Second Earth

by Stephen A. Fender

  “What are you going to do, Father?” Melissa asked.

  “The only thing we can do, my dear. We’re going to attack the Meltranians head-on. It’s the only way to protect you from their fire. If their isotonic cannon is pointed at us, it won’t be pointed at you.”

  Isotonic? “But you’ll be killed!” she screamed frantically.

  “Please, Agent Graves,” William said, using Melissa’s title to grab her attention. “Calm down. I told you, the Kafarans have special shielding against the weapon. They’ve been at war with Meltranians a lot longer than they were with us, and they have learned how to protect themselves, albeit in a limited capacity. Suffice it to say, we’ll be able to stay in the fight longer than you possibly could, and we’ll give them a battle they won’t forget.”

  “What about our fighters?” Krif asked, referring to the pilots he already had out in space.

  “Yes,” William said thoughtfully as he contemplated the question. “Melissa, I can only assume that, since you’re there, you managed to convince Shawn Kestrel to help you.”

  Melissa smiled at the mention of Shawn’s name. “I have, sir.”

  Now there was an obvious smile on William’s face. “Excellent. Is he there with you?”

  “No, sir,” Krif snorted. “Not currently, anyway.”

  That was a string of sounds to Graves’ right, which caused the admiral to turn and look away from the screen momentarily. “He’s in one of the fighters, is he?” Graves asked as he returned his gaze to Richard.

  Krif nodded. “He is.”

  William nodded sharply. “Captain Krif, that piece of information is going to help our current situation tenfold.”

  “Lieutenant Commander Kestrel has been placed in temporary command of the fighter wing,” Melissa added with obvious pride.

  “I wouldn’t want it any other way, Melissa,” William replied. “Captain Krif, have him maintain his current position until I call for him. With any luck, we can damage the isotonic cannon before it can get off any more shots, and we won’t require the service of the fighters. The armor around the weapons barrel is extremely thick, as you can imagine, so it will take several well-placed hits to knock it out. If the combined fire from our capital ships can’t do it, however, we will need to call in the space wing for assistance. Again, we cannot sustain multiple impacts from that cannon, and we can’t afford to let that Meltranian ship escape. It must be completely destroyed, or it will call for reinforcements that none of us will be able to cope with. They are like cockroaches, Captain, and this sector could be crawling with them within a matter of hours. Understood?”

  Krif nodded slowly. “Yes, sir. I’ll inform the Commander now.”

  Graves looked once again off to the side of the screen, presumably at whatever being was speaking to him. He turned back a moment later to face Krif. “Captain, we are within firing range now. Get behind us quickly while we draw their attention. Godspeed to you all. Admiral Graves out.”

  The image of Graves winked off the viewer, leaving every last officer and specialist in CIC in stunned silence.

  Melissa turned to Krif, waiting for what was to come next. Would he follow her father’s instructions, or would he fight a losing battle against the Meltranians on his own?

  Richard turned to her, and a small smile turned up the corner of his mouth. “All right, people,” he barked to his officers. “You heard the Admiral. Let’s get going.”

  * * *

  An image of Commander Caitlin Hayes’ face appeared above the centermost screen in Shawn’s cockpit. “Lieutenant Commander Kestrel, we will shortly be moving into position behind the Kafaran carrier. You are ordered to maintain a discreet distance between us and the Kafaran carrier until further notice.”

  Shawn blinked twice, and then shook his head in utter bewilderment. Did I hear that correctly? “I’m sorry, Commander. Did you say you were moving into a position behind the Kafarans?”

  “That’s correct, Commander. We’ve come into some new information about the intruder’s vessel. The Kafarans are here to help us…if you can believe that.”

  “I’m fairly certain that I can’t.”

  Shawn watched as the visage of Commander Hayes smiled weakly. “Captain Krif shares your sentiment. However, Admiral Graves has tactical control of the situation for the time being.”

  Once again, Shawn was stunned into momentary silence. “I’m sorry. Did you just say ‘Admiral Graves’?”

