Launch Sequence (Genesis Book 2) Read online

  “I love you, Dennis,” Mom said through tears.

  “I love you too, Mom. Dad. I’ll be all right.”

  “We’ll see you in a few hours,” Dad said.

  He leaned in and kissed me on the forehead, then Mom did the same before sliding my comm’s companion goggles over my eyes. The pod filled with gel again, but I barely paid attention. I was already sifting through Icarus’ database.

  FIVE

  “Granite Base, this is Alpha-1. Launch Sequence stand-by.”

  “Roger Alpha-1. Begin activation sequence.”

  I listened to the comm chatter between Launch Control and the pilots while my goggles displayed vast amounts of information. The engine bay information window was bordered in a blue glow that turned to yellow as Icarus’ power plant ramped up for blast-off. There were only two weapons pods, both defensive in nature, though I wondered how effective they would be should we pop out of the mountain only to find a thousand Kai warships waiting for us. I cycled through the acceleration creches, finding my parents’ two rows down from me, both a healthy green.

  “Admiral Shaw, we’re cleared for launch,” the pilot’s voice said over the comm. Captain Jun was a female according to the display data next to her name, but she sounded like the gruffest, toughest Marine in the galaxy.

  “Roger that,” my father replied in a tight voice. “Let’s light ‘em up and get the hell off this rock ASAP.”

  I turned my attention back to the engineering window. The fusion reactors had been steady at five percent until a few minutes ago when they began to slowly climb into the thirty percent range. I watched, holding my breath involuntarily as the numbers inched into the low forties then suddenly ramped up to ninety before slowly continuing their journey to one hundred.

  I expected the ship to vibrate or hum just like in the movies, but I felt nothing thanks to the sealed creche dampening my senses. A klaxon began warbling throughout the ship loud enough that I could hear it clearly even through the thick gel holding me in place. I clenched my stomach muscles in anticipation. I’d traveled on an orbital shuttle before and had always been both frightened and impressed at the sudden forward motion they performed when taking off, but I’d never been on a ship this size while blasting off from a planet. The tactical channel lit up at the same moment I finally felt the vibrations of the thrusters as they ignited.

  “Daedalus Command, we have inbound hostiles bearing 227-341.”

  “Formation Delta on my command.”

  “Sixteen battleship class, thirty-two cruiser class, sixty-four destroyer class. Standard Kai attack formation.”

  “Signal-5, we have translation at D-8, estimated seventy light-minutes out.”

  “Roger Scout-2. Tracking now.”

  “Let’s lock those fuckers in before they cut the Wire.”

  “Command, this is Hurricane. Secondary translation at L-31.”

  “Highlight and report, Hurricane.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ! They’ve brought the fucking Four Horsemen!”

  “Hurricane, maintain comm protocol.”

  “I’m sorry, Command. But if you’re seeing what I’m seeing…”

  “Good lord.”

  “Signal-5, do you see this?”

  “Signal-5, Roger. Four hundred inbound contacts. Repeat, four-zero-zero inbound.”

  “Activate Orbital Defense Grid. Track and report but maintain standby.”

  “Maintain standby? What the fuck? They’ll wipe the platforms before we get a shot off!”

  “Roger that.” The voice sounded bored, far more disinterested than I would have after hearing more than seven hundred Kai capital ships had just translated into the Daedalus system.

  “Hurricane, what is your status?” After a few seconds of silence, the voice from Command tried again. “Hurricane, status update? Hurricane? Captain Marks, respond or ping for an emergency extraction.”

  I felt my heart lurch in my chest from both the knowledge that Captain Marks was now most likely orbiting Daedalus-II in a cloud of debris, then another from the sudden thump of the engine restrictors disengaging.

  “Stay calm, Denny,” my father’s voice said in my ear. “If this wasn’t so tragically serious, I’d say enjoy the ride.”

  The gel went from barely viscous to rock-hard in an instant, triggering the memory of my mother’s warning about not goofing off. I heard a phantom snap of bone as I imagined one of my legs bending at an odd angle when the gel hardened. I panicked at the thought it would be too rigid, too immovable to allow my chest to rise and fall with each breath, not to mention the sudden terror of the gel hardening inside of my lungs. I wanted to scream at the conflicting sensations of being trapped within a piece of marble and the ease at which I was still able to breathe.

