The Gods Who Chose Us by Michael J Roy

Author:Michael J Roy [Roy, Michael J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781733119306
Published: 2019-10-14T06:00:00+00:00

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Athena approached the moon and prepped a message to send over the aion network to the Bellum system, planning to transmit it when she was safely past the Svalinn shield. As her fingers keyed the message, her HARPE system blinked sporadically, indicating fleeting objects around the Aegis, and then quieted down. A handful of small objects around the moon? Maybe a few meteorites?

The instruments gave another beep. Athena slowed her speed down and adjusted her course to pass by a higher point on the moon. A few more beeps came through. There’s something out here. Athena strained her eyes to see what the Aegis was detecting. She saw a little sunlight reflecting at random angles off something near, but not on, the moon. It’s almost like an atmosphere, but…discharge nets! Athena accelerated and pulled her craft up and away from the moon.

She immediately understood that the initial launch of the nets, and their subsequent overlapping in the direction of the Aegis, caused ephemeral pockets in the electromagnetic sea generated by HARPE.

Her ship was heading away from the Earth-moon system at nearly a ninety-degree angle to their plane when a series of warnings came over her console. Four guided missiles heading this way? At their pace they’ll outrun the Aegis. Athena turned her vessel to curve around toward the back of the Earth, away from the moon. Just then, her ship rattled with enemy fire.

A group of five Nemesis fighters were moving on a course to cut her off before she got even part of the way over Earth; another five stayed below the missiles and blocked another escape route. Shit.

Athena changed course to dive directly at the fighters moving to intercept her. Let’s see if I can get the guided missiles to produce some friendly fire.

Athena evaded much of the enemy fire and easily absorbing the few projectiles that landed. The intruders would need something more powerful if they planned on bringing down the Aegis.

Athena approached the Nemesis fighters, firing back in precise bursts, blowing open fuel lines and disabling engines. She fought like a giant, intrepidly soaring directly into the opposing vessels’ formations. Her maneuvers not only caused constant realignment for her adversaries, but prevented cover fire from the other ships near the dogfight. It didn’t appear her challengers were willing to risk friendly fire.

After successfully breaking another formation, Athena accelerated, and turned to catch a fighter face-to-face. The abrupt move would be unexpected and give her a clean shot at the cockpit. This fighter isn’t automated—someone’s in the cockpit…that’s—

Before she could shoot, alarms went off indicating the guided missiles were within striking distance. She dove and rolled, trying to confuse the missiles. Her ship had a few tiny ports on the hull that could shoot small pellet-like explosives; they would detonate the missiles before they reached her ship. She released a volley of them, hoping to destroy at least two of the missiles on this pass.

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