The Ghost Fleet

by Trevor Wyatt

  “That’s got to be the colonial defenses,” Jeryl said, more to himself than anyone, before directing his next command to the tactical officer. “Let’s begin our run. Weapons ready, defensive shields at maximum, full speed.”

  Ashley could sense the palpable tension in the air. This was the most dangerous mission that many of the crew of The Seeker had ever engaged in. Fighting border skirmishes with the Human Confederation, otherwise known as the Outer Colonies was one thing.

  Tackling an alien life form that was apparently much more advanced than humanity and had only been discovered less than six months ago?

  Completely different.

  She could see it in the way people tried to do their jobs without letting the fear get to them. How they answered the Captain that they were launching torpedoes on the dreadnought.

  She could hear the collective gasp through the CNC as the viewscreen showed, in unmerciful detail, the two lead Sonali frigates veer away from the main fleet and concentrate their weapons on the Crazy Horse.

  Ashley turned to her sensors and watched as particle beams from the Sonali ships lanced out towards the Crazy Horse. The ship attempted to follow normal Armada protocol and launched torpedoes to blunt the intensity of the particle beams, but the Sonali ships were able to sustain their fire at top speeds and they began to batter the defensive shielding on Crazy Horse.

  “Crazy Horse shields are buckling, Captain,” Ashley found herself announcing. “They won’t last much longer under a barrage like that.”

  As if to vindicate her assessment, the viewscreen dimmed itself to compensate for the intense bright explosion as the antimatter drive of the Crazy Horse exploded, ripping the entire ship apart with all hands lost. Ashley watched as the helmsmen covered their eyes from the brightness of the blast instinctively.

  They weren’t in the battle more than ten minutes and had already lost a top of the line Terran Armada vessel.

  “Concentrate our fire on the dreadnought weapons systems, come in at bearing five, three, zero, one, from their aft side,” Jeryl instructed, not giving himself a chance to get distracted by the loss of a fellow ship.

  The crew complied and The Seeker raced through a fusillade of enemy fire to launch several torpedoes that struck the Sonali dreadnought’s aft weapons.

  Ashley watched her sensors keenly as she saw the weapons striking. She looked at the damage report with dismay as Tactical reported, “Minimal damage to their shielding, Captain.”

  Unwilling to be deterred, Captain Montgomery ordered another run.

  “The Calendra fighters are regrouping on the far side of the eighth planet,” Tactical reported.

  “How many of them are left?” Jeryl asked.

  “Five, sir,” Tactical reported stoically.

  Ashley shook her head. There were twenty when they had jumped out of FTL.

  Another explosion lit up the viewscreen and Ashley looked through her mountains of data when the Tactical officer called out, “Chuckchansi has been destroyed, sir.”

  “Maintain firing solutions on the dreadnought,” Jeryl commanded. “We need to punch through their fucking shields!”

  Chatter began to come through the open line between the ships.

  “This is Yorktown,” Ashley heard the Captain of that ship call out. “We’re taking heavy fire from Sonali fighters and are pinned down. Retreating from our position towards Calendra II.”

  “Maintain your position, Yorktown,” Jeryl instructed. “We have to hold the line. Here.”

  There was no acknowledgment and Ashley wondered whether the ship would listen to Jeryl.

  It turned out that they did.

  “Hirohito, can you provide cover for Yorktown?” Jeryl called through the open channel.

  There was only static through the line..

  A moment later, the answer came from Tactical. “Hirohito is crippled sir. She’s listing in space. Her weapons and shielding are offline and life support is sporadic. She’s taken heavy damage.”

  The minutes went by faster than Ashley could count. The flotilla went through various combinations to attempt to harass and pick off the Sonali ships.

  Space lit up again as Yorktown had her hull breached in multiple areas from Sonali fire and exploded.

  “Status of Sonali fleet?” Captain Montgomery called out from his chair.

  After a brief minute, the report came back for everyone in CNC to hear.

  “All Sonali ships seem to be functional, sir.”

  There it was. So many lives extinguished from the human side. And not a single Sonali ship had fallen.

