Remember the Starfighter (2 page)
Read Remember the Starfighter Online
Authors: Michael Kan
The woman reached and shook it.
“Lt. Nalia Kynestar. SpaceCore Intelligence and Operations officer,” she said. “You can fly this?”
They found themselves inside the Crusader’s bridge, with Julian sitting at the helm, and Nalia standing by next to his shoulders. The lieutenant had overridden the security protocols and gained access to the ship’s systems. Everything was online, including shields, weapons and engines.
“Definitely,” Julian replied. “When I was enlisted, I mainly flew fighter craft, but I’m also trained for larger vessels.”
It had been almost four years, but the controls of the military craft were organized nearly the same way as the transporter Julian flew in his day job. He placed his bloodied hands on the console and activated the controls, operating the craft efficiently like he belonged in the pilot’s chair.
“The ship’s di-fusion core is nearly depleted, but it’ll be enough to get us out of the system,” Julian said. Flipping the controls, he revved the ship’s engines. “Opening hanger bay doors. Prepare for lift off.”
Julian ignited the launch sequence, unclamping the vessel from the docking port. Slowly, the Crusader lifted off the hanger bay floor, pushed up by the ship’s anti-gravity field. The effect was an invisible force sliding the ship into a launch position. In front of the vessel, hanger doors slowly separated open, inhaling the air out into a window of space.
Power from the ship rerouted into the three engine nacelles at the back of the vessel, causing them to glow a hot neon blue. A burst of energy then followed.
Manning the controls, Julian maneuvered the vessel, sending it in a direct course out of the station and away from the nearby planet. The Crusader complied, swiftly exiting the hanger bay, and tearing off the refit lattice that once tied the vessel down. The engines glowed even hotter — pulsating into a diamond white — accelerating the ship into dozens, then approaching hundreds of miles per second.
Julian gave a deep breath and closed his eyes in a moment of relief. But he knew they had yet to escape the threat.
As he piloted the vessel, he could immediately see the damage from the attack. Julian pulled up the images onto the ship’s main view screen, and saw the remains of satellites, freighters and starships. All of it inert metal hanging in the dead of space. Pockets of ashen debris and rubble had begun to pile across the orbit. Broken hulls, once carrying station workers, floated in the cold.
He then switched the view toward Meridian spaceport. The orbital station, formerly a giant ring spinning in space, had been split in two — one-half still intact, the other burning, fueled by the exploding fusion batteries on board. The entire command bridge, a floating hub suspended at the center of the station, had been vaporized into powdered metal.
The wreckage continued to scatter, the only thing left the Crusader and a handful of ships still evacuating the sector. Whatever fight humanity had put up had failed hideously in the face of the enemy.
So fast did it happen, in ten minutes. Maybe less.
“Do you see any of the enemy ships?” he asked.
Nalia sat at a command console not far from Julian’s side. She rapidly typed away, pulling up 3D scans and sensory data on her own console screen, not in the least affected by the imagery of the onslaught. Instead, her undivided attention was focused on the other urgent matter at hand.
“No, nothing in weapon’s range,” she replied. “Most are circling Eras, engaging remaining forces.”
“Then at least we’re home free.”
He waited, expecting a nod of approval. Julian, however, had spoken too soon.
“Damn,” Nalia replied. “How long before we can reach hyperspace?”
“I don’t know. The ship’s computer is still plotting a stable jump point.
“This is not good. Before I left my station, Meridian’s command bridge had issued a Lucifer order.”
Julian knew the term well. A military tactic that was stricken from public records. This was because it involved sacrificing an entire planet. Eras, a vital mining colony that supplied weapons to the fleet, looked to become an acceptable military loss.
“I’m already reading anti-matter cores across the planet are reaching critical overload,” Nalia said. “Even the enemy ships are starting to flee.”
Julian knew that just one anti-matter core had enough explosive power to obliterate a large asteroid. The combined energy of what might be a dozen cores still on the surface would tear the planet apart, and anything in the space around it. The enemy fleet would be destroyed. But so would the Crusader, if it wasn’t far enough. Realizing this, Julian pushed the ship into overdrive.
