Talosian Chronicles 6: Armageddon

by Ben Winston

  When Sasha nodded her head in understanding, Cindy continued, “Any other questions?” No one had any, so she finished, “Then let’s go.”

  When the assault team had grabbed their weapons and gathered in the center of the Damocles’ hold, she looked at each of them. “Lissa says there is a companionway under us. Once we open the hull, they might know we’re here, so be ready. Okay…” She took a deep breath and racked a round into her shotgun. “Knock, knock.”

  Shannon bent down and punched in the activation sequence to the hull opener. It dropped through the open bottom doors of the bay and settled on the hull of the Imperial ship. Raptors were designed for just this purpose and the doors opened up, into the bay, while the area surrounding the doors used energy fields to seal the two ships together. The device rapidly cut a hole through the hull, and pulled back up to the ceiling, taking the hull piece with it, clearing the way for the team to enter the enemy ship.

  The team dropped through the hole into a quiet corridor. No alarm was sounding and no one was in sight. Cindy used hand signals to split the team up and each headed in opposite directions. The corridor ceiling was low, at about five feet. The team squatted down and made their way toward their objectives. Above, in the Damocles, Sasha set a small holodrone to the task of mimicking the ceiling of the corridor to hide the big hole they'd made. She armed her weapons and quietly stood watching the hole.

  “Lissa, are we getting close yet? It feels like we've been skulking through this barge for hours and my back is starting to hurt,” Cindy asked.

  “I think we are getting close;.sensors tell me there is a guarded door twelve meters passed the next bend. There's no way we can approach without being seen.”

  “Colonel, a crewperson is moving forward toward your position; it just passed this position. Be careful, it was short but it looked like Ukrainian Miner,” Sasha said.

  “Thanks, Sasha. Keep on your toes,” Cindy switched off her comm-unit to think. “Lissa, can we cloak ourselves?”

  “I don’t think so, Major. The ship would still read our energy signatures. I’m actually surprised it hasn’t picked us up already,” Lissa replied.

  They had arrived at the last turn to what they thought was the bridge. Lissa looked closely at a panel beside Cindy. She smiled and began to work the fasteners to remove it. “This is what I needed. It’s an auxiliary computer access panel. If you can give me a couple of minutes, I should have full access.”

  “We'll have to take out that crewmen Sasha mentioned. When we do; this ship is going to know it’s been invaded. Work fast.” Cindy said. She looked at Shannon. “Watch the front; I’ll take the guy to the rear. If those two come running, light ‘em up. But if they stay put, hold your fire. I’m gonna try to do this silently, but no guarantees.” She sat the shotgun down and pulled her knife from the chest-sheath. She slowly and quietly made her way back to the last junction to wait.

  It wasn’t a long wait. As soon as she settled down, she could hear footsteps approaching in what sounded like a casual pace. She was on her knees with her legs spread for more stability, and she felt her heart pounding. Once again she tested her grip on the knife.

  The being that walked around the corner was a total surprise to Cindy. She had never seen anything like it except in her dreams as a child. Her mother had read a story called Lord of the Rings and this creature looked very close to what she thought a dwarf would look like. Regardless of her momentary shock, she was in motion before the being even had time to react. She grabbed the front of its uniform, pulled it to the floor and drove the knife up under its chin and into the brain case. The kill was swift and silent. She removed her blade and wiped it off on the creature’s uniform. Then she stood up to make her way back to her team.

  “Sasha, gimme a relay link to command, please,” Cindy called.

  “Da, ready Colonel.”

  “Crystal Palace this is Goldie Locks. We may have a problem.”

  “Go ahead, Goldie. What’s up?”

  “We’re outside what we think is the bridge, its guarded so we are expecting a bit of a fight. One enemy casualty so far. We are still undetected, proceeding to objective,” Cindy replied.

  “Understood, good luck, and good hunting. Crystal Palace out.”

  “How we doin’ Lissa?” Cindy asked.

  “Just about there, Major. Their firewall is tougher than I thought it would be,” Lissa replied.

