7

I slammed my fist on the dashboard and hollered, “Now we got their fucking attention!”

The others cheered behind me, especially Freddie. “That’s what I’m talking about!” Freddie bawled, which was echoed by Ryan and Alonso. They gave each other a high-five.

“It’s not dead yet!” Rachel pointed out.

“Hit them again, Tony!” Jason exclaimed.

I grinned. “You know what, Jason, why the fuck not?” Have a little taste of your own medicine, bitch.

I fired another salvo, but they anticipated the missile barrage and narrowly avoided them. Only one managed to clip its tail before it flew behind two tall square buildings, hiding from my line of sight. One missile slammed against the building’s flank (I hoped there weren’t any people inside), while the last two flew up and disappeared into the dark clouds. Out of sight or not, it didn’t matter. I still got a view of them on the dashboard, a gray ping on the holographic screen, and it looked like they wanted a dogfight through the concrete jungle.

Nothing is ever fucking easy. Well, I didn’t want to give them that satisfaction.

“Where to next, forerunner?” Prime asked nonchalantly.

“Plot a course over to the North Atlantic Ocean, Prime.” I glared at the turning crystalline ship. “Let’s lead this motherfucker away from the city.”

I gritted my teeth as the ship lurched forward to two thousand miles per hour in a split second. The shockwave shattered the skyscrapers’ windows behind us just as the inertial dampers absorbed the force. It should have splattered us against the back wall, but the suppression field that encapsulated the flight deck prevented our bodies from turning mush. I pulled the joystick hard until we flew over the enemy ship and headed toward the ocean.

The crystalline ship followed, gaining speed, and fired all six beams at us. I pissed them off. Four missed by several feet, boring a hole through the clouds, but one slammed against our shields while the other hit our back.

“Shield integrity at seventy-two percent,” Prime chimed in.

“That doesn’t sound like a good thing,” Amelia said, looking worried. Her hands curled into a fist around the seatbelt. “Are we gonna be okay?”

“Um, I think so,” I said, but Amelia knew me long enough to tell I was lying. “As long as we’re above zero, we’re gonna be fine.” At least that sounded more convincing.

I looked over my right and saw half a dozen F-15s pulling back, heading toward the city, probably to cover their fleet on the harbor. The other eight, however, followed after the alien ship. Fortunately, they did not fire at me.

Good. Let them follow, I thought.

It didn’t hurt to have a few more friendly birds in the sky, but the enemy ship was solely focused on me now, and I needed all the firepower to blow this fucker off sky-high. I flew into the rain clouds, hoping to lose them there. I could no longer see past ten feet on all sides, covered by raindrops and a thick white haze.

“Talk to me, Prime. Can you see where they are?”

But before Prime could answer me, the alien ship rushed from below, its broad crystal protrusions mere inches away from grazing my windows. I pulled back hard, triggering the ship’s automated rail guns as hundreds of rounds let loose along its broadside when it passed. My teeth chattered with each shot.

Both our ships spilled into a break in the clouds, and I spotted them above us, spinning gracefully into a backflip as it locked its sight on our back. I never imagined a ship that large and chunky could maneuver like fucking Cirque du Soleil on steroids. A grave thought crawled in that I was way over my head fighting this metallic behemoth.

“Brace for impact!” I shouted.

Prime calmly notified, “Enemy fire in three, two, one.”

SLAM!

Rachel, Seth, and Amelia screamed. Freddie uttered countless curses under one breath. At the last second, I maneuvered the ship to its side (that was a mistake), and three beams coming from the enemy salvo shot inches away from the hull. The other three stuck us squarely on our broadside. The vessel swung and trembled; a loud explosion ripped a big chunk of the hull from the back, knocking out one of the feeds on the dashboard. A vast hole exposed the large room to the frigid, rain-swept air outside the Atlantic Ocean.

The strong whistling wind almost burst my eardrums before Prime closed the bulkhead doors.

“Shield integrity at forty-eight percent. Activating drone repairs,” Prime said.

I glanced over at the dashboard feed. Along with the millions of nanites fixing the opening, something drifted past the large hole, small and metallic-like. What the hell was that? Another chime on the dashboard notified me that the enemy ship was now barreling toward me at full speed.

Suddenly, missiles slammed against its side, pushing it off our course before it could fire another barrage of its beams. The eight F-15s finally caught up to us, circling the alien vessel like buzzing locusts. But my joy quickly got snuffed out when the crystal ship aimed its six cannons at each jet.

I opened up the comms. “Pull back! Pull back!” I screamed.

But it was too late.

