The Specter Rising

by James Aspen

  “A cloaked ship just entered the hanger bay. I’ve recalled all starfighters and routed all available troops to take it.” The old officer hesitated. Something in his voice was off. Something bigger was happening, Numoh could see it in the Gryx’s eyes.

  “What else has happened?” Numoh was curious at what could evoke such a response from the normally unfazed secondary officer.

  “Fleet Admiral Hya has requested immediate conference with you. Shall I transfer her to your private terminal?” Commander Keul’s voice was grave.

  Something very terrible has happened. Normally, he’d take all fleet command calls in his private quarters. That wasn’t an option. He had to take this in front of the bridge crew.

  “No. I’ll take it at the comm station. The prisoners destroyed my terminal.” He left out that they had destroyed his entire office. He motioned the comm station crewman aside and punched in his command code, willing his hands to stay steady.

  The calm but stern face of Fleet Admiral Hya appeared on the screen in front of him and he began immediately reciting the proper greeting for someone of her rank.

  “It is an honor…,” he began, but her sharp voice cut him off.

  “Explain yourself. Now.”

  Numoh looked up, aghast at the breech of protocol, his mind racing. The young Gryx Admiral was always fierce, but he could see now that she bristled with barely contained rage. Something terrible has happened for sure.

  “I am hunting down three escaped prisoners on my ship. Concerning for sure, but nothing that should waste your valuable time,” he said, forcing his voice to stay steady. Her forcefulness and dismissal of proper decorum concerned him.

  “Ah. Your first mistake is that you should not have prisoners to begin with. My standing order is to execute all members of the Resistance!” She glowered at him for a moment, and he found himself thankful she was only scolding him from a screen.

  “I saw an opportunity to retrieve technology I believe to be vital to our efforts.” His protest felt flimsy even as he spoke.

  “You saw an opportunity to enrich your standing, you mean! You disobeyed a direct order. That’s reason enough to have you removed,” Fleet Admiral Hya growled.

  Numoh knew he had no defense, and so he offered none. “Yes, Admiral. I apologize.”

  “The second mistake might cost us decades of careful planning. That I cannot forgive,” she said. Her voice was icy now, and it sent terror tingling up his spine.

  “I know I ordered the attack on Earth early, but it was the only way to hide our plans when their transport escaped,” he stammered.

  “You don’t know. Do you, Captain Numoh?”

  “Know what?”

  Fleet Admiral Hya’s eyes narrowed into black slits.

  “You are as reckless as you are a fool. That prisoner decrypted your personal files and uploaded them to the quantum network. Everything we have worked for has been laid bare for the entire Federation to see.”

  Numoh paled to a sickly white.

  “I see you are smart enough to know the gravity of what has transpired. Now, instead of a carefully orchestrated expansion of the resources of our new Empire with the quiet takeover of backwater worlds, we find ourselves in a war.”

  Numoh felt guards move in behind either side of him.

  “Captain Keul, please have Private Numoh report to the blockade in your hangar bay,” she snarled. She leveled her gaze back at Numoh. “Now, Private Numoh, bring me the head of this Edolit Vyn or die trying. If you fail, I will personally place every member of your brood out the airlock like you should have done to your captives.”

  Numoh felt two heavy hands slam down on his shoulders. He spun wildly to see two members of the bridge guard gripping him. Captain Kuel grimly tore the captain’s seal from Numoh’s uniform and placed it on his own, avoiding Numoh’s gaze. With a stiff gesture, he motioned for the guards to escort Numoh to the hanger. Numoh was in a state of shock as they dragged away him from the screen.

  Captain Kuel for turned to the screen and saluted. “Orders, Admiral?”

  “Continue your assault on the planet. Get me its surrender within the cycle. I have the troop transport Harrier and cruiser Harvester en route to reinforce your position before the Federation or the Resistance can send their own forces.”

  “Yes, Admiral. It will be done,” Captain Kuel said with as much confidence as he could muster. This wasn’t the first time he had seen a figure in command striped of rank during his career, but he hadn’t expected to be the one promoted because of it. The prospects made him bristle with anxious energy.

