by Jay Toney
Red had a new mission for us, we would be attacking the capital ships. Our fighter could get in close, and launch the missiles from inside the defenses, ensuring a hit. ECM and PDC wouldn't have time to engage the missiles. This wasn't something Red would think of. I didn't think Jazz thought of it either, at least not without some help.
"I see you got my message."
I would have jumped out of my seat if I wasn't strapped in.
"Uncle Ares, are you going to fly with us?"
"I wouldn't miss a chance to fly with you for anything."
"I thought you couldn't interfere?"
"I am just here as an observer. I have a bad habit of thinking out loud to myself. If you should overhear me thinking, I can't stop you from acting on my thoughts."
I would have to spend more time with Ares. If there was a way to bend the rules, he knew them. He took the seat behind Demi and strapped himself in.
"Is she flying?"
"I don't have a choice, she has a ticket."
"A ticket?"
"Yes, she got a ticket good for a flight with me and her mother, for her birthday."
"Who would want a ticket to fly into combat?"
"Me! I am having so much fun."
"That is something I would only expect to hear from one of my own brats."
"Ares! Watch your language in front of Demi, " Persephone warned.
"I'm behind her, not in front of her," he laughed.
The ground crew signaled that they were complete and clear of the ship. Demi eased the throttles forward and taxied the ship to the ready line. The controller gave us the green light to take off, and Demi pushed the throttles all the way forward.
My takeoffs were at best wild. Flying any other ship, I would do the same but not this ship. The Medusa fighters were well beyond any technology we had. They were so far advanced that there was little we could back engineer and use on our other ships. The fighter was fast and dangerous. Too dangerous to fly like Demi was. It still scared the hell out of me but not our daughter. She just turned seven and didn't know any better. I took a second to glance at her. She was smiling, the same way her mother did and enjoying herself. Talking to her and telling her to be more careful would be a waste of time. She wouldn't do it. She got that from her grandmother.
The fighter quickly reached its maximum speed. The ship's SDU showed much fewer ships ahead. Losses had been taken on both sides. Search, and rescue shuttles were already picking up the pilots who had to eject. I hoped they were rescued before they decided to cut their oxygen hoses. Mike also had salvage teams recovering our disabled fighters.
This time there was so much damage that he would have to salvage the Alliance fighters to replace the ships we couldn't repair. They would have to be stripped down and rebuilt using our new technology. I had faith that his maintenance teams could do it. We would also have to accelerate pilot training aboard the Valkyrie and transfer volunteers to Beverly's ship. I had hundreds of applications in my files. More applications joined them every day. Persephone and I would have to review everyone, choosing the best.
Demi was going too fast to fly through the debris field. Instead of flying around it she changed the shields balance, doubling the strength on our forward shields and went through it anyhow. I cringed with the sound of shrapnel and small pieces of fighters impacting our hull. If it weren't for our shields and armor, we would be drifting away in a lifeless chunk of metal. None of that entered her mind. She flipped the ship and began decelerating towards the Alliance fleet.
"Your daughter has spirit. She would make a fantastic war goddess."
"Not my daughter!" Persephone shouted. "She will grow up to be a nice goddess."
"As I remember you were the queen of hell."
"Not hell. I was queen of the dead. I governed over Elysium making sure our demigods and a few exceptional mortals are rewarded in their afterlife. My ex-husband, Hades, ruled over the Asphodel Meadows. Most human souls spend eternity there. He had an area that he referred to as the pit, where he sent those souls that were evil to be punished. Hell would be considered as a paradise to them."
"Tell me, Queen of the Dead, what is to become of us when we die?"
That was the forbidden question. It was the only question Persephone refused to answer. She knew the answer, and it scared her. I was told never to ask that question again. She had my complete attention. Waiting for her to formulate an answer to Ares's question was driving me crazy.
"The Lord of All Creation has made no provision for his servants. Whether this is intentional or just forgotten is unknown to me. When we expire, we go to a void. It is a place of darkness much worse than any form of purgatory you can imagine. We dwell in this place alone for the rest of eternity."
"And yet, you came back?"
"I don't know how or why. Perhaps he saw that there was still a need for me to be here. I am thankful for every day that I am no longer in that place. I would rather spend eternity in Hades's pit than spend another day in that place."
I added a conversation with The Lord of Creation to my to-do list. My future wife and lifelong companion deserved better. I might deserve spending eternity in a place like that. There was a lot that I had to answer for, and I would do a lot more before I died but Persephone did not have any evil on her soul that was her own. What little she had come from Hades. I shared part of that burden too.
Demi flipped the ship again. We were cruising at 1500km per second, the maximum speed of the Alliance fighters. Old fashion ballistic antiaircraft rounds exploded all around us, sending shrapnel in all directions. Our daughter ignored it but took the time to balance the ship's shields. She flew straight to one of the Alliance destroyers. My first target.
