by Dean Henegar
“Anyone have any insight into how these motherships are set up?” Slater asked.
“Not really. They can all be a bit different, as gnomes love to tinker with their ships and gear. No two are built to the same standard,” the lieutenant added. It wasn’t much to go on, and the time to stop the gnomes was running out. Even his fairly modest sensor suite could tell they were approaching a jump point. How far away it was and how much time he had left to catch his prey was a mystery.
Making his best guess, Slater figured the bridge would be somewhere in the middle of the long vessel. The rear had the drives and the first three boarding hatches. No way the gnomes would want potential boarders that close to their bridge. Ditto with the bow and the three hatches there. He would take a crack at destroying the main drive to start with and was fairly confident he wouldn’t be destroying the star charts by doing so. He waited until he closed to within optimal range and fired off a pair of railgun rounds at the fleeing ship. Sensing his fire, the mothership began evasive maneuvers, and both rounds missed.
After another three attempts at a hit, Slater was able to predict the direction of the next dodge, and a single railgun round slammed into the aft of the vessel. The shields on the ship glowed as it barely shrugged off the hit. His follow-up volley landed both rounds and easily punched through the weakened shields. The engines flared briefly before dying. Atmosphere vented from the aft, and flames roared for a moment before the blaze was snuffed out from a lack of oxygen. Just to be sure, Slater hit the same spot again as he now rapidly overtook the mothership. He placed single shots into two of the aft boarding points, hopefully causing casualties among any defenders. He did the same at the bow, leaving him two possible points to board the mothership.
Nearing boarding range, he used his smaller point-defense weapons to take out the mothership’s maneuvering thrusters, making docking with the ship that much easier. After thinking it over, he decided to use the docking port located at the bow of the vessel, concerned there might be significant destruction in the aft section where the engines were housed and not wanting his MOBS to have a hard time finding their way around destroyed passageways.
The Franklin docked without any problems now that the mothership lacked any way of maneuvering. For the first time, Slater was the aggressor in a boarding action. To prepare, he moved five of his eight squads of kobolds up to the boarding area. He left the remaining three squads to defend the barricades just in case the enemy proved more powerful than he anticipated. To keep an eye on things, he had a drone follow the kobold taskmasters, giving him the ability to watch each of his squads as they fought to capture the enemy vessel. His MOBS had a better link with him than they had previously, but the drones were superior for observation and enabled him to pipe any video to the rest of the crew.
The hatch leading to the gnomish ship was locked down, but with an application of stolen tech in the form of the new hatch-unlocking device, he was able to open it for his kobolds. His first two squads formed up near the hatch. The other three assaulting the ship moved back into the main passageway to protect them from fire until the entryway was taken. Once an initial foothold was secured, they could spread throughout the ship. The hatch cracked open a few inches, just enough for a kobold taskmaster to reach his arm through and toss a grenade inside.
When the grenade went off, the kobolds began their assault. A weak volley of laser fire met them as they entered. Three gnomes stumbled forward to attack, partially stunned by the exploding grenade. Near the entry hatch, two gnomes lay dead from the grenade blast. It looked to Slater like he had been quick enough to engage the gnomes before they had a chance to set up an effective defense. Slater lost two kobold warriors before they finished off the trio of defenders and he got his first look inside of a gnomish mothership. The ship wasn’t too strange of a design: a single long passageway connected the bow to the stern, and various compartments branched off in either direction. Based on the size of the compartments, he assumed there was a second deck below this one.
His kobolds began clearing the ship. Two squads, including the one depleted in the hatchway assault, began to clear the few compartments remaining in the bow of the ship as the other three began to clear toward the aft. Since they hadn’t been met with a slew of gnomish defenders, he held out hope that their numbers had been depleted. As one of his drones scurried down the corridor, following the squads clearing toward the stern, Slater felt a connection to the gnomish ship. With his expanded core, he had unlocked the ability to tap into nearby networks.
