The Sword of Stars: Chapter 12, Part 2 (J2 AU NC-17, Fic)
Continued from Chapter 12, Part 1
The trip through the tunnels was a blur. Jared was battling exhaustion on top of the drugs and his injuries, so he was content to let Jensen lead him.
Jensen knew the tunnels flawlessly. When Jared asked, Jensen explained he’d memorized the map Eliza had made and combined it with the maps and memories he had from his mother. When they reached a strange arched metal door with a rotary handle, Jensen spun it and pushed and suddenly they were outside in the daylight once more.
Jared blinked and looked around balanced precariously as Jensen pushed the door shut behind them. It was actually section of the city wall itself, the seam all but invisible and further camouflaged by the ivy growing over it. “I guess we think alike on the whole door-hiding thing,” Jared murmured. The set-up was eerily similar to the Scienti-built tunnel they’d stumbled out of an hour or two before.
Jensen nodded, distracted by something.
“Does it lock from the outside?” Jared asked, belatedly realizing he had no clue how they could spin that handle from the outside.
“Yes, just-there, “ Jensen exclaimed, pressing a lever concealed beside the seam.
Jared could hear the handle spinning back into place.
“If you know where it is, and how to use it, you can open it from the outside too,” Jensen explained.
Jared looked back at the wall and blinked hard. He almost couldn’t believe he was leaving St. Pious of his own accord. Then again, Jensen had only been outside these walls once in his memory...
“I remember leaving here when I was little. Just like I kind of remember... underground,” Jensen replied, as if sensing Jared’s question. “Are you okay to move? The transport should be just on the other side of that clump of trees, and we have twenty-seven hours before they have to launch. I-need to be there in case there’s anything they don’t have or understand.”
Jared nodded.
“Show me the controls?” Jensen asked. “I know the theory, I just need...”
“I can drive,” Jared offered as he staggered off towards the trees, pressing himself close to the wall, careful to stay out of sight of the guards.
“Just show me. You need to rest,” Jensen insisted, sliding in behind Jared and following him closely.
Jared just nodded again.
As the trees came into view, Jared’s heart sank; at first he thought there was no transport. Had Father Peleggi fallen after all? Or perhaps betrayed them, or just decided not to help?
But then the sleek profile of the low-hovering vehicle came into view. Jared hadn’t ever seen this before. It looked an awful lot like the intra-city cabs that ran in the Union, only smaller, with room for only four people and much smoother lines.
“I’ve only seen this once,” Jensen murmured. “Benedict used it when there was an emergency and he had to travel far and fast. He doesn’t display it like he does some transports-”
“Because it looks like exactly what it is,” Jared realized.
“Yes,” Jensen agreed. He helped Jared over to the vehicle and pressed the pad that opened the passenger-side door. It slid back with a gentle hiss. “Let me put the bags in, then you sit,” Jensen said as he carefully placed the bags in the rear seat and turned to help ease Jared into the seat. It took a little maneuvering to settle Jared’s leg without making him bend his injured knee, but they managed, with Jared perched somewhat on his side, and Jensen quickly shut the door and slid in on the other side, looking surprisingly at home behind the controls. “Okay, now show me?” Jensen asked.
Jared was conscious long enough to make sure Jensen had the hovercar powered up and the basics of the controls down-Jared doubted Jensen actually needed his help, but if it helped calm his clenching hands, it was worth it-before the pull of exhaustion overcame him.
Jared jumped as a soft, damp cloth brushed the side of his face.
“Shh, shh, you’re all right. Just got out of surgery.”
“Surgery?” Jared mumbled. He wasn’t sure all the syllables formed. He was trying to remember. Where was he?
Insids. Benedict. Torture. Escape. Launch. Jensen!
He bolted upright, or at least he tried to, but he moved a handful of centimeters and gasped, his head swimming as his stomach rebelled.
“Easy,” the person-doctor-Danni-said. “You’re in Losa. Jensen’s safe.” She slid a basin under his chin and helped prop him up as his stomach emptied itself violently. “The nausea’s from the anesthesia. We-I’m sorry Jared, Jensen knew you’d be worried, but it would have been worse to wait, your knee was a mess. I think you injured it further in the escape, and you were already unconscious and I needed to treat your other wounds.”
