Descent: Aries Wing

Bryan sipped from the cup, nearly burning his lips on the coffee. He always wondered why he made his morning coffee the same temperature every time if he was only going to burn himself with it. His coffee was always black, figuring that sugar coating his wake up call would be less effective. He walked over to the terminal and looked at the time. The display read 0803, practically laughing at him for being slightly late. No matter, though, he could make up three minutes.

He flipped a switch and punched some information into his terminal, then sat back in his chair. Admiral Gonzalez appeared on his display, and began to speak.

“This is Admiral Gonzalez, with classified orders for Commander Bryan Chambers for 0800 hours.

“The Andromedian Rebels have become more aggressive in recent days, taking over various deep mining colonies, usually by surprise, and with a large number of units. We are responding to the situation by sending seven wings, including your Aries wing, to the Fieradian Mining Colony, a PTMC mining colony that our terrorist experts have determined to be the next target of the Rebels.”

Already, Bryan didn’t like the sound of the mission. First of all, the PTMC has been acting rather strange since the loss of Suzuki and Dravis. Two years after their death, PTMC ceased all operations in the Milky Way, selling their holdings to other smaller companies. Since then, whenever PTMC has been heard around the CED, it’s usually on the receiving end of pirate raids. Since the Rebels showed up two years ago they have never attacked PTMC holdings. Bryan was sure to keep the question of how the so-called experts decided that a PTMC mining facility was going to be the next target of attack.

“The wings we are sending will be simply used as a show of force, to let the Rebels know we will not stand down to them. The Phoebus wing will be in command. It is important that we do not fire unless fired upon.

“All wings will be transported via the S.S. Sirius, a large warship that is quite capable of defending itself from moderate attacks. You will be in transit for eight hours en route to Fieradia. You will receive living quarters, and each wing will be assigned to a meeting room, where you will meet to discuss the specifics of your mission with your wingmen.”

This made Bryan a bit more comfortable, knowing that such a distinguished ship would be transporting the wings to the mining facility. Only once in the history of the CED has a warship been attacked, and that attack was quickly thwarted by the legendary pilot, Vertigo One.

The S.S. Sirius was one of the few station-turned-warship vessels in the CED fleet. Originally, Sirius was a small station at the edge of the galaxy used for defense against the rebels. Several years after its commission, the CED decided it was no longer needed at its post. Instead of discarding the station, they reengineered it into one of the largest warships in the fleet. The Sirius was instrumental in a number of victories over the rebels after that, and remains the most technologically advanced warship of its kind, receiving major refittings and upgrades every couple of years.

“The final order of business is the wing order and your new pilot to complete your wing. Lieutenant Sidney Rubeck will fill move up to the first spot in the wing. Lieutenant Andrew Wilson will move up to the second spot. Finally, in the third spot, I am assigning Ensign Natalie Jacobs to your wing.”

Bryan laughed to himself for a moment, remembering the trouble he had flying against her in the simulation the prior day.

“Ensign Jacobs is an extremely talented pilot, graduating at the top of her class last year at flight school. She has a number of distinguished awards, including one you might find interesting – The Galactic Pilot Association’s Flight Award.”

“My god,” Bryan mumbled to himself. The Flight Award, although simple sounding, was the most prestigious award any pilot could receive, and only one award was given out per year. He remembered him and Jacob competing for the award twice. The first year, Jacob had defeated Bryan in the final round, and in an unprecedented feat, they both returned to the finals the next year, with Bryan defeating Jacob for his share of the award. To achieve that award not only took great skill, but great concentration, awareness, and instincts. Bryan would have entered again for a third year, but joined the CED and was unable to compete.

“Your wing is to report to space dock at 1145 hours today. You are to have your wing prepped and ready for departure then. As always, if you have any questions, let me know. Gonzalez out.”

With that, the Admiral’s face faded out of the screen. Bryan quickly called up the communications module, and contacted the Admiral. Once again, the Admiral’s face filled the screen. “Gonzalez here.”

“Admiral, sir,” stated Bryan with a formal tone. “I have one question regarding this mission.”

The Admiral smiled and said, “Go ahead, Commander.”

Bryan tried to keep his discomfort hidden as he explained. “The PTMC facility that we will be defending, I was curious to know how that location was selected as the next target of the Rebels?”

