by Kal Spriggs
The Chandral Empire would be able to move in, to arrive in time to rebuild the damaged worlds of the apru. And in the process they would take those worlds for their own.
Rain fire down upon us, wash away my failures and kill my enemy, the one who ruined me. He closed his eyes and waited.
***
Colonel Michael Frost grimaced as his shuttle’s engines screamed to life. “Our force reports that the Guard Fleet Task Force has positioned themselves between the planet and our ships,” the pilot told him, even as Colonel Frost looked over the screens.
There was no chance of his ships engaging that force. No chance of them escaping, either, he quickly saw. Captain Ortega’s Task Group had gone to active drives and looked to be forming up to attack. His handful of cruisers and destroyers and single squadron of corvettes would be massively outnumbered and Colonel Frost wasn’t stupid enough to try to run the gauntlet of firepower to get to them.
The Canopus, though, lay outside that blockade. “Make for the Canopus,” Colonel Frost ordered. “Send orders our forces, tell the fleet to retreat.”
His pilot relayed that order, even as he pushed the shuttle’s engines to full thrust, both men sinking back into their seats under acceleration. We’ll just have to see what we can salvage from the situation.
***
Fenris noted that their ground force had retrieved Admiral Rao and was headed back to the shuttle while Guard Fleet shuttles were landing and looked to be cutting off the enemy ground forces from their shuttles. Most of them, anyway. One shuttle was powering up, either the pilot had determined that it was time to go or elements of the ground force had withdrawn already.
At the same time, however, things in space had taken a different turn. The Guard Fleet Task Group Javelin, led by Captain Ortega had gone to attack positions. The Guard Free Now ships, which he realized they must be, were bringing their drives online, too.
At this point, he had no reason to engage. The Guard Fleet looked to have the situation in hand, in space and on the ground. But Fenris was a hunter. More than that, those ships were above an inhabited human world. Vagyr might be a haven for pirates and illicit trade, but that didn’t mean every inhabitant was guilty of those crimes. A fight this close to the planet could be catastrophic to the planet if it went on for very long.
Fenris had been built to protect humanity, which meant he couldn’t just stand by and not take part.
Besides, he had his impressive new armament he wanted to try out.
He listened with some of his attention as Commodore Webb ordered both forces to stand down and be boarded. Captain Ortega’s group didn’t respond to that transmission with words. They opened fire. The cruisers and destroyers of his squadron lanced out with fire in all directions, some aimed at the Guard Free Now force, some at Admiral Mizra’s force, some at the planet itself.
They would have been better served to focus on one target, but maybe that was beyond Captain Ortega’s skill.
A couple of the lighter corvettes in the Guard Free Now force exploded, but the other ships in that formation returned fire, shooting at both of the Guard Fleet forces. Commodore Webb’s Task Force returned fire after only a few seconds delay.
Fenris noted how the ships of Commodore Webb’s Task Force had positioned themselves between the other two forces and the planet. The fire that might have hit the planet or stations orbiting it instead struck the warp drives of the Task Force. Perhaps not all of Guard Fleet was as rotten as the other examples he’d seen.
Fenris shifted his position to block a small gap, just in time to catch primary beams from one of the renegade Guard destroyers. He returned fire with the full weight of his entire battery of his heavy disruptors and the destroyer’s warp field collapsed as if it were nothing more than a soap bubble, even as the ship vaporized.
The cruisers had launched their warp missiles, a broad spread that seemed to go out in all directions and Fenris’s point defense and secondary batteries opened up, plotting probable courses and swatting the warp missiles out of space as quickly as he could manage. A half dozen or more still managed to slip past his fire, but the Task Force’s point defenses cleared those out before they could get clear.
Commodore Webb’s dreadnought swatted one, then another, and finally a third of the enemy’s cruisers. Fenris had a moment to appreciate the sheer, brutal power of the other ship and how well its crew fought it. They were merely human, but they smashed the enemy ships out of space with a mechanical precision that he could admire for its brutal simplicity.
The Guard Free Now force must have realized that they didn’t have the time or space to withdraw. One or two captains tried to flee, to get the space to bring up their strategic drives, but those ships were focus fired and they died before they could transition. Grouped in a bunch, they didn’t have room to safely switch their drive fields over and Commodore Webb’s force enveloped them, the edges of his formation circling around, firing as they came.
A few of those ships took hits in return, but the enemy fire from both forces lacked any coordination. Each ship fought as an individual, scattering their fire among the many targets and any ship that tried to coordinate was picked off almost instantly. Fenris’s pleasure for the fight vanished as it went from an engagement to a slaughter… but that didn’t mean he ceased fire.
There was no broadcasts of surrender, no please for mercy. Captain Ortega’s ships fought as if they were crewed by automatons. The Guard Free Now vessels fought desperately, futilely… but they knew that death awaited them if they surrendered.
Fields collapsed. Drives flared and erupted as megatons of energy overloaded them. Ships broke, shattered, and exploded. Fenris fired his primary and secondary batteries, working the flanks of the formation, until there were no more targets, until nothing remained of the enemy formations besides glowing clouds of gas and bits of debris.
