Oblivion: The Complete Series (Books 1-9)

by Joshua James

  “Visuals,” Clarissa said before images appeared on the forward screen of the Fallen, fed by a direct feed from the Veruvian.

  There were six full-sized spherical Shapeless ships hovering by Earth’s moon, each about a third the size of it. They were huge. With them were what looked like hundreds of UEF ships. It was a sizable fleet, much bigger than what the AIC were bringing to the table.

  Congo gasped.

  “I should’ve run,” Wan said feebly.

  “Okay, we’re the first ones up,” said Ben. He felt the remaining nausea and disorientation that came with a fold jump fading away.

  “Got it!” Clarissa said. “Taking off now.” The Fallen lifted up and out of the hangar. They switched to their own forward view, which unfortunately only confirmed what they’d seen. Somewhere in his mind, Ben was hoping something was wrong.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Ada said. The Shapeless fleet was beyond anything they’d ever encountered before.

  “I guess they’re serious about this whole invading and destroying the Earth thing.” Clarissa stared, wide-eyed, as she talked.

  “This doesn’t change anything.” Ben buried his nerves. “Clarissa, give me the comms.”

  “Transferring them now.”

  “Attention all fighter squadrons. This is Ben Saito, captain of the Fallen, Reb-1. I need Reb-2, 3, 4, 5 to form on me. Reb-6 and 7, stay with the dreadnoughts and battleships,” ordered Ben.

  The crew of the Fallen waited for the dozens of AIC fighters under his command to form up. Meanwhile, Rhule had to organize the rest of the attack. He was in charge of the big boys: the battleships, warships, and dreadnoughts in his fleet. Thorne had arrived, but refused to hand over any control over any of the ships he had left.

  “Reb-1,” Rhule said over the comms.

  “Reb-1 here,” said Ben.

  “Those ships with the aliens. Are those UEF? What are they doing helping them?”

  “Those aren’t UEF, sir,” Ben said. He glanced at Ada and she nodded agreement. “They did the same thing on Vassar-1. Those are Shapeless ships. Order your men to fire on anything that isn’t AIC, at least for now. Hopefully we’ll get some reinforcements from the Earth and the moon—"

  Ben realized something horrible. They were all counting on more men and vessels from Earth’s moon, since it was traditionally the shipbuilding hub of the UEF, and the last line of defense for their home planet. But if the Shapeless were so close to it, unmolested and mimicking UEF ships, that meant that the moon must have fallen into the enemy’s hands.

  “What is it?” asked Rhule after he heard Ben pause.

  “We don’t have any help,” Ben quietly responded.

  “What do you mean, we don’t have any help?” asked Rhule. “I thought the UEF had a major base and ship port on the moon.”

  “I don’t know for sure, but I can feel it. The moon fell. We’re on our own in this fight.”

  “What the hell do you mean, we’re on our own?” asked Wan.

  “Where are all the UEF ships? They should’ve responded to a threat like this so close to the Earth...” Ada was slowly coming to the same realization that Ben had.

  “I don’t like where this is going,” Wan said. “What’s this mean?”

  “It means we have to hang on here as long as we can,” answered Clarissa. She turned to Ben. “And hope your old man gets the job done.”

  That hit Ben like a shot across the bow, but she was right. “He will,” he said, as much to himself as the others. “One way or another, he’ll come through. Trust me. For right now, though, Clarissa’s right. We need to occupy these monsters for as long as we can, keep them from going planetside.”

  “And if your old man doesn’t get it done?”

  “He will,” Ben said.

  “Even if he doesn’t,” Ada said, “there’s nothing else to be done. This is where we stop them.”

  Wan turned back around. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

  There was a loud boom. It was loud enough to shake the bones of every ship in the combined AIC fleet. When the crews inside saw the source of it, they shook themselves. It followed them.

  The Shapeless ship, the one that had stolen the planet killing weapon off Europa and destroyed the moon, arrived through the aliens’ own version of a fold jump. It made its arrival in between the AIC fleet and the moon.

  “Well, that’s not good,” pointed out Wan.