  “See that it does,” she said. The corner of her lip curled up into a snarl before she disappeared from the screen, the connection severed.

  Captain Kuel walked over to Numoh and stopped in front of the stricken former captain. Kuel unholstered his sidearm and held it out for his former leader. The weapon had been in his family for decades and had always served him well.

  “Here Cap…, Private, go get Vyn’s head. Succeed so they may put you on an ore hauler,” Captain Kuel said.

  Numoh looked down at the weapon and shook his head, motioning to the guard’s heavy Bl-66 pulse rifle instead. “I’ll need something a little more powerful to take her down,” Numoh said as he took the guard’s weapon. “Thank you Captain Kuel.”

  The color was returning to Numoh’s ashen features. Somehow, he felt a sense of relief at the loss of his command. Only one thing remained, the most simple of all the things he had worried about for years. Kill or be killed. He only had to get that tenacious Hylian in his sights.

  Then, finally, he would be free, and he would be happy to disappear.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  “BACK!,” EDOLIT SHOUTED as she reflexively blasted the crewman who had appeared from a side corridor.

  Omaro blocked Ja’el’s limp form with his body as they retreated to a nearby hatchway. He howled in pain as a blaster bolt burned through his side plate for his troubles. The Scyllarian oozed fluid from a half dozen wounds, his Ambra having trouble keeping up with healing the damage. The damage made him unsteady on his feet, but he kept using his chitin plates to shield the rest of his team.

  Edolit let the limp body of the Grr’alis lean against Omaro’s side and crouched, using Omaro’s armor as cover as she reached around and shot the remaining Varanul pursuing them. She held her weapon at the ready for a moment. Smoke and the smell of ozone rose from its super-heated barrel; she expected more of the snarling beasts to pour out toward them. Edolit scrambled back to help carry Ja’el.

  “Are you injured, Omaro?” Her initial thought was to request his health status from her Ambra. It’s going to take some time to get used to command without Nian’s input.

  “I’ll live,” he said, his voice flat. “Come on, we’ve got to get moving. The kid is having a tough time in the hanger, they were ready for him.”

  “And he’s never done anything like this before,” she said.

  Regret washed over her. She glanced at Ja’el, unconscious from a head wound or overdose of pain meds, she couldn’t tell. Her regret only worsened. She wondered how many more innocent beings would be dragged into fighting for their homes by the Gryx and their Syndicate. It weighed on her in the best of times, seeing beings she had recruited dying or snapping under the pressures of the shadow war. It shouldn’t be their responsibility; none of them should be the ones fighting. The Federation was supposed to be the ones out here. They were supposed to protect all beings like they claimed, not just the enriched ones of the core worlds.

  She hoped getting her proof of the Gryx’s goals of domination out to the public would finally spur the Federation to action. It would expand the conflict away from the back alleys of border worlds, sending it deep into the core of the Federation. She worried sometimes, if it had been too long since the Federation had been forced to defend itself. Did it have enough will left to fight for itself, or had it rotted through to its core?

  “You okay, Commander?�
�� Omaro asked.

  She smiled and a force a blue pulse of calm to flash across her face. “Just ready to get off this ship.”

  Ja’el let out a murmur and jerked in the beginning stages of waking.

  “Almost there, just around this corner. The kid is trying to clear the area around the exit. Zyp says they are taking a lot of fire but they’re not taking damage so far.” Omaro came to the corner and paused. He poked his head around and jerked back as a hail of blaster fire splashed against the wall across from them. “Ka’ilk, they’ve got the entrance barricaded!”

  “Show me!” Edolit growled.

  Before Omaro could activate his display, blaster fire splashed above her head, and she dropped reflexively. Two Varanul were taking aim from the hallway ahead, trying to flank them while they were pinned down at the intersection. A flurry of shots from her blaster sent one falling backwards onto the deck before it could get another shot off. Omaro’s return fire neatly burned out the other’s center eye and it dropped in a heap next to its brethren.

  “What? Where are we?” Ja’el weak voice was barely audible over the blaster fire, and the familiar hum of The Specter’s engines in the hanger.

