Greetings, once again! I am back with an update for the story. My reason for not updating the story in the last 2 or 3 months can be blamed on the failure of my graphics card, and the wait for a replacement, as well as the fact that this chapter has been by far the toughest to write. But nevertheless, order has been restored to my computer, the chapter is done, and here it is, for your reading pleasure.
IMPULSE
As one Hive Mind orchestrated the offensive against the six fighter craft, the Second Hive Mind analyzed the data from the engagement with the draconic avians, with startling results. They were indeed strong telepaths. But what was most startling was how strong they were. Collectively, it was beyond anything the Minds, or any other of their Kind had ever before analyzed. even individually they were immensely powerful.
But if this was the case, than the data from their engagement with the avians totally contradicted this new data. Why?
The Mind concluded that they were simply untrained, undisciplined. Each mind in the T'Hranii Hive underwent a dozen cycle-long meditation in the void of deep space early in their lifetime, to focus and sharpen their telepathic capacities. If the psyches of the draconic creatures had undergone any serious mental training, especially perhaps, early in their lifespan, the Minds would have never stood a chance against them.
And as it continued the analysis, the Mind discovered the network the minds of the avians formed.
It was almost beautiful. The new fact that each was in fact a separate entity, at the same time part of a single organism. Not at all unlike the Hive Minds themselves. It would have been more beautiful if many of the humans on the world weren't part of the network as well. There was a term, a Human term, for this phenomenon. The Mind would have liked to study it further. But the Mind dismissed it. The humans here had to die, regardless of the method. And, with its analysis completed, the Mind had devised a method, lest they fail in their plan.
It boosted the output of the Communication net on their body, seeking out one of the fleeing draconics, and without the creature even aware of it, made several, subtle changes it the algorithms that organized the functioning of its mind.
It was a failsafe. A safeguard, if by some off chance the humans managed to defeat them. And as a last safeguard, it accessed the datanodes of the drone craft, now far out in the system, and transferred the data collected thus far to it. Soon, it would return to T'Hranii space. Perhaps other minds could study the data further.
And the Mind, its task finished, merged with its brother to become one, and to soon become one with their fallen brother on the other side.
Rukbat 3, 12:51 hundred hours
"Falsner, we ain't gonna get out of this alive, are we?" Texas said into his Comm.
"Probably, probably not."
"Well, what're our chances then?"
This Falsner had already mulled over. With a wing of six it had been at 55 percent, the chances off them bringing down the Battlecruiser. Now with only two-thirds of that, it had dropped. And considerably at that.
"About thirty-three point three repeating, give or take to account for variability," Falsner replied.
"You're joking, it's really repeating?"
"I suddenly feel reassured," Capris spoke calmly. "Well, let's do this!"
And like that, like tons of bricks, they slammed into each other with mind-boggling, jarring force.
The microsecond the battlecruiser entered the optimal range on his rangefinder, Falsner popped the protective covers off the missile tubes in the nose and two of the four DK-12 Heatseekers flew from the Stiletto. In seconds they hit Mach 4 and, at the already incredible velocities in place, they locked on and hit the battlecruiser inside of a single second, hitting and passing through the battlecruiser's armor like a hot knife through margarine. The twin explosions blew whole sections of armor off the sides of the ship's prow. More explosions followed, the results of the attacks from Falsner's wingmen as their own missiles impacted the Crosseye ship.
Falsner and Capris broke away from Valero and Texas, barely a hundred meters from the battlecruiser when they did, so close they glimpsed the enormous filament crystal that was the focus of the Crosseye's devastating Quarkium Beam Weapon. So close that they could see the seams in its organic reddish armor. So close in fact, that the point defenses on the battlecruiser were incapable of safely engaging the four fighters, not without hitting the ship they were attempting to protect.
Too close. But it didn't matter to the Crosseye ship, safely or not it started to shoot at them anyways.
The Muzzle flashes blinded Falsner's peripheral vision as he sped past, faster than the ship's forward plasma batteries could track. The enormous plasma shells blinked past him, shells meant for combat against far larger ships. Explosions flashed around Falsner's Stilleto as the point defenses started to track him. Barely two seconds after Falsner passed the bow he shot between the central and upper rear ailerons of the battlecruiser and past the engines, their bright glow outshined still by the shells still flying past.
But only three made it past the gauntlet.
Falsner only saw Texas when he flew by the engines. It took him a second extra to see the fireball plunging into the ocean below.
The remains of Valero's Stiletto. It hit the water and sunk instantly, out of sight. Falser didn't see a chute anywhere.
Falsner didn't have time to register the impact of Valero's death. The battlecruiser was turning hard to its port side, hell bent on bringing the Stilettos back into range of its batteries.
