The Rescue: An Enemy Calling Story

    The Æolus came off the thread with shields up, and was immediately bombarded with various weapons fire. Proximity alarms began screaming from the console, and the dual sources of blaster fire and explosions lit up the inside of the cockpit.

    “Holy crap,” Christian breathed, taking in the sight. Thousands of ships of various sizes were spread throughout the immediate space surrounding Earth. Off to the starboard side an enormous Shalothan battlecruiser was engaged in a virtual slugfest with a USN scout ship, a Fe-Ruqian destroyer, and three Aormian vessels of various types. Directly ahead of the Æolus several smaller attack vessels from both sides flitted throughout the open spaces, dog-fighting to the death.

    “Christian, bring up the battlefield AI,” Kursk calmly ordered. He was already pulling hard on the ship’s controls, juking it back and forth in an attempt to evade errant shots from the dogfights ahead of them.

    “Christian!” Kursk yelled when Christian didn’t answer. Christian snapped out of his awe-induced stupor, and allowed his hands to run across the console in front of him, mindlessly keying for the battlefield sensor package to be brought online. One of the errant shots scored a direct hit on the shields in front of the cockpit, creating a brilliant glare that momentarily blinded both he and Kursk.

    Christian blinked away the green spots from his eyes, squinting to bring his eyesight back into focus. Risking a glance away from the console, he saw the space outside whirling around, immediately causing him to feel nauseous. Einstein squealed several questions directly into his implant translator, requesting clarifying information.

    “What forces do we want identified?” he asked Kursk quickly. The cockpit lit up again, this time from an explosion a few hundred meters off to the port side of the ship.

    “Identify all Fe-Ruq, USN, and Aormy forces as friendlies. All Shalothan vessels are to be marked as enemy vessels. Prioritize targets by size, smallest as most immediate threats.” He pulled hard on the ship’s control stick again, jerking the vessel into a counter-clockwise roll away from a cluster of smaller Shalothan vessels that were approaching in attack formation. Christian glanced up at Kursk, waiting to see if he added anything else to the parameters. Not receiving any further indication that more was forthcoming, he quickly whispered the information back to Einstein. Within seconds holographic HUD overlays appeared on the surface of the viewable cockpit area, identifying every ship within targeting range. The viewing area quickly became so cluttered with identifying information that it was difficult to see out of the cockpit.

    “Filter the field! Filter the field!” Kursk exclaimed, throwing a glare in Christian’s direction.

    “What?” Christian shot back, unsure of what he wanted.

    “Einstein, filter identifiers to Shalothan and unknown craft only,” he breathed with an angry sigh. The HUD displays cleared up slightly, but the vast amounts of enemy identifiers still remaining on the HUD made it apparent that the Æolus was clearly in enemy territory—another flash from an explosion, this time from somewhere below the ship’s vector.

    “Find out if any forces are attacking the planet yet,” Kursk directed. He threw the ship into a spiraling roll, then pulled hard on the controls to evade an attacking Shalothan vessel. Christian pulled up the battlefield displays for the planet proper and searched for any sign of vessels attacking the surface. Not seeing anything, he expanded the view field to include another hundred kilometers from the surface.

    “Looks like the edge of the battle hasn’t reached the outer atmosphere yet.” Christian paused, then smiled. “I wonder what everyone back home is thinking right now. You think they even know?”

    “I doubt this could be hidden from your planet’s satellites and defensive forces. A ship or two, yes. Thousands of ships, no. They must know something is happening in the skies above.”

    “It’s probably chaos down there, eh?” He looked over at Kursk for affirmation. He didn’t respond or look at him. “You still want to try and go down there?”

    “The question is whether you want to. We have an agreement. I will honor my part. Have you figured out how to honor yours?” He threw a quick glance at Christian, then returned his focus on juking the ship in between two damaged Fe-Ruq vessels.

    “I can’t bring anyone identified as clones?”

    “No. You know the agreement. Stop asking if it can be broken.”

    Christian hesitated before speaking. “My parents are identified as clones as well. Everyone in my family appears to be a clone derivative. Even my frien—” Kursk cut him off.

