Devastator

by Isaac Hooke

  The red dot on the tactical display swerved.

  “The heat signature is shifting to mirror our trajectory, and it’s closing,” Xander said.

  “How long until we have that gate?” Jain asked.

  “Another minute and a fifteen seconds,” Sheila said.

  Several more red dots appeared on the tactical display. They emerged from the original target the fleet was tracking.

  “What’s going on…” Jain said. “Talk to me.”

  “The hidden ship has launched those all-too-familiar amorphous blobs,” Sheila said. A hit from one of those would eat right through a starship’s hull. “It’s also deployed several of the smaller, docking pyramids.” When those attached to a hull, they drilled holes through the armor until breaching an inner deck, at which point they deployed micro machines and other robotic boarding parties.

  Jain began to swing his nose around, wanting to get in a few hits with his barracuda energy cannon, if he was able.

  “The main vessel is at seven thousand five hundred kilometers and closing,” Xander announced.

  “Mark, fire a few black holes,” Jain said. “Make them work to gain the remaining distance.” He glanced at the tactical display. The Thucydides fleet was still twenty thousand kilometers away.

  Jain saw the black hole bolts launch from the Grunt. They struck the empty space at various points in front of the hidden target, and rips in spacetime successively formed.

  On the tactical display, the red dot representing the enemy thermal signature easily weaved back and forth between the gravity wells, unaffected by the black holes.

  Jain noted Mark had arranged the black holes in a herding pattern, forcing the enemy into a cylindrical corridor between them. Jain’s barracuda, located on the still rotating nose of his ship, finally came to bear, and he attained the necessary throw angle for the weapon; he unleashed several energy bolts in rapid succession. He swiveled the turret to direct some of the bolts above and below the firing plane.

  Watching on both the external video camera and the tactical display at the same time, he was delighted when the thermal signature of the enemy vessel shifted upward, out of the way of the first three bolts, and directly into the path of the next one.

  When it struck, the familiar pyramidal shape of the Mimic vessels momentarily faded into existence, before vanishing once again, leaving only the stars.

  “Nice shot,” Sheila commented.

  “Did you like what I did there?” Mark asked.

  “Yes,” Jain said. “Do it again.”

  Mark unleashed several more black holes, herding the enemy into a small tunnel.

  Jain followed that with more energy bolts, and scored two hits this time as the pyramid attempted to dodge. At one point, it was forced to reverse course entirely, rather than move into the path of one of the black holes.

  The incoming blobs were more readily affected by the black holes, but most of them were able to accelerate out of the way, even if they were restricted to Newtonian physics.

  As such, as those blobs began to close with the fleet, Jain had to divert his attention to dealing with them.

  “Rotate port laser banks to bear,” Jain said. “Take out those blobs!”

  Jain directed the three ships under his command to rotate, while the other Void Warriors handled their own autonomous units. Three raptor shots were able to dissipate a blob, so in short order the fleet had eliminated all of the incoming projectiles. But that still left the smaller pyramid boarding craft, which still approached.

  Acting like point defense turrets, the railguns automatically fired across the fleet, targeting the incoming objects: the slugs from the stingers broke apart several of them, but some of the small craft inevitably began to attach to the hulls of the Void Warriors.

  An alert drew Jain’s attention to his damage report screen. He already had breaches on decks three and seven.

  “Launch security rovers and munchkins to deal with the boarding parties,” Jain told his Void Warriors. Munchkins were diminutive combat robots that reached to the height of an average human’s knee, and were well-suited to the small conduits that crisscrossed the interiors of the vessels.

  Jain glanced at the robed man beside him. “Xander, handle the anti-boarding teams on the Talos, Crater, Peltast, and Warwolf.”

  “Sheila, how long until we have that rift?” Jain asked.

  “Twenty-five seconds,” Sheila said.

  “The enemy is heading straight for that ship...” Xander commented. “We won’t have time to decelerate and enter the rift, not before it’s destroyed. You realize that, don’t you?”

