Star Brigade: The Supremacy (SB3) (25 page)

“Jakadda here,” V’Korram Prydyri-Ravlek’s growl answered. “Scoured all over the city-state using
Phaeton
’s sensor sweep. All borders and their gene scanners are intact. No breaches.”

Habraum bucked his teeth, but kept his cool in front of the Commander. He felt the air begin to rattle around him—a skyquake aftershock. “Keep looking, Lieutenant—”

The first blinding fork zigzagged down from the heavens, shredding through three traffic lanes of hovercars. Bright orange plumes ignited in their place. Several more hovercars plummeted in a shower of flaming ruins. The aftershocks instantly graduated into a full-fledged skyquake. Larger military vehicles veered away from the lightning, nearly hitting the screaming crowds.

“Move somewhere safe, Jakadda! Reign out!” The Cerc turned to Khal. “Vertex, get any civilians you can inside. Khrome, clear any debris blocking civilian evacuations.”

Khal did as ordered. “Shouldn’t Thasque have energy shielding against lightning storms like this?”

“I was wondering the same thing,” the Cressonish commander called out, having just finished barking out orders to the PLADECO troopers under his command.

Never had Habraum seen lightning this savage, not even the worst summer torridities on Cercidale. Any holo-billboards struck by lightning erupted in brilliant showers of sparks. As more lightning bolts lanced and scorched the cityscape, Habraum truly saw nowhere inside or out to hide.

One thick bolt forked through a seven-story structure. Story by story, viewports blew out top to bottom, each with an explosive orange blaze. Habraum flinched and ducked, but continued marching onward. Commander Jheygo was a step behind him. More bolts rained down as screaming civilians ran in the other direction. Soaring plumes of fire, horrific yet spectacular to behold, adorned this area of Thasque like flowers in a garden.

Then everything paused, as in stopped movement…except Habraum. The Cerc spied Khrome off to one side, frozen in midair. Khal stood on another side, mouth open in mid-sentence. PLADECO troopers were swarmed by terrified yet unmoving masses of civilians. Even the tongues of flames stayed motionless. Everywhere in downtown Thasque, currently flooded with civilians and burning structures, looked as if someone had pressed pause on a HLHG program. Yet the dark skies above it all continued to churn and flash.

Habraum, standing alone, let his fear truly show.
Rogguts
, he fretted,
maybe I do have a concussion.

A movement caught his ear, boots scraping on the ground. He spun around, raising his glowing fist to fire at the threat. The culprit was Liliana Cortes, weaving slowly through the maze of motionless bodies. She was gaping at something in the crowd that the Cerc could not see.

Their eyes met. Both Brigadiers stared in silence, neither knowing what to do or say…

…right as everything burst back into motion. Lightning strikes fell more savagely than before. Khal shouted out directions, at times telekinetically shoving stragglers toward safety. Khrome floated about, directing traffic also. The jarring symphony of screams and explosions shocked Habraum out of his surprise, and he narrowly dodged away from getting trampled by a stampede of civilians. He glanced in Liliana’s direction once more, but she had disappeared into the swelling crowd.

But Habraum knew she could handle herself.

“Nwosu?!” exclaimed Jheygo. “How did you get over there? You were right next to me—”

Habraum turned, realizing he had moved a couple feet from the commander while everyone had been immobile. Before he could answer, a spiraling hovercar grazed by the lightning strikes came hurtling forward at the oblivious commander!

Habraum ran and snatched Jheygo’s collar, jerking him out of harm’s way.

In the same motion, the Cerc raised a glowing fist at the out-of-control hovercar. Anyone in the way cleared out without being told. A low-intensity burst should have stopped the vehicle without harming the driver. Habraum never got the chance.

A short wall of silvery muscle flew into the hovercar’s path. Khrome spread his arms and braced himself for the impact.

Above the uproar, a loud metal clank rang out. The Thulican caught the much larger hovercar in midair like a beach ball, barely staggering. Khrome floated slowly to the ground, gently lowering the vehicle onto its belly.

The Thulican leaned in to peer at the driver through the cracked front viewport. “You alright—”

Khrome’s concern was met with a terrified shriek. The bald female Ttaunz in gaudy designer garb frantically wrenched her sliding driver’s side door open and tore off into the pandemonium.

“You’re welcome!” Khrome scowled after her, his metal flesh reflecting the subsiding lightning.

