by Marc Stevens
“Commander, I request permission to reconnoiter the hostile’s location.”
Before I could give her a response, Klutch chimed in.
“Kilo Four will cover Tango Two!”
I rolled my eyes and shook my head.
“Justice, evac Charlie Three back to base and go ahead with the Oolaran procedure. Set the rest of us on a course that will take us to an observation point where we can see what the Crits are up to.”
“Affirmative, Commander. I would like to first brief you on the stealth characteristics of the Dagger spacecraft. The Dagger has a very low detection threshold while using the sub-light drive. When it is coasting or stationary, it is almost invisible to most all of the scanning systems I am familiar with.”
“And when we are using the phase drive?”
“I have found no current method to mask the unique distortion waves emitted by the drives. I theorize Sentinel Race thirteen relied on the extraordinary speed of the drive and the anomaly weapon to make slashing attacks through hostile ship formations. Any combatant that is capable of targeting the Daggers and actually hitting one with a weapon would find that the phase field would absorb the return fire harmlessly into interdimensional space. I surmise that any enemy commanders who found themselves in that unenviable position lost their lives shortly after the encounter.”
Before I could comment any further, Klutch came over the comms, and he sounded less than happy.
“Justice, just to be absolutely clear on what you are telling us. The Daggers are very hard to detect while they are NOT phasing.”
“Yes, Troop Master.”
“But doesn’t that mean we are defenseless to incoming fire!”
“Troop Master, I never claimed the technology was perfect. I am briefing you on my observations. If incoming fire is imminent, the phase field can be activated at any time.”
The garbled grunt I heard just before Klutch terminated his comms could have been a new Tibor curse I had never heard before. Tria came over the comms again.
“Can the phase field be overpowered by intense enemy fire?”
“Unknown at this time. I have no data concerning the limitations of the phase field.”
3
Maybe using the Daggers to investigate the Quill contacts wasn’t such a great idea after all. Before I could put a voice to my concerns, my stomach went into nonstop turmoil. I could feel a small amount of positive G load and surmised that Justice had the Daggers operating at maximum phase. My holographic display was blank except for the three icons representing our formation. Apparently, Justice would be the only one to know what was going on in the galaxy until he slowed us down. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to try to calm my urge to upchuck. I became aware of a low frequency drumming vibration that suddenly ceased.
Opening my eyes, I saw the display was back online and filled with a solar system complete with a central star and four planets. The first three were way too close to the star, but the fourth was in the habitable zone. It was slightly smaller than a Mars-sized planet and had twelve red markers in low orbit. There were four more further out that looked like they were moving in the direction of our formation. Justice decided it was time to enlighten us on the current situation.
“Commander, we are coasting in toward the targets. The Quill have detected our entrance into the system but cannot pinpoint the source of the interdimensional disturbance.”
“How do you know that?”
The four red icons that were moving toward us lit up with large pulsating circles. They overlapped each other and covered a large portion of the solar system. They seemed to be directed well to our left and would miss us on our current heading. Justice could see their sensors as they searched for our location. As we coasted in closer to the fourth planet, our sensors started giving us usable information. The planet had an oxygen atmosphere and water that covered a third of its landmass. What was really interesting was the crude radio waves Justice was recording.
“Commander, the radio waves are primitive, and I currently have no way to translate them, but the urgency in the unknown language is unmistakable. The inhabitants of the planet are under siege.”
Damned crits! I already knew what the Quill do when they take up a low orbit over a planet. They strip the planet of its resources, and in this case, it probably included the harvesting of the biologicals as well.
Tria’s voice filled my cockpit, and she sounded almost panicked. “Commander, you know what they will do with the inhabitants!”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. This would be a good way to get us all killed. The thought of letting the Quill use the people of the planet as a food source made me grit my teeth.
“Justice, I want a no-shitter on our chances of taking out the Quill harvesters in the planet’s orbit!”
“Commander, the picket ships will have to be dealt with if you want to successfully remove the Quill from orbit. I can make additional assessments once I determine the full capabilities of our weapons systems. I have a maximum velocity attack vector on the ships currently searching for us. Once I engage the phase drives, all of the hostile combatants will be aware of our presence. Depending on the results of our attack, the harvesters may decide to retreat from their current mission.”
I already knew what the answer would be, but I was going to ask anyway, just in case it was the last time I would ever be able too.
“Tria, Klutch, do you have any reservations about sticking it to the Quill?”
“Tango Two is ready!”
“Kilo Four is a go, Commander!”
“Okay, Justice, let’s get on with it.”
“Increasing forward velocity to maximum and anomaly weapon power generator to one hundred percent!”
