Shadow Stars (Universe on Fire Book 2)

by Ivan Kal

  The DMC had used to hire a two-ship team to protect their convoys, but the last pirate attack had damaged one of the mercenary ships, and the two captains had dropped out of the deal. The DMC had been forced to find someone else to protect their convoy. Aiko had taken the job, even though the Prometheus usually charged far more than what the company could pay them. The truth was that they hadn’t had a job in a few months. The Prometheus was in a class above most other mercenary ships, and most didn’t have the credits to pay for their worth. Her crew had been getting bored, so she had decided to take the job anyway.

  “Exiting the wormhole now,” Commander King reported.

  Aiko turned her eyes to the screens as the Prometheus exited the wormhole and entered normal space. “Scans?” she asked.

  “We are not detecting any unusual activity, Captain. The system seems calm,” the sensor officer reported.

  “Keep an eye on things. Get us in position above the wormhole—I want us to be able to cover the convoy as soon as they arrive,” Aiko ordered.

  If there were any pirates in the system, she they would see them soon enough. She wondered if pirates were in fact here, and if they were in a position to do something. Charting a wormhole trip was simple math; a wormhole couldn’t be opened too close to a planet, but it was also rarely opened too far away. Ships, especially privately owned or cargo ships, had to conserve fuel and reduce the costs of trips. That meant that there were only so many places where they could open a wormhole. Opening it too far away might make you safe from any ambush, but aside from requiring far more fuel to reach your destination in system it also made it more likely that pirates would reach you. The longer the travel time between the wormhole and your destination, the greater the chance for any ship to chart an intercept course.

  Just as she was starting to relax, Aiko’s sensor officer spoke out.

  “Two new contacts, Captain. They are on an intercept course.”

  Aiko looked over to her board and saw the two unidentified signatures coming from around one of the gas giant’s moons. She grimaced, and as their sensors picked up more data she could see that the two ships were clearly pirates. They were a light cruiser and a heavy cruiser, both rectangular with four stubby wings, which identified them as Farasi built. The Farasi were a star nation bordering the Zhal Confederation, a midsized nation with a capable military. Their ships weren’t the best built, but they were solid. A quick look through the database showed her that the two ships were of a previous generation.

  They stood little chance against the Prometheus, but Aiko had found that pirates rarely used their heads. The heavy cruiser was just over three hundred meters long, and around 600,000 tons—less than the Prometheus, which stood at 308 meters in length and 250 wide at the widest point of its hammer shape, and weighed 700,000 tons. The light cruiser was 400,000 tons and just under 200 meters long.

  Together they out-massed Aiko’s ship as well as outnumbered it, and she could see why they would think that they had a chance. Prometheus’s reputation hadn’t spread too far yet, but she was certain that they had scanned her ship. They would be able to tell that it was made out of kotarium alloy—that alone should tell them that they were outmatched. But Aiko knew that the pirates’ greed would make them imagine a future where they had taken over her ship.

  As the cargo ships started coming through she turned to her communication officer. “Warn them off, and let the convoy know that there are pirates in system.”

  The comm officer turned to her board and half a minute later turned back around. “The convoy acknowledges the message. There is no response from the pirates as yet.”

  Aiko debated giving the pirates a bit more time, but she really didn’t like dealing with their kind—and she doubted that there would be a response. She looked on her board and saw the two ships split up and set a curved trajectory to intercept her ship.

  “Launch fighter squadrons—they are to target the heavy cruiser. How long until the light cruiser is in range of our missiles?” Aiko asked.

  “Less than a minute, Captain,” Commander King answered.

  Aiko tapped her fingers against the armrest of her chair, then spoke. “Lock on a single salvo, fire as soon as they enter the range. Oh, and get as detailed scans of their hulls as possible. For the bounties.”

  ***

  Captain Kane Reinhart sat in the cockpit of his mech-frame Leviathan. As soon as orders came from Aiko he launched his mech-frame and exited into space, followed closely behind by two squadrons of Havoc fighters and two more mech-frames.

  “All craft engage full thrust,” Kane ordered and did the same. Leviathan surged forward followed by two squadrons. He glanced on his board, seeing the two wall formations move in sync one above the other. The two other mech-frames were in the other formation, and Kane paid extra attention to them.

  They were piloted by Lieutenant Imari Okoye and Lieutenant Commander Erika Hansen, two of the three rookies assigned to him when Prometheus began its mission years ago. The other he had lost to the Val’ayash—Lieutenant Darko Kovac had died on his watch, and Kane hadn’t even been able to recover his body. But he was not going to lose the other two. They were no longer rookies, but they still had much to learn, and Kane had been teaching them constantly over the last two years.

  Piloting a mech-frame was not like piloting a fighter; the major difference was that a mech-frame was piloted with one’s mind. Mech-frames were a merger of Earth technology and Ethorrian battle-golem scripts. The mech-frames were in fact awakened battle golems, which their pilots controlled through the use of a mental spellscript. It was a hard skill to master, because the pilot had to be focused on using the spell to fly and move the mech as well as use their hands to operate Earth technology and weapons, as well as having to pay attention to the many screens in front of them.

