Erin shuddered, certain that Jason Donnelley was still alive, for the time being. Then she became aware of another woman, the image prevalent in Jason's mind, a beautiful girl with gray skin. Erin sought out her mind and glimpsed into its surface thoughts, searching to interpret the spark of pity in that alien soul.
"We're in over our heads. I say we’ve got to get out of here," Erik's voice over the comlink broke off the unusual communication channeled to Erin's mind. "We should find an air lock and abort the mission."
"Why?" Lieutenant Ricna demanded.
"We can't reach the engines and power source if they're surrounded by those narrow corridors." Erik explained. "We'd have to ditch the planes, and I don't think our chances of getting out would be that good. We've learned enough. Anyone object to getting out of here with the information we’ve got?"
"No objections here. Let's move it." Lieutenant Jaegger agreed enthusiastically.
"Aren't we supposed to take this place out from the inside?" Kramer reminded them.
"Maybe," Erik admitted, "but look at the walls in here. I don't know about you, but they look reflective to me—so if you don't mind risking killing us all—"
"I see your point." Kramer admitted.
Seconds later, Lieutenant Susumu Kusao of the UESRC's indigo squadron, the team's informal navigator, interrupted their progress down the large highway.
"We need to turn around and take that last left—and then uh, turn right on the third passage," he said.
"Okey-dokey." At the end of the team, Aila Delagrange cut her engines and turned around, speeding up to allow the others room to backtrack.
"We'll need to go left again when we get to a large space," Kusao went on as the team backtracked and headed down the next intersection, glancing down at his navigational monitor while the others threaded their way around him. "My computer has processed all possible exits and this is the closest one." As Kusao's voice faded, he began to notice the strange absence of enemy planes around them.
The team passed door after door in dark abandoned-looking corridors, whose blue-grey walls shimmered, with reflections drifting hypnotically, in the coruscated beams issuing from the fighters' forward beacons.
Erik Ross' scanners alerted him when they approached the large space Susumu Kusao had located, but just before turning left and into the area, he heard the unmistakable sizzle of laserfire and the loud crash of an explosion.
They had flown into one of the enemy's fighter docking bays. Most of the aliens had been dispatched to combat the Earth ships in the battle in space, but a few remaining ships had been activated and waited in the dark for the infiltration team to arrive.
The first two planes of their team were piles of smoking rubble and scattered metal fragments by the time Erik's last fighter slewed into the area. The three enemy planes had just strafed the second pair of their team when Erin Mathieson-Blair's plane broke from the middle of their formation with inhuman speed, dodging the enemy enfilade redirected towards her and loosing three precise energy beams as she rushed towards them. The other humans watched transfixed as her thrusters ground to a halt.
A second later her fighter disappeared in the explosion of the three larger alien fighters. Erik's gut clenched, and the comnet was silent.
Then a scratched-up plane emerged from amidst the eddies of smoke.
"Let's go," Erik found his voice again, observing that the others had come to a halt; he took the lead again, and the team once again headed down the fighter bay.
They met no resistance. Two minutes and twelve seconds had passed when they detected the air lock. The team slowed, none of them certain how to activate the escape exit.
If the laser volleys reflect back on us... Erik thought.
Then, as if by magic, the thick air lock door whisked open and the team was able to pass into the wide corridor of the air lock that connected the inner and outer hull.
Lieutenant Kusao wondered briefly if they had been lured between the two layers of hull, if they had fallen into a trap. For up ahead, the second hull plate held fast.
But, as they neared the second hull, they heard a loud sound of grating metal as the giant hull plate guarding freedom pulled aside. Before them lay a window of familiar stars and the transient explosions of a space battle.
As the team emerged from the alien ship, Erik glanced down at his scanner. Erin Mathieson-Blair had fallen behind to the tail of their formation; behind her, the hull plate suddenly retracted with enormous force, though the void of space swallowed the sound.
* * * * *
Erik exhaled in anxious relief as the team sped away from the blackish hull of the alien ship. Pulling his gaze away from it helped him to quell thoughts of his older brother that were threatening his concentration. Automatically, he switched on his first reserve oxygen supply and watched the meters rise with relief. Then his radio communicator flashed, and like the others, he patched into the signal.
"This is Kansier, over. Repeat, this is Kansier. Welcome back, infiltration team. Follow vector seventy-three to our current position, Charon -2.7, 3.9, 1.6. We're pulling out in ten minutes."
Arnaud's infiltration team reset their course, looping around most of the fighting and passing through an area that had been well prepared for their escape. But the enemy was not easily fooled. The infiltration team had made it nearly half way to the Stargazer when a squadron of alien ships appeared on their radar, having broken away from the main battle area.
"Stick to your wingmen," lieutenant Kusao shouted over the net. The Stargazer's Crimson Stripe Squadron moved in to engage the new arrivals, dodging in and out while jockeying for a lucky shot. After a few moments, it became clear to those caught up in the manic fight that only Arnaud's team had been targeted for elimination, which was strange, if the aliens had intended to let them go. They had even opened up their own air lock to let them out, Erik thought. None of it made any sense, but he wasn’t about to quibble.
The crimson team struggled to engage the faster enemy fighters, picking off its ships one by one, meeting no resistance; it took more than three minutes for the combined efforts of both squadrons to destroy the last enemy fighter. Then once again Arnaud's team formed up for retreat.
Erik watched through his viewport as the Stargazer appeared visually, rapidly growing until he could discern the small lit window of the open cargo bay. As they skirted the edge of the Stargazer and then flew into its narrow docking bay, Erik counted the number of fighters remaining on his screen; there were only fifteen. Six more team members had been lost since they cleared the alien ship.
A great wave of light gushed forward out of the Stargazer’s forward laser cannons, engulfing the alien ship in a great wash of light.
The infiltration unit remained in their cockpits, waiting for the squadrons to return now that Arnaud could send the retreat signal, all of them thinking about their losses, each one hesitant to unload and confront those who remained. All at once, great hordes of fighters appeared, speeding into the cargo bay like wasps returning to the hive and hurrying aside for others to land.
When the last plane had docked, the infiltration team felt a great vibration thrum beneath them as the Stargazer's main engines flared and accelerated; moments passed, and the team was thrown right and left by rapid course adjustments, where the Stargazer successfully jinked laser volleys as it fled to the safety of Neptune's near side.
Behind them, the alien ship was wrapped in light, with explosions silently going off one by one as the outer hull of the Orian flagship disintegrated.
A cheer was heard in the fighter bay of the Stargazer.
The alien ship disappeared in a wash of light.
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends