by Caleb Selby
Gallo shook his head. “Fresh signals coming in on our starboard flank!”
“Reinforcements?” Fedrin said shaking his head. “They’re bringing in their reserves when we are at their mercy? We should be flattered.”
“They’re not Unmentionables,” Gallo clarified, after double-checking his screen.
All the officers dove for their terminals, all, anxious to see what or who had just arrived.
“It’s the Northern Fleet!” Etana shouted out after confirming the signals. “It’s Admiral Nidrid and the Northern Fleet!”
Fedrin looked at his monitor in total shock. The Northern Fleet, the obsolete ships that had once battled the Refrac Pirates and had been discounted as worthless for years? Surely Admiral Nidrid knew better than to bring his outdated pirate chasers to battle a fleet that knew no equal. But Fedrin’s monitor confirmed what Etana had reported as the fresh signals sounded out strongly across the crowded skies.
“Looks like you could use some assistance, Fedrin,” Nidrid’s voice rang out over the Iovara’s speakers.
“Most definitely!” Fedrin replied, relieved at the sight of help, but worried about the fate of the Northern’s crews. “We are very glad to see you!”
“You as well,” Nidrid answered. “We are on our way!”
Another familiar ship suddenly appeared alongside Nidrid’s flagship prompting claps from around the bridge and adding a newfound faith in the Northern’s audacious presence on a battlefield reserved for only the strongest and best ships.
“Admiral,” Gallo excitedly reported. “The Sion freighter we encountered in Sibid is formed up with the Northern Fleet.”
Amid the sparks still flying on his own bridge, Fedrin managed a cautious smile.
“The Sions have already filled us in on what’s been happening,” Nidrid announced. “We’re here to buy time for you and from the looks of it, it’s already starting to work. From where I sit it looks like large numbers of Unmentionable warships are already breaking off from your location and are targeting our ships!”
“Don’t sound too excited,” warned Fedrin. “These aren’t Refrac pirates you’re dealing with! These are the real nasty deal!”
Nidrid chuckled. “As you’ve already guessed by the presence of our Sion escort ship, we’ve also received rudimentary upgrades. There wasn’t time to have a thorough refurbishing but they’ll do for now. It’ll be enough to distract these monsters for a little while, and that’s all we can do. Now get to it, Fedrin! We don’t have all day!”
Hundreds upon hundreds of the Unmentionable ships slowly turned from the onslaught of the dying, yet tenacious Sixth Fleet, and turned their attention toward the surprising arrival of fresh vessels. The notion of reinforcements had long since been dismissed by the Unmentionables. After all, the Second and Third fleets were the only other formidable forces, other than the Sixth, that had to be dealt with. The Northern was known to be weak and obsolete and had been discounted as a threat. Seeing it now drawn up in battle array gave some Unmentionable commanders pause to respect it once more.
“All ships, fire at will! I repeat, fire at will!” Nidrid ordered which was promptly obeyed with a torrent of Sion based weaponry that quickly brought several enemy ships to an unceremonious demise.
“Way to go, Admiral Nidrid!” Kesler shouted out as he watched a large Unmentionable warship explode.
“That’s right!” Tarkin started to say but was cut short in his acclamation by a massive jolt.
Kesler glanced at his computer and then shook his head.
“Shields down another fifteen percent,” Tarkin confirmed. “A few more hits like that and we’re done.”
“Keep up weapons fire,” Kesler ordered. “If we can’t move, we’re going to take as many of these devils down with us as we can!”
“You got it, Commodore!” Tarkin replied.
“The fleet is falling apart!” Kendrick shouted through his transmission screen to Fedrin as he watched his comrades in their desperate struggle as his own ship continued to put distance between it and the battle. “You can’t advance and your retreat is cut off. They’ve completely engulfed you! I’m going to come back!”
“No!” Fedrin shouted. “Your carrier won’t be able to help against this. Get out of here! Save yourselves!”