“It-it’s okay, Danni,” he croaked, as she wiped a string of spit from his mouth. “Can I see Jensen? Has-has Chris… have we launched?”
“Launch is in just under an hour. Chris was hoping you’d come around. I thought you’d be awake a while ago, but that concussion gave us some trouble. How’s your head?” Danni asked, talking fast as she helped Jared to sit up fully.
“Better?” he answered uncertainly. “It still hurts, but it feels a lot better than it did earlier.”
“Well you got to spend two hours under the regenerators after I finished on your knee.”
Jared looked down at himself. He was dressed in loose hospital clothes-baggy pants and a simple shirt both made from soft, finely woven, hypoallergenic elchani silk. His left leg was clearly bandaged and had an immobilizer under the pants and portable regenerator affixed around the outside. The device was humming softly while a faint green light flashed rhythmically to indicate it was working.
“That one’s staying on at least until morning. I want you to be up and about as soon as possible. If you stay off your foot today, you should be able to walk on it tomorrow. Greet Chris when he gets back?” She sounded so sure, so confident; Jared almost believed the mission would go off without a hitch.
“Can you take me to see them now? Catch me up on what happened?” he asked.
“Sure,” Danni agreed. “Let’s get you a chair.” She walked away leaving Jared to take in his surroundings.
White walls, blue and green lights of hospital machinery, dry air… he was definitely in the base hospital at Losa Desert. He was in a private room, no one else was around, and the door to the hall was mostly closed. It was so quiet he felt very lonely, reminded too much of the silent, abandoned headquarters back in St. Pious. It had been home for six months.
“Here you go,” Danni said, pushing open the door with a hover chair. She pulled it up to the side of the bed, and hit the stabilizer so it locked in place while Jared eased his good leg over the side of the bed and let Danni help him to transfer to the chair.
He was so very grateful for modern medical technology. If he was still in St. Pious, he’d probably spend weeks or months recovering. There were reasons, unpleasant ones at that, for the nature of the Scientists’ medical tech of course. Especially in the early years with such a small population, so much work to do, a relatively hostile environment, and constant threats from the Zyretans, the Scientists had put great effort into preventing injury and disease, speedy healing, and developing advanced assistive technologies to ensure all Scientists were safe, protected, and had as much independence as possible.
Danni guided his chair from the room and out of the base hospital. He expected she would take him to a conference room or one of the mission control rooms, but instead she led him out into the relatively cold desert evening and out onto the tarmac. “Morgan and McDonnell are both here personally overseeing the launch preparations. They were able to start constructing and formulating the payload based on the information you sent back with Chris-it was all coded in Jensen’s DNA. The additional data he sent over a little less than a day-and-a-half ago confirmed the precise launch trajectory and timing. We had a good idea based on what we decoded, but this allowed us to tweak that a little for maximum effect.” She grinned down at him. “I guess you could say the data Chris brought back after the Freedom Beach mission told us the how. What Jensen sent us from the Archive told us the why, and that helped get things just right.”
Jared looked up at her, raising his eyebrow in query.
“Did Jensen tell you what he found?” Danni asked.
“There wasn’t really time. I think-I know some of it went on the screens, but I was kind of in shock at the time…” he admitted.
“So, long story short, about twenty-five hundred years ago, the Insids made their first foray into our solar system. At least, we think it was the Insids. Great black shapes like daggers appeared in the sky and fire stared to rain down on the planet, but then the suns flared in the sky like a sword of stars and wiped the sky clean,” Danni said, making grandiose gestures with her arms.
“What?” Jared asked.
