Project Solaris 2: Hero Rising (16 page)

Worse, the fourth ship had remained behind. It was likely docking with the Black Knight even now. In retrospect, I should have destroyed the station, even if it meant killing my friends. Now, I'd lost that opportunity. Blast it. I couldn't run, I couldn't fight. So what the hell could I do?

Resolve tightened around me like a fist. I
could
fight, I just couldn't win. But I could go down swinging, which was far better than being captured and forced into slavery. 

The lead ship suddenly accelerated, which caught me off guard. I was going at maximum speed, and if their vessels were the same as mine, how could they accelerate? The lead vessel fired a stream of green blasts, which played across my shields in multicolored ripples. They didn't do any damage, but they momentarily drew power away from propulsion, slowing me. The lead ship dropped back a little, but the other two closed the gap. I suddenly understood the tactic.

The lead ship had dropped power to its shields and shunted it to propulsion. If they took turns doing that, they could take potshots, slowing us enough to catch up. They'd leapfrog each other until they were close enough to all fire volleys, at which point we were well and truly screwed. I cut 50% of the power to shields and added it to propulsion. Our speed increased by 12%, widening the gap again. I knew it was a temporary solution, but it bought me a little time. 

I disconnected with the ship, returning to my body. Marcus sat on the teleporter with Jillian, and Suresh rested nearby. My body had been moved. Apparently Suresh had dragged or carried me to the teleporter. 

"David?" Suresh asked. Both Marcus and Jillian looked up when she spoke. "What's going on? The whole ship shook."

"We're taking fire," I said. The ship shook again, violently. Reducing the shields had definitely cut our insulation from the other ships' attacks. "Three motherships are pursuing us, and they're going to catch up. Jillian, is there any chance you can teleport out?"

"I've got a little juice left, but I can't get us far enough to matter," she said, shaking her head wearily. "We'd still be in space, so we'd just suffocate."

"Actually, we'd freeze to death," Suresh said, shuddering. "I'd like to avoid that if possible."

"Get us close enough to board one of them," Marcus said, eyes smoldering. "If we're going to die, might as well make a few of them pay."

"Is there any way to escape?" Suresh asked. "I know the rest of you are supers and all, but I'm no hero. I don't want to die."

The ship shuddered again, and the engine's thrum softened. I scanned the propulsion data. We were definitely slowing. It wouldn't be long before the ships caught up to us. 

"I don't see any way out of this," I said, sighing. I looked Jillian in the eyes. "I'm sorry we didn't have more time. There's so much I wanted to tell you. Looks like we'll never get that chance."

"You don't need to say it. I know." She smiled sadly. "I feel the same way, David. It was short, but I treasure the time we had."

"You guys are giving up?" Suresh asked. She stood up, stalking over to me. "There has got to be a way."

"There isn't," I snarled, rising to my feet as well. "They're faster, stronger, and they outnumber us. I'm going to interface with the ship again, and try to take at least one of those motherships out."

Suresh whirled, returning to her seat on the steps of the teleporter. She looked angry, terrified, and very, very sad. I ignored her, returning my senses to the ship. The three ships were alarmingly close, each pyramid visible despite the flat, black stone surfaces. 

I considered for a split second, and then I acted. I dropped the shields entirely, willing all the energy the ship produced into propulsion. The ship fired off a warning that I was exceeding the engine's capacity, but I overrode it. The ship's speed almost doubled, and the gap between us and the lead ship lengthened considerably. I was aware of the planet rolling beneath us. We were passing over the Pacific Ocean now, somewhere near Hawaii from the look of it.

All three ships began to accelerate until they matched my pace. Excellent. That meant they'd dropped their shields. I gave a grim smile, and then reversed thrust. I sent my ship straight at the lead enemy. I didn't bother firing, instead pouring all energy into the shields just a few seconds before we impacted. The grey men seemed totally unprepared for the sudden maneuver. Our mothership slammed into the opposing craft with the force of a many megaton bomb. 

