Molly Fyde and the Fight for Peace

“But I don’t even know what’s going on!”

“Sir, all you have to do is recount the loss of your fleet and the unwinnable nature of this conflict. Convince the Galactic Union to terminate its offensive. We need to see who would want the fight to continue, even if it means utter defeat. These are our true enemies.”

“But what then?” Saunders asked. “What will it matter when the people who actually wiped out Zebra group are still around to mop us up? I need to stay here with my crew.” He reached out and grabbed Molly’s arm. “We’ll attack with the Darrin fleet, just like you said. I’ll lead them into battle myself.”

Molly patted his hand and shook her head. “The attack will be carried out as planned,” she said, “but you won’t be leading it. The mission to Earth is more important. It’ll solve the problem of finding the Bern among us without causing panic or worse.”

Saunders turned to Molly. “So I won’t be leading the attack back here? Then who will? You? ” he asked.

She shook her head again.

“Who, then?”

“Me,” Anlyn said. “I’ll be leading them.”

Part XX – Anlyn

“A child howls—and the canyons fall silent.”

~The Bern Seer~

16 · Drenard · Twelve Years Ago

Tears streamed down Anlyn’s cheeks. She tried her best to blink them away while yanking the control stick left and right, up and down, but nothing she did helped. No matter which way she dodged and spun the Interceptor, her fiance Bodi was able to match her. Twisting and turning, swooping and diving, jittering her ship nervously in space, she did everything she could to shake him, all to no avail.

Her stolen flightsuit did what it could to minimize the Gs, its small pockets of anti-grav fluid coursing through the suit and removing as much of the force on her body as they could. But no technological marvel existed to remove the pressure within her: that clawing at the hollow of her stomach born by a day of far too much tragedy.

“Anlyn Hooo, that is enough.”

Bodi’s voice came through her helmet clear enough to twist her heart in knots. The disgust she felt at the sound of his words were another sort of nausea the grav suit couldn’t touch. Anlyn ignored his commands—she was utterly sick and tired of his commands. She kept yanking on the stick, hoping to create enough space to jump away. She needed to get away from Drenard, away from her home. She desperately needed to get away from the emptiness her father’s sudden death had left, both in her heart and upon his throne.

“Don’t make me shoot out your thrusters,” Bodi warned.

As if she were the one inconveniencing him.

Anlyn glanced down at the dash where so many lights and knobs twinkled in her tear-blurred vision. Royal flight training had only touched on the basics—a professional pilot had kept his hands on the stick at all times while he showed her how to jump, taught her the rudiments of SADAR, and had allowed her to transmit over the radio. It had been just enough instructional ceremony to satisfy ancient traditions of Drenardian royalty without exposing one of the empire’s precious women to an iota of potential harm. But now, without someone pointing out which switch did what, Anlyn felt overwhelmed by the dizzying array of readouts and blinking indicators.

“The royal guard is on their way, Anlyn. Take your hands off the controls. You’re embarrassing me.”

Anlyn looked up through the canopy where Bodi flew inverted, matching her every movement. She could clearly see the glint of his visor just a dozen paces away. Yanking back on the stick, she tried to throw her craft up into his, her hot side stoked by his constant badgering. Bodi moved out of the way easily; he fell back around her, then looped up on top. She dove the opposite direction, but he matched her move for move.

Giving up for a moment, Anlyn allowed her craft to straighten itself out while she took a few deep breaths not encumbered by the squeezing of her gravsuit. She wondered how she had gotten herself in this position. She was pretty sure it had started with her Wadi Rite, not that long ago. Things had been different between her and Bodi after that. And then her father—it felt like weeks since she’d learned of his passing, days since she had fled to the Naval base and commandeered a ship to run away. It had probably been a few hours—she had no idea.

She looked to her display screen where she had the hyperdrive help file pulled up. As far as Anlyn could tell, she had the drive cycled properly and good coordinates for an empty patch of space plugged in. Still, the blasted engage button wouldn’t work. A flashing indicator kept blinking “proximity alarm.” Anlyn scanned the help file while Bodi continued his jabbering:

“Very good, Anlyn. Stay on that course. I’m going to lock my ship to yours. Steady, now.”

Anlyn ignored him and read something about a jump override. There were two pages of cautions and warnings before it got to the explanation. She scrolled down, ignoring the paragraphs about “slingshots” and “unintended arrival coordinates.” Nothing in the universe turned her brain off like tech-speak and such gibberish.

“Steady, now.”

Bodi said it as if he were chiding a youth. She hated that tone, especially when he did it to her in public. He had always spoken to her that way when her father, the King of their empire, was around. She had long dreamed of the day she would stand up to Bodi in front of her dad and her uncles. Now, that would never happen. Her father was dead, and she would be forced to marry an evil man, a cold and fiery man. She scanned the override instructions—then heard a metallic bang as his ship touched hers.

Anlyn’s hand flinched, just as if he had touched her body. Just like when he touched her body. She yanked her flightstick the other way, worried he might lock the two Interceptors together. As she created a few paces of space—and before she could reconsider—she followed the instructions in the help file and typed in the override commands, entering them in triplicate and agreeing to all the warning messages.

The jump switch finally turned from black to solid blue.

Anlyn punched it without hesitation.

••••

The twin suns of Hori disappeared, replaced by a blanket of alien stars and a maelstrom of violence. Plasma blasts the size of solar flares ripped through the distance, arcing toward a blazing ball of destruction the size of a planet. Anlyn saw, just in time, that similar plumes of racing fire were heading her way. She slammed the thrust forward and dove out of their path as the columns of sure death slid by in silence.

Where have I jumped? she wondered. It certainly wasn’t the empty space she’d been aiming for.

Besides the large rivers of marching plasma fire, Anlyn saw that the cosmos around her was peppered with a swarm of racing ships and the less powerful streaks from their cannons and missile pods. She banked her own ship around—still getting used to the feel of the controls—and searched for a way out of the commotion.

But the chaos was everywhere; it seemed whatever star system she had jumped into was embroiled in an outright orgy of war. At first, she thought it was a trinary star system, an alien land with one more sun than even her own Drenard, but eventually she recognized the other two glowing, fire-stricken orbs to be planets. Former planets, anyway. Both were being devoured by all-encompassing blazes, almost as if the crust of each had opened up to reveal the molten mantle beneath.

Anlyn headed up the star system’s orbital plane, hoping to escape the flat battleground where most of the