Chapter VIII
LESS THAN FIVE MILLISECONDS AFTER THE FIRST SHOTS HAMMERED THE PRINCIPAL Office shield, the fighters and CPUs launched, forming a screen of small, swift specks between the P.O. and the menacing Guardian ships. Glancing ahead through his T-wing fighter's glass canopy, Bryce caught his first real glimpse of the Guardian battleships and sucked in a ragged breath. Each one was the length of an entire city sector, and with well over a hundred of them perched in the sky over Compaq, the fleet created the image of a swarm of giant insects. Black armor plating resembled hard exoskeleton, and thousands of yellow "eyes" seemed to blink across the ships' gleaming bodies. And hovering precisely over the Principal Office, protected by a circular formation of the standard battleships, was the command ship. If the others were insects, the flagship was a vulture.
"Look at the size of that thing!" Bryce breathed, feeling his body start to go numb.
"Cut the chatter, Wolf One," Commander Blair said sharply, but even his voice sounded flawed and nervous. Like everyone else in the three fighter squadrons he commanded, Blair was wondering if this whole attack would really do anything besides give the Guardians something else to shoot at for a little while. "All CPUs, stay in a close defensive formation around the Principal Office. Fire if any enemy ships get within range, but hold your position."
"Aye, sir!" the binome CPU commander's deep, throaty voice sounded back.
The CPUs broke off from the main group, diving back towards the pentagon-shaped Principal Office, leaving only the fighters to fly into the Guardians' line of fire. Poorly armed, CPUs hadn't been designed with intense air dogfights in mind---their main use was system patrol and maintaining order. Although Compaq needed everything it had that could fly and had a laser cannon strapped to it someplace to be in the air right now, the CPUs would do much better and last much longer acting as defense for the Principal Office than they would as part of the main assault.
A click on the channel, as Blair switched over to the fighters' closed channel. "All right, people," his voice crackled. "You know the plan. Gold group, Blue group, engage the first wave of Guardian ships and draw their fire away from the Principal Office."
Affirmatives crackled back over the channel from the Gold and Blue group leaders, and the two squadrons broke away from the main formation, each heading off to one side into a blaze of fire from the Guardian battleships.
Blair's voice echoed again in Mac's earpiece. "Wolves, stick with me. We get the fun job."
The fun job, Bryce thought with a grimace, was a direct attack on the Guardian command ship.
"You know," a female voice, Wolf Two's, said dryly over the channel, "just once, I wish we'd get stuck with a boring job."
Bryce tried to smile, but failed as he spotted the silhouette of the command ship ahead of him, a massive black arrowhead swallowing the steel blue sky. He'd been in the Wolfpack since he was fifteen, and in all those hours he'd developed distaste for the boring jobs. But just this once, he had to agree with Wolf Two. This wasn't fun---this was suicide.
"'Fun' takes on a whole new meaning with these Guardians, doesn't it," he muttered, flicking switches across his control board. The cannons hummed as they charged to full, the green ready light blinking on. He keyed on his targeting computer, and an infrared image of the Guardian flagship appeared on the screen, with its coordinates and the distance to firing range ticking rapidly and ominously away. For a brief moment, he remembered young Guardian 941, and wondered what in the Net could have happened to him.
Wolf Seven's harsh voice spat a curse. "You notice they only go for the small systems like ours," he groused, "systems they know don't stand a chance of fighting back."
There was a laugh on the channel---Wolf Three, one of the younger and more audacious pilots. "That's just gonna make it that much sweeter showin' these creeps that we're a lot tougher than they thought."
"Yeah!" Wolf Six chimed in enthusiastically.
"All right," Commander Blair's sober voice blasted from the speakers. "Command ship is in range. Target their weapons and shields first."