“They have thinned out ahead, Admiral!” Colby shouted through another transmission screen. “See there! I can see the moon between those two formations!”
Fedrin quickly analyzed the chaotic battlefield and nodded as one last course of action took shape in his mind. “What ships still have fully functioning engines?” he quickly asked.
“None have fully functioning engines,” Etana replied. “But ours and the Idok have the best engine capability remaining.”
Fedrin glanced at his data pad and then nodded. “The Idok’s audio receiver is down so send Kesler and Tarkin a bulletin transmission telling them to follow our lead.”
Etana nodded and turned to her station.
Fedrin was just about to order full speed ahead when a large enemy battle ship suddenly descended, blocking the single narrow channel through the enemy fleet that Fedrin had planned on darting through.
“What weapons are still working?” Fedrin yelled back to Jonas.
“Looks like we still have forward EMOD batteries seven and eleven,” Jonas said. “The main plasma weapons, Sion mounts and starboard guns are gone.”
Fedrin took a deep breath and looked ahead. “Fire the forward batteries at that ship!” he yelled out, pointing at the large vessel on the screen. “Full speed ahead!”
Etana looked back at Fedrin as if he were nuts. “Fedrin, there’s no where to go!”
Fedrin looked at his wife intently before he calmly nodded. “I know.”
Etana was about to offer further objections when Fedrin’s plan suddenly became apparent. She reluctantly nodded and then turned to her station and punched the thrusters. The wounded ship shook as it defiantly accelerated toward the enemy vessel.
“Intensify forward fire power!” Fedrin yelled as it became apparent to the rest of the command crew what he was doing.
“Aye, Sir!” the ever-impetuous Jonas answered emphatically. “We’ll light her up!”
The Iovara sped toward the Unmentionable warship, firing what was left of her weaponry the whole way. The command crew stopped all they had been doing and watched as the ship grew closer and closer. There was no way the underpowered EMOD guns could take it down before they reached it. They were going to ram!
“Is the Idok following our lead?” Fedrin asked.
“They are,” Etana answered calmly.
Fedrin nodded. “Tell Kesler and Tarkin to follow through the gap we are going to make for them and do what must be done!”
Etana nodded.
The Iovara was mere moments from impacting the enemy vessel when a burst of light, from seemingly out of nowhere, careened past the Iovara and headed toward the opposing ship. It was too fast to be a fighter and too small to be a plasma round. The light struck the enemy vessel in the stern and for a split second nothing else happened. Time and space seemed to come to a screeching halt as if awaiting the outcome of the brief, but weighty, event. Then suddenly, white burning light, brighter than a thousand suns, began to emit out of every porthole, crevice and cavity of the massive enemy vessel until it lit up the entire battlefield. Fedrin, Etana and the other officers were forced to shield their eyes from the light’s incredible burning intensity. Yet, even with their eyelids closed tightly and with their hands shielding their eyes, the light seeped through, threatening to burn up their very corneas if there was no reprieve. And just when the crew could take no more, the light went out.
Gallo stared inquisitively at the main screen, looking past the patches of color in his recovering eyes and watched as the enemy battleship then began to explode. Huge an
d powerful blasts ran up the fuselage in synchrony, each one larger than the preceding one until a final explosion obliterated the ship into such minuscule pieces that unless you were watching, you would have never believed that a ship had been where the space dust now was.
Everyone, including Fedrin, looked out the screen with their jaws dropped open in disbelief of what they had just seen.
“That was cool,” said Jonas in an uncharacteristically relaxed tone.
“What was that?” Etana asked, her mouth still gaping at the large void created by the ship’s seemingly miraculous destruction.
Gallo glanced down at his station, not even knowing which screen to look at. “I have no idea,” he finally responded, not having touched a single instrument.
“Scan the area for more of those...those things,” Fedrin awkwardly ordered.
Etana looked at Fedrin. “What things?”
Fedrin stammered and then shrugged, unsure of what to say.
