The pilot, p.22
The Pilot, page 22
The Zenith Starship rumbled beneath us, and I turned my attention back to the forward viewport. One problem at a time.
Shyrax hadn’t stopped giving orders when I’d appeared, and I was glad for it. Everyone had returned to their position except Raion, who was outside in the Red Titan.
One of two Divine Titans on our side, I noticed.
They helped us form a wedge ahead of Veshran’s fleet, bearing the brunt of the Union military so the Karoshans wouldn’t have to. The Red and Green Titan weren’t showing what they were capable of, though of course neither were we; they were fighting defensively, giving damaged ships plenty of time to retreat and screening for weaker vessels.
We were handling the enemy with great care, but the fact remained that we had still attacked Fathom.
Shyrax had punched through the defensive formation around the planet, so we were surrounded by enemies on most sides. The barrage intensified second by second, and I was surprised to see that our shields were holding in spite of Raion’s absence.
The only explanation I could find was Shadow Ark, who had expanded into a massive wall covering us on one flank. He was also serving as a place for our damaged ships to retreat, so we weren’t entirely at a disadvantage from fighting on enemy turf.
I felt a moment of surging emotion that was difficult to define.
They had attacked for me. Shyrax had pushed close enough to force the teleportation magic through Fathom’s suppression spell. As a result, they’d effectively declared war on the Galactic Union. In my name.
Truthfully, I would have told them not to do it.
But it left me feeling complicated. Overwhelmed. And ready to leave before anyone else lost their lives on my behalf.
“Pilot, I’m sending you a route,” I said. “Follow it out.”
Omega laughed in several voices at once. “You think we can? That would be magical, wouldn’t it?”
A few seconds later, I sent the Cosmic Path to him. He twisted the controls to follow the golden road that led him through the Galactic Union’s encirclement.
There was a way out, but it twisted rapidly, shifting second by second. I chanted a few more lines, connecting the other crew to the spell as well, so they could see what Omega did.
Shyrax began issuing orders, sending messages to her brother’s fleet and to Shadow Ark. They had to follow us carefully, especially the Zenith Colony.
Galactic Union ships choked the system, more surfacing from Subspace every second, until it felt like being surrounded by the Iron Legion. But unlike our fight against the Legion, we couldn’t sweep them clean with our weapons.
Every life lost here was a real life. Unless we wanted to commit widespread human slaughter, we had to keep our firepower to a minimum.
In short, I was in the same situation in space that I had been on the ground. Solstice was using my basic conscience to strangle us.
Sola boiled with frustration and fear, having to abort every shot before it could cause too much damage. She was letting ships retreat, only doing the minimum to cover us, which was a grand waste of The Last Horizon’s planet-scorching weaponry.
Our shield percentage was getting down to critical levels, and was only holding because the Divine Titans and Shadow Ark were helping us divert enemy attention. Parryl in the Green Titan had already retreated back into the Zenith Colony.
Still, we would get out, and without causing too much damage.
The golden dive point indicated by the Cosmic Path spell loomed in front of us. As long as we made it there, we’d avoided the worst-case scenarios. Solstice hadn’t gotten what they wanted, they lost their hostages, and we hadn’t made ourselves into galactic war criminals. Just regular criminals.
I really thought we were going to make it.
A rainbow Subspace warp bloomed right where the Cosmic Path indicated we were supposed to dive. At the same time, the golden light of the spell washed away. That exit had closed.
A single star-fighter flew out of Subspace, and the pilot ejected immediately. She ignited an orange force-blade.
With the entire might of Fathom behind us, Aila Escalon and the Zenith Blade stood in our way.
TWENTY-EIGHT
The Captain gave orders, but Omega looked at the camera with a grin frozen on his lips and dark laughter in his heart. His daughter had returned. Already.
And he had the entire Fathom defense force on his tail.
He tried to fly around her, relying on the speed of The Last Horizon, but she had a Zenith Device of her own. A sheet of orange light flashed out from her blade, a Combat Art that he certainly hadn’t taught her.
He had to twist to avoid the attack, but that exposed him to fire from the Union ships behind him.
Their ship shuddered as the shields finally fell. About time, if you asked him. The shields lasting as long as they had was nothing short of cheating.
“Hit the Zenith Blade with everything we have before she has a chance to split,” Varic ordered. “Omega, do I need to lock you away again?”
“Who knows, Captain?” Omega asked, and that sentiment felt surprisingly honest. The Aether was playing a joke on him by making his daughter the only member of Solstice he could identify.
Even he wasn’t sure what he would do.
Shining strings of emerald jewels erupted from The Last Horizon. A volley that looked like it came from an entire fleet.
The Sword had finally unleashed her weapons.
Aila defended herself with a complicated twist of her Combat Art, one that reflected their barrage of missiles into a spray of energy that washed toward the Zenith Starship.
Omega’s Aethertech eye traced the wave’s future path and he spun away. Just in time.
The twisting helix spun past the ship, but a nearby monitor complained about the integrity of the hull.
Aila folded herself into shadow…and reappeared in their path, already swinging the Zenith Blade.
