Rising Star

by Donald Nicklas

  The captains agreed this was their only chance of escape, especially since there seemed to be no ships out there. Once all agreed, Mueller said, “Let’s move.”

  Mueller left with the first company. The others followed. What the Romani did not know, the ship was designed for a quick escape if things went sideways. A hidden passageway led from the command center to the forward hangar deck. The defenders reached the forward hangar deck and a few of the new hires were milling about. When they saw their commander coming, they ran over only to be cut down by automatic weapons fire. Mueller was loyal to his personal regiment, and they to him. The others were expendable and would not be allowed to take up space.

  “Over there are the boarding shuttles. Load up and head out to the freighter.”

  The company moved to the shuttles. These were the same ones used for sightseeing, however, they held one hundred troops and had a popup turreted Gatling gun that was hidden from the tourists. Mueller had to admit, when Sinclair Corp designed this ship, they thought of everything, except an alien invasion. It was always assumed that the Rising Star would be destroyed if things went south and her secrets would die with her. Mueller now realized that this enemy was going to capture her whole and that will be a disaster for Sinclair Corp. When the shuttles were loaded and the turrets were manned, they came out of both sides of the hangar deck at full throttle. If nothing else, Mueller was determined to save his personal regiment to fight another day. They could see the freighter on the scanners in the cockpits and realized it would take close to three hours to reach the ship if it maintained its course. He looked behind and could see no pursuit. He still had no idea where the enemy force came from. There were no ships anywhere except the Rising Star behind them and the freighter somewhere ahead, too small to make out. Mueller finally had time to relax and contemplate what just happened.

  Aboard the Invicta Slone was monitoring the battle. He was in charge of the operation and it was his battle plan, with input from the centurions, which was in play. So far things were going well. The bridge and all of the vital areas of the ship where theirs, but this vessel was huge and had many innocent civilians aboard. The numerical advantage of the mercenary forces was offset by the serpents and their ability to strike terror into those not familiar with them. It was now down to a battle in the passageways. Some of the mercenaries were holding out or were in hiding, and they would all have to be found before the ship was secure. They knew from some prisoners that the command center was in the center of the ship just below the gun decks. Both primary centurions indicated they were working their way to that location.

  “Tom, put me through to Tavia,” Slone ordered.

  “Yes sir, the channel is open,” Tom Gardner replied.

  “Tavia, what is your status? Any counter attacks?”

  Tavia and Centurion William Marshal were holding the bridge with a small force of serpents and the new ally, Jack Dalton. Tavia responded to the message, “Captain Slone, the bridge is secure, but the bridge elevator has been activated by unknown persons. The doors are opening now . . . WATCH OUT.”

  Slone could hear firing in the background. On the bridge, the elevator doors opened and five mercenaries came out with their automatic weapons blazing. Even though they were ready for trouble, Tavia took two hits on her chest armor before she could get her shield up and she was thrown backwards. When the serpents saw Tavia go down, they were enraged and ran at the mercenaries with no regard for their safety. One serpent went down but Hatch raced into the elevator with such speed that she started tearing the mercenaries apart. They tried to surrender, but to no avail. Hatch pulled one out of the elevator to rip him open and that left the interior of the elevator exposed with two remaining mercenaries. The armored males raised their Gatling guns and literally shredded them. It was all over in a few seconds and the serpent medics leapt to Tavia’s side as soon as they saw her go down.

  “What’s happening over there? Give me a report,” Slone demanded.

  Centurion Marshal responded, “Five mercenaries came out of the elevator and Tavia took two slugs to the chest. She is moving and seems to be ok. Her armor stopped the bullets. The mercenaries are dead but it looks like their indiscriminate fire took out captain Meigs, so we will get no information from him. We also lost one of the serpents”

  Tavia was not quite all right. The armor stopped the slugs but the kinetic force that threw her backwards fractured her sternum and a few ribs. The serpent medics had been studying human medicine since they joined the fleet. They quickly used bone knitters to stimulate bone growth and cinched the armor a bit tighter to stabilize the rib fractures. It hurt to breathe, but otherwise she was unaffected. She got up and thanked the serpent medics, who seemed proud of her praise. “Are you ok, Hon?” Bill said with true concern in his voice.

