Galactic Menace

by Timothy J Meyer

  Spotting her tactic out of hand, the Captain charts a complimentary course to this newest tactic of his top-mounted gunner. As The Unconstant Lover weaves back and forth, Moira repeats the process with equally debilitating results to the Mobile Gantry, three of its four cumbersome limbs now amputated with surgically-precise ditrogen.

  This done, Nemo negotiates the Lover completely around the crippled cruiser and rockets off to rejoin their apart companions. The following storm front of starfighters are left to navigate the obstacle course of cross-hatched girders, docking créches and splintered teltriton – all that now remains of their dismembered mothership.

  “Ray edgies tragged up to 55% and climbing,” reports Two-Bit gratefully. Behind him, Odisseus snarks some comment in Ortoki, of which “mention” is the only discernible word.

  “Boss!” crackles a familiar voice over the main comm input feed. “Lookit what I did!”

  What Greatgullet did, visible mainly as blast-strewn wreckage and flailing crewmen spinning listlessly past the viewport, was quite impossible to miss. A spaceship graveyard most accurately describes the massacre outlaid panoramically before the approach of The Unconstant Lover. The halved and holed hulks of Chaperone, Gantry and starfighter alike are scattered liberally across Talos II's low orbit.

  Each one of the four flagships is a stable among the field of chopped and chewed spacecraft. Miraculously, each still remains afloat but bears open or demonstrable wounds, the price of heavy combat with even underprepared military vessels. The press of fighters about The Eyesore is substantially thinner. Something smokes incriminatingly from the Cannon's port quarter. A generous spread of pockmarks and perforations discolor the Discharge's once glossy surface.

  The Rule, in stark contrast to Greatgullet's boasting, bears the most grievous injuries. Several broadside shields are simply missing and the airlocks or batteries beneath have been reduced to blackened smudges against the transport's hull.

  “Captains,” Nemo addresses into an open comm channel, “how's everybody feeling?”

  “Like running,” confesses Vobash from his smoking Cannon.

  “Surprised,” sings Charybdis. “These-boys-play-for-keeps.”

  “RUNNING IS AN IMPOSSIBILITY,” a droidvox, Aju Vog Xah Qaj's preferred method of ship-to-ship communication, chimes in. “WE HAVE ATTEMPTED AND FAILED TO MAKE CONTACT WITH THE WARP GATE. WE BELIEVE THESE IMPERIAL SWINE TO BE THE RESPONSIBLE PARTY.”

  “Trust me,” Vobash counters. “I'm aware.”

  This earns a scoff from Greatgullet. “We're long outside running away.”

  “Agreed,” Nemo unsurprisingly concurs. “Coulda, woulda, shoulda.”

  “What's-the-play, then?” questions Charybdis calmly, as though their current circumstances – chatting over broadwave comm while they float amongst the splinterized bodies of their slain enemies – were standard operating procedure for their council meetings.

  “There's always landing,” Greatgullet proposes, toothless grin audible in the mere suggestion. “Bring them to even ground. Getta swipe at the cocksuckers.”

  Vobash's annoyance is equally tangible across a divide of greater distance. “You do realize they carry a crew compliment over forty thousand strong? Where, in your brain, does that constitute 'even ground'?”

  Greatgullet's flustered from his first word. “Well–”

  An impact so jarring it could nearly have tossed Two-Bit forcefully from his seat and straight through the viewport, were it not for his overcompensation of safety restraints, judders The Unconstant Lover to her bones.

  Each member of the Lover's helm struggles to retain their composure in the face of this sudden and unexpected onslaught of overwhelming force. The screaming displays and flashing alarms grant the baffled Two-Bit the insight he needs to deduce the angle of attack, the extent of the damage to the ray shields and where to reposition said shields in order to best cushion against the raining blows.

  As the Briza is continually lambasted by percussive blasts from its above assailant, Two-Bit strains with all his might to crane the gyroscopic rig in the right direction. He double-folds what remains of the ray shields against the unholy red cannonade streaming down onto the Freebooter Fleet's five flagships from the quadroturret cannons of the lofty Preemptive Strike.

