Unsung Heroes

Tola could feel the veins in his neck bulge as he pulled the alien with all his might. They collapsed behind a crate, and Tola tried to take in a deep breath to satiate his lungs. All he got was a burning, stinging sensation.

The hangar doors were being opened telekinetically, but it seemed Janus wanted to notch a few more kills on his belt before he left. The nose of the shuttle was coming about, lining up the plasma cannons for a shot at the armored warrior.

Residual light from Moaz’s three moons flooded the hangar’s open doorway, casting an eerie silver glow on the aftermath of Janus’s destruction. Death was around the corner, but Tola refused to let Janus have the enjoyment of dealing the fatal blow. If he was going down, he was going to try to take Janus with him. Leaning against the crate was a standard issue Varrcaran crowbar. Tola snatched it up and wedged it under the lid.

Then an idea hit him.

He looked at the dull blue ring in the mid-section of the fighter as it turned toward the armored warrior. The engine might be the closest thing to a weakness the ship had. If a long, thin object were to become lodged in the turbine, it may shut down the entire vessel.

Leaving Janus to suffocate alongside us . . .

Tola tapped the crowbar once on his hand, then drew back and heaved it like a javelin. It spiraled through the air, darting under the cockpit, and barreling toward the engine.

And then it stopped.

The silver light danced across the bar as it hung in the air, spiraling surreally. The ship’s comm system activated, and Janus’s coarse laughter filled the room. The spinning crowbar picked up speed until the gleam of light on the metal turned into a blur. Then it flew through the hangar right at Tola’s head.

Loralona yelled, pulling on the control stick with every fiber of her being. The nose of an enemy fighter was only a few meters in front of her—so close she could see the pilot in the cockpit. Her heart pounded against her chest as she readied herself for impact.

Come on! Pull up!

The enemy ship screamed beneath her, missing Retribution by less than a meter.

Her hands shook, but she didn’t have time to catch her breath. Two more fighters were hot on her tail and the third was already turning to join them. The dogfight had been quick and destructive; she’d blown three fighters out of the sky, but her ship was limping at best. Main shields were down to twelve percent, and the enemy had changed tactics. They were willing to do anything to stop her, even a suicide run.

Honorless scum.

Loralona had one last trick up her sleeve: a tactic she had always wanted to try out. Her timing would have to be perfect; even the slightest mistake would rip her hull to shreds, killing her in the process.

Loralona took in a quick breath, eyeing the three fighters behind her. It’s my only chance . . .

Yanking the control stick hard to the right, Loralona barrel rolled, narrowly dodging two plasma bolts off her left wing. She arched around, allowing the third ship to line up with the other two, trailing close behind her.

Perfect. Here goes nothing.

Burying the yoke, she nosedived sharply, heading straight for the planet’s atmosphere at maximum speed. The enemy fighters followed. Red lights flashed in the cockpit, and a computer voice came on:

“Warning! Warning! Readjust your level of re-entry. Warning!”

Drenched in sweat, Loralona watched the monitors closely. The shields were holding off the heat of re-entry, but were draining quickly.

Ten percent. Nine percent. Seven percent.

The computer beeped, alerting her that one of the fighters had locked on Retribution.

Hold on . . .

Five percent. Three percent.

Now!

Loralona pulled hard on the control stick. She held her breath as the ship began to rattle. After what seemed like an eternity the turbulence stopped, and the ship leveled off.

She had made it out alive.

Craning her neck, Loralona turned to watch the three enemy ships. Their smaller one-man fighters didn’t have the shields to maintain such an approach. Too late the pilots tried to peel off, but their fighters spiraled out of control and burned up in the atmosphere.

A joyous cry erupted from deep within her stomach. She had escaped the jaws of death many times, but never this narrowly.

Once she collected herself, Loralona looked down at the flashing green letters on the monitor.

One percent.

As Terrik tried desperately to take in another breath of air, his watch suddenly beeped, indicating their last two minutes of oxygen remaining. Panic flooded through him, but no matter where he looked, there was nothing to save them from suffocating.

Janus’s ship was still in the hangar, mocking them with the last life-support and their only chance of survival. It was so close, but so impossible to get to it may as well have been in another system all together.

Seeing the plasma cannons about to fire, the hooded man stood up from behind a crate and hurled a crowbar at the ship’s engine. The tool sailed through the air—then stopped, spinning in place from Janus’s telekinesis. Spiraling faster, the crowbar shot back along its original trajectory, straight for the man’s head. The computer expert jumped to the side, but the crowbar still caught him in the shoulder, eliciting a cry of pain.

Anger surged through Terrik’s veins. He wouldn’t survive, but he could still take Janus down with them. Raising his left gauntlet, he took aim and fired his last annihilator beam. The powerful bolt of energy shredded through through the thick armored hull, punching a wide, damaging crack through the lower half of the ship.

Terrik silently groaned. He had been aiming for the cockpit, but the oxygen deprivation had blurred his vision too much for a clean shot. Nevertheless, he tapped his left gauntlet again, pretending to prepare another shot. Janus took the bait; without hesitating the Biomancer piloted the shuttle out of the hangar bay and into the vast reaches of space. It was impossible to tell how far he got, or how badly his vessel was damaged, but Terrik took comfort in the fact that he may have ended the maniac’s life.

Ninety seconds was all that was left of their air. Collapsing to his knees, Terrik looked at the other two with him in the hangar. In such a short time they had gone through so much together, fought shoulder to shoulder, and watched each others’ backs like true warriors. Terrik never thought he would say this—especially regarding a Biomancer—but he was honored to die at their side.

His mind blurred, and consciousness slipped from his grasp.

Tola watched the glow of the engine grow smaller and smaller until it looked like another star among billions. He was relieved that Janus was gone, but at this point, it didn’t really matter. They were all dead, and he knew it.

Looking at his two companions, Tola soaked in the moment. In his years with the Shock Syndicate and eventually the Earth Alliance, Naomi had been the only one he considered a friend, and she had betrayed him in the end. He hadn’t allowed himself to trust anyone since.

But these two—in the few short hours they’d known each other, these strangers had grown closer to Tola than anyone else in the galaxy. They had fought together, survived together, but their journey was coming to a cold, desperate end. He saw the bounty hunter fall to his knees, and a stinging realization hit him like a bag of bricks.

I never even got his name . . . or gave him mine.

His lungs aching and shoulder throbbing, Tola forced himself over to the bounty hunter and dropped down beside him. Giving the warrior a knowing nod, Tola looked out over the expanse of space and welcomed the afterlife. It seemed to be poetic justice that he, a loner all his life, was about to die next to a nameless friend and a Latoroth he had originally feared, but now respected.

Tola felt a cold tear roll down his cheek before his world went black.