He was about to make sure that they paid in full.
“Send out overwatch,” Commander Korr said, standing up and addressing his men. X-O Zutor stood beside Commander Korr. He had a smile on his face, but as the Commander’s words left his mouth, the smile on Zutor’s face disappeared, and a nervous grimace adorned his ruddy features instead.
“But sir, do you not think it is too soon in the game to bring out overwatch?” X-O Zutor said.
The Commander shook his head.
“It is never too soon to bring out overwatch,” he said.
X-O ZUTOR nodded faithfully and turned toward the others.
“You heard the Commander, send out overwatch,” he said, addressing the others around him.
The big burly Commander sat back in his chair, and watched the schematic hologram on his workstation. He sat there for a few minutes, waiting for his command to come to fruition. And sure enough, after a minute or so, he saw overwatch appear on the map. There were four dots on the screen, each one of them represented an overwatch unit. Separately, they were massive warships. They had the capability of landing planetside, and disbursing a few thousand troops onto the ground.
On board the Commander’s overwatch battalion were some of his best men. And he would need all the men he could get to overthrow Earth’s defenses. The Commander wasn’t stupid; he knew that this excursion only served to put fear into Earth’s heart. The Annex Rebel Fleet wasn’t big enough to invade Earth and take on its defenses. But it was big enough to prove a point. And that point was simple; people couldn’t go about doing what they pleased anymore. Earth had gotten too big for its boots, and it was about time someone took them down a peg or two.
“Sir, overwatch has been intercepted. Three of the ships have been destroyed. Only one of them remains. What’s our next move?” The Commander’s right-hand man said, sidling up beside him and watching the massacre on the schematic hologram on his workstation unfold.
Commander Korr had been far too distracted to keep up with the action unfolding in front of his very eyes. But when he saw that overwatch had been compromised, his heart sank and an uncontrollable anger rose up within him.
“Son of a bitch!” The Commander said, lashing out at the air and knocking over some of the clutter on his workstation.
Papers and cups flew off the workstation and landed on the floor, clattering about as the ship shook slightly. The dogfighting between the Annex Rebel Fleet and the Snake Pit Fighters was becoming overbearing. The Commander didn’t know how much more of a pounding his men and his ships could take. He had to think things through a little more thoroughly.
He needed to be smart, and to save this mission, he would need to retreat. But this was far from over, and he still had his ace firmly up his sleeve. Overwatch was merely the first phase.
“Tell our men to retreat, we’ll hit them where it hurts soon enough, but for now, self-preservation is our only mission. We can’t play our hand too early,” the Commander said, turning toward the controls and sitting back down on his seat.
X-O Zutor was picking up the papers that’d been flung off the Commander’s workstation, and was placing them back in order.
“Sir, I’m picking up an unidentified ship leaving Sector Eight. And I’m afraid I have some bad news,” one of the men behind him said, forcing the Commander to swivel in his chair to face the music.
“Well, don’t just stand there stuttering, tell me what the news is!” The Commander said, his teeth snarling over his lips like a feral dog’s prominent overbite.
“I’m picking up a trace marker onboard the unidentified ship. It seems as if they have one of our men. He still alive,” the man said, still stuttering but managing to get his words out just fine in the end.
The Commander’s face was a picture - a picture of red and purple - anger and disdain. An artery in his neck bulged as his face went red. In no circumstances could he let the people of Earth hold one of his men captive. They could not know the extent of the danger they were in. They could not know the Commander’s plans. So a preemptive strike was in order. And the Commander didn’t hesitate in delivering such an emphatic strike.
“Take the ship out. No survivors.”
The Commander’s sidekick looked at him with a surprised expression on his face. He held the Commander’s gaze for a few seconds and then looked at the floor.
“But sir, we can’t just kill one of our own,” X-O Zutor said, still staring at the floor, not daring to look his Commander in the eye.