  “I do now,” Jain muttered.

  Jain and Mark continued distracting the main ship, but it was still closing. It would reach the seven thousand kilometer mark shortly.

  “Sheila, start opening up a rift with another ship,” Jain said. “Same destination.”

  “You got it,” Sheila said.

  Jain stared at the tactical display.

  “We’re going to have to scatter,” he decided. “Put some distance between our vessels. Let’s try to reduce the chance of that lightning weapon arcing between us. At this point, all we can really do is hope to reduce the inflicted damage.”

  Jain applied opposing thrust on the three ships in his direct control, and also fired lateral thrust on his own unit. On the tactical display, the Void Warrior fleet spread apart.

  “Rift is now open on the first ship,” Sheila said.

  He still gazed at the tactical display. The rift traveled with the same momentum in front of the source vessel, and he wondered if he should give the order to decelerate so the team could make for that rift; no, their pursuer was too close.

  On cue, Xander announced: “Heat signature has reached six thousand kilometers from the trailing units.”

  On the external camera, a bolt of lightning erupted from the apparently empty space where the alien vessel resided. The plasma channel sparked across the void, striking the ship that was maintaining the rift. Electricity crawled over the surface, and the beam that was creating the rift winked out. From the port and starboard sides of the gate underneath it, two more lightning bolts emerged, striking the closest warships—two more autonomous units. The running lights of all three turned off, and on Jain’s HUD, the health indicators of the given ships turned red.

  “We lost three ships,” Xander said. “Including the rift ship.”

  Jain shook his head. “Damn it.”

  The hidden alien vessel launched more blobs.

  “Fire any undischarged raptors at those blobs!” Jain ordered.

  He and the others did so, unleashing their remaining heavy lasers at the projectiles, and dispersed them.

  “Alien vessel is still closing,” Xander said. “It has changed course to target the next rift ship.”

  “Now we get to find out how long they need to recharge their main weapon,” Cranston commented.

  “Keep scattering,” Jain said. “I want at least six thousand kilometers between each of us.”

  That would induce a small amount of lag between the different team members, but not enough to be noticeable.

  “Enemy vessel is continuing to close,” Xander said. “The next rift ship will be within their effective firing range in twenty seconds.”

  More alerts sounded on Jain’s HUD. He glanced at his damage screen. Three more breaches.

  “How are we doing against the boarding parties?” he asked Xander.

  “Well,” Xander said.

  That was good enough for Jain.

  A flash filled his external camera feed. The Arcane faded into view, as did the pyramid vessel. The super-material sword extension of Medeia’s ship had cut clean through the enemy hull, striking horizontally near the upper half of the pyramid, shaving off the tip and a good portion below.

  Medeia appeared on the bridge, dressed in her witch outfit.

  “You were supposed to stay back!” Jain scolded her.

  “I
know,” Medeia said. “But I couldn’t resist. Anyway, it shows you that the admiral was wrong. They can’t track our cloaked ships after all.”

  “Begin decelerating,” Jain said. “We have to finish that bastard off before he repairs. Maybe we can teach the admiral a few tricks in the process.”

  The Void Warriors decelerated, and turned back to assault the enemy pyramid.

  The Arcane was moving away from it, and the base portion of the enemy pyramid was fleeing too, abandoning its top section. Apparently the vessel was too badly damaged to mount any further offensive, because it left Medeia alone; all it could do was limp away.

  “Look at them run...” Mark said.

  Jain glanced at Xander. “How fast are they moving?”

  “Their speed has only been reduced by twenty-five percent,” Xander said. “We still won’t catch it.”

  “Too bad,” Jain said. “All right, let them go. Maxwell and his fleet can deal with them.”

  “Now that we’ve softened them up for him,” Mark said.

  Jain glanced at Sheila. “Cancel the rift.”

  “Deactivating creation beam,” Sheila said.

  Jain saw a flash on his external display and zoomed in. He realized the fleet had fired at the fleeing pyramid and destroyed it: all that was left was spreading debris.

