The Plasma Master

  Chapter 22

  Three days after the starship Nemesis mysteriously disappeared from Sigma Omicron, the StarBlazer army was ready to launch its assault on Moldrona Kren. Nemesis had not yet arrived, but Marnax had run out of time. As of now the Empire was not aware of his plan to attack, but the longer he waited the greater the probability became that Dark Viper would launch an attack of his own. The time had come.

  The instant the StarBlazer fleet dropped out of warp the entire star system exploded into battle. Though the Anacronian fleet had not known of the impending attack, the approaching attack force had shown up on Imperial scanners in time for them to mobilize their forces. Dark Viper had ordered even more starships to Moldrona Kren than he had to Ergana Prime, but this time General Marnax had brought nearly his entire fleet, leaving only enough ships behind so as not to leave the worlds under his care completely unprotected. The result was that there were nearly as many StarBlazer ships at this battle as there were Anacronian ones.

  This time Devastator entered the battle immediately. It nearly caused a breach in the StarBlazer lines, but Ambelshack Devorion and his Starhawk squadron attacked a group of Anacronian warships so fiercely that Devastator was forced to return and defend them.

  Galactron seemed to be everywhere at once. Marvis Harvey was masterful in his positioning of StarBlazer’s flagship, and almost every time the Empire seemed to gain a tactical advantage, Galactron would come thundering into the battle with lasers and missiles hammering into the enemy ships.

  Smardwurst Varlon hung back behind the front lines for as long as he could, but before long a group of StarBlazer ships was beset by a particularly troublesome group of Imperial starfighters, and Smardwurst decided he had waited long enough. He brought Green Scorpion up and launched six fighters into the fray.

  “This is Dragon Leader. Dragons One and Two, take the enemy squadron to port. Three, Four, and Five, see what you can do to that attack cruiser. I’ve got those cobras.”

  X went in pursuit of a full squadron of ten Imperial cobras. He was dreadfully outnumbered, and the cobras moved to surround him and finish him off quickly. His laser cannon tracked one of them and inflicted heavy damage, but before he could finish it off two enemy missiles exploded against his ship.

  There was a surge of blue light, but he received no damage.

  X finished off that first cobra and started chasing another one, but the Imperials did not take the hint. A long stream of laser fire hammered into him, followed by another barrage of missiles. Still, no damage; his shields were at one hundred percent. A few quick maneuvers and the cobras were reduced to seven. The remaining ships retreated toward an Imperial destroyer so it could provide cover for them with its superior firepower, but the destroyer’s lasers had no more luck than the fighters’ had. The chase lasted a few minutes more, and then X finished off the last of the cobra squadron.

  “Dragon Force, report.”

  “One here. We’re done.”

  “The destroyer’s crippled and retreating.”

  “All right,” X said. “Let’s pull back and give our Shield Master a rest.”

  Ned Simmons was lying in bed, barely breathing. His body was motionless but trembling, and his eyes were closed. A sheen of sweat covered his entire body. Jenara Trennon sat beside him, temporarily forgotten by him but full of concern.

  Four days before the battle, Ned had given up on Ambelshack’s idea of him flying around shooting enemies down. He had improved as a pilot, but not enough to matter. He was convinced that he couldn’t hit a single Imperial ship if he had an entire lifetime. What was more, Ned had vehemently rejected the entire concept of Dragon Force pilots flying to their deaths. It was not right, and it could not be allowed. Finally he had come up with a plan. Rather than grant himself unlimited invincibility, he would extend his power outward and protect the Dragon Force pilots for brief periods at a time. He had presented his idea to Ambelshack, and the Starhawk leader had agreed wholeheartedly. It made perfect sense; X’s squadron would be able to do much more damage than Ned would ever be able to.

  There was, however, a problem. In the first place, Ned’s new plan required him to deflect attacks on several ships simultaneously. The real problem, though, was that it required Ned to extend his focus of concentration far beyond himself to the battle outside. Ned had managed to do this, but it was extremely draining in every sense, including emotionally. It took so much concentration to maintain Plasma shields around six starfighters, all of them far away, that Ned felt that his very mind was being stretched beyond its limits. He had hoped to lessen the effort required by placing himself aboard one of the fighters, but from a constantly accelerating starting point it had been impossible to keep track of the other fighters. Exhausting as it was to project his Shield energy into space from Green Scorpion, it appeared to be the only solution. During the past few days, while he had not been practicing with the Plasma, Ned had sat virtually motionless, staring out into space. He had declined all conversational and recreational activities, fearing that participating in them would rob him of the discipline he had developed to extend his powers so far outside of himself.

