Ep.#4 - "Freedom's Dawn" (The Frontiers Saga) (37 page)

“
Great. We just had to build them good, didn’t we?!
”

“Ten seconds. Cannons hot.” The pilot watched as the distance to the targets slowly counted down. He was traveling considerably more than escape velocity now. Under normal circumstances, they would’ve burned just long enough to reach a velocity slightly faster than the missiles they pursued, allowing them to coast up on their targets. But the timing of the launch required that the missiles burn their engines all the way to their targets in order to reach them. They had to shoot at hot targets, which made it all the more difficult as they could only make minor adjustments in their course to try and hit their targets.

“Here we go!” the pilot announced. “Firing cannons!” The pilot depressed the cannon trigger on his flight control stick. Brilliant blue-white beams of energy shot out of either side of his nose in staccato bursts. “Damn it!” he swore. The brilliant burn of the missiles was becoming blinding as they grew closer. All he saw were four white-orange balls that grew larger and larger with each passing second. He continued firing, trying to swing his nose slightly from side to side in the hopes of striking that exposed portion of the bottom of the missile between the outer edge of the engine bell and the edge of the missile’s body.

At last, one of the missiles burst open and the fuel ignited in a massive fireball. The interceptors had no choice but to fly right through the fireball of propellant, unable to maneuver around it at such speeds.

“Nice shot, Jonas,” the pilot congratulated his wingman.

* * *

 “
Command, Black Dog Two! Splash one! Still firing!
” the call came over the comms. Several members of the military staff made triumphant noises, but no one was getting too excited just yet. There were still three missiles left, and time was running out.

“Two minutes to impact,” Tug said softly as they watched the display screens.

Nathan stood their staring. He had never felt so helpless in all his life. Everything that had come to be important to him was embodied in that ship, that crew. Those were his people up there, his friends. He should be there with them right now, ready to die with them—not standing here on the surface of some alien world, watching it all being played out on video screens in the hands of others. He had never felt more guilty in his life.

Jessica could see the despair in Nathan’s eyes as she stepped closer and took his hand. Neither of them looked at each other… They just kept staring, holding hands.

* * *

“Come on,” the pilot mumbled. “Hold still.” Another missile exploded without warning. “Oh Yeah! Command, Black Dog One! Splash Two! Still firing!” he announced as they flew through the fireball of the second missile.

A piece of debris not quite vaporized by the explosion struck the interceptor hard. The pilot could feel the tail of the ship jump sideways a few degrees. Alarms started going off in the cockpit. First one, then two, then ten. “Command, Black Dog One. I’m declaring an emergency. I’ve got multiple alarms—”

Something hot touched the pilot’s backside. Before he knew what was happening, a bright white-orange ball of flame leapt out around him from behind. His breath suddenly left his lungs as his faceplate began to melt away. Then everything went black.

“Shit!” Jonas exclaimed from the cockpit of his interceptor as he watched his leader’s ship explode. “Command, Black Dog Two! One is down! Repeat, One is down! He must’ve taken a debris hit in a fuel tank or something!”

“Black Dog Two, command copies. One is down. Are you still operational?”

Jonas looked around at his instruments. “Yeah, Black Dog Two is good,” he reported. He took a deep breath and repositioned himself, mentally regrouping. “Black Dog Two, re-engaging.”

Jonas squeezed his trigger again, firing away with his energy cannons once more. He swept the nose of his interceptor back and forth, but he just couldn’t seem to get the beams to find the sweet spot.

“Command, Black Dog Two. This isn’t working. I’ve got an idea. How much time do I have?”

“Black Dog Two, Command. Two minutes to impact.”

“Copy, two minutes. Black Dog Two is accelerating.”

Jonas kicked in his secondary boosters in the same manner he would as if he were attempting to climb to a higher orbit. His rate of closure increased dramatically, and within thirty seconds the two missiles were starting to fall below him as he climbed to a higher altitude than they were traveling. A few more seconds passed and the nearest missile was now below him and slightly ahead. He cut his engines and pitched his nose down, bringing his guns to bear on the missile below. At such a sharp angle, his beams cut the missile in half, rupturing its fuel tank and igniting the fuel inside. The missile exploded.

