Twilight
For decades, the K’Luth have relied on humans to conduct espionage. They knew the risks were great, but the rewards given to loyal agents of the Hive were enough to keep even the most xenophobic human from becoming a double agent, as were the punishments for those disloyal to the Hive.
The Hive, its very existence is such an alien thought to humans, and quite fitting of the aliens in question. The K’Luth – being the galactic refugees they are – are just starting to be duplicitous, seeing the need for secrecy as a key to their survival. As clever as they are, the way that their thoughts are mentally transmitted to the other K’Luth around them have left the species without a concept of privacy, of mystery. They never had the need for it, simply put, and even if they had the need, they lacked the ability.
It had taken many years for the K’Luth to specially train an elite intelligence corps. They brought in humans to run the intelligence corps, and to train K’Luth specifically in counter-intelligence measures. The humans who had been led to believe that they were in charge were all, at one time or another, prominently featured in the intelligence reports of both the ICC and the UGTO – sometimes both at once, the reports singing either praise or warning. There was one name, however, that managed to stay under the radar of both factions, and do more effective work than those names found constantly in the reports.
She was of average height, average build, and her above average looks had been carefully groomed to appear merely average. Standing out, in her line of work, was what got you killed. She sat casually, betraying none of her true feelings, her true emotions. A claw-like hand, its skin – for lack of a better word – gleamed and shimmered in the midday heat of the twin suns overhead, the sandy wind was gratefully blocked by the light brown stone buildings that lined the streets. If she didn’t know any better, the open-air market, just up the street from the sidewalk café that she had seated herself at, could have been plucked from the history pages of any small, peaceful middle eastern town, before the second dark age that is. The claw-hand pulled the chair across the table back, and a large male K’Luth sat down. Its garments portrayed the K’Luth as a simple merchant, an artisan definitely, and not a warrior, but not one of the most deceitful and intelligent creatures on the whole planet. It looked just like any other alien walking down the street to the untrained eye. It was a little under two meters tall, and kept its lower pair of arms clasped behind its back as it walked, creating a care-free air about itself. As it sat, its upper arms rested on the table top, and its lower arms folded in its lap – no doubt at least three of the arms were ready willing and able to pull out a weapon from some hidden holster in a split-seconds notice.
Stardancer flashed a smile, an alien gesture to the lobster looking creature in front of her.
“So tell me, agent,” a robotic voice said from a shiny metallic device on the alien’s head, “why are we here, and why did you request all of the information on missing ships throughout the K’Luth’s outer edge territories?” The translation software was finally tuned properly. It had taken a decade of research for UGTO techs to finally adapt a small psionic converter to be used as a translation matrix. In essence it read the thoughts of whatever K’Luth wore the device, which much resembled a football helmet with speakers where the ear holes would be and no face mask, and converted those thoughts into audible patterns, translated for Human basic English. It was starting to learn the basic concepts of how humans expected a person to behave when having a conversation, and it moved its jaws up and down as the sounds emitted from the device – which made the alien look more like a ventriloquist puppet more than anything else. It was almost humorous, and she would probably chuckle if the situation wasn’t so dire.
Stardancer picked an area of the multifaceted eyes and looked the K’Luth Intel officer square into it and said, “Because I’m afraid for the future of all the races.”
Chapter 1 - Ok, who slipped NoDoze into the water supply?
Admiral Coeus looked around the shattered bridge of his cruiser, the NCX-Charger. He would have sighed if he could afford the time, but instead he rose painfully to his feet and barked another order to his helmsman. Captain Beatte had commanded the ship well, but Coeus had to take over when Beatte suffered a blow to the head and was taken to the sick bay, if it was even left. Glancing at his status screen he took note of a fresh hull breach on E-deck, which brought the total number of gleaming gaps in the outer and inner hulls of the Charger to 3. Ducking through space, he brought the Assault class cruiser around to stare the closest Elite Assault Dreadnought right in the eye – he imagined the commander of the enemy EAD staring through his bridge glass right at the bridge of the Charger as well.
“Divert all power to forward shields and weapons, take the Antimatter drive Pulse Shield and ECCM offline – prepare the Marine landing pods and someone seal that ruptured valve!” Admiral Coeus barked. He wasn’t so far out of the captain’s chair that he forgot how to run a ship in battle – just a little rusty was all. Coeus gritted his teeth as he watched the distance between the Charger and the enemy’s EAD tick down at an alarming rate. He pondered the odds of going toe to toe with an EAD of that size, even if it was badly damaged.
“Admiral, forward shields down to 50%, ablative armor is completely eroded. We have hull breaches on E, C, and B decks, Torpedo tubes 3 and 4 are offline, both pulse beams are destroyed and we have a fire in Engineering – we can’t take much more of this!” Beatte’s second in command yelled over the roar of a ship on the verge of tearing itself apart.
“Hull integrity down to 45% - engines are failing, energy reserves nearly depleted. Distance to the GTN ship is closing to CL2K range – we have to abort!” a midshipman shouted to Commander Jameson and Admiral Coeus. He was already planning out a route to the escape pods in his little non-com brain. And he was right.
“Computer, set self destruct, helm set the autopilot to a collision course with the Depthcharge and set weapons to auto fire. All hands abandon ship, all hands abandon ship!” Coeus was making his way to the bridge’s Command Escape Pod as he shouted these orders.
“So much for the Charger, she was a beautiful ship.” Commander Jameson muttered under his breath.
Something was wrong; Coeus wasn’t headed for the escape pod. He was still sitting in the captain’s chair!
“Somebody help me! Someone HELP!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. The bridge was entirely empty – the GTN ship hung ahead of him motionless in space. The air was dead silent and a wisp of arid smoke puffed from various systems at various times. Coeus started to panic. He tugged and yanked at the buckle around his waist but to no avail. He reached for his combat knife… where was his combat knife! He had to have his combat knife damnit! He neve- something moved.
“Whose there?” Coeus called out. He swiveled the captain’s chair to and fro. He spun around completely, getting a view of the entire bridge. The systems were smashed, only a few computer displays were functional, and the bridge glass was no longer shattered. Instead of the Depthcharge hanging out front, Coeus saw Exathra. It was burning. There were no ships – friendly or enemy – in the skies around. Bits and pieces of hull drifted by the window. Coeus could see the markings on them, they were all human, ICC and UGTO. Had the Uggies taken over Exathra? They must be punished! Coeus felt something lump onto his shoulder. He spun around quickly and was on his feet outside the hull of the Charger standing on the starboard side of the conning tower. Facing him was an impossible face.
“But… you’re dead!” Coeus said to the ICC officer in a UGTO uniform in front of him.
“And you killed me!” Beatte said, “Just like you’re going to kill everyone that we know!” Coeus turned around again, and stared up at his beautiful blue homeworld Exathra, a planet so gorgeous that it was said to rival the splendor of Earth before Humans tainted it. He could see the capital in flames from space, he could see the polar caps melting and the world – already covered in smoke and falling debris – was slowing being flooded to death.
“No, no… that’s not possible! The UGTO would never destroy Exathra! It’s too important to them to have a habitable planet for them to colonize!” Coeus turned around to face his dead friend once more.
“Don’t you ever listen?” Beatte’s ghost said, “I already told you, the UGTO didn’t kill Exathra, YOU did!” Beatte reached out a long-nailed grey hand toward Coeus, but the Admiral recoiled, and stepped back. He fell. He fell for a long time before sitting up in his bed on the station Logical, covered in sweat.
“Something is terribly wrong.” He thought to himself over and over as he rushed to dress as quickly as he could. He ran out the door, stopped and glanced back at his bed from the doorway. He thought he could make out the shape of a man – the man appeared to be wearing a UGTO uniform, with the patch of the long-gone Galactic Navy symbol emblazoned on the chest in big bright red letters. GTN they read.
*****************
It wasn’t so long ago that he had been ordering around ships like this to do his bidding, Rocko thought bitterly to himself. At this stage in his career he should be sitting happily back in the home systems filing strategy reports and doing regional surveys for defense readiness. It never failed, however, that someone would screw up and bring everything crashing down. It happened ten years ago, with The Forgotten Fleet, where he had been on top of the world, and then just a short while afterwards everything came crashing down. But slowly, surely, he rebuilt his career, and was almost back to where he felt he should be when it all crashed down on him again. This time, at least, he knew what it was like to hit rock bottom and could pull himself up handily.
“Captain, a report for you.” A lieutenant said to him, rousing him from his daydreaming. Rocko almost didn’t respond, still not used to being called ‘Captain’ again. So much the better, nothing like a good humbling command to give you a sharp reminder of what its like when you’re off giving orders from your comfy armchair.
“Anything interesting?” Rocko asked idly. The main focus of his attention was still lingering on his plans for the future.
“Possibly, sir. Several ships in this area have detected high-tachyon frequency distortions. We have compiled all the reports and they seem to indicate a pattern.” Rocko took the display and began examining it with a trained eye, though it was hardly required. The highlighted sections clearly indicated a line. “It appears to be a massive fleet of cloaked ships. We have ascertained their destination as Alpha Centuri.” The young officer said.
“Very well.” Rocko said softly, dismissing the lieutenant. He turned his attention to the helm officer and then said, “Engines all-stop. Power up the wormhole device, prepare to jump to Alpha Centuri. Spin up all weapons and get me Sol Sector on the line.” Maybe this week of patrols wouldn’t be as uninteresting as Rocko predicted.
*****************
Backslash couldn’t believe his rotten luck. After almost a month he still couldn’t get off this rotten boat. Here he was, a former Fleet Admiral in the Galactic Navy – before the UGTO government sold the entire fleet out shortly before disbanding it – and he was stuck commanding a rickety little Bomber Destroyer patrolling the backwater systems of the ICC home cluster. What the hell kind of good was he doing out here?
“Cappy?” Said Backslash’s first officer, a beautiful young woman by the name of Marie Galishnov. “I’ve got a comm. link coming through for you, its Viper.” She reported. Backslash felt several types of ways about his first officer. Some of which were completely inappropriate for their military ranks and positions, but most of which were paternal in nature. She reminded him of the daughter he always wanted. He was especially protective of her when they were on shore leave and ended up in those seedy little bars that one always ended up on in the backwater systems.
“Thanks, Marie, I’ll take it right here.” Backslash said, then punched in his code to accept the transmission. After a second, Backslash’s friend appeared in front of him. “Viper ol’ buddy, what can I do for ya?” Viper looked rather disheveled. Obviously ICC Command hadn’t gotten around to getting him a new command since he lost his Assault Dreadnaught in an engagement with a trio of K’luth cruisers – not something that many people walked away from.
“The knuckle draggers here are living up to their name, so I’m stuck planet side on Exathra, was wondering if you could find your way over here to resupply for a few days? There is a research ship in from the outer rim worlds that is crewed almost entirely by cadets from the capital city’s volleyball team.” Viper winked.
“Oh really? What division would this team be in?” Backslash said as casually as he could, well aware that his would-be daughter was within earshot and was flushed so red that she could be a beacon light on the outside of the ship.
“I’ll tell you when your first officer isn’t around.” Viper let out a hearty laugh, well aware of exactly how things happened on board the Absolut.
“I think we can manage to sneak off our patrol route for a day or so. See you on Juxtapose station buddy! Backslash out.” He said before Viper had a chance to embarrass his first officer any more. “I think this could be exactly the vacation that we need. Helm? Lets take a ride.” He made sure that the helm knew exactly where he was supposed to go.
Chapter 2 - What a cheesey brass section...
“So, what makes you think that this is anything more than a dream?” Bito asked. Here on his own station, Grand Admiral Bito was quite comfortable sitting back in his leather clad recliner. Perhaps it seemed a bit much, but Coeus had long ago learned to deal with Bito’s extravagant ways. At least he didn’t paint the room Cheddar Yellow anymore. “The fleet is spread halfway across the quadrant in an effort to hunt down the last of the UGTO, half of Earth’s population is praising us and thanking us while the other half is blowing up starports and buildings – and to top it off we now have to watch both our end and the UGTO end of the K’Luth frontier. Now, with all this going on, you want a group to go off on some wild goose chase trying to track down some crazy psychotic-“
“Psychic, she is not psychotic… not last I checked anyway.” Coeus interrupted. He was feeling a little cornered. Bito was right; there was a lot of activity for the fleet to look after. “Look, just give me five ships, just five! Take them from the reserves or the mothballs, I don’t care! I just need to be sure that what I saw is just that – something I just saw.”
Bito shifted his bulk in the chair, and took a piece of Gouda from the tray on his desk and flung it half-hazardly towards his mouth. He had a pondering look on his face as he slowly chewed the dairy chunk. “I’ll give you three, including yours. Be sure that the Charger is outfitted with a fleet-nav. Dismissed – report back at 16:00 for your ship assignments and to brief me and Admiral Swift on your plan.”
Coeus couldn’t contain himself; he let out a slight smirk. “Thank you sir!” With that, he snapped his heals, spun around and breezed through the opening hatchway. Now that the hard part was done, all that was needed to be done was find out where Lelandra was last reported, get a match on whatever she is flying these days, and then figure out which planet our of the endless possibilities she was calling home – and then set up a flight plan and all the rest then give the briefing to Adm and Jack… oh yeah, piece of cake.
*****************
Viper sighed as he surveyed the class before him. Half of these kids looked like they were twelve, the other half weren’t kids at all, but looked old enough to be Viper’s father.
“Ok, one more time. The Elite Assault Dreadnaught – Mark 1.482. With five plates of Heavy Armor, one in each quadrant and one full ablative plate applied to the entire skin of the ship on top of the standard layout, this is one tough nut to crack. Equipped with a half dozen ChemLaser 2000 batteries, and another half dozen Proton Torpedo launchers, four of which can be fired in ANY direction, you MUST use extreme prejudice when engaging an EAD. The best counter to an EAD is a pair of Assault Cruisers. This –” Viper changed the slide from showing the rather phallic design of the standard UGTO Dreadnaught to the sleek yet boxy-ish design of the standard ICC Cruiser. “Is the ICC Assault Cruiser – our mainstay ship and backbone of the 1st, 5th, and 8th Fleets. With five, yes count them – one, two, three, four, five – full mount Fusion Torpedoes, a ChemLaser 2000 in the nose, and two full mount Standard ChemLasers, which can support any combination of CL500’s, CL550’s, or Pulse Beams. In addition to this, we have managed to mount a Nuclear Mine Deployment Platform on the ventral surface of the engine housing, and when you put all of this to- yes? Can I help you Ensign?” Viper put as much annoyance into his voice as he could as a young and timid looking ensign knocked on the frame of the old-fashioned wooden door at the back of the class.
“I’m terribly sorry to interrupt you, sir, but Grand Admiral Bito has requested your presence on Juxtapose Station immediately.” The ensign snapped off a quick salute and sprung out the door before Viper could stop him.
“Right…” he said to himself. The main thought that played through his mind is how he will miss seeing Backslash if Bito sends him off on some goofy mission, which seemed to happen more often lately than not. “Very well, you all have your reading assignments for the next two weeks, I will upload some quizzes to the network in the next few days, so check the course pages. Dismissed!” Viper fired off a short salute and stormed out the other door at the front of the class and began making his way to the Santania City Starport, which was on the other side of the ICC Fleet Academy’s campus.
Walking outside, the bright sun of CD+36*15693 nearly blinded him as he put on his sunglasses. Not exactly a name that rolled off the tongue, Viper thought to himself. Not like Sol. It really did exemplify the difference between the UGTO and the ICC, much like their ships did. While the UGTO preferred the sleek arrow-shaped designs for their ships, the ICC went with a bulkier, more functional approach. Some of this had to do with the majority of ICC designs lending themselves to early human ventures into space, but for the most part the ICC High Council never saw a need to paint their ships or trim their lines, and neither did the fleet. The ships did their jobs and did them well. That was all that mattered. Viper snorted loudly as he thought how much the UGTO prided themselves on appearance and lacked substance, and even as he thought on it in disdain he found himself longing for the trim and proper Galactic Navy branch of the UGTO. No matter, times were different now, and he had a job to do. He boarded the next shuttle leaving for Juxtapose Station, sat down, and waited for the wheels to turn.
*****************
“Damnit Charlie, we don’t have time to replace the shield generators again! We’re departing as soon as Admiral Coeus is done giving his briefing!” Backslash sighed. There wasn’t enough time to get the Absolut ready for a mission like this. Even the Charger wasn’t going to be fully outfitted any more than she usually was from the looks of it. Repair crews and nanobots were swarming all over the hulls of both ships in an effort to get them ready for anything they might encounter. He doubted that Viper was any more ready on his new Command Carrier, the Eternal, but only time would tell. The Eternal had been re-commissioned just for this little mission of Coeus’ and should be just as good as they day she was put into mothballs. Of course, there was always the worry that she was put into mothballs for good reason – but Backslash tried not to think of that. With this small of a group he could only hope that they didn’t have to test out how well the Eternal had slumbered – or anything remotely like it.
“Sir, with all due respect I don’t intend to give the go-ahead for launch without these new shield systems. They are twice as effective as anything we’ve had in the past – and as the smallest ship in the group we are a prime target.” Backslash’s chief engineer lectured. Charlie always got picky when they got into spacedock. It wasn’t often that he could go shopping for top of the line parts like this.
“Ok, ok – relax Charlie. Just… get it done, OK? We need to be underway ASAP. We can travel the first few systems without max shield power. Last report of any Shadow Pirates was in Nicea, along with the rest of the Uglies.” Backslash had to calm himself down; he was getting way ahead of himself. Bad idea to even mention to Charlie about the Shadow’s recent change of heart regarding their allegiance – much less bring up where they were. Backslash didn’t doubt that they thought they had good reason to do what they did – but nothing could be good enough in his own eyes.
“Admiral, we have a message for you from Admiral Coeus. He says to be ready to get underway at 18:00, no exceptions. Buy what you need and get it in cargo if you can’t refit it just yet, we’ll have two days before we’re out of the safety of the home systems.” A nearby speaker said to Backslash. He didn’t mind that this battlegroup was commanded by a lower ranked officer. Coeus had done his time on the line – though he had barely distinguished himself.
“Very well, respond that we’ll be ready – one way or another.” He replied to the speaker. Now Backslash’s thoughts wandered to what Coeus had told him about their mission, thought about what he told Backslash about this woman – Lelandra. If she was as he described, than this little fleet could be in for some trouble.
“All personnel, this is Admiral Backslash – we are to be underway at exactly 18:00 and not a second later. I want this ship combat ready at 16:30 and all crew armed for hand-to-hand confrontations. We will be running both external and internal combat readiness tests starting at 17:00. That is all.” He said to the speaker after punching a few buttons.
As an after thought he added, “One more thing – all personnel are to get no less than 1, and no more than 4 hours of sleep before 18:00. See your supervising officers to work out a schedule rotation – supervisors contact me before 14:00 to arrange your times.” Backslash clicked the comm. link off and began making his way towards the bridge. This crew would be ready, if not before than when the ship was ready. Now he had to convince the yard commander to allot more repair crews and drones to get the Absolut ready on time. Backslash walked on.
*****************
Coeus walked out of the briefing with a smile on his face. The information that he had gathered about Lelandra’s last known location had proven more useful for the briefing than it would probably end up actually being. That was just fine though – he knew all that he needed to know about where he was supposed to go. The Ross Cluster was near the battlefield but Coeus didn’t intend to stray close enough to Oblivion 1554 to attract any attention. Besides, all forecasts show that neither the K’Luth nor the UGTO had enough firepower near the home systems to pose a threat to even one ship let alone three. Coeus was confident.
“Coeus to Charger, stand by to depart as soon as I’m aboard. Transmit to the Eternal and the Absolut the same.” He said to his personal comm. With the confirmation that they were leaving ahead of schedule well in hand, Coeus took one last stop before heading to the shuttlebay. He stood in front of Tracy’s guest quarters for a minute before mustering up the nerve to ring the bell. ‘She was not going to be happy about this’, that was the only thought that ran through his head. All the same, he rang the doorbell and waited for his fiancé to open the door.
“You’re early!” she said cheerfully as she opened the door and ran back to the small kitchen unit before Coeus could stop her. You can help me with the veggies though.” He stood in the doorway, she hadn’t noticed that he wasn’t smiling or the fact that he was in full dress uniform. Normally they just wore civilian clothes or their dress-downs for dinner – which in her case would be a set of bright blue scrubs like those she wore now.
“Yeah, you might want to hold off on that, Trace.” She knew immediately from the inflection of his voice that dinner was off.
“This better be good.” She said as Coeus walked in and closed the door behind him.
“I’ve gotta go find Lel.” He said, keeping it as simple as possible. “The task force leaves as soon as I’m aboard.” He glanced upwards at her, unable to hold his gaze though he quickly returned to examining his dress shoes. “You remember that dream I told you about? The one my Father had?”
“Yeah, vaguely… something about finding the sunrise or something? What the hell does that have to do with our dinner?” She was getting visibly upset. He rose quickly and walked over to her, grasping her arms gently. It was several seconds before her eyes met his, with her avoiding his gaze this time instead.
“Everything.” Coeus said.
“Bridge to Viper, we are almost to the rendezvous point sir.” A speaker and a light shone in Admiral Astral Viper’s eyes. He didn’t like it. He grunted and wanted to roll over and go back to sleep. He had grown up on a colony that was very far from the sun of its system. Viper still wasn’t used to how bright the rest of the ICC kept their ships. The UGTO were even worse – they wanted everything glowing with bright white cleanliness. This helped to create the illusion that Viper was less than human. He was so affected by the light difference of his home and the rest of the galaxy that his squinting was how he got his callsign – the “Viper Sight” his old fighter-squad had called it.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll be there in a second.” Viper said, shutting off the comm. without even waiting for a reply. He rolled towards the edge of his bunk and sat up. At least these old Command Carriers treated their officers like royalty. That’s what Viper liked about serving on Dreadnaughts; they had plenty of room and amenities. 120 seconds later, Viper was dressed and out the door, making his way to the Bridge Lift – reserved exclusively for officers or emergencies, although any time an officer wasn’t on the bridge was the only time emergencies seemed to crop up. The vibration of the deck plating still wasn’t right; he would have to get Master Chief Lawrence to check that out. It was just as well though; it helped Viper keep on his toes if he was uncomfortable most of the time.
“Are we within visual range of the Exodus yet?” Viper asked as soon as he was on the bridge.
“Negative sir, we’re almost at the coordinates.” His helmsman responded.
“Odd… open a channel to the Charger.” Viper started pondering possibilities.
“Yeah, I know Viper,” Coeus’ voice chimed in. Such a cheerful lad, kind of made Viper wonder what was wrong with him, “we’re sending out hails on all standard ICC frequencies trying to figure out where she went.”
“Admirals, I’m picking residual ion trails that may indicate a Tachyon or Antimatter drive in use recently.” Lieutenant Dallinshae reported. He was a damned good science officer, though he wasn’t as needed as he would like to be. There weren’t a whole lot of science vessels around anymore, especially in the ICC.
“We just started to pick that up too, good work.” Coeus said over the comm. “We are going to open a channel to Ross 7 and see if they have any Jump Cruisers lying around- hang on, incoming communication.” Coeus opened the incoming comm. to all three ships.
“I repeat, this is the Diligent calling the Charger, Eternal, or Absolut. Please come in.” a voice said.
“This is First Admiral Coeus of the Charger; we read you loud and clear Diligent. Is that you Powell?” another voice said. The two exchanged banter for a few minutes before a wormhole appeared 800gu off the fleet’s starboard-bow. “Much obliged, Powell – see you in a few minutes! Charger out.” Coeus ended the transmission and cut comms. to the fleet as they all made full steam towards the wormhole. As soon as they went through and appeared on the other side they were flooded with comm. chatter from all over the system.
Distress calls and status reports swamped the poor comm. officer as she tried to clear a channel to the Ross 7 command yard. The battle had obviously progressed beyond Oblivion to Ross 348 and its orbiting planets. Perhaps it was best if they didn’t stay long.
“Viper to Charger.” Astral said aloud. A second later the response came.
“Go ahead buddy.” Coeus’ voice said.
“I think its best that we don’t stick around here for long, lest we get dragged into this as well.” Viper said.
“I think you’re right.” Coeus replied. “I’ll reestablish contact with the Diligent and see if they can’t get us over to Ross 148 as soon as their wormhole drive is recharged.”
“Affirmative,” Viper said, “We’ll hang on your 6 just in case.” Viper smiled, he could see Coeus doing the same as he ordered his poor comm. officer to find the Diligent among this mess of starships.
*****************
Looking out at the stars, there was no hint given to Hawk that anything was going on at all. His ship, the Del Monte was hidden beneath the waves of energy that made up the modified K’Luth cloaking barrier that Hawk’s people had developed. He clanked his antenna around the foul smelling room. The K’Luth were not known for their cleanliness. Hawk had no doubt in his mind that their lack of hygiene has led to their downfall at the hands of the fleshbags – a race of people who couldn’t even get along with themselves. But no matter, Hawk would see to it that none of the three warring races survived.
Even now, his crew was modifying the typically quaint K’Luth hull to suit Hawk’s needs. This, ‘Mantis’ class ship was useful indeed – it just needed a big gigantic bath. There would be plenty of time for that later. For now though, they would have to wait. The modified K’Luth cloaking device was far better than their other devices – so much so that the human’s original planet was so close that Hawk could throw a rock from the hull of the Del Monte and bounce it off the planet’s only moon. He was where he needed to be; now all he needed was time – they weren’t yet ready.
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“Ok, so tell me again Rog’, what happened to the Exodus?” Coeus stared down the image on the small computer screen as if he were right next to his unfortunate friend.
“Our last known location on her was at the rendezvous where you were supposed to meet her. Then we got a distress call and she disappeared from our scopes. Judging by the magnitude and particle wake of the ion trail, and the subspace fluctuations in the area, I’d say a large cloaked fleet of lobsters. The direction of the Ion trail suggests that they are headed our way, and took out the Exodus just in case she detected them.”
“And an implosion of the Wormhole device would explain why there was no debris. Ok, Rog’. Thanks again!” Coeus sat back in his chair, and then suddenly leaned forward. “Oh Roger.”
“What’s up?”
“Could you lend us the Diligent one more time? We still need to get to 148. Just one more run for her, that’s all we need.” Coeus had a sheepish look on his face as he asked this. All around him the crew stifled snickers. They knew when he was sucking up.
“You think I had other plans for her?” Roger let out a loud laugh and he switched his screen off.
“Well, that explains about the Exodus, but doesn’t help us much at all.” Coeus said to no one in particular. He glanced around the bridge. “Resume course to the edge of 348, then call me when the Diligent is ready to open a wormhole again.” He said to his second in command, Captain Jameson – the Charger was officially his ship, but when Coeus was on board even Jameson had to recognize that it was the Admiral’s true home.
“Go take your nap, sir. I’ll wake you up before we jump.” Jameson said. With that, Coeus worked his way around the various bridge consoles to the Captain’s Rest just adjacent to the bridge. The Charger was a well equipped ship, even for an Assault class cruiser. Her guest quarters were second to none in the class, and even above the standards of some dreads. All things considered though, Coeus never felt quite at home unless he was in the Captain’s Rest.
He dimmed the lights, and went over to the elongated couch to lie down for a few minutes. His sky blue uniform wrinkled as he laid his body out, and his eyes were fast closed before his head hit the pillow. He was back on the hull of the Charger, with a burning and flooding Exathra hanging overhead. Beatte sat on the edge of a nearby weapons pylon.
“Ugh, not again.” Coeus muttered to himself. “Mark, why am I back here again? I’m already on my way to find out what is going to happen to Exathra and to stop it!” he shouted out to his dead friend.
“You still don’t get it? You are already doing this to Exathra, you’re still doing it, you’ve already done it and you will continue to do it!” Beatte said. His voice was all around Coeus – surrounding and enveloping him. “Death is the only escape.” Beatte was behind Coeus now and grabbing at him again. He woke up shaking in a cold sweat before Beatte could take hold. He heard a buzz.
“Yes, what is it?” Coeus said, his voice still shaking a little. He got up and quickly wiped his face off on his uniform before the hatch slid open.
“I’m sorry Admiral, you weren’t answering any pages. We are at the Diligent and ready to open a wormhole to Ross 148.” A young ensign said. What was her name? Marley? Marla? Who knew? He wondered how the poor girl managed to pull this duty.
“Thank you, ensign. That will be all.” Coeus said and waved her out before she could ask that blasted question-
“Yes sir, but are you OK sir?” she asked anyway. Coeus sighed and groaned at the same time.
“Yes, ensign, I’m fine. Now return to your post, and tell Captain Jameson I’ll be out in a second, and to proceed on the way to 148.” Coeus turned his back on her as she left and went towards the head. He filled his hands with water and raised his human-bowl to his face. After drying himself off, he straightened up, put on his service cap and walked towards the bridge. He had to find Lelandra, and soon. He was growing tired of always being tired and sleepless.
*****************
Admiral Wyke glanced at the command panel. There was no way of knowing where all the ICC ships were, much less the K’Luth. “What I don’t understand is while yes, the Sol sector of space is entirely under-defended, why send just three ships?”
“Honestly, I don’t think that those ships are part of the Sol defense force. There is no viable reason to send a Command Carrier there unless you were planning on taking on a planet or a station – and the ICC are the only ones with either of those near Sol.” Switchblade took a swig from the glass that Wyke had provided. This drink, whatever it is, was good. Wyke had called it some strange, Earth name. ‘Whyskay’ he thought. “I think that they are looking for something.”
“Something that the existing forces either can’t handle themselves, or can’t know about.” Wyke began to see what Switchblade was getting at.
“What was that stray report that we got from the allied K’Luth clan? That one of their Mantis class attack dreads had fallen to a ‘superior force?’ Now tell me, who in this portion of the galaxy could possibly be superior to the K’Luth.” Switchblade finished the glass, and set it on the table. The burn in his throat was palpable. He leaned back and put his feet up on Wyke’s desk. The Imperial hated it when Switchblade did that, but that was the nice part about being needed – you could do many things that you normally wouldn’t get away with.
“Well, it doesn’t matter. The Imperial Fleet can’t afford to spare any ships from the defense of Nicea, or any of the other systems. We are poorly undermanned as it is.” Wyke said. He looked at Switchblade and sobbed inside. To think that the mighty UGTO Imperial Navy was so desperate that they were willing to take in this band of traitorous riff-raff in order to simply survive – it was nothing more nor less than an insult.
“Not even to retake Earth?” Switchblade said. He had a sly look on his face as he brought out a personal computing pad and pulled up some device schematics. Wyke shot up in his seat at the mention of that. To retake Earth… it was more than Wyke could even imagine at this point.
“Tell me.” Wyke leaned forward and faced the smelly, used boots – and focused on the face just a shadow behind them.
Chapter 4 - Table for 3? Oh, just 2...
“Admiral, the Avernus is sending a distress call from Alpha Centauri, they’re under attack from an unknown force.” An ensign said. Coeus looked up from the star chart he was hunched over. He reached a hand across the map and tapped a control, and the music playing lowered in volume, though not in power. He glanced at the ensign, then back at his star chart.
“Very well,” he said softly, “order the helm, and alert the Eternal and the Absolut to alter course and intercept.” Coeus tapped the control to raise the volume again, and brought his cup of tea back with his hand. He slowly sipped the warm liquid as he scrutinized a small portion of the chart, which was nothing but a miniscule portion of the galaxy that they knew about and even less than that of the unknown universe.
“Ter’, come here and look at this.” Coeus said to Captain Jameson. “Last report had Lelandra as a passenger doing a tour as a counselor on board an extended range boomer.” Coeus pointed at the projected route of the heavy duty transport. He noted that they were hauling a lot of very expensive metals, including a lot of rare ones.
“Isn’t Dark Matter on the restricted transit list?” Jameson said. He looked over the ships manifest again. “It’s not like a smuggler to either take passengers or publish an accurate manifest.” Something didn’t add up. Jameson frowned as he glanced from the manifest to the star chart and back again. “Wait a second, sir. Where is that new high-resolution subspace eddy map?” His mind raced as he thought back to an article published years before the war.
“Here it is, why? What’s up?” Coeus could sense the distress in Jameson’s voice.
“Because I don’t think these are normal smugglers. They weren’t afraid to publish their manifest because I don’t think they ever intended to reach their destination.” Jameson flipped through the digital pages of the scientific scans until he found one that matched up with the projected route of the boomer. “Here, take a look at this. You see how these subspace eddies flow around this one point in space?”
