Dark Space: Origin

by Jasper T. Scott

  “Frek it, I’m dead in space!” Devlin Nine said.

  “We’ve lost Six!” Five added.

  Ethan gritted his teeth. Don’t they know they’re firing on their own men?

  He lined up the corvette under his sights and snapped off a quick fire-linked burst of his own. All three lasers found their mark, taking 10% off the corvette’s aft shields. Then they equalized and it was only 5%, but it was enough to get the corvette’s attention. Suddenly it stopped firing on Ethan’s squad mates and those turrets swiveled to face him. A blinding pair of blue dymium lasers flashed by his canopy, so close that they bathed his cockpit in an azure glow. Ethan kicked his fighter up on its side and began weaving an evasive pattern, but with one of his thrusters ruined, his maneuvers were slow and clumsy. Lasers flashed by his cockpit with increasing accuracy until a pair of them hit.

  “Shields critical,” his nova’s computer reported.

  Ethan’s eyes darted to his shield gauge to see his shields in the red, barely recovering at just 12%. A couple of hits were all it would take to bring him down.

  “Devlins, I could use some help over here!” But they’d all broken off, their attention drawn by the onrushing wave of enemy novas.

  “Ruh-kah!” he heard Gina roar.

  “Hoi, missiles incoming!” another said.

  “Frek it! We’re too close!”

  “Break, break—skrsssss . . .” that last message died in static. Ethan spared a quick glance at the gravidar just in time to see his whole squadron go winking off the grid in quick succession. Their explosions lit up the holo display and rumbled through his speakers.

  Devlin Two, Gina’s fighter, was the last to go.

  Ethan stared at the grid, wide-eyed with horror.

  “Frek!” he activated his comms and switched to an open channel, no longer caring what Brondi’s reaction might be. “You just killed a whole squadron of friendlies! Congratulations. That was Aleph Squad and First Lieutenant Gina Giord, in case anyone cares.”

  Another shot from the corvette hit him and his nova shuddered.

  “Shields critical,” the computer warned again.

  “You don’t say?” Ethan snapped while increasing power to forward shields.

  “Dad? Is that you?”

  Ethan blinked. Hearing Atton’s voice interrupted his concentration just enough for another two shots from the modified corvette to find their mark. A warning siren blared through the cockpit and the computer said, “Shields depleted.” His canopy flashed again, and he heard a gritty screech of duranium. His flight suit auto-pressurized with an ear-popping hiss, and that was when Ethan noticed the jagged crack in the left side of his canopy. He turned to look out over his port wing and found nothing but a molten ruin where it had once been. Ethan tested his flight stick, but found that now the nova barely responded. At full thrust he was crawling along at just 22 KAPS. Only one of his thrusters was still lit, and it was sputtering. As Ethan watched, his HUD flickered and his holo displays went black, only to start up again a moment later, but now tinted a sickly red. He was on emergency power—back up batteries.

  “Dad! Frek—are you okay?”

  He couldn’t believe it. His son was flying that corvette. Ethan let out a shuddering sigh and keyed his comm. “Atton?”

  “I’m coming about. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, but my fighter is pretty badly scorched.”

  “Do you think you can get clear of the engagement?”

  Ethan shook his head. “No, I’m running on emergency power.”

  For a moment, neither of them was sure what to do next, and then a flurry of warning beeps flooded through Ethan’s helmet speakers. Missile locks. The Tauron’s novas were in range.

  “Atton! Tell those novas to stand down!”

  But it was too late. The beeps turned to sirens and Ethan’s hand found the red ejection lever beside his chair.

  “Ruh-kah,” he whispered, and then he pulled the lever.

