Space Race (Space Race 1) by Nathan Hystad (book recommendations for young adults .TXT) 📕

made sense of the shouts around me. “No!” Holland was yelling, trying to reach his father without success.

I stared at the vacant space where the Boardroom had been, and felt nothing but emptiness. “They’re all gone.”

“What do we do?” It was Varn’s voice in my earpiece. He was looking to me for guidance.

No one did anything. It was a mess, a mixture of the Primary Corporation vessels and Eclipse’s gathered fleet. Among the haulers, freighters, skimmers, cruisers, and Racers, I spotted Velvet. Still alive. That gave me hope.

“We did it.” I had to say something. We had defeated the big bad enemy after all.

“At what price? The entire Board is eradicated, along with two thousand of their closest friends,” Luther groaned.

“Tell me Dad wasn’t on there,” Holland said.

“I think he’s alive,” I told him. I searched for Eclipse’s tag Jade had managed to scrounge up earlier, and targeted it.

She appeared a moment later, looking frazzled. “You’re the SeaTech pilot.”

“I am. Hello…Ellie.” I used her real name, the one Octavia had called her.

“Where did you…?”

“We’re in need of some guidance here, and we figured you might be the best person to lead us. There could be more coming,” I suggested.

“My sister was just killed. We’re lucky we got off without all of us being destroyed. This won’t be the end of it.” She whispered to an officer behind her. “You were the first to target them. Nice trick, assuming the shields were designed to protect them against a particular array.”

“Credit due to the great Jade Serrano, I’m afraid.” I smiled at Jade, and she returned it.

“Captain Lewis, we have incoming…” R11’s voice trailed off. I looked at the radar map to find hundreds of inbound blinking lights.

“Ellie, do you see those?” I asked. The plug-in Jinx had provided showcased more and more alien vessels arriving on my radar.

“See what?”

“We have incoming. Drones. And I don’t think they’re friendly.” At first, I thought it was hundreds, but as they neared and spread apart, it was clear they’d been overlapping. There were thousands.

Eclipse’s eyes were wide, panicked. “Where are they?”

I sent her a snapshot. She quickly understood. “What’s that in the center? Another of those tentacled monsters?”

I saw the variance on the ID marker and zoomed on it. No way. “It can’t be.”

“What is it?” she asked.

“It’s my grandfather’s old ship. It’s Obelisk.”

____________

Our fleet gathered into a defensive position, with the weaker transports already destined toward Saturn. Thirty in total, each capable of holding a few hundred people. At least some of us might escape this terrible day. The thought was fleeting as the enemy horde headed closer with each passing minute.

“How is Obelisk here, Arlo?” Holland asked.

“That’s a good question, since it’s supposed to be destroyed,” I reminded him. Too many things ran through my mind for me to think straight.

“Something isn’t adding up,” Luther said softly.

Holland couldn’t stand it. He looked ready to implode, his cheeks red. “I’m reaching out to my dad again.”

Jade stared at the horde of incoming drones from beside my chair. “Who’s on that ship?”

“We’re about to find out,” I whispered as they grew nearer.

I assumed these drones could be destroyed, like the first vessel had been, but they might have learned from our pattern shift. We’d have to do it again or come up with another ingenuity to defeat them. From what Jinx had shown me, they weren’t violent, just voyeurs, but that didn’t mean they weren’t able to wreak havoc from under those dark hulls.

My viewer flickered to a communication I hadn’t authorized. “Who speaks for Earth?” a voice asked. The figure was shrouded in darkness, a shadow standing ten paces from the camera. I’d seen pictures of Obelisk over the years since its disappearance. Hell, I’d even gotten a grand tour before Preston Lewis had left for his journey to Proxima. I’d been so focused on trying to convince him to stay on Earth with us, I barely recalled anything about the vessel. But seeing the bridge again brought it all flooding back.

“I said, who speaks for Earth?” the shadow boomed again.

“I do.” The voice was a shock, since we thought Octavia had been destroyed on the Boardroom in the initial strike.

“I thought you were obliterated,” the man said. His voice was slightly garbled, telling me he was using a modification application.

“Unfortunately, I wasn’t on it while your friends killed the rest of my colleagues.” Octavia didn’t flinch at her own comment, and I understood. She hadn’t been on the luxury liner. Well played, Octavia. I’d put money on it that Boardroom had been practically empty, and that the escaping vessels held many of the executives.

“I see you managed to fend off the Squid. That’s quite a feat, but it doesn’t matter. I order you to stand down.” The man continued hiding from plain sight.

Octavia’s brows rose inquisitively. “And why would we do that? If we fought this Squid and survived, why not end you as well?”

“Because you’ll find these drones don’t damage so easily. There’s nothing on your ships that will break through their shields. I guarantee this.”

“Holland, are you there?” I heard Bryson on the communicator behind me. With a crane of my neck, I saw him on Holland’s viewscreen.

“Dad?” Holland’s voice was a whisper. “Where are you?”

“I just arrived. What the hell is going on?”

I tried to concentrate on the conversation between Octavia and the man on Obelisk, letting Holland fill his father in on today’s excitement.

I returned my focus to Octavia. “We can negotiate. How is it that our old vessel has returned almost twenty years after we sent her off? We’ve been under the assumption Obelisk and her crew were destroyed.”

The deep voice spoke with anger. “Stand down.”

The drones had encircled our fleet, moving in programmed patterns, and presumably remotely controlled. I flew away from Varn’s Racer and sped toward the nearest drone. “Fire, Luther!”

He did, the blasts dissipating as they struck the shield. “Jade, any suggestions?” I asked.

“Not off the top of my head. The Defenders