Objections arose pertaining to him leading the defence on Cenyulone. The defence chiefs felt they were being usurped and argued the matter. ‘Welcome to my universe,’ Raegar had said. Jhaia had pointed out that the old Kharla had more experience defending Cenyulone than everyone in the room and this fact settled the matter with the overseers. The young ones were quite excited at the new directive.
The design of the bridge placed his crew ahead of him on lower levels. Just in front of him, a few of his crew gathered around a tactical table that presented a real-time holographic layout of the Nimbus and positioning fleet.
The remaining defence fleet was made up of medium class vessels with the exception of a large one, the Dwarve, which hovered to the rear of the formation.
The others were of a relatively new design, the same as the Raticia. Its main body, long, tall and thin, had the heaviest weaponry fronted. It widened at the top to support an oval armoured shell on top of which accommodated rows of defence weaponry and a fighter deployment shaft between. A section of the shell, as narrow as the body, curved down the front face and housed the bridge. An inverted triangle made up the forward pane, which extended over the captain’s head. The other defence vessels could be seen above, drifting slowly into position.
Below, Tranquillian Composite forces scrambled to fortify the Nimbus. The weapon transports constituted of carriages, coupled with energy beams. Twenty of them snaked sluggishly along the platform curve, lowering the mobile defence batteries. The weapons were evenly spaced along the platform, the basic layout from the civil war.
He adjusted the holographic image and enlarged a section of the Nimbus. The barrel of the cannon with its multiple weapons systems raised to the sky. Tech personnel scurried around it, assembling, activating and welding. The ammunition caches were unpacked and placed in the autoloader, a shielded section to the weapon’s rear, housing a conveyor belt that shifted when a reload was required.
An anti-aircraft mech walker oversaw its assembly. Several hundred patrolled the platform. By now they would have completed their system and mobility checks. Their ability to move quickly and their extensive array of missiles made them ideal units to protect the defence batteries for as long as possible.
The holographic display enlarged again and turned the Nimbus transparent. Down in the city, the last of the non-military transports and craft took off from hangars and docks. Adhering to the evacuation plan, they formed designated groups, speeding out in orderly lines into the surrounding hills to gather at the regional centres dotted about the planet.
The fleet commander’s attention was forced from the layout when a flash shined in the corner of his eye. Orientating his gaze, he caught a glimpse of a twinkling piece of dust, crossing the front of the ship.
Raegar immediately rose from his seat and descended the steps to the front. Walking to the window, he placed his hands on the pane and looked in the direction the spark had travelled. Below and to the right, specks of light, the same light he’d seen on the Poria outpost, clustered below the Raticia’s nose. They swirled anticlockwise in a mass as wide as the ship. He looked out to the distance. A wall of the anomalies formed around the entire fleet. He turned from the window.
‘I want a drop in altitude right now,’ he yelled, rushing back to his chair.
He summoned the main channel and addressed the fleet.
‘The attack has begun,’ he started. ‘Red group position three fifty and gold group at two seventy. The distortions in the sky are hostile; reform your positions now.’
Thrusters fired up across the sky and the fleet moved sluggishly from their positions. Half of the fleet ascended above the forming warpholes and the other half joined the Raticia and dropped altitude.
‘Target the light,’ he said. The system could not obtain a lock but the primary weapons pointed in the general direction. Raegar watched the crosshairs on his side monitor. The swirls began to condense.
The bridge rocked with an intense blast that threw Raegar to the side of his seat.
‘The shot came from below sir,’ yelled a voice.
Through the window, heavy blasts rose from the ground and exploded against the underside of the Composite vessels.
‘On screen,’ said Raegar.
The forward pane displayed a view from the underside of the ship. The city was gone. A large black blob obscured the view. Two jagged vessels of the enemy dwelled inside. They unleashed another blast into the Raticia’s shield. The communication channel amassed with chatter of panicking captains. Behind the pane image, one of the allied ships dropped at the nose and careered in a downward spiral. Raegar activated the communicator and addressed the fleet. ‘All red group members taking damage from below, drop site destroyers.’
