Remember the Starfighter

by Michael Kan

  “Good prepare her for stasis on board the S.C. Mercury,” Righton replied. “We’ll have to proceed with an extraction.”

  “An extraction?” Julian asked. “You’re not thinking of disassembling her?”

  “No choice. She’s too much of a danger. We need to take that power source out of her in the event she reawakens.”

  Glancing back at Julian, the colonel signaled the guards.

  “Take him away. Keep him on the makeshift brig at section E.”

  An officer grabbed Julian by his handcuffs and raised him off the floor. He felt the plated hands shove him in the back.

  “Move!” the guard said, pointing a pulse rifle at his spine.

  Julian felt the blow of failure. The weapon behind him nudged him forth. He seethed, furious that he could do nothing.

  Looking at the floor, he saw Arendi’s broken body. He then imagined her arms and legs, separated, the inside of her chest and abdomen unraveled.

  “You fucker,” Julian said. “What the hell happened to you and the rest of the SpaceCore?”

  Slowly, Righton turned to face him.

  “Seriously?” he asked, half-heartedly.

  He pushed past the guards next to him and approached Julian.

  “You’re washed up trash. You disobeyed direct orders. Don’t give me that Hegemony crap. We own you, and now we’re discarding you. Expendable. And so is this android.”

  Righton unsheathed his arm, the muscles pulling back and flexing. With his fist, the colonel nailed Julian in the gut. Collapsing, he fell on his side, the breath knocked out of him

  “Now go fuck yourself. You’ve caused enough damage.”

  The colonel walked away, angered but satisfied. Defeated, Julian gritted his teeth.

  I’m sorry Arendi, he wanted to say. I’m so sorry.

  A guard seized his handcuffs, whipping him back, and away from the scene. Nudged forth again by a rifle, Julian walked slowly, shaking his head in shame.

  “Intruder alert,” the station alarm said. “Intruder alert.”

  The warning was loud, booming with the sound of a new security call. The dozen or so guards, looked at one another, as the comm channels in their helmets transmitted the intel.

  “Now what?” Righton said, speaking to his own communication link. “Are we sure that’s not an error? The target is down. I repeat the target is down.”

  It was then Julian heard the crash. At the other end of the hallway, a section of the station bulkhead had blown open, the blistering fire sending shrapnel into the air. The bodies of several armed guards fell to the floor, muffled groans of anguish shrieking in the hall.

  Replacing the voices was soon the sound of thunder splicing through the confines. On the ground, Julian could see four guards incapacitated, each one convulsing violently. Around their body armor spun a web of electricity, the current smoking in the heat.

  “What the hell is that? Righton yelled.

  The remaining guards equipped their weapons, scanning the room for the source of the attack. But still, more guards fell, hit to the ground by the unknown attacker.

  “Go to non-armor piercing safe rounds,” Righton ordered. “Switch optics and—”

  The colonel then screamed, his face landing on the floor. A mesh of electric current had clasped over him, the sparks bristling on fabric and flesh.

  As the remaining five guards searched fretfully for the attacker, Julian saw something move in the air. Shadowy silhouettes seemed to spiral rapidly from one guard to the next, leaving each one in agonizing pain.

  The guard next to Julian left his side, joining the only other remaining officer still standing. Eyeing the moving objects, they fired, the bullets bursting from their rifles.

  In the air split apart the once invisible drones, the hovering machines exploding in flight. Two, then three, they numbered, each one cut down by the weapons fire.

  Ceramic-like fragments dropped to the guards’ feets, as they moved ahead. Their weapons continued to blast, homing in on a target that Julian could barely see.

  The unknown attacker retaliated, slamming a guard in the chest. The officer’s body flung backwards, a crater indented into the chest plate.

  The other guard fired off his weapon, yelling in desperation. The bullets boomed from the rifle, screeching in the hallway. But the blasts did nothing to abate the oncoming attack. Julian could see the blows, the invisible figure crushing the guard’s armor and gun. Metal became softened fiber against the impacts, the guard’s breastplates splintering at the seams.

  The man dropped to his knees, keeling over unconscious. Bodies after bodies littered the hallway, the entire security team wiped out — their training, weapons and equipment undermined in an instant.

  The strange electric fields continued to buzz and spark around the guards. On the floor, Julian saw the destroyed carcass of one of the drones. From one second to the next, the leftover parts mysteriously became visible and then disappeared, the matter camouflaging itself into the ground.

  He examined one of the broken pieces when he heard the footsteps. Someone was walking toward him, the outline of the invisible silhouette growing larger and clearer. He could see the contour of the legs move, two long arms pacing at the hips.

