Fury to the Stars (Universe in Flames Book 2)

by Christian Kallias

  Chase leaned forward, steering them back on course. “So, Yanis, what do you have for us?” he said as cheerfully as he could.

  “Plenty, as a matter of fact.” The master engineer reached into his pocket and took out a small, cylindrical device that he slid to the middle of the conference table. Almost immediately, a holographic display shot out—representing the new battleship.

  “Let me guess… the Prometheus-class destroyer?” Chase asked casually.

  Yanis frowned. “No spoilers!” They both cracked a smile. “Indeed, this is a Prometheus-class ship, currently being assembled in orbit of Earth. And guys, trust me, it’s one hell of a ship. I managed to cram all the latest tech from both our inventory as well as the prototype tech the admiral had specs on.”

  The view of new tech got Sarah’s attention, diverting away some of her grief. “Wow, that’s a nice looking ship,” she said with genuine interest.

  “Well, thank you,” Yanis replied proudly.

  “So give us the run down,” she continued. “What does it do better than your current lineup?”

  “I’ll show you.” Yanis leaned in and pointed at different parts of the display. “The main feat here is it uses a twin quadrinium core. This provides not only a redundancy, but allows this baby to pack quite a punch in terms of both defensive and offensive capabilities.”

  He went on to explain how the ship could use both core engines at once with a reserve power that was constantly replenished, similar to how the F-140s had been equipped but on a much larger scale. In fact, even when both engines were damaged, the ship could use the emergency power supply to make a medium-size jump. That alone was enough to awaken in Chase a real excitement about captaining it soon. But it turned out that was only the tip of the iceberg.

  With the combined power of the twin engines and the reserve power, the ship could, if necessary, power a brand new plasma cannon—firing a concentrated beam of plasma on which both amplitude and power could be modulated. Yanis explained that the ship could, in fact, even deliver a single pulse that would use every bit of power the ship had to fire a super powerful shot. A shot that he believed would be able to lower the shields of the behemoth Zarlack monstrosity that had attacked Earth. According to Yanis, it could even destroy a small moon.

  “That’s excellent news. We need to be able to take out more of these behemoth starships in the future… and at a much lower cost…” said Chase, with more than a little regret.

  “Yeah, that was my thought as well,” Yanis agreed. “However, there’s a catch.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “The all-power shot would temporarily disable the ship in the process.” He paused. “For shields and life support to get back up to twenty percent, the ship would require sixty seconds, another minute or so for full main power to the weapons and sub-light engines, and at least five minutes to get all systems back to full power and restore the jump engines.”

  Chase frowned. “Can’t we simply use the power of the twin engines and reserve the backup power to do all these things after the shot?”

  “You can, and that’s how it is set by default. But it will lessen your power shot by roughly twenty-five percent. Plus, you’d still need a minute or two before you could fire again while the gun’s plasma chambers recharge. But in the meantime, shields, laser turrets, and torpedoes would still be at your disposal.”

  “Then I don’t see a problem,” Chase said confidently. “I suppose two or three of these shots would still disable the Zarlack capital ship’s shield.”

  Yanis considered. “Probably. It depends how fast they would recharge in between shots. But the point I’m trying to make here is that the Heracles cannon also has that gamble type of firing that would you require to go ‘all-in,’ as the humans say. So while this is very risky, it’s still an option. I know it’s the kind of edge you might want to use in one of those over-the-top, bat-shit crazy ideas you seem to concoct under pressure. No offense.”

  Chase grinned. “None taken, and duly deserved. I’m glad that something like this can be done. It might even save our asses one day.”

  “My thoughts exactly.” Yanis looked up sharply. “But don’t jinx us.”

  “What is it called?” Sarah asked.

  “EAD Hope,” Yanis replied, literally beaming with pride.

  Chase frowned in confusion. “EAD?”

  “We renamed the Alliance, if you remember.”

