It did not matter if her engines were permanently damaged. It did not matter if the horned ships pierced her armored hull. It did not matter if she ceased to exist.

Somewhere in the heart of all of her electronics, the near-term and long-term memory, amid all the sophisticated algorithms, Mother feltsomething ... She felt something that burned all throughout her being. Something important, something beyond logic and answers.

If her children died today, then so would she.

But they would have to kill her first.

Mother came screaming like some primitive, rampaging beast over the wide gra.s.sy plains, her overheating engines roaring their fury and pain. The barrels of her guns swiveled in keen antic.i.p.ation, her processors burned with her tactical options. Every other unneeded activity, including life support on all levels, had been turned off. In fact, she had even, for the first time ever, turned off some of her own unnecessary functionality.

Mother became something else.

She becameFlying Death .

Her sensors saw Kyle's shields buckle as she neared the free-for-all, but her rear sensors were far down on her task priorities, so she did not note the large horned ship that was gaining on her from behind.

Kyle banked hard as he squeezed the triggers and saw pieces of the black ship spray off and then it began its final descent. He gritted his teeth as he felt his own ship shudder and saw smoke coil from his console.

Frantically, he banked hard to port and pulled up as he pushed the engines hard. But there were three of them behind him now, and two more were closing from above. He hit his comm.

"Becky! Jaric! I'm hit...got no shields. Make your break back to Mother!"

Jaric yelled victoriously as he nailed another ship and then banked to avoid two more diving on him.

Looking quickly at his scope, he turned towards Kyle's ship and screamed into his comm.

"Hang on, Big K! I'm coming in!"

Becky felt her ship shudder from multiple hits and looked at her panel. Her shields were down to twenty percent, but she did not hesitate.

Pulling up hard, she cut her engines. The three T'kaan ships shot past her and right into her twin sights.Her blasters fired true, as one ship exploded and the other two sustained damage.

She turned to follow Jaric's fighter.

They took out two T'kaan on their first pa.s.s and then rose to divert the others diving onto Kyle's crippled ship. Kyle continued his dive, flying with one hand while he directed repairs with the other. He growled as his sensors showed four new ships coming at him from his left; he banked hard right and gunned his engines. They were his only defense at the moment.

Sweat dripped from his brow as he worked feverishly to get some, any, amount of shield power going again.

He froze at Becky's sudden shout of fear.

Her shields had just buckled as Jaric tried to fight off the six ships attacking them, with more waiting to dive in like so many horned vultures.

Even though he was in no shape to help, he turned his winged craft for them. And their enemy.

There were still just over seventy ships out of the original ninety-nine swirling in the air around the furious human fighters. It was only a matter of time until the final outcome.

The effect of Mother's sudden entrance was instantaneous.

Suddenly the aim from the horned ships was not as accurate as at the beginning of the fight. Mother's fearsome reputation preceded her. Somehow the human ships, fighting like beings possessed already, continued their twisting, turning deadliness as they saw her familiar shape finally show up on their scopes.

But the tense laughter of the humans was short lived.

"Where are your shields, Mother!?" Jaric shouted.

Mother turned her twelve main guns to twelve different targets. Her plan was simple-Go in with all guns firing. Destroy everything.

She was flying so fast that she shot past the outermost T'kaan patrol before they could react. Mother would take them on later-she wanted the ships attacking her children first.

The twelve guns spat death under her accurate aim, and because she had powered them above even the maximum strength they split the horned ships in two with her single hammer-blows.

Twelve fireb.a.l.l.s lit the sky.

Her intense speed took her past a dozen more ships before she could power her guns back up again, but she kept all guns aimed forward at the ships still attacking her children.

The horned ships she had just pa.s.sed quickly regained formation and turned to attack her.

Mother saw the one ship diving on Kyle, diving for the kill. She fired three shots in quick succession, crippling the ship while her other guns protected her other two offspring. But still the ship dove for Kyle.

Mother again damaged her engines by braking and then reversing as she banked hard left and straight down. Still, she rammed the horned ship too hard as shefelt some of her systems go deathly silent around the outer part of her hull where the fighter had impacted and immediately disintegrated.

