by Dean M. Cole
Sandy nodded. "I remember watching a documentary about Europa," she said. "These sheets of ice are like tectonic plates. Jupiter's gravity causes them to spread apart, allowing water from deep below to boil up into the gap. But they said it would freeze over instantly. Once the plates move back together, the slush is forced out of the crevice and piled on either side of the chasm." She pointed toward the cave entrance. "Just like the one at the lip of this canyon."
Richard nodded and pointed to the frozen beast. "So this shark-thing got trapped in the gap when the two plates of ice came back together."
He took a tentative step closer to the carcass and shined his helmet light on its head. "Look at those teeth!" He bent in for a closer look. "I don't see any eyes."
Sandy shook her head. "Me neither. Probably too dark under the ice for them to be of much use."
Suddenly, the ice under their feet lunged forward a few feet, knocking both of them down. Frozen spray shot out from the seam where floor met ceiling.
Standing, Richard pulled Sandy to her feet. "I think I'm ready to see the good news in the ship."
"Me, too," she replied and began to head toward the back of her fighter.
Richard bounded after her. He had to push off the ceiling as his adrenaline-fueled leap carried him too high.
In spite of the low gravity, they made good time. Just as they reached the airlock, another tremor shook the chasm. This time, he saw the gap between the roof and ceiling narrow. So far, the ship's shield was protecting it from the crushing weight. He could see it pressing a domed indention into the cavern's ceiling.
He followed her through the airlock. As soon as it cycled, Richard and Sandy entered the fighter's spherical cockpit. As they did, both of their helmets automatically stowed.
Unlike his display, Sandy's still worked. Standing in the middle of the cabin's wraparound immersive video feed, he could no longer see the ship.
Richard took a deep breath. "I hope you've got really good news."
"You have," she corrected.
"We can work on my English some other … What the …?" His EON had connected to the ship's data. All of her fighter's systems had come back online. But when the tactical display pumped its virtual hologram into Richard's visual cortex, he saw the good news for himself.
The Galactic Guardian was flying into the Jovian system.
"Hot damn!" Richard said. The two pilots laughed and exchanged high-fives.
For today's exercise, they'd left the carrier and its five other one hundred and eight-ship fighter wings in Earth space. Richard didn't know why it had come here, but he had never been so happy to see the damned thing.
"Thank God!" he said. "Their sensors can see through planets. Hopefully, they see us down here." He paused. Looking up at the domed depression that the shields were pressing into the ice shelf, he said, "I'm not sure how much longer we'll be retrievable."
As if on cue, the chasm began shaking violently.
Suddenly Sandy screamed and pointed forward. "Look!"
Ahead of the ship, slushy ice poured from the crevice's seam. As he watched, the crease opened, and torrents of water spilled out and flowed around the fighter.
The gravity drive wasn't online yet, so he felt it when the ship pitched forward and started to slide toward the gaping maw. Richard reached for Sandy's arm. He yelled, "Get the drive online!" But she was already settling into the cockpit that the nanobots had just formed for her. The fighter continued to tilt into the waiting ocean. "See if you can reverse this slide!"
"The drive still won't come online!" Sandy said. He saw her fingers furiously tapping manual commands into the small control panel that had formed under her right hand.
The fighter tilted again. Now it pointed straight down, forcing Richard to stand on the forward face of the still-functioning spherical display.
As the fighter slid deeper, inky-black water appeared to lap at the outer brim of the display. Richard knew the water was actually lapping at the shields, but the imagery was pretty convincing. It looked like he was standing in a sinking glass bowl.
The dark ocean swallowed more of the light as the ship slipped deeper.
To his left, Richard saw the shark-thing's frozen carcass begin to sink out of sight. Then something even larger and moving with incredible speed emerged from the depths and snatched it, and just as quickly disappeared back into the gloom.
"Sandy! Now would be a good time."
Wide-eyed, she peered between her boots, looking down on him from her unresponsive controls. "The drive still won't come online!" she said plaintively.
