Mako (The Mako Saga: Book 1) (14 page)

“Please,” the next man begged, his hands outstretched in surrender as a trickle of sweat beaded past his salt-and-pepper brow and a young, blonde woman quivered into his coat. “Please don’t shoot!”

“Who are you?” Lee barked, keeping his rifle raised to approach them.

“My name is Russell,” the man stuttered. “Dr. Samuel Russell. This is my daughter, Raya. We’re researchers here on special assignment.”

“And the fella over there behind the desk?”

“Sgt. Groh,” said Russell. “He was assigned to us as an assistant on this project, but truthfully I think he was just put here to make sure we stayed on task.”

Catching a glimpse of an Alystierian soldier’s uniform under the dead man’s bloody lapel, Lee knew he was telling the truth. Then, returning his gaze to the two strangers before him, he noticed that neither of them was armed—a fact which struck him as odd. On top of that, the girl couldn’t have been any older than 21, and watching her bury her face even deeper into the old man’s chest—his arms clutched tightly around her—Lee could plainly see by her fright that she’d never been in the middle of anything like this. So why was she here?

“Alright then,” he said, lowering his weapon just enough to ease their tension. “Raya, if you wouldn’t mind. I’d greatly appreciate it if you could disable that door for me.”

Paralyzed, she nestled closer inside her father’s protective embrace.

“I promise I mean you no harm,” Lee assured her, “but unfortunately I haven’t got all day. Now please...”

Reluctantly, the girl released her trembling fingers from the old man’s coat, and rushing to the small panel box beside the entrance, she ripped out a set of wires, showering her in sparks.

“There,” Raya said in a jittery voice, scampering back to her father’s side. “I’ve fried the access circuitry, but that’ll only hold them for so long.”

Lee gave her a grateful look. “That’s quite alright, ma’am. If it’s all the same with you, I don’t plan on stickin’ around that long. Now if you’ll just sit tight and stay out of my way, I’ll be outta your hair in no time. Sound good?”

They nodded.

Filled with a jigsaw-like maze of wall-mounted shelves—each one covered in engine parts, tools, and an assortment of wires, hoses, and circuitry components—Lee crossed the grease-stained floor of the room past a trio of workstations and chain-suspended sublight drives, and evaluated what he had to work with. As expected, the room was in fact some sort of maintenance area, but to his chagrin, there seemed to be nothing readily available for use as a means of escape. To his right was a partially disassembled Alystierian Phantom (in no shape for flight) while to his left was a cargo shuttle, in nominally better condition, at best.

“So what brings you out here?” Lee asked the old man, inspecting both ships to see if either one could be patched up enough to fly. “And why in god’s name would you bring your daughter along with you?”

“Believe me, son, it wasn’t my choice,” Russell grunted. “I was the lead designer on the Phantom project when they replaced the Starshadow as the primary fighter in the Alystierian fleet. My daughter here is an engineering student at the Academy who elected to follow in my work.”

“That explains why she’s not enlisted,” Lee thought. Under Alystierian law, every able-bodied man and woman was expected to serve in the military, though a handful of certain technical occupations were exempt from that rule if they were deemed vital enough to the fleet.

“Don’t suppose you’ve got anything else in here that can fly?” he grumbled, kicking a bolt across the floor and skipping it over the hatch, which was now at his feet.

“Actually,” Russell corrected, pointing a finger above them. “It’s actually the reason why we’re here.”

Glancing up, Lee spotted a large, cable-covered rack suspended from the ceiling along the upper-left wall, and suddenly filled with a renewed sense of optimism, his eyes widened at what rested in its clinched metal grip.

“Hello gorgeous!” Lee hummed under his breath. “Cut ‘em loose!”

Following a quick series of commands into Russell’s terminal, the rack’s hydraulics hissed as its giant winch system activated, lowering a large grate-covered platform down onto the deck below. On it were three ships—each one in nearly pristine working order. Among them were an Alystierian supply shuttle—like the one they’d started the mission on—and an Auran Eagle-Eye (a reconnaissance vessel), not that Lee had any interest in either. It was the third that now held his undivided attention, just as it had from the first moment he’d ever laid eyes on it.

Lightning-fast, heavily armed, and capable of outmaneuvering virtually anything else in the stars; it was the single most revolutionary fighter ever conceived by the ASC—the SF-13 Mako Interceptor.