Perhaps he should have felt satisfaction. Instead he just felt weary. This had been nothing more than a slaughter. Yet these men and women had tried to harm his crew, to destroy him, and in their wild, panicked fire, they had nearly struck the planet, nearly killed innocent civilians. Fenris felt no pity for them, they had received what they deserved.
It’s not enough, he realized. He needed something more than this. More than gunning down pirates and renegades. More than fighting for money. Mel had found her brother, found her cause. Fenris, though, had been made for the largest war humanity had ever seen… a war that had ended without him. He needed something more.
He wondered if he dared to hope this was the start of a greater war.
***
Punatra stared upwards, waiting, long after the fires in the early morning sky had vanished. He didn’t need to wonder why. He knew, knew with a dreadful certainty. He’d been outplayed. Someone had known his mission, someone had met his every move with a counter. That same person had unraveled his entire plan and no doubt had the weapon themselves now.
It had to be a Heirarch or one of their subordinates. No one else had known of his mission. No one else from the Chandral Empire would dare to interfere in a mission sent forth by the Heirarchs. That meant that one of their number schemed against the others, that one of them was either a traitor… or far more likely, sought to supplant their council by the rule of one.
It was a realization that made him quiver in terror. This could mean civil war among his people, a war the likes of which no one living had ever seen.
He owed it to the Empire to return, to give them warning. They would probably kill him for his failures, but they would at least know the threat they faced, an internal threat that they had to solve.
Punatra let out a shuddering breath and lowered his head. He would survive, he would bring his message home. And then, after the Heirarchs settled their internal issues, the Empire would return their attention to Guard Space.
Punatra wouldn’t see that day, but he would enable it. That would have to be enough.
***
Chapter 19
Time: 1000 24 February 292 G.D.
Location: Vagyr System, Harlequin Military Sector, Guard Space
Mel stood with her brother, by the docking bay, as Fenris brought their shuttle aboard. As the outer doors closed, she, Tank, and Rawn all stepped into the docking bay. As far as they knew, Rawn and his teams were the only surviving Guard Free Now personnel in the system. Rawn hadn’t cried any tears over that. He hadn’t told her much of what he’d experienced, but there were hard, harsh lines in his young face.
His teams had agreed to stand down after Fenris had made it painfully clear to them what had happened to the rest of their forces. Mel and Woodard had disarmed them and moved them to an empty storage area as a prison, but she had no idea what to do about them in the long term. They’d seen too much of the Fenris. They knew of Rawn’s existence, too, and at least some of them must realize his ties to her.
I can’t kill them out of hand. Some of them might deserve it, but Rawn had already spoken up for them. And they had surrendered, she couldn’t turn around and space them all.
The shuttle ramp dropped and down came their ground team. Swaim was talking excitedly, gesturing to show his turret firing. Brian Liu and Samantha Yewell were walking close to one another, talking softly and sharing smiles. Bob Walker wore a dazed expression, his face a mass of bruises.
Mel smiled as she saw them coming back aboard, coming home. But then she saw Marcus’s expression, saw the shock on his face, and her smile died.
***
Marcus’s world felt unsteady as he came down the shuttle ramp. Things hadn’t gone as expected. Admiral Rao was still alive, which Marcus supposed was okay. They’d managed to pull back to the shuttle. Bob Walker was back, which confused him. He’d thought they left the agent back on Harmony. Good riddance in Marcus’s opinion, but here he was. And Fenris had said someone had tried to board the ship, Marcus wasn’t even sure that was possible.
At least Mel was alive. She stood there, a light, a beacon in the darkness. Marcus felt relief wash over and through him to see her alive. In fact, she was better than alive, she was smiling in a way he hadn’t seen in months, maybe years. He didn’t understand that, thing had worked out well enough, but—
And then, as he stepped off the ramp, his eyes went from her to the man standing next to her. He was as tall as her, with matching blonde hair and blue eyes. Then Marcus understood. Rawn Armstrong.
In a second, his mind flashed through all the implications. Rawn had worked with Guard Free Now. His records would be throughout Guard Space. Guard Intelligence would be hunting him. Mel wouldn’t be able to protect him, to hide him. Sooner or later someone would identify him and then Mel’s cover would be blown. Rawn would drag her down, destroy her, and Mel would stick with him even so. He was family, even if he was the albatross that would drag her down.
Rawn had to die.
He brought his rifle up, knowing that Mel would never understand. But this was the only way he could protect her from herself.
***
Mel saw on Marcus’s face that he was going to go for his weapon. She didn’t hesitate. She drew Maggie in a smooth, clean motion, leveled the sights on Marcus’s face, and fired a single shot.
The sound of that shot seemed to echo back from the walls. Everyone stood frozen for a moment, then there was a thud as Marcus’s body hit the deck.
“Shit,” Woodard muttered.
Mel closed her eyes as she lowered her pistol. “He was going to shoot Rawn.”
“Yeah, but why?” Brian Liu walked over and rolled the dead man over. No one bothered to ask about medical attention. Mel’s Drakkus Tyvek Autopistol had automatically selected an explosive round. There was blood splattered in all directions and Marcus was very, very dead.
