Another fighter got through, smashing the same section. McKinley could tell just from seeing it’s trajectory on-screen. “Heat from our what?” McKinley asked angrily.

  The navigator looked more confused than ever. Finally, he said softly, “They’re after our IST generator.”

  McKinley grabbed his battered stogie and chomped down on it at the same time another kamikaze slammed into them. He needed to think quickly. Things had started out so slowly—nothing happened at first—and now it was all coming together too fast. He was running out of time, and he knew it.

  He got on the comm. “This is General McKinley. All personnel, directive twenty-one. I repeat directive twenty-one.”

  He felt mentally lazy; making the command to put on suits was an obvious move to make. If the fighters busted deeply enough through the hull, the vac-shield wouldn’t hold up. Beyond the threat of a hull breach, AL contamination would be fatal. But he knew he was dodging the hard thinking. The real decision was whether to run.

  A security tech approached him and said, “You’re suit, sir.”

  Preoccupied, McKinley took the suit from the tech without acknowledging him. Running was a reprehensible thought. He couldn’t get his arms around it, not because he wouldn’t leave if all was lost, but because of the circumstances. Here they were seemingly holding their own. The entire fleet was still space-worthy. The station was intact, and the flagship was the only vessel taking on damage. How could he explain leaving the battlefield under these conditions?

  Still, he knew they were in imminent danger. If AL got to their IST generators, they’d be sitting ducks—stranded.

  He rushed over to a row of defense techs. “See those bogies?” he pointed. “They’re aiming at the same part of our hull. Can’t you shoot in a straight line?” he yelled indiscriminately at the wild-eyed techs who already appeared stressed to the max.

  Another fighter got through.

  He needed to pull the trigger now or never. Waiting for things to get better was a fool’s errand. “Navigator, take us out. I don’t care where to. Just get us out of here.”

  The navigator stood with his arms braced between him and his console as if he was holding the console together with shear might, his arms shaking. “We’re too late. IST is down.”

  McKinley pounded his console with his heavy hand and spit his cigar onto the floor. “Suit up!” he shouted to everyone in the HQ.

  Slipping his own suit on, he hobbled over to an unbusted console. His helmet still off, he started to make another announcement over the comm but was interrupted by the navigator.

  “Sir, look,” he said pointing at the main viewer.

  McKinley glanced up. The fighters continued their onslaught. He felt impatient. Nothing popped up. Nothing looked different.

  Then he saw it. All three anti-life cruisers had changed positions.

  “They’re coming our way, sir.”

  Slowly, hands trembling, General McKinley placed his helmet over his head and initiated his suit’s pressurization. Through yellow tinted glass, he watched as three cruisers grew larger on-screen.

  CHAPTER 5

  “COMING OUT of IST, sir,” said Franks.

  Alvarez nodded affirmatively. He waited, listening for the cue: a change in the ever-present hum. There was a drop in pitch, then a rev higher—the generator reversing its polarity for inertial dampening.

  “That’s it,” Franks said. Then the main-viewer came alive. Alvarez searched it for answers. Sure enough, Novos was under attack. Quickly he spotted Novos station and in front of it the flagship.

  “The Victoria,” he said out loud. He pulled up the comms portal. The ship had several IDs stored including General McKinley’s, but they didn’t glow green like they should. He punched the call icon, but it was dead, unresponsive.

  He switched to wide-band and hit the call icon. “This is Colonel John Alvarez in space vessel NC Saratoga calling General McKinley or anyone who can hear this. I’m here to assist.” He broke off, almost choking over his words. He felt the emotions in his throat—panic.

  “Sir, I don’t think it’s any use. Something appears to be jamming our transmissions,” Franks said.

  Just like at Trinity, Alvarez thought. He glared at the view-screen, seeing the three anti-life cruisers slowly making their way toward McKinley’s ship. The rest of the Novos fleet was attempting to defend the Victoria, but their efforts were uncoordinated; some chased AL fighters while others pounded the cruisers. There was no visible sign of damage to the cruisers.