Persephone focused the ship's sensors on the destroyer, scanning it, searching for critical systems and weak points. My SDU changed with the new information. The icons in the combat area were replaced with a wireframe schematic of the destroyer. The ship's critical areas were identified. Icons for environmental, shield generators, propulsion, computers, sensors, weapons, engineering, and more were added to the destroyers wireframe image. I selected the missile icon and manually targeted one of the two shield generators while Demi flew towards our objective. I waited until we were nearly on target and fired. Demi pulled up, avoiding the explosion. One generator down, one to go. She flipped the ship and changed course for the next shield tower and generator. I didn't have time for a weapons lock. I fired, and Demi banked and turned away from the destroyer. With its shields down, it would became an easy target.
The destroyer's captain knew he was out of the battle. He turned his ship away and accelerated away from the fight, trying to escape so he could make needed repairs. The crew of the Prometheus saw it. Jazz fought to win and winning meant destroying his enemies. He concentrated his fire on the damaged destroyer. There was nothing the destroyer's captain could do to avoid his weapons fire. Fortunately for the crew of the ship, they didn't last long. Jazz's weapons fire didn't hit the ship's reactors, fuel, or ammunition. It opened the ship's hull to space in several locations, cut its critical power feeds and left the ship to drift, in the dark, without power or life support.
Demi laughed with Delight and Ares joined her. "I wish I had a daughter like her. She has balls of steel."
"I assure you that she does not. Her anatomy is entirely female."
Ares laughed again. Demi changed course, heading towards a cruiser. It would take two or more missile hits to destroy it. Persephone focused the ship's sensors on the cruiser, and the SDU displayed the new targeting information. This time Demi rolled and spun the ship. The cruiser had twice the number of guns to defend against fighters that the destroyer had. It was targeting everyone they could at us.
The cruiser's shield generators were much better protected and not mounted on towers. Targeting them wouldn't help. I fired a few bursts of our 40mm cannon, sending a mix of high explosive, armor piercing, and incendiary rounds at it. Small explosions ripped armor fr
om the ships hull and opened portions of it to space. The Incendiary rounds caused ammunition packs to explode adding to the damage and causing havoc aboard the ship. We not only got their full attention, but we also got the attention of the nearest ships. We had two cruisers and a destroyer firing at us.
Demi wasn't laughing now. Her fun turned to hard work. She had to concentrate on her flying as much as I had to focus on firing the weapons. Persephone became much busier now too. On top of scanning and assigning targets, she had to manually rotate jamming frequencies against the weapons targeting us.
Demi increased our speed, making it harder to track us but easier to fly into shrapnel fired ahead of us. Metal rain peppered our hull, nanites, and ship's repair droids were kept busy trying to keep up with the damage.
"Damn!" Demi screamed. Our top engine took a hit and had to be shut down until repairs could be made. All three engines would have to be shut down in order for the droids to repair the damage. She wasn't ready to do that yet. She increased the throttles on our two working engines even more determined to see the Alliance defeated. On our next pass, I selected the Hunter-seeker missiles and targeted the bridge. It was heavily armored, but a direct hit by the missile should do the trick. I fired as soon as I got a missile lock. The bridge was completely enveloped by the explosion, very little of its structure remained.
Most of the cruiser's guns continued firing on manual control. It was no longer as effective. It's engineering officer took over command and control of the ship, using engineering as an auxiliary bridge and command center. Say what you want about the Alliance. Even I had to admit that their military was well trained.
Demi turned the ship heading back to the cruiser. I took aim, locking the Hunter-seeker missile on engineering and fired. This time when the missile detonated not only was there an explosion on the ship's belly, the explosion blew a section out of the upper deck.
I thought Demi would go after the other cruiser or one of the destroyers, I was wrong. She had her heart set on taking out the dreadnaught. We only had two Hunter-seeker missiles left. It would take a lot more to bring down the dreadnaught. I armed both of my remaining missiles. The remaining weapons on my ship, though powerful, would be like an insect sting to the warship, annoying but not deadly.
The ship accelerated faster, any faster and we wouldn't be able to fire the missiles. The dreadnaught turned its weapons towards us. Most of the weapons overshot us. Their main guns were not meant for a small ship like our fighter. They were meant to destroy other capital ships and were powerful enough to do it.
Demi bobbed and weaved flying through the red streams of plasma and laser fire. Close shots caused our shields to fluctuate and crackle. I let the missiles lock onto the highest energy source.
Maybe we would get lucky, and the missiles would destroy the dreadnaught's reactors. I got a lock tone and fired. The missiles didn't lock onto the reactors like I hoped. They detonated among the ship's propulsion units. Half of its sublight engines were damaged or destroyed in the blast, slowing the ship.
We couldn't do anything more and turned back to the Persephone. Half of the Alliance warships were damaged or destroyed. Their fleets command ship was heavily damaged and couldn't run with its remaining sublight engines. That didn't stop it or the other ships from recovering their fighters and escaping into hyperspace. Fate and her friend Karma would determine if we would meet again.
The Wrong Path
Mike had crews out salvaging what they could from the wrecks. The cruiser and destroyer were repairable but were being used for parts, ammunition, and whatever equipment we could use. Sections of armor plating, hull plating, and weapons were also being removed from the ships, and their fuel tanks emptied. A lot of what Mike was cutting away wouldn't fit aboard our ships. He had a crew assembling barges that he would tow behind the Sequoia.
