by Dean M. Cole
The officer flinched and then dashed like a wetted drycat lizard. He scurried to the console and began scrolling through data feeds. The Lord knew that the officer was his last crewmember. They'd lost everyone aft of the bridge. Even on this forward-most deck, all of the Zoxyth stationed behind his cathedra had fallen to the repurposed gene weapon.
Thrakst staggered over to the throne and dropped into its cool, stony embrace.
The hatchling raised his head. "Lord, I'm detecting activity from the remnants of the enemy carrier."
On his personal display, Thrakst studied the fractured Galactic Guardian. The largest piece of the broken carrier began to distance itself from the other sections, slowly increasing the gap between it and the destroyed scraps.
"That's their bridge," Thrakst said. His eyes narrowed. "Is anyone still alive?"
The officer scanned his instruments again and then looked up. "Possibly, my Lord. There appear to be weak life signs coming from all of their ships, but the sensors are having a difficult time penetrating the after effects of antimatter annihilation. There's too much interference to know for sure." He paused and tapped a few more keys. Then he grinned. "If there is anyone alive, they're defenseless. You fried all of their external weapons, my Lord."
"What about their gene weapon?" Thrakst said. "Could they fire another one?"
The officer shook his head. "No, my Lord. Even if they could muster the power to fire it again, the explosion's aftermath will suppress the gene weapon's quantum wave for at least as long as it will take our weapon to recharge."
Thrakst smiled and said, "Plot a micro-jump." He pointed at the carrier's bridge. "Plan to drop us in nice and close to that. I want to finish Admiral Tekamah!"
Lumbering out of his cathedra, Thrakst stumbled to the weapon control station. He kicked aside the previous operator's emptied uniform and activated the console. "I'll take care of the weapons," the Lord said through a cough.
Wiping green blood from his brow, he looked over to Phascyre's eyeless face. Thrakst growled, a low, rattling thing. "The High Council, huh? I think I'll pay them a visit when I'm through with your Argonian companions," he said softly and then grinned. "All of them will be joining you very soon, old friend."
He turned from the dead traitor and pointed to his new helmsman. Raising his voice, he said, "Take us in! Now!"
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Sandy's fighter dropped back into normal space at the designated fallback coordinates.
"Holy shit!" she shouted over her link with Richard. Trying to calm her overtaxed nerves, she took a couple of deep breaths. Then she said, "What the hell happened?! Did we hit them with a gene weapon?"
"I think we did," Richard said. "But I'm more concerned with that missile. Why did Johnston order us to jump out just as we kicked their ass?"
Sandy shook her head and took another calming breath. Jumping out of the chaotic battlefield into this tranquil, organized peace had shocked her system almost as much as if the reverse had happened.
Her sleek, silver-black Phoenix Fighter now hovered fifty thousand feet above the Moon's heavily cratered far side. Computer-controlled, every ship of each fighter wing had exited parallel-space in its previously assigned location. The entire air group had reemerged into normal space already arranged in a perfect formation.
"This is Commander Air Group. All units, check in," Colonel Newcastle ordered.
As Phoenix Squadron Executive Officer, Sandy visually scanned the unit's precisely arranged organized lines, making a quick headcount. Over the squadron-wide channel, she said, "All Phoenix Starfighters present and accounted for, Colonel Allison."
"Thank you, XO," Richard said.
After he had conferred with the commanders of the wing's other squadrons, he linked to Newcastle's command channel. "CAG, this is Phoenix Six. First Fighter Wing is a go."
As the accented voices of the multi-national commanders of 2nd through 4th Fighter Wings also checked in, Sandy ran her starfighter's diagnostics. All systems still reported green, fully operational.
After the Israeli Commander of 5th Fighter Wing checked in, a silent, pregnant pause screamed across the network.
"Sixth Fighter Wing," Colonel Newcastle said impatiently. "Check in, Colonel Giard!"
Sandy snapped her head to the left and looked wide-eyed at the wing's formation. Gunfighter Squadron's organized collection of starfighters sat at its farthest end, but even from here, she could see an obvious void in its ordered rows.