“I take it this is what they had you two workin’ on?” Lee asked, circling the fighter and inspecting every square inch of its flat silvery frame, blade-swept wings, and massive, duel-finned thrusters.

“She’s truly a masterpiece, isn’t she?” Russell admitted, equally as impressed “As a combat fighter alone, one could spend months counting the ways in which she’s superior to the SF 11, but as you can imagine, her design was the least of the commandant’s concern.”

“He wanted the hyperdrive,” Lee said, tracing a curious finger along the ship’s hull.

“That’s correct,” the old man agreed. “We’ve never been able to design one small enough to fit a fighter. Most believed it simply wasn’t possible, and yet here it is.”

“Sgt. Groh, come in!” the dead man’s radio squawked, and Lee whirled around to hear a series of fists pound against the door, which Raya had sealed shut. Snapping the rifle back to his shoulder, Lee drew back when Russell waved him off and picked up Groh’s walkie-talkie.

“This is Dr. Russell. Sgt. Groh left us a few minutes ago to chase the intruders down the hall. He gave us specific instructions to barricade the door when he left, which is why it won’t open.”

“Are you alright?” the radio asked.

“Yes, thank you. My daughter and I are fine. I think I heard them say something about level three. You might want to check there.”

“Copy that, Doctor. Just stay put until this is over, and we’ll come back for you.”

“Acknowledged. Russell out.”

“Thanks for that,” Lee said once the soldiers had gone.

“You’re a man of your word, son,” said Russell. “I only thought it proper to repay the favor.”

Stepping back toward the Mako, Lee returned to the matter at hand. “Are all three prepped and ready to go?”

“Yes, they’ll all fly, but I have to radio the tower and request clearance to leave before the operator in the bay will open the hatch for you to disembark.”

Snapping a quick glance at his watch, which crept below the three-minute mark, Lee billowed a breath of anxiety.

“Okay, listen up,” said Lee. “In about three minutes, you’re not gonna wanna be here, trust me on that. Now we’ve got three ships here, and I only need the one, so here’s the deal. I take the Mako, you take the shuttle, and we all go home alive. Fair enough?”

****

As his avatar ascended up the ladder into the Mako’s narrow, single-seat cockpit, Lee placed the controller gun on the desk beside him and wheeled up the nearby gaming chair, which he’d custom-fitted with the FD3 flight controls, locking it down at the center of the room. Pausing while the scene in his goggles morphed into the cockpit’s elaborate, wrap-around instruments dash, Lee strapped himself in and began running through his pre-flight sequence. Once the retractable canopy had sealed shut around him—the fighter’s engines now building to life with their signature, song-like hum—Lee felt his attention jerked back to his comm, which erupted with weapons fire.

“Talk to me, Mac,” he barked.

“Little busy!” she snarled through the static. “Can’t talk right now!”

“Hamish!” Danny’s voice interrupted—the hard, metallic rat-tat-tapping of ricochets zinging off the walls around him. “I’m pinned down on the north end of the cell block, and some little twerp is taking pot shots at me from the next level up! You mind?”

“What’s his position?” Hamish called back.

“B-36… I think. About 25 yards down from my 10 o’clock!”

The faint sound of clanking metal trickled across the comm before suddenly being drowned out by a booming explosion, coupled with a brief but shrill scream of agony.

“
A friggin’ grenade?
” Danny exploded. “
Seriously!
I’m damn near on top of this guy, not to mention we’ve got 276 friendlies in here with us, and you used a
grenade
?”

“Stop ya’re whinin’ already! Ya’re very much alive, he’s very much not, and that section of the block is empty anyway. Don’t get all pissy with me because ya broke a nail!”

“Jester, this is Hurricane,” said Danny. “Cell block is secure. You got the cockpit?”

“Roger that, but the fun’s apparently just getting started up here,” Link said in a panic. “The control tower must’ve picked up on our little joyride because five Phantoms just broke loose from the blockade and are inbound to our position. ETA… two minutes.”

“What do we have in the way of defenses?” asked Lunley.

“Mac’s already at tactical up here, but there should be a pair of auxiliary slider platforms somewhere back toward the aft section. However, I’d highly suggest you double-time it cause we’re about to have company!”

“Aye, we’re on our way!”