  Like a certain pair of hobnailed jackboots brought brutally to bear upon a gathering of roaches, the Preemptive Strike stomps down atop the feeble freighters with righteous and seemingly unstoppable might. As effective as they may have proved against the 4th Fleet's first wave, the true terror, the powerful Pylon hanging high in reserve, promises to make playthings of the puny pirates with one swift and simple salvo.

  Shield strength plummets from 59% to 38% to 21% with each escalating second of the so-called exchange. With precise positioning of the yoke, Nemo's able to intercede pieces of adjacent debris – the concussed corpses of the Pylon's departed allies – between the Lover and the ammunition of its assailant. This tactic, when observed, is quickly replicated by the remainder of the Freebooter Fleet, seeking shelter wherever they can beneath and between the smote and shelled starships.

  “Think maybe Greatgullet's is the right idea here?” proposes Nemo suddenly, trepidation now present beneath his tone. “Land? Get some distance?”

  “DO WE THINK THEY WON'T FOLLOW?”

  “Well, that or get fucking obliterated. Your choice.”

  The workaday bleat of the proximity alert, coming from a console near Two-Bit's elbow, distinguishes itself against the more immediate noises of the barrage from above. “Incoming, Cap'n,” a perplexed Two-Bit attempts to warn, “we've a gantine, up from the moon, looks like–”

  At full tilt, the spaceship that spiked The Unconstant Lover's proximity alert, shrouded in flame and rising, phoenix-like, from beneath the atmosphere of the moon below, roars diagonally past the viewport. Two-Bit reads the ident flashing across his screen, though the words are mangled unrecognizably by the bellow of the passing thrusters.

  “–the Magnet.”

  Heedless to the laserfire flung towards her and her cowering fellow freebooters, The Dick Magnet, that distinctive IV1 Belladonna with her nose-mounted firepower, weaves an erratic path higher and higher in orbit. Her forward-bent ray shield absorbs what little of the Pylon's downward laserfire her unpredictable flying couldn't avoid. In the Lover's helmsman's seat, Nemo's mouth opens in some manner of objection, before the proximity alert, like an insistent child, chirrups yet again.

  “Incoming, Cap'n,” Two-Bit, staring at the relevant sensor, finds himself repeating slower and more uncertainly, “we've, er, got more gantines...”

  One by one, in chaotic clusters or in impromptu squadrons do they come. They climb out of the clutch of Talos II's atmosphere and they circumnavigate the floating teltriton chum to charge the unchallenged Pylon high above.

  Disparate, asymmetrical and uncoordinated, they evade or deflect the plunging ditrogen bolts as successfully as their unskilled pilots or flimsy shields will allow. Even within the limited sight of the Lover's viewport, dozens are destroyed outright, dashed to pieces or diverted to crumple against the nearest detritus.

  More, however, among the hundreds, survive. Converted cargo haulers, Trijan junks, commandeered cruisers, Hesko tankers, rickety remixes, Saurian barges and even one repurposed school bus – all come galloping up from the slums of Pirateton. The city's citizens and indeed very buildings taking up arms in her defense, they follow The Dick Magnet's suicidal example and bum rush the Pylon.

  A stampede of imperfect spaceships, the architectural contents of all five ghettos, streaks successively past the Lover's viewport, their shields angled, their actions evasive and their cannons afire.

  “Here comes the cavalry,” Gertie snarks through each allied comm.

  Requiring no more motivation, Nemo guns Port and Starboard with a satisfying squeal of servomotors and carbon petro. The Unconstant Lover, her shields holding steady at 28%, zooms out from beneath the shadow of cover, sk
ids halting into an upward-pointed about-face and catapults off in pursuit of her Captain's kamikaze followers.

  For good measure, Two-Bit Switch spreads the piddly remnants of the ray shield as thickly across the bow as their system power can, the silhouette of the Pylon and her blinking batteries looming large in the viewport.

  Forming on Gertie's vanguard, the Freebooters, intentionally or otherwise, fan outward in a flying vee with a wingspan broad enough to rival the Preemptive Strike in sheer length. Each member of The Unconstant Lover's crew, once their freighter is emerged from cover and following some distance behind, are occasionally treated to an indescribable sight. Between the twisting remains of a punctured pirate or a spurt of expelled exhaust, they see an ahead coruscation of hundreds of afterburner lights.

  In defiance of all their bravery and bravura, the Preemptive Strike rains down an inescapable amount of hellfire upon this unexpected onrush of attackers.

