Star Angel: Rising (Star Angel Book 4)

by David G. McDaniel

  Now Kang was down there and he was stronger than Horus, as he claimed. It was only getting better. Horuses’ efforts had switched fully to Kang and …

  He was losing. Kang was more powerful, perhaps much more powerful, and Cee found the man’s stand against Kang mildly inspiring. As well she found Kang’s power …

  Breathtaking.

  The extreme novelty of that conflict seemed to have faded quickly for Voltan, however, as he was on to other things. Cee could not tear her eyes from it; such that she had a hard time even listening to what her Praetor was saying. Things were going as expected, the human defenses were being neutralized and soon the real conquest would begin. It was only as the silence coming from him began to impinge, accompanied by a nervous shift of her bishop standing nearby, that she realized Voltan had stopped talking. She sat straighter in her throne.

  “Yes?” But he wasn’t waiting for a response. Instead his giant image on the viewscreen was looking at something else, likely another feed of information on his end to the side. An exchange, a new flow, and his demeanor had changed.

  She did not like it.

  “What is it?” she leaned forward, attention fully on him.

  “The other ship,” he said, still looking at the additional information transmitting on his end. “It just arrived.”

  “What? There?”

  “Left its concealment on the gas giant and came here. Moments ago.”

  That made no sense. Why would the ancient craft leave cover and rush right back to the heart of the Kel fleet?

  “Wait,” Voltan checked other readings; responded to the commander on the other end of the line, then, back to her: “They’ve skirted the blockade. Looks as if they’re headed for the battle on the ground.”

  “Could they be after Horus?”

  Voltan nodded. “They must be trying to retrieve him. I have the smaller fighter craft on tactical as well. It has emerged from the planet’s ocean and is converging on the same location.”

  Cee leaned back.

  “Show me that feed.” When the fleet first arrived and spotted the ancient Kel warship its fighter was on the ground. The two craft split, the fighter hiding in the watery depths of the target world, the other racing off to hide in the clouds of the local gas giant. Safely removing themselves from detection, no time for the Kel to engage a full seek and discover mission, now they were both suddenly out of hiding, on-scene and, quite likely, charging toward Horus.

  Tactical info popped onscreen, showing the flight of the intruder, its smaller fighter converging from another direction.

  “We’re trying to determine their intent,” said Voltan, no longer looking at her, focus on what was being relayed by his commanders. “Movements so far are fast and sudden. We are pursuing with a small tactical force.” Now he looked at her, a very real question on his mind. “Should I destroy it?”

  She thought on that. Even wreckage could be useful, should they have an opportunity to get their hands on it. In view of the urgency of the developing situation ...

  “Shoot it down if you can,” she said. “As whole as possible. Do not let it get away.”

  **

  Satori gritted her teeth.

  “How quick will they get here?” Anxiously she kept one eye on tactical, watching the rapidly organizing group of Kel starships in high orbit form a pursuit of the Reaver as it plummeted toward an intercept.

  This was about to get hairy.

  Willet checked readings. He sat with her at the fighter’s controls, the steady, gentle hum of its electronics an absolute mockery of the fantastic rate at which they were ripping up ground. Literally. The fighter wasn’t huge but she was flying so close to the surface at such supersonic speeds the effect was devastating. A wake of trees and dirt plumed out behind, debris exploding away in a concussion of ripping force as their sonic crush passed across the land. The world ahead scrolled at them in a mad, incomprehensible rush, details unable to be made out, only the largest formations; hills, mountains, ravines. Satori wove deftly between.

  “So far it looks like Nani’s maneuver has thrown them off,” Willet reported. “Doesn’t look like they know what to send in pursuit.” It was true. Nani had only just contacted them and Satori and Willet themselves were scrambling to keep up. The Kel had not yet had time to react, much less formulate a plan. Nani and the Reaver were converging on the spot where they now knew Zac to be, and Satori and Willet would be there in seconds.