‘Over the city?’ came back a worried voice.
‘Do it,’ he shot back.
The orb-ike bombs rained into the warpholes. A blanket of muffled explosions filled the display. After the fifth deployment, the enemy backed off. The edge of the warphole began to ripple and shake and the specs dispersed off the rim.
‘Cease fire,’ screamed the Commander.
The warphole suddenly shrank and disappeared. Across the city, volleys of remaining bombs dropped. Raegar ordered the forward pane clear and revealed the cityscape. Mushroom clouds sprouted between the skyscrapers, forcing them to crumple away from the blasts like dying trees. Shockwaves spread through the streets, crippling the architecture, scattering abandoned vehicles and toppling buildings.
Raegar cursed. The enemy had a major advantage. The attack could come from any angle at any time and no instrument on the Composite ships had been able to detect the glittering matter. On that thought, Raegar looked up. The light specs had moved with the fleet. They separated and weaved through red group’s formation. The positioning was supremely calculated; red group was about to be caught in crossfire. He glanced back at the city. Thick clouds of dust and smoke spread throughout Cenyulone’s streets; the ground was invisible. An idea sparked in his mind.
‘All vessels drop altitude to one fifty and front all primary weapons to the sky,’ he said on the open channel.
The battleships lowered past the Nimbus. The wrecked city drew closer. Dust clouds engulfed the forward pane as the Raticia sank into befogging cover. Once at one fifty altitude the front thrusters fired and the Raticia elevated her nose. The fog thinned as the front of the ship poked out above the swirling dust.
Red group followed through with the order and two of their ships nestled close to the Raticia. The hologram looked as if the city buildings had instantly regrown.
High above the Nimbus the wall of warpholes tore open. Volleys of discharge spewed forth. Glaring blasts of light, explosive projectiles and powerful beams pierced the sky, forming a web of explosions and firepower directed precisely where red group had previously formed. Raegar gave an order for absolute comms silence and extended the command to every other Composite unit. Every soul on the ground watched nervously as the firepower died down and the last explosion snuffed out.
As Raegar had hoped, enemy warships began to penetrate the sky. They crept out in the same web formation their weapons fire had travelled.
‘Hold your fire,’ he said softly, ‘Choose your targets.’
Their black bodies emerged with trails of fighters flying along their sides. Every Tranquillian unit — the Nimbus cannons, the missile mechs, the low flying fighters and the upturned warships — obtained a targeting lock.
Raegar focused on his personal screen and watched the number of enemy signals increase. He tapped the armrest and waited for a certain number of ships to enter — the maximum number of targets that could be exposed to a simultaneous bombardment. When that number had gathered, he pressed his finger to the comms control. ‘Fire at will.’
On the outskirts of Cenyulone’s orbit, the Inhibitan drifted on the edge of what was noticeable. Luylla meditated in the darkened cockpit. She had come to warn the Composite of an imminent attack, but evidently
they were already aware.
Above the planet’s glow, the defence platforms had been downgraded to a metallic asteroid belt. No orbital traffic was to be seen and her receivers picked up no recognisable transmissions. However, a lone, heavily coded signal resounded across the sky. She adjusted settings on the receiver and tried to get a definitive lock. The speaker spat out layered, incomprehensible gibberish. After several failed attempts to translate the message she turned it off and contemplated her next move.
A shuffling in the cockpit startled her. She turned to see Tazman standing at the doorway.
‘You shouldn’t be up,’ she said, rising to offer her arm. He took it and limped to the co-pilot’s seat, holding her tight as he settled into the chair.
‘Thank you,’ he managed.
‘No problem,’ she replied, crossing back to her place.
They both sat there for a while, staring at the planet without speaking. Tazman’s hair spiked to one side. His head bobbed slightly with his eyes half open. Tail gave a solitary flick from its resting position in his lap. He held it in both hands.
‘Where are we?’ he asked drowsily.