Omega burst into hysterical laughter as he traced and avoided her future.
His daughter could see as he did.
Her augmentations were the same as his, including his vision. More accurately, his were the same as hers. She’d been the prototype.
Once, the man he’d been had wanted to know what his daughter had suffered. He’d gone through the procedure for many reasons, but the most personal was to show Aila she wasn’t alone.
After almost two centuries, that struck him as terribly funny.
His Aethertech eye was capable of all sorts of marvels, from projecting a target’s immediate future to seeing in spectrums that normal humans couldn’t even describe. While her vision worked similarly, she had the old model; he’d always been able to outperform her in the past. Partially through better hardware, and partially through sheer skill.
Aila had been practicing. And who knew what her Zenith Device could help her do?
In the void at the end of the Fathom system, Omal Escalon tested The Last Horizon against Aila Escalon and Hallow Divide.
He read her movements in advance, she read his, and they spun around one another. Orange light shone between Horizon’s plates as he lent her his power, and light of the same shade cut through the Fathom system as his daughter struck at him.
She couldn’t unleash the full power of Hallow Divide, as the system was choked with people. That gave him openings that he could see with his eye, weaving through Fathom’s defenders and ducking behind them for cover.
At the same time, Omega had just as many obstacles to avoid. He had to plot not only his daughter’s trajectory and anticipate her attacks, but also avoid the thousands of other opponents that tried to force him into a dead end.
Neither he nor Aila could draw blood, but they matched each other move for move.
The delicate balance was destined not to last long.
Omega’s crewmates were not idle. Sola kept up a barrage of weaponry, Horizon slashed out with short-range lasers, and Karoshan ships laid down cover fire.
On the other side, Fathom’s defenders had formed up into a loose net of ships. Their plasma fire was intermittent, designed to keep The Last Horizon from finding an escape route rather than to destroy its ships.
The Galactic Union was trying to trap them again. But if he knew Solstice, they’d be up to something worse.
As though the Aether had read his mind, ‘worse’ showed up instantly.
Dozens of Subspace warps bloomed at the same time, well out of the coverage of the rest of the formation. Ships slipped back into the physical world one at a time, without the precise timing of a well-executed synchronized dive.
Because of their amateur formation, they were exposed to fire both from the Fathom ships and The Last Horizon, and the ships themselves varied in description from old, rusted junkers to brand-new luxury cruisers.
Sola’s weapons cut off to avoid obliterating them, and Omega sneered.
Civilians. Those were normal men and women of Fathom, taking their private ships into the battle.
Taking one’s own people hostage was a favorite tactic of Solstice.
“Permission to engage personally,” Sola requested.
“Granted,” Shyrax said.
Omega realized he hadn’t heard the Captain’s voice in a while. At least, not to give orders. Varic’s words were a steady mantra, a string of syllables that were incomprehensible to a non-wizard.
The soft patter of rain and rush of wind formed an undercurrent, and a trickle of water washed around Omega’s boots. He couldn’t pull his view away from the controls to see for sure, but that told him that Varic was using his staff.
He found himself looking forward to the upcoming spell. Especially if it blew up all the civilian ships.
When Varic finally said “Absolute Burial,” Omega was disappointed.
For one thing, he was disappointed by the Captain’s lack of creativity. The same spell as last time? Really?
He also didn’t want the fight to end so soon. He wanted to defeat the champion of Solstice, even if that happened to be Aila.
Finally, he didn’t expect the spell to work. Solstice had never been known to lose the same way twice, and the Zenith Processor would make them even more difficult to pin down.
Sure enough, the spell didn’t work, but not for the reasons he’d expected. Aila herself grinned at the appearance of the white magic circles that appeared around her from six angles, and she struck out at all six.
Simultaneously.
It was as though the arm carrying Hallow Divide suddenly existed in six places at once. She struck through the spell with six slashes of six Zenith Blades before her arm returned to its original position.
“Too bad, Captain—” Omega began.
“Now,” Varic ordered.
Aila’s chest exploded as beams of white light pierced her from behind.
Omega almost forgot to keep the ship moving. Horizon manifested next to him, watching him with seven-pointed eyes.
He felt the controls under his hands tugging away, but he pulled them back possessively. The Zenith Starship wanted to take control back from him, but there was no reason for it.
Seeing one daughter explode was nothing for him.
He was merely startled for a moment. And who could blame him? He recognized those beams.
Aila floated aside for a moment, revealing a handsome, heavily muscled man with glowing white eyes. His face was bare to the vacuum of space and his dark hair drifted artistically, but at least he wasn’t wearing a cape anymore.
Starhammer had traded his Advocate suit for a white, skintight outfit with purple accents. Instead of the Advocate A on the chest, there was a seven-pointed star. The symbol of The Last Horizon.
“Oh, such a surprise!” Omega cried. “Was I the only one kept in the dark, I wonder?”
Mell shouted at him from across the deck. “Shut up! I can’t concentrate!”
He manifested an eye to look behind him. She was lying strapped to a gurney, wearing a visor over her face. The same as she did when piloting one of her decoy-bots.