  Franks looked at Alvarez, waiting for leadership. And Black sat at one of the tech consoles, appearing unsure of how to help. Alvarez knew they were watching, but he stared at the screen, trying to make sense of it. Despite being surrounded and pounded by the Novos fleet, all three cruisers made their way toward the flagship. Why didn’t McKinley get out of there?

  Alvarez thought about trying to stand between McKinley and the cruisers, but what good would that do? He needed to pick them off, one at a time. But there was no clear leader, no ship in front of the others. And they all looked to be the same size.

  Time to choose, Alvarez told himself. “Franks, get us to the central anti-life cruiser. Dr. Black, can you handle the hologrip again, and be ready to switch to your vac-shield program quickly?”

  She nodded. “Let’s go,” Alvarez said as he pulled up his hologrip.”

  “I’m keeping mine on shot batteries, Dr. Black. I suggest you do the same. Don’t engage bogies unless they approach us. We’re not after them, we’re just trying to get to that cruiser.”

  Alvarez’s console went from six images to three as Black took over one of the cannons. So far, so good. No bogies seemed interested in them. Instead, Alvarez saw most of them attacking McKinley’s ship. He wanted to fire. He wanted to protect his family, but he needed to be smart. He knew if he could take out the cruisers, the kamikazes would become ineffective and demoralized.

  He tried to stay focused on the cruiser that would be their target. He wondered why they didn’t fire, why they didn’t have weaponry and instead relied on the fighters. One thing was for sure, they were as hard as nails. Nothing the entire fleet was dishing out seemed to phase them, no kinetic weapons anyway.

  Suddenly, a fighter bulleted toward him. He pulled his trigger, lighting up his screen and obliterating the would-be kamikaze.

  They were close to the cruiser, now. He hoped that incursion wouldn’t attract more fighters. But he knew better; it was about to get ugly.

  “We’re close enough to engage, sir,” the navigator said.

  “Cynthia, do it.” Alvarez said.

  His hologrip doubled as did his screens, having both cannons now. At least he could ignore one of his screens, the one facing the cruiser, only meters away from their hull. Hopefully, Franks could keep up with the cruiser’s trajectory and speed and the cruiser wouldn’t veer off course unexpectedly. This could all be for naught, he thought, if we crash.

  Something must be working, he realized, because they were getting attention now. Three screens filled with bogies. Alvarez kept the impact cannons chugging hard as he eliminated one target after another, skipping from screen to screen, from red highlighted box to box.

  “The cruiser’s slowing, Colonel,” Franks reported.

  “Stay with it,” Alvarez said quickly. He was too busy trying to stay alive to think.

  While scanning targets, Alvarez saw the two cruisers on either side of them. Before, they were a constant sight, but now they were leaving his view, ostensibly moving on ahead without the central cruiser.

  Alvarez wished, hoped somehow that this central cruiser was the real brain, that if they destroyed it the other two would go down also. But he had no reason to believe that.

  His view-screen and hologrips changed, signaling that Black had the other cannon again. He was glad, both because he needed help fending off fighters and because he hoped that meant the vac-shield program was well on its way.

  Again, the relentless pounding of cannon fire filled the helm. It was a furious meditation, so intense was the concentration that Alvarez forgot why they were there, forgot his family, forgot himself. It was just the enemy that existed now, existed briefly until he shot them down.

  Then, arbitrarily it seemed, Franks shouted over the raucous noise, “That’s it. It’s down. The cruiser’s dead.”

  Without having to receive the command from Alvarez, Black disengaged her hologrip and checked her console. Alvarez, now controlling both cannons, felt overwhelmed. Unlike at Trinity, these kamikazes weren’t slowing down after the cruiser was disabled. He figured the other two cruisers maintained control over the fighters, somehow.

  “Get us out of here!” he yelled to Franks. These bogies were getting too close and showed no sign of letting up. Alvarez heard the thrusters rev up, and the ship shifted away from the cruiser, out into less occupied space.

  Several fighters pursued them—Alvarez more easily fought them off—but most broke off, apparently more motivated to stay near the other cruisers than to exact revenge.

  Finally, they were free, at least from the fighters. Alvarez stepped back from his console, trying to get his bearings. He felt like he was coming off some sort of quick-acting stimulant, left with nothing but shaking hands and a swimming head.

