by T. R. Harris
Panur looked over to Coop, Kaylor and Jym and smiled. “Thanks to our very accomplished starship technicians, the Ed Gibson has been turned into a flying command center where Lila and I will monitor the battle and the movement of the enemy vessels. We will attempt to keep as many of Kanan’s warships within the field as possible, while also allowing them to escape and then be placed back in again, disrupting their higher brain functions, for lack of a better analogy. It will be a constant ballet. And during this time, Admiral Adkins forces must do what they can to destroy as many of the Gracilian dark-energy ships as possible. We have to assume that not every ship will be carrying dark-matter bombs. There will be a special squadron designated for this purpose. We must keep that squadron away from Navarus. The major fleet engagement must happen far enough from the planet to give us time to do our jobs. And since we do not know which of the DEmons will be carrying the bombs, we cannot allow any to get through the shield.”
“If the shield even works,” Dal said.
“Oh, ye of little faith, as the Humans would say,” Panur replied to a look of utter confusion on Dal’s face. “Please accept the reality of the situation, Mr. Divisen. This plan is the best we’ve got. And now, we must deploy the pods before Kanan gets here. Chop, chop, there is work to be done.”
Chapter 9
The Ed Gibson was a huge freighter, so the extra passengers fit easily into the musty-smelling interior. Adam brought along his crew from Balamar, not wanting to leave anyone behind on Navarus. He’d even made arrangements to drop in and pick up Summer, Monty and Tidus if the need arose. They refused to leave their search for Jroshin’s billions in the mountains east of Kanac, but that could change. He even had a couple of extra passengers he didn’t invite.
Lila and Panur were aboard, of course, since they would be running the operation from beginning to end. There was also Lila’s mother, Arieel, along with Sherri, Copernicus and Riyad. The aliens Kaylor and Jym came along, as well, ostensibly to help keep the old derelict starship space-worthy, but mainly because Adam couldn’t leave them behind, not knowing what fate awaited them. Even his old SEAL friends Gill Norris, Toby Wills and Tim Robertson were aboard, although they’d put up a fight, wanting instead to be aboard the warships deep in the shit, as Peanut said. But as the Marshal of the Enforcers, they reluctantly followed Adam’s orders and joined the rest of his team aboard the old rust bucket.
And then there were the two uninvited guests, Dal Divisen and Lion/El. Even though Dal had a way off the planet from one of his pirate starships if need be, he still insisted on coming along. Both he and Lion/El had a lot invested in Navarus—formerly known as Liave-3—and they felt more comfortable seeing firsthand how the defense of the planet was to be carried out.
Adam didn’t worry about Colonel Todd Oaks or any of the other personnel at Camp Forrester. Most of the land-based soldiers and sailors had already been shuttled over to the next planet out from Navarus, Churto. Although Churto wasn’t habitable, the military quickly erected a couple of dozen self-contained habitats to house the Humans. If Navarus was destroyed—and Kanan’s forces withdrew as they had a Dasnon—then the Humans would be rescued when Admiral Adkins’ fleet arrived in the system. That fleet was still a day-and-a-half out, which meant it would miss all the action. Whatever was going to happen to Navarus would be all over by the time the admiral arrived. The rest of the Human military personnel were aboard the hundreds of warships scattered throughout the star system.
Even with the ample size of the EG, the converted machine shop that now served as the operational headquarters for the defense of Navarus was crowded. Although two-thirds of those on board had no part in the mission, they still insisted on being present when the battle commenced, and now they were scrunched up against a rear bulkhead, trying not to suffer Panur and Lila’s ire. The mutants were two beings you didn’t want to piss off—not again. Dal learned that lesson the hard way. Although the electrical shock Lila delivered to him earlier wasn’t enough to cause lasting damage, it sure hurt like hell. The alien kingpin got the message. Aboard the Ed Gibson, he had no authority and no say in what went on. All he could do was sit back and watch.