"Roger," Bryce acknowledged, glancing down at the reading on his targeting computer, and then back up at the enemy command ship as it filled his entire range of sight. But the green targeting box still hadn't lit up, as it should have if he were in firing range. He gaped at the readings again, and nearly went into shock. He was still a good two kilometers away from the damn thing. He kicked in the throttle, speeding in closer. In the steely light, he could just make out the gun turrets on the Guardian ship, swiveling towards the fighters and locking. An alarm sounded to his left. His targeting computer fixed on one of the cannons, clicked as it locked on�
He sucked in a deep breath. "Here goes nothing," he said quietly. Then he howled over the squadron channel, "C'mon, Wolves, let's bare our teeth!" He grabbed the stick, jammed the trigger with his thumb, and let loose a volley of laser bolts from his quad cannons. Quickly he jerked the stick hard to port, avoiding the hail of return fire from the Guardian flagship. The heat from the oncoming blasts could be felt even through the canopy glass, and beads of sweat were collecting on his helmet viewplate. Bryce craned his neck to glance back at the command ship. While the blasts fired by the Wolfpack fighters were hitting their marks---as they always did---they were vanishing harmlessly into the powerful energy shield that protected the Guardian ship.
"Stay close to the Guardian ships," Blair ordered, as his fighter skimmed over the black hull of the immense command ship, dodging heavy cannon fire. "Looks like it's working---they've focused all fire on our fighters and halted the attack on the Principal Office."
"Great," Bryce muttered, glancing over his shoulder down at the P.O.'s angular metal walls, gleaming blue-white in the dim glow of very early morning. "We're taking enough fire for the entire city."
His thoughts flicked back to young Mac, still back in the Principal Office, helping with the evacuation. Mac was the only Wolf who'd been left behind, when the rest of them had taken to the air. Bryce had made him stay back. Mac had been helping the evacuation, anxiously waiting for Angela to show up when the launch order came, and Bryce understood that all the poor kid wanted was to know his girl was okay. He knew this battle was nothing more than a diversion, that all they were doing was buying the evacuation a little more time. Deep down, he didn't really expect any of them to come back from this fight. As annoying as the kid could be sometimes, he was really rather fond of Mac, and he wanted him as far as away from all this as possible.
A sudden scream crackled painfully in Bryce's ear, as Wolf Two's fighter took a hit from a heavy cannon and exploded in a shower of flame. Bryce felt an icy sensation shoot through his chest, jerking him back against his seat. Nine hours he'd been in this squadron. Until now, he hadn't realized that they had never once lost one of their own.
"We've lost Two," Wolf Four said quietly, disbelieving.
"This is Blue Eight!" a panicked voice rang over the channel, obviously through a damaged radio. "We're losing too many over here�the squad leader's gone, there's too much fire over here�and we can't even put a dent on those shields�" The garbled message cut off in midsentence, leaving Bryce to wonder if Blue Eight had ended the message, lost his radio...or been deleted.
Wolf Six's fighter just narrowly evaded a powerful blast from the command ship's main turret, a shot that struck the roof of a skyscraper, sending splinters of shattered concrete and glass flying. "Keep it up, we're wearing those shields down," she said, letting off another round of laser fire.
"No good," Wolf Three's voice came back, "their shields are too strong. It'll take cycles to wear 'em down like this."
A very close shot just glanced off the fuselage of Bryce's T-wing. "Wolves, target the shield generators," he yelled over the groan of stressed metal. "Load torpedoes. That may be our only way of bringing those shields down at all."
"Roger," Wolf Nine acknowledged.
"I'm on it�" Wolf Seven replied, pulling to starboard and opening fire on the main generator on top of the command ship's hull. His warheads were right on target, hitting the generator, causing it to spit bright sparks in all directions. The sheer force of the impact rocked the Guardian ship. "Woo-hoooo!"
"Command ship's shields at forty-five percent," Wolf Three said. "Nice shot, Sev---"
What happened next puzzled them all. The black hull around the blasted shield generator shimmered for a moment, then to Bryce's disbelief, actually began to move. The hull grew over the sparking remains of the generator pod, as it slowly regenerated, bit by bit. When the movement ceased, there wasn't a sign of damage to be seen anywhere.
"What the�?!" Wolf Seven exclaimed. "Did anyone else see that, or am I going completely random?"
"If you are, Seven, I think the rest of us are too," Wolf Nine said, stunned.
"I don't believe it!" Bryce said in shock, his voice wavering. "Some kind of biotechnology, you think?"
Wolf Three snorted angrily. "I don't care what in the code it is, as long as we can blow it up!"