That ship came apart like the
Titanic
hitting an iceberg, massive chunks of black stone shooting off in all directions as its engines detonated in a fiery supernova. My own ship was heavily damaged from the impact, and even more so from the explosion, but the inertia carried us into the next ship. We slammed into it with almost as much force as we had the first one. Our ship began breaking apart, and the engines went critical. We only had a second or two before it detonated.

We were about to die, but I figured taking out two of our three opponents was pretty damned impressive.

Chapter 28- Saved

My brain was on fire as it was forcibly torn from its interface with the mothership. I'd kind of expected that, and could feel the system disintegrating around me. I assumed the pain would end abruptly when the explosion obliterated my body, but to my shock, the pain didn't end. Instead, a layer of vertigo was added as my senses shifted. 

I was suddenly elsewhere, and it took a moment to comprehend what I was seeing. I was floating in space, with Suresh, Jillian, and Marcus around me. Marcus wore a look of intense concentration, his arms extended, shaking from exertion. He'd erected a telekinetic bubble around us, which both protected us from space, and trapped enough oxygen for us to breathe. For a little while, at least.

In the distance, I could see the wreckage of three ships--ours, and the two we'd taken with us. The fourth ship, the only one to survive, was hideously damaged. Fire bloomed from several spots on the rocky surface, and the ship itself was drifting slowly towards earth. Its orbit was decaying, and if anyone was looking up, they'd be in for a hell of a show. Hopefully it broke up on re-entry, otherwise there'd be a whole new Area 51 mythos.

"How are we alive?" I asked, lamely. My voice was oddly loud.

"It was Suresh's idea," Jillian said. She was rubbing her arms, and her teeth had begun chattering. I became aware of just how cold it was. I could see my breath, and the inside of the telekinetic bubble was beginning to frost over.

"I spent some time reading the bios you left me with," Suresh said, also shivering. "I was familiar with Marcus and Jillian's powers. I had him erect the bubble right before the explosion, and Jillian teleported us as far as she could. Thankfully that was outside the blast radius."

"How far did you take us?" I asked, looking at the wreckage floating in the distance. More than one chunk of rock was drifting our way--very, very quickly. None appeared to be on a collision course, but I was definitely worried.

"A few miles, I think," Jillian said, voice frosting. "It's s-so cold. We're going to freeze to death unless someone has an idea."

"We could start teleporting closer to the surface," Suresh suggested, though I could tell she was reaching. "Maybe we can get low enough to get warm."

"I could do a few small jumps, but not much more than that," Jillian said. "I'm so exhausted."

"We're already falling," Marcus said, speaking for the first time. Through the thin layer of frost, I could see Earth growing larger. "We'll be warm soon enough. Warmer than we'd like. We're going to burn up during re-entry."

"W-we won't live that long," Suresh said. It could have been my imagination, but her skin was already turning a slight shade of blue. "We'll be dead from hypothermia in th-three or four minutes."

I wracked my brain trying to come up with a solution. Then my eyes widened. "S-Suresh, electricity produces heat, right?"

"Y-yes," she said, teeth chattering audibly. "But we'd n-need a conductive material."

I closed my eyes, concentrating. Then I extended my hands just like Marcus was doing. I willed two thin streams of electricity to shoot into the edges of the sphere. It was totally covered in frost now, and water was conductive. The water evaporated, almost instantly becoming steam.

"Hold on," Marcus said. Something pushed around us, and the steam was shunted back to the edge of the sphere. "I've created a second bubble inside the first. That will trap the water between them."

"Marcus, I could kiss you," I said, increasing the flow of electricity. It hummed around me, the trapped steam suddenly producing heat. It was still damned cold, but at least it wasn't getting any colder. 

"You'd better not," Marcus said, eyeing me sternly.

"It's working," Jillian said, laughing. 

She was right. The temperature continued to rise to a balmy super-frigid cold.