Taking his view off the battle for the mothership, Slater explored the gnomish network. He was too inexperienced to break through any firewalls or heavily encrypted systems, but their video feeds proved easy to access, giving him a view from any camera on board. Looking through the mothership, he counted just over fifty gnomes remaining on board. Of those, only a half dozen or so looked like fighters, the majority seeming like ordinary ship’s crew. Nevertheless, each gnome was armed and appeared ready to fight.
He gave the necessary information to his boarding parties, pinpointing defenders, guiding them around strong points, and reducing casualties to a minimum. His troops would lead with grenades where they knew of resistance, then charge in and finish off the survivors. Seeing no horde of gnomes was waiting to counter-board the Franklin, Slater sent over two of the other three squads he had held back on defense. The one squad defending the barricade nearest to the boarding hatch was kept in place to prevent some enterprising gnome from deciding it was a good time to sneak on board with an explosive.
He found the bridge of the gnomish ship right where he figured it would be: behind a reinforced bulkhead in the center of the vessel. The gnome captain wore another of the ridiculous red conical hats and was shouting at her minions. The auto-translate feature of Slater’s core enabled him to listen in.
“You idiots need to get these kobolds off my ship! How dare some upstart kobolds think they can take on the Fitzfazzle clan. Someone tell me how a bunch of stupid kobolds got a hold of a human ship and weapons. Did they change sides for some reason?” the captain raged. Her minions kept their heads down and watched on their consoles as Slater’s kobolds steadily forced their way toward the bridge. His weakening core signal must have confused the gnomes and prevented them from realizing he was an active derelict.
“Sorry to tell you, Boss Fitzfazzle, but our boys don’t seem to be able to stop the invaders. What are your orders?” a weaselly looking gnome advised. He was visibly trying to contain his joy at the “boss” failing at her task.
“Well, little Fazzlemore, why don’t I tell you what you’re going to do. Head down to the cells and let out Varn. Let’s see how the kobolds deal with that thing,” Boss Fitzfazzle said to the now terrified-looking Fazzlemore.
“Yes, boss. Hey, you go down there and release Varn,” Fazzlemore said to another crew member, who also looked terrified at the prospect.
“No, Fazzlemore, I gave the order to you, and you’ll carry it out right now,” Fitzfazzle told her underling, her orders backed up with an ornately designed laser pistol pointed at the other gnome.
“Aye, aye, Boss Fitzfazzle, I’ll take care of it personally,” Fazzlemore said before running down to the lower decks.
The gnomes were about to release something that scared them all, something that Slater feared was about to go after his forces.
— 10 —
Slater searched the different cameras on the lower decks, several of which either had their feeds cut in the battle or, based on the lack of maintenance down in the lower decks, might not have worked for a long time before the fight. The gnomish mothership was a plain, functional thing. The poverty of the clan showed when you looked below the surface—or, in this case, looked on the lower decks. They were set up to hold the ship’s stores, which included broken and discarded equipment, and had one large compartment housing the ship’s brig.
The brig itself was oversized with six cells and enough room to house ov
er a hundred prisoners in total. The camera in the main passage through the brig area was operating, but only one camera facing the cells worked. The working camera revealed an empty cell containing the skeletal remains of some humanoid creature. Slater mapped the fastest route to the brig and sent the orders for the two squads he had pulled off of barricade duty to double-time it down there and stop the gnome Fazzlemore from freeing whatever this Varn thing was.
His kobolds were going to arrive too late, Slater realized as he watched Fazzlemore scamper down the corridor and enter a compartment next to the first cell. The camera in this room—which looked like a guardhouse for any gnomes watching the brig—was working, and Slater could see Fazzlemore hunched over a console and tapping away at the screen. With his hand shaking in fear, the gnome tapped a final button on the console and ran from the compartment as fast as he could. As Fazzlemore entered the main passageway, Slater watched the cell closest to the guardroom clang open.