"Agreed," Blair said. "Okay, we're going to have to hit it all at once, so it doesn't get a chance to regenerate, but I think we've got enough warheads to---"
Bryce could just barely make out the faint, pulsing green light forming at the bridge gun turrets of the enemy ship, a light that grew steadily brighter, until a blinding flash lit up the entire sky, and a crashing sound like a thunderclap rumbled across Compaq. When the light faded, Bryce looked past the spots dancing in front of his eyes, to see the unrecognizable, smoldering wreckage of Wolf Three and Seven's fighters spiraling down from the sky.
"What in the Net was that?!" Wolf Nine shrieked.
"I don't know, but I don't want to find out," Blair's panicked voice sounded back. "That's it, people. We can't fight against a weapon of that magnitude�all craft, prepare to retreat! Gold and Blue groups, I repeat, all craft---"
Another shot from the mysterious Guardian weapon disintegrated Blair and his ship in a nanosecond, and sliced the port stabilizer clean away from Bryce's T-wing. His fighter reeled from the impact, spinning helplessly in the sky. Bryce felt his head spin, and his vision began to blur, but out of the corner of his eye he could still see the green light charging up again. Well, Mac, he thought grimly, shutting his eyes tightly as the eerie glow engulfed his fighter, I hope you've had enough time.
"Call them back!" Xara shouted furiously, as she watched the green specks on the holoboard that represented their fighters blink out and vanish, one by one. "I said, call back all---"
"Sir�" The One binome at communications looked up at her gloomily. "There's no one to call back, sir. The last fighter was just destroyed. The remaining CPUs are pulling back into the hangar�"
Mac balled his fists and pounded them into the holoboard, feeling hot tears flood into his eyes. All of his friends, his comrades---Bryce, Kyle, Commander Blair---every one of them gone. His mind started to cloud over with angry remorse, the feeling that he should've been up there with them, not hiding down here like some---
Stop it, he told himself, chasing the black thoughts away. It's not going to help---it's not going to bring them back. All he could do now was try to help those who were still here. Except for Mac, Xara, Edgar, and two binome techs who were manning the control stations, the command room was empty. The emergency lamps created an eerie, blood red haze. The only sounds to be heard were the faint alert chime, and the occasional groan from the Principal Office's besieged outer walls. Without the fighters to keep their gunners busy, the Guardian ships had once again focused all fire on the P.O., beating at the already failing shields.
Xara's eyes were blank like stone, as she hung her head, staring at the flickering holoboard display. For a few nanos she was completely silent, then she turned to the binome positioned at the com station. "The evacuation�?" Her voice, quiet and strangled, faded away.
"The Guardians managed to secure sectors 20 through 34 before our troops could even begin evacuating them, but the rest of the city has been cleared." He tapped the earpiece of his headset, and added, "The troops report that they're moving the last wave of civilians into the portal chamber right n---"
The low, mechanical hum of the P.O.'s defense shield suddenly groaned and died. A volley of enemy fire crashed into the walls outside, rattling the structure, sending debris flying across the room. The com station exploded in a burst of sparks. "Sir!" the Zero binome at operations shouted, his eyes wide with fear. "The shields just failed. The Guardians' landing craft are dropping ground troops just outside the P.O.!"
"That armor's not going to hold them much longer than a few milliseconds," Edgar said darkly.
Xara pressed her lips together, and looked over to Mac and Edgar. "All right," she said firmly, the tone of command coming back into her voice. "Down to the portal chamber. All of you, now. We've got to get the last civilians out of this system before the Guardians break in."
"Got it," the Zero agreed. Mac nodded, and bolted for the exit behind Edgar and the two techs. Briefly, he glanced back over his shoulder at Xara before he stepped out into the corridor. The Command.com had not moved. She stood with her hands rested against the holoboard's edge, her eyes fixed mechanically on the display windows ahead, looking as though she had locked the rest of the city out of her mind. She did, after a moment, notice Mac and Edgar staring at her. "Hurry!" she shouted at them.
"Aren't you coming, sir?" Edgar asked.
Slowly, Xara shook her head, focusing her eyes on the holoboard. "The Guardians are going to want somebody to make an example of. I gave all the orders. I won't have innocents pay for what was my decision, and mine alone."