  His canopy blew away as the explosive bolts fired. The flight chair shot him out into space at a modest 60 KAPS, which he felt with the crushing weight of three and a half G’s. The ejection seat cancelled only half of that force with its weak grav field, while the rest worked hard to flatten him like a pancake. For a brief instant, the weight on his spine was almost unbearable; all the blood drained away from his head and black spots swam across his vision, blotting out the stars. Then the chair’s thruster sputtered out and he began to drift at a constant rate. Ethan twisted around to see the approaching battleship and its nova escort. The novas were tiny, glinting specks against the darkness of space, but visible to the naked eye, which meant they were very close. The mighty warship behind them looked like an onrushing mountain, glittering with lights and bristling with cannons.

  Suddenly, fireworks blossomed in the foreground and over half a dozen orange contrails spiraled out of nowhere. Ethan knew what those were. He fought his seat restraints to peer down on his damaged nova. The charred and broken fighter drifted by some 200 meters below—still far too close. In a matter of seconds, when those hailfires found his ruined nova, Ethan would be incinerated by the blast.

  Chapter 28

  Time froze as Atton watched his father eject and the hailfire missiles zero in on his drifting nova. With a heart-pounding stab of adrenaline, he realized that Ethan would be too close to the blast when those missiles hit. He banked toward the incoming missiles and began firing wildly at them. The first two exploded, but there were still six more arcing toward their target. He briefly considered putting his transport between the missiles and their target, but blocking them all would be impossible—not to mention suicidal.

  Maybe he didn’t have to block them. Atton targeted his father’s derelict fighter and pushed the throttle up past the stops into overdrive. Now he was roaring along at 120 KAPS. He switched his shields to double front, dialed up the IMS to 100%, and made small course corrections based on his target’s drift. The rangefinder ticked down to just a few hundred meters, but the missiles were nearly as close. Atton had a horrible premonition of those warheads hitting the fighter at the same instant he did, and all of them exploding in a fiery spectacle.

  Then he hit the drifting nova and the transport imparted 556 m/s of kinetic energy.

  “Shields critical,” the corvette’s computer warned. Several damage alarms sounded. But the nova fighter went tumbling off into space at 440 m/s, and Atton saw the missiles arc after it just a split second later. He waited to see the fiery starburst which would signify their impact.

  But he never got to see the explosion. Instead, he heard the sudden screech of a missile lock alarm, followed by a muffled boom and a blinding flash of light.

  “Shields depleted,” the computer said as acrid smoke poured into the cockpit.

  * * *

  Caldin watched the developing confrontation with an encroaching sense of dread. The first nine kills went to Hoff’s novas and one mysterious corvette, but Brondi had hundreds of fighters left. As she watched, Hoff’s formation came into range, and the junkers dumb-fired their missiles at the Tauron, ignoring the novas completely. Hundreds of streaking missiles appeared on the grid. The Tauron and her novas opened up on them with a blinding flurry of lasers, but fully half of the missiles got through. Caldin watched the Tauron’s shields drop from 100% to 89% as impact after impact flashed along her bow. Then the Tauron went slicing through the enemy formation, taking pot shots at the odd 60 fighters which went roaring over and under her hull. Hoff’s flanking assault transports joined the fight with a few barrages from their turrets, but in the handful of seconds it took for the enemy fighters to race past, Hoff’s forces only managed to kill a squadron and a half of them. The Tauron raced on at full throttle, her rear turrets flashing out with parting shots, but those junkers would never catch up to the Tauron now. The first wave was over, but it had been the easiest one. Just on the other side of the minefield were more than 400 additional fighters, and almost half of those were
novas with military grade munitions.

  Caldin grimaced. It was going to be a very close fight. She looked up from the captain’s table to see her XO, Junior Captain Crossid Adram, standing down by the edge of the holographic dome, staring out at space. She frowned. They didn’t have long before the Tauron made her pass on the Valiant, likely just another minute. What was he doing down there? She shook her head and jogged down to Adram. Upon reaching his side, she tapped him on the shoulder, but he didn’t respond. His lips were moving and his eyes were closed, but she could hear only indistinct whispers coming out.

  “It’s a little late to be saying your prayers, Adram.”

  He opened his eyes and turned to her with a smile. “You’re right. It’s far too late for that.”

