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Episode 29: Perspective
Dara still felt sick from the trip through the gate, but she hid it decently enough so that none of her shipmates noticed – not even the ones who had been friends with Melda, the girl whose face she wore.
She carefully made her way around the ship during the sabbatical. They were to make another gate jump sometime soon, this time to the Eratite's galaxy, but they were stopping for a brief time so that the captain could receive instructions from General Lysis.
Things were starting to happen now that they'd reached Balan. The strange world was a molten mass from what she'd seen – nothing too special about it, except the ring of Aquarius gates stationed around it. It seemed to have been some sort of hub sometime in the past. Many of the gates were still offline, but the ones they needed had been maintained well since they'd been activated.
She dreaded the thought of their next jump. She'd seen things, felt things that she hoped to never see or feel again. It had reminded her too much of her encounters with the shéd-wielders all those years ago.
She shivered at the thought. The place even stank of the foul spirits.
She made her way back to her quarters, hoping to be able to sleep for a while between her frequent trips to the simulator. She'd recently found out that Melda had been one of their best pilots.
When she'd found that out she'd winced, knowing that she was barely passable at the skill. Since then she'd logged as many hours as possible behind a fighter's controls. She still wasn't as good as she thought Melda probably was, but at least she wouldn't die in a fight – she hoped.
Maybe it wouldn't come to that. Perhaps their mission to the Eratite's galaxy was more covert than provoking a fight.
From what she had heard Colonel Gantz's fleet – what was left of it – was still on the strange ship's tail, though they'd lost it briefly. Everything she'd heard about the ship didn't indicate that they were there to destroy Gamilon. It seemed like they were looking for something other than a fight.
According the reports she'd seen, the ship had avoided confrontation whenever possible instead of throwing itself into an all-out fight like a hostile would have. They had only even fired when fired upon.
Something about this was odd to Dara. Why would Leader Desslok, the man she'd come to know in the Gamilon wilderness as a friend, seek war with this one ship? Why wouldn't he just let them go on their way? Surely they couldn't undo the plans he had for Gamilon to gain control of Erats.
When Dara had boarded she hadn't known of everything transpiring on Gamilon since her departure, but she had quickly learned through various means that the Leader had chosen to pursue the conquest of Erats as Gamilon's new home.
She didn't know how she felt about the death of millions on Gamilon's behalf. She was torn between sympathy for those whose home was being taken and heartache for those she knew whose home was dying from the inside out, crumbling beneath their feet as it breathed its last.
She couldn't reconcile the two perspectives, even after reading Melda's notes on the subject and finding her secret letter written in coded Iscandarian. She didn't know if she would ever be able to decide between the two.
How could she condemn so many to death to help herself – her family who she'd only recently found out about? But how could she go against the man she now knew was her own brother? How could she go back to him and tell him that he was wrong to care so much for his people? She couldn't do any of those things…
She stepped through her door. It hissed shut behind her and she immediately locked it.
She stepped over to her bunk and sank down on it, starting to cry.
"What can I do? Why can't I make a decision?" she thought.
"All hands, prepare for gate travel."
The ship's computer droned again.
Dara wiped her tears and sighed heavily, dreading the sights that awaited her, but she gritted her teeth and waited for the jump.
It came too quickly.
She squeezed her eyes shut during the short journey, but that didn't block out the sounds or the smells of the place.
She heard an unnerving scream. She wanted so badly to open her eyes and see where the sound had come from. She struggled to keep her eyes closed.
The sound came again, but this time it sounded familiar.
"Constance!" her eyes flew open and she looked wildly around the cabin. Suddenly a ghostly hand rose up out of the floor and took hold of the leg of the one chair in the room. The phantom pulled the rest of its ethereal body up out of the floor. It looked straight at Dara and sneered.
Dara stared at the thing. It looked like her daughter, sounded like her daughter, but there was something dreadfully wrong with it. Its eyes were black, dead. Its skin was stark white, as though it had been dead for years.
The sight frightened Dara and she immediately shut her eyes again, but that couldn't stop the thing from speaking.
