Starfighter Down

by M. G. Herron

  They switched over to the Fleet comms with attentive mic discipline. When they had received their orders, Captain Osprey repeated them to her flight—a team Elya was glad to be a part of, knowing their squadron’s numbers had been depleted in the short time he’d been gone—and even more so knowing that he almost didn’t make it back.

  Never before had he felt such camaraderie with the other pilots.

  “There’s just one Mammoth left. We’re flying patrol. Keep the drones from getting within firing range and be on the lookout for torpedoes.”

  “Wilco, Raptor,” Elya said as he pressed a button in front of him. Wing-mounted blasters unfolded from their internal bays. He couldn’t see them from where he sat in the pilot’s seat, but he heard the metallic clacking sound as they extended. Hedgebot, too, clicked his claws along the edges of the cockpit as he climbed overhead, clinging to the tiny seams between the frame and the transparent aluminite panels of the cockpit shell and pulsing a soft blue-green.

  “I’m glad to be back too, pal,” Elya muttered. “Believe me.”

  Elya took a deep breath and exhaled a great sigh of satisfaction. Another pilot might have been scared to climb back into the cockpit after a crash landing like he’d experienced. But for him, there was no place he’d rather be. It felt good to have his hands back on the stick again.

  Elya closed his eyes and cast a prayer out into the great deep dark—to the universe, to Animus, to the spirit of Old Earth itself—a prayer of gratitude.

  Thank you for letting me get back on the horse.

  He’d never seen a horse except in Old Earth paintings, but the ancient maxim was clear.

  Elya flicked his broadbeam channel to squad-only comms. “Time to ride!”

  “Yeah!” Yorra’s grin practically seethed through the channel. “It’s a bug roast.”

  “Stay alert, Flight 18,” Captain Osprey cautioned.

  In a moment, he understood why. As they came around the destroyer, Elya saw them, a seemingly endless swarm of insectoid drones dotting the black expanse of space as far as the eye could see, filling every inch of emptiness and bearing down on the last Mammoth. The vast mass of Kryl hadn’t been this close on the ride up. They had made progress while his flight was re-deploying.

  Now, they were so numerous they blotted out his view of Robichar.

  “Earth’s last light!” Elya said. “There are so many of them…” Squadrons of Sabres were already engaged in battle. “We must be outnumbered a hundred to one.”

  “All we need to do,” Osprey responded, “is keep them away long enough for the Mammoth to jump to hyperspace.”

  Elya knew that only one or two ships at a time could initiate jumps from the same region without destabilizing the fabric of space-time. This last Mammoth had to wait and, while they waited, the Kryl drew near… the admiral was cutting it awfully close.

  Elya gazed through a gap in the drone cloud toward the Kryl mothership. She was too far away to see more than a bright speck, but he could tell she had parked in geosynchronous orbit and had begun to send landing vessels burning through the atmosphere of Robichar.

  “They’re landing on the moon. Shouldn't we be trying to stop them?”

  “Those aren't our orders,” Captain Osprey said.

  “Roger that,” Elya responded. Though he wanted to drop nukes on the larger ships and save Robichar from the invasion they were about to endure—even if the vast majority of citizens had already been evacuated—he knew from experience what disobeying orders could lead to, so he bit his tongue and did as Captain Osprey said.

  They joined the melee. Elya directed his anger and fear toward smoking bogeys—he got two before a torpedo launched toward the Mammoth.

  “Not this time,” Elya muttered as he fired one of his auto-targeted seeking missiles and eliminated the threat before it even got close enough to scare the Mammoth.

  No matter how many bugs they squashed, the swarm kept coming. There seemed to be a limitless supply of drones. Unlike the manned drone that had shot him down on Robichar, these didn’t seem to be very talented pilots.

  “Where do they get all these damned drones?”

  A countdown began across the Fleet-wide broadbeam.

  “Ten, nine, eight…”

  Elya fired his guns, shooting another drone.