  Even a casual casualty assessment staggers Two-Bit. Every second, another suite of glowing blue lights, the clearest indication of a ship's presence, winks out in a burst of red radiance. What survives each destruction, mere scrap metal, whizzes dangerously close to the Lover. Her bombard shields are unprepared, but spinning metal is only a laughable obstruction to Nemo's natural squirreliness at the helm.

  The exchange rate between dottibles gained and spaceships shot down heavily favors the Freebooters, however. With each passing second, the spearhead of pirate ships aimed unwaveringly at the heart of the Preemptive Strike races ever closer to its target.

  A miasma of shadows, tiny black pinpricks visible only by contrast against the tepid orange-and-white of Talos Prime, does begin to swill anxiously about the Pylon's own deployment gantries. Whatever fighters they attempt to scramble, Gertie Gundeck and her amateur armada will be booting down the Preemptive Strike's airlock before enough can be properly deployed.

  More complaint from the proximity sensor indicates to Two-Bit that, leveling up on the Lover's port and starboard wings comes The Loose Cannon, The Rule of Thumb, The Eyesore and The Dishonorable Discharge. The fellow flagships each creep from cover and fall into formation around the Briza.

  Each ship is noticeably wounded. Each ship sports shields with less than half their possible strength. Each ship appears more than content to allow their legions of underlings to swallow the better part of the Pylon's barrage. This once, the Council of Captains leads from the rear of the headlong charge of the buccaneer brigade.

  Two-Bit's fortunate enough, this far from the front lines, to make out the first evidence of the pirate's opening salvo. A rainbow spattering of impacts crashes uselessly against the Pylon's own ray shield, the most impregnable model on the galactic arms market today. The wedge, upon reaching firing range with the Preemptive Strike, disperses, each corsair wheeling apart and assaulting some different section of their godlike target.

  The tactic that so bankrupted The Yanked Chain's similar such attack against the Exacting Counterattack prove strangely more effective when applied a hundred times over. The roiling chaos of the fleet action is simply too whimsical for the rigid military discipline of the Pylon's crew to effectively counter.

  “Abraham!” Nemo yelps unexpectedly as the Lover, first among the fleet's stragglers, cruises closer and closer to the action. “Think you could drum me up Ott's Pylon plans?”

  “Me Evil Plan, which was it, 4?” prompts the Grimalti.

  No trace of embarrassment is visible on the Captain's countenance. “The very same.”

  “Aye aye, Cap'n.”

  Together, the ray and bombard shielding form an impenetrably thick envelope around the Preemptive Strike. Along with the rows upon rows of quadroturret batteries, this should be more than enough to defend the Pylon against all manner of attack. In order to ensure victory, however, the Preemptive Strike typically employs starfighters, specifically Spurs, as its main point of defense against its enemies.

  Today, however, for quite possibly the first time in the history of the Endless Imperium and its countless naval engagements, a Pylon's deployed starfighters are actually outnumbered by the enemy forces it chose to engage.

  The pirates – slower, ganglier and less maneuverable to a ship – should still predictably fall prey to the swifter and more numerous flights of starfighters arrayed against them. Thanks to reduced numbers and the majority of their opposition sporting a mounted turret or two, something quite remarkable is happening.

  Everywhere within Two-Bit's line of sight and line of scopes, Spurs are shot to pieces, their explosions speckling his vision with popping bursts of crimson. Whole squadrons are, of course, still capable to the task of swatting any corsair they encounter, particularly with a skilled squadron leader at their head. On the whole, however, the increased weaponry and haphazard flying patterns of the pirates progressively clear the skies surrounding the Pylon of its swarms of bodyguards.

  Soon enough, a small wing of opportunistic pirates manage to bottleneck the Preemptive Strike's own fighter gantries, circling this sweet spot and smearing any Spurs that dare emerge from the safety of the Pylon's skirts.

  As The Unconstant Lover nears the thickest of the fighting, some ambitious Spurs meander towards the freighter and lob a few bolts, almost experimentally, towards the Lover. Nemo starts some cursory evasiveness and sports around between the squabbling spaceships. Moira, meanwhile, plucks at them with bursts of fire deliberately timed to avoid as much chance of friendly fire as possible.

