Chapter 10

After that, the seconds simply passed by, my agony barely a footnote to the overwhelming feeling of comfort and safety I felt being in Mark's arms. Yet after a blissful eternity, the light faded, returning me to the cool blue-white of the Bridge's everyday operation. I felt Mark's arms withdraw as he stood and returned to his seat at the front of the Bridge, his knees trembling so slightly I was certain that only I had noticed. The others were raising themselves from a drug-like stupor, as if they had had to hypnotize themselves to make it through the ordeal.

"How long…?" Keyop asked, his eyes red and bleary with exhaustion.

"Four minutes." Tiny replied, his shoulders drooping and his voice absent of its usual liveliness. "That's a new record."

"I guess those new cooling systems held up." Jason groaned, rubbing his eyes underneath his visor. "Not that I wanted to test them in quite that way."

"We couldn't have done it without all five of us giving it our all." Tiny added. "The Fiery Phoenix feeds off of our own energy as much as the fuel. Our implants were working overtime."

"No wonder mine feels burned out." I sighed.

"How effective was it?" Mark asked, turning to his control panel before Tiny could answer. His eyes grew wide as he analyzed the readout.

"Both dinosaurs?" he gasped, his jaw dropping to the floor. "And a third of the other ships? Tiny, you're amazing!"

"I couldn't have done it without the rest of you." the pilot answered, but his exhausted face glowed with pride. "I just kept aiming for the big stuff, until we passed through the entire fleet."

"There are still more of them." Jason reminded us, stepping up to the front of the Bridge and the red firing button. "With your permission, Commander?" He grinned cockily at Mark.

"Be my guest, Jason." Mark grinned back, sheer relief bringing a smile to his face.

"Let's start analyzing the ships now that we're up close." I said to Keyop, turning back to my monitors. "Perhaps now that we can see them, we can figure out why we can't detect them."

But my hard-won optimism was short-lived. There was still no sign of the Spectran spacecraft on my scanners, even when I could tell, from looking at the main viewscreen, that they were right in front of us.

"They must be emitting some kind of jamming field." I muttered to myself, as Jason crowed with another direct hit up the weapons station. "But it's not like anything I've ever encountered."

"New… technology?" Keyop suggested. "Wave field?"

"Quite possibly." I agreed. "But without knowing the source of these waves, we'd never be able to get around them to see the ships' positions. We'll just have to try everything we can think of."

"All done, Commander" Jason smirked, dusting off his hands in a gesture of superiority. "The few that are left can easily be taken care of by those GalSec robot planes."

"Well done, Jason…" Mark began, but he was interrupted by another urgent communiqué from Chief Anderson.

"G-Force, you are needed immediately at the Indian Ocean." The Chief ordered sharply. "The Spectrans our staging an offensive there."

Our momentary high immediately dissipated, five faces falling to the floor. Our bodies sagged, instantly weighed down by exhaustion and dismay. Yet we had no time for such self-indulgence. The Earth was still at risk.

"New heading, Tiny." Mark ordered.

"I'm on it, Commander!" Tiny replied, mustering up what little enthusiasm he could.

The scene we had come upon at the western coast of North America was repeated in the Indian Ocean. This time there was only one massive dinosaur, but it was accompanied by two large flying bats and a number of smaller warcraft. Immediately, Mark ordered Keyop to move up to the front of the Bridge, passing control of the Fiery Phoenix to Tiny. The Commander took over Keyop's chair beside me, yet everyone else was too exhausted to comment on this unorthodox seating assignment.

I smiled warmly at Mark, doing my best to focus on his presence beside me, rather than on the ordeal ahead. The Commander took my hand in his, squeezing it reassuringly as the offensive maneuver began. The heat and pain of the Fiery Phoenix hit me worse than before, yet Mark was there from the start. The touch of his hand was my guide through the complete and utter agony of our blazing attack. Simply knowing that Mark was with me made it easier to bear.

This time it only lasted three minutes, but since we had already been through the maneuver barely an hour before, the physical toll the Fiery Phoenix took was exponentially higher. Usually we had twenty-four hours to rest before attempting the Fiery Phoenix again, but today we hadn't had that luxury.

Jason's enthusiasm for shooting down the remaining Spectran vessels had diminished somewhat, and this time he did the job with a quiet but dismal efficiency. Keyop and I did our best to concentrate on breaking through the Spectran stealth settings, but it was difficult to do with my head pounding like a jackhammer. Needless to say, we made little, if any, progress.

"Commander!" A fuzzy image of Colonel Tsubar, current leader of the Red Rangers, came interview on the communications monitor. "Commander, are you there?"

"I can read you, Tsubar." Mark replied anxiously. "What is it?"

"Thank goodness!" Tsubar appeared to be intensely relieved. "I wasn't certain I would be able to reach you. I have a message from those Spectrans soldiers you brought to Riga a week ago."