Its voice was guttural and hollow. She couldn't listen to it. It was too horrible.
She opened her eyes to find her pillow so that she could cover her ears with something thicker than her hands, but when she opened her eyes the apparition was so close to her face that if she had moved another inch she would have been nose-to nose with it.
Dara gasped, then held her breath in fear, eyes wide.
Then the thing spoke to her.
"Daratina of Gamilon…" it growled, "You have abandoned your daughter in her time of need. She it mine now."
"No!" Dara screamed at the thing, flailing at it, trying to send the phantom away.
It laughed harshly, "You cannot bid me go, silly woman." It laughed harder, "Your brother tried to send me away too. He is now mine as well. And you will be mine soon too, princess."
Dara was horrified at the knowledge this spirit had of her. She had told no one of her ties with Gamilon's Leader. And she certainly hadn't told anyone who she really was.
"How do you know all these things, spirit?" she asked.
"My Master knows much." It replied, "You may be able to fool these others," it gestured to the rest of the ship, "But know that I know who you are…" it said, then in her daughter's voice it finished, "Why haven't you come for me, Amah? I'm afraid!"
Then the thing cackled and disappeared, the jump through the gate now over.
There was pounding on her door.
"Melda! Melda, you okay?" a woman's voice asked.
"Yeah!" Dara replied, breathing hard after the encounter.
She indicated that the computer should let the other woman in.
The door opened and in stepped the same woman she'd run into her first day on the ship, "Emma" she thought had been the name the girl had given.
"I thought you weren't affected by gate travel." Emma said taking a seat beside Dara and patting her on the back comfortingly.
"I…" Dara searched for words, "didn't think I was." She replied.
"Ah, happens to the best of us." Emma smirked, "I heard the XO had to be tranquilized to make it through the last one – this one too."
"Really?" Dara asked, some of the edge of the phantom's words taken away by Emma's friendly presence.
"You've been kinda strange lately." The girl said, "Staying to yourself more than usual, and flying a lot. What's up?"
Dara swallowed hard and looked down at the floor, wondering what the real Melda would have said, then she decided on what she thought was best and said, "The trip home was hard."
"Ah…" Emma said, knowingly, "You had a fight with your Dad, didn't you."
"No…" Dara replied, not really wanting to lie to Emma any more than she had to, "It was just hard going back when I knew I was going to have to turn around and leave again so soon."
"I get it." Emma said, "I kinda felt the same way too. Had to say good-bye to my sis and her family much too fast. I live on the other side of the planet from where we docked so my visit was pretty short – few hours actually. She's havin' her baby soon, maybe right now." Emma smiled at the thought, "I'll have another nephew."
"Wow." Dara said, "So what're they doing about the tsarebetim in their area?"
"Don't you remember?" Emma said, "I told you they'd moved into an underground complex away from those things."
"Oh, right." Dara replied, "Sorry, I'm just still out of it."
"It's okay." Emma replied brightly, "You're a lot nicer to me than most of the other pilots onboard. Most of them just think I'm some country girl. You always just let me talk about my family."
Emma patted Dara's back again, "How is your Dad doing anyway? And that housekeeper you talk about?"
"Uh…" Dara began, trying to remember as much about Gul Dietz and Babette as she could, "They're fine."
"Great. Can't be too careful these days what with everything going on on Gamilon right now. At least those awful zealots are gone."
"Yeah, really." Dara replied.
"Didn't like 'em much myself." Emma said, "Always causing trouble everywhere. Have you heard any of the stories they tell about when the Leader fought them to take control of the planet?"
Dara nearly laughed aloud at this but instead she managed a measured, "Yeah, some."
"There's this one about how the Leader killed a hundred zealots single-handedly." Emma said, eyes wide, "You believe he did that?"
Dara knew the day Emma was talking about. It had been the last major push through the zealots' defensive line. "Yeah." She nodded, "I do," she, remembered the sight of Masterson standing back-to-back with Desslok, each man defending the other against the tide of death descending on their position.