  “Doesn’t change a damn thing,” Ben said.

  “The odds,” Wan offered. “It has to change those.”

  Ben ignored him and switched his attention to the squadrons of AIC fighters that were his responsibility to lead. “Okay, Reb Squadrons. We got lots of juicy targets to hit. We’re gonna need to divide and conquer. Squad two and three, remain on me, arm your special payloads, wait until my signal to fire. Four, five and six, be as distracting as possible. Pester the thing, pretend to make bombing runs, give us some time and cover.”

  “I might be seeing you soon, babe,” Clarissa whispered under her breath. If the others heard, they said nothing.

  Clarissa flew straight towards the undulating liquid sphere of the Shapeless ship. Faux UEF fighters emerged from under the constantly moving surface. Clarissa didn’t fire back, not at first. She just focused on the ship’s shields taking as little damage as possible.

  “Why aren’t we shooting back?” asked Wan.

  “We’ve got to be patient, trust the other squads,” answered Ben.

  “Clarissa’s got it,” reassured Ada as she gripped the arm rest of her seat so hard you could see the white of her knuckles through her fair skin.

  “Damn right I do,” Clarissa said. She looked over at her husband, who stood in the cockpit next to her, smiling. He put his hand on her shoulder. “We do,” she whispered.

  Clarissa put her money where her mouth was and easily juked and weaved around incoming Shapeless gunfire. When they realized they couldn’t touch her and the Fallen, some of the aliens chose kamikaze tactics and tried to fly directly into her.

  Clarissa dodged one of the Shapeless kamikaze ships. It continued and hit one of the AIC fighters in their squadron, Reb-1. The resulting explosion rocked the Fallen a little, but not nearly enough to take the ship off course. “Crazy bastards,” she muttered under her breath.

  “Okay, Reb-4, 5 and 6, time for that covering fire. Two and three, stay close, ready your missiles, time for a run at this bastard.” Ben ordered some cover as his and two other squadrons were going to have a go at the Shapeless moon-killing ship.

  The Fallen was armed with high-powered cannons, which were typical for a Supramax Hawk, along with a whole cadre of missiles and bombs. Like every other ship in the Reb squads, half of those missiles were re-purposed, refitted with incendiary explosives or homemade electric charges at the tip that were designed to shock enough to make the Shapeless target vulnerable to the explosion that came a fraction of a second later—though there were some issues.

  Rhule and Thorne’s fleets didn’t necessarily have enough supplies to refit all their fighters with modified missiles and weaponry. They hardly had enough for their flagships to use, so only five of the fighter squadrons were even armed with them. Those were Reb-1, 2, 3, 7 and 8. Clarissa knew that Ben and Rhule had agreed that Reb-7 and 8 would stay behind to help protect the fleet. This was why Ben chose Reb-2 and 3 to follow him on the attack run while the others, armed with just traditional payloads, engaged the enemy’s faux-UEF fighters, which had the traditional weaknesses of their real-life counterparts.

  Clarissa stayed on course as cannon fire and missiles flew overhead and from behind as the other AIC fighters engaged the Shapeless faux UEF fighters all around them. Her concentration was absolute as the moon killer got bigger and bigger the closer they got.

  “Arm missiles,” Ben said.

  Ada was at the tactical board, where she armed two of the Fallen’s twelve modified missiles on board. “Done.”

  “Wait for an o
pening,” Ben said. He, like Clarissa, was focused on the Shapeless moon killer. They had to be patient. If they fired too soon, one of the alien fighters would definitely fly over to intercept it, sacrificing itself for the whole.

  “On my mark,” Ben said over the open comm with the other AIC fighter squadrons.

  The second the Fallen and the ships in its squadron were clear of the swarm of Shapeless faux UEF fighters, Ben gave the order to fire.

  A couple dozen missiles hit the Shapeless moon-killer flagship. Ben, everyone on the Fallen, and the fleet that hung back all looked to see if their improvised weapons had any effect.

  At first, it seemed like they wouldn’t be enough. Each missile that hit did some damage, but not much more than a small surface radius around each impact.

