I could have tried to reassure them, I could have told them that we at least had a chance to power up long enough to get the stealth systems to work. But it was still a long shot and I didn’t care enough to put any effort into calming them down. In the end, if they died, it wouldn’t matter whether they were calm. And if we made it, the team fixing the ship and myself would be seen as heroes.
I wondered what the crew would do to me if they knew how little I cared about them all. It would probably hurt. Or they’d just wrap it all up as my dedication to the mission and not to any individual or group. People were very good at lying to themselves. I knew that first hand. I’d spent most of my time with Michael convincing myself that everything would be just fine. That we’d live in a brightly pink bubble of love and happiness. Look where that line of thinking had gotten me.
I walked to the edge of the building and watched the small groups disperse. From up here they looked like undisciplined ants making their way through the rocky terrain. They’d better hurry, or they’d be squashed.
“We’re starting the final system checkup in 60 seconds,” Mark shouted from behind the open flap.
“All right, people, get ready. Let’s all keep close to the ramp. If we get the all clear, we need to board and seal the entrance. Anything that works, shields, stealth, engines, they’ll be turned on. We fly or we die. But if we have to die, we’ll die fighting.”
They cheered and pumped their fists into the air. I had given a rather motivating speech, but my only intent was to smooth my way towards my ultimate payoff. It was one of those instances where the result was well worth achieving through any means necessary.
“Green light! Green light.”
I motioned the crew to get in and just as I was following them, I spotted the first flyer in the distance. He was approaching fast and my gut twisted. I knew who it was. For some reason, despite my outward coldness, I felt retched at disappointing him.
“Lock it down,” I yelled, looking out through the small rounded window. A shocked Samandriel was gazing through it, his eyes searching mine.
The flyer’s voice couldn’t carry through the thick trapdoor, but I could read the question on his lips: why. I wish I could tell him. Samandriel had cared enough to check up on me. Sure, he was doing his job, but watching me closely and trying his best to scare me straight had not been part of it.
I did the little I could do without alerting my crew to the reasons behind my sudden openness to the Freedom Alliance cause. I smiled, a genuine, warm expression of my true feelings toward the new flyer leader. If at all possible, that small gesture stunned him even more. Sadness quickly washed over him, replacing the earlier shock. Deep down, Samandriel probably knew why.
The flyer took a step back and just breathed for a few seconds, preparing to strike. Too late. A sharp hiss preceded Tom’s voice booming through the comms, telling us all systems were up and running. Shield activating in three... two… one…
Smandriel charged and was thrown off the roof, his strong wings his only salvation. He balanced himself in the air, but stayed back. More flyers surrounded him, ready to strike, but his outstretched arms stopped them.
I could only imagine what was going through his head. He must have guessed it, though. This was an altered shield. It wasn’t our antiquated technology. It was enhanced by flyer tech. He’d never know how I got the information, but I was convinced he’d be able to identify what it was.
I turned around to a cheering crew and felt the need to be away from them.
“Go find your quarters,” I ordered and made my own way to the bridge.
“What now?” Mark asked when I reached him.
“Are all engines online?”
“Yes,” he said, grinning. “All online and responsive. I’m pretty sure they’ll all ignite.”
“They’d better, or we’re all dead,” Tom said.
“We’ve got the shields to protect us,” Mark countered. He was a bit too confident, but he wasn’t wrong. If we redirected everything to the shields, we might make it through the next couple of hours.
I laughed and shook my head. “We don’t have enough power to survive a flyer siege. We fly or we’re toast.”
“What should I do?” Mark asked, looking unsure.
“Ignite the sub-light engines, then power up the FTL drive.”
The entire ship shook as a loud boom reverberated through the valley.
“We have sub-light,” Mark cheered, then focused on the FTL. I closed my eyes, praying to whatever was out there for a stroke of luck. Sub-light might take us away from the flyers, but we’d never get far without faster than light speed.
“FTL drive online and responsive. Ready to jump in 30 seconds,” Mark announced.
“Great, keep it on standby and take us off this planet,” I grumbled.
“Aye, captain,” Mark said, his mocking evident in the smirk twisting his face.
“Keep it up, and maybe I crash us into the force field preventing us from leaving the planet’s atmosphere.”
“You wouldn’t!” Tom said, taking a step towards me.
“I am the leader of this mission. Either you stay in line and do as you’re told, or I’ll end us myself. I don’t have time to show my teeth every time one of you decides to challenge me. The only thing that attitude will get us is certain death.”
“Who the hell do you think you are?” Mark yelled and grabbed me by my shirt, pushing me close enough to feel his stale breath on my face.
I cringed at the foul smell of it and pushed back, forcing him to release me. “I think I am the one who knows the location of all refueling stations in the system. I also have access codes to couple the ship to their outlets, so that we can refuel and keep going. Or do you think the meager reserves we’ve got and the solar-powered backup systems will be enough?”
I couldn’t tell if it was my words or the clinical precision of my delivery that made them all fall silent and take a few steps back. Whatever it was, I was glad for the break. I held all their lives in my hands. They needed me as much as I needed them. At least for now. Later, things would change and alliances would be reevaluated.
