Finding Darkness

Chapter 25 Hit

"Captain, their bombers have launched. We have." Joshua did a quick scan of his HUD. "Sixty four inbound towards you."

"We see them. Get clear now. I'm going to unmask and go live."

"Understood, sir." Joshua switched to the fighter channel.

"Everyone, get clear of those inbound torps, unless you want to be anywhere near them when the Nest opens up." His last words were consumed by a light show over to his port side unlike any of them had ever seen.

The entire silhouette of the Nest was gone in an instant as every weapon along the threat axis came alive with multicolored energy bursts.

Joshua watched the march of detonations move closer and closer to the Nest and made a decision.

"Everyone that can fly, get back to the Nest. It's about two minutes to show time and I don't think anybody wants to be left behind. Remember, all we have to do is be within five miles of the surface and the jump bubble will pull us along, so don't try to dock." He cut the channel and slammed his throttle to the stop.

He saw an alien fighter settling in a Talons six o'clock, winged over and with a full deflection shot watched his energy rounds stitch across the craft's cockpit. Without power or direction, the fighter fell off on one wing and continued off into the void of space. He watched as his men disengaged from their individual battles and turned for the Nest.

Drawing close to the station's side, he once again marveled at the sheer size of the vessel. At over three hundred miles from the vessel, he could no longer see the end of it. His line of sight simply could not see that far. The surface stretched to his visual horizons. Purple dots appeared on his HUD, flying the opposite course he was. He knew them to be automated SAR, search and rescue craft. Equipped with a more advanced model of the cloaking devise that had allowed him and his brother to reach Earth's surface, each of these crafts were designed to rescue a down pilot, keep him alive, and reach earth without the aliens being able to interfere. He said a silent prayer for his downed men, then settled to the task at hand.

The Rougarian missiles were slaughtered by the Nests defenses. Fired from an unfavorable angle, from extreme range, they were picked off one by one by computer controlled anti space craft fire. With each explosion, they crept closer and closer until there were a dozen, then ten, then only five. It was then that the Rougarians got lucky.

Each missile, seventy-five feet long and twelve feet in diameter, was equipped with a salvage fuse. Once it got within damage range, the range that its tiny on board computer sensed its explosion could do damage to the target. The last two missiles salvage fused, and sensing their own demise, detonated.

The twin rolling balls of pressure and heat expanded like miniature suns. The count down to jump hit zero just as the outside edge of the pressure wave touched the Nests hull. A split second later and the Nest was somewhere else, in another star system, leaving the explosions to fade into nothing in the vastness of space. 

"Well Steve, your generator is working at almost eighty percent capacity now. You shouldn't have any problem with power from here on out." Malachi tuned to the three men standing behind him and stretched.

All three had their weapons trained on him, more to make them feel better than any threat they were to him. But there was no point in pointing that out. They needed to feel they could protect themselves in their homes. So he shrugged and walked past them.

"That's good to hear, and just in time. Tina just went into labor. You wouldn't know anything about that kind of thing, would you?"

"Hey, I don't know nothing about birthing no babies." Malachi told him.