Remember the Starfighter (15 page)

It was a collision, he had been told, the impact wiping out the escaping fleet. Three Endervar ships, moving at high speed, had crashed into the convoy just moments before entering the hyperspace portal. The resulting explosion had killed hundreds, and destabilized the fabric of space time itself. The S.C. Atlas, once a stronghold of safety, had been utterly vaporized.

“Lightning, come in. This is Drayden.”

“Admiral,” Julian said as he monitored the ship’s automatic repairs. “What’s your status?”

“Not good. Enemy ships are breaking through defensive lines. Interference everywhere. We can barely read you… Status?”

“Life support damaged, but sensors are coming back online. I’m on course away from Bydandia.”

“Good. Head to coordinates three point five-six. It’s a distance, but you’ve got to get past the enemy fleet. Those gravimetric fields are dampening all hyperspace portals.”

“I can do it. But what about you? Get you and your personnel to your shuttles already. I’m starting to read more Endervar ships.”

“Skkrrr…Too late,” the admiral said. “You gotta get out of here Julian.”

As Drayden finished his words, a priority one message was sent out to the fleet.

All ships, including military vessels, had been ordered to evacuate the system. Defensive formations had been fully dissolved.

“What the hell are you doing Drayden?” he asked. “What about the defense?”

“Julian, we’re reading new warp signatures inbound right at Bydandia’s doorstep. Too many to count. Those ships will arrive at any moment.” 

“That can’t be. There has to be something wrong with your scans.”

“This battle is lost Julian,” the admiral said. “Listen to me, you have to run. The Endervars have their whole damn fleet invading.”

“Drayden, get to your ships!”

“Don’t worry about us, Julian. Get that cargo to the Alliance. It could change this war.”

“Forget the cargo. You need to evacuate now.”

“You did your best Julian. You always have. We’re going to make sure you get out of here.” 

Julian spoke back, pleading with Drayden to stop. But static began to disrupt his message.

“Sorry it had to end like this,” Drayden went on. “You’re the last of Gray Squadron. Do me proud. Godspeed Julian. I’ve sent remaining— Head to— fighter squadrons at—”

Julian spoke again, trying to receive a response. But the static remained, the communications collapsing and then going dead. He shouted, demanding the admiral answer him back.

“Damn you Drayden.”

Julian thought himself prepared for this. Just another battle, he wanted to say, his mind hardened for war. Logic and orders replacing any need to feel.

However, at that very moment, his armor was gone, his psyche naked to the fear. Julian took off his flight mask and threw it off to the side in anger. Sweat dripped down through his hair, as he swore.

Out in the cockpit window, Julian spotted the airless moon that carried Bydandia base. It was nothing but a world born of cement-like rock, a patchwork of military installations it’s only worth. But not to Julian.

He placed his hand on the glass window, trying to touch what was there.

“Nalia,” he said, imagining her face in the reflection.

It shouldn’t have mattered. Not as time was running out. Not when the mission was at stake. But still, he wanted to give in.

Please
.
Just get off that base!

Julian went on, practically begging for a response.

The comm was still down. The distance between them separated by space and now war. Nothing would come. Julian already knew.

There was only the alarm. The scans disrupted with more interference, and rising enemy activity.

He couldn’t ignore it any longer. Nalia’s face had slipped away from his thoughts. Not only was the danger growing, but a flash of light overran his sight. The sharp glare began flooding in from the cockpit windows, the entity seeking to press through.

Space, and any discernible view, was now gone.

The enemy, he told himself. The enemy was here.

He turned to his sensors, the computer analyzing the scans. The gravity in the area started to dramatically escalate. All the while waves of radiation rippled through the system. Perhaps it was a weapon, a last ditch anti-matter bombardment to fend off the enemy advance.

Julian went to the scans, hoping to find it — some sign of resistance.

He was wrong. The computer could read no traces indicating an explosion. What came in its place, was the presence. An incoming mass close to the size of a minor planet. The trail of spatial distortions was swelling. And now, the entity was moving. The speed accelerating.

He then remembered. Julian had seen this once before.

Grabbing the controls, he diverted all power to the engines. The Lightning beckoned, blasting its accelerators. As he inputted the new coordinates, he could feel it. There had been no time left. Not even a chance to say goodbye. Julian had lost her. He had lost everything.

Orbital shields had failed. Damage to the base had been severe. As far as she could tell, most of her fellow officers, if not all, were dead.