"Now we just need to figure out a way to get down to the surface," Suresh said, pursing her lips. 

An enormous chunk of grey man ship drifted by us. It was easily the size of a city bus, maybe larger. 

"Marcus, grab that rock," I said, nodding at it.

"Ahh," Marcus said smiling. "I see what you're going for."

The bubble began to move, accelerating toward the hunk of black stone. We settled against the underside, which blocked our view of the planet below.

"That's brilliant," Jillian said, giving another laugh. "We can ride this thing through the atmosphere."

"I'm pushing us lower," Marcus said, gritting his teeth. "I don't know how much air we have left, but the faster we get to the surface, the more likely we'll live."

The next few minutes were, without a doubt, the most terrifying of my life. All of us watched each other as we picked up speed. The cold retreated, then it became comfortably warm. Then we started to sweat. Then we were inside of an oven. My breath came in short, little gasps, and the sweat evaporated from my skin as quickly as it formed. The inside of the bubble became a sauna, and I couldn't even see the people around me.

I started coughing, the combination of too little oxygen and too much moisture was just too much. I tried to be patient, but I was terrified.

Jillian,
I thought, broadcasting the thought to everyone.
Is there anything you can do? Teleport us lower?

"Hold on," Jillian yelled, then gave in to a fit of coughing. There was a moment of weightlessness, then a sense of decreased acceleration. We jumped like that three more times.

A sound like thunder rippled through the bubble, and then the bubble burst apart. We were suddenly in free fall. The air was blessedly cold, and I sucked in a deep lungful of air. Then I promptly wet myself. We were at least a mile up, coming down hard towards the ocean. The four of us were already drifting apart, each falling in a slightly different direction. I could see an island in the distance, but it was way too far away for us to swim.

We fell lower and faster, the ocean rushing up at us. I braced my legs, praying they wouldn't break on impact. There was a sudden shock as I hit the water, and then there was nothing but black.

Epilogue

"I think he's waking up," came a voice from far away. I coughed hard, spitting up an entire ocean onto my already sodden chest. I lifted a hand to shield my face from the sunlight, and found a man in a coast guard uniform looming over me. He had a thick, salt-and-pepper beard, and gave me a wide, Santa-like smile. "You're damned lucky we were passing by, son."

"My friends?" I asked, sitting up with a gasp.

"We're here," Jillian said. She was leaning against the wall of what appeared to be a crowded cabin, a blanket wrapped around her. "Marcus and Suresh are in another room, but they're fine."

"So can you explain how the hell you guys fell out of the sky? I have never in all my years seen anything like that," the man said, removing his hat and scrubbing his fingers through his hair.

"I doubt you'd believe me," I said, playing for time. I could probably wipe this guy's memory if I had to, but I didn't want it to come to that. "Thanks for the rescue. Are we close to a port?"

"We're only fifteen miles from Maui, and we can drop you off there. I
am
going to have to file a report," the man said, apologetically. 

"Skipper, have you seen this?" came a voice from just outside the cabin. The skipper headed outside, leaving Jillian and I alone. He and the sailor who'd called him were clustered around a smartphone, watching something.

I used my abilities to read the signal coming to the phone. It was a video. A video of large chunks of black stone breaking up in the atmosphere over the ocean, just a few hundred miles away. We were going to have a lot of explaining to do.

"David, what the hell are we going to do now?" Jillian asked. She crossed over the bunk and laid down beside me. Having her pressed against me was comforting. 

I didn't have an immediate answer. Kali and Janaki were in the hands of the grey men. So was the Black Knight satellite. We'd survived, but we'd also lost the mothership. Sure, we'd wiped out a quarter of the grey man fleet, but they still had at least eight ships. We had none. At least Dick was finally dead.

"I don't know," I said, pulling her closer. 

Something buzzed in the back of my head. Faint at first, then more insistent. I focused on the signal. It was a tight-beamed communication of some kind. It was coming from the sky.