The Coming Storm_A Pax Aeterna Novel

by Trevor Wyatt

  “Deploy the Hunters!” Jeryl commanded.

  He watched as the Hunters emerged from The Seeker’s flight deck. The ships, in impeccable formation, swooped down on the shuttles that were busy boarding the decoy transport convoy. From Jeryl’s perspective, the Hunters, led by Powers, seemed to take the boarding shuttles by surprise. They peppered the shuttles with shots, dealing extensive damage in one pass. The captain, from his vantage point in The Seeker, watched as one of the shuttles exploded from the blasts. In fact, all five ships appeared to be rendered non-functioning from one sweep.

  “Ashley, can you hear me?” Jeryl radioed down.

  “Yes, I can hear you.”

  “How are you hanging in there? How is the convoy?”

  “I’m fine. You don’t have to worry about me. The Hunters really seem to have hit their mark—not that I’m surprised. I just wish I could’ve been right there alongside them, leading the way.”

  “You’re doing a great job in your current role. Just be careful down there. The attack fleet is ready for this. Keep me updated on what you’re seeing.”

  Though Jeryl was part of the battle, he had a different perspective up in The Seeker than what Ashley had. The same went for the pilots of the Hunters. Communication was key for coordinating the whole thing, as space fights could easily descend into confusion.

  Jeryl knew that The Ghost fleet, led by Kaine, would be on the same page. The Armada’s attack fleet couldn’t afford to have any mistake on their end. That would be the end of it.

  Although the Hunters had managed to cripple some of the attacking shuttles, others were already preparing to return fire. A true fight was on now.

  Jeryl shot a message down to the pilots in the Hunters. “You aren’t going to have the element of surprise anymore. Stay on your toes.”

  “No problem, Captain. We’re ready for whatever they have to fish out,” Guillermo replied.

  “Let’s kick some Syndicate ass!” Francesca added.

  Jeryl turned his attention to the rest of the ships in the attack fleet now.

  “Let’s spread out and attack. Don’t give the enemy an exit. Keep an eye out for the The Ghost as well. That’s the real reason we’re here.”

  Confirmation was received from the other ships in the fleet, and they began to take their positions in the battle.

  As the space fight began, the Armada had the clear advantage. It appeared that their surprise had, in fact, stayed a surprise. The Hunters stayed close to the convoy, protecting those ships from being boarded, and ostensibly protecting Ashley’s shuttle as well. Jeryl was pleased with the attack fleet the Armada had provided him with. They were certainly holding up their end of the bargain.

  Suddenly, Jeryl felt a jolt. The Seeker had been hit.

  “Damage report!” he yelled.

  “We seem to be fine, Captain. It was only a glancing blow,” Mary Taylor, the communications officer, informed him.

  “Don’t let it happen again!” Jeryl replied.

  The captain surveyed the landscape, looking for the perpetrator of the shot. He noticed a couple of boarding shuttles flying nearby. Even if one of them hadn’t been the shooter, they were still the enemy. Jeryl maneuvered the ship into position. Though the shuttles were smaller and swifter, Jeryl was deft at the controls of his ship.

  With tremendous skill, he locked in on one of the shuttles. He ordered the shot to be taken, and the particle cannons fired.

  It was dead on, and the shuttle immediately began plunging into the inky darkness of space. Jeryl turned his attention to the remaining ship and ordered more rounds to be fired. Only one of them hit, but it did a little damage. The shuttle was struggling to continue flying. Two blasts later, and the shuttle was finally destroyed.

  Jeryl didn’t have any time to revel in his success, with Ashley’s tense voice coming at him.

  “Captain, are you seeing this?”

  Jeryl turned his attention from the shuttles he had just destroyed to the main viewscreen.

  “I am,” he said succinctly.

  The Ghost.

  It had finally emerged from the darkness to join the fray. This was the plan, of course, but Jeryl still felt a tinge of concern in the back of his mind.

  “We’re engaging The Ghost in battle. Remember, Captain Kaine Reed is commanding the ship. He’s extremely capable—and extremely dangerous,” he told the fleet, the Hunters, and his crew.