The Admiral seemed a little disturbed by the question. “I really can’t answer that question, as I don’t know how the team came up with it. I do recall them noticing a pattern in the previous dozen or so attacks.”

Bryan found it hard to believe that the Rebels would attack outposts in a physical pattern. “I don’t think this mission may be a good idea, the PTMC have never been the target of Rebel forces.”

“Noted,” said the Admiral roughly. “I’ll see you at 1145 hours. Gonzalez out.” Again, the Admiral’s face faded from the screen.

Bryan didn’t like the abruptness in the Admiral’s voice. The Rebels always attacked with a reason. Attacking for the sake of fulfilling a pattern seemed rather unusual. However, he didn’t have too much time to dwell on that point. Instead, he needed to focus on getting his wing ready for departure. He tapped a few commands into his console, and a map appeared on the screen. A green dot represented his quarters, with a red line showing the path to Ensign Jacob’s quarters. After briefly memorizing the route, he shut down his console and proceeded to her quarters.

Bryan figured a proper introduction was necessary to open communication between the two pilots. Communication is very important while flying, especially in battle. Having a wingman who isn’t comfortable with their wing is in serious danger of losing their life. That’s one thing that always stuck into Bryan’s mind, and has only been amplified by Jared’s death. As Commander, he wasn’t going to let that happen to anyone else.

Outside of Ensign Jacob’s quarters, Bryan punched a button the mini-terminal next to the door to ring the doorbell. As he waited for her to answer, he ran through his mind how he would introduce himself to her. However, after going through several introductions, he realized that she was not answering the door. He punched the button twice this time, hoping to get her attention. Just as he was about to wonder what she was doing in there, the door opened up.

“Hi, I’m Comma…” was about as far as Bryan got. Instead of seeing an officer ready for duty, he saw a very pretty young woman in a white nightgown leaning against the doorframe, who had obviously just been stirred from her sleep. Natalie was slightly shorter than Bryan. She had wavy red hair, about shoulder length, but her eyes were hidden by her squinting at the bright light from the hallway. “Ensign Jacobs…?” asked Bryan, questioningly.

After a brief moan, she asked quietly, “What time is it?”

Bryan responded, “It’s about 0830.”

“Shit,” muttered Natalie under her breath. “I… I’m sorry, I was out in the simulations…”

Bryan stopped her, “Hey, it doesn’t matter, just don’t make a habit out of it. Unfortunately, you’ve got about two minutes to get ready. You have a briefing with your new wing today.”

“Wing?” she asked.

“Yes,” responded Bryan. “We will talk more about it soon.” He paused for a second or two before adding, “By the way, I’m Commander…”

“Commander Bryan Chambers, yes.” Natalie let out a small grin as she completed his sentence. “We were briefly in a simulation yesterday.”

“Uh… yes, we were,” confirmed Bryan, not sure what to say next, until his training kicked in. “Hey, go ahead and get ready, I’ll wait out here.” It was about this time that he realized he was staring into her deep blue eyes, which were more used to the hallway light now. Natalie’s grin widened slightly before she broke the stare and returned to her quarters to get ready for the day.

“Some communication,” muttered Bryan to himself. Not only is it embarrassing, but rather unprofessional to be sputtering out sentences and tripping over your own tongue.

It was about a minute and a half before Natalie emerged from her quarters again. She was in uniform and looked much more alert. “So, tell me about the wing?” she asked. “I’ve never been in a wing before. This is my first time.” She followed up the last statement with a short laugh.

Ignoring the double entendre of her statement, Bryan began to lead the way to the briefing area, where Sidney and Andrew were waiting. “Well,” Bryan began, “the Aries Wing has only been around for a little over a week. I just began commanding the wing yesterday.”

“So, it’s your first time, too?” inquired Natalie, jokingly.

Unable to ignore it a second time, Bryan shot a look at her, and was met with a grin. Bryan chuckled to himself for a second before suggesting, “Hey, I don’t mind having a little bit of fun on the job, but not everyone is as lenient as I am.”

Natalie let out a giggle or her own. “Well, I figure I’ve got to see what I can get away with with my commanding officer.” Bryan was beginning to feel a rather natural connection with her. However, her use of the words “commanding officer” put the situation into perspective, and he decided not to continue that line of conversation, as much as he would have liked to. “Has your wing been on any missions?”

Again, a question he knew he would be unable to avoid with his new wingman. “We’ve been on one mission.” Bryan tried to hide the disturbance in his voice. “It… uh… didn’t go too well.”

