“I’ve run simulations… Only ships that are in the direct path of the wave escaping the small hole the satellites will punch through the shields should be affected. I’ve already warned Captain Saroudis and he’s positioning the ships accordingly. They’ll also turn off their equipment at the exact moment we beam the EMP to be sure. Simulations are one thing…”
“There’s one thing I don’t get. If the EMP knocks out their systems, won’t the shields collapse as well?”
“They should, but they won’t collapse instantly. They should still contain the bulk of the EMP shockwave.”
“Should?”
Yanis glared defensively. “Well it’s not our ship and I don’t have the exact specs now do I? I just fed the simulator whatever scan parameters we had.”
“So we could end up disabling our ships as well?”
“Yes. That’s why some of the ships are currently repositioning away from the detonation zone. We shouldn’t need too much firepower to destroy or disable the ships once it happens anyway. The ones in the detonation zones will just turn off their power for a brief moment.”
“What about ships with shields that are still up?”
“I fed that info to the simulator as well; the blast should disable any ship whose shields are under sixty percent in the blast radius.”
“That’s a lot of uncertainty.”
“If you have a better plan, I’m all ears.”
Cedric shrugged. “I don’t. I’m just thinking that it’s one hell of a gamble.”
“I agree, but we don’t have much of a choice. If we don’t destroy or at the very least disable this ship, sooner or later this battle will be over and the wrong side will win.”
Cedric was quiet for a second, and then asked, “What about power?”
“What about it?”
“When you made the calculations, did you reroute enough juice for the beaming to even happen? Since the processing power and storage requirements are astronomical here, we need to make sure we have enough juice to make this work, now don’t we?”
“Isn’t Earth’s electricity grid stable?”
“Are you serious? It’s designed to make our infrastructure run well, but when every computer on the planet starts running at full power all at once, I predict there will be a little problem.”
Yanis paled. “What do we do?”
“Give me another two minutes to hack the planet’s power grid.” Cedric sighed. “Boy, this better count as overtime.”
“You aren’t being paid anymore, remember?”
“Don’t remind me.”
Chase was losing patience with the black fighter. It was clearly the superior vessel but, for whatever reason, it seemed content to play a game of cat and mouse. A game that Chase, despite his impressive piloting skills, was doomed to lose. It was time to pull another rabbit out of his hat. He hit his comm link, and Captain Saroudis appeared on screen.
“What’s up, Chase? You seem to have bitten off more than you can chew.”
“Sure have. I need to know where we are on the plan. We need that big ship to go away so we can concentrate the rest of the fleet’s firepower on this new threat I’m dealing with right now.”
“Want me to start firing our main guns at it?”
“That would put you on the wrong side of the EMP radius, so no. But can you have a squadron of fighters loaded up with my remote control protocols?”
The captain thought about it. “We have two wings of ships coming in for reloading. I’ll dump their pilots and load the programs. But the rest of the ships aren’t ready.”
“Can they fly?”
“Probably.”
“Then load as many as you can with my programs and give me access when they’re ready.”
“Alright, Chase, hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Improvising.” He tried to smile. “Isn’t that what I do best?”
“I hope so. Hang on a second…”
“Roger that.”
The picture emptied but, after a few seconds, Saroudis returned to the screen.
“Alright, we’re ready to fire the satellites.”
“That’s great news! How about the EMP?”
“Locked, loaded, and ready to beam in shortly.”
“Very well. Make sure the squadron of fighters I requested is powered off when the EMP explodes and try to put the Destiny enough of a distance away to stay operational.”
“Still comfortable with improvisation at this point?”
“If I didn’t have to evade a possibly better pilot while talking with you, yes. But right now, it’s getting hard to manage.”
“Hang on just a few moments. I’m already transferring firing controls to you.”
“Thanks, Captain, see you on the other side.”
“Hopefully.”
The holo-display turned off. Time to get away from this part of space, or he and Sarah would get disabled along with the rest of them.
“Sarah, we need to vector away from here. We’re almost ready for the firing sequence.”
“Busy here. This pilot isn’t fucking around. I miss the dumb drones from our test flight; hell, even the scout ships. I’ve almost fired my entire ordnance at this guy; he simply does not want to die.”
“I know how you feel,” he replied. “At least yours is just a skilled pilot; mine is a freaking flying fortress too.”
“Exchange?”
He was about to say no, when he suddenly paused. “Actually, that’s not a terrible idea. My shields are reaching levels I’m no longer comfortable with.” He typed in some commands and sent them her way. “Let’s bring them both to this set of coordinates.”
“Alright. Changing course.”
“Once there, let’s face each other and fire at our respective pains in the butt.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
A couple of minutes and several thousand miles away from the satellites, Sarah and Chase came nose to nose, with their enemies still hot on their tails. Chase reconfigured his firing frequency to an ultra-powerful, single beam. He redirected every bit of energy he could to the weapons, then locked all his remaining missiles on Sarah’s attacker. As soon as they passed each other, his lasers opened a hole in the ship’s shields, and his missiles blew it to kingdom come. Unfortunately, debris from the blast rained down on his ship in the process, draining the last of its shields.
