Far From Home: The Complete Series

by Tony Healey

  “Very well done” King said. “Now let’s get ourselves around them again for another pass. Try and kick ‘em in the rear this time.”

  “Aye Ma’am,” Banks and Rayne said in unison.

  10.

  Sepix grimaced as the Inflictor was dealt another series of blows. Even for a ship of her immense size, she couldn’t take hits like that forever. Already they were down to fifty percent power.

  “We can’t move in this debris field!” his helmsman said.

  Sepix strode forward and pulled the other out of his seat. He landed on the deck with his arms up to shield himself. Sepix stomped down on the Draxx’s head. With every ounce of force he could muster, the helmsman’s head popped beneath his boot. He kicked the reptile’s body across the bridge.

  “Fill his position!” he screamed. He stood to the side with his arms crossed as another Draxx hurriedly sat down at the helm console. “Fire at the asteroids. Obliterate them. Give the human pests nowhere to hide!”

  * * *

  Carn backed him into a corner with the ferocity of his attacks. Hawk felt the sweat running in rivers down his back. He panted, his eyesight foggy.

  The General, meanwhile, was as enthusiastic as ever, with no sign of flagging.

  “You grow tired, Captain,” Carn hissed. He advanced with his blade outstretched as Hawk walked backwards. “Why not surrender to me? I will make your death clean.”

  “An honourable death, General?” Hawk said. He glanced about, frantic for a way to regain the upper hand.

  He spotted it.

  Carn cocked his head to one side. “I still believe in honour on the battlefield.”

  Hawk lifted his sword, swung to the side at a thin pipe. He hoped he’d hit the right one. A second later a jet of boiling hot steam burst free from it and hit Carn in the face. With his mask it did no damage, but it was enough of a distraction to allow Hawk to go back on the offensive. He swung at Carn who recovered from the steam just in time to parry the attacks and step out of the way. Hawk pursued him across the room.

  The Inflictor rumbled beneath their feet.

  King’s getting a few hits in, Hawk thought. Now it’s my turn.

  “You talk of honour, General,” he said. He jabbed at him. Carn swept his blade to one side and backed out of the door. Hawk pressed him down the hallway, attacking the whole time. “Tell me: was there honour in your actions on Minich VI? Did an entire race have to die? Where was your so-called honour then?”

  With unbelievable strength and conviction in his own swordsmanship, Carn whacked Hawk’s blade to the right, and pinned it there against the wall.

  “There are always sacrifices,” he said.

  Hawk stared into Carn’s mirrored mask. He hoped that behind it there were eyes, and that he was locked right on them.

  The Inflictor rocked from a hit somewhere. The lights flickered out, and in that moment Hawk raised his boot and kicked his adversary in his centre. The General reeled backwards, caught unawares.

  The lights came back to life.

  “You’ll regret that,” Carn said.

  * * *

  The Inflictor fired another swarm of warheads their way. They sparkled like newborn suns before striking the other side of the rock they’d taken cover behind. The asteroid cracked open right down the middle. Banks did an about face and took them back behind a similarly large mountain of rock they’d only left minutes before. As he did, the Inflictor and the Defiant exchanged blows. Hits registered on both vessels.

  The Defiant threatened to shake apart around her.

  Hold it together old girl, Jessica thought.

  “Any word from our team yet?” she asked.

  “They’ve nearly secured the reactor chamber, but they’re still meeting some resistance,” Boi reported.

  Good job they got some of those doors closed or they’d have been ripped apart by now, Jessica thought.

  “And what about Captain Nowlan?” she asked.

  Boi shook his head. “No word. Hawk is still AWOL.”

  King looked dead ahead. Out there, on that other ship, her people were fighting an impossible fight.

  “Banks, try to keep us as close to that thing as possible without getting blown up,” Jessica said. “I want us in a position to collect our people and get the hell out of here.”

  Come on boys, she thought.