  “Affirmative. He’s on board the Kafaran carrier. The Admiral is coordinating the attack against the Meltranians, our unknown friends out there. The Kafaran ships have some sort of special barrier that protects them from the Meltranians’ superweapon. The Rhea has been ordered to hold our position astern of the Kafarans until the Admiral gives us the order to attack.”

  Still in disbelief over the fact that William was on board a Kafaran ship—and apparently aiding them in some way—he tried to sort the jumble of thoughts in his head before he spoke. “And when will that be?”

  “We honestly don’t know. The Meltranian vessel is now inside the firing range of the Kafaran carrier and is maneuvering, probably preparing to fire its main weapon. Thankfully, they seem more interested in destroying the Kafarans than they do us. Stand by for instructions. Rhea out.”

  “Wait! Caitlin!” he cried, but the image had already faded. Shawn sighed heavily as he assimilated the new, staggering information. Meltranians? And Graves is alive on the Kafaran carrier?

  There was a signal coming in from Raven, and it broke Shawn from his momentary contemplation. Shawn wasn’t a bit surprised to see it either, considering she was privy to the same communication he had just received from the Rhea. However, Raven was requesting a secure channel, which would separate the two fighters from the rest of the Sector Command forces while they conferred.

  She must have something important to say. Better patch her in quick while we still have time. “Go ahead, Raven.”

  “I can’t believe they’re here to help us,” she balked without so much as a hint of military bearing.

  “Neither can I,” Shawn agreed wholeheartedly.

  “I have a strong feeling that the Captain has his own reservations, too.”

  Shawn nodded. Even though they’d both served with Krif, Lieutenant Commander Brunel’s tenure with the Captain had been longer. And, considering the Captain’s high opinion of her, she probably knew him far better than Shawn did. Besides, Shawn had the same reservations himself.

  “Then why do you think he’s following their orders?”

  She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know, but I’d bet my last credit that Richard has an ace up his sleeve.” She then smiled softly once more before looking away the screen, giving Shawn the impression that she was gazing thoughtfully at the Rhea. “That would be just like him. I only hope he knows what he’s doing.”

  Shawn could see something in her eyes that spoke volumes more than her words were saying. “You really like that guy, don’t you?” he asked.

  She chuckled in response, still looking out beyond her fighter. “Let’s just say we have…an understanding.”

  “An understanding, huh?” Shawn repeated dubiously.

  “He’s a good man, Shawn. Really. He can just be…a bit single-minded at times.”

  That is a universal understatement, Commander. “I’ll have to take your word on that.”

  “Maybe you could try to see his side of things sometimes, Skipper. It might make things easier on you.”

  I’d rather plant an open-mouth kiss on a Minosian Goliath. “It’s not that easy for me, Roslyn. He and I…” he let his words trail off as the image of his late wife filled his mind for an instant, then was gone just as quickly. “We have history.”

  Her smile widened as her expression changed to one of kindness as she continued to look back to her commander. “I know you do, Shawn. I really do. Just try to remember that you weren’t the only person to lose someone he loved during the war. We’ve all had
to lean on each other in the past few years. All of us. Richard is no different.”

  “Richard,” Shawn chucked amiably. “So that’s how it is with you two?”

  She chuckled. “I could say the same thing about you and Melissa.”

  Shawn feigned surprise. “Who said anything was happening between us?”

  “Oh please, it’s written all over your face, lover-boy. And besides, there’s nothing to be ashamed about. Not anymore.” Shawn watched as she looked out her canopy toward the Kafaran carrier and the destroyer escorts that were getting closer by the second. An expression of uncertainty washed across her face as she turned back to face Shawn. “This could be the start of something here, Shawn—something bigger and uglier than the last war. If you…if you’ve found something good in life to hold onto, then do it. Don’t let fear stand in your way, because you might not get a chance to do it again. If you love her, then you owe it to yourself and everyone else who’s died for it to tell her.”

