Fifteen minutes of silence ensued, everyone kept their focus on their jobs, eying what little reliable computer data they were able to receive. Foster wondered if the feelings she was experiencing were the same as World War II submarine commanders during battle, lurking around looking for an enemy you can’t see, knowing they can’t see you either.
Until it was too late.
“Full stop!” Pierce yelled, breaking the silence.
“Captain?” Chang said, looking at Foster for approval.
Pierce panicked. “Now, now!”
Shit, did he find us? Foster thought, then gave the official order. “Do it, Chang.”
Chang carried out the order and brought the Carl Sagan to a full stop. An enormous solar flare plowed upward in front of the ship. The heat and energy that bled away from the violent arch crashed against the forward section of the overshields until it subsided. The event made Foster grimace and bite her lip.
“That would have been bad,” Chang said. “Can we go?”
Pierce nodded and double-checked his computer. “Yes, we may proceed.”
Foster’s eyes caught a glimpse of a small metallic object far above the horizon as the last remains of the solar flare passed by. “Wait.” She jammed her index finger at it. “There! Follow him.”
The Carl Sagan moved to follow Marduk’s ship as it slipped away out of sight behind the veil of bright light and smaller solar flares. They carefully flew past, and skillfully moved around flares, or spots where flares might potentially erupt, hoping to close the gap and get the drop on Marduk.
“So, I didn’t get the memo on weapons,” Williams said as he turned away from the limited tactical data from the holograms. “Wouldn’t they just vaporize in the heat as soon as we fire?”
“Rail guns, yes,” Foster said as the rear of Marduk’s ship reappeared. “Missiles on the other hand, well our psionic friends are gonna help us out with that. Fire at will, Chang.”
Chang accessed the Carl Sagan’s main weapons control, an error message appeared over the computer screen. “Got no targeting scanners, Captain.”
“Fire from the hip, Tolukei and Nereid will do the rest.”
A blind salvo of missiles exited from the Carl Sagan’s opened ports. They soared away as the invisible psionic minds of the two psionics guided them to their intended targets. Miniature psionic barriers had been erected around the missiles, providing them with temporary protection from the chaotic environment that engulfed them.
The task of keeping the Carl Sagan safe, guiding missiles, and protecting them was no easy task for the duo. The barriers protecting against missiles were nowhere near as strong as the overshield around the Carl Sagan, some missiles had the barrier fail prematurely causing the missiles to detonate and blossom outward before them. Other missiles had to be psionically hurled at Marduk’s ship rather than guided, giving the duo time to focus their minds on newly launched missiles. The missiles that missed their target as a result blossomed outside of Marduk’s overshields when their barrier’s failed.
The Carl Sagan’s overshields flickered rapidly during the exchange, the focus of Tolukei and Nereid was wavering with every missile fired. Minimal progress was made, only 10 percent of the missiles launched hitting their target, a target whose overshields remained solid as if nothing happened. Foster ordered the barrage to halt as Tolukei and Nereid took the time needed to refocus and get the overshields strength back up to where it needed to be.
Foster watched the aftermath in anticipation, hoping that their assault at the very least caused enough of a distraction to break Marduk’s focus. One crack, it was all they needed, and Sirius would do the rest.
His ship remained where it was then pulled forward into the veil of bright coronal light. Visual contact was lost. Pursue or hide, Foster had to choose, and it had to be right now, and its execution had to be flawless.
She ordered for the Carl Sagan to dip closer to the surface, creating a large enough gap should Marduk circle around for a counterattack. They descended closer to the burning surface, blue white waves of solar energy rippled before them via the windshield. The Carl Sagan leveled off before it dipped too far down and resumed their hunt for their foe.
A foe that found them first.
The two ships met head-on, face-to-face. White beams of light blasted away from Marduk’s ship toward them. Chang’s fighter pilot training kicked in, forcing the Carl Sagan to roll, narrowly avoiding the assault. Like the Carl Sagan, Marduk too had targeting issues, though because he used energy weapons he had an advantage, he didn’t need to use his mind to protect or guide the energy discharge.
Marduk’s ship accelerated past them then vanished over the horizon behind once again. The Carl Sagan came about with its missile ports opened and ready to fire. With the two ships in a closer proximity, it should be less work for Tolukei and Nereid to deal with, or so Foster hoped.
Marduk’s ship appeared again, its elevation lower than the Carl Sagan, much closer to the surface as it fired its weapons randomly. None of his shots hit their target, they instantly collided into the surface of Sirius. Chang was seconds away from aiming the Carl Sagan at their prey when he caught sight of small solar flares rising. The Carl Sagan broke off its attack and moved to evade the flare, only for another one to rise, then another. The super-heated jets of energy singed the sides of their overshields, the amount of extra focus Tolukei and Nereid displayed on their faces was frightening.
“Where the hell did that come from?” Foster shouted.
“Below,” Pierce said. “He’s closer to the surface. His weapons are increasing solar flare activity.”
Each flare started from a section of the surface where Marduk’s weapons had landed. Foster was wrong, Marduk had indeed hit his target.
The psionic duo was struggling to keep the ship in one piece, and Chang was struggling to keep the ship from plunging downward into the surface as the deadly hands of gravity tried to grab a hold of the Carl Sagan. Tolukei and Nereid’s focus hit a low and it was unlikely they were going to recover quickly anytime soon.
“Let’s face him, bring us lower!” Foster ordered.
“Captain, we might want to consider leaving,” Pierce said. “I don’t think our protection is going to last any longer due to the extra heat being generated by these flares.”
“Dr. Pierce is correct, Captain,” EVE said. “Our overshield strength has dropped seventy percent. We will not be able to maintain our current position for long, let alone venture deeper at this rate.”
Pierce concurred. “Indeed, the surface directly below us is being extremely unstable.”
Foster’s lips curled. “Define unstable, Pierce.”
“Our plasma missiles could probably trigger a flare at this rate,” Pierce said as Foster watched the Carl Sagan dodge four new pillars of raging energy from the surface, created due to Marduk’s weapons. It gave her an idea. “And no, we can’t do that from here if that’s what you’re thinking. The range of Tolukei’s and Nereid’s overshield for the missiles is limited; we would need to lower the Carl Sagan to get in range, which as I said before is not recommended.”