They were too close to evade them, and I watched all eight go down in a fiery blaze. The F-15 was a two-seater with two pilots on each aircraft, but out of the sixteen seats flying, only six managed to eject in time. The enemy ship lunged toward me, resuming the chase and clipping one of the ejected pilots head-on. I didn’t know if the pilot survived that as his body slammed against the alien’s force field.

I have to get out of here fast.

I banked left and dove into the clouds, the radar shrieking that the aliens were four thousand feet behind me, but I still might have a fighting chance. I burst through the haze toward the ocean’s surface, rocked by high winds. Waves rolled like mountains in the black expanse below as rain poured like stones, pattering against the window. The radar recalculated, trying to find where the enemy ship was. Hopefully, this meant they couldn’t see me as well.

Good. It bought us time to breathe.

“That was too close!” Tom exclaimed.

“That’s some shitty weather down there,” Alonso craned his neck to look down the window. “Uh, is anyone up for a swim?”

“Here. Help me look for them,” I said, ordering some of the nanites to create the same holographic dashboard for the others. “Find where they are. Do you see them?”

“Uh, no luck. Just lots and lots of water. And thunder. And lightning,” Jason muttered. Jason swiped a hand over the display, and suddenly, it moved to the left. “Holy shit! I can zoom in!”

“Anything?” I asked again.

“Just ocean, man,” Ryan said. “And lots of it.”

“Same here!” Freddie said.

“You think we can use the ship’s railguns through this thing?” Tom asked.

I paused. “Yeah. I think so. Prime, how many guns do we have?”

“This ship comes equipped with two railgun turrets. Would you like to control them manually?”

“Yes. Tom and Alonso will—” I stopped, remembering Prime took things too literally sometimes. “I give Tom Hennig and Alonso Ruiz full access to command the turrets.”

“Variables set,” Prime said. “Accepted.”

Alonso and Tom shared a thrilled look and faced the console.

“I see them!” Amelia yelped. “Starboard side! It looks like they’re--” Amelia leaned on the display just as the radars finally spotted him. “Nineteen hundred feet.”

That’s way too close. If we saw them, they could see us, too. I banked to the right and flew forward, increasing the maximum thrust. “Prime, what about that hole?”

“Repairs at fifty-two percent.”

“Damn. That robot works fast,” Freddie remarked.

“We need to lose them, Tony! They’re gaining fast,” Jason said.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“I’m working on it!”

They were swift and heavily armed, and unfortunately, my cannons couldn’t aim from the back, not unless I risked waiting a minute for Prime to reorient the weapons into that position, time that I could not afford. Only Tom and Alonso got a good shot at it and started firing without hesitation.

“It’s like playing a video game!” Alonso shouted.

Immediately, I was bombarded with the knowledge that this ship’s railgun turrets had a range of a hundred miles. Damn, the nanites’ forced encyclopedia! It gave me another bludgeoning headache at the back of my skull, as if the nanites forced the words into my brain. But shooting railguns at their shields was like throwing medium-sized rocks at a wall. Eventually, it would fall, though it would take a long time, which I did not have.

I had to rely on the cannons to make the killing shot.

Banking left and right through the narrow valleys made by the leviathan waves, I evaded their barrage, hitting the churning waters below instead. Whether it was pure luck or skill, I couldn’t tell anymore.

What do I know? Given the speed we were going, I was still much faster than the aliens, but we were at a deadlock: they were too slow to get near me but fast enough to keep on the pressure. I was smaller, lighter, and more flexible, which I took advantage of by maintaining a large distance away from crushing me completely. It fired sixteen beams in thirty seconds, but only four hit us. That took my shields down to twenty percent. I couldn’t keep up this dog fight for another thirty seconds, or else my friends and I would smash into smithereens all over the North Atlantic Ocean.

“That’s it!” I shouted.

“You got your idea-face on,” Amelia said.

“Of a sort.” I put the ship to its maximum speed. “Everybody better hold tight. It’s not a guarantee we’ll make it.”

“Dude! That’s not what you say in a life-or-death situation!” Jason cried out.

I found what I was looking for. A swell of water rose like a giant mountain two thousand feet ahead. I slightly lowered the ship’s nose, aiming right through it.

“Tony! We’re gonna hit the water!” Rachel shouted, pointing at it.

“Hold on! We’re almost there, and…now!”

By twelve hundred feet, I angled left and leaned against it hard, riding the high winds and the inertia to sweep me upward while the enemy ship’s shots barely grazed my hull. I could hear the groans of metal against metal, the chunks of debris shattered and crushed, but the aliens could not evade the wave now.

