by Andrew Beery
2100.2019.0521 Galactic Normalized Time
The Bringer of Death was disturbed. His tools were not functioning at optimum efficiency. In fact, a number of them were not functioning at all. Perhaps even more concerning was the realization that his automated repair systems were offline as well. This did not bode well for the continuation of his sentinel duties.
Chapter 4: No Greater Love
“Helm,” Tanny said with a firm and resolute voice. “Work with navigation. I want a micro-jump to put us between those missiles and Azul. Jump when ready.”
“Aye, Captain. Plotting entry into Skip Space now. Jumping in three… two… one. Jump!”
The ship made the transition into and out of Skip Space in a fraction of a second. Somehow these shorter jumps were more unsettling than the longer ones. Maybe it was the one-two entry-exit that did it. At any rate, our position put us five minutes in front of about sixteen high-yield nukes. I was thankful the automated weapons platform didn’t seem to be able to fire anything bigger. Not that the Diaspora’s faltering shields could handle even sixteen of these.
“Captain,” I said. “You need to give the order to abandon ship while we still have time. Keep essential personnel but get the rest into escape pods.”
I could see the pain in her eyes, but she knew I was making the right call.
“Attention all hands, this is the captain speaking. All non-combat personnel are to abandon ship. I repeat… all personnel aside from weapons crews are to make their way to escape pods or transport shuttles. You have ten minutes. Mumba out.”
Tanny turned to me.
“You should go too, Admiral,” she said.
I shook my head. “Nice try, my friend, but you know that isn’t going to happen. I won’t order you to leave yet, but if it gets down to it, I want you on the bridge’s command shuttle. As I’ve said, at this point in our lives, you have far more to offer the colony than I do.”
Tanny gave me her patented wry smirk. “We’ll talk about that if and when the time comes… sir.”
***
The evacuation proceeded smoothly. It was helped by the fact that crews had been loading transport shuttles for several days in preparation for the colonization of Azul. Soon enough, three thousand men and women dwindled down to a couple dozen.
I had taken over helm and sensors. Commander Conner had relieved the Chief that had been manning the weapons systems. Including the Captain, we were the only three on the bridge.
Maybe it's me, but a nearly empty bridge is an ominous and lonely place.
My sensors showed the oncoming missile barrage was only a few minutes out. I transferred the data to both the Captain and the Commander. As had been observed before, these missiles had accelerated at different speeds, which meant they were spreading out.
“Targeting the first sixteen bogies,” Conner confirmed. “What? Negative that,” he said suddenly.
I saw it on my board as well. Each of the sixteen original missiles suddenly divided into thirty-six warheads. That meant we were now facing just shy of six hundred.
“Firing grapeshot!”
“Helm,” Tanny barked. “Maximum acceleration. Don’t give the next round of missiles time to separate. Commander Conner, continuous fire as targets come to bear.”
It was a smart move on Tanny’s part. If the remaining thirty or so missiles were allowed to divide into multiple warheads, we would be looking at over a thousand new threats.
Conner’s grapeshot was mowing down the oncoming weapons like a scythe through tall grass… but it wasn’t enough.
“Shields failing,” I barked.
The Diaspora shook violently.
“Hull breaches deck E, deck K, and deck L. Airtight bulkheads sealed. Atmospheric venting stopped.”
“Weapons, what’s our status?” Tanny yelled above the emergency klaxons.
“Launch tubes one and six are out. Six may come back online, but I wouldn’t count on it. Kinetic systems are undamaged but aren’t getting enough power from our one reactor to operate at one hundred percent.”
“Engineering, reroute all power, including life support and shields to the railguns. Make it happen yesterday!”
It made sense, I thought to myself. There was no way our shields were going to help us at this point, so why waste power that could go into a system that was effective… like our weapons.
“Rerouting power now, Captain,” Engineering acknowledged. I didn’t recognize the voice, but that was becoming more and more common for me.
“Railguns firming up,” Conner confirmed. “Fire rate up twenty-six percent.”
I followed the action on my sensor display. Between our acceleration and the added power to our weapons, we were making a serious dent in the oncoming missile barrage. We were getting to them before they were able to split.
There were only three of the enemy’s missiles left, and I began to think we might actually make it. I should have known better. One of the three blossomed into thirty-six warheads.
To his credit, Commander Conner got all but two of the nukes… but those two nukes were enough.
WHUUP! The ship spun wildly. The lights flared and went out. Emergency lighting came back on immediately, which was a vast improvement over the last time we had lost main power. The smell of ozone filled the bridge, and a handful of small electrical fires started which were quickly extinguished by automatic fire suppression systems.
“Bridge, this is Engineering. The reactor is dead. All we’ve got are battery backups.”
“Understood,” Tanny replied. “How long to get it back online?”
“Captain, give me a space dock, the right equipment, and a couple of weeks, and maybe I could get it back online. Out here with what we have… Captain, it's just not going to happen. I’m sorry.”
“No apologies necessary. You and your team have gone above and beyond. Get your people to their escape pods. There’s nothing more you can do here.”
