“Keryn,” he whispered into the dark. Running harder, he yelled after the retreating silhouette. “Keryn!”
Lightning flashed, igniting the mist in blinding brilliance. Yen fell backwards, collapsing onto the ground and covering his eyes from the intensity of the light. As his vision cleared, he peered forward in awe as the mist coalesced into a beautiful face. The mist formed the red and purple tattoos running the length of her face and flowed like locks of hair from her head. The kind visage stared down at Yen’s prone form.
“Keryn,” he said, his heart pounding in his chest.
Suddenly, the faces features darkened. The eyes narrowed angrily and the lips curled into a startling sneer. It opened its mouth, the words echoing through the fog.
“Yen…,” it said angrily, the voice sounding nothing like the woman Yen loved.
“You’re not real,” he said in disbelief, scrambling to escape the widening mouth as the gaping maw advanced toward him.
“Yen…” it said louder, shaking the ground on which he sat.
“Get away from me,” he cried into the darkening mist. “Stay away!”
“Yen!” a different voice sounded, from within his ear. “Answer me!”
Yen sat upright in his cockpit, his heart racing, sweat soaked completely through his flight suit. Around the ship, blue mist swirled, distant flashes of lightning accentuating the colors. On the display screen of his craft, red lights flashed chaotically as warnings for failing systems.
“Commander, tell me you’re there,” Iana begged over the radio.
Groaning, Yen activated the microphone. “I’m alive,” he croaked through a tight throat.
The cheers from the other end of the radio startled him. “We weren’t sure if you were still alive after you plummeted into the planet’s atmosphere,” Gregario interjected. “Sensors say your engine and computer systems are still offline.”
“Roger that,” Yen replied, assessing the damage to his ship. “I think I can reboot the system to get everything back online. It seems like the rocket just shorted everything out without doing any permanent damage. Give me five minutes, then I’ll let you know if these heap of crap will fly.”
“That’s affirmative, sir,” Iana said. “Glad to hear you’re alive. Team Six is standing by, waiting for you.”
Yen turned off the speaker but couldn’t shake the memory of Keryn’s face angrily staring down at him and screaming her rage. Flipping a series of switches, he heard the engine whine as it tried to restart.
“Come on, you piece of crap,” Yen said angrily as he flipped the switches again. Again, the engines sputtered, but didn’t start.
“Start!” Yen yelled, his power rolling over the ship and igniting the fuel in the engines. With the engine running, the computer systems reactivated, giving him data about the ship’s systems. According to the radar, he had sunk nearly halfway through the gas giant’s atmosphere before waking. The thick clouds had slowed his descent and halted his wild spin, effectively saving his life.
He pulled back on the stick, feeling the engines respond with heavy acceleration. Unsure of how long he’d been unconscious, Yen was eager to find out how much of the battle he had missed and how much damage could be done to make up for his absence. As he neared the edge of the atmosphere, the clouds clung to his ship like blue vines draped lazily over the wings. Accelerating harder, Yen broke free of the planet, trailing blue tendrils from the atmosphere.
Though Yen was glad to see the stars glowing in the distance of space, he was surprised at the chaos around him as he exited the gas giant. Alliance and Terran fighters danced around one another in a choreographed ballet of rockets and tracer fire from their machine guns. Thousands of the small ships filled the once empty space, punctuated by small bursts of red flame and purple and blue plasma as explosions erupted haphazardly throughout. The larger Cruisers and Destroyers of the two Fleets were hardly immune to the chaos. They tore through the insect-like fighters like angry behemoths, alternating between firing massive volleys of plasma rockets and launching salvo after salvo of metal slugs from their rail guns. Space had become a hell storm of destruction, and Yen had flown straight into the inferno.
As he strove to gain his bearings, warning sirens erupted in the tight cabin of his Duun ship, warning him of approaching enemy fighters. Yen banked hard to the right, barely avoiding the first stream of tracer fire that threatened to tear through his hull. Spinning into a barrel roll, Yen rotated his fighter barely out of the way as the first of the Terran ships flew by, missing his wing by only a few feet. As the first ship began banking for a second pass, another Terran fighter dove in from Yen’s right. With the side of his ship exposed to the oncoming enemy fire, Yen accelerated hard, driving himself back into his cushioned seat. He didn’t have much hope of outrunning the Terran or his deadly volley, but Yen hoped to get the more fragile glass of his cabin window out of the stream of enemy machine gun fire. As he flew away from the gas giant, however, the second Terran ship exploded, followed immediately by the first ripping apart as tracer fire tore through its right wing.
Yen craned his neck to see his saviors as his microphone crackled to life.
“Are you okay, sir?” Iana called over the radio, her voice muted by the wild cheering as Gregario activated his own microphone.
“I’m not only alive,” Yen said, “I’m damn glad to see you all. Did I ever mention that you guys have great timing?”
“Sir,” a new voice, that of Warrant Wallace, called dejectedly over the radio. “You didn’t really think that Team Six would leave you out here on your own, did you?”
“Give us some credit,” Warrant Byron added as the other members of Team Six fell into formation behind Yen.
Yen watched the four friendly ships appear on his radar, joining him in a spear formation with him at its tip. As they flew into the fray, Yen took a second to assess the battle. Already, five Alliance Cruisers drifted aimlessly through the void of space. Their hulls breached and flames flickering weakly from within as the fire consumed the last of the breathable oxygen. The large ships hung lifeless, becoming little more than obstructions around which the other ships maneuvered. The Terrans didn’t fare much better. As Yen watched, a seventh Destroyer erupted into flames as one of the plasma rockets slipped through the onslaught of protective fire and found its mark.
“This is insane,” Yen commented over the radio. “We need to regroup with some of the other fighter Teams and start a more organized offensive action.”
“Roger that, sir,” Gregario replied. “The problem is that the Teams from the Revolution are scattered. In the short time you were in the gas giant, the clear lines of battle got a little blurred. It was a free for all that is just now being sorted out.”
“Then let’s get to the Revolution and use that as our launching point,” Yen countered. “Start sending a Squadron-wide call informing all ships to regroup around…”
Before Yen could finish, the Fleet-wide communications channel opened on his console and began relaying an emergency message.
“This is Captain Hodge of the Revolution,” the message began. “We are swarmed with enemy fighters and have lost the majority of our defensive capabilities. I am requesting immediate support from anyone receiving this message. I say again, I am requesting immediate support for the Revolution.”
“It looks like our mind is made up for us, sir,” Wallace said as the message began playing again.
“Team Six, move out and rendezvous with the Revolution,” Yen ordered. “Let’s go save our ship.”