by William Wood
Astra was watching Azure Frost. The Goremog ships turned and followed. That was the first good sign of the day. The battleships immediately launched fighters and bombers to try and reach Azure Frost, but they weren’t able to. Azure Frost jumped to hyperspace, and was gone. It felt strange watching it leave without them.
Without a target, the fighters and bombers returned to their host ships and landed. As soon as the battleships reached the edge of the system, they followed Azure Frost into hyperspace. They were alone in the system, in a small unarmed shuttle. There would be no help nearby if they ran into trouble; not for an hour at least.
Astra reset the timer. Azure Frost would return in one hour and twenty minutes. There was no time to waste.
The navigation computer guided him along what it decided was the most efficient glide path down to the small island. The air was hot; full of thermal currents.
Their altitude had dropped significantly. Calvin could see the ocean of lava below them very clearly. Despite the fact that cool air was blowing on him, the sight of the lava and volcanoes that dotted the landscape made him feel hot.
“I’m trying to connect to the base computer,” Astra said. “But it’s not responding. We might be too far away.”
Gale force winds beat against the shuttle. Calvin fought with the flight controls. As hard as he pushed, something in the planet’s atmosphere seemed to be pushing back, forcing them away from the surface. It was frustrating and taking too long. He increased speed and took the shuttle into a steep dive. Alarms rang, red lights flashed. The computer told him to pull up and reduce velocity, but Calvin ignored it.
Ahead, the island came into view. Island? It was tiny; barely more than a speck. Waves of lava lapped the edges. Each ebb and flow looked like they could cover the island with flaming hot waves at any moment.
At the last second, he transferred all available power into the reverse engines. Both Calvin and Astra were slammed forward into their harnesses. The shuttle slowed dramatically, but hit the ground much harder than he intended. Astra quickly turned off the alarms and started trying to communicate with the base.
Calvin sat still, waiting for the sounds of the controlled crash to die away. For a few seconds he felt like he was still falling.
Shaken and dizzy, Calvin checked the computer. Outside, he noted, the platform was not descending.
“I still can’t connect to the base computers,” Astra said. “Hold on.” It must have been his imagination, but Calvin felt like the temperature was rising. The view out the window was startling. There was a flat sea of stormy lava as far as the eyes could see. It was terrifying.
Calvin checked the clock. Time remaining: 1:07. Should he say something? He didn’t want to pester her, but they were running out of time.
“Wait! I think I have it!” Astra shouted back. “Got it, I’m in!” All of a sudden the elevator began to descend. Calvin felt the seat drop under him and for a second felt like he was floating in mid-air. The doors closed above them, shutting them off from the light. The cabin became dark. It took a second for his eyes to adjust and be able to see the elevator shaft. Astra leaned back and closed her eyes.
The elevator ride was long and rough. It clicked and clacked and banged from side to side. Ten unnerving minutes later, the elevator slowed and came to a jerky stop. Calvin stood up and walked to the back door.
“Robots, stand ready,” Calvin said in a commanding voice. The combat robots stood. Astra joined him by the back door. They checked each other’s gear again. When they were ready, Calvin opened the door.
“Sierra One, secure the landing area.”
“Yes sir,” the robot said. Sierra One and Sierra Two moved outside with their weapons ready. The response was almost immediate, “All clear,” Sierra One said. Calvin went first, with Astra right behind him. They stepped out of the shuttle into a square gray room. Another door was on the other side of the room. It looked like an airlock.
The robot’s footsteps as they crossed the metal floor were loud and made Calvin cringe inwardly. Combat robots were strong and good to have in a fight, but one thing they were not, was discreet.
There was a control box by the right side of the door. Astra walked up to it and pulled a handle. There was a humming noise like the door was trying to open, and then suddenly popped open with a loud crack. It opened the rest of the way with a loud screeching and grinding noise.
“The door was stuck,” Astra commented. “Clearly it hasn’t been opened in a long time.”