  “Seven, six, five…”

  Lieutenant Yorra and Captain Osprey took out a drone apiece.

  “Four, three, two…”

  Elya narrowly ducked a drone that had been beaming straight toward him. He sped up, laid on his thrusters and came around upside down relative to Robichar, so that the tail number on the Mammoth appeared inverted from his point of view.

  “One.”

  The Mammoth streaked forward as it jumped into hyperspace.

  A great cheer poured through his comms.

  “Well done, starfighters,” said Admiral Miyaru over the broadbeam. “All Mammoths have jumped to safety. The evacuation is complete. All units return to the Paladin ASAP so we can join them.”

  More cheering. The frequency of the commander's message changed as she piped into their flight’s private channel.

  “Captain Osprey, Captain Nevers,” she said. “Report to War Room Two for debrief.” And she signed off.

  “And that’s our cue,” Captain Osprey said. “Head back to the destroyer, Furies. Feel free to deal with stragglers on the way, but no major detours.”

  Elya leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, breathing deeply, satisfied. Although he’d been training with the Fleet for years, for the first time, Elya felt clearly that whatever good they’d done here, none of it would have been possible without his team. Because they refused to leave him on Robichar, Elya was given the opportunity to once again be part of something bigger than himself.

  Elya opened the broadbeam channel as they were coming back around to the Paladin of Abniss. “Hey, Raptor. I gotta say something.“

  She paused. “You know you’re on the broadbeam, right, Fancypants?”

  Earth, how he hated that nickname. Elya fired his last missile and took out a drone that had veered into their path. It had separated from the bulk of the swarm, ventured off alone, and wham, space dust. He refused to let himself walk that road any longer.

  “I do,” he said in his calmest voice.

  “All right. Go ahead.”

  “I owe you an apology, Captain. I’m sorry. I should have listened to you. The truth is, some part of me will always be a refugee. Being down there on Robichar gave me a chance to relive that—to remember what it feels like to be trapped. Hunted. To have your exits cut off from you.” He took a deep breath. “To feel completely powerless. If I’m being honest, that’s why I spend so much extra time in the sim. But more training time won’t make a lick of difference if we don’t stick together. In fact, it puts us all in danger. I see that now and I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to go it alone,” she replied.

  “And I’m grateful for it. For not giving up. For coming to get me. I owe you.”

  “This one’s on us, Nevers,” Yorra chimed in. “The Fightin’ Furies watch each other’s backs!”

  “That’s right,” Osprey replied, her smile brightening her voice. Though he couldn’t see her face at the moment, Elya could picture her jutting her chin forward, fierce and proud. “You’re stuck with us now, whether you like it or not.”

  Twenty-Eight

  Captain Osprey and Captain Nevers stood and saluted sharply when Kira stepped into the war room.

  This was a different room than she and the young captain had spoken in previously, but it was identical in layout. An octagonal table took up most of the floor space in the middle of the room, with a desk-mounted holoprojector that, instead of Robichar, now showed Harmony’s glittering female avatar of choice. Captain Osprey’s eyes slid sideways as she recognized her own form in the AI’s hologram, and one of her eyebrows lifted slightly. If she thought Harmony’s obsession with her odd, she didn’t com
ment on it.

  Kira nodded at the two young officers before resting her gaze on Nevers. He had dark circles under his eyes and bore several cuts and bruises along his face and jawline, but for the most part seemed healthy and unharmed.

  “Glad to see you made it back in one piece, Captain.”

  “Thank you, sir. It’s good to be back.”

  “How are you holding up?”

  “Well, sir, all things considered, I think Hedgebot took more damage than I did.”

  The round form that had been perched unmoving on his shoulder elongated its body. “Is one of his legs different than the others?”

  “Yes, sir. Emergency field operation.”

  Kira smiled. “Smart thinking.”

  “He saved my life more than once, sir. Don’t know what I’d have done without him.”

  “You’re going to have plenty of time to reflect on it. I want you to report for mess hall cleaning duty after dinner, tonight and every other night for the next month.”