"A message?" Mark frowned in confusion. "Now?"

"Yes," Tsubar replied. "They left a couple of days ago, but apparently they've been monitoring our situation from Spectra. They contacted me and asked me to pass this on. Sergeant Wiltek wanted you to know immediately; he said it would help. The Sergeant said that Zoltar is using diurian sigma radiation. He doesn't know how, but it's apparently a significant part of these Spectran spacecraft. We haven't had a chance to pursue this lead, as we've had our hands full, but we were hoping that you could do so."

"How is the fight going?" Mark asked. "We've had our hands pretty full on Earth too."

"Right now there seems to be some kind of prearranged break. The Spectrans have pulled back for a moment and give us some breathing space." Tsubar answered. "But I won't lie to you, Commander. Things look very bad right now. If they launch another full offensive…" He held his hands up helplessly.

"I understand, Colonel." the Commander acknowledged. "We'll do our best with this information. Thank you for bringing it to our attention. Over and out."

"Good luck, Commander." Tsubar said, as his image faded out.

"Diurian sigma radiation…" Mark muttered to himself. But I was way ahead of him.

"Commander, if this information is correct, then the Spectrans are using an inverse diurian shield!" I exclaimed. "No wonder we can't detect it!"

"The Phoenix's sensors are only set to detect quadrion fields." Mark agreed. "But could this really be right, Princess? Diurian fields aren't used because they are so unstable. They only have a lifetime of a few seconds."

"Obviously Zoltar's found some way to stabilize those fields." Jason observed dryly.

"How?" Keyop chirped eagerly. It was clear that this discovery had revived his hopes… all of our hopes.

"It doesn't matter, does it, as long as we can detect the fields?" Tiny asked. "If we can find them, we find the Spectran ships, right?"

"True enough." Jason smirked. "It's enough of a target for me."

"We just need to locate the specific frequency they're using and reconfigure our sensors." I said.

"Then let's get to it!" Mark ordered.

"Yes, Commander!" Jason, Keyop and I all replied in unison, suddenly eager to begin our work anew. For the following hour, Mark and Tiny patrolled the area, cleaning up any remaining Spectran ships while the rest of us worked on analyzing the data we'd been able to collect, using the parameters we had been newly given. The task was slow going, but we were reinvigorated and highly motivated.

"I think I've got something!" Jason shouted, leaping to his feet in excitement at his discovery. "Check this out, Commander!" Mark rushed over to Jason's workstation, a hopeful light in his eyes.

"See?" Jason pointed at the display in front of him. "Look at theses results! I ran this through this sigma spectrum on diurian frequency BH-712…"

"They're glowing!" Mark's eyes widened. "Princess, contact Colonel Tsubar and relay this information to him."

"Roger, Commander!" I looked over the data from Jason's terminal as it was displayed on my workscreen. This technique could be used to scan for and detect the Spectran ships! Hopefully the Rigans would be able to apply it to assist in the defense of their planet.

I managed to contact Colonel Tsubar, passing along the information. At first, he appeared hopeful, but then his face fell as he read over the data.

"I'm sure this would work," he said, "if we had diurian scanners available to us. That technology was discarded for possible use so long ago that we don't have the capability of searching for it. We could build such scanners of course, but not in the next few hours."

"We'll keep working on the problem, Colonel." I assured him. "In the meantime, perhaps Galaxy Security can provide some scanning equipment. I'll contact Chief Anderson immediately."

"Thank you, G-Force." the Colonel replied. "Over and out."

Everyone else was still crowded around Jason's workstation (save Tiny, who was occupied piloting the ship) and they had not been privy to my conversation. I passed on the Colonel's response, watching Mark's face fall as he learned of the Rigans' dilemma.

"I never thought of that." he admitted. "I'll contact Chief Anderson and make the request. In the meantime, it seems that we have to get back to the drawing board if we're going to assist our friends."

"No time!" Keyop shouted, waving wildly at the main viewscreen. We turned to look at the same time that Tiny pulled the Phoenix into a dive, sending us sprawling. I scrabbled for the edge of my console, barely managing to hold myself upright as Keyop went flying over his workstation and slammed into the wall. I heard Mark and Jason grunt as they struggled to stay standing.

"We've got company, Commander!" Tiny yelled, although by now we were all well aware of the problem. "Lots of it!" A vast swarm of Spectran ships filled the sky.

"We'll take care of it!" Mark shouted in my direction. "Princess and Keyop, keep working on that cloaking issue. Jason, I'll need your expertise at weapons."

"Good to know I'm wanted." Jason smirked, cracking his knuckles as he stepped toward the front of the Bridge.

I did my best to ignore the drama that was occurring in front of me as I bent my head back to my work. Keyop sighed reluctantly, attempting to follow my example but in truth being far more occupied with what was happening on the main viewscreen. The analyses seemed to rise out of my monitor to overwhelm me, taunting me with my inability to find a solution.

