Solar Star

It was a gasp from Su-min that brought Captain Kelsey to her side as she was scribbling furiously on a pad beside her, her eyes wide and her mouth open. It was clear that whatever she was listening to on her headpiece wasn’t good news but Ty had to resist the temptation to pull the earpiece off her and listen himself. After what seemed like forever, she had time to tell him what she’d picked up.

‘She’s here,’ she said, her voice almost squeaking in alarm.

‘The Colonel?’ Ty asked.

‘Yes, they are here and have asked the tower about ships that have left and returned her today.’

Ty looked at Maclyn who had rejoined them on the bridge with Sarrin, and his expression said it all.

‘Well that’s it,’ Ty said. ‘Time’s run out.’

He paused before asking Maclyn.

‘Are you ready to go?’

‘Yes, we can’t get any more in and O’Neil’s closing up now.’

Su-min nodded.

’He’s just confirmed that, ’she added.

Ty smiled.

‘Then let’s get out of here. Ben starts the engines; Su-min keeps listening and opens a channel to the rest of the ship.’

‘Aye Sir,’ she said solemnly. ‘Channel open.’

Ty took a deep breath.

‘This is the Captain. We have just started the engines and we are about to depart. All hands to your stations. Passengers please stay in your quarters until further notice. O’realian to the bridge please. Captain out.’

Maclyn moved to his favourite position next to Ty and spoke in his ear.

‘I didn’t get to break it to you; we had to leave one of the shuttles behind.’

‘What!’ he exclaimed, knowing how much it would cost to replace one, having just bought one.

‘I know, but Sarrin’s shuttle had to come with us, so I left the old one behind. Sorry,’ he said apologetically.

He still wasn’t sure why he’d made that decision and Ty scowled but couldn’t say much. Anyway, they had far larger problems facing them now than the loss of a shuttle. The noise around them increased as the engines began to build up.

‘Whenever you’re ready Ben,’ Ty said.

Black Elk nodded and kept his eyes on the readouts waiting for them to reach the right numbers before taking the brakes off. Another squeak from Su-min had Ty swinging around in his chair to face her as she looked up and reported.

’They are asking about you and ‘The Maybe’, she said.

Before he could ask what they were saying she waved at him to be quiet as there was more to come and she listened intently then in a pause, relayed it to Ty.

‘They know which hangar we’re in.’

‘So they’ll be moving in on us now,’ Maclyn added unnecessarily.

Ty didn’t reply but he noted that they had started to inch forward the doors to the bridge opened and three people entered. O’Neil led the way and strolled to his place to find it occupied by the alien. He looked at Ty but he was busy, so O’Neil perched on the rail and consulted with Sarrin, who seemed to have picked up the basics very quickly.

‘Are you trying to put me out of a job?’ O’Neil said.

Sarrin looked up in alarm.

‘I mean no offence to you Mr O’Neil,’ he said.

O’Neil smiled.

‘I know, I was joking. You seem to be doing alright, but I think we could do it better together.’

Sarrin didn’t quite understand so O’Neil continued.

‘It looks like we could be facing ground troops and I suspect attacks from missiles and military aircraft too, so if you take the airborne sensors and I’ll take the terrain sensor system and that way between us we should be able to tell Ty what to expect and how to counteract it.’

Sarrin smiled and nodded.

‘Yes O’Neil. I see.’

‘Good then let’s get started.’

The Solar Star was moving steadily towards the hangar doors and Ty sat tensely watching the front view screen, wishing they could go faster. O’realian had come in with O’Neil and Kassina was with him, much to Ty’s disgust, but there was no point telling her to leave, as she never seemed to do as she was told.

‘A most infuriating woman,’ he thought.

Su-min squeaked again making Ty jump.

‘What now?’ he said turning to her station.

‘They told the tower to close the hangar doors to stop us leaving,’ she said, her eyes as big as saucers and shock on her usually cheerful face.

‘She’s right,’ Black Elk confirmed as the alarm warning that the doors are closing sounded.

The huge doors creaked, jolted, and then started to move together.

‘Put your foot down,’ Ty ordered.

Black Elk eased the ship up a gear and their nose began to pass through the opening. Maclyn held his breath as it became clear that their lives depended on the race between the closing doors and the speed they could move at and to him at least, the outcome was by no means clear. O’realian held Kassina’s hand and felt her tremble.

‘Are we going to make it?’ she whispered.

‘If we are meant to,’ her father calmly answered.

Ty heard their exchange and muttered under his breath.

‘We’ve got to.’

He instinctively tightened his grip on the armrests and watched the side monitors as the ship crept, agonisingly slowly, between the closing jaws of the hangar doors. Inch by inch they were escaping but at the same time the huge solid steel doors came closer and closer.

