Fall of Icarus (10 page)

           
“All hands to battle stations,” Captain Hodge’s voice called over the ship-wide intercom channel.
 
“This is not a drill.
 
We are approaching the Terran Fleet.
 
I say again, all hands to their battle stations.”

           
Keryn and Yen looked at one another in surprise as the message began to replay, their previous encounter already forgotten.
 
They both leapt to their feet, knocking over their respective chairs in their hurry.
 
Reaching the door, Keryn glanced over her shoulder.

           
“I’ll see you at the
Cair Ilmun
,” she said, before disappearing into the hall.

           
The rush through the ship was difficult, with everyone running one way or the other as they tried to get into uniform and man their respective battle stations.
 
Keryn shoved her way past the slower movers, intent on reaching her quarters, slipping into her flight suit, and getting to her ship before the rest of her team.
 
The message had been unclear about how long they had until the Terran Fleet came into range, but Keryn wasn’t willing to take the chance of being late.
 
Reaching her quarters, she inputted her code and moved quickly into the cool darkness beyond.
 
Before the overhead lights had fully flickered to life, she was in the bedroom pulling her flight suit free from its hangar.
 
She dropped her clothes to the ground, not worrying about putting them away as she slipped into her one-piece suit.
 
Clipping her belt around her waist, she drew both her pistol and long knife from the cabinet and attached them to her belt.
 
Feeling ready, she turned and hurried toward the hangar bay.

           
Within the bay, pilots and crews ran madly from one end to the other, conducting pre-flight checks and arming the multitude of weapons tubes hanging heavily under the wings of their respective ships.
 
At the far end of the bay, Keryn saw a large group of pilots prepping a ship she hadn’t truly been exposed to before: the Weapons Platform.
 
Consisting of little more than a dozen large bore plasma missile tubes surrounding a single cockpit and engine, the Weapons Platform was capable of maneuvering closer to the enemy Destroyers before launching a dozen Cruiser-grade plasma rockets toward its target.
 
Though slow and bulky, the Weapons Platform offered yet another resource for surprising and ultimately destroying the Terran Fleet.

           
No surprise to Keryn, by the time she arrived at the
Cair Ilmun
Yen was already examining the outer hull.
 
He offered her only the briefest of acknowledgements before going back to his examination.
 
Adam placed a comforting hand on her shoulder as he passed, carrying a large arsenal of weapons before dropping them in the crew compartment.
 
Keryn felt nervous; not only because they were going to war but because this time, as she recalled from Yen telling her repeatedly, there would be no room for mistakes.
 
If she screwed up this time as she had before, she would not only lose her own life but that of Yen and Adam as well.
 
While she would mourn her own death, she refused to be responsible for the deaths of those she cared so much about.

           
The rest of her insertion team rushed over to the ship, decked in full battle armor and carrying
their own
collection of weapons.
 
Each carried a pistol and rifle and had a knife and a series of grenades strapped to their hip.
 
To her surprise, as they passed, they all offered words of encouragement and confident smiles.
 
Keryn smiled in return, feeling bolstered by their confidence in her.

           
Before she was even able to slip into the
Cair Ilmun
, she saw some of the
Duun
fighters rolling forward, pre-positioning for launch.
 
Though the message had been cryptic, Keryn quickly realized that someone knew the timeline and, judging from everyone else’s actions, they would soon be launching against the Terrans.
 
She hurried inside the
Cair Ilmun
, letting the door slide closed and seal behind her.
 
In the cool darkness of the crew compartment, she met the stern stares of the Infantry soldiers, already strapped into their seats.
 
Though no one said as much, she knew something needed to be said.

           
“I’m not the best at motivational speeches,” Keryn admitted.
 
“I’ve never had a lot of opportunities to try to motivate someone else.
 
But I don’t think I need to tell you what’s about to happen.
 
I know a lot is riding on me.
 
Hell, all of our lives are riding on my ability to fly us to one of the Terran Destroyers.
 
I may not have given you a lot of reasons to trust me before, but I promise you that I will not let you down.
 
You will get to one of the Destroyers, even if it kills me.”

           
The silence that ensued was finally broken by a gruff Pilgrim voice.
 
“We trust you, Keryn,” Adam said.
 
“Make us proud.”

           
A chorus of support broke from the rest of the team.
 
Smiling, Keryn walked up to the cockpit.
 
Sitting in the copilot’s chair, Yen nodded to her as she entered.
 
“They believe in you,” he said.
 
“We all do.”

           
“I need you to do me a favor, Yen,” Keryn said a little sheepishly, hoping not to offend him.

           
“Name it.”

           
“I need you to go back to the back and join the rest of the team.
 
If I’m going to do this, then it’s something I need to do alone.
 
You won’t always be there to support me and give me advice, so I need to learn to succeed entirely on my own.”

           
To her surprise, Yen smiled as he unbuckled his restraints.
 
Standing, he placed his hand on her shoulder.
 
“Good luck, Keryn,” he whispered.
 
He walked into the crew compartment and Keryn slid the door separating the two sections of the ship closed.
 
