Skylar Mars and the Mysterious Armada Read online

  Another red bolt passed close to the ship.

  “I guess we should count ourselves lucky that the gunners on those ships aren’t crack shots.” Phil rolled the ship and changed course. “We can’t go through the stargate with the life support malfunctioning. We’re going to have to find a place to land and see if we can make repairs.”

  “But we’ve got to get away from those ships first,” Skylar said. One of the control panels he could easily see was the rear-view, back toward Stars’ End and the larger vessels. A couple dozen smaller ships were actually closing the distance between them, but the good news was that the bigger ships had stopped firing. With Phil’s ship damaged, Skylar wasn’t sure how they were going to survive—but if he was going to die, at least, he was going to do it in space.

  2

  Into The Gas Giant

  Skylar keep his eyes glued to the rear-view as Phil leveled out their flight. The ships were still in pursuit and getting closer. Suddenly, there was a big jump as their ship lurched ahead.

  “Okay, looks like I got the engine’s electrical system rerouted. We’re up to three-quarters power,” Phil said as he stopped punching things on his screens. “Now maybe we can outdistance those ships.” He glanced around and yelled to the back cabin. “Solaria, can you get suits for everyone? Looks like we’ve got about five minutes of atmosphere left.”

  “On it,” Solaria called back.

  “What about Filzbalm?” Skylar asked, scratching the little Solar Drake’s head. “You probably don’t have a suit for him.”

  Phil shook his head. “He’ll have to share yours. It should be large enough for him to do that without a problem. We’ll just make sure not to catch his wings or tail in the helmet seal.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Filzbalm said. “I’m still small.”

  Remembering how large Mother of Drakes had been, Skylar was thankful Filzbalm was still young. They were going to have to work out something if they wanted to keep exploring space. Filzbalm wouldn’t always be able to fit into a suit with him.

  “Okay.” Skylar did his best to keep his attention on the rear-view as the small ships started to fall behind. Since they hadn’t been fired on by the larger vessels for a minute or so, he was confident they had managed to get out of range.

  Solaria appeared with two envirosuits in hand. “I guess it’s a good thing we don’t have everyone coming back to school. There’s only one suit left in your lockers. I figured you’d have more than this, what with you working with Intergal and all.”

  “I left a few of them at my last stop in case you all needed more space for luggage.” Phil flipped a switch on the main console, then stood. “Skylar, keep an eye out. Autopilot isn’t good in combat situations.”

  “Sure.” Skylar kept his gaze moving from the rear-view to the main viewscreen that showed an image of Yeldona Three, the orange gas giant Stars’ End orbited at a distance. “So why are we heading toward Yeldona Three?”

  Phil straightened from pulling the envirosuit up his legs. “I’m hoping their ships won’t be able to handle the atmosphere there.”

  Skylar’s heart, which had begun to slow down after the initial burst from the firefight, sped up again. He swallowed hard. “What? I always heard we should avoid the atmospheres of gas giants.”

  “Depends on the planet.” Phil settled his suit over his shoulders. “We’re lucky that Yeldona Three has a non-corrosive atmosphere, as long as we manage to avoid the worst of the storms.”

  “Not asking for much, are you, Uncle Phil?” Solaria asked as she handed him his helmet.

  “I’m a good enough pilot.” Phil grinned as he settled the helmet over his head. “Now go get your suit on. I’ll help Skylar and Filzbalm into theirs.”

  Solaria sighed. “I hate these things. I always feel cut off from everything in them.”

  “I think most species, other than humans, hate them. At least you don’t have to spend all your time off planet in a bubble.” Phil took the other suit from her and shooed her out the door. “Now go. You’ve only got another two minutes. Is Leonada suited up?”

  “Yes, sir.” Her voice came from the open doorway.

  “Good.” Phil held out the suit for Skylar. “We’ll just hope nothing happens in the next two minutes.”