  “My guess is I will be sore and black and blue, but otherwise none the worse for wear.”

  Slone was about to say something to Tavia when he was interrupted by Roger Umgabe. “Captain, sensors indicate the Rising Star has launched ten boarding shuttles from the forward hangar deck.”

  Slone left his seat and moved to the front of the bridge to look directly at the starliner below them. He could see the boarding shuttles leaving both sides of the hangar deck and heading away from the ship. Slone stood there and wondered where they thought they were going. “Any idea where they think they are going?” Slone said to no one in particular.

  Roger Umgabe responded. “Sensors indicate their likely course is to the freighter Pevek. At their current speed it will take just under three hours to get there.”

  “They think we have no ships out here. Let them get well clear of us. Send a message to the destroyers to keep ahead of them and await further orders.”

  “Yes, Captain,” said Tom Gardner. After a few minutes, “The destroyers acknowledge receipt.”

  Messages were now coming in indicating the battle aboard the starliner was winding down. The remaining mercenaries were unable to contact their commander and assumed he was dead. They decided to head forward to surrender to the human forces rather than deal with the aliens. They would soon find out there were four hundred aliens in the eighth cohort. Within another hour, it was all over aboard the starliner. Centurion Claudius Pulcher sent part of the eighth cohort to move through the ship and make sure all hostilities were over. The crew, who were corporate, surrendered as soon as the mercenaries surrendered. Slone sat back in the captain’s chair and suddenly realized the magnitude of what they had just done. They took out a ship that could have decimated their small fleet without any damage to the ships. He looked at the threat board and saw that the enemy shuttles were now well clear of the starliner and the invisible dreadnoughts.

  “Tom, open a channel to the shuttles in the clear.”

  “Yes, captain. The channel is open.”

  “This is Captain Christopher Slone of the Nova Romae dreadnought Invicta to the commander of mercenary forces aboard the shuttles moving towards the Petrov freighter in this system. Shut down your shuttles and surrender or face destruction.”

  Aboard the shuttles, the message came as a shock. Mueller looked at his pilot, “Are there any dreadnoughts in the system?”

  “No Colonel, only the starliner and the freighter show as in system.”

  “Open a channel back to the starliner, they must be aboard there and we are out of range.”

  “Channel open.”

  “This is Colonel Otto Mueller; we do not detect any ships other than the starliner and the freighter. Allow us to take the freighter and we will place anyone aboard the freighter into the boarding shuttles and send them back to you.”

  Slone’s response came back quickly, “You were warned and will now have to deal with the consequences.” Slone gave the sign to cut the transmission. “Tom, order the destroyers into action. Tell them to take out the shuttles with canister and order the entire fleet visible.”

  “All ships acknowledge.”

  Aboard the shuttles
, Mueller wondered what the meaning of letting him think there was a dreadnought in the system was all about. Suddenly his pilot almost shouted, “Colonel, two destroyers just appeared between us and the freighter and there are now two dreadnoughts behind us, one above and one below the starliner.”

  “Where did they come from?”

  “Nowhere, they just appeared.”

  “Order all shuttles to maximum burn. Be ready with missile counter measures, we’re not dead yet.”

