Solar Star

From the ground they watched the jets manoeuvre and their failure, Gerrard hide a smile, he would like nothing better than for the Solar Star to get away but the Colonel wasn’t beaten yet. She went to Dewmore and grabbed the communication unit out of his hand and opened a channel to the Solar Star.

‘This is Colonel Nye calling Captain Kelsey on The Solar Star.’

Su-min nearly dropped her headpiece when the chilling voice of Nye filled her head. She squeaked again and turned to Ty.

‘Captain I have Colonel Nye, she wants to talk to you.’

Ty grimaced, but nodded.

‘What does she want?’ Maclyn said.

‘Probably to wish us bon voyage,’ Ty replied sarcastically.

Maclyn scowled but didn’t reply.

‘Put it on speakers Su-min, we might as well all hear what she has to say.’

Su-min activated the link and nodded to Ty who took a deep breath before replying.

‘This is Captain Kelsey of the Solar Star, how can we help you Colonel,’ he said as politely as he could.

‘Cut the crap Kelsey, we know who you are and who you’re carrying and they are not to leave Earth.’

’Who are they Colonel?’ he said as he turned to face O’realian.

The older man looked puzzled; a slight frown appeared on his face as there was something about that voice that seemed familiar to him.

‘Don’t play silly games with me Captain. This is your last chance to hand over O’realian and his people.’

She almost spat out the last words in her contempt for the community and its leader.

‘Why Colonel? They haven’t broken any laws.’

‘They refused to be chipped.’

‘But that hasn’t been enforced yet. In fact they are leaving before it is, so technically they haven’t broken any laws so why are you trying so hard to stop them?’

‘They are conducting suppressive activities and they will be punished.’

‘By you no doubt,’ Ty said, no longer concealing his disgust at her high handedness.

‘Turn around now Captain or you’ll be forced to.’

‘Who appointed you judge, jury and executioner Colonel?’ he replied.

‘President Berryman,’ she said triumphantly.

‘Stupid man,’ Ty replied.

Colonel Nye blinked at that as it had been a long time since anyone had openly insulted her. Gerrard turned his head away, so as not to show his delight, but the Colonel was not dismayed and Kelsey had just made himself a very powerful enemy. She was one to hold a grudge as he had already found out.

‘Captain, you have one minute to surrender and return to this facility or get blown out of the sky. It’s your choice.’

With that she broke the connection and stood fuming beside the Major.

‘Are the fighters prepared?’ she shouted.

He nodded.

‘Yes Colonel.’

He handed her the unit so she could speak again to the Commander Peterson. She took it and watched the seconds tick by.

Commander Peterson had heard the exchange with the Ship he now knew was called the Solar Star and it disturbed him.

“Why were they being used to pursue people who had not committed any crimes,” he wondered.

The bridge of the Solar Star fell momentarily silent after the Colonel’s ultimatum.

‘Was that wise?’ Maclyn asked quietly.

Ty sighed.

‘Maybe not, but it sure felt good.’ He paused. ‘Anyway even if we did turn around, I don’t believe she’d call off the attack as she wants O’realian out of the way permanently.’

They both looked at him and he nodded.

‘I believe you are right Captain and hearing her voice brought it all back to me.’

‘You know her?’ Kassina asked.

‘Yes, but not as Colonel Nye. It is a long story and this is not the time to tell it. All I can say is she a vengeful woman who will stop at nothing to take her revenge on the community she once belonged to and the man she once loved.’

‘Father!’

Kassina took his arm, but he turned to Ty.

‘Captain we must continue,’ he implored.

‘Don’t worry we are,’ Ty replied.

He got up from his chair and went to his left to the newly installed weapons station and Matt O’Neil.

‘You think you can handle this Matt?’ he asked.

O’Neil smiled.

‘Piece of cake,’ he replied and then added. ’As long as Sarrin can feed me the co-ordinates.

‘It will be an honour O’Neil,’ the alien said softly.

‘Okay then, everyone strap in because we are going though, come hell or high water,’ Ty said as he retook his chair.