  Caldin’s brow furrowed, but she didn’t comment on whatever morbid sense of humor had provoked that smile. “I need your full attention on the grid, Adram. We’re less than a minute away from our attack window.”

  “Of course,” he replied, nodding slowly.

  Caldin turned and jogged back to the captain’s table, not waiting for him to catch up. She planted her palms on the rim of the table and gazed down on the grid, watching the Tauron nail a few mines with its cannons before roaring through the minefield. They were in, but Brondi’s fighter squadrons had just been waiting for this. Now they were all in range.

  The grid erupted with lasers, beams, and missiles. Explosions blossomed to all sides of the battleship in a blinding flurry of light. Space was so busy that she almost missed what happened next.

  All of a sudden, the minefield began to explode. Fire spread across the grid like a tidal wave. Caldin blinked and shook her head, unable to understand what she was seeing.

  “Gravidar! What’s taking out those mines?” she demanded.

  * * *

  Admiral Heston watched the battle rage around him on the holographic grid. Hundreds of missiles flashed out from Brondi’s fighters, and the battleship’s gunners answered back with a blinding stream of lasers. More than half of the missiles were shot down before they reached the Tauron, but that left his ship shuddering with the impacts of a significant remainder. Dozens of missiles impacted on all sides of the battleship, filling the bridge speakers with a muted roar. Hoff watched out the viewports as half a dozen missiles spiraled in toward the bridge itself. They splashed on the viewports in a blinding burst of light a second later, and Hoff winced away from the glare.

  So far shields were holding. They were down to 62%, but ETA until they reached firing range with the Valiant was just thirty seconds now, and they had already roared past the majority of the enemy fighters. The massive, five-kilometer-long carrier began to fill their entire view of space.

  We’re going to make it, Hoff thought. But they still had to get past the Valiant’s own defenses. After they’d hulled a baron-class cruiser with their corona beams without taking any damage themselves, Brondi’s smaller capital ships had chosen to stay back, out of range. Now Brondi was being smart. He wasn’t going to throw his more valuable ships away in a battle which he was certain to win anyway, and he didn’t need to; he had his junk fighters for that.

  Hoff watched the confusing mess of exploding missiles, darting fighters, and lancing lasers, and gave a predatory smile. Brondi had no idea that his carrier was about to be overrun with navy sentinels.

  Suddenly the grid came alive with something new. The minefield began to explode, all at once, flaring on the grid like a supernova. It was as if Brondi had pushed a button and remotely detonated all of his mines. The resultant wave of fire from those mines spread all the way around the Tauron and the Valiant in a brief, shining sphere of light. Hoff frowned as the myriad explosions began to clear.

  Why would Brondi detonate his own minefield?

  * * *

  Atton coughed on the smoke pouring into the cockpit. He sealed and pressurized his flight suit with a whisper of a command, and the maddening tickle in the back of his throat eased as he began breathing a separately filtered air supply.

  A quick look at the damage report showed minor damage to the hull and inertial management system. There was a slow fuel and pressure leak somewhere inside the port engine nacelle, and two of his stabilizer fins had been blown off, but otherwise all systems were in the green. He’d been incredibly lucky. The hailfire missile which had hit him had stripped his shields, but not much else.

  Then Atton remembered the reason he’d put himself in the path of the hailfires in the first place, and his eyes darted to the grid. He zoomed in several levels to find his father drifting away slowly at a distance of two klicks. At 33 klicks, the enemy fighter wing was already turning around to chase the Tauron. They’d be back in range of the Last Chance in just a few minutes.

  Atton targeted his father and brought the corvette around in a tight arc. He kept the throttle down so he wouldn’t overshoot. Once he came to within 50 meters of Ethan, he pulled back on the throttle and pulled up gently on the stick to cruise out overhead. He set the transport’s autopilot to maintain that position relative to his father while he cycled the rear airlock open. Using the airlock’s emergency rescue systems, he managed to get a grav lock on Ethan and pull him inside. Shutting the airlock once more, he spared a quick glance at the grid to see an entire squadron of junkers now angling toward him. Fifteen klicks.