  Though the Armada’s fleet had been succeeding, the mood had changed considerably.

  If The Seeker wasn’t able to take down The Ghost, none of this would matter.

  Alright, old friend, let’s fight.

  Chapter 24

  Jeryl

  The Ghost’s appearance was nothing short of ghostly. The darkly-lit vessel with gray hulls and zero markings lanced through the field of battle like a colossal whale, oblivious to the Hunters diving left and right out of the way. There was a deadly grace to it, which caused Jeryl to pause and just stare.

  The tempo of the battle seemed to slow down. Everyone was enthralled by the destroyed ship that has come back to life—as if the dead were coming back to life.

  And then The Ghost began to fire.

  “Evasive maneuvers!” Jeryl blurted, out of habit.

  A second later, he realized he was the one at the navigations station. He twisted the controller, sending The Seeker into an unholy dive. As the vessel trembled terribly at the exertion and the CNC officers tumbled through the air, Jeryl fought the wave of fear that rippled through his mind.

  Suddenly, the open channel descended into chaos. Everyone was talking at the same time. The pilots were jittered by The Ghost, while the boarding shuttles of The Ghost Fleet seemed to have rallied around their flagship, emboldened by the Vessel of Death itself.

  Shit! What next?

  “We’re taking heavy fire!” one pilot screamed through the comm, and then was silenced by a heavy explosion.

  “We lost him,” shouted Guillermo. “We fucking lost—”

  “I’ve got enemy bogey on my six!” another pilot cut through the chatter. His voice carried a definite terrified edge, such that made Jeryl shiver, even as he brought The Seeker around.

  “I can’t shake him off!” the pilot continued.

  Jeryl felt his skin crawl with a coldness.

  That’s just a kid in there, he thought at the voice.

  BOOM!

  The screen flared yet again as another Hunter was raptured in a sphere of fire and debris. Another pilot gone.

  “We need an attack plan, Captain!” Ashley cut through the haze that was forming in Jeryl’s mind. “Kaine is laying waste to our forces. We need to do something.”

  We are doing something, Jeryl wanted to shout back. We’re fighting!

  But even as he romanticized about that, he knew that Kaine and The Ghost’s presence had left him mentally incapacitated.

  Jeryl’s first mistake was to have taken control of the helm, when Ferriero, the navigations officer who was especially skilled, was well capable of flying the ship into battle. Also, by slaving the weapons control to the navigations console, he had relieved Adachi Tomoe, the tactical officer of duty.

  Jeryl had two highly trained officers standing by and practically useless.

  What commander leaves two of his best officers out of a dog fight? Yours truly, apparently. Fuck!

  Jeryl was beginning to realize that he had let his fear of Kaine control him. The assumption was that Kaine was helming The Ghost—but what proof did he have of that?

  It was all his almost arrogant notion that Kaine thought him worth a dime to personally want to finish him off.

  Shit!

  Jeryl needed to stop thinking like a pilot and start thinking like a fleet commander. But he wasn’t about to relieve the weapons and tactical consoles. He didn’t want to seem unstable to his CNC crew.

  “All Hunters fall back and regroup around The Seeker,” Jeryl commanded.

  “Roger that, Captain,” Powe
rs replied.

  “All fleet vessels, arrow formation,” Jeryl said. “We’re going to punch a hole through The Ghost fleet. Their strength is in their tight formation. I want to keep them scattered and uncoordinated.”

  “Divide and conquer, eh?” one of the captains in the fleet asked.

  “Damn right,” Jeryl replied.

  Jeryl saw on the main viewscreen that his orders were being executed with finesse. The Hunters were falling back with grace and taking outlying boarding vessels down as they did. Until now, none of the transport vessels had been successfully boarded, and Ashley had skillfully led the convoy to a defensive position behind the Armada fleet.

  “Fleet report!” Jeryl said.

  “We’ve lost a third of our Hunters, sir,” a reply came.

  “The Seeker’s, or the Armada fleet’s combined?” Jeryl asked.