"But�" Mac swallowed hard, the lump in his throat obstructing speech.
Edgar was calmer, and finished the thought that Mac couldn't. "They'll delete you. You know that."
"Believe me, I'm well aware of that fact." Her expression was not one of fear or regret, but rather of calm resignation. To her, this was just an extension of her duties to the system.
Mac found himself trying to think of something he could say, something that would change her mind, but he knew it was useless. He'd known Xara for a long time, and when she made her mind up about something, that was the end of it.
She forced a thin smile at him and the colonel, and nodded towards the door. "Now go�quickly. And good luck."
Mac blinked back tears from his eyes, and tried to return the smile. He saluted her sharply, as Edgar pulled on his sleeve, dragging him from the room. "You too!" he called back, watching painfully as the doors slid shut, sealing Xara in.
"Come on!" Edgar shouted, yanking Mac's arm forcefully, breaking into a run as the shouts of Guardian troops echoed in the distance. Mac hurried after him. Up ahead, he could see the two binomes scuttling down the hallway towards the turbolifts, but aside from them, the corridors were eerily empty. Everyone else, he knew, had headed down to the lower levels, to the portal chamber.
"Let's just hope the portal's still open," Edgar muttered.
"It should be," Mac said.
Edgar's mouth twisted into an expression that was either a grimace, or a wry smile. "If the Guardians haven't gotten to it first."
The thought nearly brought Mac to a dead halt. The Guardian troops couldn't have reached the underground levels yet---could they? The handful of soldiers working the portal chamber wouldn't be enough to stop them if they did. There were only enough armed troops there to move the civilians through the portal and keep everyone relatively calm. He saw Angela's face flash before his eyes, and he almost stopped breathing. If the Guardians had taken the portal chamber before she'd been evacuated�
"You! Halt!"
A rifle blast ricocheted off the metal ceiling tiles overhead, nearly striking Mac, dissolving the black thoughts. Muttering something, Edgar gave the young pilot a rough shove, pushing him around a corner as the corridor split into four directions. A blinding volley of laser fire exploded behind them, illuminating the dark hallway. The voices and footsteps of the invaders were now much, much closer. Ahead, the binomes had already boarded one of the lifts, and the doors hissed shut as it carried them down to the lower levels. Mac came to a sudden stop, glancing around nervously for some kind of cover. A large potted tree, a few locked doors leading to utility closets, a couple of decorative pillars� He turned abruptly at the hiss of the turbolift doors opening, then felt Edgar's hand grab him by the arm and drag him inside the 'lift car. The colonel jammed his fist into the door controls, and they slid closed again.
"You," Edgar said breathlessly, drawing his pistol from its holster. "I don't suppose you're carrying any detonators?"
"What?"
Edgar ripped the power cell from his sidearm. "We need to slow those Guardians down, at least for a few nanos."
"I�" Mac fumbled with his belt pouches, banging his arm against the wall and wincing. These cars were built to comfortably accommodate three or four sprites, but they weren't designed with a lot of movement in mind. "I don't think I have one." He pulled a pair of power cells from one of his pouches. "But I've got some spare cells for my blaster�"
"Good enough." Edgar adjusted the power settings on his pistol's cell, then snapped it back into place. The altered setting was that used for the average trooper rifle---dangerously high for something as small and low power as the colonel's pistol. "I'm setting this thing to overload. On its own it could take out a few of those troops�with a couple of extra power cells, it should at least bring down part of the wall on top of them." He plugged the spare power cells together, and fixed them to the first cell.
A hail of laser bolts fired into the corridor outside. The harsh voice of the enemy commander barked orders over the clattering of the troops' plate armor and the hum of recharging rifles. "Here goes nothing," Edgar breathed, keying the doors open.
The colonel flattened against the wall out of the enemy's view, and Mac did the same. To the Guardian troops, it would look like an empty turbolift. Or at least Mac sincerely hoped it would.
"You three," he barely heard the trooper captain's voice snarl, "check it out."
"Roger," another muffled voice acknowledged. The clattering of hard plasteel armor grew close, and each of the three approaching troopers could be heard switching the power setting on their blasters. Mac held his breath, as the long black barrel of a rifle poked tentatively into the turbolift car, and the soldier who carried it stepped in cautiously.
