Remember the Starfighter

by Michael Kan

He tried to think nothing of it. But Nalia suspected it was more than just a lack of sleep. The medicals scans showed minute signs of abnormal brain patterns, along with a high heart rate.

  Outside of that, however, Julian was in good health. Sitting down on the side of his mattress, she reached out, and touched his cheek. Nalia felt the stubble and brushed away the small flecks of dead skin.

  “You’re a damn good pilot,” she said. “The best I’ve ever seen.”

  “That maneuver. I’ve heard of things like that, but to actually see it, with an anti-matter bomb. You killed that Endervar like it was nothing.”

  Feeling her touch, Julian closed his eyes, and smiled.

  “It was just an old trick,” he replied. “An old tactic Admiral Drayden taught me back in the day.”

  “Then he’ll be proud. It was nice to score a win, for once.”

  Julian couldn’t agree more. The enemy ship was only one vessel. But at least, it would never be a threat to anyone again.

  “Your plan was sound,” he said. “I just executed.”

  “Took you long enough. Gave me quite a scare.”

  Nalia laughed, and nudged him with her elbow.

  “See? I wasn’t wrong. You are a starfighter,” she added.

  “I guess you were right to recommend me to captain. I have to say, it felt good to be back.”

  Julian was surprised by the statement, although it seemed to be true. He felt as if he belonged in the fighter craft. The cockpit small, but always familiar.

  Done resting, he moved his bare feet out of the bed and planted them on the tile floor.

  “Where are we now?” Julian asked.

  “We left the system once we recovered you. Now we’ve just arrived at the rendezvous point at a sector zero near the Gramala systems.”

  “Any word on how the other groups did?”

  “Four of the other groups reported successful hits. All groups have made it to the rendezvous point, all except for Beta group. We’re still waiting for them.”

  “Good. Sounds like everything went well. Do you think we made a difference?”

  She stood up, and paced the room, stroking her chin with her hand.

  “Hard to say, at this point,” Nalia replied. “But Commander Ibarra is thinking we go on another run, try to take down more enemy ships.”

  “Makes sense,” he said. “Maybe we can contain them.”

  Realizing that the fighting wasn’t over, Julian didn’t feel so tired anymore. He was about to stand up, when Nalia returned to him.

  “Hey,” she said, putting her arm on his shoulder. “Take it easy now. You haven’t been cleared for duty. Not yet, anyways.”

  He looked up at her, puzzled.

  “Seriously?” Julian asked.

  “Orders are orders. Last I remember, you did somewhat disobey me.”

  He thought back, wondering what she might mean.

  “Oh.”

  He may have taken down the Endervar ship, but Julian had done so, in spite of all the risks, and the protests from Nalia.

  He didn’t need to apologize.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t bust your balls today,” she said. “Let’s just try to keep the suicide maneuvers down to a minimum, shall we?”

  ***

  The assembled ships had waited for a day now. But still there was no word from Beta team, the remaining strike group.

  Julian entered the Abenon’s bridge, dressed back in an officer’s uniform. He felt recovered, and oddly more positive as well. The few crew members on board greeted him with a respect, praising him for his flying against the enemy. Julian replied with his own modesty, unsure of what to say, only mentioning that he was following his instincts.

  He came to the bridge, seeing the rest of the sparse crew. It was not as calm as he expected. In the center of the room was Commander Ibarra, leaning against a control panel as he examined a holographic map. The other officers looked tense, with even Nalia too busy to notice him. Julian went to salute as soon as he caught the attention of the commander. “Reporting for duty,” he said.

  “Captain Nverson. Good to see you are back on your feet,” Ibarra replied. Rather than salute back, the man went to shake Julian’s hand, beaming back a bright smile on his chiseled face.

  “How are things?” Julian asked. “Will we be suiting up again?”

  The commander, scratching his face, sighed.

  “Not in the way I envisioned. Our strike groups did our damage. All together, we attacked a total of seven ships, destroying four. In that regard, we accomplished our aims.”

  “But there’s a problem?”

  “I thought we would all be back. But now I’m not so sure. Beta group hasn’t returned, and we fear the worst,” the commander said. “Nothing, no hyperspace buoy, no N-waves, we’ve gotten no communication from them.”

  Ibarra then went to a control panel and projected a holographic map. “I’ve volunteered to lead a search party. This is where we are going,” he said, pointing to the image.

  “We’ll be traveling to Vindrus III, where Beta team was last heard from. We’ll be taking three other ships with us as support. Hopefully, Beta is just running late or in need of repairs. But I expect that this could get ugly.”

  Julian nodded. “I’m ready whenever you are. Let’s find them.”

  “Good,” the commander said. “In less than ten minutes, we’ll make the jump to hyperspace.”

  ***

  Arriving at the system, the Abenon and her crew quickly found Beta group. It did not resemble anything like manmade ship. Instead, only crushed debris remained.

  Floating in space, the broken hulls had become coffins for the dead. The ships swept aside, and crumpled together, like paper. Over 20 lives had abruptly ended.

  The Abenon and the supporting vessels were still searching through the wreckage, trying to find any signs of survivors. So far, they had found nothing, save for the evidence that could explain their demise.