“Splash three!” he reported gleefully. His triumph was short lived as he realized that he was too close to the exploding missile. Now his interceptor was spinning wildly and he was rapidly losing speed in relation to the missile. His interceptor fell behind the missile rapidly, passing through the its contrail and scorching the outside of his ship. About then, everything in his interceptor shut down.

“Oh shit,” he exclaimed over a dead radio. He flipped switches and pressed buttons, but everything was dead. For several seconds he continued fidgeting, but nothing was working. Then he saw little puffs of smoke beginning to fill the cockpit. “Command, Black Dog Two, ejecting!” he announced as he reached down between his legs and pulled his ejection handles.

* * *

“The third missile has been destroyed,” Tug reported. He looked grimly at Nathan.

“What is it?” Nathan asked.

“The second interceptor has also been lost,” Tug told him with saddened eyes.

“How long?”

“Less than a minute,” Tug answered. “I am sorry, Nathan.”

Nathan stared at the orbital tracking display, his eyes fixed on the symbol that represented the Aurora. In a few seconds, the symbol that represented the last missile would converge on the Aurora or the Yamaro. It did not matter which ship was struck, as the explosion from one ship would undoubtedly destroy the other. This was the end of everything. Without the Aurora, he and Jessica were stranded on a world that could not defend itself against an enemy that would eventually destroy their entire civilization, replacing it with their own. Worse still was the fact that the Earth would not get its jump drive back, and would probably fall victim to a Jung invasion.

He had failed, in every sense of the word.

* * *

Commander Dumar looked down at the images displayed on his table top, his attention on the flashing icons on the orbital track display. The Corinari interceptors had taken out three of the missiles, but it had cost them both of their ships and there was still one missile left. At that moment, his attention was drawn away by a flashing light on a side screen. The light indicated that the ID search he had started earlier had found a match for the second, older man that had identified himself as the leader of the Karuzari. He read the ID description, his eyes widening. He looked at the matching picture, one taken more than thirty years ago, and his mouth fell open.

“No,” he muttered to himself in disbelief, “it cannot be.” He called out to his subordinate. “Lieutenant!”

The lieutenant responded instantly. “Yes sir.”

“Time to impact?”

“Sixty seconds, sir,” the lieutenant answered.

“Clear this room, NOW!”

The commander’s startled assistant quickly ordered more than a dozen confused personnel out of the command center. As soon as he was sure the room was cleared, he turned to exit himself.

“Wait!” the commander called, halting the young lieutenant in his tracks. “Not you; I need you,” he told him. The commander pointed to the next console over from him. “There.”

The confused lieutenant made his way over to the indicated console, unsure of what his next task might be.

“Log into that console, and confirm my abort order,” the commander instructed.

“Sir?”

“You heard me!”

“Yes sir,” the lieutenant assured him as he typed. “But why would you want to abort the missile—”

“No time to explain. Just enter your code and confirm. Then be ready to turn your key to abort on my count.”

“But sir, those ships are a direct threat to—”

“Lieutenant,” the commander said, this time in a more pleading tone, “I don’t have time to explain everything. You just have to trust that what I am doing is for the benefit of Takara.” The commander stared into the eyes of the nervous lieutenant for several seconds before continuing. “Three……two……one……abort,” he said, turning his key to the abort setting. At the same time, the lieutenant swallowed hard and turned his key as well. The green light next to the missile key on each console flashed red three times, then went off.

The commander looked at the display screen just in time to see the last missile track disappear. He breathed out a sigh of relief as he realized the last missile had been successfully aborted.

“Sir, perhaps now you can tell me why we just allowed the enemy ship to survive,” the lieutenant asked as he moved closer to his commander. He looked down and saw the ID match on the table top display. His mouth also dropped open in disbelief. “This cannot be correct.”

