Frontier's Destiny: A Space Opera Adventure, page 14
He’d stopped them once.
But he feared doing it again would be akin to a miracle.
Thirty-Five
Rixiia
Tyler drove the car over the sparse rocky terrain, riding every bump along the way. He pulled up beside a tree, and he, Yerene, and Jaliia got out.
“What are we doing in the Wildlands, Dad?” his daughter asked.
Tyler stared up the long trunk which had grown significantly taller in the last twenty-five years. It seemed like it was just yesterday that he’d come crashing down onto it, wrapping his limbs across the branches and breaking his leg.
“You know how I told you we’d have to leave home for a while?”
“Yeah?” she said.
“Well, I thought it might be fun to see some places your dad’s been since I arrived here.” He put his hand on the trunk. “This is where it all began.”
She furrowed her brow, and he smiled, doing his best to forget the pain of his leg that he still felt several years later.
They got back into the car, and he drove up the rocky cliff face to the familiar separation of rock. They left their ride again, and Tyler pointed down through the crevice leading to the underground vista where he and Nicolas had hidden for the first few months of their lives on Rixiia.
“There’s something down there I’d like to show you.”
Unafraid, Yerene and Jaliia went ahead of him into the darkness, while Tyler hung back and gazed at the stars in the night sky. Beyond them the Argo blasted away from him one last time.
“Goodbye, Jason.”
Thirty-Six
Bolan-Yerus Station
“If we have transports three and four back from the maintenance bay, we shouldn’t have any issues getting those supplies down to Zone Twenty-Six in time before the storm comes through.”
Veleru studied the holographic representation of the planetary surface of Bolan-Yerus. Below the orbiting station, an incoming weather event was imminent. One with a fury he’d never before seen. He hadn’t worked the past five years to have his dreams of turning Bolan-Yerus into a colony dashed. Not by a freak storm. It had already taken him a decade to convince the Alliance Council to try at all. Not to mention the funding he’d had to lobby for. Everyone told Veleru he was crazy.
It was said the climate of the planet wasn’t sustainable for intelligent life and that he’d fail spectacularly. But he’d proven them all wrong. With advanced techniques, his team had turned the entire ecosystem around. If he everything remained on track, he’d prove ‘extreme impact’ worlds were viable for colonization, which could home billions of Alliance citizens. Unfortunately, the huge storm was a major snag. One the Council would be watching with a keen eye.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t evacuate the colonists?” his chief aide, Rento, asked him.
Veleru scoffed at the suggestion. He regarded the twelve hundred men and women in the zone as vital to test whether inhabitants could cope with any element the planet’s climate threw at them. “If we do that, how will we know how they’ll react to the storm? Just sending them these supplies is going against my better judgment.”
“Would you at least consider evacuating the children?”/
Veleru brought up the holographic weather charts. The storm would likely cut a swathe through the region when it arrived. “No,” he said defiantly. “Everyone knew the risks when they signed up for this. It’s time to see if our people and our structures can take the beating.”
Rento shook his head. “I’d like to formally log my disagreement with this course of action.”
“Noted.” Veleru glared at him and switched off the hologram, returning to the main console to begin work on the supply distribution for the next run to the surface.
He stared through the viewport at the storm below. It was as remarkable from space as it was no doubt horrifying from the ground. In the following few hours, he’d either be hailed a hero for leading what would be a brilliant defense against the storm or a monster for allowing so many innocent people to die.
He walked to the other side of the operations center, hoping to get his mind away from the impending doom, but an alert brought him back to reality. “What is it?”
“It’s a trans-space vortex opening in orbit,” Rento told him, verifying the readings from the main station.
Veleru took a quick look at the transport schedule on the bulkhead. “That’s strange. We’re not expecting anyone for at least a week.” He peered again through the viewport at the vortex taking shape. Moments later, a swarm of menacing black vessels jumped from it and traveled in their direction. “What in the deep depths are they!”
“I’m not sure.” His aide ran his hands over the console, frantically trying to come up with some answers. “They’re certainly not Alliance ships of any kind.”
Veleru furrowed his brow. They were so far away from civilization. To see any vessels, let alone those of unknown origin, should have been impossible.
The ships continued to stream through until they ground to a halt and stopped ominously over the top of the planet. Suddenly the storm seemed inconsequential to what they were now facing.
“Are they attempting to communicate?” Veleru asked.
Rento darted his gaze over the comm instruments. “No.”
“Open a transmission and attempt to make contact.”
“They’re not replying.”
The unknown vessels got moving again and Veleru put his hands on his hips. “Where are they going now?”
“It seems they’re heading to the heart of the star system,” Rento replied.
“The sun?”
Captain Holorta awoke to the blaring of the emergency alarm on the wall.
He pulled himself upright and flung his covers aside, getting down from the lower bunk bed. He checked the time and wondered what was happening. The storm wasn’t due to hit for a few more hours, and he already had his best pilots on standby should there be any need of an evacuation.
