Danny boarded the lift behind Zier, who pressed the top button. “Have a little faith, Captain,” he said, offering as much reassurance as he could, given the legion of rainbow-lit figures streaming through the honeycomb above. “And while you’re at it, stay frosty. That’s all any of us can do right now.”
The platform under Danny’s boots shuddered, and the low moan of something powering up rumbled in the distance.
All three men froze.
“Was that what I think it was?” Danny asked.
“Yeah,” Briggs said.
Meanwhile the dots in Danny’s HUD began to scatter.
“Considering that their engines are already at close to full-burn,” the captain added, “I’d bet a small fortune that those were the weapons systems coming online.”
“Which means they’ll be dropping out of hyperspace in the next few minutes,” Zier tacked on. “Gentlemen, we must go.”
* * * * *
Chapter 37: Defenseless
Once clear of the Kennox’s drop zone and free to maneuver, Lee swung his Mako hard to starboard and throttled up to take point on his squad’s formation—Mac on his wing as always. Like clockwork, they’d been the first fighters out, and while that was standard protocol for a single ship’s LP headed into combat, Lee had a lot more on his plate to contend with today than he’d had twenty-four hours ago. In the wake of Kyma 4 and the loss of countless pilots, crew, and officers, Admiral Katahl had been forced to reorganize what remained of the armada’s original fighter complement into four unified combat wings. They consisted of Alpha Wing, to be commanded by Jeff Hastings of the Praetorian, Bravo Wing, to be led by Vic Mann of the Gordon, Charlie Wing, led by Shannon Baxter of the Keystone, and finally Delta Wing, to be led by Lee. All told, that meant he’d now be in charge of a combined thirty-one squadrons heading into this fight, up from eight a day ago, and many of those had been cobbled together piecemeal with the shell-shocked leftovers from ships like the Gearhart, which hadn’t made it out of Kyma.
But hey, Lee thought, no pressure on the new guy, right?
The overall ASC strategy heading into this was simple: use their still-superior numbers to try to offset the firepower of the alien ships by spreading out their smaller vessels—fighters, bombers, destroyers, and so forth—into a defensive cover-net for the larger, more heavily crewed ships to jump away. As more and more of them escaped, the net would contract, thereby creating an even denser wall between the Alystierian and Auran armadas until finally, when only a handful of ASC cruisers remained, the last of the non-FTL machines would execute an emergency crash-down into their respective hangar bays for a last-second jump to safety.
Lee rubbed his eyes and peered out through his canopy. Even now, hours later, he was still taken aback by the sight of his fleet in shambles. Six heavy carriers, nine light carriers, and thirteen outcutters, plus a hodgepodge of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers, all backed by a paltry 632 fighters. That was all that was left.
“And to think three days ago we actually thought we had these guys over a barrel,” Lee muttered. “Unreal.” He exhaled then keyed his comm to address his people. “Delta Wing, this is Daredevil. You are instructed to fall in line behind your respective squad leaders to zones thirty-two through forty-five and await further instructions. Z-staggered, five-point spread-formations are advised.”
“Copy that, Wing Commander,” said the first of Delta’s squad leaders.
Once the other LPs had checked in, Lee cued up a private channel for command staff only. “Blazer, this is Daredevil on final check-in. Please acknowledge.”
“Copy, Daredevil,” said Hastings, the grizzled head of Alpha Wing and a former Ryan protégé who’d now be calling the shots. “Your guys in line?”
“Just about, sir,” Lee said. “We’ve got a couple of stragglers yet, but they oughta be up in a mike or less.”
“Good,” Hastings said. “Bravo and Charlie Wings, report.”
“Blazer, this is Scar,” Mann said. “Bravo Wing is good to go.”
“Copy that for Charlie, sir,” Layla said.
It was fitting, Lee thought, that of all the pilots he could’ve been paired with today, it would’ve been these three, his former instructors in the original Mimic Project. It also wasn’t lost on him that two of those original team members, Ryan and Valentino, were nowhere to be found.
