by Rachel Aukes
A rainbow plume of metal shards, and Yale covered his head. Sparks of burning metal landed on his skin, and he winced, brushing them away.
“Take that, you stupid Stinger!” Parks yelled with raw joy.
Yale smiled at her exhilaration, though his humor faded quickly, as there was still too much pain in his heart to bear any other emotion.
“Good work, Hell Group,” Watts said.
“Hold on to those words until we have drinks in front of us. We have another Stinger.” Shep pointed to the painted ceiling, where another orb was circling.
“Same plan as before. I’ll grab another hoverboard,” Watts said.
“I’ll get its attention,” Parks said, and fired.
The Stinger ignored the attack and, instead, changed its flight path from circling the city from overhead to dive-bombing it.
“Take it out!” Shep yelled.
They all shot at the Stinger until it disappeared behind a storefront. The explosion was exponentially greater than the one that’d taken place less than a minute earlier. This detonation sent a shock wave through the flooring, knocking everyone down. Smaller explosions followed as the pressure of the initial blast sent the Stinger through several of Jade City’s lower levels.
Yale slowly pulled himself to his feet, and he helped Parks up. Shep was already back on his feet and trudging toward the site of the kamikaze attack.
“Shep, don’t,” Watts said after she stood.
He continued walking, and the other three Hell Group members followed him. The screams had given way to sobs and whimpers, though some cries for help remained. Smoke and dust filled the air, which stank of electricity and charred plastic. It burned Yale’s eyes and scratched at his throat. Fires burned fabric curtains on storefronts. Products on shelves that hadn’t been blown away by the blast had melted into blobs of indistinguishable plastics. Chairs and tables lay tossed about, scorched.
Hell Group walked in the opposite direction of most. Some people stood in shock, staring off at nothing and no one. One woman was missing an arm. A man held something in his arms, and Yale noticed the small bloodied shoe peeking out from his embrace. A couple of people hugged each other as they stared in the direction Shep walked. “Why?” one of them called.
No one gave them an answer.
Shep continued to lead the way until he could go no farther. The floor, what had once been Jade City’s main thoroughfare, was now gone. Yale came to a stop by the pirate and looked into the hole. Through the smoking maw, he could see at least four levels below them that the Stinger had barreled through. Metal creaked, and Yale tensed. The floor could give at any moment.
He turned to say something to Shep, but the words stayed stuck in his throat. Tears had driven trails down Shep’s dust-covered face. Parks had come to a stop on Shep’s other side, and she placed a hand on his forearm. He didn’t give away any sign that he’d even noticed the gesture.
Watts stood a few feet away. She looked up from the gaping hole and gave each of them a stiff expression. “There may be more.” Her words came out intently, yet cautiously.
Everyone knew what she meant.
After another few seconds, Shep’s lips tightened. He gave a simple nod and pointed in a direction, where Yale saw a doorway in the distance, at the nearest edge of the city. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go get them.”
Chapter Fifty
Throttle checked the countdown on her screen. She tapped her intercom. “Buckle in, team. We’ll be leaving the black hole in five minutes.”
For the first time, Throttle appreciated the month in the black hole. The team was exhausted after the adrenaline-laced battle against the Swarm, and the trip gave them time to mourn the loss of Rusty.
Throttle had found the grieving process an awkward thing. Rusty hadn’t been human, didn’t even have human emotions, but he’d evolved so much over the few years she’d been around him that she wondered what he would’ve become had he been given more time. She didn’t mourn his loss as much as she had when she’d lost human crew members—she just hadn’t developed that deep a connection with him. But she still grieved his absence.
Eddy grieved far worse. He avoided the crew and remained in his workshop or cabin exclusively, except to get food from the galley. He wouldn’t talk to anyone about what had happened on the Gauntlet. Throttle wondered if Eddy blamed himself for not being able to get Rusty to the escape pod in time, though she suspected that she’d never know the answer.
Eddy had been the crew member closest to Rusty, and knowing his inability to deal with emotions in a healthy manner worried Throttle. She had spoken with Sylvian and Finn about her fear, and the trio formed a suicide watch, taking rounds to check on him at least every two hours when he was awake. The Javelin had cameras throughout the ship, but the trio had agreed to keep them turned off. No one liked the idea of being spied on.
The crew still kept busy dealing with EMP waves and making internal repairs to damages the ship had sustained from getting knocked around during the battle and at the black hole’s event horizon. Eddy’s productivity was way down. Usually, he accomplished more than anyone on the crew, but his results were few and far between. He primarily tinkered limply in his workshop and created ammunition for the rail gun.
Sylvian walked onto the bridge and buckled in at her station. She had dark circles under her eyes from the lack of sleep. Over the two trips in the black hole, Sylvian kept the busiest, monitoring systems and other administrative system tasks that Rusty had handled before. Finn and Throttle tried to help, but neither of them had the expertise needed to go deep into queries and code.
Throttle spoke. “When we get back to Free Station, I’ll put in a request for a central command computer for administering all the systems. That’ll help take a load off your job of keeping the systems up and running.”