    “If everyone in your family is tagged as a clone, then they’re safe. Asreh isn’t targeting them. Do you have anyone that you wish to protect? If not, we needn’t be here.” The ship shuddered from an explosion shockwave that was too close.

    “I have a friend that wasn’t tagged on the list.”

    “Do you have a location for him?” The ship shuddered again against another shockwave.

    “It’s a ‘her.’”

    “Whatever. Do you have a location, or are we going to fly around until we have the ship shot out from under us?” The tension in Kursk’s voice was increasing.

    “She’s not family.” Kursk said nothing in response. “I can feed you the coordinates of the general area.” Christian punched his fingers at the console, sending the information to the HUD display.

    “One chance, Christian. One chance. If you can’t find her quickly, then we leave. Do you understand?”

    “How long do I get?”

    “Depends on what you see here. If the Shalothans start overrunning the defenses...” He trailed off. “I don’t want to be caught on the surface when the selection teams start landing.” The cockpit filled with a green glare again as the front shields took another direct hit.

    Christian stole a quick glance at his console. “Shields are damaged. Down to ninety percent now.” Off to his right a few kilometers away, he saw a massive Shalothan battlecruiser finish off a USN vessel, cleaving the vessel into two pieces with a fierce final salvo. The HUD was still showing quite a few enemy ships, but it appeared their numbers were dwindling.

    “Go suit up. We’ll be atmospheric within five minutes.” Kursk looked over at Christian and jerked his head backwards, emphasizing the order. Christian merely nodded, then slid from his seat and pulled himself out of the cockpit. Just as he reached the cockpit threshold, he turned to face Kursk.

    “Thank you,” he said.

###

    Christian tugged the battle armor on, securing the various pieces to his limbs and torso. The connections for the nano-sensors in his body pierced his skin as he tightened the armor, causing him to wince slightly from the pin pricks. He pulled his headgear on, slipping the ear pieces into his ear canals. As soon as they connected with the implant in his ear canal, the nano-devices in his system activated, enhancing his hearing and eyesight. The devices projected the personalized HUD info directly onto his cornea, keeping it in his field of vision at all times.

    Kursk yelled from the cockpit, alerting him to the two-minute mark until atmospheric entry. Hurriedly he went to the weapons storage and pulled out an energy rifle and a matching sidearm. He checked the power levels on each, and satisfied that they were fully charged, made his way towards the airlock.

    The ship shuddered from another glancing blow, causing Christian to lose his balance slightly. Leaning hard against the bulkhead, he waited a heartbeat before continuing towards the airlock hatch.

    “What the hell am I doing here,” he muttered to himself, fully realizing the incredulousness of his situation. He looked down at the floor, trying to calm the butterflies that were suddenly anxious to escape his stomach. Swallowing hard against the feeling in his stomach, he wiped away a bead of cold sweat from his forehead.

    “Thirty seconds,” Kursk’s voice announced in his ear implant. The meaning of his words was enough to trigger the expulsion of Christian’s last meal, causing it to splatter against the hatch, the floor, and his boots. His wretching echoed through the ship, causing Kursk to shout an expletive at him from the cockpit.

    “Sorry,” he mumbled, wiping the last remnants of vomit from his mouth. The light above the airlock hatch lit up as the outer hatch opened.

    “We’re at the coordina-,” Kursk began.

    “How much time do I have?” Christian asked, interrupting him.

    “Probably less than a standard hour. Much less if your planetary defense forces have been alerted to our presence.”

    “Earth doesn’t have a planetary defen-”

    “Go!” Kursk yelled, cutting him off.

    Christian stepped through the inner hatch and leaned his head out the airlock, looking down to the ground below. The moonless sky didn’t provide much light from above, but the street lights in the neighborhood revealed that the distance to the ground below was almost a five-meter drop.

    “Can you get a little lower?”

    The ship lurched to port, forcing Christian to jump down. He hit the lawn below with a clatter, body armor clacking against his rifle. He knelt on his knees for a moment, trying to catch the breath that had been knocked out of him. The Æolus was already streaking away in the distance by the time he finally looked upwards to give Kursk a filthy look.

