The Sons of Sora

by Paul Tassi

  Erik snorted.

  “Well, I’d take a fighter pilot with about twenty more years of experience up there, if I really had a choice.”

  They both laughed at that. Fear was momentarily forgotten, but surged through Noah again as a collection of golden readouts turned burnt orange.

  “Proximity alert,” AI Natalie said in the most urgent tone they’d heard out of her yet.

  Noah’s lips moved in rapid fire, spitting out whispered prayers to gods he wasn’t sure were there anymore. But as the readouts flashed with incoming death, the gods were all he had.

  “Kyneth give us strength that we may prevail here today. Zurana give Asha the wisdom to lead us. Hear the last billion prayers of mankind, and guide us out of the darkness.”

  “Stay in your formations,” came Asha’s voice over the comm, broadcasting to the entire fleet. “It’s about to get loud.”

  “Kyneth forgive my transgressions. Against my friends, my family. Forgive my lack of faith. Forgive me for only turning to you when staring into the abyss.”

  “Spearhead is on point,” said Kiati’s voice, flat without a trace of fear. “Guardian fleet, brace for first contact.”

  “Zurana greet those who die here today with open arms. Keep the souls of heroes in your embrace. They die to serve you. Your world. Do not deny any of the fallen here today entry into the Forest. Reunite them with the ones they’ve already lost.”

  Sora was growing large. Its normally tranquil blue-and-green surface was scarred with swirling storms of smoke, jagged cuts of bright, burning fires sweeping across continents. The glowing orb was peppered with black specks. The massive Xalan fleet was waiting for them.

  “Protect my brother. Protect my parents. Protect Kyra and Sakai and Colony One and everyone still left alive down there.”

  The specks buzzed angrily ahead. They grew larger. Ten times their number were hidden in the darkness of space surrounding Sora. All were rushing to meet them.

  “But most of all, kill the damn Archon.”

  “Engage!” Kiati shouted, the order a battlecry.

  Noah watched the Guardian-controlled warship squadron ahead of him unleash so many missiles they seemed to dwarf the stars. He felt a moment of elation until a volley three times as large rocketed out from the Xalan’s dark ships back toward them.

  A ripple of silent explosions shot through both lines, and then the two fleets were on top of each other. Noah’s squadron veered upward, and he followed them, the prototype ship’s controls more responsive than any he’d ever used. He almost shot ahead of the group because of the craft’s blinding acceleration. His heart pounded and he wiped away a line of sweat from his hairline.

  “Frontline hits, at least a dozen of theirs destroyed. Twice that crippled,” said Kiati over the comm. “Too close for missiles, switching to autocannons.”

  Noah’s squadron veered around to face Asha’s ship, the Colossus. Their primary objective was to protect the vessel at all costs, but Noah was supposed to look for a hole to break through to Sora itself to reach the colony and establish a surface presence. In the opening moments of the battle, the opportunity had clearly not presented itself.

  Enormous dreadnoughts fired their entire payloads at Xalan motherships, which broke apart silently in the wake of red-tinted explosions. SDI carriers were ravaged by Xalan missiles that seemed to burrow into their hulls and explode after a short fuse. Among all this, fighters from both fleets strafed each other, cannon fire tearing through wings and engines and cockpits in horrible silence.

  “Missile volley, take ’em down,” came Celton’s voice through the comm. He was leading their fighter squadron, and had been an ace Guardian pilot in his day. A stream of spiraling antimatter missiles were racing directly toward the Colossus, already identified by the Archon’s Xalans as the primary Soran threat. A few were blown apart by the ship’s defensive turrets, but too many still remained.

  Noah veered away from the battle ahead and, on cue, Erik released a stream of plasma at the line of missiles, as did two wingmen on either side of them. Six erupted, and another eight were blown up by Celton and his attachment of four fighters up ahead. Three evaded all of them, and collided with the hull of the Colossus. Explosions ripped into the armor, but the mammoth ship stood resolute.

  “Gonna have to do better than that, boys!” Asha yelled through the comm. Noah wasn’t sure if she was talking to the Xalans, or to them for failing to destroy the last few missiles.

