The Shadows Cycle

Chapter 1

A Fright for All

            A huge fleet of ships was off on the horizon.  Who knew how many there were?  All that Kara knew was that this was not going to be an easy battle.

Kara Ishtan had green eyes and long brown hair.  Only twenty-three years old, she had been in the Galactic Fleet for seven years, and she was already one of the most skilled pilots in the entire Galactic Army; she had also already participated in three major battles against two different enemies:  Two of the battles had been against the Narlan.

            Her father and mother were enlisted in the army; they were high-ranking spies and had been away on a mission given to them by Commander Simon Heffer to collect certain chemicals in a separate galaxy; they had been gone for almost thirteen-years. 

Ever since they left, Commander Heffer, with the help of his most trusted man Captain Constance Beckley, raised Kara and trained her as a pilot in the Galactic Army.  Kara started her training when she was eleven, and then she officially joined the army at the age of sixteen.

            No one seemed to have alerted the Captain of the Narlan’s arrival yet, and Kara looked at the screen in front of her:  Over one-thousand ships were being reported on the radar.  Their coordinates, which Kara now took note of, were running along the bottom of the screen.  The humans had a much bigger fleet than the incoming ships, but the Narlan, their enemy, had much bigger craft.

“Kara, notify the Captain to get ready for battle.”

Tony Griffen, a friend of Kara’s with a long scar on his cheek, had appeared in the doorway.  He was tall, thin, and had almost no hair at all, just the opposite of his father, who was in a high-security prison on Konak for the murder of a comrade.  His mother had not joined the army because of her fear of death.

“Warn the Captain Kara,” Tony said again.

“All right, I will,” she replied.  Why couldn’t he?

Tony had gotten his scar was from Kara’s very first battle:  They had been in a pod together, but it was heavily damaged and they had little ammunition.  They were suddenly rammed from the Narlan ship behind them, and Tony was thrown into the front panel of the pod after holding Kara back, thus getting the scar. 

Walking through the maze of halls in the station for what seemed like ages, Kara finally reached the Captain’s office, forgetting that she could have saved time by taking the Cettion, a kind of glass teleport that could take her to anywhere that she wanted with a code for her destination.

She knocked on the Captain’s door, and it opened almost immediately. 

A stout man was in the doorway, his wavy brown hair casting shadows across his face, which was looking at Kara with concern.

            “Kara, What are you doing down here?” asked the Captain, apparently not aware of what was headed for the station.

            “Sir, more than a thousand ships of the Narlan fleet are approaching,” she reported.

            “What are their coordinates?” asked the Captain, rushing to his monitor.

            Kara checked her notes hurriedly.

            “Eighty-six degrees east, and by now seven-hundred miles out,” she replied.

            Suddenly, a laser that was shot from one of the Narlan narrowly missed the station, but they heard a faint explosion somewhere in the distance.  Then, as the Captain was preparing to send Kara away with her deployment, they heard footsteps outside the doorway.  Tom, a man who stayed a few cubes down from Kara, came running in.

            “Captain,” he said breathlessly, “the west station is under attack and now on fire.  If we do not stop the Narlan, it’ll blow.”

“Okay, Tom.  Get your crew ready to fight,” ordered the Captain, also telling him to sound the alarm.  “We do not know where they may come from, so we must be prepared.”

Tony suddenly appeared in the doorway.

“Kara round up everyone in your sector.  Deployment is in ten-minutes.  Get your crew in the pods of Sector A,” he instructed, exactly what Captain Beckley was about to say.

Kara soon had everyone in her deployment into the teardrop-shaped pods, which were located a floors below in the docking areas of the station. 

When Kara and her crew deployed, there was a shuddering movement, for the force of the engines vibrated around the room.  Once they were five-hundred yards from the station, Kara said,

“Everybody group together.”

Tony’s crew soon caught up.

“Any sign of them yet?” he asked.

“No, not yet,” replied Kara.

Nothing happened for a few more minutes, but just as she was about to power up her engines, she was suddenly hit by a powerful invisible force, and she was shot straight back into another human pod. 

Kara fired, then, directly in front of her appeared a Narlan ship. It was a deadly dark-red, crescent-moon shape ship with menacing razors on each side.

“Tony, tell everyone to fire. I’ll do the same.  I think they have faulty cloaking shields,” Kara told him.

After the order got out, it happened.  A huge fleet of the Narlan now flew before them.

Kara fired a missile and jetted upward.  It was best if she kept the rockets for when she really needed them.  The Narlan ship in front of her exploded, and she curved around to fire at another ship.  It also noticed her, and they were flying directly at each other before both pilots fired.  The Narlan swerved up, and Kara flew to the side.

She came back around for a second attack and saw the same ship graze the side of another human pod with the razors on the sides.  While he was distracted, Kara fired another round of lasers and clipped his right engine.  The ship, now spinning out of control, fired three missiles each time he was facing her.  The first two she dodged, but the third barely scraped the back of her and exploded; the force sent her flying forward.

Right before she was about to crash into the Narlan, the fire in his right engine moved into the rest of the craft, and he exploded in a burning inferno.

Kara then flew around, watching the rest of the battle, but she was not paying attention to yet another Narlan ship that had come after her after seeing what had happened to the first; she did not even notice that this one was on her radar until it fired.

She scarcely swerved away from the shot, also just missing another exploding human pod, which had fired only a few seconds ago at the Narlan now chasing Kara.  She then turned and fired back, content when she was sure that it had hit.

The blow must have tilted the direction of the ship, for it was sent directly into another Narlan ship; but as the other ship had not been severely damaged yet, it only had an engine blown off of it, and if it were not for the explosion in the nearest engine, would have crashed right into Kara.

There was a brilliant flash of orange flame as the craft next to Kara exploded; it had been another one of the Narlan being attacked by a missile.  She then noticed that fewer Narlan seemed to be in the area now, though she did see a large group gathering for another attack near the western outskirts.

Flying towards the group, Kara called in five other pilots to assist her, and after a minute, they came.  The six of them flew in a circular formation and rotated, firing a rocket every few seconds.

“There they go,” said one of the pilots once he had seen multiple flashes from within the group.  Those Narlan then dispersed, heading away from the battle.

Kara’s group then flew off in different directions to help with the rest of the fighting that was still taking place.  After a few minutes, Kara asked Tony, whom she located with her radar, how the battle was going for them.

Tony answered,

“Only about ten percent of our fleet has been destroyed.”

He paused, then,

“They seem to be retreating.  According to my officers, they have been pulling off of their battles and heading to the east.”

“Are you confident about that Tony? They might have a station located a few miles away from here that they could be going to for supplies.”

“Yes, I am pretty sure that that is what they are doing.”  He paused as he listened to another message.  “The Captain just ordered me to tell the fleet to return to our stations.  I also have to go to my guard shift.”

As she headed back to the station, Kara noticed a peculiar object in the darkness, hovering only a half mile away from the station.