“That story is found in the religious texts for all of the major Old Zyretan religions. Jensen’s mom found some more detailed accounts stored in the Zyretan Council archive. She cross-referenced it with what happened three hundred years ago-we know the smaller sun, Deus Secundus experienced a plasma jet ejection that took out one of the Insid carriers, but just one. The rest got through and only turned back from what we can tell because they realized we had colonized additional planets and they didn’t have enough resources to hold ours after the losses they took from the plasma and our weapons. Donna managed to find the Old Zyretan records on plasma ejections, jets, mass ejections, and other major flares for both suns going back as far as we knew how to measure that stuff. She matched that to everything Boreas Stellae had recorded. Then she hit the jackpot-the Archive actually had sensor logs that survived the Insid attack 300 years ago, and along with that was one of the Old Zyretan University’s retro-analysis of major solar events from the past five thousand years.” Danni was practically bouncing with excitement.
“And?” Jared couldn’t help his impatience, he could see people up ahead standing next to one of the SUMDF-342 Fighters, and he was pretty sure Chris and Jensen were among them.
“Turns out, the suns are sensitive to the specific gravimetric forces and subspace distortions created by the Insid ship construction and sub-light drives. When they approach the edge of a system they drop into regular space and almost stop. They coast in on their sub-light drives and that is enough to trigger a plasma jet ejection from the Deus Secundus. So if we did nothing, assuming they haven’t drastically changed their engine design in the last three hundred years-which is likely, given what we know about the Insids-Deus Secundus would probably jet and take out one of their carriers. However, what happened 2500 years ago, and what, incidentally is a major factor in the whole suns-as-deities-who-protect-us mythology, was the Insids arrival in-system with their sub-light drives coincided with the peak of a natural long-term cycle in solar activity. Both stars were building up to release plasma jets on a scale we only see roughly once every 1500 years. The Insids’ arrival magnified that by at least one order of magnitude… probably two, and presto, instant Insid incineration,” Danni explained.
“Okay, so… we just had a three-hundred year civil war because the aliens showed up when the suns weren’t ready to eject plasma?” Jared asked.
“More or less,” Danni agreed.
“So how does this help us? We’re not at the peak of the suns’ cycle, right?”
“Alan Ackles worked out the astrophysics, while Donna Ackles ironed out the chemistry. Together they figured out exactly when, where, and what we need to launch into the suns to trigger an identical result to the jet that took out the first Insid fleet,” Danni answered. “The design, chemical composition, construction, and launch data were coded into Jensen’s DNA. That’s what Chris is going to launch.”
“But what if the Insids brought more-isn’t their fleet supposed to be three times as big as the last one? Do we know how big their first fleet was?” Jared demanded glaring down at his hands. He hated this. He still didn’t see how this was going to guarantee any kind of success. He’d believed, he’d been so confident…
“Jared, relax. This is going to work. The more ships, the larger the distortion the bigger the jet. Any ships that don’t get outright incinerated or vaporized will be incapacitated either through the massive amounts of life-killing radiation or the surge in EM field that will pretty much fry the ships. Our biggest risks are Chris not getting out of range in time and other craft getting in the way. The jets will run along the vertical plane intersecting with the Insids' entry vector. We’ll see a pretty light show, and we may have risks of falling debris, but that’s about it.” Danielle squeezed his shoulder. “Okay, we’re here.”
Jared looked up again and suddenly Chris and Jensen were right there. Jensen was still in the pants and sweater he’d donned in their room. Chris was wearing a flight suit, helmet tucked under his arm.
“Jared!” Chris and Jensen cried simultaneously.
Chris rushed over and shook his hand. “So glad you’re all right, man. It’s about time you joined us.”
Jensen approached more slowly and leaned down to capture Jared’s lips in a kiss. “We’re almost ready to launch. The probes are loaded into the missile bays on Chris’s ship.”
“We’re just waiting for…” Chris started to say, but something, or someone, caught his eye. “Aldis! You made it. They-oh…” he stammered thrusting his helmet at Jared to hold while he ran off across the tarmac.
“I take it that’s his husband?” Jared asked as he watched Chris scoop a much taller, lanky dark skinned man with short-cropped hair into his arms. He couldn’t make out much more from the distance, but Chris and his husband both looked overjoyed.
“Yeah-Morgan finally relented and gave Aldis clearance about three hours ago,” Jensen answered. “He-Morgan is unreasonable. It took a General in the Defense Forces calling and demanding Morgan let Chris see his husband before going off on a possible suicide mission to get Morgan to relent. Apparently the General was Chris’s commanding officer and… well McDonnell got mad at Morgan too.”