  A second thump rocked Icarus half a second before I felt the ship begin to climb out of its launch pit. I pulled up the launch window in my goggles by using its eye-tracking capabilities—a necessity (and a godsend) to anyone attempting to pilot a ship under heavy acceleration. The display showed Icarus as a green rectangle slowly rising from the wireframe mountain. Two hundred kilometers above Icarus’ rectangle was an ocean of other icons, ranging from bright green to angry red. The orbital defense platforms were a harsh orange, each tracking targets that would take at least ten hours to enter the weapons’ effective engagement range.

  I pulled another window up next to the launch data and read about the Kai weapon ranges. According to Command, the battleships alone could wipe out the entire grid from their current location. My heart sank further as the display updated and I saw thousands of angry red lines begin to separate from the Kai fleet toward various locations across the solar system. The attack had begun, and it would end before we had a chance to get in a single shot.

  “Enemy weapon launch!” squawked a voice that was quickly drowned out by hundreds of other voices reporting in.

  “Signal-5, Blue Wing engaging.”

  “Good luck, Blue-1.”

  I knew as well as the comm operator that Blue Wing would be lucky to last more than a few minutes against the two hundred Kai ships near their location. I was sure Blue-1, Captain Merpeesh, knew it as well.

  I watched with fascination as the small defense wing translated into the middle of the Kai battle fleet. It was a risky move that almost always ended in disaster, but everyone seemed to know the stakes in this fight. As hard as it was to surprise the Kai in the vacuum of space, they seemed confused as sixty heavy bombers and strike fighters suddenly disappeared from their sensors. Blue Wing was sixteen light-minutes from the Kai, then suddenly less than fifty thousand kilometers. Unless the Kai possessed sensors far superior to what humans used—or had somehow hacked our tactical Wire—the time lag would allow the Terran forces to at least get a shot or two in.

  My tactical display instantly updated as Blue Wing appeared within the Kai fleet. Shouts of fury accompanied the thousands of grey lines that flew away from the human ships. Within a minute, those shouts of fury became screams of pain, surprise, and defeat as the Kai opened up on the smaller human ships. The tactical information claimed Blue Wing had effectively destroyed two Kai light cruisers and heavily damaged one of the battleships before everything went blank.

  “The Wire is down!” someone shouted over the comm.

  “Wire down,” repeated another voice, this one much calmer. “Use your last position updates to engage accordingly. Justice-3, you are free to engage. Orion Wing set course for 185-040.”

  “Icarus, we have you on scan. Proceed to EP-12.”

  “Roger that,” Captain Jun’s voice said, still rough and gruff. “What’s it look like?”

  “You’re clear for eighteen light-minutes. Enemy is engaged and we’ll keep their attention.”

  I watched Icarus’ icon rise out of Daedalus-IV’s atmosphere before slowly turning toward a flashing blue marker labeled EP-12. My breath came in short, labored gasps as I listened to the cries and screams from the unl
ucky humans who engaged the enemy around the system. I felt tears leaking from my eyes. The way the gel seemed to absorb them was the strangest sensation I’d ever experienced. I didn’t want to hear anymore and was glad when the comm traffic died.

  “Emergency Wire is down. Repeat, emergency Wire is down. We’re on our own, kids.”

  I thought it was an odd thing for Captain Jun to say until I saw the small smiley-face she’d sent to me. I smiled at the thought she knew who I was and was talking directly to me, then frowned when I remembered I couldn’t send her a reply.

  “Eighty seconds to boost,” Lt. Hesh announced.

  I pulled up Icarus’ command window and sifted through the data. In another minute, Icarus would unleash her other two fusion thrusters and take us from a 2g acceleration to nearly 15g.

  “Stealth unit engaged. Shutting down externals.”