As Tanny terminated the connection to Engineering, she opened a ship-wide channel. “It’s time ladies and gentlemen. You have all done a stellar job. That said… All hands, abandon ship. Repeat, all hands abandon ship, Captain Mumba out.”
Tanny turned to face me and then took a quick glance around the bridge as if she was trying to memorize it. She knew what she was going to do next, and she knew that, ultimately, she was not going to win the day.
“Abandon ship. Respectfully that includes you, Admiral.”
I shook my head. “You know the Diaspora has one weapons system left… the ship itself. We have to do everything we can to ensure that this ancient weapons platform never becomes operational again. Somebody has to tweak navigation all the way in to make sure we hit the right spot on that moon.”
“I’m the Captain, Admiral. The responsibility is mine.”
I smiled at my friend for what might be the very last time in this plane of existence.
“I’m the Admiral, Captain.” Turning slightly, I addressed the other officer in the room. “Commander Connor, you are to escort the Captain to the Azul colony where she is to take command. If she refuses to accompany you voluntarily, you are to arrest her and carry her if need be. In either case, she is to take command of the survivors. Do you understand and acknowledge your orders?”
“Yes, Admiral. And sir, might I say it has been an honor serving with you.”
“The honor has been mine… both of you.”
I unlatched the restraint on the hover chair and carefully stood. Tanny stood at the same time and, with Commander Conner, executed a letter-perfect salute. I returned it.
We stood there facing one another for the briefest of seconds before my friend stepped forward to give me a very unmilitary hug.
“Admiral,” she began through tears.
“Shush. There is nothing you can say that I don’t already know. You are the finest officer and Captain to have ever served this ship and to have ever served me. More than that… you have been and always will be my friend.
Now go and make a life for our people. And Tanny… tell my son that his mother and I are very proud of him.”
***
Over the next two hours, I carefully adjusted the Diaspora’s course so that our impact point would correspond to the location of the alien machine of war that had attacked us. I had no idea if the Diaspora’s death would be enough to ensure the machine’s destruction, but it was the best I could do.
My joints ached, and my back hurt. I had stopped taking the pain meds that the doctor had prescribed. I wanted to face my end with a clear head. The moon was growing rapidly on the forward viewscreen. It wouldn’t be long now.
I knew I would see Lori soon. Strangely, I wondered if I would see Arquat too. I wondered if alien AI’s had souls…
*** This ends the Prequel to Battleborn ***
The Battleborn series picks up the story of the Azul colony some five hundred and sixty-eight years in the future.
Battleborn (v1)
Copyright 2019 by Andrew Beery
I hate my job. It’s why I drink, and I drink a lot. I suppose that means I hate my job a lot. I kill people… and I’m damn good at it. I’m Battleborn.
Chapter 1: There is fire in the air
I spit out the blood in my mouth. I had to give the other guy credit. That was a fine right hook. Every bit as good as my mom used to give me. Of course, the best right hooks were the ones I landed on the other guy rather than the ones the other guy landed on me. My dear departed mother had always taught me it was better to give than receive. It’s unlikely that her cherished advice was meant to apply to bar fights but then she wasn’t a big fan of bars or fights in general.
My name is Tad Riker. I serve as a tactical weapons officer for the Wolves, but I was raised by the Stallions. The poor unfortunate reprobate who was even now feeling the wrath of my fist was serving as an armorer for the Stallions. That’s why I took this fight so personally… not that he was an armorer, but that he was a Stallion.
The masters drilled into our heads that the Battleborn… that would be permanently indentured soldiers like me… were loyal only to their specific corps. Since a soldier was never allowed to serve in his or her birth corps that meant we were trained to especially hate the tits that suckled us.
I disliked Snakes, Hawks, and Tigers but I loathed Stallions. Don’t get me wrong. Everybody entering bootcamp says they will never hate their birth corps, but the masters have centuries of experience adjusting the way a Battleborn thinks.
We were killers. We were born and bred to be killers. We were born and bred to kill the aliens that constantly threatened our very survival. Loyalty to the corps and queen of the Azulian Empire were all that mattered. That and a good beer.
It wasn’t until years later that I learned that the masters were simply other high-ranking Battleborn... essentially permanently indentured slaves like me. That the alien foe that the corps relentlessly trained to fight hadn’t been seen for over a century. Our entire Battleborn society was based on the lie of an imminent alien threat. Did I mention the need for a good beer?
I ducked under another swing. This guy had some serious staying power. I took another sip of the beer I was holding in my left hand. I decided I needed to end this thing before this jerk caused me to spill more of my drink. I didn’t have a lot of credits and after today’s battle in orbit around a worthless rock called Mudball, I needed to get good and drunk.
In point of fact, I had been working at getting drunk for several hours now. It was a skill I had been refining over the years. It had cost me my rank on several occasions, but that’s the price you pay for being a committed drunkard… which I most certainly was.
I carefully put my glass down on the counter and gave the barkeep a pointed look. He knew the score. Guard that beer as if his life depended on it… which it very likely did.