“Thanks for the assist, but you’re out of missiles,” Sarah called.
“One problem at the time.”
At that moment, Chase received the green light that both the satellites and the teleporter were ready and fully charged.
“Satellites two and three, fire now!” he shouted.
A ball of blue energy glowed for a split second on the tip of the main cannon of both satellites, before a laser of enormous proportions hit the main enemy battleship, enveloping every single fighter—friend or foe—that was in its path.
A quick look at Chase’s scans showed that the shields were down at the point of impact.
“Chase to the fleet, power down in three!”
He thought about the teleporter firing controls, activating it in the process. “Transporting now!” he added just before turning off his own systems.
But then something happened. The lights on the satellites and every enemy ship within the EMP impact range blinked uncontrollably for a second, before going black. The same thing happened on the ground and, a moment later, the entire planet went dark. He waited another few seconds before re-engaging his systems. As soon as the F-140 systems came to life, he heard Sarah on the mind link.
“Chase, did it work?” she asked breathlessly.
“I think so, but I don’t know. Hang on.” He hailed the Destiny. “Captain, package delivered. Concentrate all firepower on that big ship. Make it go away, or make damn sure it doesn’t get the opportunity to recover from this.”
“Systems rebooting. Engaging with every ship still capable, maximum firepower.”
Then every remaining Alliance ship started firing at the indestructible enemy battleship, which seemed to have been temporarily disabled by the EMP.
In a matter of seconds, they could see the impact they were having. Debris was flying, decks were taking fire. Before long, the Droxians joined in and the “indestructible” battleship didn’t stand a chance.
A strange voice echoed in Chase’s ship. “Very impressive, but it will cost you, boy.”
“Who is this? Identify yourself!” he demanded. But then, with an ominous chill, he checked his controls and realized the message hadn’t been transferred via communicators, but directly into his mind. He put his hand up automatically to his face and gazed through the view screen at the black fighter. How was that even possible?!
Then everything started to turn very bad.
Chase’s controls started blinking rapidly and he looked down to see that the fighter was gaining on Sarah, pelting her with maximum fire. It quickly tore through her shields and bits of debris started floating away into space. He immediately angled his ship to intercept, transferring all power to the engines, but even so, she only had a few seconds. As he looked on in terror, the black fighter, which wasn’t affected by the EMP blast, turned around to deliver the final blow.
“Sarah, eject!” he cried.
“I’m trying, Chase, help—”
But time seemed to stop in Chase’s brain. He realized that even at maximum thrusters, he would never arrive in time. Every moment that he and Sarah had spent together seemed to flash before his eyes and, before he realized what was happening, he was making his ship jump on instinct, shouting at the top of his lungs.
“NO!”
He re-appeared a split second after in front of Sarah’s disabled ship, taking the hit that was meant for his beloved. His instruments exploded and flames shot out the sides of his cockpit, and then…darkness.
He never realized how lonely it was, floating there in space. With all his systems down he had no way to evade his attacker and no way to call for help. He could only watch, through his cracked canopy, as the black fighter swooped around for another pass. He also felt the weightlessness of zero G now that his ship’s systems had been disabled.
At least he and Sarah would die together. The thought comforted him. But then the familiar voice of the goddess echoed in his head.
“It’s not over, Chase.”
He looked around in wonder, but then his eyes fixed on the ship. The black fighter had stopped right in front of him, so close he could almost touch it; but it paused, waiting.
“Do it already, you motherfucker!” he screamed.
“Not today,” came the same mysterious voice as before.
Then all at once, the ship turned to the side. Sarah was floating there in her cockpit. She’d been able to eject, but was now sitting there as helpless as he was. Chase watched in impotent rage as a red tractor beam seized her cockpit and lifted it to the ship.
“No!” he shouted aloud, and he began pounding on the weakened glass of his cockpit.
He punched it again and again, trying in vain to get to her, as drops of his blood floated inside the cockpit. He had to stop this! He had to save her! He had never wanted anything so much in his life.
And then all at once, his situation changed.
As if he had willed it so, he opened his eyes and found himself onboard a Manticore Alliance fighter, with his wing of remote fighters at his side onboard Destiny. He gasped and clutched automatically at the sides of the cockpit. Losing no time he launched out of the Destiny, his remote-controlled wing following once he slaved them to this craft. Was this even real? Was he hallucinating? A second later, he decided that it didn’t matter and, as soon as he entered firing range, he launched every missile he and his squadron had at the black fighter.
Of course Chase didn’t want to destroy the ship, just disable it, but no matter how many times he fired, its shields were still holding. Out of options, he started throwing the remote-controlled ships on a collision course, one by one, still to no effect.
The dark voice inside his head chuckled. Let her go. She’s mine now.
Chase made a noise somewhere between a shriek and a growl.
I told you it would cost you.