Habraum breathed, releasing the Commander’s collar. Clearly embarrassed, the Cressonish straightened up with as much dignity as possible and nodded gratefully at the Thulican. “Lightning storm’s starting to ebb,” Habraum continued, feeling little relief as he once again assessed the downtown carnage. This had been no act of nature. Yet Habraum couldn’t believe a primitive tribe wielded such destructive power.

“Uh, Reign? Khrome?” The two Brigadiers and the UComm Commander turned to Khal, who was gazing skyward in shock. “Problem! Up there!” What Khal spotted almost made Habraum retch again.

A starliner, the same one
Phaeton
nearly struck earlier, burst through the dark cloud blankets. Out of control with lights flickering frenetically, the gigantic vessel was plummeting down from the skies. Cascades of lightning doused its trapezoidal shape, keeping it from pulling back up.

Habraum then noticed four small recovery ships approaching to catch the starliner in their tractor beams, then steer it toward the nearest spaceport—normal procedure if a ship this size ever lost control. But jagged forks of lightning lashed out any time the recovery vessels got too close.

And the starliner nosedived straight for downtown Thasque.

On instinct, Habraum turned to Khrome. “Can you…”

The Thulican almost looked insulted. “Of course!”

“Go!”

“GONE.” Khrome saluted curtly and squatted down, looking to the heavens. Habraum felt tiny shockwaves billowing out as Khrome uncurled and rocketed toward the cloudy pink heavens.

Hurtling at top speed toward the plummeting starliner, Khrome broke the sound barrier with a sharp BOOM.

“What is he doing?” Jheygo shouted over the clamor.

“Saving that starliner,” Habraum calmly replied.

The Cressonish looked staggered. “How?! That starliner is the length of two Conuropolis city-state blocks!”

“And?” Habraum replied, eyes fixed on Khrome’s flight. “He’ll stop it.” He knew Khrome was the strongest Brigadier on his roster.
But is it enough?
The Cerc clenched his jaw, refusing to let doubt creep in. “C’mon, Khromulus,” he whispered. “Don’t make me a liar.”

Lily had just reached the rest of CT-1 with Tyris in tow. Her mind was still blitzed from what she had just witnessed: downtown Thasque momentarily unmoving, Captain Nwosu the only one also unaffected, and that other bizarre spectacle.

It took Tyris’s ice-cold finger jabbing her ribs to jar the doctor from her stupor. “What?” she called over the tumult.

Tyris, his cobalt-blue eyes the only feature on his face, were wider than saucers. “Khrome.”

Lily followed where he pointed and saw Khrome hurtling into the sky, small as a silver spec against fuming, flashing clouds drenched in Herope’s crimson glow.

Lily was more confused than alarmed. “Where is he going?” Her eyes drifted over to the colossal starliner zigzagging out of control, then the four recovery interceptors scattered like metal bees by harsh blood-red lightning.

Khrome was going to right the starliner’s course—a suicide mission.

She whirled on Captain Nwosu angrily.
How could you?!

Then their eyes met, and Lily saw the resolution in those twin pools of bullion, as well as the fear for one of his own.
There’s one other option
, she realized and looked again to the skies. Either Khrome succeeds or that starliner gets shot down. Crimson lightning flashed grimly as Khrome continued his ascent.

At a glance, the vessel looked like a typical Endeavor-class starliner ship; 142 metrids long with a span of around seventy metrids. The doctor refused even to guesstimate its weight.

The SolluStar Spaceways vessel’s grey and blue hull was marred by scorch marks from the onslaught of lightning. No escape pods had been activated; obviously, the evacuees had no intention of getting fried.

Khrome slowed his approach as the starliner spun closer, already dwarfing him in the distance.

Which meant that he never saw the jagged lightning forking down behind, lashing across his back.

Lily screamed her teammate’s name.

The second bolt struck the same spot. And Khrome went spinning off into the blood-red billows—
away
from the starliner.

Habraum swore under his breath. Besides that he was a statue, his eyes locked on the skies.

Khrome spiraled a short while before swinging himself upright, once again in control.

“Thank God,” Lily whispered, heart racing. She couldn’t see Khrome’s face this far away, but by how he barreled off after the starliner, he appeared functional.