Coeus began frowning more than Jameson. He saw what his friend was getting at. “Do you think Lelandra knows?” he said.
“I think she is behind it – if she is how you described her.” Jameson said. He punched some numbers into the computer. “At max speed, we could intercept them here,” he pointed to a spot on the map about a day’s jump before the subspace interchange, “if we alter course now. If we delay too long, their lead will be too great and we won’t be able to catch them. The refueling station that they stopped at said they were running with an old Tachyon Mk. II engine, so they can go for a while but can’t make the same speeds that we can.”
Coeus thought a moment. “Bridge, this is Admiral Coeus – belay my last order, resume previous heading and prepare for a new set of coordinates.” He counted, ‘5, 4, 3, 2,”
“But sir, what about the Avernus? We can’t just leave her out there to die.” The comm. officer said. “We need to investigate what is going on.”
“Very well, signal the Eternal and the Absolut to continue on course and find out what’s going on. Save the Avernus if they can, salvage what’s left and rescue any survivors if they can’t. Either way, I want them on their way to regroup with us ASAP, no later than this time tomorrow.” Coeus cut the comm. off before the unknowing Lt. Commander could argue some more. He wondered what a UGTO admiral would do in Coeus’ place to an officer like that.
“Do you think that’s wise?” Jameson said, after being sure no one was around to hear him voice his objection. “To split a group this small up? I’m sure that the Absolut and Eternal are well enough alone, but us?” He looked Coeus right in the eye.
“Lucky for us I don’t intend to be alone. Contact Grand Admiral Hirad of the Coldheart station, and then patch it through to the Captain’s Rest terminal.”
*****************
“I wish he would make up his mind.” Backslash said. He didn’t mind changing course and jeopardizing a mission to save a friendly that will probably be dead before they got there, but to split a group like this when Coeus commanded the ship that would be most needed in a battle like this… it wasn’t right. “Very well, what’s the last known position of the Avernus?” he said.
“A couple of hours outside of Alpha Centauri space. We already have a course plotted to their probable location based on their last telemetry data.” Backslash’s first officer replied. Marie Galishnov was a good officer, and was a hell of a lot better at dealing with the individual crew members than Backslash was. He would be sad when she got promoted, but she would definitely deserve it. “I recommend we drop out of hyperspace here, and use this small asteroid field to mask our approach.”
“Will our sensors be able to penetrate the field to get a bearing on any friendly or enemy ships?” Backslash said. He knew she was probably right, but that didn’t mean that he had to like the idea.
“Doubtful, but the Eternal’s probably can.” She said.
“Very well, send a message to Viper, and let me know if he has any other ideas. I’ll be in my quarters.” Backslash got up, and made his way to the ladder way. The nice thing about these old Destroyers is that its easy to get around. At least there is a nice thing about them. Backslash thought about what Coeus had said concerning Lelandra. One of the only proven mental clerics left in the known universe, her unique gift to ‘see’ into people’s minds and determine things that no conscious mind could figure out was offset by her extreme hatred for any type of organization. She was an anarchist to the core. Backslash had no idea how Coeus knew her personally, or why she made exceptions to dealing with the ICC when he was involved.
What concerned him mostly however was how she was traveling. He had access to the same information that Coeus did, and had figured out why he had ordered Viper and Backslash to continue on while the Charger went to intercept Lelandra. Backslash did agree that the Eternal and Absolut weren’t needed in the immediate, at least according to the information they had. What he didn’t agree with was having them rush the encounter with the Avernus so that they could rejoin the Charger, when by all probable accounts whatever transpired would be long passed.
There was no way that a simple boomer would be able to either outrun or put up a very long fight against an Assault class cruiser, especially not one outfitted the way the Charger was. Hell, they wouldn’t be able to put up a fight versus the Absolut. Although as a Bomber class, all Backslash had to do is lay a MIRV or two in the sluggish transport’s path and stand back.
Backslash got to his quarters, and went immediately to his bunk and passed out without ever even turning the lights on or off. The computer was automatically set to play music, and it never failed. Outside the singular window, the glow of hyperspace and the rings of light waves blitzed by in a beautiful dance as the laws of physics were bent and broken. Outside the peace of a hyper-jump, the chaos of the world brewed and the forces of darkness mustered to rally against all that was alive. Backslash slept.
Chapter 5 - Don't let the cape fool you, I'm really quite manly.
Hawk prowled the bridge of the Del Monte, awaiting a status report from the Phantom Knight – yet another captured K’Luth ship. This one was of a similar design to Hawk’s new prize, and configured to suck the life energy from its victims. It would do well.
“My lord, a report from Landaus has arrived – he has encountered the third party in the war, the ones who currently have power over the human home world. They were of little resistance.” A servant said over the comm. system.
“Excellent, inform Lord Armand to make his way here. We will need some degree of assistance to defeat the defenses of this world and its moon.” Hawk let out a slight chuckle. All was proceeding as he had foreseen. Once this planet fell, the humans would be throw into disarray, and they would be able to destroy the other human home world, a planet called Exathra. He would see to it that from that point all worlds touched by any of the three parties would never see life again. Their taint would be wiped from this galaxy forever.
“Yes my lord. Will there be anything else?”
Hawk pondered a moment, and decided, “Yes, bring me another K’Luth prisoner to interrogate. Be sure it is washed this time, the smell of their insides is bad enough – I don’t want to have to smell their outsides as well.” He resumed looking through the portal. The time was growing nearer now.
*****************
“I don’t like it, Backslash.” Viper was not a major supporter of the ICC – but he did approve of how they treated the planets they controlled – and they hadn’t betrayed him as the UGTO had. Still, Viper yearned for the glory days of the Imperial Navy. He wondered how many people really knew that. Backslash knew, and sympathized with him, though he made it clear which side of the battle line he intended to stay on. Viper held no ill-will towards his brethren, but he also made it clear where he stood.
“What’s to like? Coeus says we go, so we go. He says regroup with him ASAP so we regroup with him ASAP. What do you want to do? Mutiny?” Backslash smirked at his friend over the video comm. channel; he knew what Viper was thinking. “Now is not the time to get nostalgic my friend. We have a job to do – so lets do it and be done.” Backslash said. He tried his best to keep Viper on the straight path. Ever since their days covering each other’s wings in their Assault Scouts as fledgling recruits in the mighty Galactic Navy wing of the Imperial star fleet, Viper and Backslash had covered and protected each other both in their ships and in the frequent court marshals.
“I know that, but you know I can’t help but think… Never mind. You want to shuttle over at 19:00 for some dinner? This old dread has a great Officer’s Mess.” Viper smiled at his friend. He could definitely use the non-rebellion company. Most of the ICC were still uncomfortable with some of their former enemies in the captain’s chairs. They dealt with it though, and in time had learned to trust their tactics and judgment.
“I’d love to, I’ll be there at 18:30, and you can give me a little tour to remind me what its like to command a real ship.” Backslash let out a laugh. Not that he didn’t like the quaint little ship that he had now – but it was just that, quaint and little. Backslash switched off the comm. He stood up lazily, stretched out and made his way to the door. Dinner was still several hours away, and Backslash had skipped breakfast to relieve Galishnov, and he was famished.
Walking to the tiny mess hall that served the tiny crew on the tiny ship, Backslash’s giant hunger ceased to abate and he quickened his pace. He only realized on his way to the deck that he forgot to duck for that low hanging pipe. Shortly before the world turned black, he felt better now that his hunger was no longer the most gnawing feeling in his body.
*****************
“And you are absolutely sure that this woman’s intentions pose no danger to us?” Wyke said. He was still very uneasy about the whole arrangement, but saw the enormous potential. “If we can’t retake the system, we will have lost our only advantage over the ICC, and not only will our borders fall, but the K’Luth battle lines will as well.” He impressed. Even with the advantage that Switchblade had provided with his little toy from the ICC R&D department, he didn’t think there was enough manpower and equipment around to bring them victory.
“I am well aware of the tactical situation, sir.” Switchblade said sarcastically. “Just as I am aware that my fleet has enough firepower to get the job done – and the rest of your cute little ships have been holding the ICC at bay in Nicea for months now. This is the time to press our singular advantage to make it a plural one.” Switchblade felt woozy, all that convoluted speech made him thirsty, made him want some more of that stuff that Wyke had given him before. Switchblade made a mental note to check out the pilot’s country later, see what kind of swill the flyboys of the UGTO liked to chug down.
“Oh, and before I forget. Thanks to a few of your boys, all Shadow Pirates are restricted from visiting any of the bars on this planet or any other UGTO planet. You have nowhere else left to go if you fall out of favor with the High Command – so please teach your officers and crew to be mindful of their manners.” Wyke then waved Switchblade out of the room before the pirate had a chance to snap back. The wily old officer knew how to keep these rabble in line. He hoped. He reviewed the plans again and began to build home in himself.
*****************
“My lord, we have a report that one of our ships is engaging two of the rebellious enemy ships on its way here.” Hawk glanced at the voice box that had been installed in Hawk’s quarters.
“Very well, keep me apprised.” Hawk switched the box off.
*****************
Backslash shook his bandaged head as another blast rocked the small boat. “Take us under the Eternal. Keep dropping those MIRVs like mines!” he shouted over the roar. A small fire had broken out near one of the aft control panels and had quickly grown to a large fire.
“Still think Coeus made the right choice, buddy?” Viper chimed in. Now was not the time.
“Hey, could you quite possibly give us a hand here?” Backslash snapped at him. He looked at his navigational screen, and still couldn’t find the ship firing on them. “What’s going on? Even when they fire we’re not getting a reading from their location.”
“I noticed. I’ve taken to manually targeting the points in space that the fire is coming from visually. Getting a few hits, just keep those mirv-mines going, ‘cause they seem to be just plowing through them recklessly.” Viper growled as a blast sent sparks showering all around his image on the tiny monitor. He brushed his shoulder off and cut the comm. link off.
“Come on baby, hold together.” Backslash muttered as he laid in a new evasive pattern for his helm to run. The one thing that he did know about their mysterious attacker’s position, it was getting closer.
“Admiral…” Jameson said softly. He had come into the Captain’s Rest after Coeus didn’t answer the door. He walked slowly around the darkened office. There wasn’t much room for him to duck out of sight, so either he is avoiding contact or he isn’t in here.
“In here Terry.” Coeus said. It had occurred to Jameson that he never knew Coeus’ first name, or if he even had one. Maybe it was one of those diva things or something – a male diva.
“Admiral Hirad sent a message. All it said was ‘confirmed’ and a set of coordinates.” Jameson laid out a mini-comp on the table with the message on it. “Care to tell me what’s going on?”
“I don’t much like that new cook… puts too much spice on everything. But, the crew likes him, so…” Coeus trailed off.
“That’s not what I mean and you know it. Its just us here, Co’.” Jameson rarely called the admiral by that nickname. He thought for a moment whether it was appropriate, but then again the admiral wasn’t really in his official dress, and he was hunched over a sink full of water, with one hand dipped into it – which Coeus slowly raised to his face, splashed and lowered back into the water every so often.
“I had another dream. I’m not entirely sure that Lelandra is on that boomer. I’m positive that she knows we know that she was on it, but now…”
“You think it was a diversion?” Jameson said. He started to understand what Coeus was thinking. “How long are we staying here?” Jameson asked, though he was pretty sure he knew the answer.
“We’re not, now that Hirad has agreed we are going to go and find Lelandra, and I have a good idea where she is.” Coeus said. He started moving with a snap, was back in his uniform and his face dried before Jameson could react.
“If you don’t mind my asking, sir. Exactly what has Admiral Hirad agreed to?” Jameson said. He thought about it over and over in his mind, but couldn’t cope with what this message could possibly mean.
“The Admiral just got authority to move the Coldheart Station to this location temporarily via a wormhole – with the station will be some support ships. Signal the Absolut and the Eternal to rendezvous with us at these coordinates,” Coeus tapped the mini-com that Jameson had brought with him, “where another wormhole will be opened upon our request to take us to the edge of Wolf 359. From there, we will re-supply and another wormhole will be created to take us from there to a small, uncharted star system near the edge of K’Luth space.” Coeus looked over the mini-com and glanced at Jameson. He waited.
“Your orders then, sir?”
*****************
“I think we lost them.” Marie said. She brushed a strand of blood coated hair aside, and helped an injured crewman to his feet. “We are getting casualty and damage reports from all decks. The jump engines are offline, and there are small fires on C and D decks.” She said.
The Absolut had taken refuge in a small cluster of asteroids deep inside an uncharted nebula. Her hull was pot marked with holes, on the outer and inner hulls.
“How long until the shields can be online?” Backslash said. The bandaged that clung to his head held fast, more so now that it had an extra helping of blood to adhere to.
Charlie looked over at Backslash. He gave the welding tool to another engineer who completed the repair to the nav-display. “Well, that all depends. The sooner that we can fix the main reactor and stop the coolant leak from the anti-matter drive the sooner we can get to work on the shield generators. But…” Charlie trailed off.
“But the sooner we raise our shields, the sooner we risk detection from the EM field that they give off. Likewise, if we are chanced upon, even if we got the shields up before the enemy could fire the capacitors are nearly drained, and they wouldn’t provide much protection.” Galishnov chimed in.
“Right, damned if we do damned if we don’t. Got ya. Ok, leave the shields offline for the time being, and focus on getting the engines and weapons back online.” Backslash said. “And Charlie, I want you to personally oversee the restoration of communications, we need to know where the Eternal is, and to call for reinforcements.” Backslash nodded at them both, and turned back to face the front of the ship. Marie worked tirelessly to replace damaged parts at various stations across the bridge. Charlie had gone down to some random engineering access to work on the communications system. Backslash didn’t have a clue about any of this, so he left the bridge and headed down to the med-bay to see if he could help out there.
If there was one thing that he needed right about now, it was the Eternal and her repair drones. The Absolut was a mess, her hull was barely holding together, her systems were shot, and the crew was frazzled. ‘What could possibly be any worse?’ Backslash thought as he made his way down to C deck. He was almost to the med-bay, when he was knocked off his feet and slammed into a bulkhead. He felt the rapid rush of decompression, followed by the slamming of a pressure hatch closing, and Backslash’s unhealed head once more found itself on the ground staring into blackness.
Chapter 7 - Lets split up... again...
Admiral Jaydawg stood on the bridge of the Battle Cruiser Thor’s Hammer and stared out at the excuse for a fleet that he was a part of. Not only was he despondent that they had taken on ICC traitors, but also because they were so poor of resources that they allowed the ICC to keep the ships they defected with. The insult! To have to fly alongside those ugly, mal-configured, rust buckets that the ICC called starships – there was no greater insult that Jaydawg could think of. Well, maybe one thing would be greater… to have to command one. He sighed, he couldn’t complain though, they needed the support. If this campaign went as it should, he would be back in his hometown in the state of Canada soon. Moving back to his command chair, Jaydawg ordered a comm. channel to Admiral Hermie of the Little Chaoz.
“What’s up, Jay?” Hermie said without looking up. Instead he focused his attention to something off of Jaydawg’s screen. He was busy with the fleet preparations, so Jaydawg wasn’t overly concerned.
“Sir, how long do we intend to fly alongside these ICC traitors?” he spat out the enemy’s acronym. “I keep getting the urge to alpha strike them.” Jaydawg’s first officer had to snicker at that remark, and even Hermie cracked a smirk – albeit a very brief one.
“We will follow our orders to a ‘T’ and endure this gang of thugs for as long as we need them. And don’t you forget, we do need them, at least for this mission. Thankfully, they have graciously offered to take point in the assault – and will even provide the final wormhole into Sol for us.” Jaydawg could tell when there was more going on than anyone was saying, and for once he was pretty sure that he liked the reasoning behind the secret agenda of the UGTO high command.
“I see.” Jaydawg said in a way that Hermie would understand that he understood what was going on. The whole situation could only be described as confusing – but also clear – as is often the case in the political engine that was the UGTO. Even in these trying times.
*****************
“So where is the Absolut?” Viper demanded. They had finally lost the enemy ship after a series of disorienting and varied length hyper jumps. Unfortunately, they lost track of Backslash at the same time – an easy enough mistake given the size of the Absolut. The repair drones from the Eternal worked feverishly to patch the holes in the ship’s side as well as mend the damaged internal components of the ship. They should be back up at full operating capacity shortly before their shields were fully recharged. The scanners were the first thing to come online, and they showed the same thing that they did before, nothing.
“I’ve been going over the sensor logs, and the best guess that I can make is that they kept up with us for the first three jumps, but weren’t able to follow us through the fourth – after that…” Chief Lawrence trailed off. A lot of long time ICC seemed to do that, they didn’t like to face the harsh reality of what could be. Ever hopeful, they were. Viper couldn’t begrudge them that though, he understood that when you were put in a lot of the positions that the ICC tended to be, all you had was hope.
“You can say it, Chief. The third stop was very close to an asteroid field, so chances are they got pulverized by a small ‘roid that wouldn’t show up on the sensors of a ship that size.” Viper stated factually.
“Actually sir,” Lawrence retorted, “I was going to say that they probably got their AMJ taken out and were pounced on by that cloaked ship – but thanks for giving me another reason to doubt their survival!” Uck! He even smiled when he said that! Viper needed to be around some Marines more often; at least they mostly communicated with grunts and rarely smiled.
“Ok, let me know when the communication grid is online, and charge the jump engines. I intend to get a signal off to the Charger as soon as possible and let them know what’s going on. Also, get the comm. channel for the Sol Defense Force; we may need to call in some reinforcements.” Viper nodded and let the Chief get back to work. He may not be a commissioned officer, but he was probably one of the best mechanics that he had ever seen. Viper wandered aimlessly around the large ship, providing moral support wherever he could, since he knew almost nothing about UGTO engineering and even less about ICC tech. Right now, all he could do was hope. Hope that his friend was alright, hope that the mysterious enemy that could fire through their cloak without giving off ECM rings or any other sort of giveaway did not find them. He started to understand why the ICC were so hopeful, because the alternative was too painful.
*****************
Coeus groaned as he rolled over. Another bad dream. He couldn’t believe it! In the last few days he had less than 10 hours of sleep. Admiral Hirad had come through earlier than promised, and the Charger was at the rendezvous waiting for any sign from the Eternal or Absolut. He was about to head to Med-bay and see if the doc could give him some sleep inducers when a sound roused his mind from its wandering. “Coeus here.” He said.
“Admiral, we just got a communication from the Eternal. They were attacked while investigating what happened to the Avernus. Admiral Viper believes that the force that attacked them was the same one that destroyed the Avernus. He is sending a signal to Sol to request reinforcements, and sir…” the voice trailed off. Coeus moved closer to the speaker.
“And… what?” He felt the lump of worry rise up in his throat.
“Admiral Viper has no idea where the Absolut is, sir. They lost track of Backslash while making a series of hyper-jumps to evade the enemy. They fear the worst.”
Coeus had a hard decision ahead of him now. He thought for a moment, and made it. “Understood. Have Captain Jameson meet me in the Captain’s Rest, transfer all the data that we have collected about Lelandra to the terminal there. Prepare my ship to launch as well, and inform Admiral Hirad that the Charger will be rerouting to Alpha Centauri, request a small wing of destroyers and a few cruisers – and if possible an ECM boat or two.”
“Yes Admiral, and sir… if I may ask, where do you intend to go.” The voice asked. Coeus couldn’t place the officer who owned it.
“I intend to finish our original mission. Coeus out.”
Chapter 8 - Can Uggy come out and play?
Bito leaned forward in his seat. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. A new weapon, possibly K’Luth but probably UGTO, that was attacking ships near Sol, and it couldn’t be detected at all.
“To make matters worse,” Fornax said over the comm. link, “Coeus has apparently taken his own ship and headed off alone to find the woman he was originally searching for.” Admiral Fornax said. He looked over the reports in his own state of disbelief. He never knew Coeus all that well, but he knew enough of his reputation to be a fair bit shocked at his behavior. “What do you want us to do?” he tried to prod Bito out of his self-deliberation.
“I’ll send a message to the council, tell them what’s going on, and explain the dangers.” Bito thought for a moment. “I want you to send a message to all the available sector commanders, prepare to move the bulk of the fleet, set Nicea on a defensive lockdown and don’t let any ships in or out. And Fornax…”
Fornax looked up at the screen, he was surrounded by Bito’s head on all sides, yet it was only natural to look to the monitor just above eye level. “Yes, sir?”
“I cannot emphasize this enough. NO ships are to leave Nicea, is that clear?” Bito gave one of those fear and awe inspiring stares that were lost on Fornax.
“Crystal clear, Admiral.”
*****************
“My lord.” The small servant inched her way into the room. Hawk could tell by the smell of fear and the quiver in her voice that the news this messenger brought would most likely mean her death.
“What is it?” Hawk did not look away from the window overlooking the ugly blue planet known as Earth. Such a horrible and disgusting color, blue…
“Well, m- m- my lord-d… I have a report for you from the Phantom Knight… Lord Landaus says that he has engaged two more of the enemy…”
Hawk just had to smile, with Lord Armand already in the Sol system and making a slow pace to Earth to avoid detection, they only needed Lord Landaus and one other. “Excellent, when will he rejoin us?” Hawk bellowed.
“That is the thing, magistrate… he won’t.” the small servant shrunk some more inside herself. She looked sheepishly at Hawk as he roared and sputtered. “Well, lord, I mean… they sustained heavy battle damage due to the innate weakness of the K’Luth prizes we have captured, and has no idea where the two craft he encountered are, nor whether they have sig-” she uttered her last breath on the way to the floor as Hawk removed the blade from her lifeless spine. Her face landed with a thud on its side, her eyes and mouth locked open in an odd attitude of fear, pain, and relief. Hawk let out a relieved growl as he re-sheathed the blood stained honor-blade.
“Clean that up.” He ordered to the stoic guards that stood just inside the doorway of Hawk’s personal chambers. He hated a mess. So these humans were slightly more powerful than Hawk had originally anticipated. So his K’Luth prisoners had warned. What intrigued Hawk the most was their technology. Despite the similarities between the two factions of humans, there were distinct technological and even a few genetic differences between them. Hawk intended to find out why, and through that whether these genetic differences posed him any threat.
“Bridge.” Hawk yelled. After they confirmed, he set them to work. “And channel the link directly to my terminal as well, I want to research on my own from their databases.” He would record everything about the humans, for when they were nothing but museum exhibits.
*****************
Wyke sat on the bridge of his own Elite Assault Dreadnaught, the Depthcharge, and clasped his hands in front of him. He looked out at the ragtag fleet that he commanded. There was a time when not even a Commander would accept the command of a “fleet” like this. No matter, these days would soon be parted, and Wyke would be able to sit in his own station and sip some genuine Earl Grey once more.
“Sir, the Sythe reports they are standing by to open a wormhole to the rally point deep inside the home cluster, but far enough away from any star systems so as to prevent detection.” The comm. babbled. Wyke didn’t know nor care who owned the voice or what ship he was from. All that mattered was the message itself.
“Very well, engage the Wormhole device and order all ships to embark.” Wyke smiled, so the war was to come down to this. So be it.
*****************
Admiral Yamazaka dropped her coffee cup on the ground and stood up from her chair. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
“I’ve got Earth Central on the line, Admiral!” his comm. officer, Lieutenant Norris said. There was enough fear and energy in his voice to break a lesser man. Lucky for Linna however, Lieutenant Norris wasn’t a lesser man.
“This is First Rear Admiral Linna Yamazaka, in command of the Heavy Cruiser Sobek on patrol outside of Sol space. Authorization alpha-alpha-0-3-tango. We have just picked up a wormhole 2000gu off our port-bow. We have traced it back to the Umbrella cluster in Nicea, and are currently reading more than three dozen ships bearing down on us, and can detect energy spikes from more incoming vessels. We are currently interdicted and are trying to make best speed out of range to jump to safet-” Linna cut her report short as another wormhole opened up 500gu dead ahead. They were starting to receive long range fire from the many enemy ships that were hot on their tail. “Give me some good news about that wormhole.” Yamazaka said. She hoped and prayed.
“Admiral Yamazaka, this is Fleet Admiral NubMarine of the Ticonderoga, make full steam to port to avoid incoming friendlies through the wormhole off your bow. Prepare to join up with the 5th Fleet in formation; you’re stationed off my starboard aft.”
Linna grinned, ordered her helm to comply, and resumed praying.
*****************
Coeus knelt down on the dusty ground, and examined the path ahead of him. He glanced back at his hover-car, and sighed. It had only taken him a half-day’s journey in hyperspace to reach the planet where he suspected Lelandra of hiding out. He had found out from a small town near the spaceport that she had indeed landed here, and being the backwater planet that this was no ships have left the surface, nor have any actually left orbit of the world. Coeus discovered that she was still here, but she was not alone. The tracks clearly indicated that one ancient wheeled vehicle had passed by here, which is what some of the people that Coeus questioned had said Lelandra had driven. The problem was that the tire tracks were overridden by a pair of hover tracks, about the size of Coeus’ hover-car, a little larger perhaps. Four person cabs, he guessed.
Coeus muttered under his breath, and took a swig from his canteen. He took out his pulse-pistol and checked the charge, put it and the canteen in their respective holsters on his belt, and stood up. Squinting off into the distance, Coeus could barely make out the dust settling from one, maybe two vehicles. From the amount of dust in the air, he figured that they were either wheeled vehicles that were fairly near, or hover-cars that were some distance away. He sighed, and walked over to where the hover-car had settled on the hot, dry bed of dirt. He was surrounded by a world of brown, with smatterings of green and a red-yellow sun blaring from overhead.
Coeus got into the hover-car, and cursed himself for not insisting one with climate control. ‘At least the window controls still work’ Coeus thought as he started up the hover-car, and put it in motion before the dust kicked up from the anti-gravity bed could infiltrate the open windows and choke him some more. Glancing over at the Marine issue pulse-rifle that he had brought with him, Coeus began planning for possible situations. Whatever lay ahead of him, it was not good if other people were looking for Lelandra too. The timing was too convenient for it to be coincidence.
*****************
“Admiral Hirad.” A voice roused the old man from his sleep. He never could sleep except on Coldheart Station, which had been his home for longer than he could remember. He was assigned there since it was commissioned into service when Hirad was but a lowly Ensign.
“What is it?” he growled as he turned over to face the speaker. Such an annoying piece of technology, life must have been so much more pleasant when people had to actually remember numbers to make a call. How ridiculous was that… numbers! No one must have talked to each-other from the effort it would have taken.
“Sir, we have a report from the Sol defense force, they have engaged a UGTO fleet that has left from Nicea star-space. They are requesting reinforcements, and are falling back to the edge of Sol space. We have a report that Admiral Fornax is attempting to follow suit, but the UGTO apparently have a device in Nicea that is preventing any wormholes from stabilizing. Fornax believes that it is stolen tech that the Shadow Pirates took with them and used to barter their way into the UGTO fleet.”
“If that’s true, than Sol will fall unless we get into position to defend it. What is the ETA on that boomer we are supposed to intercept?” Hirad made some quick calculations in his mind, it would take two wormholes established to reach the Sol system, or three wormholes if there was a Jump Cruiser or two nearby. It would take too long for the JC that Hirad had sent to help Coeus along to his mission destination to get back and rejoin the fleet.
“It should be here within 48 hours, Admiral.” The voice said. Hirad could hear the operations of the station going on behind the speaker.
“Very well, inform Admiral NubMarine that we are en-route to the outer edges of Sol and will be there within a day. Order an Assault Dreadnaught and a Combat Destroyer to remain behind to intercept and seize the freighter before it can achieve its objective.” Hirad said. He thought for a moment, and then said, “And get me Admiral Bito, we need to conference about this.” Hirad switched off the display, and then rolled off the edge of his bed. There was still something that stood out in Hirad’s mind, something that needed to be done. What was it… the old man gave up thinking about it, and pushed the notion aside as he dressed and headed off for the bridge.
Chapter 9 - Oh thats just not right!
“So there is nothing left?” the shadowed man said. His head ached, and he felt a dullness in his chest that would kill a weaker heart. Charlie leaned over and dabbed some of the blood away from Backslash’s eyes so he could see a little clearer.
“Not a thing, sir. The entire bridge… it could only have been an asteroid, because after the hit … well, nothing happened after the hit. We can only assume that everyone on the bridge deck was vaporized by the blast, at least we hope.” Charlie looked away; he felt the pain of the losses as well as anyone. Many of his top engineers and good friends were working on getting the bridge operational when it was destroyed. There hadn’t even been time for an alarm to sound, just … Charlie tried not to think of it.
“Well that’s it, we’re done. Set up a makeshift command room somewhere near Engineering, get the jump drives back online ASAP and plot us a course to the nearest friendly shipyard.” Backslash was still in a state of shock. The entire bridge… just gone. Even in battle with the UGTO and K’Luth none of the factions aimed for the bridge of a ship – it was far more valuable to either completely destroy a ship, which meant focusing on the segments that controlled the most power, engines, star-drive, weapons, or to capture a ship which entailed the tricky business of disabling a ships engines and weapons. Not many ships got captured. In all of this however, Backslash had never seen a ship loose it’s bridge. Not once, it just didn’t happen!
“Um, that is part of the problem sir.” Charlie said softly. This was something that no one outside of the Admiral and the surviving engineering staff needed to know. “We don’t have enough fuel to make a jump to friendly territory.”
This was just what Backslash needed. His ship was hopelessly crippled, currently defenseless, and stranded too far from safety to hope for reinforcements with a strange, invisible ship wandering around preying on ICC ships. “Find the Eternal, Charlie. We have to find her.” Their very lives depended on it.
*****************
Switchblade smirked as the Havoc rocked under another blast. They had fought hard, but his former comrades of the ICC were simply outmatched. The UGTO had the upper hand in both the number and power of their ships. He ordered his helm to pursue the aptly named cruiser Damage. She was running full steam firing some random shots and trying desperately to lay a minefield in her wake. He didn’t know who commanded the Damage and didn’t care. All that mattered now was that she would never make it back to port alive.
“Sir, incoming AD from the starboard bow!” Switchblade’s helmsman said. “She is getting ready to alpha strike!” He was preparing some evasive maneuvers.
“Understood, stay on course, prepare a pulse wave.” Switchblade ordered. He was glad now more than ever that the UGTO had been so ship-poor that they let him keep his ship. “Take us to the other side of that mine trail so that they are off our starboard.” He commanded. The battle was going well, the ICC in this sector were poorly trained. “Steady.” He began timing the pulse wave and needed CL2k fire in his head to do the most damage to the now trailing AD. “Steady.” He said one more time, raised his hand towards his weapon officer. “And NOW!” he shouted. Switchblade stood up and watched the monitor as all the nuclear mines behind him were vaporized. Another monitor showed that the Enigma was losing shield integrity from the blast. “Fire laser batteries; continue cycling fire at the Damage. Prepare boarding parties, and get ready to shift primary target to the Enigma.” Yes, the battle was progressing very well.
*****************
“Admiral Viper, there is a report coming in, a distortion the size of a cloaked Mantis class attack Dreadnaught was sighted leaving the system and heading towards Sol space. I think we are in the clear, sir.”
Viper glanced over at the comm. officer on duty, and opened his mouth, “and just what makes you think that is our bogy, ensign?” he said in a sullen voice. The Eternal had been fully operational for hours now and were scouting the asteroid field where the Absolut was last reported. They had only found some debris so far, but thankfully it was nowhere near enough to be the entire ship, maybe an engine or – Viper feared – the bridge.
“Well sir, the engineering vessel that spotted the distortion opened fire to see, and they were destroyed in a matter of seconds, nearby observation posts showed no increase in signature from the point of firing, their cloak was never penetrated.”
“That sounds like our ship, it was reported leaving the system you said?” Viper sat up. Finally, some good news to brighten his day, week, and month. The ensign nodded, and turned back to his console. Viper looked around the bridge. Most of the officers were looking at him expectedly. They wanted to go home as much as he did, but they had a job to do. “Activate active sensors, start sending out hails on all ICC channels, increase speed to 15, and someone bring me a cup of coffee.” He grinned; they were going to find the Absolut, if they had to spend a year searching this field.