The seconds moved very slowly for Major Gerrard but he wasn’t at all surprised that when the hand finally reached the twelve, the Solar Star had not begun to decent. Neither would he in their position as he didn’t trust Nye as far as he could throw her and they were supposed to be on the same side. He studied her face as the last second disappeared and found only delight as she didn’t want them to surrender, he realised, and now she’d get her wish.

‘Commander Peterson this is Colonel Nye,’ she said calmly into the microphone that linked her with the fighters.

‘Awaiting your orders Colonel,’ came Peterson’s disembodied voice.

‘The Solar Star has failed to surrender; therefore you are ordered to bring it down. It must not, I repeat, must not get into orbit.’

He hesitated; debating whether to ask why then he sighed inwardly and said,

‘Understood, Peterson out,’ the voice said.

She nodded her satisfaction.

‘Major, can we follow their progress on the shuttle’s aerial sensor screen?’ she asked.

‘I am sure you can,’ he said, but made no attempt to follow her inside the shuttle as he preferred the clean air outside.

She glared at him, but decided he just didn’t have the stomach for it; not that it mattered after today’s performance she’d make sure he wasn’t in the military much longer. No one who ever got in her way or screwed up survived unscathed, except O’realian, and now he too was going to pay the price of hurting her.

“Why are we doing this Commander?” Easterman asked him and Peterson did not have a good answer for him.

“Ours is not to reason why,” he quoted heavily.

“Let’s hope we don’t do and die,” Easterman said finishing off the well worn phrase.

“Yes, guys lets be careful. This Captain Kelsey is a tricky bastard. I want Matthews, Jones and Walsh to make the first run. Go in one behind the other.”

“Ahy Commander,” Mathews replied as he led his section towards their target.

Peterson watched intently as they closed in. He was not sure if he wanted them to succeed or fail.

Sarrin did not fully understand what was going on, but he had grasped their predicament and the part he was being asked to play in it. The sensory board was limited and very basic compared with the mind-activated technology his people used, but it would do. The targets had begun to split up and the three jets split from the formation and began closing in on them for an attack.

‘Co-ordinates 192.32,’ he stated as he lined up the first of the fighters.

‘Weapons system activated, approaching 200 mph,’

O’Neil licked his lips as his fingers flew over the keyboard and the sight lined up on the first jet in the line.

‘Locked,’ he said.

Ty sighed.

‘Fire,’ he ordered.

O’Neil hit the red button and the laser cannon blasted out a charge and the fighter didn’t have a chance, it all happened too quickly. One second it was preparing to fire and the next a bright red light hit it and then nothing but a shower of sparks and debris.

The explosion took the Commander by surprise and he gasped as Mathews jet virtually disintegrated before his eyes and he sat frozen in shock as the second jet moved in and fired its missal and then they all waited.

Everyone on the bridge watched with a mixture of awe and horror at the destruction they had caused. Kassina gasped and grabbed hold of her father’s arm. O’realian’s face was lined in pain, but he was also very calm and patted her hand. They didn’t have much time to consider what had happened as Sarrin informed them that there was an incoming missile.

‘Evasive action,’ Ty yelled.

Black Elk swung them to the right as much as he dared and still remain climbing. Their best hope was still to reach orbit and they were now at 15,000 feet. Every minute would make the difference, both to their chances and to the way he could fly the Solar Star. Also their advantage would increase with height, as eventually they’d be too high for the fighters to be able to operate but the question was could they survive long enough to get that high? The missile flew by them and then began to fall back towards the Earth, but the next one was already on its way. O’Neil had to lock on but the violent movements Black Elk was putting in didn’t give him time to set the computer.

‘Ty, I can’t do this automatically, I need to go to manual,’ he shouted.

Ty nodded.

‘Whatever you think,’ he managed to say as they were abruptly swung the other way.

Maclyn hung on for all he was worth, wishing he still had his chair as the ship was twisting to the left when a missile hit the shields sending them momentarily downward, as Black Elk was knocked sideways away from the controls. Ty leant forward ready to take over but he wasn’t needed as within seconds Black Elk recovered and had a firm grip on the controls, sending them upward again.