  “Signal the Calendra II colony,” Jeryl said to Communications. “Tell them we need to pull back to the planet. Maybe we can use the orbital platforms to help us.”

  “Sir, I’m not able to get a signal to Calendra II,” Communications called out. “The Sonali seem to be jamming our hails. The last thing I was able to glean was that widespread riots were breaking out across the colony as people were trying to board the limited ships available to take them off planet. There seems to be a breakdown in the colonial government.”

  Jeryl sighed and Ashley could understand why.

  With most of the fighters from the colony destroyed and nearly half the Terran flotilla destroyed or incapacitated, the end of this battle was drawing closer. Humanity was losing. As if the end of an era of space exploration were at hand. And an age of extinction were imminent.

  “Take us around for another pass, Lieutenant,” Jeryl instructed from his chair. “Target anything you can and give them everything you got.”

  As the ship began another pass into the maelstrom, two Sonali frigates and the dreadnought began to concentrate their fire on The Seeker.

  “Evasive actions, Helm!” Jeryl yelled and the ship swerved hard to port, evading two crisscrossing particle beams from two different ships.

  But a third one rocked the vessel and Ashley had to hold on to her station to keep from being thrown off.

  “Status?” Jeryl yelled in one breath as he gave another order. “Maintain firing!”

  “Hull breaches being sealed on Deck 5 and 6, shielding down to 50%,” Tactical reported back.

  “Sir, another few hits like that and there won’t be a ship left,” Ashley said out loud to the Captain. Jeryl nodded. He knew that their death was at hand.

  Jeryl

  “Fuck,” Jeryl muttered, his eyes trained on the viewscreen. He saw as the hulking Sonali dreadnought seemed to grow larger and larger, and his fingers grew white as he gripped tight the armrest of the Captain’s chair.

  Was this the way he’d go? Crushed, alongside his whole crew, in the first real battle The Seeker faced? No, he wouldn’t allow that to happen. He didn’t care about his own life, but he’d be damned if his whole crew would suffer because he wasn’t up to the task. No. Whatever the cost, he’d ensure they’d all live to see another day.

  “Sir, their weapons are locked on us. They’re powering them up again!” Someone shouted, and Jeryl gritted his teeth so hard his jaw felt as if it was about to shatter.

  “Evasive maneuvers!” He shouted, getting up from his chair and looking straight at the viewscreen. The cannons in the dreadnought were lighting up at a steady rhythm, eager to unleash hellfire upon them.

  “We don’t have enough power to—”

  “Shut the shield down and redirect all power to our thrusters,” Jeryl commanded, his heart beating so fast he wouldn’t be surprised if it simply exploded. Shutting down The Seeker’s shield during a battle was pure insanity, but it was either that or suffer an immediate death. The ship would never survive another blast from the dreadnought.

  “But, sir, that’s—”

  “Do it!” Jeryl bellowed, digging his fingernails into the palm of his hands.

  “Yes, sir!” He heard the Ensign reply. A warning took over the viewscreen, letting everyone in CNC know that shields were down.

  “Take us out of here, Helm,” Jeryl commanded, and a second later he heard
the thrumming of the thrusters as they received a surge of power. He gripped the handrail in front of him tight as The Seeker swerved starboard, doing it so fast the gravitation stabilizers barely had the time to compensate for the change of direction.

  The moment The Seeker moved, a particle beam flew from the dreadnought and right into the space previously occupied by the Terran Union ship. If Jeryl had hesitated a simple second, the beam would’ve hit them right in the hull.

  “We’re receiving a message straight from the Armada Command,” Mary Taylor, the comms officer, said. She looked back over her shoulder at Jeryl, an expression of fear and desperation coloring her eyes. Even though her skin was dark, Jeryl almost swore she had grown pale in the last few seconds.

  “Go on.”

  “They’re telling us that most ships have evacuated, and our orders are to retreat immediately,” Mary Taylor told him, and Jeryl raised his eyes and looked back into the viewscreen. He watched as the dreadnought followed after them, the two Sonali frigates still flanking it.