‘We’re going to do it,’ Maclyn said softly.

Ty wasn’t sure, he watched and winced as the doors touched the side of the ship and she shrieked in protest; a long scream echoed around the hangar and was followed by the sound of metal rubbing against metal.

‘There goes my paint job,’ Ty muttered angrily, but he was relieved to note that the doors were not going to stop them.

Even as he spoke the sound stopped and the engines situated above the wide body of the ship passed undamaged through the gap and the tail end of the ship scrimped through. It didn’t sound too good but it was only the paintwork that had suffered.

‘We did it,’ Maclyn said.

A general air of relief rippled around the bridge, but the euphoria didn’t last long.

‘Captain, I’m detecting a large concentration of men and some armoured vehicles advancing on our position,’ O’Neil said.

Ty nodded.

‘Keep me posted Matt,’ he said and turned to his helmsman. ‘I think a swift exit is required Ben,’ he said.

Black Elk couldn’t agree more and had already instigated the right hand turn that would take them quickly to the end of the runway.

Solar Star was very heavy at the best of times, which these weren’t, and she’d need all the room she could get to make it into the air so they were far from out of the woods yet. O’Neil punched in more commands for his sensory unit and then waited anxiously for the readout and when it came it was as bad as he had expected.

‘Captain I have four military shuttle craft which are armed with laser weapons approaching hangar four,’ he said, then noted their change of direction. ‘They’ve seen us,’ he corrected. ‘And are now heading in our direction. Speed at the moment 30mph.’

Ty grimaced, the shuttles were capable of a lot more speed than that and were a thousand times more manoeuvrable in the atmosphere than the Solar Star, but they could be destabilised by the wake of a craft this size.

‘Raise shields O’Neil,’ Ty said.

O’Neil nodded and leant across Sarrin to activate their new and expensive shielding device. It was the newest and supposedly the best ever designed, but still very much experimental, but Ty had decided to incorporate it into the Solar Star and now they were about to find out how good it really was.

Captain McCloud led his men in their four shuttles after the lumbering craft as they had been told to stop it taking off at any cost. They flew up behind it but it moved at a good speed for such a large cumbersome ship, McCloud knew then that their best chance to stop it was to spread out across the runway so they had no room to take off. He opened a channel to the three other shuttles.

“O.K. men listen up. We will turn left on my mark and head to the centre of the runway forming a line across it at a height of fifty feet. Acknowledge.”

He waited for a few moments then his men replied.

“Understood, number two”

“Acknowledged, number three”

“Ready on your mark, number four.”

He smiled, and then gave the order.

“My mark, 3 2 1 Mark.”

All four shuttles turned together as a unit and crossed the grass heading to the runway where they turned again ready to stop the star ship from taking off.

Once on the taxiway the ship picked up a bit of speed, only slowing to turn at the end of the runway and Black Elk swung her around as fast as he dared and then quickly built the power up, holding her back until the last possible moment. As the power built, the safety restraints on all the crew seats activated and Maclyn had given his seat to Kassina, he had to stand behind Ty holding tightly to the seat back. O’realian sat in the spare seat and O’Neil without his usual perch didn’t have time to clip himself in so he had no choice but to hold on the best he could. The pitch of the engines changed and increased as she fought against the brakes and the craft began to tremble and rattle as the vibrations ran through her. Kassina was terrified not knowing if this was how it always was or if they were being attacked.

‘Incoming craft. Range twelve miles and closing fast,’ Sarrin shouted over the volume of the engine noise.

O’Neil checked the readings and recognised the configuration.

‘Military fighters Captain,’ he added. ‘Six of them.’

Ty didn’t say anything, he didn’t want to alarm their passengers, but their situation had just gotten a lot worse as on the forward view screen appeared a line of four military shuttles.

‘Shuttles are moving across the runway,’ O’Neil said.

‘I know,’ Ty replied.

O’Neil looked quickly up at him then the view screen.

‘Oh swell,’ he said softly.

“O.K. men, don’t move, hold the line and charge your weapons.” McCloud said as he looked out at the solid black ship which had just completed its turn and was building up its power before it would move towards them. Beside him his aid, Stephens, gulped hard.

“It will stop wont it?” he asked.

McCloud did not doubt it for a minute.

“Oh course it will. All we have to do is hold our nerve and we will be heroes.”

Stephens hoped he was right as the ship had begun to move and it looked huge and menacing. He crossed his fingers and said a quick pray then held his breath as in a few minute he’d know if the Captain was right or not.

Finally the power was there.

‘We’re ready to roll,’ Black Elk shouted.

‘Let’s get the hell out of here then,’ Ty replied.