‘18,000 feet,’ he managed to shout and Ty grunted.

They still had a long way to go.

Dewmore stood by the Colonel watching the lights on the screen, which represented the fighters and the Solar Star when suddenly one of the dots burned bright and then disappeared. Colonel Nye didn’t believe it at first.

‘NO!’ she screamed.

She turned on Major Gerrard who stood at the doorway.

‘They fired on me,’ she shouted.

He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t reply as he could think of several answers but none would do him any good.

‘Did you know they had weapons?’ she ranted.

He sighed it seemed everything was his fault.

‘No Colonel, I did not. Didn’t you?’ he added quietly.

She glared and pointed and then turned her back on him and he almost smiled.

‘Obviously not,’ he muttered to himself.

The radio stuttered and a voice could just be made out of the crackling and interference.

‘Colonel, we are under attack,’ Peterson said angrily.

‘Then fire everything you’ve got back at them you fool,’ she shouted back. ‘That’s what you get paid for.’

There was a brief second of silence before the voice replied.

’Yes Colonel and the connection was cut.

It seemed to Gerrard that the air force was just as expendable as his troops when the Colonel wanted something done. He wouldn’t have questioned this in a time of war, but he did question the sanity of losing his men and machines over a bunch of civilians. There was no logic to it, which made it harder to go in with all guns blazing and nothing Nye had said yet convinced him they had just cause to stop these people leaving Earth if they wanted to. He couldn’t stomach being part of it any longer and he strolled off towards the hangars unnoticed by the Colonel who was still watching the battle raging above them.

Su-min listened to the radio exchange and reported it to the captain.

‘They have been ordered to fire everything they have got,’ she said.

Ty grunted as that sounded like an order from Colonel Nye.

‘Alright Matt, try and damage them if you can, I’d rather not kill any one else,’ he said.

O’Neil nodded.

‘I’ll try but it’s difficult to be accurate with the ship turning about.’

Black Elk grunted but didn’t say what he was thinking as he needed all his concentration to fly the ship. He increased their angle of pitch again, just a few more degrees, but that was as much as he dared and then he watched the altimeter needle rapidly start to increase.

’25,000 feet,’ he reported.

Commander Peterson’s palms were sweaty as he lined up behind the Star, but he was careful not to get to close now they were firing back. He could fire his missals from a safe distance and that’s what he had told his men to do as for all her ranting and raving it was not Colonel Nye who was up in the sky risking her life. He fired and then peeled away, watching his missile’s progress on his monitor, but again it failed to penetrate the ships shields and tumbled backwards towards the earth. He exploded it remotely so it couldn’t hurt any one else and sighed.

“I can’t see how we are going to stop it,” he thought but he was sensible enough not to voice these thoughts, especially to Nye.

Only seconds later it was passing 27,000 and on to 30,000 the ship rocked gently again as Peterson’s missal bounced off their shields then settled back down as if nothing had happened. The attacking craft must have realised that very soon they would be out of range as the Solar Star left the atmosphere, as they began to attack in quick succession one behind the other.

“They are almost out of our range,” Easterman informed the Commander.

“Yes I know,” he replied irritably “As we have so little time left lets give it all we have and do it for Mathews,” he paused the added, “Tighten up the line, we may have time for one more run each. Come in fast, fire then turn, Understood?”

“Roger that,” Easterman replied as he began his run and everyone else fell in behind him.

Sarrin frowned.

‘What are they doing?’ he asked.

O’Neil craned his neck to glance at the scanner for a moment and it did not take a genius to figure out what they were doing now.

‘Oh, that’s just swell,’ he muttered.

He returned to his weapons array.

‘They’re lining up tighter Captain,’ he said.