"I can do this." I muttered angrily to myself.

First, I used Jason's discovery to scan the ships outside the Phoenix. Based on what I could see of the viewscreen, it appeared as if it worked just as Jason had said. The ships were appearing at the correct places whenever the Phoenix turned. Thus having confirmed the validity of Jason's method, I then went through his data on the use of diurian frequency BH-712. After some study, it was clear that the Spectran ships were making use of that frequency, or something very close to it, which explained why they appeared to 'glow' when viewed under Jason's filtering sequence.

"Why… so round?" Keyop asked.

"Round?" I glanced over at him, confused. He was hanging over my shoulder, looking at the data on my screen.

"Ships… glow round…" Keyop pointed out, tracing something on my display with his finger. I zoomed in and immediately saw what he meant. The glowing shapes on my display were definitely smooth ovals. In fact, while they were situated in the same places as the Spectran ships, the glowing shapes didn't resemble them in the slightest. My display made it appear as if we were being attacked by a bunch of spheres and eggs, while the reality was anything but.

Why would the shapes be so different? Perhaps… they were using energy fields? Stealth fields? This wasn't what I had expected at all. The diurian sigma radiation being used was created by the combination of sigma radiation and diurian fields. I had assumed that the radiation was coming from the metal compounds used in building the ships. But that would cause the glowing shapes on my display to look more like ships instead of eggs… Such a smooth, rounded surface would have to come from a projected field, not from the physical materials themselves. And therein lay the problem.

In order to create such a sustainable diurian field, sigma radiation would need to be present inside the field. And while it was entirely possible that each ship could individually carry a 'radiation producer' internally, sending the radiation outward to encompass the ship, such a thing would be highly dangerous to the occupants onboard. Sigma radiation was highly mutagenic, causing serious health problems, even death, in as little as thirty-six hours of exposure.

Zoltar was knowingly irradiating his own troops? Had Spectra developed some kind of vaccine, or even a cure, for such enduring such harsh conditions? Or could it be that the Spectran Leader simply didn't care?

"Commander!" I shouted, suddenly realizing what was at stake. "Those Spectran ships! I believe they have high levels of sigma radiation onboard!"

"What?" Mark's jaw fell to the floor. "On the individual ships? But that's highly toxic! Surely Zoltar wouldn't risk his men…"

"I can't answer that, Commander, but it fits with what Keyop noticed about the shape of the diurian fields. If that radiation is onboard, then every time we destroy one of them with a conventional missile…"

"We spread radiation over the Earth." Mark muttered grimly. "Understood, Princess. Jason, stop firing. We're going to attempt to lure these ships into the desert area twenty kilometers north of here before we destroy any more of them. Tiny, get on it! In the meantime, Keyop, contact Galaxy Security and inform them of Princess' hypothesis. They need to let the Rigans know, and to send out emergency cleanup squads to deal with any fallout in the combat areas."

"Roger, Commander!" Keyop replied.

"This day just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?" Jason grimaced.

"We just have to get through it, that's all." Tiny offered optimistically. But the remark fell flat and no one responded.

"Princess, keep working on this." Mark ordered. "We have to find some way to neutralize the Spectrans' stealth technology!"

"I'll do my best, Commander." I answered in a weary voice.

It was now even more difficult to concentrate, but I knew I had no choice. Shaken, I returned to the big problem at hand. Even assuming that the radiation was being created inside of the ships, I was left with one other question. Where was the diurian field coming from? Being an inverse field, it had to be present both inside and outside the radiation, in order to combine with it. Clearly there was no field generator on the outside hulls of the ships, as even that small amount of exposed metal would be detected by our sensors.

I had originally assumed that the generator was inside the ships, with the radiation coming from metallic materials in the hull plating composition. Now understanding that the radiation was likely inside the ships, everything had been thrown out of whack. As far as I knew, it wasn't possible to generate a stable diruian field, except in the most sterile of environments… and that certainly didn't include the creation of heavy sigma radiation! So then the generator couldn't be inside the ship either! Of course, it was possible Zoltar had discovered something to get around these issues, but I doubted it. Federation scientists had spent decades analyzing diurian fields before eventually abandoning the technology as impractical.

The answer was staring me in the face, I just knew it. If only I could see it for what it was. It was as if the solution was as invisible as the Spectran ships were to conventional scanners. All I had to do was uncover it, determine its source…

Its source…

The source of the diurian field wasn't on the hulls of the ships. It couldn't be inside the ships. So it had to be… elsewhere. But where?

My fingers flew across the controls, working out the mathematical calculations for the crazy idea that had just popped into my head. No… it couldn't be…

But as I stared at the results of my analysis, the math said it was. At least… it was possible. And since I couldn't come up with anything else, right now it was all I had to go on.