  “I hope so too.” Skylar undid his seatbelt and stood as Filzbalm folded his wings tight and snuggled against the base of his neck. Skylar had been through a basic envirosuit usage class shortly after starting at Stars’ End. Living on a space station, it made sense that all the students be trained in their usage, but he’d never had to wear one in an emergency situation before.

  He took the silver suit from Phil and shook it out. The legs and arms unrolled with a snap. He put it on like he would pants, then slipped his arms in and pulled it up over his shoulders. Once it was settled there, the suit sealed along the front. Everything felt more than a little big. The gloves that ended the sleeves flapped slightly, like they were made for a species whose fingers were twice the length of his. The boots that went with it were the only thing close to his correct size.

  “Don’t worry.” Phil handed him his helmet. “Once you get the helmet on, the suit will adjust.” He stepped behind Skylar as Skylar lifted the helmet over his head. “Get in there tight, Filzbalm.”

  “This is as small as I can get,” Filzbalm muttered as Skylar got the helmet in place.

  As he sealed the helmet to the main body of the suit, a display on the faceplate lit up. Unknown lifeform present. Continue with sealing?

  “Phil…ah, Phil…the suit’s detecting Filzbalm as an unknown lifeform.” Skylar nearly ripped the helmet off, but they had less than a minute before the atmosphere was gone. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do.

  Phil rested a hand on Skylar’s shoulder. “Is it giving you the opportunity to continue with sealing?”

  “Yeah.” He didn’t want anything to happen to Filzbalm. None of them knew what the ramifications to him would be if Filzbalm was killed. They had to get everything right, but if they didn’t get the suit sealed, they’d both die as the atmosphere dissipated.

  “Say yes,” Phil advised.

  “Yes.”

  A soft click came from the helmet. The suit drew in, perfectly forming to Skylar’s body. The only spot that was loose was at his neck and down around his shoulders. The suit had detected Filzbalm and accommodated for him.

  Skylar almost let out a heavy breath of relief, then remembered it would fog up his faceplate.

  “This is a little cramped,” Filzbalm said. “But it keeps us alive.”

  “Yes, it does,” Skylar said.

  “Yes, it does what?” Solaria asked through the suit coms.

  Skylar hadn’t realized the coms in the suits were going to override his latest dermal com, which he’d just gotten installed on Pantheria before they left. The old one had been so damaged by EM pulses that he needed to get a replacement. Luckily the tech involved was easily replicated and inexpensive. “Sorry, Filzbalm was just saying it was tight in the suit, but it’s saving our lives.”

  Solaria huffed. “Filzbalm, I’m with you on not liking these suits, but yes, they save lives.”

  “Same here,” Leonada agreed. “I hope this won’t impact the baby.”

  Solaria shook her head. “I’ve never heard of a suit hurting a fetus, as long as the oxygen mix is right.”

  Leonada sagged in her seat. “Good.”

  Phil settled back in his seat and turned off the autopilot. “Okay, folks, activate the gravlocks on your suits. Since the atmosphere in here is toast, I’m going to kill the gravity generator to save on power. From now on, we’re on coms and minimal lights until we can make some repairs and get through the stargate.”

  He tapped a couple of buttons and flipped a switch. A strange feeling went through Skylar. Everything was suddenly light as semi-weightlessness took over. A couple of pieces of mummified food floated up from under the seat, reminding him of the first trip he’d had with Phil
on Rescue Paw One. Phil was normally so busy that he didn’t have time to do much cleaning.

  Skylar did his best to ignore the food and studied the screen he’d been watching. “Looks like we’re so far ahead of the smaller ships that we’re probably losing them.”

  Phil shook his head. “Probably not. Remember, even if we can’t see them, they might be able to see us on their scanners.” He reached across Skylar and reset the screen that had been flashing about life support. It became a graphic display of the solar system. Every planet, moon, space station, and ship was visible. “Good thing their shot didn’t take out our sensors.”

  “Wow, how many of these are friendly?” Skylar asked, trying to do a quick count of the ships he could see.

