Disclaimer: Volition-inc. owns Descent: Freespace, Admiral Shima, and several other things. I own Vincent Schaard, Lt. Risnan, and Lorkhena as well as most of the plot, except where it intertwines with or makes reference to the plot of the game.

Fun Fact: If you haven't guessed already, SI has since taken over as the dominant system of measurement. Velocities are measured in meters per second (m/s). 1 m/s is about equal to 2.2 mph; therefore, the top speed of the GTF Apollo is 60 m/s or 132 mph. Also, the title of this chapter is meant to connect to the Descent: Freespace mission, "The Great Hunt," where you have to race to the Sol node to follow, and subsequently destroy, the Lucifer.

Chapter Eight: 3/29/2335 Race to the Hunt

I'm unsettled in my seat, and the transport seems to move at a snail's pace. Ron explained everything on the way over to the spaceport; the Lucifer had suddenly made a break for Sol, and the Bastion was already on its way to the Sol node in Delta Serpentis, to chase after the superdestroyer. In the early morning, Shima had called all pilots and crew back from leave to assist in the destruction of the Lucifer, and we now find ourselves riding the transport back to the Beta Aquilae outpost.

"Risnan is supposed to be waiting there with our fighters," says Ron, "The Bastion couldn't wait for us, but we should be able to catch up if we set engines to full."

I look over at Al, Ron, and Lorkhena to see rock-hard determination in their eyes, and I know my own must look the same way.

"We cannot allow the Lucifer to continue on its path of destruction unchallenged," says Lorkhena.

"We can finally end this damned war," says Al, "and can take a real break from fighting."

No one can say anything else for the rest of the flight, and we arrive back at the outpost, our reprieve cut short. Some of the squadron is already here, the rest approaching from the opposite end of the outpost. Risnan is standing apart from the rest of us, in front of our ships, and, once we've all arrived, he begins the mission briefing.

"Welcome, boys and girls," says Risnan, "The plan is simple; we catch up to the Bastion, follow the Lucifer into the node, and cover the bombers as they destroy the Lucifer's reactors. Any questions?"

"Yeah!" says Ron, "Are we fueled up?"

"To the brim!" says Risnan, "Strap in, Knights!"

This is the first time he has ever referred to us by our squadron name, and it fits the severity of the mission. We had time to suit up earlier, so now we can into our ships immediately and lift off in unison, as usual. All of us set engine power to full, and fire our afterburners to jump-start the journey. Lorkhena's Seth fighter would not normally be able to keep up, except that a few Vasudan engineers on board the Bastion had modified the engines some weeks earlier. Those same engineers had also installed the new intersystem subspace drives, allowing us to follow the Bastion without the aid of a larger ship, which would normally have to carry us through the subspace node.

Once again, silence prevails. Every second passes like a turtle climbing a mountain. The only indication that any of us is moving is the approaching node on my HUD. Subspace nodes are not normally visible, but all GTA and PVN ships have their locations programmed into their onboard computers, allowing them to display a wire-frame image of the node in a ship's heads up display.

Against the black vastness of the cosmos, stars too numerous to count hang in place, further exaggerating the sense of stillness. All I hear over the comm. is the occasional radio buzz or muffled directions being given by the outpost to a transport on the other side of the system. I begin to realize the horror of the situation; the Lucifer is headed for Earth. We race to halt the imminent destruction of humanity's foundations, the center of all Terran life. I imagine failure: my mother witnessing the arrival of the ship from Hell, all hope lost, realizing that I must have died in its path. The Bastion arrives too late, only to be annihilated by the Lucifer, several thousand more Terran lives, and now Vasudan lives, vaporized in an instant. Without the Bastion, neither the GTA nor the PVN are able to maintain their strength, and are ultimately destroyed by the Shivans.

"We're here!" I nearly jump out of my seat at this sudden outburst from Fred.

"Everyone," says Risnan, "Jump out…now!"

We all make the jump into subspace simultaneously. The usual, eerie ambience of subspace reaches my ears, and only a few minutes pass before we've arrived in Delta Serpentis.

"BANK LEFT, NOW!" I nearly jump out of my skin this time. I grapple with the controls as we barely avoid the swarm of Shivans screaming towards us. The Bastion is off in the distance, a tiny, blue dot, and we try to catch up to her, but the Shivan fighters turn around to attack us.

"Everyone take a fighter!" Risnan shouts through the comm. channel.

As we begin to break off of the group, I see that the fighters we've been engaged by are fourteen Dragons. Risnan swears to himself, having realized this as well, but he goes after them, guns blazing. The Dragon is one of the most recently discovered Shivan ships, and the most outrageous to date. In addition to having a very small profile, the Dragon can make tighter turns than any other ship ever built, and it's fast to boot.

I have some trouble gunning mine down, but we all get rid of the fighters, Risnan taking on two at once. Now we turn back toward the Bastion and the Sol jump node. As we get closer, I notice one sole Hercules fighter running a gauntlet through Shivan and HOL ships. As this fearless pilot approaches the node, a Typhon-class destroyer, the Prophecy, jumps in to block him. The fighter is able to get around the Prophecy, somehow, and makes the jump to subspace. We finally reach the Bastion to hear a transmission from Shima.

"Welcome back, Black Knights. I assume you have been briefed on the situation; we've managed to get two wings of bombers and a few escort wings in there with them, but it looks like you've arrived too late to take on the Lucifer. We're sending out a wing of Medusa bombers. Cover them as they attack the Prophecy."