“That’d be nice. I underestimated how much Rusty did before.” Sylvian then gave the smallest of winces. “But I don’t want another voice-command system. It feels too much like we’re replacing him.”
“Rusty was a one of a kind. We can’t replace him,” Throttle said.
The ship began to buffet.
Throttle reached for the controls. “Here we go again.”
From the trip to the Swarm system, the battle with the Swarm, conducting search and rescue, making critical repairs, and to the return trip to the Ross system, the Strike fleet had experienced more than two months. To everyone else, the Strike fleet had been away for a little over two days.
The Strike fleet had returned to find that, in those two days, the Swarm had conducted a series of brutal attacks across Ross. All ships still capable of fighting were immediately reassigned to sectors deemed at risk of attack.
The Javelin was posted at the Tumbleweed Trail along with nine other ships, the remnants of four squadrons, from the Strike fleet. Together, as the Trail group, they would stand watch over the black hole in the Tumbleweed Trail, with orders to report any Swarm movement and destroy all Swarm probes that tried to enter or depart the black hole. The group leader spread out the formation, placing two ships near the black hole’s event horizon and then another ship every five hundred miles out in a stacked half-moon position. The Javelin was placed second from last at the edge of the asteroid belt. The assumption was that they’d be spread out enough to detect any Swarm trying to use the asteroids for cloaking.
The plan seemed good in theory, at least.
The problem was the ten ships had just returned from Operation First Strike. Every vessel had some level of damage, and their power cells for their photon cannons were nearly depleted. During the time in the black hole, the Black Sheep had built more rounds for the rail gun, using debris they’d picked up during search and rescue. But the only photon chargers they had on their ship were small portable things meant to charge hand blasters. They couldn’t connect to the large, delicately thin power cell sheets used by the photon cannons.
Finn jogged onto the bridge for what s
eemed like the fiftieth time that hour.
“How many more laps are you going to take?” Throttle said.
He jogged in place while he spoke. “Maybe a hundred more. I’m feeling out of shape being cooped up on the ship so long.”
“Why aren’t you using the sparring square more? I thought that’s why you built it.”
“I am using it, but it was easier to stay in shape when Punch was on board. Otherwise, you’re just about the only one who’ll spar with me.”
“I’ll go with you on my next break,” she said.
“Okay, but I’m going to pad up before we go at it again. The last time we sparred, your blade sliced me good enough to leave a scar.”
She frowned. “Sorry. Sometimes I forget how sharp they can be.”
An alarm went off, and Throttle turned back to her panel. “We have incoming traffic. Coming in at jump speed.”
Finn ran to his seat and buckled in. “Friend or foe?”
Throttle glanced down at the group message channel. The group leader, flying in Trail One, had also picked up the blip. “I’m still waiting to hear what Trail One has to say, since they’re the farthest out. All I can tell is that whatever’s coming, it’s moving pretty damn fast.”
Finn grimaced. “Swarm, then.”
“I’m getting data on its speed now.” Her mood soured instantly. “It’s going too fast to be one of ours.”
“I’m powering up the cannon,” he said.
Throttle read the group message channel. “Trail One’s notified Free Station that we’ve picked up an enemy probe.”
“At least it’s just one. I’m not in the mood to face more than a couple of those bastards with only ten ships running low on supplies,” Finn said.
“It’s coming up on the asteroid belt, so it’s going to have to drop out of jump speed in a couple of seconds,” Throttle said.
“I’m ready for it,” Finn said.
“It’s broken out of jump speed.” Throttle tracked the Swarm probe on the navigational grid. “Trail One has engaged, but it looks like it doesn’t want to stay for tea. It’s nearly to us.”
“I’m targeting it now,” Finn said a second before he fired. He grimaced. “Those buggers are fast.” He fired again as the probe reached them. The photon beam hit the probe’s engine, and it tumbled away from the Javelin. “Got it.”
“Great hit,” Throttle said with a smile.
She sent a quick message to the flight group: Trail Two has disabled the probe.
She looked out the windshield to where the Swarm probe continued to slowly roll. As it rotated, she noticed a slice in its belly where pincers were prying open the hull like the devil’s baby carving its way out of a womb. “Aw, crap. Hit it again. It’s sending out its drones.”
Finn fired a series of shots at the probe, and it exploded in a flash that blinded Throttle for a moment. When she could read her screen again, her eyes went wide. She hit the intercom. “We have multiple probes incoming. Sylvian, we need you on the bridge. Eddy, buckle in.”
She tried to count the blips on her screen, but they were too close together. She glanced back at Finn, who was busily working on his screen. “I hope you’re ready for uninvited guests.”
“I’m getting them zeroed in.”
Sylvian ran onto the bridge. Her hair was still a mess from having just woken up.
“Sylvian, you have the rail gun and comms,” Throttle said.
“I’m on it,” she said as she buckled into her seat. “How many probes are we dealing with?”
Throttle swallowed. “Don’t know yet. It’s a cluster of them.”
“Trail One has notified Trail Two through Eight to converge on his position to keep the cluster as far from the black hole as possible.”
Throttle looked at the current location of the Swarm cluster and scowled. “No time. They’re already to Trail One.”
