Shattered Stars

Death Grin

"Slayers! Listen up!" Josh shouted above the engine roar. "There are air vents scattered across the surface. We will attack one, I repeat, one such vent, and it will be the closest in proximity when we reach the edge of the atmosphere. Our primary mission is to disable the wormhole by any means necessary. Since our opponent has not given us a chance to reason with them, we will not give them the luxury of defeating us!"

"Yeah!" Everyone yelled, except for me.

I planted a hand on my chest, trying to slow my breathing. This isn't happening. This can't be happening.

In the lander view, several more invisible objects appeared in front of our tiny fleet. Neila started up the warp drive. The objects began to glow red like the others had, and my interface gave several warnings of dangerous levels of radiation.

"Quickly, Private Halcy!" Josh barked.

"Working on it!" Neila called.

Within the next few seconds, the warp field pulsed and the lander zoomed in between the unknown objects. Brilliant light flared behind the lander as they went nuclear, but the lander continued silently on its way. In fact, the entire fleet had escaped just in time, though it wasn't clear whether the main ship survived.

The alien superstructure grew as we approached it. The ring didn't have edges; it curved under its own pull of gravity, though the spires had somehow overcome that tendency. White swirls speckled the green and blue surface of the ring, which was half land and half ocean. The myriad of swirls were raging hurricanes, and a rough white texture covered most of the land. Mountains. The glowing, striped line circumnavigating the ring was a massive tube supported by pillars that dwarfed the mountains in size. According to my interface, they were a mile thick and miles tall.

In less than a minute, the lander reached the edge of the atmosphere which started hundreds of miles above the surface. The warp drive deactivated as the lander rattled from descending into the outer atmosphere.

"Combat mode, on! Pain, off!" Josh commanded.

I searched frantically for combat mode and deactivated pain sensitivity. My interface turned from blue to red.

"Prepare to jump!"

Everyone stomped their feet together, then put one leg back in preparation to run. I hesitated, staring at the Drakes.

"Connor!" Page scolded in my head.

I flinched and got into position.

Looks like you are ready to die.

Orange light obscured the lander view as it dug deeper into the atmosphere. Two-hundred-fifty miles high. Two-hundred-forty miles high. Two-hundred-thirty miles high. Neila held it nose-first, rather than belly-first like the other time. The burning from the atmosphere became white-hot and the inside temperature of the lander spiked.

"Now!"

The cargo hatch swung open and the first few Drakes were practically pulled out by the rushing air. Just before he ran forward, Chester twisted his tail around my wrist and dragged me along with him.

"Hey!" I went to pry his tail off my wrist, but he pulled me so fast the outside atmosphere had already seized us. I screamed as I tumbled in the raging turbulence of the lander. My suit roared from the battering air.

Chester's voice sounded over the noise. "You have wings, dude!"

I flung my wings open. The membranes stretched thin as the air nearly ripped them from my body. I had stabilized but I was way ahead of the platoon which had gracefully slowed to a safer speed. The lander sped on ahead of me, its engines blasting at full power.