  “Anything that’s not between Stars’ End and the stargate is probably hostile. One disadvantage of being out here, you all can get trained in the use of your powers without having a major impact on developed worlds, is that the station doesn’t get a lot of flyby traffic. Stars’ End is the only populated center in this solar system.” Phil steered the ship straight for the atmosphere of Yeldona Three. “Now, I’m hoping these guys won’t follow us in, and if they do, the storms will play havoc with their sensors.”

  “Is that too much to hope for?” Skylar watched the scanner as half of the ships pursuing them turned back and flew toward the larger symbols he figured represented the bigger vessels they’d come out of. The way his luck seemed to go, just when they thought it was safe to make a run for the stargate, the smaller ships would gang up on them again and they’d be lost.

  “All depends on their level of technology.” Phil shook his head as the ship bucked entering the atmosphere. “Those ships aren’t like anything we’ve seen. Fiona sent me a message that was waiting for me when we got coms back up on Pantheria.”

  Skylar nodded. “I remember that. She said the ships were still in sensor range, but continuing to move out of the solar system after they’d been unable to establish contact. Wasn’t there something about not being able to find anything about them in any of the historic databases?”

  “There was,” Solaria piped up through the coms. “We need to have Del look it up.”

  “Right now we don’t even know where Del is.” Skylar gripped the arms of his chair hard again as Rescue Paw One bucked harder.

  Phil had a tight grip on the yoke. “We can debate this more later, once we’re in the clear. Let me focus.”

  No one said anything more as they dove deeper into the atmosphere and the ship continued to complain about the trip. If they hadn’t been strapped in, they would’ve been tossed about like a ball on a Z-GBall court.

  Skylar kept his attention on the rear-view and the graphic sensor. The dots representing the smaller ships were getting just close enough to the atmosphere that they could’ve entered it, but they all pulled up and spread out in a grid pattern, like they were going to try and trap them in the clouds.

  The ship’s bucking slacked off and Phil sighed as all movement ceased. “Okay. What’s it look like? We’re in between storms , so we’ve got an opening for a few minutes at least.”

  “I think they’re setting up a grid pattern, almost a kind of net trying to lock us in here.” Skylar pointed to the screen in front of him. The net pattern was fairly obvious, given the way the dots for the ships were almost an equal distance apart.

  Phil rubbed his chin. “Okay. That looks very practiced.”

  Skylar looked harder at the screen, trying to figure out how he could tell that by the way the ships were moving in an almost synchronized fashion. “What do you think this means?”

  “I bet they’re using a sophisticated autopilot of some kind. They probably got to the point they needed to start their grid and activated the autopilots to do it.” Phil leaned back in his seat. “The thing is, I’ve only seen this in ceremonial performances. Normally in a battle situation, pilots don’t like to give this much control over to the computers.”

  “But we don’t even know what species these ships are from,” Solaria said, her voice overly loud in Skylar’s helmet.

  “Right.” Phil nodded. “They could be of some kind of hive mind. That might explain the difficulty the readers are having in reaching their minds, and why my feeler attack didn’t do anything to them. If the controlling mind is far enough away, we wouldn’t be able to impact the drones.”

  “Which leaves us with nothing useful.” Solaria growled. “This is as bad as the hunt we just finished up at home.”

  “Possibly worse,” Phil added. “We’re all in envirosuits, and these suits only have a twelve-hour air supply. We’ve got to figure out something and get moving.”

  “What can we do then?” Leonada asked. “Can we fix the life-support systems?”

  Phil stood. “We can try.” He glanced at Skylar. “I need you and Filzbalm to stay here in the cockpit and keep an eye on things out there.” He waved his hand at the main screen, which showed the turbulent clouds that were many miles off. “If something—clouds, ships, anything—gets too close, let me know. I don’t like leaving the autopilot on, but right now she’s got us in a stable location. If we can’t make repairs from inside the ship, we’re going to have to leave the planet and head toward the asteroid belt near the sun so we can have somewhere to set down. It’ll take us two hours to get there, if we can outrun the ships looking for us.”