  But then the damage started to grow. Those with incendiary properties burned the liquid metal surface, turning that liquid into solid lava rock that spread out in exponentially-expanding patterns from the initial point of impact. Those with electrical properties interrupted the flow of the metallic liquid material it was made of, breaking it open, aliens sucked out into space where the holes were formed.

  Ben pumped his fist at the damage to the Shapeless’ gigantic flagships. But that joy was short-lived, because now they had the aliens’ full attention.

  All the Shapeless faux UEF fighters that had been deployed to engage the Fallen and the Reb squads changed their forms. Though still made of the same material as the human ships, they now resembled flying knives, super-aerodynamic with sharp, almost bladed ends.

  The new Shapeless fighter ships focused on Reb-1, 2 and 3, the AIC fighters that hurt the moon killer. Acting like super high-speed projectiles, they literally flew through anything in their way as they hunted and pursued the squadrons. And they were successful.

  “What the hell is happening out there?” Ben heard Thorne’s voice on his HUD. The commodore no doubt saw on his screens that his fighters were disappearing off the board, one after the other.

  Clarissa had a closer view of the mayhem. The Shapeless fighters, like massive bullets, cut through AIC fighters like they were nothing. As they emerged from the fire and wreckage of the vessel they just destroyed, they immediately moved on to the next one. But she noticed something in all the slaughter. The Shapeless fighters were so focused on them and the other two squadrons that they ignored the others.

  “You seeing this?” Clarissa said. “We’re their only target.”

  Ben nodded, seeing it too. He re-opened his comm with the squadrons under his own command. “Reb-4, 5, and 6, get these things off our backs or this will all be for nothing!”

  “Tell them to stay back,” said Clarissa.

  “What?” Ben was confused by the suggestion.

  “We’re the only ship out here fast enough to outrun these things. Have the other squadrons stay back, and try to take as many of them off our back as possible. I’m gonna fly in and make the next attack run alone.”

  Ben cocked his head. “We’re not going to do nearly enough damage—”

  “We’ll do plenty,” Clarissa said as she turned around and looked at him. “Trust me.”

  Ben didn’t like it. That was written on his face. But he did trust her. He trusted everyone in the Fallen’s cockpit, except maybe Wan. “Okay,” he said at last. “Do your thing, Clarissa.”

  Clarissa locked eyes with Ada. “Get the biggest missile we’ve got ready, and transfer firing control to me.”

  Ada’s hands danced over tactical. “It’s all yours,” she said.

  Clarissa pushed the Fallen fast enough that she separated from the pack of AIC and Shapeless fighters. “Okay, you pieces of shit. This is for my family.”

  Time seemed to slow down for her.

  “All squadrons hold back,” she heard Ben say over comms. “Provide support only.” Under his breath, she heard him say, “We’re gonna kill this son of a bitch.”

  Having a Supramax Hawk was especially useful in this situation. A high-performance ship, really a racer turned fighter, it was faster than ninety-nine percent of vessels in known space. Outrunning the Shapeless fighters was easy, but keeping something that fast under control was difficult.

  Clarissa had never flown something that could move this quickly. She struggled a little at keeping it steady as she very quickly approached her target. Her focus was on one of the openings in the Shapeless moon killer’s exterior, formed from one of the electricity-laced missiles that had hit pay dirt during the first attack run.

  Once she was close enough, Clarissa got ready to fire. The opening was just big enough to slip a missile into and hopefully blow the Shapeless ship up from the inside.

  Her finger was on the trigger when the moon killer decided to defend itself.

  Hundreds of thousands of meteor-sized spikes flew out from the Shapeless moon killer like existence’s biggest porcupine. Clarissa, reflexes on point, started to barrel roll towards the target, avoiding most of the potential ship-killing projectiles. More than a dozen cut through, though, hitting the Fallen’s shields and causing a series of eruptions in her field of view. She saw alerts on her console and ignored them.

  Six or seven AIC fighters, caught unawares, were hit and destroyed by them. Even some of the Shapeless fell victim to their own side’s weaponry.

  Able to keep her nerve, Clarissa and the Fallen were now clear and ready to punish the Shapeless moon killer flagship.