“Don’t you understand? If we let them live, then we all die! Nobody can know about the Annex Fleet or its plans. And I’m afraid that we have a liability onboard that ship. I cannot trust that whoever they have on that ship won’t talk. And believe me, if he does talk, that means the end for all of us!” The Commander said, a solemn and reflective silence followed his speech.
But that eerie silence was soon followed by the sound of his orders being obeyed. The weapons expert lined the ship up in his sights, his hands hovering over the engagement button. He turned toward the Commander and waited for his final order.
Commander Korr didn’t say anything. All he did was nod his head, and the weapons expert engaged the target.
“Target locked – firing…”
***
The lead Snake Pit Fighter caught a glimpse of something on the right of his heads-up display. At first, he didn’t know what it was. It could have been a reflection coming from one of the stars nearby. Or, as his gut was telling him, somebody was about to use what’s referred to as an endgame missile. The Snake Pit Fighter had seen those types of missiles being used before. And his training had made him aware of the tell-tale signs of one about to go into commission. The thing with endgame missiles was; they were usually used as a last ditch result. These missiles were used in desperate times, and the way that his team had been performing, he knew that the people they were up against were possibly losing their bottle. This was the first time that he or his crew had faced other human beings before, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t privy to their faults and various character traits.
In all his years of fighting, he got to know men well – so well it was scary. He knew how they would usually react in tense situations and standoffs. And now was no different. He was fighting other men. Men that wanted to destroy Earth. Men that were willing to go against the system, to buck the trend, to be a grain of sand in a deep desert, a deep desert lacking an oasis of hope.
But as a Snake Pit Fighter, he also knew that fighting the establishment was futile. Men have tried in the past and failed. And now was no different, men were attempting to rise up against the tides of the vicious sea, but the sea proved too strong for them. And that is why this particular ship was about to use an endgame missile. It was textbook stuff. When the going gets tough, the tough get going – and the tough wanted to end this before it even started.
“Contact on my far right, endgame missile about to be used, I repeat – endgame missile about to be used, evasive maneuvers – evasive maneuvers!” The lead Snake Pit Fighter said from within his cockpit, sweat dripping down his face, the interior of his space helmet fogging up as he attempted to get a lock on the huge mothership that was about to commission the endgame missile into existence.
“Any suggestions?” Another pilot said, his voice coming through the lead Snake Pit Fighter’s intercom.
“I suggest we do something about it – we can’t let them win now can we?” The pilot replied, his hands on his flight sticks, veering right, the ship tilting as he tried to get a better lock-on on the mothership.
“Stick to formation, hit hard and fast, and keep on the captain’s tail,” another pilot said, bringing a forced smile to the lead Snake Pit Fighters face. Even though he was sweating profusely and seriously nervous about taking on such a huge ship, he knew that he couldn’t allow the enemy to fire such a devastating blow upon one of his own vessels.
A thought suddenly popped into his head; which ship was the perpe
trator aiming at? For him to be able to intercept the missile when it fired eventually, which wouldn’t be too long, he figured he had a couple more seconds of thinking time to work things out, yet he still had to pinpoint the target.
So he scanned the immediate battlefield in front of him. His Snake Pit team lagged behind, flanking on his back, providing covering fire from other ships. In total there were eight enemy ships in front of him. Unlike in video games, the ships didn’t have red triangles above them, indicating friend or foe. But he did have something working in his favor, and that was the onboard computer. It was able to pick up tracer elements on the ships in front. Elements that told him whether the ship was commissioned by Earth’s Galactic Empire or whether they were unmarked vessels.
These particular vessels in front of him were all unmarked. Bar from one. A large ship.
The ship looked as if it had seen better days. From what he could see from where he was, the mysterious ship was a haulage ship. It was used in resource gathering missions. And a ship like that wasn’t heavily armed. Sure, it had some forms of self-defense, a light shield and a few heavy armor piercing Gatling guns on the Ironsides, but besides from that it was a sitting duck.
