Chapter Sixty-Nine

As anticipated, the two alien ships tracked toward the arks, hitting the perimeter of the defending fighters.

The fighters opened fire on the alien ships, but they pressed through as they accelerated onward, as though nothing had hit them at all—the assault deflected by their shields. It was the same sort of shield that Viktoriya had encountered at their mothership.

She knew it was the same.

The men continued to unload all they had, throwing more and more volleys against the enemy, filling the space with all manner of laser and rail gunnery rounds in determination to stop them. Even so, nothing penetrated their shields.

Viktoriya pressed her comms. “Get out of there! Sir, can you read me?” she called as she examined the angles where the ships came from and a better way to intercept them in time.

“Mike! Order them out of here. They cannot penetrate the—” her heart stopped.

Several lighting-bright laser beams snaked forward and wound their way out of the alien ships, threading through the fighters like a necklace through scattered beads, and all at once, destroying three of them with one sweep. The destructive beam struck their fighter also—but glanced away from the Spectrum bubble encasing their ship.

“Oh no, no!”

Viktoriya yelled into her headset comms, giving orders to her pilot as the remaining formation of defenders reorganized themselves into a wider array.

“Vector, zero, yaw one eighty degrees, come around parallel strafe from beneath. That one and get as close as you can!” she shouted.

“How close? I can ram into that bastard if that will do the trick!” the pilot yelled back against the explosions.

“No! No, don’t ram it. Come around, invert from underneath, there. But strafe it, track it, and match its speed from close, really close. Just keep us as near as possible to the underside!” she yelled.

Her heart was pounding. She would lose it if she did not keep herself in control.

She took one deep breath, steadying everything around her. The shouts of everyone now filled the comms, and the bright streaks of munitions and lasers flew in all different directions.

More shouts could be heard over their defenders’ communications as another laser volley tore through another fighter ship.

She gritted her teeth hard.

They looped around from below and closed in, tracking to intersect from underneath the alien ship. She grabbed her HudxHelm from her backpack and secured it over her head.

“Guys, brace yourself! And suit up!!” she ordered.

She pressed to the rear of their ship to the ordnance bay doors, dropping into the empty cavity.

“CLEFF, hold me tight and blow the doors!”

“Track the bottom of their ship as your target as we close in on it!” she said and gasped for another breath. She could do it.

“Hold on to me!”

“Let’s go, Vik!”

With an override and a lever pull, the doors blew away from the fighter, flying into space. CLEFF shot a wrist anchor at his target, but it glanced away upon striking the shield.

“Warning, airlock breach. Please stand behind the yellow lines.”

“We’re gonna need to use your thrusters to get us into position!” she shouted.

“Safety harness—attached.”

His powerful legs and thrusters jettisoned them toward the alien craft.

“Warning, airlock breach. Please stand behi—”

CLEFF banged into the door’s edge on the way out and caused a spin that made Viktoriya nauseous. He corrected the rotation with his micro-jets to stabilize their trajectory.

“Sorry, Vik!”

A vivid, glowing stream of the Spectrum aura followed them as a long bubble stretched through the pleasant air of a summer field as they sped directly along the trajectory to impact their target.

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Viktoriya yelled, “I’ll open them up… Hit ‘em with everything you’ve got, CLEFF!”

“Stay close to us, guys!” she said to the fighters, maintaining the ship’s trajectory behind them.

As she thrust her glowing fists out to strike the bottom, the alien shield rippled away with a concussive, low boom. It disappeared from her touch like before with the mothership, leaving a huge opening and exposing the alien vessel's underside. CLEFF rolled backward, surfaced his gunnery as his chest plates folded open, and took aim.

“Get behind me, Vik and hold on tight!” he said as he fired his gunnery array into the craft, landing a multitude of exploding shells, beginning chain reaction explosions throughout the inside of the alien fighter.

As their fighter collided and bounced against the underside of the alien ship, the Spectrum aura that had formed around them acted as a cushioning shield, and they glanced and bobbled against its surface.

“Get us the hell out of here, CLEFF! Track the bay door to get us back inside!” she shouted.

“Rewinding safety tether.”

Pushing away with his legs and thrusters from what remained of the alien ship, they flung back toward the door to reenter the fighter.

CLEFF banged against the ordnance door frame again while he shoved Viktoriya into the vessel, then he secured his magnetic hand and feet units to keep from flying away, crawling into the ship.

“I’m okay!” he exclaimed.

The alien craft began flashing, streaming smoke out of the rear, and then exploded violently from within.

“Vik, the other alien ship is headed to the ark’s hangar!” the pilot called out.