Jared nodded. Well, at least Morgan’s disregard for Jensen’s psychological well-being wasn’t personal, not that that made it any better.
“Jared, Jensen,” Chris said, as he and Aldis approached. “I’d like you to meet my husband, Aldis.”
They shared introductions around, and then started over again as the Minister and Director of Intelligence herself and a very subdued looking Deputy Director Morgan approached. Time seemed to skip by in fast forward again, and maybe it was just the lingering effects of his concussion and medications, because it seemed like one minute they were getting to know each other and the next, Chris and Aldis were kissing each other goodbye as Chris boarded the SUMDF-342 as the rest of their group was ushered inside to mission control.
“Freedom One has broken orbit, starting approach vector,” the young MDF Lieutenant announced. The tension in the room ratcheted up another notch. Chris had launched an hour before. He’d had to sync orbit with Boreas Stellae to upload the latest data on the approaching Insid fleet and current readings on the suns. The Insids had dropped into regular space and engaged their sub-light drives as expected and the Deus Secundus was already showing a buildup that would precipitate the plasma jet ejection. Chris had recalibrated his approach vector based on the new information.
“So both stars are going to send out a plasma jet, and it will reach the Insid fleet?” Aldis asked. He was staring at the 3-D projection of the solar system his eyes fixated on the blip that represented Chris’s fighter.
“Yes,” Jared answered leaning sideways in the chair and pressing against Jensen for support. He felt a little guilty. Jensen was here, whole, tangible, real… while Aldis was stuck watching the man he loved fly into the suns. Jared almost wished he was a fighter pilot so he could do this, but he wouldn’t want to put Jensen in Aldis’s position.
“We-Chris and I-used the data and advances in fighter technology in the last twenty years to improve on the plan my parents developed,” Jensen said softly.
Aldis turned to look at him, his expression skeptical. “And you’re sure it’s better?”
“Better and safer,” Jensen replied. “Chris’s ship has two probes. One specifically formulated for each sun. We were able to plot a course and adjust the targeting parameters so he can release both probes at once and they will be simultaneously delivered to the required spots. The original plan would have required either two ships or one ship with two stops, which would have run a high risk of killing the pilot either from prolonged radiation exposure or getting caught in the actual plasma jets themselves.”
“But now Chris will have a better chance to get away, right?” Jared asked.
Jensen nodded. “Yeah.”
“These jets, will we see them?” Aldis asked.
“Maybe… we’re deep enough in night that the projections suggest both sun may have finished the ejection by the time we reach first dawn, but we can’t be sure. The people on the other side of the planet are about to get… a spectacle,” Jensen finished.
The room fell silent again.
“Launch in ten, nine, eight…”
Jared squeezed Jensen’s hand.
“Five, four, three, two, one, launch!” the Lieutenant exclaimed.
On the projection two objects streaked away from Chris’ fighter which abruptly reversed it’s engines slowing to almost a dead stop, flipped, and then began speeding back towards the planet on an arced path. Or at least that’s what Jared knew was happening. The blip just spawned smaller, faster blips, stopped, and began moving away. In order to get the right reaction, Chris had to approach the suns from an oblique angle that brought him dangerously close to the axial plane and the path along which the jets would soon shoot out. He was cutting back towards Zyreta, the closest planet to his trajectory because of where it was in its orbit, at an angle, but he couldn’t take the shortest path as it would bring him too close to the Dea Prima and irradiate him.
“Probes have contact. Jet ejection in two minutes; plasma levels building to critical mass.”
Jared could see the suns changing, colors shifting; he could almost see the power building up, growing, building, looking for somewhere to go even on the 3-D representation. Chris’s blip was moving away, but it didn’t seem to be going fast enough.
“Freedom One, fire hyperdrive for one nanosecond on my mark in three, two, one, mark.”
The blip disappeared for a split second, and everyone in the room made an involuntary gasp, then it reappeared, closer to Zyreta and farther from the suns.
“Crap, I think it actually worked,” Jared gasped.
