A Warrior's Return (29 page)

Thankfully the simulation was over finally
and the screens disappeared. The strange reclining chair made of
light let go of me. Getting up I felt relieved, but ready to go lie
down for a while. I saw that everyone was positioned somewhere in
the room accomplishing some assigned task and I realized that the
simulation I’d been embroiled in must’ve been even longer than I
had realized. Just then the ship shifted and I felt it move
upward.

“What’s happening?” I asked quickly looking
around in alarm.

Eleanor spoke from her elevated chair
position, “We’re leaving hotshot didn’t you know?”

“Leaving! But I need more practice!”

“You can say that again!” Katie said in a
surly tone, from where she leaned against her consol completely
drenched with sweat. I ignored her.

“I thought we would stay here and practice
for a couple of days!”

“No such luck me gel! Captain’s orders.”

I glanced around looking for Talaric and
found him sitting across the aisle from his father, doing
nothing!

“And what are you doing other than nothing?”
I said loudly with my hands on my hips.

He gestured to himself and then to Roric,
“We’re the ship’s officers. We have to keep ourselves clear of any
responsibilities so we can be in a position to give out orders when
needed.”

Katie muttered something unintelligible, as
she glared at the pair.

“What was that soldier?” Talaric said in a
commanding voice.

“Nothing Sir!” Katie grumbled out.

“Alright then back to your stations both of
you!”

I turned back to my space in a daze and sat
back down my head beginning to pound in earnest. I wasn’t ready for
this! I need more time!

The chair closed around me and leaned me
back, as the screens lit up again, only different now because I
wasn’t in a simulation. I could hear everyone’s voices now coming
through seat-rest beside my shoulder.

Some voices were louder than others. which I
took to be a symbolism of how important what they had to say was
relevant to my job. How were we going to get out of here
anyway?

Almost instantly my head screen showed me a
clear picture view of the outside of the dome enclosure.

Oh great!

The stupid weapon console could read my
brain too! I glanced at the screen not able to help myself and saw
something quite alarming. The entire top of the dome was no longer
bluish white. It was red like the magma on the one side of the
dome. What were they doing?

They thought this was a good idea!

I started listening to the voices and I
heard Ellanara say faintly, “Dome on a measured rate of steady
decline.”

“What are they doing Katie?”

Katie’s voice spoke loudly into my ear,
“There decreasing the dome size. The magma is rushing in and
filling the void that’s left. It’s melting the ice above us.”

After a moment her voice came through again,
“Eva a lot is going to depend on us. Everything really I have a
feeling.” Katie’s voice was completely serious sounding.

“I know!” I responded softly, feeling as if
the weight of the world was on my shoulders, at least the weight of
the ship in any case.

“Did you get anything to drink Katie?”

“Yes Levyon brought me something. Stuff’s
not half bad actually for being several thousand years old.”

I watched and listened to the faint voices
in my ear and the pounding of my head abated some, as I lay quiet
and still in my seat.

“We’re nearly at full dome retention. I
think the ice is weak enough to punch through with the shield.”
That was Sparky talking.

“Refocusing dome shield telemetry.” That was
Ellanara talking.

Abruptly the shrunken dome shield reformed
into a cylindrical tube that was only as big as the ship and that
extended up through the magma overhead.

“Shield has breached through to the surface
and generators are all on board.” That was Ellanara again.

“It’s all yours Eleanor. Take us out!”
Talaric’s voice was louder than most of the others were.

“You don’t have much time Eleanor before the
shield starts breaking down from loss of power.” Ellanara said
speaking again.

Abruptly on the tail end of her words the
bar-Seth jerked upward through the narrow dome corridor like an
elevator gone mad.

I screamed. I think I heard everyone
screaming.

The mad ride came to an abrupt stop several
seconds later and I swear I felt my stomach hit the floor. I wanted
to throw up so bad that I didn’t know how I kept from not doing
it.