    Without a local clock readily available, Christian had no idea what time of the night it was. Many of the houses on the street had lights on within, and those that hadn’t were now flicking on to find out what the commotion outside had been. There weren’t any cars moving on the street, at least from what he could see. He jogged across a few lawns to get a better view of the street sign at the nearest corner. He recognized the name, but quickly realized that he was still a half-mile from Katie’s house.

    He began to jog down the street, running on the grass to minimize the amount of noise that he was making. A few people on the street had come out onto their porches to find out what the sound had been, but most front doors stayed closed.

    The night was cool but the heavy body armor, as well as the unexpected exercise, kept Christian warm. He covered the distance in less than six minutes and found the lights in Katie’s house on as well. He checked the power level on his rifle, then squeezed the grip hard to make sure it was activated. The lack of moving cars on the street during his short run was eerie and gave him pause to wonder about the meaning.

    He stopped across the street from her house and looked into the front window. He could make out a lamp and a picture on the wall facing the window, but he couldn’t see anyone moving inside. Every few seconds he caught sight of a flicker of motion on the ceiling, then realized that it was the light from the television. He slowly walked towards the house, looking both ways down the street out of habit as he crossed.

    As he walked up the lawn, memories of their first date flooded back to him. He remembered the first time pulling into the driveway and seeing the darkened house with the TV glowing from inside. He remembered the way that her parents had been sitting in the dark, and how quick she was to leave with him. He hoped that she would be as willing to leave this time.

    He slowly climbed the few steps to the door and lightly rapped on the outer metal storm door. The sound seemed unbearably loud on the quiet street, and he cringed at the noise. After a few moments of waiting, he peered into the window to see if anyone was coming to the door. He rang the doorbell this time, hoping that perhaps his knock wasn’t as loud as he had thought.

    He heard a door slam from within the house, and the sound of heavy footsteps filtered through the window. Risking a glance inside, he was startled to see Katie’s father staring back at him through the glass. His face abruptly disappeared, and the door flung open.

    “Young man, what in the world do you think you are doing,” Mr. Anderson asked, glaring at Christian. “It’s a little late for Halloween, don’t you think?”

    “Mr. Anderson, is Katie here?”

    The man backed up a step, suddenly seeing the rifle that Christian was holding in one hand.

    “Call 9-1-1!” he shouted off to the side, grabbing the door and slamming it shut. The storm door rattled at the movement, and Christian inadvertently jumped back a step when the door slammed shut.

    “Mr. Anderson! Wait! You don’t understand!”

    Christian caught sight of Katie’s father disappearing around a corner and realized he didn’t have much time. Stepping back to the edge of the porch, he leveled the rifle at the door and fired away. A few bursts later and both doors had sizable holes in them. Pulling open the storm door, he kicked in the interior door and strode into the house.

    “Katie? Are you here?” he shouted, looking around for any sign of Mr. Anderson.

    He quickly moved through the front room to the opening of the hallway that her father had disappeared down.

    “Mr. Anderson! Mr. Anderson! Where’s Katie?”

    Christian heard the distinct noise of a shotgun being racked and dove off to the side, landing hard against the floor. He quickly readied his own rifle and aimed at the hallway, waiting for Mr. Anderson to show himself.

    “Mr. Anderson?” Christian called out softly. The response was the deafening roar of the shotgun blasting down the hallway.

    “Jesus!” he exclaimed, reflexively ducking down. The blast hadn’t come near him, but the sound of the shotgun rang in his ears.

    “Mr. Anderson – don’t shoot! My name is Christian Franklin, and I’ve come for Katie.” Almost as soon as he had spoken the words, Christian realized it was the wrong thing to say. Almost immediately he felt the vibration in the floor as Mr. Anderson came lumbering down the hall after him. Quickly switching the setting on the rifle to low power, he took aim down the hallway. Katie’s father came into view and was felled by three bursts from Christian’s rifle.

    Pausing for a moment to collect himself, he crawled over to the prone body of Mr. Anderson and checked for a pulse. He had one, and his chest was heaving up and down. Christian took it as a good sign and stood up to search the house.