"You heard her, boys and girls," says Risnan, "Regular wings; Gamma take out turrets, Beta cover the bombers, Alpha come with me!"

We all split up, the Lucifer temporarily forgotten in the heat of battle.

"Here's the game plan," he says, "We've all got Hornet swarm missiles onboard, so we can keep the Prophecy from launching any more ships: we're going to take out the hangar exits."

"Sir," I say, "Have you done this before?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact," says Risnan, "But back then, we had little more than Fury missiles and a Fenris cruiser backing us up. Garamande and Schaard, sit outside the starboard exit, Hughes and I will take port. Blast any fighters trying to make an entrance; we're clogging the bays."

We split and, turning up shield power to max, try to avoid the heavy turret fire. Even with the reduced speed that comes with routing engine power to shields, we manage to evade the turrets. We watch our squad mates going after the HOL ships that have already been deployed, and Lorkhena and I have hardly reached the starboard-side exit before three Horus interceptors make their way along the short corridor. We let the hornets fly, and in surprise, the fighters try to dodge, but only run into each other, most of the damage coming from their collisions. There is already a sizable pile of rubble blocking the exit.

"How is your situation, Ron?" asks Lorkhena.

"Yeehah!" Ron responds, "They were sending a wing of Osiris bombers! We're already half-way done!"

"Lucky bastard," I say with a grin.

I see Lawrence take out a few turrets on our side of the ship, and behind him, the Bastion is in firing range. It's turrets open fire on the top of the Anvil; I imagine the Anvil's commander is frustrated with his current position. Typhon-class destroyers are relatively flat, and the Prophecy had jumped in with its top edge facing the Bastion. This was a good way to hinder entrance to the node, but bad for engaging an enemy destroyer. The Orion-class destroyer, on the other hand, is shaped much like a skyscraper on its side, so the Bastion's position, facing the Prophecy, leaves it with its lowest possible profile.

A wing of four Amun-class bombers, smaller than the Osiris, begin to make their way through the slightly smaller exit, so we fire again, and the rubble pile gets a two hundred and fifty percent size increase. It isn't long before the bombers' intended escort wing arrives, so we fire for a third time and the fighter bay is totally closed.

"The starboard fighter bay is closed off," Lorkhena reports, "What is your status, Lieutenant?"

Risnan answers, "We're done over here. This went off better than last time."

"What?" I'm slightly alarmed, "How did it go the first time?"

"My whole wing was wiped out, and we had to abort," says Risnan, "It's just like I said: we only had Fury missiles at hand and a Fenris for cover. Anyway, let's go clean up the rest of those enemy ships, the turrets are all stumps; this ship is a goner."

Shortly after, the Prophecy begins to malfunction, its hull integrity down to zero percent. We all fire our burners to get clear of the impending explosion, and are not disappointed.

"It's beautiful," says Tate, "like a thousand Nephilim bombers going up in flame."

"Definitely something to write granddad about," says Sanford.

"Great job, pilots!" says Shima, "I only pray our bombers made their mark."

We approach the Sol jump node alongside the Bastion, the tension mounting to a height even greater than when we began the chase. I can feel my heart pounding against my chest, like an enraged prisoner trying to break free of his cage. A cold sweat forms on my forehead, and time slows to a crawl; I imagine I can even see the air particles in front of my face lazily floating by. After an eternity of suspense, we pass the node threshold, and simultaneously activate our intersystem jump drives.

Silence…

…

"Admiral Shima," Al's voice shatters the silence like a cannon ball through a pane of glass, "what is the Bastion's status?"

"All systems appear normal," says Shima, "We are unable to enter the node, pilots. We will try to contact Outpost Europa in Sol."

There is another, shorter, moment of silence. Then, we hear the Admiral's voice again, as she broadcasts on all frequencies.

"This is Admiral Shima, commander of the GTD Bastion. Are you receiving me, Europa?"

More silence, but there is no response from the outpost, "What's going on, Admiral?" Lawrence speaks up, "What does this mean?"

"Pilots," Shima replies, "Europa is not responding; this would suggest that it has been destroyed by the Lucifer, that our mission has failed. However, none of our ships are able to make use of the Sol jump node. Therefore, there is only one thing of which we can be certain: the Sol-Delta Serpentis subspace node…

…has collapsed."

Even in the moments before she said it, we knew there could be no other explanation. Intersystem communications require the use of an intersystem subspace connection; at least one communications outpost is stationed in every Terran-controlled system, and each is used to relay communications through the subspace node corresponding with the location of the intended recipient. If we can neither make the jump to Sol, nor contact anyone in the system, the node must be inactive.

Jump nodes occur naturally, and also collapse naturally. One system, Talania, was totally cut off from the rest of the galaxy when the only two nodes out of it collapsed during the T-V war. Those two nodes, however, were somewhat unstable, and liable to collapse at any time, while the Sol-Delta Serpentis node was known to be incredibly stable, and likely to remain so for thousands of years.

The gravity of the situation is all the worse, considering that the Sol system has only one jump node: the one to Delta Serpentis.

"Return to the Bastion, pilots," says Shima, a sense of defeat strong in her voice, "I will contact Command to inform them of this occurrence, and request that the node be examined."

We enter the hangar bay, land, shut down our ships, and head back to our quarters in silence. I realize that, at the very least, if the Lucifer has not been destroyed, it is now trapped, unable to continue its rampage.

But at such a cost…