The onboard computer was telling the lead Snake Pit Fighter that this ship was called the Alpha Ship One. A clearance level appeared on his LCD screen on his heads-up-display within the interior of his helmet. The clearance level stated that the Alpha Ship One was a high priority vessel. That meant that it was a high-value target for the enemy. And the fact that it was trying to flee the Sector Eight starport meant that the enemy had it in their sights.
So now that the lead Snake Pit Fighter could see what the mothership was targeting, he was able to judge the trajectory of the potential missile shot. As he sat there in his pilot’s seat, sweat still dripping down his face, he tried to steady his ship a little. The other Snake Pit Fighters behind him were fielding off various shots from the mothership’s accompanying fleet. But as the seconds ticked by, he noticed that most of the ships were beginning to retreat. The only ship that was showing any form of aggression was the mothership.
And he knew exactly where that aggression would end at.
“What’s going on? Why hasn’t it fired yet?” One of the pilots asked, his voice sounding echoey in the lead Snake Pit Fighter’s ear.
“He’s charging up the beam. It looks as if our friends are adding a little more spunk to this missile, so the rest of you should hold back, this is gonna be quite a blast,” the lead Snake Pit Fighter said, angling his ship toward the mothership which hung in the void of space, just above planet Earth, tilting slightly as it tried to align itself with the Alpha Ship One which was still attempting to hurtle away from the battlefield.
“Here she blows!” One of the pilots said, the one nearest to the lead Snake Pit Fighter.
They were now in an arrow formation, pointing at the mothership, waiting for her to make her move, much like in a game of chess, but they knew their place, they were the pawns, and she was most definitely the Queen.
Suddenly, the mothership fired its payload toward the Alpha Ship One which was ducking and diving between the other warships. The missile arced in the void slightly, the stars around it twinkling off the luminous glare emanating from the metallic surface of the missile. It seemed as if the rocket hovered slightly for a few seconds, as if it couldn’t make its mind up on how to approach the Alpha Ship One. But finally, after two seconds, it got a hard lock on the spaceship, and pinged itself toward the vessel.
The Alpha Ship One dodged and weaved through the remainder of the enemy warships, and nearly crashed against a satellite dish attached to the star port. But fortunately, they managed to get past the starport and were now near open space where the missile was seconds away from hitting the back of the large ship. But the lead Snake Pit Fighter had the missile in his sights and locked on to the deadly artillery, firing at it, holding his breath until impact.
“Holy heck, what a shot!” Somebody yelled through the intercom, followed by cheering and hollering.
The lead Snake Pit Fighter smiled as he watched the missile erupt into a ball of flames, narrowly missing the fleeing Alpha Ship One. He disabled his lock on and disengaged his weapons. Breathing heavily, fogging up the interior of his visor, he sighed in relief.
“I’m getting far too old for all this malarkey,” was all the pilot could say as he watched the ships around him and his Snake Pit Fighters disperse. As he turned his head, the mothership had gone. And so had the majority of its underlings.
“What about the stragglers? Should we take them out?” One of the pilots asked.
The lead Snake Pit Fighter smiled, watching the enemy retreat in quick succession. He felt good about how he and his team had performed. Nothing could wipe the smile off his face, not even the thought of engaging with them once again.
He knew that they hadn’t seen the last of that particular mothership and its crew. He also knew that they hadn’t felt the last of the Snake Pit Fighters wrath and would one by one, feel it burning into their skin. No one messes with Earth or the Galactic Empire, and the sheer arrogance of these people meant only one thing; they needed to be dealt with severely.
“Don’t worry about the stragglers, I’m sure we’ll be seeing them again, and when we do, let’s make sure there’s nothing left of their vessels or their damn mothership.”