  “Well, they certainly made short work of them…” Mark said.

  “Yes, and that doesn’t make sense,” Gavin said. “The alien ship had to have self-destructed. The Thucydides fleet only fired a score of missiles. Not enough to create the wreckage we’re seeing.”

  Jain glanced at the tactical display. The Thucydides fleet had closed to eight thousand kilometers.

  “All right, hail the admiral,” Jain said. “He’s getting a bit too close for comfort.”

  “I’m surprised he hasn’t hailed us already,” Medeia said.

  “He’s much too in awe of us,” Cranston commented.

  The admiral appeared on the bridge moment later.

  “Impressive,” Maxwell said.

  “You were wrong about their cloaking,” Jain said.

  Maxwell seemed confused. No, distracted was a better word. “What?”

  “The cloaking,” Jain said. “You were wrong about it. We got close. Destroyed that son of a bitch.”

  “Ah,” Maxwell said. “Actually no, you got lucky.”

  Jain waited for Maxwell to say more, but he didn’t elaborate.

  “All right, well, you’re getting too close,” Jain said. “As per our agreement—”

  “That agreement is now nullified,” Maxwell said.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Jain asked.

  A flash lit up his external camera feed.

  An alert sounded on his HUD.

  “What—”

  The admiral smirked. “Goodbye, Void Warriors.”

  The connection closed.

  Jain glanced at his tactical display. Three of the green dots that represented members of his fleet were flashing.

  Gone.

  Why am I not surprised?

  He should have listened to his gut.

  “That flash you saw?” Xander said. “The closest Piranha in the Thucydides vanguard fired a lightning weapon. We lost three more of our ships, a rift vessel among them. The other two were autonomous, luckily. But still…”

  “Why weren’t they spread out, like I ordered?” Jain asked, barely able to keep the anger from his voice.

  “They didn’t have time,” Xander replied.

  “Damn it.”

  7

  Jain stared at his tactical display in disbelief.

  “They have a lightning weapon... they can travel the same speed as the enemy...” Mark said. “They’ve acquired Mimic technology?”

  On the external camera feed, the pyramid that the admiral had supposedly destroyed reappeared. It followed alongside the Thucydides fleet. Its top section was still sheered straight off, but it matched the speed of the others. Either the vessel had repaired its engine damage already, or more likely, had only feigned that engine damage in the first place.

  As he watched, the other warships changed shape. No longer were they the elongated, dart-like forms of the human models, but instead, they became the pyramids of the aliens.

  “They haven’t acquired Mimic technology…” Sheila said. “They are Mimics.”

  Jain was an imposter. He shouldn’t be in charge of this fleet. He should have prepared for this very possibility.

  A voice at the back of his head scolded him.

  You were prepared. You knew something was wrong. Yet you ignored your instincts.

  Never again.

  “Sheila, get the Daktor to open a rift,” Jain said with as much calm as he could muster. The Daktor was the only rift ship they had left.

  “Same destination?” Sheila asked.

  “That’s fine,” Jain said distractedly. Six ships down. He was six ships down.

  Can’t think about that now.

  “On it,” she replied.

  “The rest of you, regroup,” Jain said. “We have to protect that ship with everything we have! Draw away their fire. Gavin, Sheila, use your force fields to shield the Daktor. Medeia, get cloaked. If you have the opportunity to take out another enemy craft, do it.”

  Medeia nodded, then vanished from the virtual bridge.

  “Mark get some black holes out there, give them something to dodge. The rest of you, send the autonomous ships out there, attack pattern delta.” That was a spread out pattern, which would ensure they were sufficiently scattered to avoid lightning arcs.

  He drew the path for those ships on his tactical display. “I want them to break away perpendicular to our current direction of travel. They’ll become Task Group B. The rest of us in Task Group A will move off in the opposite direction. B will loop around and rejoin the fleet by the two minute mark.” The rift would be open by then. Assuming the Daktor survived.

