by Nick Cole
She yanked the ship into a climb and watched the battle below.
“Viper Two… Warlord Actual.” Comm from the strike commander’s traffic coordination officer—the air boss. “Bombers inbound. Two minutes out. Status on towers?”
“Active, Warlord. But we’ll have them down.”
There was no reply. She knew the air boss would be apprising the strike commander. There was still enough time to call off the bombers.
Which would be a failure.
And failure was not an option today.
“Talk to me, Dasto,” she whispered.
Black Fleet
Second Bombardment Wing, Ninth Squadron, “Black Jacks”
Tarrago Moon, Inbound on Fortress Omicron
0208 Local System Time
“Throttle back to targeting speed,” said the flight lead over comm.
Easy for you to say, thought Lieutenant Fasio. Easy for you to say… as though this were anything but real live actual combat and you’re riding lead bomber. Me, I’m stuck down here in the bomber’s cupola just a few feet beneath your butt. I’m gonna see it happen. I’m gonna see the bolt of blaster fire as it comes up at us. The one that’s going to get us.
“Easy for you to say.”
Those were the things bombardier Fasio was thinking, muttering really, as he looked down at the pockmarked surface of the moon far below. And at the battle over the fortress in the distance.
“I can hear you over internal comm, Fasio.”
“I’m just saying… if those towers aren’t down, we won’t be able to dodge even a little bit and still line up for a perfect drop on the bore. Just saying, sir.”
Bravo One ignored his testy bombardier and concentrated on lining up his ship for the attack. If they didn’t hit that orbital gun guarding the approach to Tarrago Prime, the fleet was doomed. And everyone knew there were fates worse than failing. If the rumors about who was behind all this were true, that was enough to make you want to do your job just to avoid meeting him.
The man in black.
Everyone had their recruitment stories. Everyone had ended up on Tusca, training for the war that was coming with the Republic. They’d signed the datapad, sworn the oath, and settled in. But in their year of training, there really hadn’t been that much about who was actually in charge beyond the people immediately above you and the grand inspections by the senior admirals.
There had been rumors, however.
Everyone called him “the man in black.” If hushed whispers over your shoulder counted as calling someone something. People had seen things. Some people had even disappeared—and not always because they failed at some task or couldn’t handle the intense training.
“Fasio, set drop altitude at current flight level. Let’s lock in the targeting solution before we’re over the target, roger?”
The bombardier grumbled a bare acknowledgment and set to his instruments. In just a moment he’d arm the munitions. Drop ’em. And then they could get the hell straight out of here.
And if those towers weren’t down… well then what did it all matter anyway?
Safe House
Somewhere at Galaxy’s Edge
Aldo Kimer was sweating by the time his conversation with Orrin Kaar was over. He’d relocated everything to avoid the retribution of Goth Sullus, only to find out that his single best client was in league with the man. Had that saved his life the first time Sullus came to him, seeking the location of Kael Maydoon? Would it save his life now? Or had Wraith left Kimer’s name out of things?
The questions only added to his pounding headache. Too much stress along with a roaring hangover. He needed to be more moderate with his end-of-night libations, he knew, but the constancy of looking over his shoulder since that last encounter with the bounty hunter wore on him. A few drinks were all that seemed to settle his poor nerves.
Perhaps this job would stabilize things once more. After all, the price for both tasks was enough to get him into a core-world business park, and there was no telling how much his business could grow from there.
“Sentrella,” Kimer called out.
His receptionist-bodyguard entered the makeshift office immediately, as though she’s been standing just outside the door. She probably had.
“We’re brokering a job from Delegate Kaar. He wants the comm relay network around Tarrago shut down. No comm traffic in or out of the planet. I think Sanatole Krenz is the one we need for this… given the circumstances.”
Sentrella nodded. “Spare no expense, Mr. Kimer?”
“Spare no expense,” Kimer echoed.
