Mary eased the ship forward as they began approaching, red beams firing at us. The strangest thing happened. One of the ships in their cluster exploded and took two others down with it.
“What was that?” Magnus asked.
Mary had taken the controls back, saying she’d be more in sync with where she was going and would be more accurate. She ignored him and fired away, cutting down another.
We took another shot and red lights flared up inside our cockpit. That was a severe shot… our shields weren’t going to last. This was it for us.
Then we saw one of their own ships in the back firing away at them, two more exploding before they turned and fired back. With their rears open, Mary fired a volley of shots at them, flying over top. Between us and the ship that was helping us, we finished them off once and for all.
We cheered and I threw a fist pump into the air.
“Mary, you’re amazing!” I yelled to her through the cacophony of screeching sirens and celebration.
We looked at the ship still left floating out there, and I felt my pulse race with uncertainty. Magnus hit the comm-speaker and we went quiet. He found the alarm silencer, and the room was eerily still for a moment. “Nat? Nat, tell me that’s you, babe,” he said into the speaker.
For the first time, she spoke, accent thick. “It’s me, Magnus. It’s me.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Tears flowed down the big man’s face openly, and he laughed as he sobbed. Mary put her arm around his shoulder and he leaned in.
“How… what happened?” I asked through the comm.
There was a pause, and her voice poured through at us, crisp Russian accent marking her long-hidden words. “Teelon has died. He’s succumbed to his wound from Earth. He didn’t betray his people, but I felt something was off. He staggered away when we arrived, lay on a bed, and avoided me. I had to speak to ask him questions. He seemed quite surprised by my voice. He was in pain, and I saw a small mask in his hand. He took a last look at me, said ‘I’m sorry,’ and took a deep breath in the mask – his last breath.”
I stood there in silence, still trying to wrap my head around Natalia speaking. Magnus just nodded slowly.
“They turned on us, Nat. The bastards all used us. The Kraski thought some alien race built the Shield to stop them from coming, but it was the Deltra the whole time. They both just wanted to kill us all. Are you okay?” Worry crept out of his voice in thick droves.
“Da, I’m okay, Magnus,” she said softly. “It was time anyway.”
I wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but Magnus just nodded again. I checked the scanner, and there were no green blips anywhere. I hoped they didn’t have another force out there waiting to trap and destroy us. “I think we should get out of here.”
Mary turned back to me and smiled. “Not until we do something to the bastards that did all of this.” She flew toward the huge Kraski vessel and fired at it without mercy. Natalia duplicated her pattern a few hundred yards beside us. They did a full loop and repeated it on the other sides of the vessel. Fire erupted all over the place, and by the time we sped off toward the sun, I knew their huge vessel wasn’t going to be in one piece for too long. So much for the invasion. I wondered if there were some Kraski ships still flying around on Earth, but knew I had to focus on the task at hand first.
“What are our options?” I asked.
“We sit here and do nothing. We go home, and the four of us restart the world’s population,” Mary paused and gave me a sly look, “or we fly to the sun and try to save our people.”
“I vote sun,” Magnus said quickly.
“Sun.”
Carey jumped up on my legs and let out a bark.
“Then it’s settled, gang.” Mary had the frequency open to the smaller ship, where Natalia was alone with a dead alien. “Let’s go get them back!”
We began flying toward the sun in the distance.
“Do you think these things have a warp drive or something?” I asked.
“I have no idea how fast this thing can actually go. Teelon did say there was a hyperdrive built in, but the details from the data transfer were unclear on this part.”
Natalia’s voice poured through the comm. “I think the control to the left of the throttle, for lack of a better word, might be it. I pressed it when I circled back to catch up to the ships and to sneak around them. Stars blurred for a brief second and I was a thousand yards closer.”
“I’m worried that we press it and end up hitting an asteroid, or an old satellite. Maybe I can’t come out in time and we run into the sun. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this. This must be part of the download that didn’t transfer,” Mary said.
I remembered the image of the huge containers full of humans, approaching the burning heat of the sun, and knew we didn’t have time to fly there. It took us long enough to get to the Kraski ship from Earth, and this was much farther.
“I think we have to try. Mary, what if we frog-hop?” I said, thinking of the frogs from the swamp near our farm growing up.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“What if we press and release, doing small jumps like Natalia did, as we’re flying at full speed? We could avoid any debris that shows up on the sensors. We can probably make much better time.” I was an accountant, not a physicist, but the logic made sense to me.
“Da. I think it will work,” Natalia said from the other ship.
“Let’s give it a test and see what we’re working with. Nat, stay a few hundred yards beside and a way back, so we don’t cross each other’s paths out here.” Our ship accelerated as Mary urged it to full speed. “I’m going to press and release and see what happens.”
The ship lurched forward, but by the miracle of the Kraski technology, my feet stayed planted and I didn’t even move back from inertia. It was astounding. For a moment, the view port was lined with stars, and I wanted to say a cheesy line from my favorite childhood sci-fi TV show.
Just as fast as it happened, we slowed and were running at regular speed. From the sensor map, we could tell that Natalia was a few miles behind us. She jumped and her icon flickered, reappearing much closer to us.
“I’d say it works,” Natalia said.
Magnus stood and stretched. “Let’s hightail it and get there before it’s too late.”
I put my hands on Mary’s shoulders and gave them a light squeeze. “I’m going to go get my pack and see if there’s anything in the way of food.” Carey’s ears perked up at this. “I’ll also see if there’s anything else we might be able to use. We have no idea what we’ll be up against when we arrive.”
Mary reached up and squeezed my left hand. “Sounds good. I’ll keep frog-hopping along. Nat, let’s do this.” The stars lurched again, this time for a slightly longer period. I turned and headed out of the room, into the small bunk room. I searched the compartments on the wall and found some Kraski clothing. It was much too large for me to wear and had a strange odor to it, unlike anything I could really describe. I pictured the Kraski we’d seen for brief moments as they died. Pale, bald, beady black eyes; a genocidal species. They’d killed the Deltra without guilt, it appeared, and if I was to believe anything Teelon had said, then they had killed many other races out there too. Earth was just another on their list of conquests.
I almost didn’t blame the Deltra for what they’d attempted. It was a smart plan, after all. Convincing the Kraski to come to Earth, knowing that the device that would save them was hidden away. I wondered how many of them had perished trying to find Earth and escape the clutches of the Kraski before giving up and lying docile for centuries, waiting for the perfect moment. I also thought of Janine’s big heart. She was probably convinced to help the Deltra. I knew she wouldn’t be able to ignore an injustice to a race like that. I also doubted they’d told her the whole plan about killing off the human race.