The planets surrounding this sun were lifeless. Why the Alliance was here was beyond me. Not only were the planets uninhabitable, but they also didn't possess enough resources to make staying here worthwhile. We could have towed the ships to another stars system, but Mike convince me that salvaging them would a be better choice. He planned on taking everything of value and leaving the junk behind for the scavengers. We needed the time to make repairs to our ships anyway.
****
"Daddy, when can we go flying again?"
"Soon sweetheart, soon. First, we have to repair our ships. Even my Medusa fighter was damaged and needs work." Damaged was an understatement. Its top engine needed to be overhauled as soon as its exhaust nozzles cooled down. Worse was the skin. The metal was eroded to the point of uselessness. Most of the fighter's skin would have to be replaced. Molding new panels would take time, and other repairs would come first. I had two other Medusa fighters. Our daughter would inherit one as soon as she was old enough. She wasn't as afraid of flying the ships as I was.
****
Persephone was in the simulation room teaching our daughter chemistry. Demi soaked up every bit of knowledge that Persephone bestowed upon her. She learned much faster than mortal children and learned in days what it would take human children years to learn. Persephone decided she was ready to learn the sciences. Her math skills already exceeded anything I ever heard of. She mastered physics and chaos theory a month ago. She could read, write, and recite the history of the gods.
I was in bed resting, alone. Amber and Jewel were busy with the children. I should be with them and would be later, but for now, I needed to rest. Our fight with the Alliance left me exhausted.
****
"The potion is working he is asleep. He will not wake for hours. Demi will keep Persephone busy while we are with Nathaniel."
"Demi knows?"
"Of course. She suggested it."
"First we will do our work, then we will have our fun."
"Won't he realize what is happening?"
"He will believe he is dreaming."
Golden wheat swayed in the gentle breeze. It was hot under the summer sun. I still had a long ways to go before reaching home. There was a single tree a short distance away. Its shade was inviting and a few minutes out of the sun would put the spring back into my step. I removed the bota bag from my waist and took a few swallows of the sweet wine it contained.
I headed towards the tree, hastening my paste. Someone had beaten me to the tree. A beautiful young lady sat beneath the tree holding a single white rose in her hand. Her dress was loose, exposing her breasts. I would have pleasant company while I rested if she would allow me to sit in the shade with her.
"Young lady, may I share your shade," I offered her my wineskin.
She took the skin and a long drink of wine. "Thank you, kind sir. Please seat yourself with me. There is plenty of shade for two." She didn't retreat or cover herself. Instead, she patted the ground next to her indicating I should sit next to her. "You must be hot, as heavily clothed as you are. Allow me to help you with your shirt.
I had planned on making the first move, but she beat me to it. Her hands caressed my chest. It was hairless, making me look more youthful. "I am sorry, I didn't mean to be so forward. You are very handsome and muscular. I couldn't help myself. The man betrothed to me left me for a younger tavern girl. I have been alone for a fortnight."
Younger than her? She hardly looked older than her middle teens. Was I mistaken or did she just hint an invitation to be with her? There was no mistaking the message when her lips found mine.
"I am beginning to appreciate the pleasure my daughter gets from him." Demeter wasn't finished just yet. She merged her body with Nathaniel's, keeping her soul shielded from him. She waited, giving his string time to seek hers and intertwine. When it was complete, she separated. "It is done, Persephone will have the sister she always wanted. Just in time for her wedding."
"I can think of no better present. It is my turn now." Athena slipped a heart-shaped pill past Nathaniel's lips. She took her time undressing, giving the pill time to do its magic.
For
ten years the Greek army led by King Agamemnon besieged my father's city. They sought Helen and my death. They wouldn't settle for anything less. I had just spent the afternoon on the wall. Occasionally the Greeks would stop their march around our city and charge us. Today I helped repel three attacks. I was covered in sweat, blood, and dust.
Helen was waiting in my quarters. She helped remove my armor and wash the grime from my body. She refused to lay with me until I was first cleaned. She filled a bucket with fresh water from the trough in our room. Then she used a clean cloth to cleans my body and applied the scented oils she found pleasing.
I caught a glimpse of my reflection in my bronze shield. Our shields were kept polished to reflect the sun into the eyes of the Greek soldiers surrounding our city. My reflection showed a young man, perhaps 15 years of age. I was nineteen when I eloped with Helen. That was 10 years ago. My hair was white, and my body hairless. I must be more tired than I thought. My hair was dark, nearly black and my brother often teased me, calling me a bear because of all the body hair I had. Helen guided me to our bed and I took her as mine to beget a son.
"I see what you mean, it was much better this time."
Athena merged with my body. She also used care to protect her soul during the merge. She probed my mind, reliving the dream while she waited for my string to intertwine with hers. When she was done, she exited my body.
"I too will have a daughter. Neither of our daughters will be lonely now."
"We must do something about how he dresses. His choice of clothing just will not do." Demeter emptied my closet. All of my clothes were piled up then made to vanish. All that remained was my gun belt.
"I believe I have just the answer." Athena filled my closet with togas of every color and none that went below my knees. She replaced my boots with sandals.
