Instead of taking evasive maneuvers, Iana charged headlong toward the advancing Terran fighter. The one closing the distance with her was not her main concern. She knew that he was only a distraction; a tool to keep her preoccupied while the other fighter began its strafing runs against the Cair Thewlis and Yen’s team. Whether or not she destroyed the closer ship, she would have to bypass it eventually to reach the skimmer, the one she considered to be the much larger threat.
Fire leapt from the front of the Terran fighter as it climbed toward Iana. Turning into a barrel roll, Iana watched as tracer rounds flashed by the cockpit. Her Duun fighter jerked as bullets pierced her right wing. She glanced nervously out the window, but saw that the damage was minimal. Armored plating had been stripped away and shredded, exposing the wing’s mechanical inner workings. But, as far as she could tell, the wing was still fully operational.
Pressing down on her console, Iana returned fire. The forward machine gun, the one located under the nose of the Duun, fired first, filling the space between them with hundreds of rounds of hot metal. As the Terran turned to dodge the barrage, she opened fire with both the machine guns located under the wings of her ship. Not surprisingly, the machine gun under the left wing refused to fire. Pounding on the controls, she saw more smoke starting to billow from the weapon that had been damaged during her second warp.
Even without the second machine gun, her damage was done. The Terran fighter was struck repeatedly along the back half of the ship and small spouts of flame jutted from the punctures. The damaged fighter still continued forward, though its movements were now significantly more jerked and unsteady. Cutting her controls to the side at the last possible moment, Iana flew harmlessly past as the fighter continued its flight out further into space.
With the path now clear to the Terran fighter below, Iana accelerated into a steep dive, intent on attacking the ship from an angle that exposed the most surface to her assault. With the entire top of the ship open to her, Iana smiled broadly as she began firing her full complement of working machine guns. Round after round struck the atmosphere below the Terran fighter as he dodged and weaved in an attempt to shake her relentless attack.
Furrowing her brow in frustration, Iana dove closer, ensuring that her next volley would be fired from a much closer range. Her Duun fighter shook angrily as she pushed the controls forward, the damaged wing responding with trepidation as Iana approached the friction-filled atmosphere. The tones from her targeting array sounded wildly as her computer searched for a lock on the shifting Terran ship. Falling into place behind him, she stayed in stoic pursuit until she heard a solid tone, a satisfying notification that the Terran was now firmly in her sights.
Squeezing on the trigger, flames leapt forward as tracer rounds coated the hull of the Terran fighter. Smoking, the fighter pitched forward, its tail end flipping up above the cockpit. Angling downward, the fighter struck the atmosphere at an awkward angle. The friction from the atmosphere shredded the Terran ship as it pitched and rolled into a glowing ball of flame. Debris from the ship was cast far and wide, spreading like sand over the surface of the planet.
Satisfied and exhausted, Iana pulled up and began her flight back toward Alpha Two, who was still flying through the large open space between the satellite nodules and Earth below. Though weary, Iana knew that she had bought Yen all the time he should need to complete his mission. She hoped, however, that she had also bought herself some time to unwind. The Terran counterattacks, rightfully so, had been constant. Though she didn’t expect that to change now, she reveled in the momentary silence.
The silence, as she already knew it would be, was short lived.
“Alpha Leader, this is Charlie Four!” a harried voice called over the radio. “I have multiple launches!”
“From where, Charlie Four?” Iana asked, the exhaustion evident in her voice.
“From everywhere!”
Iana sat up in the pilot’s chair and checked her radar as other calls began filtering through.
“…entire southern hemisphere has launched ships…”
“…got multiple launches from previously unrecorded space ports…”
“…hundreds of ships heading our way. It looks like everything the Terrans have left was just launched…”
The radar was filling with red dots. Though nervous, her pilots were right in their assessment. This was the final push for a determined and desperate Terran defensive fleet. Feverishly typing on the console, Iana tried to calculate just how many ships they were now facing, but quickly lost count. If she had to guess, she would say that her remaining Squadron was now outnumbered twenty to one. Even if over half of those ships were the improvised fighters, she still doubted that they really stood a chance, especially not in the closer confines of the orbit around Earth.