She opened her mouth to speak, her concern for his condition allowed a moment to escape before she answered, ‘Cenyulone.’ Tazman scrunched his face in confusion. She explained further. ‘Milton said the Xoeloid things were coming here.’
Tazman’s eyes widened. ‘What? Then it’s all over. They won. We lost.’ He paused. ‘Where’s Milton?’
‘I don’t know … we got separated on Poria.’
‘Huh?’
‘The Composite outpost.’
‘We left him there? They have him?’
Another beat passed.
‘I don’t know,’ said Luylla.
She looked ahead anxiously. Something caught her attention. ‘Look,’ she said, pointing.
A large lingering shape moved across the glow of the planet. She recognised the sharp-edged design. A sliver of light expanded ahead of the vessel. A stream of loose energy fire burst from the strange occurrence and veered off into space. The warship continued its advancement; the nose touched the light and disappeared into it. The sliver swallowed the vessel whole. Once the back end of the ship was gone, the light shrank and disappeared, leaving a residue of glistening powder that blinked out to nothing.
Luylla aimed the scanner at the empty space. The readout showed no residue of a quantum jump or any sign of the ship’s density.
‘Vanished,’ she said.
Tazman looked up at the screen. ‘What is this?’ he said, pointing at the on-screen wavelengths.
‘There’s some kind of signal in the sky,’ she replied. ‘But it’s heavily coded.’
Tazman’s tail flicked off his lap. He twisted the tuning dial and helped himself to an arrangement of switches before reaching over to type something on the keypad. The receiver emitted a high-pitched whine and the wavelengths merged. The graphical representations meshed into a singular pattern and a clean, crisp sound transmitted clearly throughout the cockpit. The groan of the safe haven. Tazman crinkled his eyebrows and cut the sound. He sat back, breathed deeply for a moment and swallowed. His eyes tensed in deep concentration.
‘That was on a Composite frequency,’ he uttered. He pointed his index finger and opened his mouth but no sound came out. After a pause, he tried again.
‘Warpholes,’ he mumbled.
‘What?’
‘Warpholes or rift gates. Reelai was talking about them.’ Tazman put his palm on his forehead and slid his hand down his face. ‘That light we just saw, it was a warphole, a portal through space and time.’ Tazman turned in his chair to face her. ‘I didn’t believe Reelai when he said they could be controlled like that.’
‘Well it seems the Xoeloid have found a way,’ said Luylla waving at the planet.
‘Oh no!’ said Tazman, looking away, ‘Milton!’
‘What about him?’ Luylla asked.
He turned to her again, ‘Reelai also said Milton had the potential to open warpholes.’ He paused and reverted his gaze to the planet. ‘That was why they wanted him in the first place. That safe haven was all part of some experiment. Reelai wanted to open his own warphole.’ Tazman sighed and slumped back into his seat. ‘Well now we know how they beat us here.’
‘Then why would this noise be on a Composite frequency?’ asked Luylla.
Tazman thought again. ‘Can you get us closer to the source?’
She eyed him.
‘Just be ready to jump out of here,’ he added.
Luylla accelerated. As they closed distance, the ruined space platform resembled more recognisable shapes. Pieces of weaponry and structure that had been ripped apart were now in orbital rotation.
‘Keep a fix,’ said Tazman, scanning the area.
Luylla turned and flew along the line of space junk. Spinning bits and pieces patted the hull. According to the scanner, the source lay just around the curve of the planet. She steered tight against the wreckage, hiding her ship among the scrap metal. The source object appeared in the distance from behind a criss-crossed section of scaffolding. A gold sheen glinted off its surface.
‘That’s it,’ said Luylla. The wavelength suddenly intensified.
Tazman stared ahead. ‘I know what that is!’ he blurted. ‘That … that’s the phutting hypersat!’
Luylla gave him a blank look. The Inhibitan dipped under a piece of blast shielding.
