8 Trials Deep

CHAPTER 15: SET A TRAP, NOT WALK INTO ONE

Meanwhile in the mothership’s confinement chamber chaos descended as a confusion of running people and chasing sentinels gave the place the look of an overgrown nursery, except enormous robotic hounds took the place of babysitters.

“Can you trigger the alarm on the control room of the mothership?” RF-13 asked Leta as he continued to maneuver through the blind spots to evade surveillance. He was now beginning to sweat, they had been running in circles avoiding the sentinels and drones.

“Yes,” Leta confirmed.

“Lock the control room and set off the alarm.”

Not even a second passed before a jarring sound rang throughout the control room. Each one of them looked at the closest person in surprise wondering who triggered the alarm. Commander Hastam Morgan frowned deeply as he shouted for it to be silenced immediately. The operators fumbled in panic and confusion as they frantically pulled the alarm lever down. But the siren call continued blaring throughout the room.

One officer shouted and ran towards the entrance, the metal door was sliding shut. However he was not able to make it as the thick frame descended down with a bang. Any attempt to open it through the computer or manual force resulted in failure, the doors remained shut and unyielding.

All the staff in the lower deck of the mothership rushed where the alarm sounded. A long call followed by three short consecutive siren signals indicated that there was an intruder and the intruder made it to the control room. Every crew drew their weapon out intent on catching the trespasser.

Inside the control room, the commander had lost his patience and pulled out his nuke pistol and shot it towards the sealed entrance. The men who were trying to pry it open had barely jumped out of the way when the blast hit the metal door. However, the frame had proven sturdy and had only sustained a dent.

The mothership’s occupants were engrossed in the wrong direction. On the lower deck of the ship a different door opened and RF-13 promptly emerged. RF-06 had seen him and had hurriedly run after him, a sentinel was following close behind.

RF-13 was cautiously trading the corridors when he heard heavy and hurried footsteps coming towards him. He turned to find RF-06 shouting as he tore pass him like a tornado. The hair on the back of RF-13’s neck stood attention when the sentinel’s fanged mouth almost snapped his head off. Two figures raced through the corridor, each aiming to overtake the other. Worse, RF-13 could hear Leta laughing on through his earpiece. Indeed, if it was not his butt on the line, RF-13 would have also found the situation hilarious. He just hoped the big screen was not focused on them.

His hope was immediately crushed when he spotted a drone following them overhead. If he had a gun he would have shot the drone first before shooting the sentinel.

Fortunately, Leta had not entirely forgotten that they were being chased at the moment and opened a door. RF-13 put a burst of speed and overtook the other cadet. Without taking a closer look, he jumped on an open cockpit and shouted at RF-06 to duck. The approaching sentinel exploded in a burst of fire.

“Keep the crew on the upper deck and open the mothership’s hatch,” RF-13 yelled over the engine’s roar, RF-06 had already jump started another warship. RF-13 gave him a nod and the other flew off.

By the time RF-06 took off, the mothership’s crew had been made aware of the situation. The guards and pilots who were initially on the lower deck rushed back to find that the exits had been sealed on them.

Commander Morgan was at the edge of exploding in fury as his men were unable to close the ship’s hatch. However they could still control the ship’s artillery. The lone warship flew up and down as if performing aerial stunts as it evaded their line of fire.

RF-13 tightened his grip on the joystick and said through gritted teeth, “Can’t they run any faster?” RF-06 could not dodge the missiles forever. However, the two of them could not also take the enemy by themselves.

Finally after minutes the ones he had been waiting for arrived with sentinels on their tails. He yelled at them to duck as he locked the projectiles on the robotic hounds, one after another exploded. Fortunately, there were still quick minded individuals among the contenders who immediately got themselves in an aircraft and took off.

As soon as he made sure everyone had took off, RF-13 made his escape. The hatch doors had promptly closed after him, the sealed exits opened. Leta had lost what control she had on mothership’s configuration as soon as RF-13 set off.

When the original crew made it to the lower deck a good number of the warships had been flown and the rest were deliberately damaged. The commander had ordered them to pull out the mothership’s reserves and go after them in full pursuit.

RF-13 felt at home on the cockpit. If he was not flying the actual thing, he was sent to spend hundreds of grueling hours on the simulation room under Morret’s ‘doting’. And most of those hours were focused on warfare simulation.

Since he could not go into assault mode while flying the physical aircraft, Morret had made him practice air combat through simulation. His fellow cadets had not known but if his opponent was not Lissa, the AI, it would be Morret himself. The drill master was merciless. He could count the number of times he had won against the general with his fingers but he could no longer remember how many times he had been blasted by him.

There was only one thing RF-13 would not concede on with Morret, his choice of aircraft. He had always favored the Reconnaissance ship or the scout aircraft. As its name implied, the aircraft was built for reconnaissance, not for assault. The scout ships primary function was to investigate and withraw in secret.