I turned back to the oaf that was trying to straighten my long-ago broken nose. He landed another one of those impressive right hooks. He went for a follow-up left hook, but I ducked it and did a foot sweep. As my hapless victim fell, he smashed into the bar… and my beer. That was a serious and life-altering mistake on his part.
I howled and was about to introduce the Stallion to his maker when a hand gripped my shoulder. This precipitated a series of events that do not represent me at my finest.
The hand was coming between me and my righteous wrath. That being the case, it needed to be removed. If the arm that was attached to it came along for the ride… well that was entirely incidental.
Before the person who had tried to restrain me knew it, they were flying through the air. Two more sets of hands grabbed me. Two more bodies went flying.
I think in the back of my mind I recognized that these jokers were the Queen’s Praetorian MPs but to be honest the few neurons in my head that were still working were more focused on getting back to that Stallion and addressing the issue of my beer.
A chair smashed into my back. I’m sure it was the type of thing that would leave a mark in the morning but for the moment it just meant there would be one less place for me to sit once I put down this uppity Stallion.
I spotted my target off to my left. He was being held by two MPs. That was very decent of them. I was not above a little help. My head was feeling a little woozy. As I started to make my way over so I could address my grievances with extreme prejudice, I felt a hypospray in my neck. This was odd because I had been given my annual vaccination boosters a month ago.
I made it about four more steps.
The MPs had the strangest looks on their faces. It was like they were watching Santy Claus in a girdle walk across the room. I was going to ask them what was going on… and to thank them for holding the horse for me… when I suddenly got very tired. I was thinking to myself… self… let’s just take a nap.
***
“Yeah, put that in the record as well. And don’t forget he just about killed the petty officer when he threw him across the room. Add that to the list.”
“What about the other two?”
“What about’m? They’re trainees. It’s not like they count for anything unless and until they survive training.”
I opened my eyes to a familiar sight. I was behind bars. That said, these were different than my normal accommodations. I was about to ask why I wasn’t in the wolf pen, the name we like to call our corps’ lockup, when my keepers noticed I was awake. One was thin as a rail. The other was, well let’s just be honest… fat.
Now to be fair, I have lots of friends that are rotund. They are happy and productive members of civilian society. Many of them serve me beer on a regular basis. That said, rotund and in the military are typically diametrically opposed.
The bigger of the two MPs looked at his watch and whistled. He was definitely aware that I was awake… and he was annoyed.
I saw the Praetorian Guard patch on his shoulder. Great. These were the Queen’s goons.
“Two hours and fifty-three minutes. Doc said we wouldn’t see your bright and shiny eyes for a good eight hours,” the MP who had checked his watch said.
“You drugged me?” I croaked through a decidedly sticky and dry throat.
“Whoa and he’s a rocket scientist to boot!”
I shook my head to clear the cobwebs. I had a fast metabolism, which is why I had to work so hard to get and stay drunk. It was either that or remember all the crap I had been forced to do in the name of the Queen. Of the two, I preferred an alcohol-induced stupor. What I was feeling now though was something different.
The taste in my mouth said I had been given a beta-hydroxy derivative of phenobarbital; maybe Nowdol or something similar. Part of the Wolfpack training included pharma skills. Knowledge was always the best weapon. Without it even the best tool was dull.
As far as why I awoke as soon as I did… as I said I have a fast metabolism. I’m also a big man. I’m 310 in my skivvies and not an ounce of that is fat. The Wolfpack believes in lean and mean. I had lean and mean down to a science. I had made offic
er three times and three times I had gotten myself busted down to private.
Turns out I had a fatal flaw that made leadership roles within the Wolfpack nearly impossible to hold. I had a conscience. I saw the faces of each and every soul we were ordered to extinguish at the behest of our glorious queen.
None of this answered the immediate question, however. Why was I here and not with my corps?
My keepers saw the look of confusion on my face. I could tell because they both started grinning like the idiots I knew them to be.
“He doesn’t know,” the smaller one said.
“No, I don’t think he does. Should we tell him or just let him figure it out on his own?”
“We’ve been branded!”
The voice was a familiar one and came from down the hall in a section of the lockup I could see. The voice was that of a certain Stallion who I suspected had a ‘Tad Fist’-sized black eye.
“Branded?” I said in disbelief.
I look at my left hand. My wolf insignia tattoo was covered with a red triangle. My heart nearly stopped. No Battleborn ever survived the red triangle. There was no greater dishonor. I was a Battleborn without a Corps.
The only way this ever happened was when your corps drummed you out. Colonel Michael must have finally given up on me. Too many bar fights. Too many second changes. The triangle on my hand meant I was no longer a Wolf. Translation, I was dead… my body just had not caught up with my new reality.
The best I could hope for was indentured service on one of the moons of Menaechmus to put food in my belly. Such a life was typically very short as the radiation on those worlds sapped a man’s strength in a decade or less. As I said, I was dead… my body just hadn’t caught up.
“I’m not hearing anything doggy. Does that mean you’ve seen the triangle? I’ve got one just like it on my hand. We are well and truly screwed.
I lowered my left hand. Somehow, I thought that if I stared at it long enough the red would disappear. It did not.