  “Keep at it, we’ll hold off attacking until you can control the computer. Make damn sure you have control over the doors,” Cindy said. “See if you can get us a layout of the ship as well. I want to make sure no one can get out of that bridge when we take it.”

  “On your visor?” Lissa asked.

  “I’d prefer a hologram. Does that mean you have control?” Cindy asked.

  Lissa just smiled behind her faceplate, and created a hologram of the ship, small enough for them to study it between them.

  There was another hatch to the bridge in another corridor. Cindy swore softly under her breath. There was no way they could do this quietly. “Shannon, I’ll head to the other access hatch. Once I’m in position, we’ll throw a couple of smart grenades. As soon as they go off, we need to be in the bridge as fast as possible. Suppress any resistance, but try not to kill everyone. There is a lot we don’t know about these ships or the culture of the Empire. If we can take the whole bridge crew prisoner, we should. Questions?”

  “What are we going to do if there are more… uh, people than we can handle?” Shannon asked.

  “Well, we can only carry so many on the Damocles anyway, so I guess we’ll have to knock the rest out or kill them. Lissa should already be downloading their database to our ship so we’ll have all that info as well. Ready?” Cindy asked.

  Both Shannon and Lissa nodded and Cindy got back to her feet. “Okay, let’s get busy then. Lissa; guide me to the next hatch.”

  A small, transparent map of this part of the ship appeared on her visor as she grabbed the shotgun and walked quickly back down the corridor. Lissa and Shannon just looked at each other. Shannon looked like she was about to cry, whether in fear or sadness, Lissa couldn’t tell. She reached up and caressed the side of Shannon’s helmet and mouthed the words, ‘good luck’.

  Shannon smiled a little at Lissa’s words. She mouthed back, ‘you too’ before she pulled a smart grenade from the storage area on her suit and called up the programming commands for it.

  Cindy had just finished programming her own grenade as she called Shannon and Lissa. “I’m ready here. Throw on three-count, ready?”

  “We’re ready, Colonel,” Shannon answered.

  “Three – Two – One – Throw!” Cindy threw the grenade as hard as she could around the corner. The grenade locked onto the nearest guard and shot forward. Cindy thought she heard Shannon’s detonate first but they were so close it didn’t matter. She rushed down the smoke filled corridor, past the two mangled bodies and through the now open door; courtesy of Lissa controlling the computer. With her shotgun held ready, she burst into the room.

  Cindy froze but kept the muzzle of the shotgun trained in the general direction of the closest group of beings. The room was obviously the bridge, and it had nine more creatures like the two guards and the one she had killed earlier, but there was one that looked like a gnome that was sitting in the captain’s chair. That reference to a fantasy creature forced her to label the other members of this crew as dwarves.

  Movement to her left caught her attention and she spun, pulling the trigger on the shotgun as soon as she was on target. From roughly five feet away a twelve-gauge shotgun with double aught buckshot did horrible things to flesh. The stocky creature was thrown backward onto a control console, the weapon it was drawing falling from it's dead fingers.

  Cindy spun back around and activated her external speakers. “No one fucking move!” Shannon had entered at the same time Cindy did, but kept her weapon trained on the majority of the crew, as Cindy dispatched the would-be h
ero.

  Cindy slowly approached the gnome. A powerfully built, Dwarvish, female slowly stepped around him to block Cindy from getting to him. Cindy shook her head from side to side and motioned for the female to move aside. The female stood her ground.

  In Talosian, Cindy said, “You are all now prisoners. If any of you resist, you will be shot. If you make any sudden movements, you will be shot. Do you understand?”

  “They do not speak your tongue, human. They do not understand.” A high-pitched, reedy voice responded from behind the female. It was almost a different language in itself, since it was spoken with a really bad accent. It sounded more like “Ay ou ott speck ore tong, oo-man. Ay ou ott unstangg’. But at least she could understand its words.

  “Move the female away from you, or I will. Do you understand that?” Cindy said back.