  He readjusted the main-viewer and brought up a forward panorama of the battlefield. Then the reality, the totality of the situation, struck him. Both remaining anti-life cruisers had reached the Victoria. It looked like they had rammed the ship, and the fighters were all over her, like flies on a carcass. This was where his whole life and dreams were; his son and wife were aboard that ship. And now…he couldn’t process the consequences further. Unthinkable. Unbearable.

  “Take us in,” he demanded.

  “But sir, there’s no way we—”

  Alvarez didn’t wait for Franks to finish but instead shoved him out of his seat and punched in the commands himself.

  Before Franks could get off the floor, the reverse thrusters kicked in, knocking him back down again. Then after a moment of realignment, the main thrusters revved back up to full blast, and the Victoria—or what was left of it—grew in relative size.

  Alvarez scoured over the details of what he saw, not in order to think what might be happening aboard the flagship—that was too horrendous—but to understand how the enemy was operating. They seemed to be purposefully crashing into the ship, but not in such a way that would cause it to explode or even permanently disable it. They were trying to break through the shielding, to infect the interior with their essence. Alvarez couldn’t be certain, but he thought they might even be boarding.

  The rest of the fleet behaved as if they were neutered, incapable to act. No one was willing to do the hard thing of firing at or near Novo’s flagship. Too afraid of being the idiot who accidently killed the fleet general, they ineffectually focused their aim at the aft of the AL cruisers. Alvarez knew these anti-life creatures, how ruthless, godless, soulless they were. He had been trying to warn everyone, but obviously even now amidst a total surprise attack from a seemingly impenetrably superior enemy, no one had taken his warnings seriously enough. Alvarez knew with every fiber of his being it was better to be killed than to be captured and turned into one of those anti-life beasts.

  As they approached the cruisers, Alvarez pulled up his hologrip and selected the rail battery.

  “What are you doing?” Black asked.

  “What nobody else is willing to do.”

  “If you fire on the flagship…” She stopped, realizing the predicament they were in. “I’ll get the vac-shield program ready. If we can stay close by one of those cruisers, maybe we can cause a bit more damage.”

  Alvarez heard her but didn’t answer. He was too focused on the task at hand: anticipating the first bogie to light up with the red targeting border. He believed that if he could just pick off enough fighters, the flagship could somehow escape. He had to save the ship, save his family.

  In short bursts, Alvarez picked off one fighter after another. He was careful not to over-fire for the same reason he wasn’t using shot battery; he didn’t want to damage the flagship.

  Unlike before, the fighters ignored him, like bees mesmerized on flowers, they were oblivious to his threat. But it seemed like no matter how many he picked off, there were two more waiting to take the one’s place on the flagship’s hull.

  “We’re nearing the closest cruiser,” Franks told Black. He looked at Alvarez, but the Colonel seemed deaf to their conversation, immersed in his own mission.

  “Hold it steady,” Black announced. “Engaging vac-shielding program.”

  At that precise moment, everything changed. As if they all heard the same dinner bell, the AL fighters buzzed away from the flagship, leaving a hole-ridden, titanium corpse behind. They fled to and docked inside the cruisers via hatches that had previously been undetectable.

  Suddenly, the cruisers backed out of position away from their prey. Alvarez had switched to shot battery, trying to take out more of the fighters before they escaped. But soon he was out of targets, the fighters all safely inside their mother ships. Then, like someone coming out of a trance, Alvarez released the hologrips and looked blank-faced about the helm.

  “Keep on them,” Black yelled.

  “I’m trying,” Franks said feebly. “They’re moving too fast.”

  Black slammed her palms against her console. “You lost them!” she said in disgust.

  Alvarez stood blinking, the fog of war fully in effect. He heard his name. “John, what’s your orders?” It was Cynthia.

  “There they go,” Franks admitted.

  Alvarez whipped his gaze back to the screen. The two cruisers were accelerating, and then, at the same moment, they disappeared into the silent sonic-boom that was the tear of space-time created by their version of an IST generator.

  “The Victoria,” Alvarez exhaled.