  “The Seeker’s, sir” replied Adachi, who was monitoring the battle from a secondary tactical console in the CNC. “We have a few damaged starships, but none has been destroyed. The Ghost fleet has taken a minor beating, but they’re still strong.”

  “In other words, we haven’t achieved anything?” Jeryl asked.

  Adachi was wise enough not to reply.

  “Powers,”

  “Sir.”

  “I want you to lead the Hunters’ squadrons on a shoot and run swoop as the fleet punches through The Ghost fleet’s formation,” Jeryl said. “Don’t stick around for a dogfight.”

  “You want us to play the ghost, sir?” Powers replied, a hint of humor in his voice.

  “Yes, Lieutenant,” Jeryl said. “Might as well turn the sides.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Powers replied. “Powers out.”

  “Fleet, prepare to attack on my cue!”

  One by one, each captain replied with an affirmative.

  Jeryl threw the controller forward. The Seeker leaped into motion, its sub light engine roaring against the sudden move.

  Ahead, The Ghost fleet approached, a cacophony of starships and boarding shuttles. It looked like a motley mix, yet Jeryl knew it was infinitely deadly and powerful. But was it powerful enough to take down an Armada attack fleet?

  Convoys were one thing. Attack fleets were another.

  I guess we’re about to find out.

  The element of surprise was gone. They were left with tactics, fire power and good old battle luck.

  “We’re in position, sir,” Powers said. “Ready to swoop in.”

  Jeryl noticed that the entire Hunters had divided themselves into two teams, one at each verge of the Fleet’s formation—high up and ready to come down hard.

  Good.

  At the center of 'the Ghost fleet' was the needle-like monstrosity. It was so sleek that its motion betrayed the eyes. One would wonder if it was actually moving.

  Jeryl had pored over The Ghost’s schematics to ensure he was familiar with the ship’s design, because looking at it through space made it hard to tell where what was—be it the CNC, the engine room, the life support systems, and so on.

  It was ghostly that way, so dark and ethereal that it could’ve very well been a black hole, sucking into itself all light and life.

  “Sir, we’re being hailed by The Ghost,” Mary Taylor exclaimed.

  “Oh no, you don’t,” Jeryl muttered to himself.

  “All weapons fire!” he boomed a second later.

  The Armada attack fleet, which had formed into the shape of an arrow, met The Ghost fleet head on. The Seeker maintained its knife-like approach, tearing through the forward defensive vessels like paper.

  Explosions filled the void of space, metamorphosing into a spray of expanding balls of orange fire and showers of miniaturized halls, from one corner of the space battle to another.

  Screaming of orders and yells of terror filled the open comm channel as the Hunters started their attack dives.

  For a moment, everything descended into complete chaos. Jeryl maintained his forward motion, cutting through the clutter of ships until he was face-to-face with The Ghost.

  Dive, his mind screamed at him.

  No! Jeryl replied back. This ends today!

  But that’s not the mission! his mind screamed back.

  “Captain, you have to dive!” Ashley’s voice came through the comm channel.

  Jeryl didn’t see it until it was too late.

  To the aft of The Seeker were three enemy starships swooping down on him. Jeryl’s eyes widened as he recognized the move—it was a move he and Kaine had designed and perfected during the Earth-Sonali War. It was the perfect trap, one that Jeryl had been too blind to see.

  “The Kaijer Offensive…” he muttered, utterly awestruck. “Kaine, you fucking bastard.”

  “Retreat!” Jeryl bellowed. “All vessels, retreat!”

  But it was too late. He had led the entire fleet into a trap. He thought he had knifed right through The Ghost fleet’s formation, whereas The Ghost fleet had actually lured them into a zone of death and had covered up their exit.

  The three ships let it rip on the Armada fleet.

  Jeryl threw The Seeker into a starboard dive, sending everyone that wasn’t tightly strapped in into the air. Jeryl’s safety straps jerked under the strain as he was thrown forward, the engines’ roar drowning the whine of the artificial gravity.

  A sudden explosion rocked The Seeker, sending it into an uncontrolled spin. Instantly, they lost power, as well as their antigravity field.

