Before starting around the sun towards the fourth planet, Will headed the ship outward from the third planet to reduce the heating of the ship’s exterior. Once far enough away, he adjusted the ship’s heading to be parallel to the sun’s surface. He adjusted the ship’s speed so they would come into view of the fourth planet just as night fell on the facility.
“Anything on scans?” asked Will as they came in view of the fourth planet.
Debra shook her head. “Too much interference to get anything on long range sensors. We’ll need to move away from the sun to get anything.”
“Not yet,” said Will. “I want to get between the planet and the sun before starting to move towards it.” He pressed the control stick forward accelerating the ship to its maximum speed.
At last Will adjusted the ship’s heading so the sun was now behind them. He kept the ship to its maximum velocity. “Should reach the planet in twenty minutes. We can only hope the frigate’s already left.”
“Still can’t get anything on long range sensors,” answered Debra.
It was another five minutes before they were far enough away from the sun for the interference to dissipate. Debra looked over the sensor display. “Not seeing any ships,” she said. “The frigate must be gone.”
“That will make things easier,” observed Will with a sigh of relief. They continued approaching the planet.
“Wait,” called out Debra after they’d travelled another ten minutes. “I’m now reading a number of small objects in orbit, distributed around the planet.”
“Detector satellites,” muttered Will grimly. “Forget what I said about things being easier.”
“How long until they detect us?”
“They probably already have.”
As if to punctuate that point, there was a sudden increase in brightness from the opposite side of the planet. This was immediately followed by a bolt of energy zooming around the planet towards them.
Will yanked the control stick hard to the left and the ship quickly changed direction. The energy bolt missed, but exploded a few hundred feet away shaking the ship. “Shields down to thirty percent,” called out Debra.
Setting course back to the planet, Will started flipping switches to activate the ship’s weapons. “They’re using those satellites to target us,” he quickly explained. “We need to destroy as many of them as possible.”
However, before the ship could reach them another bolt of energy appeared over the horizon. This time, Will didn’t try to evade it, but help his course and began firing the ship’s plasma blasters. There was a massive explosion as one blaster firing hit its mark. The ship shook as it moved through the blast wave, but the explosion had been far enough away to cause no damage.
“Now to take out those satellites,” said Will.
The ship swooped down towards the planet and began firing as each satellite came into range. Without shielding, the satellites were vaporized with a single shot. They’d only been able to destroy two of them before the next bolt of energy made its appearance.
Will dove the ship into the planet’s atmosphere, its shields glowing red as the air rushed past it. “Exterior temperature critical,” cried Debra, but Will maintained the ship’s rapid descent. The bolt of energy exploded behind them sending a blast wave which started the ship tumbling and sent them falling deeper into the atmosphere.
Alarms went off and lights flickered as Will and Debra were thrown around in their seats. “Shields holding, but just barely,” shouted Debra. “Decompression in shuttle bay.”
Will fought with the controls trying to stop the ship from tumbling. “Aft reaction control thrusters out,” he cried. He began flipping switches. “I’m going to try and spin up the ship to regain control.”
As he fired the thrusters, the ship began spinning about its length. Both Will and Debra could feel themselves being pushed against the side of their chairs as the ship’s spin rate increased. As the ship continued spinning the tumbling began to subside. Another alarm sounded and the hatch to the crew quarters below them slid shut. “Another breach,” yelled Debra. “Crew quarters.”
Will nodded as he slowly regained control of the ship. “We have to land,” he called out. “I’ll try to get up as close to the power station as possible.”
As soon as the ship stopped tumbling, Will stabilized the ship’s downward trajectory as he fired the side thrusters to stop the ship’s spinning. He brought the ship down as quickly as he could and leveled off just a few hundred feet above the planet’s surface. It was still daylight below so they got a good look at the planet. It was very similar to Earth with forests, plains, rivers, and mountains passing beneath them. However, sensors showed no signs of people or buildings.
Debra disabled the alarms. “Do you think they can track us?”
Will shook his head. “Don’t know. Hopefully we’re low enough, but I can’t be sure.” He adjusted the ships altitude to go over any mountain ranges which were in their path. As they continued on, day quickly turned to night so Will had to rely on sensors to detect any obstacles.
“The facility’s about three hundred miles ahead,” said Debra after they’d been flying for about twenty minutes.
“Good,” answered Will. “Once we get closer, I’ll look for a place to land.”
Within ten minutes, the mountain range where the power station was located showed up on sensors. However, that wasn’t the only thing that showed up.
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“Four energy signatures moving this way,” she reported.
Will flipped on the tactical display. “Looks like standard shuttles,” he said. “They shouldn’t be a problem.”
Debra shook her head. “Look at those energy readings,” she pointed out. “It’s much more than you’d see on a standard shuttle.”
Will’s mind immediately raced through all the weapons he’d destroyed while with Gwen. Suddenly he knew what it had to be. “On Frebulous Two, they’d developed a plasma blaster that could be flown on a shuttle, but had the same power as a frigate,” he explained. “Guess it won’t be as easy as I thought,” he continued sheepishly.
Will immediately took the ship higher into the atmosphere to have more room to maneuver. The shuttles shot up after him. He’d expected to outrun them, but the shuttles kept up with them and slowly began to overtake them.
Will began evasive maneuvers and prepared to fire once they were in weapons range. However, while they were still beyond the weapons range of Will’s ship, the shuttles began firing. With four ships firing at once, Will couldn’t evade them all and the ship shook and alarms sounded as two plasma blasts impacted.