I felt a small amount of positive G and a hum I never heard before. The holo display showed our course correction then blanked to just our three-ship formation. The noticeable hum stopped almost immediately, but I heard it start to build in volume again. The holo display blinked and there were three red triangles blinking from red to yellow on the very edge of my display. One of the hostile ship indicators was making a turn toward the planet, and Justice showed us it was accelerating hard in that direction.
“Commander, three of the targets are drifting and are heavily damaged. The fourth is sending out continuous signals that I surmise are warnings or distress messages to the rest of their fleet. The anomaly weapon power source requires twenty-two seconds to build to one hundred percent discharge capacity. We will reengage the hostiles in ten seconds.”
The constant churning of my stomach was slightly diminished by the excitement of knowing the Daggers were able to inflict catastrophic damage to ships more than a thousand times their size. The humming stopped once again, and Justice confirmed what my mind was comprehending.
“Target destroyed! Disengaging phase drive and switching to manual pilot control.”
A joystick raised up out of my right-hand arm rest. The holo display lit up with detailed targeting information and put a large blinking red triangle on the closest harvester ship in orbit. Tria’s and Klutch’s Daggers had green lines extending from them to different targets on either side of mine. They peeled out of formation on intercept courses. “Missiles: 24” blinked in the lower right corner of my display. A switch cover on the top of my joystick blinked at me. It left no doubt that the trigger in front of my index finger was the main weapon. I felt a bump on my left hand as a lever extended next to it. The words “sub-light drive” appeared to one side of it, and in the center middle above it, combat maneuvering. The far forward position blinked phase drive. I pushed the lever to combat maneuvering, and a green line appeared on my display to the right of my current heading. I rolled the joystick right and lined up with the target heading indicator. Justice was making this as easy as possible without actually doing it himself. The action managed to take several of the twists out of my guts while I concentrated on my attack vector.
The Quill were not idly
waiting to be pounced; they were retracting their harvester tunnels and attempting to get underway. My target was rapidly growing in my display. I squeezed the trigger as the word “fire” flashed across my display. I immediately felt G load and glanced to my left to see Justice had engaged the phase drive. It was a heads-up to the incoming counterfire. If Justice did not intervene, I may have got my ass shot to pieces. Several red lines narrowly missed my escape maneuver but suddenly stopped when the enemy ship looked like it was being pinched in half amidships. A new attack vector appeared on my display, and I pulled the drive lever back to combat maneuvering to make a course correction. Apparently, the Quill had no luck detecting us until we opened fire on them. Justice made it more than clear that once we did, phasing was the only way to keep from getting the favor returned to us. Justice quickly answered the question forming in my mind.
“Commander, the phase drive will automatically engage if your detection level reaches a certain threshold or you fire the Dagger’s weapons.”
I should have known that Justice had my back at all times. My display showed two additional hostile indicators disappear from the target list. The anomaly weapon was amazingly deadly. I could only guess what the much larger version on the Legacy was capable of.
“Commander, the anomaly weapon rapidly siphons off the Quill energy fields protecting their ships. It appears the anomaly projected from the weapon somehow feeds on the barrier’s energy and grows in strength and intensity just before it strikes the target’s hull. When the anomaly contacts the target, it consumes all it touches before dissipating.”
A grim smile crossed my face. It sucks to be them! I lined up on my next target as it tried to leave the planet’s atmosphere. It went down in two large pieces. The inhabitants of the planet would have the remains of their foes raining down on them. They might be able to salvage some very advanced new tech if they have the right scientific capabilities. My phase drive activated, and I flew directly at my next victim. It was firing nonstop at my Dagger, and the red lines appearing on my display were intersecting with my approach vector with no apparent affect. I squeezed the trigger, and the hum began to cycle in pitch once more. The Quill ship disappeared from my screen. Klutch and Tria made quick work of the remaining Quill harvesters. I pulled back on the drive lever and made a coasting pass through the fringe of the planet’s atmosphere. The fiery passage and sonic shockwaves would further scare the inhabitants, but for now their nightmare would be over. I wanted to get some data on the locals before we left the system.
“Justice, get us some video and as much comms as you can record, then get us out of here.”
“Actively recording, Commander.”
“Tango Two, Kilo Four, form on me and let’s go home!”
It was becoming a regular occurrence: whenever I felt things were going to be alright, they turned to shit.
“Commander! I am detecting a very large transition wave on the far side of this solar system.”
“Roger that. Justice, give us an intercept vector.”
“Commander, I now have an unknown contact, and the target is massive. The drive characteristics are similar to recorded Quill pulse drives. The readings I am observing indicate a power curve that dwarfs any previously recorded Quill star drive telemetry. I will put you on a course that will give us data on the new target but will ensure maximum safety.”