“Okay everybody, listen up.” Hastings’s tone sounded jagged and tired. “We all know who’s here and who isn’t. But today our focus has to stay on those who are with us, and getting them evac’d from this system as quickly as possible.”
“I’m down like Charlie Brown,” a gruff voice interjected.
Lee glanced up to see an all-too-familiar SB-40 Tuskan Starbomber fall into formation alongside Layla’s Mako.
“Jester, what are you doing here?” Hastings asked with no lack of annoyance. “My understanding was that you’d been reassigned to the rear in support of the Rynhower.”
“Sure was,” Link said. “But I’m not there right now, am I?”
“None of us likes this, Jester. But we have our orders. Now how about you do us all a favor and obey yours without question for a change.”
“Copy that, Blazer, but I’ve got a better idea. How about you bend over, pucker up, and kiss both sides of my hairy white ass?”
“And here we go,” Lee said to Mac on a side channel.
“Link, please,” Layla said. “Just listen to h—”
“No, Shannon, I will not listen to him! Not on this, I won’t. Not today. Listen, Hastings, contrary to what you or anybody else in the Cool Kids Fighter Club may think of me, I get the chain of command, and typically I’ve got no issue with it because I respect Shannon’s place on the totem. But we’ve all lost a helluva lot of people in the last twenty-four hours, and with all due deference to Ryan and Tino, that list doesn’t stop with them. Now, I had one of my best friends in the world taken from me this week, and I just watched his girl get her throat cut on interplanetary TV. Add to it that a guy who might as well be my brother is lying in an infirmary bed with a gaping hole in his chest, fighting for his life, and you’ll excuse the monkey shit out of me if I’m not willing to let you run off and put my wife in a position to join that list! Not without me there to watch her back, you’re not! No way, no how, hell to the no, and go eat a dick! Court martial me if you don’t like it!”
“Atta boy, Short Round,” Mac murmured through an audible smile.
A flurry of hyperspace windows creased the horizon, and Lee shot upright in his seat.
“Contact!” someone shouted on an all-hands channel. “Multiple bogies inbound with weapons hot!”
“Blazer, whatever you aim to do, you best do it now,” Lee said.
Hastings uttered a curse. “Fine, Jester. You’re on cover duty with Balintfy’s squad in Charlie Wing. You’re Layla’s problem now.” The private squabble now quelled, Hastings returned his focus to his own people. “Alpha Wing, this is Blazer. Listen up!”
“Delta Wing!” Lee ordered. “First on deck, we are to engage all enemy fighters in zone thirty-two while the Allenton and the Reeves jump away. After that, it’s on to thirty-three to cover the Triton, and so on and so forth. Be advised, you are only to shift on my mark, and whatever you do, keep movin’. You can take a hit from a Phantom, but open up to one of those alien ships, and you’re dead. Ruah?”
“Ruah!” a hundred fifty-one pilots said in unison.
Lee stared into his scopes and saw the front line of the enemy invasion force beginning to form some two hundred klicks out. Four Kurgorian ships were on point, flanked by eight times that number in Alystierian warships with all remaining ancillary vessels holding back in reserve.
Lee cracked his neck and readied himself as the first few waves of fighters began to flood into the open. “Squad leaders, on my mark…and, break!”
* * *
Having reached the Axius’ top level and skirted no fewer than six security details along the
way, Danny led the others into an alcove just down from the CIC’s main entrance and stopped.
“All right, so how bad does it look?” Briggs asked, fishing his sidearm from his enviro-suit and checking the safety.
Danny counted the light figures in his HUD. “Looks like…four centurions between us and the CIC. Another three beyond the door to the main bridge with eight more guys who look to be in standard dress, one at the center of the room.”
“That’s the pralah,” Zier said.
“The what?” Danny asked.
“That’s their term for a ship’s commander,” Briggs said. “How’s it going with the suit? You work out any more bugs?”
Danny flexed a few of his joints but still felt some resistance. “Not so much. I can move well enough, but I still feel like a dump truck driver in a grand prix.”
Briggs and Zier looked confused again.
