Badlands

by Randal Sloan

  If you can in any way send help it would be very appreciated. Otherwise, I don't believe we have any chance of survival. I'm including our best estimate of the location where we must at least attempt to stand and fight. Daring out.

  Jarra didn't hesitate. She turned to Galen. "Get us moving to the exit point as fast as we can go and plot me a course to the location she indicated would be the most likely point they'll have to take their stand. And Galen, take us into the zeta band. We must get there in time."

  Jarra sent another message to her cousin even as their ship was already in motion.

  You saw the message from Amy. Get your ships moving as quickly as you can. Push them to the limit; Katarina is going to precede you to the location and attempt a delaying action until you can get there.

  You know the capabilities of this ship, but even we won't be able to hold out against all that firepower, so get there as quickly as you can. Jarra out.

  Jarra looked over at the rest of her team. "You're not going to like this, guys, but I need you to put back the controls we just took out of the reactor control system. We need to be able to fire our beam weapon and this time we can't risk scramming our reactors. We don't have time to stop the ship, so you're going to have to do it while we're running at full speed in hyperspace."

  That brought several groans but no one argued with her. They all knew it was just something they had to do. They had to do it if they had any chance to survive.

  #

  Thus began the most harrowing trip yet through the Badlands. Even their trip into the pirate lair seemed easy compared to it. Although the hyperspace movements at the zeta level weren't nearly as chaotic as they had been at the lower levels, they were oddly much stronger. Galen had to make nearly constant course changes to keep them from being swept off course.

  Jarra was also convinced of something else. There was just something about the zeta hyper band that didn't agree at all with humans. Jarra's theory was something about that level of hyperspace disagreed with the human psyche and she wondered if it got worse if a ship could go up to a higher level or if it smoothed back out. She had to hope that if they ever found a way to go to even higher levels, that mind bending feeling went away. Jarra should have known better than to think about such things.

  Nevertheless, Katarina and her small crew persevered. They knew they had to. As usual Galen did an outstanding job. Each time Jarra watched him, he seemed to get better at it. Galen for his part was wondering when he would reach his limit. Although difficult, this was still something that was within his skill set. Later, Galen would regret those thoughts.

  Perhaps someday, this small team would learn to stop challenging the galaxy that way. Because every time they did, they seemed to pay for it later. Only fate would decide if this time they'd carried it too far.

  Forty-four minutes later, Katarina dropped out of hyper into the area Amy had projected would be the battle zone. It had definitely been a difficult flight in some ways. Galen's lack of experience at flying in the zeta band showed, although he still did an amazing job. A lot of it was they knew just how much everything depended on them getting here on time.

  Neither group of ships had deviated from the proposed course and they were just minutes away from the battle that appeared would indeed be fought. Jarra knew they had to find a way to stop the pursuit in this hyperspace area. Once stopped, somehow Katarina had to hold them there until the calvary could arrive.

  Jarra had come up with a few ideas and she decided to try all of them. Because they were fighting deep within the Badlands, she didn't believe either the rebels or their alien partners would be able to launch a com drone to report the technology she was using, so that meant every weapon in her arsenal was available for use, even the ones that were so new they were still experimental. Even the ones she made up on the fly.

  Her first idea was to mine the path that exited from that area of space. Hyperspace had built up quite a wall on all sides except for the entryway and exit, and the exit narrowed considerably. If Jarra had been able to look at it objectively, she would have realized this spot looked very much like the eye of an atmospheric storm. Perhaps that would have helped her see the significance of the spot they had chosen to do battle. Instead, she could only work through her plans for defending her ship.

  They didn't have any mines, but they had quite a few stealthed missiles they had been planning to test on their initial mission. She set Sara and Gabo to adapting them for that task. The missiles would have to sit doggo until Amy and her ships passed and then activate and attack any ship that came near.

  "Galen," she asked, pointing to her VR display. "Think we can hide in this tiny little eddy until the group passes us by and then attack them from the rear? With our mines attacking them from the front, we might be able to catch them by surprise while they're looking ahead."

  "I'll have to adapt our anchor. That eddy ramps all the way up the zeta band so we'll have to anchor in that band." He shook his head. "That location will also limit our movement after we launch our attack."

  "I don't intend to move from that spot. We stand and fight until we have nothing left to fight with. At least it will prevent anything from hitting us from the rear or the sides."

  Gabo overheard the last of that conversation. They'd already figured out the steps to configure the missiles as mines and the rest of the work Sara and Sasha could do, which freed him up to work on other things.

  "If you're serious about that plan, I may be able to improvise an additional layer of defense. I would also suggest you have Galen set up the shields so that we have multiple layers instead of a single layer, using some of the power from the rear shields to support that. That will allow us to recycle sections of the shields to keep them working a little longer."

  "Do it," Jarra told them both. "We're not moving from this spot until our big ships have arrived or our ship is blown to bits. I promised Amy I would protect her and I will do it." She looked them both in the eyes. "I don't know how I know this, but I can tell you this is bigger than just us. Amy will be extremely important in our next mission, to the point the mission will fail if we don't have her."