*****************
Wyke grinned. This makeshift fleet of his wasn’t doing half bad. The mixing of ICC and UGTO ships had proven to be a very effective combination. Too bad UGTO regulations forbid any non-UGTO hull from being commanded by any fleet personnel. “Full ahead, order the fleet to punch through here. Their lines will begin to crumble as they send in more ships to cover. From there we will either punch through to within range of their Interdictors, or else we’ll be able to bring in some ships through their ‘dictor fields and cut off their retreats.”
Wyke continued giving orders as the Depthcharge flew through space at breakneck speeds. He glanced at his panel and saw the Little Chaoz begin to list to her starboard as she took a full three barrages from a pair of cruisers. The Chaoz began to drop off the advancing UGTO line and engage the enemy that happened to be caught behind the line. Wyke smiled as he noticed that one of the cruisers was the first ICC ship to be encountered in the system. It had been in the fight the longest and had suffered heavy damage. The other cruiser, a Jump Cruiser of all things, had stayed behind to cover the damaged ship, and was taking most of the abuse at the moment. Wyke decided to use this.
“This is the Depthcharge, I want the Deltree, Dark Angel, and the Grey Fox to stay behind and disable – but do not destroy – the two enemy cruisers caught on this side of the battle line. We’re going to see how badly the ICC want Sol.” Wyke motioned for the comm. to cut out, and grinned again. He loved it when fortune turned its scales in his favor. Turning his attention back to the stoic ICC battle line, Wyke noticed that the enemy had indeed converged more ships to cover the growing gap in the center of its lines. Quickly scanning the remaining ships on the outer edges of the line, Wyke found what he was looking for, a single ICC dreadnaught guarding a single interdictor.
“Bring up the reserves to continue pounding the center, all remaining ships are to alter course for the outer edge of their protective lines and converge fire on this point. I want that ‘dictor taken out!” Wyke could just smell the salty ocean air of the Mediterranean again. “This is Admiral Wyke to the fleet, Alpha, Beta and Charlie wings converge and destroy the Assault Dreadnaught Ticonderoga.”
*****************
“Captain Jameson, we are receiving flash traffic from the ICC emergency band.” An ensign said. He had a mini-comp in his hand.
“Very well, bring it in, let me see.” Jameson said. He stretched out and looked up from the nav-map he had been studying. His eyes widened as he read the many broadcasts that were contained on the little device. Jameson jumped for the comm. link and raised the bridge. “This is Jameson, helm all stop, recharge the jump engines and prepare to engage hyperspace to the following coordinates. Notify me of our ETA to that location, and then inform engineering that we may need to pump some more speed out of the AMJ. Communications, see if you can raise Admiral Coeus, if you can patch him through to me immediately. After that, raise Admiral Bito. Patch both comms through to my Rest.” Jameson clicked the comm. off before anyone could question or object. He felt the slight jolt of the speed shift as the Charger dropped out of hyperspace. He could see through his window to the ring of hyper-wake spreading out from the rear of the ship. He saw it distort and twist away as the sub-light engines altered the Charger’s heading to align to the new coordinates that Jameson had just sent to the helm. It was another minute before the Bridge got back to him.
“Captain, I have Admiral Coeus on ultra-long range, I had to bounce off some private and enemy satellites that are not quite in our control yet, so the quality is lacking, but go ahead.” The comm. officer said.
“Wha- up T-rry?” Jameson heard. It seemed enough like Coeus’ voice to be him, and the language definitely was.
“We’ve got a problem Admiral…” Jameson started, how could he explain everything that had happened. He looked out the window at the same time the hyper-drive kicked in again. Everything was in motion.
Bito listened intently to the chatter of the battle going on outside of the Sol system. As commander of the 2nd fleet, he couldn’t abandon his post to defend them, lest the home system or outer colonies come under attack. He had ordered all freestanding combat vessels to the Sol system by way of the Ross cluster, but with so many fleets converging on Sol it was hard to tell if there were going to be any available Jump Cruisers or Stations to bring the troops in on a regular basis. Roger had his hands full dealing with the K’Luth that were invading Oblivion that he had just pushed out of the Ross cluster, and couldn’t spare any ships from the front line, and has been forced to constantly move his station.
The future of the ICC in the Sol cluster lay in Fornax’s hands. Bito shuddered at the thought. It had been Fornax’s ineptness that allowed the UGTO to escape the Nicea cluster in the first place, and that weighed heavily on Bito’s mind. All in due time, however, will the faults be placed. Bito reached a hand out to his desk and plucked another cheese square from the dish, and was about to eat it when the door to his office opened and the chief of security and the chief communications officer of Juxtapose Station walked in. The look on their face froze Bito’s hand in midair, the cheese melting in his fingers. “From the looks of it,” Bito said, “I’m glad I’m sitting down.”
The two officers looked at each other, each one non-verbally prodding the other to speak first. Finally, the security chief – Commander Oswald – pointed to his rank insignia, and Lieutenant Carlson spoke up. “Sir, a small K’Luth vessel has de-cloaked just outside of weapons range, but inside the Interdictor field…” Carlson trailed off.
“Yeah? So?” Bito was annoyed; they had caused some of the cheese to melt; now it didn’t taste as good.
“Sir, they broadcasted their surrender as soon as they de-cloaked. They have singled you out by name and wish to speak with you face to face, and accept any terms we propose to that end.”
Bito sat in a state of shock. After a few seconds, he mustered up the words to properly assess the situation. “Holy crap…”
*****************
In the small shuttle bay of the Absolut, Backslash stood in front of the remainder of his crew. Between the battle, and the loss of the bridge, a whole third of his crew had been lost. They were still in the middle of nowhere, their hull integrity was shot to hell, had no clue where any help may lie, and had even less idea as to how they were going to survive. What better time to hold a memorial service.
He struggled for words. Thoughts, memories, events, they all played out in his mind as if they were part of a movie reel. Charlie looked Backslash directly in the eye, and both could see the tears that streamed down the others face. He looked away from Charlie at the empty casket that served as Marie’s memorial. Only a handful of the caskets had any bodies in them, none of which were from the command deck; the damaged to the bridge had been complete.
He finally came to terms with the fact that there weren’t words in any language in the known or unknown universe that could communicate how he felt, and how he imagined the rest of the crew felt. He said as much, and was greeted with nods and salutes. He stepped down from the platform.
“Crew, attention!” the chief of the Honor Guard said. “Face ranks! Hand salute!” were the commands that followed. Backslash didn’t hear any of them, or any that followed. He just stared at the caskets. He felt the hatred boil up inside of him. Now he had been betrayed by two governments. This one because they didn’t even send the ships needed for the mission. A bomber destroyer! From that moment on, Backslash vowed to find whoever had ordered him into such a ship, and exact revenge. Marie’s death had been a meaningless and needless one. It would be the last of its kind at the hands of the person responsible.
*****************
Coeus struggled to ascend the dune. It was hot, his lungs burned with sand and dust, and he had no way of knowing if a rifle awaited him at the apex of the small mountain of sand. He reached the top and was relieved to see that the nearest rifle was a quarter-kilometer away, its owner unaware of Coeus’ presence. He counted three hover-cars, in addition to Lelandra’s archaic wheeled vehicle. He couldn’t see Lelandra anywhere, nor could he tell why the armed men were milling about. It was plain that they were guarding someone inside. But was it a meeting, or an interrogation… or somewhere in between? One thing was for certain, it sure as hell wasn’t midday tea time – it was too damned hot for that.
He began to make his way around to the back of the small adobe house, and found a spot to descend undetected. With his pulse pistol in hand, Coeus contemplated various approaches, when he finally decided on the simplest one. He walked up to the nearest guard, tapped him on the shoulder and slugged him when the poor underling turned around. The firefight that ensued was short and fierce. A guard jumped from the porch of the small hut and began spraying wildly for the three seconds that remained of his life in Coeus’ direction. Coeus shuffled sideways back and forth, and then jumped behind the wheeled vehicle. He ducked behind one of the tires and spun around the other side, shooting from the driver’s side through the cabin to the two guards approaching the passenger’s side. They both dropped quickly, not even getting within three meters of the vehicle.
The final guards inside came out with guns ready, but they weren’t smart enough to realize that they shouldn’t have brought their commander with them. Coeus had perfect position to kill the commander, and told them so before they started shooting.
“You have an interesting way of saying hello, Admiral. I wasn’t aware that the ICC trained their officers to be so reckless.” The man said. He had an air of authority about him, obviously some military experience. Yet the fact that he had come right out told Coeus that the man had not served any combat time.
“Nice to see that my reputation precedes me. Too bad that I couldn’t precede you, whoever you are.” Coeus said. He had to open the dialogue somehow. “I had a feeling that I wouldn’t be able to just stroll up, and from the way the other guards reacted I think I was right. Let’s play pretend now though.” The mystery officer had a quizzical look on his face. In any other situation it would have been comical. “How about we all pretend that we are civilized human beings, and go in side for some afternoon tea.” Coeus thought about what he could to do ensure his safety.
“I do hope you are joking, Admiral. It is almost a hundred and fifty degrees in the sun, so I can only hope that you are delirious and didn’t just suggest we drink something hot.”
“Ahh, a fellow cynic. This relationship has some great potential!” Coeus swept out from behind the rusting hulk that was Lelandra’s transportation. Lelandra, the person whom he was here to see, and who the mystery officer was as well apparently. Lelandra, the long lost family that Coeus would never openly acknowledge, and who Coeus still had yet to see today, or for the last five years for that matter. “Iced tea, then.” Coeus holstered his plasma pistol and walked towards the open door. He passed the two perplexed guards, and into the house. Mystery Officer followed, the guards stayed outside.
Chapter 11 - Must go faster, must go faster!
Another blast rocked the Havoc, and another, and yet another as Switchblade ordered the Assault Dreadnaught to advance even further. Wyke had wisely ordered the fleet to converge on the one weak link in the ICC defensive line, the NCX-Ticonderoga. Switchblade knew it well, it was Admiral NubMarine’s, and it maintained the reputation as a slugger of a ship with a damn fine crew. Switchblade intended to end that myth. With the nearest ICC cruisers more than 2000gu away and still headed the wrong direction to intercept, the fleet chugged on under constant fire from the Dreadnaught and its measly companion of an Interdictor. The real harassment were the fighters. They couldn’t use their pulse shield, because friendly fighters still outnumbered enemy fighters 2 to 1, and were providing quite an edge over the ICC in clogging up their navigational systems.
“Admiral, the Interdictor has started moving away from the Ticonderoga, but at too slow a pace to be attempting escape.” Switchblade glanced over at his navigational screen. NubMarine’s penchant for confusing tactics seemed to endure. He started to wonder just how well thought out most of his enemy’s hair brained schemes were. He had a reputation for a reason… but that didn’t matter. Against a fleet of this siz- “Admiral! The Ticonderoga is turning towards, they have engaged at maximum speed and have begun firing from all batteries. Their forward shields are holding sir!” the ensign said.
“Full ahead flank, order the fleet to maintain pace, cruisers slightly ahead to absorb some damage.” Switchblade ordered. It wasn’t until both ships were toe-to-toe at 500gu apart and closing that something clicked in the back of Switchblade’s mind. “Order all ships to abort! Hard to starboard, all fighters return to hangar bays, abort. I say again, abort the run at the Ticonderoga!” It was too late, a wave of destructive energy hit the already beaten and battered ships. In moments, an attack wing of a dozen dreadnaughts and even more cruisers lay limp in space. The Ticonderoga swam through the drifting hulls and began picking them off one-by-one.
“Report!” Switchblade ordered. A lieutenant rose from among a pile of debris that once made up a scanning station.
“Sir, all systems are critically damaged, repairs are underway on the engines and weapons systems. We have sent for a supply ship, but I think any one that comes will have its hands full between that Dreadnaught and all of the ships disabled.” The lieutenant began picking through systems on the ship attempting to gain some element of control. “The good news, sir, is that the main battle fleet is undamaged and will be able to overrun this position in due time. The bad news is that ICC reinforcements are already underway to cover this flank from the looks of it. We will win the day, but not before we suffer more losses than we would have had our mission been successf-” the officer was knocked from his feet, as was Switchblade as blasts rocked the crippled and defenseless ship.
“Goddamnit, we joined forces with the UGTO so we could AVOID being fluxed! Get me Admiral Wyke on the line ASAP.” Switchblade groaned as he sat back in his damaged captain’s chair. How could he explain this.
*****************
The Absolut had made its way back to the main shipping lines with what little fuel remained. The worst part of getting there involved navigating through the asteroid field without a bridge. The remaining engineering staff had converted a small cargo bay into a makeshift command center, and routed most of the command functions to there. Primary engine control, however, still laid with the Engine Room – as it was on dedicated circuitry that only connected to certified bridge terminals. Backslash had decided that, given the fact that only one certified bridge-system capable terminal had survived the entire ordeal, weapons were more important to have immediate control over. Charlie agreed, and had set up a dedicated comm. link between the command center and the engine room. The helm could still be controlled without a certified terminal, but engine speed, and the anti-matter drive both were more critical than which direction the ship was going, as the amount of power they generated was enough to destroy a small moon.
“Well, Charlie. Shut ‘em down, here is where we find out just how lucky we really are.” Backslash said. He could hear the engines being powered down, he was that close to Engineering. He also ordered the ship to switch to silent running. The shield generators, now fully charged, were shut down, engines taken offline, and emergency lighting the only allowed indoors. “Now, we wait.” Backslash said. He sat back in his uncomfortable replacement chair, and stared straight ahead at the blank starfield occupying the little screen they had for visuals. After a moment, Backslash got up and went to the back of the command center.
“Sir?” said the lieutenant-commander overseeing the operations terminal.
“I want you to try and piece together what you can of the orders database. Find out who assigned the crew to this ship. Send the information to my cabin when you have compiled it, I want to review it.” Backslash ordered. He saluted crisply and walked out the hatch. As he made his way to his quarters, Backslash’s mind moved a light-year a minute, as he plotted what he would do to the traitor who set him up.
*****************
Linna slammed her hand down on the console as she reviewed the situation. The Jump Cruiser Diligent had stayed behind the enemy lines to cover the Sobek, and in the process got itself cut off from the rest of the fleet. Only three ships had broken off to corral the two cruisers, they just all happened to be dreadnaughts. One of them was an Elite Assault Dreadnaught, the Grey Fox. That had been their first target. The Diligent got off a few nice shots with her Proton Cruise Missiles, which dented the EAD’s armor enough that Linna was able to swing the Sobek in between the other two dreads and take our the EAD’s engineering section. The remainder of the hull drifted lifeless as the two remaining Battle Dreadnaughts encircled the pulverized cruisers and continually pummeled them.
“Sir, its Admiral Powell on the line for you, urgent.” She knew what was coming next.
“Very well, put him through.” Linna said. Powell’s face was half covered with blood, much the same as Linna’s was earlier. She sighed as he came into view, and spoke before he could. “I agree, Admiral. What do you think would make decent terms for surrender?”
Powell smiled. His demeanor betrayed none of the fear he had at being captured by the UGTO. “I was hoping on unconditional surrender.” He said. “But as that is not an option, I have something else in mind.”
Linna struggled to get back to her chair as another blast rocked the Sobek. “I’m all ears, pal.” She said. Her usually smug attitude was less endearing than usual at the moment. Imminent death had a way of doing that to a perception.
“There is a stray moon about 5000gu off your port side, start making full steam towards it” Powell said. It was plain to see that the Diligent already had.
“Um, I hate to break it to you Admiral, but that planet is in the opposite direction of our fleet, where I would think we want to be.” Linna was running out of time, the Sobek’s shields were nearly gone, IT missiles were exhausted, and had only a dozen Fusion Torpedoes between the two tubes. One of the hijacked Psi-Cannons was completely destroyed, the other two with less than 50% effectiveness. All fighters were destroyed, and only two mines remained in the damaged launcher. “I don’t know how long we can survive a run like that.” Linna said. She would never leave Powell, but she had wished he didn’t remain behind. As a Jump Cruiser, he had only a wormhole device, and couldn’t jump to safety now that they were out of Interdictor range.
“Trust me, stay directly behind me, or just barely in front if you can’t take the damage that is likely to follow. We can outrun the dreads, but barely. We need to go NOW.” Powell said.
“You better be right about this.” Linna said, and ordered her helmsmen to set course for that dead moon – directly behind the Diligent.
Chapter 12 How cuniform brown uniform.
Coeus sat down in a soon-to-be sweaty leather chair. The plain-clothed officer, whom Coeus had since discovered to be a Captain in the UGTO intelligence division, sat opposite him. Admiral Rory "Sono" Delafelde, was his name – and he had given his word that Coeus won’t be arrested. The word of a spy, but it didn’t matter since Coeus had no doubt in his mind that he could wax the floor with Delafelde’s remaining pair of guards with or without a weapon.
“Ok Delafelde, where is she?” Coeus stared straight at the enemy spy. Delafelde stared right back at Coeus with unreadable eyes. He was good at this.
“What the hell are you doing here Co’?” a harsh voice growled from Coeus’ left. He looked over, and saw his sister the terrorist. While she had never committed any acts against the ICC herself, she had never dissuaded any of her comrades from doing so. Coeus had looked away from that fact because of the acts she performed to undermine the UGTO. In fact, in collaborating with her years ago he had enabled the ship he was serving on, the Intensity, to single handedly take over several planets in Wolf 359. While it had been through command’s ineptness that the planets were subsequently lost, Coeus still kept that on his private victory list.
“I was in the neighborhood, decided to drop by.” Coeus answered. He looked blankly at his sister, trying to keep the UGTO spy in the dark about their relationship.
“You coulda picked a better time.” She replied. She set down a tray between the two officers, with three tall glasses of iced tea on it. The three of them took a glass each, while Lelandra motioned to the door. “Your grunts can fill their canteens from the spigot around the side of the house.” Delafelde raised his hand and motioned to the soldiers when they looked in the door at him. Within a split second water could be heard outside, and a loud sigh of relief.
“I didn’t realize you had company – decided to crash the party anyway.” Coeus smirked; he knew she was probably glad to see him. As bad as it was for an ICC to come calling on her, it was even worse for a UGTO intelligence officer to be here with soldiers.
“Oh, you two can drop the act. We are well aware of your shared parentage, and frankly we don’t care. I care even less than I’m ordered to, in fact. I am here on more serious matters than the petty bickering of the war between us. Something more important even than Lelandra’s own personal ‘beliefs’.” Delafelde said. He produced a printout of a small segment of star chart, along with a transparent segment of subspace scans the same size. It was the section of space that Jameson and Coeus had examined earlier that led Coeus to where he was now.
“Now, Admiral. I’m sure you recognize this.” Delafelde paused while Coeus nodded.
“We detected a boomer headed for those coordinates loaded with enough material to blow through the subspace barrier and destroy that intersection in subspace, destroying the entire galaxy.” Coeus said as nonchalantly as possible, which wasn’t much considering how cliché it sounded.. He knew that what he was about to say was confidential, and he didn’t care. “We have a fleet standing by to intercept it.”
“Your intelligence is a little outdated, Admiral – and I must say that it’s my fault. I intercepted a communiqué from your ship to you. The UGTO fleet, along with the ICC traitors you call the Shadow Pirates have left Nicea for Sol, most of the fleet including the station commanded by your friend Hirad has rerouted to intercept us when our fleet reaches Sol space.” Delafelde raised a hand to calm Coeus down. “Relax, we were expecting you because of that, and I have saved a copy of the communiqué for you to review. It is from your Captain Jameson. That isn’t important, there are enough ships to destroy the boomer left guarding the subspace eddy convergence. The problem is, we can’t let them stop that transport.”
Coeus stared at Delafelde thoughtfully. “I’m all ears now bubba.” He said.
*****************
Powell cursed as his officers read off the latest list of damages. At least they hadn’t been fluxed yet, and most likely wouldn’t be since the two dreads hadn’t used it yet. They were closing on the stray moon quickly, but it may not be quick enough. The Diligent had lost all weapons and exhausted all defensive measures. It was up to the battered Sobek now to protect the jump cruiser. He wasn’t sure how much longer Linna could continue to do so. Powell had called for reinforcements, and asked for some elements of the fleet to stand by for an emergency wormhole to help deal with these dreads. But even if Powell could summon a wormhole immediately, which he couldn’t, the fleet wouldn’t be able to deal with the extra firepower of two more dreads – especially not if they were delivered directly into the middle of the fleet. They were on their own.
“Begin evasive pattern Omega, we need to keep those dreads within range if this is going to work.” Powell said. He opened a channel to the Sobek, and was met by a shower of sparks on the monitor. “You ok Admiral?” he said.
“Just peachy, when are you getting us the hell out of here?” She said. She ordered her helm to change their evasive patterns, trying to avoid as much enemy fire as possible.
“Its gonna get worse before it gets better slick. We need to get those dreads within 100gu before we get to the planet. That means circling.”
“That’s no good Powell, I’ve got one of these fricking B.D.s on follow, its helm is matching our course turn for turn.” Yamazaka said. Her ship was hit with yet another shower of sparks.
“Sir, there is another ship coming in.” The sensors operator said. He looked over at Powell.
“BD or EAD?” Powell said. Things were going this bad, that was the only way it could get worse.
“Neither sir, it’s the Charger! Shes opening a channel.” The communications officer chimed in.
“Put them through.” Powell waited until the click signaled they were connected. “Coeus good buddy, great timing!” he then said.
“Good guess, but wrong.” Jameson said. “Is your wormhole charged?”
“Not yet, but it will be in a second. We were going to open one right next to the planet with the dreads close on our tail, so close they couldn’t turn away and their size would impact the planet before they made the wormhole.” Powell said, sure that the comm. lines were secure between the two friendlies.
“Good plan, but I think you’ll only be able to get one like that. You keep going for that, and open the wormhole to this location. We’ll deal with the second dread.”
A moment later, the Diligent’s internal lighting dimmed as most of the power was sent to the prototype device. A few hundred meters ahead, a glowing lightshow indicated that a stable wormhole had been established, and seconds later the Diligent was through. Seconds after that, the first battle dread slammed into the side of the moon, creating a crater a dozen kilometers wide. The second dread was still following the Sobek’s unsteady course.
“Sir, we’re not going to be able to make that wormhole before it closes up, the dread has caused too much damage to the engines! They’re beginning to overtake us!”
Linna was on the verge of collapsing, all offensive and defensive options were exhausted. Then an idea struck her. “How far off is that wormhole.” She said.
“800gu dead ahead.” The helmsmen said.
“Is the jumpdrive charged?” she said. The helmsman nodded. “Plot in a standard jump, calculate for full speed.”
“Sir, at this range the jump computer won’t engage, it will only align to jump then abort.” He said.
“I’m well aware, engage jump computer.” Seconds later, the Sobek altered course slightly.
“Jump aborted by nav-comp. What now sir?” The helmsman said with a slight tweak to his voice.
“Engage emergency jump protocol.” Linna said with a smile. With a blast of light, the Sobek defied the laws of space, and rocketed forward and into the closing event horizon of the wormhole. The enemy dreadnaught attempted to follow, and found its front end cut off by the closed wormhole, and its tail end continued forward, flipping end over end as the moon’s gravitational force drew it downwards.
On the bridge of the Sobek, Linna sat back in her seat. “Ensign.” She said softly. When her helmsman looked over his shoulder at her, she smiled and said, “I’ll add that bet to your tab.” He shook his head with a chuckle and turned back to his station. In front of her, the Diligent and the Charger both faced the point where the wormhole would have been, gun ports open. Beyond them, the flashs of light and distant sparks of explosions marked the main battleground. Glancing at her nav, Linna could see that the battle did not progress well, and recommended that the three ships regroup at Neptune as soon as the Diligent’s wormhole was charged again. The war would be decided in Sol, this was only a precursor.
*****************
Viper paced back and forth on the bridge. It had been almost a day searching the area where they found debris of the Absolut, and there were still no clues as to their disappearance. The debris pattern indicated that the ship was intact, though heavily damaged. It was doubtful that even the Eternal’s repair systems could fix her, it would probably take the resources of a drydock. That all depended on if Viper could get there in time.
“Show it to me again.” Viper said. On one of the monitors in the ceiling just in front of Viper lit up with an analysis of a substance found near the debris. “And you’re sure they don’t know about it?” he asked. Chief Lawrence looked at Viper with a glare. Viper shook his head and said, “I still don’t believe it. How could something that serious be so minute on sensors that our advance scanners barely picked it up?” He didn’t really expect an answer.
“Sir, this sort of plasma leak is limited to mostly smaller ships with less space to work with and a weight limit on the shielding they use to protect the plasma conduits. It is very likely that the leak is occurring from a ruptured valve in whatever section of the ship was destroyed, and thus the engineers presumed that the plasma flow would cease since they shunted the regulators away from the damaged area. Problem is that with these smaller ships there is only so many ways to alter the path of the plasm-“ Viper shook his head, enough techno-babble.
“Just find them.” He said.
“I’ll try sir, but a Destroyer like that will be very hard to find if they’re trying to avoid enemy detection. Even if I do a broad sensor sweep, I’m likely to pick up a bunch of merchant ships that could ha-“
“That’s it!” Viper stood up with a short hop. He practically ran to the helm, and began flipping through local star-charts on the small navigation panel of the helm console.
“What’s it, sir?” Lawrence said.
“I know how to find him, Chief.” Viper said. There was an energy in his voice that Lawrence immediately recognized as something he almost never heard before from the Admiral. Hope. “Back when we were in the Navy, any small ship that was damaged was told to make its way to the local supply routes, with the idea that the locals would come to the aid of a UGTO ship in distress. We avoided the routes like the plague, since they were pirate haven and many commercial transports were known to be sympathetic of the ICC. But, in that destroyer… yes, there! Set course for that shipping lane, engage jump drive as soon as we’re clear of the asteroid field.”
Viper sat back in his seat. He crossed his leg and put his hands in a temple as he stared straight ahead. The power he radiated in this position brought an inkling of fear from his ICC subordinates. They had seen UGTO officers in this same position demanding surrender, and bad things happened when the ICC declined to surrender, as they always did. No matter, it was very clear that Viper’s loyalties lied towards his fellow ICC officers. All they had to do was look at everything he was doing to save Backslash and his crew. Yes, the crew could trust Viper to uphold his oath to the ICC.
Chapter 13 - What does the difference matter if we kill them both?
“My lord,” an aide said. Hawk turned around. He had finally gotten most of the smell out of the room, and it was about time too. He spent most of his time in there awaiting reports and looking out the window at the infested planet. He acknowledged the aide, who continued. “We have a disturbing report from long range scans. It seems that the two human governments have clashed in battle a short distance from this system. The defending humans seem to be withdrawing back into the system in preparation for its defense.”
Hawk said nothing, only motioned the aide to continue. “If the defending humans are unable to call in reinforcements, they will be forced to fall back to this planet and leave the outer colonies to their own devices most likely. Lord Armand of the Iron Fang has joined us, and the Phantom Knight is still recuperating from the battle damage, they do not have jump engines as of yet.” The aide finished his briefing by bowing his head.
“Very well, update me with information as soon as you get it. Dismissed.” Hawk waved the underling away. So now the two species of humans have come together in glorious battle. The outcome would decide who retained power during the demise of their species. Hawk went over to his terminal, and looked over the conclusions of the analyses. The common thread between the differently evolved humans is their innate fear. They seemed genetically programmed to be afraid of anything different or unexpected. Hawk could use this to his advantage. The differences between them could prove troublesome, however, if they two were ever to align. The imperialistic humans were stubborn, vicious, and had evolved a keen understanding of the space around planets. They seemed to instinctively know when a ship or planet was out of place. This could pose a danger to the cloaked ships if they are detected before they are ready.
The other, more liberal humans posed a danger for other reasons. While they were also stubborn, they had a keen intellect when it came to small fleet tactics, while this was most likely due to their training in fighting the larger human species, the extended duration of the conflict seems to have imprinted the abilities and tendencies that compliment those tactics onto their newborns. They had an acute awareness of spatial disparities, and were more in tune with the psionic abilities that made the K’Luth dangerous, probably due to extended contact with the foul beasts before the outbreak of mass war.
There was the potential to play these tendencies against the humans, but it would take planning. With the Iron Fang now here, and the Soul Eater prepared for the final assault, they were only waiting on Lord Landaus to complete his repairs and join them. Once all three ships were poised to strike, the Soul Eater would make its move and the planet would fall. They must hurry, however. With the humans so close, every minute wasted was a chance for them to be detected. Time was of the essence. Hawk pushed the thought from his mind, and turned back to the window. Nothing could be done about it at the moment; all he could do was wait. Soon the humans would know what the K’Luth already did.
*****************
Backslash stood up sharply. “I need to know, lieutenant, is that contact a friend or a foe?” he said. His sensor officer and communications officer conferred with each other.
“We can’t tell yet sir, the sensors are still badly damaged. This close to the shipping lanes, it could be either or neither. We can tell you what it is NOT however. It isn’t the Eternal or that cloaked bogey.” Backslash nodded. That much was obvious, if it was the Eternal they would have picked up the Absolut and communicated by now, and if it was the bogey, they’d be dead already.
“Well, give me an ETA.” Backslash said. “I need to know ho-” the comms officer cut him off.
“Sir, we’re receiving two signals, one is a hail and another is an ICC friend transmission. Short range wavelength.
“Open a channel.” Backslash said without hesitation.
“I repeat, this is the NCX-Avernus, Captain Rocko Willis speaking calling the Absolut, please respond!” An official sounding voice said over the loudspeaker.
“Captain Willis, boy are we damn glad to hear from you. We’ve been out of communication with the ICC high command for days, have lost contact with our escort, and have severe structural damage. The bridge is completely destroyed and our hull integrity is barely above minimal safe limits.” Backslash said. Everybody in the room let out a sigh of relief, and a few of them even hugged or shook hands.
“Well at least you’re alive, Admiral. I’m afraid we’re not in much better shape, however. Our Wormhole Device is badly damaged and needs some new parts, long range communications are down as well, and a few minor problems here and there – like having no aft or port shields to speak of.” Rocko replied.
Backslash looked at Charlie, who looked expectedly at the admiral. Backslash nodded to his friend, who spoke instantly. “Captain, this is Chief Engineer Charlie Barone, I think I may be able to help.” With that, Charlie began going over what he would need to save both ships.
*****************
NubMarine grimaced as the reports came in from all across the battle line. Ships were falling back too fast to cover those remaining on the front. The ones staying were promptly being chewed up by the constant onslaught. The Ticonderoga herself wasn’t going to last much longer, giving NubMarine little choice in the matter. He shook his head as he gave the general retreat order. He could feel his flagship lurching from the still incoming damage. The UGTO were pressing their advantage, trying to damage or destroy every single ship they could. They knew they wouldn’t have numerical superiority for long, and the more ships went back badly damaged, the easier it would be to toss them aside.
Three ships had already made it back to Neptune, which is where the rest of the fleet seemed to be converging. Nub looked up as his fleet status screen flashed red. One of the remaining Assault Cruisers was sustaining heavy fire and would be unable to make the jump before she was overtaken. “This is Admiral NubMarine to the Waiting, come in Sonlox!” He was met by static. He watched as the hull dropped below minimum safety limits. Nub could only imagine the feeling on the bridge – smoke everywhere, sparks flying, possible structural damage that collapsed parts of the bridge. He could see the blood streaking the deck plating and bulkheads, and could hear his friend shouting the order to abandon ship. He knew that Sonlox would not abandon his ship while there were still un-buried dead on board, and shed a single tear for him.
Damn them! Damn them for their taxes! Damn them for their aggression and stubbornness! Damn them straight to the hell that gave them birth! As long as there was a breath in his body, he promised never to let the UGTO rape another star system again, never to let them control and abuse the population of another unwilling world. They would no longer oppress anyone, he could not let his friends die in vain. The war would be decided here and now. The last great battle of their time, and the beginning of a new era was upon them, for better or for worse. The line would be drawn at Neptune, and the fate of the known galaxy hung like a twinkling gem on the edge of the solar system in which it all began.
*****************
Bito dropped the piece of cheese in his hand as he heard what the K’Luth told him. Through the Psionic Converter that the ICC had stolen from the UGTO, the aliens confirmed the worst of what Coeus predicted. The Psionic Converter spewed out information at a rabid pace, as the K’Luth’s thoughts flew quickly. Bito would have to go back over it later.