  Among the debris was a barely-functioning sentry drone. It had been launched from Beta group, and like the rest, been totally cut down, and torn apart. However, its memory core, while damaged, was still loaded with readable data — all of it recorded just days ago.

  Sitting in his quarters, Julian now watched those fragments of the leftover flight record, the images floating above his room’s holo-emitter.

  He had played it over and over again, losing count to how many times he had viewed it.

  Although most of the footage only showed black space, or static, what could be pieced together was that Beta group was in pursuit of an Endervar ship. It had been detected within the system, seemingly surveying the surrounding areas.

  As expected, the strike group had moved to engage. Manned fighters and drones had been launched, in an attempt to take it down. But strangely, the Endervar vessel did not attack. Nor did it move. It did not have too.

  As Beta group attempted to surround the target, a series of erratic orders had been issued to the drone. Something unfathomable was happening. A massive distortion was emerging behind the SpaceCore ships. A minute later and the entity came forth.

  Beta group had scrambled in response, trying to regroup and flee the ambush. But it was too late. Swiftly, the ships were destroyed, all three vessels dropping off the grid in what seemed like seconds. The drone itself would then malfunction, the flight record ending there.

  Julian kept rewinding the tape and focusing on those very last moments. Materializing over the holo-emitter was the final image, the entire view saturated in light.

  Initially, he thought maybe it was a collection of Endervar ships, moving in a tight formation and seemingly merging together. The scans from the drone, however, reported something far more startling.

  It was a ship unlike any other. A craft so large that it was the size of a small planet.

  The wreckage from the attack verified its presence. The intense gravitational forces were capable of sucking in vessels, and smashing them into rubble.
>
  “The Overlord,” Nalia had said. “What are we going to do against that?”

  Julian knew the answer, but he refused to say it.

  Run. It was what Beta group had tried to do, along with so many others.

  Only one or two seemed to be in existence. But when present, the Endervar mothership could not be stopped.

  The Overlord, as it had been called, was both a carrier and a moving terror. It could launch hundreds of its own ships, while at the same time, unleash enough firepower to wipe out approaching fleets. The ship was so dangerous that the various galactic governments had mandated a flee-on-sight order whenever one was encountered.

  The Alliance was no different. Legend had it that once, an armada of 10,000 vessels had been sent to confront the mothership. All were destroyed, the Overlord apparently invulnerable to standard attacks.

  Julian knew the stories. To some degree, all Endervar ships could manipulate space. It was what allowed them to propel through the cosmos, and generate particle beams.

  But the Overlord could take it to the next level. Inside that giant craft, contained a power that could control gravity, and use it as a weapon. This is what Beta group had witnessed — the enemy in all its might.

  Julian sat hunched over his display screen, and finally turned off the flight record. He had seen enough.

  Their hit-and-run strikes, while successful, could do nothing against this.

  Any attempts to contain the enemy would be canceled. Their offensive was perhaps for naught.

  In the end, there was only one choice left: humanity needed to run, and leave this entire region as soon as possible.

  Chapter 11

  Upon arriving back to Bydandia station, Julian and the rest of the crew met the inevitable. According to the most recent intel, the Endervars had nearly completed their shield at Haven. The unbreakable structure now stretched across more than 90 percent of the planet, with complete closure imminent.

  Images of the enemy shield appeared across all the news feeds, the crystal-like lattice on the verge of consuming the entire world. The blue planet had suddenly been transformed into something so unknown, so surreal, and yet so painfully grim. Julian could only watch the images with guilt. This had been the final blow, the last insult to what felt like a failed mission.

  To make matters worse, the evacuation of Bydandia was proceeding far slower than expected. Command had scrapped all offensive operations, in favor of accelerating the migration of civilian personnel to the Isen colony. Vessels including the Abenon would be pulled from the battlefield. They would instead be retro-fitted with long-distance engines and facilities, in an effort to send thousands of refugees away from Bydandia.

  Facing re-assignment, Julian picked up his new orders.

  He looked down at the data tablet, as Admiral Drayden sat only a few feet away, across from his desk in his office.

  Skimming through the information, Julian was surprised. This had nothing to do with the pending evacuation.

  “I need my best pilots,” Drayden had explained. “People I know who can get this done.”

  In the schematics was a new experimental starship, designated for Julian, and only him. “Lightning” was its name, the ship larger in size than a typical one-man fighter craft, and built to accommodate longer-term operational duties. It was certainly advanced and streamlined, with an engine and power base that comprised 70 percent of its structure. Upon closer examination, Julian determined it to be the fastest ship in the fleet, with duties that included recon, bombing, along with even salvage and repair.

  “As you know, command has ordered all our forces to return to Bydandia in order to speed up evacuation efforts,” the admiral said.

  Furthermore, SpaceCore intelligence had found little reason to continue with offensive operations. In what was the only positive news Julian had heard, the Endervar’s expansion, while highly erratic, was moving away from Bydandia and into the far-off Vanin region.

  “It’s strange,” the admiral said. “The Endervar’s strategy is so random. That’s why we need to do our best to understand it. Especially, with that Overlord out there.”