    Quickly searching the bedrooms, he found suitcases laying open on beds, seemingly in the process of being packed. He made his way through all of the rooms on the main level, then headed towards the basement stairs.

    Slowly opening the door to the basement, he called down below.

    “Katie? Katie, it’s Christian. I’m coming down.”

    He tentatively took his first step on the creaking top step, then crouched to look down the stairs. The lights were off, but the internal HUD on his cornea showed the features of the room in lowlight vision, allowing him to see relatively clearly. He walked down the stairs without turning on the lights, peering across the basement. Mirroring the footprint of the house, the basement was one large concrete box, but relatively cluttered with miscellaneous junk. He stepped around a box full of old books, then sidestepped past a couch piled high with neatly folded clothes. There were various boxes scattered around the basement, and a set of old kitchen cabinets piled up against one wall, but nowhere for Katie to be hiding except behind the furnace in the corner. He stood still for a moment, trying to catch sight of any movement behind it. Just as he was about to take a step towards it, his earpiece crackled.

    “Christian, the Shalothans have breached the atmosphere. We have to leave. Meet me at the drop point. Verify you can hear me.”

    Christian silently swore to himself, not wanting to say anything to give himself away, but not wanting Kursk to abandon him here.

    “Christian, answer me.”

    “Kursk, I’m here.” It was the only words Christian managed to get out before Katie leapt out from behind the furnace and tried to run for the stairs. He dove at her, clipping her legs and sending her sprawling to the ground. Kursk’s voice sounded in his ear, but he was too intent on stopping Katie from escaping to listen.

    He grabbed her ankle, and she kicked at him, landing a heel to his jaw. Christian sunk back against the blow, and she scrambled to get up. He reached for his rifle, only to realize he had dropped it. Katie hurdled the couch and bounded for the stairs. He pulled out his sidearm and fired two quick shots into the stairs ahead of Katie, showering her with splinters and causing her to stop and cover her face for protection.

    “Katie, stop! It’s Christian!”

    In the darkness he saw her turn her head towards his voice, eyes wide in disbelief and terror. His heart sank when he realized how much fear he was creating for her. She stood still waiting for him to do something.

    “Katie, where’s the lightswitch down here?”

    She mumbled something about the location, then followed his order to turn the lights on. Within seconds the dim light of a single bulb lit the basement. Katie stood near the stairs, afraid of what the light revealed.

    “Katie, it’s me. It’s Christian.”

    He took a step towards her, and she instinctively recoiled and bumped up against the wall behind her. He reached up and pulled his headgear off.

    “Did you call the cops,” he asked, suddenly remembering her father’s last order. She didn’t respond to his question. “Katie, it’s okay. We have to get out of here. I can explain later.” He stepped forward and grabbed her wrist to guide her up the stairs. She ripped out of his grasp and backed away from him.

    “Where’ve you been? What happened to you? You just show up after disappearing from the face of the earth and think I’m going anywhere with you? You just shot my dad. I’m not going anywhere with you.”

    “Katie, he’s okay. I only shot him with a low power blast. He’s just unconscious.”

    “Are you insane? Did your mind finally warp or something from all that sci-fi stuff? What, what – I don’t understand. What are you doing here?”

    Christian squeezed the bridge of his nose and sighed impatiently.

    “I promise I’ll tell you everything once we get out of here. Come on.” He stepped forward and reached for her again. She backhanded his hand away from her, then retreated back towards the furnace.

    “I don’t know what happened to you Christian, but you’re in big trouble now. They’ll be here any second.” She nodded upwards, referring to her call to the police.

    “It won’t matter,” he said. “Earth is under attack from an alien race. You’re not on their protected list.”

    “What?” she spat out, throwing her hands up in total disbelief.

    “You’re not on their list by name, but your DNA sequence is. You’re not a clone or a derivative.” He paused and sighed again. “Never mind. We have to go. I can explain later.” He spotted his rifle on the floor and walked over to it, keeping his eye on Katie.