She again shuddered as the ships following her began pounding her hull, sending fragments of metal into the air. Some of her internal systems malfunctioned and went off-line. She began to suddenly feel very strange, disoriented.

"They're hurting her!" Jaric dove at the ships attacking her. "Mother! Get your shields up."

Becky, with only minimal shields herself, brought her guns to bear.

But the small Scout ships were like parasites around Mother, firing a constant hail of fire into her armored hull. Even though most of the damage was external, some of the blaster hits began piercing inside her inner hull. A large section of the ship went deathly silent as her main power grid went off-line, replaced by her sole backup.

"I've got him!" Becky shouted.

"I have experienced a major disruption in my power grid," It was a bizarre voice, almost unrecognizable.

But it was Mother. "My shields will not power up fully, they are compromised. I am routing functions to my repair. We must ..."

Mother stopped speaking as she began a rolling, twisting dive and routed power to her feeble rear shields as more of the horned ships dove upon her with their lances of blaster fire.

In the next few seconds everything went crazy.

Mother fired off two of her torpedoes and even opened up with her ground-strafing guns, though these were more for a distraction than to do any actual damage to the T'kaan fighters.

The small T'kaan ships returned fire and explosions ripped the sky all around the MotherShip. Mother could not get her shields above thirty-seven percent, but she still pulled ahead of the pack, her damaged engines still more powerful than these small enemy fighters.

Suddenly, the blip on her screen that was Jaric began a precipitous dive. She banked hard and screamed into a tight turn-directly back into her pursuers-redirecting her limited shields forward for at least some measure of protection.

Every gun began firing as T'kaan ships veered away or erupted in flames to avoid her mighty wrath.

Jaric, too, was fighting for his life as his ship plummeted down with no power.

He was in a straight-down dive as he frantically worked to get one of his engines back on-line. It was obvious his port engine was gone, but there was a sudden, momentary flicker of life in the starboard one.

He concentrated his efforts there when blaster fire erupted all around him.

But Mother was there, too, bearing down on the three fighters like death incarnate. With her engines screaming their pain and abuse, she quickly pummeled the T'kaan into sc.r.a.ps of flying debris as sheroared past.

But Jaric's dead ship continued its one-way dive.

Suddenly everything was illuminated as if Kittim's sun had gone supernova.

"What's that?" Becky shouted as she scanned the new intruder.

It was shaped like one of the Hunter cla.s.s fighters. But this one was the size of a Frigate and it was bearing down on Mother with a deadly purpose written on every dark angle of its horned hull.

Again, one of its six horns spat and the huge tracer streaked towards Mother.

Mother's processors scrambled for control amidst all the alarms and warnings shouting from her damaged systems. She felt confused as her sensors picked up the incoming fire. As if in a daze, she braced herself under her depleted shields.

The direct hit knocked her into a shivering loop, and then into a dive. Down, down she went as she fought to regain control of her systems. Through sheer will power alone, Mother righted herself.

But now her shields were buckled and destroyed. Mother felt a sudden coldness as she realized that she had no power to direct to her weapons, there was only enough for her engines and repairs.Or was there?

Hundreds of alarms screamed throughout her circuitry as Mother fought to clear her mind.

Another huge strike leapt from the new ship's horns-this one meant to be the death stroke.

Mother's sensors watched it coming for her with an odd detachment, even as she realized she was defenseless.

At the last second Mother turned hard, giving her hull its smallest profile as the beam reached her. The beam glanced across her hull, but the pa.s.sing shockwave again caused Mother to shudder right down to her internal processors. Now her once shiny hull was blackened and scarred.

For the first time, Mother was fighting for her very life as she sought in vain to bring back her shields and prepare to fight this unknown and terrible adversary.

"We've got to help her, Kyle!" Becky shouted.

But both had their hands full as the remaining enemy ships circled around them. Mother had bought them time to get their shields back up to a point to withstand a couple of more hits, but neither had the time or fire power to come to her aid.

Far below and free from attacks because of his apparent one-way trip, Jaric's frantic efforts were rewarded with the faintest of sounds from the starboard engine as the ground grew rapidly before his eyes. With that tiny bit of power, he gained enough control to land in one piece.