“It is,” the commander told him.

“But sir, that would mean—” The lieutenant never finished his sentence. It was cut short by the sudden, excruciating pain of a knife being thrust into his abdomen.

“Yes,” the commander whispered. He grabbed hold of the lieutenant’s collar and lowered him back against the table. The expression on the young man’s face was one of shock and disbelief, as his face grew pale and the life quickly drained out of him.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” the commander said as he lowered the lieutenant down onto the floor, “but there is far more at stake here than you realize, and I cannot take the chance that the wrong people might learn what you and I now know.”

The commander withdrew his knife, wiping the blade on the dead lieutenant’s clothing before replacing it into its sheath under his tunic. He quickly returned his attention to the console and began furiously typing commands to initiate a complete emergency wipe of all of the command center’s files, including the video of the Earth ship’s captain and the leader of the Karuzari. Realizing that the data wipe alone might not be enough, he also keyed in a command string that only he knew.

Commander Dumar pressed the execute button, beginning the wipe, and slowly backed away from the madly flickering computer screens. He watched as the wipe took place. Moments later, the center screen flashed the message ‘Self Destruct Sequence Initiated.’

Commander Dumar looked around the room, knowing full well that this would be the last time he would see it. He had another task to perform, and he could not send others to do it. He had to do it himself. He had to be sure it was done properly.

Chapter Ten

It had been three days since the events that had nearly plunged the Corinairans into a planetary civil war. They had seen death and destruction on a scale not experienced since the great Pentaurus wars more than thirty years ago. Friends, neighbors, and family members had been unwittingly pitted against one another. Nations had come to the brink of nuclear exchange, and visitors from the birthplace of humanity had come to their rescue in their hour of need. It did not matter if one believed in the Legend of Na-Tan or not. They had all witnessed the actions of the Aurora’s captain and her crew.

So they lined the streets of Aitkenna on this cold and rainy dawn. They stood along the main roadway that led from the spaceport, through the center of the city, and to the Walk of Heroes located in the central park of the city. The walk was nearly six kilometers long, wrapping its way around the middle of the massive park. On either side of the broad walkway were the graves of men and women that had sacrificed themselves to protect their world. Their graves were close together as there had been so many over the years, each marked with only a simple headstone showing their portrait and name laser-etched into the stone. Built into the walkway at the foot of each grave was a display screen built into the stone that, when tapped with ones foot, projected a life-sized holographic image of the person buried there. In this way, these heroes would live on for as long as their world survived.

Once a year, on Memorial Day, citizens would come to pay their respects to the fallen heroes. They would make their way down the walkway, tapping each display so that their heroes would come to life again, at least for a moment. It was usually an awe-inspiring sight to see hundreds if not thousands of holograms on display. However, it had been over three decades since any heroes had been buried here, and every year the interest in the Memorial Day tradition had waned a little bit more. This day was different. On this day, the Walk of Heroes was not only lined with holograms of the deceased, but it was also lined with the living. They stood shoulder to shoulder here, in the thousands, to watch as the ones that had fought and died for them in the recent struggle were brought forth for burial. There were hundreds of them, all carried by their brothers and sisters in arms.

The procession had started at daybreak, and was led by an honor guard in traditional Corinari dress uniforms. They were the typical nondescript black that they usually wore, only the dress version was fully trimmed in gold, and each one of them wore their service medals with pride. The honor guard was followed by a drum and bagpipe corps, playing the battle hymn of the Corinari over and over again.

For some strange reason, Nathan never tired of hearing the same lilting melody, verse after verse, as the procession made its way down the walkway. Nathan stared straight ahead as he guided the casket containing the body of Captain William Roberts, the Aurora’s original captain and the only man that Nathan had ever served under, if only briefly. He walked along the left side of the captain’s casket, his right hand grasping the anti-gravity control handle to gently float the casket down the ceremonial walkway.