliable information.

  “No fucking idea, lady,” he shrugged. “All I know is that I’m to deposit this at the sorting station, and then they’ll run an analysis of all this dirt. I’ve been doing this for weeks now, carrying dirt from a hundred different locations. They’re poking holes everywhere. I guess they’re looking for something specific. Whenever they find it—whatever it is—they bring the larger drills and remain there for a week or so. But I just carry dirt, ma’am.”

  “Do they have a command center around, or anything of that sort?”

  “Yeah, I guess, if you can call it that. They’ve taken over one of the warehouses close to the drilling site. There are a lot of shuttles coming in and out of there, and the area is restricted to humans…so I figure that’s where the bosses are.” He rolled his tongue as he said the word bosses, making it sound almost comical, even though the expression on his face was one of pure disgust.

  “Can you tell us where to—”

  “No need. Just follow the drilling sounds, and then you’ll see the big fences and all these bastards with rifles walking back and forth. If I were you, I wouldn’t go there. They’re trigger-happy, you know?” As if startled by something, he took a look at the dashboard of his transporter then cursed something under his breath. “Alright, thanks for the food, ladies. But I gotta get the fuck out of here. If I don’t deposit this shit in five, I’ll get the end of a whip for dinner,” he said, then revved up the engine and was gone before they could protest.

  “A whip?”

  “They’re old-fashioned, it seems,” Ashley said with a shrug, and the two of them started walking again, this time following the drilling sounds in the distance. Just like the transporter pilot had said, spotting the Udenar’s command center in the zone wasn’t difficult at all. They had fenced out a large area surrounding a massive warehouse, and armed guards were patrolling the area.

  “How do you wanna play this?” Tira asked, and she could almost swear Ashley was patting the rifle under her poncho. But instead of suggesting they reveal themselves guns-blazing, Ashley took the more sensible approach.

  “See those?” she said, pointing at one of the shuttles entering the fenced area through the gates. “We’ll do it the old-fashioned way.”

  “You can’t possible mean—”

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” Ashley grinned, and then hurried down an alley between two decaying buildings. She pointed to a small shuttle around the block, and Tira watched as three Udenar in full combat gear stepped inside of it. The drilling sounds were loud, but Tira could still hear the Udenar revving the engine of their shuttle up.

  “Let’s do it,” Ashley said as the shuttle rose off the ground a meter or so, and then broke into a run down the alley.

  She’s fucking insane, Tira thought, but followed after her commander all the same. As they came closer to the shuttle, they both dived down and grabbed one of the exhaustion pipes that ran underneath its solid frame. They did it just in time, as the shuttle sped up and started making its way toward the fenced area.

  Holding tight, Tira tried to lock her feet on the shuttle’s surface, praying as hard as she could for the Udenar not to fly the shuttle too high—if they did it, both her and Ashley would be discovered in a heartbeat. And if that happened…well, Tira really wasn’t looking forward to what would follow if that happened.

  The gods were on her side, though; she heard as the gates opened to allow the passage of the shuttle, and the next second they were inside the fenced area. Before the Udenar parked their shuttle, the duo let go of the exhaustion pipes and jumped onto the floor, rolling on the pavement and instinctively looking for cover.

  “Urark zak!” Someone said, and the voice sounded just like the blend of a pig’s grunt and a human coughing out his lungs. The owner of the voice was an Udenar wearing a uniform and clutching a laser rifle on his hand. His beady eyes were wide, and they widened even more as Ashley pressed the muzzle of her side gun under the Udenar’s chin.

  “Shhh,” she merely said as Tira quickly scanned the p
lace.

  “There!” Tira pointed to a small building at the back of the fenced area. She had noticed all the small cooling devices mounted on the rooftop of the building, and that probably meant that the facility servers were housed there.

  If they accessed the servers, they could steal all the information that was being relayed back and forth from this mining site…and with that, they’d be able to finally figure out what the hell was happening.

  Making sure they kept out sight of anyone else, Ashley and Tira slowly led their Udenar prisoner toward the server building. Luckily for them, the only place that seemed well-manned was the outer perimeter. The inner one was almost deserted, aside from one or two distracted guards.

  “Open it,” Tira ordered the Udenar as they stood before the door that led inside the server building. “You’re a fucking dumb idiot, aren’t you?” She sighed, and then grabbed inside her pocket and brought up a small translator device that had been preloaded with the barely useful Udenar language. “Open it,” she repeated, and the translator repeated the order back to the Udenar. He grunted something which the translator seemed not to comprehend, and Tira was about to repeat herself when Ashley hit the Udenar hard, the butt of her gun connecting with the back of his head.

  “Screw that,” she whispered, and then knelt beside the unconscious Udenar, rummaging through his uniform. She finally found a safety card, and pressed it against the door’s panel. Miraculously, the panel turned green and they heard the door unlocking itself.

  “Come,” Ashley told Tira as she dragged the Udenar’s unconscious body after her. “Let’s rob them blind.”

  Without a word, Tira followed Ashley and shut the door behind her.

  Jeryl

  After Tira and Ashley had gotten to the Udenar’s command center, there had been nothing but silence.

  Jeryl couldn’t help but play in his mind all the different scenarios where things could have gone wrong. What if they’ve been captured? What if they’ve gotten in a fire fight and someone got shot? What if, what if?