  Love her? Melissa Graves? The biggest pain in my stern since…well, ever! I wouldn’t even know where to begin to love her, or anyone else for that matter. Besides, I’m just a space hauler playing the role he’s been assigned. She could no more reciprocate those feelings than Krif could make employee of the month. Shawn looked at Roslyn’s image, not knowing how to respond. Luckily a communications signal came in from the Rhea that broke the uneasy silence. “Raven, we need to break comms. I’ve got a message coming in from Commander Hayes.”

  She nodded, and took it upon herself to close the channel.

  Shawn quickly opened the channel to the Rhea, hoping that there was going to be good news attached to it. “Yes, Commander?”

  “The Kafarans are commencing their attack.”

  As long as the Kafarans weren’t attacking the Rhea, then it was good news.

  Shawn brought his fighter out from behind the Kafaran carrier, hovering over the stern of the massive vessel to get a better look at what was going on. He glanced down the nose of his fighter, down the length of the unimaginably long and irregular hull of the Kafaran ship, and out to the open space between it and the Meltranian ship.

  The dark void was suddenly illuminated with dozens of green lances of plasma bearing the telltale signature of Kafaran cannon fire. While their intended target was still too far away to visually discern their effectiveness, Shawn knew full well the awesome destructiveness the cannon barrage could wield against a vessel—or a ground-based target. His eyes darted momentarily to the doomed word of Second Earth spinning silently below the battlefield, and in his mind he heard a loud a passage from the Ulysses novel given to him by Sylvia those many years ago:

  “…the dead sea: no fish, weedless, sunk deep in the earth. No wind would lift those waves, grey metal, poisonous foggy waters. Brimstone they called it raining down: the cities of the plain: Sodom, Gomorrah, Edom. All dead names. A dead sea in a dead land, grey and old.”

  Shawn eyes turned back to the coming battle in time to see the Meltranian vessel pivot slowly on its axis, pointing itself directly at the bow of the incoming Kafaran carrier. A distant point of light began to shimmer near the forefront of the alien’s vessel, and space around the craft seemed to warp and twist itself right before Shawn’s eyes. The light grew brighter, almost unbearably so, turning from blue to white. Just as it became too bright to look at directly, it extinguished itself entirely, as if nothing had ever been there. A split second later, a burst of hell-born energy reached out from the Meltranian bow and smashed against the Kafaran carrier with such force that the shockwave reverberated through Shawn’s fighter.

  * * *

  On the raised deck of the Rhea’s CIC compartment, Captain Krif and the rest of his assembled officers watched as the sensor scan displayed what was happening in front of the Kafaran carrier ahead of them. An enormous bolt of energy, the same kind that had destroyed the Agincourt, sprang out from the forward section of the Meltranian vessel. Where it should have impacted the Kafarans’ bow dead-center, the blast was somehow deflected two hundred feet from its target. There appeared to be some form of energy bubble surrounding the Kafaran ship, visible only when it was impacted by the immense power of the weapon being used against it.

  The Meltranian blast fizzled and crackled around the periphery of the partially visible energy sphere for a moment, then was gone entirely.

  Krif was stunned at the Kafaran ability to withstand the blast. If the energy shield was strong enough to take a handful of punishing hits from a weapon like that, as Admiral Graves had described it could, then how long would it last against the miniscule weapons in Sector Command’s arsenal? His momentary shock was broken by a call from the center of the lower deck.

  “Sir!” communications officer Clifton yelled. “We are receiving another signal from the Kafaran cruiser. Admiral Graves is giving us the go-ahead to launch our attack.”

  Krif shot a look over to the Flight Control Officer. “Caitlin, send the signal out to the fighters. Remind them that Kestrel is in charge of coordinating the attack until he’s dead, or until I can find another reason to relieve him. Then launch everything else we have in our inventory. I don’t care if they’re held together by duct tape and prayers. Get them out into space now!”

  In the vast hangar of the Rhea, the flight deck technicians scurried about, moving from fighter to fighter in a jumble of coordinated chaos. Last-minute details were checked and rechecked, and final ordnance loads were installed. The first fighters to fly out were the remnants of the Red Skulls, followed by the Cobra fighters of the Devil Dogs, and then the remaining three fighter-bombers from the Gunslingers.