He threw on his flight suit and pushed in the intercom panel beside the door. “This is Holorta. What’s the situation?”
From the other end of the transmission, the station administrator’s voice echoed through his barracks. “We have a tactical situation and require all our fighters scrambled immediately.”
Holorta couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t seen combat in years. Not since he’d been posted at Bolan-Yerus. He finished suiting up and got himself to the preparation room where his nine pilots had already assembled.
A holographic image revealed the unknown vessels heading in the direction of the system’s sun. They looked unlike anything he’d ever seen. Their horrific shapes sent a chill down his spine.
A hologram of Veleru emerged in front of them. “Your orders are to investigate what these ships are up to. If they pose a threat, you’re to engage them with all necessary force.”
His likeness disappeared before Holorta had an opportunity to argue. There were hundreds of vessels out there, and if their technological capability even remotely resembled their own, they wouldn’t stand a chance. But he’d faced insurmountable odds in the past and always come out on top. That was what the Company paid him for.
“Everyone to their fighters! Move!” he barked at his pilots.
They did as ordered and hurried to their wings where they powered up their engines and blasted out of the docking bay and through the doors into space.
While the unknown vessels ahead of them were menacing, they were much slower than the standard Company fighter craft. When they caught up, Holorta took detailed scans. The vast majority of the fleet were a similar style of craft, but there was one that was vastly different. His scanners were having difficulty making head nor tail of the tubular-shaped vessel.
“I’m picking up significant amounts of power emanating from the primary ship,” he relayed to his pilots.
Just as he said it, the huge craft broke off from the others, taking the lead toward the sun. “Its power level are off the charts!”
Then it fired.
A beam shot from its bow straight at the sun.
What the…?
Holorta peered at his scanners again. Something was certainly happening, even if he couldn’t see it. “It’s… The sun’s getting larger. And hotter.” While he couldn’t put his finger on what the ship had done, it couldn’t have been good. “All fighters, engage and fire at will!”
Holorta led the charge, swooping in on the large black vessel, unloading his arsenal upon it. The rest of his pilots did the same, coming in after him and dumping their firepower on the huge ship.
“It hasn’t even made a dent!” Holorta didn’t think he’d destroy the craft, but he thought there’d at least be some damage so they could disrupt its firing sequence.
The other unidentified vessels took notice and headed toward them, firing volley after volley their way. They destroyed half his squadron in the first attack.
Holorta weaved between three of the attacking ships, not ignoring the fact that the sun was getting larger at an incredibly fast rate.
Another two of his fighters fell, and his scanners alerted him that the main ship had stopped firing at the star. Then a new trans-space vortex appeared. He pulled up from it just in time to avoid being sucked in.
The enemy fleet broke off and powered toward it. From behind, the sun changed again and burst into a bigger, brighter orb, followed by a shock wave which moved in his direction.
“It’s going nova!” Holorta punched his thrusters to full and plotted a course back to Bolan-Yerus. As he passed by the planet, the shock wave smashed into it, and it crumbled into trillions of pieces of rock. The space station too disintegrated under the enormous power of the dying sun.
The shock wave blasted toward him like a tsunami. He could only outrun it for so long. With a heavy head, he thought about his family back home and hoped he might one day see them in the afterlife.
Thirty-Seven
Kione awoke to a commotion of yelling and of footsteps rushing around in every direction. The simulated house on Green Level which he called home had been turned from a quaint approximation of a rustic suburban setting into a war zone being pillaged by armed guards.
He sat up and got out of bed, while one of Doctor Tyrell’s most trusted aides approached. “What’s going on, Doctor Burke?” Kione asked him.
“All of TIAS is in lockdown,” the seasoned man told him.
“Lockdown? Why?”
Burke turned away, appearing to wait until the coast was clear. “There’s word about that Doctor Tyrell has defected.”
Kione thought back to some discussions he’d had with Tyrell in the last few months. Ever since he’d met with Takashi, the new Minister of Defense, the doctor had been acting differently. “Who are all these people?”
“The Ministry of Defense have sent a team to investigate any clues to his whereabouts.”
Kione furrowed his brow. “Do you know anything about this?”
Burke didn’t answer. Instead, he approached the door and peered around it. “Right now, you’re to stay here. I’m sure at some point they’ll want to talk to you.”
With that, he left him on his own. All Kione could do was sit and ponder. He rested his head down and wondered if he should have picked up on any more signs.
His eyes drifted closed.
When they reopened, he was no longer at the Tokyo Institute of Advanced Sciences, but back on the bridge of the Argo.
He gazed through the viewport at huge rocks bouncing around the ship like pinballs through space. They along with the Sabre, which they were connected to, had found themselves in an asteroid field.
UECS Sabre
Jason woke to the hull of the ship clanging around him. He rubbed his eyes and looked through the viewport. Large chunks of rock floated ahead of them.
Around the command deck of the Sabre, the rest of the ship’s crew were still unconscious. He unbuckled himself from his seat and ran up to the helm, punching away at the keypad.