Astra slung her rifle over her shoulder and walked through the door first. Calvin followed, scanning the area ahead. They found themselves at the top of a stairway. The stairs led to a wide open room with a dozen other doors. Several large windows provided a ghastly sight. Calvin walked up to the closest window and stared out in shock. There was a gap of two feet between the structure of the base and boiling hot lava.
“I’ve never seen lava like this before,” Calvin gasped. “I’m sure glad the shields are still working,”
“No kidding,” Astra agreed. “It’s terrifying.” Calvin stood for several moments, mesmerized by the deadly view.
“Come on,” Astra said. “Let’s find the tenth segment and get out of here.”
“I’m with you.”
A brief search led them through several crew quarters, a small lounge area and a computer room. Finally, they found a lab. When they walked inside, they found a strange looking device sitting on a table in a corner. It could only be one thing. Calvin smiled when he saw it. The moment wasn’t lost on Calvin or Astra. When he saw it, he whispered,
“There it is!” They walked over to it, with a quiet reverence. It was official; they had the tenth and final segment of the weapon.
Astra opened a control panel on the segment, and examined it. Suddenly an alarm sounded.
“Calvin, come put your hand on the segment,” Astra said. “It’s looking for a DNA signature from both of us.”
Calvin quickly put his hand next to hers, but the alarm did not stop. They put both of their hands on it; still the alarm continued to sound.
“What’s going on?” Calvin asked.
“I don’t know,” Astra said. Her fingers furiously ran over the controls. Then she stopped and looked at Calvin. “I think we need to get out of here, quickly.”
“Why?”
“The base computer thinks someone is trying to steal the segment. Our DNA is not registering.”
“The base knows that?”
“Yes, the base computer is monitoring the tenth segment’s status. We really need to get out of here. The base initiated a selfdestruct.”
A cold hand of fear gripped Calvin’s and squeezed. “How much time do we have?”
“I don’t know,” Astra said. “But I’m sure it won’t be enough, let’s get out of here.”
Astra directed Sierra Two to pick up the tenth segment, and the four of them hurried out of the lab. Calvin thought they would leave the alarm behind in the lab, but instead, it got much louder as they ran through the base.
Before they could get to the stairs on the other side of the room, there was a large explosion from the lab. Calvin instinctively looked back to see what happened. The lab was gone, as was a good portion of the wall. Instead, there was a wall of lava being held back only by a shimmering force-field. The sensors in his Helcomp were going crazy as it tried to analyze everything. Calvin was overwhelmed with data, but Astra didn’t have a problem cutting through the clutter and seeing what was relevant.
“The power systems are failing,” she gasped. The room shook, nearly knocking them down.
“When that happens, the force-fields will drop and the station will fill with lava.”
They ran across the room towards the stairs. But halfway there, Calvin saw a new red dot in the far corner of his periphery vision. He moved his eye to focus on it and bring it to the center of his vision so he could see what it was. It was the short range sensors, left on in the shuttle and scanning the
system to give them early warning. A Goremog destroyer had just entered the system. At first, it didn’t move.
“Astra, do you see that?”
“Yes, I do. Don’t stop! Come on!”
Calvin let Astra and the robots go up the stairs first. He followed behind, slowly, making sure everyone made it onto the elevator platform. The lights flickered and went out. That was followed by another blast. Calvin turned to make sure they were OK, but when he did, he saw the door at the bottom of the stairs was gone, and a sea of lava was rising towards them.
There was a flicker of light all around him, he lost his balance and fell into the lava. The last thing he heard was Astra scream, “Calvin!”