  General Golov watched on the threat board as the Romani destroyers moved to engage. She was anxious to see how the Romani handled something as small as a shuttle at that distance. Destroyers were moving missile platforms. They had six cannons, two each per side and one each bow and stern. However, they had sixteen missile tubes, six each side, two front and two back. The missile loading was automated and the racks were so designed that the weapons’ tech could chose the load the captain wanted to fire. They were ordered to use canister and the tubes were already loaded with canister missiles. Canister was an old artillery load that was adapted for missile use in space. You took a standard missile, removed the warhead, replaced it with a new warhead carrying a lesser charge, and then packed it with hundreds of small, metal spheres. When the missiles were launched at the enemy, they streaked in regardless of counter measures, since they were dumb ordinance that just fired straight out. Shortly before reaching the shuttles, the weapons tech detonated them, which resulted in a cloud of metal spheres through which the shuttles had to fly. The spheres were harmless to ships but devastating to shuttles, which had much weaker shells. The destroyers both fired a broadside of missiles and then began to rotate along their long axis to bring their other side to bear. Since there was no up or down in space, and all gravity was artificial, no one aboard a ship noticed the rotation.

  The missiles streaked towards the shuttles and it was now up to the expertise of the weapon’s tech to make them work to maximum efficiency. Detonate them too soon and the metal spheres spread out too much when they reach the shuttles and might not do enough damage. Detonate them too late and the spheres remained too tight and some shuttles would get through. As each set of missiles reached the range needed for maximum damage, the weapon’s tech aboard the firing destroyer pressed a button and the missiles detonated at once and sent a cloud of metal spheres into the formation of shuttles. Aboard the shuttles, Colonel Mueller ordered evasive maneuvers but knew it was like driving through a hailstorm and trying not to get hit. Normally a boarding party would be wearing space suits but the mercenaries left in a hurry and their only protection from the outside vacuum was the thin shell of the shuttle. With no resistance in space, the spheres sped towards the shuttles at maximum speed. When they reached the shuttles, the effects were devastating. The metal spheres acted like meteoroids and created an artificial meteor storm. The first shuttle hit was that of the leader. Colonel Mueller was spared death by decompression as one of the spheres entered his face and blew his head apart, then passed on to the next several mercenaries and exited the other side of the ship. An impact on the engine resulted in an explosion and the shuttle vanished. The spheres then continued to all of the other shuttles and one by one they decompressed and all aboard died as their oxygen escaped. The lucky ones were killed directly or their shuttle exploded. The unlucky ones died a relatively slow death as they ran out of oxygen. When the rotation of the destroyers was finished, the next wave of missiles sent their deadly spheres into the remaining shuttles and these disappeared. The destroyers returned to their original orientation and stopped their rotation.

  It was all over in minutes and General Golov had watched it all. “I am very impressed with the way you handled them and saved our freighter.”

  “Captain, there is a frantic message coming in from the Pevek. They are trying to contact General Golov,” Tom Gardner interrupted.

  “Put the message on speaker and open a line to them,” Slone ordered.

  “General Golov, this is the freighter Pevek. We have picked up two destroyers and two dreadnoughts engaged with a fleet of shuttles. We are defenseless if they attack us. There are no recognition codes coming from them.”

  “Pevek, this is General Golov. The ships are with us and I am aboard one of the dreadnoughts. Continue your course to rendezvous with the fleet, and you will be protected.”

  After a delay of thirty minutes, “Bless you; General, and the women and children aboard also bless you. We are on course to your location. It will take 5 hours to reach you.”

  “Tom, order them to form up with the destroyers and they will escort them in and notify the destroyers to move out and meet the freighter.”

  “Yes, captain.”

  “Contact Captain Artok and have her send one of her ships out to check if there are any survivors in the wreckage of the shuttles,” Slone ordered. “Call down to the hangar deck and have a shuttle prepared to take General Golov and me, over to the Rising Star.” Slone then turned to General Golov, “Alisa, would you care to join me in checking out our prize?”

  “I would love to, Christopher.”

