Chapter 25 Aera
I guide us closer to the shiny RageBurner.
The closer we get to the final warship, the more Skysprinters flood the stars.
It’s a challenge to keep myself on course and dodge the oncoming assault from a Solcrue fighter while returning fire.
My hands move fast over the controls, my eyes darting back and forth between screens, the void, the ships, and our position relative to the Rogue ship.
“Titans are hardwired to keep promises or not make them,” Evo says to me.
So am I. And I’m not going to leave him, no matter what it takes. This is where I belong, so even if I’m terrified to be alone on this ship in the middle of a bigger battle than I’ve ever seen, I pull in alongside the RageBurner and steady my aching heart with a deep breath. “You better be.”
“Love you, Aera. Thank you for staying with me when I felt like I was falling apart.”
Evo jumps.
My job now is to ensure they make it to the biggest warship in the pack.
I carve a path away from them, pinpoint the Solcrue Skysprinters, target them on my screen, and fire. I don’t wait to see if they blow. There are far too many. The more I can damage, the better the Rogues’ chances are.
With three squads taking my hits, and only three slipping past me, I circle back and behind the Rogue’s path. They take out the remaining three, along with many more, leaving me open to confront a cruiser coming in with a different attack angle.
Its shields hold despite three of my short-range missiles. I pull up a cluster package, bank toward them on a collision course, and kick the bomblets out at the battle cruiser’s nose before jerking the controls and launching away from them.
I check the rear view screen and see the fire light up the nose of the cruiser. Its shield falls, and it dives below the RageBurner, which tags their engines and knocks them out with five precise hits.
A missile tags me in the belly. Shield warnings flash as I’m pushed upward by the blast.
Shields 87%, holding.
“Motherfucker!” I swing around, find the one who hit me, and realize I’m not going to be fast enough with a normal banking maneuver. I close my eyes for a second to remember how Evo’s orbit maneuver felt.
Rear Belly thrust. I initiate the hoverthrusters and feel the ship careen upward. Topside nose thrust makes the orbit shorter with just a burst.
I sink below the ship, facing it. My loop is clumsier than Evo’s, but I manage to replicate the maneuver.
Then, I max the rear engines and charge after the one who shot at me.
I mash the short-range missile fire button.
A string of five lances across the sky and gives the SkySprinter a fiery send-off.
RageBurner makes it to the warship. Specks fall from it as it passes. Aidathrin fires up at the Rogue ship, causing it to break away and return fire as it serves and dips below the ship that compares in size to Aegis but is far darker and more sinister as it hulks through space.
I take out two more Skysprinters before a new voice enters my head.
“Aera, Esthi. I’m on Scythe. Targeting Cruisers. Can you maintain SkySprinter duty and see if you can take out Aidathrin’s shields? Your ship is having better luck. Must have an upgrade.”
“You could say that.” I swing away from a cruiser and punch my way through the Skysprinters that seem to come out of every orifice in the warship. “Targeting shield generators.”
“Rebel fleet, RageBurner. Targeting frigates and larger. Payload deployed.”
I raze through a small fleet of SkySprinters. I don’t take them all, but I cut a path that sends them scattering, giving me room to see Aidathrin and pick out a pair of glowing green marks on the rear, starboard side.
I switch munitions onscreen, target, and fire. The first missile hits its mark. When I fly over the ship to target the next, a Skysprinter smashes into my second missile, vanishing in a spray of parts.
“Fuck! You guys are insane!”
“Any sacrifice is worth it for their command,” Esthi mutters, weapons fire echoing over her com feed.
“The only difference between us is we fight for each other, not some made-up hierarchy assembled by self-important bureaucrats who just happen to have no qualms with jerking off a few engineers to get them to build some really big guns. Speaking of... Watch out for the big guns!”
Only then do I notice the hull-mounted cannons that swivel and track my ship.
Shit. “Roger. I see them.”
Pulling Evo’s orbit maneuver, I dive below the vessel, adjust my ship into a circular pattern, and target the belly shield generator. I take it out with the next missile.
The aft starboard quarter of the shield falls. As I rotate up again, I see Evo charge across the hull from a darkening engine and toward another Titan who moves like a shadow as he fights off squad after squad of Solcrue soldiers.
Another like Eon moves as a feathery cloud of darkness. I think it’s Wraith in his own battle: shooting, ducking, spinning behind cover, clearing a path, running, tackling Solcrue, and pushing their way toward the main guns at the front of the ship.
RageBurner makes a pass that takes out another engine on Aidathrin. They swerve overhead and take out a set of rail guns on the starboard side before darting away to chase a destroyer, leaving me to wreck a warship’s day in my little fighter.
Panic strikes me, but I talk myself through it. I’ve fought alone before. This ship is more capable. I need to protect Evo. Nothing else matters.
A wolf-like Titan bounds across Aidathrin’s deck, leaps onto a communications array, and tears it out with his teeth. Thirty more Titans are with them, shredding the outside of the warship and fighting off Solcrue that pour out of hatches like pissed off ants.
But as I rise again, I see the gun that had previously targeted me is now pointing down the topside of the hull.
The barrels swell with green light. Dread of the impending blasts the Titans will take grips my stomach.
What’s worse is that the Solcrue are going to fire on their own soldiers just to take out Titans.
That is how little they value life.
I target the guns and mash my Fire button. “Aera, Local: Incoming!”
My missile paints a bright light across the void as I pray. It smashes into the gun just as it goes off.
“Evo!”
