by Dean M. Cole
"Yes!" Sandy shouted.
They were hurting the bastards!
As she rocketed inward, the now unprotected enemy ship swelled, quickly filling the forward portion of her spherical display.
"Fire!" the major yelled and squeezed both triggers.
Her fighter shuddered as it, along with the rest of the ships in the second wave, simultaneously fired all weapons. Then the wave of starfighters executed an instantaneous ninety-degree, right-angle course change, vectoring out of the plane of the attack and the impending blast zone.
"Die, you son of a bitch!" Sandy said with a snarl.
Suddenly, the asteroidal ship vanished. In its wake, the plasma and particle beams sliced through empty space.
Sandy slammed her head back and screamed, "Shit!"
Then over the radio, someone shouted, "The bastards jumped out!"
The executive officer shook her head. "Thanks, Captain Obvious," she said through a frustrated growl.
***
Remulkin still hung with his head pointed toward the floor. The gravity field had returned. So now blood pressure built as it pooled in his head. He tried to pull himself free of the webbing, but every movement sent a fresh wave of agony through his ruined leg.
Hanging opposite the scientist, the knuckle-dragger waged his own battle with the restraints. When they refused to release their grip, the colonel yelled, "Damn it! Let me go!"
Apparently responding to his voice command, the safety restraining system lowered both of them to the floor. Even the gentle touchdown sent an excruciating wave of incredible pain shooting up Remulkin's ruined leg. He tried and failed to bite back the scream.
With the side of his face pressed against the ship's silver floor, Remulkin watched the webbing dissolve back into the deck. It appeared to melt into the surface as the ocean of tiny machines assimilated the safety restraining system's constituent nanobots.
"Finally!" Colonel Giard said. Standing, the man ran back to the command console.
Fresh waves of pain swept over Remulkin as he struggled to rise from the point where the restraints had deposited him. Grimacing, the scientist swore profusely. He even threw in a few of his new English curse words.
As Thramorus hopped and cussed his way back to the console, Giard gave him a sideways glance.
"Are you going to be okay?" he said.
"No, I'll never be okay as long as these bastards keep kicking our asses."
The colonel shook his head. "I think the Guardian hit them with a reverse-engineered gene weapon. One dreadnought might have escaped. Even if it did, one enemy ship wouldn't be much of a problem," Giard said. "I'm more concerned with the carrier fleet. I think we just lost a bunch of people."
Remulkin glared at him. "You're clueless! No wonder Major Fitzpatrick hasn't …"
Seeing the sudden fire in Giard's eyes, Remulkin didn't finish.
"Hasn't what?!"
"Nothing," Remulkin said. He pointed at the console. "Obviously, the gravity drive is online. Why are we still sitting here?"
Colonel Giard glared at him for a long moment. Finally, he gestured at the pedestal. "Yes, the gravity drive is back online, but communications and weapons systems are dead."
Remulkin wiped at the sweat dripping from his brow. Then he pointed through the view-wall at the slowly rotating star field. "What happened to the ships? Where are they?"
Nodding, Colonel Giard activated the Turtle's drive. After arresting its rotation, the man turned the ship to face the battlefield.
A confused mess of burning embers and apparent ship remnants filled the field of view. "Oh my Gods," he whispered. Then movement near the center of the display drew his eye. Remulkin pointed at it. "What's that?"
Not waiting for the knuckle-dragger to respond, Thramorus tried to magnify the view-wall image with his EON. However, much of his network interface still wouldn't work. His link icons remained grayed out, and the rushing static noise continued to stream through the EON's auditory feed.
Apparently encountering the same disconnect, Colonel Giard began adjusting the display via the console's manual controls. A moment later, the central portion of the image zoomed in, expanding to fill the entire view-wall.
"There's the bastard!" Remulkin shouted.
The Zoxyth ship had returned to the battlefield. Suddenly, it fired a laser beam into a massive glowing piece of debris. When atmosphere and apparent bodies flew from the point of impact, the liaison belatedly recognized the targeted mass as a portion of the Galactic Guardian.