  Trent Maddox, who’d had little else to do while Shawn and the rest of the Rippers were out in space, was hard at work with several other technicians prepping three full squadrons of drone fighters for the coming engagement. The streamlined, sea-ray-shaped craft were entirely computer-controlled, but could be manually operated from a number of remote cockpits that were set up in a nearby compartment. Though lightly armed and armored, and still highly untested in actual combat, the nimble fighters would nonetheless provide adequate cover for the live pilots already out in the void.

  With all the pilots engaged in the battle, it was left to less experienced personnel to watch over the drones, should the need arise for someone to take manual control. And, as fate or misfortune would have it, Trent Maddox now found himself sitting in a cockpit, not too dissimilar to the one Shawn Kestrel was in, but blessedly held firmly to the deck of the Rhea. Trent passively watched the short-range radar as the computer-controlled craft, and the nearly two-dozen mirror fighters, launched from every available magnetic catapult on the carrier. He placed a communications headset over his ears so he could be privy to the battle for supremacy that was about to be waged.

  Soon the entire wing, the remaining fifty-two fighters and attack craft representing seventeen squadrons, along with the drone craft, were in a tight formation between the Rhea and the Kafaran carrier, waiting for the final order to attack.

  Commander Shawn Kestrel, with Raven and Commander Saltori close on his tail, swooped in from behind the Rhea to take their place at the forefront of the attack.

  Saltori’s stone-etched face appeared on Shawn’s HUD. “Admiral Graves has informed the Rhea that once our fighters are committed to the attack, the Kafarans will send out their own wave of reinforcements, should we need them.”

  “I’m not overly anxious to fly alongside a Kafaran, regardless of whether it’s helping us or not,” Shawn replied.

  “I hear that,” Saltori sighed heavily. “Where do you need me, Shawn?”

  What am I doing up here? I’m not qualified for this. Looking down at his short-range sensor display, Shawn could see icons representing every fighter in the assembled formation. He quickly started moving the icons around, reordering them into attack wings that would be easier to manage than the entire lot. He then opened another communications channel with Raven. With the two lead pilots now side by side
on his display, he dispensed his orders. “Saltori, take up a position with the rest of the Red Skulls. You’ll form the pinnacle of the right flank. Raven, you’ll be taking command of the Black Lions and forming the left side of the offensive. I’ll take the Rippers and a few others. I’ve put a few squadrons together under each of your commands, so I’ll transmit the assignments to your flight computers and the rest of the fighter squadrons as well. Form into your wings and prepare to assault the Meltranian vessel.”

  “Yes, sir,” both Raven and Saltori confirmed, then peeled away from Shawn to assume their positions.

  Shawn moved his fighter to the tip of the wedge that formed the frontlines of the USC forces. When the attack indicator—fed by a signal sent from the Rhea—illuminated green a moment later, he ordered the entirety of the Sector Command combat wing to attack—some of them for the first time, some for their very last.

  As the Sector Command fighters peeled out from behind the Kafaran carrier and headed toward the Meltranian vessel, the enemy vessel’s port and starboard sides once again flashed with the now-familiar pinpoints of light that signaled to Shawn that it was launching its own fighters. Within seconds, the entire area was littered with a swarm of craft from the enemy ship. The two forces met head-on directly between the opposing capital ships chaotically, with small numbers of fighters from both sides colliding with one another when they quickly ran out of maneuvering room. The Kafaran carrier and the Meltranian ship were still closing in on one another—albeit more slowly—making the small combat space even tighter by the second.

  Shawn opened his communications channel to all the fighters simultaneously. “Last I’d heard, space was pretty infinite. Let’s move the fighting away from the Meltranian ship. I don’t like the idea of staring down the barrel of that gun while we’re all preoccupied out here.”

  He had little time to see if the rest of the pilots acknowledged the command or not. A pair of Alphas, and something that looked similar to a Beta with a slightly more gaping mouth hanging below it, jumped into close pursuit behind him. That must be the Charlie, he thought, just as his computer confirmed the same.