  “I understand, human.” Then it switched to a language that Cindy had never heard before. The female moved to the side and knelt beside the smaller being, but stared at Cindy with naked hatred in her eyes.

  “Now, I want you to tell the rest to put their hands on their heads and slowly move back here and get on their knees. If anyone makes a wrong move, I will open fire. The first one I’ll shoot will be you,” Cindy ordered. Obviously, the female understood Talosian as well, because she issued the orders, not the little ‘man’ sitting in the chair. The crew followed her orders to the letter, settling down after she pointed the muzzle of the shotgun at the gnome’s head.

  The female also moved her hands to the top of her head, but her eyes never left Cindy. She continued to stare at Cindy like a cat ready to pounce.

  “Female, what is your name?” Cindy asked.

  The female glanced at the still seated gnome. When he nodded, she answered in almost flawless Talosian. “I am called Glamia in your language, human.”

  Cindy was surprised by the woman’s language skill. “What is this one to you, that you are willing to die in an attempt to protect him?”

  “You would not defend your superior officer?” Glamia replied.

  “I understand. Now, I need you to understand something. If you so much as twitch in a way that looks like you might be about to attack, the first thing that is going to happen will be his death, followed closely by your own. You are currently no threat to me or my people. We are not normal Talosian troops,” Cindy explained. “However, if you follow instructions, he will not be killed.”

  “I understand, human,” Glamia answered, angrily.

  Cindy sighed. “You will address me as ‘Colonel’ and the rest of my people as ‘Officer’. Also, I want you to translate, since I can barely understand this one.” She indicated the seated gnome.

  The gnome said something to her in his own language and she lowered her eyes as he spoke. When he finished, she bowed to him and looked back up at Cindy. “That is acceptable, since he cannot understand your tongue very well either.”

  Something in the female’s manner told Cindy that there was more between these two than a professional relationship. “Glamia, I will make sure that you are not separated from your Master.”

  “Colonel?” Lissa called over the comm-unit. “I just found something strange. There is an open comm channel and everything that just happened was broadcast out on it, but it’s not a ‘local’ channel. I don’t think I can shut it down. It’s not part of the normal comm system.”

  “Hang on, I’ll ask our 'guests' about it,” Cindy sent back. “What is the communication signal being sent out from here for? We know it isn’t local, so who are you talking to?”

  Glamia began the translation, but Cindy heard a voice from her right. As she turned her head to look, a hologram appeared. “That would be me, Colonel.”

  “And you are?” she asked. She noticed that the crew, including the seated gnome and Glamia, had faced the hologram and bowed.

  “Not important to you at this point. Since I know you will find out in time, I just want you to know that capturing Shalo will not slow this attack at all - you will all die very soon.”

  The reactions of the crew were her only clue as to this being’s identity, since it was wearing a hooded robe, but it had the distinctly high voice that the gnome had. This meant that this was the Command ship, and the gnome was the Force Commander, which made the hologram…

  “Ah… Your Imperial Highness, please forgive my earlier rudeness. I did not expect to find you in communication with your Force Commander, Cindy said as she bowed to him. "As for your assertion that we will all be dead, I think you might be mistaken. You see, we’ve already destroyed most of your forces, including those special religious troops you had sent. However, may I ask a question, your Majesty?” Cindy replied.

  Not at all amused by the information Cindy revealed to him, the Emperor replied, “You may ask, though I may chose not to answer you.”

  “Fair enough," Cindy replied. "As a people, we are pretty easy to get along with. You’ve had replicator and artificial intelligence technology for hundreds of years now; why are you continuing to prosecute this war? I can assure you, from now on, you’re going to start losing badly. If you call for negotiations now you might be able to save your Empire.”

  “You understand nothing, human. This war has never been about technology. None of your races have ever been a threat to this nation. None of you have ever faced more than a small portion of our total force. However, if you force my hand, I will turn the entire might of my Empire loose on your worlds.”

