Nathan Hystad - The Event

“Let’s get the hell out of here. We have no idea how many of them are around,” Mary said.

Our sensors showed green dots emerging from the massive cube behind us.

“Shit! I see at least four. I have a feeling there weren’t a lot of the Deltras on that thing. I really wish I knew if Natalia was okay. We could use her help right about now, if Teelon didn’t harm her.” I stood behind the pilot’s seat trying to hide my adrenaline-riddled shaking hands.

“We do what we have to do, gents,” Mary said as our ship lurched to the side. She let out a yell and started firing at the Deltras. Their shields held for the first few blasts, but with her unpredictable pattern of shots, three of them exploded and burned out in quick order. Mary raced past a cluster of four ships, firing in all directions as she did. One of the ships just went dark and floated there, while the others chased after her, firing shots at us. We took a few, but she also evaded many, red pulses continuing on past our front view port.

“Bogey coming up quickly from our left!” Magnus called, sitting down beside Mary. He took over the weapons as she spun through space, like a bat out of hell. Meat Loaf’s song raced through my mind as another ship was destroyed. I felt like I was holding my breath, and gasped when I saw a couple more green lights appear on our screen.

“There’s more of them.” I knew Mary was good but didn’t see how we could possibly get out of this.

“We don’t have much of a choice. Their ships are the same, and I’ve no idea if this Kraski one is any faster than their smaller ships. There’s no running.” She gave a quick glance back at me. “We stand here, for all of humanity.”

I almost laughed at the cheesy line, but she was right. The Deltras that we had been fighting had eased off and limped back behind the fresh ships coming in. There were five in total, and I hoped that was it for their fleet. We were only one.

Mary eased the ship forward as they began approaching, red beams firing at us. The strangest thing happened. One of the ships in their cluster exploded and took two others down with it.

“What was that?” Magnus asked.

Mary had taken the controls back, saying she’d be more in sync with where she was going and would be more accurate. She ignored him and fired away, cutting down another.

We took another shot and red lights flared up inside our cockpit. That was a severe shot… our shields weren’t going to last. This was it for us.

Then we saw one of their own ships in the back firing away at them, two more exploding before they turned and fired back. With their rears open, Mary fired a volley of shots at them, flying over top. Between us and the ship that was helping us, we finished them off once and for all.

We cheered and I threw a fist pump into the air.

“Mary, you’re amazing!” I yelled to her through the cacophony of screeching sirens and celebration.

We looked at the ship still left floating out there, and I felt my pulse race with uncertainty. Magnus hit the comm-speaker and we went quiet. He found the alarm silencer, and the room was eerily still for a moment. “Nat? Nat, tell me that’s you, babe,” he said into the speaker.

For the first time, she spoke, accent thick. “It’s me, Magnus. It’s me.”

Tears flowed down the big man’s face openly, and he laughed as he sobbed. Mary put her arm around his shoulder and he leaned in.

“How… what happened?” I asked through the comm.

There was a pause, and her voice poured through at us, crisp Russian accent marking her long-hidden words. “Teelon has died. He’s succumbed to his wound from Earth. He didn’t betray his people, but I felt something was off. He staggered away when we arrived, lay on a bed, and avoided me. I had to speak to ask him questions. He seemed quite surprised by my voice. He was in pain, and I saw a small mask in his hand. He took a last look at me, said ‘I’m sorry,’ and took a deep breath in the mask – his last breath.”

I stood there in silence, still trying to wrap my head around Natalia speaking. Magnus just nodded slowly.

“They turned on us, Nat. The bastards all used us. The Kraski thought some alien race built the Shield to stop them from coming, but it was the Deltra the whole time. They both just wanted to kill us all. Are you okay?” Worry crept out of his voice in thick droves.

“ Da , I’m okay, Magnus,” she said softly. “It was time anyway.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but Magnus just nodded again. I checked the scanner, and there were no green blips anywhere. I hoped they didn’t have another force out there waiting to trap and destroy us. “I think we should get out of here.”

Mary turned back to me and smiled. “Not until we do something to the bastards that did all of this.” She flew toward the huge Kraski vessel and fired at it without mercy. Natalia duplicated her pattern a few hundred yards beside us. They did a full loop and repeated it on the other sides of the vessel. Fire erupted all over the place, and by the time we sped off toward the sun, I knew their huge vessel wasn’t going to be in one piece for too long. So much for the invasion. I wondered if there were some Kraski ships still flying around on Earth, but knew I had to focus on the task at hand first.

“What are our options?” I asked.

“We sit here and do nothing. We go home, and the four of us restart the world’s population,” Mary paused and gave me a sly look, “or we fly to the sun and try to save our people.”

“I vote sun, ” Magnus said quickly.

“Sun.”

Carey jumped up on my legs and let out a bark.

“Then it’s settled, gang.” Mary had the frequency open to the smaller ship, where Natalia was alone with a dead alien. “Let’s go get them back!”

We began flying toward the sun in the distance.

“Do you think these things have a warp drive or something?” I asked.

“I have no idea how fast this thing can actually go. Teelon did say there was a hyperdrive built in, but the details from the data transfer were unclear on this part.”

Natalia’s voice poured through the comm. “I think the control to the left of the throttle, for lack of a better word, might be it. I pressed it when I circled back to catch up to the ships and to sneak around them. Stars blurred for a brief second and I was a thousand yards closer.”

“I’m worried that we press it and end up hitting an asteroid, or an old satellite. Maybe I can’t come out in time and we run into the sun. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this. This must be part of the download that didn’t transfer,” Mary said.

I remembered the image of the huge containers full of humans, approaching the burning heat of the sun, and knew we didn’t have time to fly there. It took us long enough to get to the Kraski ship from Earth, and this was much farther.

“I think we have to try. Mary, what if we frog-hop?” I said, thinking of the frogs from the swamp near our farm growing up.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“What if we press and release, doing small jumps like Natalia did, as we’re flying at full speed? We could avoid any debris that shows up on the sensors. We can probably make much better time.” I was an accountant, not a physicist, but the logic made sense to me.

“ Da . I think it will work,” Natalia said from the other ship.

“Let’s give it a test and see what we’re working with. Nat, stay a few hundred yards beside and a way back, so we don’t cross each other’s paths out here.” Our ship accelerated as Mary urged it to full speed. “I’m going to press and release and see what happens.”