  As the two task groups separated, he was pleased to see several alien ships break away from the main pursuers. But not enough: only about four separated. The remainder continued to approach. The closest pyramid, which had fired the lightning bolt that terminated the latest three vessels in Jain’s fleet, was closing to the six thousand kilometer mark away from the Daktor.

  While momentum carried him forward, Jain rotated his nose toward the attackers. Mark launched some black holes from the Grunt, and Jain added energy bolts to the mix with his barracuda. The pyramid ship easily dodged the black holes, and this time didn’t fall for the herding pattern Mark employed—it steered well clear of the black holes before returning to its previous course. The gambit did prove an effective stalling tactic, however, because the enemy pyramid was approaching far more slowly. But that wasn’t really a comfort, as the other vessels in the Mimic fleet were fast approaching.

  “Someone has to protect the Daktor,” Sheila said. She began decelerating, as if intending to place herself between the rift ship and the incoming enemy. “If we lose that ship, we’re all gone. There’s no jumping out of here. We’ll be captured, our AI cores absorbed by the Mimics, our knowledge and memories used against the rest of humanity.”

  “You don’t have to do this,” Jain said. “We can sacrifice a different ship.”

  “That’s the thing, we won’t need a sacrifice,” Sheila said. “I have a force field.”

  “But it won’t be enough,” Jain said. “It didn’t help you in the first battle.”

  “You don’t know that,” Sheila told him. “None of us remember our first battle.”

  “I’ll help her,” Gavin said.

  He too began dropping out of formation.

  Jain wasn’t sure what to say for several moments.

  “Neither of you have to do this,” Jain finally told them. “We have ships to spare…”

  “Yes, but how many can we afford to lose?” Sheila said. “No, I can do this. I will survive, especially with Gavin helping me. I know I will. And if I don
’t, well, screw it.”

  Sheila’s Wheelbarrow and Gavin’s Hippogriff were in place behind the Daktor, which had already begun the rift creation—a long beam shot out ten kilometers in front of it, into empty space. The Wheelbarrow’s spherical energy shield was active, while Gavin, sandwiched between the Wheelbarrow and the Daktor, had placed the Hippogriff’s three support drones behind Sheila’s vessel. The drones formed a triangular force field that acted as an additional shield for her. The Wheelbarrow was now trailing the Void Warrior fleet, and was closest to the enemy.

  Mark had to cease firing his black hole weapon, because the unit was beginning to overheat. Jain gave his barracuda weapon a rest as well.

  The nearest alien pyramid launched those familiar blobs, along with the smaller boarding party units. Other members of the Mimic fleet did the same, and on the tactical map a big swarm of red dots emanated from the enemy positions.

  “Well, that looks like a lot of fun,” Cranston said.

  “It’s all fun and games until someone loses a ship…” Gavin commented.

  “Concentrate raptor fire on the closest blobs,” Jain said.

  He and the other Void Warriors unleashed their raptors against the blobs, dispersing several: the trajectories of the alien projectiles would have taken them past the Wheelbarrow and Hippogriff, to the Daktor.

  The closest pyramid reached the six thousand kilometer mark from the Wheelbarrow. It didn’t fire immediately.

  “Hang tight, Sheila,” Jain said.

  “Oh I’m hanging all right,” Sheila said. “By the fingernails.”

  “If you’re having second thoughts…” Mark told her.

  “Too late now,” Sheila said.

  The pyramid shifted upward, as if trying to get a better shot at the Daktor, but the Wheelbarrow and Hippogriff followed suit, continuing to block the enemy’s line of fire.

  Twenty seconds passed, and the nearest enemy vessel closed to the five thousand five hundred kilometer mark.

  And then it fired.

  The lightning weapon penetrated the force field formed by Gavin’s support drones; the intensity seemed to halve when it passed through. Then it struck Sheila’s spherical shield, and again the intensity halved, so that when it struck her ship, only a few weak sparks erupted along the hull of her vessel, and no arcs traveled to the Hippogriff.