Levenir Orbit
The Galactic Core
The comm burst came from Utopion. Cade Thrane was sure of that. The slicer had triangulated the ultra-encrypted messages through the comm relay. Whether coming or going, an end user was always in Utopion.
But who?
Thrane moved around the lounge of his orbital space yacht. No one would mistake the old luxury boat for one of the mega yachts owned by the core’s wealthiest beings, but it was a luxury craft, no matter how old, and at one time, it had been coveted. Who knew what sort of debauched parties had taken place here? For Thrane, it was a symbol. A code-slicer for hire, he vowed to live in luxury, even if it meant doing so by degrees.
Now he orbited the core planet of Levenir, because core rent was too high, but a satellite bearing was within reach. He lived in a ship that only hinted at its former decadence. But one day… one day he would live on the planet. And his ship would be gleaming, straight from the showroom.
Thrane drummed on an imaginary kit to the sound of screeching nova-metal. Good thinking music. “Okay, so the comm burst initiates as a basic Repub holo-strand,” he said, scribbling notes on the lightboard in the middle of his lounge. He kicked a pile of clothes off the side and examined his notes. “That’s as far as most people would look. But then it switches to UE…”
Ultra-encryption. L-comm level stuff. The truly unbreakable coding, though Thrane liked to fancy he’d gotten close to cracking the ever-changing L-comm once or twice.
But this wasn’t an L-comm transmission. This was something he hadn’t seen before. Until today. And it was driving Thrane up the wall. So much so that he had been neglecting his paid work—and now he was going to have to pull an all-nighter to finish doing a UE decrypt for a client, a paranoid military type sure his junior officers were plotting against him. Not the most difficult job in the world—crack into a few datapads, see what’s there—and enough credits to make it worth the time. If he actually got around to doing it.
Thrane looked back at his computing station. He really should get going on that job…
A shipboard chime sounded. Another comm burst from the mystery encryption. They had been buzzing back and forth all day. Something was definitely going on.
Thrane went back to his lightboard to jot down his thoughts on the puzzle. The paid job could wait a little longer.
Black Fleet
Third Wing, First Squadron, “Pit Vipers”
Tarrago Moon, Over Fortress Omicron
0209 Local System Time
“Negative… negative hits on Tower Four, Viper Two. We’ll have to go around again.”
Viper Three had followed Kat over the target and recorded hits. Of the four massive squat turrets that had once watched over the Republic’s sprawling orbital defense gun complex, three were ruined and venting atmosphere. But one was still active and knocking down any tri-fighters that dared attempt to take it out, including Kat’s. She had taken hits on two of her three deflectors and had barely gotten away with a damaged ion engine.
But she still had enough ammunition for one last pass.
And the bombers were due in seconds.
“Coming around again,” she said as the tri-fighter howled all around her. She adjusted the throttles and dialed in more reserve power to the forward deflectors. The massive engine of the tri-fighter screamed like an obedient banshee from the nether regions of some nightm
are.
“Viper Two… are you sure about that?”
“Got to, Viper Three. Those bombers will be sitting hoopas if we don’t.”
“I’m on your six, Viper Two… here they come!”
Six Repub Lancers swept off the moonscape floor and scattered to engage, fighter-to-fighter. Their powerful twin nacelle engines made them faster, but harder to maneuver.
“Slowing to maneuver speed and lining up my guns!” shouted Kat over comm as blaster fire from the Lancers raced over her ship. “Keep him off my back, please.”
“Roger that, Two,” replied Viper Three.
Kat danced her tri-fighter nimbly across the surface of the moon. The hiss and screech of close fire against her hull shook her tiny ship as she dived toward the one tower still hurling bolts at anything in its firing arcs.. She rolled her shoulders and leaned forward toward the dim red glow of the targeting halo. She pulled the trigger and unloaded on the ground turret, staying on target, throttling back as the high-speed rounds lanced out ahead and smacked the turret’s base like a swarm of angry mummybees, chewing the superstructure to shreds.