  Materializing in front of him, the figure dropped the cloaking field. Standing tall, the human was entirely clad in a liquid black suit, cybernetic gears clamped to the woman’s body. She raised her two arms, the thick techno-organic skin extending from the gloved hand up to the bicep. Covering her face, was a mask lined by silver circuitry. Slowly, she removed it, the sound of gas venting from the suit. The woman shook her head, as a plume of long hair fell to her shoulders.

  Julian could now see her ruby eyes shine. She went to his hands, and broke the cuffs apart.

  Alysdeon said through his mind.

  PART III: GUARDIANS OF MAN

  Chapter 42

  The two bots, built like orbs of onyx, were each only the size of a clenched fist. But even so, the defense drones rose to the air and carried Arendi’s body with ease, ferrying her forth with the help of an anti-gravity field. Julian and the New Terran specialist trailed behind, running through the station’s hallway.

 

  She moved to the beat of her armor, the polished exosuit like added muscle to her arms and torso, silent in each stride.

 

  Julian looked off at the body ahead of them.

  “Arendi,” he said, too flustered to explain.

  They turned a corner, and spotted the black fissure in the hallway. The specialist’s bio-vessel had forced its way onto the premises, breaching the station’s bulkhead with a landing bridge. The intrusive pathway now bonded with the base wall, the organic mass congealing against the hull.

 

  He entered the vessel, the porcelain-like inner chambers unchanged from before. But in only a few steps, Julian stopped himself, feeling his surroundings shake and shriek. It sounded almost like a scream.

  “Are we under attack?”

  The specialist glared, running past him.

 

  As the pair of drones towed the android along, Julian followed the specialist into another section of the ship. He entered a separate room that opened like a suction, the organic walls of the vessel still in place. However inside, he recognized the setting, the confines designed like a ship’s bridge.

  The specialist stood in the center of the room, flanked by two holographic displays, the neon lights bustling with oscillating scans and battlefield data. At the fore was a large view screen, showing a live shot of the oncoming attack. Two SpaceCore cruisers had begun targeting their position, the weapons bursting in streams of hot plasma.

  T
he bio-ship detached itself from the base, relinquishing its embrace to dodge the approaching attack. The plasma fire passed under its body, as the vessel spun on its axis and flared its main engines.

  Alysdeon set a new course away from the station, only for her ship to be bombarded by more weapons blasts. The vessel shook to the blows, the plasma beams bursting over its protective shields.

  Julian came to the specialist and saw the scans on the virtual displays. More SpaceCore ships were approaching, maybe seven in total, no doubt with weapons ready.

 

  She nodded to her fore, the large view screen synching to the open frequency. It no longer showed the attacking ships, but the image of a near immortal man and his embalmed face.

  “You pick-pocketed me,” Admiral Alvadan said in a snarl through the channel. “I didn’t know you would be so bold Sovereign, or so ruthless. Have you no manners?”

  Sovereign — it was not a term Julian had expected to hear, but it was the title the specialist had once lived by.

 

  She spoke through the ship itself, her mind echoing the words into a now equally hostile voice.

 

  The admiral flexed his fist, licking his artificial teeth.

  “Those agreements are invalid. Especially when you break into this station, and attack my personnel.”

 

  Alvadan batted the insult away.

  “I won’t let you leave. You’re harboring both that android, and a fugitive. I’ve just sent all remaining SpaceCore ships to surround you.”

 

  A battle was the last outcome either had wanted. In Alvadan’s case, it meant putting in danger more of his already scarce resources. He needed to only look at the destroyed sections of his battered station to know the possible costs.

  The admiral did not weigh his options for long.

  “Fine,” he said, with pride. “Someone has to pay for what happened here today.”

  The open channel cut off, as another volley of plasma fire rampaged down over the ship. The vessel flew on, charging engines to full capacity, as the weapons blast exploded.

  “Alysdeon, what’s our status?” Julian said.

  He did not fully recognize the controls on the virtual displays, but could only imagine that the shields were weakening.

 

  She smiled, even as the vessel jolted on its dangerous path. But her confidence was not unfounded. The bio-ship was indeed fast. As it gathered speed, the vessel dove through the incoming weapons fire, nearly unscathed. Plasma blasts, and even laser cannons, struggled to hit the accelerating ship, barely nipping at its shields. The SpaceCore vessels themselves could only slowly turn and witness, as the specialist and her vessel sped on in a trail of blue light.

  “Are you seeing this?”

  Julian pointed to one of the panels on the holo-display. It was a grid that showed all seven surrounding SpaceCore ships. Spontaneously, the numbers began to rise.

 

  Failing to catch the specialist, admiral Alvadan embarked on his next strategy. Three SpaceCore carriers had opened their bay doors, and unleashed a growing number of sentry attack drones. The smaller vessels were not only automated, but perhaps just as fast.

