CHAPTER 65 – DESCENT

DATE: JUNE 11th, 7 A.U. (AFTER UNIFICATION)

LOCATION: EARTH, OUTER ATMOSPHERE

ABOARD SHADOWHAWK “GS1”

LIEUTENANT-COMMANDER EDDIE “SNIPER” OCHOA

“Mission control, we’ve got our final course locked, entering atmo in five mikes.” Eddie said over the Q-comm.

“Confirmed, thanks for the update, Sniper. You’ve officially passed the horizon and are off our scopes. Stay alert out there, it will be difficult to stay hidden during re-entry and we won’t be close enough to provide back up.” Olivia replied from the Fist of the Argonauts.

“We’ve got this under control. Any changes to that bogey we detected on the way in?” Eddie asked apprehensive tone.

“Nothing’s changed, it’s still maintaining its polar orbit on the opposite side of the planet from your orbital entry flight path. Be advised, orbital analysis indicates it will pass over to your side of the globe during the tail end of your strike window. We’ll keep you posted if anything changes, or we need to adjust the pickup window.”

Yulia pivoted in her chair to look over at Eddie.

“At least it seems our approach has, so far, gone unnoticed. Let’s just hope this baby’s stealth systems are enough to keep us equally hidden on the way out.” She patted the console before she asked. “What do you think that bogey is, anyways?”

“I think it’s pretty obvious, I mean, it’s all black, flies in a polar orbit, and has fairly sophisticated stealth capability. It could only be the Black Knight satellite.” Eddie replied as he continued to check between his various sensor displays.

“Isn’t that the thing Tesla claimed to have received radio signals from that was debunked as him instead detecting what was it? Pulsars?” Yulia asked.

“Yeah, there’s that argument for that one incident, but there was separate events where something was detected in polar orbit long before we were able to accomplish that feat ourselves. I don’t know the truth of everything that’s been said, but it seems the best fit for the available evidence." Eddie replied with a shrug. "We're still coming in a bit fast; lock in a deceleration field, one half gee.”

“Aye sir, one half gee. Didn’t the fleet go searching for it before they officially debunked the story after the invasion? I remember reading something about that a few years back.” She replied as a deceleration field kicked in behind them with a jolt.

Eddie snorted and rolled his eyes.

“I heard about that. I also heard rumors that Joshua Warden and his people had boarded it and taken it back to their base at Ceres for study before the invasion. Who knows what to believe at this point?” He replied with a chuckle.

“Well, I believe my eyes and my instruments, if nothing else. Because of those, we know there’s something up there now. Something that we’re gonna have to deal with sooner rather than later.” She replied.

“I agree, but that’s not our mission today, so stay focused. Let’s just hope that we remain undetected the whole flight.” Eddie replied.

An alert chimed on one of his screens as streaks of red and orange began to lick at the nose of the Shadowhawk.

“We’re at the redline. Speed looks good, go ahead and kill the deceleration field and I’ll activate the null barrier.”

They jerked back in their seats with a slight whiplash before he hit the barrier control, and their ship was encased in a pitch-black shell.

“Let’s hope this next gambit works.” Yulia said as she altered the maneuvering field angle to keep them aligned with their orbital reentry track.

“It should, otherwise we’d have picked a more direct reentry point than over the Antarctic. Just keep her nice and stable in the pipe.”

They rode in silence for a few minutes until another alert lit up on his screen.

“Alright, we’ve hit the green line. Dropping the barrier in 30 seconds, so be ready.” He said as he reached for the controls.

“Ready.” She nodded.

Eddie hit the barrier control and the black of the barrier gave way to blue skies and pastel hues. The Shadowhawk shuddered as the arrowhead-shaped craft hit the atmosphere with a sonic boom.

“Maneuvering flaps deployed; we’re gliding. Locking in acceleration field now. How are the scopes looking?” Yulia asked.

Eddie scoured his passive sensor readouts with his heart racing.

