Chapter 16
A lump stuck in Mervyn throat. Tears pricked his eyes. Behind him, he heard Loren swear. But there was little time for grief. Mervyn forced his tears back, he had to concentrate on the job in hand. No doubts. He cleared his mind -- he had to cross on the next sweep if he and Loren were to survive.
The gamma jet swept towards them. He let it pass, then powered towards the centre of the jet at full throttle. The viewscreens went blank as gamma rays overloaded the sensors. He held his breath.
Suddenly, the beam swept round behind then again, and they were through.
He had done it -- he had crossed a gamma jet and lived -- but his friends had not. The lump returned to his throat, and this time he let the tears flow freely. Two of his best friends were gone -- torn apart by the cruelties of the galaxy. What would he say to Lord Tivolli? What would he say to the Patriarch? How could he possibly describe the loss of his friends or what they meant to him?
‘Look, there!’ Loren shouted as a viewscreen flickered on to reveal a twinkling star-field, and something else.
‘They got through, they got through!’ It took a moment for Mervyn’s numb mind to register what Loren was shouting about. Then relief flooded through him like a gush of water, and he felt happier than he could ever remember. Straight ahead, powering away from the star, was the other sled.
‘Wooo Hooo ! ‘ Tarun shouted. ‘I made it.’ A pang of guilt stabbed at Mervyn’s heart -- Tarun lived, but what about Aurora?
‘Yeeehaaa!’ Echoed another voice.
‘Aurora, is that you?’ Mervyn could barely contain his excitement -- the gamble had paid off.
‘Didn’t think you could get rid of me that easily, did you, Mervyn?’
‘I gave it my best shot. How are you feeling?’
‘A little woozy, but well enough to take over the driving again. I’m sure my boot is full of blood, but if no one blows me up I reckon I should live.’
‘I thought you were a gonna there, Tarun,’ Loren said
‘No chance, you said to trust my judgement and my judgement said go, so I went.’
‘I thought I’d lost you both,’ Mervyn said and quickly wiped away a tear.
‘Sorry, Mervyn, you’ve still got to put up with us,’ Aurora laughed. Despite her prickliness Mervyn had become rather fond of her.
‘There’s a fighter crossing the jet,’ Tarun called, ‘Oh, it was there a moment ago, I could have sworn I saw a fighter.’
‘You did,’ Loren said. ‘It got caught -- blasted to atoms in the blink of an eye. Let’s hope the others make the same mistake.’
‘There’s another one,’ Tarun called, ‘ouch -- that could have been us.’ The gamma jet gobbled another victim.
‘You’d think they would just give up after seeing two of their colleagues fried,’ Tarun said.
As if in answer, a third sled tried to pull out before crossing the stream, but it was already committed and the manoeuvre ended in a fiery burst of flame from the surface of the neutron star. The remaining sleds turned back. Mervyn watched his viewscreen, anxiously, expecting them to take the long route round the neutron star’s equator. Instead, the remaining fighters curved away towards a large object that had suddenly appeared -- the Naga’s warship. The chase was over. They were free.
For a moment no one said anything.
‘They’ve gone,’ Tarun whispered. ‘do you think that’s it?’
‘Don’t even think about it,’ Aurora said, ‘They will come after us with the warship.’
Loren tapped away on her consul, ‘Nope, they’re sending out a homing beacon. I reckon that means they’re staying put and waiting for the rest of the invasion fleet. Look, they’ve come to a halt behind that globulus.’ The pirate ship disappeared behind a dense cloud of gas which reared up like a predator reading for the kill : a deaths-head taking millions of years to deliver its killer blow.
‘You mean we’re home and dry?’ Tarun asked tentatively.
‘Home and dry, free and easy. We won,’ Loren replied, ‘All we do now is keep on this heading, send a May-Day message when our fuel runs out, and wait for someone to pick us up. I can hardly believe it. Yes, yes, YESSS.’
‘Woo Hoo!’ Tarun shrieked, his relief flooding the biolink, ‘Bunghoy.’