  The admiral projected a virtual map on his desk and pointed to the enemy’s movement patterns. Julian could see the jagged line, representing the Endervar’s push through the galaxy. Jumping from one sector to the next, the enemy appeared to be concentrating on a select cluster of stars, while ignoring the rest.

  “This map is spotty, and has grown quickly outdated,” the admiral continued. “The Alliance scouting fleet in our sector was completely destroyed by the Endervars a week ago. What’s left are some remaining unmanned seeker ships on cursory patrols, but effectively we’re pretty much blind out here in Vanin, where enemy activity seems to be high.”

  “That’s where you and a select group of pilots come in. The mission comes straight from the Alliance, a top priority. They want us to help them track the extent of the enemy’s expansion. It appears the enemy is splintering off into different groups. About a dozen other Alliance held worlds are now under threat of invasion. And for all we know, they could come back sniffing around Bydandia.”

  The duties would be simple, the admiral explained, pointing to Julian’s new spacecraft on the data tablet. Each ship, equipped with a bevy of automated probes, would deploy the monitoring devices across select star systems, and report any findings through faster-than-light N-Wave transmission. The work was basically the “bread and butter” of starfighter missions. Back in the day, Julian had performed similar duties countless times in his previous career. But the dangers of the mission were obvious; the enemy mothership was presumably leading the already massive Endervar fleet.

  “You did some mean flying when you were out there,” the admiral said with a proud smirk. “But this time, do not engage. I can’t be losing my best pilots.”

  Still, it was not the danger that was on Julian’s mind. He looked back down at the data tablet. It was labeled clearly: this was a one-man operation. Nalia would not be with him on this one; he would be far and away from Bydandia. Out there alone.

  “It won’t be for long,” the admiral said. “Once you get back, we should be ready to evacuate the rest of the populace along with military staff.”

  “Then I guess I should prepare,” Julian replied.

  “Good. Report to operations. We’ll get you suited up soon.”

  The two men then rose and exchanged a handshake and a hug. But before he could leave the room, Drayden had one final thing to say.

  “Expect some good news soon,” the admiral said with a wide smile. “Something big is happening Julian. You’ll know it, maybe even today. It will change everything.”

  ***

  “I can’t believe it,” Nalia whispered.

  Julian sat next to her in the booth, watching like she was. The station’s bar had been crowded with dozens of other crew members, drinks in hands. Normally, idle chit-chat and raucous music would fill the confines. But at this moment, a relative silence had taken over the establishment. After much anticipation, the day’s priority announcement was finally playing, with the images appearing on the video feeds.

  Drayden was right. This would change everything.

  In the middle of their table, the pixels congregated together to form the hologram. It displayed a pre-recorded view of a star, the long-range footage taken from a ship on the edge of the system.

  To them, the image was akin to a candle light — a speck of white that floated in a sea of darkness.

  It should have remained that way. The far-off sun left alone, and allowed to continue its billion year burn.

  But today, this would all change. Seconds later, Julian saw it explode.

  Growing into a storm, the burgeoning light arrived like a supernova, the halo of fire erupting from its core. It blazed through space, pulverizing planet, moon, and anything else.

  Julian saw the field of flame, knowing that this was no natural event. Minutes later, the blast had abated, the
star it had come from, seemingly vanishing from sight.

  Nalia turned to Julian, incredulous.

  “Oh my God. I had heard rumors about it. But I had no idea,” she said.

  The ability to destroy an entire star system. SpaceCore had just explained that the Alliance was testing a new weapon that could turn the tide of the war. Two previous attempts in Endervar space had been conducted, and both were met with the same success. In each case, planets once home to the enemy’s impenetrable shield had been fully annihilated.

  The third trial had apparently produced the same result. An entire star system had just been blown away by the most destructive weapon in existence.

  Nalia clapped her hands in excitement. “This is crazy.”

  Julian stared back, speechless. He didn’t quite believe it either. Behind him, he could hear the chatter erupt in the bar. Some shouted curses in shock, while others applauded the show of force.

  Julian then glanced at Nalia and saw her face beam. Wrapping her arms around his shoulder, she hugged him tight.

  “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” she went on. “With this weapon, maybe we can do it. Maybe we can win the war.”

  They sat there, quiet, watching the rest of the broadcast. Still holding him, Nalia rested her head against Julian’s shoulder.

  Eventually, the announcement came to an end, offering few other details, and only saying that more would come. But as the crowd around them began to celebrate, Nalia remained there on his shoulder, closing her eyes. She sat there for minutes, not saying a word.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  Julian nudged her a bit, and said it again.

  Half-asleep, she nodded, and finally raised her head.

  “Yeah, I think so,” Nalia replied.

  She straightened her uniform, the smile on her face removed.

  Despite her previous excitement, Nalia was exhausted. He could see it in her heavy eyes, and the way her head slowly tipped to the side.

  She had been re-assigned as well, but tasked to help speed up the evacuation. For the past two days, Nalia had been working around the clock, trying to secure supplies and equipment. Much of the duties, however, had more to do with logistics and “bureaucratic bullshit” as she liked to say.