    “I’m not going anywhere with you.” Katie watched him warily as he bent down to get the weapon. “You disappeared, whether it was an abduction, you ran away, you got lost, whatever.”

    “You were there! You saw that ship come and take me. At the party, remember?”

    “I don’t know what I remember, Christian. I was drinking. For all I know, you gave me something that caused me to freak out and lose it.” Her voice had lost the tone of fear, and agitation and anger began to replace it.

    “You think I drugged you?” Christian stared at her incredulously. Sirens began to grow louder outside.

    “I don’t know what to think. All I know is that I woke up in someone’s bedroom next to some guy I barely knew, severely hungover, and you were nowhere to be found.” She paused, finally taking notice of what he was wearing. She waved at his gear, frowning. “What, are you playing soldier boy too?”

    The sirens were obviously near the house now, possibly on the actual street. Christian shook his head in disgust, realizing he was out of time, and placed his headgear back on.

    “Kursk, it’s Christian. You there?”

    “I see you’ve finally decided to respond to my calls. Are you at the drop point?”

    “No, I have a slight problem. I’m about to be surrounded by local police, and I don’t really have a way out.”

    “I see,” Kursk said slowly. “Do you have your friend with you?”

    Christian paused and looked into Katie’s face, trying to read her.

    “Yeah, but I don’t think she’s coming.”

    “You don’t think she is, or she’s not?”

    “She doesn’t want to.”

    “Tsk tsk, Christian,” Kursk chastised him. “We will have to work on your tactics. Does she understand what will happen if she stays?”

    “Uh, I didn’t exactly get to that. We’ve sort of been catching up.”

    “How nice. Either render her immobile and bring her, or kill her. Leaving her alive would be the worst thing you could do for her.”

    Christian shuddered at the coldness in Kursk’s voice. He realized Kursk was right, but the blunt truth was painful to accept. He looked at Katie, and thought about what could possibly happen to her in the hands of the Shalothans. He raised his rifle at her, whispered a quick apology, and fired into her chest.

###

    The red and blue lights flashed against the far wall of the room, and Christian realized that he was in a bad predicament. He gently set the limp body of Katie on the kitchen floor and crouched behind the corner cabinet. From his vantage point, it appeared that the police cars had just arrived, but he couldn’t be sure that any of the officers had taken up positions around the house. Either way, he realized that he didn’t have the nerve to drag Katie out into a firefight and risk her getting killed.

    He looked down at her and immediately felt nauseated about harming her. He tried to convince himself that the low power blast from the rifle wouldn’t do any permanent damage, but the mere fact that he had shot her gnawed at his conscience. He didn’t feel that he was doing the right thing.

    He switched his rifle over to full power, then checked his sidearm and did the same. He doubted Kursk would arrive before anyone approached the house, and he didn’t enjoy the thought of harming even more people, this time possibly fatally. He gripped his rifle and readied himself. Whatever happened, he was determined to draw any fire away from Katie, and hope for the best.

    “Christian, I’m coming in. Get down and protect yourself,” Kursk’s voice came over the earpiece. Christian immediately ducked down and covered up Katie, only to be deafened by a sonic boom that blew out the windows in the house. Glass shards littered the kitchen table and floor, and a piece caught him on the side of the face, sending a trickle of blood down his cheek.

    He risked a quick glance, and could see several officers in the front of the house looking upwards and down the street. He propped himself up against the cabinet and quickly fired a few shots out the opening that had been the front window, aiming well above the heads of the officers. The energy bursts struck against a large tree in the front yard, as well as a light post across the street, sending sparks everywhere. The effect was immediate, as the officers scrambled for cover behind the open doors of their vehicles.

    “Prepare for extraction. I’m beginning a final run now. Stay inside until I complete this pass.”

    “Kursk! No! You don’t need to kill everyone!”

    Rapid explosions ripped along the street in response, paving a pathway of destruction along the way. Christian caught a glimpse of the large tree in the front yard splintering and collapsing before he had to shut his eyes against the searing bright light. The heat from the attack radiated throughout the area, warming his face. In the din of the explosions, he could make out the agonized screams of someone dying painfully, as well as the confused and fearful screams of those that had avoided the assault.