Almost.

He jumped out of the smoking, broken ship and hobbled quickly away, just in time to see a small T'kaanfighter make its own emergency landing behind him. But its efforts did keep the dark ship in one piece.

Pulling his hand blaster, Jaric rushed over as the c.o.c.kpit opened. But his blaster was not needed. The ugly creature was already dead from its wounds, its dying act landing the fighter.

A great light from the sky suddenly made everything glow with a blinding intensity. Shielding his eyes, Jaric looked up.

He saw a T'kaan ship unlike any he had seen before. The huge guns seemed to be meant for a cruiser-cla.s.s ship. Jaric didn't need his instruments to tell him that Mother was in great danger.

He watched helplessly as Mother twisted and turned, avoiding the constant hail of fire from the new ship's ma.s.sive laser cannons. But her maneuvers were growing weaker and weaker.

Looking back, Jaric saw a crippled alien fighter fly around behind the new ship that was pursuing Mother. The rear shields dropped and a large hangar door opened. The fighter flew inside.

Without hesitation, Jaric did something he had thought he would never do again. He climbed inside the smoking alien fighter that sat beside him.

Instantly, he felt the old gripping fear from the nightmares of his youth, but he forced them away with a shout of anger. He flinched as the Super Hunter fired again, lighting up the sky.

Jaric put his hands into the slim molds built for T'kaan tentacles. He concentrated, remembering his first time in a T'kaan fighter long ago.

The Scout fighter rose.

He repeated the mistake of his youth and put the ship into Homing mode. A few minutes later, he was at the rear of the SuperHunter.

The T'kaan warship launched another blinding salvo at the scarred hull of Mother, and then the rear shields dropped. The T'kaan fighter with Jaric at the controls entered the opened hull door.

Three other fighters appeared inside the large interior as they were readied to join the battle outside. As Jaric quickly glanced around the dark interior, he realized the belly of the Super-Hunter was a web of T'kaan activity.

Jaric went into action.

The three T'kaan fighters erupted into exploding fireb.a.l.l.s as Jaric fired. Next, Jaric turned his ship and began firing into the exposed inner hull of the SuperHunter.

Again and again he fired, the tracers disappearing into wall ahead of him, streaking through compartment after compartment into the very heart of the ship. Explosions blossomed before him like a fiery garden.

Jaric wasn't sure where any specific vital part of the ship might be located, so he pressed the firing contact and held it fast.

Explosions erupted with increasing violence along with larger and larger pieces of debris flying out in all directions. Suddenly, he felt it. Everything began to tilt over to one side as an exceptionally strongexplosion shook him and his small fighter until it seemed his teeth would shake out of his very head. In the next instant, a solid wall of explosive fire came directly at him as he grabbed the controls and brought his ship around.

Smoke and explosions suddenly erupted all around the giant hangar bay now, streaking at him from every direction.

It was time to leave.

He had dared not look behind as he had begun his attack. Now, as he brought the ship around, he felt his heart pounding. For if the giant hangar door had closed completely, he would die here inside this ship.

"Yes!" He screamed as he saw the slim opening and the stars beyond. He pushed the throttle wide open and leapt through into the bright sunlight.

Jaric roared outward a short distance before he turned his head for a look at his handiwork.

The six great horns on the prow were just impacting with the surface of the planet as the smoking SuperHunter was engulfed in a final, mighty explosion.

The remainder of the T'kaan fighters fled for the safety of the stars.

But the victory was short-lived.

As soon as they had made contact each other and verified that the last T'kaan fighter was indeed piloted by Jaric, Becky sent out a message to Mother.

Only silence returned.

The three ships raced up to the docking bay of the blackened and silent ship, and there they felt their hearts drop as the door remained strangely closed. Panic swept through each of them. Finally, Becky remembered the never-before-used manual override. She entered the command and the three flew inside as the door finally opened.

"What's wrong? Mother, answer me!" Becky shouted with fear in her voice.

Becky became frantic as the deathly silence continued over their private communication channel-no static, just a final, ominous silence.