  “Scans are counting over 30 drones, coming from three directions,” Julian said. “How close are we to reaching a hyperspace point?”

 

  Julian saw the undeterred gaze in the specialist’s face. He understood the gambit she had wanted to play. Yet this time, the odds were not in their favor. They needed another solution. Julian only had to think back, and look at the SpaceCore station, its position unchanged; the former manufacturing facility was probably unarmed.

  As the view screen showed the firing SpaceCore ships, he noticed the station hang in the backdrop, completely exposed.

  “What weapons do you have on this ship?”

 

  “Do you have any long-range missiles?”

 

  “No, don’t target the sentries. Target the station.”

  For a moment, the specialist thought Julian absurd. She despised admiral Alvadan enough, but she was not serious about hurting him, let alone another human.

  Only with a glimpse into his psyche, did Alysdeon begin to understand his idea. She returned to the controls, and ordered the ship to prepare.

  “Launch them in a wide spread,” Julian advised. “Make it random, hard to pin down.”

  In one wide turn, the bio-ship detoured and plotted a bombing run targeting the station. It loaded the sequence of weapons, and fired them off, the missiles carrying enough anti-matter to incinerate an asteroid.

  Alysdeon looked to the scans, and began noticing the change. Only a dozen missiles had been fired, but already they began altering the battlefield, scattering themselves apart. She ordered the ship to fire another round, and then another.

 

  Julian nodded, reasoning that SpaceCore had no alternative. Even as the missiles were slow, each one could potentially obliterate a target. For a space station that could not move, the threat would be impossible to ignore.

 

  The view screen displayed the open channel, the admiral reappearing. This time decidedly grim-faced.

  “I underestimate you yet again,” he said coldly. “I just hope you’re not serious with your attack. We may not be able to stop all your missiles.”

 

  “Done,” the admiral said, without hesitation.

  The specialist sent the order through her mind, the army of missiles bowing to the call, and exploding a safe distance away from any nearby ships.

  “I hope you know what you are doing Sovereign. You just cost us some vital supplies.”

 

  The admiral sneered. The old man had a parting gift of his own.

  “Just tell Julian that he’s a wanted man. SpaceCore won’t forget this. Alvadan out.”

  Chapter 43

  They watched the mechanical arm try to do its work, the spinning gears and locking levers maneuvering the finger-like cutting lasers into position. It did this for close to a minute, hovering over its subject, tentative, reluctant to venture forth — like it was too afraid, too unsure how to proceed.

  “Is there anything we can do?” Julian asked inside the ship’s medical bay.

  He waited behind a transparent glass wall, observing the emergency procedure. Under the mechanical arm was Arendi, her condition no different. She lay on the operating table lifeless, the mechanics of her complex body having gone inert.

  Julian wondered how resilient she truly was, only to then recall the pained anguish in her face. It had been like watching a person die.

  “I should have never brought her there,” he said in guilt.

  Alysdeon, still clothed in her power suit, said nothing. She turned away from the transparent wall, and looked over the preliminary scans from a nearby console. After a long pause, she placed her hand on the control system and ordered the mechanical arm to stand down.

 

  The specialist pointed to Arendi’s meta
llic exterior, the layers of nano-machines still hardened and resisting any form of intrusion.

 

  The specialist was no roboticist, but she showed Julian the scans. The ship’s computer had detected the strange activity inside what was Arendi’s stomach cavity. Exactly what it was remained elusive, the readings almost confounding.

 

  “It’s the same power behind the Endervars,” Julian said. “Arendi, somehow, was able to contain it, tap into it.”

 

  He did his best to recall what he saw on the station; the destruction Arendi had brought was almost unexplainable, but no less real.

  “She literally crushed an entire Ouryan battleship,” he said. “But not before she began to malfunction. Whatever is powering her started to damage her systems.”

 

  It was a worrying conclusion. Alysdeon could feel the urgency.

 

  ***

  She tapped the side of her wrist, and then placed a finger on her collar. Slowly, the power suit began to deflate, the rock-like muscles oozing from her arms, and slackening into lumps of fabric. The web of cybernetic nodes, a belt of metal weight, fell to the floor, sounding a loud thump.

  Alysdeon sighed in a voiceless breath. She wanted to remove the rest of her black outfit, but was too tired. Nor was it the proper place. The specialist, instead, reached from her back, and detached the large, but formerly concealed weapon.

 

  Julian took the object carefully, and held the long crescent of angular material in his hands. Along the edge were open vents and winding wires, fitted over what felt to be a slab of polished stone. He gripped it hard and raised the weapon vertically, thinking he was holding some kind of dipping dagger. The specialist smiled.