Starstorm (Starstorm Saga) (25 page)

“Keep up your fire!” he ordered. “Keep them in front of us!”

Suramato’s Dragon managed to catch one of the Zidian ships as it inadvertently strayed into its firing ark. The side of the Zidian craft was smashed by the torrent of fire pouring out of Suramato’s guns. An explosion smote the side of Suramato’s other wingman where it’s thinner armor had given in. Suramato was about to signal them to report their status when his own ship shook violently.

“Come hard about!” The Dragon’s maneuvering thrusters fired and the rear of a Zidian fighter came into view.

“Fire!” Suramato and his crew had no time to savor their victory, for their ship shook again with yet another impact.

“Structural integrity is failing Commander!” Seconds later the other Dragon finally exploded taking an unfortunate Zidian fighter with it.

Suramato knew they only had moments left, but this was how he preferred it. Going down in the heat of a glorious battle, like the great Japanese warriors of old.

Suddenly, a large squadron of Russian fighters came in guns blazing. The Zidians broke off their attack on Suramato for the moment and went back into evasive action. Suramato watched as the five Russian Vostok fighters and the seven Yuri’s went after the Zidians. The tiny Yuri’s were little better than decoys. Their very light weapons had very little effect on the Zidians. They were, however very fast and maneuverable so they proved hard to hit and to keep up with.

The Vostoks packed more fire power than their little brothers. In addition to two forward mounted plasma cannons they also had a turret with a gunner located behind the pilot cockpit. This gave the Vostok a 360 degree firing arc. One of the Zidians exploded under fire from three different Russian fighters. The remaining three Zidian immediately hit their turbo thrusters, bogied out, and resumed a course for the sun.

Commander Nadia Ranova of the lead Russian space craft addressed Commander Suramato over the radio.

“We’ll never catch them now, comrade.”

“We shall wait for them to come back this way!” said Commander Suramato.

“No comrade, we shall wait. You must get back to Mercury base. Your ship has suffered massive damage.” As much as Suramato wanted to stay and await the return of his Zidian enemies, he saw the wisdom in Ranova’s words.

The Russians continued to wait. The three Zidians eventually disappeared from the radar. It was sudden and unexplainable. The Zidian ships never returned. The Russians headed back to their own orbital base around Venus.

Brel had cut straight threw the oncoming humans with his weapons firing. He had taken out one of them. Five of them turned around to pursue him. He hit his turbo thrusters which shot his ship far ahead of the Humans. The Earth was closer now. He could make out its blue oceans, white clouds, and continents. He was finally in range to start his scans.

An alarm sounded. His Human pursuers had boosted, and were now gaining on him. It would take nearly two minutes for him to finish his scans. The humans would be on him in less than one. To make matters worse, he was picking up even more human ships headed his way.

Brel started his scans. It looked as if the humans had been putting a lot of fighters around their home world in preparation for the Zidian’s attack. Brel knew that there was no way he could defeat all the fighters on the way to intercept him. Just as the first human ships came into firing range, he made a dash for the Moon.

The Star Swords were chasing him and firing their plasma cannons wildly. His scanner beeped loudly. There were more human ships coming out of a base on the Moon. There was one particularly aggressive human among the pursuers, who was closing with Brel’s fighter. One of the plasma bursts hit his under-hull, and Brel felt his ship shudder. He made a damage check. His primary scanners were still operational, however, his navigational scanner was out of order. He could navigate manually, but this meant he would have to time what he had in mind perfectly.

He was now very close to the moon. Its cratered surface filled the view from his cockpit. The humans were still in close pursuit. Brel flew at full speed straight for the moon. Its surface was getting closer and closer. Finally, at the last possible moment, Brel pulled up. He just barely pulled it off. His closest human pursuer crashed into the Moon’s barren surface. The others managed to pull up, and continued to pursue him on a coarse parallel to the lunar surface. Plasma bursts shot past him from behind.