Flipping a switch, Iana killed all the traffic from the Squadron. Pilots continued to yell in frustration, but their ships were no longer transmitting to the rest of the fighters. It was a rarely used kill switch that Squadron Commanders and, in Iana’s case, close subordinates had installed in their ships. When Iana spoke, her voice cut over all the other traffic and was clearly heard by ever remaining pilot in the Squadron.
“Have all the Cairs safely made it to the surface?” she asked, her voice calm and confident.
Though the replies were hesitant at first, they all quickly realized the necessity for answering quickly. “Roger, ma’am,” a gravelly voice replied as Iana let off the silencing switch on her console. “All remaining Cair transports have made their drops on the surface.”
Iana grimaced. She was glad that the transports were safely on the planet, but if the Terran ships regained air superiority, then the ground forces were still very much in danger. As far as Iana was concerned, that really only left her one option.
“All Squadron elements,” she ordered over the radio. “We need to buy the ground forces some more time. Break orbit immediately. Let’s see if we can pull as many of the Terran ships away from Earth as possible.”
Turning off her radio, she sped past Alpha Two, who fell into position beside her, and the pair launched past the dormant satellites and into the open space beyond. Behind her, filling the radar, dozens of Terran ships pursued.
“You want me?” she muttered. “Then come get me.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
“I expected more out of you,” the Terran called, clicking his tongue in disappointment. “I thought you were going to be a real challenge. You’ve turned out to be just another toy that I’ll break much too soon to fully enjoy.”
Yen wiped the spittle from his mouth with the back of his hand. The Terran psychic had attacked thus far with frightening power, tossing Yen aside as though he were little more than a ragdoll. Standing, Yen brushed the dirt and grass from his uniform and faced the Terran. “Who are you? What do you want?”
The Terran shook his head. “It’s not that easy, Yen. If you want to know who I am,” the psychic explained as he pressed a finger against the side of his head, “you’ll just have to come find out for yourself.”
Anger brewed beneath the surface as Yen faced the psychic. The Terran was full of an unfounded arrogance, an arrogance that would only end when Yen humiliated the man. Though the Terran spoke with surprising confidence, he had yet to see what acts of retribution Yen was capable of committing.
If the psychic was foolish enough to mock him, Yen would show the Terran what he could do. Smiling, Yen rose to the challenge. The air around him shimmered and danced as he concentrated, building up the psychic energy within him. In a furious blast, Yen launched the psychic power forward, eager to drive into the Terran’s mind. He would not only tear away the information he sought piece by piece from the Terran’s brain, he would leave the Terran’s mind shattered and broken.
Yen’s eyes glowed blue as the underlying psychic energy all around him emerged like pockets of light amidst a drab and grey world. The plants and grasses remained unchanged, though they looked lack
luster and bland; none of their vibrancy and life remained. The water turned dark and bottomless, stretching like a starless night. In stark contrast, however, the Terran stood like a funeral pyre. A rainbow of colors swirled around him like a blaze, burning far brighter than Yen had ever seen before. Concentrating further, Yen was consumed by a similar fire as he stood and stepped toward the psychic.
As he approached the Terran, the earth beneath his feet shook violently. Bursting from the ground, a perfectly smooth, dark grey wall sprang up between them, reaching higher than Yen was able to see. The Terran’s smiling face was the last thing Yen could see before being completely confronted by the impassable wall. Resting his hand against the wall tentatively, Yen could feel only a single word whispered as though from a thousand mouths:
Achilles.