“He was trying to protect me,” Mel sighed. She holstered her pistol and looked around. “Fenris, if you could, uh, clean this up?”
“Of course, Mel,” Fenris answered, his gruff voice surprisingly gentle.
“Everyone else, report to the bridge, we need to work through everything,” Mel felt empty as she said it. Not angry, not sad, just tired and empty. She wondered if she could have done something else to stop Marcus, something non-lethal.
Nothing came to mind and she didn’t really regret it. Marcus had made his choice.
She turned away, but stopped as Aldera Kynes appeared in the hatch. She hadn’t emerged from her quarters even during the firefight, so it was something of a shock to see her standing there, her eyes red rimmed from crying. “Bob?”
She and Bob Walker rushed together in an embrace. Mel flushed a bit and looked away. Giving the two as much privacy as she could. “Uh, Bob, take your time, we’ll see you on the bridge when you can.”
She strode away, never wondering at the fact that she’d given him time and taken none for herself.
***
A few minutes later, Fenris had finished briefing them on the space battle and its immediate aftermath.
Mel stood near her command chair. Brian and Yewell stood so close to one another that they were nearly, but not quite, touching. Jeremiah Swaim stood a meter or so away from his mother, glowering at Brian, who seemed oblivious. Johnny Woodard stood close to Mel, an oddly reassuring presence for her. Rawn stood off to one side, well away from any computer terminals or ships controls, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders slumped, and his expression conflicted.
Fenris went on, filling them in on what had happened on the ground after they pulled out their shuttle, “Agent Scadden has said that his people have the situation well in hand on the ground. He’s marked the men that Brian and Miss Yewell encountered with Bob Walker for special investigation—"
“Tell him to burn the whole area,” Bob Walker interrupted, coming onto the bridge hand in hand with Aldera. “Treat the bodies with class one hazmat and incinerate everything, all the Guard Fleet crew members, the people we encountered at the crash site, everything.”
“Why is that?” Mel asked.
“They’re the same group that Giles belonged to,” Bob answered. “Very smart, very capable, extremely advanced and persistent bioweapons are guaranteed. Anyone who has been in proximity of the bodies should be given a full bioscan and anything out of the ordinary, any lumps, any abnormalities, should be surgically removed and incinerated.”
“It’s that—”
“That’s the minimum we can do,” Bob’s expression went distant. “Their leader got away, he went by the name of ‘Mister Bhutto,’ but that’s just a cover name. I’m… well, I’ll have some answering to do about that.”
“What are they?” Mel asked.
To her surprise, it was Samantha Yewell who answered her. “They’re called the Chandral,” she said. As everyone turned to look at her in shock, she gave a sardonic smile. “And no, I’m not one of them. I work with Agent Walker’s side in this, though I’m considerably higher in the organization.”
“I like a woman who takes charge,” Brian leered at her. She smirked back at him in a fashion that Mel could only classify as predatory.
“Ew,” Swaim muttered.
“There’s some details that we’re not authorized to share,” Yewell went on, looking around at them. “But they’re an offshoot of humanity that’s gotten very deep into genetic engineering and controlled evolution. They make use of parasites that can hijack higher brain functions, bioweapons that can kill thousands, even millions. They operate with biotech that most scanners won’t even recognize. They’re faster than a normal human, stronger than a normal human, and all around possessed of major superiority complexes.”
“You sure you aren’t one?” Johnny Woodard asked.
Yewell rolled her eyes. “Trust me. I’m much older than them. I’m a product of Earth’s biolabs from a long, long time ago,” her smile didn’t waver. “Though in the future, be advised that accusing someone of being a Chandral plant is about as insulting as you can be. They’re disgusting and their methods and morality is reprehensible.”
Brian gave a toothy grin, “Tank. I have a full appreciation of your fighting skills. I also saw her fight on the planet. Between you, me, and her? She’s probably the most dangerous one in the room.”
Mel’s eyebrows went up at that. She’d seen Brian fight missing an arm and riddled with bullets, “Are you serious?”
“He says the sweetest things,” Yewell leaned over and gave Brian a kiss.
“Mom, gross!” Swaim looked away.
“Sorry, sweetie,” Yewell flashed him a smile.
“I’ve relayed the containment protocols to Agent Scadden, he says he’ll do as advised, but I gather he has some questions,” Fenris said.
“We’ll handle those when we have time,” Mel said. “In the meantime, we’ve received a nice bonus from Vagyr’s Guard Fleet detachment for our ‘assistance’ with the Guard Free Now issue as well as dealing with their renegade element in the form of Captain Ortega,” she gave a humorless smile. She wasn’t really surprised to hear them label the officer as a renegade, but she privately wondered if they would have done the same if he’d successfully killed Admiral Rao.
“We’re running down the clock on the election, so I’m going to order Fenris to return to Harmony. We should get there right on time. Anyone have any questions?”
Brian and Yewell didn’t look away from one another. Bob and Aldera stood hand in hand, not looking at one another, but not really looking anywhere else. Swaim was busy glaring at Brian.