“Forget it,” Danny said. “Okay, here’s the plan. You guys hang here while I approach the door guards. Hopefully since I’m wearing their colors, they won’t suspect that anything’s up, which should give me the drop on them. After that, all bets are off, which means I’m gonna need the two of you on my six and in a hurry, catching any of the officers you can. I’ll take the centurions. Everybody clear?”
They nodded and readied their weapons.
“All right.” Danny raised his. “Gimme a minute to—”
The lights overhead flashed from blue to red as an alert sounded throughout the ship.
“So much for Bernie,” Briggs growled.
In the blink of an eye, Danny lumbered around the corner and drew down on his first two victims. The first never saw it coming. He just crumpled to the ground amid a shower of sparks from his throat. The second, having actually raised his weapon, got off one round before being blown against the wall from a center-mass shot to his chest. Within seconds, the hall around them filled with weaponfire, but Danny didn’t let up. He kept shooting, kept charging, as the next two guards stepped forward. They opened up on him, and Danny lunged behind a corner as the ground at his feet ignited.
“Bring it, you bat-faced freaks,” he snarled, checking what he thought to be his rifle’s ammo charge and puffing on his regulator. His legs felt like Jell-O under his armor, but he couldn’t listen to them right now—he wouldn’t listen. He just kept on firing, blind as his shots were, while the air around him crackled in streaks of red.
Blam, blam! Duck. Blam, blam, blam! Duck. Blam, blam—
“Ah, damn it!” Danny snapped back to cover behind the corner, the shoulder of his armor smoking from the graze. He sucked another breath from his regulator, the air around him sizzling now. Shit, I’m pinned.
A wash of projectile shots rang out behind him, and Danny looked back to see two multicolored figures step out into the open: Briggs and Zier.
You crazy fools, Danny thought in a gush of relief. Seeing the guards lurch in the others’ direction, he seized the opening and tore around the corner, dropping both centurions in a starburst of shrapnel and flame.
“Briggs, you good?” Danny called back through the haze.
“Yeah!” Briggs shouted back.
“Chancellor, you whole?”
“I am, Sergeant,” Zier said with a cough. “Quickly, get to the door before they lock us out!”
Danny rushed for the command center’s entrance, where he scooped up the palm of a slain centurion and pressed it to the access panel. A blink of the green light, and the doors swooshed open to reveal three more centurions and eight sets of gawking golden eyes.
“Guards!” the pralah cried out.
In a flash, Danny caught sight of the raging scene outside through the chamber’s forward view port. “Oh no, no, no, it’s already started!” Not a second later, the air around him ignited once more and Danny was on the move for the door. One shot, two shots, three shots whistled past his helmet, and he threw up his rifle in a fit of return fire, but most of it went wide due to his inability to aim. Two shots didn’t, however, and seeing the first of the three centurions crumple smoldering to the ground, Danny turned his head in time to see a second barreling toward him. Oh this is gonna hurt, he thought then squared himself to absorb the blow. The impact nearly toppled both of them to the floor. But somehow Danny managed to stay upright, and at that point, the grapple was on. A swing for a face, a missed shot to the ribs, a knee to the groin; and on it went. Another shot to the face, a parried blow to the leg, a clumsy shot to the chest, and yet neither man could free up to raise his weapon. Finally, Danny’s attacker jerked its attention back to the door when three red-scaled heads exploded like melons via gunshot.
“Get down!” Danny shouted.
Briggs and Zier dove for the deck as another volley of weapon fire peppered past them.
“Okay you bastard, I’ve had about enough of you.” When his hand slammed to the centurion’s throat, Danny felt his veins ignite with another rush of chemicals—the gears and servos in his mechanical grip whining as he squeezed—until finally, something popped under the crumpling metal. The alien’s body fell limply to the floor.
“Tucker, help!” Briggs yelled from behind a station.
Danny looked up to see the last centurion advancing on the others as a cluster of bridge officers opened fire on them from down front. “Oh hell no, you don’t,” Danny muttered, reaching into his armor and producing the second PSR emitter Zier had found in his cart. He lobbed it to the center of the floor. “Flash!”
