With a guttural exclamation, one of the soldiers showed them another cluster of stars. A second fleet? the ominous thought struck the bracelet bearer. As if rushing to answer him, they started to form a giant funnel in front of their ship, a trap seemingly folding the very fabric of space to block their escape.
What evil tidings linked their enemies to the most basic laws of the universe, allowing them to access its unending energy? What resources did they gather to be able to display such an overwhelming show of power? The Sigian-Gill became more and more convinced that it wasn’t just a mere calculus, a problem of numbers and weight, that crushed them today at the Sigian gates. His presentiment was that the invaders somehow mastered the swells of space and maybe even time. They had a secret larger than the pathetic technological level they could reach under their own power. They opened the dam of matter and energy, turning them into a force impossible to defeat.
The Sigian-Gill took a deep breath, filling with burning rage. The ark is lost anyway. The only thing that matters now is to bring a rich harvest with us to the river of shadows.
Gill wasn’t sure if the thought belonged to the Sigian or if it was his because the ritual words about the “river of shadows” resembled the Antyran customs. But it hardly mattered; he felt the last traces of anxiety melting away, and a blind determination to fight like no Sigian had fought before rose in its place. He felt the accuracy growing inside his arms, his muscle power expanding tenfold. Before death would have a chance to see his shadow, he would move incredibly fast; his ganglions would estimate and command everything, dozens of times faster than usual. Come on! I can’t wait to crush you already! he shouted in his mind, gazing at the enemy fleet growing inexorably in front of them, fatter and hungrier with every passing moment.
As they drew closer to the funnel, the fleet chasing them from Ariga broke the distortion front and settled into a compact wall of ships, three layers deep. They weren’t afraid anymore of losing them—more so as the Sigian destroyer also slowed down to win more time.
The Sigian-Gill watched the forming of the strange barrier in disbelief, finally deciding that he never saw a bigger absurdity in his entire life. It was total nonsense from a military perspective—such a crowded pack couldn’t avoid, say, a wave of nukes launched in its direction. It seemed, though, that the prospect of losing some ships didn’t concern them at all. The enemies just wanted to cut off their retreat, although the Sigian-Gill doubted that any formation—no matter how smartly arranged—could really stop their destroyer from crossing it if Kirk’an gave the order to turn back.
Three of the lights in the funnel in front of them were shining much brighter than the others—and not because they were closer.
“Their second fleet has left the orbit and is coming your way,” said the cadet. “Three planetoids joined them.”
Kirk’an pointed at the brightest light in the center of the screen.
“We can’t avoid this one,” he exclaimed, barely holding his anger in check.
“Keep the course unchanged,” ordered the cadet.
The star began to take shape, turning into a ship of apocalyptic proportions. It soon looked like an asymmetric V pointing at them, its left arm much shorter than the other one. This was the type of ship Gill saw when he first connected to the bracelet. It wasn’t jumping yet, and soon it covered most of the display wall. The Sigian-Gill couldn’t help but wonder what was in the commander’s beard to bring them here.
As if the metal enormity wasn’t enough to take them out in one hit, hundreds of attackers followed in its wake. The silvery silhouettes flowed in their direction like a swollen river.
Suddenly, the planetoid stopped. The whole gray fleet jumped to the right, toward one of the rivers of light coming in their direction. Even some fixed points—which Gill could have sworn were stars—rushed in the same direction.
The giant was shaking, trying hard to turn back. Normally it would have turned in an instant, but now it was moving with obvious difficulty.
“Why don’t they attack us?” a plump Sigian exclaimed.
Kirk’an shook his head, astounded.
“It’s damaged! I saw something like this in the battle of Pomagro,” he said. “When the big engines are hit, it starts shaking like this.”
“But how…” babbled the previous speaker.
He swallowed his last words because the planetoid finally turned its back to them, and the view left them speechless: the back armor was horribly twisted, steaming abundantly from huge holes opened deep in its structure. The two jump engines on the longer arm were heavily damaged, the space around them whirling in hundreds of chaotic streams. Every few seconds, powerful eruptions burst out of the glowing cores, pulling along the nearby space and blending it in spiral distortions thousands of feet long. The six smaller engines on the shorter arm, although apparently unscathed, seemed unable to stabilize the behemoth.
“Our fleet has left the orbit!” exclaimed Kirk’an, horrified, grabbing his temples in his hands. He pointed at a river of lights coming in their direction.
The hulky silhouette of the planetoid was hiding the nearby ships, but even from that distance, they could see that the farthest ones were golden, not gray. The bracelet bearer screamed in his kyi: Who’s defending Sigia now? And then he realized the ghastly answer: They abandoned the planet to help us!
“I don’t get it,” exclaimed one of the Sigians. “How did they depolarize it so fast?”
“Antimatter. Probably all our fleet reserves.”
They arrived near the wounded giant and entered its range of fire. But the monster didn’t shoot at them; its rear lenses were most likely smashed to bits. In the front, however, the battle commenced. Flashes of light and orange flames burst forth around the edges of the planetoid. Sometimes, they glimpsed golden arrows moving with lightning speed, betraying the frenzied assault of the Sigian fleet.
“No time to fight,” exclaimed Kirk’an regretfully, checking if they were still followed by the weird escort.
The ships were there, but the unexpected attack had thrown their plan in disarray. The wall began to lose cohesion as the grays prepared to meet the Sigian fleet, which they had no way to avoid.
“Still, we can’t miss the chance,” he continued with a murderous glare in his eyes. “Load the charges!”
A shout of joy erupted on the bridge. Everyone felt that running from the battle without firing a single shot at the enemy was truly a sacrilege.
When they approached the planetoid, the tall Sigian pressed his hands inside the distortion jelly and started to play with the space. At about the same time, the first wave of glowing green strings flooded their display walls, but before long, the defenders skillfully hunted them down.
The gray wall coming from behind had all but disappeared. Some tried in vain to engage them while the bulk charged the golden fleet in a desperate attempt to rescue the wounded planetoid—the only one capable of taking out their destroyer in one blow—that is, if its lenses survived the onslaught.
The biggest challenge of the grays was to block the golden arrows from getting behind the planetoid and attacking its propulsion. They even tried a couple of times to ram the Sigians, but they never succeeded.
Gill’s destroyer was in an ideal position to hit the wounded giant, and the best thing was that the enemy didn’t expect them to fight instead of running away in the darkness of space.
“The navigation engines,” ordered Kirk’an. “Take out the one at the top,” he said, pointing toward the intense light that spawned most of the space aberrations.