  She dipped the fighter left then back, hard; nose over a series of hills and down the other side, winding through a snaking valley and out across more open flats. She’d always been an ace with machines and she was warming quickly to the ancient fighter. Its operation was beyond intuitive, easy to master and extend. In fact with each passing second she was beginning to feel supremely confident with what they were heading into.

  What could honestly stand against this?

  “Forty seconds,” Willet manned his station with as much intensity as she worked the controls. “Looks like Nani will be there not far behind.” Then: “Here we go. They’ve got a group of destroyers on full burn. And … looks like a flight of fighters are scrambling from south of here to meet us.”

  “Lovely,” Satori grinned. “I was beginning to worry this wasn’t going to be much fun.”

  **

  “Punch it!” Bianca watched the scans nervously, several targets in orbit grouped and dropping.

  “I see them,” Nani’s head was on a swivel. The Reaver was overland and, from the schematics on the tactical screens, not far from Zac and—Bianca had begun to pray—Jessica. Now that they were all the way here, now that everything was happening so fast and she saw clearly they would only have, literally, minutes to pull this off, scoop up Zac, Jess—she has to be safe!—get them aboard, dock the fighter with Willet and Satori and get the hell out of there—

  Jess! Oh, God. She had to be here. Oh Jess!

  “Satori is coming up on scene,” said Nani.

  Bianca found the converging dots on the overlays, trying not to get sick with the overwhelming cocktail of fear and stomach-churning motion. The Reaver was low and the view out the domed viewscreen as Nani flew them madly this way and that was disorienting at best.

  It was insane.

  Nani was shaking her head. “We’re not going to beat them to it.”

  CHAPTER 22: IMPOSSIBLE STRIKE

  The fighter shot out over the valley and a line of Kel armored units popped into view. Satori scanned the scene quickly, a flash of images at that speed and, just as she was hooking out the other end …

  Spotted Zac.

  “There he is,” she pointed. Kang sprang to view in the same instant, a yellow blur that grabbed and unloaded on the human form. Willet looked and Satori rolled the fighter and craned her neck as the whole scene flashed past, beneath and behind, pulling back and over, looping beyond the surrounding hills on a return arc. She banked the fighter hard, the visual forces her brain and eyes told her should be squashing her into the seat scarcely present to her other senses. The fighter’s dampening systems held them fast in the same way they moved the fighter itself, creating a bizarre disconnect between momentum/gravity/force sensation and what was actually happening—something she was still getting used to.

  “They’re coming down fast,” Willet’s eyes were glued to the screens. He meant the Kel response overhead. Satori scanned the valley as it curved to view. Zac had broken away from Kang. A scanner demanded attention and Willet checked and silenced it: the squadron of Kel fighters screaming in from the south. Satori glanced at another reading. The destroyer group in orbit was organized and on its way down. Fast, as Willet said.

  Satori came all the way back around, moving fast, zeroed in on Zac and flew low, though he was in motion—wanting him to see her. She knew he’d recognize the ancient Kel fighter even among the chaos and wondered just where the hell he’d been. How did you turn up now? And in the middle of this?

  And where’s your girlfriend?


  “I’m gonna blitz them,” she said, even as a few electric bursts cut the sky; shots from Kel units on the ground. She snap-rolled left/right, took the fighter all the way down and kept on the speed, angling right for Zac—who was fending off a fresh charge from Kang. For a surreal moment she saw the whole scene unfolding before her, the movement of those two bodies, Zac and the yellow-skinned demon, completely cinematic; not possible that it was actual reality.

  She popped to the moment, even as Kang swung a mighty fist right into Zac’s gut and sent him flying clear of the area just as she ripped overhead.

  “Did he see me?” she craned her neck this way and that, back over her shoulders, searching the available views as she pulled up again at the end of the valley, trying to catch any sight of his face; any sign of recognition.

  “Here they come,” Willet locked the fighter squadron that was closing from the south. “They’re shooting,” he added unnecessarily. Electric blasts tore the air around them and hammered the hull.