"No! You son of a bitch!" Colonel Giard screamed.
Then a squadron's worth of plasma beams burned into the dreadnought. As quickly as they had fired, the starfighters blazed away from the enemy ship in a starburst pattern.
Watching the small vessels maneuver, Giard pointed. "That's First Fighter Wing."
Remulkin nodded.
A moment later, its first wave of starfighters turned back inbound and began to fire on the dreadnought. Their salvo slammed into the asteroidal ship, and its shields collapsed.
The colonel pumped his fist in the air. "Get him, Sandy!"
"What are you waiting for?!" Remulkin shouted. "Let's get in there!"
Giard shook his head and slapped the top of the console. "I'd love nothing better, but our fucking weapons are down. We'll just get in the way."
"We don't need weapons. Hell, we can ram the son of a bitch!"
Colonel Giard looked at Remulkin as if the scientist had lost his mind. Maybe he had, but these bastards had killed his family, and now they were about to get away.
The idiot pointed through the view-wall again and said, "The Phoenix Starfighters are about to kill it."
Remulkin shook his head. "No, they're not."
The second wave of fighters fired on the asteroidal ship.
Then it winked out of existence.
Giard stared stupidly.
Remulkin glared at him. Then he said, "They can still hide in parallel-space."
"Oh shit," Giard said. His eyes widened. He looked at his watch. "They'll be able to fire the gene weapon in fifteen minutes!"
Remulkin nodded. "I think we will get another chance. The bastard has tasted blood. I don't think he's going anywhere soon, but when he returns, we need to hit him with everything we have."
"I know," Giard said. Then he pounded the control panel in frustration. "But the weapons systems still won't respond. At this point, I'd gladly fly the damn thing right into the dreadnought, but the Turtle is too small. We'd be nothing more than a bug stain on their windshield." He paused and again tried to reactivate the fire-control panel. A moment later, he shook his head. "We need firepower!"
The colonel's words triggered an epiphany. Grinning, Thramorus hunched over his end of the console and started punching in commands.
Next to him, Colonel Giard bent over, trying to see Remulkin's hands. "What are you doing?"
After hitting the last key, the liaison gently lowered himself toward a seated position. The floor matrix raised to support him and his injured leg.
Tenderly rubbing his busted knee, the scientist let out a long sigh. "You want firepower?" He gestured toward the console. "Activate that autopilot flight plan, and you'll have all you need."
Still bent over the console, Giard studied the plan for a moment. Slowly, a grin spread across the Colonel's face.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
"Damn it!" Jake said.
"Open it with your EON," Remulkin said impatiently.
"Don't you think I tried that already? Try it with yours."
"I … I don't have that range." Remulkin looked away. "Mine can only transmit a short distance."
Jake saw something new in the man's face. Was that sadness?
"What? Why not?" Giard asked. "I thought all you Argonians had the same EON. If it's limited to short range, how do you stay connected with your network backup?"
"I don't have one." The scientist looked away again, but this time Jake saw profound sorr
ow in the man's eyes.
Then his jawline hardened. He turned back to Jake.
"I don't want to talk about it." He gestured at the ocean of silver-black hull that filled the display's entire field of view. "How about we focus on finding a way into that ship."
Jake stared at the man for a silent moment. Finally, he looked through the view-wall and shook his head. "I can't. Admiral Tekamah has it locked down. And he's probably dead. Hell, even if that missile didn't kill him, there's too much electrical interference. I can't reach anyone over there."
He stopped and looked back to Remulkin. "You served in the Galactic Defense Forces as a younger man, didn't you?"
Remulkin nodded. "Yes, but that was a long time ago. Why?"
Suddenly, the Turtle slid sideways. At the same time, the shields of the empty Helm Warden flared again.