    The voice in his earpiece returned. “Extraction zone is secure. Exit now. I’ll provide cover.”

    Christian slung his rifle and hefted Katie up and onto his shoulder, then slowly walked towards the front of the house. The scene before him was surreal. The wreckage of the cars – civilian or police he couldn’t tell – burned all along the street, providing the only light. All of the trees that had lined the street had been destroyed, leaving nothing but jagged stumps in their place. In the light of the fire Christian could see the smoke from the smoldering asphalt. Burned bodies littered the front lawn and the street in front of the house, and a few survivors wandered along further down the street. Kursk had effectively eliminated any threat or obstacle to extraction.

    Stepping through the shattered remnants of the front door, the sound of the approaching ship directed his attention to the sky. Kursk piloted the Æolus to a spot directly overhead and rotated so that he could descend between the houses on either side of the street. Christian kept a wary eye out for any hint of attack from the remaining survivors on the street. Either the neighbors were all scared to step out of their homes, or they were already out when the attack occurred. Regardless, Christian didn’t see anyone else.

    The ship settled down to the ground, floating about a meter off of the ground. Kursk had rotated the ship so that the airlock hatch was facing Christian, making it easier for him to take Katie to the airlock. He was halfway to the ship when the airlock door irised open, revealing Kursk crouched just inside the hatch. He motioned quickly to Christian, then turned his gaze to the sky.

    Christian began to trot, remembering Kursk’s fear of being caught on the ground when the selection teams began to descend. Everything he had risked would be for naught should they be captured. Katie’s life wouldn’t be the only one forfeit at that point.

    “Get her strapped in back there, then get up to the cockpit. Einstein’s reporting that selection ships have breeched the atmosphere. Shalothan escorts are already attacking your military stations in support.” Kursk took a last look into the sky, slapped the pad to shut the airlock, and made his way towards the cockpit. By the time Christian made his way back to the cockpit, Kursk was already driving towards high altitude, forgoing any premise of stealth.

    “Is she still alive, or did you bring her body for burial purposes,” he asked without looking at Christian.

    “She’s breathing. I didn’t get her hooked up to any of the monitors, but she’s breathing.” Christian paused as he slipped into his seat, glancing at the console in front of him. “Any sign that we were noticed by the Shalothans?”

    “As of now, no.” Kursk paused to adjust something on a console, then turned his head to face Christian.

    “Are you prepared to die?” The question caught Christian totally off guard, and he inadvertently leaned away from Kursk.

    “What?”

    “Are you prepared to die? Yes or no,” Kursk said again, this time in a slightly harsher tone.

    “I wasn’t planning on it, why?” Christian began to feel nervous about the question.

    “I would begin to make peace with that possibility if I were you. Our chances of making it out of this are getting slimmer by the minute. I had Einstein calculate our success probabilities while you were deployed. It was at fifty percent.”

    Christian paused to think about Kursk’s statement. “Where is it now?”

    Kursk leaned back over the console to his left and peered at a display. “Forty-three point eight. At least it hasn’t reached zero.” He favored Christian with a quick glance and a slight smile. Looking forward again, he stretched out his hands, cracked his knuckles, and stretched out his fingers. “Make your peace with God, Christian. There isn’t much time.”

    Christian had admired the piloting skills of Kursk prior to this flight, if only because he was in awe of someone that could actually pilot a spaceship. Now, the word brilliant flashed through his mind as he witnessed the full breadth of Kursk’s skills come into play as the ship danced through the lower atmosphere, jinking and juking at each identification of a new threat.

    As the seconds past, and the announcements began to become a monotonous drone in his ear, the seriousness of the situation became a frightening reality for Christian. At first, he was only able to visually see one or two of the selection ships. But within half a minute, he had lost count as the sky became littered with the dull gray ships descending through the atmosphere. Whenever one of the trajectories of an inbound ship came to close, Kursk deftly maneuvered the Æolus into another upward vector. Within minutes, it seemed that the sky was tilting and twirling about them as the ship danced through the sky striated with the contrails of descending ships.