  Whoom! Whoom! Whoom! the impacts rocked them, alarms screaming. Satori hit the gas and they were gone, the ancient Kel fighter baking the air at a sudden, ultra-sonic clip that sent them soaring high and away, momentarily leaving the other fighters and the entire area far behind.

  “Whoa,” Willet looked up at the dark of space as the air thinned and the altitude became stratospheric. The Kel were on the hunt and racing to keep up, but Satori wasn’t running.

  “Here we go,” she pulled them over and down, Earth back in their sights, nose spiraling like a slow drill as they dove toward the quickly defining patches of land below. She armed the main spinal mounts. “Time to hit back.”

  **

  As Zac arced through the air, sore, waiting to hit so he could get up and get pummeled again, in no hurry to continue his desperate efforts to avoid the beast’s clutch—all the while wondering what still kept him going—he saw it. Not well, and only for a flash as he tumbled awkwardly in the sky, but he was sure his weary eyes weren’t playing tricks. The sonic booms of high-speed craft had come moments before, more of the Kel, he thought, arriving on the scene, backing up Kang, though he hadn’t yet heard them moving with that level of urgency and wondered what compelled them now. And as his tired mind failed to find space for the consideration of that, Kang dominating every bit of his attention, he saw it:

  The Kel fighter from the Reaver.

  Satori and Willet.

  They came!

  He hit the trees and went cracking through limbs on his way down. This time he got stuck above the ground, wedged halfway up a larger trunk, only this time, rather than move slowly, making Kang take longer to find him, he surged and scaled rapidly to the top for a look. The Reaver fighter was gone, having poured on the speed, launching straight up and away, sonic booms slamming the land in its wake, overlaying the chaotic explosions and sounds of war all around. His keen eyesight found it high above, warping the air with a trail of heat and force, pursued by the Kel attackers which lagged terribly behind.

  Then …

  It was banking over on a return trajectory, way up there, nearly out of range even of his spectacular vision, straight down, back toward the field of battle. The Kel were firing but so was Satori. Zac smiled as she blew two pursuers from the sky in a head-on starburst of fiery debris—the ancient Kel fighter packed a bigger punch than these newer ones, that much was clear—and she was past them, on her way down, the enemy fighters hooking this way and that to follow, an uncoordinated reaction to the surprise maneuver, firing with abandon as they raced to chase her back to the action on the ground.

  “HORUS!!”

  Zac snapped his head and looked down. Through the trees, catching Kang’s unmistakable form cutting through the woods below. Searching for where he fell.

  Finally Zac had new will.

  He looked to his left, far across the valley to the Y-shaped tree in the distance. The one he’d split.

  Where he hid the broken Icon.

  He looked up. If Satori was here Nani would be too.

  And Nani …

  Nani could fix the Icon.

  “HORUS!!”

  A rush of determination gripped him.

  **

  “This ancient shit’s untouchable,” Satori was in a full-on aerial battle, having pulled away just before reaching the valley, circling fast to eliminate nuisances. Back-to-back chicanes, followed by a double-S maneuver that lost pursuit.

  “I’ve got another squadron on the way,” Willet reported.

  “Where are the destroyers?”

  “They’re tasking on Nani and the Reaver. She’s pulled off and is ready to engage and keep them away from here.”

  “ETA on the squadron?” Satori found and hung tight to the tail of one of the Kel fighters, locking it and … blowing it from the sky. She quick-tapped the control stick back and forth tap-tap, hooked around the erupting fireball, tucked sharp to port then harder and curved away faster than the one pursuing could follow.

  The sky was filled with the enemy.

  “Checking.” Willet looked up as she locked the one behind …

  Boom. That one was gone too.

  “Watch those tanks.”

  “There’s Zac,” Willet pointed as they banked around yet again. Satori dipped low, strafing two of the Kel hover tanks, blasting them as handily as everything else. “He won’t last.” The fist fight with Kang was brutal. Zac had re-engaged.