She added some reverse thruster, causing the nose of the tri-fighter to pop up, then she added another burst from the guns that smashed into the turret proper.
Incredibly, the turret continued to fire back at her.
Viper Three went up in a debris cloud alongside Kat, throwing her ship hard to port from the force of its exploding ion engines. And still she held target and emptied her guns into the defiant turret, landing hundreds of hits in a bare second, watching plating and machinery come apart as internal cooling systems from the turbo blasters vented and suddenly exploded.
And still the damn gunner kept firing back at her.
“Die already!” she screamed at whoever was in that turret.
Her ship took a solid hit. The forward deflector screamed high-pitched bloody murder and collapsed. Kat’s fighter rolled hard, suddenly uncontrollable.
Kat heard herself shriek, then fought it down as she struggled to get the wounded ship back under control. Internal systems shorted out and fire control kicked in. Her panel blinked and went down. For a brief moment she was flying blind with nothing but the metal-laced front view for guidance. She watched as the moon abruptly turned on its side and then began to hit the ceiling of her ship.
Is this what it was like, Dasto?
She grunted through gritted teeth, seeing her dead brother as she yanked on the lifeless yoke, willing it to obey her. Now she was stalled and ready to dead spin back into the moon’s gravitation well.
A Lancer shot past her, its engines humming wildly. For a moment she had a perfect sight picture on the larger fighter. A perfect kill for her guns. For a moment… before the moon would reach out to embrace her forever, pulling her down to her death. For eternity.
The fighter’s AI reconnected with the controls and rerouted operation to her HUD.
Kat fell back on her training. She backed off the engine as she took the controls in her gloves once more, fighting the instinct to right the ship and save her life. That way was death, with no speed and precious altitude above a celestial body. As the moon’s surface raced up at her, she leveled and brought the engines back online. Then she punched it and shot toward the horizon, climbing for space as soon as she had speed. Climbing for the distant fleet in a wounded bird with no fangs.
Black Fleet
Second Bombardment Wing, Ninth Squadron, “Black Jacks”
Inbound on Fortress Omicron
0208 Local System Time
The flight lead had time to drop his weapons package—two STG deep cluster bombs—from his tri-fighter bomber variant before that lone remaining tower began to take out the bombers. A few others managed to get their bombs off. Most got knocked down.
Fasio watched both his cluster bombs fall away and fire their internal jets to adjust final targeting. They’d race for the massive maw of the main gun tube in the dead center of the fortress and streak down into its deep darkness, where the rail gun assist mechanisms made its cataclysmic shots possible. Somewhere along its length the bombs would explode—hopefully taking out the critical maglev components that made the weapon so fierce against any approaching capital ship. It would also be a good hit if the bombs took out those systems that allowed last-minute guidance. If the weapon couldn’t be aimed, then it was almost useless.
A moment later, Fasio quickly scrambled backward as much as his harness restraints would allow inside the tight bombing cupola beneath the tri-fighter variant. He willed himself into the seat behind him. Anything to get away from the blaster bolts the tower turret was flinging up at them.
But there was only so far one could go in a tri-fighter bomber variant.
The first bolt missed, but the second smashed straight into the bomber—killing both Fasio and the flight lead.
Of the Black Jacks, only three ships would return to the fleet.
The orbital defense gun was still operational.
04
Bridge of the Corvette Audacity
Kesselverks Shipyards
0214 Local System Time
Audacity climbed away from her docking cradle among roving bone-white searchlights and throbbing emergency alert strobes. Desaix leaned over the helmsman’s shoulder and stared out at the sprawling shadowy shipyard below. Dark figures were running across the gantries and long platforms between the various ships. The unmistakable bright flash of blaster fire was everywhere.
“Clearing three hundred, Captain,” reported the helmsman. The ship’s co-pilot was busy getting local nav info and seeming to make little sense of what was going on across the comm net.