The brakes came off and the ship shot forward pushing everyone who had a seat, back into it as the massive bulk of the Solar Star, all ten decks of her, hurtled down the runway and nothing was going stop her now. The engines were fixed in their planetary configuration and would stay close to her sides until they broke through the ionosphere and into orbit, which would take about fifteen minutes and then they would be swung out behind her, they would switch to their other main power source, the crystals. But for now the explosive force propelling them towards the waiting shuttles was unstoppable and all Black Elk could do was direct it. Once take off velocity was reached, he’d pull her into the sky like a conventional plane, but she’d keep climbing more like a rocket, with her wings retracted. She was a true hybrid, but that didn’t make her a compromise as her designer was a genius, way ahead of his time, who had tragically died young before more of his ideas could be put to good use. Ty had found her original plans plus the improvement that never got added, and since he had owned her, she had changed dramatically with a lot of the designer’s ideas being incorporated and even improved on. Now she was unique, powerful, versatile and well armed.

Almost everyone on the bridge stared transfixed at the view screen as they careered towards the waiting shuttles, which seemed fragile and tiny in comparison.

‘They’re charging weapons,’ Sarrin informed them, but no one replied.

McCloud opened his radio link once again.

“On my mark fire a mark one shot at that ship, “ he said pausing only for a few seconds as the black hulk was making surprising speed down the runway and did not appear to be at all concerned by their presence.

“Fire” he shouted.

A sudden bust of light emitted from them, but it only caused a momentary tremble on the Solar Star and she kept on rolling

. Maclyn opened his eyes to find everything still intact and breathed a sigh of relief. He’d been against the massive expenditure of the shielding system, especially seeing it hadn’t been fully tested, but if it stood up to four laser blasts at close range without any problems, he had to admit it had been money well spent. Ty still had his fingers crossed but at least they now knew the shielding worked.

McCloud was stunned. He could not believe they were unaffected by the blast and still moving forward.

“Fire again, this time Mark two,” he ordered.

Seconds later four beams of red light hit the ship squarely but again it did not have any noticeable effect. It was still coming straight at them with no sign of slowing. In fact it was gaining speed all the time.

“It’s going to hit us,” Stephens screamed.

Another blast had no effect even though they were now a stronger charge and at point blank range.

‘If they don’t get out of the way…’ Ty said.

Kassina held her breath, her hands over her mouth and her father silently prayed as he did not want any lives to be lost because of them, but there was nothing he could do about it now. It was in the hands of a higher power, but still he prayed for the men in the shuttles.

Hovering fifty feet above the ground, the sight of such a huge ship bearing down on them was both terrifying and awesome.

“Captain its not going to stop,” Stephens shouted again.

He was right and finally this realization sunk into McCloud’s numbed brain and he had only seconds to react.

“Pull up and turn away” he shouted into his radio but even as he said it he knew he was too late. He pulled back hard on his controls, pushing the power up to maximum and headed straight up. To his right, he saw shuttle number four moving out and away from the oncoming ships path and it would make it. McCloud held fast on the power even though the shuttle did not appreciate such treatment groaning and screaming in protest he knew they’d be O.K. as well. Then out of the corner of his eye he saw a blur of black pass beneath him and he breathed a sigh of relief and just as he began to think all his men had survived a flash followed by a large explosion occurred to his left and filled him with dread.

“Oh my God!” Stephens screamed as he watched in horror as shuttle number two had not moved fast enough and had taken a glancing blow from the space ships shields and this was enough to throw them into the path of shuttle number three and they hit each other and exploded in a huge fireball, fragmenting into thousands of pieces which rained down onto the runway. The Solar Star carried on, barely registering the collision as she pulled herself upwards into the blue sky leaving behind the first line of Colonel Nye’s attack.

Gerrard watched the first attack in stunned silence but he quickly recovered to order the forces at the end of the runway to open fire as the ship passed close to them. He watched through his high-resolution glasses as the enormous ship somehow maintained the lift needed to get airborne and as it passed their position, they were hit by the wake of the ship and the heat from the engines. Even though he had braced himself in readiness he was knocked sideways by the impact and only just remained on his feet but the Colonel who had not been prepared was blown off her feet onto the hard tarmac of the runway. Gerrard hid a smile as Lieutenant Dewmore rushed to help her back onto her feet.

‘Maybe there is some justice after all,’ he thought, but kept that to himself.

Instead he returned to watching the progress of the Solar Star, as they now knew her after her name change and he could see the lasers were set up along with the ground to air missiles which were waiting at their meadow base. He spoke into his command unit.

‘Lock on target and fire at will.’

‘Aye Sir,’ came the reply and seconds later white streaks of light and gas shot towards the ship.

