Part of the plasma hit the aft landing platform and flooded into the ship. The rest oozed around its hull until the ship finally exploded and split apart. Red tried to pull away from the wreckage but the laser blast had impaired the T-73’s maneuverability. He managed to miss Invincible’s primary remains but was pelted by debris from the explosion. Two Purist fighters saw him in distress and went in for the kill. His decoys automatically deployed, and he went into stealth mode when the first fighter locked onto him and launched its missiles. The missiles followed the decoys and blew them up, but then the second fighter waited until he was right on top of what he thought was Red’s position and fired his laser.
Y1 saw Red in trouble and came to help out, but when he arrived it was too late. Red’s fighter looked like it had exploded. But it hadn’t. What appeared to be an exploding T-73 was actually an electronic image that the fighter’s engineers had designed into the aircraft’s defensive systems to fool an attacker and lure him into a false sense of security.
Sitting in his still-intact cockpit, and now again in stealth mode, Red resisted the urge to go back and destroy his two pursuers and instead looked out worriedly at the wing of his fighter, which had been hit by a laser blast. Miraculously, as he watched, the wing was repairing itself just as he’d been told it would during his briefing.
Red relaxed a bit and began thinking about the plan Threebeard had laid out for him at their last meeting. His instructions were to make everyone, including Captain Sparten, think that his T-73 had been destroyed and that he was dead. Only Lora knew the truth. Red had insisted she be told because he’d seen the agony that Leek and Lucinda has suffered because of Threebeard’s tricks. Threebeard had agreed reluctantly, but only after being assured Lora was a good actress and could pull off the grieving lover role that would be assigned to her. Now that he was, officially at least, a ghost, Red’s job was to find the Purist Fleet and pick off the remaining attack cruisers one by one.
The T-73 was equipped with a solar conversion system that eliminated the need for fuel during space flight. The sun provided all the energy Red would need once he’d reached maximum speed. He couldn’t travel FTL, but that wasn’t necessary since he was already relatively close to Earth. He checked his scanners and found a large object that he conjectured was an attack cruiser. It was already accelerating, so he had his onboard computer calculate its course and told it to follow.
His work done for the present, Red relaxed and closed his eyes. It would be a day or more before the attack cruiser, whichever one it was, would reach Earth and slip into a stationary orbit around the planet. He’d catch up with it a day or two later. He hoped he would be in time. Soon he was asleep.
Ten kyloons later he awoke and blinked his eyes. In the distance he could see a small bright object that he knew must be Earth. He was hungry so he broke out some rations and ate. The food wasn’t great, but when you’re hungry enough, anything tastes good. He thought of Lora and wondered how she was doing with her charade. He was glad he’d insisted on telling her the truth. He didn’t want to deceive the woman he loved.
He checked his radio to see if there was an available link to Tarizon but got nothing but static. He wanted to talk to Lorin or somebody at Central Command to see if there had been any new developments. Up-to-date intelligence would greatly enhance his chances of successfully completing his mission. He prayed the communications link would come on line before he got to Earth.