“Captain,” said the comm officer, her voice static-filled and distorted over the bridge comm. “Admiral Bula on visual. High priority message.”
In the absence of his command chair, Desaix had to make his way to a screen panel off to one side behind the helmsman. As he held onto crash handles mounted into the low ceiling, the entire ship was shuddering, and Desaix couldn’t help but wonder not if, but which crucial repairs hadn’t been effected before takeoff. They’d still had another thirty days of refit to undergo.
Now they were making for atmosphere and under some kind of attack.
The Tennarian admiral, Bula, appeared within the tiny screen. Vocal synch was bad, so his words followed three seconds after the squid man’s lipless mouth moved.
“Captain Desaix!” shouted the humanoid squid, apparently unsure if his transmission was being received. One of the admiral’s tentacles brushed sweat, or blood, from his uniform.
“Desaix here. Admiral?”
It was clear Admiral Bula was aboard the flagship of the sector defense group. Behind him emergency lighting undulated in reds and shifting shadows, and Desaix could hear the ship’s damage control klaxons resounding ominously, as well as some kind of automated damage control alert indicating a hull breach in progress.
The transmission broke up for a second, then cleared suddenly, synching the admiral’s words in real time.
“… we’re holding a jump corridor for your ship, Captain. Get clear of Tarrago and rendezvous with Admiral Landoo and her fleet. Coordinates incoming. Inform her … situation … dire. All system transmissions are being jammed.”
Suddenly the Audacity’s navigator was swearing.
“Captain! Collision alert! We’ve got a massive piece of debris falling out of orbit and inbound on an intercept course. Looks like a ship of some sort. One of ours. Plotting evasive—”
“I see it!” yelled the co-pilot.
“It’s coming straight at us!” shrieked the helmsman as he fought to adjust the departure heading Audacity was currently tracking to reach orbit.
Desaix turned to see what looked like the burning engineering section of a Republican destroyer falling straight toward them out of the sky. Thick white smoke trailed behind it high into the distant reaches of the silvery clouds and the night above. Escape pods jettisoned, and crewme
mbers and debris fell away from the burning hulk.
“Emergency power to forward deflectors!” shouted Desaix, knowing they would do little against a direct hit from another ship. He had a sudden dark vision of the wreckage smashing directly into his ship and carrying them down into the cities below.
“Hang on!” yelled the helmsman.
“Don’t use the starboard thrust deflectors. They’re—”
“I know!” cried the pilot in tense exasperation.
The Audacity shifted over to starboard in one brief instant, barely missing the streaking bulk of burning space debris. The entire flight deck watched as more debris, and crew, trailed past in its wake.
Desaix turned back to the admiral on screen.
“We’re under attack, Captain,” the admiral was saying. “Alert the fleet and get them back here as soon as possible. We’ll hold them off for as long as we can.”
“Who’s attacking us, Admiral?”
“Unclear at this time, Captain. The attack seems to be coming from three unidentified and very large battleship-class vessels out beyond Tarrago Moon. They’re keeping their distance, most likely due to the orbital defense gun. But ships impersonating … Repub … jumped in … attacked us in low orbit. We’re transmitting a targeting data package with everything we’ve acquired.”
Small bits of debris began to slam into the hull of the Audacity as it climbed into the upper atmosphere.
“We’re launching fighters to give you a jump window now, Captain,” continued Admiral Bula. “Good luck and good hunting.”
Then the admiral was gone.
Deep Space Orbital Platform
Tarrago System
Sanatole Krenz couldn’t believe his luck. He’d thought Aldo Kimer would never send him another job after the way things went down at Bocccy. But now, he was about to make more money from one job than he’d made in the past ten years combined. At least, theoretically. Time was of the essence. He’d only receive the full payoff if the job was done within fifteen minutes of tender. The reward would drop exponentially every minute thereafter.