That information kicked my respiration up a notch or two. I felt the phase drive engage, and we made a sweeping turn. A new heading showed up on my display as being well below the large red diamond. The drive disengaged when the target made a turn in our direction. We were now coasting full stealth, and Justice further corrected our course to what I assumed was an escape vector. Our formation tightened up, and I could see on my display that Justice had us about a foot apart. I was relieved to see the massive spacecraft did not align itself on an intercept with our new heading. My holo display flickered, and a close-up of the target appeared. Holy crap! The damn thing looked like an oblong paper wasp nest and it was freaking big!
“Commander, I am detecting an enormous power spike that is still growing in intensity within the target. It also appears to have shut down its star drives.”
As a backward-thinking Earth boy, I could only guess what they were up to. My experience, on the other hand, told me they were up to some mean-spirited crap if they could get a lock on us. All at once, our phase drives activated, and we turned away at full power as a tremendous beam of energy shot out from the hostile ship. The shot was well behind us, but it had a warning alarm beeping in my cockpit. Justice cut our drives and made a tight turn to the right of our previous course. He sent us hurtling away and defenseless against incoming fire. The massive alien ship fired its main weapon once again down our last course, and the alarm in my cockpit stepped up an octave. I felt positive Gs when my phase drive went to full power once more. We were in trouble, and Justice was trying to escape the reach of the hostile’s main weapon.
“Justice! Please tell me we are not going to get incinerated before we get the hell out of here!”
“Commander, the ship is of Quill origin, and I surmise it is a habitat vessel. Its main weapon is more powerful and has better range than any previous enemies we have encountered. This would include the energy weapons used against us by the Prule, as well as the beam weapons aboard the Legacy. It appears the Quill shunt the energy from all shipboard sources to fire the weapon. The vessel has reengaged its star drive and is altering its course to align with our last phase drive heading. We are now out of the effective range of its weapon. I will make additional sprint and maneuver adjustments to our course to ensure they cannot follow.”
Tria came on over the comms. “Justice, it appears they are able to track us while coasting. I thought we were invisible to Quill tracking technology.”
“Tria, I hypothesize that the discharge from their main weapon ionizes the space around the beam in all directions for a considerable distance. It apparently makes us visible by the shadow we cast when in close proximity to the beam discharge. My sprint and maneuver tactics gave us the time we needed to put a safe distance between us and the hostiles.”
“I’m surprised they gave up that easily.”
“They have not. I am detecting more than a thousand faster than light missiles attempting to track our last known course. I also detected more than two hundred small fighter class vessels of unknown capabilities. None of the weapons or spacecraft have the ability to catch or track us at our current distance. We will have no choice but to concede the battlespace to the Quill.”
Klutch could no longer remain quiet. “What do you think is going to happen to the planet when we leave this system? You know what the crits are going to do to the inhabitants. We cannot stand by and let it happen!”
“Justice, I thought the Daggers were immune to incoming fire?”
“Commander, I will not risk your lives to prove my theory. The Quill weapon is unlike any previously encountered.”
This was not the outcome I had hoped for. The power of the Quill’s main weapon system could decimate the world we were hoping to protect. “Justice, you say it appears that the Quill shunt all available power to the weapon? Would that include their shields?”
“Commander, the ship’s shields remained in place, but I did notice a considerable decline in its power levels when the main weapon prepared to fire. I can follow your logic and would like to point out that even at the shield’s lowest attenuation, it was still magnitudes more powerful than a fully-shielded harvester ship. I do not have enough data to determine if the anomaly weapons aboard the Daggers can inflict enough damage to bring down the capital ship’s shields.”
The Troop Master didn’t seem to care either way. “Commander, I volunteer to draw the habitat ship’s fire so you and Tria can make a coordinated attack. If we can inflict enough damage, they might decide to seek a softer target elsewhere.”
Tria quickly added. “Nathan, we must try for the sake of the people
on the planet, we cannot let them be harvested by the Quill without a fight.”
“Justice, I know you haven’t installed the IST equipment aboard the Daggers. Is there another way we can communicate with Alpha Base or the Operative?”
“Negative, Commander. The Daggers lack comm buoys as well.”
“I know our shakedown cruise has us a great distance from base. How long will it take us to make a full-power return?”
“Forty-nine minutes.”
I cringed. That would be more than enough time for the Quill to get revenge for the bloody nose we gave them. There was a good chance they would blame the local inhabitants for our sins and decide to lay waste to the planet.
“Justice, what are our odds of inflicting enough damage to discourage the crits from attacking the planet?”