  He shook his head and put those thoughts aside. He needed to focus on the fight. Just as they crossed the halfway point to the pirate ship, it opened fire. One hundred and fifty missiles left its hull on their way to the Prometheus. Kane debated ordering half of his squadron to intercept the missiles, but a few quick scans told him that the enemy missiles weren’t a large threat. Instead they did nothing and continued on their course, leaving Prometheus to deal with the missiles. As they closed the distance to less than a hundred thousand kilometers he opened a channel to his second in command.

  “I’m thinking that we should go in fast and hard, execute attack pattern delta,” Kane said over the comms.

  “I agree, but we could perform a slight alteration and close the distance faster,” Commander Wang Shu Jiang said. “We are going to be in range for a triple blink in less than a minute,” she added.

  Kane thought about it. Attack pattern delta utilized a double blink to close the distance, which was usually enough to take any opponent off guard. The magi-tech that human ships possessed was something that no one else had; it was an impossibility made possible only by magic. “All right, we’re doing it.” He closed the channel and then spoke on the squadron comms. “Attention all craft, we are executing a triple blink to close the distance on my mark. Program the jumps now.”

  Kane waited and watched his screens for the right time, and then when they were forty thousand kilometers away from the pirate cruiser, he gave the order. “Execute the blinks, now!”

  Forty fighters and three mech-frames disappeared in a flash of blue light appearing five thousand kilometers ahead. A moment later they executed another blink, and then one more. With their full thrust, they closed the distance to almost twenty thousand kilometers and with the pirate cruiser speeding forward that distance was closing rapidly.

  Kane knew that the pirate crews were confused, supported by the fact that their point defense was yet to engage even though his squadrons were already in range of them. And so he took advantage.

  “All craft, fire the first salvo,” Kane ordered and did the same.

  Missiles left their launch tubes and sped toward the pirate heav
y cruiser. Forty fighters and three mech-frames fired ten missiles each—in Kane’s mind, it was overkill. The pirates had no idea what was happening. Their point defense came to life, but it was too late and the human missiles’ ECM was too good. The pirate ship was torn apart by the missiles.

  They hadn’t stood a chance.

  ***

  As the Prometheus’s fighter squadrons sped away toward the heavy cruiser, Aiko turned her attention to the other ship. The light cruiser was just about to enter the three-hundred-kilometer range, the max range of human missiles.

  “Fire one salvo,” Aiko ordered, and a moment later one hundred striker missiles left her ship.

  The ship missiles were larger and more powerful than the ones carried by the fighters and mech-frames; they had larger yields and more fuel that allowed them to be fired at larger distances. As the salvo traveled toward the light cruiser, Aiko waited in silence for the pirates’ response. They didn’t fire their missiles immediately, which told her that they had inferior ones. Then as the two pirate ships reached within 200,000 kilometers of Prometheus, they both opened fire. The light cruiser fired eighty missiles and the heavy cruiser another one hundred and fifty—around two of Prometheus’s salvo’s worth of missiles.

  “Evasive maneuvers. Start putting some distance between us and the missiles,” Aiko ordered, and her ship started turning and thrusting in another direction. They couldn’t evade the missiles, of course, but they could make them chase after them, giving their point defense a bit more time to take them down.

  She watched as Prometheus’s missiles reached the light cruiser and their point defense sprang to life. They started taking down her missiles, but from the start the result was clear. The human missiles were too advanced, and the pirates’ point defense too inferior. Thirteen missiles passed through their defensive fire and exploded against their hull. Somehow the ship managed to survive, but just barely—it was crippled. Then the pirates’ missiles entered the range of the Prometheus’s point defense and she turned her attention away from the enemy light cruiser.

  Prometheus started spewing fire as its laser point defense targeted the missiles, and its electronic countermeasures hacked into others. The pirate missiles swerved off course or were blown up by precise laser fire. In less than a minute, the point-defense fire had taken down all enemy missiles.

  On her screens she saw the results from her squadrons attack on the heavy cruiser. It had been destroyed in their first attack. That didn’t surprise her much. No alien race or nation had fighters; they were impossible to make and use without magic, and only humanity had the knowledge of the techniques that made them possible. The fighters were one of Earth’s greatest advantages.

  “Target the remaining pirate ship with our laser turrets,” Aiko said. The international laws regarding piracy were harsh in this area of space. Every nation agreed that they were a blight on space travel, and that they should be killed on sight. Aiko didn’t have much trouble with that, and most star nations or organizations offered bounties for recorded kills.

  “We are locked on, Captain,” the weapons officer reported.

  Aiko nodded to herself. “Fire.”

  ***

  Kane raised the glass and downed the rest of his drink, then slammed the glass against the table. Aiko raised an eyebrow and he grinned at her.

  “We need to get some of this for the ship,” Kane said.