Nalia felt the blood trickle down from her scalp and into her left eye. Around her, she could see the ruin, pieces of broken metal and equipment scattered across the floor. Buried beneath them were the bodies of the other officers. Unconscious or dead, she did not know. A fog-like gas had spilled across the floor, clouding her view. Nalia felt her own body, aching at the pain at her abdomen. More blood then spilt on her hands, her uniform smeared in red.

In the distance, rumbled the enemy bombardment, echoing through what was left of the base. Much of the structure had collapsed, with whole sections destroyed by the falling weapons fire. The station would not hold much longer. This was clear. Even as the pain was almost too much to bear, Nalia could still recall it. She had seen the scans. Out in space was the enemy in all its power, an Endervar Overlord vessel looming above. As the enemy approached, the vessel had begun warping the space around it, targeting anything to come in its way. The admiral had ordered her and the rest of the crew to evacuate. But even then, she knew it was for naught. In what felt like seconds, the enemy had stripped the moon of its orbital shields. Then suddenly, the base itself began to rumble.

Nalia looked down at herself now, seeing her own blood paint itself across her uniform. Rubble splayed on her legs, an explosion having ripped through the hallway.  She tried to move, but could no longer feel her legs. Wanting to speak, Nalia could only cough, her eyes nearly in tears. With each movement, she felt dazed, her body growing lifeless, as she lay on her side staring at the floor. Only minutes, maybe seconds more, she thought. Then she would be dead.

Nalia laughed.

It was a painful laugh, but still a laugh.

Death — it was finally here, and yet it didn’t at all matter. She was happy. Happy to have given those last orders. 

She would not go down without a fight. As part of her final mission, Nalia had been assigned control of the system’s remote defenses. A small army of automated drones had come under her command, the ships numbering at only over a hundred, but still enough to make her mark.

Protect the Lightning — that had been the order. So she did so, sending every last drone to surround the ship, and fend off any would-be attackers.

Nalia didn’t know if it had worked. The enemy had drowned the scans with interference, her follow-up commands to the drones cut off.

Dying on the floor, she looked up to the ceiling, and thought of him.

“Fly,” she said with her last breaths. “Fly for me.”

As the life left her, the Overlord ship reached closer to the moon. Soon it appeared as if the massive vessel was on the verge of colliding with it. But as it came, the moon that carried Bydandia base began to fall apart. Gravity was cleaving away at its cracked surface, as boulders of land then broke from the shell, its body crumbling against the Overlord’s mass.

Finally, it shattered, torn to pieces by the Endervar mothership. The enemy now passed through the broken world, or what had now simply become a cloud of rock. The Overlord did so, blind to all the lives it had just ended. To the vessel, nothing else mattered. Only the annihilation.

She awoke with what seemed to be frost in her eyes. All around her, she felt the thick and soupy liquid pull at her armored frame. It was cold, freezing cold, her exterior temperature systems verifying that it was 200 degrees below Celsius.

This was not her ship.

The woman’s memory, a rush of half-second images, dithered in her mind. Containment had been lost, reactor core overload imminent, an explosion thereafter. It was then she remembered, the sensation gnarling itself inside. She wanted to scream.

A fire of agony seared inside her, the chest consumed in pain. But try as she may, she could do nothing to relieve it; her body was still reeling from the near system failure. In total, she had been shutdown for more than two weeks, only to finally become conscious again. The cause: an energy surge had struck through her body, penetrating its adaptable armor, and cutting into her processor cores.

She tried to move, wanting to grab at her chest, and claw away at the pain. But instead, her body rammed up against what felt like a metallic wall. From head to toe, she had been contained. Inside of what, she did not know.

Beyond the pain and the coldness, she could feel something else. Something that was lost. Her connection absent. This was not her ship, its presence gone. “Control, report,” she said, hearing her voice echo in the confines. “Are you there?”

There was no response, only the eeriness of the liquid sloshing back and forth.

Basic systems were coming back online, her fingers, vision, smell and even taste all operating within normal parameters. However, stability to the primary power core was still under repair, the shard of unique energy it housed barely stable. Looking at her arms, she saw the traces of the damage, a scar-like depression etched down into her armor’s chest area.

Taking her right hand, she felt the hard surface around her, realizing that she had been sealed shut.

She pushed again, this time much harder — about thirty-times her normal strength. As the force hit the surface, the wall became unhinged. She then clenched the surface, the once rigid metal bending and twisting against her fingers. The woman pushed, this time shoving the metallic wall to the side as the compartment’s liquid flowed out.