Apparently, some of the debris from the battle had tumbled into lunar orbit. Since they had approached the parked empty carrier—the lure that Tekamah had so effectively used to bait the Zoxyth into simultaneously firing all their gene weapons—the Turtle had made several lateral safety jumps. While the smaller ship relied on its maneuverability, the significantly larger Helm Warden simply let its force field deal with the incoming debris. Like camera flashes firing at varying intensities, it now strobed almost continuously.
"Why?" Remulkin asked again.
Jake pointed through the view-wall. "We're not gonna get through those blast doors."
Unlike the last time he had needed to get aboard a GDF carrier, the hangar bays weren't open on this ship. Tekamah had sealed them. The back of the massive carrier had the same smooth, silver-black skin as the rest of the vessel. Remulkin said they were blast shields that could open or close just like all the other openings they'd encountered to date, but these weren't responding to their attempts to gain access.
"Is there another way in?" Jake said. "A hatch? Anything?"
Remulkin was shaking his head but then stopped. "Yeah, just behind the bridge, there is an exterior access hatch that leads to a communications array. If you could get in there …"
The scientist shook his head again. "But we can't even get past the shields."
The man was right. So far, the force field had stopped them from getting closer than a few hundred feet. Every time Giard tried to maneuver the Turtle closer, the ship just bounced off the invisible quantum membrane.
Jake checked his watch. "We're running out of time. There's less than ten minutes left before they can fire that damned weapon again."
Jake jammed his hand into the Turtle's flight controller. With the other, he pointed toward the top of the massive ship. "Guide me to the external hatch. I'll park us above it, just outside the force field."
"Then what will we do?"
"I have an idea," Jake said.
Precious moments later, he stopped the speeding Turtle directly over the bridge. The elegant lines of the massive ship's command deck protruded above the carrier's smooth skin like an aerodynamic submarine conning tower. Fore and aft, the structure tapered to points and blended back into the ship's mercurial skin.
As they approached the bridge's tapered aft end, Remulkin pointed. "There! There it is!"
Jake studied the area but only saw the lines of a small rectangle in the otherwise featureless skin. He gestured at it. "That's way too little to be a hatch."
Thramorus shook his head. "No! How many actual doors have you seen on one of our ships? It's a touchpad. Just place your palm against it, and the nanobots in your suit's glove will unlock the hatch."
Still more than a couple of hundred feet above the carrier, the Turtle hit the shields and bounced back. Arresting the backward drift, Jake brought it to a stationary hover.
Luckily, they were already in their Argonian spacesuits. Jake finished parking the ship across from the hidden hatch and then walked toward the Turtle's airlock.
"I still don't understand how we're going to get through the force field," Remulkin said plaintively.
Jake ignored him and stepped into the airlock. The Argonian followed.
Responding to the impending vacuum, nanobots flowed out of the thick collars of each man's spacesuit. By the time the outer hull dissolved, exposing the lock to the void, a clear helmet topped each of their suits.
As Jake turned to look at Remulkin, a directional light that tracked his head and eye movements shined in the scientist's face.
The Argonian squinted. "Would you mind not shining that in my eyes?"
"Sorry," Jake said, smiling in spite of himself.
Still standing in the airlock, he pointed at the distant touchpad. "I think the shield will let an Argonian spacesuit through." At least, it did last time I tried, Jake thought to himself.
Suddenly, the visible portion of the carrier's force field opaqued, flashing white and obscuring the Warden.
Another asteroid had impacted.
Thramorus pointed at the glowing membrane. "If that happens while you're passing through it, the force field will cut you in half," he said.
"That's not helpful, Liaison," Jake said sardonically. "Feel free to keep shit like that to yourself." He paused and pointed toward the hatch's smooth surface. "If the shields don't bisect us and we do get through, what happens when we get to the panel? What's to stop us from just bouncing off the skin?"
"There is a low gravity field over that part of the skin," Remulkin said. "Plus, there is a small handhold next to it." The scientist held both hands out. "Just go already. We're wasting time!"