  Three Xalan motherships had veered toward them to target the Colossus directly now, after seeing how well it was being protected. They unleashed three dozen more missiles, these even more erratic than the last bunch, and nearly impossible to target.

  Instead of heading toward the Colossus, the missiles all split at the same moment, and Noah realized what they were tracking.

  “They’re targeting us!” he screamed into the comm, but by the time he’d gotten the words out, five Soran fighters were already in pieces.

  Noah jerked the ship hard right to dodge a pair of missiles threatening to collide with their rear engine.

  “Erik?” he said in a strangled voice. His nerves were racing and his temples were burning from where he was connected to the ship’s neural interface.

  “We’ve got it,” Erik shot back, apparently having come to an understanding with the AI. The autocannons on the ship flipped around and the first missile detonated well behind them. The second surged forward and was what seemed like inches from their tail.

  “Recommend evasive maneuvers,” AI Natalie suggested.

  “You think?” Noah yelled back, looking at the missile in a floating viewcam. He’d lost all track of where he was in the fight, twisting and turning so that he was now pointed toward the distant sun with Sora nowhere to be found.

  “Ship destruction imminent, assuming control,” Natalie said. Noah saw the holocontrols shimmer for a moment, wrapped around his wrists, and the fighter suddenly jerked to what seemed like a midair stop. The missile shot past them, its engine nearly blinding Noah as it passed inches from the cockpit. By the time the missile realized it had missed, Erik had put a precision shot into its rear stabilizer. The missile spun crazily out of control until it slammed into a passing Xalan fighter.

  Noah pivoted the ship around just in time to see the motherships turning toward them to release another barrage. His readouts showed more than half his squadron had been destroyed, though Celton and his escorts were still orbiting the Colossus behind them.

  Suddenly, the tops of the three Xalan ships erupted in quickly extinguished flame and their hulls dissolved into debris. A Soran ship streaked over the top of them. Noah recognized the haphazard lettering on the side.

  “All clear,” came Toruk’s accented voice over the comm. “Returning to support the Guardians.” The Mol’taavi veered toward Sora, shooting plasma from all sides at passing fighters as it left the three crippled motherships to float like dead fish.

  There was almost no time to process any of this. Noah was constantly dodging plasma and missiles and what looked like jagged shards of dark ice with engines so dim they could barely be seen in the starlight.

  After one particularly large aerial loop, Noah found six Xalan fighters streaming toward them, bathed in the light of Sora itself.

  “Let’s see what this does,” Erik said behind him, and a pair of long, thin projectiles shot out of the prototype ship. Each broke apart and sent a flurry of long metal spears directly into all six ships. Noah zoomed through the center of them, dodging cannon fire, and turned back just in time to see all of them explode as the embedded ordnance erupted.

  “Holy shit,” Erik said. “That was—”

  One more missile shot out of their ship and its explosive daggers ripped into a trio of fighters attempting to flank them from the side.

  “Nice work,” Noah said, catching his breath at last for a half-second.

  “That was the ship,” Erik said. “She’s a hell of a lot better at this t
han we are.”

  “Your feedback is appreciated,” said the AI with noticeable pride.

  The breath escaped Noah’s lungs again as he dove down to pass underneath a wrecked SDI cruiser with gaping holes all over its hull. The airspace in Sora’s outer orbit had become a maze of live and dead ships. Noah circled the vessel’s floating corpse and veered back toward the Colossus, which was now quite far away. Noah found a gap in the melee and clenched his fist to max out the fighter’s engines. It tore across the distance so quickly it felt like they were teleporting. Alpha hadn’t told them what kind of core was in this thing, but it was like nothing Noah had ever felt before.

  “Alpha should have built about a thousand more of these, and we’d be in pretty good shape,” Erik said.

  A thousand ships that fast and powerful with AIs that intelligent would probably spark another Machine War, Noah thought. But he was grateful for the assistance at the moment.

  To Noah’s right he saw a Xalan ship bigger than nearly any other in the air being swarmed by a Soran squadron that looked like it was assembled from scrap metal. There was only one new ship in the bunch, and Noah knew who was flying it. He patched into her comm.