“Destiny! This is Chase. Fire on that ship with everything you’ve got!”
“Understood. Firing now,” Saroudis answered.
Streaks of blue laser fire and salvoes of missiles approached the target while Chase braced himself and hoped with all his heart that they wouldn’t blow the ship out of the sky, but at least manage to disable it.
But just before the lasers impacted with it, the black fighter disappeared, simply blinking out into nothingness instead.
Chase’s mind went black and he lost consciousness. All the fighters he was controlling turned off instantly and floated in place, becoming still pieces of debris, drifting aimlessly in the darkness of space.
24
When Chase opened his eyes, he was lying on a bed. His vision was blurry and everything sounded garbled. He thought maybe he heard a voice. It was too muffled for him to understand. His hands were throbbing with pain, though, that much was clear. He remembered how he’d pounded them to shreds upon the glass in his F-140. His head was also ringing like someone had tried to pry it open.
What had happened? He’d obviously been picked up…but had they won?
He could make out some words now, but they didn’t make sense. His vision started to clear and, little by little, he could see Daniel’s face looking down at him. One by one, his words started to puncture through.
“friend…scared…try…”
Chase raised a battered finger. “I can’t hear you. Gimme a minute.”
Daniel nodded up and down in response.
As the world around him grew progressively sharper, his mind zeroed in on Sarah. The black fighter had taken her, but where? Was he holding her captive? Was…
…was she dead already?
He turned his head weakly to Daniel. “I think I’m okay…”
Daniel’s face cleared in relief. “Good, you scared the shit out of us!”
“Where am I?”
“On board the Destiny, medical bay.”
“Did we win?”
His friend paused. “Sort of.”
“What do you mean, sort of?”
“Well, we stopped the Zarlacks, disabled their largest ship thanks to the EMP we teleported into its hull, and managed to destroy the rest of the fleet. We’re currently analyzing the disabled ship in order to develop more efficient weapons for the future. It’s been badly damaged but, if we could retrofit it, it would make a good addition to what’s left of our fleet.”
“So…we won?”
“Yeah. We won.”
“I don’t like your tone. What is it?”
“Well, you remember the Droxians?”
“Yeah, what about them?”
“We’re currently en route to Droxia now to answer for our crimes.”
Chase frowned in confusion. “What crimes? What the hell is that about?”
“Yeah...I’m a little pissed off too.” Daniel shook his head. “But if they hadn’t followed your reinforcements, we probably wouldn’t be here discussing it. We did infringe on their territory and Captain Saroudis promised we would stand trial once the battle was over.”
“Earth?”
“Many big cities destroyed, millions killed.”
“Any good news?”
“I’m afraid not.” Daniel looked at his friend gently. “We found Sarah’s ship adrift; she apparently ejected, but we couldn’t locate her cockpit. I…I’m so sorry, Chase.”
Chase felt his world crumble beneath him. “So it wasn’t a hallucination…”
“What wasn’t?”
Tears started flowing down his face. “I saw the dark fighter use a tractor beam after she ejected. It took Sarah and vanished.”
Daniel squeezed his shoulder. “Then maybe she’s still alive.”<
br />
“I hope so. I need to find her.” Chase tried to get up, but a wave of pain coursed through his body and forced him down again.
“Easy, man!” Daniel pressed him back. “You’re in no shape to go anywhere right now. As a matter of fact, I’m going to let you rest a little, okay?”
“Yeah I guess,” Chase panted as his heart rate returned to normal. “How long was I out anyway?”
“Almost a day now. Get some rest. Everything will still be here in the morning.”
Chase closed his eyes and felt more tears slip down to his neck. A day. The black fighter had a day head start on him. He tried to sit up once more, but fell back with the searing pain and decided to try to sleep. He would begin his search first thing in the morning.
“I will find you, Sarah,” he whispered in the dark. “I promise.”
Sarah slowly opened her eyes. She didn’t know where she was. It was extremely dark and the ground she was lying on was freezing. She managed to raise herself up and leaned back against a wall as her vision adjusted to the darkness. The room was small; it felt like a prison cell. She heard steps and tried to stand up, but she fell back almost immediately. Every muscle, every bone in her body, felt as though it had fallen off a skyscraper.
The door of the cell opened and a lizard man entered. Sarah reeled back in alarm, but the pain was so much that she couldn’t even try to get away. Her eyes struggled to see as the lizard swept toward her in the darkness. A strange sort of stick touched her abdomen and, the next second, she doubled over with a jolt of electricity and a scream. Then all was black.
When she came to, she was being dragged on the floor. Two lizard men had her by the arms, and when one looked her way, she quickly closed her eyes, feigning that she was still out cold. She was dragged a bit farther now. After a few moments, she squinted through her lashes. There was a long corridor in front of her and, by the looks of it, she was alone with her two guards. If she wanted to try to escape, now was as good a time as any. Maybe she could take out a lizard or two…
Universe in Flames – Ultimate 10 Book Box Set: An Epic Space Opera Adventure Page 33