“WHAT’S GOING ON?” Tom asked when the alarms went off.
“Relax, it’s just the force field around the planet. We were detected and all weapons are trained on us.”
He stared at me, blinking rapidly, his mouth opening and closing, yet he remained soundless.
“How the fuck are you so calm, kid?” Mark asked.
“I just happen to know what to do. Now, clear the command station and don’t distract me. I have to type in a shitload of response codes and I need to be perfectly focused. One tiny slip of finger and we’ll be obliterated.”
They practically ran out of my way, shushing each other, and motioning for the other people on deck to stay back and give me my space. I took a few deep breaths, trying to clear my head of everything else and focus on the long string of alphanumeric frequencies that I’d snatched from Michael’s mind. My eidetic memory didn’t mean I did not need to concentrate when typing. I was human after all.
As I took my seat and flexed my fingers, waiting to get close enough to initiate the clearance sequence, I couldn’t help noticing how devastatingly poetic fate was. Of all the people on the planet, I had to be the one to get close to Michael. Were it anyone else, we would have never gotten so far. A very low percentage of humans had minds that worked like mine. With our ever-dwindling numbers, I might as well have been the only one on the entire American continent.
Would it have been possible for anyone else to catch Michael’s eye? Was I special in any way? Had I even really mattered to him? Or was I a mere novelty? The one kid who fell in love with his father’s executioner instead of viscerally hating him.
Unknowingly, Michael had paid the dearest price possible for leaving me as he had. He’d given me everything I needed to break the embargo on all human space travel. Poetic justice? Not really. Karma’s much-sung bitchiness? I dou
bted it. As it happened at every other turn of my life, I’d just been in the right place at the right time and I also happened to have the right set of skills and abilities. It also helped that I had no regard for the Freedom Alliance and their sacrifices.
When all the lights on board were shut down, red warning signs flashed and guided the crew to safer locations on the ship. The screen of my unit came alive. Nothing but a ping that would disappear within seconds if I didn’t give the correct response. I typed in the first string of characters, my fingers shaky and my breath coming out in heavy pants. I knew the numbers and letters and when to wait for a response. I still was terrified I’d press the wrong key, knowing I only got one shot at this.
Time slowed down and sped up at the same time. Sweat broke out on my forehead and back. There wasn’t enough air, and every move the others made was as loud as a bomb detonating.
String after string, I entered the complicated combination, holding my breath every time the field receptors processed them. We were speeding towards a giant wall we couldn’t even see, but which could activate on impact and pulverize our little bird.
It seemed like too soon and hours later when the last sequence was accepted. The alarms went quiet, the normal lighting resumed, and I heard the cheers of the crew. We were good to go.
I stood on shaky legs, holding myself up against the command console. I could finally breathe again and my lungs expanded with the well-deserved treat.
“Great job, kid,” Mark said, hugging me from behind and lifting me off my feet.
“No time to celebrate,” I muttered. “The flyers won’t just stand down, twiddling their fingers. They’d have already sounded the alarms. The moment we’re safely away from the field, we have to jump to FTL.”
“Done!” Mark laughed, the sound startling me. In all the time we’d worked on the ship, I’d never heard the guy laugh.
“Get ready to press those buttons, Mark.” I turned to face the others. “Everyone non-essential to the flight into the stasis capsules. We don’t have enough provisions for all of us and the first non-manned outpost is far enough for us to run out long before we make it there.”
Because of how small our ship was, we’d stocked up on essentials only. Every available storage space was filled with fuel reserves. Food and drinkable water had been cut down to the minimum. It had all played in my favor, as we’d only been able to take a twenty-man crew, of which fifteen would be in stasis for most of the journey. The stasis capsules we had were outdated, salvaged from old Earthling ships of days past. They’d do their job though, even if they’d guzzle up precious energy.
I almost started to feel bad for everything I kept from them. They counted on me to keep them alive, but their well-being was very far down my interest list. I almost felt remorse over how little they mattered, but then the devastated faces of family members when their loved ones were caught flashed before me. Perfect rendition of screaming, crying children and wives and parents and siblings. I also remembered how my mother begged my father not to go through with his plans. Not to choose the Freedom Alliance over his own family. I remembered her pain at having lost the love of her life.
Then there was the struggle the survivors had to go through to keep their families healthy and fed and hydrated. It wasn’t easy in a devastated world where all resources were scarce. And what happened to the best of what we had? It was taken to the rebellion safe houses to either feed the Freedom Alliance and to keep them warm, or to be plastered on their ship bits and pieces. Fools, all of them. The fighters of the alliance for chasing wild geese and their families for not putting their foot down.
WITH THE CAPSULES ONLINE, the ship suddenly felt bigger. There were only five of us manning this huge pile of rejuvenated junk. Mark and Tom were on deck, steering us through the sub-space FTL pathways to the nearest automatic refueling station. Victor, the head of engineering for the Freedom Alliance, and another engineer, David, were stationed in the engine room and did rounds every hour on the hour, just to make sure no part of the ship gave out. If this patched up mess took us where I needed to be, then anything was possible in this Universe.