‘Incoming ground fire,’ O’Neil shouted and grabbed the rail even tighter to await the jolting impact.

Nothing happened except a gentle bump, followed by a blinding flash of light and he checked the shielding and was amazed. The missiles had been deflected before it had touched the ship and the kinetic energy of the missiles was absorbed by the envelope of protection now surrounding them and the projectile sped away from them towards the ground. He smiled.

‘That’s sweet,’ he said softly.

He wasn’t sure how the system worked, but he loved the results but then Sarrin pointed to his display screen.

‘O’Neil, these vessels appear on an intercept course,’ he said.

‘Damn right they do. That’s just dandy,’ he said and turned to the Captain.

Ty was just beginning to relax as they passed over the ground troops and were still in one piece, but one look at O’Neil’s face and he knew they weren’t safe yet.

‘Six fighters coming up behind us,’ O’Neil informed him.

Commander Peterson had watched what had happened to the shuttles in dismay. Whoever was on that ship must be very important for Colonel Nye to order such measures to stop it; he only hoped he and his men weren’t as expendable as those army personal he had just witnessed dying.

“Commander Peterson reporting as ordered Mama,” he said with a soft southern twang.

“About time commander,” was her anger reply. “Get after that ship and knock it out of the sky. Understand?”

He hesitated then said,

“Yes Colonel, Peterson out.”

He then opened a channel to his squadron.

“O.K. you all heard the Colonel. Let’s fly over them and face them down, maybe we can persuade them to turn around before this gets ugly.”

He heard a snort from one of them but they all acknowledged his orders and followed him after the Star; there dart like ultra streamlined machines quickly closed the gap.

Ty turned to Ben and asked,

‘What’s our height,’ he asked the helmsman.

‘500 feet and climbing at a rate of 2000 feet a minute,’ Black Elk told him without taking his eyes off the controls.

Ty grimaced as that was the problem with the Solar Star when she’s in the gravity of Earth. It is not her natural element, especially so heavily loaded she is slow and ponderous with limited manoeuvrability but once she was in space she was a different being. There she could fly like an angel, turning and swooping as light as a feather but their problem now was to traverse the gap between land and space, without getting blown apart. It was all too clear they couldn’t out run the fighters, but they still had their shields and so far they hadn’t fought back so now perhaps it was time to do so. With Sarrin on sensors, O’Neil was now free to move to the new weapons control console.

‘Matt, I need you on weapons,’ Ty said decisively.

O’Neil nodded and slipped into the new seat behind the console and he wiped his sweaty palms down the side of his trousers before taking a deep breath. Although he, Black Elk and Ty had spent considerable time on the simulator, they had never fired these new weapons in anger, so it was by no means certain how well he’d do, but there was no time to worry about that now. He turned on the array and entered the specifics of the fighters who were now only seconds behind them. He switched on the targeting sensor and watched it search then light up as it found the target and opened the small metal cover, which read ‘open to activate’ and pushed the blue button. ‘Weapons live’ flashed up on the screen.

‘Weapons live Captain,’ he reported.

‘Is it really necessary to kill?’ O’realian asked softly, appalled at the thought of any more loss of life.

‘I hope not, but unless the Colonel calls them off, we don’t have any choice. Unless you want to surrender?’

‘No we don’t,’ Kassina answered for him.

O’realian sighed.

‘No Captain, we cannot do that.’

Ty sighed.

‘That’s what I thought.’

He looked at the split screen that showed them what was behind them and the first six fighters were zooming in on them.

‘You better hold on tight as here they come.’

Kassina held onto her father’s hand and closed her eyes as there was a loud roaring noise and the ship rocked gently as the fighters screamed by them took up position ahead of them.

‘What do you want me to do Ty?’ Black Elk said as the fighters got nearer and seemed to be trying to prevent them from climbing.

‘Keep going they’ll get out of the way.’

‘I hope so,’ Black Elk replied and kept the Solar Star on a steady incline.

Peterson watched his instruments carefully hoping to see a decrease in the climbing ships speed but instead he saw it increasing. They were coming straight at them just as they had done with the shuttles so whoever was in command did not believe in backing down. Peterson knew then they were not going to solve this peacefully however much he had hoped they could.

“Their coming for us Commander. What do you want us to do?”

“Break formation and turn around so we can line up behind them,” he ordered.

One by on his men turned their machines away from the star ship with Peterson the last one to turn and as he flew past the fleeing ship he had to admit it was a brave move but sadly only a delaying one.

Ben smiled as he watched the jets move off, one by one, but he didn’t believe they were finished with them yet.

‘Round one to us,’ he stated.

‘Yes, but what will round two be?’ Maclyn replied thoughtfully.