  Yanis went on to explain that since the ship had, for all intents and purposes, almost double the power of even bigger class destroyers in the fleet, it would make a perfect ship to churn out in large numbers fast. It was clearly a war machine first and foremost, but its added speed in hyperspace as well as superior sub-light speed made it also a great exploration ship.

  “Why would we build anything but these, then?” asked Chase.

  “Well, we still require larger ship as carriers. This can only accommodate two squadrons of fighters and lacks the tube-canon ejection system. So you can’t deploy a squadron as fast as on the Destiny, for example.”

  “Yeah, two squadrons if the ship is alone can be a little tight.”

  “That’s where the F-147 StarCrusher comes in.”

  “The what now?” Sarah asked, a twinkle in her beautiful green eyes.

  “Yeah, the what?” echoed Chase.

  “Shush, he’s talking fighters,” she said with a smile.

  This time, the whole table cracked a laugh. Then Yanis got up and pressed something on his wrist device. The hologram immediately changed to display what looked awfully like an F-140 Thunderbolt.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, let me present you the new and improved version of my already very popular space-worthy fighter bomber.” When he received nothing but blank stares, Yanis’ face fell. “I… I expected some applause.”

  “F-147 StarCrusher?” Chase asked. “StarCrusher? Really? That’s what you’re naming it? And why F-147 and not F-141?”

  “Finally some reaction! Not the kind I expected, but, well,” said Yanis, scratching his head. “And yes, I think it’s a cool name. If you don’t like it, bite me! As for the number, I like the number seven and I added at least seven new technologies to the craft. So there, a little creative freedom if you please?”

  “Easy, tiger,” Sarah soothed, trying to diffuse the testosterone-infused hiccup. “StarCrusher isn’t that bad, and if worse comes to worse, we can rename it later. What really interests me is what it can do.”

  “Right.” Yanis pouted. “We can rename it later... or not.”

  “Yanis,” interjected Chase.

  “Okay, okay… It can do a lot, in fact. As you well know, despite its glowing reputation, the F-140 was a bit of a rush job. We were under imminent threat; we had to do the modifications fast and we really went super raw on the types of systems we were able to include.”

  “If you ask me, it’s one hell of a ship, raw or not,” Sarah offered.

  “Well, thank you.” Yanis glowed. “And I agree. Not only that, but analyzing the logs and stats from the last battle seemed to confirm that as well. The Thunderbolt outperformed and out-killed the Manticore-class fighters. Granted, both of the best pilots were using them so that could affect the overall stats, but in the end it became clear that it is a very efficient ship. So I’ve been working on this ever since the first F-140 got built. With the arrival of the Omega fighters, I was tempted to just drop it and try duplicating Admiral Thassos’ new toys, but I had invested so much in it already, it seemed a shame. So I thought the F-140 deserved a much leaner, streamlined and technology-infused upgrade. My thinking was to try and make a bridge between the F-140 and the Omegas. That way, I could bring the best of both worlds into a new ship. Hence, the F-147.”

  Chase gazed at the holo-image. “I have to admit, I love the way the F-140 looked, so I’m glad you used the same design, just with a darker paint job.”

  “So do I,” Yanis agreed. “But while on the outside not much seems to have changed, under
the hood is a whole different story. First, it’s twenty percent heavier and bigger. Of course, on the hologram you can’t really tell, but that allowed me to find the space I needed to load it with every gadget and system I could think of, and to reinforce the plating now that quadrinium is no longer an issue.”

  Yanis clapped his hands brusquely.

  “Now to the good stuff, shall we? Since it’s bigger, I managed to put redundancies and self-repairing systems pretty much on anything critical, but that’s not all. I loved the fact that the original F-14 Tomcat has twin engines, so I replicated that design with our latest generation engines. A higher-yield, secondary power reserve doubled the number of laser cannons, and it can now carry an additional twin torpedo complement or four missiles, depending on your ordnance choice.”

  Sarah clapped her hands in applause.