Fazzlemore made it three steps down the passage as a creature emerged from the now-open cell and chased after the gnome. The beast stood up to its seven-foot height and let loose an ear-splitting roar. Black fur covered what Slater assumed was the Varn. To his eyes, the beast appeared to be the humanoid version of a black leopard. This Varn creature had been abused during its imprisonment and had one arm severed just above the elbow, the undressed wound dripping with infection. Scars and other open wounds covered its body, and it wore the tattered remains of a survival suit.
The Varn leaped down the passage toward the fleeing gnome. Fazzlemore and his stumpy gnome legs were not fast enough to escape the enraged beast, and once within reach, the Varn used its one good claw to grab onto the back of the now-shrieking gnome. Held in the Varn’s bloody grip, the gnome kicked uselessly at the creature holding it. The Varn’s fang-filled mouth shot down toward its prey, and with a sickening crunch, the Varn snapped the gnome’s neck and began to feed.
Slater’s first squad of kobolds arrived at the other end of the passage as the Varn happily chewed away at Fazzlemore’s tastier bits. The creature looked at the intruders and shrieked out a challenge before dropping its meal and charging Slater’s MOBS. The Varn’s eyes shone with madness and pain; whatever control and intellect it once possessed were gone, replaced with mindless rage. Slater’s kobolds raised their weapons and began to fire, missing the impossibly fast creature that bounced off walls and ceilings to avoid being hit. A final leap dropped the Varn into the middle of the squad, and the fight devolved into a frantic melee. Slater’s attention was pulled when the entire ship shuddered. Looking back in on the mothership’s bridge, Slater listened to the conversation.
“Punch us out now!” Fitzfazzle ordered.
“Aye, aye, Captain, but won’t the kobolds just shoot down our survival pods?” a gnome manning one of the consoles asked.
“Maybe, but would you rather wait for them to breach the hatch and kill us all? Better a small chance to live than a sure death,” Fitzfazzle replied. With a nod, the gnome began to activate more controls, and the ship shuddered even more violently.
“Send all the pods. Maybe they’ll target an empty one,” Fitzfazzle ordered as Slater moved his attention back to the battle with the Varn. The kobolds that had engaged the Varn were all down, torn to shreds by the beast. His second squad then arrived. The taskmaster assigned to it snapped out some orders, having several of his kobolds spray their weapons at full auto while the taskmaster himself and another kobold each prepared a grenade.
The Varn was hit by an incoming round. The lower part of one of its legs blew off, eliciting a scream of pain from the mad beast as it crashed into the assembled kobolds. With its powerful claws, the Varn began to take apart the second squad. Several of the kobolds extended arm blades and attacked but were outmatched by the powerful creature, which was deadly even in its wounded and abused state. The taskmaster and another kobold were knocked to the ground in the rush, both losing hold of the grenades they had been preparing to throw. The twin explosions ripped all the combatants to shreds, ending the threat of the Varn along with the entire kobold squad.
The mothership shuddered once again as the entire center section of the ship split into four; each section was an escape pod, one of which contained the bridge and most of the remaining gnomish crew. At the back of each escape pod, a small engine burned, pushing it away from the now-captured vessel. After a few moments, the engines used up what must have been a limited supply of onboard fuel and began to drift away at whatever velocity they had achieved. Slater tracked the section that held the enemy bridge and crew, which was heading back in the direction they had already traveled, deeper into the system.
An escape craft of that size couldn’t possibly hold a jump drive, and Slater presumed it must be heading toward other gnomish forces. The other pods represented a nice chunk of salvage, so he tracked their movements and planned to try and salvage them later after he had processed the mothership.
“Sir, are we going to let the gnomes get away?” Lieutenant Camden asked, watching the pods retreat from the area.
Slater thought about it for a moment before replying. “Yes, I think we will. You heard their conversations earlier. They had no idea my kobolds were MOBS and were confused about why kobolds would be running a human ship. If we let other gnomes rescue the bridge crew, we just might spread the story and cause a rift between the gnomes and kobolds. Perhaps even get the gnomes and kobolds to fight each other. It’s a long shot but better than trying to figure out what to do with that many prisoners.”