Realizing that there was more to the story, Natalie asked, “What happened?”

Bryan paused for a moment before looking directly at her and saying, “My commanding officer and best friend was killed by a black shark missile.”

Natalie’s face paled for a moment as she let out a reactionary, “Oh my. I’m sorry, Commander.”

Bryan resumed looking ahead of him as he replied, “That’s okay, I’ll deal with it. And by the way, the first rule is the pilots of the Aries Wing are on a first name basis.”

“OK, Bryan,” returned Natalie, with the smile resonating through her voice.

“And the second rule,” continued Bryan, “is that if anything is bothering you, you come to me. I don’t care if it’s about the mission, another pilot, another officer, or something outside of the CED. I don’t want my pilots to go out there distracted for any reason.”

“Understood!”

Just then, Bryan walked up to a door and punched the button. The door opened, revealing the briefing room, Sidney, and Andrew. Bryan and Natalie walked in as Bryan introduced her. “Sidney, Andrew, I’d like you to meet Ensign Natalie Jacobs. Natalie, these are pilots Lieutenant Sidney Rubeck and Lieutenant Andrew Wilson.”

“Good to meet you.” “Welcome to the wing.”

“Natalie will be filling in as third base,” announced Bryan, making a common CED wing reference to a comparison between the four pilots and the four bases in baseball. “Andrew, you’ll be moving up to second, and Sidney, you’ll be flying with me on first.

“I wish the circumstances were a little different, I certainly did not expect to be briefing you on this mission today. However, I’m sure we all understand that life goes on, and we’ve got work to do.

“We’ve got some Rebels that the CED expects to be attacking a PTMC mining outpost within the next couple of days. As you know, the Rebels have been rather rowdy as of late, attacking several outposts in recent weeks. High Command believes they have found a pattern to their attacks, and while I’ve informed them of my disagreement with their findings, they are fairly hell-bent on defending this mining outpost.”

The last statement received a chuckle from his two wingmen, but Natalie looked confused. “You make it sound like you don’t want to defend this outpost,” she suggested.

Sidney responded, “You haven’t been around long enough to know who the PTMC is, and what they do. Eight years ago, one of the mining company’s big heads, known as Dravis, decided he was going to take over a CED warship using robots infected with a virus that caused them to attack anything not friendly to the cause. If it wasn’t for good old Vertigo One, we would not be having this conversation today.”

Andrew continued, “Since then, the PTMC has moved out of the galaxy, and haven’t even kept contact with the rest of the universe. They’re in their own little world now, and not even High Command knows what they’re up to. Some are concerned that someone just as insane as Dravis will take over and attack us again.”

“So as you can see,” said Bryan, “the PTMC isn’t exactly the best of allies with the CED. However, we have our orders to protect their outpost at all costs. At 1145 hours today, we will be leaving on a mission to defend their base. We will be one of seven wings there, and hopefully with a show of force – 28 pyros and a big ass warship – the Rebels will think twice before they make their move.

“However, and this is only my intuition talking, I want each of you to keep an eye out for any suspicious activity at the outpost. Like always, if you see anything out of place or unusual, you let me know. Understood?”

“Yes, sir!” “Got it!” “Understood.”

“Good. I’ll see each of you in about three hours. Dismissed.” And with that, the four pilots left the meeting room, each heading in their separate directions. Bryan returned to his quarters to relax a little before leaving for the mission.

It seemed as though as soon as he walked through the door, however, that a light wave of nausea swept through Bryan’s body. Bryan staggered over to his bed, figuring that the stress from the last few days was beginning to set in. “Alarm, 1100 hours,” he called out, and the panel across the room beeped and blipped in confirmation. Almost as soon as Bryan lay down, however, the wave had passed. Several minutes seemed to pass before the doorbell sounded.

Bryan stood up and looked around. Things in the room looked strange to him, almost hazy. He was wondering what was happening to him as he walked over to the door and opened it. The hallway, normally a clear and well-lit area, was almost foggy, and the lights seemed dim. At his door was Ensign Jacobs, with a beaming smile. “Hello, Commander,” she said in a low and seductive voice.

Bryan knew something was wrong, but couldn’t seem to control his thoughts. “Hi, Natalie,” he responded in a quiet tone.

