Earth United

Jake, Diane, and Cal lifted off the planet in their quantum light fighter and headed back toward the battle. The best they could tell, over half of the Legion fighters had been destroyed, and the rest were barely holding on. Jake noticed one Legion fighter not in the battle, but sitting just outside range of any plasma blasts.

Cal pointed to where Jake was looking. “Our sensors show that that’s Veneto. He’s just watching.”

“That’s not surprising,” Jake replied. “He’s probably hoping that Craton defeats the Legion fleet, and that we fail down on the planet. His only hope is that whatever turned the president against him will be reversed, if there’s still no proof.”

“I’m picking up a large group of spacecraft on the sensors,” Cal said. “They just dropped out of quantum drive. They’re Legion! Now we’ve got ’em outnumbered.”

Jake looked back at Veneto’s spacecraft. As he did, it disappeared into quantum drive.

“There goes Veneto!” Jake shouted. “Follow him.”

“Shouldn’t we get backup?” Cal asked.

“There’s no time,” Jake said. “Go, go!”

Cal punched their fighter into quantum drive, headed in the same general direction as Veneto had gone.

“There he is,” Cal said, pointing to the control panel. “I have him on the sensors.”

“Can we close the gap?” Jake asked.

“If we go to maximum drive,” Cal responded. “He’s not at full throttle. He must not know he’s being followed. You take the control and I’ll navigate.” Cal punched the pilot exchange control.

Jake took over the main controls from his seat. He turned his head around to Diane, who was bunched up in a little storage area behind their seats. “You okay back there?”

“I would ride out on the wings if it meant getting off that planet,” Diane said.

They closed the gap on Marco’s fighter to where Jake could see it on the viewing screen.

“Now he knows,” Cal said. “He just punched it to full throttle.”

“Try hailing him,” Jake said.

“He’s not responding,” Cal replied. “I’m using all frequencies. I know he had to hear it. He’s ignoring us. What should we do? Shoot him down? He has to have a lot more fuel than us. We can’t follow him forever.”

“Let’s try to get close enough to take out his engine without blowing him up,” Jake replied. Jake wasn’t so sure that was a good idea. Cal was right, they didn’t have much fuel left, and their fighter was heavily damaged. But it was the only idea he had.

“Uh-oh,” Cal said. “This isn’t good.”

Jake looked up at the screen and saw Marco’s fighter entering an asteroid field.

“Hang on!” Jake shouted. “We’re going in.”

“Do you really think this is a good idea?” Cal asked. “We hardly have any power left in our shields.”

No, Jake thought. It probably wasn’t a good idea. But could they ever find Veneto again if they let him get away? He would have a whole galaxy to hide in. Jake didn’t answer. He just flew. One asteroid came at them from the front. Jake maneuvered to the side, avoiding it. Then another came toward that side. Jake maneuvered back, then jerked up quickly, barely missing an asteroid underneath them. He went up, then down again, side to side, all the time keeping one eye on Veneto’s spacecraft and one eye on the asteroids.

“Look out!” Cal shouted.

Jake looked at the screen. A large asteroid was coming straight at them. Jake pulled the fighter straight up vertically, and then continued pulling into a reverse somersault. When they were upside down, halfway through the somersault, he saw in the viewing screen an asteroid that had been directly behind them. They were now heading straight for it. Jake immediately rolled the fighter to the right into four spiraling rolls as he continued through the reverse somersault. When the fighter righted itself and came out of the final roll, he saw nothing but space in front of them—space and Marco’s fighter.

“I’m detecting something large in front of us,” Cal said. “Something very large. Too large to be any spacecraft we know or an asteroid or anything of the sort. But not quite large enough to be a planet.”

“There haven’t been any planets charted in this region of the galaxy anyway,” Jake said. “Have there?”

“No,” Cal replied.

Jake could see a light appearing on the viewing screen. The closer they came to it, the brighter it became.

Jake pointed at the light. “Is that what you’re detecting?”

“Yes,” Cal replied. “It looks like a star, but that would be even more bizarre, to find a new star out here. And so small for a star.”

Marco continued to fly toward the object. Jake followed.

“I still think it’s too large to be a spacecraft,” Cal said. “But the light it emits is too white to be natural. It’s too clean.”

Jake watched as Marco’s spacecraft suddenly stopped. It didn’t just drop out of quantum drive, Jake thought. That was an immediate dead stop.

“Why did he stop?” Cal asked.

But no sooner did Cal ask the question than their fighter instantly stopped as well. Jake flew forward out of his seat. He felt a sharp pain in his jaw as his face hit the control panel. He looked over and Cal was in the same position. “You guys all right?” he asked. He turned around to see if Diane was okay. She looked like she was.

“I think so,” Cal said.

“Yeah,” Diane said. “I’m jammed in here so tight, I didn’t move.”

“Why did we stop?” Jake asked.

“I don’t know,” Cal replied. “The engine just stopped. I can’t do anything. No controls work. I can’t even hail anyone or anything.” He continued working the control panel.

“What do you suppose it is?” Diane asked.

“This can’t be right,” Cal said. “The final sensor reading before we lost power. We were close enough to get a reading of the object.” Cal paused for a moment and worked the controls some more.

“What? What is it?” Jake asked.

“According to the sensor,” Cal said, “ninety percent of the object consists of hilaetite.”

“What?” Jake said. Something that large, made entirely of hilaetite? Where did it come from? Where did they get the hilaetite? How did they keep it from being volatile? And the weapons it must have. They must be enormous.

Jake heard a voice. “You are not welcome here.” But the voice wasn’t coming over the com. It was coming from space. From all around him. Amplified. How could that be? he thought.

“Did you hear that?” Diane asked.

Cal and Jake both nodded.

The voice continued, “We will release control of your vessels. You will have ten seconds to turn your vessels around and go back to where you came from, or be disintegrated.”

Cal looked at Jake. “What? Disintegrated?” He turned back toward the control panel in front of him. “Wait, we have control back. The sensor shows the voice came from the object. What should we do?”

Jake looked at the screen. He could see Veneto’s fighter, then the object. Veneto was proceeding toward the object. He’s ignoring the warning, Jake thought. Jake saw a burst of bright light emit from the object. He couldn’t believe a light could be brighter than the object itself, but it was. A second later, Veneto’s fighter disintegrated right in front of him. There was no explosion, no fire, no residue. The fighter, with Marco in it, just vaporized before his eyes.

“Let’s go!” Jake shouted. “We’re getting out of here!”

Jake turned the fighter and Cal punched it into quantum drive.