He reaches his brother as the blast wave rips toward them.
I race by overhead and peer through the window to see them vanish beneath the green wave.
Anger and denial surge through me. “No!”
The blast fades.
Evo and Eon are gone.
In my heartbroken distraction, I nearly smash head-on into a Rebel fighter.
Shaking, I whip the controls to avoid the collision and see an opportunity to fire at the shield generator I missed earlier. It erupts in a cloud of fire and parts. But I’m too close, too blinded by emotion. Another gun glows and fires at me.
I tear the ship away in a defensive maneuver that sends me spiraling wildly into space, away from the battle. Impact Imminent warnings flash and fade.
My fingers tremble over the controls.
“Evo...”
I wait.
“Evo, do you copy?”
Breath leaves me. I clench my teeth and swallow the ache in my throat when he doesn’t reply. Fury grows in me, steadies my hands, and gets me back on course for the warship.
“Raven, Local: Centurion has jumped out of the system. Half of Rebel fleet is with them. Aegis and BlazeStar preparing to jump. Chasm relaying countdown. Ten...”
Aidathrin powers up the engines it has left and heads for the nebula, its forward guns cutting through Rebel ships. Solcrue are braving the clouds of Iridithatium in a desperate attempt to stop the Relics and Rogues.
“Group jump generators online,” Raven says in my ear com. “Seven... Six...”
I target Aidathrin’s aft engines. A single shot right up the core should cause it to overheat and shut it down, without a detonation.
Switching to short-range missiles, I send one right up its ass, then bank around the belly of the ship, take out another shield generator, and expose the guns to space.
I target every one I can and press Fire, holding my finger down as I swerve toward the front of the massive ship, laying down a trail of fire that rips open the belly.
It shuts down the rest of the shield, and I don’t hesitate to try a new type of barrel roll.
Maybe I have a death wish. I shouldn’t, but the real possibility that Evo is gone, that our time together was so brief, wrecks all remaining reservations I have left.
I wind up and over the warship like a corkscrew and fire at everything that glows and isn’t Titan.
Aidathrin spews parts into space, and clouds of bodies and gases fill the darkness.
I try not to care. They have taken everything from me. But I do not enjoy feeling like a monster, not deep down.
I just have to be one today.
Raven’s voice comes over the coms a little crackly. “I’m hit, but they’re out. BlazeStar and Aegis are free. Net up and jump, bitches!”
“Net open, Nebula,” Esthi calls out.
Navi’s voice joins in. “Net open, Tharsiiren.”
“Net open, Gargresk,” Raven calls out.
“Rebels, portals open,” Kelta says. “Blinking blue.”
A small Rebel ship zips through the space with a flashing blue pattern in its lights.
It glides over a Rebel ship, and the vessel vanishes.
Rebels disappear all around the nebula. Esthi and the Relics in Scythe collect Titans in a blue gravity beam, dodging enemy fire, and I realize no one has claimed Aidathrin’s remaining Titans for jump.
I clear the stars of every fighter I can as I make my way back to the warship. “Aera, Local: Aidathrin Titans, I have no net, but I will carry who is left.”
A bunch of clicks rattle my earcom with such a horrid popping sound that it makes me cringe. I understand now why Evo doesn’t want me connected to the telenet in its entirety.
I’ve got quite a few Titans to pick up.
Dodging a missile from a cruiser makes me miss the first sweep. I grit my teeth and whip back around for them. “One second, have to deal with a little shit head.”
I circle around the warship, target the cruiser, and send my last long-range missile at it, then fire a set of short-range missiles for good measure. “Coming in hot. Swinging low. Ramp dropping.”
Igniting the sealscreen, I tap the Lower Ramp command and hit reverse thrusters. I glide in over the warship’s hull and slow my pace as much as I can.
Thumps of boots on the hull and inside the ship make me glance back. Titans pour into the ship, helping catch each other.
“Are we good?” I call back.
“Go!” A dark unit with a white digibadge, Wraith, shouts up at me.
I close the ramp and set the rear engines at full throttle as I chase after Kelta’s portal ship.
“Kelta, Aera. Do you copy?”
A series of white-hot missiles spray around my ship from hers. The rear view screen whites out as something behind us explodes.
“You’re my last pick up. Hurry.”
The nose of Kelta’s ship brightens, and I pray we’ll fit through the ink net beneath her ship before she jumps. I pray we end up where the others are. Mostly, I pray I don’t fail these Titans too.
I’m sorry, Evo.
I love you.
Black ink swallows us as Kelta’s ship coats in blue light. And we punch out into a new area of the galaxy.
Ahead of us is the golden BlazeStar and the chrome Rogue ship Aegis, shining among Rebel fighters still gathering up in the fleet from the portal ships. Kelta’s ship pops into space beside us.
“Whew,” Kelta remarks. “That was a close one.”
As we glide in closer to the fleet, I see Centurion protected beyond the BlazeStar and Aegis.
“Anyone missing? How many did we lose?” Esthi asks as she flies up beside us.
“Relic Nix is down. Atox is working on him. Seven Rebel ships,” a Titan I don’t know replies.
More reports come through. We lost a handful of Titans and Rebels. Titan cores and bodies have been salvaged. But human lives are gone forever.
“Aera... What’s your status?” Kelta asks.
I look back at the Titans in the cabin behind me. They look at me like they don’t want to say it.
“Eon and Evo...” My mouth quivers as I report it. “I don’t have them.”
Raven makes a strangled noise. “Eon?”
“I’m sorry.”