The forty Lerpiniere pods had been successfully deployed and now floated in dark status in the vastness of space between the planets of the Liave star system. Kanan’s fleet was being tracked, and if it didn’t change course, it would enter the system near the eleventh planet, Aynat, and then continue along a corridor that would take it through the Embree Asteroid field. It would then pass between the eighth and seventh planets in the system, Lauria and Masnin. At this time within their slow, distant orbits around Liave, they were fairly close to one another—about one-and-a-half million miles apart. Adkins had his mines and his warships clustered near both worlds, inviting the invading fleet to use the more-thinly-mined corridor between them as the approach to Navarus.
Beyond Masnin and Lauria lie the fifth planet, Dyreehs.
Navarus and Churto were on the same side of the star at this time of year, yet Churto was off-center from Kanan’s approach. The Humans sequestered there should be safe unless the evil service module went out of his way to attack the makeshift settlement.
As at Dasnon, Admiral David Adkins was in overall command of the battle theater, communicating remotely from the rapidly approaching battle-carrier, Camelot. There was a rear admiral with the fleet in the Liave system, who was the operational commander on site. His name was Corbin Wright, and he had the job of coordinating the instructions sent in from Admiral Adkins and others. He was a skilled commander in his own right but would have very little discretion during the battle. Between Adkins, Panur and Lila each barking orders at him, it would be all he could do to keep up.
Adkins also had a thin screen of warships and survey vessels above and below the plane of the ecliptic to protect against any end runs Kanan may use to get to the planet. He did the same thing at Dasnon, and it proved unnecessary. But he wasn’t about to underestimate the ancient Aris service module. All it would take is one ship to break through, and that would be it for Navarus.
Adkins initially had his doubts about the mutants—particularly Panur—but he’d come to accept their genius over the past four days. The pods they’d built made sense, although the officer had trouble understanding the concept. He knew inter-dimensional travel was possible; however, he was still having trouble grasping the reality of shifting normal space between the two, and on an atomic level. Even so, he gave them the benefit of the doubt. In the end, he had no choice.
Lila and Panur were seated at a semi-circular control station with eight monitors mounted on the bulkhead in front of them. The Ed Gibson was in space, sitting half-a-million-miles off Navarus and slightly above the ecliptic to get a better overall vantage point of the battlefield. The monitors displayed graphics, not actual scenes of the battle; that wasn’t practical based on the astronomical distances involved. Even so, there were two larger monitors at opposite ends of the console and angled to the back of the room. These would be tied into the bridges of various ships as the battle progressed and were there mainly for the edification of the spectators.
Adam had a place of prestige just off to the right of where the mutants sat, closest to Panur. Although the Ed Gibson wasn’t to take part in actual combat operations, the chairs in the room—including those where the spectators sat—were bolted to the deck and equipped with safety harnesses. Adam reasoned that if it came to the point where the harnesses would be needed, it would be because they were running away on full gravity drive. He sincerely hoped it wouldn’t come to that. The Ed Gibson wasn’t built for speed; in fact, at this point in its long tenure, it wasn’t built for much of anything.
“Kanan is on track,” Lila reported. Her voice—along with Panur’s—was being broadcast over a secure network to all the ships in the fleet. Once the field was activated, the mutants would be directing individual ships to various regions, while also repositioning the L-Pods along the path of the enemy column�
��if Kanan formed his fleet into a column. At the moment, they were approaching the system in three distinct formations made up of roughly one hundred fifty warships each.
“The first harassing contacts should be taking place now,” Lila continued. “The Lerpiniere pods will not be activated until all or most of Kanan’s fleet is within range. Once the effectiveness of the fields becomes known, the units will attempt to break out. That is why we take out as many of Kanan’s vessels in the first few minutes of the engagement as possible before they adjust to the strategy. Following that, Kanan could break the formation and send his ships off in a myriad of directions, yet each heading for Navarus.”
