CHAPTER 1
ERRO
“Fucking pirates!” Erro cursed as a missile sped past his starfighter’s tail. He swerved his ship to the left, only barely avoiding impact. The action initiated a new damage report from the ship’s computer.
“Shields at sixty-three percent,” it reported in a cool voice just as Erro made a hard right to avoid yet another missile. “Laser cannon ready at eighty-one percent. Engine Three in critical condition.”
Erro swore again as he heard the report. While his ship still had two other engines, losing one wasn’t exactly ideal as it messed with the ship’s controls. Which meant he’d have to take care of the little pirate problem sooner rather than later.
A wicked grin spread on his lips as he turned toward the enemy ship that had fired the missiles toward him.
To think that he’d been told there wasn’t much going on around Earth, that it was a relatively quiet part of the universe – Erro almost laughed. When he’d agreed to transfer to the tiny blue world to help protect it, he’d never imagined that he would be entering a near war zone. How had he gotten this lucky?
At first, he had been disappointed to find out about his transfer. Boring times ahead, he’d thought. But as it was, in the past few galactic weeks since his transfer announcement, everything had changed.
Now, instead of a desolate corner of the universe, Earth had turned into a real hotbed of illegal activities. All because word had gotten out that human females had been discovered to be universal breeders – able to bear the young of at least six of the races in the Intergalactic Union.
Erro rolled his eyes as he swerved to avoid yet another missile. He couldn’t care less about the females, but he knew well he was quite alone in his resolve. Everyone else in the universe seemed to want a piece of the Earth women. Pirates especially had flogged the planet, eager to get their hands on the goods so that they could sell them to the highest bidder in the intergalactic black market.
You really didn’t want to be an Earth female in this time and age.
And while Erro certainly wasn’t one, he was a part of the damage control system – protecting the planet and trying to prevent the pirates from getting what they wanted. Which was exactly what had brought him to this point.
Together with nine other Union troops, he had been on his way to his new military outpost on the little blue planet when they had been pulled straight into a full-blown battle. Seven large enemy ships had practically ambushed them just outside the planet’s atmosphere, each of them painted with the red and purple insignias that identified them as Varron destroyers – pirates of the worst kind.
Most of the starfighters had already been disabled, forced to retreat, or obliterated within the first minutes of the battle as the persistent barrage of pirate missiles tore right through them.
Battles in space were never easy, but fighting the pirates without the aid of the Communicators – observers who tracked the battles from the planet below – was near impossible. The attack had come upon them so suddenly they hadn’t had the time to connect to a base on the planet, and thus, communications were limited – which made the mission all the more dangerous.
But Erro liked dangerous. If he had been hoping to see some action, he’d certainly come to the right place.
Barreling toward the nearest enemy ship at ramming speed, he fired his missiles one by one. Thanks to the efforts of the fighters, only three ships remained, but that was still three too many as far as Erro was concerned.
He watched as the Varron pilot copied his move, launching a pair of missiles toward him. One of the missiles that had targeted him earlier continued to tail him persistently, poised to do maximum damage to his engines if he couldn’t get away. Erro accelerated, trying to lose it even as he evaded the new volley of missiles headed his way.
Unable to shake the tailing missile off, Erro spun his ship around and flew straight toward another Varron ship that had appeared to his left. He drew in so close that he could almost see the yellows of the pirate’s eyes, which grew rounded at his approach.
Damn, the Varrons were ugly. They were fierce, mean creatures with a humanoid bearing, but otherwise they shared traits more in common with the ichthyoids, with scaly, olive green skin and thin, hunched spines. They also had massive, gaping jaws with row after row of sharp, lethal fangs. Not a pretty picture.
Erro waved at the Varron pirate in greeting. Behind his black helmet, his grin felt almost gruesome when he yanked backward on his controls. His starfighter banked hard at the last moment, veering up and over the other vessel. The missile that followed on his tail flew straight into the Varron’s cockpit.
In a spectacular explosion, the pirate ship burst into a sphere of greenish light behind him and shattered into millions of microscopic fragments. Through the side windows of his ship, Erro saw some of the shrapnel float past as his spaceship shimmied from the blast.