  Omaro released his grip around Ja’el, and Edolit helped the Grr’alis to the ground and pressed her back against the wall. The sound of a second blaster rang out above them as Omaro drew another weapon and started firing.

  “We’re pinned down here, Commander. What’s the play?” The Scyllarian’s chittering voice was strained but controlled. He’d stand his ground as long as she needed him to.

  Ja’el’s remaining arm reached out towards Edolit’s wounded shoulder. “Go. Leave me. I’ll blow the corridor behind you,” she said weakly. She raised her arm to show the self-destruct sequence already set into her Ambra with a resigned nod.

  “No, we’re not leaving you, don’t you hear the ship? We’re almost home.” Edolit looked up to Omaro, “Send her your tactical display.”

  Omaro didn’t give a verbal confirmation, but a combat map projected in the air above Ja’el’s, sent by his Ambra while he kept up the cover fire. She glanced at the positions of the enemies behind the barricade and flanking from the side corridor. She knew what to do and handed one of her blasters to Ja’el.

  “Here, watch his back until I get back. And be ready to move.” She patted Ja’el’s slender shoulder and stood, drew her blade from its scabbard, and flicked it to life.

  The sound of blaster fire stopped as Omaro took out the last of the flanking Varanul. The gentle whir of Edolit’s vibrating blade filled the surrounding air, and Omaro turned in surprise. His chest plates had taken a couple direct hits, and she saw he was barely staying on his feet as his Ambra struggled to keep him patched up. He couldn’t handle much more.

  “No, you can’t. You’re injured, Commander.” He tried to push her back, frantic. She knocked his hand away.

  “Then keep them pinned down until I’m on top of them,” she growled. She tested her arm with a quick swipe of her blade and winced. Her shoulder wound was worse than she expected. She switched her hands, putting her blaster in the one she could barely hold up, and her blade in her non-dominant hand. She wasn’t as skilled at the blade with that hand without the augmentation of the Ambra, but it would have to do.

  “But…”

  “That’s an order. Just like on Triton IV. Three.” She pulled the blaster at the ready next to her head, switched her blade to a backhand grip, and nodded to him. The blade’s glow cast a fuchsia glow on the back of her stained jumpsuit.

  “Two,” he said, with a quick glance to the power packs meters on his blasters.

  “One, go.” She blindly fired her blaster towards the entrenched Varanul and winced as the heat of their return fire showered her hand with molten metal. A microsecond later, Omaro surged across the gap of the intersection, firing wildly with both blasters. The Varanul ducked or shifted their aim towards the new target and gave her the distraction she needed.

  Wishing she had her Ambra more than ever, Edolit raced towards the barricade, firing rapidly. She wasn’t worried about hitting anything, just keeping them pinned down. She guessed at their positions, once again realizing how much she relied on the Ambra’s tactical data, and aimed her sprint to the left of a cluster. The short distance of the corridor felt warped in her mind, like it would never end. Hurried return fire bounced around her as they took snap shots towards her. The hum of her blade held at the ready behind her gave her the confidence she needed. She was born for moments like this.

  Then she was upon them.

  With all the strength she could muster in her burning legs, she dove over the barricade head first, blindly sweeping her blade to the right with her backhand grip. The swipe cut cleanly through a Varanul’s skull. The creature slumped over onto its squad mate from the force of her momentum as she sailed past.

  She tucked at the last moment and landed with a quick roll. When she felt the ground under her feet, she blindly kicked back and sent her body hurling back towards the barricade. Hurried blaster bolts filled the space she had just occupied, narrowly missed her. She fired blindly towards the left, her shoulder screaming in pain at the angle. Her pain was rewarded with the angry howls as some of her blasts hit their mark. As she crashed back against the barricade, her backwards momentum drove her blade into the chest of a Varanul.

  The gurgling sound of its howl let her know she had pierced its lung. The Varanul flailed desperately before she could gather strength to move. Edolit screamed as it battered her left side, and she felt her fractured ribs snap. Wheezing, she kept her grip on her blade as she fell forward, her momentum tearing the beast’s chest open while she fell. The creature’s gurgling howls ceased. She landed with a sickening thud and shock-waves of pain coursing through her. She looked up at the last Varanul, frantically leveling its weapon at her.