Haha! Suck it, you pieces of shit!

In a giant, thunderous plume, the crystalline ship plowed headfirst into the swelling wall of water like going through solid concrete, spewing a towering geyser of vapor, rock, and machine. Half crumpled inward, but most of the hull remained intact. They tried to pull up, and I ordered Prime to fire all our cannons on their heads when I realized their shields were gone.

“Got you now!” I shouted.

Four beautiful yellow streaks pummeled the ship dead-on with bright destructive eruptions from its central hull. As our ship hovered just six hundred feet from the stormy seas, I ordered Prime to fire again and again until a large volume of water poured into the yawning breach. Another cresting wave swamped the vessel upside down like a hand reaching out for the sky, but it took too much water in, and the ship sank beneath the violent waves in seconds.

“Shield integrity at eight percent. Hull breach at sixty-six percent. Raw materials at thirty-nine percent,” Prime reported.

“Keep up the repairs, and get us off this storm,” I said.

“You don’t think we’ll get the chance to retrieve that ship? There might be some important stuff inside that we might need,” Tom said.

“Like what?” Alonso asked.

“Oh, I don’t know, Ruiz. Science stuff.”

“I’m not really in a swimming mood right now, Tom,” I said. “And I don’t want to swim with dead aliens around. We don’t have the equipment for a deep dive.”

“The ship is sinking fast at forty-nine miles per hour,” Prime said. “They will hit a total depth of eleven thousand feet with a hydrostatic pressure of three-hundred-and-thirty bars. Forerunner, you do not have the necessary devices to survive such depths.”

I turned to Tom and shrugged. “That settles it.”

“That was a hell of a fight, Tony! I can’t feel my heart anymore!” Jason exclaimed as he got off his seat and grabbed Amelia’s hands. He put them on his chest. Freddie, Rachel, Ryan, and Alonso got off theirs and made a beeline toward me, patting me on the back.

I rolled my eyes but couldn’t help but smile, too. “Well, I’m glad some are thrilled.”

“I mean, for a second there, I thought I was gonna go without saying goodbye to my momma but fucking hell,” Alonso said excitedly.

“Almost gave me a heart attack after you did all that spinning. I don’t remember you taking any flying lessons,” Amelia said. “But great job.”

“I didn’t either.”

“You mean those robots inside your head are feeding you the skill?”

“Let’s call it a cheat code to flying,” I said, unbuckling my belt and massaging my temples. “Shit. I need an Advil.”

“Hey, Tony,” Freddie called out. “Thank you.”

I nodded. “Don’t worry about it, Freddie. I’ll ask Prime if he can contact your family.”

“No problem. Um, thanks again. Seeing my city like that, it’s….”

“I know. Come on. Let’s check some of the damage on the ship.”

The others followed after Freddie and me. I spotted the wide gash on the port side, pushing in the howling winds and the rain through the exposed parts of the hull, but the nanites were working fast to patch it up.

“What the fuck was that?” Amelia pointed deep into the room.

Jason and I looked at each other, concerned. “What is it?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I just saw something moved over there.”

I looked over to Tom, and he nodded back at me. Pulling out my pistol, I aimed at the darkness. The others pulled out their weapons, aiming at the same spot Amelia pointed. Only Seth didn’t have a gun, and he stayed behind the doorway.

“Prime? How many life signs are on board?” I asked.

“Nine.”

“See?” I turned to Amelia.

“He could be wrong,” Amelia said.

“My systems’ reading is one hundred percent accurate and reliable, Amelia Hansen,” Prime said, sounding almost offended.

“I know what I saw, Tony,” she said.

“Well, we can’t just sit here,” I said. “On my six.” I started walking deeper into the deck with the others behind me, scanning both our side and behind. If an alien did board the ship, they might flank us. I didn’t know what they could do when fighting face-to-face, and a part of me didn’t want to find out.

“Didn’t you say that if you die, the robot will start killing again to find another forerunner?” Jason asked.

I gulped. “Let’s not give the universe any ideas, Jason.”

“Sorry, I just wanted to say it out loud.”

Suddenly, a shadow crawled up the walls, and I stepped back.

“Jesus!” Ryan screeched.

“See? Did you see that?” Amelia pointed out.

Now, I wasn’t fully trained to fight aliens. I should have asked Prime to make me a better gun than this pistol, perhaps one that shot lasers if that was even possible, but if Prime could produce glass out of the nanites’ butts, then maybe he could make a laser gun, too. However, I’m here with only ten rounds and a small pistol, and there might be something else on this ship.