  Unimpressed, Cindy calmly said, “If I don’t understand, then perhaps you could explain it to me; maybe we can find an equitable solution and stop this wasteful and costly war.”

  “It is only your ego that leads you to think you can speak for your Alliance in this. I am not a fool human; you would never agree to our rule, nor would you be willing to simply surrender to us. So we fight. This conversation is boring me. Good-bye, human.” With that, the image dissolved.

  “If power is the only reason you are fighting this war, Emperor, you were doomed to lose from the beginning. I only hope that this will end soon so billions more will not have to die to appease your megalomania.” Cindy turned back to her prisoners. “Now, we’re leaving. Everyone up and in single file. Out the door and follow the officer back to our ship.”

  The Emperor heard Cindy’s final words, however, as did his advisers, who were sitting with him. “The human's words disturb you, my lord?”

  “Yes, they did. She is closer to being correct than she knows. I was unaware of the fact that most of our forces had been destroyed already, or of the fact that they had destroyed your sacred warriors. It is unsettling for an enemy to tell you of your losses.”

  “These strange humans are far more resilient and inventive than we gave them credit for. It is clear they are an inspiration to the rest of the Alliance. If they are also sharing their technology as our sources tell us, that officer's words may have been prophetic.”

  The Emperor looked at the Priest and nodded his agreement. “These humans seem to be very good at doing the impossible, my friend. If we don’t stop them here, now, I’m afraid the human will be correct and this will be over shortly. Our remaining forces in that galaxy not involved in this operation will not stand long against any sizable attack, and we do not have any other available forces to send at this time. Even if we did, they would not arrive fast enough to make a difference. If we lose this battle, we may lose that galaxy. At that point, we will have lost our best source of Glatilin.”

  “Are you still having the nightmares, My Lord?”

  “Yes, and everyday they become more solid. If Shalo has failed, as it appears he has, I fear there is no way we’ll be able to stop what’s coming,” the Emperor replied.

  “Perhaps, my lord, we should consider another strategy in this. We could negotiate a peace with these humans, as the Colonel suggested, but secretly authorize pirate raids to capture humans and bring them here, to our Empire. In this way, we could develop a renewable source for Glatilin while minimi
zing the losses we are incurring. We can use the excuse of 'restricted supply' to drive the price up,” the High Priest suggested.

  A slow smile spread across the Emperor’s face as he considered the options and ramifications of the suggestion. “Get me a channel to the task force’s next Senior Commander.”

  TDF Star Dancer

  TDRS Necromancer

  Selene, Earth's Moon

  Sol System

  Ian was getting very tired, but he knew he couldn't rest yet; there was still to much to do. The main Imperial Fleets were still advancing to Earth space, and they had to defeat them once and for all. At least some of his CIC team was able to resume their posts; more help was a good thing. He had started to drift off, and almost thought he dreamed it when the tech that was covering for Alex spoke to him.

  “Sir, something’s happening out there. The Imperial ships have stopped and seem to be withdrawing towards the outer system."

  “What? Are you sure?" Ian asked and looked down into the tank. She was right, they were starting to pull back instead of moving in.

  "Huh!" he grunted. "Let them pull back for now, but keep an eye on them. I guess they didn't take the bait, Major," Ian said to the new Intel officer. "Ops, send a squadron of Shadow fighters to keep an eye on them."

  “Silver squadron is launching Sir,” Chloe reported a moment later.

  “Be sure to tell those pilots that if it turns into a furball to get back here on the double; They can defend themselves, but dont start anything,” Ian ordered.

  “Yes Sir; you have an incoming message from Centauri Command,” Chloe replied.

  Ian grinned; “On screen.”

  A very tired looking Ty Anders appeared on the screen and saluted Ian. “Admiral, it’s good to see you again. The Imperials seem to be pulling out here. I’ve ordered my fighters to shadow them, but they are leaving the system. Several cruisers are picking up the fighter pilots as they eject from their fighters. There is another, larger group of fighters that have landed on the third planet. My spotters tell me that they are powering down and just sitting there. Orders?”