  As each of Icarus’ active sensors went dark, I wondered how stealthy a giant, reflective ship could truly be with a ten-thousand kilometer trail of fire extending behind it. I searched through the database until I found a document explaining how Icarus was fitted with the newest engine management module, which would allow the ship to reach 15g of acceleration with almost no visible exhaust, though any infrared sensors would easily detect it. According to the document’s footnotes, most of the species in our stellar neighborhood tracked enemies based on their ships’ comm and active sensor emissions, and Coalition warships lit up enemy scanners like a supernova.

  After ten minutes, I became bored. Nothing was happening on any of the tactical readouts other than Icarus’ AI trying to weave a larger picture based on information that was no longer coming in real time. The AI assumed all of Blue Wing had been destroyed as well as the defense network around Daedalus-VI. A fourth Kai fleet could translate on top of us and we’d never know it until multiple Kai missiles turned us into a grisly mix of confetti made of metal and flesh.

  —|—

  “Are you okay, Dennis?” Mom asked me via the internal comm network.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Are you sure?” Dad’s voice said in my ear.

  “I’m okay,” I answered. “It’s boring without the Wire.”

  “Honestly, Dens,” my father said, “it’s probably the best thing. The sounds of war… You’re not a little kid anymore, and you’re going to have to grow up faster than your mother and I want you to, but some things you just don’t need to hear for hours on end.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I heard enough.”

  “The good thing is that there’s a treasure trove of information about our journey to check out,” he said.

  “Like what?” I asked, glad I was able to keep in my tears at the thought of the Daedalus system’s fate—but at the same time, worried that I was becoming more like my parents, who had no tears left. “And when can I move around again? I have to go to the bathroom. And I’m thirsty.”

  “Not for at least ten more hours, honey,” Mom said. “We’re locked in to the jump point under heavy acceleration. It’s going to get more uncomfortable soon. If you feel yourself falling asleep, don’t fight it, okay?”

  “Why?” I asked, my voice trembling.

  I’d never traveled in an acceleration creche on a warship during combat maneuvers. I was used to 1g trips in and out of the systems when I went anywhere with my parents. I was suddenly afraid of the kind of gravity that could knock me out.

  “It’s just better when you sleep through it,” my father said in a gentle voice. “Listen to your mother. She’s been through worse than what we’ll face far more times than anyone else on Icarus.”

  My mother had been in real engagements with the Kai, and I knew she was an expert at handling the crushing forces of heavy acceleration and maneuvering during a real fight against capital ships. For some reason, it wasn’t reassuring.

  “When we hit 10g,” my mother said, “you’ll feel like your eyes are too big for their sockets. Turn off your comm and just close your eyes. At 15g, it will feel like a heavy mattress is pressing down on you while your classmates pile on top of it. Sleeping through it is the best thing you can do, but you’ll feel it after you wake up.”

  “How bad will it hurt?” I asked, more afraid than before.

  My father chuckled. “Like you’ve played soccer for an entire day and night. But it’s normal. If you keep yourself busy, you won’t even notice it.”

  “Okay,” I said, deciding to trust them even though I was nearly in a panic with fear. It was a good thing the gel material was rigid, as it helped me calm down and stop shaking.

  “We’re at 8g now,” Mom said. “In about twenty minutes, you’re going to feel it.”

  “Okay,” I said, pulling up Icarus’ navigation window in my goggles. “But I still have to pee.” My fear began to slide into shameful territory as I imagined the pressure—or the gel material itself—making me lose control of my bladder.

  “Remember what I told you earlier,” my father said in a serious voice. “It’s unpleasant to think about but no one wants to ride in their own waste, so you can be sure that’s a primary concern. These creches were designed with that as a top priority—second only to keeping you from becoming human applesauce.” He sent me a wink over the text comm.

  “Gross,” I said, sending him back an emoji of a tongue sticking out.

  —|—

  When my urge to relieve my bladder became the focus of my attention, I began to sift through the mission data for Icarus. Icarus was a new ship, christened only six months earlier, but had no specific classification. The tonnage numbers rated it as a cruiser-class vessel, but it was unlike any naval cruiser I’d ever seen or read about.