“Above all, human, we must impress this. These creatures are pure evil. Our language lacks the word to describe them. They are relatively unknown. All we do know is that they prey on any sentient life. They live through the chaos in which they create, and exist only to destroy. Over the years, we have lost cruisers and destroyers to them, but our cloaking technology has always been enough to keep our larger craft from falling into their hands. It was only recently that we began to notice our smaller ships falling more rapidly to their advances. We thought nothing of it, as they never had any interest in this area of the galaxy, but that has changed, as we have told you.” It said. Or thought… or something.
“How do we stop them?” Bito said. He had already ordered his fleet to pull back to CD, and had Roger place his fleet on defensive alert. “Is there any way we can find them?” The K’Luth soldier had said that the – aliens for lack of a better term – knew how to modify the K’Luth cloaking device to create a complete null field. The only way to detect them was to crash right into them. They were even undetectable when they fired their weapons.
“We know not. We have never fought them, only hid. Run, hide. We cannot fight them when we cannot see them. They have found ways to penetrate our cloak that make your methods seem archaic and obsolete. Everything we know, and have been told, you now know and have been told. Our mission is done, and we are at your mercy now. We die with honor.” With that, the K’Luth soldier removed the Psionic Converter, dropped to its knees and prepared for death.
“I’ll be damned if I’m gonna stain the rugs in here. Guard, return them to their ship, and allow them to return home. They came under a flag of truce, we shall honor that.” With that, Bito swiveled in his chair, and looked out at the stars. Exathra hung beautifully in the darkness of space. The blue of the oceans and the air shone with a pureness that Bito had yet to see on any other world, even Earth. Such a stunning color, that shade of blue. Bito would do anything to protect it. Anything.
Chapter 14 - Don't you wish you were adopted?
Wyke smiled as the ICC ships winked off his fleet command screen, either destroyed or jumping out. Sadly, more were jumping than were being taken out, but it was only a matter of time. The ICC apparently couldn’t handle the combined weapons of both ICC and UGTO ships. There was simply too much stacked against them. Back in Sol, however, the scales would be even, if not tipped in their favor. No matter though, the fate of the known galaxy would soon be decided. Wyke left the fleet repair operations in the hands of the only Command Dreadnaught, the Red October. Captain Sonja had proved to be very capable in the micro-managing of the repair teams – those half dozen supply ships that scurried behind the first dreadnaught they could find whenever they came under fire. Only a handful of the supply ships were heavies, and capable of defending themselves.
Wyke trusted Switchblade to organize his own repair teams – and if they weren’t done by the time the UGTO portion of the fleet, they would give the Shadow Pirates 5 minutes to utilize all available repair ships to get their fleet going. After that, any ship that couldn’t join them was left behind.
“Admiral Wyke, this is the bridge. We have a communiqué from Admiral Aliquis of the ICC Jump Cruiser Cardinalis, they say their jump engines sustained heavy flux damage and it will be about an hour before they can get it operational without assistance.” Wyke growled too low for the speaker to receive, then faced it.
“Very well, contact Captain Sonja and inform her that she is to assign a heavy supply ship to repair the Cardinalis as soon as possible.” Wyke was about to press the button to end the comm., when a thought occurred to him. “Inform her that she is not to take priority over any UGTO dreadnaught, we don’t need mister Alinquis to get overly eager and open a wormhole before the fleet is ready.” Wyke allowed his disdain for his Shadow Pirate allies to come out a bit more than he wanted, but no matter. The bridge crew knew how he felt, as did most of the ship commanders in the fleet.
“Admiral, one more thing.” Wyke would have to teach his comm. officer when not to give information. “The Havoc has been severely damaged, and Admiral Switchblade is calling for all of his repair crews to focus on them. By our estimates, a full third of his remaining ships will not be anywhere near battle ready status if he allows his ship to take priority. Just thought you should know that, sir.” The comms officer quickly clicked the line off before Wyke could order him killed out of a moment of rage and weakness. This could indeed prove to be a wrinkle. Wyke would have to deal with this personally.
*****************
“NubMarine to all ships, as soon as you are repaired by Nereid’s depots, you are to head to the outer marker beacons, and await further assignments. All ships will be taking up a defensive pattern. The UGTO will have to come to us before they can continue into the system, lest they turn their backs to us at the wrong time.” Nub knew that a defensive strategy was a losing one, but without reinforcements the surviving fleet would have no chance against the UGTO in open space. All they could do is hope the planetary defenses could supplement for the lack of starships. All merchant ships had been warned away, and there were message beacons placed at all the local trade routes. It would be a while before traders would want to return to Sol.
As soon as Nub closed the comm. link to the rest of the fleet, he resumed his connection to Juxtapose Station. “So you never did tell me what you think they really wanted.” He said. On the small screen in front of him, Bito appeared to be typing on the inside of Nub’s console, and reading information that was invisible to Nub while staring directly at him. “Stop doing that, Bito, you’re freaking me out.”
“More than you already are?” Bito replied. He stared blankly at the information that was displayed on his own screen. Nub had no way of knowing if Bito even had Nub’s picture up at the moment. “And you can stop sticking your tongue out.” Bito joked.
“Sorry, didn’t think that you had my visual up still.” Nub smiled.
“I didn’t, I just know you too well.” Bito replied. The two bantered for a minute while the information that Bito had sent was relayed across the subspace network. “It should be there by now, I just sent you everything I have on the K’Luth ship, the recording of what they said when they were here, and the reports from everyone who saw them, talked to them, anyone and everyone involved with the encounter.” Bito knew one thing, and that was that he didn’t know what was going on here. He would delegate responsibility as much as he could to draw on the resources of the fleet. What concerned him most was the fact that Coeus was right. That alone was a bad omen.
“Ok, I’ve got it. I’ll start looking it over and determining who to bring into the project.” Nub said. He was ending the conversation.
“Bring in whoever you need, make this a Priority-Alpha assignment, secondary only to combat, of course.” Bito said. “Good luck, and hang on, Hirad should be there soon.”
“I hope you’re right, we’re gonna need him. Ticonderoga out.” The comm. clicked off, and Bito’s face disappeared. From here on out, they were on condition red, which meant that Nub had to keep as many people fresh on their stations as possible. He immediately ordered the ship rotated over to a five rotation schedule until the combat was rejoined, so as to minimize the manned time on station by the primary crew members. The crew had already rehearsed the procedures and timings of the fifth rotation, and were well acquainted with how to carry on. It was the rest of the fleet that occupied Nub’s mind. Right about now he could use that miracle that Coeus had set off to find.
*****************
Backslash watched intently as the crews of the two ships traversed the void between them to connect the umbilical links between the two ships. It would only be a short time now before they began dismantling the Anti-Matter drive of the Absolut to provide the parts needed by the Avernus to initiate a Wormhole reaction. The power levels required to create a stable vortex would not be an issue, so much as configuring the gravimetric components. At least, that’s what Charlie said. Exactly what it meant Backslash had no clue. He didn’t care, all he knew is that he would be back in ICC space soon, and hopefully with a real ship.
“Sir, I have the information that you requested.” An ensign said to him. Backslash sat up from his bunk. He didn’t realize he left his door open. He hoped he didn’t say anything that would give him away. “You’re not going to believe this. The order to have you placed in charge of the Absolut came from someone who isn’t even ICC anymore, much less on the ICC command board.” Backslash stood straight up and walked towards the ensign, who shrunk in his presence. It could only be one person. Someone who he would least expect this from.
“Switchblade.” Backslash said, as he read the report.
“Sir, there is more.” The ensign said. Backslash waved him off as he continued to read. What came next was more than he could bear. He sealed his door, sat on the edge of his bunk and stared at the deck. This would not be allowed to stand.
*****************
Coeus stood up, brushed the dust off his pants, and stood at attention. Delafelde stood opposite him doing the same. The two officers looked at each other, and waited for Lelandra to come back into the room. Coeus looked at Delafelde, and then motioned towards the door. He walked out without a word, and the siblings were left alone at last.
“You know the room is probably still bugged.” She said. Her brother shook his head and smiled. He took a small round object from his pocket, put it on the coffee table between the two opposing chairs that held the two opposing officers just seconds ago. He pressed the center of it, and a small red light shone from the exact middle of the device. “Doesn’t matter now, this sends out interference across all bandwidths in normal space and subspace. The only way to get anything now is to have the recording device in the room with the bug, hard wired. Now, tell me about my drea-” he started to say, she raised her hand, and went to a corner of the room.
She got out a small incense burner, a few candles, and some other supposedly mystical paraphernalia. She started speaking in a language he didn’t recognize, and he immediately felt the urge to kneel down opposite the coffee table from her. He never did quite understand this power she possessed; even when they were kids she just had this power. The power of her words increased, though her tone and volume stayed the same. She began rocking as she chanted, and all that Coeus saw was his sister, the candles and the incense on the table. A bright flash and Coeus was back on the hull of the Charger. He looked around, tried to shout, tried to scream, but nothing came out. He tried to speak, whisper, sing, hum, mumble – nothing happened. After a moment he gave up.
“You were wise to invoke the will of your sister.” A familiar voice said. Coeus turned around, and faced the two areas of his past that caused him the most pain, the most remorse.
“Pop?” Coeus said. The words sounded distant, and hollow. His father raised a hand before Coeus could utter another word. Captain Beatte stood slightly to the left and behind the chief Fleet Admiral of UGTO’s Alpha Centauri operations – Coeus’ father, he didn’t say a word. Rather than stare at Coeus with the ghastly, fear invoking gaze that he had before, Beatte seemed almost to watch with love and care at Coeus. He turned his attention back to his father.
“I realize you have many questions. Many of the answers you seek I cannot provide, there just isn’t enough time. For now, please just understand that I tried to do what was best for you and Lelandra – as would any parent – but things were not always easy to make happen. Needless to say, there are more urgent matters now than our past. One matter in particular: your future, your sister’s future, the future of all Humans everywhere, and even the K’Luth. There is a storm coming my son, and it will take all of the power of the combined races to weather it.” While his father continued, Coeus stood at attention, listening intently; he was fixated on his father’s every word.
Chapter 15 - Onea these days I'm gonna get a secretary...
“Here they come!” NubMarine said. Nub saw his screen light up like a Christmas tree, except this tree had twice as many red lights as green ones. In some odd corner of his mind he pictured a tree with red needles instead of green ones. Good thought to have going into battle. “Order the fleet to spread formation, Cruisers take point Dreadnaughts stand by to close jump key targets.” Nub said. He looked to the situational analysis screen on his right, and made a face that not even a mother could love. He felt as if he had swallowed a hundred rotten eggs.
Almost two thousand galactic units away, Captain Jameson was making a similar face as he looked at the fleet nav screen installed in the Charger. They could not win this fight with strategic prowess. There was simply too many of them. “Tactical alert, sound general quarters. Bring us around to heading 137, engage at ¾ speed. Bring all torpedo tubes online, swap out the pulse beams for the CL550s we picked up and charge all laser banks.” He didn’t even wait for the Ticonderoga’s approval, because he didn’t need it. Despite the fact that there were many higher ranked officers on this flank, the Charger was the ranking ship in a 1,000gu radius – which put Jameson in the hot seat. He was in charge of this flank.
“Captain, orders coming in from the Ticonderoga, sir. Admiral NubMarine wants us to engage with Cruisers only and have Dreadnaughts on standby for close-jumping of key targets.” The comms officer said. He had his work cut out getting the key messages through, and he was damned good at his job. “I also have the Sobek and the Diligent on the line, they are requesting to join our flanks.”
“Permission granted, but tell Powell to keep his distance, try to stick to his P.C.M.s. Order the Sobek to link in with our nav computer to mirror our movements until we are within firing range.” Jameson glanced again at the fleet nav panel. “Make all speed for that Command Dreadnaught, that should knock them a pretty good blow. Order two of the Assault Dreadnaughts on our flank to stand by for a close jump. Order the 2nd Heavy Cruiser wing to go after that Interdictor.” Jameson could see the lines of battle moving, there were some stray blips away from the battlefield, but he wasn’t worried about them. If they were enemy ships, then they would be dealt with by the planetary defenses. In the blackness of space, the Charger lived up to her name, and charged head first into the enemy formations. Only fate and time would tell whether she would ever come out again.
*****************
“Admiral, we have a report” Viper was getting cold sores from sitting so long in the captain’s chair. He wouldn’t be able to sleep or anything however, so he stayed at his post, waiting for some news. “The UGTO have invaded Sol, Fleet Admiral NubMarine in charge of the SDL has called for reinforcements, priority gold. They are losing the fight, sir. They need any and all assistance.”
Viper sighed. They had swept the entire shipping lane three times now. The fighter pilots were pushed to the breaking point – two pilots had already crashed while attempting to land and were recovering in sick bay. “Very well, recall all pilots. Prepa-”
“Sir, I’m detecting something, hang on!” The sensors officer said. He had an urgency in his voice that alarmed Viper. “Wormhole forming, 10,000gu from our current location! Detecting two ships, ICC signatures. Neither are giving off long range signals, nor scanners powerful enough to reach us. They don’t know we’re here sir!”
Viper was standing before the corporal had even finished his report. He ran over to the station. “No way to get a ship ID?” he said.
“No sir, but from the signatures I would say a cruiser and a destroyer, wormhole destination is Neptune – which is where the Ticonderoga reported the UGTO fleet.” The officer touched some controls, and brought up the uplinks to the Sol sensor network. They began getting real time feeds from the battle going on around the planet. From the looks of things, the battle wouldn’t be very long unless something changed. It appeared that the cruisers were doing hit and run strikes just outside of the planetary defense range of the planet and its moons. Viper watched as three ICC Dreadnaughts suddenly jumped to point blank range of an Elite Assault Dreadnaught that had strayed from the pack. A split second later, a small flash indicated that the EAD was nothing but debris. Viper could imagine the commotion as the three AD’s attempted to turn around and jump back to the safety of the planetary defenses. Moments later, two of the AD’s orbited one of Neptune’s moons, and the third broke apart in mid-turn from the concentrated fire of several UGTO ships that had jumped to intercept the stranded Dreadnaughts. The battle would not last long at all the way it was going.
“Helm, plot a course for that wormhole and engage, tell Engineering to open up the anti-matter valves, give her all she’s got.” Viper said. He had already let Backslash down, he would not let him have died in vain. Despite what Viper wanted to do and thought of the ICC, he would respect his friend’s wishes, and fight with the rebels to the last. Besides, the way Viper figured it was this, if his friend was still alive then he would survive long enough for them to jump to Sol, help out however he could, and jump back. Besides, there was always a chance…
*****************
Coeus walked out into the arid desert air, took off his sunglasses and wiped his brow. Delafelde stood by one of the hovercars he had come in, leaning casually against its hood. Walking over to him, Coeus wondered what ran through the spy’s mind. Was he going to attempt to assassinate the enemy admiral? Or possibly capture him as a prize? Coeus had to get in touch with the Charger, that much was certain. “So am I a prisoner here or what?” he asked. He had a smile on his face and a touch of humor in his voice that betrayed the seriousness of the question.
“Well,” Delafelde said, “that depends on you amigo.” The spy’s face was unreadable behind the leathery skin and large mirrored sunglasses. The air around him swirled sand as the wind blew across the depression in which Lelandra’s house sat. Hours seemed to go by in which Delafelde looked around at the near horizon created by the rim of the bowl-shaped crater. Coeus wondered whether this was a natural basin or whether it had been dug out especially for this house. It certainly made the house last longer, as it was semi-shielded from the sand-filled wind. He pondered that at the same time he examined Delafelde’s face for any clue of thought. Finally, the spy turned back to the Admiral. “UGTO policy says take no prisoners.” Delafelde drew his pulse pistol, but did not raise it.
“And what does UGTO policy say about enforcement all the way out here in unregistered space?” Coeus said. His hand hovered near the low-slung holster that his own pulse pistol hung from. He took notice of the two guards just in front of Delafelde. They had not changed position since Coeus came out, they still stood at attention right next to one of the hovercars, on either side of the driver’s side door. Delafelde himself had moved just behind the hood on the passenger side of the same hovercar, his pulse pistol still in hand at his side.
“Well, officially we’re not even supposed to be here. The UGTO’s efforts are intended to be focused on retaking Sol. Our fate lies elsewhere, however. My ship would be of little consequence in the battle for Sol – which by the way is going on as we speak, I got the report a minute ago.” Coeus started towards the three UGTO, and stopped when the two guards raised their pulse rifles. Coeus made his peace with the world in that instant, and closed his eyes as the flash came.
A second later, two thuds made him open his eyes again and realize he wasn’t dying in agonizing pain. Before him lay the two soldiers, with burn marks on the back of their sandy uniforms. Delafelde had returned the pulse pistol to his holster and made his way around the side of the hovercar.
“No more killing damnit! I’m coming!” Coeus heard Lelandra say from the house behind him. On instinct Coeus drew his own pulse pistol and aimed it at Delafelde. The spy stopped, looked at him, then continued getting into the drivers seat.
As he was going through the pre-start routines he said, “You can kill me now, try to take any information from our PCDs – assuming you can crack our encryption codes – and continue blindly to your death.” To which Coeus fired a round into the frame of the hover car. Delafelde looked over at him sharply, took off his glasses. He looked more annoyed than afraid. “Choice 2.” He said defiantly. “You get in the car with me and your sister, we go to my ship and attempt to make it back to Sol space before both of our governments annihilate one another and leave all of humanity as easy pickings for the evil that you were warned about. Coeus stood there with his jaw open. They had talked about the evil, but Coeus hadn’t said how he learned about it – nor had Delafelde.
“How… never mind, I don’t think I want to know.” Coeus decided. He walked over to his sister to grab the bag she had finally left the house with. Putting the bag in the trunk, he took a last look around. He would have to come back here, finish the journey that he started with Lelandra. “You said you have a ship nearby?” he asked Delafelde.
“In orbit, actually. She is fully fueled and ready to go, and has been for several days.” Coeus looked at him from the passenger seat as the hovercar lifted from the ground.
“I didn’t detect anything when I arrived in the system, and I made some very careful scans.” He said befuddled.
“Well,” the spy said, “I have made some very… unique adjustments to her. Enough talk, the faster we get to the Harpoon, the faster we can get to where we’re needed.” The hovercar jetted forward, and left behind several dead guards, and brought with it a very much alive alliance among very much unusual people in a very much unusual circumstance.
Chapter 16 - Do I get to pick who gets to kill me?
Backslash grimaced as he looked at the nav display. The odds certainly weren’t in the ICC’s favor, and he wasn’t sure what good he could do in this broken down little tub. Even if they were to dock for repairs the ship still wouldn’t be fully operational before this battle was over. “Put me through to NubMarine.” He said.
“Admiral, its good to see you’re still with us – though I do wish you brought the Eternal with you, we could use the support.” Nub said. Backslash could hear the impacts as they rocked the Ticonderoga, could hear the alarms as they blared loudly for different reasons. This was never a good thing, when the flagship was already sounding hull breach alarms in a battle.
“It’s good to be here, sir. Though I admit, I wish it were under different circumstances.” Backslash said. “What are your orders, sir?” At the same time that Backslash was talking to Nub, he was sending a text message to his navigational officer, and one to his communications officer. He wanted them to find the Eternal, any way they could.
“Join up with the 3rd defensive fleet, they are set to take on one of those stations, I think your MIRVs could make you a worthwhile addition. See if you can’t get to a supply ship to repair and reload some of your systems and weapons. NubMarine out.” Backslash heard the click of the channel closing.
“You heard the man, get to it!” He said. Before he could give his next orders, the comms officer spoke up.
“Sir, I’ve got the Eternal! They are connected to Neptune’s sensor network through a series of relays. I have them positioned… just where we were! They must have been closing on us. They are about to come through the wormhole we have to our aft by 1000gu – the one we just came through.” He said eagerly. Backslash breathed a sigh of relief. They had survived the encounter with the mysterious enemy – but not without losses. Backslash sat up suddenly as he realized the opportunity he was presented with.
“Send my compliments to Admiral Viper, and bring up the ship log of the enemy fleet from the Neptune sensor system.” Backslash knew he was here, the bastard had to be! “Got it sir, what am I looking for?” the sensors officer said. Backslash walked over to her post and said, “Bring me the status and position of one of the Shadow Pirate traitors, the ship is the NCX-Havoc, commanded by Admiral Switchblade.”
*****************
‘Damn these ICC traitors!’ Wyke thought as the Depthcharge rocked from yet another blast. They were not going to be able to keep the pressure on as long as the Shadow Pirates kept rotating their ships out of combat. Wyke wondered how the hell they had ever lost as much to commanders like this. “Get me Switchblade on the line, NOW!” Wyke shouted. He prepared as another wave of cruisers jumped into weapons range and knocked out yet another Interdictor. They weren’t going to have enough to maintain a safety perimeter around the stations if this kept up. The fleet was advancing, but the losses they were suffering would leave them vulnerable to counter attack after the ICC had been wiped out of this system – and Wyke vowed to wipe them all out.
“I’ve got the Havoc on the line, sir!” the comms officer said.
“What is it Wyke? I’m kinda busy here.” Switchblade said. Such disrespect! If the son of a- “WYKE! Make it quick!” the traitor shouted.
“Stop rotating your damned ships! We need to keep the pressure on, not give the enemy the idea that they are inflicting damage.” Wyke said. He chose his words carefully, since he was well aware that some of the Shadow Pirates did not share the ideals of their superiors but had sworn an oath all the same. Fortunately, the ICC was still deeply rooted in the traditions of the outer colony worlds and placed priority to a ships captain above all else, Even the ICC as a whole. This is why an entire fleet of the ICC was able to defect, and why only certain individuals among the UGTO were able to turn traitor.
“Well, Admiral, they are inflicting damage, we have already lost several ships, as have you. If we don’t change our tactics fast then we won’t be able to hold the system after we destroy these guys.” Wyke could tell that Switchblade had also chosen his words carefully.
“I am giving you a direct order, keep all of your ships on the firing line, focus all fire on ships that enter range in the order they arrive. Maintain the line, and keep pushing forward. Wyke out!” He motioned for the channel to be closed, and a click confirmed it was. “I swear this is the last time I trust a bunch of… frelling flip floppers!” he thought aloud. Some of the nearby officers chuckled, but they were roused out of the moment as another torpedo impacted on the starboard side of the ship. “Hard to port, engines ahead full. Tell the Thor’s Hammer to close the gap between us and the Slandor. They would take this field yet.
*****************
“My lord.” The speaker crackled. Hawk turned his attention to the voice.
“What is it?” he said sharply. Now was not a time to annoy him, he was very close to a breakthrough on how to defeat the planet’s defenses with minimal risk to the Del Monte. He had been studying the biological agent that the K’Luth used to destroy planets, and found that its genetic makeup could be altered to increase the destructive capability a thousand fold.
“Sir, the human fleets have engaged in combat around the eighth planet of the system. It seems the defending humans may be destroyed, unless they abandon the outer planets. If they do, they will most likely assemble here, as it is the most heavily built planet of the system – and the human home world.” The aide said.
“Understood.” Hawk did indeed understand, but did not need further reports. The details of the human war were of no consequence, either they would retreat to the home planet and would have to be dealt with, or they would stand and fight, and most likely die with honor.
He brought up another display of the biological agent’s molecules. Within the next hour, it would not matter. When the modifications to the K’Luth bombs were complete, they would not only annihilate a planet’s population, but would also generate enough heat to burn away the atmosphere and melt the polar ice caps. All it would take was one well placed bomb near the planet’s southern pole, and after the agent had spread across enough of the atmosphere, an ignition spark would burn the very air that gave the planet life. The planet would be destroyed by the substances that made it important for the humans. The fact that it was a place they could live and grow. Within an hour, it would no longer be.
Chapter 17 - Nobility and honor suck...
“Sir,” the comms officer said. NubMarine looked over at him, and tried to shout over the roar of the fire that burned in the back of the bridge. Medics struggled to free a crewman trapped under a fallen monitor as damage control teams fought the blaze that burned from a ruptured power conduit. “I’m receiving reports of subspace activity around Earth – satellite systems aren’t recording any ECM rings, so they have ruled out the possibility of cloaked K’Luth. They advised you to be on alert for a possible emergency situation however.” The Ticonderoga shuddered under another volley of torpedo fire as the lieutenant finished his report.
“You can advise Earth that we already have an emergency situation, and tell them not to clutter up the comm. lines unless the entire planet is burning down.” NubMarine said. He thought for a moment that it was ill-advised to tempt fate by saying that, but it was too late now. He looked at the fleet-com screen and could sense something was out of place… somewhere… there! “Get me Admiral Backslash on the Absolut.” He said. Several seconds passed in which NubMarine gave combat orders before he turned back to the comms officer. “Well?” he said.
“Sir, uhh…” he trailed off. “Well sir, they aren’t acknowledging transmission. All we’re getting is static.” Nub looked at the officer, eyes unwavering. Wisps of smoke fluttered by – barely noticeable against the constant haze that filled the bridge. All the noise around him seemed to mute. Even as the ship shuddered and twisted under the strain of enemy fire and her own propulsion, Nub felt a calming silence descend upon him. “They are jamming their own comm. links, sir.” The lieutenant said.
Nub focused his fleet comm. into the Absolut, and deciphered their heading. They were going straight into the bulk of the Shadow Pirates little squad. “So Backslash knows.” NubMarine said. “Get me the nearest ship to Admiral Backslash, tell them to intercept the Absolut, disable her engines and drag her back to the planetary defense coverage.” Nub went back to his fleet comm. panel and punched in some numbers.
“Sir, I have the Heavy Cruiser Saratoga standing by, Captain Schakal commanding.” The comms officer said. He went back to his duty of sorting through messages, his job well done once again.
“Captain, I have an urgent mission for you. I need you to intercept a rogue destroyer, the Absolut, that is going to kamikaze into an enemy ship. It is imperative that we keep as many of our ships as possible intact, no matter what class they are.” NubMarine said. He impressed the urgency with the tone of his voice, despite the fact that it was wavering slightly. He hoped that no one noticed. Several seconds passed in which the constant drone of the engines, blended with the occasional impact alarm, and the groan of the hull under stress seemed to once again fade away as Nub focused his mind on the response that awaited him. The smell of arid smoke burned his nostrils, the glare of the alert flashers stung his wide open eyes, and the agony of seconds passing ramped his heart up to the point of exploding.
“Confirmed the location of the Absolut. Setting intercept course. Please be advised, Ticonderoga, they are running max speed. We will have to jump ahead of them to intercept – an action which will place the Saratoga in the line of fire and outside the Planetary Defenses. Do you wish us to proceed?” Captain Schakal said. NubMarine could see the captain feeling similar to how Nub felt seconds ago in waiting for the reply.
“Affirmative, Saratoga, intercept but do not remain in the combat zone for so long that you risk losing your ship or crew. Ticonderoga out!”
With that, Nub closed the comm. channel and focused on the battle at hand. With the Charger leading the front on one side, and the freshly repaired Enigma running things on the other side, Nub felt confident to push the center line a bit forward – but still within planetary defense lines. He began trying to isolate the enemy interdictors, as Captain Jameson had been doing on his front. Nub would have to put the captains name in for promotion, if Coeus agreed. That was, of course, assuming that Coeus made it back alive, and everyone else survived this as well.
*****************
Coeus walked onto the bridge of the Harpoon, and looked around in awe. He had been on several UGTO cruisers before, including a standard interdictor. This was no standard interdictor. Most of the bridge systems appeared to be run from holographic terminals. There were several operations stations that had been converted into sensor stations it seemed. The Harpoon seemed less like an interdictor and more like a science vessel. She was clearly a military vessel, however – the combat systems were very impressive. From the weapons readouts Coeus doubted that even the Charger could last in a long-term firefight with this beast.
“You are the first ICC officer to ever board the Harpoon not in shackles. First to ever see the bridge as well. You should be honored.” Delafelde said.
“He should be shot.” Another voice chimed in. It had an air of humor about it, bitter irony, and a familiarity that startled Coeus.
“Vox? Vox Dei? Is that you buddy?” Coeus said. He grinned madly when his old friend and adversary stepped out from behind a holo-display. The two shook hands and grinned like idiots as Delafelde made preparations to get underway. “What are you doing here? I thought you were commanding the Ruff.”
Dei grinned and said, “Last I heard you had retaken command of the Charger, so I should ask the same question to you.”
Coeus’ smile dimmed a bit, barely but still noticeable to Vox. “I had to hop on my own ship and head out here to finish a mission. Jameson took her off to Sol.” He said. After thinking a minute Coeus added, “How much do you know about what we are doing here.”
Vox started to answer, but Delafelde cut in first, “Everything that I know, my bridge crew – and most of the ships crew knows. Everyone here is, or was at one point, a member of UGTO Intelligence.” Coeus couldn’t help but grin at the phrase ‘UGTO Intelligence’ and both Vox and Delafelde picked up on it.
“By the way,” Vox said, “Does ICC High Command still take orders from Assault Cruiser captains?” He grinned as both Coeus and Delafelde laughed.
“Ok, enough of this, we need to get to Sol A.S.A.P., the UGTO are starting to wear down your guys there – if we’re too late then there won’t be enough ships between our two fleets to fight off the real enemy.” Delafelde said.
“Aye sir,” Dei said. He motioned to Coeus, “There have been several attempts to communicate with the Admiral here, all sent to his ship but unable to be relayed to his personal comm. because of the EM interference of the planet. Should I hook him into the comms station so he can get in touch with his superiors and update them?” he said. Coeus glanced between the two officers.
“No.” Delafelde said. Coeus’ heart sank. “Take him to my bridge quarters and patch him in through my personal terminal.” He then said. He seemed to enjoy taunting the ICC officer, and Coeus really couldn’t blame him. If the roles were reversed, he would probably do the same to Delafelde.
“Thank you, Admiral.” Coeus said.
“No problem, Admiral.” Delafelde responded.
“Oh blow it out your bungs, sirs!” Vox joked, then started walking towards Delafelde’s bridge quarters, which amounted to the same thing as the Captain’s Rest on the Charger. Once inside, Vox pointed to the chair behind the only table in the room, Instead of facing the door like the table and chair did on the Charger, Delafelde had elected to have his back to the door and face out the only window in the room. His trust in his crew was that complete.
“Thanks buddy. Its good to see you again.” Coeus said. Vox smiled, then Coeus added, “By the way, you never did answer my question. Where is the Ruff?”
“Well,” Vox looked down, whatever it was couldn’t be good, “after a battle in Nicea against some of your guys, we had to retreat – but were cut off by a band of K’Luth. There were only two ships, cruisers both of them, but we were badly damaged. Normally, even as damaged as we were they would have been no match against us, but these K’Luth were different. They could fire through their cloak without increasing their signature, they had powered up their disruptors and increased the warhead yields of their AM Torpedoes, and never seemed to run out of power. The only reason that we didn’t die there is because we were able to trick the positioning of them so that one of the cruisers ended up shooting another, and nearly destroyed it. We finished the job, and limped back to port. Not before the hull was compromised to the point where it couldn’t be repaired, however.” Vox looked at his friend.
“Let me guess.” Coeus said.
“The mystery enemy that we need to stop. I lost over 75% of my crew in that battle. Because I had managed to outthink the enemy in those circumstances, Delafelde brought me on as first officer of the Harpoon. I will get my revenge on those aliens. The last report we got from our K’Luth spies said that the surviving cruiser had ambushed and captured a K’Luth dreadnaught, the Del Monte. We tracked her as far as Sol, but lost her when she entered the system.”
Coeus interrupted. “And she was followed in by at least two other K’Luth Dreadnaughts, the Phantom Knight and the Iron Fang. After I re-read some of our reports, and got some other information,” Coeus skipped over where he got the information – he highly doubted that even his good friend Vox would believe the whole business with Lelandra and their dead father. “I believe that the Iron Fang is at Earth, undamaged, and the Phantom Knight is licking her wounds from a brief but fierce firefight with two of our ships around Alpha Centauri. My estimates have her reaching Earth within the hour.” Coeus tried not to dwell on the fact that the Absolut was probably lost with all hands. It was just too painful, everything that was happening. “God I hate war.” He said.
“But what else do we know?” Vox said. The two sat in silence for a moment. Dei got up, and started to walk out. “Let me know if you need anything else, I’ve already set the terminal to broadcast on ICC frequencies.” And then he was gone.