  Elya stiffened and lifted his chin. A normal person might have let their head droop, but not a Fleet pilot. “Yes, sir.”

  “And you’re running extra training drills. No pilot under my command disobeys the orders of their superior officers and goes unpunished.”

  “Yes, sir. Very wise, sir.”

  “Did I ask for your opinion, Captain?”

  “No, Admiral.”

  She let his words die and the following silence hang in the air. It felt good to see the young officers sweat and squirm.

  “Captain Osprey, you’re to join him for the first two weeks. The only reason you get a break is that you were able to locate and trap the Kryl parasite. I appreciate how you took the initiative there.”

  “Understood, sir. Thank you.”

  Captain Nevers opened his mouth, thought better of it, and closed his mouth again.

  “What is it, Captain Nevers?”

  “Sir, is the Kryl parasite still in your possession?”

  “It’s under guard in a sealed airlock. It was the only way I could be sure it wouldn’t sneak back onto the ship or infect another one of my officers.”

  Captain Osprey visibly relaxed at this news.

  “I need to show you both something,” Captain Nevers said.

  “What is it?”

  “You’ll have to see it to believe it, sir.”

  You’d be surprised what I’ve seen, boy, Kira thought. What she said was, “Very well. Lead the way.”

  A short walk across the Paladin brought the three—plus Harmony, who traveled invisibly through the halls and in Kira’s mind, like a distant thought—to an unused airlock in a remote quadrant of the ship. If Fleet mechanics needed to send out bots, or sometimes even people, to make external repairs, they’d use one of these smaller airlocks.

  The door had a rectangular window at the top and was flanked by four Fleet security guards. Each of the stoic soldiers bore a rifle slung over one shoulder. They also each had standard-issue SB-44 blasters holstered on their hips, and several stun grenades on their belts. One of them was almost as tall as Kira.

  She hadn’t needed to tell the guards to take precautions—the idea of a Kryl parasite scared the tar out of most SDF soldiers. But she did tell them to keep their assignment quiet. She preferred to keep the information under wraps. The last thing she needed was the Colonization Board catching wind of the parasite and pre-empting her efforts before she had a chance to present her case to the Executive Council or—best case scenario—to the Emperor himself.

  The four guards came to attention as they approached.

  “At ease, men. All right, Captain. What is it you wanted to show me?”

  His eyes darted between her and the guards.

  “Give us a little privacy, but keep us in your sights.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  A pair of guards moved down the hall in each direction.

  “This is what I wanted to show you.” He held up the artifact—the geode, he called it—by its handle. They’d retrieved it from a lockbox in the bridge on the way here. “A weapon made by the ancient Telos, I think. It has the power to harm the Kryl.”

  Kira blinked. “Really?”

  She cast her memory back over her decades in the war against the Kryl. Of course, there had been rumors of advanced weaponry that could kill a hundred bugs with the push of a button, or do other fanciful things, but as far as she had been able to tell, those were war stories invented by bored or desperate soldiers. As an admiral, she had access to many classified documents on such subjects, and just as with incidents of so-called ”space madness,” there had always been a simpler and more rational explanation.

  So far.

  “Skepticism is a perfectly reasonable reaction, sir. If I hadn’t seen it for myself, I’d have thought the same thing. Hedrick—the boy we brought back—tells me he found a golden cave where another object like this one had been kept, in the cave where the priest and his followers were hiding. Whether anyone else knew about the relic is unclear to me. What I do know is that when I turn this handle—” He mimed the action with his hand over the geode. “—it emits some kind of forcefield that causes excruciating pain to any Kryl within about thirty meters. I’m pretty good with machines, sir, and although I’ve examined it, I have no idea how it works. The best I can figure is that it emits radiation that is uniquely attuned to Kryl DNA.”

  As a veteran of many ugly battles with the Kryl, this idea immediately appealed to her. She imagined the special operations they could conduct with this tool. If it really did have the power to repel Kryl, it would give them a huge tactical advantage.