Calvin was in shock. Even though he wanted to, he was unable to scream, certain that his life was over. The sensors in his visor were going crazy. Internal alarms went wild. His vision turned bright red, until the visor darkened it to a point he could see the computer displays. The temperature gauge went straight to the center of his vision automatically. The shield status was right next to it. An image of the suit showed the shield power draining faster than he’d ever seen it before; it was like pouring water out of a glass. He only had a few seconds before they failed and he was burned alive. He tried to move, but the lava was thick and made movement nearly impossible. He thrashed his arms and legs desperate for something to hold onto. In a full panic he thrust himself towards the stairs, but it was no good, he wasn’t getting anywhere.
He was desperate and terrified; the power from his suit nearly depleted. Suddenly a hand reached into the lava and grabbed onto his arm. Calvin was pulled out of the lava. When his feet found the bottom, he awkwardly stood up. Together, he and Astra scrambled the rest of the way up the stairs with the lava slowly steadily rising after them. At the top, Calvin couldn’t stop himself from turning to see the oncoming inferno. Just at that moment, his shield failed.
“Come on!” Astra snapped, grabbing his arm and pulling him away from the stairs.
They ran to the elevator. Calvin thought he was having hallucinations when he saw heat waves rising from the floor. Without his shields, Calvin could feel the heat and taste a thick heavy acid substance in the back of his throat. The air was becoming toxic and unbreathable.
When they reached the door to the elevator, it was closed. Astra tried to open it, but it wouldn’t move.
Sierra One smashed into the door with full force, tearing the door off the hinges and hurling it across the room. When they stepped through, they found a terrible surprise waiting for them. The main door to the surface high above had broken and on top of the shuttle. On first inspection, the shuttle looked like it was crushed.
Without a word, Sierra One and Two cleared the debris off the shuttle. Calvin and Astra hurried inside, took their helmets off and dropped them on the floor. Together they placed the tenth segment in the back and locked it down with tie-down chains. When the robots were done clearing debris from the shuttle, they entered the shuttle and sat down in seats. That all happened in less than one minute.
Astra worked the controls for the elevator, and soon they were on their way back up. Calvin started the engines. There was a pop and sudden rush of air. As the engines roared to life, there was a loud screech and black smoke belched into the air.
“That doesn’t sound good,” Calvin said.
The ride up was even more disconcerting than the one down. The elevator swayed back and forth and made loud noises. Calvin was afraid for their lives; he was almost certain they wouldn’t make it to the top. He was relieved when they reached the surface. Unfortunately, the engines weren’t ready. They were still warming up.
He kept an impatient eye on the status board, waiting for the indicators to turn green. To his dismay, half of the lights flashed red. He looked at Astra.
“Just go!” She said. He increased power to full and pulled back on the stick. Slowly the shuttle lifted off the pad and into the air.
The shuttle was sluggish and unresponsive. He’d never flown one, but Calvin thought it must be like piloting a garbage collector. With two engines out, the remaining two had to strain past their safe operating limit in order to get into orbit.
Once out of the planet’s gravity well, Calvin set a course for the edge of the star system, pleased to be back out in space and away from the nightmare that was Noor Anon.
“The Frost will arrive in fifteen minutes,” Astra said. “I hope we can make it that long.”
“Me too,” Calvin said. “Getting out of orbit almost wrecked the engines.”
“It’s worse than that,” Astra said, more annoyed than angry. “That door did a lot of damage when it fell on us. The cloak is down; so is life support and weapons. At least we won’t have to wait long.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Calvin decided to check on the Goremog destroyer, which had not moved at all since it had arrived. That was, until now. Calvin noticed it was slowly moving towards the planet.
“Uh, look at that,” Calvin pointed at the scanner. “Do you think it can see us?”
“Obviously,” Astra said. “Since our cloak is down. But don’t worry; Azure Frost will be here soon.”
“I wish we had long range sensors,” Calvin said. “It would be nice to see what’s coming.”
“This ship was only designed for short range missions, so no long range equipment. But I’m with you. That would be nice right about now.”
It took ten minutes to reach the edge of the planetary system. Calvin shut down the engines and sat back. He closed his eyes and tried to calm down.