"He's going to save us from this awful thing that's killing out planet," Emma said with conviction. "I just hope we can finish what we've set out to do before Gamilon dies and whoever's left planet-side doesn't have a chance to leave…"
Dara nodded, thinking of everyone she'd left on Gamilon, knowing that she wouldn't want any of them to die because of that terrible death Deun had unleashed on them all, guilty and innocent alike.
"I hope so too…" she said, sincerely, beginning to see what her brother had seen when he'd first laid eyes on the Eratite ship – a threat to his peoples' life.
"Okay, well, I'm gonna go back to my room." Emma stood to go, but Dara stopped her.
"Thanks for talking," she said, "I feel a lot better now."
"You're welcome, Melda." Emma said before disappearing out the door.
"I understand you better now, Desslok," she thought, "Maybe you're right about this…"
"All hands prepare for warp." The computer droned again.
Dara sighed in relief; at least they weren't jumping through another gate this time.
She lay down on her bunk. Almost as soon as her head hit the pillow she was asleep.
Nova sighed as she sat down on her bunk.
"What are you sighing about now?" asked Feria, one of Nova's friends from the Academy who had come to Nova's room for an evening of coffee and word games. "It's not that Wildstar guy from the bridge is it?"
"Please, no." Nova said, "He's so arrogant. And sarcastic. Not to mention disrespectful to the Captain."
"Psht!" Feria laughed, "From what I hear he's pretty good at what he does though."
"True." Nova replied, rubbing her tired eyes, "But he still shouldn't talk back to the Captain."
"Leave that to the Captain to take care of, Nova." Feria said, "He's not a helpless old man."
Nova laughed at this, "No, he sure isn't. Can you believe he's the one who hijacked the Yamato project from General Stone?"
"From Stone?" Feria said in disbelief, "You mean the most pig-headed man in the entire EDF let the Captain take his pet project?" She put down a word that was entirely too long for Nova to pronounce and declared, "Your turn."
Nova stared at her pieces, wondering what she was going to do with two Z's, an X and four L's. "He's friends with the Commander, so I'm pretty sure Singleton pulled a few strings along the way, especially after he heard that message from Iscandar."
"You heard the message?" Feria asked, "How?"
"I was stationed at EDF HQ that day. The Commander had his entire staff gather in one of the conference rooms and watch it. Queen Starsha seems like an interesting person. I hope we get to meet her when we get to Iscandar… And that we can give her her sister's body… for proper burial on her homeworld." Nova looked down at the floor, thinking about what the queen had already sacrificed on their behalf.
"Yeah…" Feria nodded, "I hope she has someone she can talk to when she finds out…"
There was silence between the two young women for a while, then Nova finally laid down two of her L's. "Your turn."
Feria studied her letter for about three seconds then made an amazing move earning her triple points, plus a couple of letter bonuses.
"How do you always do this?" Nova asked.
"Do what?" Feria asked, taking a sip of her piping hot coffee.
"Destroy any hope I have of winning this game." Nova took a sip of her own coffee.
"Mwahaha!" Feria laughed in her best evil voice, "I am the Master of the game, puny human! You cannot defeat me!"
Nova nearly spit her coffee right into Feria's face and laughed. "Is that your impersonation of whoever the leader of Gamilon is?"
"Nah." Feria shook her head, "I'm sure he – or she – is much stuffier than that, either that or he's some crazy person." She said, doing her best imitation of someone who clearly belonged in a nuthouse.
"Stop!" Nova said, laughing so hard she could barely stop, "Just let me make my measly little word in peace, will you."
"Whatever." Feria replied, "You know you can't win."
"Maybe not this one, but I'll bet I can win the next one." Nova replied, putting down two more letters.
"In your dreams, amateur." Feria said, making another move, "I'm the one who read the dictionary for fun as a kid."
Nova set down the last two letters of the game looking with annoyance at the score, noting Feria's three hundred point advantage and shaking her head.
"So what were you sighing about earlier?" Feria went back to the original topic.