  Someone screamed in the CNC. Smoke wafted into Jeryl’s nostrils just as there was a sharp spark of electric power somewhere behind.

  “Engine room!” Jeryl shouted, wrestling with the controller to restrain the ship’s dangerous spin. He could hear the deep groan of the ship’s hull. It could come apart under such high magnitude stress

  “We’re doing all we can, sir,” the chief engineer replied via the comms. “But we were hit badly. We lost all engines.”

  “I need to steady the ship!” Jeryl complained.

  “You’ll ha—to do—out the engi—”

  The comm system was failing.

  “Sir, you may not have the engines but you’re already moving,” a calm voice said behind him.

  Jeryl looked over his shoulder to see Ferriero standing behind him. There was a gash across his forehead. Coagulated blood had formed a crusty seal across the gash, reducing bleeding to a slow trickle. He didn’t seem aware of the injury.

  “…use the movement to control the ship,” Ferriero was saying.

  Jeryl heaved a sigh and got up. “You have the control, Ferriero.”

  Jeryl retreated to the familiar Captain’s chair. Settling into it gave him a feel of power he didn’t know he’d lost, trying to pilot the ship.

  As he felt for the arm controls, Jeryl never took his eyes off the main viewscreen. In a matter of seconds, Ferriero had canceled out the spin and steadied the ship. The Seeker was now drifting lifeless in the heart of The Ghost fleet’s formation.

  The zone of death, as Jeryl had suggested to Kaine years ago.

  Most of the Armada attack fleet had limped out of the zone of death and were now retreating to the edge of the system.

  “We’re sitting ducks here, sir!” Adachi exclaimed, who had returned to the main tactical console now that Ferriero had unslaved it.

  “What are your orders, sir?”

  “We’re trapped,” Jeryl said. “We’ve lost our engines and most of our power. We’re flying dark. There’s only one thing left to do…”

  “Sir, scanners show that boarding shuttles are converging on our positions,” said Dr. Taft Lannigan, the science officer.

  Jeryl didn’t miss the hint of a question in the Dr. Lannigan’s voice—why would Kaine want to board us, when he has just decimated a chunk of our fleet?

  Because he wants to capture The Seeker.

  “He’s not going to fire on us,” Jeryl said to Dr. Lannigan. “Computer, establish a ship-wide broadcast.”

  “Complying…” the computer
’s reply came. “Proceed, Captain.”

  “Crew of The Seeker, listen up,” Jeryl said. “We have a few minutes before we’re boarded by the enemy. We’ve been bested. We’ve lost. There’s no shame in running, as long as we’re going to live to fight another day.

  “And that is what I want you to do. Live. So we can fight again tomorrow.”

  Jeryl paused to take a look at his CNC crew. Most of them looked at him with wide-eyes. He had never given this speech, even during the Earth-Sonali War. They always stuck with The Seeker to the very end, and all the time came out on top.

  But this is different. This is Kaine.

  “Abandon ship,” Jeryl said. “That’s an order.”

  That’s the order.

  Chapter 25

  Ashley

  Ashley threw her shuttle to the right, avoiding a blast from one of Kaine’s shuttles.

  What the hell are we going to do? They’re tearing through us like we’re nothing, she thought to herself. How in the hell did Kaine manage to train his people so well, so fast?

  She dodged another blast, returning fire and gaining slight satisfaction as she saw her target careen into a nearby shuttle, putting a hole in both ships.

  But as she looked around, she realized—just as Jeryl must have—that this was a lost cause. Somehow, someway, the Armada was losing. Three of her Hunters were gone, not just down, but gone.

  Henderson, Sano, Joshua—all gone. Sano had just gotten married a few weeks before, Joshua just found out he was going to be a father, and Henderson just got promoted—and now, they were all dead.

  Kaine had outsmarted them again. He had known where the convoys were going to be. He had known Tira was a spy. He had known Jeryl was coming for him, and had beaten Jeryl badly for it.

  Dodging another round of fire in a shuttle that had shitty maneuverability, Ashley did her best to get back to The Seeker with the rest of her Hunters. Then, the fleet came together in a V formation and charged, knifing through the enemy.