“Clear!” He let out the breath he’d been holding. “Moving on to active radar… Looks like we’re actually alone out here. How about that?” Eddie slumped back in his chair and shut off the active radar.

“We made it! Thank God!” She shouted before she suddenly went quiet.

Silence reigned in awkwardness for a long time before he built up the courage to speak.

“Do you... wanna talk about it?” Eddie asked.

“Nie, nie chcę o tym rozmawiać.” Yulia hissed in a way that made her meaning clear.

“Ay, perdóname.” Eddie said sheepishly. “That was a…. dumb question, sorry.”

“No… I… you’re sweet to ask, thank you. I just really, really do not want to talk about it. Let’s just get this job done and over with.” She replied in a conciliatory tone.

“Sniper, this is mission control, do you copy?”

“Reading you loud and clear, mission control. We’ve successfully entered the atmosphere with clear scopes. We will continue to monitor for signs of enemy interest or activity. How’s our bogey looking?”

“Still no signs of change. Your timetables are looking good, and you are clear to proceed with your mission. Godspeed, and good luck.”

Eddie winced at the sight of Julia’s shoulders tensing up for a moment at the unfortunate phraseology.

“We’ll get it done, ma’am.” He replied in a flat tone.

“I know you will. Stay vigilant and keep us in the loop.”

“Wilco, mission control.” He said before he closed the Q-comm app..

Eddie thought of any number of things he could say to Yulia to make things better, but ultimately none of them seemed wise or appropriate to the moment. As hard as it was, it seemed best to simply leave it be as they rocketed toward the mission area. Over the following hours, they traded little more than a few words aside from necessary updates. Eddie could practically feel the torrent of emotions hanging over her like storm clouds.

“Approaching the target area. Passive sensors are clear, switching to satellite targeting view. Opening primary missile bay.” He said.

Moment of truth time… Give me a good thermal…

“Mierda! There’s too much cloud cover. When the hell did that happen? Odd... the skies were clear not even an hour ago… No way around it, we’re gonna need to get in closer and use the manual targeting pod from under the cloud layer.”

“Alright, I'll glide us in nice and close so we can make our strike, and then we'll break for orbit. Extending flaps and killing all TK fields.”

Yulia flipped a couple of switches and gripped the stick as the craft shuddered with the wind as their airspeed began to drop.

This is what you trained for. You can do this.…

Eddie let out a slow breath as he switched to the manual targeting computer. Let’s see…. I should probably arm both of the two-fifty kilograms… Likely only gonna get one shot at this, better to be sure.

“Adjust heading to two-ten and reduce our air speed a bit more. Go ahead and take us below the cloud cover.” Eddie said as he eased them into position.

“Two-ten aye, aero-braking to reduce air speed further. Taking us down now. I’ll keep us as stable as I can in this storm.” Yulia said with the slightest hint of apprehension.

“Should be about ninety seconds to max range by my calculations… Visibility is shit right now. Switching to infrared.”

A bright spot lit up in the rapidly approaching distance that slowly clarified into a sprawling encampment filled with thermal signatures hunkering down from the storm. At the center, a massive thermal signature dominated the view.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

What the hell is that? Might… need the big bomb for this one.

He eyed the switch that would arm the giant fuel-air bomb, but the sight of the massed civilians in such close proximity killed that idea. Instead, he armed the five hundred kilo warhead and took a deep breath.

“I’m keeping her as steady as I can for you." Yulia exclaimed.

Here goes nothing.

“Target locked, firing rail one!” A warning light blared on his dash. Hydraulic failure?!

“No, no, not right now!” Thinking fast, he flipped the arming switches for both his two-fifties. Please don’t fuck with me!

“Firing, rails three and four!” He felt no small amount of relief as both missiles successfully detached and shot off toward the target.

“I’ll circle us around while we wait for kill confirmation.”

Nothing seemed to be able to stop his racing heart as he watched the missiles scream toward their target. Is that thing moving?

The thermal signature whited out as the whole area erupted into flames.

“Come on… come on…” Eddie said as he waited for the image to clear.