  “Prepare to engage FTL drive,” Jeryl commanded, even though he knew he was turning his back to the millions of innocent men and women that inhabited the Caldera system. But what could he do? Condemn everyone aboard The Seeker to an early death just because he didn’t have the necessary grit for war? No. If a heavy conscience was the price to save his crew and continue the war effort, that was what he was going to do. “Tell the rest of the fleet we’re heading back. We’ll stay behind until everyone jumps into FTL, and we’ll follow after them.”

  “Yes, sir,” Mary replied, her fingers flying over the screen in front of her as she talked into her headset. “All remaining ships are engaging FTL drives.”

  “Good, let’s do the same,” Jeryl nodded.

  “Engaging FTL drive!” One of the ensigns shouted as Jeryl sank back into his seat. The dreadnought was closing in on them, and he was starting to get worried. One lucky shot before they jumped into FTL and it’d be all over.

  “We won’t make it out in time, Captain,” Ashley told him, her face so pale Jeryl could swear all blood had left her body. “In a few seconds they’ll have the drop on us, and then...”

  “Captain, I’m receiving a transmission from the Hirohito,” Mary Taylor cut Ashley short, her voice brimming with panic. “Their FTL drive has been damaged beyond repair. They won’t be able to make the jump.”

  Abandoning a colony was one thing. But abandoning someone in a fleet he was commanding? He knew it was what he needed to do, but somehow Jeryl just couldn’t say it out loud. He simply stared at the viewscreen for two long seconds, watching as every remaining ship from the fleet jumped into FTL and vanished. Only The Seeker and Hirohito remained.

  “We need to go, and we need to go now,” Ashley whispered, leaning into him. Jeryl barely listened to her. He just watched as the dreadnought’s cannons powered up again, and for a moment he felt as if time had stopped. He felt the blood grow cold inside his veins, and both his heart and lungs seemed to stop working.

  “Take us out of here, Helm,” Jeryl finally commanded.

  “It’s too late, sir, they’ve locked on to our coordinates!” One of the youngest ensigns cried out, panicking. It was true—ten more seconds and The Seeker’s hull would be pierced by the destructive particle beams, and there was little Jeryl could do to stop that.

  “What the…?” He heard Ashley mutter behind him, and he looked back at her over his shoulder. Her eyes were focused on the sensors in her workstation, where blinking dots signaled the position of every starship in the sector. The moment Ashley noticed that Jeryl was looking at her, she patched her workstation to the view screen. A fraction of a second later and the sensors were superimposed on the screen.

  “Is that…?” Jeryl started, but Ashley didn’t even let him finish.

  “The Hirohito,” she nodded, watching as a blinking dot moved fast, closing in on the dreadnought. It was doing it so fast that there was simply no way they’d be able to avoid a collision.

  “They’re going to sacrifice themselves so that we can leave,” Ashley muttered, her tone a somber one. Not a second after and Jeryl saw Hirohito on the viewscreen, its large shape moving toward the dreadnought at blinding speed. It happened fast; one hull hit the other, metal twisting fast, and then both the dreadnought and Hirohito seemed to implode.

  The dreadnought was about to fire when the collision happened, and its particle beam cannon blew up from the inside out, a blinding white light taking over the view screen.

  “Take us out of here. Now!” Jeryl shouted, jumping up from his seat. The crew of the Hirohito had sacrificed themselves so that everyone aboard Jeryl’s ship could live one more day. He wouldn’t allow that sacrifice to go to waste.

  “Yes, sir!”

  And then they were out of the Calendra system.

  “Dead. All of them,” Ashley said as Jeryl simply looked down at the glass of whiskey in his hands, the amber liquid swirling around the glass. Even though they still hadn’t received any official confirmation, there was no doubt in Jeryl’s mind about what happened once they left the Calendra system. The Sonali unleashed their weapons and laid waste to each settlement on the planet, killing every single soul that wasn’t lucky enough to evacuate.

  “I know,” he simply whispered back at her, slowly raising his eyes and looking into hers.