  If they didn’t make contact, then she’d have no choice but the inevitable - launch several nukes the old fashioned way. Blow the Inflictor and its diabolical crew straight into the afterlife … if they even believed in such a thing.

  11.

  They fought their way along a walkway through a huge hydroponics section. Dense with vegetation and dripping with humidity. Large plants grew on either side, and on some Hawk noticed sticky egg sacks glued to the underside of the leaves.

  He barely had time to dodge the carpet of bugs scattering their way across the walkway.

  General Carn spun on the spot, whirling his sword. Hawk stopped in his tracks and lean back away from the deathly blade. It whooshed past his head.

  As Carn regained his footing, Hawk went in and swung as hard as he could from the left. The General’s weapon flew out of his hand and clattered against the deck. Hawk held him under arrest with his blade levelled at what he still took to be Carn’s throat.

  “Stay right there, General,” he ordered. He was out of breath, his heart hammering in his ears. But, God, did he feel alive.

  “Fool,” Carn spat.

  He did the unthinkable. He reached out with his gloved hand and took hold of the blade of the kataan. Hawk was too shocked to withdraw. Carn gripped the blade tight in his fist and yanked it out of Hawk’s hand. He launched it back over his shoulder.

  “Now we are equal,” Carn said.

  Hawk jumped back. At the same time he yanked the Oberon from its holster.

  “Not quite!” he yelled.

  Carn chuckled. “Even after all this time fighting each other, you don’t understand.”

  Hawk frowned as Carn turned his back to him and walked away. He fired.

  They struck him square in the back, knocked him forward several feet. Carn looked behind him, wagged his finger at him. “Bad form to shoot a man in the back.”

  The General ran. Hawk fired after him, still in disbelief of the way his shots had little effect. Carn disappeared into the thick, soupy mists ahead.

  The decking shuddered beneath his feet as Hawk collected his kataan off the floor along with Carn’s. “Next time, General,” he said to himself as he ran back to the reactor chamber.

  12.

  “Turn the top of the cone … careful …” Swogger said. He sat propped against a nearby bulkhead and instructed Greene in how to access the timer control on the nuclear warhead. “That’s it. Now pull her out … slowly, slowly, that’s it …”

  Greene wiped the sweat running down his forehead with the back of his free hand. His hands were clammy and he blinked away the terror he felt in handling the device in this way.

  Kaminsky, Hunter and White stood point at the entrances. One of the sealed doors had Draxx working on it. Soon they’d be through. Sparks flew at the bottom as they cut around the edges, working their way up.

  Swogger craned forward to see the timer control. Greene looked up at him, took note of the change in his expression.

  “What? What is it?” he asked frantically, looking from Swogger to the weapon of mass destruction in his hands.

  “It’s damaged. The control board is blown. You see? It’s all black. Must’ve short-circuited somehow …” Swogger said.

  Greene hung his head. “So where does that leave us?”

  Swogger looked from one to the other then back to Greene. “High and dry.”

  “Commander! Movement down the corridor!” Hunter shouted.

  Hunter held his weapon at the ready, then when the approaching figure emerged from the atmospheric haze, he relaxed.

  Hawk ran into the reactor chamber, dripping swe
at. He looked about at them all.

  “Where are we?”

  “Sunk,” Greene said. He set the cone of the warhead back in place and sat back on the deck, defeated.

  The Inflictor shuddered around them.

  “What?” Hawk asked.

  “The timer circuit is blown. Without it, we can’t set a countdown sequence,” Swogger explained.

  Hawk noticed Swogger’s pale, ashen face. His eyes drifted down to the wound in the Lieutenant’s side from the Draxx fire. “Hey, are yuh okay fella?”

  “At the minute,” Swogger winced.

  Hawk looked to the other door, where the sparks rained down from the Draxx’s efforts to cut through.

  Swogger said: “We could detonate it manually.”

  Greene looked up.

  “Just a minute -” he said.

  “Commander, let the man speak,” Hawk said. “Go on.”