  “Why, thank you,” said Yanis, turning to Chase and adding casually, “See, that’s not so difficult.”

  “Show off!” snorted Chase.

  “Look who’s talking,” both Yanis and Sarah said in unison, laughing right after.

  Chase nodded reasonably. “Touché.”

  “But that’s not all. Of course, every F-147 will come with those neuronal link interfaces you guys are so crazy about. Again, the logs showed it’s more efficient than the traditional stick, push, and physical HUD. Earth pilots actually seem to adapt faster to it than our own, for some reason, but still, after sufficient training, everyone seems to get used to it and there are gains in efficiency as well.”

  He got suddenly to his feet.

  “But now for the grand finale.” He rubbed his palms together.

  “Oh, for the love of—”

  “Ah-ta-ta-ta... This one requires special mention,” Yanis insisted.

  “You should have started with ‘one more thing’ then,” said Sarah casually.

  Both Yanis and Chase looked at each other, and, after a while, when it became clear they both didn’t get the reference—after all how could they?—Sarah added, “It’s a Steve Jobs thing. He was the CEO of Apple until he passed away. God rest his soul. And when he was still alive he would keep a special reveal at the end of his speeches, and would say ‘one more thing’ and everyone in the audience knew something special was about to happen.”

  “I’ve heard a lot about Apple. That nice, chain-smoking tech Cedric mentioned it took a little more time to hack their computers compared to something called ‘Windows’ when he had to teleport the EMP to the behemoth Zarlack ship.”

  “Apple? Windows? Who thinks up these names? In comparison, your StarCrusher is a stroke of genius,” said Chase.

  They all laughed for a good while, then Sarah added, “True. When I stop to think about it, the naming of Apple as a company is a weird choice, but then it worked. It became the most successful tech company until… well, until you guys showed up, basically. I wonder what happened to them or their products, in fact.”

  “I know what happened,” said Yanis. “Some of their best engineers are working with me on the F-147 and the other pet projects I have. Some of them were sent to other R&D stations, and Earth still produces smartphones and tablets, but a single model of each, infused with some of our technology; mostly so the damn things don’t die for lack of power after a single day’s use. And of course with higher processing power now as well, we’ve upgraded them to quantum computing. They’re now fully awesome.”

  “Steve Jobs would be proud of you, at least for the upgrades. Not sure he would have liked the fact that all this is made without profit for the company.”

  “Right. Still, what matters is that we adapted something that was well done originally on your world and made it just more efficient, ecologic and available to anyone who needs to use it.”

  Chase scratched his neck.

  “We’re getting off track. What about you tell us what other changes you made to the StarCrusher?” said Chase, clearly impatient to know what more it could do.

  “Right, back to it. The next thing was actually inspired by you. You remember when you told me to look at a way to increase efficiency to the remote control of a squadron?”

  “Absolutely,” Chase recalled. “I loved having the option to fly remotely. Of course, it’s not quite as efficient as just flying my own ship, and, to be honest, sometimes it feels a bit like sacrificing a huge number of ships, but—”

  “Exactly! Why would we lose entire ships when we could lose much smaller ones?”

  The question lay in the air between them.

  “You want to build smaller ships?” Chase frowned.

  “Drones!” Sarah cried, as if she’d won a game show.

  Yanis beamed at her. “Exactly! I’ve looked at the concept of drones in human warfare; it was all the rage before our arrival. And I can see why. They allow soldiers to do tactical missions without incurring loss of life.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Chase said with a twinkle in his eyes.

  “I’ve loaded them onboard the F-147s. Each craft has four drones, all pre-programmed with your sub-routines as well as a full auto mode, and so the onboard computer can pilot them based on the data we’ve gathered from the logs and statistics we’ve recorded during your engagement. We’ve also taken into account analysis of Zarlack attack patterns and baked that in. For you, I’m sure you’ll prefer the manual mode, in which case you now will have access to them and your commands via the neuronal link; but for less experienced fighters, the drones will auto pilot themselves based on your sub-routines, still adding firepower and efficiency to dogfights.”