As the thermal flash dissipated, image clarity returned to his screen; a pitch-black oval remained where the large thermal signature had been moments before.

“Dammit!! How did they know?”

“Sniper, we see you’ve launched missiles, can you confirm target destruction?”

“Negative kill. I repeat, negative on the kill. Target turtled up under a barrier just in time.”

Silence reigned for a long moment as they circled wide.

“We were afraid of that possibility, as our mystery bogey lit up with new thermal activity right as you arrived on site. It’s accelerating hard towards your position now and we are moving to intercept. The mission is scrubbed, you are ordered to burn hard for sub-orbital pickup, now!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Below them, the barrier dropped, and the large thermal signature inside unfolded what appeared to be six wings and began to uncoil a long, serpentine body. It lifted its head, roared, and shot up into the sky with terrifying speed.

What the hell is that thing?! He thought as his heart began to race.

“You heard the lady, get us the hell out of here!” Eddie shouted.

“Don’t need to tell me twice! We’ve bled an awful lot of airspeed, so this is gonna get ugly!” She pulled hard on the stick and maxed out the power to the acceleration field.

They were sucked back into their couches as they shot up towards the thick storm clouds overhead.

“So, am I crazy, or is that a fucking dragon chasing us?!” Yulia shouted.

“You aren’t crazy! Just fly! It’s gaining on us!” Eddie fired back.

“This thing isn’t exactly optimized for in-atmo flight! I’m pulling every spare watt I can from the reactor just to fight the gravity well!”

“We should be able to pull a few more gees than this!” Eddie shouted. “I thought you'd killed the deceleration field… ” He trailed off as his eyes shot open wide.

Oh, shit! Don’t tell me…

He frantically flipped through sensor screen readouts on his console until he stopped dead on the local gravimetric map. Two powerful fields were near their own acceleration field. One accelerating the dragon, and another just behind them that sapped their momentum. As the dragon drew nearer, the field grew stronger.

“We got a big problem..” Eddie began.

“Dragon’s a telekinetic… Right? At least that explains why our girl is so slow.”

“They’re a damn powerful one, at that, to slow us down from that far off.” Eddie replied.

Eddie flipped on the active radar and monitored the rear camera with apprehension. The darkened form of the serpent-beast that chased them grew larger by the moment as it closed the gap through the clouds. A flash of lightning backlit saddled figure on its back who lifted a glowing, twin- sided trident looking weapon and cast it forward. A bright light washed out the image and the ship shuddered. The lights in the cabin glowed bright and died as sparks flew all around them. After a moment, many of the systems around them began to come back online along with the lights.

“Most of my systems are down! We’re flying blind until my console reboots!” Eddie shouted.

“I’ve still got flight control, but that’s on the sequestered backup grid. What the hell was that?!” Yulia replied.

“I think he hit us with lightning! I’ve got my targeting console back up. Let’s send him a surprise while I still can. Fuck I hope this works…”

Eddie popped open the secondary missile bay doors only to get another error message.

“COME ON! I DON’T NEED THIS SHIT RIGHT NOW!” He yelled and slammed the console.

He took a deep breath and saw that the launch rail was stuck half-way out.

Radar is down, laser controls too…. The anti-fighter missiles have thermal seekers… that might work… Stuck part way out, huh? Please don't blow us up…

With a grunt, he let both of the bottom air to air missiles fly from their rails. His targeting computer screen tracked the missiles before it fritzed out. The ship shuddered and shook again from another lightning strike as more sparks flew and they were bathed in the glow of emergency lights.

“I don’t think we can take another lightning strike!” Yulia yelled.

“No luck with heat seekers, and the radar is down! We’ve lost cameras and lasers are off-“ Eddie was cut off mid-sentence as something hit them, Hard,

They jerked forward in their seats as the hull groaned in protest and the distressing sounds of the scratching and tearing of metal commenced.

“What the hell?!” Yulia shouted as she fought with the flight controls in attempt to straighten them back out.

His attention was drawn to the sound of the howling wind until the cockpit door slammed shut behind them.