  “The circuit is fried, but further down there is a detonation trigger. I could stay behind and fire it manually. Might give you enough time to get back to the transport and get away from this thing before she blows …” Swogger said.

  “I won’t allow it,” Greene said, his temper up. “No way.”

  “Commander, I want to,” Swogger said. He looked down at the wound in his side. Blood gushed through his fingers. “Besides, I’m done for anyway. Let’s face it.”

  Green shook his head indignantly, got to his feet. Hawk rested a hand on his shoulder.

  “Commander, listen to the man. He’s volunteering. And to be honest, I don’t see any other option. Unless yuh wanna stay and do it yuhself?”

  Greene went to say something but Swogger beat him to it. “Commander, I’m doing this. I just need you to move me over there next to it.”

  The seconds ticked on as Greene decided. The sounds on the other side of the far door were getting louder.

  He turned to Hawk. “Give me a hand, will you?”

  They moved Swogger across to the nuke, and Greene assisted him in getting to the detonation trigger.

  “You don’t have to do this,” he said.

  “Yes I do,” Swogger said. He offered Greene his hand. They shook.

  “You’re a good man, Swogger. I just wish -“

  Swogger waved him away. “Get away. You don’t have time. Go on, before I get up and break your jaw again.”

  Greene couldn’t help but smile, despite how wrong it felt. “Goodbye Lieutenant.”

  They hustled from the reactor chamber as fast as they could, headed straight for the hangar. None of them looked back to catch a last glimpse of Swogger sat nestling a nuclear weapon, with the power of Armageddon at the push of a button.

  13.

  A commander senses when the chips are down. When the ship is sunk. So, as the Defiant launched another volley from its battery guns, Sepix braced himself for the inevitable collision of explosives against hull. He clung to a console as the Inflictor shook from side to side.

  “Auxiliary power failing,” one his command crew reported in a panicked voice. “Life support is critical.”

  It was time to go. Sepix turned to the communications officer.

  “I want my yacht ready to leave in five minutes,” he said.

  Sepix left the command deck without another word. The ship shook once more as he walked through the labyrinthine corridors that criss-crossed through the huge vessel, and he had to hold the walls on either side to keep his footing.

  Soon he was at his own private hangar, which housed the yacht and his personal fighter. The yacht had a dozen or so Draxx fussing over it. The ramp was down, and he started up it when he heard a sound behind him.

  He turned.

  “General,” Sepix said hurriedly. “Come, we must get away from the -“

  Sepix stopped. He looked down. Carn held a blaster in his hand.

  He looked up, realisation dawning on his face.

  Carn fired once. It struck the Prince in the sternum and knocked him backwards up the ramp.

  “What -” he managed to gasp. He held a clawed hand against the open hole in his chest, his vital fluids seeping through his fingers in spurts.

  General Carn strode forward, the weapon still raised in front of him.

  “There’s only room for one true leader,” he said. He stood directly over Prince Sepix. Carn aimed the blaster down at his face. “Goodbye, your majesty.”

  Sepix waved his gore-soaked hands, pleading. “Please, General, you’re making a mistake!”

  Again, Carn fired.

  The Prince’s head exploded, splattering jellified head matter everywhere. Carn didn’t stay there long enough to admire his handiwork. Within seconds he was on board. Minutes after, the yacht was ready to go.

  * * *

  The transport thundered into the hangar and clattered down on the deck. The hangar bay doors slammed shut behind them, and the environmental systems worked double time to fill the large space with breathable air again.

  “That was rough,” Greene said.

  Hawk had already unstrapped himself from the pilot’s seat.

  “You try it some time,” Hawk said back. He waited for the pressure lights to signal a go before he opened the hatch. Before Greene could say another word, Hawk was off.

  Greene got up, looked over to where Swogger had ridden in the journey across.

  “Good luck boy-o,” he said wistfully. He hurried down the ramp.

  14.

  Ensign Boi turned to face her. “Captain, we have them.”