Ty understood immediately and he moved to the engineering station and began to transfer all auxiliary power to the aft shields. Maclyn joined him and watched for a moment and as he saw what Ty was doing he began to help. Together it took only thirty seconds to transfer the power, but it was all the time they had as before Ty could make it back to his seat, the ship was knocked sideways, sending both him and Maclyn to the floor. Ty hit his head hard on the side of his chair and he saw more stars than he’d ever seen in space and as he tried to get up, the ship shuddered and rolled violently to the left, sending him rolling along the deck and ending up at Kassina and O’realian’s feet. She leant forward and took a handful of his shirt and some of his hair and held on tight as everyone on the bridge was bounced about like ping pong balls, but for most they were safe and kept in place by their seat restraints, except the unfortunate Ty and Maclyn. The grip Kassina had on Ty was akin to a death grip, causing him to have difficulty breathing, and as the ship bucked and rolled, he began to believe he’d die by her delicate hand. Maclyn was faring a little better as on the second roll he had been flung under the console for the auxiliary control panel and had the foresight to wrap himself around the upright and hold on. O’Neil didn’t have a chance to fire back as he was too busy trying to stay upright even with seat restraints, but he was in the same position everyone else. To call it a rough ride was an understatement of mega proportions and all most could do was to hope it stopped soon.

The ship kept climbing and as it passed 40,000 feet the last two rockets hit it and the aft number two shield took two direct hits although neither rocket penetrated the hull, they did breach the shielding, causing a feed back of energy. The engineering consol sparked and crackled ominously and the smell of burning insulation started to fill the bridge and fire was not far behind. As the ship righted herself and continued her climb O’Neil unclipped himself and leapt from his seat, grabbed one of the five mobile extinguishers and hastily dowsed the console before it had a chance to burn. The smoke was billowing but the danger of a fire seemed to be past. Maclyn crawled out of his hiding hole and took a lungful of the noxious smoke and ended up doubled over, coughing his heart out while others were holding their noses and trying to breathe as little as possible until the extractor kicked in and cleared the air. Kassina finally let Ty go and he struggled to his feet and was about to breath in deeply when he saw Maclyn and decided against it. Somehow they had all survived and now the smoke was almost gone and Ty needed to know if they were finally out of the Colonel’s clutches. He staggered over to Black Elk.

‘How high are we?’

’47,000 feet and still climbing,’ Black Elk replied and allowed himself a small smile.

The volley of missals had made the ship struggle and for a very brief moment Peterson thought they may have done some real damage but seconds later his hopes were dashed as she was still climbing away and was now out of their reach.

“Break off the attack, they are too high for us now,” he said as he turned his own fighter around and started to descend.

Ty patted Ben on the back and said.

‘That’s great Ben. That’s just great.’

He then moved to Sarrin and glanced at the screen, which was now empty as the jets had fallen back and the way ahead appeared clear. O’Neil joined him and grinned.

‘Looks like the dragon lady lost this time,’ he said.

Ty nodded.

‘Maybe,’ he said thoughtfully.

O’Neil frowned.

‘You don’t think she’s got any more tricks up her sleeve do you?’ he asked.

Ty shrugged.

‘I don’t know. I guess I’m just a bit paranoid about her. I doubt she can touch us now, but….’

He couldn’t shake the feeling that they hadn’t heard the last from her and he turned to Su-min.

‘Keep monitoring that frequency as long as you can just in case,’ he said.

She nodded and began to transfer power from the ship’s wide system into her comm. link to the surface.

The communications system had been updated last year and she was now as familiar with what it could do as she had been with old one and this system could do so much more. What Ty had asked for, once would have been impossible, but not now and with Su-min monitoring they had time at last to take a breath and sort out their priorities.

Maclyn was examining the damaged engineering console when the bridge doors slid open and the chief engineer, Samuel Dayton strolled in, followed by the diminutive figure of Kate Samuels. He made straight for the blackened unit, ignoring everything and everyone else. Dayton was a man of few words and even then most of them had to do with engines. He didn’t suffer fools gladly and seemed to live and breathe his work so he was not a man to socialise, his past like him, was a bit of a mystery. His only true friend on the ship was the equally detached and thorny doctor and some of the crew speculated that they were the only people that could tolerate each other; although over the years the doctor had mellowed considerably, but not so with the chief engineer. Maclyn moved out of his way and winked at Kate, who raised her eyebrows in mock exasperation of her boss’s rudeness but Ty knew better than to ask Dayton any questions about the state of the console, he just let him get on with it. It was enough to know it would be repaired.