  Slone and Golov went down to the hangar deck and a shuttle awaited them with a marine escort for security. Along with them, the medical shuttles were also taking off to deal with the casualties on both sides. There was now plenty of room in the forward hangar deck, since the mercenary shuttles left. Slone made sure his pilot knew the medical shuttles had priority and he was not to land until they had all landed. General Golov noted this, since a captain in the Petrov navy would let their people suffer if helping them meant they were delayed. She was learning a great deal about the Romani. As a prisoner of theirs, she never actually was able to see the planning stage, but this time they were allies and for that she was extremely grateful. After all of the medical personnel were aboard the starliner, Slone’s shuttle landed and the captain and general exited. Everything aboard the starliner was built on a grand scale. The ship’s doctors, human and serpent along with their medics were using the large ramp and hangar area for triage and treatment. The medical personnel, aboard the starliner for the passengers, were also innocent parties, who volunteered to help with the human casualties, and opened the small hospital aboard. The Romani medics filled them in on the fact that the ship was not what they thought and the ships they had destroyed were not target drones. They were appalled as were the rest of the passenger crew. None of them had ever been allowed in the lower portion of the ship on the pretence that the weapons areas used for the adventure portion of the cruise were dangerous. They accepted this, since they were mostly hotel type personnel and not combat trained.

  Claudius Pulcher, the primary centurion of the eighth cohort came over as soon as he saw Captain Slone coming through the triage area. He snapped to attention and saluted, which Slone returned. “Captain, welcome aboard, she is quite a prize.”

  “Yes she is, but how much did she cost? What is the casualty report?”

  Pulcher signaled for the medical officer to come over and report. Dr. Kata Tirpak, chief medical officer of the Invicta came over and saluted Captain Slone. “Captain, I can give you a preliminary casualty report, but we are still working getting injured from the lowest decks.”

  “What you have will do.”

  “The eighth cohort suffered 132 casualties, 87 of which are fatalities. The first serpent cohort suffered 38 casualties, 11 of those are fatalities. Their speed, strength and constitution make them much more formidable than our troops. I’m just glad they’re on our side, captain.”

  “I as well, doctor. Centurion, where are the passengers?”

  “We ordered them to assemble in the dining room and we made sure they only see human soldiers. Since you told us they were innocent, we didn’t want to frighten them.”

  “I will talk with them,” Slone said and instantly wished his wife were here. She was so much better at this. He would also have to decide what to do with them. Slone and Golov worked their way through the ship and as they did so, returned the
salutes of his forces. Slone’s first impression was how huge this vessel was and how this could never have been achieved without invisibility. He finally arrived at the dining room and entered. Romani stood guard at all the entrances. As soon as he entered, the guards snapped to attention and that signaled to the passengers that this was someone in command. The response was exactly what one would expect, they all started to clamor for information. Slone looked around and saw Centurion Marshal and Tavia standing on an elevation in the center of the dining room. Slone moved up to join them and Tavia handed him the sound projector. This small cube amplified the voice or any sound it was programmed to amplify.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen, if I may have your attention please,” Slone started and the sound slowly began to die down. “I am Captain Christopher Slone of the Republic of Nova Romae and you have nothing to fear from us.”

  At this point, an elderly man stepped forward. “Why have you attacked this ship? This is a cruise ship.”

  “You all believe you are on an adventure cruise where you tour exotic moons and planets and sometimes watch as target drones are destroyed, as if in battle. I am here to tell you that those were not drones. The ships you saw destroyed were full of people. The freighter you were going to destroy during the afternoon tomorrow is filled with four hundred refugees, almost all children.”

  At this last statement, there was a collective gasp. Then Slone continued, “You have been duped into aiding what we call a Q-Ship, which is a warship masquerading as an innocent vessel to lure in its victims. This ship is from the Sinclair Corporation and is intended to demoralize the Petrovian resistance in this area.” This evoked a lot of discussion and Slone waited for them to settle down. Since Tavia allowed them to tap into the starliner’s main computer, they now knew this was a Sinclair Corporation Q-Ship. “Those of you who have your own yachts aboard will be free to leave when we are ready to release you. If you do not have your own transportation, we will arrange transportation out to a space station. You will remain our guests until we are ready to leave this system. This prevents any of you from giving our location to Sinclair Corporation; since I am sure some of you are part of that corporation.”