Maybe it was the thought that I might have
to lay in it in this reclined position, because I wouldn’t have
time to clean it off before the action began. That was a powerful
motivator not to puke.

Eleanor’s voice sounding quite queasy and
terribly apologetic sounded out next to my ear faintly, “I’m
awfully sorry about that everyone! The old girls a bit more touchy
on the throttle than the old crates I’m used to.”

Katie sounding very green said huskily,
“Somebody needs to come clean this up. I’m afraid I’ll slip on
it.”

Well it appeared that there had been at
least one casualty. Fortunately for her, she had at least been
standing.

The screen in front of me was dark and then
I realized it was because we were hovering above the surface of
Antarctica. Dark was how it looked day or night this time of
year.

“Captain, which beacon array do you wish to
head for? The one off California or the one off Western Europe.”
Eleanor asked now sounding completely herself again.

“Head for Europe it’s slightly closer.”
Talaric’s voice said.

From somewhere in the background I heard
Krista say, “I’m registering multiple radar locks on our position,
whatever that means.” She finished sounding puzzled.

“It means they know we’re here and will be
along directly to touch us off!” Katie responded sourly.

“Stow it Katie!” Came Talaric’s sharp
reply.

“Yes Sir!”

The bar-Seth started increasing speed in
both direction and altitude, but thankfully it was a gradual
increase this time. The screen before me started making me feel
dizzy and just like that it was gone to be replaced with my battle
screen showing the ship model outlined in green lines with my gun
options and firing positions expressed in purple.

“How fast are we going Eleanor?” Talaric’s
voice asked.

“Roughly Mach 3 Sir. I could go a good bit
faster Sir, but I’d eat into the backup power supply and I wanted
to leave as much of that as possible for Katie to use if need
be.”

“Carry on, good thinking Eleanor.” Talaric
responded with.

I wasn’t sure what Mach 3 was, but I was
pretty sure that it meant fast. Which was surprising because I
could have sworn we weren’t moving at all. Had to be some feature
of the ship that kept us from feeling how fast we were going.

Time passed by and I spent it studying my
weapon system. There were other options available than just my
primary firing platforms. I did my best to figure out what they
were and when and if to use them at all.

Everyone was silent for the most part during
the flight. Krista’s voice broke into the peace of the moment, “The
long-range scan has turned up multiple contacts grouped around the
destination point.”

There was a brief moment of silence during
which I cringed, as I considered what could be ahead of us.

“How many is multiple mother?” Talaric
asked.

She sounded like she’d rather not say when
she spoke out hesitantly.

“There are thirty-seven surface contacts and
one hundred and eighty-seven air contacts. There are more units
headed to the area as well Talaric.”

Oh God! One hundred and eighty-seven and
counting!

Oh God!

“Eva calm down!”

I was puzzled for a moment because the voice
wasn’t coming from the back of my seat as it normally did. I looked
over and saw Talaric squatting down in the aisle beside me. I was
about to lose it.

“Hey, none of that now! You can do this Eva!
I know you can!”

“Yeah like how? There’s so many!” I said
frantically.

“You alone took out three of Victor’s
bodyguards, while tied to a chair and then you came blazing out of
nowhere to save our butts back there in the desert! Eva I don’t
know any other woman that could overcome the situations that you
have! You can do this! Will you trust me honey and believe you can
do it, because I do!”

I nodded yes, as several tears streaked down
my face.

He got up and moved off and my eyes met
Titus’s across from me, “I’ze got your back Missy!” Came his deep
voice from across the aisle.

‘You better have! You got me into this!’ Is
what I thought, but I didn’t say it.

The screens in front of me were still devoid
of the enemy. Katie’s voice came through sounding remarkably
consoling and yet firm as she said, “Lock and load sister! They’re
coming in hot!”

Multiple red dots and red diamonds appeared
on my screen all at once. The battle was before me. I thought back
to when I had seen my team and the man I loved being shot at as
they were pinned down and now, like then, I felt a surge of anger
rise up in me. I just couldn’t allow the enemy to succeed in
messing up my life or my friend’s lives.