Jake gave a quick nod and said, "We'll have to be careful. We never got around to upgrading the Turtle's spacesuits with the Argonian inertia-less EVM module. So we'll be free floating with no guidance."
Remulkin returned the nod.
Giard planted his feet like a man about to dive into a pool. He took a deep breath and then lunged toward the hatch.
Just as Jake cleared the airlock and approached the nearby shields, a bolide slammed into the Helm Warden's force field only a few hundred feet to his right. It detonated in a surreally silent flash. The shields flared white, and Jake crashed into them. The bone-jarring impact sent him drifting away from both ships.
"Oh shit!" Giard screamed.
"Gods damn it!" Remulkin said. "You bounced off the shields."
Jake swung his arms futilely, but in the vacuum, he just continued his slow drift.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck!"
Hearing a grunt, Jake stopped his rant. Looking right, he saw Remulkin had kicked off from the Turtle. He was flying straight toward Giard.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm saving your ass," Remulkin said.
The scientist slowly caught up with Jake.
They grabbed each other. Now both of them drifted away from the ships at an angle that was taking them higher, farther away from both vessels.
Giard suddenly realized they'd soon pass beyond the carrier's gravity bubble. Then, without the Argonian extravehicular mobility module, it would be a long drop straight down into the Moon's gravity well. With no atmosphere to slow their descent, the colonel and the scientist would slam into the surface. Their bodies would disintegrate. There'd be nothing left but a new crater.
Holding each other, they floated face to face.
Pale and sweating profusely, the chubby ginger looked straight into Jake's eyes.
"Make this count, Colonel."
Suddenly, the man shoved him, grunting with the effort. Using both arms and his one good leg, he had pushed Giard toward the Helm Warden.
The colonel flew backward. In his peripheral vision, he saw the shields strobe. Now only a couple of feet beneath his back, the glowing quantum membrane obscured the carrier. Jake gasped, but then it darkened, and he passed through unscathed.
Now above him, the force field flared again, temporarily obscuring the quickly shrinking Argonian.
"Remulkin! Why? We could have found—"
"I lost them," the scientist whispered.
"What? Who?"
"I lost my family," Thramorus said more forcefully, "lost them permanently! All because I was a hardheaded idiot."
Giard shook his head. "I don't under—"
"Shut up and listen to me. I lost my wife and kids, and I can never get them back. But you, Colonel, you have a family."
"What?"
"Sandy is pregnant, Jake. Go save her. Save your family."
In shocked silence, Giard stared up at the drifting scientist.
Suddenly, Remulkin dropped like a man falling off a cliff. With incredible speed, his figure accelerated toward the lunar surface. In moments, he dwindled and then disappeared.
Breathing hard, the scientist's voice came over the radio, weak and fading. "Now go kill the bastards, Colonel Giard."
Then he was gone.
"I will," Jake whispered.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
"Lord Thrakst, our shields are down," reported the sensor officer. "We may not survive another assault!"
From the safety of their fallback position, the Lord stared into the weapons console's display, studying the disturbed nest of enemy fighters that swarmed about his target. He smiled. His pointed black tongue nervously danced across his silver fangs. Dragging his gaze from the angry horde, he eyed the nearing planet.
Thrakst wanted to take the Tidor Drof down there and vaporize every Forebearers-damned one of them. But without shields, he'd be exposed to enemy fire, and that deep in the planet's gravity well, he'd lose the ability to parallel-jump. The Tidor Drof would be stuck, virtually defenseless.
No. He had to end this here, had to finish Tekamah now. After that, he'd take care of any stragglers. Then he could concentrate on the local Argonian infestation.
"I'm not going to allow Tekamah to escape me!" Thrakst said in a roar. He turned to the helmsman. "Take us in for three zyxyns. Then jump back out. I'll press the attack. I want to keep them pinned down until the gene weapon recharges."
He consulted the weapon's charge status. "One more attack should buy the time we need."