  She fired her missile.

  “Bingo,” Ada said as it slipped through the opening in the alien’s outer liquid-metal armor. Then Clarissa pulled away hard and raced to go rejoin the other squadrons.

  At first, nothing registered as Clarissa kept an eye on the screens in the Fallen’s cockpit that showed the rear camera feeds.

  For what seemed like an eternity, nothing happened.

  Then the ship seemed to tremble. A series of flames started to belch out from every opening in the Shapeless moon killer’s liquid-metal armor.

  Instead of exploding or becoming a huge lava rock floating in space, the Shapeless moon killer simply broke apart.

  At first, the pieces seemed to fall away like debris. But then something strange happened. The pieces began to shift and change shape.

  Clarissa’s heart sank as it dawned on her what was happening. The enormous vessel had turned into hundreds more Shapeless fighters, all of them turning to chase after the Fallen.

  Eight

  Closing The Case

  Sydal couldn’t believe his eyes. On his knees, he was on eye-level with his daughter, Rebecca. But it couldn’t be her. There was no way it was her.

  As the lift door started to close, Sydal caught it with his hand. He was about to push them back open, somewhat expecting that his wife and daughter wouldn’t be there this time. Perhaps it was just his imagination, or the tumor acting up. Hallucinations were part of the symptoms, a side effect of the extra pressure on his brain.

  Another hand entered the crack in the elevator doors. It was feminine and familiar. It was Maria’s hand. She opened the doors back up and knelt down.

  “You look like shit, Rowan,” she said as she placed one hand on his bloody face.

  Sydal started laughing. He couldn’t say why, but he completely lost control. The laughter mixed with tears and became a sour strange mixture of emotions.

  “You’re dead,” he pointed out.

  Maria smiled and shook her head. “No, I’m right here, with you.”

  Rebecca walked over in the adorable, slightly clumsy way she often did. She hugged Sydal. He didn’t know what to do at first. Anger was briefly added to the mix, but subsided as he felt his daughter’s arms wrap around him. He melted.

  “Come, I have someone who wants to meet you.” Maria took Sydal’s quivering hand and stood up. He did the same. Rebecca held his other hand.

  Maria led him into the halls of the penultimate floor in the base. Unlike the slaughterhouse a couple of floors below, it looked like a normal, calm office environment.
At the end of the hall was an open door that he was being led to.

  The room was huge. It was lined with wall-sized windows that wrapped almost all the way around that floor of the base and gave breathtaking views of Earth’s moon, the Earth in the distance, and the Lunar Dome.

  What the hell is happening out there?

  In the sky, gigantic spherical ships made of liquid metal hovered on one side, motionless and intimidating. Another giant spherical ship was being engaged by what looked like hundreds of fighters. Then there was an AIC fleet on the opposite side.

  The bald, pale man joined them at the windows. Next to him on either side were what looked like huge black dogs, nearly as tall as him. But they clearly weren’t canines, as their jet-black skin moved, tendrils wiggling just off the surface. Their eyes were orange burning coals and their mouths, drooling black oil, were filled with metal teeth.

  The incongruity of it all shook Sydal out of his stupor. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Your salvation, Detective,” said the Pale Man as he petted one of the alien monster dogs. “Or may I call you Rowan?”

  “You may not,” replied Sydal with hostility.

  Maria rested her head on Sydal’s shoulder. “Hear him out, honey. Please, for me.”

  But seeing those dog-like monsters reminded him that she wasn’t real. Neither was Rebecca, and his anger returned. Both were dead and this, this was all a cruel lie. He had to stay calm, though, until he got answers.

  Sydal’s first instinct was to fight, but the detective in him wanted to know why he was being singled out. Why had they gone after his family specifically? Then, when he got his answers, everything would burn.

  “What do you want with me?” he asked.

  “I want to offer you paradise, Detective. I want to offer you the chance to be reunited with your lovely family and live in peace and happiness forever. Does that sound like something you’re interested in?” responded the Pale Man. He walked over towards Sydal, leaving the alien dogs behind.