  Chased by Spurs, the Briza banks between broadsides and curlicues around crossfire, attempting to lure said pursuers into the range of some other interested party. Fending off the starfighters with pomp and panache, it's the quadroturret batteries, the Pylon's main method of pain delivery, that presents the most tangible threat to the Freebooter Fleet and their tenuous counterattack against the Preemptive Strike.

  The broadside batteries were designed to buckle and bend the ray shields of the Pylon's fellow capital ships or, conversely, to blacken the helpless surface of an uncooperative planet beneath concentrated volleys. Therefore, these quadroturrets are uniquely unqualified to combat the fiercely independent and headless heroism of the pirate pilot. In so doing, they squander an impressive quality of ammunition, firing impotently around at ships moving too rapidly or too erratically for their military-coded minds to track.

  That said, when they scrape together a clean hit, the undiluted impact alone is often plenty to crumple their targets ray shield or even potentially plow two clumsy pirates together from sheer momentum alone.

  It becomes increasingly clear to anyone observing the ongoing engagement with an objective eye, even from within its wavering battle lines, that time is decidedly against the Freebooters. The longer they dally within comfortable reach of the Strike's chief weapons, the fewer pirates will remain to plunder Qabb, Ikoril and Yime.

  Retreat, at this point, was an impossibility, however. Turning and running, flashing a hundred engine washes to the Pylon's equal number of four-barreled guns, would result in a particularly lonely welcoming party back on Talos II.

  Victory, though, couldn't possibly be achieved with an intact Preemptive Strike. To Two-Bit's knowledge, no Pylon had ever, ever, even in a post-Exacting Counterattack galaxy, even considered the virtues of valor's better half.

  The one thing standing between all the Freebooter Fleet's multifarious laserfire was that accursed, unflappable ray shield. What was needed was some strategy to shuck the invincible ray shield and then front-load a Fleet's worth of fresh ditrogen onto the Pylon's exposed hull. Enough fresh ditrogen and the Imperium Interstellar Navy would regret expending one of their most precious and valuable resources to go teach those Talos pirate boys a lesson.

  A plan to accomplish this, the Captain seemed to have handily.

  “How we coming on those plans?” he cues into the comm, his efforts to shake the ship's all-too-eager entourage bringing them deeper and deeper into quadroturret territory.

  “Found
'em, Cap'n, that ain't the problem. ” Abraham relates. “Problem be what ye want done with 'em.”

  “Could you possibly broadcast those plans to every ship in the Fleet?” Nemo requests. “I want every motherfucker wearing an eyepatch looking at that.”

  “Well,” a buffaloed Abraham stammers, “'tis possible, Cap'n, but not without the Pylon seein' her too.”

  Nemo wastes barely a moment in deliberation. “Nah, let the bleeders see. Soon as you're done with that,” he adds a second later, “could you do the same with an open comm channel? I got words.”

  Abraham busies himself with his many tasks. Nemo steers the Lover onto a trajectory passingly familiar to Two-Bit, one the very same ship might have flown around a nearly identical ship a year and change ago.

  Two-Bit, meanwhile, is run ragged. He endeavors his best to interpose the ray shields between each moment's newest assailant, from Spur squadrons to broadside batteries. Thankfully, the former are mainly dispatched by Moira's peerless accuracy and the latter mostly distracted by the multitudes of other available targets.

  Before long, of course, the orange-and-purple Pylon plans, once borrowed from Boss Ott, blink into view on an unoccupied screen adjacent to Two-Bit's left elbow.

  “She's cast, Cap'n,” Abraham, somewhat breathlessly, reports. “Channel be open from yer comm.”

  “Shield projectors, pirates,” Nemo addresses his flock without preamble. “What you should be looking at are the Pylon's four shield projectors. They're hard to find, hard to hit, hard to destroy, but,” Two-Bit, from his peripheral, catches the Captain's expression harden with sudden resolve, “we knock them out, the big bitch blows.” The steely aspect cracks beneath a growing grin. “Trust me. I know from experience. Savvy?”

  A mangy chorus, originating from a variety of vocal chords and piped through an assortment of communicators, answers the Captain's call. In response, Two-Bit watches as each and every Freebooter vessel within eyesight shivers, shifts or adjusts their heading, like a school of fish responding to an incoming threat.