  “Th’ engines, fellas, shoot the engines!” shouted Zaela. “They in the back in case ya forgot.”

  The pirate fleet engaged fighters leaving the destroyer like angry wasps from a hive, and a few ships, including Zaela’s newly christened Sundancer, circled around to pelt the enormous rear engines of the craft with everything they had. The bright white lights flickered out as the Xalan ship slowly lost propulsion. That didn’t stop it from continuing to shoot at the flurry of pirate ships, and Zaela led the rest of the fleet back toward the Colossus to regroup out of the crippled destroyer’s range.

  In fact, more and more Soran ships were heading toward the Colossus, away from Sora itself. The air was filled with Xalan ships chasing after them.

  Noah’s attention jerked back to a flashing danger readout floating inches from his nose, and found he had two fighters behind him. He dodged right to avoid their first barrage of plasma. There wasn’t a second. Before the AI could even wrench the controls out of his hands to save their skin yet again, a missile tore into one of the Xalan ships and caused its carcass to rocket into the other one. Both cartwheeled backward until they collided with the darksteel nose of an SDI dreadnaught and were atomized.

  “You’re welcome,” came a voice on the comm, and a Soran fighter soared over them. “Top of my class in Elyria Air Academy, thirty-eight confirmed kills my first year, and they give you two that ship? Godsdamn spoiled Earthborn …”

  A contagious laugh followed. Whoever it was, they sounded young. Noah barely caught a glimpse of the name on the side of the ship. “CPT. ‘SKYFIRE’ SILO.”

  “Keep that beauty in one piece,” was the last thing the voice said before the ship danced out of sight.

  “Prick,” Erik said. Noah didn’t have time to dwell on their savior further.

  “We’re pulling back,” said Kiati on comm. “Lost nearly half the squad. My ship’s venting oxygen and most of us frontliners are out of ordnance. I think it’s time.”

  “Copy,” said Asha. “Phase two commencing. All units, full retreat.”

  The Colossus lumbered around and slowly showed the Xalan fleet its taillights. Hundreds of other Soran ships around it followed suit. The chaos organized itself into a steady stream away from Sora, toward the sun. The Xalans streaked after the fleeing forces, and the battle had turned into a footrace.

  Noah knew it wasn’t time to despair. The battle wasn’t lost. Not yet, anyway. What happened next would decide that for good.

  “The Archon’s fleet has pulled far enough away from Sora,” Alpha said on the comm. “Initiate second phase.”

  “As you command,” came the deep, dark voice of General Tau, which sent chills surging through Noah involuntarily.

  “Xalans, prepare to annihilate your lost and wicked brethren.”

  Tau’s fleet surged upward from the void of space under Sora. Countless Xalan ships piloted by the sizable Xalan resistance filled the widening gap between the Xalan fleet and Sora. In giving chase, the Archon’s ships had left their rear flank exposed, and the resistance fleet raced into it from below. It was Asha and Kiati’s plan, but Alpha had put the icing on it.

  “Scrambling in effect,” said Alpha. Noah could hear the nerves in his voice, even through the translator collar. The entire battle could hinge on whether or not his idea worked.

  The Archon’s Xalans were stunned to see the resistance Xalans swarming into their midst. Thousands of jagged black ships threaded in and out of each other, the newly arriving craft lost among the pursuing fleet.

  “Hold fire,” said Tau. “Continue integration.”

  The Archon’s Xalans fired at the first few ships that arrived, but were soon overwhelmed by the flood of new craft that looked identical to their own. Normally they’d be able to easily detect the enemy craft regardless, but that’s where Alpha came in.

  “They have ceased fire,” said Tau. “I believe it is working.”

  “Excellent,” said Alpha with pride.

  Alpha had temporarily scrambled the Xalan’s ID signals. Friends were enemies, enemies were friends. Only the resistance Xalans would know which ships were hostile, until the signals were uncrossed. But by then, it would be too late.

  “Open fire,” commanded Alpha, scientist turned admiral for a day.