Natalie walked into his quarters and seductively embraced him. “You’re kind of cute,” she stated, her smile ever widening.

Not knowing how to react, Bryan felt he remained out of control of the situation as he responded, “So are you.” Suddenly, Natalie reached up to kiss him. As she did this, the light in the room became brighter. The nearer her lips became, the brighter the room got. As her lips met his, the white light was almost blinding…

Bryan awoke with a start, sitting straight up in his bed. He was just in time to notice a receding bright light coming from the closet. The haze of the room was gone, Natalie was gone, and the control over his actions returned. In the background, he could hear the console on the other side of the room making a high pitched beeping noise, signaling that the alarm had been reached. “Alarm off,” said Bryan, which turned off the alarm.

The light was gone now, but Bryan knew where it came from. He got out of bed and headed over to the closet, opening it quickly. He nervously got out his key and opened the chest. Within the chest was the sphere. However, its glow was curiously dimmer than usual. Bryan could now make out features inside the globe. It was a beautiful array of blue lights, filling the sphere with light. He could barely make out a small red glob of light emanating from the center. The sphere was the most beautiful he had seen it yet.

But the image of the haze and seductive Natalie were haunting him, and he began to wonder if the sphere made him see those images. It was then Bryan got the idea of taking the sphere with him on the mission. He managed to convince himself that he was going to find some answers about this mysterious sphere on this mission, even though he had no real justification for it. He closed the chest and removed it from the closet. He then proceeded to the docking bay.

When he arrived, he found Sidney, Andrew, and Natalie already there, watching the crewmen load their pyros and waiting to board the S.S. Sirius. Bryan quickly and quietly put the chest into the cockpit of his Magnum-AHT2.

After placing the sphere in his ship, he returned to where his wingmen were standing. “Hey, guys, ready to rock?” he asked.

“Good to go!” “Let’s do it!” “Ready as I’ll ever be!”

“Alright,” responded Bryan as he led his wing through the airlock and into the warship. The ship’s interior architecture was phenomenal, with archways leading the way into the ship. The walls were slanted slightly outward, giving the ship a roomy feel to it. The lighting was slightly darker than most ships, but it just made the hallways that much more interesting to look at.

Once aboard, the wing was greeted by one of the crewmen. “Hello, I am Lieutenant Michelle Hailey of the S.S. Sirius, welcome aboard.”

“Thank you,” responded Bryan. “I am Commander Bryan Chambers of the Aries Wing. We’re looking for our quarters.”

“Please, follow Ensign Madison over there, he will take you there.”

The wing followed the young ensign through the ship. After several minutes of walking, he pointed out a series of doors on one side of the hallway. “These will be your quarters here. Chambers, Rubeck, Wilson, and Jacobs, in that order. Enjoy!”

“Thank you,” responded Bryan. As the rest of his wing went to enter their quarters, Bryan called out, “We will meet out here at 1900 hours tonight. Get some rest.”

Bryan pondered that statement for himself, beginning to wonder what happened back on the station. He watched Natalie as she made her way to the furthest door. By the time she got there, Sidney and Andrew had already made it into their quarters. Natalie glanced back, and then did a double take as though she had noticed something. She asked, “Do you follow your own rules, Bryan?”

Startled, Bryan let out, “Huh?”

“Your second rule. Something’s bothering you.” Natalie got a concerned look on her face. “Who do you tell about things like that?”

Bryan didn’t even realize that his thoughts were so transparent. Not sure how to answer, he settled for, “I have my ways.” Not willing to continue to expose himself so unwillingly, he abruptly entered his quarters.

He got ten hours the night before, but all he could think about was sleeping. He was emotionally drained, and needed to rest. He lay down on the bed, and drifted off to sleep nearly as soon as he hit the pillow.

A huge jolt startled him out of bed. Suddenly, sirens and alarms sounded throughout the ship. Bryan flew out of bed and looked out the view port. Dozens of pyros were swarming around the warship, firing upon each other. Two other smaller warships served as the backdrop to the battle. Bryan determined that the Sirius was making evasive maneuvers to try and get a better position on the battle. Bryan jumped away from the view port and reached for the nearest console. He noticed that it said 1842 hours on it. He punched some commands into it, and called out “Get me the bridge! This is Commander Chambers of the Aries Wing! I need the situation and some orders!”