“I think they caught us!” Eddie shouted as he unclipped from his acceleration couch and ripped the panel away to access the wiring to his console.

“Can we still make orbit!?” He shouted over the cacophony of their ship being torn apart.

“Not with them on our back… and If they rip into the wrong systems, we’re gonna drop like a rock.” She said in a defeated tone as she fought against the start of a spin.

Maybe so… but this fucker made one big mistake. Eddie thought as he worked to restore power to his burnt out console.

“Come on, sing for me mami... just one more time!”

He grinned as the chime of his console booting up rang through the cabin.

“If we’re going down, at least we can take him with us.” Eddie growled as he pulled himself up with some effort while fighting against the gee forces.

He reached out and accessed the control to arm the thermobaric warhead. Yulia turned to stare at him through their semi opaque faceplates for a long moment before she nodded weakly.

“Do it.” She said in a voice that was barely audible over the sound of stressed and shearing metal.

“It’s been a pleasure serving with you, Yulia.”

“Just… do it.”

A sense of calm overpowered his indignant rage as he sent the manual detonation order to the missile.

“See you in hell, asshole!” He yelled as the thermobaric warhead turned everything within a kilometer radius into a sea of roiling fire.

MEANWHILE…

DATE: UNKNOWN

LOCATION: UNKNOWN

LIEUTENANT-COMMANDER EDDIE “SNIPER” OCHOA

Eddie came to, naked, and floating amongst the clouds. Panic set in, as he flailed his arms and legs ineffectually, which disturbed the clouds, but had little effect otherwise. He took a look around him in an attempt to get his bearings, once he was satisfied that he wasn’t falling.

How did I get here? Where the hell am I?

“What... the fuck is going on?” he asked himself.

“We’re in purgatory.” An all-too familiar voice said from behind him in a tone choked with emotion.

“Yulia!?” He asked as he looked toward the sound of her voice.

She floated, naked, and wrapped up in the fetal position to cover herself as tears streamed in globs away from her cheeks. In the distance behind her, a nasty looking storm brewed in a dark red sky.

“I knew this was wrong, Oh Lord, I’m so sorry! Please forgive us! We were deceived and given orders we should have refused!!” She wailed bitterly.

“Yulia…” Eddie wished nothing more in that moment to hold her, and tell her everything would be alright, despite his own doubts.

“THERE ARE SOME SINS THAT CAN NEVER BE RECTIFIED. SOME ACTIONS THAT MAY NEVER BE REVERSED. YOU HAVE HARDENED YOUR HEART AND REJECTED YOUR LORD THROUGH THE MURDER OF HIS CHIEF INSTRUMENT. THIS IS A GRAVE SIN FOR WHICH NO FORGIVENESS IS POSSIBLE.”

An overwhelmingly bright light drew Eddie’s attention towards the other, clear blue side of the sky. Four, six-winged beings floated above them, and stared at them with a multitude unblinking eyes. In the center of the formation, a massive humanoid being floated with skin that glowed like the sun. He was flanked by two different beings made of several golden bands wrapped all the way around with eyes that span slowly inside each other. Eddie’s brain refused to comprehend precisely what he was seeing. True terror coursed through his veins as the booming voice pierced him through to his core.

“Please, Lord, have mercy upon us, I beg of you! All the evidence we had… our orders… we thought you were one of them! ” Yulia cried out, openly bawling.

“YOU KNEW BETTER, CHILD, YET YOU ACTED AGAINST ME KNOWING FULL WELL WHAT YOU SET OUT TO DO! FOR THIS REASON ALONE, THE VENGEANCE OF MY HAND WILL NOT BE SPARED AGAINST YOU. THIS HAS RUINED THE ONE CHANCE FOR YOUR KIND TO BE REDEEMED FROM THE GRASP OF THE FALLEN ONES. YOU HAVE DOOMED THIS TIMELINE TO LOSE THE WAR ON EARTH. YOU HAVE DOOMED YOURSELVES TO BE PURGED FROM THE BOOK OF LIFE AND THE BOOK OF POSSIBILITIES! YOU HAVE DOOMED YOUR ETERNAL SOULS TO THE WRATH OF MY JUDGEMENT.”