From space, Eras was a lilac pearl. The seventh planet located out from its blue parent star, it revolved in space, alone, not even a moon bothering to fall in its orbit. Purple gases twisted across its atmosphere, making it seem like a mysterious jewel. But despite its majestic presence, ultimately it was a barren world. Except for the mining facilities and weapons plants that had dug into its surface, nothing but winding rock formations and gapping canyons lay beneath the skies of the airless planet.
Unfortunately, that dormancy was about to shatter.
The explosions came in a fury. Geysers of energy soared from the weapon stockpiles. Atomic particle clashed against its own parallel self, resulting in an ever-growing cascade that fueled an all-consuming power. From flashes of violent eruptions to a world-breaking energy, it ravaged on. Continents of ground began to splinter, with waves of solid rock sent up into the air. The entire planet began to crack, unraveled by the magnitude of energy pulsating through the dying world.
As the solid sphere crumbled, in its place emerged a wave of matter that pulverized anything in its path. The remaining enemy ships, wanting to flee, saw themselves crushed as massive shards of rock shot out. That torrent of power raged forward, reaching to grab the dying carcass of Meridian station and consume it. Moving on to its next target, the violent energy sought to destroy the escaping Crusader.
“Diverting auxiliary power to the shields,” Nalia said.
Julian could see it on the view screen: a once quiescent world mutilated into a rampaging weapon. He held on to the ship’s controls, squeezing whatever he could out of them. There had to be a way out.
As he made the plea in his mind, the ship answered back, a golden icon appearing on the navigational viewer.
“Got it. Hyperspace jump point locked in,” he said. “It’s barely stable, but it’ll have to do.”
If the Crusader couldn’t outrun the explosion at its current speed, it would just have to disappear into the fabric of space all together. Julian punched in the coordinates, and activated the vessel’s hyperspace drive.
Remember Earth.
Glancing at the words, Julian read them again, trying to understand.
“Earth,” he said out loud, the hint of amusement in his voice. “What is there to remember?”
12 hours earlier, before the devastating attack on Meridian station, Julian had been at work inside his transport ship when he spotted the neglected slogan.
Standing at the porthole, he found the forgotten text out in space — the bold-faced letters nearly scratched away.
He focused his attention to the vessel that carried the words, the phrase painted across thick slabs of armor.
The Avenger was in orbit, the battleship waiting for the incoming cargo. Saddling his own one-man spacecraft next to it, Julian had begun making the transfer.
In the back of his ship, tugged a long-train of packaged freights. As he initiated the unloading procedures, a pair of space-suited workers had started dismantling the cargo to ferry them into the Avenger’s hanger bay.
It was all routine work. Mostly mundane. Nothing complicated, but also beneath his skill.
Alone, inside the cockpit, Julian looked out another porthole to see the rest of the battleship.
He expected to find nothing different. More thick ingots of armor. Along with all the weaponry, holding still among the ship’s hulking mass.
Instead, what Julian found called out to him.
There was no battleship in his midst now. Only the war.
Out of his own volition, Julian began to see it, his mind stumbling across the memory, as he always had. The shot to the head. The blood from the mouth. The weapon in his hand. In that moment, he had returned to the past, his body slipping into death.
Gasping for air, Julian clenched the ship’s bulkhead and turned away from the window.
He had only wanted to go about his day normally, and focus on the task at hand. But what came was the last thing Julian could ever want: to remember and to relive it.
Taking a deep breath, he looked around, only to see the isolated confines of his tiny ship. In another sigh, Julian planted himself down in the pilot’s seat, still alone.
—
Incoming message
He heard the chime of the electronic beep. Reluctantly, he answered the call, the glass monitor to his ship’s computer flickering on.
“HAVEN SPACECORE DISPATCH” read its title, the message clearly military in nature. Baffled to see it, Julian opened the file and displayed the contents on the screen.
What he saw left him in pause. Was this a joke?
“Shit,” he muttered, reading the message again. “I’ve been reactivated.”
HTN NEWSCASTER: Contact with the Iyanas homeworld of Feradan ended today, as Endervar forces encircled the planet, disrupting all communication and traffic with one of the Alliance’s largest colonies.
Over 14 billion Iyanas citizens were estimated to be based on Feradan, a colony that had not been listed under imminent threat from Endervar invasion.