  “I’ll keep an eye on things here,” Skylar replied. “You need to hurry.” He wished there was more he could do, but at least Phil had him doing something helpful. If a ship found them, or a storm rolled up on them, they needed to get out of there fast. He just hoped Phil and the girls could get the life support back on so they could get through the stargate and find help to save Stars’ End.

  3

  Blocked Gate

  Skylar was doing his best to not act bored as he watched both screens and listened to Phil and the girls work on getting life support functioning. On the scanner display, the strange ships continued doing a grid sweep of the planet. They hadn’t stopped and bunched up like they’d just spotted the Paw, which was good, but they continued to orbit in their eerie coordination, making Skylar wonder exactly what was controlling them. Luckily, the patch of clear sky the Paw hovered in had stayed storm-free.

  “I can’t pick up any kind of telepathic communications between them,” Filzbalm assured him again, for what felt like the hundredth time since they’d been watching the screens.

  “And they aren’t broadcasting on any frequencies the ship is programmed to pick up.” Skylar kept his reply telepathic since he hadn’t figured out how to turn off the envirosuit’s built-in com and he didn’t want everyone else asking what he and Filzbalm were talking about. It was strange enough that he was hearing everything they were doing in the back as Phil instructed the girls in repairs using their mover skills. Solaria was a more powerful mover than Leonada, and she and her parents figured she’d grown even stronger after overexerting herself recently. They wouldn’t know how much more until they were back on Stars’ End and she underwent testing.

  “Okay, that’s looking pretty good,” Phil’s voice came over the coms. “Skylar, use the panel that’s showing the food systems and change it over to life support. Let’s see if we can get this going again.”

  “Right.” Skylar remembered how Phil had changed the screen that had shown the life support system to view the rear camera. He tapped the screen that indicated the food system outage, brought up the menu screen, and selected the icon for life support. When that screen came up, it wasn’t flashing red anymore. It was yellow. “Phil, it’s showing yellow.”

  “Yellow’s better than red.” Phil said. “Tap the restart icon on the upper left side of the screen.”

  Skylar did as Phil instructed. Seconds later, there was a soft whoosh and the life support screen went green. “We’re green.”

  “Good.” Phil sounded happy for the first time in a couple of hours. “That means we can go through the stargate. Keep your suits
on, just in case our patching doesn’t hold. I’m a feeler, not an engineer. I always take her in to an orbital repair port when there’s problems.”

  “That’s why you need to find a mover to travel with you,” Solaria said. “We’re all taught basic ship repair in class, although I think Del would’ve had things going faster than we did.”

  “I have no doubt Del would’ve gotten us flying more quickly,” Phil said. “That young man is too smart for his own good. Now, let’s get buckled back in and head for the stargate. Skylar, where are those pesky ships right now?”

  “They’ve moved more toward the other side of the planet,” Skylar said as he glanced at the sensor screen. “Based on their previous patterns, it’ll be about twenty minutes or so before they turn back this way.”

  “As slow as they are, hopefully that’ll give us plenty of time to get clear of the planet and to the gate.” Phil appeared in the hatchway and slid into his seat as Skylar re-buckled his seatbelt.

  Phil checked several screens, including leaning toward Skylar to glance at the life support display, which was still green with a sliding graph showing a normal up and down pattern. “Okay. Looks good to go. Everyone, hold on tight. We’re going as fast as we can. Don’t want to risk another hit.”

  Pulling the yoke toward him, Phil took the ship out of the hover she’d been in and headed back into space. The clouds encompassed them quickly as they sped into the upper atmosphere. The ride got bumpy for a moment. Then they were clear and the darkness of space spread out before them.

  Once again free of a planet, Skylar’s spirits soared. It always felt good being in space. There were times when he wondered what life would’ve been like if he’d stayed on Hummassa and never ventured into space. He shuddered at the idea. He’d have been miserable. Sure, he’d had his VR games that carried him to far away planets, but they weren’t nearly as exciting as the real thing, and every time he flew in space, he was reminded of how great it was. He never wanted to give it up, not for anything.