They were engaged in close quarter map of the moon flying. In addition to the plasma being shot at him Brel was also dodging rock formations and moon mountains. He got as close as he could to one of the rock formations pulling up at the last second hoping one of the humans would slam into it. The human cut to the left. The Star Sword’s wing clipped the rock formation and spun out of control. The pilot was able to pull off a crash landing on the moon’s rocky surface. Finally Brel’s scanner beeped out the signal that the scans of the Earth region were complete. Now all he had to do was lose the Star Swords on his tail.

If I can just keep going a few more seconds!

The rate of fire being coming at him from behind began to increase as the Humans closed in for the kill. All at once, it began to grow dark. Within seconds it was pitch black and he could see absolutely nothing except the bright hot plasma bursts shooting past him. They had crossed onto the dark side of the moon where there was virtually no light and no visibility.

Brel quickly pulled up to a safer altitude and changed course. He did not want to crash into a mountain in the dark and intended to lose the humans in the great region of shadow. The bright flash of an explosion below him proved that one of the Humans had not been as prudent. Unless they managed to spot the exhaust from his thrusters, all the Human’s would have to track him would be their radar. He quickly shook the ships chasing him. When he thought he was a safe distance away, he pulled up and raced as fast as he could away from the moon and back towards his comrades.

If they are still alive...

The humans eventually figured out that he had headed away from the Earth. They immediately moved to pursue him, but they had already used there boost ability and he had a very good head start. Brel reflected that as long as nothing went wrong they wouldn’t catch him. The notion was shortlived. It wasn’t long before Brel picked up several Star Swords ahead of him and all on an intercept course. He took this to mean that his comrades had perished in battle against the enemy. The fact that many of those human ships ahead of him were moving much slower than normal meant that the other Zidians had put up quite a fight. Brel attempted to circumvent the approaching Star Swords. They compensated, eventually ending up behind him. Slowly but surely they gained on him. They would have eventually have undoubtedly caught up to him but apparently did not want to venture to far from their base. They had driven him off. That was enough.

Inefficient
, he thought and set a course back to his fleet which was waiting around the sixth planet.

Trey and Duke were fighting for their lives. Twelve of the twenty Martian Colonial Fighters that had been there at the start of the battle no longer existed. By comparison they had only destroyed five of the ten Zidian fighters.

With his fighter damaged, Duke was a constant target of the Zidians. All he could do was evade and get off shots whenever possible. Trey had done the best he could to keep the enemy off of his friend, but the battle had turned against them.

“Watch yourself, Duke! That slime behind you is getting a little too ambitious!”

“I can see that,” said Duke as he swerved his ship back and forth avoiding the deadly laser bolts zooming past him.

Trey dove down toward the Zidian trailing Duke and opened fire with the single plasma cannon mounted on the front of his ship. Destroying a Zidian fighter with the Colonial Fighter’s limited weaponry was difficult. He had already driven this very Zidian away from Duke once before as was evidenced by the damaged area on the top of the Zidian ship.

Suddenly, Trey heard the death screams of two more of their comrades over the radio. One of Trey’s plasma bursts shot past the Zidian. Another grazed its starboard engine. It began to leak a trail of fiery orange plasma and veered off to the right. Trey would have moved in for the kill, but as he began to do so blue laser bolts began to streak past him.

“These guys just don’t let up!”

The Zidian behind him was being very aggressive. Trey could tell that the pilot behind him was very good. He wasn’t allowing zeal to lead him into making mistakes. One of the laser bolts hit Trey’s fighter directly in the rear. Trey felt his ship shake and his control panel blew up in his face. His ship spun out of control. Trey tried to get a grip on his controls so that he could try to shoot at the enemy ship that was now headed straight for him, but there were just not enough of his controls left.

“Trey!” came the voice of Duke over the radio which had somehow stayed operable.

“I’m here,” said Trey.

“Are you all right?”

Trey took a deep breath. His hands and face were badly burned and he was in immense pain. His ship was totally disabled. It was a miracle that he had not lost cabin pressure.

“I’ll be alright.”

“That bogie is still after you!” Trey looked out his cockpit at the Zidian fighter moving in for the kill. He knew he was about to die.