Ah, so Starhammer’s body was back, but not his mind. Omega was unaccountably disappointed. Reanimating a former enemy and carrying him around had sounded so promising.
Starhammer’s movements weren’t as fluid as they had been the last time Omega clashed with him, but his pure abilities were still astonishing. Aila oozed away from him, reversing her body to execute another strike of her Combat Art.
He blurred around the orange slashes and put his fist through her head, splattering it to goo.
Omega involuntarily winced, but he had learned something interesting about the fight. Mell couldn’t pilot Starhammer during the activation of the Temporal Field—how could she? Her mind was merely human—so she could only use it in short bursts.
The android would have to be on autopilot during those times, Omega assumed, but he was no Aether Technician himself.
The Captain was chanting again, but he cut off with a sound of disgust. A moment later, his staff went back into crystal storage.
“We could use another spell, Captain,” Sola said. She was still sweating with her effort to stop her missiles from destroying the patchwork militia behind her target…or so Omega assumed, since he couldn’t see her face.
“The Magic Tower is working against me,” he said darkly. “They can target a spell cast by Eurias from neighboring planets. Horizon, get me Doctor Cryce—”
He stopped as Aila split off a clone. One stayed engaged with Starhammer, but the other vanished into darkness. The darkness of shallow Subspace.
Omega gave an exaggerated gasp. “Here she comes, Captain!”
Varic rose from his chair and swished his wand, tracing symbols in the air. “The wards should hold her, but I’ll prepare a backup. Omega, focus on getting us out of here. If you see the Cosmic Path return, follow it.”
Shyrax had her own wand, thick as a human arm, and was chanting another spell. Golden dragon-fire flickered around her hands in a shape that suggested a leathery wing.
Sola had a gun in one hand, using the other to control and target the weapons. It might have been his imagination, but Omega thought she was keeping an eye on him as much as her monitor.
A more trusting man would be hurt.
Omega turned a few eyes on stalks back to his own station, keeping them on his mundane job of piloting their ship through a minefield of plasma bolts and enemy ships, all of which were slowly encircling him and cutting off all his options. Hardly a concern.
His Aethertech eye—in a sense, his real eye—looked into Subspace. The dark pocket of it that he and his daughter could access, but was too shallow to hold ships.
There, he saw Aila crash into a barrier of white magical symbols.
He chuckled and scoffed at the same time. He’d slipped past the Captain’s wards before, when they’d first met, but Varic had used the time since then to prepare. Not to mention that he was layering his sealing spells on top of the Zenith Starship’s own magical defenses.
Still, his daughter should have found a way through. Maybe having a Zenith Device had caused her own skills to rust.
Not that she needed skill, since she had the Zenith Blade. A moment later Aila slashed through the warding spells and manifested in The Last Horizon’s bridge.
She was crouched on the inside of the ceiling, brown hair flapping in the wind of her sudden emergence into real space, eyes sparkling orange with their Aethertech augmentations. Her smile was crazed, and she stretched her bright orange force-blade out to one side.
Omega’s pride was matched by his fury that she would use her brilliant talents for the enemy. Not to mention his jealousy.
Where was his Zenith Device?
He chose to forget that he was at the helm of The Last Horizon and focused on his loss of Mortal Edict. If he had the firepower Aila did, he would leave their enemies in ruins.
She had the drop on them. Mell was helpless, the Captain was still chanting, and the Knight wasn’t aboard. Depending on what Hallow Divide was capable of, he suspected the adventures of The Last Horizon might come to an end right there.
The bridge was filled with thunder, and Aila exploded again. For a second, even Omega lost sight of her, until the remainder of her mass was sucked back into Subspace through a deep shadow.
Sola was gone from her station.
Instead, she stood on the other end of the bridge, reloading a shotgun. The one she’d used to blow Aila to pieces in the accelerated world of the Temporal Field.
“We should chase her,” the Sword said.
“Mine!” Omega cried.
Before the Captain could tell him no or order him to stay, he chased after his daughter.
For a moment, he wasn’t sure why.
Then he reminded himself as the darkness consumed him: because she was a traitor! He had to confront her himself to find out how his own daughter could go so wrong.
In the dark world, Omega saw Aila pulling herself together. It was hard to do, there. The excess mass that gave them their regeneration was stored in another pocket of Subspace, related to the one they used to travel, and it transferred more slowly.
Besides, their internal Drives weren’t meant for hovering in Subspace for long periods of time. Already, the shadows were lightening, revealing the rainbow colors beneath them.
Omega could resist the call of Subspace for longer than a normal human, but not forever.
So he pulled a gun from his coat and pointed it at his daughter. “If you want me, you’d better hurry! We don’t have long!”
“Finally!” Aila exclaimed as her face formed from ooze. She didn’t look excited to face him in battle or maliciously pleased at the chance to humiliate him, which he’d expected. Because those would have been his reactions, in her place.
Instead, she looked…relieved.
“Time to send you home,” she said.
Omega laughed as he fired, but she swept the shot away with a contemptuous slap of her blade.
“I don’t take orders from your masters,” he responded before he fired again.