  It would all be over soon, he had said, but still Ned’s friends had worried about him. Especially Jenara. It had already bothered her that she could not understand the Plasma force, and now it seemed to be all that Ned was. She had watched him with apprehension as he practiced with X and his squadron and hoped Ned was right, that as soon as the battle was over he would return to normal. It was her greatest fear that he would not.

  As she sat next to Ned, wondering what was happening inside him, his mouth moved – just his mouth. Into the communicator which had been placed by his head, he muttered, “X. Go.”

  X understood. “Dragon Force. Ned’s ready for another round. You have your assignments. Attack.”

  “Get Golden Eagle and Freedom over here!” Harvey shouted. “Devastator’s coming up fast!”

  The two starships he had requested joined Galactron and Liberator in an attempt to hold Devastator off. The four of them combined were a massive fighting force indeed, and Devastator was alone. Starhawk, its casualties yet light, still raked the Imperial ship’s shields, but its commanding officers were obviously no longer daunted. On it came, filling the space around it with a web of red energy as its lasers reached out toward the StarBlazer ships nearby.

  “Ready all weapons. We’ll all fire together, and hopefully Devastator won’t be able to destroy many of our missiles. Get ready; this is going to be ugly.”

  Then Devastator got too close, and Golden Eagle attacked. Missile launchers spat projectiles like a swarm of gnats, and those that were not destroyed exploded against Devastator’s shields. An instant later Liberator struck from the other side, its hypercharged lasers drawing sparks from the monster ship’s shielding. Still Devastator came on. Freedom pulled in front of Galactron as its weapons joined the assault on the Imperial war machine, and finally Devastator slowed. It was surrounded on three sides and Starhawk still defied its targeting scanners while peppering its shields with laser fire, and the Imperial Captain aboard decided it was time to stand and fight.

  Something was wrong, and X knew it. Ned had authorized him to go on five more invincibility runs, and there had only been about sixteen minutes in-between each. Shouldn’t the interval be increasing? Wasn’t Ned tiring? X flicked on his communicator and contacted Ned’s room. “Jenara? Are you there? What’s going on?”

  “I’m here, X. I’m worried. Ned’s breathing has increased, and his heart is pumping like mad. I don’t know how much more he can take.”

  “Understood. Dragon Force, let’s play it down a little. Remember, invincibility’s not free. Every hit we take, Ned feels a hundred percent. Let’s try to minimize damage to him as best we can.”

  Liberator broke apart in a series of huge explosions. Devastator had finally ripped a hole in its shields and left it exposed to its vast armament of lasers and missiles. Golden Eagle’s shields fail
ed as well, and it pulled away from the battle as Devastator carved chunks out of its hull. Galactron had joined the battle, and now its shields were barely at half power. Freedom was at one-fourth.

  “How much longer can that thing’s shields hold?” Marnax asked.

  “Sensors estimate Devastator shields at ninety percent,” came the report.

  “We’re gone,” Harvey said. “Viper’s got us this time.”

  “Major! Imperial starship approaching at warp sixty! It’s Nemesis!”

  The instant Mirana dropped out of warp she ordered Randar to start powering the annihilator cannons. Meanwhile she swooped in at Devastator for a quick strafing run intended to draw it off of Galactron. The maneuver worked, and it bought enough time for an additional StarBlazer warship to move into position to defend Galactron. While the cannons charged, Mirana made good use of Nemesis’s capabilities. She targeted a nearby destroyer and pumped it full of lasers and missiles. Its already weakened shields buckled, and Mirana ripped it apart.

  “Cannons charged.”

  Nemesis flipped over and headed back toward Devastator. The larger ship’s weapons made the shields glow, but Mirana dodged most of the incoming shots. At last she was in range, and she pressed the trigger. Trailing swirling tendrils of light, the particle beams from the annihilator cannons ripped into Devastator’s shields, and when they stopped firing they left two glowing green marks where they had hit. Like bite marks from a snake, Mirana observed.

  “Their shields are at sixty percent,” Randar said. “We got hit hard too, though. Five minutes until we can fire annihilator cannons again.”

  Mirana knew that she was taxing her ship to its limit. She had taken a lot of damage at Sigma Omicron before blasting her way out, and Devastator had a knack for ripping shields apart. Mirana rose from her chair and headed to the door at the back of the pricom. “Randar, take the helm. Tren, charge the warp engines to full. When I say now, engage them.”

  “Why?”