A few moments passed, and another sharp jolt rocked the S.S. Sirius. Once the jolt subsided, a voice returned, “This is Commander Daley, first officer of the Sirius. We are under attack by what we assume to be a group of rebels. We need any and all available wings to the central loading bays immediately and wait for further orders. It’s pretty bad out here, we’re not outgunned, but we’re definitely outnumbered.”

“Understood,” said Bryan, “Aries Wing is on our way. Chambers out.”

Bryan didn’t even check to see if the console had closed the channel properly, he jumped away from the console and bolted out of his quarters. Sidney was already out of his. “Bryan! What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure,” he responded, “but we’ve got some orders. Get Andrew, I’ll get Natalie. We’ve got to make it to the central loading bays.” As Sidney got Andrew out of his quarters, Bryan went to get Natalie from hers. Just as he got there, Natalie was already making her way out of the door. “Everybody, follow me,” shouted Bryan.

Bryan pulled some schematics from his memory, and ran down the corridor, with the rest of the wing following him. As they made it towards a more arterial hallway, the number of people running around increased. Bryan found himself saying, “Excuse me!” and bumping into a number of people as he dashed towards the central loading bays.

It took about a minute to get to the bays, where the wing was greeted by another officer. “Are you with a wing?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Bryan. “What are our orders?”

“Get to your pyros and prepare to join the fight outside. We’ve already taken several casualties, and the more help we have, the better.”

“Understood. Aries, to your ships!”

Bryan ran at a full sprint for his Magnum and boarded it quickly. He powered up the ship and flew into the ship’s airlock. The rest of the wing followed. The airlock closed behind the wing, and the lock began to depressurize. A countdown timer displayed on the opposite door. When it reached zero, a most curious thing happened.

As expected, the airlock opened, revealing the depths of space and the fresh battleground. But Andrew got over the subspace channel and shouted, “I’ve got a lock!”

Sure enough, in the distance, and closing fast, was a thick red missile, complete with a set of teeth on the end. A Mega Missile had Andrew’s Pyro-GL in its sites. “Evasive,” shouted Bryan, “Sidney, Natalie, hug the ceiling as close to the door as possible. Andrew, you know what to do.” Bryan was concerned that the size of the airlock was small enough so that no matter where the missile landed, everything inside of it would be disintegrated. The three ships rushed for the front ceiling as Andrew prepared to dodge the bulky missile. Andrew laid low in the far corner, keeping away from the other ships in case the worst happened. But as the missile entered the airlock, Andrew skillfully dodged the missile. It’s turning radius too slow, the Mega Missile plowed into the inside airlock door. As Andrew’s Pyro barreled into Bryan’s Magnum, the airlock shook, and the door to the airlock began to buckle. “Oh no,” said Bryan under his breath before shouting, “Everyone out into space, now!”

The wing scattered out of the airlock and into space just as the inner airlock door gave way. Equipment, pyros, and people were seemingly sucked out of the inside of the ship. But before the wing could react to their surroundings, several enemy ships of various models swarmed around them. Natalie was heard screaming, “No!” as her Pyro-GY broke from the pack, ready to attack.

“Natalie, what are you doing?” shouted Bryan. Knowing that her maneuver could get her killed, he ordered, “Aries Wing, attack!”

Sidney didn’t think twice. Having an enemy Magnum targeted in his sites already, he unloaded a round of mass driver in conjunction with a homing missile. The mass driver round scored its mark as the homing missile drove into the ships wavering shields.

Andrew broke out his trusty plasma cannon, dancing around in circles with an enemy Phoenix, scoring hit after hit with the green plasma shots. He, too, fired a homing missile at his opponent, which proved to be too much for the weak ship. It tumbled for a moment or two, and then exploded in a brief fireball.

Bryan started after Natalie, noticing that she was attempting to fight three other ships. She was pummeling a Black Pyro with her vauss cannon, and within several seconds ripped enough holes in it to cause the ship to break apart. A second Black Pyro, however, got behind her and began to fire away with his microwave cannon. But Natalie was well aware of her surroundings. She was able to not only dodge the incoming microwaves, but to turn around and fire a napalm rocket right through the hull of the ship. The fire inside of the enemy pyro was visible for a brief second before it ripped apart, sending pieces of the pyro into space.