Adam tried to put himself in Kanan’s place. The service module had to be aware of the strategy the allies were employing. He had limited resources, and reducing those resources would be the Human’s primary goal. The defense of Navarus would be secondary. Yet if Kanan did destroy the planet, then he’d have full reign of the Dead Zone, at which point his primary goal would be to replenish his resources. Adam conceded that wouldn’t be too difficult, not if the allies left him alone. He could pick any of a dozen worlds within the Zone and conscript an army of colonists to work the factories building him more warships and service modules. And he wouldn’t care about the residual radiation on the planets since his modules were immune to its effects.
So, in a way, the key to everything did lie with the fate of Navarus. And like Dasnon, Kanan would attempt to inflict the most damage with the least number of losses to his fleet.
He also knew that upon the destruction of the planet, both sides would make hasty retreats to save their units for future engagements. Adam was sure Kanan realized how expendable Navarus was in the larger scheme of things. Although the allies would put up a good fight, the only way the Humans would accept catastrophic losses is if Kanan was himself suffering the same. Because of that, Kanan would avoid conflict wherever possible.
And now, as the enemy fleet breached the outer boundary of the Liave star system, everything seemed to be going according to plan. Kanan was steering for the corridor between Lauria and Masnin, having to slow down slightly as he transited the thin Embree asteroid field. Adkins had intentionally saturated the edges of the passage with hundreds of mines while leaving the center less dense. The graphics on the mutant’s screens showed a slight—and cautious—shift in the course of the enemy fleet, testing the flanks. When more of the ships began to wink out from mine strikes, the fleet returned to its original path. It also began to form into a single column.
Adam could see the location of the L-Pods on the monitors. They were in three main concentrations. Some were place a little farther behind and forward of the main concentration, there to pick up either stragglers or advanced units. But the bulk of the pods were in a three-million-mile-long swath of space between the two planets. Each unit had an effective range of about two hundred thousand miles, forming a giant sphere of influence. Most formed overlaps, although, with the vast distances involved, that wasn’t always possible. There would be plenty of gaps where the enemy ships could operate. With more time to prepare, the mutants could have built thousands of pods. But all they had time for was forty.
The bridge of the Camelot was displayed in a small insert on a screen to Panur’s right. People were scrambling around even as the admiral’s stoic figure sat motionless in his command chair. At this point, he was at the mercy of the mutants, as was Admiral Wright. Inexorably, however, the enemy fleet was entering the killing field. Any moment now, the Pods would be activated, and then the real battle would begin.
Chapter 10
It was Panur who activated the central core of the Lerpiniere Pods.
At first, not much happened. The DEmons remained on course, slow and steady. But then the allied warships charged in.
Six squadrons of Stingers penetrated the column and began sending blinding bolts of plasma energy into the shields of the black, dark-energy warships. The DEmons returned fire, but not as quickly or efficiently as they had at Dasnon. Within the first couple of minutes, enemy casualties within the battle for Navarus had already matched those for the entire Dasnon campaign.
But then the enemy counterattacked. There was still a fair number of DEmons outside the interphase bubbles, and now they rushed to defend their comrades. The forward progress of the column slowed as modules—and Kanan in particular—assessed the change in fortune. Something was happening, and those inside the bubbles were unaware, while those outside were powerless to stop it.
Unlike at Dasnon, most of the DEmons flared away from the column and went after individual allied warships. But there were more Human ships than enemy vessels, and the DEmons found themselves fighting three or four Stingers at a time. More of the enemy ships were scratched off the electronic tally at a station in front of Lila.
This wasn’t to say the allies were coming out of these engagements unscathed. Just the opposite. There was still around a two-to-one kill ratio to Kanan’s advantage. Still, that was much better than eight-to-one or even worse.
As predicted, the enemy fleet began to break up, forming into deadly squads of twenty ships or so that sped off toward Masnin and Lauria, using the planets as shields. Another twenty, however, fell victim to the mines that permeated the area.