He wiped the small trickle of blood off his forehead before getting around to the question he had been longing to ask of O’realian and now was as good a time as any. He moved to his guest’s side and said softly.

‘I’d like to know if you can tell me anything about the Colonel.’

O’realian sighed and looked at his daughter, then back to the Captain.

‘I think I can, but first I must ask you both a question.’

Ty frowned.

‘Alright,’ he said. ‘Go on.’

Kassina leant forward and looked intently into her father’s face noting his troubled expression.

‘What does this Colonel Nye look like?’

Ty blinked twice in surprise and Kassina frowned as they exchanged glances before Ty replied.

‘Well I guess she’s so big.’

He stood and held his hand up to his shoulder and Kassina shook her head.

‘No she’s not, didn’t you see those huge heels on her boots?’

Ty shrugged.

‘I can’t say I did,’ he said.

‘Well she must be at least two inches smaller without them.’

‘Alright so she comes to about here,’ he said in exasperation and pointed to the middle of his deltoid muscle.

She nodded so he continued.

‘She has blond hair cut in a….’

‘Bob style without a fringe,’ Kassina said and took up the description. ‘She’s about fifty years old and has the most piercing ice cold blue eyes I’ve ever seen and dresses in black.’

Her father looked saddened but he was now sure who she was.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I thought it was her voice, but after so many years….’

He stopped again but Kassina was anxious.

‘Who is she?’ she said.

He sighed again.

‘It’s a long story; one that I hoped was buried a long time ago and one maybe I should have told you about.’

Kassina frowned.

‘What is it father; tell me, you’re scaring me.’

He took her hand.

‘I don’t mean to, but you said she seemed shocked to see you and said your mother’s name?’

Kassina nodded.

‘Yes, she did.’

‘That is because she had tried twice to kill Kaymara.’

Kassina’s mouth fell open in shock.

‘What? When was this?’ she stammered.

‘Before you were born. You see this woman was a member of Sakkara.’

‘No! She can’t have been,’ Kassina replied in a whisper.

‘She was; in fact she was born there, and we grew up together. Her name then was Catya and she was very shy timid little thing. I felt sorry for her as she was always left out of the group; you know how some never get the chance to make friends, or are too shy to push in. She was like that.’

Ty grimaced.

‘It doesn’t sound like the woman I met,’ he said.

‘No, but it was. I invited her to join us and slowly she changed and I suppose she fell in love with me, but I didn’t know this. Then one day Kaymara joined us and I fell in love with her the first moment I saw her.’

He smiled remembering that day, and then he sighed.

‘But I didn’t realise my love for her was also to cause her life to be in danger. Catya believed Kaymara had stolen me away from her although I tried to tell her I loved her like a sister, but that just seemed to make her worse. Then one day just before our marriage, she pushed Kaymara into the river.’

Kassina gasped.

‘Luckily two men fishing nearby pulled her out, and at the time she said she had slipped and fallen in but a year later Catya tried to kill her again and she very nearly succeeded. I tried to get her to seek help inside the community, but once she found out that everyone knew it was her fault that Kaymara had been injured, she couldn’t stand the shame. One night she disappeared, and until today I never knew what had become of her.’

Maclyn had joined them and heard the full story.

‘She seems to hold a grudge,’ he said.

Ty had to grin.

‘Maclyn, you’re the master of understatement,’ he said. ‘That lady has made a career out of grudges, but she has saved the best for you.’

O’realian had to agree.

‘It seems so,’ he said.

‘But after all these years.’ Maclyn added.

‘Yes, what a waste of time and effort,’ O’realian said sadly. ‘If only she could have put it behind her and moved on.’

‘Yeah, then we wouldn’t be doing this,’ Ty finished for him.

They were silent, each with their own thoughts, when Su-min gasped and turned to them.

‘Captain, the planetary defence missiles,’ she said.

‘What about them?’ Ty demanded.

‘They’re being trained on us!’