  Icarus carried no weapons other than anti-projectile flak cannons which were recessed within the rear mid-quarter of the ship. There were no lifeboats on Icarus, which made me nervous all over again. The ship’s power plants were rated for use in heavy battleships and gave it a rated acceleration of almost 40g. I blinked when I read it. 30g was pushing it for the top fighter and bomber pilots—and only during the briefest, most extreme maneuvers. My nerves weren’t relieved when I looked at the internal ship data and saw that our creches were theoretically rated for 48g.

  I noticed the cargo areas carried biological material and pulled up a new window. I thought I knew what “frozen embryos” were, and I was definitely familiar with the terms “sperm” and “egg.” I scrolled through a massive list of columns and unintelligible codes labeled “DNA Pool.” There were at least one million entries. Immediately following that was another list, this one a DNA pool for all of the humans currently on Icarus.

  I found my name in column #482. Dennis Ryan Shaw, age 12, male, 139cm height, 36.28kg weight. Brown hair, green eyes, O-positive blood type. The next columns were gibberish codes and labels that meant nothing to me, though I knew I could easily look them up. I’d tried that on the first name of the first list and had been bored to tears instantly by chemical breakdown data along with what looked like a lot of weird math. I spent a few seconds finding my mother and father in the list, then Sergeant Valmon and Captain Jun.

  I spent a few lingering seconds looking at Captain Jun’s age. She sounded like a gruff, veteran Marine but was only twenty-two years old. I felt a weird sensation and wondered if I was having my first crush, something Dya had teased me about for the last year after no longer pretending to be grossed out over girls. I pulled up Captain Jun’s picture and closed the window almost as quickly when my heart skipped a beat. I felt ashamed, yet curious and strangely warm.

  I wandered in and out of data storage nodes, learning as much as I could about the strange ship. Most of the information was mundane and uninteresting. However, I kept coming across names like “Operation Nightfall,” “Codename: All-Stop,” and “Project Genesis.” Genesis and Nightfall were names I remembered from the conversation with my father in his office.

  I was just getting started pouring through the “Genesis” files when the pressure finally bec
ame too painful to think clearly. The navigation window showed Icarus was traveling at just over 11g. My entire body felt as if a mountain had settled on top of it. My eyes felt too big for my head and I knew once I closed them, I would be unable to open them again.

  Icarus hit 13g less than three minutes later. I was in agony. The darkness closed in on me and I panicked, unable to control myself. I didn’t scream. I couldn’t scream. It felt as if I were no longer capable of breathing. The last image I saw was a split window, one with Icarus rolling over into 15g, the other a lot of angry red letters denying my access to a classified entry named “All-Stop.”

  SIX

  I was glad the Wire had been cut. I no longer had to listen to the screams of the dying, or worse, the haunting silences once a pilot’s ship had been destroyed. Once again, I was terrified of adulthood. Being a kid was far easier since I could escape into my books, entertainment, or friendships. A sadness washed over me as I remembered my best friend Dya, and how I would never get to talk to her again.

  “EP-12 approach,” Captain Jun’s voice said in my earbuds.

  “Roger that,” my father’s voice replied. “Translation is a go.”

  I steeled myself, waiting for… something. I’d been off-world with my parents numerous times and had experience with faster-than-light travel, yet each time, I always expected to feel some kind of strange sensation that alerted me to the fact my physical body had moved light-years in less than a nanosecond.

  “Translation in 3… 2… 1…”

  The readout from Icarus’ navigation window in my goggles shifted from the Daedalus system’s star charts to a new version. The tactical display announced that we were now in the outer heliosphere of the Canton system. I felt the gel become rigid once again as Icarus turned and accelerated once more.

  The Canton system was considered an outback region on the trailing edge of human space, bordered on three sides by the Kai, the Talians, and a strange race called the Gri. The Talians were neutral to all aliens, according to Icarus’ databanks. The Gri were interesting in that they seemed to be little more than amorphous blobs who could manipulate their outer covering to form solid, rigid objects. A series of images were attached to the infolink that showed me the many different forms the Gri could assume, with notes detailing how the aliens seemed comfortable imitating whichever species they negotiated with.