Chapter Five
The Alpha Ship One shook violently as we ducked and weaved our way past the enemy ships. The onboard computer was sounding an alarm off as I tried to regain control of the bucking vessel. I looked to my left and saw the LCD screen on my console warning me of an imminent missile hit. Before I could even react, the alarm stopped all of a sudden. I stared at the LCD screen for a few seconds, confused as to what was going on, but before I could let it sink in any longer, Dale had sidled up beside me and had hit the FTL switch on the dash next to the LCD screen.
“What the hell are you doing? Didn’t you hear the alarm? They were firing at us!” I said, about to disengage the FTL when Dale’s massive hand stopped me from doing so.
He placed his shovel-like hand on mine and squeezed down gently. Looking at him, I could see that he was serious. For some reason, and I guess it was an obvious reason at that, he didn’t want to be hanging around here any longer than necessary. He may have been a big guy, but he was a sensitive soul as well. And the thought of being blown up by the enemy ships around us was causing the poor guy to bust out in a sweat.
“Of course they are trying to shoot us, what else would they be doing? We need to warp, and we need to do it now,” Dale said, releasing my hand, half expecting me to hit the disengage switch. But I didn’t. I agreed with them. Getting out of here was the only feasible option.
“Everybody, buckle up. This is going to get bumpy,” I said, strapping into my harness, leaning my head back slightly, and closing my eyes.
Usually, whenever the FTL switch was hit, it would give the occupants of the ship around ten seconds before warp speed was activated. It was a complicated process, and relied heavily on a clear path for the warping vessel, void of any objects that could get in our way. What the computer would do is calculate our trajectory and our path of travel. If there were any immediate objects in the vicinity that could hinder our warp, then the engines would turn off and we’d go into cruise mode, until we were able to steer ourselves away from the obstructions. But thankfully, the FTL switch was working just fine, the projected interstellar pathway in front of us was clear and before we knew it, the ten seconds was up and we were hitting warp speeds.
“Here goes nothing,” Dale said, strapping his harness on just in time.
Everybody was fastened securely, besides from the guy Dale had knocked out earlier, for he was flopping about on the floor, the ship jolting back and forth, spinning him around like a rag doll. Thankfully, he’d survive, only suffering a few bruises. The others next to him, the three dead ones, they’d be fine too if they weren’t already
past saving. Once we hit maximum warp, I’d jettison the three of them out of the ship. Space would decide what to do with them. The Alpha Ship One only had room for one traitor, and we’d prefer that the traitor was alive so we could extract information from him. You can’t interrogate the dead, so the living would have to do.
There was a lot of information to be extracted. Neither of us knew what the heck was going on. One-minute, Teresa and I had been copulating in the unisex changing rooms on Sector Eight, and then the next, we were being invaded by heavily armed humans, humans that belonged to Earth, but for some reason, were fighting against us. So there was definitely a lot of information to be extracted, that was for sure.
The ship stopped shaking so much after a few minutes, and then evened out, as the tail end of the ship descended slightly, leaving the vessel at an even angle, warp drive fully reached, and maximum speeds fully attained.
I looked at the LCD screen on my dash, and saw that we were now Twenty-five thousand miles away from our original position in the Milky Way Galaxy. FTL travel allowed us to go long distances in a short amount of time. But the problem with warp drives and traveling at such speeds was that it couldn’t be sustained for too long.
Well, not on a ship like this. Ever since the troubles with the Ursines, the Earth Galactic Empire had stripped my ship of all of its useful mechanisms and engines. Basically, the Alpha Ship One was only able to travel within the Milky Way Galaxy, and couldn’t reach any other galaxies nearby. Not even the Andromeda Galaxy, which is a shame, because I just heard that a mysterious planet had been found. Whenever mysterious planets are discovered by Earth, you can bet your bottom dollar that it has something to do with valuable resources on the surface of that planet. Maybe in time Earth would trust the Alpha Ship One crew again, allowing long-haul missions and such, but I didn’t think they’d be trusting us for a long while at least.
Destroyer of Worlds (Alpha Ship One Book 2) Page 5