A loud crash rocked the room.
Danny opened his eyes to find the centurion reeling before him, faceplate retracted, along with the last of his peers. Danny rose to his feet with Briggs and Zier, took aim, and silenced them forever. “Clear!”
“Clear!” Zier followed from ten steps away.
“Runner!” Briggs shouted.
The Axius’ pralah leapt from behind a bridge station and sprinted for a nearby hatch. He was cut down by Zier’s sidearm.
“Room secure.” The chancellor holstered his weapon.
“Briggs, check that hatch,” Danny said, retracting his faceplate just long enough for a quick look around—circular room, all one level with multiple stations before the main view port down front—before dropping it again to protect his air supply. “Any clue what he was going for?”
Briggs wiped the blood from the hatch’s window and peered inside. “I think it’s an escape pod. But there’s only one of them, and I doubt it holds more than one guy in centurion’s armor.”
“Nice.” Danny snorted at the pralah’s corpse before him. “Way to stand by your people there, jerk-off.” He turned to Zier. “Any chance you can disable the lift up here?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
“Good, do it,” Danny said. “If we can’t lock down this level before their reinforcements arrive, we’ll be overrun in no time. Once that’s done, find something we can use to barricade ourselves in here.”
“Perhaps I might do you one better.” Zier produced a magnetic lock from his toolbox before darting off.
“Sweet,” Danny said. “Hey, Briggs, what are the odds you can figure out how to drive this thing?”
The captain hurdled a corpse en route back to the front of the room and slid in behind a console with his tablet. “It’s tough to say. At their roots, Auran and Alystierian tech are both derived from the same Beyonder source material, so there may be some similarities. Heads up, though, I might need some help in the way of navigation.”
“No can do, bro,” Danny said on his way to a terminal in the back. He’d seen one of the officers there earlier, and he had a hunch it was the tactical station.
“Hang on, where are you going?” Briggs asked.
“Who me?” Danny flashed a devilish smile under his mask. “I’m gonna find us a way to shoot back.”
* * * * *
Chapter 38: Rogue
“Heads up, Sorraia!” Lee shouted. “You’ve got three more Phantoms inbound from your nine o’clock high!”
Lindsay barreled her Mako hard to starboard, just missing a cascade of rail-gun fire past her canopy, then looped into a Z-back to recover. “Thanks Top, I owe you one.”
“Don’t sweat it,” Lee said, plowing through two Phantoms of his own to regroup with the rest of Thirteenth Squadron. “Right now, I need you to take the rest of the Two-Nine and redirect for 39.7 to back up Railhawk and Jonesy. Those guys got slammed in that last wave, and they ain’t got much time out there by themselves.”
“Copy that.” Lindsay kicked out at a two-thirds burn and took off with the rest of her squad.
“How’s it comin’ over there, Star?” Lee shifted, seeing Mac spiral through a fiery cascade of her own then slip back into formation for a head-on assault of her aggressor.
“A leaf on the wind, baby,” Mac said on her way through a fireball. “Just a leaf on the wind.”
“You kiddin’ me?” Lee asked. “Of all the Firefly lines out there, you’re goin’ with the one from the guy who dies in the frickin’ cockpit? Your husband thanks you.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine, whatever. The Rynhower and the Tharagot just jumped out, so we oughta be good to—”
“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” a panicked voice cried out. “This is the AS DeMorlin in zone forty-one! We just lost aft propulsion, and we’ve got an—”
The comm officer didn’t even get to finish his call. Instead, Lee watched in disbelief while one of the alien vessels, fresh off its slaughter of the AS Benton, swooped in on the helpless cruiser. Two massive volleys from its main batteries, and the DeMorlin was a carcass.
“Daredevil, what’s Delta Wing’s status?” Hastings barked from zone eleven.
“We’re here, sir,” Lee said. “The Rynhower and the Tharagot just got out, as did the Triton and the Valkure before them. The Zaxden wasn’t so lucky.”
“How about your crews?” Hastings asked.
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