  Before she could move, a blast from close range rang out, and the Varanul’s head jerked to the side from the force of the impact. Reflexively, its death rattle jerked the pulse rifle’s trigger, and a blast tore through the deck next to Edolit’s chest. Searing droplets of metal splashed against her side, burning through her jumpsuit. Another microsecond and the creature would have gotten her.

  “Took you long enough,” she wheezed. She tried to get up, but collapsed onto the cool deck instead. She could hardly breathe, and she wondered if her cracked ribs had pierced her lung. The whine of The Specter’s engines outside the open hatchway behind her comforted her. She’d done it.

  “Commander!” Omaro’s voice were panicked. She imagined she looked terrible between her own wounds and the orange Varanul blood splashed all over her. He began to climb over the barricade.

  “No, I’ll be okay. Go. Get Ja’el and tell Paul we’re right inside the exit.” The hum of her blade quieted, and she let it fall to the deck. He hesitated. For a moment she thought she would have to scold him, but his face disappeared. She let her head roll and pressed her cheek against the deck. The cool ferroucarbon felt wonderful against her cheek. She’d never felt so tired, and wanted nothing more than to collapse and embrace her exhaustion, to let sleep overtake her.

  Shouts from beyond the hangar door and the sounds of muffled explosions reminded her she wasn’t out of the fight yet. Palms against the deck, she gathered her strength and forced herself up. The sharp pain in her ribs and the blaster burns to her shoulder nearly made her left arm collapse beneath her, but she managed to get into a seated position. Grimly, she studied the carnage around her and shuddered at the orange pools of blood. Though she knew the Varanul were genetic abominations bred for one purpose, she never had taken joy in ending a sentient life.

  Groaning, she moved away from the gore and cleaned the blood from her blade before slipping it back into its scabbard. The familiar weight on her back comforted her. Edolit was battered and bruised, bleeding from a half dozen wounds and had at least two broken ribs. She had lost her Ambra. Despite all her wounds and the grief she felt at Nian’s
loss, she allowed herself to feel the elation of relief. The familiar sound of The Specter’s engines roared loud outside. They were almost home. She’d saved them.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  C’MON SPECTER, HOLD together a little longer.

  Uh, Paul? The ship is not sentient.

  “No time to explain personification, just help me keep track of these troops!”

  A bright flash against the shields in front of the viewport made Paul flinch instinctively. He tried to blink away the bright spots dancing in front of his eyes. When they didn’t disappear, he realized his view was blocked by a steady stream of concentrated blaster fire. Vague shapes moved in the haze, but not enough to know what he was seeing. He cursed and checked his shield strength.

  [Forward Shield: 68%, Read Shield: 73%]

  Great, they’re trying to blind me and have a chance at taking me out. His mind raced as his eyes scanned the console. A switch near the copilot’s seat caught his eye. There, that’s the one!

  He leaned over as far as he could without losing control of the ship and flicked the switch. The viewport screen switch to a dull green glow and bright yellow lines appeared, a three-dimensional representation of the hanger outside, based on the ship’s sensor readings. A moment later, orange silhouettes of Varanul flashed into view, moving quickly around the hanger, projected behind the outlines of various objects they used for cover.

  He smiled and jerked the ship quickly to one side, firing lasers the whole way and melted one of those sources of cover to slag. The orange silhouette of the creature that had been hiding behind it disappeared, either neutralized by his blast or the shrapnel.

  “I see you now.”

  He gave the forward thrusters some power, and the ship lurched deeper into the hangar bay. The viewport cleared, but he kept the sensor display engaged, overlaying the view of the hanger with the outlines created by the computer. As he came around the corner into the main hangar, he targeted one cluster of troopers still standing guard by the entrance Edolit and her team would come from. With a quick series of concentrated blasts, Paul destroyed the barricade that the fire team crouched behind and took most of their numbers out of the fight.