Shields down to twenty percent,” shouted Debra as the shuttles continued to fire on them. “Ten percent,” she called out after another hit.
Will needed more speed and knew of only one way to get it. He set the ship’s heading for the planet’s surface. The move seemed to surprise the attacking shuttles as they didn’t immediately respond to the maneuver allowing Will ship to escape their weapons fire.
However, their delay didn’t last long as soon the shuttles were once again in pursuit. Will looked up at the tactical display and saw a deep valley in the mountain range whose entrance looked just wide enough for the ship. He shifted course to head for it. “Prepare to eject escape pods on my signal,” he shouted.
“On it.”
The ship continued on its downward trajectory with Will leveling off just before reaching the valley entrance. As the ship streaked towards it, the shuttles continued their pursuit and were just about in range to start firing again.
Just seconds before reaching the entrance, Will yelled, “Now!”
Debra pressed a button and the two remaining escape pods shot out the side of the ship and crashed into the valley wall. There were two massive explosions. The ship bounced and the shields sparked as the shockwave and debris from the explosion impacted them. Behind them the valley wall collapsed and a close of dust shot up into the air obscuring their sensors.
“Hold on,” cried Will. He pulled up on the control stick and the ship shot up into the atmosphere and back towards the shuttles. Coming through the cloud of dust, Will saw that three of the shuttles were still in the air. However, they’d been dispersed by the explosion and were flying off in different directions.
He immediately set off after the closest one and began firing. Because its weapon was mounted to the front, the shuttle was unable to return fire. Will scored a direct hit on its engines and it exploded sending it plummeting to the ground.
The two other shuttles were able to regroup and set off after Will’s ship. However, a small smile played over his face and his eyes gleamed as he now knew he had the advantage. Spinning the ship around, he flew towards the two shuttle swerving and diving to evade their fire.
As soon as they were in his ship’s weapon’s range he began firing. They attempted to evade, but even though they were faster than Will’s ship, they weren’t as maneuverable. With all the shuttles’ power dedicated to their weapon and engines, there was little left for shields. Realizing this, the shuttle pilots broke off their attack and headed back towards the main facility. Will let them go.
Debra tilted her head and looked at Will.
“We came here to destroy that power station,” said Will answering her unasked question. “They know we’re here so we don’t have a lot of time.”
Flying low over the mountains they found the well-lit power station at the end of a narrow valley. Will landed the ship as close as he could, but they were still a few miles away from it. Will and Debra unstrapped themselves and headed to the lockers by the door where they quickly put on their spacesuits. After strapping on their equipment belts and blasters, they slipped on their jetpacks. “Explosives are in the cargo bay,” said Will, pressing a button. “I’ll open the doors from here.”
Debra opened the door and they stepped out onto the gantry. The sky was clear, but with no moon, the only light came from the interior of the ship and from the power station. Activating their jetpacks, they flew down the side of the ship and into the open cargo bay door. Will went to one of the lockers and took out two small cases.
“We’ll probably need to use one of these to get inside,” he said.
Debra nodded as she strapped one of the cases to her equipment belt.
Will closed his helmet to test the suit radio. “Do you read me?”
“Loud and clear,” came Debra’s reply. “Now let’s go make stuff explode.”
They activated their jetpacks and flew off into the night, the cargo bay door closing behind them. It only took them a few minutes to reach the power station. It was a large square metal building several hundred feet tall and about a hundred and fifty feet wide. It had no windows, but there was a large metal door in the front. They landed by it.
“Radiation levels look pretty high,” observed Debra reading the sensor display in her helmet. “Looks like we can probably handle fifteen minutes in there.”
“Hopefully that’s enough,” said Will as he took the case of explosives from his belt. Opening it, there were four separate devices inside. Will took out two of them. Pressing a button, lights on them began to flash and he placed them on door where their magnetic bases held them in place. “We’ll have 30 seconds once they’re activated.” He flipped a switch on each of them. “Now!”
The two of them activated their jetpacks and flew away from the door. As they watched, two explosions erupted on the door sending the sound of the blast echoing around them. Returning to the door they found the explosives had done their job, creating a large hole large enough for them to get through.
Stepping inside, they found the power station was a single massive room in which there was a steady hum. They took off their jetpacks as they looked around. Most of the room was occupied by a reactor assembly that had to be over two hundred feet tall and at least a hundred feet wide. It sat in a large transparent containment chamber with lights rapidly pulsing along its exterior. The radiation gauges on Will and Debra’s suits started increasing as soon as they stepped into the room.
In front of the reactor sat a long control panel and off to the side was a large metal structure with heavy cables going into the wall of the containment chamber.
“Can we overload it from the control panel?” asked Debra.
Will shook his head. “No time. It would take too long to figure out the correct command sequence. “He pointed at the large metallic structure off to the side of the reactor. “That should be the control unit for the reactor. If we take that out, the reactor should go super critical and explode.”
The two of them hurried over and started taking the remaining six explosive devices out of the cases. Will spend a minute programming them. “I’m linked them all together so they’ll all go off at the same time. We’ll have ten minutes once they’re activated.”
Debra nodded. “Let’s get them hooked up. We can handle only another ten minutes of this radiation.”
The two of them worked quickly and in a few minutes, the explosive charges were mounted on each side of the control unit. Once they were all in place, Will flipped a switch on one of them and red lights began blinking on all six of the devices.
“Seven minutes,” said Debra. “Let’s get out of here.”
The two of them hurried to the door and put on their jetpacks. As Debra started going out the opening they’d created there was a flash of light and the smell of burning metal as a bolt of energy from a plasma rifle hit the building just above her head.