The hum of the Mako’s thrusters now fully fired for a standstill launch, Lee slid his feet securely into the small pedals to assume command of the fighter’s tail fin and flap controls. Then, wrapping his left hand around the flight stick, he removed the detonator from his vest, pressed the red button at the top of the hilt, and breathed in deeply as a low rumble bellowed from far below.

“I take it that was you?” Russell asked from the shuttle nearby as the Mako rose to a steady hover above the hatch—its long, silvery nose angled down for an immediate and abrupt descent.

“Roger that,” said Lee. “We’ve got 90 seconds to get outta here before this whole place goes up, so whatever you’re gonna do, I’d highly suggest you do it now.”

“Tower, this is Dr. Russell in R&D, requesting permission for my daughter and me to disembark.”

Moments later, every soldier, engineer, and service tech in the strobing hangar below dove for the deck as the massive Mako exploded through the hatch above in a violent burst of speed and forward momentum.

Seeing a pair of shuttles take a defensive position at the mouth of the bay, Lee ripped back on the flight stick trigger, sending a thick volley of railgun fire pounding into their hulls; and with masterful precision, he tipped the Mako’s wings to a near 90-degree angle, knifing through the fiery mayhem as both ships reeled from multiple hits.

Once into open space and free to operate unimpeded, Lee watched in his radar telemetry as the shuttle behind him hooked right and proceeded on course to the planet’s surface—now free from the imminent danger of the depot and encountering no resistance on approach. Strangely, he was happy to see that, and wasting no time, he wheeled the fighter hard right, looping it around in a dazzling burst of blue, just in time to see the first of several explosions ripple through the base of the facility—each one booming its way in succession up the structure’s thick gray torso. Then, with a final groaning yawl, the entire installation buckled hard before vanishing in a spectacular, white-hot flash of thunderous destruction as the lone fighter rocketed free of the blast—just ahead of the cresting shockwave that ensued.

“Jester, this is Daredevil. You got a copy?” Lee asked, retracting the Mako’s wings for maximum velocity—its thrusters now booming behind him.

“It’s about friggin’ time!” Link shouted back. “If you’re done playing with your man pearls, we’re about to need some serious air support here!”

Staring through its canopy, Lee could see the broad transport ship coming into visual range ahead, and he watched as Hamish and Danny used the ship’s slider canons—large, triple-barreled batteries that literally slid on tracks up and down the vessel’s hull—to eliminate the final two members of the attacking enemy squadron. Knowing all too well that this was far from over, Lee turned to his chirping radar display and quickly saw the source of Link’s dread—two more Alystierian squadrons, inbound from the confused blockade and closing fast. Only now, they were far from the real threat. That honor belonged to the Alystierian Destroyer that accompanied them.

“Link, you got enough juice left in the gas tank to jump outta here?” Lee asked.

“Negative, boss. She was damn near on E when we came aboard and the umbilical to the refueling ship got fried during the firefight with the Phantoms. As it stands, we’re lucky to even have sublight propulsion, but a full-on hyperspace jump is out of the question.”

Lee pursed his lips. “Okay, so we stick with the original plan and try to hold out for the cavalry. How’s everyone doin’ on ammo?”

“Munitions reserves down to 73%,” Hamish answered.

“68% here,” Danny followed.

“Mac?”

“Hangin’ in there, Lee,” she frowned, poring over the data from her tactical station beside Link. “Between me, Danny, and Hamish I think we can hold our own with the Phantoms, but that Destroyer will cream us if we get drawn into range of its forward batteries. Those suckers are 120-pounders and they’ll make mincemeat out of this tub’s armor.”

“
Where the hell is the fleet, Lee?
” Link roared in protest.

No sooner had the angry words jumped from his lips, the peaceful empty space surrounding the Alystierian ships filled with an elaborate chain reaction of vibrant blue flashes and within seconds, the stagnant blockade found itself nose to nose with not three, but eight Auran battleships—each one emerging from hyperspace with fighters in the tubes and weapons hot.

“It’s about bloody time!” Hamish bellowed through the comm, swiveling around in his sliders chair toward the imminent attack.

“Looks like they brought friends, too!” Link noted.

“Daredevil, this is Praetorian. Do you read?” a familiar voice called out.

“Five by five, Admiral. Go ahead,” Lee said, gliding the Mako past the transport’s massive rear thrusters and into the lead position out front.