My fingers clicked and slid on the controls,
as my mind moved in place of the dance that I had done with my legs
in the hanger bay courtyard.

The chair shimmied and dipped and spun, so
that I didn’t know if I was right side up or facing down, as I
tried to respond to every possible threat that was streaking toward
the ship with deadly speed.

The only voice I could make out was Katie.
She was breathing hard into the mike and so was I probably. The
other voices seemed a distant murmur as Katie and I called out to
each other, as we defended the bar-Seth.

Roric shook his head back and forth, as he
gripped his hands together tightly.

“Oh my word son!” He said, as his eyes were
glued to the large overhead screen that showed the defensive battle
the ship was embroiled in.

The screen showed the 3D action, while the
explosions and the ship’s fire, as well as the enemies could be
seen for real, as it arced across the glass front of the ship in a
horrifying spectacle of abject onslaught.

“I know! Those two are the most gifted
warriors I’ve ever been around when they’re in a groove!” Talaric
echoed, as he glanced from the rapid outward pulsing of the ship’s
gun platforms and protective shield pulses, to the two women, who
were keeping them in the air.

Katie was spinning back and forth like
crazy, her fingers flying as she adjusted the shield for strikes
that slipped past the blazing guns of the bar-Seth. Talaric
wondered worryingly how long such a crazy intensity of human
endeavor could be prolonged and prayed that it would be long
enough.

Just to look at the motions of Eva’s chair,
as it stopped and spun only then to turn upside down before moving
on was nauseating. It had to be the ultimate seasickness
machine!

It was a range of motion that Eva hadn’t
even practiced during the simulation that had featured all head-on
targets. Somehow her mind had grasped what needed done and the
ship’s programming had done the rest.

The bar-Seth charged on barely feeling a
ripple, as many of the intended strikes were blown apart before
they could reach the shield and those that did were fully blocked
by correct usage of the flexed power of the shield’s capacitors. To
the enemy the ship must have looked like an unstoppable juggernaut,
which was thanks to two women’s efforts.

Most of the missiles were coming from the
surface ships which were now in range.

“Titus take out those ships!”

“It’d be a pleasure, Captain!”

Two great arcing beams of concentrated blue
light shot out from the forward wings of the bar-Seth and split
through the air like thunderbolts toward the surface of the water
ahead. Any enemy aircraft that had the misfortune of colliding with
the beams of light exploded.

As the twin tracer beams hit a missile
destroyer it exploded massively, the concussion of its destruction
echoing across the surface of the ocean for miles.

As easy as counting one-two-three all the
way up to thirty-seven the rest of the ships followed the way of
the first victim, as the surface of the ocean was set ablaze by
spilled oil.

“Should I help out Eva?” Titus called
out.

“No Titus! Your particle energy beams use up
too much energy, if we hope to keep the shield!” Ellanara screamed
out hoping to be heard by Titus.

She was working as feverishly behind the
scenes, as the other two women were, but no one knew it except for
Sparky, who stood near her and was watching unbelievably as arrays
of screens and diagnostic reports slipped by at a blazing pace.

Dimly he began to be aware that the bar-Seth
was functioning better than it had ever been created to and it was
because of Ellanara. From her screens he glimpsed some of what she
was up to.

She was somehow directing anti-gravitational
momentum from the ship’s geo-sync engines into Eva’s chair to help
buffer her from the shifting force of the chairs motions enough so
that she could remain aware and conscious.

She was also fine trimming the ship’s power
supply in an unbelievable real-time application of power
distribution, as she made the available power go longer and respond
better. Titus’s beam strikes had used thirty percent less power
than they normally would have, yet they had been just as
effective.

She was even doing the math of dialing up
Katie’s shield defenses so all Katie had to do was touch the
squares needed for the power distributions. The ship’s air
circulation system was pumping out heavily concentrated oxygen
overtop of Katie to help feed her starving lungs.