  “We should’ve done more…” She whispered, and Jeryl noticed that her hands were trembling. Her hair was disheveled, and her lips were a thin line. Even though he trusted Ashley more than anyone else in The Seeker, he knew she was having trouble dealing with the consequences of everything that had happened.

  “There was nothing we could’ve done,” Jeryl told her, setting the whiskey aside and going up to his feet. He walked around his desk and walked toward Ashley, stopping just a few feet away from her. Without even thinking of what he was doing, he raised one hand and tucked a stray lock of hair over her ear. “It’ll be alright. We survived. We’ll keep on fighting.”

  “Promise me, Jeryl,” she whispered, her eyes never leaving his. “Promise me it’ll be alright.”

  “I promise you, Ash. I promise you,” he told her. He shouldn’t be doing it, promising her the world like this, but he simply couldn’t help himself. If Ashley wanted him to promise, he’d do it, and he’d crush the whole Sonali Combine because of this promise. He wasn’t sure of much nowadays, but he always took his promises seriously.

  Ashley didn’t reply. She just nodded, and then managed a weak smile, her lips slowly curling and revealing a hint of her pearly white teeth. Jeryl noticed the slight dimples in her cheeks, and for a moment he forgot all about war and death. For a second, he shut the whole galaxy out.

  It was only him and her, the two of them alone in his quarters.

  Before he knew it, their lips were locked.

  Their kiss was all consuming. Thoughts of the brutal war raging around them took a back seat. All that existed for Jeryl was Ashley. The curve of her ass. The swell of her breasts against him. The feel of her skin on his.

  He wanted her.

  And looking into her eyes, she wanted him.

  “Make me yours,” Ashley told him as Jeryl kissed her again.

  This time he was the one obeying her commands.

  Jeryl

  When he woke up, Ashley’s naked body was against his, her head resting on his chest. He ran one hand through her hair and then pulled her close, breathing in deeply and allowing the memories of the night to flood his mind.

  Just like when they were together in New Sydney, her body still felt like perfection. Closing his eyes, he ran his fingers down the side of her body, feeling her curves and the warmth of her skin.

  “Ash,” he called her softly, and then he rested his lips against his forehead.

  “I fell asleep,” she whispered, slowly rolling to her back as her eyes fluttered open.

  “I know,” he replied, his lips shaping up into a lazy smile. It felt weird to be smiling. Just a
few hours ago, millions of humans perished under the Sonali. An entire colony was glassed, and Jeryl’s fleet was beaten into a pulp. And still...just holding Ashley against him was enough to make him happy.

  Maybe, Jeryl thought, it’s in the bleakest of times that you learn where to truly find joy.

  “What time is it?” Ashley asked him, rubbing her eyes. She sat up on the bed, clutching the soft sheets against her naked breasts, and stifled a yawn.

  “We’re not needed in the CNC for another hour,” he merely responded, secretly wishing for that hour to stretch endlessly. All he wanted was to stay here, in his bed, with Ashley by his side. In a sense, it was as if the horrors of war couldn’t get to him if he kept her in his arms. It was nothing more than an illusion, he knew, but he didn’t mind.

  “Good,” she whispered, and then she leaned into him and rested her head on his shoulder. He draped one arm over her shoulders and pulled her close.

  He had never seen himself as the kind of man who would fall in love. It was an almost alien concept to him, but now he saw himself rethinking his position. Whatever it was that he felt toward Ashley, it was more than just attraction. Sure, one look at her curves and he was ready to go, but it cut deeper than that. He wasn’t exactly sure what had changed between them, but he was certain something had definitely changed.

  When the red glare of the emergency systems filled the CNC, when the whole ship seemed to rock, when death seemed to be knocking at their doors...all he could think about was Ashley. Sure, he thought of all the lives that depended on him, he thought of honor and duty, but Ashley was like the beacon that guided him home, a constant presence that guided every single one of his decisions.

  “What are you thinking about, Jeryl?” She asked him, her voice soft and gentle. It reminded him of an easier time, a time where billions of lives didn’t hang in the balance. What he wouldn’t give to be back at The Oath in New Sidney, to be transported back in time and have all worry and torment banished from his mind.