“Scanners are picking up scattered readings to our stern,” Jonas voiced up. “I can’t get a lock on any of them. Not sure what they are.”
“Switch the main screen to our rear view,” ordered Fedrin.
The main screen promptly switched to the rear view. Directly behind the Iovara was the battered, yet surviving Idok, followed closely by the Defiant and the Arbitrator destroyers, also badly damaged. Encompassed about the ships was the Unmentionable Armada, still blasting away as fast as their weapons could fire. Then, just as had happened moments earlier, streams of light came tearing through space and systematically smashed into the Unmentionable ships, decimating them into mere dust. Hundreds upon hundreds of ships simultaneously were destroyed in this manner until not one remained.
The force of over eight hundred enemy ships that had, just moments earlier, been pounding away at the remnants of the Sixth and Northern fleets, was gone. Completely and totally gone! No debris, no floating hulks, no fragments of any kind remained as testament of the greatest power ever assembled in one place in the galaxy.
“Where’d they all go?” Tarkin asked in bewilderment.
“I believe you are looking at the handiwork of the Clear Skies System,” Kesler said, trying to hold back a smile as the joy of victory flowed through his veins.
Tarkin shook his head. “I had no idea the missile defenses were that powerful,” he said, still in amazement.
“I have a feeling the Sions had some part to play in that,” commented Kesler. “From what I remember about the system, the missiles were intended to be high yield explosives intended for destroying Krohn capital ships. These missiles didn’t look like high yield explosives at all. They seemed to have some sort of high photo eruption as their mechanisms of action, a perfect weapon for targeting Unmentionables.”
“How do you reckon they managed it?” Tarkin asked.
Kesler shrugged and nodded at an image of the floating hulk of the Sion freighter next to the Northern Fleet ships. “We’ll probably never know.”
A beep sounded at Tarkin’s station. Tarkin read the message and then shook his head. “Admiral Fedrin wants all ships with operable engines to make straightway to the moon.
Kesler shook his head. “Here we go again.”
“We did it,” Etana said with a soft smile as she let go of Fedrin. “We did it!”
Fedrin smiled too. “But it’s not over yet,” he cautiously said. “We still need to get to the garden...to the tree.”
“We just destroyed eight hundred enemy warships Fedrin,” Etana emphasized. “What’s a little walk in a garden compared to that?”
Fedrin nodded. “You’re right, of course. We’ve just had so many set backs lately that I just don’t want to start throwing confetti until it’s done and over.”
“Well, lets get it done and over with then,” she said with a smile. “I’m ready to move on with my life.”
Fedrin pulled Etana close. “I’m ready to get on with our lives!”
The ragtag group of barely operable warships, crept toward the deadened moon. The Iovara took the lead with the Idok right beside. The Northern Fleet, relatively intact, took up the rear.
CHAPTER 19
Last Stand!
“Look out!” Zane yelled. “There’s more over there!”
Reesa swung her lydeg around and pulled down hard on the trigger, mowing down two Krohn troops in the doorway.
“Watch yourself!” Darion said, pushing a volunteer out of the way just as a shoulder mounted rocket crashed into their crude barricade, sending up a storm of burning rubble.
The chokepoints held for days further up in the network had all fallen, forcing the few defenders to congregate in the small antechamber that served as the conduit for all the populace super bunkers. The only way for the Krohns to reach the civilians was through the chamber, making it a critical spot to defend. Barriers and defenses were thus set up throughout the room to give what fighting men and women were left, some hope against the Krohns. This was indeed the last stand for the people of Larep.
Weapons fire flew back and forth across the massive chamber as the Krohns relentlessly advanced, their claws, tails and teeth just as formidable weapons as their lasers and rockets. Hundreds of other volunteers stood just outside the antechamber on the super bunker side, waiting for a weapon to free up and for their chance to fight the Krohns who were in no short supply, continually pouring into the arena without regard to the fact that they were being butchered.
