Fall of Icarus

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Yen frowned in the darkness. The inky blackness was so encompassing that he couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face. “Everyone switch to thermals,” he ordered.

The world slowly came back into focus, bathed in the cool blue hues of the ship’s interior, contrasted sharply by the vibrant reds and oranges of body heat being emanated from his team. Under the scrutiny of thermal imaging, Yen could see the quickly cooling puddles of heat, pools of blood that had poured from the bodies of his injured men. Already three of his men were injured, one severely. Though they had broken through the Terran ambush, the enemy had taken their toll on Yen’s small strike force.

Yen looked down the hall, where shades of increasingly deep blue stared back. The view was unnerving. While using the thermal goggles, Yen lost his depth perception. Objects that were dozens of feet away looked no further than Yen’s own men, who stood less than ten from him. At first, Yen felt a sense of vertigo wash over him. He remembered feeling the same way during his first trip into space. He had seen planets on the front view screen of the ship and they had appeared as massive orbs hanging in the night sky. But as they flew closer, at speeds rivaling the speed of light, the orbs grew no closer. With no sense of depth, it was nearly impossible to tell how near or far an object truly was.

Straining to look down the hall, Yen could see no sign of the pursuing Terran force, but Yen wasn’t fooled. It would only be a matter of time before the wide hallway was filled in an angry yellow glow as nearly thirty Terrans reached Yen’s position. Turning back toward his team, Yen watched as they loaded the wounded onto collapsible litters. Though his soldiers needed medical care, Yen refused to leave until they had completed their mission. Still, their mission would have been unfortunately brief had Keryn not risked her own life to warn Yen.

Keying his microphone, he called to Keryn. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she replied. “I lit a glow stick, so at least I can see again.”

“I need you to go back to the ship,” Yen said sternly, eager to cut off any argument before she could make foolish recommendations about coming to his rescue. “There are too many Terrans between you and my team. You’d never make it if you tried to come get us.”

“So what about you? I just leave you all here to die?”

Yen looked around the darkness. “We’ll find another way.”

“How?” Keryn asked defiantly.

“I don’t know,” Yen replied harshly. He didn’t want to argue with Keryn right now, not when he had so much more to contend with. They were finishing loading the wounded soldiers onto the litters and were almost ready to move. Yen wasn’t happy about the arrangement, however. Three soldiers were wounded and unable to fight, but six more would be slow to react since their hands were full with the litters. Until they escaped the ship, Yen knew that his team would be moving slowly, which put them at a greater risk of the Terrans surrounding them before they could escape. All the more reason, Yen realized, to complete their mission, find a way to escape, and put some space between his team and the Terran Destroyer. Without speaking, Yen gestured for his team to move out. Moving deeper toward the aft of the ship, Yen felt his frustration build. Logic and emotion battled within him. He knew Keryn was just concerned about him and wanted him to be safe, but in a time of war emotion was a detriment. She needed to think less about keeping him safe and worry more about self-preservation.

When his radio clicked back on and he heard Keryn’s voice again, Yen realized how long the uncomfortable silence had stretched between the two. Is this what it would be like to date Keryn? Uncomfortable silences as both played their passive aggressive roles? Shaking his head, Yen pushed aside thoughts of a future relationship with her. It was a distracter he didn’t need right now.

“I think I might know a way out,” Keryn said excitedly, snapping Yen free of his wandering mind.

“How?” Yen asked.

“When we docked, there was another Cair ship that docked near the far end of the Destroyer, just above where the hull swells to compensate for the engine room. It was still there when I left the Cair Ilmun, which means that the infiltration team may still be somewhere around your location. You’ll need to head up one floor, but you should be able to evacuate the Destroyer on their Cair.”

“We’ll head that way,” Yen said. Though they were speaking on a private channel, Yen still lowered his voice so as to not let others hear what he said next. “Be careful, Keryn. I mean it.”

“Always,” Keryn replied confidently before turning off her microphone.

Yen looked over his shoulder at the blue shades of hallway behind them. There was still no sign of the Terrans, though that barely put him at ease. They knew the ship significantly better than did Yen’s team. They also knew where Yen and his team were now headed. From their current position, it left little doubt that the engine room would be their target. Even now, they could be moving parallel to his position, taking shortcuts in order to cut them off. The more Yen thought about it, the more real the possibility became. This was their ship, after all. It made sense that they would be flanking Yen, trying to destroy him before he could complete his mission. He glanced nervously left and right. Though there were no shadows in the blue glow of the thermal goggles, Yen could feel the presence of Terrans all around him. It had been over a century since the last Alliance soldier was on board a Terran ship. No one knew what technology they had in their possession. Maybe they were able to cloak themselves from heat signatures.

Yen raised his fist, calling the team to a halt. Penchant, from the point position, and Adam, from the rear of the group, came to Yen’s side to find out what made them stop. They both looked at Yen inquisitively, though the psychic’s focus seemed a million miles away.

“We need to keep moving,” Penchant said quietly.

“We’re almost above the engines,” Adam added. Yen knew he was right. He could feel the gentle vibrations in the floor. “Let’s get this mission done and get out of here.”

“No,” Yen said sternly, his eyes slowly coming back into focus. “No, they’re waiting for us.”

“You can’t know that,” Penchant replied impatiently.

Yen frowned. Through the goggles, Penchant couldn’t see the stern look Yen gave, though the intent was obvious. “I can know it. I can feel it in the walls, under my feet, in the air. They’re all around us, even now.”

Adam looked around nervously. Gesturing, the team spread out further, hiding as well as possible in the surrounding alcoves. “I hope you’re not right, Yen,” Adam whispered. “We’re too close to the back of the Destroyer to suddenly run into a small army of Terrans.”

Yen closed his eyes, letting the contrasting blue and red heat signatures disappear into an open field of black. There was a use of his psychic power that Yen had used before, when he served as a spotter on a sniper team. Then, he had used his abilities to look through solid walls to find Terran soldiers before his team entered a building. Breathing deeply, Yen let that same power saturate his mind.

Adam took a step back as waves of heat patterns danced in the air around Yen. The patterns swirled as though Yen were caught in the center of a raging inferno. A stab of pain bit into Yen’s forehead above his right eye, but he shook it away without a second thought, concentrating instead on finding his focus. As he opened his eyes, the walls around him melted away. His thermal-enhanced vision pierced the solid structures of the ship, revealing a gentle glow of heat from a short distance ahead, near the rear of the Destroyer. Pushing his second sight deeper into the ship, the glow consolidated into individual heat signatures. Yen had been right. Not only had the Terrans flanked his position and cut him off from the engine room, they had already set up defensive positions around the stairwell and elevator lifts that would grant access to the lower engines. If they were to complete their mission, Yen and his team would have to find a way through the Terran defenders.

Walls slowly reformed in his vision as Yen retracted his psychic powers until, finally, he found himself standing back with his team. Grimacing, his head pounding, Yen rested his hands on his knees as he waited for the nausea to subside. “They’ve set up another ambush for us.”

“Where?” Penchant asked. “How many?”

Yen took a deep breath and stood upright. The world swam before his eyes for a moment before settling. “There are about thirty or so Terrans dug in around the stairs and elevators at the rear of the ship. They’re set up around some sort of open foyer.”

“Then we go another way,” Adam stated.

Yen shook his head. “There is no other way. By now, the Terrans have cut us off from behind too.”