Mac kicked the trooper hard in the stomach, the toe of his boot hitting between the joints of the armor. The soldier groaned, firing his weapon reflexively into the 'lift deck, as he stumbled backwards into his two comrades. Behind them, the commander barked an order to fire. Letting out a yell, Edgar thumbed his pistol's power setting to kill and stepped out from his cover, throwing the overloaded weapon towards the line of troopers. Mac scrambled for the lift controls, as the Guardian soldiers aimed their rifles and opened fire. Laser bolts pelted the walls inside and out of the turbolift car. The 'lift hatch began to close just as a shot to the chest sent Edgar flying backwards, throwing him against the back wall. "Colonel!" Mac cried, dropping to his knees beside the crumpled officer. A shot just missed the side of his head as he grabbed Edgar's shoulders and tried to prop him up. Suddenly he heard a panicked shout in the corridor, and he glanced back over his shoulder. As the doors closed and sealed shut, he could just barely see the flash as the pistol overloaded, and the corridor erupted into a wall of flames. The blast rocked the turbolift, throwing Mac backwards, and the lights began to flicker. Mac squeezed his eyes shut, feeling certain that the blast had ripped away the turbolift cables, and that they were plummeting down the shaft at an unimaginable speed. But the lights steadied, and the turbulence passed. The deck vibrated gently beneath him, as the turbolift moved steadily down, speeding to the lower levels.
They had escaped. For now.
"Colonel!" Mac glanced over to see Edgar's body slumped against the deck, his form flickering. Panicking, Mac tried to prop up the colonel's head. "Come on, come on�" Mac glanced at the wound, and immediately wished that he hadn't�the flesh was still burning, a tendril of acrid smoke rising from the charred mark on the blue uniform breast. Distantly, he felt something cold seeping through the fabric of his flightsuit legs, and realized that he was kneeling in a pool of the other sprite's energy.
The 'lift gently came to a halt, and the doors hissed open. "Come on, Colonel," Mac whispered, sliding an arm around Edgar's shoulder. The weight of the injured sprite was greater than he'd imagined---he didn't know if he could carry him all the way to the portal chamber, but he knew he had to. "We've got to get you to the portal�"
"Go on." Edgar's face was fading as the life drained away from him. He clutched Mac's wrist with a weak, flickering hand. "It's�it's too late for me. Go on."
"No�"
Edgar's body started to go limp. "Take care of Angela for me," he said, his voice soft and hoarse. He smiled weakly. "That's an order�"
Mac opened his mouth to protest. But the colonel was already gone. Biting his lip, Mac reached over and gently closed Edgar's eyes. Confused and panicked, he looked out into the empty corridor, and back again to the colonel. How could he just leave the body here? Edgar had saved Mac's life at the expense of his own, and stalled those Guardians�he deserved an officer's funeral, or at least something more than to be abandoned in a turbolift.
A loud crash sounded from a few levels above, startling Mac. He shook his head. I don't have time to spare. The portal room was still eight sections away, and there was that chance that everyone else was already gone� Scrambling to his feet, Mac bolted out of the turbolift and started running. He stopped just once, glancing back at Edgar's lifeless shape, still lying on the turbolift deck. "I'll take care of her," he whispered back, as he turned and ran away down the corridor. "I promise�"
The portal chamber was in absolute chaos. The generator frame was positioned on a raised platform in the center of the massive room; inside it, the rippled, watery surface of the portal itself shimmered in the light. Suited soldiers were rushing the last few dozen civilians towards the portal, yelling at them to remain calm and trying valiantly to do the same. Mac shoved his way through the panicking crowd as it pushed slowly forth towards the portal. A handful at a time, the people stepped into the portal, vanishing through the mirror-like surface while the next group rushed up behind them.
"Mac! Mac!" a voice cried behind him. Mac whirled around, bumping straight into a large and frightened numeral Eight, who barely seemed to notice. Scanning the crowd with his eyes, Mac searched for the source of the voice, when she suddenly rushed up and threw her arms around his neck. "Mac!"