One down, two more to go.
The only other starfighter left in the battle exploded to Erro’s left just as he veered away from the debris and lined himself up to attack another pirate ship. He silently sent his prayers for his fallen comrade, and breathed a breathed a sigh of relief when the computer announced, “Laser cannon ready to fire at maximum output.”
“Finally, some good news,” he grumbled. He sped up and dipped left, right, up, and down, avoiding a throng of missiles that had been fired his way by one of the last two Varron ships.
Come on. Come on…
A rookie pilot would have probably turned to hide among the debris by now, but that wasn’t how Erro operated. He was at the top of his game, and no pirate was going to defeat him. He was one of the elite pilots of the Union, and he had earned every one of his stripes off of the sweat on his brow.
Erro shook off the last of the missiles fast on his tail and pressed the charging button on the laser cannon, prepping it for immediate use now that it was ready. He turned to face a pirate’s vessel, but just as the laser was about to fire, a sudden tremor shook his entire ship. He heard a loud crackle in the back of the craft, alerting him to the fact that Engine Three had finally given up the ghost for good.
Shit.
“Engine Three offline,” the ship’s computer reported. “A breach has been detected on the outer layer of the engine’s compartment. An emergency landing is recommended before inner integrity is also compromised.”
“Not until I take these guys down along with me,” Erro growled, pushing the controls forward to up his speed.
The ship still had two good engines remaining. Enough for one last attack. He would show these pirates not to mess with the Union!
His grin back, Erro waited until his red and purple pursuers were just beside each other, then gripped the controls to turn around, blasting his laser at both of them at the same time. A white beam pierced through them, and each ship disintegrated in the blink of an eye.
For a moment, everything went still. Erro’s heart pounded as he caught his breath and admired the mess he’d just made. Thanks to the Union’s powerful weapons, most of the debris had been broken down into particles so tiny that they were almost impossible to detect individually, but the light from this galaxy’s sun glinted off of them, leaving a light, golden halo in their wake.
Erro didn’t admire the sight before him for long though. He quickly frowned with discontent as he realized just how many souls had been snuffed out thanks to this little excursion. Not all of the debris was from the pirates’ ships after all.
Ten men had arrived here, intent on joining their fellow soldiers at the Earth base, but as it was, the other nine starfighters were nowhere in sight. Either they’d all been destroyed like the one last one he’d seen, or some of the pilots had elected to evade the battle in favor of heading to their new home.
Erro shook his head sadly. What a waste of life. And for what reason?
It was part of his job, letting the fallen go. Because if he continued to grieve every soldier that had passed, he would never find time for anything else. But that didn’t mean it was easy.
“Computer, report,” he ordered gruffly after a moment.
The computer’s cool voice vibrated to life again, giving him a full system analysis. “Shields at fourteen percent. Laser cannon ready at two percent. Interior breach within Engine Three’s compartment imminent. Immediate landing recommended.”
Shit. He had already nearly forgotten about the breach in the engine’s compartment. He would have to land immediately.
“How far is the nearest Union base on this world?” he inquired from the computer. “Can this ship make it there?”
“Negative,” the computer replied. “The nearest Earth Base is over 7,000 kinet away. Passenger preservation protocol activated. Initiating emergency landing procedure. We are going down.”
“Issue a distress beacon and coordinates,” Erro ordered. “Continue to transmit for as long as possible.”
“Affirmative,” the computer confirmed.
“This was not exactly how I wanted to arrive on the world I’d be calling home for the next three hundred quazets!” Erro complained. Remembering protocol, he made the fixes to his ship’s communication system to connect to the planet below and pressed a glowing red button to initiate contact and make his report.
“Pilot 3387 to the nearest Earth Base, my ship is going down. Our troops just took down seven Varron pirate vessels, and I’ve initiated emergency set down. Please advise?”