Alone at last with his thoughts, Coeus was still for what felt like eternity. Finally, he took a deep breath, powered up the terminal and went through the motions to connect to Sol’s communications network. There was precious little time to spare. Outside, the world changed and space itself bent as the Harpoon entered a wormhole that was more powerful than she should have been able to create. Upon exiting the wormhole, she engaged her jump drives and proceeded to the jumpgate out of Wolf 359. Coeus was again reminded that this was no standard interdictor. With any luck, they would be to Sol within the hour. Just enough time to save the universe.
*****************
Backslash growled. Nub had seen the Absolut slip away from formation, and had ordered the Saratoga to intercept them. She was dead ahead, taking fire on her bow from the enemy. Rather than turning around to intercept the Absoult, Captain Schakal had elected to do the smart thing and wait for Backslash to catch up with her. For every move that Backslash made, the Saratoga mirrored it. It seemed that this would go on forever, with both ships unable to jump because of the UGTO Interdictor field. They were still outside of the enemy’s primary range, but just barely. It wasn’t until five minutes into the cat and mouse game the two ICC ships played that luck finally changed in Backslash’s favor. The Charger lived up to her name and lead a charge into the flock of UGTO ships nearest to Backslash, and took out the interdictor as well as two other UGTO ships and a Shadow Pirate cruiser. As soon as the Charger and her small strike force jumped out, Backslash made his move.
“Target the Havoc and engage jump drives!” he shouted. He would have his revenge. Instantly, they were transported past the Saratoga and were immersed in the fire of a dozen enemy warships. They were of friendly design, but not of friendly mind. The Absolut, already badly damaged, began to buckle under the stress. The upper ChemLaser pylon, damaged by the impact of the asteroid but not destroyed, finally succumbed to the shearing forces and snapped off. Plasma and sparks flitted off into the blackness of space, and drifted behind the ship. Ignited by the engine exhaust, the plasma burst into brilliant blue and red balls of flame. None large enough to track back to the source of the leak, but still not small enough to avoid rocking the ship a little bit more.
“Sir, we are closing on the Havoc. All MIRVs have been launched, weapons on continual fire. We aren’t doing enough damage to their shields and we won’t be able to pull around for another pass. We need to withdraw!” The helmsman said. Looking at the little screen stuck on the wall in the cargo bay that was now serving as the bridge, Backslash stared straight at the bridge of the Havoc.
“Negative!” Backslash said. He made the decision. "Full speed ahead! Keep our bow on their bridge! Engineering, give me ramming speed." He stopped, looked around at his crew. He saluted, and waved them all away, then flicked on the 1MC and said, "All hands abandon ship, all hands abandon ship. Collision course is set, you all have 1 minute to reach the escape pods!" The silence of the ship was perforated by the frequent blasts of impacts on the shields. It was doubtful that the Absolut would hold together long enough to reach the Havoc, but Backslash had to try, for Maria’s sake. For the sake of all that was right and honorable in the world, Switchblade must pay.
“With all due respect, sir, Maria was our friend too – just like everyone else on the bridge.” The helmsman said. He turned back around and faced his station. Backslash looked around, a tear forming in the corner of his eye. Most of the crewmen on the bridge stood at their posts, looking right back at the Admiral.
“And now you know, sir, what it means to be ICC.” The communications officer, an ensign who had taken over the station, said with a slight quiver to his voice.
“And now, sir, you know what it means to be family.” A voice said from behind Backslash. He swiveled around in his chair and faced Charlie. Backslash shook his head.
“No, Charlie, you’ve got to get to an escape pod!” he said.
“I’m sorry sir, but you can go to hell if you think I’m gonna let you hog all the glory. Engines are at maximum, Antimatter containment is set to breach as soon as we impact the Havoc. Its too late now, everything is already set.”
Backslash nodded, saluted, and turned to face his destiny. They all faced it together.
*****************
From the bridge of the Eternal, Viper stood directly behind the window that protected the crew from the vacuum of space. The comms officer had said that the Absolut was not accepting any transmissions, and they couldn’t jump to Backslash because of UGTO interdictor fields. All Viper could do is stand and watch as his friend committed his life to the ultimate act of stupidity, selfishness, honor and bravery.
“In all my life, I have never met a more stubborn, kind hearted, stupid genius. And I never will again. My friend has left of me, and I am but alone with my remorse. My grief is known to all, felt by all, and yet is only mine. Rest in peace, dear friend.” A bright flash lit up the entire battlefield like a small sun as the two ships collided, and the Absolut’s reactor went critical. The Havoc sustained a direct blow, and the location where her bridge used to be a crater now occupied. She began to list, and fluctuations could be seen coming from her engine exhaust. The brilliant red of fire that consumed the decks visible in the crater was quickly extinguished by the coldness of space. That coldness is what it was all about. The dish that was revenge can only be served properly in the dead, black, frigidness of the universe that was their lives. From birth to death, they struggled to retain as much of this emptiness as possible. Governments, militaries, people lived and fought and died for this emptiness.
Viper could stand no more of it. He walked slowly back to his command chair, and walked past it. He walked off the bridge, leaving the entire crew stunned and speechless. Someone would take over, someone had to, because Viper would never again.
Chapter 18 - Once more until th- OOF!
“Sir, the ICC attacks have begun to weaken. We are gaining more ground on them now, its only a matter of ti-” The weapons officer found himself cut off by the comms officer.
“Admiral! The Havoc, sir…” Wyke stood up and stared straight ahead as the impossible happened. One of the strongest ships in the lines began drifting helplessly and breaking apart after a little destroyer had simply disappeared into it. Without losing a beat, Wyke sat back down.
“See if you can get some ships to tractor the hull of the Havoc in front of us so we can use what’s left of her to absorb some enemy fire – continue the forward push!” Wyke had no choice. He knew that they would not be able to hold the planet, but perhaps they could do enough damage to the ICC fleet that they would make the ICC think twice before sending more ships after the UGTO. Damn these rebels! It would not end like this.
“Sir, wormhole opening to our aft.” The nav officer said.
“Show me.” Wyke said, and one of the monitors above his head displayed the ships that were behind the Depthcharge and the space beyond them. The bright shimmering flash that signaled the formation of a singularity was almost directly behind the ship. It was so close that one of the smaller engineering ships that was trailing in an attempt to stay alive had to make a drastic move to avoid getting caught in the wormhole’s gravity well. Wyke couldn’t do anything – whatever came through there would chew the fleet up to the point where no one could recover.
“I repeat this is Fleet Admiral Clint from Virus Station calling the Depthcharge. Stand by for reinforcements.” Wyke couldn’t believe his ears. The rumors of UGTO forces in hiding were true apparently! Too bad they couldn’t have coordinated this better, or Wyke’s fleet might not have sustained the heavy losses that it had. That’s alright though – with the dozen ships that came through the wormhole ahead of the massive domed station they would be able to take and hold the planet for some time. They just had to get to it now.
“Your timing couldn’t be better, Admiral. You are most welcome here!” Wyke said. He then uplinked his computers to the ones on Virus Station so Clint would have the most up to date information on the entire battle.
”Sir.” The nav officer said. Wyke was getting tired of his updates, they weren’t
good for the old Admiral’s heart. “There are several more wormholes forming.”
He said.
“Very good! Commend the station commanders and inform them to hook into the computers on Virus Stat-“ the nav officer cut him off.
“No sir, they are forming behind the ICC lines, and ICC ships and stations are coming out.”
Wyke stood once more from his seat, his heart began to strain again – he would have to get that looked at if he lived through the day. He walked to the window and watched as the number of ICC ships that could be seen increased, and massive space stations now became visable. So it all comes down to this, ehh? If it was a fight the ICC wanted, then a fight they would get.
“Full ahead flank. Lets see what they’re made of.” Wyke walked back to his seat, and crossed his leg and folded his hands in front of his face – and stared forward past the steeples his index fingers formed. “And may whatever god everyone believes in have mercy on their souls.”
*****************
“This is Luna Outpost to Fighter 27318, you are cleared to launch.” Josef couldn’t believe his lousy luck. Why the hell did HE have to go check this out – this was something that the computer could do! Its that damned Gideon – its her fault! Her entire damned family’s fault! That was just as well, he couldn’t stand it on that colony another minute. Too many overweight people that tried to make themselves feel better by looking at ¼ of their Earth weight on the scales. Josef sighed. Well, there wasn’t anything to be done about it now, so he might as well make the best of the trip.
“Fighter 27318 responding, I am on course and 30 seconds from destination. Awaiting further instructions?” Josef said into the comm. channel. After they ordered him to manually scan the area, they said to fire random shots across the entire area to try and find any cloaked ships. That was impossible, Earth had the most active sensor grid in the entire galaxy – no ships could come any further than the Asteroid belt without being detected by the field. “Roger Luna Outpost, commencing visual sweep of the sec-“ Josef never got to finish his report as his tiny little fighter slammed into the side of the Del Monte, creating a huge gap in the unprotected hull.
*****************
“My lord!” an aide said. Without waiting to hear what he had to say, Hawk killed him and called the bridge.
“We sent an ai- I see my lord. It appears that the humans were somehow alerted to our presence but could not detect us. They sent out thousands of single-man fighters to sweep the area, one of the pests impacted a side of the ship in between the plates of the protective armor. We now have a hole in the ship’s hull and are visible to their scanners.” Hawk roared with rage. They were not prepared, and the human fleets were a short distance away.
“Begin bombardment of the planet immediately! Contact Raganock of the Soul Eater and tell him to prepare an emergency conduit to the second human faction’s homeworld! We must not fail!” Hawk growled, pulled his blade from the corpse and started towards the bridge. He would fulfill his destiny!
*****************
“Admiral, we have a problem.” Nub turned around. He had delegated the assault of the UGTO position to Hirad while focusing his own energies on getting his fleet back up to operational status. “We have several contacts that just appeared around Earth. They have begun systematically destroying the planetary defenses on both Earth and Luna, the planet will be completely defenseless inside of five minutes. The defense weapons seem to have no effect on the enemy ships.” The comms officer said. He sped all that information out so fast that he had to take a breath.
Nub wasted no time on a decision. “This is what Coeus and Bito warned us about. Inform Admiral Hirad to divert all of his ships to Earth to stop these enemies. Abandon Neptune, it is of little consequence.” With that, Nub’s battered fleet reloaded and jumped towards the human homeworld, they had to prevent an atrocity that would end all atrocities.
*****************
“How long?” Delafelde asked.
“Not long now sir.” Delafelde grunted as his helm officer manipulated his panel. The ship was on full combat status – there were reports coming in that were sketchy at best. From what he could piece together the ICC fleet, which at this point vastly outnumbered the poor UGTO survivors, had completely withdrawn from the battle and used a wormhole to get to Earth. Even the jump-capable ships shot through the wormhole, which meant that every second counted.
“Close enough to form a wormhole to Earth?” Delafelde glanced over at Coeus, who was standing by the helm operator. It hadn’t been long before he became accustomed to how the new holo-panels worked.
“Not yet Sono, another three minutes before we reach max range.” Coeus said. He looked back at Delafelde, and shook his head. He didn’t think they would make it in time.
*****************
Jameson picked himself up from the deck plate. The Charger had held up well, her hull was pockmarked, shields were all but non-existent, ablative armor was completely eroded, and they were quickly running out of ammunition. They had taken to using their lasers as the primary weapon, except when the opportunity to strike the hull of an enemy directly presented itself. “Report!” he demanded.
“Sir, I think the reports that the Eternal gave were on a different ship – we don’t seem to be making a single dent in these ships. They have some sort of shielding that surpasses our own, we can’t penetrate it!” Jameson grunted as he sat down in the captain’s chair. Something was broken, no time to figure out what though.
“Back us off to 300gu, continue firing!” Jameson was all out of ideas. They were losing too many ships, and from the looks of one of the enemy dreads they were going to make a run on Earth. “At least they’re not cloaked this time.”
“Sir.” The comm. officer spun around and faced the captain. “I think that’s it. The Eternal said that the enemy ship was cloaked, and they couldn’t penetrate the cloak no matter what, but they seemed to be able to inflict massive damage on them.”
“Get me Admiral NubMarine on the line, NOW!” Jameson barked. The ship was starting to buckle from the strain. He shook his head softly, then said to himself. “Come on baby hold together, just a little while longer.”
Chapter 19 - Does it come with a CD player?
“Sir, we have analyzed the information from the sensors, it seems that whomever the ICC are fighting are few in number, but their ships are vastly superior.” Wyke sighed. His fleet was in shambles, they had to back away from Neptune orbit due to the planetary defenses, and there were only a handful of supply ships left to repair and reload the fleet.
“Show me.” Wyke said. He began pouring over the data screens. What he was seeing was almost impossible – and were it not from a live firefight he wouldn’t believe it. “Get me the Thor’s Hammer, the Little Chaoz, and Virus Station on the line.”
“Already linked together sir, going live.” Wyke looked up at the bank of monitors above his command chair. Several of them were blown out, and a few had buckled from their mounting and were nothing but smoldering heaps on the deck.
“We have a problem, gentlemen.” He said. Clint was the first to speak up.
“We have the same analysis, Wyke. These aliens aren’t here to capture Earth, they’re here to destroy it. I have the remaining CEOs on a separate secure channel, they all agree, no price is too large to insure the survival of Earth. They have authorized us to follow the Taelron protocol.”
Wyke looked around him. Repair crews were hard at work getting the ship systems back online. His first officer was on his back under the helm panel, with his hands embedded deep inside the circuitry of the panel, he stopped his work long enough to glance back at Wyke. The two locked eyes for several moments before Wyke looked back up at the screen. He could feel the weight of the entire future pressing down on him, time was running out and Wyke had a decision to make. He needed some kind of sign.
“Admiral, we have another fleet ship coming in – but they aren’t on course for the fleet, they are headed straight for Earth!” the comms officer said.
“Right. That was all I needed.” He said to himself. He turned back to the remaining leadership of the UGTO, and prepared to send them all, including himself, to their death most likely, and to the death of the UGTO most definitely.
*****************
“Report” Delafelde said. Ruff tapped some areas on his holo-panel and began getting information.
“Not going too well, sir.”
“Yes, I can see that, thank you Vox – now how about some specific bad news.” Vox grinned and glanced at Coeus, who obviously wanted to get into the thick of the battle.
“There are three enemy dreadnaughts, of K’Luth design but obviously not manufacture. They are outputting enormous energy readings – they seem to have some incredible shielding. The fleet is going to fall unless something changes drastically.” Coeus was visibly upset. What Vox couldn’t figure out is how the shields were able to withstand this kind of beating. They knew that the aliens were incredibly intelligent and advanced, but what they were seeing was defying the laws of physics. They had to be drawing their power from somewhere.
“Lieutenant, I want you to run a full scanners sweep of the system around Earth, as best you can. Scan for any abnormal energy readings – full spectrum scan.” Coeus said. The Lieutenant, not accustomed to taking orders from the enemy, glanced back at Delafelde, who nodded. They saw it too apparently.
“What are you thinking, Admiral?” Admiral Delafelde said.
“There is no way that ship can support a reactor big enough to power shields that intense – those are more powerful than any planetary based shield system I have ever seen. They have to be drawing the power from somewhere.”
“So you’re thinking another ship?” Vox speculated.
“Maybe, or something we haven’t thought of –
either way we need to cut them off, or we can say goodbye to Ear-“
“Sirs!” someone cut Coeus off. It was the comms officer. “The
ICC are launching Marine Landing Pods, they are trying to board the enemy
ships!” All three officers clearly saw it.
“Fools.” Vox and Coeus said at once. Delafelde afforded himself a slight smirk, and quickly erased it.
“Ok, see if we can cover those MLPs until they reach the shield perimeter of the ship they are headed for, launch fighter squadrons, remount pulse beams for CL2ks, stand by all torpedo and missile tubes. Cannons fire at will.” Coeus was once again reminded of how unique the Harpoon was. He began to wonder how she could support all of the gadgets that seem to have been stuffed into her, but thought the better of actually asking.
All at once, the Harpoon launched herself into the fight, Coeus had them broadcast an ICC identifier to declare to the fleet that they were here to help. He looked over at Vox, who had assumed an operations panel near the captain’s chair. Their eyes locked, and Coeus broke the moment first. “Time to go to work, ehh buddy?” The ship took its first hit of the day before Vox could reply, nor would he – they were on the clock now.
*****************
Rocko tightened his grip on the armrests. The Avernus just wasn’t a combat worthy vessel, but that didn’t matter now. The call had already been put out to any ship capable of fighting to come and assist the defense of Earth.
“Sir, we have exhausted our compliment of MIRVs – chem. Laser batteries are damaged.” Rocko’s first officer reported.
“Status of the Wormhole device?” Rocko said. Time to break some protocol.
“We sustained a direct hit by main engineering; they are repairing the system now.”
“Tell them to put a rush on it, we’re gonna send these bastards straight to hell.” Rocko gripped the armrests again as the ship rocked from a port side impact. “Hard about! Bring our starboard shields to bear, reserve power to fore and starboard shields.”
*****************
Hawk raised his head. The most annoying thing about these ships, besides the smell, was the fact that it was never easy to tell one direction from another. It would not be long now, though. For all the flailing about the humans did, they could not harm the ship. They would not last. Even now as the other humans came to join the fight, they could not hope to destroy the Del Monte, not while the special shielding was operative. No, Hawk would take the victory from this field.
“My lord, we are receiving word from the Soul Eater, they are in position and are thus far undetected.” The word came.
“Good!” Hawk chortled. “Now, we end this. Prepare to launch.”
“Yes my lord. The countdown shall begin as soon as the weapon is prepared.” Nothing could harm the ship, nothing could stop the ship. It was only a matter of time now. Hawk roared with pleasure.
“My lord, we are detecting a new group of signals. The imperial humans have joined in battle against us.”
“It is of no concern – it would take a million of their ships to even affect our shields. Inform me when we are ready to fire.” Hawk walked off the bridge, his hearts pumping proudly. Today was the day – it would all end today. The darkness was coming, and it would cover the entire universe. Just as the Legion fell, so would these pitiful fledgling races. None must be allowed to rival the greatness of Hawk’s own race. No one would be alive to challenge them.
*****************
“Back us off” Delafelde said. “Did any of the Marine Landing Pods make it through their perimeter defenses?”
Vox just shook his head. “Over fifty MLPs were launched – they have decreased the recharge time of the K’Luth Disruptors to just slightly longer than ICC Pulse Beams.
Coeus looked at Delafelde. “We need to go in point blank.”
“Close the gap between the ships and they can’t shoot them all down in time.” Delafelde sat back in his chair as the Harpoon took another broadside hit. Technicians wandered around the bridge.
“Well, since no one else is doing it I’ll be the one to state the obvious. We won’t last a minute at that close range verses that thing.” Vox said. He swiveled his chair around to finish the triangle between the two admirals.
“What makes you think we’d take the full brunt of their assault? Get me Coldheart Station, I want to talk to Admiral Hirad.” Coeus said. Seconds later Coeus was at the back comms station talking with the aged admiral. “I think its our only chance, Admiral.”
Hirad grimaced at the thought. “You do realize that we would lose most of the fleet before we ever got a chance to drop.” He said.
“Yes, and we will lose the entire fleet if we don’t find a way to get those shields down. And those ships that are about to be destroyed can launch their MLPs in the hopes that they can either draw fire from the other ships to destroy the MLPs or the MLPs will get through because of the focused weapons fire on our fleet. I don’t see what choice we have Admiral. We need to do something, and now.”
Hirad thought for a split second, and then nodded. “Very well, make the announcement to the fleet… and one more thing. First Admiral Coeus? Aren’t you on the wrong ship?” Hirad cut the channel before Coeus could answer.
“Admirals.” Vox said. “We have an ICC Assault Cruiser coming up on our starboard flank, she is taking the fire from the enemy and closing to docking range.”
Delafelde smiled. “Well Admiral, I do believe your ride is here.”
“Looks that way Admiral.” Coeus said. “See you on the other side.” Coeus saluted, and then was escorted to the docking airlock.
“Fire up the reloads and fill the Charger up. Make sure she is fully rearmed and repaired before she re-engages.” Vox said. Delafelde looked over at him, and nodded.
“And if its not too much trouble, could I get a cup of tea?” the admiral said. Outside, the war raged on.
Chapter 20 – Hit the deck troops!
Listening to the comm. chatter, Cassius slammed his fist on his control panel again. How could he be stuck out here at a time like this. An Assault Dreadnaught wasn’t needed at all for something as simple as intercepting a civilian freighter.
“Admiral, we have a new contact at max scanner range. It’s the boomer sir.”
“Well its about damned time, inform the Lysander, have them fire up their engines. We will remain here incase the boomer gets past Captain Firestorm.” Cassius said.
“Admiral, the boomer is hailing.”
“Lets see it.”
Cassius looked up at the screen above his command chair in the center of the bridge. The screen was a little fuzzy, the tiny transport didn’t have the advanced communications systems that the ICC had stolen from the UGTO and installed on all their ships.
“Are you guys insane? Do you realize what’s going on in Sol?” the boomer captain said, without identifying herself.
“This is Grand Admiral Cassius of the Assault Dreadnaught Yinbo to the civilian transport Lobby Ghost. You are hereby ordered to shut down your engines and prepare to be boarded. Identify yourself captain.
“You can call me Stardancer, and I sure as hell ain’t shutting nothing down. Do you realize that you are damning all of humanity by slowing me down? The longer you keep me from my objective the longer that… race can continue to destroy both the ICC and the UGTO fleets. You have comm. chatter to Sol, you know what’s going on there. But do you have any idea what’s going on here?”
“Captain Stardancer, we ha-“
“Its just Stardancer you underling ape.”
“Very well, Just Stardancer, we have orders to take your ship into ICC Custody under suspect of smuggling restricted substances.” Cassius said as officially as he could.
“God you’re a frelling robot aren’t you.” With that, the screen went blank.
“Sir, she closed the channel.”
“I can see she closed the channel, is she slowing down?” Cassius said. Now he was more bored than ever.
“Negative sir, the Lobby Ghost is increasing speed – they must have some modifications, they are pulling away from the Lysander. Captain Firestorm is running full steam.”
At last, something to do. “Fire a torpedo barrage across their bow, bring us about to intercept and spin up the sublight engines.”
*****************
M29 Steelhead Fighters, with their distinctive slope wing design tend to remind people of the pre-dark age fighters, were a rapidly diminishing sight in the battle around Earth and Luna. While still dozens flittered in and out of the battle lines, trying to stay away from the deadly effective beams of the unknown enemy, three pairs of fighters crept dangerously close and back off repeatedly, unleashing coordinated volleys of rail-gun cannon shells into the blazing yellow shield surrounding the K’Luth dreadnought.
“Fatal Flight, report in.” Crimson said over the squadron frequency. He pulled his nimble little fighter into a corkscrew climb to avoid the crisscrossing cannon fire of the two massive fleets, and rolled out headed back towards the ICC contingent.
“Fatal 2 still here.” Sixkiller’s light voice betrayed the scars that littered his body from dozens – if not hundreds – of crash landings.
“Fatal 3, right with ya partner.” Feralwulf’s voice wavered slightly as he avoided nearly colliding with Fatal 2.
“Fatal 4.” Borgie’s short response was rather A-Typical and belied the pressure they were all under after flying for as long as they all have.
“Fatal 5, inbound from the hot zone.” Maskerade said, the slightest hint of a whoop seemed just behind his tongue.
“Fatal 6, tight on 5’s tail.” Was T-Bone’s affirmation, and as good a pilot he was he was always proud to be Maskerade’s wingman.
Crimson allowed himself a quick smirk of pride. He had assembled Fatal Flight from the remains of three separate squadrons just before the fleet wormholed from Neptune to Earth. It had taken them all of five minutes to organize and get associated with one another, and he decided to break up the pilots who flew together before to spread out the more experienced pilots and the less experienced ones.
One Flight, with him leading and Sixkiller as his wingman showed the largest gap in experience, whereas Three Flight had the smallest gap, with Maskerade leading T-Bone, who was only a few years his junior and probably had about as much combat experience. Two Flight was more middle of the road, and all three had performed flawlessly in the ensuing battle for Earth. In fact, they were the only flight group that was still undamaged, although Crimson didn’t dwell much on that. Too much pride will kill a man.
“One, this is Five – I’m thinking we need to start doing runs on the far side of the Del Monte, start dividing their attention.” Maskerade had a good point, but there was a problem with it.
“Six fighters, even with coordinated fire, won’t be able to do much against that thing’s shields, Five.” Crimson paused just long enough for people to start voicing objections, then started in again, “But if we get all of the remaining fighters to join us we might be able to draw their fire away from the fleet a bit.” He started gathering the frequencies for all of the fighters in the fleet.
Feral chimed in, “Hey One, if we started a sustained stream of fire that might be able to do more to drain the shields than massive bursts.” A tactic that wasn’t often used with fighters, because staggering them one by one frequently led to disasters for entire wings. Then again, against a ship of this size what difference would it make?
“Alright, lets make the most of this then. I’ve got the frequencies we need, you guys start contacting the remaining fighters and I’ll contact the nearest authority for approval.” Crimson brought his fighter around and started a slow long loop around the Del Monte.
Chapter 21 - Lion's den, bear's mouth - same difference when you're dinner.
“Admiral!” It was hard to hear Jameson over the din of battle. Klaxons, escaping gas, and the constant drone of metal under strain clouded everything. “We have a report from the Yinbo, they have engaged the freighter Lobby Ghost and …” Jameson stopped, his jaw practically fell off his face as he read the report.
“And?” Coeus barked. He continued giving orders via his command console. In the intervening seconds, the Charger ducked and weaved through space, in an attempt to evade the excess of torpedoes and cannon fire, while at the same time trying to get clear shots at the enemy dreadnaught and avoid her deadly beams.”
“And, the Lobby Ghost is outrunning both the Yinbo and the Combat Destroyer Lysander!” Jameson couldn’t believe what he was reading, a heavy boomer outrunning a combat class destroyer. Something about this whole situation wasn’t right. Jameson could feel it in his bones but couldn’t place his finger on it.
“Sir! Something is happening!” the nav officer yelled out. Both officers turned their attention to the front of the bridge, and the windows that separated them from a level of hell neither wished to fathom.
“The lead dread, she’s started moving towards Earth.” Jameson said, stating the obvious as any good first officer would.
“And the other dreads are covering her.” Coeus breathed deeply. He knew what this meant. “They’re giving the lead dread time to get to Earth to launch an attack that will turn it into a wasteland far beyond what we consider to be a barren planet.”
Coeus ordered the Charger away from the front lines, where she had been throughout the last ten hours. He looked around at the bridge crew. They were tired, most were bloodied from encounters with various sharp objects and instruments. They had, for the first time in the entire day, a look of despair – as if this actually was a fight that they could not win. The no-win scenario was one which Coeus had tried to prepare them. He often spoke of his father’s prediction, when Marcus had commanded the Charger some twenty-five odd years ago, that this ship would survive him, his crew and countless crews to follow to see the end of civilization as we knew it.
Coeus thought back to that day a decade ago, the last time he saw his father. Marcus had told Coeus about the dream.
“I saw the Charger, old and withered. She was coming apart at the seams but somehow still held together. She was flying through a blaze of some sorts, a fire that surrounded her, everywhere. I saw other ships, ICC, UGTO, and K’Luth burning and withering in space – yet the Charger stayed true, her hull never failing – she flew through the fires, and through the wreckage of entire fleets until she came to a place where there was no flame. Just blackness. Complete and utter blackness, and there she held fast, on the boarder between the light and the dark. She held the line against the twilight of the entire known worlds – against our twilight, against our end. Mankind’s end.”
“I wish I could tell you what happens, but the last thing I always see before I wake up is the darkness engulfing her, and the flames dying out, until nothing but blackness is left – and then I wake up.”
“And the dream is the same every time, pop?” Coeus had asked. “It never changes?”
“No, Coe’. It never changes, that’s how I know it means something. That ship, there is something special about her. I don’t mean the bolts, welds, computers and steel that makes up the physical ship. I mean the SHIP! She has an essence, an aura, there is SOMETHING that sets her apart. Take care of her, Coe’. She has survived far longer than anyone could have hoped or predicted, there must be a reason.”
Coeus had thought his father was just insane from all those years on that remote colony, but looking at the situation now… he couldn’t help but wonder. “And now we shall see the flame of life thrive or be extinguished.”
Jameson looked up. It wasn’t like Coeus to be… artsy. At least, not in combat situations. “Sir?” he said.
Coeus looked down. The silence on the bridge seemed eternal, as if a symbol for the fear every man and woman felt. Smoke wafted through the air, and moved around Coeus’ hand as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigar. It was encased in a glass tube. Lelandra had given it to Coeus, a gift from their father, she said. “It was given to him by his father the day you were born. He had hoped that he could pass it onto you the day you became a father, and said if the end of all were to come as he foresaw, that you should have it.”
Coeus knew that actually smoking a cigar was against the law, in both UGTO and ICC territory. “What the hell” he said to himself. “We’re probably not going to see past today anyway.” He pealed back the ancient wax that sealed the glass tube, and sniffed the aroma of something that was older than his father’s father’s father. “Open a channel to the fleet, priority one.” He said aloud. Sitting back down into his chair, he faced the camera that was mounted in the bank of monitors at the front of the bridge.
“Attention all ICC and UGTO forces, that dreadnaught can’t be allowed to reach bombing range of Earth. The consequences… I’m sure you can all use your own imaginations. I am hereby authorizing the release of all self destruct commands, nuclear and quantum weaponry. Intercept the lead dreadnaught and its bomb payload at all costs. I repeat, at all costs.” A click signified the channel being closed.
“Sir, the fleets responded, they’re ready. The Avernus is hailing.” The comms officer said.
“Open a channel.” Coeus said. “Rocko, good buddy. What’s up.”
“Well, I hate to be the soul opposing voice, but this is just one planet we are talking about, perhaps we should save the fleet for something else instead of giving all our lives, not that that’s a problem, I’d just like to know why.”
“Because if they are successful here, the rest will come. This is just a test. If they can successfully destroy Earth, then they will come in their own ships, and hunt down every man, woman, and child of both species. We have to stop them here, we have no choice.”
Rocko was silent. “Understood.” He finally said, and the channel closed. Coeus hoped that would not be the last time he would hear his friend’s voice. He hoped it would not be the last time he heard any of his friends’ voices.
*****************
Jaydawg saw it. The ICC saw it. Why in gods name didn’t Wyke see it? “Put me through to the Depthcharge.” He said.
“What is it Jay?” Wyke said. His ship had sustained a direct barrage as soon as they entered the combat. Always overconfident in his own ships capabilities, it was now taking two heavy supply ships to fix her.
“Sir, are you looking at your nav?” he said. Best not to openly confront Wyke. Even in times of desperation, the top brass were always sensitive to being called uninformed or ignorant, even though they often were both.
“No, why?” Wyke was lying, Jay could tell.
“I think the lead enemy dreadnaught is trying to bomb Earth. From the way the ICC fleet is moving, I don’t think this is a normal bombing run.” Jaydawg said. He uplinked the nav data with some key movements and information highlighted. Not even Wyke could miss this.
“My god…” he said. He was silent for almost ten seconds before Jaydawg spoke up.
“Sir? Do we engage?” he prodded. After another ten seconds, Jaydawg motioned the link severed. When it was, he spoke up again. “Patch me through to the entire fleet except for the Depthcharge. We can’t rely on him right now. “Attention, this is admiral Jaydawg of the Thor’s Hammer. I am taking command of the fleet. That lead enemy dreadnaught is making a run at Earth, and judging by the ICC response we cannot afford to let them do so. Uplink to the ICC nav computers with the authorization given to us by the Harpoon and plot your courses so as not to interfere with the ICC firing lines and engage at maximum speed.”
“The fleet responds ready and is already on the move, sir.” Jaydawg sat back in his chair. He wished that UGTO regulations allowed him to pray, a wish that shortly turned into a prayer.
*****************
The Lysander twisted in space, dodging the surprisingly powerful torpedoes from the freighter. She was carrying enough firepower to take down a Hive at distance, it seemed. The Yinbo was proving far from useful, as she was too slow and cumbersome to keep in the fight aside from a few close jumps that had barely landed a few shots on the Lobby Ghost. “Continue targeting their engines!” Firestorm said.
“Sir, comm. link coming in from the Lobby Ghost.” The comms officer said. It was patched through before Firestorm could even acknowledge it.
“Captain, please, you must listen to me.” Stardancer said.
“Is it your surrender?” Firestorm replied quickly. He thought a moment, and then nodded his head towards the camera.