Suddenly, the Zidian ship exploded into an enormous ball of burning plasma under a hail of fire pouring out of the cannons of three inbound Star Swords. The three new arrivals had come in with weapons blazing. Somehow, Trey knew instinctively who was in the lead.

“Thanks, Jack.”

“No problem Trey,” came the reply of Jack Thunder’s voice

“You have a bad habit of saving my hide at the last possible second,” said Trey as Jack and his two wing men fell on the surprised Zidians like wolves.

Les fell in behind one of the Zidians and opened up with both his guns. The Zidian ship exploded violently.

“I got one!” roared Les over the radio with the boyish glee of a young fighter pilot who had made his first kill. Des, however, wasn’t fairing as well.

“I got a situation here, boss!” said Des who had picked up a Zidian ship on his six. His voice was tinged with panic

“I can’t shake him!”

Jack cut hard. A moment later, Des flew past him followed by his pursuer. Jack opened fire and the Zidian ship took a volley of plasma fire in its side exploding into a massive fire ball through which Jacks ship shot like a bullet.

“There are still two more of them,” yelled Duke. “And they’re running with their tails between their legs.” 

“We’ll get them!” yelled Les.

Jack was about to tell the rookies to let them go, but Les and Des then shot after the two Zidians who were indeed flying away as fast as possible. One of the Zidians was already badly damaged and trailing fire. Des caught up to him in a hurry, finishing him off with a blast of his plasma cannons. Les was hot on the other one’s tail. As Jack watched him he was reminded of Red, who had never been able to let the enemy get away. Les was firing wildly. His first shots missed, but his next volley hit both of the enemy ships’ engines. The Zidian ship was destroyed in a spectacular explosion around which Les was doing victory loops and howling with joy.

Jack came about and targeted Trey’s Colonial Fighter with his grappler.

“Well at least it’s over,” he said as he took him in tow.

Trey shook his head.

“No Jack, it’s only beginning…”

Epilogue

“
M
y Empress, the Zidian scout ships are nearly here!”

Revina said nothing. She stood on the promenade of her royal flagship. She was as irresolute as ever. Outside the massive view port, the nearby Human sun glared fiercely at her fleet, which was orbiting as close to the star as their hulls could endure. An unfortunate side effect of emitting hyperspace waves that would disrupt Zidian shields, scanners, and fold systems was that the Infinians own shields were also useless.

“Your Highness, unless we act the Zidian scouts will discover us in moments,” said General Darok. “Activate the weapon systems and give my people control. We will destroy them before they discover us!”

The Empress turned her attention to the massive view screen that showed the imminent arrival of the Zidian ships.

“You must make a decision, child,” said her councilor.

Revina turned to regard the old man at her side who was leaning on an ornate staff. If you are not prepared to intervene directly, then we must safeguard our presence or leave.

“The plan is working,” she said. “The Human’s have fared far better than we could have hoped, though I fear we may only be postponing the inevitable.”

“If we leave now,” said the elderly Infinian, “then all of this will have been for nothing and the human’s will certainly perish. If we continue your plan they will at least have a chance, but that will mean giving Darok and the other Outsiders access to the weapons.”

Revina turned to face Darok. The Infinian General was dressed in a crimson tunic that suited his violent nature.

“Your Highness,” he said, “You have our loyalty. Let us do our duty.”

Revina turned back to the guardian and nodded. The old man, closed his eyes in concentration.

“It is done.”

Suddenly, the weapons consoles on the bridge below the promenade went active. An almost vicious smile spread across Darok’s face. At long last, he and his fellow Outcasts had a purpose and they relished it. He glared menacingly at the approaching Zidian ships.

“Lock weapons on targets.”

“Weapons locked,” came the reply from the fire control station.

A few seconds later, for the first time in a thousand years, an Infinian warship opened fire. The approaching Zidian ships were obliterated by the first volley. While the crimson uniformed Outsiders watched the explosions with looks of glee, the rest of the Infinians turned away in horror. Revulsion to violence had been so ingrained in them, they could not bear to see such wanton destruction.