    Just as the whites of the highest-level clouds began to flash by the cockpit, Einstein alerted Kursk and Christian to a new threat – unidentified inbound ships, traveling much faster than the selection ships.

    “What the hell are those,” Christian asked without taking his eyes off the nearest entity. The sleek ships and pincer-like formations on the front of the craft, with bulging engines overshadowing the rest of the body.

    “Shalothan interceptors. Presumably playing the role of escort for the drop ships. Fortunately for us, this signals a lapse in judgment by the current commander of the Shalothan naval in the area.” The cockpit flashed red as one of the interceptors splashed the Æolus’ shields with an energy blast.

    “Are we a threat to them?”

    “I asked if you were prepared to die, did I not?” Kursk remarked solemnly, not taking his eyes from the forward cockpit. The ship continued to jitterbug through the contrails, dipping and weaving amongst the dispersing trails. The blue of the atmosphere quickly began to fade, and the inky blackness of space dawned into view.

    An imminent threat alert from Einstein caught both of their attention, and Kursk reflexively pushed the ship into a dive back towards the atmosphere. Just as the nose began edging back through the upper stratosphere, energy blasts streaked downwards toward the planet, just missing the ship.

    “I thought you said they had a lapse in judgment,” Christian asked, stealing a glance out his side of the cockpit in an attempt to see where the aggressor was.

    “Merely my opinion. Aft shielding to max capacity. The interceptors are not terribly suited to low level atmospheric flight. They’re better deployed as high-speed planetary orbital sentries. They can be quite ungainly in atmospheric flight. Obviously, we just gained their attention.” He quickly flicked a finger and pointed at another interceptor on the horizon that was altering its course and turning towards an intercept vector with the Æolus.

    “Ya think?” Christian asked sarcastically.

    The mottled sky beneath them quickly rose up, then passed them by as the Æolus dove steeply into the atmosphere. A reddish hue began to form outside the cockpit, and Christian anxiously looked over at Kursk again, wondering if he was going to pull up.

    “Einstein, calculate total drop ship count within a thousand kilometers from the ship.” The report wasn’t encouraging; over three hundred ships were currently in the air, and that number didn’t include the first wave of ships that had presumably touched down already.

    “Calculate interceptor total.” The latest report was more encouraging. Only fifty-three were in the vicinity, although Einstein didn’t differentiate which were escorting the ships further away, and which were potentially becoming threats with nearby ships.

    Kursk slowly pulled out of the dive and cut across the dive planes of several ships, slicing through the fading contrails on a roughly northern vector. Stone-faced with concentration, he continued to weave and zigzag as he headed at increasing speeds to the north.

    “Where are you going?” Christian was perplexed, fully expecting that Kursk would have decided to engage in heroics and attack the drop ships and interceptors.

    “I didn’t plan to die today, therefore tactics have changed.” He said nothing else but continued to push the ship at excessive speeds through the atmosphere. The ship bucked and rocked more intensely with the increasing speed, quieting Christian’s questions as he began to focus on holding his stomach down.

    The alerts from Einstein began to slow down as the ship headed north. Threat alerts still indicated that one of the interceptors was trailing the ship, but inexplicably was not engaging them. The ground far below continued to scroll by, with the daylight terminator line of the planet slowly creeping towards them from the right.

    “Where are we going?”

    Kursk didn’t answer, but continued to focus on piloting the craft. Christian stole a glance at him, wondering to himself if the pilot had heard his question. Almost imperceptibly Kursk turned his head to acknowledge his glance.

    “The current battle spheres are condensing around the equatorial regions and the northern hemisphere. Flying through the landing groups isn’t going to be successful. However, we can attempt to escape out through the northern polar cap region. Apparently your planet isn’t heavily populated in that region. We can expect that there should be minimal, if any selection ships. Our friend behind us will most likely give up if we continue on this vector. Notice he hasn’t engaged us yet. Most likely he’s observing and will report our location to sentry ships on station in orbit. Those we can avoid fairly easily.” Within minutes Kursk’s logic was proven out as the trailing interceptor slowed and turned back towards the more populated regions. Christian noticed that Kursk quickly changed course and vectored steeply towards the stratosphere.