Jake hadn't returned!
Sandy opened her direct link to him. It connected, but an instant later, the link broke, and its icon grayed out.
"Sixth Fighter Wing," Colonel Newcastle said again. "What is your—?"
Suddenly, a brilliant light rose above the Moon's distant horizon like a second sunrise. Space itself seemed to glow.
"What the hell?" Newcastle said over the open EON channel.
Then the incredibly bright light whited out her spherical display. Sandy raised an arm to shield her eyes, but the billion-nanobot visual matrix painted across the sleeve of her suit beamed as brightly as did the inside of the sphere.
Then the light began to fade. Slowly, the external world resolved.
"Jake?!" Sandy shouted into their dead EON link.
As if someone had connected an untuned AM radio to the network, a faint rush of odd static suddenly started to stream through her EON's auditory feed. It had never done that during any of their live-fire exercises.
Colonel Newcastle reactivated the command channel. "Gunfighter Six, this is the CAG. Report!" he said, sounding as unnerved as Sandy felt.
"CAG, this is Gunfighter Seven. We are down one," said a distressed male voice. Sandy recognized it as belonging to Major Hill, Jake's wingman and second in command. "Gunfighter Six hasn't checked in, sir."
Wide-eyed and beginning to hyperventilate, Sandy screamed, "Jake!" It suddenly felt like there wasn't enough oxygen in her cockpit. Whipping her head left and right, she searched the entire formation for the Turtle's unique shape, but still didn't see it.
"No … No … No …" Sandy whimpered between hyperventilating breaths. She swallowed hard, struggling not to panic. With her heart beating in her ears, Sandy activated her virtual hologram. Currently, it only displayed the area between the Moon and the formation. Aside from the collected fighters, no other ships occupied the region of space.
"Shit," she whispered. "God, please, no."
Major Fitzpatrick connected to the command channel. "CAG, this is Phoenix Seven," she said, not quite able to keep her mounting dread out of her voice. "The Turtle isn't here, and I don't see anybody else on this side of the Moon!"
As she spoke, she panned the display toward the battlefield, and a storm of disassociated multicolored pixels slid into view. Sandy couldn't see any ships. Instead, a psychedelic, three-dimensional version of white noise filled translunar space, obscuring the combat zone.
"I can't see anything beyond that, CAG. There's too much … interference," the executive officer said, her voice hitching and cracking as it occurred to her that the multicolored storm might be a holographic rendering of a pulverized fleet.
"Roger, Seven," Newcastle said in a detached tone.
Sandy was about to shout at the CAG when Richard opened a link. "I'm sure Jake made it out," he said over their internal channel.
She connected to it and said, "You can't know that!" But as the words left her mouth, Sandy realized she had to believe it, had to own it. Otherwise, she would be useless to the unit, useless to the pilots depending on her to watch their backs, and useless to Jake.
"Sandy—"
"No, I'm sorry. You're right, Richard," Sandy said. "Sorry for snapping at you."
The command network reopened.
"We need to get back in there and find out what happened," Colonel Newcastle said. "I'm dissolving the task forces and returning all squadrons to their usual fighter wing assignments. First Fighter Wing, I want you to take up defensive positi
ons on the far side of the battlefield."
"Roger, CAG," Colonel Allison said.
"Sixth Fighter Wing, I want you on the near side. Second through Fifth, set up a perimeter around the entire battlefield. Watch for the Zoxyth ship that jumped out. Scan your holograms if they'll work. Otherwise, do it the old fashioned way: use your eyes, folks."
In turn, each of the wing commanders acknowledged Colonel Newcastle's order. Then he continued. "I'll take Vampire Squadron into the middle. We'll assess the damage and marshal any disabled friendly vessels. Keep in mind: as we get closer, our EONs may experience the same interference. So be ready to switch to our tactical radios."
After a brief pause, he added, "Use your gravity drives to maneuver, no parallel-jumps until we know what's out there. I don't want anybody popping back into real-space in the middle of a drifting ship."