Even Aurora let go, ‘Yahoo, we did it. We did it, guys, we really did it. Loren, you are a genius.’
Mervyn said nothing.
‘We all played a part -- we’re a team,’ Loren said modestly.
‘We’re the Misfit,’ Tarun shouted. ‘If you don’t like the game... ’
‘Change the rules,’ Aurora and Loren shouted back.
‘What do you think, Merv? Did we do good or what,’ Loren asked, ‘Merv, what’s wrong.’
Mervyn closed his eyes and took a deep breath, ‘We have got to go back.’
‘No, Mervyn,’ Aurora said firmly into the silence. ‘This nightmare is over. It is finished. Now we go home.’
‘We have to save Zetalona.’
‘We will Mervyn. As soon as we are in communication range we will do what Loren said – give a warning and tell them about the threat from the Naga. Until then Zetalona can hide behind its famous planetary defence grid and wait for the Republican navy to come back from where-ever it’s playing war games. It’s not our responsibility any more, Merv. Let it go.’
Mervyn would have loved to let it go, but he couldn’t. He thought of his mother and sisters in a refugee camp on Zetalona. He thought of Starlight and the destruction he had witnessed from afar, friends and neighbours homeless or dead, and the way the Puncheon callously picked off the escape pods. No way was he going to watch another world die -- not when he could maybe stop it.
‘There is no defence grid,’ he informed the others with a sigh. ‘When the Naga destroyed Starlight, the Helium-three meant to power the defence grid disappeared as well. They were saving it up for a single shipment with a military escort. My dad told me. Zetalona is defenceless.’ He took another deep breath. They were not going to like this – he had figured it all out while they were celebrating, all the pieces were in place, to succeed it just needed courage and a good dollop of luck. ‘I have a plan.’
‘Let me guess,’ Aurora snapped, ‘another crazy plan, without an ending, that will get us all killed.’
‘They’re the best,’ he said lamely.
‘No, Mervyn, they are not. We will make contact, give our warning, and go home. Leave it to the navy!’
‘We have no loyalty to the Republic,’ Tarun said quietly, ‘we owe them nothing.’
‘It my Dad’s dream,’ Mervyn said. ‘If the whole sector unites under the banner of Al-Zak-Uilin’s Republic, then we can stand against the Centaph Swarm. If not, they’ll pick us off one by one for sure -- Ethrigia first. And think what we could do, how strong we would be if the Human’s joined us. ‘Give me a squadron of Humans’, Cage said, ‘and I’ll drive the Centaph out of our sector.’ If we desert Zetalona, all is lost.’
‘That sounds like your dream, Merv, not your dad’s.’
Tarun was right. He hadn’t realised until he said it, but the Republic was something he cared about, something he cared about very much; something worth giving his life for. But it wasn’t just for him, if was for Valna, for Al-Zak-Uilin, for Rose, for Starlight, but most of all for his family. His father had never imagined a scenario in which Humans might join the Republic, if he had it would have been his dream too.
He tried again, ‘My family is there, Tarun. I have to try and save them.’
‘Mervyn’s right,’ Loren cut in, ‘the warning will be too late. The entire fleet is on the border waiting for a Centaph attack -- we are the only hope those people have.’
‘Are you with me Loren?’
She smiled her crooked smile, ‘Of course I am, Merv. You didn’t need to ask.’
‘What are you two discussing over there?’ Aurora demanded.
&nb
sp; ‘I’m with Mervyn,’ Loren declared. ‘We’re going back.’
‘Are you mad?’
‘I think we should go back too,’ Tarun said.
‘Not while I’m driving we don’t.’
‘They’re our friends, Aurora. They’d do the same for our families?’ Tarun argued. ‘At least listen to the plan.’
Aurora listened, while Mervyn outlined his plan.
‘How do we get out?’ she asked. He remained silent; he knew better than to give her false hopes.
‘Oh, Quarks,’ Aurora sighed. ‘If I live to regret this, Mervyn, I will kill you.’
In silence, both tiny sleds turned and headed for the deaths-head globulus.