“I understand, sir. I hate letting them go, but if it gives us even a small chance to disrupt the aliens, it’s the right call,” Camden replied. The Franklin then began to shudder as the mothership moved violently.
Looking back at the mothership, Slater could see where the escape pod sections of the ship had weakened the poorly maintained hull to the point of failure. Only a metal frame now held the two halves of the vessel together. Poor maintenance or intentional mischief had damaged two of those sections of the frame, leaving stress cracks and bending them slightly. The lower section of the mothership had taken most of the exhaust blast from the escape pods, which pushed against it, twisting and straining the frame to its breaking point. With a snap, the two weakened sections gave way, and the lower half of the ship began to spin, twisting the remaining frame holding the vessel together.
Slater ordered his remaining MOBS to retreat to the Franklin as the hull was cracked open by the twisting ship explosively venting the atmosphere. Back in the mothership’s brig, the floor cracked and tore away, leaving the long passageway open to space. Blast doors sealed off three of the cells from the disaster, but the bodies—and more importantly to Slater—the possible pattern of the deadly Varn were being sucked out. He ordered his nearest drone, the one that had been accompanying the second squad, to latch onto the biggest chunk of the shredded carcass while anchoring itself to the deck. The other drone and the bodies of his dead MOBS flew past as they were sucked out, buffeting the drone that bravely held onto Slater’s prize. The little guy looked like he would do it when he was struck by a broken hatch, shattering the drone and allowing the last bits of the Varn to vanish into space.
To his horror, Slater watched as one of the blast doors on a cell came loose and a dozen humans were also sucked into the void. He ordered a team of drones in to reinforce the remaining two cells in case they also held human prisoners. The lower half of the mothership broke completely away from the top half, which was still attached to the Franklin. Luckily, the lower half drifted slowly and wouldn’t take too much effort to recover. A quick check revealed he had only seven kobold warriors and a single taskmaster left of his attacking force. Setting a pair of drones to begin printing up replacement MOBS and gear, he ordered the rest to repair the passage leading from the Franklin to the mothership’s brig, intending to rescue any survivors.
At the same time as his orders were being carried out, Slater used his maneuvering thrusters to c
onnect the Franklin’s other boarding hatch with the now free-floating lower half of the mothership. It took a bit of work, but he was eventually able to dock both sections to his ship, each half dwarfing his corvette-sized vessel. There should be enough salvage within this ship to enable him to upgrade the Franklin to at least the size of a frigate or perhaps even a destroyer. With no survivors to worry about, he ordered five drones to begin breaking down the half of the mothership that didn’t contain the brig. Slater was excited to find what he could glean from their jump drives and main propulsion systems. The section that his drones were processing also housed the ship’s computer core, which would hold the star maps and jump point locations he desperately needed.
“Sir, if there are human survivors in those other cells, it might be better for them to see a human face rescuing them instead of a kobold,” Doctor Cheng advised. She was right; he didn’t want any potential survivors to come face to face with what they knew as a hostile race until he had a chance to explain things to them.
“Good idea, but let’s have Lieutenant Camden take the lead on that. There still could be a threat housed in one of the cells,” Slater said, fearing that another creature like the Varn might be found. Of course, having another chance at getting the Varn’s schematic would be great if he didn’t lose any of his human crew in the process.
The soldiers geared up and followed his team of drones as they shored up the passage and sealed off the exposed end, allowing the atmosphere to be pumped into that section of the ship once more. Once the area was safe to open, the drones bored a hole into the first of the undamaged cell doors. A camera probe from the drone revealed an empty cell that looked like it hadn’t been used in some time. The drone then went to work on the second cell, boring a hole and inserting a camera. Inside, a small crowd of humans wearing naval uniforms and work coveralls huddled together in a panic. Lieutenant Camden then had the drone cut out a small section of the door so he could communicate with the humans inside.
