“Well, I didn’t know he could operate in space,” Curtis said.
“I didn’t either,” Franklin replied, “Looks like we have some help up there. Let’s follow that course, in close formation, and see how close we can get to the transports.
This lasted for only about fifteen minutes until they all saw the same thing on their screens at the same time. The transports were picking up speed and heading toward Earth, but in smaller groups.
“Why are they splitting up?” Fiona asked.
“Probably targeting different areas, simultaneous attacks all over the planet maybe,” Kendra said.
“They’re in five groups. We can split up into five smaller wings, four ships each, and go after each group,” Franklin said.
“Sure thing,” Morrison said, “but we’d better be fast. I think we’ve been spotted.”
They split up and one group went after each group of transports, with Walter staying close to Franklin’s ship. It was then that Franklin looked at his scanner display and saw several smaller blips.
“Guys, looks like they’ve launched fighters. We’ll have to deal with those before we can go after the transports.”
“I’ll see what I can do about the fighters,” Walter said, shooting away and right at the swarm. He managed to take out three of them rather easily, and in so doing, managed to look into the canopies, only to see an empty seat.
“They’re drones, and they’re not that hard to take out. You guys go after the transports and I’ll see if I can keep the fighters busy.”
Walter flew after another fighter and took it out with one punch, and was turning around to go after another one when they all swarmed around him and started firing. He destroyed three more before one hit him with an energy beam that sent a tingling sensation through his entire body and left him unable to move. He tried to say something, but he couldn’t even speak.
“Walter’s hit...looks bad,” Fiona said, “I’m going after him.”
“Cover her,” Franklin said, throttling up and heading toward the swarm of fighters. He targeted the nearest one and took it out with one short burst. Several others exploded as the others came in and took them out. Fiona only shot down the ones that got in her way and before long, she came upon Walter, floating motionless in space. She throttled down until her ship was only a couple feet away.
“Now where are those airlock controls?” she asked herself. She found them a minute later and positioned the rear of the ship near Walter. When the screen told her that the airlock was ready, she pushed a button to open the rear hatch and then gently applied reverse thrust to move the ship toward Walter’s body. He bounced off the side of the ship and moved farther away.
“Come on, girl, you can do this,” she muttered to herself as she lined up again, using an external camera on the rear of the ship near the hatch opening. On the third attempt, she managed to back the ship up until Walter drifted into the opened hatch. When Franklin flew around and confirmed that he was in, she closed the outer hatch, waited for the computer to confirm that the airlock was sealed and pressurized, and then opened the inner hatch and walked back to see how Walter was doing. He was unconscious, but she confirmed that he still had a pulse before going back to the cockpit.
“He’s still alive, but out like a light,” she said to the rest of the group. “Whatever they zapped him with didn’t kill him, but disabled him. I’m not sure how bad.”
“Okay, drop him off at the house and hightail it back up here as fast as you can,” Franklin said.
“Will do.”
Morrison took out three more of the drone fighters in quick succession and by the time Fiona got back, there were only two left, which Franklin took out with two quick bursts.
“Guys,” Franklin said, “Do these things seem particularly easy to shoot down?”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Curtis said, “they’re almost like low level NPCs in a video game. Little evasive action and overly simple tactics on offense. It’s like they’re just there to keep us busy.”
“No kidding. They’re supposed to distract us while the transports get into position,” Fiona said.
“Hey, nice to see you back. You drop Walter off okay?” Franklin asked.
“He was still asleep, but he’s alive. Kendra and I laid him on the couch. She’ll let us know when he wakes up. What did I miss?”
“Not much. We took out the rest of the fighters. Now we just need to split up and go after these transports.”
“Shouldn’t be that hard if they don’t put up more of a fight than those fighters did,” Morrison said, “I’m going after the one in front.”
“I’m with you,” Fiona said. The rest of you split up and go after the others.
They closed in on the transport ship and saw more fighters launching from it as they drew close.
“I’ll take the fighters. You take a pass at that transport and see what kind of damage you can do,” Fiona said.
“Gotcha,” Morrison said.
The fighters came in formation and swarmed Fiona, but she took out the two in front of her with two quick bursts of fire before pivoting around to evade the ones that were behind her. She took a few hits but her shields were still showing at full strength, so she ignored the hits she was taking and took out the rest one at a time, joining Morrison on his third attack run on the transport.
“That didn’t take you long,” he said as she took up a position on his wing.
“They were rather stupid, and their weapons are weak. They hit me a few times and I still have full shields. How are things going with this fellow?”
“See for yourself. It’s just flying in a straight line and doing nothing to evade my attacks. I think I’ve