The stunning siege has left much of the galactic public in shock, and adds more evidence that the Alliance’s latest containment strategy may be failing.
Two days before, over 300 Endervar ships entered the Iyanas home system to crush the defending local fleet. A separate counterattack by the Alliance military was also repelled, the total casualties of both engagements numbering in the tens of thousands.
Military data on Endervar movement in the galaxy remains confidential. But recent attacks paint a grim picture, showing enemy forces invading more worlds once assumed protected, and well outside the Alliance’s containment zone.
ALLIANCE REPRESENTATIVE Z’HARIAN: We have no comment on the invasion of Feradan at this time, only to say that the Alliance will continue to embark with standard evacuation and containment protocols. We urge the public to remain calm.
HTN NEWSCASTER: Alliance representatives have yet to offer any updates. However, speculation is running high that the Alliance will be forced to pull back the containment zone, due to the ongoing Endervar incursions.
As the Iyanas people mourn, we at HTN asked if our own planet of Haven should be concerned about the growing aggressiveness of the Endervar attacks.
Chancellor Kasalana has yet to make a comment on Feradan, aside from her condolences. But this afternoon, her chief of staff said the current administration continues to invest heavily in the SpaceCore military, along with the outer-colony project of Isen.
LONA CRAY: We’ve been preparing for all contingencies for centuries now. We have the right plans in place, and we’re enacting them as swiftly as possible. That said, we still have time. Feradan has been an unfortunate, but unique, situation.
HTN NEWSCASTER: In other news, Haven’s SpaceCore is preparing to launch its next-generation spacecraft tomorrow. After seven years in development, the S.C. Paragon—
Enough. Julian cared little for what the television was saying, only that it was annoying him. Not like it mattered. The ongoing war had, and always would, dominate the interstellar broadcasts.
He sat there alone at the bar, a drink of hard liquor in his left hand as he shifted his attention away from the television monitor in the corner of the room. To his right, was his other hand propping up his sullen head.
“You look like one sad sack of shit Julian.”
At first, he barely heard the voice. The news of the day continued to buzz through the confines of the small establishment. Julian had just finished the midnight shift; all the other station workers were either sleeping or out starting work. Far to his left, however, he noticed Mac, the bartender, washing a cup with a white towel.
Mac shook his head in disapproval, seeing Julian, this transport pilot slouch on the bar table, half-drunk. Noticing that he wasn’t completely alone, Julian wiped the drool coming from his lips with his sleeve. He puckered up his mouth as if proud and nursed the ounces of whiskey still in his cup.
Not caring in the least, Julian seemed worn beyond his 30 years of age, his skin rough, and his mane of black hair unkempt and littered with flecks of gray. Massaging his uneven beard, he then grabbed his cup, and took another drink, the hard juices oozing down his throat.
“What’s up Nverson? Bad day on the job?” Mac asked with a smirk.
Hearing the question, Julian massaged his face, trying to relax his mind as he thought of a coherent answer. He burped, and then groaned.
“I got the call today,” Julian said as he looked off in the distance to see nothing but vacant wall. “SpaceCore wants me to suit up.”
“Are you serious?” Mac said, putting down the cup he was cleaning.
Julian nodded, slumping his body over the bar table.
“Something big is going on with SpaceCore,” Mac said, pressing harder to clean the soap scum on the cup. “Feradan falls, and days before Witaga V, it can’t be a coincidence.”
Half of the clientele that came to Mac’s bar were station workers. The other half were those from the military, stopping in to get a real alcoholic beverage. And so naturally, Mac heard things. Recently, most of it was bad.
“They must be desperate for recruits,” Julian said as he finished off his drink, the alcohol burning his throat. “Last I remember the Core didn’t want me. Fuckers.”
Mac, standing behind the bar, grabbed Julian’s now empty glass.
“I’ll give you another one. This one is on the house,” he said. “Haven needs you buddy.”
As he poured another drink, Mac happily smiled, like he was trying to congratulate Julian on the journey ahead.
“Plus, being a hero is better than being out here, hulling transports all day,” the bartender added.
“Whatever Mac,” Julian said. “At least out here you don’t have to worry about getting killed.”