The cluster attacked within seconds of dropping out of jump speed near Trail One. Twenty Swarm probes fired at once. Trail One’s icon disappeared from the grid.
Throttle glared. “That first probe must’ve been a scout. It sent its cluster data on what was a ship and what was a rock.”
“That makes us next in line,” Finn said.
“Not if I can help it.” Throttle grabbed the controls and turned the Javelin to the nearest asteroid. “I’m going to get us a shield. Be ready to shoot when we pop out.”
She raced to the asteroid. The cluster was almost to them. Now that the Swarm were out of jump speed, she could see that there were at least twenty enemy ships against nine.
Not good odds.
She reached the asteroid in time and brought the Javelin up behind it. It was a small rock, which meant she had to use tighter maneuvers than usual. Rather than circling the asteroid, she twisted the Javelin around in a one-eighty. She brought the ship out from cover in a head-on collision course.
They’d assumed that the Javelin was running from them.
They assumed wrong.
Several Swarm probes cut off in different directions to avoid colliding with the Javelin. Finn and Sylvian fired nonstop, taking out two probes in their first run.
Throttle cranked the ship back toward the asteroid again, but the Swarm were now prepared and cut her off.
“Looks like they’re not going to give us another easy run,” she muttered. She pushed the ship to nearly full power and went vertical from the cluster for a second before bringing it back down and flying through the center of the cluster. The Swarm couldn’t fire without risking hitting one of their own, but Finn and Sylvian could cut loose. She didn’t see how many they took out, but she knew they had to bring down the enemy numbers by at least one or two.
Once the Javelin was through the cluster, Throttle veered back toward the asteroid. The other Trail ships had reached the location and were firing on the cluster. The probes broke their formation and began to hunt the nine ships in pairs, while another three probes broke off in a separate formation that closed off the escape route of a retreating ship. It didn’t stand a chance.
“Trail Three is down,” Sylvian announced.
The Javelin’s hull shuddered as if in response to Sylvian’s words, and Throttle saw the alarms on her panel. “We’ve been hit.” She tapped the intercom. “Eddy, I’m showing that we have a hull breach in the belly. Take a look at that.”
She flew around the asteroid, trying to put space between her and the two probes trailing, but they continued to close the distance, even as they weaved to avoid Finn’s and Sylvian’s shots.
“I’m empty,” Sylvian said.
Another blast rocked the Javelin. Throttle winced and checked her screen. Fortunately, no new alarms displayed. She brought the Javelin out from behind the rock, only to nearly collide with one of their own. She yanked the controls back, pulling away. But the probes didn’t see the other ship in time, and one of them collided with it. The pair exploded, sending debris shooting out in all directions. Metal hit the hull with heavy thuds.
“Trail Six is down,” Sylvian said.
The two probes joined the remaining Swarm in tracking the Javelin. With the chaos came a greater risk of friendly fire, and Throttle tried to put more space between her and the others.
“Trail Four is down. So is Five.”
While Throttle flew an evasive pattern to avoid being shot, she saw a ship being herded by Swarm behind it. The crew hadn’t noticed the separate enemy formation coming in for an easy shot. The Swarm fired, and the other ship blew apart. She recoiled. The Swarm was taking them out one by one.
“Trail Eight is down,” Sylvian said.
That left two ships there and another two near the black hole, against at least thirteen probes.
Finn cussed. “Photon cell’s drained. That was the last one.”
With no weapons, the crew was dependent on Throttle’s flying to avoid the Swarm. But the enemy was faster, more agile, and could communicate with each other instantaneously. She flew at full sub-speed. A r
umble reverberated through the floor, and an alarm blared.
Throttle swallowed. They’d been hit again. “We lost the engine.”
The Javelin continued in its trajectory, and she didn’t need the grid to see the cluster form up in front of them. Sylvian had clenched her eyes closed. Throttle couldn’t blame her for not wanting to see her death coming. But Throttle glared straight ahead. Bright flashes shot across the black, and she flinched, expecting to feel a surge of agony before dying. But the flashes had come from the side, and the cluster broke apart, leaving three destroyed probes behind.
Dozens of ships flew across the windshield, giving chase. The Swarm raced to the black hole. Most didn’t make it.
“We’re receiving a broadcast,” Sylvian said.
“Put it on,” Throttle said.
A woman’s voice came through the speakers. “This is Hell Group, along with a bunch of friends. We heard about a party and thought you could use some company.”
Chapter Fifty-One
The Consortium of Sol Colonies reached a vote. The election had been tight—the Defender Protocol had just barely achieved the necessary two-thirds support to be approved. But the Protocol had been approved. For the first time in history, all human-established colonies spread across the fourteen systems would be united in a war against an enemy force most had never heard of, let alone seen.
That lack of knowledge would hurt the popular vote for many of the Consortium members come election time. The chair of the Consortium, President Adrian Kuznetsov, knew that he’d likely just choked his chance for reelection, but he’d voted in favor of the Defender Protocol anyway. He had to do right by his people. The Swarm would be coming, and his people would need to be ready.
Ross system had struck a heavy first blow, but he feared that Roux’s Peacekeepers had only brought the threat faster to humanity’s doorstep.