“Okanogan Earth Base to pilot 3387, acknowledged,” a neutral voice replied, one that sounded almost as cool as his ship’s computer although Erro knew it was simply the translators messing up the Communicator’s speech. “We are tracking your trajectory and issuing a search request. Do whatever you can to survive out there, sir. The approximate area of your landing site is about to enter blackout for the duration of a heavy storm. You’re going to need to sit tight for a while.”
Erro huffed out an unamused laugh. A storm? Couldn’t anything go smoothly?
His ship suddenly jerked, taking a sharp turn toward the planet as the computer took over the controls. It started a speedy descent toward the surface, and Erro gritted his teeth as the heat and wind shear began to buffer the ship. At least, the shields were still up and held – for now.
The turmoil continued around him, and Erro watched the blues, greens, and whites of the planet flash past his windows. On his home world, the oceans were red and the forests yellow, but this planet’s colors were strangely opposite, with not one speck of comforting red anywhere on the surface at all. It was like nothing he’d ever seen before.
Just as his ship was about to enter the inner layers of the planet’s atmosphere, another sudden tremor shook the spacecraft, this one much more violent than the last and could hardly be blamed on the computer.
Erro was thrown forward in his chair and had to brace himself against the control consul just to remain seated. He cursed as his head cracked against a supply unit to the side of the cockpit.
“Shields down,” the computer reported as he struggled to return to an upright position again. “Engine Two in critical condition. Power supply low.”
“What the–?” Erro began, craning his neck in an attempt to visually search the skies for whatever had hit him. Had another Varron ship suddenly warped into the area? Or was there an enemy he hadn’t noticed? Unlikely, he was a pro at this after all. But what else would have sent him flying forward so hard?
He didn’t have long to try to investigate the cause of his jolt as yet another, smaller tremor shook his ship, and suddenly, his ship was falling – fast!
Erro’s heart jumped to his throat as he realized that at this rate, his ship would likely tear to pieces long before he even hit the ground.
Trying to salvage the situation, he quickly flicked the emergency switches on, attempting to slow his descent. Every light on the display panel began to blink, showing the same message. “Descent too fast. Collision imminent!”
His heart pounding in his ears, Erro saw his life passing before his eyes. He saw his boyhood on his planet – his friends, family – and then recalled every moment of his time at the Union Training Academy. He remembered the processional march he and his classmates had made as they graduated, and the commencement speech he had given them.
Hadn’t he followed the rules he had given them on that day? He’d always enjoyed the thrill of every mission he had ever been on, but this one was no joyride. In fact, this mission might even be it for him.
Fucking Varron pirates! He hadn’t seen it coming. He really hadn’t. Not yet.
Thankfully, the ship’s heat shield still prevented him from burning up during reentry, but a power leak was rapidly using up the energy that was needed to maintain the shields. The ship’s overhead light dimmed for a moment, then darkened completely.
Emergency lights flickered on instead, clueing him in to the fact the ship was now dead. Without any remaining power, Erro could do nothing to guide the ship to the ground. He was going to crash, and he was powerless to stop it.
His ears began to ring, and he clamped his eyes shut, unwilling to watch for a time. He gripped the seat underneath him until his knuckles turned white. His jaw was clamped shut so tightly he thought he might taste blood from biting his tongue.
Mentally, he prepared himself for the inevitable as he heard pieces of the ship began to tear away. The ship grew intensely hot, the heat of friction as it sliced through the atmosphere of the planet, causing a bright orange glow he could see even through his eyelids.
When he opened his eyes to look, he saw the darkness of space fall away, replaced by the vibrant color of a clear, blue sky. Flames belched out of the back half of his ship, and all he could think about was the fact he would never get to see his home world again. Never get to see his parents. Tell them of his achievements.
He remembered what he’d been taught by an old soldier while on another mission during which he’d been so close to death. Do not embrace the fear. Be serene. Picture the one thing you find the most calming, and embrace that thing with every part of your being.
In his mind’s eye, Erro could see the rare sunrise flowers that littered the fields of his home planet, and for a moment he swore he could even smell them.
Beautiful...
It was the last thing he saw before the ship hit the ground and everything went dark.