  "It doesn't matter," Galen answered her with a sad smile. "We'd do the same thing if it was anyone else on our team, just as we're doing for Amy. We're family and family doesn't let family down."

  Jarra couldn't have been prouder of her team than at that moment. She just hoped they survived long enough that she got to tell them that.

  #

  On board the Relentless, Jason had moved to the main bridge as he no longer was required to manage multiple ships. Prince John and his staff had assumed that task. Instead, he moved to the navigation station so that he could back up the XO, who was doing the navigation of the squadron from his own station.

  Looking at the plot of the area in front of them, Jason desperately searched for a better course even as Commander Ashford worked his craft to the best of his ability. They just had to find a way to shave time off their flight. As it was, Katarina would be alone for more than ten minutes and that was just too long. Maybe Jason had been hanging around with Jarra's team too long because he thought he saw something.

  "We have to get there faster," he told the Commander. "What if we use this shortcut I flagged?"

  "I saw that," Jack told him. "We can't get all the ships through there. The effects of the super-dreadnoughts passing through will collapse the path before the cruisers can get through."

  "I don't care," Jason replied. "Send them around the other way. That will get us and the Dauntless there at least two minutes sooner."

  "It will severely limit our ability to defend ourselves. We'll be fighting alone for those two minutes. What if they don't take out that monitor?"

  "Oh, it's dead. The Princess will attack it first with everything she's got and then she'll start on the next ship down in size. That gives our other ships the best chance of survival if the rest of us fail."

  Jack nodded. "You're right. That's
what I'd do and that's exactly what she's going to do. I'm informing the Dauntless of our plans. That way the Crown Prince can decide if they're willing to take the same risk as us."

  Jason smiled. "Yes, sir. It's your duty to explain it to him, but you know as well as I do what he'll do."

  "Exactly. The Crown Prince is made of the same stern stuff as our Princess and the rest of her family."

  "They're all quite special, aren't they? I suspect if the Empire does survive this, it will be because of that family."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The Final Battle

  Jarra had been communicating with Amy as she brought her band of escort ships across the area of space they'd selected for their final battle. That meant they had the course planned carefully so as to produce the most effect when the rebel ships ran into the line of improvised mines.

  The rebel commander played right into their hands too. The lighter units in his squadron had gradually pulled slightly ahead of the rest of the ships due to their higher speed capabilities and he hadn't reeled them in. Normally in a pursuit of an enemy, it was SOP that a squadron should proceed as a unit and they had failed to follow that SOP. Jarra intended to make them pay for that mistake, just as she was paying for her bad decision to leave her own lighter units apart from their squadrons.

  Jarra didn't really want to do it, but they had decided to let those lighter armed rebel ships through before closing the door with the mines. Amy and her group of ships would have those ships outnumbered and they would be able to deal with them themselves. Jarra could only hope their casualties weren't too bad.

  That left Katarina to deal with that monitor and a considerable number of heavy cruisers. She knew they were fortunate that the rebels didn't have any super-dreadnoughts, but she still felt overwhelmed by it all. Even if she could destroy or disable at least a couple of the cruisers with the mines and they could take the monitor ship out with their beam, that still left a lot of cruisers. That many cruisers could put a lot of missiles into play, missiles that they wouldn't be able to dodge since they were going to be anchored in place.

  Part of Jarra wanted to change her mind about their plan to use that location, but she couldn't come up with anything better. After all, the cruisers would be able to target them anyway, no matter where they chose to fight. At least this let them use Gabo's directional defense.

  The real reason Jarra didn't want to move was that she had a very strong feeling about this spot. She'd felt it the second they dropped out of the zeta run. Something told her that it was the only way they would survive, but not only that, it was extremely critical to this war they were fighting. That didn't make any sense to her, but she couldn't shake it.

  Jarra didn't verbalize any of her deep thoughts. Instead, she let the team finish their last minute preparations as the seconds ticked down. It wouldn't be long now.

  #

  Amy and the group of Imperial ships flashed through the section of space chosen for the battle. Because Jarra had sent her detailed scans the Imperial ships were able to briefly increase their lead over the pursuing ships. As they had expected, the pursuing rebel light units opened the distance between them and the others even more.

  Jarra had determined that it would be best for Amy to be the one to activate the mines. That way they could be sure there weren't any accidents. Amy hated the very thought of sending that signal, but she knew she had to follow her orders, orders direct from her Princess. Anyone else and she'd probably have questioned that order. It terrified her to leave the Katarina all alone to face those ships, even knowing what their ship could do, but she didn't have any choice. All of her squadron of ships depended on her.

  Amy sent the signal and the trap was set. Jarra couldn't help but wonder just who had trapped who, but she shrugged her shoulders. It was done.

  As she already knew, the rebel ships were undisciplined and the commander had done a poor job in his control of the squadron. That meant that when the first ship struck the improvised mines, the others were slow to respond. Several others plowed deep into the minefield, setting off a cascade of explosions.