The ship slid deeper.
Richard looked straight up. Behind Sandy, a shrinking crown of glowing slush provided the cabin's only illumination.
Then the ship broke free of the ice and began to sink in earnest. The last of the light disappeared.
"Shit, shit, shit!" Sandy said. He heard her punch something.
Standing in the dark, Richard still felt like he was in a sinking glass bowl. Then a jolt travelled up his legs. "Did you feel that?" he said.
"Yeah," Sandy whispered. "I think we're hung on a ledge."
Thinking of the shark-thing eater, Richard said, "Try the landing lights!"
"Got it!" Sandy said.
He flinched as brilliant external light suddenly flooded the cockpit. As his eyes adjusted, he blinked and then whispered, "Oh my God."
Over his head and still locked into her seat, Sandy stared outside, her mouth hanging open.
Thousands of small, swimming, multicolored forms surrounded the fighter. Unlike the shark-thing, these apparently had eyes. They swarmed to the lights. Within each of the luminous beams, oddly shaped fins and twisted tentacles periodically protruded from the congregated swirling mass of alien life.
Another tremor rocked the floor. Richard thought they must have slipped off the ice ledge. He was about to say as much, but then light reappeared overhead.
Sandy's eyes widened. "Did we slip off?"
His knees bent as something again tugged them upward, toward the light. Richard shook his head and smiled. "That's a tractor beam. The carrier found us!"
Sandy pumped both of her fists into the air. "Yes!"
Then Sandy looked toward Richard's feet and shrieked in horror.
Richard looked down to see a bus-sized open mouth lined with jagged rows of razor-sharp teeth rising from the depths. The mouth's owner was extremely large and closing on the ship with incredible speed.
This was either the whale-sized carnivore he'd glimpsed earlier, or one of its close relatives.
As the lower half of the starfighter disappeared into the monster's gaping mouth, the landing lights lit up the beast's gullet. Richard suddenly knew how live bait must feel. He resolved to never fish again—if he lived through this.
Then the fighter broke the surface, flying backward out of the water and out of the beast's mouth. Sensing the prey slipping from its grasp, the shark-thing eater gnashed its jaws closed. On the spheroidal display, the monstrous teeth appeared to slam together just beneath Richard's feet.
After a moment of shocked silence, he and Sandy laughed self-consciously. Then they squinted as the fighter emerged into direct sunlight. They accelerated out of the chasm.
Still hanging nose down, the fighter rocketed away from the ice canyon. Over the next few minutes, the chasm's huge, parallel ridges shrank to the apparent size of a railroad track, and then just a thin red line.
Richard's destroyed fighter ascended in formation with them.
Sandy activated the radio. "Galactic Guardian, this is Phoenix Seven, over," she said.
They didn't reply. Which was odd. Flight ops had someone monitoring that frequency at all times, especially during recovery operations.
"Galactic Guardian," Sandy said again. "This is Phoenix Seven. Come in, over."
Still no reply.
"Must be something wrong with our radio," she said.
With the inertial dampeners still offline, he f
elt the ship decelerate. Then he began to float. "Screw it," Richard said as he drifted past Sandy. He pointed behind her. "There's the Guardian. We'll be able to talk to them face to face in a minute."
Looking in the direction he'd indicated, Sandy nodded. Then a confused look crossed her face. "Why haven't they recovered the rest of the fighters?"
Richard looked back to the Guardian. Sure enough, it looked like they'd left all of the wing's fighters parked behind the carrier. Aligned in stationary rows, they hung motionlessly, just aft of the bay doors.
Richard shrugged. "Maybe they wanted to recover our damaged ships first."
Gravity slowly returned to the ship's interior. He could now stand next to Sandy. As they approached the back of the carrier, the rear portion of the spheroidal display blacked out, blocking the hangar bay from view. Richard was about to complain about yet another failed system, but then the edge of the Guardian's hangar slid into view as their two fighters passed backward through the bay doors.
