“Two more on your tail.”
“Fire! Fire! Fire! I’ve got three coming from behind the moon.”
“I see them.”
“Where did they come from? Fuck. I can’t see them.”
“Wyle, I’m hit!”
“Eject, Brax! Now!”
Grigg growled and one of the men in white moved frantically at his station, communicating with someone I couldn’t see. Whatever he was doing must have been expected because Grigg turned to him immediately.
“The shuttle?”
“No go. They’re already on the surface. Closest pickup is three minutes away.”
“Fuck. That’s not fast enough.” Grigg’s jaw tightened and I knew he believed the warrior to be doomed.
True to Grigg’s prediction, I watched a bright flare of yellow head toward the pilot floating in space like a rolling target. I stopped breathing as the orb engulfed him, his screams of agony filling the small room as the warriors in the ships around him spurred to action, taking out the Hive ship that had fired the shot.
“Kill that fucker!”
“Brax! Damn it!”
“Move Fourth, we’ve got more coming from the surface.”
“Fuck. How many? I don’t see anything.”
“I don’t see—wait. Fuck. Ten. No, twelve. Can someone fucking confirm twelve?”
“Another three here. Abort. There’s too many.” I recognized Captain Wyle’s voice. “Shuttle crew, get out of there. Now. All fighters into defense formation. Let’s get the fuck out of here. Commander Zakar? This is Wyle.”
“I’m here.”
“We’re coming in hot. Nothing on our system scans, but visual count at fifteen fighters and they are in pursuit.”
“Understood. Hang on. We’re coming.”
“Fucking hurry up, Commander, or we’re all dead.”
Grigg turned to one of the warriors in red. “Scramble the Seventh and the Ninth. Now. All pilots. I want them gone in sixty seconds.”
The warrior didn’t answer, just turned to his station and spoke to someone as bright lights
and warning dings sounded from his workstation.
The dipping and zooming, the high-speed motion on the screens made me sway. I was grateful to have the chair to hold on to as motion sickness loomed. Determined not to look away I tried to track and understand the images moving at speeds that made me dizzy. I felt helpless, weak, useless. I could only imagine what Grigg felt like, his men out there under his command, under fire. Dying.
All around us battle chatter sounded as the pilots spoke to one another, fending off the pursuit. A small celebration sounded as the reinforcements arrived and the Hive fighters broke off their chase, turning around to flee in the opposite direction, back to wherever the hell they’d come from.
Captain Wyle’s voice came through loud and clear. “They’re running, Sir. Do you want us to pursue?”
“Negative. What I want you to do is find out how we were surprised by an entire fucking squadron of Hive scout ships.”
“Copy that, Sir.”
The mood in the room settled to a busy hum, one of recovery after an explosion and I leaned back in the chair, my pulse pounding and my mind racing as the pilots reported in. The battle had been real, the poor pilot, Brax, dead. But my curiosity remained unsatisfied. I wanted to see the face of the enemy, I wanted to know what they were.