I feigned exhaustion and retired to my quarters. It wasn’t a hard part to play, I really was tired beyond belief. No time to sleep though. I reached to the intercom pad near my bed and turned it on. Each room was linked to the ship’s comms systems, that was how we’d communicate with each other. What I’d failed to tell them was that messages could be sent from any of these pads to anywhere in the Universe.
It wasn’t a big secret, but no one had had time to think about it. Could my communications be detected? In a real flyer ship, most definitely. On this one? We’d only managed a rudimentary comms system, to interact with the shield, the outposts, and other ships, if needed.
I entered the communication path, the codes of those targeted by my message, then waited for the connection to be made. When the pad started blinking, a pictogram of a man speaking coming up on screen, I took a deep breath.
“This is Adam of Earth. I have all flyer routes, outpost, and communication information. I have a ship with enough weapons to do some damage. If you don’t want us to start another war, I want a meeting in the Gamma 5 sector. One ship, near the biggest moon of Sauris. We detect anything else, we’ll be gone and strike elsewhere. I will contact you later with details on crew.”
I tapped the screen again, ending the recording. A message sent confirmation flashed on my screen, then it went dark. It wouldn’t be instantaneous, but my message would reach its destination at about the same time we reached the first fueling station.
As flyer ships were faster than what we were able to patch together, that would give them enough time to debate this among themselves, then make their way to Sauris. Even if they took their time arguing they’d still make it there before us.
While I had no doubt the ship I’d asked for would be there, stock full of flyers ready to crush us, I knew they wouldn’t meet the rest of my request. They’d have others, cloaked and waiting, ready to hit us with everything they had. That was okay. I’d planned for it. They, however, had no idea what I was capable of. Why and for how long I could play cat and mouse games with them.
In the end, we were all doomed anyway. No one on our ship knew this, but the Freedom Alliance’s dream of finding friendly factions willing to join us was ludicrous. No species in the vast expanse of known Universe would help us. Not because we were the only warmongering lot, but because we had a reputation of breaking alliances, treaties, and backstabbing anyone for a little gain.
Besides, we’d lost. We’d lost and history was always written by winners. They might have exaggerated our mistakes, our cruelty, and darkened all our intentions, but they weren’t lying about us either. We’d had no reason to try and become the most powerful species in the universe. It wasn’t to free ourselves, or to feed ourselves, or save our lives. It had been only because we’d wanted to control everything.
And now… here stood the best and brightest of engineers, mechanics, and electricians. Lost on a fruitless mission through deep space, while their families back home were starving. Dying of the most basic illnesses, cold, and practically naked. Freedom was more important than a happy, safe life. And you couldn’t be free on Earth, you had to be elsewhere to be free. We were indeed the petulant children of the Universe, wanting to do something for no other reason than someone saying “no” to us.
THE FUELING STATION was set on the closest moon to Alcor in the Gamma 3 sector. The small rock was tidally locked and the station built on the side facing the planet. It diminished the chances of it being hit by asteroids, or meteors, or anything, for that matter. It wasn’t perfect, but the chance of total destruction was limited. The modular structure allowed for parts of the station to survive in most cases.
The manned stations were a lot more secure, built near the planet’s orbit, with strong shields and squadrons protecting them. The problem was they each housed personnel. Personnel that would try to
capture or kill us on sight.
The automatic stations, on the other hand, were not only personnel free. They’d been built for emergencies, for the rare occasion when they were easier to reach. They were controlled by a computerized system that had only two purposes: allow anyone with approved codes to refuel and resupply; and alert the nearest manned station of its fuel and supply levels. When they were below what was considered a minimum, they’d be restocked.
I knew we had to refuel and restock as fast as we could, then get out of there. The station would wait for everything to reach our ship before sending updates to whichever other station was controlling it. After that, we had to disappear, lose ourselves in sub-space. Otherwise, if they could lock on us and track us, we’d be screwed.
“Kid, how do you know all this?” Mark asked, still fuming over the fact he couldn’t go through the entire station and see what else we could pillage.
“My business.” I shrugged and turned my back on him and Tom, who growled his displeasure.
“One of these days, we’re going to flush you into the nothingness and go on without you,” Mark said.
I turned slowly, my head tilted. “Genius idea. I am sure you’ll make it very far when all you know is how to get to this fueling station and how to get back to Earth.”
Tom crossed his arms over his chest, fists closed. “The ship registered the codes. We can manage.”
I laughed and clapped. “Another brilliant mind! Because they wouldn’t change the codes, would they? And they wouldn’t send anyone to survey this entire area.” I waved my hand at him and nodded. “Sorry, Tom, I truly forgot for a minute that all the other species out there have mental development issues.”
Matching growls were the only response I got. They would not apologize, and they would never stop questioning me. Tired as I was of always showing them why they’d all die without me, I understood. These were men used to controlling everything, knowing everything. I was forcing them to follow my lead, not knowing to where or how to get there. Never knowing my end game.
Angel's Feather (Flyer Chronicles, Book One) Page 9
