Chapter 24 Aera
Evo gives me instructions as we fly into the mayhem of missile fire, blasts, and clashing Titan and Solcrue forces.
“We cannot cause a Solcrue detonation of a cruiser or larger with all the humans so close. That will cascade into the nebula and destroy ships that don’t have shields.
Not all of the Rebels have them. Many were damaged during the escape from Ellipsis.
“Target Solcruean shield generators, the green bars that look like pairs of fangs. That will help Titans board and disable the ships as necessary. And conserve ammo. If you miss, let it go.”
I focus on the first ship we approach, a small fighter that cuts us off. “How do I know who isn’t just one of us flying a stolen ship? I know the Ravenger is blue. But there are so many. We’re a mess.”
Evo sets his hands on the flight control screens.
His eyes fill with moving light that spreads out over his face.
The window ahead of us paints with a schematic of ships.
Targeting brackets appear, isolating green forces from blue.
“Rogues are holding off Solcrue forces while Relics and Rebels portal out. They’re moving your colony now. ”
We’re up against three warships, a multitude of cruisers, frigates, and fighters in a massive battle, like I’ve never been in before. But Evo’s counting on me.
My heart rate rockets as we make our way into the nucleus of the war.
I target a Solcrue fighter, shoot out the engines, and watch it bloom in a puff of light and gases.
Then another tries to cut us off, and I target and fire, taking it out.
It becomes a pattern, pushing me faster until I’m picking out and targeting and firing at multiple ships at once as Evo dives and banks and sways us through the crisscrossing weave of enemy and ally fire and attack patterns.
Three Skysprinters surge by us, going the opposite direction.
Evo reaches over, grabs the chest strap of my harness, and yanks it tighter. “Hang on!”
He punches the thrusters on the belly, and we careen upward, rotating over the nose of the ship, before racing after the three that just passed us.
The disorientation stalls my hands for a moment as my sense of gravity rushes into my head.
“Aera!”
I frantically target the three fighters that fire at Craze and Navi’s Ravenger.
I take out the one closest to us. Evo pushes us faster, and we dart through the spray of fire and parts to the second. It takes three more rounds to wreck the second ship. The third darts away from the Ravenger.
Red alerts flash in the cabin.
“Got a cruiser on our ass.” Evo grunts.
“Hang on?” I ask.
“Yes.” He dives us sharply, sending blood into my head again. Then we dip beneath a Solcrue frigate and charge toward a warship. The vessel breaks away to avoid crashing into the frigate, and the red alerts shut off.
“My Brothers need help.” Evo circles back for the third Skysprinter. I don’t miss this time and move on to target an approaching frigate. But its shields are already down. There’s a Titan on top. Metal sprays out as the Titan bores into the ship.
“Carver,” Evo states. He looks over at another ship where a blaze of lightning zigzags through another cruiser and darkens the interior. “Firebolt.”
“Why can’t I hear you all over my ear com?” I ask.
“Because we are not using words to communicate,” Evo replies, glancing at me so I can see the flickering light in his eyes. “I see all of my Brothers fighting everywhere. My core processes and selects relevant information. Fire.”
I follow his eyes, promptly target the fighter, and take it out.
Evo races forward and banks in behind a passing destroyer. A thump on our hull makes me look up at a Titan with jagged gold lines through black armor.
“Firebolt.” Evo sways us again. Another thump. “Carver.”
He dips us and pushes the ship hard under another darkened cruiser that balloons outward, like an explosion goes off inside. A Titan punches out of the hull, careens into us, and catches Carver’s hand. His StarJumper’s suit reads Boomer.
Evo looks up at a fighter racing across the stars far above us, then rises to meet up with it, when a fourth unit, Storm, his body dark as the void and covered in smoky swirls, lands on the nose, giving me the impression he might be a tornado in humanoid form.
He looks back at us with eerie slowness.
“Squad Three ready,” Evo says. I hear him in my ear com this time. “Target: Gargresk.”
I clear a path, shooting down every Skysprinter that gets in our way. An emissary’s cruiser parallels us. The Solcrue inside glare at us. I wave and smile as I tap Fire. Hi, Fuckers.
The ship jerks away, taking minor damage to an aileron.
Evo darts us over a Rebel ship and aims for the warship with Gargresk on the side. “Ready to deploy.”
Storm, Firebolt, Carver, and Boomer collect on the nose, looking ready to jump.
“Aera...”
“Hang on... Got it.” I grip my harness.
Evo surges toward Gargresk and flips us ass-over-nose in a rotational orbit around the warship.
As we pivot, the Titans jump. Guns fire up at us, but we’re already circling the ship, unloaded, and darting underneath, back into battle before the guns on the belly of the warship are even hot enough to fire.
The moment I can, I peel my hands from my straps and target passing cruisers, fighters, destroyers, frigates, anything that isn’t marked in blue. A green ship I target switches to blue onscreen, and I freeze.
“Talon,” Evo reports.
The fighter, covered in claw marks, launches across space and starts taking out Solcrue Skysprinters.
I know we built Titans to be superior in battle compared to humans, but being out here and seeing them in action is just proof that the Creators did what they set out to do.
Evo is completely calm even as we take a hit from the side. “Shields at ninety-two percent. Holding.” He changes a setting that dims cabin lights. “Ninety-nine percent. Picking up for warship Tharsiiren.”