"Remember, folks: that Zoxyth dreadnought is probably still around, and it has a functioning gene weapon. By my watch, we only have thirty-five minutes before it will be recharged and ready to fire again."
"Good hunting, and Godspeed," Newcastle said. "Commander Air Group, out."
A few moments later, Richard activated the squadron's channel. "I've given the other squadrons their orders and loaded our ingress route into each of your autopilots," he said. "Acknowledge receipt and prepare for departure."
Sandy accepted the new flight plan. Her lips started to ache again. So she pressed them together and closed her eyes. Robbed of their usual chew toy, her teeth took to self-destruction and began to grind against one another. After taking a deep breath, she tried to release the stress and worry in a long exhalation. Achieving a modicum of success, she opened her eyes and focused on the distant lunar horizon, her hand hovering over the gravity drive actuator.
Richard reopened the unit's link. "Phoenix Squadron, this is Phoenix Six. Launch in three, two, one!"
Sandy slammed the activator forward. Their formation of fighters rocketed toward the Moon's limb, aimed for the exact point where the light of the detonating missile had formed a false sunrise.
Moments later, they zipped past its curved, gray surface, and the battlefield slid into view. Even from eighty thousand miles away, several chunks of debris glowed brightly enough to make it look as if a few small suns had taken up station between the two planetary bodies.
As she rocketed toward the scene, the bright lights blossomed from pinpoints into dots and then into angular, jagged chunks that drifted in all directions. Every second of travel added more detail as the gravity drive's incredible speed rushed them toward the carnage.
Sandy tried to activate her private link with Jake, but its icon remained grayed out. "Jake, are you out there?" she said to nobody. "Please talk to me, baby."
Only mounting white noise answered.
"Phoenix Six, this is Seven, are you picking up static across the EON?" she said over the squadron channel.
"Yes, I am," Richard said in a static-filled reply.
Then Sandy flinched as his actual voice entered her ears. "How do you read this?"
She toggled the radio transmit switch. "Loud and clear."
"At least these are working," he said. "All fighters, check in over the radio."
While they each replied, Sandy tried to tweak her virtual hologram. However, the colored points of light continued their disorganized dance, offering no discernible image.
Outside, something rocketed past her fighter. A moment later her ship jumped, just missing a large, glowing chunk of rock. Then another luminous boulder blazed across her spherical display, narrowly missing the starfighter.
Her heart went into overdrive as she scanned the region directly in front of the formation. They must be flying through the shattered remnants of the Zoxyth fleet! Space in front of them was choked with rocky detritus.
"Phoenix Six, we need to get clear of these asteroids!" The XO paused as her fighter did several evasive jumps. "This is starting to look like our flight over Europa," she said, recalling their doomed live-fire exercise over Jupiter's icy moon.
"I agree," Richard said. "Phoenix Squadron, turn to vector two-three-eight by three-three-six in three, two, one."
On his mark, Sandy turned her starfighter to the new, three-dimensional heading. Moving as one, she and the squadron made an instantaneous ninety-degree course change. The new route ran perpendicular to the original flight path. So several evasive jumps later, the swarm of glowing asteroid lumps thinned. The time between the ship's evasive skips doubled, trebled, and finally stopped altogether.
As they rose above the plane of the dusty debris field and reemerged into relatively clear space, three new light sources slid into view.
The XO squinted, trying to resolve the shapes. "What the hell are …?" she said in a whisper, but then her eyes widened. "Oh my God!"
She activated the squadron net. "The Guardian broke up!"
The carrier had fractured into at least three pieces. She wouldn't have recognized the ship if not for the size of the twisted and charred sections.
"Where are the hangar bays?" she asked, scanning the wreckage.
"Looks like they were vaporized," Richard said in a mystified voice.
Sandy saw that he was right. One end of the largest chunk of carrier glowed brightly. Along a sharply defined line, everything simply ended as if cleaved by a giant, white-hot knife.
"Seven," Richard said, calling her on their internal channel. "To the left of the Guardian, is that what I think it is?"
Sandy looked in the indicated direction. "Oh my God!"
Farther from the blast's epicenter, an organized swarm of scintillating points of burning embers tumbled through space.