Hence its lithe body and engine was geared for speed and concealment. However, it had a more limited artillery power and defense mechanisms. It was the reason why Morret had tried to make him change his choice of airliner but until then, out of the numerous airliners in the mothership’s lower deck, he had jumped on a reconnaissance ship out of instinct.

Somewhere, a man seating on a leather chair mocked, “Stubborn brat.”

The ‘stubborn brat’ was now maneuvering the scout ship through meteoroids and warship debris. Commander Morgan sneered as he looked at the soaring reconnaissance ship being tailed by several of his warships. More than half of the prisoner’s warships had already been sunk.

“Let me guide you,” Leta said to the pilot of the only scout ship.

“I’m following,” RF-13 replied with a mischievous curve on his lips. “Are we going on a romantic rendevous? But as you can see I’m kind of busy here, maybe after?”

Leta was left speechless for a moment. The brash pilot actually still had the energy to be flippant when almost half a dozen of warships were trying to lock on him with intelligent missiles.

“Be serious,” Leta said with a sigh, “you’re twin siblings are watching you right at this moment. Should I just leave you here to let them see their brother’s scout ship heroically plunge nose-first to the ground?”

“Behaving, I’m behaving!” RF-13 yelped in panic. “This talk of leaving makes me jittery. I always have this inexplicable feeling that you’re somehow going to disappear one day.”

“I told you to get your head into that cockpit,” replied Leta in an authoritarian voice. She was increasingly getting apprehensive. First because she also had a nagging feeling that she couldn’t honestly refute him and second, because RF-13 was distracted as the enemy warships began to form a net on him. “Five enemy warships closing in on 3 kilometer radius.”

“Let them come,” RF-13 replied.

“Unstable comet cluster ahead,” Leta warned. But RF-13 had already dived into the dense cloudy fog. The scout ship maneuvered its way through the confusion of colliding comets and murky surroundings. The chasing warships had hesitated for a moment before following the reconnaissance ship.

“Now, guide me,” RF-13 said, all bantering traces gone.

Leta understood, RF-13 had deliberately led the warships all along in a chase towards the colliding comet cluster. She sent out mapping radar and said, “On your 3 o’clock.”

RF-13 fired as Leta instructed and within a minute of them plunging into the comet cluster all five warships sunk one after another. The chasing pilots did not even know what happened when their aircraft suddenly receive a hit and they found themselves pressing the eject button. RF-13 did not bother to after the parachuting pilots. Instead, he flew back to the mothership and found RF-06 surrounded.

RF-06 watched agape as a reconnaissance ship blew one of his pursuers. Others followed like falling stars, one after another. The group previously assemble to pin RF-06 scattered like a swarm of headless flies. RF-13 went in pursuit, his speed had gained the upper hand and he launched missiles after the warships. Fortunately, the enemy warships reserve had distinct designs from the ones they stole and RF-13 could easily spot his targets.

The commander watched in disbelief as the scout warship continued to evade capture or enemy fire. Instead, the odds were turning against them. Only a fifth of his warships were still flying while the reconnaissance ship sunk his airliners like shooting stars. Very soon only the mothership was left of the original hundreds of his force.

RF-13 sent a transmission to RF-06, “Fisherman or bait?”

RF-06 promptly replied, “Bait.”

“Copy,” responded RF-13 as the two’s aircraft flew to opposite directions.

RF-06 flew close to the mothership, even appearing to want to crash itself against the humongous body. However, the warship would pull up on the last second. There was a deafening explosion on the side of the mothership as RF-13 bombarded its side with all the artillery it had. It was too late when the commander Morgan realized what the scout ship was doing. The missile had penetrated through the shield and hit the chemical energy reserve of the mothership. In the next second, the commander maneuvered the gigantic body of the ship to tilt towards the closest warship. RF-06’s smaller aircraft collided and exploded together with the mothership. However the pilot was able to activate the withdrawal signal on his suit and disappeared in the blink of an eye before the fire swallowed the cockpit.

RF-13’s scout ship was blasted by the force of the explosion. It took him a while to gain full control on the airliner. By the time he got back to the site of the explosion, only warship debris floated through the space.

He had barely realized that he was the only one left when Leta issued a warning, “Approaching hostiles within 10 kilometer radius.”

RF-13 clenched his teeth and shifted the ship to stealth mode. There was a stain of scarlet on the joystick as well as the warm hint of rust in the cockpit. Leta detected the gradual deoxigination inside of the scout ship before she realized RF-13 was bleeding. The intensity of the explosion had lodged a warship’s elongated edged debris into the reconnaissance ship. It was just a small hole on the scout ship. However, the spear-like form of the debris had punctured the overhead glass of the cockpit and pierced through RF-13’s side, pinning him into the chair.

“Quick, activate the withdrawal switch!” Leta shrieked, bewildered. But RF-13 shook his head and grasped control of the ship again. Once the approaching enemy ships were within range, RF-13 drove the ship straight towards the mothership.

It was too late when the mothership had detected an invisible hostile, the reconnaissance ship flew towards the mothership’s control room at a break-neck speed. The explosion spread from the upper deck to engulf the whole gargantuan vessel.