He pointed at the inside edge of the door. "We're in, and still nobody is talking to us. It must be our radio. Your little maneuver probably knocked off the antenna."
Sandy cocked an eyebrow at him. "My little maneuver saved your life."
Richard shook his head. "No, I would've—"
The ship dropped to the floor with a thud, unceremoniously depositing them just inside of the bay door shields.
"What the hell?" he said. "Why didn't they take us all the way to our regular parking pad?"
"I don't know, and I don't care. I'm just glad to be back on dry ground, as it were," Sandy said as the dissolving flight controls flowed back into the curving floor. Freed from its confines, she stood next to Richard. Extending an arm, she gestured toward the airlock. "Age before hotness."
Richard shook his head and stepped into the airlock. When its outer door opened, the two of them were still chuckling, simply happy to be alive.
Then they stepped out onto the hangar floor … and suddenly found themselves staring into the muzzles of several Argonian guns. Behind the odd futuristic weapons, armored Argonian combat troops regarded them warily.
A strangely accented Argonian voice broke the tense, silent stand-off. "Who are you?" demanded a distinguished, middle-aged gentleman as he stepped between the guards. He laced together his hands and pointed extended index fingers accusatorially. Rocking on the balls of his feet, the tall man leaned forward and glared down on Richard and Sandy. "And more importantly," he said, his odd dialect adding a twisted lilt to the end of each word, "why are you flying around in my ships?!"
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A sharp knock interrupted Admiral Bill Johnston's thoughts. Looking across the desk's black onyx top, he studied the section of wall from which the noise had emanated. Framing the door's location, an ornate casing topped by a tall, pointed arch stood out from the bronze wall's smooth surface. Shaking his head, he grinned, amused that, with all the communications technology that events had dropped into their lap, people still preferred to knock rather than simply announce themselves electronically.
"Enter," he said, his voice cracking with the effort. The weeks of training and readying the fleet's personnel had drained the man. His normally gruff voice had a weary edge to it. Casting an eye toward his ancient but reliable clock radio, he watched 3:01 AM roll to 3:02. Looking surreally out of place, it sat on the corner of his desk which in turn occupied the front section of the spacious suite he'd claimed as his command quarters.
The framed section of wall vaporized, revealing an uncharacteristically anxious-looking Lieutenant Commander Levy, the night watch commander.
"Don't just stand there, son," he said with a wave. "Come on in."
Stepping into the room, Levy said, "Sorry to disturb you, sir." The man paused, mild surprise registering on his face. Johnston supposed Levy hadn't expected to find him awake and in uniform at this late hour.
"What is it, Commander?" Admiral Johnston asked impatiently.
Levy flinched. "Sorry, sir. There's something on the bridge that I think you'll want to see."
Rising to his feet, Admiral Johnston stepped from behind the desk and fastened his uniform's top button. He didn't bother to question the lieutenant commander. The man wasn't prone to exaggeration.
With the younger officer in tow, the admiral headed toward the bridge. A few moments later, they entered its expansive chamber. It was bustling with activity.
"Admiral on the deck!" shouted the commander.
Each member of the bridge crew continued with their work as Johnston and Levy walked toward one of the command deck's lifts. The two men stepped into the two nearest yellow rings and began to rise.
As the lifts deposited them onto the force field floor, Levy pointed into the overhead hologram. "We are tracking several ships inbound from the direction of Jupiter."
"Isn't that Colonel Allison's fighter wing?" the admiral said as he moved to the center of the deck. Even as he asked the question, Johnston saw a problem with that possibility.
"That was our first thought too, sir," Levy said. "But there are too many of them. First Fighter Wing only has a hundred and eight fighters. We're currently tracking close to a thousand targets."
Johnston nodded, stoically repressing the surprise and other emotions the news elicited. "What do we have on them? Transponder data? Can the computer recognize their profiles?"
Levy shook his head. "No, sir. They're still too far out."
Hundreds of scenarios ran through the admiral's mind, only a couple of which ended with unicorns and Gummy Bears.