  “He has to have seen us,” Satori pulled them up hard.

  “How are we going to get him?”

  “And where the hell is Jess?” Satori wanted to know. “Does he have her hidden somewhere down there in that mess?” She really hoped not. The field of battle below was deadly chaos. No place for a girl. No place for anyone, really, as witnessed by the destruction everywhere, burning hulks, scorched ground …

  “I think he just signaled,” Willet adjusted his screens to get a better view.

  “Did he?”

  A pause; Satori lapsed to full concentration, lining up another evading Kel fighter and taking it out.

  “Yeah,” Willet confirmed. “He sees us.”

  “Good.”

  “Good?” Willet did not, obviously, think it was good. “How? We land and Kang gets aboard.”

  “Kang’s not getting aboard,” Satori jammed them down hard and straight across the valley at tree-top level, flying right over the two superhuman brawlers as they slugged each other back and forth—hoping Zac watched what she was doing. Hoping he got it. Past them she curved up, long and high, further, way up into the air … pulled the nose back and over at the top of the arc, all the way over and …

  Aiming straight down, like a spike for the field below.

  “Come on,” she willed Zac quietly, watching the ground close, gaining detail as she rocketed downward.

  He had to see what she was doing.

  Willet looked back and forth between her and the valley below. She saw him from the corner of her eye. It was getting tight. The last Kel fighters had peeled off and made it away and Satori let them go; probably off to join the incoming group and hit them with a fresh wave. We’ll be long gone by then, she thought to herself, sighting down the bore of the fighter’s guns, looking for the perfect shot. The perfect moment.

  Come on …

  Then she saw it.

  Zac did get what she was doing. He managed to grip, spin and toss Kang wide, far from himself, and as he did—a move that was not unexpected in their little battle but was key for what Satori had in mind—Zac looked up and pointed.

  He does get it.

  The demon rolled and stood, right in her sights, legs digging in and halting its roll, not seeing the black death charging at him from high above. Kang was rising—leering, laughing it looked like—completely ignoring the fighter overhead, same as he ignored all else. Satori locked the yellow form. Nothing in the sky concerned him. Nothing anywhere concerned him, only Zac and the death of his enemy.

  Arrogant ass
.

  WHOOOM! she unloaded.

  Punching him flat into the ground.

  “Yes!” Willet threw a fist as the bolts from the fighter’s main cannons found their target and hammered Kang decisively into oblivion, a cloud of dirt and rock ejecting high and wide, boring straight in. There was just enough time to see the depth of the crater and the sheer devastation within before Satori pulled back and banked away hard to the side, skimming the ground and pulling out. More shots came from a few Kel artillery units in the trees, one connecting with a solid bang as she curved fast over the hills, looking all around.

  “Is he gone?”

  “He’s gone!” Willet was checking. Kang was definitely no more.

  Then Satori spotted Zac, sprinting away from the impact. “Where’s he going?” she wondered, circling back for the grab. Already she was zeroing in for a pick-up. Maybe he was getting Jess. Maybe he did have her hidden somewhere in the trees.

  But suddenly Willet was animated. “Shit!” He frantically checked new screens. “I missed them!”

  “Missed who?” Satori tried not to catch his fresh panic.

  “One of the destroyers! Bearing on us!”

  CHAPTER 23: ESCAPE

  Cee stared at the crater where Kang had been. “Is he …”

  “It would appear so,” said Voltan, also dumbstruck at the fallout from that sequence of events. Cee watched the smaller image within the video feed, a window within the larger screen on which Voltan addressed her.

  “I guess that was all it took.” She tried to decide how she felt about this.

  Kang was gone.

  There was so much unfolding right then—a whole battle, injected with the arrival of the ancient and mysterious alien craft and its fighter, the impossible clash between Kang and the freakishly strong Fetok—it was hard to do anything other than gape. No time for sorting out the ramifications of Kang’s destruction.