Elemorts

Chapter XXXII - Sparxtrike

Planet Zapstrom

Sparxtrike Galvolt watched in horror at the display in her cockpit. Two blips on the hologram disappeared as a third continued on its course.

"Thunderbolt? This is Command. Can you hear me? Impulse? How copy?" Sparxtrike heard Admiral Lektrus over the comms.

Please be ejected safely, Sparxtrike silently wished.

"Thunderbolt! Impulse! Come in!"

Another agonizing moment passed by. Sparxtrike imagined everyone in the control room waiting impatiently as a hush must have fallen over the room.

"Sparky! Blitzkrieg! You're up!" the Admiral finally barked again. Despite the Admiral's best efforts, Sparxtrike could sense the subtle shakiness in her voice. "Don't let that Digitch rascal escape!"

That was the signal for Sparxtrike and Krigzat. No time to mourn them, then, Sparxtrike thought as she tried to process the fact that two starfighters had apparently been destroyed at the same time.

With one hand, Sparxtrike gathered her black hair, which was in a chin-length bob, framing her deep-blue eyes and broad face. Then she tapped on her suit, which immediately caused a transparent helmet to form around her head. How are we supposed to catch up to it now? she couldn't help but wonder.

She was already wearing her space suit, comprising a one-piece orange jumpsuit with cobalt-blue cargo pockets, linings, and zipper. In addition, she wore a light-gray undershirt with orange trimming and black knee-length combat boots. Her virtual backpack, an electric-blue thunderbolt with a canary-yellow screen, was strapped to a holster on her left leg.

She tapped on her starfighter's console. The thrusters rumbled to life, and the HUD flashed on the inside of her helmet.

As she taxied the spacecraft onward, the hangar door automatically lifted. It rushed out onto the apron, picking up speed.

The sky was overcast, not unusual for Zapstrom. A thunderstorm raged on, crackling bolts piercing through the heavy clouds. Every lightning flash illuminated the sprawling apron, tinting the buildings at the Zapstromiss Space Reconnaissance headquarters in brilliant blues, pinks, or whites like some gigantic apparatus, taking snaps with a filter on. The numerous, slender lightning obelisks, ubiquitous installations on Zapstrom, reached upward to the sky, glowing brightly each time they collected a stray lightning bolt, almost as if triumphantly announcing their catch.

Sparxtrike spied Krigzat's starfighter already racing ahead, about to take off. Someone's eager to become space debris, Sparxtrike thought. She recalled how bummed Krigzat had been not to be part of the first response squad.

"Takeoff. Initiating ascent," Krigzat declared over the comms as his starfighter rose into the air.

"Takeoff," Sparxtrike announced, maneuvering her craft off the ramp.

She soared towards the dark, churning clouds as the headquarters grew ever smaller and two-dimensional.

Soon, they were in the middle of the thunderstorm, their vision blocked by the endlessly swirling void around them. Lightning pierced the darkness now and then, snaking between the layers of clouds. Occasionally, a bolt struck Sparxtrike's starfighter before surging along its surface and being absorbed harmlessly by its plating. Only the navigation system on Sparxtrike's HUD clued her in to her position.

"Deploying PFTs," Krigzat's voice boomed.

"PFTs deployed," Sparxtrike said, tapping at her console.

A limited batch of Turbolite Plasma Fusion Thrusters arrived from Savvo Corporation yesterday. It was amazing how swiftly these disc-shaped devices were installed in select crafts without needing much modification in the vessels themselves.