It seemed so familiar that it felt like only yesterday he was sitting at the Raptor’s controls. Jason pumped the damaged thrusters, managing to eek out fifty percent power from them to dodge a hefty space boulder coming their way. He then steered sharp to port to avoid a collision with two more.
“What are you doing!” Commander Yurich, the Sabre’s XO boomed from the pit.
Jason continued to maneuver the ship with what control he had. “Saving our lives.” He avoided another asteroid, while more officers woke, including Captain Shila.
“Has the rest of the fleet reported in?” She unclasped her buckles and walked over to her communications officer.
Ensign Dyson shook his head. “No.”
“What are the scanners picking up?”
Yurich did his best to clean up the readings. “It’s a soup out there. All I’m reading is asteroid matter.”
Shila stepped to the helm. “Cassidy, can you clear us from the field without—”
“Killing us?” he said. “Yeah, maybe.”
Jason spotted what he hoped was a gap, but just as he fired the Sabre’s thrusters to attempt a run through it, more enormous chunks impeded the ship’s progress.
But they weren’t asteroids.
Oh God…
“Is that a—” Yurich began to say.
“CDF ship?” Jason weaved around the debris it in the nick of time. “Yeah. What’s left of it anyway.”
On the external monitors, they finally got a proper visual of their surroundings. Along with asteroids, a huge debris field danced among the stars.
“The fleet…” Shila uttered.
“Gone,” Yurich said, confirming off the scanners. “All of them. The vortex must have led to this asteroid field, and they all…”
Lieutenant Nyman regained consciousness, and Jason relinquished the controls back to the younger man.
“If all our ships are gone, can you detect any Seekers?” Shila asked.
“No,” Yurich told her. “But there is another trans-space vortex opening.”
Jason sauntered into the pit to check his scans.
Professor Petit joined him, slightly groggy. “The entire star system’s been obliterated. By the pattern of the asteroid fields, I’d say…”
“Professor?” Shila pressed as he trailed off.
“The sun’s gone nova. The only conclusion I can gather is that the Seeker weapon ship destroyed it and the resulting shock wave devastated everything in its path.”
“The weapon ship caused the star to go nova?” Jason said, unable to stop his jaw from dropping. “Is that possible?”
“We were never truly able to determine the sphere’s power. If it did this, which seems likely, it’s more formidable than even I thought.”
“It was the Seekers.”
Everyone turned to Kione entering the Sabre’s command deck.
“They’ve finally achieved what they set out to do. The destruction of their enemies.”
“And what better means than to obliterate entire star systems,” Jason said.
“If that’s the case, it appears they’re heading to their next target.” Captain Shila tapped her fingers on the graphical representation of the other vortex her XO had detected. “And without the rest of the fleet, there’s nothing to stop them but a single CDF cruiser.”
“And a beaten-up old cargo ship. Don’t forget us.” It was tongue-in-cheek on Jason’s part, but the Argo had achieved so much in its lifetime, he wasn’t about to bet against it or his crew’s resolve.
An alert sounded, and everyone checked the scanners.
“I’m detecting another trans-space vortex opening,” Petit said curiously.
“Seekers?” Jason wondered. A huge fleet swooped out of it. But instead of the dark black hulls of the Seeker ships they expected, they were met with a hodge-podge of vessels in all different shapes and colors. “The Company…”
“Are you sure?” Shila asked.
Jason stared through the viewport. “Some are similar to the vessel we found on a planetoid a few months back.”
The fleet continued to stream out, and a singular vessel broke off and maneuvered toward the Sabre. It may not have been as scary-looking as the Seeker vessels, but it was just as ominous.
Thirty-Eight
“There must be at least a hundred of them!”
“One hundred and thirty-two actually,” Commander Yurich told Jason, studying the scanners on the central command station.
Jason shared a concerned glance with Captain Shila at the vessel heading their way. “With this star system obliterated and us the only sign of life, they might think—”
“That we were the ones who did it.” She walked over to Ensign Dyson. “Open a commlink.”
The young officer did as instructed. “Commlink open.”
“Company fleet, this is Captain Shila of the UECS Sabre. We come from Earth—”
“Wait a second.” Dyson put up his hand. “Something’s happening.”
“I’ll need more than that.”
Professor Petit rushed over to him at the communications station and furrowed his brow, running his hands over the console.
“Professor?” Shila said.
Petit appeared to try to say something, but all the monitors on the command deck went haywire. “They’re using our own commlink against us!”
“He’s right,” Commander Rao said from the upper level. “They’ve locked on to our beam and are using it to hack into our systems.”
“Is there anything you can do to stop it?” Shila snapped at her chief engineer.
Rao pushed one of his junior officers from the engineering station and attempted to find an answer, but he shook his head in frustration. “We’re locked out!”
“How’s that possible?” Jason asked.
“It shouldn’t be.” Petit bit his bottom lip. “At least not with any known technology. Regardless, they’re sifting through our computers and recording huge amounts of data.”