Yen knew that this was just a trick of the Terran. It was a mental block, creating an impasse between Yen’s mind and that of the other psychic. The wall was meant to block Yen’s intrusion into the other’s thoughts. And, try as Yen might to break through the wall, he found it an effective defense. Slamming his fist angrily against the wall, Yen felt the physical projection firmly beneath his hand. A small sliver of dark grey material broke free of the wall and fell to the ground, where it evaporated into a fine mist. Sheathing his hands in blue energy, Yen slammed his fist again and again against the wall, slowly chipping away at its impressive might. Beyond the wall, radiating like a lighthouse in the drab, grey world, Yen could sense that his persistence was an annoyance to the Terran.
As his fist connected once again with the wall, Yen felt a terrible psychic backlash. Lifted from his feet, he was hurtled backward, where he fell to the ground. As his eyes focused once more, he found the wall gone. Lively greens had once again infused the trees and grass and the fine, misting rain once again fell on his face. Glancing left and right, he realized that he was on the ground exactly where he had been before approaching the psychic. Everything that had happened — the wall, his attacks, and the backlash — was all a projection from the Terran’s mind. He had shown Yen exactly what he wanted him to see. The Terran had toyed with Yen as though he were insignificant. Anger raced through Yen’s veins at the thought of someone so passively ignoring him.
“Achilles, is it?” Yen asked acidly.
“That is the name my father gave me,” Achilles replied coolly. He showed none of the frustration and anger that saturated Yen’s body.
Yen rubbed his temple as he tried to wash away the dull ache behind his eyes. He had never heard of a Terran psychic wielding as much power as Achilles did. It was unusual, unnatural. A sudden realization washed over Yen. Achilles was, indeed, unnatural. He was an abomination.
“Your father? You mean Doctor Solomon,” Yen replied. “Growing a science experiment in a test tube hardly makes him a father.”
For the first time, Yen noticed anger on Achilles’ face. “I was born of flesh and blood, old man! And Doctor Solomon is my father. He did more for me than my biological father ever could!”
Yen brought his knees up underneath himself. Behind him, he let a blue tendril begin to manifest in his hand. “You’re a genetic freak, Achilles. How much do you want to bet that you weren’t the first psychic the good doctor tried to create? And what do you think he did with all the others?”
To Yen’s surprise, Achilles laughed. The Terran’s emotions rolled unabated from one end of the spectrum to the other, the man hardly in control of his own bizarre mood swings. Yen stared at Achilles with a hint of fear creeping up his spine. Mental instability was a dangerous trait for a psychic. If he wanted to defeat the Terran, Yen would have to strike quickly.
“Of course there were others,” Achilles replied. “And every one of them was found to be unworthy of my father’s praise. Only I was powerful enough to survive!”
Yen wrapped his fingers around the tendril as it grew in length. “And let me guess: if I want to get to your father, I’ll have to go through you?”
“Close, but wrong. Whether or not you want to get to my father, you’ll never get through me alive!”
“We’ll see about that,” Yen replied coldly as he brought his hand around from his back. The blue tendril elongated as it flashed outward, striking out like a whip. The air cracked as though from a lightning strike, as the whip struck the hard stone slabs near the pond. Achilles, however, was no longer standing on the stones. Looking quickly left and right, he found the Terran standing a dozen feet away, laughing maniacally.
“Your thoughts are imprinted in the front of your mind for all to see. I knew you were going to attack even before you did!”
Growling, Yen lashed out again and again with the psychic whip, its glowing blue length lighting up the area around the two warriors. Every time Yen struck, Achilles had already moved out of the way, his body little more than a blur as he constantly shifted his position just out of the way of the assault.
Retracting the whip, Yen made the tendril rigid like a spear. Leaping to his feet, he charged Achilles. Lunging forward, he drove the spear directly at Achilles’ heart. This time, the Terran didn’t dodge. Instead, quicker than Yen could follow, he reached out and grabbed the end of the tendril before it reached its mark.