“How long do you think we can hold out?” Reesa yelled to Darion as she fired several well-placed rounds down one of the passageways.
Darion fired a barrage before ducking behind the wall and yelling back. “I’d say another hour or so before the Krohns overwhelm our position!”
“An hour?” Zane remarked. “You’re a dreamer General! I’d give us five minutes!”
The Krohn bodies continued to pile up next to the passageway entrances until their comrades literally needed to move the corpses out of their way before they could advance, but advance they did.
“Lookout!” someone yelled as a rocket slammed into a cluster of volunteers stationed along a far wall, killing them all.
Darion and Reesa looked at the horrid sight of burning bodies and melting flesh and shook their heads.
“Not good, not good!” remarked Zane as he fired a clean shot into a Krohn’s forehead across the room.
Five more volunteers suddenly appeared out of one of the bunkers and ran to the sight of the dead volunteers. They tugged and pried the weapons out of the burned and mangled hands of the fallen and then turned them against the ever-advancing Krohns and opened fire.
Darion shook his head as he watched the ebb and flow of the battle. It indeed was not going well.
As Fedrin’s shuttle finally cleared the mesosphere, the foreboding surface of the moon...their former home world as told to him by Trab...could be seen clearly. Craters pocked the crust at irregular intervals and mighty volcanoes dotted the horizon, spewing out a steady stream of sulfur and ash making the atmosphere instantly lethal to any living being. Weaving in and around the ash filled plains, between craters and mighty chasms, ran mighty rivers of liquid fire, churning on their deadly currents in and out of the many volcanoes, constantly refreshed with new magma.
Fedrin glanced out the porthole just as the shuttle flew over one of the streams of lava and began to slow above a large flat plain within a mighty crater. It was flanked on all sides by some of the largest lava rivers on the moon and was called the Hand of Fire, for how it appeared when viewing it from Namuh Prime.
In the very center of the plain there stood a tall archway, which looked to have been carved out of a single solid rock. Within the arch, a massive door made of a thick and ancient looking wood was hung. A large brass ring was fixed to one side to serve as a handle and two separate indentations resembling hands were engraved into the wood
directly above the ring.
“Here it goes,” Fedrin said into his transmitter as he donned his helmet and secured his ventilation pack onto a harness beside a small leather pouch holding Trab’s severed hand. He then slid his dagger, gifted to him by Trab, into a small sheath and tucked it under his jacket, leaving the hilt just barely obscured and readily accessible.
“Please be careful,” Etana answered through the tele-link screen. “Anything...or anyone could be down there waiting for you.”
Fedrin smiled. “Like you said earlier, the hard stuff is done. Now it’s time to finish this once and for all.”
“I know, but the enemy wants what you want badly. They may try anything.”
“I’ll be fine Etana. Look after my ship. There’s a lot to be done on her.”
She glanced around the Iovara bridge and nodded as she patted the armrest. “Don’t you worry, Admiral. Both the women in your life will be waiting for you,” she said and then waved Fedrin off before he could see her begin to cry. She was worried sick about what was going to happen and resented vehemently the fact that Fedrin had not permitted her, or anyone, to accompany him.
Fedrin turned and approached the rear shuttle door. “Go ahead and lower,” he called up the pilot. “Then take off as soon as I’m out. I’ll signal you when I’m done for a pickup.”
Nothing happened.
“Go ahead and lower the ramp,” Fedrin called out again.
When still nothing happened, Fedrin turned to see what was going on but stopped when he spotted a familiar face.
“You don’t think you are going out there alone, do you?” Tarkin asked as the emerged from the cockpit, zipping up a custom, six-armed version of the marine non-atmospheric jumpsuit.
Fedrin looked at Tarkin in awe. “Why are you here Tarkin? How are you here?”
Tarkin shook his head. “Commodore Kesler ordered me to fly to the Iovara and act as your pilot. He also ordered me to keep an eye on you.”