Jensen let out a long, shaky breath beside him. “My father recommended it as a way to gain distance, but it was still risky.”
“Very risky,” Jared breathed.
“Plasma mass jet ejection commencing!” the Lieutenant exclaimed. “Freedom One will lose satellite contact due to interference until it crosses into the planet’s shadow.”
Everyone watched and waited with bated breath as the suns, first the Deus Secundus followed closely by the Dea Prima, seemed to flash and then morph as an enormous jet of plasma shot out of each star vertically. As the jets approached the Insid fleet they bent towards each other forming an almost-point.
“It’s the gravimetric distortions,” Jensen murmured.
It was still strange to hear those words coming from Jensen, but Jared was so glad to have Jensen by his side, even if Jensen’s words right now were mostly drawn from the vocabulary and memories his mother had… downloaded into a chip in his wrist.
At first nothing happened, the sword formed by the stars seemed to hang in space just in front of the black dagger shapes that represented the Insid fleet. Then the lead dagger turned orange and flared and then the ones behind and beside it and then the ones behind those and those and on and on until all but two ships had incinerated in the blast.
“Borealis Stellae has calculated the temperature, EM, and other radioactive changes on the remaining ships. Based on its projections, both ships are already dead in the water. We won’t be able to confirm until the plasma discharge ceases but passive long-range scanner telemetry suggests the two ships are already drifting out of formation. Drifting wide.”
Jared let out a breath and then another.
Beside him Jensen had dug his fingernails into his palms and was slowly, slowly releasing, leaving bloody crescent-shaped cuts in his wake.
Jared didn’t care; he grabbed Jensen’s hand and held on. They breathed. Just breathed together for one minute, two, and then… then… first the remaining ship closest to the Dea Prima exploded. Then the ship closest to the Deus Secundus exploded in a matching flash of orange and red.
“Enemy target neutralized. Projections estimate no more than 3 % of debris will make it into the habitable zone, and anything left should burn up in our atmospheres,” the Lieutenant announced.
A huge cheer went up around the room!
“What-what about Chris?” Aldis asked, his face stricken, features ashen.
Jared looked at the blip on the 3-D display. Thirty seconds. Thirty seconds and his blip would have slipped far enough into Zyreta’s shadow to contact the command center.
“Give it a minute,” Jared whispered.
While people were still celebrating around them, the seconds ticked by slowly, barely creeping. Then, finally, a crackle and hiss of static sounded on the overhead comm. “Command, this is Freedom One, do you read, over?” came Chris’s voice.
“Freedom One, this is Command. Reading you loud and clear. Uploading landing trajectory to your navsat now. Over,” the Lieutenant sighed.
Jared, Jensen, and Aldis finally let out their breath too. Jared leaned into Jensen and calmed himself by watching the blip of Chris’s ship move closer and closer to the Zyreta. Closer and closer to home.
“I understand congratulations are in order,” a pleasant female voice said from behind them.
Jensen turned beside Jared and steered Jared’s hoverchair around.
“Madam Secretary,” Jared greeted bowing as deeply as the chair would allow.
“So you rescued the Lost Son,” she said with a nod to Jared, “and you supplied the intel we needed to defeat the Insids,” she nodded at Jared. “I hear you even improved on your parents’ plans,” she gushed to Jensen.
“Yes,” Jared answered as Jensen agreed with a ‘yes madam.’
“Thank you,” McDonnell added, reaching out to shake first Jared and then Jensen’ hands. She turned to Aldis. “I just heard your husband is landing as we speak. Thank you for your support,” she added. “Together you have finished a task that has haunted our planet for three hundred years.”
Jared looked up at Jensen and shared a smile. They’d done it. They’d achieved the impossible. Who knew what tomorrow might bring or if Zyreta would open its culture to the Union with open arms or where the solar system would go from here… but the point was, they all had the opportunity to find out.
Jensen leaned in and Jared took the opportunity, capturing his lips in a kiss that was every bit as much a victory as employing the sword of stars. It tasted like freedom. It felt like coming home.
Continue to Epilogue
Master Post | Back to Chapter 12, Part 1