Nova looked away from her friend, sighing yet again, "Well…" she began, "Did you feel anything when that gas creature tried to kill us?"
"Yeah…" Feria replied in all seriousness, "That was freaky. I told the guys I had to take a break from working on my plane. They didn't get it I don't think, except Conroy. He seemed really spooked too, but he just kinda laid low and hid out in his plane for a while after that. Said he was 'cleaning the seats.' What happened on the bridge?"
"Captain Avatar called me, Homer, Sandor, and Orion to his quarters. We all had seen or felt that thing coming for us. Some of us even felt it die…" Nova hugged herself, shivering a little at the bitter smell she remembered. "Then Wildstar corners me before the warp and wants to talk about what the Captain said to us four since none of us talked about it."
Feria rolled her eyes, "Thought he was entitle to an answer?"
"I guess." Nova replied, "I didn't want to tell him, but he pushed the issue so I told him."
"You did?" Feria said, surprised, "What'd he say?"
"Not a lot – for him. He didn't really believe me. At least, that's what he said." Nova replied.
"Why do you say it that way?" Feria asked, noting the strange tone in her friend's voice.
"Well, I was eating with Homer that night at dinner and he was telling me about some stuff he and his cousins had done when they were younger. I looked over at Derek – eating with Mark like usual – but he was staring at me with this weird look on his face."
"Maybe he has a crush on you." Feria said, leaning back in her chair and folding her arms over her black flight jacket.
Nova raised a skeptical eyebrow at her, "Right." She said, "Like he would like me when I disagree with half of what he says or does."
"Hey, I'm just throwing it out there," Feria put her hands defensively. "This ship isn't getting any bigger after all."
"I know." Nova said, getting up to get some more coffee. "But it would never work." She said.
"I know that, and you know that." Feria pointed first at herself then at Nova, "But does he know that?"
"I hope so." Nova said, "A lot of things would have to change for me to even look twice at him."
"Yup." Feria nodded, "I know. He'll figure it out eventually."
Nova came back with her coffee and was just about to drink it when alarms blared through the ship. "All hands to battle stations."
Nova groaned and started to pull on her jacket.
"What're you doing? I thought your shift was over." Feria said, hurrying to leave.
"I'm pulling a double. Miki's sick." Nova said, rushing out the door after Feria.
"See ya." Feria waved as she rushed down the hall to the Tigers' meeting room.
Nova ran to the bridge, making it just in time to see a Gamilon fleet assembling right on their doorstep. She sighed fir the third time that evening. "Great… And I didn't even get a decent amount of coffee."
Episode 30: A Fateful Meeting
Nova stared at the host that had gathered to oppose them.
She bemoaned the fact that they couldn't get even a moment's peace lately. It had been one encounter after another it seemed.
She looked down at the radar station, fighting off the feeling of drowsiness that had come over her upon her arrival on the bridge.
"Forty ships, Captain. Five destroyers, the rest escort ships. No carriers, thankfully." She summarized what they were seeing for Avatar.
"Are they moving?" the captain asked.
"No." Nova replied, "Not at the moment. They haven't launched any fighters yet either."
"They didn't know we would be here." The captain said thoughtfully. Then he said over the ship-wide comm, "All crew to battle stations"
Within a few minutes all officers were on the bridge replacing their off-shift counterparts. Some were yawning, others, rubbing their eyes, and one even had one boot half-zipped, but all were present and ready to fight at their captain's behest.
"Captain, incoming fire coming straight towards us." Nova announced just as Derek was taking his seat at the combat chief's chair.
"Venture, evasive maneuvers." Avatar ordered.
"Aye, Sir." Mark was moving almost before he'd sat down.
Argo dodged the blasts, but just as she did another wave came right on the heels of the first. This one was impossible to dodge.
Venture nearly cursed at the ships staring at them from out in the void.
The ship shook. Hard.
"Damage report!" the captain barked.
"Decks eight and nine have been hit. No critical systems damaged. The crewmen in that area are putting out a few small fires." Sandor supplied.
"Wildstar, take aim at the enemy fleet and fire at will." Avatar commanded.