    “Well, that was easier than I thought. Not too bad, eh,” Christian asked, letting out a nervous smile. He consciously forced himself to release his grip on the armrests, leaving sweat marks from his palms. Kursk looked at him silently, then turned his focus back to his piloting.

    The sky around them faded to a purplish bruise color before finally coalescing into the blackness of space. Almost immediately Christian wished they had remained atmospheric for a while more. The floating hulks of countless vessels could be seen orbiting the planet in every direction, with the brilliant flashes of energy bursts and dying vessels backlighting the view. Taking a quick inventory of which ship types looked familiar among the floating hulks, it quickly became obvious that the Shalothans were indeed quickly turning the battle into a rout. Einstein wasn’t reporting any immediate threats in the area, but the flow of the information still came in a torrent, too swiftly for Christian to make much sense of it other than to get the gist that things were not going well for anyone.

    Kursk switched to autopilot, slid out of his seat, and walked out of the cockpit without saying anything. Christian watched him go, then sat silently in his seat, watching the mess of a battlefield floating in space all around him.

    Now what, he wondered.

    The silence was deafening in his ears. Each breath, each twist of his body in the chair, sounded exponentially louder than it should have. Christian wondered if it was just the adrenaline that was running through, then considered the thought and dismissed it as merely one of the other effects of space travel that he hadn’t really considered.

    The Æolus continued on a vector away from the battle-plane, every so often changing course to avoid a potential conflict. The unknown of what was happening on the planet surface was gnawing at him. No, he thought, it’s not some planet. It’s my home.

    “Einstein, intercept any transmissions from a fifty-mile radius from these coordinates,” Christian paused mid-sentence to type in the coordinates of the city he grew up in, “and display any video at console two.” Within seconds a half-dozen video holograms appeared above his console arranged in a square, each presenting a different transmission feed. Christian leaned over and squinted at the pictures, trying to make out the images in each one. He gave up on deciphering the first three when a gloved hand slide past his head from behind him and gently swiped the face of one of the holograms.

    “Perhaps enlarging the image would allow you to see more clearly,” Kursk’s voice came from behind him. Christian glanced up and over his shoulder just in time to see the white-haired pilot step past him and slide into his own seat. He kept his gaze on Kursk for a moment, mumbled a quick thank you, then returned his attention to the images before him.

    The hologram that Kursk had selected had grown to three times its size. The feed was that of a local news team, with a ‘Live Breaking News’ label splashed along the top of the feed. The specific location of the camera operator and reporter wasn’t shown or labeled, but the images taken were that of several of the selection ships descending from the sky. The feed appeared to be using night vision to show its viewers the contrails from the descending selection ships, while attempting to identify exactly what type of craft was landing from space. A quick map of the local region appeared, with potential sightings or detections shown with a caricature of an alien head marking the various report locations.

    “Your family will be protected, assuming they don’t act irrationally,” Kursk’s voice piped in. Christian glanced over at him, but he was focused on his console rather than looking at him. Not thinking, he lashed out at Kursk’s statement.

    “Do you even understand the people that live down there? No one is thinking about being rational right now. They’re seeing UFOs full of aliens coming out of the sky to attack the Earth. They have no clue what the selection ships are, or what they mean. Some people probably think it’s a giant government conspiracy, and will fight back against the very people who should protect them. Others will claim it’s God, or some other religious deal. Everyone has their own thoughts on this. No one sees what you see every day. The governments down there will be lucky if they can even manage some type of order within the next few days without it turning into full-blown martial law.”

    “Hence the reason your planet hasn’t been fully educated and indoctrinated into the way the universe truly works. One could claim that you’re a sub-species, full of emotion and totally irrational based on your thought patterns and behavior.” Kursk managed a smirk as he spoke.

    Christian threw his hands up in the air in a questioning gesture.

    “Why are you an asshole all the time,” he shouted.

    The Æolus sped away, leaving the chaos of Earth behind, the future uncertain but hopeful.