  “Okay you heard the man, Banks, let’s get the hell out of Dodge!” King ordered.

  The Defiant turned, shaking as Banks brought her up to full thrust. Using the debris as cover, they cut across the front of the Inflictor.

  Jessica expected enemy fire to come their way, but there was none.

  Must be chaos inside that ship, she thought.

  They left the debris field, and the viewscreen changed to show the view from the Defiant’s stern. The Inflictor shrank as they sped away from it, gaining much-needed distance.

  She wondered how much longer they had on the timer before the nuke blew, unaware that as they made their escape, Lieutenant Swogger held all of their lives, literally, in his hands.

  15.

  The power waxed and waned inside the Inflictor. There was a small explosion and the Draxx soldiers bundled through, ready for action. They closed in on Swogger with weapons raised, though clearly surprised to find it was only him there and not an entire attack force.

  They broke up. Some looked about the circumference of the chamber at the multiple corpses spread eagled on the floor in pools of sticky blood and slumped over their consoles. The others pressed in on him, cautiously.

  Swogger tried to warn them off, but they didn’t understand a word. However, when they got closer and saw the detonation trigger he held in his hand, connected to the big nuke in his lap, they understood well enough. The lead Draxx warned them all back, barking orders in the guttural base language of their species. His subordinates fell behind, their visible aggression replaced by uncertainty.

  “That’s it. Stay back,” Swogger said, his voice trembling. Only seconds before he was sure they’d rip him apart. In his minds eye he’d seen himself, still alive, his limbs ripped free from his body as he screamed in agony …

  The leader watched him intently to see what he would do. Swogger realised that all the time he had the trigger, he had control of the situation.

  The lead Draxx barked further orders to the others. To Swogger’s surprise they turned and left, fast. The reptile hunkered down in front of Swogger, laid his weapon down on the deck.

  The sound of the other Draxx sprinting away outside receded. Swogger wondered if they were headed for escape pods, if the ship even had them.

  “I don’t want to do this,” Swogger said. The immensity of what he had to do struck him.

  This is where it ends for me, he thought.

  The Draxx cocked his head to one side.

  Swogge
r’s whole body dripped sweat. The wound on his side gushed blood, and he felt weak. Cold. Close to the edge.

  His grip loosened about the detonation trigger.

  “You don’t understand what I’m saying, do you? But you get what this is. You see what I’ve gotta do,” he said.

  An explosion echoed elsewhere in the ship, and the aftershock of a tremor coursed through the deck.

  Swogger felt a wave of desperation roll over him. He laughed to himself.

  He was dying, his life draining away from the hole in his side. The approximate time of his death a factor that he alone had control of.

  It was quiet in the chamber. Human and Draxx faced each other across centuries of war and destruction, united by a mutual understanding of their fate. The Draxx soldier hadn’t run with the others because he knew it was a futile effort.

  Even if they did have escape pods, the explosion would take care of them either way.

  “You know, we’re not as different as you think,” Swogger said. His voice was weak, fading. “We just wanna live … just like you …”

  His grip relaxed. The Draxx remained still.

  “I wish … I wish …” he started to say, but his words fell away, forgotten. Perhaps something of his hopes, of his dreams. Of everything he would not get a chance to see, touch, experience. Of a life lived and unlived. Whatever it was, it left him.

  He was at peace.

  He watched the Draxx soldier close his eyes, in anticipation of the inevitable, and then he did the same.

  He wondered absently if he’d feel anything when the nuke blew. If he’d even know when it happened.

  “Let’s end this,” he said. Then, before he let go of the trigger completely, with his last ounce of strength and resolve, he jammed his thumb against the trigger and the Inflictor went nova.

  16.

  Jessica held up her hand to shield her eyes.

  “Whoa …”

  The bridge was silent. Seconds later, with the intense brightness of the explosion starting to fade, the resultant shockwave rocked the Defiant from side to side as if she were an old ocean liner riding a rough sea.