"Aye, Captain." Wildstar affirmed the order and relayed it to the men at the turret controls.
Within five seconds they were firing back at the enemy and hitting their mark.
Wildstar watched the battle carefully, adjusting the gunners' target priority and silently celebrating as one of the destroyers went down.
"Captain, they're releasing something." Nova interrupted Derek's concentration.
"Fighters?" Avatar asked.
"No, Captain." She shook her head. "They aren't moving like fighters. They seem to be spreading out between the enemy ships and us – like a wall."
"Sandor, any idea what they are?" Avatar asked the science officer.
"Not yet, Captain. Still scanning them." Sandor paused for a moment then exclaimed, "Mines!"
"Mines?" Derek asked from his station, confused. "What on Earth are they sending out mines for?"
"Whatever the reason," Sandor said, "We can't move forward to engage the Gamilons at any closer range without putting the ship at risk. And the mines are too close to shoot them down. The detonations would tear us apart."
"How many are there?" Avatar asked.
Nova waited for half a second to answer, then finally said bleakly, "Thousands, Captain."
"Let's just back up and shoot a hole in their mine field." Derek said.
"Venture, full reverse thrusters immediately." The captain ordered.
Mark obeyed and Argo began backing away from the mines.
"We're not getting any farther away from them." Nova said, "They're following our movements." She looked up at the captain, eyes wide, not sure what was happening and not liking the problem they'd just stepped in one bit.
"Sandor?" Avatar looked to his XO for an answer.
"I would need to have one of the mines to give you a definitive reason for their behavior, but it seems there are several possibilities: they're controlled remotely by someone on one of those ships; they're programmed to follow our movements even when out of range of the Gamilon ships; they're attracted to metal; or they've malfunctioned and are simply moving on their own." Sandor supplied.
"Venture, slow us down to one half speed." Avatar said.
Venture cut the thrusters down to half.
"Captain, the mines are slowing to match our speed." Nova said.
Avatar nodded, "So they're either controlled remotely, or they've been programmed to follow us."
"Can't we just turn the ship around and warp out of here." Derek put in.
"There's no room to turn the ship." Sandor countered, "They're gradually getting closer to us, and they're already too close to safely turn without hitting them. And chances are, even if we did manage to turn around, the energy surge from the warp would set them off and we'd be jumping through space with half the ship blown away."
"What about – " Derek was cut off by Nova's anxious voice.
"Captain, they've launched fighters." She interrupted.
"Forrester, Sandor, are the mines surrounding us?" Avatar asked both officers.
"No, Captain." Nova answered.
"And I don't think they will." Sandor said, "They aren't moving to hem us in, merely to halt our forward progress – make us pay a price if we intend to push forward."
"Launch the Black Tigers." Avatar said. "I assume the hangar doors are still clear."
"Yes." Nova replied, feeling a tiny breath of relief at this small mercy. "No obstructions."
"Wildstar, get down there." The captain ordered.
Derek jumped up and was out the door in three seconds.
"Rakiah Cobel?" Gantz asked. "I thought they'd been lost during the first engagement with the Eratite ship."
"We thought so too, Colonel." Bane replied, "But they've just returned from Gamilon with orders from the Leader himself to rejoin us. They've just gate-jumped all the way from Balan."
"But there are no gates in this area." Gantz replied.
"There are now." Bane said flatly, "The exploration team just finished mapping this one two days before Rakiah Cobel made her jump."
"Cutting rather close now, aren't we." The Colonel said quietly. He'd never really liked gate travel. He found it too strange for his liking. Too often he'd seen his daughter Hilde during their gate travels these past weeks and months. Every time he saw her, he knew he might never lay eyes on his only child ever again. They had yet to find out where Hilde had been taken. No one even knew if she was still on Gamilon, or one of her colony worlds.
"There's more, Colonel." Bane's voice took on an odd quality that made Gantz freeze where he stood. "Melda Dietz is aboard that ship – has been since before the assault on that Eratite ship."