‘Okay,’ he began. ‘The Tranquillian Composite has been experimenting with long-range communications. The last I heard was that they had found a way to beam a transmission through hyperspace with the hypersat. If the Xoeloid needed this signal to use their warpholes, then the hypersat would be the perfect instrument to rally an army from who knows where.’ Tazman clicked his fingers. ‘And we need to go for help right now.’
An object blazed overhead and made a sharp right. The scan results loaded onto the forward pane, an unknown fighter with spiked wings.
‘Crap,’ yelped Tazman.
Luylla accelerated. The craft circled around and pumped orange bursts at the Inhibitan. The shots pounded the energy shield and blue waves fluttered across the view. The shots that missed knocked apart the surrounding space debris.
Luylla pulled into the open; she fired the thrusters to maximum, angling away from the hypersat. The winged adversary shot across her path.
The photon reactor primed for antimatter annihilation; the missile lock went off at the same time. Luylla reached over the controls and pushed the lever. An explosion thundered against the Inhibitan’s left and the stars swivelled to the side. The bearing readouts spun erratically and an abort message cancelled the quantum jump. Electric blue crackled out across the pane.
‘The shield is gone,’ yelled Tazman.
The hypersat spun into view. It had a triangular opening on one of its sides. The scanner caught the fighter circling for another pass.
Luylla tightened her grip and steadied the controls as she accelerated. With the shields out of commission the station was the only cover she was going to get. She stared down at the triangle opening. The missile lock went off again and she refused to break her stare, concentrating, imagining the ship as an extension of her body. The hypersat grew larger and stretched over the pane. She gritted her teeth and tilted to the right at the last moment, slicing into the hole with excess speed. The ship’s wing scraped against the top of the tunnel. A burst of orange sparks flashed on the wall. The missile lock disappeared. Luylla emptied her lungs and hit the reverse thrusters. The Inhibitan slowed. Gas expelled from hidden vents. She aligned the wobbling nose with the tunnel’s guiding lights and drifted inside. The tunnel opened up to a landing platform crowded with construction equipment and she lowered her ship onto one of the unoccupied pads.
‘So much for stealth,’ she muttered.
Leroy straightened his coat and strode behind his soilders into the hypersat hangar. ‘Well, well, well,’ he said with a half smile. His elite te
am of five surrounded the invading ship. Their rifles heated with rising pitches.
The squad leader glanced back and Leroy gave the nod. Bursts of electric blue pulses pounded the craft’s hull. A stream shocked against the forward pane and punched numerous holes before bursting the window in a hail of giant shards. The squad concentrated on the front half. Holes, burns and melt marks dotted its metallic skin like a disease. The squad member lobbed a black canister that bounced off the craft nose and into the broken opening. A blast of flame swirled from the cockpit.
‘Mission accomplished,’ smiled Leroy. As usual his team had everything in their capable hands, or pads or tentacles or whatever. ‘Salvage anything useful. We will not be returning to Cenyulone.’ He marched out.
The commandos opened the foreign ship and did a sweep. No life forms were aboard. They had been vaporised in the explosion. The squad however did find numerous supply containers bearing medical supplies, rations, water and matraelium fuel. They were quite happy with the find and began to drag them down the ramp. To take an inventory, one of the soldiers went for the Composite dropship to get a data pad. He crossed the hold and went up to the cockpit. Rummaging about, he paused, catching movement in the reflection of the forward pane. Before he could turn he was struck over the head. He collapsed with his finger pressed on his rifle trigger.
Twenty-five
The soldier let out a croak as the spacecraft grade wrench struck against the back of his head. A three-round burst of pulse ejected from the rifle. Tazman flinched. He opened his eyes one at a time and felt his body. The blasts had hit the ceiling. The soldier lay sprawled facedown over the armrest.
A voice came in on the unconscious soldier’s comms device, repeatedly asking for a response. Tazman looked out the window. The other Composite troops shouldered their weapons and locked them to the rear of the dropship. They sidestepped into formation. They gave each other hand signals in their advance. One of them glanced up to the window. Tazman ducked from view.
Rift Breaker Page 21