Admiral Johnston lowered himself into the force field-generated captain's chair.
Commander Levy pointed to the medium-sized ships surrounding the Guardian. "I've already alerted the battlecruisers," he said. "I also rousted the fighter wings and ordered the combat air patrol to intercept the targets."
Johnston nodded. "Good job, Commander." In the hologram he saw the combat air patrol's eighteen Phoenix Starfighters racing toward the incoming targets. He pointed at the fighters. "Have the CAP hold their position. Bring the fleet to battle stations and start launching the fighter wings."
Levy nodded and returned to his station.
Using his EON, Johnston fired off a quick warning to General Pearson at Nellis: "Moving to intercept unknown inbound force."
Commander Levy looked up from his console. "Second and Third Fighter Wings have launched. The rest will be in the air shortly."
Johnston nodded. Obviously, they weren't "in the air", but as they'd discovered, some habits were too ingrained to break in two weeks. He watched hundreds of fighter icons stream from the carrier's stern.
He turned to the helmsman. "As soon as the fighters are clear, move the fleet to intercept. I want to engage them as far from Earth as possible."
"Aye aye, Admiral."
Johnston turned to the weapons officer. "Let me know as soon as we are in firing range." To Levy, he added, "Tell the CAP that the rest of Second Wing will be joining them shortly. Order Newcastle to keep his squadron in Earth space as a rearguard, and have the remaining wings cover our flanks."
"Yes, sir."
Johnston pointed to the helmsman again. "Begin fleet-wide evasive maneuvers. One per minute, please. I don't want them taking out one of our ships with a potato gun."
The helmsman nodded. "Yes, Admiral."
In addition to laser and plasma cannons, the fleet had kinetic weapons that launched hypervelocity rounds. Johnston imagined that the enemy would have the same tech. In spite of their incredible speed, the high mass projectiles launched by those potato guns didn't currently present much of a threat as long as the fleet made periodic lateral jumps. Each subsequent leap would occur at random intervals, distances, and azimuths. That way, anything an enemy fired at their current position would fly through empty space by the time it had covered the significant distance that still separated the two forces.
Standing and moving to the front edge of the command deck, Ad
miral Johnston studied the hundreds of unmarked gray icons that filled the far side of the display. Through his EON interface, he accessed the hologram and drew the rendering closer, zooming in on the colorless dots. The point of view raced toward the approaching targets. The formation swelled to fill the command deck, but the icons refused to resolve.
As he stared at the closest symbol, Johnston's eyes narrowed. "Damn it!" he swore under his breath. "Are you friend or foe?"
After a moment, the admiral shook his head. He programmed an alert to notify him the instant that the computer identified the target and then reset the display. He walked back to his station.
Dropping into the force field-supplied Captain's chair, Johnston watched the bridge crew. He admired the collected officers. For the last two weeks, they'd all worked their asses off. As he considered what might lie before them, he felt his blood pressure trying to rise. The admiral took a deep breath and then silently let it out in a long exhalation. Afterward, he looked around the room again. Johnston pursed his lips. He didn't know if they were ready for combat. But events were forcing the issue. And if it were the enemy, they wouldn't give two shits about his concerns.
As they approached the halfway point, Commander Levy looked up. "Sir, all fighter wings are in position."
"Good," Johnston said. He turned to the weapons officer. "How's our firing solution coming?"
"The potato launchers are ready to go, Admiral. I estimate we'll be in laser range in fifteen seconds."
Johnston nodded. "Excellent." He addressed both officers. "Order all stations to hold fire until I give the word. Understood?"
"Yes, sir," they said in unison.
A few seconds later, the weapons officer glanced up from his control panel. "We're in range, sir. I have a firing solution … wait … What?" He froze, staring slack-jawed at his console, a look of complete confusion twisting his face.
"What is it?" Johnston said.
The man hunched over and started furiously tapping commands into the control panel. "All my weapons systems just died, sir." He paused and then looked up from his console. "They're offline. I'm locked out."
