“I don’t think Earth has much time either.” The clouds were black, angry, and the air was thin and getting harder to breathe. We needed to get these people off the planet. It was as if all the things we needed to do had severe urgency, but we couldn’t save the people without stopping the fleet from attacking the Bhlat.
With a tap of the Relocator, we were back on the drop ship, and I once again thanked Kareem silently for the gift.
Slate jumped at our sudden appearance. “Look what I found.” They were backpacks with thrusters. The kind of thing I’d dreamt of flying over the farm fields with when I was a little kid, wishing for something more than canola crops and chicken feed. I guess I’d gotten my wish. Now I wanted to swap with myself and live that quiet life.
“How do they work?” Magnus asked, already trying to put it on.
Our suits had the mini-thrusters Mae and I had used to tether the vessels heading toward the sun almost two years ago. Two years.
“Boss, are you with us?” Slate asked, concern on his gaunt face.
“I’m here. Wearing down, and my mind is drifting. Go ahead.”
Slate showed us how he thought they worked, and we had nothing to lose. If we flew up to our approaching ships, they would blast us away. We needed to have some stealth.
“Will they show up on the sensors?” I asked Magnus.
He shook his head. “The sensors are for ship drives and radiation, mainly. Whatever’s fueling these will be so minuscule compared to their search parameters, we’ll be able to slip by with no problem.” He looked to me and shrugged. “I hope.”
That didn’t give me full confidence, but we had no choice.
“I can go instead of you, boss.” Slate looked ready to take my place.
“If you haven’t noticed, I barely fit into this suit. And even though I’m tired, I haven’t been in a cell for months at the hands of an evil alien race.”
“Godspeed,” he said, clapping me on the back, then Magnus. “Make sure you stay out of their range.” With that, Slate left us in an airlock, sealed it, and we opened the doors to dark space.
The jetpack was heavy on the ship, but out here, it didn’t matter. My stomach lurched at being out here again, untethered this time. The huge ships from outside New Spero loomed in the distance, and we had some distance to travel to get there. Our suits were made for this, but I still worried something would happen.
“Let’s test this out,” Magnus said through my helmet’s earpiece. He hit the handheld controls and one thruster fired up, sending him into a slow spin. “Damn it,” he said, adjusting and getting both going. Soon he’d stabilized himself, and he called instructions to me. After a shaky start, we were both close to competent with the packs, and we started toward our target.
“I think they’re moving,” I said, thinking they were getting closer to us faster than our packs were taking us.
“You’re right. Stay the course.”
“What happens if they’re going too fast when we cross paths?”
Magnus laughed uneasily, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear his answer to that. “I have a plan for that.”
I really didn’t like the sound of that.
We moved this way for almost an hour, the ships getting closer each minute. In the distance, there was nothing but the expanse of space, and my mind drifted to the countless worlds out there we could now access with the portals. What was out there for us to discover? I put the thoughts on the backburner as the half dozen warships grew, until we couldn’t ignore them coming toward us any longer.
“There’s not going to be anywhere to grab a foothold on them. We have to beam into them.” Magnus said this like it was no big deal. Go for a beer, walk your dog… beam into a warship while traveling in the opposite direction in an EVA suit, with a jetpack thrusting you toward it.
“Is there no other option?” I asked, hoping for a miracle.
“Come in, NS-1007. This is your general. Stop where you are. The war is over. I repeat, slow your thrusters and cease your pursuit.” He waited and said it again, but still received no reply.
The lead ship was beautiful. The sleek exterior was rounded, giving way from the boxy design of the Bhlat ships or the cube vessels of the Kraski. Our people had found a way to incorporate the size of the vessels but mix them with the slim and smooth smaller ships. They were a testament to how far our race had come in a short period of time. And if we weren’t careful, we were about to be smashed like bugs on the warship’s windshield.
The ship grew as we slowed our thrusters.
“Crap. They’re powering up the cannons.” Magnus pointed toward the bottom edges of the ship, where a red light started to glow. “They’re going to fire at the retreating Bhlat.”
“You sure this is going to work? We won’t end up in a wall or out the other end?” I’d used the beam pins on our suit enough times, but not on a target moving so fast.
“The ship’s big. We’ll be fine.” He said it with confidence, but as we got closer to each other, I could see the dread in his eyes.
We were close enough to the lead vessel to see the rough edges that made up the exterior. From a distance, they looked smooth, but up close, they were anything but.
My heart raced as we floated there, waiting for the ship to come close enough to beam into it.
“You’re a good friend. Let’s get this over with and have a Scotch on your deck,” I said, hoping they weren’t my last words.
“Deal. Dean, those years we thought you were dead… were the hardest of my life.” He looked over at me, and I smiled at his unusual emotional talk. “Enough about that. See you in a minute.”
I watched him press the small pin on his EVA collar, and he was covered in green light, the ship now only yards away from us. We couldn’t see inside the ship, but I imagined the looks on a helmsman’s face when they saw two floating Earth Defense suits outside their cameras.
I pressed my pin, feeling the familiar thrum of the beam’s energy. With a deep breath, I blinked as I entered the warship. This time, I opened them sooner and spotted Magnus coming out of the beam, turning solid and rolling to the floor. I joined him, my momentum keeping me moving. I hit the hard floor and flopped forward, hitting the wall with a thud.
“You okay?” he asked, holding his left elbow.
My back was tender and my right knee howled at me, but as I rolled over and tried to stand, I found I wasn’t too bad off.
“I think so.” I took my helmet off and tossed it to the ground. Magnus did the same. “Where are we?”
“Damn it. In a storage room. They’re locked from the outside.”
“We don’t have a lot of time.” I found my pulse rifle on the ground and picked it up, motioning Magnus back. The red beams smashed the door, sending shards outward, opening a hole large enough for us to crawl through.
“Subtle,” Magnus said as we emerged in the hall.
“Stop! Drop the weapon!” a female voice boomed from behind us.
“Gladly.” I dropped the gun, glad to be away from the enemy and on our own people’s ship.
“Turn slowly,” the woman said.
When she saw Magnus’ face, she did a double take and saluted him. “I’m sorry, sir.”
“Just call the bridge. Tell them to turn the cannons off. Our mission has changed.”
“You did what?” Naidoo stalked angrily around the room, and I didn’t blame her. I’d essentially given our world away. It was far better than the alternative.
“I know you don’t like me, but what choice did we have?” I was getting irritated with her but didn’t want my heart to talk over my head. I lowered my voice and calmed the erratic timbre. “You tried to make a deal with them, right?”