“The cargo I am carrying is a subspace implosion device. WAIT!” She shouted, seeing Firestorm get visibly upset at the news. “That subspace juncture, it isn’t a natural formation. It is an aperture, a gateway into the farthest reaches of the known universe. That is where these creatures have come from.”
Firestorm practically laughed. “And why should I take the word of a terrorist?” he said.
“Because I’m not a terrorist goddamnit. I am with UGTO Intelligence; I’ve been doing undercover work into the black market, dealing with K’Luth technology. That is how I found out these creatures, the aperture, and what they are planning to do.” She said. The seriousness in her voice betrayed no deceit, no subterfuge. She was being painfully and openly honest and Firestorm saw it. He also knew Cassius well, both personally and by reputation, he would not believe this unless it came certified from the ICC high council itself.
“All batteries hold fire, contact Juxtapose Station, and put us in between the Lobby Ghost and the Yinbo.” Firestorm ordered. Even if it were a ploy, they wouldn’t be able to stop the Lobby Ghost in time if the device were to be detonated on board, and if it were dropped in space, they could easily intercept it and destroy it before the subspace matrix were released.
“Captain, the Yinbo is hailing. What do I tell them?” the comms officer said. Firestorm thought for a moment, then he decided.
Chapter 22 - May the forcefield be with you...
Bito thoughtfully chewed on a piece of cheese, as was his practice. He was not happy with the way things were going. He trusted Firestorm implicitly - thats why he had asked that he escort Cassius in his endeavors. He sent the order for the Yinbo to stand down a full five minutes ago, so now he waited impatiently for confirmation - either of the order being obeyed, or one or more of the ships being destroyed because the order was disobeyed.
"Admiral Bito, the Lysander reports that Cassius has stood down his weapons as ordered, and the Lobby Ghost is prepared to safely detonate the subspace interchange." Bito heard the speaker crackle. This might be just the edge they needed - if Coeus was right, and that Uggy spy wasn't lying.
*****************
As all the mixed and mingled ships of the line mixed and mingled in vain attempts to outmaneuver the enemy beasts, three ships stood their increasingly shaky ground. The Charger and Harpoon interchanged places covering the more vulnerable Jump Cruiser Avernus. Rocko was a masterful pilot, Coeus knew, but could only do so much with a ship.
"Marines report ready, Admiral." Jameson said. He glanced nervously at a tactical display watching the distance tick down to the nearest dread.
Coeus said nothing for a whole minute, he just watched the same distance display. He knew that he was running an extreme risk by bringing these three small cruisers way out in the open like this, but something had to be done, and Coeus had faith that this would not be a push in vain. Something inside of him told him as much.
"Admiral! One of the dreadnaughts has come about and is about to converge on the Avernus! There’s no way either us or the Harpoon can break around to catch up, she has to wormhole out!" Coeus froze, he could see plainly on the nav screen that even if the Avernus plotted the jump as soon as the dread turned toward they would never make the wormhole in time. The Avernus was a goner.
That was the feeling on Rocko's bridge as well. Everyone there knew their end was nearing. Rocko's face was grim, set in stone and looking rather haggard. His mustache caked with blood, one eye bandaged shut and his remaining eye stared straight at the camera display showing the dreadnaught turning towards.
*****************
"Lobby Ghost to Yinbo and Lysander, recommend you jump to a safe distance." Stardancer said on an open channel just before she engaged her own aged tachyon drive. Nearly simultaneously, the small cylinder that was so precisely positioned in space, and the two remaining ICC starships burst into shows of light - the ships as they were jumping away from the ever expanding sphere of destruction that quickly took the place of the small cylinder. The slower Yinbo found its antimatter jump boosted by the ever expanding subspace wave - a speed jolt that killed three crewmen who weren't properly restrained and injured dozens more. The intensity of the shockwave dissipated after a few thousand gu - but the effects in subspace rippled throughout the entire galaxy. Jumpdrives stopped, ion drives imploded - several ships in the Delta Province system found themselves sucked into the Jumpgate to Groombridge - they were never heard from again, nor were any ships that went through the gate to investigate. The most profound effect however, was not felt but rather was seen. The shimmering golden glow that was surrounding the Evil ships began to dissipate. Torpedoes began to get through. Their weapons, however, still packed more of a punch than any of the human ships could withstand.
"This is the C.C.S. Mercy to the Avernus, come about hard to port we'll cover you." Rocko's head snapped up at that. The Mercy, his old ship from long ago. He hadn't known she was still in service! After the Sirius incident he knew better than to ask for a specific command when he was demoted back to Captain. He had no time to be reminiscent - he ordered his helm hard to port. As he watched, the enemy dreadnaught, which had apparently lost its main shielding and was beginning to take massive damage, opened its gun ports and focused its fire on the rear of the Avernus, and for a split second they found their marks - the lights on the bridge dimmed as the entire ship shook with the impact - but the shaking was all too brief as the Mercy soon intercepted the beams before they could reach the Avernus' aft shielding. The ship's shields flared up in a brilliant blue pattern, sparks flying briefly in the cold dead of space before sputtering off into nothingness.
For a moment, it seemed as if the Mercy would withstand the onslaught, but mere seconds into the barrage, the shields put up no more resistance, and the beams scathed across the hull of the ship, piercing through the paper thin interstellar armor in mere seconds. In a brilliant flash, the Mercy disappeared as her jump core went critical and the particles that accelerated the flying brick to faster than light speeds impacted against each other on subatomic levels. Rocko shed a single tear, not only for the men and women who he probably knew and had most likely lived with, but also because he could see, for the first time since this onslaught had begun, the beginning of the end of everything which he had fought and bled for so long now.
The crew of the Mercy had bought time for the little task force with their lives. Rocko had no doubt that many more would be spent before the day was done. While yes, they could finally hurt the enemy ships now for some reason, the Evil were more than capable of dishing out the damage the entire fleet could deal a hundred fold. More than that, there was the specter that those shields could come up at any moment, the aliens had already displayed a mastery of technology far beyond that of the three factions - or even of the Mir. That fear was far more damaging than any weapon. Morale is a very dangerous weapon, and Rocko knew that whoever his enemy was knew that as well
*****************
Storming around the bridge of the Del Monte, Hawk sputtered and raged in his usual fashion about the entire pitch of the battle. He raged so much that when an aid came to tell him about three incoming cruisers, Hawk simply killed him for the interruption of his rage. So it was not so much of a shock to the rest of the bridge crew when Hawk wheeled about and stared at the blips indicating three enemy ships. Rather than fuming even more about what was, to Hawk, an unexpected turn of events, he sat quietly in his chair and waited to see who won the race for Earth. The human ships were much faster and more nimble, but they proceeded cautiously, they knew how extremely dangerous the Del Monte and company were - but nonetheless they advanced, emboldened by the fact that they could now damage these mysteriously modified K'Luth Dreadnaughts. So focused on the three advancing cruisers was the bridge crew of the Del Monte that they didn't realize that their companion dreadnaught, the Soul Eater, had begun to fall to the combined firepower of the two human factions.
The Del Monte was now under attack from two fronts, each as dangerous as the other. Vox eyeballed his tactical panel and relayed the order to flank and converge on the lead enemy dread - ignoring the still dangerous Phantom Knight. As ships began to converge on the enemy flagship, power levels started to decrease inside the Phantom Knight. Vox silently cheered, as the marines that the UGTO had dispatched accomplished their mission! Hopefully they could still be rescued - but that wasn't a priority right now, because the Del Monte was doubtlessly preparing to repel boarders. That couldn't be helped - that was the only way to keep these enemy ships from escaping to try again another time. As the majority of the combined fleet converged on the sole remaining Evil dreadnaught, the Phantom Knight found itself being picked off by the merchant ships and scouts. The word went out to the fleet to inform the remaining Marine squads - Mount up.
Back on the Charger, Jameson and Coeus squared off in the center of the bridge. If the crew didn't know their captain and admiral better, they would have thought that they would soon come to blows. The thought drifted through Coeus' mind as well, but he laughed it off. Jameson caught on to it quickly. "Thinking about just knocking me out and going anyway?"
Coeus chuckled loudly, he knew it would never come to that. "Thought crossed my mind... but no, I need you to command the Charger - since after all, she is officially your ship. Ter' - I have to get on that ship. This is the answer to everything that my life is leading up to."
"I'm sorry, Admiral-" Jameson started.
"Don't quote regulations to me Terry, I don't care. If it makes it easy then I'll resign and take my own ship over there, but the odds are that I'd get shot down before the MLPs - which is why I'm going to send the Spirit of Philadelphia on auto-pilot anyway." Coeus had already made up his mind. There was no time, he had to get down to the Marine quarters and gear up. He started to walk off when Jameson stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "I'm going Ter'." Coeus said plainly.
"I know. I just wanted to give you this." Terry handed Coeus a pulse pistol - it was old, possibly as old as the Charger herself - and possibly older. It had the scratches, scorches, and dull look that came only with years and years of reliable use.
"She’s beautiful." Coeus said, and he meant it. "Where'd you get 'er?"
Terry just smiled, and turned the pulse pistol over as it sat in Coeus' hand - the nameplate was worn and had as many scratches as the rest of the gun, if not more. The name was barely discernable from all the wear, but it was clearly recognizable at the same time - at least to Coeus it was. It said Captain Marcus Darksoul - C.S.S. Charger. A single tear rolled down Coeus' face. Thoughts and memories flowed through him as he relived the brief lifetime he had with his father. He looked Jameson in the eye, Terry nodded and Coeus turned and left to join the Marines.
Chapter 23 - It seemed like a good idea at the time..
The quarters were cramped. None of the Marines were willing to volunteer to give up a spot to probably save their life and Coeus wasn't about to order them, much less ask. So, Coeus stood. It was the most dangerous thing you could do while breaching an enemy ship. Then again, the only real worry the MLPs had to worry about was being hit by the enemy point defense - there were no enemy shots that would just rock the boat or anything like that. The way Coeus had seen the first wave of MLPs destroyed, he knew that the Marines inside never had a chance to realize they were going to die. Not an entirely bad way to go. Useless, but not bad. Then again, a useless death is the worst in the mind of every ICC that Coeus had ever served with. The lessons learned by that first wave of MLPs however were key to the survival of this wave of landing pods. So, in the end, perhaps they didn't die for nothing. Yes, that’s how Coeus chose to remember those first Marines who gave their lives. And, if this wave didn't make it, then he wouldn't have to worry about remembering.
"Two minutes!" the platoon LT. yelled. Coeus was surrounded by grunting, hooting and hollering, and stoic silence all at the same time. Pretty happy group, Coeus thought, given what we were about to dive into. He checked his pulse rifle's charge, and made sure that his father's pistol was safely secured in Coeus' right hand holster, and that his own pulse pistol was secured under his left arm in his secondary holster. It wasn't until the one minute mark that Coeus noticed one of the younger Marines was staring at him. Coeus stared back at him, not threatening or challenging, nor fearful or apathetic. Just returning the Marine's blank gaze. Neither spoke for another thirty seconds. Then, finally, as the computer started the 30 second countdown, the Corporal spoke up.
"You don't think we'll make it, do you Sir?" he asked.
Coeus was dumbfounded by the statement, not only because of how blunt and outrageous it was, but also because of how true it was. "What makes you think that?" he asked the Corporal slyly.
"I've served on the Charger since I joined the Marines sir, I know how you feel about sending men off to what is most likely their deaths, and I know that you would never ask us to give our lives for something like this unless you were willing to do the same. Its our honor to fight alongside you, Admiral." the Corporal said. With that, he saluted sharply from his restraining seat - as did every other Marine on the landing pod. Coeus fought back the tears that were struggling to the surface and welling up in his eyes and saluted them sharply in return - and was nearly jostled onto the floor as the MLP was launched. Coeus snapped off the salute and started to move forward amidst cheers of 'Hoo Rah!' and took up station next to the pilot - who was trying his damnedest to remain professional.
"Disembarking the pod-bay now, Sir." the pilot said as officiously as he could. Coeus looked out the window and saw the bottom of the Charger's primary hull flow by. The ship seem to pass by unbearably slow. He could see the details of the paint that mismatched in countless places as the pieces of the hull had been torn away and replaced with whatever was on hand. Potmarked armor plating and the subtle glowing grids that were the shield emitters. The MLPs - four of them - rose up along the port side of the ship and began to peal away, while still remaining inside the shield grid's protective force. The engineers of the Charger had worked together with those from the Harpoon to boost both ship's shield strength ten fold using techniques and technology learned from the alien invaders that Admiral Delafelde had uncovered. He would have implemented it sooner but he needed people with an intimate understanding of ICC shield technology to make it work.
All too soon, however, the bright yellow beams that spelled instant death to the MLPs began to flash and sputter against the now strengthened shields of the Charger. Looking at the sensor display, Coeus saw ten more smaller blips converging on the center of the screen. They were the MLPs from the Avernus and the Harpoon. Even with the strengthened shields that she now sported, Coeus doubted that the Charger could take much more of this punishment, they needed some way to take some heat off of her. The MLPs of the Harpoon saw this too - and apparently they defied orders and broke formation to speed ahead. Coeus figured that they broke orders because as soon as they started to speed up he heard Delafelde come over the broadcast channel screaming at them to return to formation. He ordered them, when that didn't work he threatened them, and when that didn't work he pleaded with them. He knew it was all in vain - he had trained them too well, had too much of their devotion to himself and to the cause of humanity - not just the UGTO - to be persuaded from their course. As he watched, the MLPs drifted further and further towards the edge of the bright blue sphere of the Charger's shields. She was taking one hell of a pounding, but it would soon abate with the lives of six incredibly courageous marine platoons, Coeus saw, because the bright yellow destructive beams emitting from the hull of the enemy dreadnaught were tracking along the shield perimeter where the Harpoon's MLPs were headed. The dread had already begun tracking them. Delafelde continued to plead with his Marines, even though he knew it to be an effort in vain most likely.
Before Coeus could say anything, or anyone else, the cream colored UGTO MLPs had passed through the passive end of the intensely powerful shields and were obliterated one by one - the bright yellow beams however did not track back to the Charger but continued to fire on the location that the MLPs were. Coeus saw quickly as the jerry rigged shield booster sputtered from the lower pylon rack and the glowing of the forward shield arc intensified - amplified by the momentary reprieve that the MLPs were able to provide. It was their sacrifice that allowed the Charger to redouble her shield intensity - the rest of the MLPs would be able to safely dock with the enemy ship. Even so, Coeus ordered the remaining MLPs from the Charger and the Avernus to spread formation. Coeus' MLP stayed in center formation where it was most protected, but also most obviously the central target. It wasn't until the Charger was directly under the Del Monte that Coeus gave the order to break formation and make for the hull of the enemy ship. That’s when Coeus realized his mistake. By the time he got the word out, all of the MLPs except his own were already beyond the shields. The enhanced AM torpedoes were detonated right against the shields mere meters from the lower hull of the Del Monte - too close for the beams to track but still close enough to get the warheads out of the tubes and armed. The Marines didn't even have time to send out a distress signal.
"Sir." The pilot remained stoic - Coeus would have to put him in for a commendation if he survived. "What do we do now? There’s no way I'm taking this ship outside of the shields. Before the pilot could finish his statement however, the Charger moved even closer to the dreadnaught. Coeus imagined Jameson on the bridge looking out the window and trying to see into the portholes on the underbelly of the gargantuan ship. He had obviously disengaged the collision safety protocols to get the shields to come into contact with the enemy hull. It had a surprising effect, the newly reinforced shields. He could see the edges of the shields flare up - sadly the full shape of the shields didn't hold and they cut off when in contact with the hull of the dreadnaught to give a sort of conduit with which to protect Coeus' sole remaining MLP all the way upto hull contact.
"Floor it." Coeus said, but was one step behind the pilot who had already gunned the throttle. It was going to be tricky. While the Charger was far more maneuverable, she couldn't remain in such close contact with the dread like that - and having the shields all the way up against the hull like that had to be draining them faster than enemy fire probably could - even from point blank of this monster. Coeus was glad he chose the 3rd Marine platoon of the Charger - they had a reputation that rivaled many of the hardened battle worn planet side regiments on the fringes of ICC space. To do that from a cruiser based squad was quite an accomplishment indeed, and it required some masterful piloting of the MLPs to get done.
“Approaching the hull. Stand by for docking and cutting operations.” The pilot said. Coeus strapped himself down This was going to have to be quick, they had to get onto the hull and inside the enemy ship before they could pick the MLP off the hull once the Charger disengaged to recharge her shields. “Impact in five, four, three, two.” The entire MLP shuddered with massive impact trauma as the nose of the small craft dug its way through the outer hull. The protective screens had come down over the windows to prevent any part of the enemy ship’s structure from piercing them, so Coeus just stared at the sensor display as the cutting torches dug through the struts and layers of the outer and inner hulls – and finally found themselves a corridor.
“Extending sleeve.” The pilot said. He took off his headset, picked up his rifle and led the platoon through the small tunnel to the interior of the Del Monte. Coeus followed immediately afterwards. When they were all inside, they sealed the MLP end of the sleeve corridor, and the pilot hit a remote control that disengaged it from the hull. They were on their own now. Turning back to the Del Monte’s end of the sleeve, the pilot hit some controls on the wall, and the ramp burst open on its explosive bolts. Peering around the edge, the pilot carefully stepped out into the dark, damp corridor. Coeus was hesitant, he could neither hear nor see the pilot now. He looked behind him, and saw the marines gripping their pulse rifles. The Corporal looked at Coeus from the back of the pack, and nodded his head. With that, Coeus turned his attention back towards the Del Monte, and stepped out into the fog.
Chapter 24 - I went to war and all I got was this lousy headache.
"How long has Coeus' boarding party been on the Del Monte?" Bito asked. He was now outside of his office standing in the center of the large angular C&C of Juxtapose Station. He glanced over at the digital military clock, it read 07:45. The battle in Sol had been going on for almost 20 hours now, from the first arrival of the UGTO until now. It was a scary thought, Bito felt terrible for those men and women on the front lines. He couldn't even begin to imagine how they felt - but at least now that two of the three dreadnaughts has been destroyed they have the morale to keep going, the all too important driving factor that decided battles. It made sense, Bito thought, for them to attack Earth - because that would whip both factions into such a frenzy that they would fight their hardest, longest, and damnedest. Brilliant strategy, but also flawed. None of that mattered now though.
"Sir? Did you hear me?" A voice roused Bito out of his standing slumber.
"No, what did you say?" Bito felt it was always better to be honest with his men and women rather than put on a front that they could see right through.
"I said that Admiral Coeus and his marines boarded the Del Monte at 07:31." It was Lt. Carlson the communications officer. It didn't look like he had slept either, he was still wearing the informal blue BDUs that he had on earlier instead of the green combat stations jumpsuit like everyone else. If they were in the combat zone then Bito would have ordered him into a jumpsuit due to the threat of depressurization, but they weren't so Bito let it go. Things were never very strict on the station, but everyone was well trained and dedicated - as Carlson proved.
"Very well, continue monitoring." Bito said. He turned back to the massive tactical readout towards the rear of the C&C, when Carlson's voice rang out again.
"Sir, do you think we should evacuate the station's civilian population planetside just incase?" the comms officer said. It was bold for any junior officer to speak out to the Grand Admiral of the ICC fleet - but Bito encouraged it. He liked to say that he needed a little assistance now and then because he wasn't god - he was just god's right hand man. By god he meant Faustus, who everyone secretly knew needed prodding quite frequently to get into action - it was when he did start making decisions though, that everyone recognized why he was the grand pumba of the ICC.
Bito thought carefully a moment. "No, I don't see any reason to alarm them, the battle is winding down, soon the Del Monte will either be disabled or destroyed, and even if they were to escape or wormhole or something, we're completely across the galaxy, and surrounded by the biggest fleet this side of Sol. No reason to scare the living crap out of people who would be dead if something happened anyway." Reaching for his cheese, Bito shrugged off any worries or thoughts about the safety of the civvies. They were just fine. No worries. He turned his attention back to Sol.
*****************
"Sir!" Nub's first officer got his attention. "They're firing their bombs!"
"All stations, stand ready. Full military thrust, and bring the rest of the fleet to point blank range. Coeus is out of time." NubMarine decided.
"Aye sir." Nub knew that the fleet wasn't ready for this, they were too battered bloody and beaten. The destroyers were running on fumes, the dreads were pockmarked with holes, and every single ship was suffering severe weapon burnouts and reactor failure from the constant strain of hours upon hours of combat usage. But, in the end, they had no choice.
"Status?" Nub asked.
"Only half of the remaining fleet has mobilized, the other half has no shielding or is completely disabled."
Nub cursed himself, that was only about forty ships, not counting the two dozen or so ships that the UGTO had left that were still flying. Half would get picked off as soon as they entered weapons range of the Del Monte. Something had to change drastically if they were going to succeed.
Much to Nub's dismay, the shield modifications that the Charger had implemented and broadcast to the fleet would take too long to complete for them to be effective before this battle was over. Even if they were instituted immediately, there was serious doubt in Nub's mind whether they would hold up for a protracted period of time. The Charger couldn't be used as a testbed because she had fried most of her forward shield grid protecting Coeus' sole remaining MLP so they could board the Del Monte.
"Closing on the Del Monte 1000 gu. Max torpedoed range in 25 seconds. Max laser range in 35 seconds. Forward shields at 100%, port, starboard, and aft shields at 20%, 23%, and 19% respectively. Fleet matching our speed." The XO called out the status.
Nub was about to order the fleet to evasive action, when he was stopped before he could start by a brilliant bright flash dead ahead. The bombs had self destructed!
"Thank the Gods." someone muttered.
"Thank Coeus, if we ever see him again."
*****************
"CLEAR!" Coeus shouted. The two marines in front of him ducked down and fled backwards while Coeus and the pilot, Lieutenant Shig R. Nafy, laid down suppressing fire. They hadn't actually been able to see the creatures they're fighting yet because of the haze and because of how dark the ship was. It was almost as if they didn't use eyesight to see, whatever it was that had taken over the ship. The thought occurred to Coeus earlier as they had been creeping along the hallways that no one had the slightest idea what these critters looked like. They could just be massing hulking blobs of pus for all he knew. After they had detonated the bombs from auxiliary weapons control and then created a feedback loop in the system to prevent any further bombs from being launched, they began to encounter resistance in the way of doors slamming shut in their faces, lifts refusing to move or - worse - lifts falling straight down to the bottom of the ship. He had nearly lost two marines to that trick. But now, the enemy had actively tried to stop them by the simplest and most effective means. They were trying to shoot the marines.
The amplified psionic bursts that they were used to encountering while boarding a K'Luth vessel were hyper powered now. Apparently the aliens could still use K'Luth technology but they had never had any reports that these aliens were telepathic. Not only could they use it, they were damned effective at it. One blast impacted the bulkhead that Coeus was hiding behind. At first Coeus thought that the bulkhead girder had absorbed the blast, but when Shig pointed above Coeus' head, and he looked up, Coeus saw a hole the size of his fist just above his cap.
"Whoa." he said to himself. "Time to move!" he then shouted over to Shig who nodded in affirmation. Glancing back at the two marines behind Coeus and Shig, he nodded at the marine on Coeus' side of the corridor and then waited for the signal.
"CLEAR!" the marine said, and Coeus and Shig bolted for the end of the corridor behind the platoon. Psionic blasts impacted all around them, but they were obviously shot frantically, without aiming. The suppression fire from the marines was intense and accurate. They reached the end of the corridor at the same time, there were only four more marines to bring around the corner, then they could hole up there for a few minutes and formulate a plan. Coeus had already had one in mind though, just as Shig looked over to ask the obvious question.
"Where to now?" he asked. The Marines all looked over at him expectedly while the last two marines rounded the corner. Two marines stood at the corner watching around, but he could tell from the way their heads were cocked that they were listening intently. Behind the two corner guards were four more marines with their weapons trained on the corner, also cocking their heads to listen.
Coeus was silent for a moment, looking around him at the expectant faces. "The K'Luth boarding pods." he said. Some of the marines faked vomiting, some of them shook their heads solidly, and others were silent still. They hadn't heard enough. It was Shig that broke the silence.
"I can fly it." He said. The K'Luth control systems were designed to operate both psionically, as well as physically. Most of the marine pilots were as adept as possible at flying ships from all three factions. Some specialized in specific ships, Coeus didn't know about Shig. "You get me in there, and I'll get us out of here, even if they slam the bay doors down on us." The tone of his voice spoke the truth, he could fly anything with an engine, and probably some things without.
"Ok then, nearest launching bay is two decks up and fifty meters aft. on the starboard side of the ship." Coeus said. He brought up the holographic blueprints of the ship, and highlighted their location. He punched in the coordinates of the launch bay in question. It was on the far side of the ship from where the fleet should be located, and they would not be bearing towards any friendly ships - the problem were the defense beams from the Del Monte itself. They would have to take them out long enough for whoever did it to get back to the MLP. He told the marines as much. "Murry." he said, pointing at the Corporal he had met in the MLP earlier. “That will be your job. Take any three marines you want, and make your way here," Coeus pointed to a spot on the map a deck and a half away from the launch bay. "Its a hike, so just take your weapons ammo and a small demo kit. That is a weapons energy relay, take that out and the beams on the starboard and aft of the ship will be out of commission until they can get a repair team. All of the beam energy HAS to go through this relay, no matter how they have modified it." Corporal Murry nodded, he knew that he and the men he chose would most likely not be coming back from the mission, but they were going to try their damnedest.
"Sir," Shig spoke up. "As a contingency plan incase they can't make it to the bay, I think that we should be prepared to take the K'Luth pod and burrow into the hull here," he pointed to the map just down the corridor from the relay. "just in case we need to evac them quickly." Shig then fell silent again.
"Right, but we should also be prepared to go right into the relay room." Coeus said. "If you guys get in real trouble, call a Hail Mary and we'll come right in through the wall. You'll be on your own to find cover, there will be a brief decompression and of course the cutting plasma but that could give you the cover you need to get into the sleeve." He pointed to various zoomed in parts of the room. "These enclaves should provide you with enough cover from both enemy fire and from the plasma torches of the K'Luth pod, as well as give you something to hang onto for the decomp burst when we pierce the inner hull."
Murry nodded, he knew now why Coeus demanded as much respect as he did from most of his closest officers. He never left a man behind, literally. "Sounds simple enough, sir. Might be kind of rough getting there though. Once they see you guys going for the pods they'll know that our next objective will be to disable their weapons."
Coeus coughed uncomfortably. Murry knew why. "I had thought about that too." he paused, and looked at Murry. "We're not going to go until you're in position to take out the relay." Murry knew what that meant. He and his marines would have to hold off an entire ship of unidentified and highly intelligent aliens with hostile intent for at least five or ten minutes.
"We're gonna need some extra pulse mags..." Murry said offhand.
*****************
"Where are they now?" Hawk said in a low tone. If his underlings weren't scared when Hawk yelled and raged, they were most definitely terrified when he was quiet.
"They have just started moving out in two groups. The smaller, four intruders, seems to be making their way as you predicted. They are going to try and destroy the disruptor relay on the starboard side of the ship." Hawk cackled.
"Then the larger will be making their way to the launch bay. Excellent! Inform the strike teams, shoot to kill!" Hawk just stared at the tactical screen, without even looking at the intruder display. In the camera, Coeus looked left, right, then finally up dead at the camera. He raised his pulse rifle and fired. The screen to Hawk's right went blank. Hawk continued to stare at the tactical display.
It was a full two minutes of constant enemy barrages before the technician informed him. "Sir, we are ready!"
"Engage shields, prepare the conduit!" Hawk roared. All around the ship, the shimmering field that inspired fear in the humans raised itself once more. "Excellent..."
*****************
"Admiral!" Coeus glanced over at Shig, who was standing by a porthole.
"Aww crap." Coeus said. Time to rethink matters a little. "Sarge, fan your men out in a defensive pattern, we need to formulate a new plan. And get Corporal Murry on the line, tell him to try and get back to us, or hole up somewhere and keep his head down until we can get to him." Coeus brought out the holo emitter again, and pulled up the diagram of the ship they were in. As the Sergeant was on the line trying to raise Murry, the marines fanned out through the corridor in a defensive pattern while Coeus and Shig ducked behind a box with Sgt. Kondo and were about to start formulating options when they heard a burst of static and what sounded like explosions.
"I repeat!" Murry said over the radio, "We are under heavy attack! They ambushed us about 10 meters from the doorway. We're surrounded and massively outnumbered! Request immediate backup at corridor S13 mark 36! We're pinned down!" Coeus brought up the location they were holed up and almost switched it off. They were in a poorly defended location, coupled with complete coverage from both ends of the corridor. To make matters worse, the likely place that the enemy was firing from wasn't accessible at all without getting point blank.
"Just hang in there son, we'll be there ASAP. Just hang on!" Coeus said into the radio, and handed it back to the marine with the pack. "Ok, what are our tactical options. What am I not seeing?" he said bluntly to the two experienced combat veterans.
"You're not seeing what’s not there. There is no way to get to them, or get them a way out without sustaining heavy casualties from both their party and ours. They are just in a completely bad position. There was no way of knowing that a trap would be sprung there. They would have to know exact..." Kondo started to say, then he looked up sharply at Shig and Coeus and put his hand to his short range radio. "All units report in." He waited the short time it took for all units to report alert status, no contacts. And all of them did, except one. The point guard at the far end of the corridor, towards the launch bay. "Broken line!" he called out. Immediately all of the marines in the corridor began pulling back towards the center in 2 by 2 cover formation. They ducked behind the cargo containers, bulkhead outcroppings, doorways - anything that could or would provide any cover. The aliens knew exactly where they were, and exactly where they were going. These guys were good, and they had the best intel around, live sensor feeds.
"That’s it." Coeus said. "We've gotta take out their sensor grid. I’ve got these little sensor tricking gizmos that Delafelde gave me, but there are only two of them. So we do this the old fashioned way." Coeus punched a few keys and brought up a glowing orb in the center of a room 40 meters from their current position. "Take out this micro processor, we'll shut down everything on this deck. Life support, lights, sensors, lift doors - everything. They'll be able to reroute after a few minutes, but during that time we'll have free reign of the deck."
Shig was the one to speak the obvious question. "Then what?" he said. The marines around them began to break out their night vision at the announcement of the plan. They couldn't use them with the current light, it was still too bright, but with complete blackout - they could finally use them to their advantage.
"One step at a time, bubba." Coeus said. He packed up the holo emitter, checked his pulse charge in his rifle, and shouldered his backpack. "Lets just get to the micro processor first. Who’s got the demo charges?" One of the marines on the line raised his left arm, his right still holding his rifle and feathering the trigger. He never looked back or said a word. "Good, you're with me, try to keep up." Coeus said with a smirk. The marine chuckled silently to himself, he got the joke. Coeus looked around, got his bearings towards the microprocessor, and said "Lets move like we've got a purpose people!"
Chapter 25 - Ok, where’s the big wheel and the oversized water bottle?
"The fleet is holding position at 500gu, we're pummeling them with torpedoes. The shields aren't nearly as powerful as they were before, but they're taking quite a beating and have only gone down 5%." Jameson sighed. Something needed to change. At this rate they would most likely be able to fire another volley of bombs at Earth. "Contact Rocko, tell him to get ready for another run. See if Delafelde is up for it." They would settle this here and now. If Coeus was still alive, he would have to get out on his own. "Send the message on all channels, marine encoded, Final Run. Sign Rocko. If he gets it, he'll know what it means. Number 5 at the end of the message." Jameson said after plotting a course that would bring the Avernus within range in 5 minutes. That should be enough time.
"Message away, Captain. Standing by for course."
Jameson looked out the window at the giant K'Luth designed ship hanging out in space in front of the beautiful blue globe of Earth. He punched the button to send the course to the helm. It would take them to the port side of the ship from the aft. If they plotted their course low they could avoid all of the friendly fire coming in from that side. "Take us in." Jameson said. It seemed as if everyone on the bridge was holding their breath. Time to end it.
*****************
"Admiral." Balkon said. "Message coming in over all channels, marine encoded. Its from Captain Rocko Willis, it says 'Final Run.' and the number 5." Kondo looked over at Coeus sharply. "We have to move, now, sir!" He knew exactly what they meant.