  The Last Chance’s shield gauge glowed red at just 22%, and the enemy fighters were already moving fast. In just a few seconds they would be in firing range. There was no way he could stand and fight with 22% shields.

  Atton dialed up the inertial management system to 100%, so that his father wouldn’t roll around in the back, but the IMS only reached 98% due to recent damage. It would have to do. Atton pushed the transport’s throttle up past the stops into full overdrive. The acceleration pressed him against his seat with just a quarter of a G as the Last Chance shot away at her maximum overdrive speed of 120 KAPS.

  The enemy fighters were still gaining on them—now ten klicks away. Atton armed the transport’s scatter bomb mines, hoping to take the enemy fighters by surprise, but when they came to within five klicks, Atton heard the warning tones of multiple missile locks, and he grimaced. He’d been hoping they’d expended all of their missiles already. At this range, the enemy would easily dodge his mines. Atton set the corvette’s turrets to auto AMS in order to tag any missiles which got too close. A moment later he heard the swish of a door opening behind him and then a familiar voice. “Hoi—think you can give your old man a break? I must have bumped my head a dozen times.”

  Atton turned to see his father standing behind him, leaning heavily on the door jamb.

  “Dad! Krak it’s good to see you! Think you can man one of the turrets? We’ve got incoming enemy fighters and I’m not sure that the autos will be able to catch all of their missiles.

  “I’m on it,” Ethan said.

  There was a worrying catch in his voice, and now Atton looked at his father more closely. This time he noticed the sheen of sealant which had been sprayed on Ethan’s flight suit in at least three different places. He’d had to reseal his own suit, which could only mean one thing—he hadn’t been far enough from the blast.

  “Krak—you’re hurt. Are you okay?”

  “It’s just a little shrapnel. I’ll be all right. You saved my life, Atton. Thanks.”

  They were interrupted by the solid tone of a missile lock alarm and Atton grimaced. “You’d better hurry up with that turret.”

  “Right.” Ethan set off at a run, limping as he went, and Atton looked away, his attention back on piloting the ship. Three missiles had appeared on the grid, streaking out toward them. A few seconds later Atton heard the screech of red dymium lasers firing as his father snapped off a few shots at extreme range. He was about to tell Ethan not to waste energy, but then one of the missiles winked off the grid and he grinned. So much for maximum effective range, he thought. He watched the other two missiles chasing them vanish from the grid as Ethan nailed them with a few
more long-range shots.

  “Nice work!” he said over the intercom.

  “Thanks, I . . .” Ethan trailed off suddenly. “What the frek?”

  Atton gaped at the star map. The minefield began exploding all around them in a raging inferno. The explosions raced around the minefield in a brief, shining sphere of light that momentarily blotted out both the Tauron and the Valiant.

  “What in the nethers was that?” Atton asked as the fire receded. The last few mines went on exploding, but the majority of them had already been cleared. Either Brondi had been stupid enough to put his mines too close together, and someone had accidentally set off a chain reaction which had wiped out the entire field, or else Brondi had triggered the minefield remotely.

  “Maybe Brondi’s going to make a run for it?” Ethan asked

  “Why would he run away from a fight that he’s about to win?” The Interloper stood poised to turn the tide for the admiral’s forces, but Brondi didn’t know that. From his point of view, this should have looked liked a complete rout.

  “I don’t like the look of this,” Ethan said.

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” Atton insisted, keeping half an eye on the approaching enemy fighters. They were almost within laser range.

  Space shimmered all around them, and in the blink of an eye Atton understood. His eyes were drawn away from the handful of red enemy contacts chasing them to the thousands of red icons which suddenly appeared on the grid. A hollow sphere of red enemy contacts appeared around the Tauron and the Valiant, taking the place of the minefield which had been there a moment ago. A cold shiver ran down Atton’s spine, and he felt a crushing weight of despair. Suddenly recapturing the Valiant and bringing Brondi to justice seemed like a pointless squabble between two children.