Blood pumped against my ears as I took another step forward. “Prime? Let me ask you again: Are there any lifeforms on board besides us?”

“There are no lifeforms on board.”

“Did you double-check?”

“There are no lifeforms on board,” he repeated.

“Then, what are we seeing?”

I pointed at the headless dog-like creature halfway hidden behind the shadows, made of silver metal, crawling up the walls with its pincher claws and three short tendrils sticking out of its spine. It stood at least three feet on both legs, wires exposed on where its joints would be, and a pair of dull blue lights emanated from where its eyes should have been. Their gaze found us, but within a second, it turned and paid us no mind. Ten more appeared, carrying glass panels and what looked like nanite-made sheets of thick metal, and marched along in single file toward the breached hull.

“Those are drones, forerunner. They are helping with the repairs.”

I dropped my weapons and let out a breath. “Drones?”

“Yes. Worker drones, to be specific.”

“Great. More robots,” Alonso groaned.

“That’s a worker drone?” Rachel asked. “Looks like it’s ripped out of my fucking nightmares, man.”

The nanites and the drones worked together as if they were stitching a gaping lacerated wound. I watched, fascinated, when the drone suddenly sprung out, folding metallic wings where its spine was, almost down to its stumpy tail. It glided across the room, patching punctured holes here and there with its thin tendrils while a couple worked outside under heavy winds.

I let out a deep breath and leaned against the wall. I thought I had to fight that thing. I didn’t even have to imagine what that would be like; dead within the first second.

Prime chimed in my head: They are worker drones, incapable of combat, and are not programmed to do so, forerunner. They have basic defensive capabilities to protect their unit but are feeble compared to what you will build.

Which meant mass weapons of destruction. For virtual intelligence, I am shocked he had the self-awareness to keep such statements private from others, but I reckoned he was learning from his last conversation with me. Still, I did not appreciate the invasion of my thoughts.

I apologize. I will minimize interrupting your conceptualization process in the future.

“Uh, thanks? How many of them are there?”

“There are twenty-two on this ship, but six hundred thousand worker drones are spread across all control stations. I have activated one hundred thousand drones since the directive came online. They are working on keeping the life support systems and the factory chambers functional and aiding with multiple construction projects across all stations. The rest are still waiting for the forerunner’s commands. What orders do you want for them?”

“Um…just keep them on standby for now. Remind me in two hours.”

“I will remind you in two hours.”

Great. Stations? Factories? Multiple construction projects? I realized he must’ve meant the inverted tetrahedral structures floating in orbit. That’s where the spheres came from, after all. Obviously, there were two different alien visitors on Earth: the ones attacking the planet and whoever sent Prime (and the Forerunner Tech). I trusted neither, but Prime was the lesser of two evils, but ever since his murder spree, he had been more obliging. I had no choice but to work with him.

For now.

There were four other crystalline vessels left. I only had one ship to combat them. It would be a death wish fighting them head-on, no matter how I wanted to get them out of the city and away from the heavily populated areas.

Alarms from the flight deck roused me out of my thoughts. The dashboard had turned into a holographic map of the area, displaying six red dots on the ocean’s surface, all within a mile apart.

I got in the pilot seat. “What are they?”

“Are they the other aliens?” Jason stepped beside me. “Maybe some of them survived the crash.”

“Uh-uh. No way I’m letting them aboard.” Amelia gripped her gun tighter.

“Distress signals, forerunner,” Prime answered.

“From who?” I asked.

“Pilots from the destroyed allied aircraft.”

“They survived?”

“Current status unverified.”

“How’s that possible?” Alonso pressed closer to the window and frowned. Hard rain dropped like a gray curtain. “I can’t see shit.”

“I saw a few men ejected before their planes exploded. The ejection seat can act like a floatation device when a pilot lands on water, but….” I looked down the window and paled at the rough, churning waters. “They might not survive down there from this storm.”

Amelia and Jason went silent.

Tom put his hand on my shoulder. “We gotta get those boys up here, Tony.”

“Yep.” I started turning the vessel toward the closest signal. “I knew you were gonna say that.”

I didn’t want to stay in one spot any longer for the other four alien vessels to find me. They had probably received some signal that I had killed one of them. However, I couldn’t just leave these men out there. With a heavy sigh, I gently banked the ship to the nearest distress beacon.

“How on Earth are we pulling them up here? I doubt Alonso brought a rope long enough to get in the water,” Jason said. He glanced over his shoulder to Alonso, but the man shrugged and shook his head. “Yeah, didn’t think so.”

I looked over at one of the drones flying by. “Well, I might have one idea.”