Alone in the cockpit, she took a deep breath before taking her seat.
 
She turned the series of switches that would start up the engine and complete the pre-flight checks.
 
As the engine warmed up, a familiar Voice spoke in her mind.

           
I know you said you want to do this alone
, the Voice said,
but I want you to know that I’m here to support you.
 
No matter the differences we’ve had in the past, you and I are eternally one mind.
 
Without you, I can’t exist.
 
Whether you want me here or not, I will do everything I can to help.
 
I won’t let us die today.

           
Surprising even herself, Keryn smiled.
 
“For once, I’m glad to have you here.”

           
Pushing forward on the controls, the
Cair Ilmun
rolled out of its alcove and took its place amongst the other ships preparing for launch.

           
As the
Revolution
entered the galaxy, the dozen ships in its Fleet spread out in a two ship tall line and advanced on the central planets of the system.
 
Having already detected the Cruisers on radar, the Terran Destroyers were similarly aligned in anticipation of the grueling battle to come.

           
“All Cruisers, this is Captain Hodge,” the message proclaimed from the
Revolution
’s bridge.
 
“The enemy has decided to stand and fight, which will lessen the work that we will have to do in pursuing them.
 
Hold your line until my order.
 
Arm all plasma warheads, load all rail guns, and await my orders.
 
On my mark, prepare to deploy the Squadrons.
 
And, for everyone, Gods’ speed.”

CHAPTER SIX

           
Both ranks of ships fired their initial volleys before the fighters had the opportunity to launch from their underbellies.
 
Across the inky void, plasma rockets streamed, their smoky exhausts filling space with intricate weaves of overlapping trajectories.
 
Near the center of the battlefield, blue and purple plasma explosions blossomed soundlessly, turning the front view screens of the Cruisers into brilliant, colorful displays while, simultaneously, masking the movements of the enemy ships.

           
With their actions blocked from the Terran Fleet, the Alliance Cruisers began firing massive barrages of rail gun slugs.
 
Though a bit archaic when compared to the complexities of the plasma warheads, the rail guns were some of the most effective weapons in the Fleet’s arsenal.
 
Built of three parallel metal bars, set in a triangle pattern, the rails of the guns were heavily magnetized.
 
Large metal slugs, oppositely polarized from the rails, hovered in between the rails until propelled forward, where small grooves in the metal rails projected the magnetic fields forward, launching the slugs from the Cruisers at high velocities.
 
In the frictionless space, the slugs never lost their kinetic energy until striking a solid object, like a planet or, in this case, a Terran Destroyer.

           
The slugs from both sides raced through the darkness, their matte coatings leaving them nearly invisible against the backdrop of distant space.
 
On the
Cair Ilmun
, Keryn gritted her teeth as the
Revolution
shook from impacts.
 
Her view blinded by the hangar bay door that still remained closed, she could only imagine the damage being done to the ship and hope that they would soon have the opportunity to launch, preferably before the
Revolution
was destroyed from counter fire.
 
Keryn had never been fully engaged in space combat like this before, which left her irritable and scared.
 
Though she didn’t know what she would face beyond the confines of the
Revolution
, she finally began to understand how the Infantry in the crew compartment behind her must feel.
 
She would rather take her chances against an armada of Terran ships than sit in the belly of a Cruiser with her fingers crossed that she wouldn’t be obliterated without every launching.

           
When the bright red light above the hangar door finally shifted to green, Keryn released an audible sigh of relief.
 
She released fists that had been clenched until her knuckles had turned white.
 
Shortly thereafter, the roar of venting gas filled the massive hangar as they prepped for launch.
 
Keryn switched on the internal communications channel and took a deep breath before speaking.

           
“We’re getting ready to launch,” she said, hoping her voice sounded confident to those relying on her piloting skills for survival.
 
“Sit tight and I’ll get you to a Terran Destroyer shortly.”

           
As the bay doors slid open, the first of the
Duun
fighters launched, spilling free of the ship and hurtling toward the enemy Destroyers.
 
Keryn followed as quickly as possible, clearing the
Revolution
and finding her position off its right flank.
 
Her heart pounding, she was glad to be clear of the Cruiser and in open space.
 
She felt as though she stood a chance relying solely on her own piloting abilities instead of relying on the piloting skills of someone maneuvering a few million tons of alloy girders and armored plating.
 
Though the
Cair Ilmun
was free of her Cruiser, not all ships were so lucky.
 
Debris from a number of ships torn apart by metal slugs floated near the hangar bays of the nearby Cruisers; ships that were destroyed before making it more than a few hundred feet from the hangar bay.
 
Three ships down the line, blue and purple flames jutted from the hangar of the Cruiser.
 
From the midst of the superheated inferno, a few ships limped free of the hangar, tumbling end over end as they fell into the zero gravity of space.
 
Looking around, Keryn couldn’t tell how many pilots had been fortunate enough to clear the hangar bay before a missile struck it.
 
She hoped several, for the sake of the ship’s entire Squadron.
 
The reality of war quickly settled over Keryn as she realized that hundreds of pilots and insertion teams could have their lives simultaneously ended in the briefest of moments.