Coeus looked back where they had come from, and forward towards the microprocessor. "Sarge, give me one man and the rest of you make for the landing bay. We'll give you the time you need to get there." Rather than look around or call out a name, Kondo simply checked his weapon load. He knew exactly what his pulse charge was - his action was more symbolic than mechanical. "Right, silly request. You're with me, the rest of you double time it to the launch bay, take the back corridors, then when the lights go out jump to the main ones. You'll have the advantage of the night vision and being off your original track." Coeus took the load of charges off the marine who had been escorting him.
"What about you, sir?" Shig asked. He looked genuinely concerned, like Coeus he musts abhor leaving a man behind.
"We'll be there." Coeus said. He hefted his rifle over his shoulder and stood. Sgt. Kondo stood beside him holding his rifle low in his hands and nodded. "Just keep the engine running." he said, then nodded to Kondo and they started to continue forward towards the microprocessor. The rest of the marines banded together and they made their way two by two for the maintenance passageways. As different as the K'Luth were, the design of starships was pretty much the same. Engines, bridge, weapons, fighters, and corridor layouts were all fairly similar across the ship classes. It made it easier to train platoons to assault the ships, though Coeus doubted that was by design.
It was a few minutes before the two of them reached the microprocessor room. Sgt. Kondo stood watch while Coeus accessed the door orifice’s controls and opened it slightly. Kondo slung his rifle over his shoulder and wedged a shoulder against one of the upper spirals and pushed it up. They all moved as one and soon the two soldiers were standing alone in the darkened room with a single, glowing ball of puss in the center.
"I guess... that’s a K'Luth microprocessor... eww..." Kondo said. In his assaults of K'Luth spacecraft he had always gone straight for the engine room or the bridge, and had never seen a K'Luth computer core or anything remotely like it.
"It is, but its different..." Coeus said. He moved around the microprocessor carefully, watching his step. The aliens modified it somehow, it seems to be drawing less power but outputting the same amount as it normally would. He tapped the readout and wished he had paid attention in the intel classes about how to read K'Luth. He took some quick scans with his personal computer and then started to setup the charges. "Lets be quick about this, they've probably figured out what we're doing by now." Kondo simply nodded, his focus was on the doorway, his weapon trained. Gotta love the marines.
"Set, timer at 30 seconds. Lets book." Coeus said. He took position to cover Kondo to the doorway, and then when the sarge was set to cover Coeus out to the hall he made his way out, followed closely by Kondo. They two made a semi-sprint for the maintenance accessways nearest them. "Ten seconds." Coeus said. he began counting down in his head. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... the explosion was deafening in the hollow empty corridors of the organic ship. They seemed to reverberate and amplify against the bulkheads. It took a few seconds for the ringing to subside. It wasn't until it had that Kondo looked out into the hallway.
"Uhhh, problem." he said. Coeus looked out and knew exactly what he meant. Lights were still on.
"Son of a.." Coeus started to say.
"Contact" sarge whispered. Coeus ducked down and unslung his rifle and brought it upto firing position to cover Sgt. Kondo. "Lots of contact." Sarge said.
*****************
"Still nothing Captain." Rocko sighed. He would have time to mourn his friend later. They had a job to do and Coeus would be the first one to order them to do it.
"Very well." Rocko said. "Inform the Charger and the Harpoon to goto full military thrust. Lets start the show." He decided. No more waiting, no more planning, no more potshotting the enemy from afar. Time to take the fight up close and personal.
"Ten seconds out." the helmsman reported. The ship began to shudder under the advanced AM torpedo blasts. Thankfully, the Charger and Harpoon were absorbing most of the blasts. The new shields were installed, but couldn't be charged completely just yet. "Five seconds."
"Charge Wormhole device." Rocko ordered.
"Possible aspect change in target, Captain." Rocko looked over at his navigator sharply. The nav officer doubled as targeting officer in combat situations. "Aye sir, they are turning towards."
Rocko buckled down in his command chair. "All hands, brace!" He could hear hatchways slamming shut and feel the deck plates vibrate as power was temporarily rerouted from life support and other systems to the structural energizer to strengthen the cross braces. This was going to be one hell of a ride.
*****************
"My lord, the enemy conduit cruiser is almost upon us. We cannot damage them due to the protection of the other two cruisers. What is your command?" An aide said quickly. He knew he would probably die for it but so be it. If it was the will of the leaders, then it shall be done.
"Are we facing them?" Hawk asked. The aide simply nodded in reply, his head still bowed respectfully. Hawk looked around at the warriors manning the stations around the bridge. All of them were on their feet, since sitting showed weakness. "Excellent, prepare our own conduit to the second human homeworld, and prepare the device for as soon as we enter our end of it." Hawk said. He turned his attention back to the tactical screen.
"As you wish, my lord!" the aide said, happy to be alive. It skittled off to convey the orders around the bridge. Moments later, the dim lights on the ship dimmed even further as power was rerouted to the central core. The energy then built up, and began to feed back on itself. As the energy was looping and building in intensity, it was suddenly released into the ship's hypercore and a bolt of energy shot out from the bow of the ship, and formed a perfect sphere, fractions of a fraction of a portion of a millimeter in diameter, and as the sphere collapsed in on itself, it continued the bolt of energy across subspace, crossing ships, planets, stars, and all matters of interstellar nothingness until it reached a point predetermined by the location of the captured K'Luth station, Soul Eater. The Soul Eater wasn't the only station that was at the outgoing end of the wormhole. No more than two hundred gu away, hanging above the deep blue of one of the oceans in the southern hemisphere of a planet was an old, rickety station, with one word painted in a shade of formerly bright yellow under the windows of the C&C. Juxtapose.
*****************
"Tracking wormhole." Jameson waited impatiently. "Oh my god..." The official and actual captain of the NCX-Charger looked over at his nav officer sharply. The bright white and blue shimmering light of the wormhole dead ahead of them filtered through the windows and illuminated everything so it almost looked like a dream. "The wormhole has tracked more than halfway across the known galaxy. Destination is Exathra."
"Full steam for that Wormhole. Take us in right behind them. Tell the Avernus to break off and the Harpoon to keep up." Jameson had no time to delay, there was no telling if a wormhole this big would hold for very long. "Push the engines as hard as they'll go."
"Number two engine is on the verge of burning out, numbers one and three are redlined. Estimate 20 seconds for #2 burnout, one minute for 1 and 3." The engineer said over the intercom. Jameson silently prayed to himself that the ship held together. A prayer that seemed to be going around a lot in the last 24 hours.
"Sir, the Del Monte has entered the wormhole, they seem to have dropped a device off behind them. Signature reads to be an AM mine." The nav officer said. The hidden meaning of what he said was that the aliens had probably suped it up.
"Stand by CL2k for a max range PD burst." Jameson said. "Take that thing out before it takes us o-" The comms officer cut Jameson off.
"Captain. Admiral Delafelde on the line, he’s telling us not to detonate that mine. Its a phased subspace EMP mine, it will disable every ship in the solar system if it detonates. Someone has to run it down he says." the comms officer said.
"And by someone I'm sure he means himself, but with what his ship is packing it would be far more useful to us than the Charger in the next few minutes. Increase the flank, push the engines to 200%. When #2 burns out divert all power to 1 and 3." Jameson ordered. There was no way in hell that he would let some Uggy spy take all the glory today... some or most, fine, but not all.
"Time to impact, 3 seconds, 2, 1." The impact itself was uneventful. A small resounding thud that shimmied its way across the hull and was absorbed by the ablative armor. For some reason, the device bypassed the shields entirely, a fact which scared Jameson because he realized that the device probably existed in a small region of subspace similar to real space. A feat of engineering that wasn't even dreamed of by ICC research & development. "Shoulda stayed in engineering school." he muttered under his breath, then would have laughed at the thought if the world around him hadn't turned upside down. The subspace EMP wave that Delafelde had mentioned hardly did the experience of it justice. Every bulkhead of the ship seemed to come apart at once, every weld every bolt every wire, then reattach itself, but not quite the way it had originally been. Every single system on the ship shut down simultaneously, and the Charger simply drifted helplessly into the wormhole. The Harpoon did its damnedest to follow, but the instant that the Charger had passed through the event horizon of the superhole, it collapsed. The Harpoon was stranded, and the Charger was on her own.
Chapter 26 - Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I'm dead.
"Someone shut off that damned alarm! Just tell me what sections AREN'T decompressing?" Bito had to yell to be heard over the noise. The station was taking a beating, and the 2nd fleet was still another minute or two out.
"Sir, the evacuation pods are being shot down, there’s no way we can get the civilians off the station." someone said. Bito couldn't think of his name... Oswald maybe? He knew him well, but his head was throbbing where it hit the desk in the initial moments of the attack.
"Bito! What the hells going on?" a voice said. Bito swiveled around to see Coeus' fiancé staring him down, even though she was a full foot and a half shorter than he was.
"What are you still doing here Tracy?" Bito said, then he thought a moment. "Glad you didn't leave." he then said. She took one look around and took a guess why.
"I gave up my seat... and from the looks of it I condemned someone to death." A single tear rolled down her face. "What can I do?" she said. Bito knew that she was a trained doctor, but specialized in family practice - not commissioned by the ICC.
"Try and get people off." Bito said. "Wait until the countdown, and then try and get as many people off to safety as you can." Bito looked the small woman in the eye. There was nothing that could be done for them at this point. He cursed himself for not taking the earlier advice to get the civilians off the station. What’s done is done, Bito would answer for that in a few minutes time it looked like.
"So that’s it?" She said, waking Bito from his stupor.
"I'm afraid so. There is one other thing you should know though... after that ship worm holed here, the Charger came tumbling through. She’s got no power and is heading for the planet." Bito could see she was a little more relieved. Assault Class cruisers were infamous for their planetary nosedives, and for surviving them. "But Coeus isn't on her." he said. He saw her face go rigid. He could imagine hours seeming to pass in her mind as Bito drew a breath. He felt that she deserved to know, he knew that it would only give her reason to keep fighting for survival. "Coeus is on that ship, the Del Monte."
*****************
"COVERING FIRE!" Shig shouted. How could he let those bastards ambush them so soon after entering the launch bay. Better question, why hadn't the lights gone out? They heard the explosion that meant the detonators went off, and they only went off when they were charged. You could nuke them and they wouldn't go off... they would just vaporize. "LEFT FLANK!" he yelled without missing a beat.
"Lets show these ugly frakkers who they're dealing with!" one of the younger marines said. Almost immediately the rate of fire intensified.
"We can't last much longer sir!" someone else yelled out to Shig. He had the most combat experience, so everyone deferred to him. "We need a plan!" Shig was struggling to be strategic and combative at the same time. It wasn't the easiest job in the world. He'd give anything to be in a cockpit right now. Then it hit him, the searing pain of a psionic burst. As he lay there on the ground, his shoulder armor burned away and melting onto his skin, he looked up at a damaged Larvae Assault Fighter hanging from a crane. Then it hit him again. Struggling to his feet, he raised his weapon once more, at the enemies towards the weaker far wall that doubled as the launch bay doors.
"We're going for the Larvae!" Shig said over the noise of combat. His right shoulder burned harshly, so much so that he had to switch his main shooting arm to his left. "On three!" he said. Several helmets nodded in affirmation, "THREE!" Shig yelled, in true ICC Marine Corps. fashion. The marines charged out surrounding their pilot, several of the point men fell by the wayside, obviously dead from the enhanced psi blasts to the head. Shig took over point and began picking off the few targets between him and the nearest Larvae. He quite literally jumped inside, and sealed the hatch behind him to activate the controls. He had only seconds to bring the nimble little craft around and begin picking out targets - his men were exposed but were all the more dangerous because their backs were almost literally to the wall. In an ICC fighter, Shig would be worried about the exhaust burning them up or blowing them away, but the weird antigravity units that the Larvae used that made them so dangerous in the atmosphere produced nothing like that.
"Score sir! All hostiles eliminated from the looks of it!" one of the marines said over the shortwave. Shig didn't trust that though. He checked the Larvae's scanners and sure enough, two unidentified hostiles were hiding in a darkened enclave of a bulkhead. Shig fired a volley of the stored psionic energy that the Larvae carried onboard and took out the entire bulkhead. There were no more readings from that part of the room.
"HOO RAH!" Shig shouted over the radio, and was answered back in kind. Now that Shig was in a larvae, and with the ground cover of the marines once they were in position, they could hold the landing bay for as long as they needed.
*****************
"Are we ready?" Hawk said.
"Yes, my lord. Everything is set. We have two strike teams ready to over take the four humans near the weapons relay, and the two humans in the maintenance crawlways are about to run into a third."
Hawk made what could be called a grin to his people, though most every other race would simply call it a barring of teeth. "Proceed." he growled.
"Opening the fighter bay doors now. All human components in the bay eliminated, the captured larvae will be taken care of by the automated point defenses now that it has tumbled outside of the airlock." As the young aide spoke those words, the lights on the bridge went out. The only sound was the sickening crunch as Hawk's honor blade split the carapace of the aide on its way through the aide's body.
"REPORT!" he roared.
"My lord! The four humans near the relay have caused a massive EMP overload to feed back into the systems. One of them must have been carrying a subspace grenade of some sorts! The humans were not known to possess this sort of technology. This is a new development, possibly engineered from our own modifications to the K'Luth cruisers."
"I want their bodies strung across the bow of this ship while their hearts are still warm in their measly chests! Get me control of my ship back IMMEDIATELY!"
*****************
Coeus and Kondo crept forward. The location displacers that Delafelde had given him seemed to be working well. They traveled the corridors freely, under the assumption that the displacers were making them appear on the opposite side of the ship in some maintenance accessways that ran parallel to the central corridor. Kondo had them pause every few meters to take a bearing of their location and listen for any enemy activity. They have still yet to actually see any of the enemies since they activated their displacement beacons and lured them away from their hiding place after the failed detonation of the microprocessor. Apparently, however, Corporal Murry was successful in creating a feedback loop throughout the ship - which obviously meant that he had taken the last resort that Coeus offered to him. Coeus would mourn his lost comrades later. The subspace grenade would have been quick, painless, and taken out the enemies around him for almost 10 meters in every direction.
"They knew what they were doing, Sir." Kondo said quietly. "And we have to get to the launch bay. Shig reported in just before the blackout that they had it locked down." he then whispered.
"Nothing since then though?" Coeus whispered. He was concerned. He doubted the ship wide blackout or the subspace EMP grenade would cause a radio blackout on the encoded marine frequencies, at least not on the EMP hardened radios the marines carried..
"Zilch. What’s the plan, Sir?" Kondo asked, respecting the chain of command.
"You tell me, you're the seasoned combat vet in this arena." Coeus answered honestly. He found that you got more out of troops by admitting your faults, especially as one of the brass. "Decide quickly though, that EMP effect will wear off in a few minutes."
"And then the shields will come back up and the ship will be unstoppable from destroying the planet." Sgt. Kondo said, shaking his head. That would NOT be allowed to happen. He would find a way. As long as there was breath in his body there would be a way.
"Not bloody likely. Come on." Coeus said. He started making his way carefully towards the nearest ladder way. There wasn't much time. "Command deck." Coeus whispered, pointing upwards. Kondo nodded and quietly checked his charge. They moved out into the corridor of the command deck, moving forward. The familiar smell of the K'Luth was near non-existent, and was replaced by an even fouler, more overpowering stench. One of death, of decay. As he passed by a porthole, he looked out and stopped dead in his tracks. Kondo came up silently, looking behind his back to make sure the corridor was clear. At this juncture in the battle, it was doubtful that anyone would be out and about in the corridors, but better safe than sorry. He looked out and froze just as still as Coeus. In the gap between the Del Monte and Exathra, Juxtapose Station hung, and she was taking one hell of a beating from an obviously modified K’Luth station. Trails of ion were leaking from the central core tower, chunks of the structure were torn away, open girders and decks exposed to space. He could barely discern fires behind the glass of the central decks. What Coeus was focused on, however, were two parts of the scene which Kondo had yet to take in. The first distressed him because of its happening - he watched as the Charger drifted helplessly towards the planet, nose first. The second made his heart stop, as escape pods were fleeing the burning station and being promptly shot down as soon as they exit. None had made it that Coeus could see.
"My god... I don't think Bito would have left any of the civilians on there... would he?" Kondo said. As he said it, the fusion reactors of the station went critical. In a brilliant flash, the oldest and most respected station in all of the ICC fleets disappeared into nothing but a field of debris. Coeus was frozen, glued to the window.
Chapter 27 – Come hell or high water… well probably just hell.
Jameson walked around the bridge. They had some minimal systems up and running, but no thrusters and no communications – which was probably a good thing because if the Del Monte saw the Charger so much as flinch they would probably blow her out of the stars. He was amazed that she hadn’t done so already. “Guess we’re no longer a threat.” He said. Then he suddenly realized, that was exactly what they needed – to not be perceived as a threat. Thinking back on the battles, the aliens actively ignored ships without weapons until they began firing again. They actively destroyed ships with weapons and no engines even when they were out of range. They only attacked enemies with weapons. “Get that radio up and running NOW!” Jameson said.
“I’m trying sir, but the power just isn’t getting to the consoles.” A technician said. His head was buried under the communications console. “The power core is offline, but the fusion reactors are running hot and producing energy, there must have been massive power spikes from the EMP that tripped every single fuse on the ship.” What the tech was saying seemed impossible. The very bulkheads that made up the ship’s interior could be used to transfer energy safely, they were extremely redundant in that regards. That’s why EMP affects the ships so badly, but it enables the reinforcement of shields more effectively than even dedicated lines.
“Then you take a radio down to the engine room, plug it into a damned reactor and you get me communications. NOW!” Jameson rarely got loud or insistent with his men, so when he did they knew not to screw around. The tech was fast on his feet with a box from the comm. panel with three junior techs hot on his heals with three more boxes. He had to get the message out.
"Aye sir!" he yelled back from halfway down the corridor.
"And, in the meantime..." Jameson said to himself. He stood at the front of the bridge and watched as his homeworld grew closer and closer in the window. "I'll just hang out here." From the leading nose of the ship, he could see licks of flame start to spark off as the Charger started to drift into the upper atmosphere of the planet. He hoped that the armor plating was strong enough to withstand some more punishment. He tried not to think about what happened to Juxtapose Station, and he hoped to hell that Coeus didn't know about it.
*****************
It wasn't until Kondo roused Coeus that he realized why the sarge was so antsy. Down the corridor, an ominous series of barks and growls echoed noisily. That must be how they communicate, Coeus thought for a moment. It was a freaky sound, far more scary than the dead silence of the K'Luth. It was during a lull in the barking and growling that the lights came on, and the shield energized once more outside of the ship. The EMP effect had worn off, and now the corridor was filled with the hums, groans, and vibrations of an active starship, making hearing where the enemy was a little bit harder.
Coeus raised his rifle slightly, then caught a glint of something out of the corner of his eye. He swung his rifle over and fired, and to his shock the pulse was deflected by a giant jagged blade. No, not just a blade, it was a friggin sword! "Oh crap on me..." Coeus said. The creature holding it was massive, easily two and a half meters tall, probably weighing upwards of 400 pounds. It wore what looked like ceremonial armor, clanky red metal that seemed segmented into sections leafed over each other like shingles of a roof. The paint on the armor seemed almost Japanese in nature, Coeus thought. All in all it wasn't that unusual looking, but it seemed to have an exoskeleton rather than internal bone structure, but it was hard to tell under all that armor. The head, however, was the most fearsome part of the beast. With four eyes, two in front and one on either side of the head, it had an impression of being all knowing - but at the same time, the fangs that inched down from the corners of its mouth and the singular breathing hole gave it an animalistic appearance. "What the frig is it?" Coeus said. Kondo didn't hear him though, because he was off on the creature's left flank and firing into its side. The creature deftly sidestepped and deflected several shots with its blade. This was not the same creature that they had fought earlier. This was probably some sort of royal guard - heavily combat trained and extremely tough to kill, from the looks of it.
"Flank it!" Kondo said. Coeus began moving to the other side of the creature, firing continuously at it. Instead of withdrawing as expected, the creature, now injured, lunged at Coeus, swinging its blade. Coeus instinctively raised his hands, and brought the rifle up with him and watched in horror as the blade tore through he marine corps pulse rifle as if it were paper. He ducked to the side and fell to his back as the jagged edge continued past the rifle and implanted into the deck plates a good six inches, Coeus looked out of the side of his eye and saw the blade tugging at the cloth of his right shoulder. He pushed off the blade with the remains of his rifle in his right hand slid between the creature's feet, and before the creature could pull its sword free of the deck plating, Coeus pulled his own pulse pistol from his shoulder holster and began firing into the creatures spine and the back of its head. It started to lunge forward under the strain. It spun around quickly, however, and stared at Coeus, still on his back. Coeus froze, the creature staring straight into his eyes, it started to raise its blade and Coeus looked at the creatures claw, aimed, and fired at it. The mess was spectacular, as the tan colored blood oozed out of the place where the claw was rather than flowed. The creature screeched and howled, its sword clattering to the ground at its feet.
"Lets move!" Coeus said. They would have seconds before more of those creatures showed up. Coeus rolled forward towards the creature, grabbed its blade and started hauling ass down the corridor, Kondo hot on his heels firing over his shoulder. The blade was light enough in Coeus' hands that he could one hand it in his right arm and fire behind him with his pulse pistol in his left arm. Rounding a corner, they reset the beacons to make them appear to have kept going straight down the corridor. It was dark enough that they could only make out the blurry shapes of the creatures as they ran past Coeus and Kondo, chasing their ghosts from the sensor feeds.
"Ok, that was..." Kondo started to say.
"Yeah." Coeus replied. "We're gonna need some bigger guns..." he then said jokingly. The blade in Coeus' hands seemed massive and unwieldy, but it was surprisingly light and agile - and insanely sharp and strong from what they had seen. The inside curve of it contained the jagged edge that the creature seemed to favor, and the outside was a straight edge, the entire sword had a shiny polished silver look to it. "Or better... exoskeleton you think?" Coeus asked.
Kondo nodded. "Now, or somewhere along the evolutionary path. Either way, tough to pulverize but easy to slice through probably. Piercing it would be best, but I don't know if you wanna try to stab onea those things with that." he said, looking at the curve and complexity of the blade.
"Neither do I." Coeus said. "Lets find out though." He started to move cautiously into the corridor, and made his way back towards the aft of the ship. They would only have a few minutes before the guards chasing their ghosts figured out where they really were. "Got to get to engineering, take out some of their systems." Coeus said.
*****************
Hawk was roaring with pain and rage. He had killed the first two aides that came to him after the humans had run off down the hall. "Why the hell weren't they detected on the ship sensors! What are the men chasing if its not them!" he roared and kicked the medic bandaging his injured claw. His right arm, a hand rather than a claw like his left, had some burns but nothing too serious. It was still more than able of holding another sword - but it would not be his sword. His honor blade was now dishonored in the hands of that... thing, that flesh bag. There was something else though, when he looked into its eyes. There was the fear, obviously, that Hawk was the superior being, and he was. But there was something deeper that the flesh bag didn't quite realize yet. It was imperative that they find and kill it before it realized its true purpose.
"These humans are proving to be far more resilient than the K'Luth give them credit for." Hawk said, calming down. "It is time that we broke their spirits once and for all. Bring me one of the survivors of the station." Hawk said. If what the K'Luth believe about the humans is correct, then all they needed was the right piece of leverage. "Not the fat one, one of the non combatants. A weak one. We'll see what kind of stomachs these creatures have."
"Yes my lord." one of the honor guards said. Since the incident, Hawk now went with an escort wherever he went. Not for his protection, but to insure that if he encountered the one who took his blade that there would be honorable combat. One on one, no interference.
"And bring me a K'Luth translator, with a human device so it can speak their language!" Hawk would have his honor back, at any cost. Even if it meant doing the most dishonorable thing imaginable.
*****************
Bito had been in K'Luth prison cells before, but none like this. The air was dank and thick, with a heavy mist floating at waist level, which was about the level of Bito's head at the moment, because every time he tried to sit up a sharp stabbing pain leapt from his spine to his neck and coursed through his head. He had taken a heavy blow in the final moments before Juxtapose Station was destroyed, and while knocked unconscious two of his officers, the security chief and the communications officer, had carried him into the last escape pod and given up their seats next to with Coeus' fiancé. He woke up in this cell, on his back in this bunk and hadn't been able to move since. Tracy didn't think that his spine was fractured, or anything that serious, but a tremendous concussion and massive shock to his system, possibly some nerve damage from the blow but nothing life threatening. He was about to ask how the other people were doing when the cell door opened. One of the foul beasts entered, and started looking through the room with its two sets of beady eyes. It stopped when it got to one of the children, a young boy no older than five or six. Bito was almost glad that the child was being taken, he had made Bito's entire incarceration rather... unpleasant. The boy saw the alien coming towards him and started to cry.
Evidently the boy's parents weren't among the small group of survivors, and were most likely dead, since no one moved to protect him or tried to comfort him. Everyone was just in a state of shell shock. Bito thought a moment then remembered his duty to the people of the ICC, and tried to get up when a firm but small hand pushed him back down.
"They need you, now more than ever." Tracy said. She moved swiftly towards the alien, and stepped between it and the boy. It stopped dead in its tracks, looked at her for a minute, and then without making a sound grabbed onto her arm with its clawed hand. Surprisingly enough, she didn't scream in pain, even though the claw was drawing blood. She had a dead stone look on her face. She knew what she was doing, saving a life.
Just before the alien dragged her out of the cell, already beyond Bito's vision, she called out to the boy. "You better be worth it, Vore." Bito saw him look up, stare in her direction a moment, then when the cell door slammed shut he went back to being a crying ball in the corner of the room. Bito didn't have the energy to get up and make him understand. He would, though, in time. If they ever got out of here. Only one thought flickered through his mind as a way out. Coeus. As he thought that, a sharp pain flowed through his mind. A stabbing feeling, and he fell back asleep.
*****************
Coeus looked at Sgt. Kondo, and signaled. Kondo moved silently down the corridor, rifle at the ready. Coeus had the sword in a sort of homemade sheath made up of one of the smaller alien's legs. It was quite nasty, and when Kondo commented on it, all Coeus said was, "Could come in handy." In other words, Coeus wanted to slice up every single one of those aliens with his own hands, rather than his pulse pistol - which was aimed down the corridor that Kondo was moving through carefully. When Kondo had taken up position a few meters down the hall, he signaled and Coeus began moving forward. They kept this up for a good ten minutes, steadily moving down the corridor they came ever closer to their objective in the engineering room of the Del Monte.
As they came around the final corner, the tension was intense; they hadn't seen a single alien since the one that Coeus injured - and there was no evidence that it had died! What the hell? How hard were these things to kill! Coeus wondered these things and tried to flood his mind with useless questions to avoid the all to painful one of was Tracy on the station when she blew? As they came closer to the door to the engine room, a sharp crackle overhead caught both of their attention. "Attention humans of the ICC - this is Azreal, former commander of the Del Monte. I am speaking to you now through one of your psionic headset devices, and am interpreting what the Evil Lord Hawk wishes to say, when I speak, I am speaking his words. You have dishonored both myself, and my captured prize - and this cannot be allowed to continue. You have stolen what is mine, and violated my pure soul. Purity demands satisfaction, and so it shall be. Before me now stands a civilian survivor of the feeble station which was destroyed. I know not who she is, nor do I care. Blood and honor demand payment, and so they shall have it." The line was silent for a moment. Coeus dared not dream who Azreal was talking about, only that from the sound of it Mr. Hawk was going to execute the civvy and they couldn't let that happen.
"Bridge?" Kondo said. Coeus just nodded and opened up the holo display. He cursed himself now for taking the sword. Evidently that wasn't just any royal guard that Coeus had shot, it was the friggin leader of the invasion! Go figure. They found the quickest route to the bridge, it would take a few minutes. He doubted they could make it in time, but they had to try.
"This woman will die." Coeus stopped a second, then kept moving, they had little time - Azreal was going slowly, which was highly unusual for a K'Luth thought to speech processor which made Coeus think that he was stalling to give the humans a chance. Very deceitful for a lobster. "There is nothing you can do to stop that. What you can do is save the lives of the other flesh bags." Azreal said, which was obviously a lie since their objective was to come and wipe out all life other than their own. "I challenge the human with the star to honorable combat. You have stolen my blade of honor, and now you must use it to defend yourself. I shall have my honor back, but first I must take my vengeance upon your kind. I will permit you to meet the life of the one who will be sacrificed for your dishonor." Azreal said.
"You destroy this ship, whoever you are. You hear me? Blow up the damned ship!" a female voice said. Coeus froze. What in the blue blazes of the deepest depths of hell kind of a torture was this? It was not theoretically possible for the universe to be this screwed up. Coeus felt as if he were in one of the vids from the 20th century. Everything around him seemed to stop, and the voice replayed in his mind until the real thing interrupted, "I will not give my name, I will give them nothing! There is no honor in this, tell him that! You tell him you goddamned lobster!" There was silence for a moment. Coeus began running flat out to the bridge. Kondo was struggling to keep up - as well trained a marine as he was there was no way he could match the drive that Coeus had right now.
"I... I am sorry, human." Azreal said, obviously speaking for himself. "I know not what I can do. My crew is imprisoned the same as yours." Coeus looked over his shoulder at Kondo, who nodded. Coeus tossed him the holo emitter and Kondo took off for the brigs. "While I would desire for you to see this flesh bag's head be severed," Coeus winced as he ran, and pushed himself even harder. He scrambled up a ladder way two decks while Azreal continued translating, "I will have to survive knowing that you caused this, not me." Coeus' radio crackled as he reached the command deck and began sprinting up the central corridor. He passed several of the aliens, most armed, some not. They all stood to the side and allowed him to pass - apparently Hawk was sincere about the honorable combat part.
"Coe', are you there? Coe, come in!" It was Jameson - he hoped to god that Terry had gotten the Charger back on her feet.
"Gimme some good news, Ter." Coeus said hurriedly - he was almost halfway to the bridge and almost out of breath. How was he going to fight once he got there in this condition?
"I'm afraid the best I can do is to give you a little hint about these aliens. I don't think they'll kill you if you're unarmed." he said. "At least, not while there are other threats abound. They target exclusively based on threat priority in starship combat, maybe they might in hand to hand as well."
"Ter, he’s going to kill Tracy." Coeus said bluntly. "Because I took his sword and shot him. The leader is going to kill her, then challenge me to one on one combat." The line was silent for several minutes. "Can you get the ship around to us?" he said.
"I'm afraid that’s impossible, Admiral." Another voice chimed in on the line. It was Delafelde. "But we'll be there in five minutes, the Avernus is massing a small fleet of the remaining ships halfway between here and Sol - they'll be along in another 5 after that. Can you hold out that long?" he asked. Azreal continued preaching for the aliens over the speaker system. That must be a new addition, Coeus thought. Probably something the aliens put in. Which meant that they weren't telepathic, the K'Luth were just interpreting the barks and grunts.
"Doubt it, but I'm damn sure going to try. I'm at the bridge, I'll let you know how things turn out. Coeus out." he said with a quiver. He stopped, caught his breath for a moment, because Azreal was still talking. It was only when Coeus walked to the bridge entrance that Azreal stopped talking. Apparently the location beacons no longer worked. Coeus took a deep breath, and walked into the bridge. The sight that greeted him had him frozen stiff. His fiancé, the woman he loved, stood in the center of the bridge looking at him with large tear filled eyes. Behind her was the alien that Coeus had encountered in the hallway. It lowered its blade swiftly, and Coeus' future fell to the ground in a heap, motionless. Nothing rolled, there was no sound. She just collapsed.
Chapter 28 – Nothing Else Matters.
"He turned his radio off apparently." Kondo said. Delafelde slammed his fist down on the arm of his command chair. "I've got to get these civilians out of here. Jameson was right, the aliens are letting me pass since I dropped my weapons by the wayside. There are weird noises coming from the speaker system that the aliens installed, I think that someone, or something is describing what is happening on the bridge. They aren't paying us any attention whatsoever." the marine sarge said.
"I may be able to help with that." another voice chimed in.
"This is Admiral Sono Delafelde of the U.W.S. Harpoon, Identify yourself."