  Jarra couldn't believe it. By the time the explosions stopped, two cruisers were completely destroyed and a third one was more or less disabled. Several others had suffered moderate damage. Much better than she had believed possible, but it still wasn't enough. The rebels still had a tremendous amount of firepower facing her.

  Even as the rebels plunged into the trap, the Katarina had been busy, launching missiles as fast as she could, all aimed at the monitor ship. These weren't ordinary missiles either. Another set of experimental missiles, these missiles had an extremely high acceleration curve and they packed a heavier payload than normal. Unfortunately, the Katarina could only launch so many at a time. Jarra knew it wasn't going to be enough by itself.

  Then they fired their beam, aimed at the weakness in the shield the missiles had produced. This time the safety controls were in place so the beam was not as strong as the last time and it couldn't be maintained as long. It was almost enough, penetrating the monitor's shields and burning deeply into the ship. But nothing vital was struck.

  Jarra shook her head. They hadn't expected it would work the first time. Rinse and repeat, that was their strategy. A second round of missiles struck the monster, aimed once more at the weakness in the ship's shields. The second strike was a lot more effective, almost taking out the shields in that section, the area already damaged by the first strike. Once more, Katarina fired her beam into the weakness, this time the beam burned deep into the ship, setting off a round of explosions.

  Jarra held her breath but it wasn't enough. The ship was still there! Wounded, the ship's captain had finally figured out where his tormentor was hiding and he was smart enough to turn the damaged section away. He also sent his own flight of missiles at them, a huge number intended to overwhelm and kill a super-dreadnought.

  That was almost the end. If they'd been out in the open, it would have been. But only so many missiles could fit into the amount of space available and a large number of them simply crashed into the hyper walls, immediately disintegrating into their individual molecules. Gabo and Sara's defenses also came alive. Decoys shot out, pulling another group of missiles away and defensive missiles sprang up to knock even more down.

  Even with all the natural and man-made defenses, countless missiles plunged in at their ship. Her shields flashed instantly to bright red. If only one layer of shields had been there, they wouldn't have held. As the first shield layer collapsed, the second layer flashed into being, holding back the onslaught as long as it could, giving way only when it couldn't hold to a final layer.

  It was close. Somehow, the shields held, although their ship was shaken by the tremendous explosions that fell upon them. Jarra knew they couldn't take another blow like that one. They dared not wait any longer. She had hoped to keep their last weapon in reserve, but there was no choice. They had to kill the beast now. She sent a signal out.

  Jarra knew it was a desperation move. They didn't even know if it would work; she'd thrown the idea out and her team had done their best to make it happen. Lodged in the hyperspace wall next to their ship was their tiny shuttle with their spare hyperspace engine crammed in as its only cargo. They'd had to strip the seating out of the shuttle to even get it in there.

  On her signal, the hyper engine opened a window to hyperspace and channeled a tremendous flow from the zeta hyper level. It was crudely aimed and probably would have missed a normal target, but that ship was huge and they'd turned toward the Katarina, planning to strike their own fatal blow. At the same instant, Katarina fired her beam, aimed for the same location the hyper flow struck the ship.

  Even with the alien power technology, the monitor ship's shields had never been modified to handle zeta level frequencies. To the zeta wave, the shields might as well not have been there, crashing into the ship's hull and disintegrating everything they touched. Into this maelstrom of energy, the beam struck, bu
rning its way through the ship to reach deeply within. Not even this monster could handle such an attack, as explosions racked the ship.

  Somehow the ship was still there when the hyper engine finally burned itself out and the Katarina's beam cut off, but it was a complete wreck. If the Imperial forces had been able to search for survivors, they would have found a handful and they would all be consumed by their visions of the horrors of raw zeta hyperspace. There was definitely something about the zeta level that humans didn't like. Some never recovered their sanity. The rest probably wished they hadn't.

  Frozen momentarily by the horror of what they'd just seen, the remaining ships in the rebel squadron sat there in shock and disbelief. Jarra too was shaken by the terrors she'd just released, but she knew it wouldn't take long for the rebels to regroup. By her estimation, their own forces rushing to assist were still minutes away.

  "Target the nearest cruiser with missiles and fire the beam as soon as they reach their target," she instructed Gabo. Himself frozen, Gabo instantly followed her instructions, their weapons lashing out to strike the cruiser unlucky enough to find itself in that position. Not protected by shields even marginally as powerful as their big companion, that ship instantly exploded at the onslaught.

  Gabo had already selected the next ship and sent the attack on the way, but that ship managed to break contact with the beam. Nevertheless, it was severely damaged and out of the fight for the moment. The next attack was even less successful, the ship taking damage but still in the fight. The rebels had finally figured out the limitations of the beam. A moving target was difficult to hit with a beam and even harder to keep it locked on.

  This is it, Jarra knew. She remembered a documentary VR she'd watched as a child. A pack of predators had cornered a larger predator and they were working together to pull it down. At first the more powerful beast had caused the most damage, slashing out with his claws whenever one of the pack came within its range, causing severe damage and even knocking some of them out of the fight. But the beast had tired quickly and the pack had gathered to make a sudden lunge to finish him.