  “That is the last thing that we need,” Aiko told him. It had been a long time since the two of them had gone out on a date, and although a rundown bar on a barely colonized planet wasn’t her idea of a perfect date, she was glad that they had found the time. Ever since they had liberated Earth, they had been living away from it. When they had first gotten this mission she’d had a far different vision in her mind for her career—but their supervisors had a different idea for the Prometheus and its crew.

  They had been ordered to go back to Jar Allera, make the alien trading port their home, and then live. Live among the aliens, take jobs, be a privately owned ship, a ship owned by a married couple. It was quite common out here, in the systems not claimed by any nation. Families owned and operated merchant ships, mercenary ships, and everything else. As Aiko and Kane had been together for a long time, there wasn’t much acting required. They’d even gotten married, and were registered in Jar Allera’s systems as a married couple. Marriage had been largely abandoned back on Earth, as people who cared for each other and wanted to spend their lives together just did so, without a piece of paper telling them that they could.

  But there were similar arrangements out here, and it just seemed easier. It was one less thing to worry about in their mission—a mission that Aiko still didn’t know how to feel about. They were spies, at least in intention if not really in practice. In truth, they were the decoys. The Zhal Confederation knew that the Prometheus answered to Earth, and they were observing them. The Prometheus’s actions and presence were out here to keep their attention on them, and not on the real spies which Earth had been sending out ever since they had acquired the ability to do so.

  It was not a glorious job, and the morale on the Prometheus had suffered for it. After everything that they had done for Earth, it seemed almost as if they had been abandoned. Their crew had been cut down, and their only mission was to live. As they had done so, the crew of the Prometheus had transformed from a tightly run military crew to something else, a more relaxed crew of friends and family.

  Aiko knew that she couldn’t stop it, and even the admiralty knew, and they had allowed it to happen.

  She might not really like the way that the admiralty was using the Prometheus, but she understood. One more carrier wouldn’t really help much back in Sol, and the Ares-class ships were better than the Prometheus in every way. She was certain that they didn’t have to deal with all the bugs that came with being the first magi-tech and conventional tech hybrid ship.

  But at least she got to spend more time with Kane.

  “What is it?”

  Aiko snapped out of her thoughts and met Kane’s eyes. He was looking at her with an expression that she knew all too well. For just a moment she thought about saying that everything was fine, but Kane knew her better than that. And they did not have any secrets between them, not anymore.

  “It’s just… Everything.” She waved at the rest of the bar. Alien miners sat at their tables, drinking and laughing loudly. A few tables were occupied with some of the crew from the Prometheus. It looked like any other bar.

  “I know, we didn’t sign up for this. I understand that you feel like we are being wasted here, that we could do so much more. But these are our orders, and we have value. We are still sending back intel, and we are learning about how things work out here. Earth needs to know these things if we are to have any hope of surviving among so many alien races.”

  “I know that it might be wrong for me to say it, but I just feel like we deserved better. I mean, we…” Aiko trailed off, not wanting to voice her feelings.

  “We saved Earth.”

  Aiko nodded. “Yes, and I can’t help but feel that as a reward we were just let loose, exiled. We have little-to-no contact with Earth, we live among aliens. We are not even acting like a real military ship anymore—and I guess we aren’t, not really.”

  “I know what you mean, and I feel the same. But you know that isn’t really true. We are an important asset to Earth.” Kane reached over and took her hand in his.

  “Of course.” Aiko smiled. “It just gets to me sometimes.”

  Kane nodded in agreement. She knew that he felt the same. He had been bred for war, trained since childhood to fight and use magic. He was an instrument of war that had been meant to liberate Earth. He had succeeded in his mission, and now he felt as she did—without a purpose.

  A loud crash brought their attention to the other side of the room. A small girl, an alien of a race called Ranna, stood still, her already large eyes bulging in fear. She had deep burgundy skin, and a wrist-thick
hair-like mane covering her head. The tiny girl looked at a tall alien miner of a race that Aiko was not familiar with. He was intimidating looking, wide with two sets of arms and a triangular head, with skin that gave off a faint yellowish glow. His torso was wet, and a broken glass lay by his feet.

  “Oh no,” Aiko said as she moved to stand, but Kane stopped her by grabbing her hand. “We’d better take care of that,” Aiko told him. The alien girl was a part of her crew, and she was their charge, their responsibility. And Aiko knew that the former slave girl was still not comfortable in dealing with people.

  “Look.” Kane pointed, and Aiko’s eyes followed his finger. She saw a tall person walking in the direction of the girl and the alien. The alien leaned down and said something to the girl as she had her head turned toward the ground, cowering. The alien raised an arm to strike her and then the newcomer caught his wrist.

  The alien looked at the tall, green-skinned woman and said something, and the Wanderer O’nga Uhra said something back. She released his arm, and they spoke for a while, until the alien took a swing at her. A moment later his face met with a table and he dropped to the ground, unconscious.

  The entire bar was silent. The quiet lasted for a few moments, until the other miners stood and moved.

  “Well, crap,” Kane said as the bar descended into chaos. A bar fight erupted and Aiko just barely managed to follow O’nga as she gathered the girl and pushed her way out of the bar.