Now in range, Bryan opened up with his quad-fusion cannon on the remaining ship attacking Natalie. However, before the giant purple blobs soaked the enemy ship with fusion power, it managed to let off dual cyclone missiles, aimed directly at Natalie. Just when the cyclone broke into its deadly fragments, the remaining Black Pyro disintegrated into random portions of fused metals.

The lock registered immediately on Natalie’s system. Turning to face the danger, she saw the swarming bomblets of the Cyclones heading right for her. “Dammit,” she muttered as she began speeding her Pyro-GY away from the danger, and toward another group of ships. “Natalie!” Bryan shouted again as he attempted to catch up to her speeding pyro.

Meanwhile, the Magnum that Sidney was facing was unloading quad lasers on his Phoenix, and although he was able to easily dodge the incoming energy projectiles, he was unable to land another round with the mass driver. He could see the sparks of uncontrolled energy running through his opponent. But suddenly, a wave of green energy flooded the space the Magnum was occupying, and shortly thereafter, the ship broke apart. “Thanks, Andrew!” called out Sidney.

“No problem, just lending a helpful hand,” returned Andrew.

Sidney looked around, and noticed Natalie was running from Cyclone missiles, with Bryan attempting to catch up to her. The targeting computer was able to identify three more ships in the distance that she was heading for. “She’s not going to break from those Cyclones anytime soon, we’ve got to get her headed in another direction.” With that, Sidney raced off toward Natalie in his Phoenix, with Andrew trailing behind him.

“God dammit, when does this lock break?” yelled Natalie in frustration. “I’ve never seen a missile track this far.”

“Natalie,” called out Bryan, “return to the station, that’s the only way you’re going to break that lock!”

“But Commander,” she disputed, “those missiles are on to me, if I don’t…”

Bryan’s short patience had been tried. “That’s an order, Ensign! Maneuver around the bomblets and return to the station!”

Unable to argue any further, Natalie returned, “Yes, sir!” as she brought her Pyro-GY around slowly. The swarm of Cyclone bomblets followed her ship, closing in on her briefly, until she was able to break away from them.

However, Natalie’s ship didn’t go unnoticed. The group of three Magnums that were nearby had begun to chase Natalie as she raced back to the ship. “I’ll hold them off,” called out Bryan.

At this point, Sidney’s Phoenix had caught up to Bryan’s ship, just as Natalie’s ship passed them. “You’ve got a helping hand,” added Sidney as he zoomed in his mass driver and picked off the left-most ship. He added a homing missile for spite as he began circling under the ships.

Bryan switched over to his EMD cannon. As they closed into striking range, Bryan fired his EMD, with a stream of blue energy flooding the middle ship. But then, Bryan’s target was displaced from his field of vision as his shields registered a hit. A round of mass driver coming from the right-most ship had displaced his Magnum and caused a good sum of damage to his shields. He struggled to regain control of his orientation while making evasive maneuvers to make sure he didn’t get hit again.

But his efforts failed as another hit registered, and his ship was displaced even worse. Bryan was able to quickly return to his proper orientation to face his opponent one last time. The two Magnums were faced off, and seconds seemed like days to Bryan. He knew that one more round of mass driver would be fatal. He clenched his teeth, expecting the worse. A bright white light filled the front of his windshield, and then…

Everything changed. Bryan looked around briefly, trying to figure out where he was. He was in a room with windows on two sides. There was a sofa on one wall, and a table in the far corner. He recognized it as his home on Earth. What was he doing here? To confuse things even further, Natalie walked into the room, asking him, “What do you want for dinner, dear?”

Unable to respond, Bryan continued to inspect his surroundings. Where did the battle go? Was he dead? There were more questions than answers.

“Bryan? Is everything okay?” Natalie walked up to Bryan and embraced him.

“Oh… uh… nothing, I…” Bryan stumbled on the shock of what was happening. “Weren’t we just in a battle?”

As if those words had triggered something, Bryan was back in his Magnum. He returned just in time to see the Magnum he was facing receive a final round of mass driver from Sidney’s Phoenix, breaking it into pieces. Andrew had arrived as well, and had already taken out the other two ships.

“Bryan! Are you there? Bryan!” screamed Sidney over the subspace channel.

“Uh…” responded Bryan, “I’m here.”

“What happened?” yelled Sidney. “I watched you take three mass driver rounds and you’re still there!”

Bryan looked closer at his heads up display to read his shield output. It read zero. “I don’t know what hit me,” Bryan said weakly, “but my shields are completely out.”