  The view-screen switched to what was left of McKinley’s vessel. What had been the pride of Novos Corp’s engineering was now a ghost ship. Alvarez looked for good news but only saw hole-pierced emptiness. Parts of the hull were so deteriorated, and from so many different sides, that Alvarez could see black space and twinkling stars on the other side.

  Alvarez stared at where the Victoria’s HQ should have been. Its observation windows were usually a beacon of light, a lighthouse to wayward ships, but now they were completely dark. Even one of the windows was broken.

  “Sensor readout,” he said.

  No one moved. Dodge, their systems operator, would have done this job. Then Franks said, “Sir, I don’t think—”

  “I didn’t ask what you think. I asked for a sensor readout.”

  Franks complied, switching consoles. After a moment he said, “Colonel, we’re not picking up any energy signatures. It appears their entire system is offline: propulsion, computers, life-support.” The last word came out awkwardly. “They’re all down, sir. No reason to think anyone could have…”

  Alvarez glared at him, stopping him from finishing that sentence. Alvarez said, “Suits. They probably all put on pressure-suits when their hull became compromised. We need to mount a rescue mission. Franks, see if our comms are working again. We may be close enough to pick up one of their transmissions, or at the very least we can work with the rest of the fleet to go in and get our people out.”

  Franks punched buttons and then said, “There’s a backlog of transmissions we couldn’t see until the cruisers left.”

  “Screen them. Maybe some are from those aboard McKinley’s ship,” Alvarez said. “Tell me what you find,” he said as he walked toward the helm’s exit.

  “Where are you going?” Black asked.

  “I’m suiting up. There’s no time to lose. You know how unreliable those space-suits are. They aren’t the normal, heavy-grade suits we use for mining missions. They’re cheap, disposable items that aren’t ever expected to get used. And the tanks—if they had air in them at all, they won’t have much.”

  “John, I think…” She hesitated.

  “Spit it out. We don’t have all day.”

  “Aren’t you making too many assumptions? I mean—I want them to be alive too, but don’t we need to face the possibility that—”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” Alvarez insisted. He said it, but he didn’t believe it. At this moment, all he could see in his mind’s eye was Nadia and Adam somewhere in space-suits, somewhere aboard that ship. They were waiting for him; he knew it. They had to be.

  Cynthia Black caught his eyes with hers, her head tilted sideways in a questioning way, looking like she wanted to say more but couldn’t.

  “Colonel,” Franks said. “I’ve got something you probably need to hear.” He had a look on his face Alvarez had never seen before.

  Alvarez walked to him. “What is it?”

  The navigator held his headphones up for Alvarez. “I think you should use these.”

  “Nonsense. Play it out loud.”

  The navigator exhaled, punched his console, and then said, “There are two messages that originated from inside McKinley’s ship. No time stamp, so there’s no way to know when exactly they were sent. I’ll play them back-to-back.”

  “This is Adam Alvarez. Can anyone hear me? I’m on General McKinley’s ship, the Victoria. I can’t get hold of anyone onboard, so I’m sending this message through all channels. I think we’re under attack. I keep hearing sounds, loud ones. I think we’re being hit by something. I bet General McKinley has already got things under control, but I need help. I’m trying to get back to my mother, Nadia Alvarez. If someone’s able to hear this and can tell her, let her know I’m okay. I’m trying to get back to our room, but I’m turned around. Well, I guess that’s all.”

  Alvarez gripped his console for support. The sound of his son’s voice cut into him, past his ego, past his machinations about how they were all okay and brought him a painfully real dose of reality. He looked at Franks and nodded for him to play the next transmission.

  “This is Adam Alvarez again. I don’t know if anyone can hear me. No one came to help since I called. I tried cranking up the signal, so maybe someone on another ship can hear me. Maybe my dad, John Alvarez will pick this up. Dad, if you can hear me, I need help. We went under lock-down a while ago. Then the issue came for us to put on p-suits. I found one in the wall closet, but it’s not my size—too long. It’s all bunched up around my knees, and my feet keep slipping out. That’s not the worst of it; it’s slowed me down. I was making some progress…well, I think I was getting closer to finding our room, finding Mom. But this stupid suit is slowing me down. Dad, we must be in some big trouble to have to wear p-suits. Dad, I’m getting…I’m getting a little scared.”