  Just as the Xalans had torn apart the SDI defensive fleet at close range during the initial invasion, the resistance Xalans ripped into the Archon’s ships before they could sort out what was happening. They returned fire, but they were destroying their own ships in the process, unable to decipher which Xalan craft were on their side.

  The entire Soran fleet ground to a halt and allowed the scrambling Xalans to slam into them. The remains of Kiati and Zaela’s fleets combined and tore through the center of the Xalan maelstrom, picking off the Archon’s ships while leaving the resistance fighters untouched. They’d likely overridden Alpha’s hack already, but it was too late. Noah watched as Toruk’s bomber surfed over the cockpit of their prototype fighter and dropped antimatter headsplitters onto the largest enemy ships in the fray.

  “This your shot, boys,” Asha said to them directly. “Find that hole. Make it to Sora. We’ll clean this up and meet you at the colony.” There was no mistaking the elation in her voice. The aerial battle was all but won, the tide completely turned despite their enemy’s numbers. Xalan squadrons were already starting to flee back toward Sora in droves.

  “Affirmative,” Noah replied.

  “Kill them all, Chancellor,” Erik said with a thin smile.

  Noah pulled his arms backward and the fighter accelerated to blinding speeds. He wove in and out of ships too quickly to even process how close he was to hitting them. He knew Natalie was helping navigate, but the neural connectors still felt like they were cooking his mind.

  “Unlock the goddamn lasers,” Erik said.

  “The what?” Noah said.

  “Access granted,” chimed Natalie.

  Golden beams of light shot out from underneath the ship, tearing into Xalan armor as they surged past. By the time the ships they were carving into exploded, they were thousands of miles away.

  “Gods …” Noah said, in awe of the firepower they were barely controlling.

  The wall of Xalan ships ahead of them was only growing thicker, however. They could barely see Sora, space was so heavy with fleeing Xalan craft. When the Archon’s ships spotted the pearl-and-gold fighter, missile locks popped up in Noah’s vision one by one. Erik’s lasers slashed through more metal and the AI was firing every remaining projectile they had, but it wasn’t enough. The Xalan fleet was collapsing in on them.

  “Get behind us!” came a cry through the comm. It was Celton, their squad leader, who zoomed underneath them with a contingent of a dozen other fighters. They locked into a V-formation ahead of the prototype
fighter and began shooting down incoming missiles.

  “What are you doing here?” Noah said, slowing the ship down to keep pace with their new escort.

  “Making sure you reach the colony, what does it look like?”

  One of the protective fighters exploded from a stray autocannon barrage.

  “Your orders are to protect the Colossus!” Erik shouted into the comm.

  “My orders are to protect you, you ungrateful little shit,” Celton spat back, punctuated by a disturbing laugh.

  Another pair of the protective fighters exploded, shielding their own craft from incoming missiles. The rest of the formation started speeding up, and Noah matched them. There was too much ordnance flying through the air to even process. The fleet of remaining Xalan ships was coalescing into an solid mass to stop them.

  “Heat up everything you have left, boys,” Celton said to his squadron. “And hit your marks. Make sure they make our statues out of darksteel,” Celton said. “None of the cheap stuff.”

  “What—” Erik began, but couldn’t finish his thought.

  The nine remaining ships broke formation and accelerated into the wall of Xalan ships. White-and-orange explosions ripped through the blackness and consumed Noah’s entire field of vision, the cockpit glass dimming to block out the blinding light. Every missile and the engines themselves erupted. In their wake, when the vacuum extinguished the flames, was a gaping hole showing Sora shining through the damaged fleet. Noah regained his composure and blasted through it as fast as the ship could go. Noah guided the fighter around the last few crippled hulks, and sped toward the glow of Sora.

  Within minutes, they’d broken through the atmosphere, and the fighter slowed to a fraction of its former speed. Above them, Xalan ships of all shapes and sizes were migrating across the sky toward what appeared to be a specific point somewhere over the horizon. There were still many left, and apparently the Archon thought it best to retreat and regroup after being caught unaware by the surprise assault from the resistance force. If he hadn’t, it was possible the entire war would be over already.

  Not until he’s dead, said a stern voice in Noah’s mind. Only then.