Falsner swung around, Capris still on his wing, Texas speeding up on his rear. The battlecruiser's engines were in clear view, but would be out of shot in seconds as the Crosseyes maneuvered to intercept. Falsner throttled his strained craft to the max, the additional g-force pushing him back into his seat. The rangefinder flashed green and Texas and Capris let loose their remaining Missiles, Falsner ready to launch his an instant later-
What the Battlecruiser did next none of them ever expected.
To Falsner, the Battlecruiser's engines simply exploded. The enormous fireball that suddenly erupted from the thrusters engulfed and detonated the missiles while they were still in flight, engulfing the three remaining fighter craft an instant later.
The blast flung Falsner's Stiletto aside like a fragment of tissue paper. His craft abruptly lost all guidance and directional systems as the fireball engulfed him. The engines stalled, choking on the superheated vapors flowing into them, and the craft began to instantly plunge toward the sea.
Falsner realized that his craft was in a tailspin without ever looking through the canopy. He could feel it, the felling that if he didn't do something miraculous quickly, he was going to die in a watery grave on some alien world.
As the view cleared, The Lieutenant gunned the sputtering engines, flooding the ignition chambers with fuel, all the while angling the nose down to get air moving under the wings. With only seconds to spare, He yanked back on the stick as hard as he could, wrestling the beaten craft back into flight.
Falsner struggled to climb. The Stiletto was on its last leg. The hull had taken a serious beating. Most of the systems were barely functioning. And there was still more to come. He had a Battlecruiser to kill.
He scanned the horizon for his fellow fliers, any trace of them. He saw the battlecruiser, diving low to the water, seeming to lose altitude. He saw his craft around him in little more than tatters.
And he saw the wreck, floating on the water bobbing several kilometers away, the serial number on what was left of the tail section matching Capris' identification tag.
And the grief finally caught up to Falsner, but for only an instant before revenge took its place.
He would have time to mourn his fallen comrades and his Love later, after he finished the Crosseyes off once and for all.
He saw the cruiser more clearly now. It left a trail in the form of a massive plume of smoke in its wake, fueled by fires in its gut. Despite the fact that much of its forward section was smoldering and burning in the oxygen atmosphere, the bright blue glow still shone through the smoke and gases. The Bloodtail Squadron or, what was now left of it, had only wounded the Beast, not slain it.
Falsner brought his craft around, to bear down on the damaged battlecruiser. He scanned his instruments. His Gun readout was not responding. Neither was his torpedo Readout. He tried the Eject release, only to find that the canopy had been jammed in place, fused to the frame by the heat of the blast. The he tried the Comm. He was not surprised to find that all he got was static on all bands. He had no offensive power left, no communication, and now, no way out.
Except one alternative.
And then Lieutenant Falsner resigned himself to what he had to do.
The Battlecruiser was directly on his nose in front of him. It continued to steadily lose altitude. Falsner made the last course adjustments before he hit the thrusters that would send him hurdling at the Battlecruiser's main engine-
When the entire Crosseye ship abruptly nosed down and accelerated far more than gravity should allow and slammed into the water with a spectacular plume of water.
It sliced through the waves until it stopped abruptly, its shattered nose impacting the seafloor almost half a kilometer down. The cruiser's rear stuck out of the sea, showered by the plume it had created, engines glowing through the mist more brightly than before.
Falsner simply sat there in his cockpit seat, speechless, watching it all through the warped canopy. Since when did the Crosseyes commit suicide?
And then Falsner realized that the Cruiser was trying to thrust out of its watery environment, as if it was being held under by something or someone. But who would do that, or would be even capable of doing that-
I suggest doing something that will destroy that Vessel, instead of just flying around in circles, silly human.
It wasn't so much the fact he just heard an odd voice in his head, but more the fact that it was giving him a direct order, as odd as it sounded. These kinds of voices tended to suggest, not direct. But for all intents and purposes the Lieutenant was probably going insane. Hearing voices and getting frequent migraines were the signs of a neurological disorder or a mental deficiency of some kind-
I'm not a headache you dimglow.
Falsner chuckled to himself. And then he started laughing uncontrollably before speaking to no one in particular. "That's what it says at first you know! Eventually it's telling you to that it's the Gods themselves speaking, then it's telling you to kill your Commanding Officer while he's asleep or drunk, followed by your wingmen and then your grandmother-"
Believe me, I am real. If you look above and behind your vessel you'll see myself and my rider, Lord Jaxom of Ruatha Hold. At least we believe that is you sitting there.
The Lieutenant looked above and behind his craft, out through the heat-warped canopy glass.
And he saw one of the avian creatures drafting in his wake, its stark white hide and brilliant crystal blue eyes beginning to reflect the rays of sun peeking over the horizon at sea level. It had, or appeared to have, six limbs altogether, four legs and two wings, held rigid in his craft's wake. It was in fact only slightly smaller than the Stiletto Falsner flew. It was accompanied by another of the avians, this one far larger. That one had a deep gold hide, shining as well with the first rays of sun. And he could see someone on the back of each of the avian creatures, enough to tell that they, or them, appeared to be human.