“You are going to have to do much better than that,” Achilles mocked. A wave of psychic energy rolled down the length of the spear and passed into Yen’s arm. His entire body felt on fire as the energy rolled through his nervous system. His head rocked back in pain and a scream passed his lips. For the second time, Yen was lifted from his feet and thrown backwards. Soaring through the air, Yen collapsed into the shallow, rectangular pool. The frigid waters enveloped him and Yen quickly sat upright and coughed up the cold water. Wiping his dripping hair from his eyes, Yen looked to the confident Achilles.
Infuriated, Yen felt his blood burn with hatred as he looked at the Terran. Caught unaware once again, Yen had been tossed aside; humiliated by this Terran freak. Coughing, Yen’s gaze boiled with a deep seeded rage. “What are you?” he yelled in disbelief. “What do you want of me?”
“What I am is not important,” Achilles chuckled softly. “You’re asking all the wrong questions. If you want to know about me, you should know who I was, not who I am.” Achilles’ eyes flared with emotion as dormant memories rolled through his mind. “I was not always my father’s son. Once, long ago, I was the son of another man, a merchant on a planet near the Demilitarized Zone.”
Achilles jaw tightened as he remembered painful memories. “I had a mother once, too. She was kind and beautiful. But she died. They both died. They were killed by your people: mercenaries and soldiers with nothing better to do than annihilate an innocent merchant town. My biological parents did nothing wrong, but they were slaughtered by your kind.”
“You want me to feel sympathy for you?” Yen retorted. His goal, Doctor Solomon, was only a few hundred feet away. Yet instead of extracting his revenge, he was busy being thwarted time and time again by the doctor’s science experiment. “How many innocent civilians have been killed on the Alliance worlds? How about the millions that died during the Empire’s Manifest Destiny Directive? Who gives a damn if your parents died? The best thing that could have happened is if you had died with them. And if you stay in my way, I’ll make that a reality!”
“With what?” Achilles replied, his calm demeanor reasserting itself. The emotion was now vacant in his voice. He spoke as though the conversation about his parents never happened seconds before. “Will you make another whip for me? Your biggest failure, Yen Xiao, is that you are too stuck in the physical world. You have vast, untapped potential, but you waste it on these pathetic whips and spears. People like you and me could rule the universe, if only you had the mind to master your powers. Instead, you find yourself rooted in what you can see and touch.”
“You have no idea what I’m capable of,” Yen growled.
“Oh, but I do,” Achilles replied. “Your mind is an open book to me. I can see the recesses of your subconscious wher
e you push your true powers out of fear. You don’t believe me? Then think about all the times you have been a dominant power in battle. How many times have you defeated an enemy because of your psychic strength? And yet you are so easily defeated by me. It’s pathetic. I thought you would be a much better challenge, especially after my father mentioned you by name. But if this is all you can do, I hardly see a reason to keep you alive.”
As Achilles walked forward, mirror images of him began to separate from the original. First ten, then twenty duplicates of Achilles strode forward, each moving independently of the others. Glancing back and forth, Yen felt a stab of fear in his chest. He knew that this was only happening in his mind, but try as he might he was unable to break free of the illusion. Standing in the water, Yen formed a pair of psychic whips, one in each hand, and began striking the closest of the images.
One by one, the false images faded from view under Yen’s assault. Disrupted by the new psychic power, they wavered and disappeared. For every one destroyed, however, another seemed to materialize before him. Staggering backward, Yen sloshed through the pond as he moved closer to the monument at the far end. The images closed in, growing progressively closer despite Yen’s fevered attempts to destroy them. He had no idea what these images would be capable of should they reach him, but he had no intention of finding out.
“Old fool,” a voice whispered from behind him, alerting Yen to the danger moments before a pair of open palms struck him in his lower back.
An explosion of pain rocked Yen’s body as he was lifted effortlessly into the air. Suspended and paralyzed, Yen was turned slowly around until he faced the darkly smiling Achilles, who stood hovering above the lake’s surface, his hand upraised as he lazily spun Yen in circles.
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