She sat up, feeling a rush of air leave as further darkness surrounded her. Clouds of steam began to rise from her confines, but still, she could see, switching her optics to penetrate the gloom.

What seemed to be a corridor, suddenly felt more like a mechanical structure, the hum of machinery vibrating in the chamber. Temperatures around her were still low, reaching freezing levels. Immediately, she detected trace amounts of water vapor. Ice it had become, the particles both in the air and condensed in thin layers against the metal walls. What was this, she wondered, the room absent of any oxygen, with nothing to suggest a life-support system.

It was then she realized it. This was not simply a room, but a starship, a violet backdrop of streaming stars beaming through a large window up ahead. Scanning, she noticed what seemed to be a seat below the window.

The woman stepped down from the container, hearing an almost eerie silence within the confines. Her armored suit then clanked on the ground, the presence of artificial gravity registering through her scans.

Turning forward, she could see nothing indicating a heat signature, her optics switching between the different viewing patterns. She then noticed something on the ground next to the seat. The woman walked forward, coming closer, to see the figure. It was a being, the head, and arms and legs, distinctly visible.

She did not recognize its dress. It was a strange and sophisticated uniform, with strands of silver and black weaving on the arms and chest. At the being’s head was a helmet, a fog masked over its glassy visor. The woman kneeled forward, and reached down, wiping away the haze.

At first, she thought it was an error seeping into her visuals. But no, it was unmistakable. A human male lay before her, the face and its characteristic features clear.

Instinctively, she wanted to speak. To learn from this man, to express what needed to be said. About the mission. About everything. It had been their goal for so long. To find them. So many questions, wanting to be answered.

None of this would come. Not when the human, his face vacant of expression, lay there lifeless. She checked again, through her scans, wanting to disbelieve them. But it was true, the man’s heart had stopped, his body cold. He had been dead now for more than two days, his carcass left to freeze.

“Do you remember me?”

He had heard the voice several times now, all the while, feeling barely alive, his every breath a struggle, his entire body numb.

He opened his eyes, the bright light coming through, and then turning back into blackness. So hard it was to stay awake, his body wincing in discomfort.

“Julian, can you hear me?”

The voice. It was a man, someone speaking to him, close. He opened his eyes, again, finding that he was in a room, the walls entirely white. He realized he was laying on something, on some kind of a bed. His body now covered in a suit. The fabric ceramic-like, encasing and constraining around his every limb.

“Can you see me?”

He wished he could ignore it. But the voice was growing louder, more emphatic, wanting a response. He swallowed, feeling his lips dry. Then he coughed hard, gasping to inhale, trying to focus. Indeed, there was a man, next to him, speaking at his side.

At first, he could barely make out the figure, although in time, he could see that the man was dressed in clothes formal and black. Strange golden markings ran across and below his shoulder blades, even extending down to his arms. And yet, even more peculiar was his face, a pair of violet eyes staring back at him.

“Julian,” the man said. “Do you remember? Do you remember me?”

He wondered about that thought. Who was Julian? Where was he? Who was this man standing before him?

Hearing no answer, the man then stepped back — like he wanted to give room for something.

He then realized the numbness was leaving him. In its place was pain. It began as a mild nausea, his mind gradually losing focus. Suddenly, the disorientation turned into a violent anarchy, an emptiness inside him now becoming a shocking force. Out of nowhere, images and faces had surfaced, the seconds, hours, days and years, coming in one surge after the next. Memories of every kind, invading his very being. He could see the places and people, so foreign, only to then realize that they were not. This was not right. This was not natural. What was happening? Thoughts by the millions, so distant, and yet so vivid, emerged. Suffocating it was, his only response but to scream out in pain. The images turning into moments. The moments turning into life. And then the life itself falling into torment. Stop, he screamed, wanting for it to end. He was going to collapse, he was going to die, his brain wanting to explode. Please, he begged, please let it stop. His face was now drenched in sweat.

Ever so gradually, the mercy came, the storm scattering, the pain receding. He felt the tension leave his muscles, his breath now one long exhale after another. Yes, the pain was gone. But something was now different, his mind filled with thoughts, dozens of them, from years ago to what he knew to be his last moments.

The man stepped closer and asked once again. “Julian. Do you remember? Do you remember anything?”

Still in shock, he lay there for several moments, staring at the ceiling. Finally, he turned to the man, recognizing both his voice and his face, even recalling his name.

“Yeah, Landon” he said, with tears in his eyes. “Fuck.”