Andrew added in, “When that third round hit you, your ship turned bright white, I thought you were a goner.”

Bright white? Bryan pondered that for a moment, and then remembered he had loaded the sphere onto his ship prior to departing. Had the sphere saved his life somehow? “Let’s return to the station, I need repairs,” stated Bryan with a little more confidence.

The fleet returned to the ship using a different airlock. By now, the S.S. Sirius had a containment field up where the other airlock was destroyed. Once back inside, they found the loading bays to be a complete mess. People were scattered around, trying to clean up what they can. As the group docked their ships and got out of them, Bryan was able to see the damage from inside. Where there was supposed to be an airlock door, instead there were a giant hole with ripped metal, and some charred debris. He also looked around for Natalie’s pyro, but couldn’t find it right away. Bryan led his wing over to a panel on the wall. He punched some commands into the panel and said, “Get me the bridge.”

It was a couple of moments before a voice returned, “Daley here.”

“This is Commander Chambers of Aries Wing reporting in,” responded Bryan.

“What’s your status?” responded Daley.

“Well,” began Bryan, “we took approximately eight of their ships out before damages forced me to return. Listen, I still have a wingman out there, Ensign Natalie Jacobs. I had ordered her to return to the station, but I don’t see her around. Can you get a fix on her?”

“One second,” returned Commander Daley. A moment passed before he stated, “Yeah, I’ve got her, but it doesn’t look good. She’s got five bogeys dancing around her… make that four.”

Bryan panicked. Natalie was a good pilot, but he couldn’t see anyone taking on four ships and surviving. “Is there anyone close by her that can assist?” he questioned.

“Negative,” replied the Commander. “She’s way out, closer to the other two warships than us.”

“What?!?” yelled out Bryan. “How did she get way out there?” Bryan was furious. Not only had she disobeyed a direct order, but was putting her life in danger.

“I’m not sure, but she seems to be handling herself well… she’s taken out two more ships.”

“Get me a channel to her,” said Bryan.

“Got it.”

A few moments later, the panel beeped, indicating a new connection. “Ensign,” Bryan shouted sternly, “get your carcass back to bay immediately!”

Natalie’s voice was resistant as she called out, “I’m a little tied up at the moment, I’ve got two enemy ships on…” There was a brief pause, filled with the sound of a distant explosion. “Make that one enemy ship on me that I need to take care of.”

“Natalie, this isn’t a game!” pleaded Bryan. “Your life is at risk, return to bay now!”

For several seconds, Bryan got no response. “I do hope she’s okay,” muttered Sidney.

“Okay,” came Natalie over the channel after a long pause, “that’s the last of them, returning to bay.”

A couple of minutes passed before an airlock door opened, revealing Natalie’s unscathed Pyro-GY. She maneuvered it into dock, and climbed out of her pyro.

As Natalie approached Bryan, she said meekly, “Sir, I’m sorry, I…”

Bryan was not in the mood for apologies, “I thought you had direct orders to return to the bay?” he shouted.

Natalie returned, “Sir, I can explain…”

“Well that’s good,” yelled Bryan, “because I’m trying to figure out whether to write you up for insubordination or being AWOL!”

Andrew and Sidney looked at each other in surprise, not ever seeing Bryan quite like this before.

Bryan continued, “Do you understand I risked my life out there to save yours? My Magnum’s shields are reading zero right now, and quite frankly, I have no idea how I survived. But I didn’t have five ships surrounding mine, and I wasn’t about to do something foolish by going out there and getting myself killed. I’ve already seen someone die, and I’m not about to…”

It was at that moment that another bright light from Bryan’s Magnum burst out, almost angrily, and this time directly at Bryan and Natalie. But almost as quickly as it burst out, it receded just as fast.

Not seeing where it came from, Andrew stated, “Woah, what was that?”

Sidney looked around for something unusual and said, “I don’t know.”

But Bryan’s look was never taken off of Natalie. Not sure what had overcome him, he managed to mutter out, “Don’t ever worry me like that again, okay?”

Natalie was not sure how to react, but she knew that something had overcome her as well, and returned with a whisper, “Okay. I’m sorry.”

Bryan was lost. He wanted to find a way to describe what was happening, but couldn’t. And now it was affecting Natalie as well, with Sidney and Andrew watching. Now, he knew there was only going to be one way that he would ever find out what this crazy sphere was.