I shoot down three more fighters on our way to the underside of a darkening frigate. Two Titans land on our hull and barely glance down at us as they monitor the battle. They’re both covered in shiny facets. Javelin and Spike steady themselves as Evo swerves to avoid a collision with a CSP ship.
“What the fuck are they doing out here?” I ask.
“That is Scythe.”
“I know the ship.”
“Savage and his Relic team took it with Esthielle, the CyberTech, Armor’s mate, when we were fighting our way off of Planet Ellipsis.
” Evo flies us over Scythe, and a thump of metal rumbles up from our belly.
Seconds later, a scaly Titan in blues and golds crawls up to watch the battle from between Javelin and Spike.
A squad of Skysprinters races toward us.
I target each one, but I’ve seen their formation before, and I know they’re going to break the moment the guns heat up.
“Evo, take us below them.”
“What?”
“They use this one on us! They split, dive, and fire up at us in an X pattern that crosses fire and makes it impossible to escape. Dive!”
Evo slams the roof thrusters on, and we drop hard and fast. I fire up at the Skysprinters as they shut off their guns and try to retarget on our new position. But I remember Charlee’s rage-cry when they pulled this on her brother.
“For Jascen!” I don’t care how much ammo it takes, but I make damn sure to waste every single one of them. They meet their fates in masses of fragments, gas, and exploding fuel cells.
Finally, I’m getting some appropriate revenge, and it bolsters my confidence.
Evo swerves us toward a midsize battleship. “Fenrir, Panther, and Yeti need help. Clean sweep the hull.”
I see the Titans running on the side of the smoking ship, as three squads of Solcrue in star suits chase them down and spray a sheet of weapons fire at their backs.
Sliding my fingers over the targeting screen, I select a spread zone and, the second we’re within range, I set my finger on the weapons screen over a rapid fire gun I haven’t tried yet, something listed for closer combat. It sprays bullets through the squads to the rapid thunder of a rotary drum.
“Fuck yeah. Eat lead, bitches,” I mutter.
Evo dips close enough that the Titans can jump the span. We now carry six Titans toward Tharsiiren.
He swerves us to another darkening fighter, and a shiny metal Titan smashes into our nose. He crawls up beside Javelin. The four over our heads shimmer with the reflecting firelight of missile tails, explosions, and the nebula.
“Chrome, huh?” I refocus on the SkySprinters that target a batch of Rebel ships. “I knew we made you guys tough. I didn’t know how pretty and sparkly you were in battle.”
Evo makes a noise I can’t decipher.
I burst out in a single laugh as I switch back to my regular short-range missiles, target the next frigate, and release a set of three at each shield generator. “Sorry. But it really is stunning watching you fight.”
As we pass the frigate, heading for Tharsiiren, steps thump and leave our hull. I look out the side window and see Yeti, Fenrir, and Panther land on the frigate and collectively rip an access door open before we’re out of visual range.
They don’t waste time.
“Aera, my brother is in trouble. He is on Aidathrin. Support mission in progress.” Evo’s eyes flash as we dip under Tharsiiren. I clutch my harness as we do another orbit maneuver and the sparkle crew jumps, landing on Thariiren’s hull.
Evo banks us away from the warship and circles to another area around the nebula. “I’m going to need to help him. That means...”
“You need me to pilot and shoot.”
He draws in a deep breath and looks down at me with worry in his eyes. “This ship has good shields. But if you take more than five hits, you must retreat to the nebula. We will figure it out.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Mothership Aidathra was the one that tried to stop us from leaving Ellipsis. Aidathrin is its warship. So they’re far more pissed off than the others. We killed hundreds with the anti-Solcrue detonation. Those left...”
“Got it.”
Evo taps a screen that lights up the pilot controls in front of me. Then he gets up and disappears into the back. I’m not sure if I have got it. The vessel is far more advanced than any I’ve flown. But I’m going to try because that’s what Evo needs from me.
I make a few subtle adjustments to get the feel of the ship.
It’s highly responsive and, honestly, impressive.
Solcrue may be shitty when it comes to morals, but for a moment, I wonder what we could become if our best and their best could engineer a future together.
There are a few that have promise, like Jeris and Sythius.
Some are just coming around to the realization that what they were told about their society might not be true, like Crezlith.
I just hope the ones we could potentially work with aren’t the ones I have to kill today to save my own people.
Evo returns to me decked in Solcrue weapons. “I will love you like you deserve when this is over.”
He takes me gently, under my chin, tips my head back and, as he leans over me, he kisses me upside down with such heat and passion that I melt, and my hands slip from the controls.
Evo chuckles, guides my hands back to place, kisses my neck over the healing scrapes from Crezlith, and then directs me toward a shiny chrome ship racing toward Aidathrin. “Stay away from the warship. Just get me to the RageBurner with my Brothers.”
“Evo, Aera. Do you copy?” he asks over my ear com without verbally speaking.
“I copy.”
He nods.
“We are on a closed com signal. I do not want interference from everyone. It is a lot for a human to process,” he says as he walks into the airlock at the back. The light of a green sealscreen pops to life, glazing the dash.
“Be careful,” I call back to him.
“That is not built into a Titan’s purpose. But I will be practical and precise.”
“You know, I just want you to not take stupid risks, right?”
“Can’t fulfill my promise to you if I am decommissioned,” he says as the airlock closes.