"Has she been reporting to the Prime Minister all this time?" Gantz asked, voice low enough so that only Bane could hear him.
"No, Colonel." Bane replied, "Her transmissions stopped shortly after that first assault."
"Why?" asked Gantz, "She's never left such a gap in her communications for so long before."
"Unknown, Sir." Bane replied, "All we know is that she's been aboard the Cobel the whole time – except for a two day period when the entire crew was given shore leave on Gamilon."
"Anything odd happen during her leave?" Gantz asked, genuinely puzzled by the Storm Leader's silence.
"No." Bane replied, "She went home, stayed until she had to leave for the ship and went straight back the to Cobel. No stops anywhere."
"Perhaps the Prime Minister told her there was no need to send her reports unless she thought it necessary." Gantz said.
"Perhaps." Bane nodded, "But with the Prime Minister off-world and not in regular contact with anyone else in the fleet, that would be impossible to know."
"Then shall we wait to draw any conclusions about her strange behavior lately?" Bane asked, "According to the ship logs, she has been spending far too many hours in flight simulation since Cobel's crash. And when she is not using the simulator she stays in her quarters."
"You've traced her every move?" Gantz looked over at Bane, eyebrow raised. "You really suspect something's happening."
"Yes." The simple answer came, "Something is odd here. Perhaps the Leader should beware his second-in-command. After all, he was sent off-world because of his… sympathies."
"You think he would issue orders to the Storm Leader that might threaten the taking of Erats?" Gantz glanced around the bridge, wondering what exactly was happening – if anything.
"I don't know." Bane narrowed his eyes at the rest of the bridge crew, "But I wouldn't rule it out."
"In light of Miss Dietz's behavior… I agree. Contact anyone onboard Cobel who might be enlisted to watch her." Gantz said.
"I have just the person." Bane said.
"Incoming encoded message." The computer droned.
"Open it." The Gamilon pilot accepted the correspondence, placing her palm on the reader.
"Identity confirmed: Lieutenant Emma Maier. Permission to access message granted."
The computer displayed her message.
She stared at the screen for a long time before sending an acknowledgment.
"I'm sorry, Melda…" Emma whispered.
Suddenly the alarm blared, "All hands to battle stations."
Emma took a deep breath and stepped out of her quarters, heading for her fighter's hangar bay.
"Conroy, you take half the Tigers and harass those last two destroyers. See if you can get them shooting at each other." Derek ordered his ace who flew beside him through the black of space.
"Yes, sir." Conroy shot Derek a salute out his cockpit window then peeled off with his half of the group.
"The rest of you, follow me. We're going to take out these fighter planes. Don't let them get near the Argo." Derek didn't even wait for his team's acknowledgement. He shot forward, heading right into the dogfight, guns blazing.
"What have I gotten myself into?!" Dara thought in terror as her bright red fighter shot out of the carrier and into space. Rakiah Cobel had just arrived at the site of the Eratite engagement and they had no idea what to expect. All they knew was that a mine-net had been laid and the ship was trapped behind it.
"Disengaging autopilot." The computer said.
Dara started to sweat. This would be her test. After all, if she couldn't survive a head-on conflict with the Eratites, then she wasn't fit to be impersonating this young woman, who apparently had flown circles around Gamilon's best.
She squeezed her eyes shut, remembering all the practice hours she'd crammed into her head. She let her eyes open again and looked ahead with fiery determination. She took the controls and put her heart into flying. She swooped into the fray, spraying fire across the front of one of the enemy planes sending it limping away, a smoking mess.
She dodged and weaved through enemy fire. She knew her adrenaline level must be insanely high. Her reflexes were at their peak, and she felt like she could fly forever. As long as her focus remained constant nothing could touch her.
She flew until she was out of the thick of the fight. All of the sudden the Eratite ship appeared on her radar.
"Target acquired. Missiles armed." The computer startled Dara, knocking her out of her daze.
"What target?" she asked.
"The Eratite ship is the designated target for this mission." The computer replied. "Missiles will fire in five seconds."
"No" Dara exclaimed, a sudden feeling of doubt coming over her. "Disarm them now!"