“Now, hang on, if you truly are who you claim to be, can’t you just… rematerialize yourself and continue the plan? If you were to show yourself to be the one true God, I know the rest of our crew would follow!” Eddie shouted. “If you hadn’t hidden yourself away for over TWO THOUSAND YEARS and left us with a book that defies science, we wouldn’t have been in this situation in the first place! You can't just demand faith with no evidence or love with the threat of eternal punishment!”

“FOR ALL YOUR ADVANCES IN SCIENCE, YOU LACK WISDOM AND PATIENCE. I SHOULD EXPECT EVEN THE CHILDREN OF A ROGUE TIMELINE TO KNOW THE GRAVITY OF THEIR ACTIONS, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU KNOW OF THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB AND THE PROMISE OF THE NEW AND EVERLASTING COVENANT. NOW THIS TIMELINE WILL NEVER KNOW THIS PROMISE YOU HAVE ROBBED THEM OF THIS GRACE. NOW THE ARK CANNOT BE HIDDEN, THE PATHWAY OF SOULS IS BROKEN, AND THE SEVEN THOUSAND YEAR PLAN HAS BEEN RUINED. YOUR HUBRIS HAS DOOMED THE PEOPLE OF THIS TIMELINE.”

“Lord, surely something can be done! Please, we didn’t know what we were doing! Can’t we explain ourselves, surely you can find some mercy in your heart!” Yulia pleaded desperately.

“YOUR PEOPLE HAVE MADE THEIR CHOICE, REJECTED THE GOD OF THEIR FATHERS, AND HAVE PLUNGED A WHOLE TIMELINE INTO DARKNESS! YAH’WEH AND THE PEOPLE OF HIS COVENANT WERE THE TOOLS WITH WHICH I HAD PLANNED TO REMAKE THIS FALLEN WORLD. NOW THIS TIMELINE WILL BE CUT FROM THE VINE AND PURGED IN THE FIRE OF MY WRATH. YOUR PEOPLE’S TIME IS LIMITED, AND YOUR FATES HAVE BEEN SEALED. YOU SHOULD HAVE FEARED THE LORD, YOUR GOD, FOR I LOVE THOSE WHO LOVE ME AND HATE THOSE WHO REJECT ME FOR THE SAKE OF THEIR OWN VANITY.”

“Please, Lord, let us explain!” Yulia cried out in bitter desperation.

“It’s pointless, Yulia… He’s made up his mind. What are you going to do to us?”

“YOUR ACTIONS HAVE SPOKEN FOR YOU, AND YOUR PRIDE HAS CONDEMNED YOU. THE TIME TO SPEAK PASSED WITH MURDER OF YAH’WEH, MY CHOSEN VESSEL TO BRING YOUR KIND CLOSER TO ME. NOW ALL WILL HAVE TO LIVE WITHOUT BEING ABLE TO GET TO KNOW THE LOVE AND THE JOY I HAD PLANNED FOR THEM. THE FATE OF YOUR PEOPLE IS IN THEIR OWN HANDS NOW UNTIL THE TIME OF MY RETURN, AND YOUR FATE IS IN MINE. FOR THE EVILS OF YOUR HERESY, I CONDEMN YOU TO BURN IN THE DEPTHS OF SHEOL.”

“Wait, no! Please have mercy!” Yulia cried out as a powerful wave of force struck them.

They rocketed away towards the angry storm clouds of the dark red sky. Eddie didn’t have much time to ruminate on his increasingly miserable thoughts before they broke through a transparent barrier that rippled as they passed. They began to fall through the cloud layer towards a wide valley of blackened cliffs that smelled of sulfur and burnt flesh. The sounds of screams, wails, and cackling laughter grew ever louder as they fell ever closer to the burning landscape.

Yulia... I'm so sorry...