"Angela!" He kissed the top of her head, as she crushed herself against him.
"I thought you were with the pilots�" she cried, pulling back and looking up at him. Her blue eyes were filled with glittering tears. She chased them away with her hands. "I thought you were deleted---"
"Hey, it's okay now," he said, taking her by the arms. Angela looked him over slowly, noticing the blue energy smeared on the front of his uniform, and her face turned pale. Mac swallowed. How in the Net was he going to tell her�?
"My father?" she asked. "Where is he?"
Mac's gaze dropped to the deck. It was all he could do to say, "I'm sorry."
Angela's eyes grew wide. "No," she breathed. A soldier pushed forcefully past, bumping into her, but she didn't even seem to feel it. Her eyes stared off blindly, and when Mac grasped her hands, her skin felt cold.
"Listen." Mac took her face in both his hands. "Angela, I'm sorry�but we can't stay. We've gotta get out of here. The Guardians just stormed this place, and it's not going to take them long to get down here."
Slowly Angela nodded. "You're right," she said quietly, stepping back, shaking her head. Her eyes seemed to clear, even though tears streamed down her face, and her voice sounded steadier as she repeated, "You're right."
Mac pulled her close and kissed her forehead quickly. "It'll be okay," he said, doubting his own words as he looked around. The crowd was starting to thin, as the last of them pressed towards the portal, but the distant sounds of laser fire and angry voices were growing steadily closer.
"Come on!" He grasped her hand and started for the portal. Even the soldiers had begun making their way up to the platform, pulling civilians along with them.
A loud rumble sounded just outside the portal chamber. Angela stopped, looking back towards the chamber entrance, and she gave Mac's hand a sharp tug that brought him to a halt. "Mac�?"
Mac turned to see lights flashing from underneath the heavy doors. "Angela, run!" he cried, just as the door exploded, hurling hot chunks of debris in all directions. The shouts of the civilians grew louder and more terrified, over the sounds of heavy footsteps and laser shots, as the black-armored troops flooded into the portal chamber and opened fire. The laser shots chipped away at the thinning crowd, as the remaining Compaq soldiers grabbed their own rifles and took aim at the invaders. Mac pulled his own blaster and turned, firing a few cover blasts. The returning fire barely slowed the enemy troops. The bolts glanced harmlessly off their armor plates, as the Guardians paused and recharged their weapons, then continued advancing towards the portal. A Zero binome plowed into Mac, pushing him forward. He felt Angela's hand slip out of his, as the movement of the frightened crowd pulled them apart. "Angela!" One of the other soldiers grabbed him by the arm, dragging him up onto the platform. "No, wait�!"
"Come on, pilot!" the soldier shouted. "You next!"
"Not yet�" Mac protested, pulling his arm free. He turned back and spotted Angela, forcing her way towards him.
The soldier made a face. "That's it, then!" he cried over the noise, letting off one last shot before he backed into the portal and vanished.
An enemy shot narrowly screamed past Angela's head, and she let out a scream as she ran up the platform stairs towards Mac. The last Compaq soldier standing beside the portal took a hit to the chest, and dropped heavily to the deck. One of the enemy troopers lifted his rifle and took aim at the portal controls on the side of the generator frame. The blast hit its target, and the controls went up in flames and blue sparks. The portal began to flicker, and a collective scream went up over the crowd.
"Angela!" Mac shouted, as a pair of binomes flew past him and into the failing portal. Angela's head snapped up, and she started up the platform stairs towards him. Holding out his hand to her, Mac stepped one foot into the portal, as it flickered and slowly began to collapse. A blast struck the generator frame, shattering it. A flying shard of metal slashed across Mac's right cheekbone, but he barely felt the sting.
"Mac!" Flinging her arms out to him, Angela suddenly jerked, and her blue eyes snapped wide open. Her knees buckled, and slowly she fell towards the platform deck, her form flickering and fading, as she clutched the dark blast wound in her side.
"No!" Mac cried, reaching out toward her. His hand caught on the chain of her necklace, the sharp metal biting into his palm as the fastening snapped, and the chain broke away into his hand. He stumbled back into the portal, as it collapsed around him. Compaq, and Angela, shrank away from him forever.
"NO!"