Unfortunately, the vessel’s condition had deteriorated. Both main engines, sheared clean off by more lightning, fell from the heavens in giant fiery comets. Even with the four other S-Drives, Lily knew this ship could not pull up from its dive.

“Khrome will have to catch the starliner!” Khal realized aloud. “Which is impossible.”

Impossible, implausible, and unthinkable
.” Lily looked again to Nwosu, whose eyes hadn’t left the skies. His features were a study of faith now. No fear lived there anymore.

Lightning seethed all around the Thulican, glittering off his metallic skin with savage beauty as he dove after the free-falling ship.

If those S-Drives hit the ground…
As if reading Lily’s mind, Khrome flew headfirst at the nearest flaming engine—at ramming speed.

BRAKABOOM!
A brilliant, fiery eruption rattled Lily’s bones even hundreds of miles away, raining down harmless flakes of ash and debris. Khrome shot through the smoke and embers.

He juked left for the next engine, picking up speed again, fists raised.
THOOMKADOOM!
He punched through with a corkscrew spin, bursting out of the explosion.

Khrome resumed chasing after the free-falling starship, still caught in a tailspin through the turbulent clouds. Reaching supersonic speeds effortlessly, Khrome was almost overtaking the plummeting starliner.

A brief flash of light glinted off the vessel’s scorched hull.

Khrome immediately hung a sharp right, barely dodging a jagged lance of crimson lightning.

He angled himself back on course and flew in sync with the starliner’s plunging spiral.

The city-state was looming closer just as Khrome braced himself against the starliner’s nose. It then dawned on Lily how Khrome looked like the tiniest of smudges next to this colossal starliner.

Her fear spiked to nightmarish levels. Khrome’s gamble was insane and would fail. Regardless, she followed Nwosu’s lead and forced herself to believe in her friend.
You can do this!

At first, the massive starliner kept on spinning hazardously fast. Within macroms, the spinning actually began slowing, and then finally stopped.

But without the rotation, the vessel’s plunge became a nosedive. The Thulican shifted position again to under the starliner’s nose.

The starcraft tipped up out of its nosedive, just barely, but kept plummeting. The city-state’s skyline was now frighteningly closer.

Lily slapped both hands over her frightened lips. Watching the starliner plummet at breakneck velocity, the doctor realized then her hopes meant nothing. Glancing at Nwosu’s horrified face, she realized the captain’s expression, Tyris’s deep frown, and Khal’s breathless gaze told the same story.

Khrome’s strength was not enough. Countless lives would be lost, including those aboard the starliner, and probably her teammate’s.

Despite all our power,
Lily agonized, tears filling her eyes,
Star Brigade CT-1 can’t save them.

The murky skies began clearing, and Herope’s pinkish glow bathed the battered city-state again. On the streets of Thasque, Habraum watched helplessly as the mammoth starliner dropped like a stone, trailing flames, hull fragments, and black smoke where its engines once were. It still plummeted far too fast. And without the main S-Drives, the Cerc knew nothing could help Khrome.

The recovery vessels sped down after the starliner to catch its fall, but Habraum already surmised they would be too late to reach the ship in time before it collided with some of the largest skyscrapers in the megapolis’s downtown, taking one brave Thulican with them.

Habraum’s eyes fixated on the silvery dot pushing against the starliner’s nose. “Khrome,” he gasped. “What have I done?” He should never have tasked Khrome with such an inane plan.

Thanks to PLADECO and the Thasque Hazmat Department’s brilliant efficiency, the general area around the bomb sites had been nearly evacuated, besides a few PLADECO and Ttaunz MetroPol officers.

Fire-suppression cruisers circled through the air, gradually containing the blazes still raging across Thasque. However, there were still some stragglers, a few self-important Ttaunz transfixed by the starliner on a collision course with their capital city-state.

V’Korram joined Khal, Tyris, and Liliana as they watched the heavens. Habraum’s Brigadiers, visibly worn and covered in soot from the day’s events, wore their fear while watching their teammate.

“Nwosu,” he heard Jheygo’s warning tone, knowing what call he had to make now.

“Not yet,” Habraum’s retort was sharp and abrupt. “Give him a little more time.”

The starliner’s plunge picked up speed, its nose about to collide with a gaudy skyscraper’s pointed tip.

Time’s up.
Habraum braced himself, breath freezing in his lungs. All he could do was listen before Jheygo made that dreaded call, then call Khrome back—