"Corporal Shig R. Nafy, admiral, ICC Marine Corps pilot attached to the N.C.X. Charger's marine C company. I'm here to get my man and his attachments. Give me your location, Sarge. I swapped the Larvae I was in for a K'Luth Transport Pod, that’s why I was incommunicado for a while, the Larvae took a direct blast from the EMP wave, I had to maneuver her on thrusters only." Shig explained. "I'll be able to cut through the hull if you get to one of the outer corridors." Delafelde waited while the two marines worked out their hook up location.
"Gentlemen," Delafelde said. "I think it would be wise to wait until we get there to disembark the ship. I wouldn't even recommend taking the landing pod out of the launch bay until we are set in a position to cover you." He was genuinely concerned for both the marines and the civilians they escorted. He could hear the objections about to be voiced from both of the marines when someone screamed over the radio.
"I'm afraid I don't have the luxury of time, Admiral!" Kondo said. "Apparently I had a set boundary that I was allowed to work with before someone started to care. We're under attack. I've retrieved my weapons and given Grand Admiral Bito my pulse pistol, but we can't hold them off for long. Shig, get your butt in gear marine, NOW!" Kondo ordered. End of discussion. Delafelde turned to his helm.
"Burn out the antimatter drive AND the wormhole if you have to, but get us to Exathra, NOW!" Delafelde looked over at Vox, who just shook his head. His eyes were heavy with sadness. There wasn't going to be much time.
*****************
"How long?" Jameson said. He was answered by an enormous WHUMP as the Charger found herself fully engulfed in the planet's atmosphere. "Never mind. Do we have thrusters yet?"
"The heat from the atmosphere is breaking the ice over the thruster ports. We'll have attitude control in three, two, one. Adjusting angle of decent." the helmsman said. The nose of the Charger started to rise noticeably. They were no longer barreling balls first towards hell, but were still cruising in for a rough landing.
"Try and set us down on one of the main lands if you can. Maybe a nice parking spot out side of a spa perhaps?" Jameson said. Everyone on the bridge was tense. Their odds of survival were very good, but they had all seen the videos of cruisers and dreadnaughts caught in the gravity wells of gas giants, and some of the larger planets that held colonies. Every single one of them was focused on the flames that licked the windows at the bow of the bridge, it wouldn't be long now, they figured. "God I hope he's OK..." Jameson said under his breath, but loud enough that several of the bridge officers looked over at him and nodded.
It was several more minutes before the fire of the initial entry wore off, and they were now cruising in a massive brick of a ship, which at these speeds had absolutely zero control over its own attitude even with the thrusters. It was another minute or two before the first signs of land were visible over the ocean. They were coming in on the coast of the continent of Edamine. "Adjust, ten degrees port." Jameson said. He knew the shape of the ship would lend itself to some slight navigation if they could keep the bow turned from their course long enough.
"Ten port, aye sir." the helmsman said, and then a second later, "Now reading 10 port Sir." The Charger narrowly avoided the peak of a mountain. They dodged two more mountains in similar fashion before they passed the Carmont Mountain Range and were in the plains of Raffel. "Trying to keep the nose up, sir, but we're fast running out of thruster fuel. We're just along for the ride at this point." The helmsman said, taking his hands off the helm to hold onto the buckles keeping him strapped into his seat.
"All hands, brace for final run. If you're on the lower decks, get the hell off them before we hit. Impact in twenty seconds." Jameson said. At least the techs had gotten the wireless comm. fixed. "Ten seconds." Jameson said. He watched as the giant hilly fields of grass and trees below him came into detailed view in the windows. He could imagine the view from the bottom facing windows of the primary hull, trees flashing by at almost a thousand miles an hour. What’s more, he imagined the scene from the ground, trees being uprooted as the giant craft soared overhead leaving a trail of sonic booms in its wake as it struggled against the sound barrier. The shields had long since been useless, unable to withstand the constant barrage of particles, it was only the rugged construction and the little remaining armor plates that allowed the ship to stay in one piece through the final moments of the decent. "Five, four, three, two, one. Impact." A split second later, the entire ship rose up on everybody. Several people trying to stand broke their legs from the force of the upward push as the ship went from going diagonally downwards to straight forwards. Everyone in their chairs found themselves bouncing from the automatic impact cushioning.
The one effect that was immediately noticeable to Jameson was the fact that the ship was slowing down much faster now that it was hitting things. He tried not to think of it as the ship plowed through trees, rocks, and small forest animals. He hoped no one built a retirement cabin out here, a rather random thought considering all it took was one bad hill to flip the Charger and crush the bridge like the lower few decks were no doubt.
The ship skidded for thousands of miles it seemed, plowed through a steep hill, dirt spilling into the broken windows on the port side and flooding the cabins with an un-breathable dust before she finally came to rest in the bottom of a valley.
The cruiser lay in ruins: windows were cracked and shattered, the lower two decks were completely gone, compacted by the collision into the decks above them. From the bridge of the ship, no lights could be seen. Outside - covered in dirt, charred, scratched and pockmarked - the ICC symbol was half visible, the top portion of it could barely even be discerned for what it was. Jameson unclasped his harness and slowly stood up. All around him was darkness, except for the rays of brilliant sunshine flittering in through the un-powered senso-glass that no longer filtered out the brightness. Nothing had power, not even the lights anymore. The emergency lighting had almost all come unbolted from the bulkheads, and all anyone had were handheld flashlights. Jameson sat back down, and his seat mount snapped and he found himself just inches from the floor, as he sighed in pain and relief.
*****************
The blades clashed, sending off showers of sparks. Coeus rolled, and deflected another incoming blow. His enemy was strong, experienced, and had a thirst for blood in his eyes. As he tried to remember his hand to hand combat training from years before, Coeus glanced down at his enemies feet, and looked back up to see a gleam of light as it reflected off of the sharp curved sword heading right for Coeus' head. He instinctively pushed off the creature’s legs and rolled to his left, sending Hawk staggering backwards from the force of the kick.
Hawk stood there, seemingly reevaluating the situation. He had full expected Coeus to immediately use his father’s pulse pistol, which Hawk had allowed him to retain since Coeus told him, through Azreal, that it was his family’s own version of an honor blade. Coeus knew from experience that the creature’s armor would protect him, and that it could quite easily deflect the pulse shots with his blade, just as he knew that the creature was far stronger and probably had more endurance than Coeus did, but Coeus was filled with hate, anger, and a sense of loss that hadn’t quite hit him yet. He launched himself at the beast, dodging skillful slices from its blade, and returning equally skillful – or hateful – slices of his own. Hawk’s honor blade was formidable, it was light agile and extremely effective, but so was Hawk’s replacement blade, and Coeus had found that out first hand with a bleeding gash that ran down his left side from his shoulder to his hip. It wasn’t deep, but it burned like hell.
He sidestepped a thrust and tried to bring his own blade up to slice at Hawk’s arms, and was met by air. For a creature of its size, it was incredibly agile. It really scared Coeus. In the opening moments when they were sizing each other up he thought of Hawk as nothing but a big slow dummy of a creature. Just an example of how looks can be deceiving. Instead, it was intelligent, skilled, and quick! But that mattered not. Coeus had to win. He didn’t care how superior the creature seemed now, he had no choice. He stabbed again and again, and felt his arms tiring from the constant thrusting and blocking. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep this up. He was wondering this just as a surprise blow from the flat side of Hawk’s blade caught him on the left side of his head.
Coeus staggered backwards and to his side, he braced himself on one of the K’Luth control consoles. He thought he had a moment of rest but Hawk took that moment to press his advantage and swung down fiercely, forcing Coeus to back step just as Hawk’s blade came crashing down through the console, so deep that it caught Coeus’ hand as he was retracting it towards his body. The shock of it made his hand go limp for a split second, and his blade clattered to the ground. Coeus dove for it, but a powerful armored boot stomped down on the handle, nearly crushing his good hand. He rolled away from the console and his weapon as Hawk’s blade came crashing down again and again in a stabbing motion. It seemed more like a machine’s work than a creature. The stabs were precise and powerful – each one leaving a gash in the floor three inches deep.
Then they suddenly stopped, but Coeus kept rolling, and then he found out why they had stopped. Coeus rolled into something soft and warm, looking over his shoulder he saw a jacket that he had bought for Tracy more than three years ago. The sight of it filled him with more anger than should be humanly possible. These creatures had come here and begun destroying everything that he knew, for no reason and with no regard for anything. Coeus lunged at the armed and armored creature, and ducked under the swinging blade and crashed into the monstrous beast. Despite its advantage in both size and mass, it staggered backwards and tripped over a dent in the deck plating caused by its own stabbing at Coeus.
Unarmed, Coeus flung punch after punch after kick at the creature’s head. At first they only found armor, the pain in his hands told him that he had broken more bones than he cared to think about, but still he punched and one of the punches caught the helmet off an angle and it flew off and clattered to the ground near the creature’s honor sword. It was only when the creature tried to slice at Coeus and ended up cutting through its own armor and exoskeleton that Coeus got back up, and backed away. His hands were a bloody mess, his left side a giant red stain, and his breath coming in ragged gasps, he let Hawk stand up once more. Hawk looked at the body, then at Coeus. It made the connection and it grinned the most god awful grin as he realized what he had done. It had done far more to Coeus than it could ever have dreamed. It was thriving on the misery that Coeus was suffering.
“That son of a…” Coeus started to say. Hawk tilted its head and looked at him with its two left eyes. “You die.” Coeus said, and turned towards Hawk’s old honor blade and started to run towards it. The creature was too swift, though. It dashed over there twice as fast, picked it up and stood there, with its back towards Coeus. It staggered once more as another pulse shot landed on the back of its head, the creature’s natural exoskeleton absorbing most of the blast. Another pulse shot impacted and another still. “Don’t you ever turn your back on a man you just made a widower.” He said, and from behind him on his left, he heard a series of grunts and clicks as Azreal stepped forward and translated what Coeus said into Hawk’s language. Immediately, every creature on the bridge dropped their weapons and looked at Coeus with an odd gaze, reminiscent of a mixture of awe and pity. Hawk turned around, staring at Coeus, and then collapsed onto its knees. It looked at Azreal and made its own series of grunts and small growls, which Azreal translated.
“You are the victor, you have used your family’s honor in combat, I ask you grant me the honor of a warrior’s death.” Hawk said. Coeus stood there for a moment, knowing that Hawk wanted Coeus to do what it did to Tracy. He stood there for a good 30 seconds, before he looked down at Hawk, and spat on him. He raised his father’s pulse pistol, and he fired once, at point blank range, right between the center pair of eyes on Hawk’s head.
“Those without honor deserve none.” Coeus said. He looked around him at all the alien warriors. He had a distinct feeling that he would be dead if they decided that he was not worthy of leading, or something similar to that. He stared each alien squarely in its central pair of eyes, and in turn each one lowered its head to bow. Azreal came over to Coeus.
“You have my most sincere condolences, human.” Azreal said through the psionic converter. Coeus looked at his enemy, and instinctively raised his pistol and aimed it at him. He feathered the trigger, and Azreal simply stood his ground. He would not try to stop Coeus, nor would any other warrior if he decided to kill every one of them on the ship Coeus finally realized.
“You must do, as you must do. We understand even more deeply the bonds of family, of love. But we also try to consider, when we are avenging a fallen loved one, where would they want us to stop? When would they want us to let them rest?” Azreal lowered his head, and prepared for the decision that Coeus had to make. He feathered the trigger still, looking at the less disgusting of the aliens on the bridge. He saw the twinkling of its multifaceted eyes. He saw the glistening moisture on its skin. He felt the sweat beading down his own forehead.
“You know.” Coeus said, his voice thick with sadness. “We’re not so different, you and I.” Azreal looked up, and looked at Coeus. “We each do what we have to when the time comes.”
He walked to the center of the bridge, and stood with his back turned to the body of his fiancé. Speaking directly at the creatures and with Azreal translating, he said “You all came here with a purpose. Your purpose has failed. You will never defeat humanity. You have torn through the universe trying to eliminate any civilization that could potentially rival your own, the problem is that you just found one. I offer you all this one chance. You go home, you tell your superiors – you tell your people that humanity will not bow. We will not be defeated. With what we have learned from you we already rival you – and indeed, we are superior.” Coeus motioned out the front window of the bridge, and everyone watched as the rag-tag fleet of ICC surviving ships, with the new shield modifications installed, surrounded the lone K’Luth station that was hovering near where Juxtapose Station once orbited. The Soul Eater, more powerful than the Del Monte but limited by size and speed, fell quickly now that it could not destroy enemy ships at will. It burst into a blaze of light that, for a moment, was brighter than CD itself. When they all turned back, Coeus was gone, and so was the body in the center of the bridge.
Bito walked on his own two feet for the first time in three days. The stone marker bearing Tracy’s resemblance was perfect, he thought. Like her, it was a beacon among the flat plains, but it was also subtle, strong, and stood independent of everything around it. Coeus stood in front of it, a single rose in his hands. His left arm was in a sling, and his hands were bandaged. The long navy blue trench coat he wore fluttered in the breeze of the light, midday rain. He seemed to be praying, but there were no words, only movement of lips. Rather than saying something, or making some awkward noise to let Coeus know he was there, Bito just walked up and stood next to him, looking down at the memorial stone. In the distance, there were several ICC shuttles floating over the crash site of the Charger. She was salvageable, but Coeus had personally gone to the ICC council and asked that she be allowed to stay where she lay. A memorial to what nearly became the twilight of humanity, and to all of the soldiers and civilians who died trying to keep the flame of life alive.
“Coeus, I…” Bito started to say, but Coeus looked over at him sharply. There were deep hollows around his eyes, and his face was beat red from three days of tears and sobbing. “I will never be able to ask your forgiveness.” Bito said, despite Coeus’ warning look. His hand lightly feathered his father’s pulse pistol, still slung low on his right side, as murderous thoughts flickered through his mind. “I came to ask your permission to ask for her forgiveness.” he said. Bito lowered his head, and looked at the engraved image of Coeus’ fiancé.
“You…” Coeus started. “You… the only reason that I am letting you live is because I have seen enough good men and women who are far better than you die. They deserve their time without scum like you.” Coeus thought of his friend, Backslash. He thought of how Switchblade betrayed him in the same way, practically. A damned stupid decision that cost the life of someone so close, that’s all that seemed to happen. The fools made decisions, and good people paid for them with their lives.
“But rest assured, your time will come.” Coeus said. “That is the last promise I make to you.” Coeus walked away, and took a control out of his hand. Pressing a button on it, a small UGTO shuttle de-cloaked. Bito was frozen stiff, he had never known the UGTO to possess the ability to adapt their ships to the K’Luth cloaking device. Coeus boarded the shuttle, and it started to rise. In seconds, Coeus was gone. And with him, Bito felt the future of the ICC. He possessed the majority of the tactical and technological intelligence gained from the aliens, and now he was taking it to the UGTO. The K’Luth already had everything they needed, since they had taken the Del Monte back to Sag Hothha for study. So no one would get any clear cut advantage out of this. What a pity.
*****************
“So, agent.” The robotic voice said. “We succeeded in averting the death of all of our kinds. What now?”
“I’m going to fracking Disneyland.” Stardancer said, taking another swig from what tasted like homemade swill. “I quit, I’m out. There is no way I will ever deal with this sort of thing again. The races be damned.” She finished the swill, dropped the cup in front of the K’Luth intel officer, and got up. Before she could go, he grabbed her arm.
“You know that neither my superiors, nor yours, will ever allow that.” He said. He wanted them to, but knew it wouldn’t happen.
“You make it seem as if they had a choice in the matter.” She said, then she pulled her arm free and disappeared into the crowd.
“For your sake, I hope they don’t get one.” He said to himself. He dropped the ID card that he had purchased on the black market on the planet here, he paid the tab to some random ICC officer’s account and walked off. K’Luth and humans ignored him alike. He should come to the outer rim worlds more often.
*****************
Rocko couldn’t believe his eyes. Coeus defected? He could perfectly understand the reason, but… the promise that he made to Bito was also in the report, and that alarmed him even more, and that didn’t make it any easier to swallow. None of that mattered, however. Either it would become an issue that Rocko would have to deal with or it wouldn’t. For now, however, Rocko enjoyed the spoils that were left to him.
“Status update for you, Admiral.” The loudspeaker chimed.
“Thank you Captain.” Rocko answered. One of Coeus’ last official acts, apparently, was to have the major offences stricken from Rocko’s record, to the point where he was re-promoted to Vice Admiral, and then for outstanding valor and bravery against impossible odds, promoted anew to Admiral. Captain to Admiral in three days, that had to be a record!
The Avernus, although a jump cruiser, was to be his flagship until the ICC fleet could be rebuilt. She was one of the few ships that took readily to the shield modifications, so she was to become a frontline ship. Her wormhole device, however, was stripped, and replaced with a standard jumpdrive, having seen the ineffectiveness of dual purpose ships. Instead, a new, dedicated wormhole cruiser was ushered into service with all of the spare Wormhole Devices that were now floating around, and the Jump Cruiser resumed its former role as a planetary bombardment base. In the end, Rocko liked not having to wait forever to escape a sticky situation, which made things awkward with how he felt about the brass, the fleet, and Coeus' departure. For now, however, his duty was to his ship and crew. He would deal with the Coeus issue when it next arose. Part of Rocko was jealous, since no one in the fleet would question Coeus' motives for joining the UGTO, or for his 'message' to Bito.
"Admiral, we are ready for the Ion Engine startup." The intercom said. Rocko sighed. All in due time, all in due time. He stood and walked out of his cabin.
Chapter 30 - Ok... so... where to from here?
Lelandra sat back on her porch, turning the device that Coeus had left here over in her hands. Looking out, she was extremely glad that Delafelde had someone come and clean up the bodies of the guards, in this heat the stench would be incredible. Maybe not all of the imperials weren't so bad. She knew one that would be OK, at least, she hoped. "You know, pop, you're probably never going to get any recognition for this." she said to the air. A light breeze twisted the dirt at her feet into a small cyclone, and then suddenly died off. "I know that’s the way you like it, but still - you saved us all, probably." Instead of another cyclone, a single rust brown leaf fluttered by, just above her eye level. "I meant you too Beatte, you both deserve it though, whether you want it or not." The cyclone reappeared and sucked up the leaf and shot it out the top of the tiny inverted cone.
"Its not good to talk to yourself." an actual voice said. Lelandra looked over and saw a face in mourning.
"Nice to finally meet you, Viper. Do you mind if I use your call sign?" she said, standing and ignoring the smart alec comment from the former soldier. He shook his head, and silently moved up onto the porch, bowing his head slightly. "Oh no, please. None of that formality garbage." she was starting to get annoyed by the pointless posturing.
"Formality be damned, I only wish to show proper respect to a prophet of the old house."
"Ahh, a well educated former corporate zombie. What can I do for you?" She said, offering Viper a seat.
"I would like to talk to someone." He said.
"Use a comm. link." She quipped. She always had to test the patience of anyone who asked her to commune - it was a long and solemn process.
"I don't think he would answer." He quipped right back. He could go at this all day, but would much rather not. "I trust your test of my patience will not consume this lovely summer day." Viper motioned to the bowl of superheated dust that surrounded them. It wasn't until then that Lelandra noticed the ICC shuttle on the ridge surrounding her house, she looked closely at the nameplate.
"So my brother gave you his own shuttle?" Lelandra asked, pointing at the Philadelphia. Viper nodded.
"He got a new shuttle from his new CO - I think you know him." He said. Delafelde, it could only be Delafelde. The two of them had apparently hit it off, and that worried her. She would deal with Coeus all in due time however, as she thought that, the small cyclone spun up and fluttered the dirt for a second and then died down quickly as Lelandra stood up, and walked Viper inside her house. After they entered, the cyclone and leaf began twirling around each other again, and shortly thereafter they were joined by a small creeping shadow from a single rain cloud in the desert sky. It did not rain, the cloud did not move once it was over Lelandra's house.
The Evil Invasion, as it was known, had a lasting effect throughout the known galaxy for the humans and the K’Luth. Not just in a technology sense, with what was learned from the unknown aliens, but in a psychological sense. The factions became increasingly paranoid and xenophobic. The K’Luth in particular became more recluse than the two human factions, and modified their technology so that it could never again be mounted on a human ship. For the most part, they were successful.
The weakened state of the ICC fleet also allowed the UGTO to move back into their home systems, which oddly enough seem to have been rearranged by the lasting subspace disturbances. The outer rim worlds became a far more dangerous place, as the superpowers no longer had the ability to enforce the law due to their decimated fleets. Slowly, however, they began to rebuild. And when the fleets were at their full strength again, the factions were faced with a difficult choice. They could use these new weapons of mass destruction as leverage to broker a lasting peace, or they could use them to enforce the peace that each faction sought.
For everyone involved, the choice was a difficult one. They had all seen the worst that war had to offer, but so many of the young generation had seen incredible acts of heroism, they saw how the fallen were mourned and honored, and they sought that level of prestige. The war resumed at a frightening pace less than a year after the invasion.
Alternate Ending
Coeus sat alone in his quarters. Logical Station was in a stationary orbit on the opposite side of the planet from where Juxtapose Station once proudly stood, the two had provided defensive cover for most of the planet, complimenting the planet based defenses. Now that Juxtapose Station was no more, Coldheart Station stood solemnly in its place, on long-term assignment for Exathra Defense until a newer, stronger station could be built. None of that mattered to Coeus; his entire life was in the small metal room that felt more like a coffin to him now. The electronic tone rang hollowly through the Spartan room several times before the door was forced open through a superior set of access codes.
“Thought I’d let myself in.” Rocko said as he moved slowly across the room, deciding to take a seat just outside of Coeus’ field of view. He knew that Coeus was getting ready to head to the surface for the memorial service for Tracy, and he was glad he caught him before he left. The two meet each other with silence for several minutes before Coeus broke it.
“We were trying to decide which station we wanted to live on.” He said, his voice barely more audible than a whisper. “Or maybe live planet side.” He shuffled in his seat slightly, leaning more heavily on his arms, slouching to his right side, probably to take some pressure off of his left arm, which was in a sling from his fight with the aliens. Rocko didn’t know enough about the entire situation to say for sure, but it looks like his entire arm was bludgeoned. “We were supposed to have dinner and settle it once and for all. I rushed straight from meeting with Bito and Jackswift to tell her I had to cancel. She had already started cooking when I got to her quarters.” Rocko couldn’t see his old friend’s face, but he could tell from the way the crows feet at the corner of his eyes were wide set that rather than squinting back tears he was wide eyed and letting them flow.
“I hear they are going to name a hospital after her in the capital.” Rocko said, trying to keep his voice even and stay the quivering that was building up in his heart and throat. His short cropped hair was still matted with blood; he spent the last two days hopped up on stims overseeing the salvage efforts around Exathra, since most of the top brass were still in debriefing and overseeing the technological advances presented by the new situation.
“Yup, and they’re giving her all kinds of awards and medals. She wouldn’t care, and probably would decline.” There was a hint of anger in Coeus’ voice. He had probably tried to get them to back off and let Tracy’s memory live on how he wanted.
“Sounds like Confederate bureaucracy to me.” Rocko couldn’t help but scoff at how the political wheels kept turning even after what just happened. “With the entire galaxy in disarray they’re climbing over each other to assign blame and provide figureheads.” Coeus shook a little with a restrained laugh of disgust. “They want me to be their little spokes puppet. ‘The Jump Cruiser Captain who bested the Evil!’ one of them tried to say.” Coeus perked up a bit at that.
“Let me guess, Councilman Watts?” he said, and when Rocko nodded he actually broke out in a barking short laugh. “Figures. Never could pass up an opportunity to hear himself speak.” Coeus sighed. “So what now?” Coeus asked.
Rocko thought a minute, and decided to paraphrase one of the vids that survived the Dark Age a bit. “When I first knew your father,” he almost stopped because of the sharp look that Coeus gave him, but resumed when it softened into the face of someone reliving a memory. “he was a fantastic tactician, but it was right after your mother died and no one quite knew what to make of him.” Coeus didn’t so much nod as he did waver slightly, whether because of the strength of the memories flowing through him at the moment or because of pain and painkillers fighting a war over the wounds he suffered.
“He was lost, very lost. We didn’t speak after the funeral for months on end.” Coeus said, then was silent again.
“After a while, I asked him – he was my captain at the time when I was just a lowly Lieutenant piloting the Charger – I asked him where he was going. He didn’t know what I meant at first, and then it dawned on him. He had been pulling double and even triple shifts for our entire patrol. It was four months into the patrol by this point, and there was a going pool on the ship how long it would be before he burned out. Some people, like me, said that the Fusion Generators would burn out before he did.” Coeus had to smile, remembering his father’s determination and strength of will no doubt.
“So what happened?” Coeus finally asked after Rocko was silent for nearly a minute, reliving his own memories. “What did he say?”
Rocko frowned, as if unsure that what he would say would really help or not, but decided to say it anyway. “He said he didn’t know. ‘I am going wherever my life takes me.’ He said, but he seemed to get the point of why I was concerned. ‘Life has a flow all of its own, and all the fighting against its current in the world won’t do anything to change your course through that flow. Its only when someone holds out a hand for you to grasp onto and cling to that you can stop your plummet down to the rapids.’ At the time, I was even more worried about Marcus than I had been before, but after a few days I saw what he meant. He saw the crew’s concern, and he managed to grab onto our love and pull himself out of the rapids before ...” Rocko trailed off and turned towards the younger First Rear Admiral.
Coeus leaned back in his chair as Rocko stood up and extended his right hand. Neither officer said anything, and for a minute Rocko was afraid that Coeus would refuse to take it, but he didn’t. He grasped the wiser man’s arm and hauled himself out of his chair, with considerable difficulty. “Before it was too late, and he drowned in life’s unyielding currents.” He said. Rocko nodded and looked his commanding officer in the eye. “Thanks Rocko.” Was all that he said more about it, and Rocko could see in his eyes the mental barriers that had fallen. It was far easier than Rocko thought it would be, and had no doubt that there would be lasting effects, but for now the future was looking just that much brighter. “You never told me that you knew my father, when was this?” he said.
Rocko looked away, and then turned back. “The tour before I took command of the C.S.S. Mercy.” Rocko said, and Coeus could see the flicker of pain in his own eyes, because it was Marcus Darksoul’s recommendation that put Rocko in command of the Mercy, and that must have been his last official act on behalf of the ICC before his father died practically.
“Which was just before we met.” Coeus said, realizing that he must have saluted his father and headed off for the Mercy, only to receive word a few days later of the K’Luth attack that crippled the Charger, leaving her dead in space to be salvaged later, and then put into service under Rocko’s command in the Forgotten Fleet incident years later.
“We have a lot more to talk about I think, my friend.” Coeus said, and the two officers, moved to the table to share memories of the man that only Coeus and his sister knew had saved the entire human race, and most likely the K’Luth as well.
*****************
Bito knew that he was probably the last person that Coeus wanted to see right now, but as he passed Coeus’ personal shuttle, the Spirit of Philadelphia, named after a mythological city on old Earth, before the collapse of civilization that had eventually led to the formation of the United Galactic Trade Organization. The UGTO, the imperialistic and ruthless corporate alliance that governed Earth once again, since the whole of the ICC fleet had fled back to defend Exathra, was quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with only a week after the Invasion.
“Don’t worry Bito, I’m not going to shoot you.” Coeus said, apparently having glanced around and seen him while Bito stood silently twirling his thoughts around his head. “As much as it might make me feel better, I know it’s not your fault.” He said.
“Good, because I didn’t bring any body armor.” Bito hazarded a glance down at Coeus’ right side, where his battered pulse pistol sat comfortably holstered. “I don’t have the words. Coeus.” He said as he glanced at the life-like carving of Tracy that stood out in bas relief against the memorial marker. A few miles away, shuttles were carrying in supplies to convert the Charger’s resting place into a memorial museum, as per Coeus’ request. “And ‘I’m Sorry’ seems very tried and disrespectful at the moment.”
“You’re right, it does. But time moves on, and I’ll just have to tread carefully is all that can be done.” Coeus said. He finally turned and looked Bito over. “You look better, down to just a cane to help you walk?” Coeus gestured to Bito’s left side.
“Oh, I just haven’t been down in full gravity in years.” Bito said, slightly ashamed that he had let his physical fitness lag so far behind. After several minutes of awkward silence Coeus finally spoke up.
“Backslash was wrong.” He said firmly. Looking Bito directly in the eye he continued, “He was wrong. It doesn’t matter what ship you are in or who put you there, it was the actions of the Aliens that killed Marie, and that killed Tracy. Not Switchblade’s and not yours. A man is responsible for no actions but his own, isn’t that what the old vid says?” Bito struggled to remember the answering line according to that old fictional farce.
“That is not what you said at your trial.” Bito said, knowing full well that there have been no trials, and would be none if he had anything to say about it. Coeus smiled at an internal memory associated with those lines.
“Grand Admiral, I think we have a lot of work to do, its high time we got to it.” Coeus finally said, placing one last kiss in his hand, and in turn placing his hand on Tracy’s resemblance.
“After you, Fleet Admiral.” Coeus stopped at Bito’s words, as the higher ranked officer brought his right hand out of his pocket, and in it was a small, thin black leather case, hinged on the back. He handed it to Coeus, who silently accepted and opened it, gazing upon the rank insignia contained within. “The official announcement isn’t until later, assuming you don’t retire.” Coeus thought for a moment, and then handed them back to Bito.
“Another time, the retirement stands for now, I have too much to do before I can resume my duties, much less take on more.” Coeus glanced back at the mountain of a hill that hid the Charger from view, and moved up towards the Spirit of Philadelphia. “Admiral, keep those handy. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, but I will be back.” He boarded the shuttle, and was about to close the hatch when Bito called out to him from his perch a safe distance away.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“The Outer Colonies, and then into the Unexplored Space. From there… I’ll tell you when I get back maybe.” Coeus offered a lazy, friendly salute and pressed the button to seal the hatch. A minute later Bito watched as the Philadelphia lifted off and shot off towards the sun, leaving a wake of sonic booms behind it.
“Good luck.” Bito said, then started hobbling off towards his own transport.
Chapter 30 – Where to from here?
Lelandra gazed up at the sky and watched as the small ICC shuttle lifted off to whatever ship remained in orbit awaiting it. Viper had been open minded about the entire affair, and had gotten the chance to say goodbye to his oldest friend and brother-in-arms. He may yet prove useful in the future, but she doubted it. In the five days he was here he was too rigid and set in his ways. It was several minutes before she realized that the sound she was hearing was from another shuttle coming towards her rather than the one carrying Viper leaving. Coming around the corner of her house, she saw a familiar shape entering landing maneuvers on the rim of the hill opposite from where Viper’s small, short range shuttle had been. The Spirit of Philadelphia was a larger shuttle, not exactly bristling with weapons but not defenseless either. She could only assume that it contained military grade jump drives and engines, but never had the opportunity to ride in her.
“Two visits in a month, dear me brother you do surprise.” She said as Coeus ambled down the dustbowl towards her. Last time she saw him he was wearing dusty military desert camouflage, and carried a one man arsenal. This time he wore civilian clothes, plain tan trousers and a button down white shirt, though he still wore the navy blue cap bearing the Charger’s silhouette and designation. “I’m so sorry about Tracy.” She had never known his brother’s fiancé, and doubted that they would have met had she lived but she knew her brother and knew that he would be falling on rough times, if he hadn’t already. All told, however, he looked good. It had only been a month since the Invasion but it didn’t seem as if he had let himself go in that time.
“Heya Lel.” He said almost casually, as if they were meeting for lunch – although that may actually just be his intention. “I just stopped by to thank you. Billions of people are alive today because of you, and you should be proud of that.” Coeus added the last part because of how Lelandra became visibly uncomfortable at the thought of being responsible for so much, and the flickering thought of how many of those billions would be suffering because the UGTO had once again reestablished control over Sol and its outlying systems.
“That’s not the only reason you came.” She said, her brother was more sly than that.
“No, its not, I’m also on my way out beyond the known territories, going for a Sunday Drive you might say. I wouldn’t mind some company.” He gestured towards the Spirit of Philadelphia. She hesitated, glancing at her house, and again back towards the shuttle. “Not exactly the most comfy ride in the galaxy, but she’s got the room and all the amenities are there.
“Why not.” Her lifestyle allowed her decisions on a whim like that. “I’ve got a ready-bag packed and set to go.” She started towards her front door, then stopped and turned towards her military brother. “How long are we going to be gone?”
Coeus smiled, and said “As long as it takes to find the sunrise out of the darkness.”