"Commander?" I offered, wincing as I saw Jason targeting numerous Spectran ships over the desert. At least that particular tactic had worked.

"Hold on, Princess!" Mark snapped, so sharply that I knew things weren't going well at all. It was rare that the Commander's calm slipped, and to do so now was the worst of signs.

"There are too many of them!" Jason complained, slamming his fist down on the panel. "I could take them all out, but we have don't have enough time… or enough ammunition."

"Only four TBX missiles left." Tiny reported glumly.

"Need to… take out… fast!" Keyop offered.

"The only way to do that is with another Fiery Phoenix." Mark sighed, his shoulders sagging. "It seems to be the only thing that works."

"Plus it has the added bonus that the high temperatures would break down the radiation, neutralizing it so that there's no fallout below." Jason pointed out.

"Do it…" Keyop sighed. My face fell. I didn't know if I could physically take another round of such punishment. Mark glanced over at me, and I could see instantly that he was thinking the same thing.

"We should do whatever we need to do." I said, mustering as much strength as possible into my voice. "We're G-Force. We do what it takes." Inside I was crying with the anticipation of going through that horrific experience once more, yet at the same time my heart knew that it was the right thing.

"Princess, I can't…" Mark's voice broke as he looked first at me, and then at the others. His eyes shifted, and an expression of grim resolve crossed his face.

"I can't let any of you do something I'm not prepared to do myself." Mark said slowly. "I know it's been rough today, but we're making progress. We're saving lives. And we have to keep on saving lives."

"We're with you, Commander." Jason said gruffly, laying a hand on Mark's shoulder.

"All the way!" Tiny added, with as much of a grin as he could muster.

"G-Force!" Keyop cheered weakly.

"I'm in." I added. "I always have been, Mark."

"Okay." the Commander nodded. "Tiny, get ready for Fiery Phoenix. Keyop, you're up front." He sat down beside me, the worry clear in his deep blue eyes.

"I'll make it through, Mark." I whispered to him. "If anyone can get me through it, you can."

"There's no point making it through without you, Princess." he smiled softly.

Mark took my hand, and I steeled myself, waiting for the Fiery Phoenix to take over my being. I didn't have to wait long. Tiny initiated the procedure as soon as we were all seated, sending us all hurtling into the backs of our seats as we took off at top speed. The searing heat crashed into me with enough force to break every bone in my body. My muscles ached like fire, cramping up into hard knots that would make a sailor proud. Dimly, I felt Mark's hand in mine, and I grabbed desperately for the lifeline he offered. But it was slipping through my grasp, even as I clutched at him, and then it was gone.

I was falling, but rather than a soft rush of air, it was an agony of excruciating burning, as if I was passing through flaming acid, my skin dissolving underneath its deadly touch. A hellish blaze opened up below me and I fought to draw breath, gasping for sulfurous air that only set a torch to the delicate tissue of my lungs.

"Mark!" I cried, although I knew it was futile. I was lost, and this was the end…

Yet amazingly, something did emerge through the scorching waves, drawing me closer, pulling me ever so slightly to the surface.

"Princess, come back!"

He was shouting, but I barely heard him. Yet I sensed the pull, and responded automatically. I realized that it was in my mind, coming through my cerebonics, a cool wave if icy water to soothe my charred form.

"Mark..."

The coolness strengthened, and the burning lessened to a dull agony, one that seemed mild in comparison to what I had just experienced. I could hear Mark's voice again, and this time I added my own to his.

"Keyop! Jason!"

The four of us joined together, our implants strengthening us, creating a bubble of protection around our minds even as our bodies endured the worst nightmare of all. As a group we reached out, stretching toward Tiny, encasing him with us in our globe of relative safety. I could feel everyone's mind touching on mine, and in that instant I saw them all, their feelings and thoughts exposed and laid bare. I felt Jason's hatred for Zoltar, Keyop's struggle to fight, Tiny's cheerful optimism, and Mark's love.

His love for me.

No secrets now; we were all together. Our consciousnesses were enmeshed through our cerebonics, my mind responding to the others, my love for all of them washing over us like a tide. And at the center of that love was Mark, my reason for living.

A great rush passed through me: a sound, echoing outward. A roar had come from Jason, resonating through all of us. It was a howl of outrage, of defiance. He was angry; no, he was furious. His shout was one of determination, to see this through, to prevail over whatever obstacles were thrown in our way. One by one, we joined him, our voices rising in a cacophony of concord, our strength surging to the surface as together we faced the excruciating ordeal of our ultimate weapon.

We howled until the orange-red light faded into a cool, silvery blue. The strain began to lift, yet the sound of our unity faded slowly, lingering in my ears until it became a soft whisper. As one, we had endured.

And as one, we fell into sleep.