Panur and Lila were now a vision of frenetic, yet efficient activity. They barked out orders to specific units, using their superior intelligence and mental speed to analyze a hundred engagements at once. They also used a flurry of keystrokes to move the L-Pods around the chessboard, keeping as many of the enemy ships within the bubbles as possible.
Adam could barely keep up with the activity. Dozens of glowing green spheres filled the multiple screens displaying the battlefield. He noticed a marked change in the operation of the DEmons when one would reach the boundary of a field and then punched through. Lila’s theory of a static electricity discharge disrupting the modules’ function at these points was confirmed. And as DEmons slowed and steadied out their courses—if even for five seconds or so—Panur was directing fire at these semi-defenseless warships. The kill ratio at these junctions flipped around, two-to-one in favor of the Humans.
Suddenly, a chill went through Adam. Looking at a screen with the larger overview of the battle, he could see that the enemy column—as ragged as it was—was still moving for Navarus. The leading edge was now at Dyreehs, the next planet to Navarus.
There just weren’t enough allied warships to cover the entire area. By remaining relatively compact, Kanan allowed portions of his fleet to be peeled off like layers of an onion while leaving a relatively intact core of fully functional DEmons moving for the planet.
“Panur!” a voice sounded in the command room. It was that of Admiral Adkins. “Scouts have picked up another contact.”
“Another squadron?”
“No, a single ship. It’s entering from above and heading for Liave from the opposite side from Navarus.”
Lila checked her screens. “That is why it is not visible from here. It is using the star as a shield.”
“Just one?” Adam asked.
“That’s right. It just hit one of the gravity field dampers, but it’s still coming in pretty fast.”
“Transfer your data, admiral,” Panur commanded.
This is not good, Adam thought. He looked at the reserve units, those left as a last-ditch defense against such an occurrence, seeing if any were in position to block the ship’s approach. They were, but the mutants had no L-Pods on that side of the system. Even twenty against one may not be enough to stop the ship.
Everyone in the room was now on their feet, including the mutants. They watched the determined course of the invading warship. Eight smaller vessels moved in to block its path. From the signatures, Adam saw they were Enforcer Assault Vessels. Although they were well-armed, they didn’t compare to a DEmon. They were assigned flanking and reserve duty, to be used only as a last resort.
Now now the last resort was here.
The forward progress of the DEmon slowed slightly as it engaged the EAVs. But not for long. The transponders on three of the eight defenders went silent. The enemy ship then blasted through the defenders, doing only enough to break through and continue toward the planet. The remaining five EAVs were no match for the DEmon’s speed and fell quickly behind in the mad dash for Navarus.
Adam’s heart was in his throat. He turned to Riyad and Sherri.
“C’mon; we’re going down to get Summer and her people.”
“Wait,” Panur said.
“No way. I can’t leave them down there.”
“You don’t have a choice. The dark-energy ship will beat you to the planet. There is nothing you can do.”
“Where’s the ship now?” Riyad asked the mutant.
“A million miles out and closing fast. You should wait to see where the bombs go off,” the mutant offered. “You don’t want to get caught in one of the event fields.”
“But you know they’ll attack Kanac first,” Sherri said, her voice dripping with concern. “It’s the largest city on the planet.”
“I don’t think size matters,” Panur said. “At least not in this case. Just place enough of those dark-matter bombs across the surface, and it will be enough to start the chain reaction. You cannot risk going down into that.”
“But if we wait, that kinda defeats the purpose of a rescue, now doesn’t it?” Adam said. “Summer could be right in the middle of one.”
“Then you definitely need to wait,” Panur said. “As I said, the DE ship is going to get there before you. What is about to happen on Navarus is out of our hands.”
“The DEmon is thirty seconds out,” Lila reported. “It could begin its drop run at any time.”
Panur was right; Adam wouldn’t have gotten close to the planet by the time the DM bombs went off. It was too late for Summer, Monty and Tidus—along with all the other unfortunate souls on Navarus.