"Please enter the proper override code for this action." Came the irritating reply.
Dara began to panic. With five seconds she had one try, maybe two to figure out what the override could be.
She thought for half a second, then started desperately guessing.
"'Melda Dietz.'" She tried.
She was rewarded with a blaring error.
"Three seconds until missile launch."
Dara wracked her brain, thinking of everything she knew of this girl whose face she'd taken. Suddenly something so utterly random came to her.
"Three, zero, four." Dara tried the reference for the first Tanakh passage the girl had marked.
"Missile launch aborted." The computer replied.
Dara let out a relieved sigh.
Her left thruster exploded, sending the computer into a fit of errors.
"Damage to port engine and thruster. Damage to fuel intake system. Damage to weapons systems."
"Shut up already!" Dara scolded, "What happened."
"We've been hit by enemy fire. Suggest evasive action immediately."
Dara's heart started pounding, she was hit. She'd been so distracted that she hadn't seen anyone approaching her position. She mentally kicked herself and if she'd been a cursing woman she'd have let a few choice words fly.
She tried to push her wounded ship out of the area, but when she tried to the ship didn't respond.
"Computer, what's going on? The ship won't respond to anything I do." She started looking around frantically, trying to figure out how to send a distress beacon, or call one of her wing mates to help her.
Another explosion rocked the ship.
"What was that?" she asked, the feeling of being trapped growing and sticking in her gut like a load of bricks.
"We've sustained another hit." The computer replied, "All communication is now impossible."
"Who's out there?" she asked angrily, checking her radar in futility. The instrument flickered on and off. Clearly the thing had been effected by one of the two hits she'd taken.
"Unknown" the computer replied,
"Oh, that's helpful." She thought sarcastically, trying to push down the panic she was nearly drowning in. What was going to happen to her now? She was too far from her ship to have a hope of being rescued. Then a thought came to her. "Do the seats in these fighters have an 'eject' function?"
"Yes." The computer replied.
"Then eject me!" she shouted at the A.I.
"Ejection function has been disabled."
"Why?"
"It is damaged."
"Gahhh!" Dara exclaimed, so frustrated and afraid that she had no words.
"Radar function partially repaired." The computer announced. "Enemy fighters approaching from port and starboard."
A chill of fear ran through Dara. "Are they going to finish us off….?"
"Negative. They appear to be launching a tether."
"A tether?" she thought, "But why?"
She looked out her cockpit window. Just as the computer had said, on either side of her there was an Eratite fighter. One was gray, the other yellow and black. A second later she felt two soft thunks, one on either side of her hull.
Before she knew it she was being towed right into the hangar bay of the Eratite ship.
The reality of everything fell on her and the panic she'd held at bay overcame her.
Her vision started going black. Then everything disappeared as she passed out.
"Colonel Ganz!" one of the bridge crew suddenly turned to his superior with a look of horror on his face, "The Storm Leader has been captured!"
"What?!" Gantz exclaimed, then demanded, "How?"
"Her ship was disabled while she was making a missile run on the Eratite vessel." The crewman replied, "Her weapons' system malfunctioned at the last second and she wasn't able to launch any missiles. Two Eratite planes came in and shot her while she was trying to re-arm."
"Pull the mine-net off of that ship immediately." Gantz ordered.
"Aye, Sir." Came the reply.
"This is the last thing I need." Gantz gritted his teeth in frustration. "We must protect the Storm Leader."
"Captain, the mines are – they're moving away from us!" Nova's surprise was evident in her voice. "The Gamilon fleet is pulling back."
Avatar nodded, accepting this strange good fortune.
"Call all the Black Tigers back." He ordered, "Once they're all aboard, warp us out of here."
"Aye, Sir." Venture, Sandor and Nova replied, immediately beginning the preparations.
"That's everyone, Captain." Wildstar told the captain over the ship's comm.
"Keep everyone in the hangar until the warp is completed." Avatar instructed.