“Get us over there!” she screamed while CLEFF steadied them both to their stations.

They raced after the second alien craft as it barreled toward the ark. Their ship, vibrating from the sudden acceleration to catch up with their prey, was maxed to its limits. It was going as fast as it could, and the pilot was pressing it even harder.

“Hurry!” she screamed even though she had no idea how they would stop it once they reached it, as she watched the danger getting closer and closer.

She began to despair as she grit her teeth together.

She turned nervously to CLEFF, imagining that he was about to tell her everything would be all right, but he stared back at her in silence.

There was no time for a repeat of their success. Perhaps they would ram the ship and take the blow, take it instead of the ark. She screamed again, and even though she knew the fighters’ ship could not give any more, it managed to close some of the distance.

We’re gonna make it; we’re gonna make it!

Metal rattling, the vibration became so unruly, it was challenging to keep their eyes focused. Faster and faster, they dived like an eagle on its prey as she held her breath. The rest of the team watched as they tried to catch the ship.

But they were too far behind—there was nothing left to give.

The alien ship rippled through the exterior hangar force field as if it wasn’t even there, pressing deep into the ark’s bay. Once fully inside, it self-destructed, exploding and shattering lives, debris, and parts of the ark everywhere, shattering, if it were possible, even their hope.

The explosion sent shock waves for over a kilometer, and instantly Viktoriya’s ship spiraled sideways, twisting as though it were a leaf in the wind before finally slowing down.

“No! No!” she yelled.

Her world had stopped.

She felt stuck, isolated in place, and not moving at all, though she was spinning more than she ever had before.

The explosion shattered her into what seemed like a million pieces. The shock wave had all but destroyed her.

Though devastating, the explosive damage was constrained to the ark’s hangar bay, thanks to the defensive blast shield’s protective systems.

Viktoriya became overwhelmed by the loss of life and the damage to their ark and her failure to protect everyone.

She began sobbing, inconsolable and grieving, despairing about the people there and their families, their friends.

She could not take it anymore. Her emotions flooded in, almost taking her breath entirely away.

It was all too much.

How had she ever thought that she, just a girl, could save all of them? How had she convinced herself that she could really save them all?

“I need to go home… Take me home, please. On Earth, to my house,” she said. Her voice trembled as she spoke, and her knees gave in to the weakness as she fell, CLEFF catching her as she wrapped herself tightly in her own embrace.

“Take me back home. I need to go to my home on Earth. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

CLEFF opened a secure line. “Sir? Commander? Please assign a security detail to Rosa and Evata, Vik’s parents, please,” he instructed. “They have her medical information. It’s something that may put them in danger,” he continued.

“Understood, immediately!” Mike responded and took a deep breath as though thinking of what to say to Viktoriya, but he knew nothing could help with what she was going through.

“Thank you, Viktoriya, for saving us. Thank you, dear.”

She had experienced something that none of them could imagine, even with their training and age. It was bound to affect her in ways that Mike just could not understand.

Their fighter flew to Earth and landed in an open area at the rear of her dad’s lab. She raced toward her house, crying, with CLEFF following, and disappeared into her home.

“Sir,” the pilot began, “are we… what are we supposed to do? Stay and guard her here?”

The team commander laughed loudly as he belted back, “Ha! You have got to be joking! Us guard her? Where have you been that last hour? You’re kidding me, right?”

She ran into her room and plunged onto the couch, crying.

CLEFF followed behind her, but she did not seem to notice, too drowned in sorrow and grief.

“Viktori-Ya?” he called. Despite that, she did not respond.

“Viktori-Ya, I am very sorry for today,” he said as mildly as his voice allowed him to speak.

“Viktori-Ya?” he called again and placed a hand on her back, but she shook herself, waving his hand off. “I’m—I’m Sorry for what has happened that has made you sad.”

“I’m just a kid. I’m just… How can I? I’m not ready for any of this. It’s too hard. I can’t be in two places. No one can be in two places at the same time. I can’t do it. I can’t help everyone or be everywhere. Or save the entire world—Nobody should ever even be asking that from—just a kid!” she shouted to herself.

“Viktoriya, you are not—” Xiin said before Viktoriya cut her off.

“Leave me alone, Xiin! I don’t want to talk to you!” she barked.

“Viktoriya,” Xiin continued again, but this time, she let out a groan.

“Go away!” she screamed. “Please, go away.”

The words had escaped her lips more broken and harsh than she had intended.

The walls were crumbling around her.

Her world was shattering, and she began convincing herself that maybe she was a fool to think she could save them all.

How could a marginalized girl make a difference?