  “That sounds really good, but how tough are they? I doubt they are as solid as fighters.”

  Yanis nodded. “You’re right, how could they be? But I’ve used the same power source I used in the shielded torpedoes, so they’re tough little suckers. They’re shielded, with a small yet rechargeable secondary power reserve like full-size craft. They fire single laser canons but are modular in frequency and power distribution. And finally, they can be either remote detonated as mines or used as shielded torpedoes if required.”

  Chase studied Yanis critically. “You haven’t slept since the last attack, have you?”

  “Not so much,” Yanis admitted. “After what happened on Earth, I wanted us ready for whatever Obsidian and the Zarlacks had to throw at us. These bastards need to know we won’t let them walk all over us.”

  He sat back in his chair with a satisfied sigh. The presentation was apparently over and he’d done his job well. He was shocked, however, when Chase leapt up from his seat and gave him an unexpected hug.

  “What’s that for?” Yanis stammered, a little stunned.

  Chase flushed self-consciously. “It’s something I picked up from the humans. It’s what you do… you know… when you’re grateful to someone.”

  Yanis and Sarah exchanged a knowing look and Chase was quick to change the subject.

  “Wait—what about cloaking?”

  “Snap! I knew I forgot something,” admitted Yanis. “Perhaps you’re right, I do need to sleep and relax a little.”

  “Can it be installed? It would be a tremendous advantage tactically, and I take it with your access to the Omegas, you must have the means to install that tech as well, right?”

  “As a matter of fact it already is. I just forgot to tell you about it. And… there’s a catch. The F-147 emits a much stronger power signature than the Alliance starfighters, and is considerably larger too. So there are some limitations...”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, you can only cloak the ship for a minute or two, depending on your energy levels.

  Chase shrugged. “More than enough in most situations.”

  “If only it was that simple, I would agree. While the new prototype fighters also lose most of their shields while in cloak, they still can maintain about forty percent of them up and even fire while cloaked, which makes them true predators in battle conditions. The F-147, unfortunately, cannot. It’s simply too big. It has too many systems
and not enough juice to do everything while cloaked.”

  “I see. That’s still an advantage under the right set of circumstances. We just can’t use it in the middle of a frenzied firefight with multiple targets in pursuit. Especially if the fact of de-cloaking means having no shields. How fast do the shields recharge once de-cloaked?”

  “Fast enough. As fast as they would in normal combat conditions. I’m trying to figure a way to flash charge them so they could be restored faster, but I’ve had limited success so far.”

  “Limited success?” Sarah asked.

  “I fried half the capacitors and blew up the other half during testing.”

  “Ah,” she replied, letting the subject drop.

  Chase nodded hastily. “Yeah, it would be great if we get that one day, but for the time being, we can easily say that this new and improved version of the craft should provide us a definite edge against the Zarlacks.”

  Chase noticed Sarah had become quiet again, which, when the subject of technology, weapons, and blowing stuff up was involved, wasn’t really in her nature.

  “Don’t you agree, love?”

  She barely registered the fact that he addressed her directly, but after a few seconds, she answered. “I... I’m sorry. I’m suddenly not feeling very well. Please don’t misunderstand me. This is an awesome craft, one I want to test very soon, but I think I need to go get some rest. I feel a little queasy.” She turned towards Chase. “With your permission?”

  “Of course. We’ll finish up here and I’ll join you later,” Chase answered with a smile.

  “Thank you.” She turned to Yanis and shook his hand “Great job on the new ships. I can’t wait to see them in action. Until next time.”

  Yanis nodded and she left the conference room. When the doors closed he turned back to Chase. “That was a little odd.”

  “She lost an uncle during the battle. He had become kind of a father figure for her after she had lost her parents.”

  “Oh... I didn’t know.” His face fell. “I sensed something wasn’t going well, but I didn’t know what it was.”