"Yes, Sir." Derek acknowledged, then passed on the captain's orders, making sure everyone and everything, including the Gamilon ship they'd somehow managed to capture, was secured for the warp.
Scarce seconds after he'd finished his rounds, the ship disappeared into the distorted state they called "warp." The last thing he did before they disappeared was turn his eyes to the enemy plane, feeling the old anger starting to rise in him again for everything the Gamilons had taken from him in this terrible war. When that pilot woke up, there would be a reckoning.
"They've warped, Colonel." Bane informed Gantz.
"Follow them – but at a distance. We can't lose them now that they have the Storm Leader. We must get her back." The Colonel ordered.
His order was immediately obeyed and the helmsman and tactical officers proceeded to trace the warp trail of the Eratite ship. Once they'd found it, they made their calculations and warped.
Dara blinked, trying to clear her vision. She didn't know where she was.
She felt strange, cold. She looked around, but all she saw was white everywhere. The room was utterly alien to her. She couldn't see well in this place. There was too much light. Her eyes weren't used to this level of brightness.
She raised her hand to shade her eyes. When she did she noticed to her great chagrin that her pilot's uniform had been traded in for a plain white gown of some sort. Her boots were gone and her feet were getting quite chilled. But the worst of it was that her helmet was gone too. She frantically felt inside her ear for the mask emitter. She nearly cried with relief when she felt the tiny disc still securely attached.
She looked down and saw a white blanket covering her from toe to shoulder, but she still felt cold, even with the covering.
She looked around again, seeing a little more now that her eyes had adjusted a bit.
She was lying on a simple bed in a small room. Some sort of monitoring equipment was behind her, bleeping softly in a constant rhythm. Was that her heartbeat?
She didn't have time to look at any more of her surroundings. The door at the other end of the room opened and in stepped a woman. Dara's eyes widened at the sight of her.
She jumped out of bed and pointed at the woman, exclaiming, "Astra! Astra of Iscandar!"
Nova walked into the captured pilot's room for her hourly check on the woman. Maybe she would be awake this time.
Almost as soon as she'd stepped through the door the woman shot up out of her bed and started pointing frantically at her uttering an assortment of incoherent words, she wasn't sure what it was, but Nova knew that something had made the woman excited. She looked down at her uniform, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.
"What is she so agitated about?" Nova thought, confused.
Whatever the cause, the woman kept repeating what sounded like the same two or three words over and over while pointing right at Nova.
She slowly approached the pilot, hand outstretched, trying to be as non-threatening as possible.
"Please," she said to the Gamilon, "Calm down. I came to see if you were alright."
The other woman didn't understand Nova's words, but something had gotten through to her because she lowered the volume of her exclamations and sat back down on her bed, still staring at Nova and speaking the same thing – a name? But whose? It certainly wasn't Nova's.
"Captain…" Nova said over her communicator.
"Yes, Miss Forrester." The Captain's voice replied.
"I think we may need Sandor down here. The pilot's awake and she's talking. I can't understand her though."
"He's on his way now." The captain replied, "Keep her there until he arrives."
"Yes, Sir." She said, then turned back to the Gamilon woman.
"Where's the pilot?" Wildstar exploded through the door.
"Derek! You shouldn't be here –"
"I heard he woke up." Derek seethed, nearly knocking Nova over as he brushed past her, heading straight for the Gamilon.
"'He' is a 'she.'" Nova retorted, then saw the rage in Derek's eyes. She reached out to pull him away from the other woman. She caught his arm, but he ripped it out of Nova's grasp.
Nova didn't have time to react. An instant later Wildstar had his gun jammed up under the pilot's jaw.
"How can you do this?!" he demanded, "How can you slaughter millions for no reason?!" he caught a handful of the woman's dark red hair and pulled her up, forcing her to look into his tortured face. "You killed my parents, my brother, my friends! And now you'll pay for their lives."
"No!" Nova threw herself right at Wildstar, praying she had enough strength to knock the bigger officer off of the pilot.
She hit him. Hard. Pain shot through her shoulder.
That was when she heard Derek's gun fire a single shot.