"It is," Sandy said. Her voice cracked again. She scanned the debris field visually. "Please, God, don't let Jake be in there," she whispered.
"CAG, this is Phoenix Six," Colonel Allison said over the Air Group frequency. "It looks like we lost most of the Argonian fighters."
After a pause, Newcastle replied in a weary, strained voice. "Report received, Phoenix Six. Carry on to the far side of the combat zone. We still need to find that Zoxyth ship."
"Wilco, Six," Richard said.
Phoenix Squadron continued its trek through the battlefield. Its path would take them close to the remnants of the Galactic Guardian.
Sandy looked over her left shoulder, scanning space beyond the burning formation of Phoenix Fighters. She longed to guide her ship in that direction, wanted to search the area for Jake.
Then she traded one nightmarish image for another as the largest piece of the carrier slid across her field of view, blotting out much of the battlefield. Across the width of the ship remnant, every chamber lay exposed to hard vacuum. Between melted and charred bulkheads, Sandy could still see the interior's gothic pointed arches and ornate trim. However, instead of framing the entrances of grand halls and expansive terrariums, those tall arches now led only to empty space.
She flew past the still glowing remnant of the Guardian's bridge. Sandy flinched as a new static-filled transmission blared from her radio's speaker.
"Phoenix Six! This … Galactic … ian bridge on Guard frequency! Are … reading this?!"
"All stop," Richard shouted across the squadron's frequency.
Switching to Guard—the universal emergency frequency—Richard said, "Guardian Bridge, this is Phoenix Six. Have you weak but readable."
"Good to hear … voice, Colonel Allison," Admiral Johnston said, surging static clipping his words.
The squadron drifted closer to the hulk. Sandy checked her instruments and discovered that the carrier remnant was the one moving. Outside, she saw the space between the Guardian's bridge and the other sections grow.
"Good to hear your voice too, sir," Richard said. "It looks like you have some drive capability. What is the status of your personnel?"
"We have just enough gravity drive to move, but not enough to matter," Johnston said. "We have a lot of injured people in need of evac."
"Roger, Guardian Six," Colonel Allison said. "I'll relay your status to the CAG. We'll get help to you ASAP! Do you have—?"
Suddenly, a brilliant ray shot through the formation. Passing between the starfighters of Phoenix Squadron, the red beam cut a deep furrow across the Guardian's skin. A torrent of atmosphere and small cruciform shapes burst from the breach. Belatedly, Sandy recognized the writhing figures as bodies.
She spun her fighter toward the source of the attack and came face to face with the no longer missing Zoxyth dreadnought. Of their own volition, her fingers spasmed, launching a volley of kinetic slugs and plasma beams at the enemy ship.
The rest of the squadron's fighters fired their weapons as well. In a brilliant explosion, a portion of the bridge's sculpted Zoxyth face dissolved under the fusillade.
"All fighters, execute attack plan Delta, anchor one-seven-eight by two-six-six!" Richard shouted over the radio. "Let's draw the bastards away from the Guardian."
With a quick EON command, Sandy entered the attack vector into her computer. It automatically uploaded the navigational data to her virtual hologram. Like a starburst, each ship flew away from the Zoxyth dreadnought on a discrete vector. As Sandy's fighter rocketed toward her assigned route, she saw that Richard's plan would keep the shots and resultant debris away from the remnants of the carrier.
Seeing the instantaneous reactions of the squadron's pilots made Major Fitzpatrick proud. With practiced synchronicity, every starfighter had jetted off within a second of receiving the command.
Ahead of her, the first wave of the hastily arranged ad hoc attack reached their assigned radial. They turned back toward the dreadnought and started firing on the enemy ship as they raced inbound.
Sandy reached her designated attack vector. At the initialization point, her fighter executed the programmed instantaneous course change.
"Second wave IP inbound!" Sandy said over the squadron frequency.
Then the forward portion of the starfighter's immersive display dimmed as the enemy's shields blazed white-hot under the first wave's volley. A moment later, the dreadnought's force field flared and then collapsed in a storm of discharging lightning bolts.