  “Show me.”

  Elya nodded. “I’m not sure if it will work through the airlock door… but let’s find out.”

  He turned around and walked toward the airlock. Captain Osprey stepped up to the window with Kira so they could both see the parasite in its tiny, sealed jar on the floor inside.

  “How will we know if it’s working?”

  “You’ll know.”

  Elya lifted the relic and rotated the handle one hundred and eighty degrees by applying just a hint of twisting pressure.

  Kira didn’t see anything at first. Then an emerald-tinted wave that distorted her vision, like a heat shimmer rising off the tarmac on a hot summer day, radiated outward from Elya’s position. Even the guards down the halls flinched.

  The Kryl parasite didn’t just flinch. It blew itself up to five or six times its size, easily filling the container, and then used its inflated bulk to smash itself repeatedly against the side of the jar as it struggled to escape. It moved with such force that it knocked the jar onto its side and rattled around until Kira reached out and turned Elya’s hands, deactivating the relic.

  She kept her hands on top of his as Elya stared into her face with the whites of his eyes wide and glimmering. “Wouldn’t want to let that thing loose, would you?”

  “No, sir! I’m so sorry. I’ve seen this thing in use and even I didn’t expect that strong a reaction, sir.”

  She took the geode back from him. He seemed only too happy to let it go. “How did you come by this artifact, Captain?”

  He filled her in on how the colonists he’d taken shelter with had double crossed him, then tried to give the boy, Hedrick, to the Kryl to be turned. The boy’s life was a bargaining chip they intended to trade in exchange for protection from the Kryl.

  Obviously, it didn’t work out how they’d planned. And now she was angry knowing that someone had given a child to the xenos. Such an act was tantamount to murder.

  With the practice of deep experience, Kira noticed the anger, thanked it for doing its job, and then let it go. It still took a second for the emotion to pass.

  Into the silence, Nevers spoke again. “There’s something else, sir.”

  Kira inhaled and refocused on the pilot.

  “Subject Zero, the half-human, half-Kryl mutant I told you about… When I asked about this Overmind X, she took over and spoke t
o me through it. She said they would suck Robichar dry. She also said that she was after more relics. At least that’s what it sounded like. She called them ‘the weapons of the Ancient Ones.’”

  Captain Osprey, who had been quietly stewing while Elya told his story, snapped her head up. “That can’t be good.”

  “She said the relics were their ‘Inheritance,’ whatever that means.”

  Kira pursed her lips. Are some of those war stories more true than even SDF intelligence realizes? No wonder the Kryl want the weapons for themselves. In the hands of the Solaran Empire, weapons that powerful could truly end the conflict with the Kryl once and for all.

  “It means we’ve just painted a big target on the side of our ship. Relics here, come and take ‘em!” Captain Osprey spread her hands in the air as if hanging a marquee banner, then cleared her throat and clasped her hands behind her back. “Sir.”

  “You’re not wrong, Captain,” Kira said. “But at least if we know what’s coming, we can prepare. Did you get any sense that they’ll come after this relic?”

  “Maybe? Probably not while they’re busy with Robichar. If what the boy says is true, there’s at least one more relic there. Plus whatever the Kryl normally do to strip a habitable planet of its resources.”

  She nodded and fell into thought. There was much to do. Kira now had all the evidence she needed to make the Executive Council understand that a second wave of the Kryl War was coming, but if she meant to be heard, she’d need to get an audience with the Colonization Board and lay out the case in a way that could not be ignored.

  She surfaced from her planning to see Osprey and Nevers arguing under their breath about something. “What is it?”

  “Tell her,” Captain Osprey said.

  Nevers hesitated before gathering his courage to speak again. “I’ve loved watching footage of starfighter pilots flying since I was a kid. I’d recognize his face anywhere.” He glanced at Osprey, whose eyes were hard as aluminite. “I believe that Subject Zero is—or was, at least—the legendary starfighter pilot, Captain Ruidiaz.”