Do you believe me now? My name is Ruth, and I am what you may call a telepath. My mother holds the Vessel in place but she cannot keep it in place for much longer. If you are going to do something that would destroy that abomination, do it now.
The words and voice in his head had knocked him back to his senses. "Telepathy explains it. So you want me to destroy the Crosseye Battlecruiser?
If that is what you call it, yes. It has killed many of my brothers and sisters, and countless humans as well.
"Ok. I'll do that, if you would do something for me."
A favor? The avian called Ruth seemed to pause a moment at this. And what would that be?
"Some clicks back several of my men went down. If there are any survivors, I would like you or your Lord Jaxom or whoever to try to rescue them if they're alive. And a couple more split off, last I heard they were looking for dry land to bail out. And if any of them are alive, tell them Lieutenant Thomas Falsner sends his regards from the other side. "
We will be sure to do that, but why are you-
"Goodbye, Ruth."
And then Falsner gunned the engines, guiding his craft on its final course.
He had been only a few clicks away fro the floundering Crosseye vessel. He crossed the space in seconds, his Stiletto guided right into the main engine nacelle. One life for many, he thought.
He thought briefly about how he had wished he had been relaxing on a beach somewhere on shore leave, about how he could have spent more time with Capris. About a promotion to Lieutenant Colonel that Colonel Skye had said he was deserving of. He even thought about his home, how his parents would take the news of his death. And then he thought about the Red Baron.
The last thing Falsner thought before everything went black was that he never returned the book about the early Aeronaut Manfred von Richthofen to its owner on the Sargasso.
Ramoth had to let go of the Vessel, the instant before the explosion. The effort would have killed her and her rider otherwise.
And the Queen's rider thought she didn't have the strength, albeit it was a consuming effort to hold it still. But neither the Golden Queen or her rider or the White Dragon or Lord Jaxom expected what the man named Thomas Falsner would do.
He crashed his strange craft into the Second Vessel. Deliberately. Suicidally. The Weyrwoman knew there was no way he could have survived, even less so as for what happened next.
The Second Vessel simply blew outwards in all directions, jagged flaming chunks of debris dragonlengths long hurled into the air like so many fragments of wherhide, as they were propelled by the massive, titanic explosion. The White and Gold dragons went between instants before certain doom, lest they be sucked there after the Flier.
And when they came out of it eight seconds later, they emerged on a very different world it seemed.
What remained of the Vessel sluggishly floundered on the surface of the Central Sea, almost completely obscured by the rapidly rising fireball that expanded above it. The very clouds themselves seemed to be in retreat, thrusted away by the shockwave, caused by the Vessels demise. Not a trace of its crimson armor clearly visible. Every surface seemed to be burning or smoldering, continuing to do so even after it slipped back beneath the surface for once and for all, bits of smoking debris bobbing on the water and the steadily rising mushroom cloud that hunk over the area like a pallid marker of death.
It had all happened so quickly, that it took the Weyrwoman a full minute to register all of it. The battle they had witnessed between Falsner and his fellow fliers and the Vessel, his subsequent pursuit, their contact with him and finally his sacrifice, a sacrifice that may have very well saved Pern.
The Weyrwoman and Lord Holder spent the next several hours keeping their promise to the Flier, carefully searching where the three craft had gone down; bits and pieces of debris on the surface were all that were left of the Fliers and their craft. But despite Ramoth's and Ruth's sharp eyesight, no survivors could be seen.
No Survivors. But the two fliers that the man named Falsner said had left the rest might be still alive. And so the two dragons, and their weary riders, flew north to the Northern Continent.
Ista Weyr Infirmary, the next morning
Even as he lay, even in his semi-conscious state on the cot in the infirmary, Terellan knew that they weren't coming. His family was not coming that day, nor the day after, nor any day at all. They were never coming ever again.
Terellan knew that his family was dead.
He knew it when he woke up in a crowded infirmary full of sick and injured people. People who had been asleep when they had been crushed in their holds like he had. Many had seen the brilliant lights like he had, and had been caught off guard when their world had been turned upside down, by something that none of them could understand.
And many of them had an interesting story like his, that they had been rescued by strangers, wearing strange clothing and holding strange objects. They had come in the dark, helping to rescue people who had been unable to help themselves. They had spoken strangely, in a dialect difficult to understand. But they were willing to render assistance to those who needed it.
And as dragonriders and relief began to arrive from stricken Ista Weyr, they had vanished as strangely as they had come.
He had heard from another that the dragonriders were looking for the strangers, along with a pair of 'fliers'. Terellan had heard by then about the vessels and their attack on Pern. He wondered about people from other worlds. What would they look like? He wondered.
He had decided to find the strangers, when he was able to move on his broken ankle again. That's what He would do. He wanted to thank these strangers for saving his life.
And why they didn't save the rest of his family.
That's a wrap for this chapter. The next is coming up soon, as soon as I can write it.