His emotions were raw, and every little noise from the instruments made him check them quickly out of fear that something terrible was happening; a hull breach or engine overload.
They didn’t have to wait long. Azure Frost dropped out of hyperspace five minutes later, but it was instantly clear that something was seriously wrong.
It took three minutes for the ship to start moving, and when it did, it wasn’t moving very fast. But the Goremog destroyer started moving immediately, directly towards Azure Frost.
Azure Frost turned, and headed towards the shuttle. Calvin sat and waited; there was nothing else he could do.
Astra linked the sensors to Azure Frost, and ran a complete scan.
“They’ve been attacked,” Astra said. “Must’ve happened when they dropped out of hyperspace, before they were able to jump back here. Oh my gosh, there’s so much damage. I hope we’ll be able to jump back into hyperspace.”
The communication system crackled a few times, and Calvin thought he heard Ion’s voice, but he couldn’t tell for sure.
“Ion, can you hear me?” Astra called. “Ion, what is your status?” There was another burst of incoherent noise.
“Great! The communication system must be down. Ion, if you can hear me, we’re on our way to you! Just hold your course and get ready to tractor us into the shuttle bay.” That was followed by two short bursts of static.
“Two bursts,” Calvin said. “Does that mean yes?”
“Yes,” Astra said. “He acknowledged the order.”
The Goremog destroyer was halfway across the system, closing fast on Azure Frost. Time remaining: 0:05. The first Goremog fleet would arrive in five minutes.
Calvin played with the controls, wishing desperately he had more power at his command than a minimally armed shuttle. Calvin watch helplessly as Azure Frost turned to avoid the destroyer, but no matter where it turned, the destroyer changed course to meet it head on.
Even if they could help, they were too far away. All they could do was watch and hope. Azure Frost’s turrets opened fire first; red dots of fire splashed against the Goremog destroyer’s shields harmlessly. When the destroyer was in range, it opened fire, unleashing a savage attack on Azure Frost. There was a terrific battle of lasers, torpedoes and missiles flying back and forth.
The terrible dance played out for three minutes. Each ship tried to gain an advantage by seeking to position itself in l
ine with the other’s weak spot. But in the end, the Goremog destroyer exploded in a brilliant ball of light. Azure Frost slowly limped away from the battle area, on course to rendezvous with the shuttle. Astra tried to contact the ship, but there was no reply. Now there wasn’t even a burst of static. There was nothing.
Time remaining: 01. The arrival of the Goremog fleet was imminent. Astra zoomed in on Azure Frost and an image of it filled a monitor. Calvin gasped. The damage to the ship was horrendous. The large charred hole where the long range sensor dish used to be was larger now, and the damage could be seen across all four decks. That, plus the hull breach near the bridge, and two in the engine room, made Azure Frost look like a wounded animal, just waiting to be finished off.
Suddenly, on the far end of the star system, Goremog ships began dropping out of hyperspace, launching fighters and bombers almost instantly.
“Fighters, inbound,” Astra reported calmly. Calvin shoved the throttle full forward, and steered the ship toward Azure Frost. It was too far away to see with the naked eye. Even on the short range sensors it looked small because it was so far away.
He kept an eye on the temperature gauge; the temperature for the two working engines was rising steadily. A growing cloud of enemy fighters was catching up to them.
“Can’t we get this bucket to go any faster?” Calvin complained.
“This is it, I’m afraid,” Astra said. “We’re already pushing them harder than we should.”
Red lights flashed on the temperature gauge, followed by an alarm that sounded like an angry buzzer. Astra quickly silenced it.
“The engines are overheating,” Astra said. “They won’t last much longer at this speed.”
“I don’t know how you can be so calm,” Calvin said.
“If it makes you feel any better, I’m panicking on the inside,” she replied sarcastically.
“Funny. What should I do?”
“Don’t slow down, whatever you do.”
The Goremog fighters were rapidly getting closer. Off in the distance, Azure Frost turned and headed away.