  “Shut up and do it.” With that, she was out the door. She ran to the engineering room and glanced around. Finally she saw what she was looking for: the warp field emission control. Ships in warp emitted a warp field roughly conforming to the surface of the ship. Mirana knew that by modifying the field output so that it projected the shape without the phase change, she could envelop the ship in another kind of energy field entirely. This was what the Shadow Master had meant, and this was why Mirana had wanted this ship from the first time she had heard about it. She made the necessary modifications and then turned on the intercom. “Tren, now.”

  Tren did as he was told, and in a rare display of emotion, Mirana laughed triumphantly. “IT WORKED!”

  What Tren and the rest of Nemesis’s crew saw was a set of readings that indicated the generation of a useless pseudo-warp field. What everyone else saw was completely different. Devastator’s gunners were marking Nemesis as it came in for another pass when it simply faded from sight.

  Visible light, infrared rays, subspace; all of it passed in one side of Nemesis and traveled out the other, with no detectable refraction at all. Nemesis was gone. With the shadow field engaged, Mirana, once again at the helm, prepared for Devastator’s final moment.

  Gerran Marnax watched in shock as green lines of light fired out of nowhere and ripped into Devastator’s hull. Its shields fell to twenty percent, but Mirana was not done yet. She struck again and again, each time from a new place, and each time for just an instant. Occasionally Devastator got lucky and hit her, but not nearly as often as it would have if she had been visible.

  “Mirana, it’s pulling away. It’s running.”

  “Send a message to Marnax; tell him to put everything he’s got in Devastator’s path. Don’t let it go to warp.”

  For Nedward Simmons, the galaxy was on fire. It was not pain as much as it was energy; in the six streamers of Shield Plasma trailing away into space, Ned felt more power than he had ever felt before. He realized now why Dark Viper was so obsessed with his power. It was not enough to have the Plasma force. The real power came in its use. It seemed to Ned that all that he was existed in terms of the power he extended out to those six ships. Yes, he weakened occasionally, but each time he rested much of his power returned, and he felt as if he could go on all day.

  The power was focused on the starfighters, but Ned knew that it came from the small Crystal in his pocket. Even with his eyes closed he could feel its power throbbing inside him, drawing in Plasma and giving it over to Ned’s control. He had struggled with Blast Plasma – struggled to command it, struggled to absorb it. His escape from the Vortex Plasma had seemed no less than a miracle. But it was not like that with Shield Plasma. The Shield Crystal gave its power freely, without effort and without cost. That was why Ned was able to use it with such power when he could not even pierce Kayleen Rax’s battle armor. His safety right now depended on his ability to wield the Shield Plasma, and so the Crystal granted that ability. Ned felt that, at this instant, his life depended on his connection to the Plasma he was extending so far away, and he was grateful that he had been able to maintain this connection for so long. The connection was power, and power was life.

  And then a great shadow passed between Ned and Dragon Force. The connection he had so cherished was gone.

  Mirana continued to chip away at Devastator’s aft shields until the annihilator cannons were charged again, and then she flew in for one final shot. “All right. Tell Marnax to get everyone clear.” The distance closed quickly, and finally Mirana hit the trigger. Devastator’s shields held up for just a moment against the green light, but then they shuddered and failed altogether. The trailing edge of Mirana’s blast tore into Devastator’s warp engines, and then it was gone. A compression shock wave ripped the ship in half, and then a giant fireball incinerated everything that was left over. Nemesis did not completely escape from the explosion, but its shields held anyway.

  Ned inhaled sharply and his face contorted as if he were gasping for air. His eyes rolled back in his head, and a series of convulsions ran through his body.

  “Ned!” Jenara gasped in horror. She leaped out of her chair and looked around the room as if something to be found there would help him. She called his name again, but there was no response. Jenara was frantic. “Ned! What’s wrong?”

  She reached down and grabbed Ned’s shoulder in attempt to steady him. At her touch he sat up sharply and stared blankly into her eyes. In the same motion his hands fastened onto Jenara’s wrists, and a flash of light flared out of her arms and ran into Ned’s body. Immediately the convulsions stopped. Ned inhaled deeply, slowly this time, and his eyes closed. His body remained rigid for a moment, and then he collapsed into unconsciousness. Jenara looked down at him in shock, unable to comprehend what had just happened, remembering the look she had seen on Ned’s face when he had reached out to her.

  Then she turned and fled.

  “They’re running,” Harvey whispered two hours later as he surveyed the battle scene before him. “We did it. We won.”

  Gerran Marnax nodded solemnly. StarBlazer had suffered tremendous losses that day, but, miraculously, Anacron’s losses were greater. Nemesis was theirs, Devastator was gone, and Harvey’s military genius had come through once more. Marnax thought on all of this and smiled. As if to reassure himself that it was real, he repeated Harvey’s words. “We won.”