Reckoning: The Ixan Prophecies Trilogy Book 3

by Scott Bartlett

  By the time the Ixan reinforcements were flooding into the system, she was already giving orders to try to mitigate the damage.

  “Navigation adjutant, collaborate with your peers aboard the other Roostships to calculate two courses, one for each half of the Winger fleet. Both courses must reverse our trajectory and take us wide of the first Ixan force. Sacrifice fuel efficiency for haste.”

  She did not have to communicate with Keyes to know their one option was to flee to the only remaining darkgate, progressing deeper down Pirate’s Path. And so her task involved extracting her forces from this engagement while keeping losses as low as possible. Even successfully performing that task would look like defeat—with how overextended they were, the best outcome for the allies still meant taking heavy losses.

  “Relay the following orders to all Talon pilots, Communications Adjutant: scatter instantly. Each pilot must choose a direction at random, provided it does not take them into the main body of the Ixan fleet. They must accelerate along their chosen trajectories until they are clear of enemy pursuers. Only then should they embark on an intercept course with one of the two Roostship fleets fleeing the system. Navigation adjutant, the moment you have them, send our pilots the two courses you calculate for our Roostships.”

  Her strategic adjutant clacked his beak thoughtfully, then spoke: “Flockhead Ek, should the Talon pilots seek to return to their original Roostships?”

  “No. Instruct them to make for whichever Roostship they can reach fastest. We can sort out each ship’s respective fighter groups once we are safe.” She kept her gaze fixed on her strategic adjutant, to indicate she was still speaking to him. “Prepare to fire on any Ixan warship in pursuit of our Talons. And communications adjutant, instruct all other strategic adjutants to do the same.”

  “What about the Providence and the other UHF ships, Flockhead?”

  Ek returned her gaze to the tactical display. “There is nothing we can do for the humans, nor for the Gok. They must extract themselves from this chaos.”

  She watched on the tactical display as many of the UHF ships fired their primary lasers on the Ixa, in a desperate attempt to keep them at bay. That worked for a time, and several enemy ships went down, but emptying primary capacitors also meant having fewer means to neutralize the Ixa’s new type of missile in enough time. As for the handful of felled ships, the enormous Ixan war machine would barely feel the loss, in all likelihood.

  Captain Keyes is a shrewd strategist, but today he has fumbled his tactics. She considered it unreasonable to expect perfection from any battle commander, as there had never been one who did not err on occasion.

  Unfortunately, on the darkest days, a single mistake could result in a defeat comprehensive enough to cancel out all the good a commander had ever done.

  She hoped today was not such a day. But as the Ixa launched a barrage of missiles that exploded into hundreds of thousands of kinetic-kill masses, battering UHF hulls until dozens of them ruptured and exploded, Ek had to wonder.

  Chapter 23

  Mark

  Keyes’s forehead felt tight from the prolonged period of intense concentration.

  It’s better than letting my temper go. He refused to let the enemy do that to him, no matter how thoroughly they’d fooled him. Watching thirty-seven UHF ships go down in the space of a few seconds only made him hate the Ixa more, and he used that hatred as fuel for his determination.

  Fingering his brow, he briefly considered sending his Condors to deal with those missiles by shooting them down from behind, well before they reached the UHF ships. But no. That would subject his fighters to an unacceptable level of danger, in exchange for a fleeting reprieve.

  “Captain,” Arsenyev said, “what do we do? Turning tail and fleeing will result in as many losses again, possibly more.”

  His XO wasn’t panicking, he knew that, but she was prompting him to think faster.

  “Yes. Nav, calculate a course that takes us to the darkgate into the next system at speed, but don’t execute until I’ve arrived at a way to extract the fleet that won’t result in utter disaster.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Studying the tactical display, Keyes saw that, incredibly, most of the Gok appeared to fear their former masters, shying away from them and lingering toward the rear of the UHF formation.

  That doesn’t bode well for their effectiveness going forward. On the other hand, a few of the Gok ships seemed full of righteous fury, and they stayed at the front, lobbing missile after missile at the massive Ixan presence.

  “Coms, tell those Gok to stop wasting munitions,” he said at last. “And launch Condors at once, with instructions to standby just in front of our ships.” He’d changed his mind about using the Air Group, because he had a plan to keep them safe. “Tell them I’ll soon be giving them orders to dart forward, maneuver behind the Ixan missiles, and neutralize them.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  As the fighters streamed out from every Providence flight deck that still functioned, Keyes fed his Coms officer more orders to distribute throughout his fleet. “Tell the captains that we’re no longer going to fire weapons at the enemy willy-nilly. In fact, tell them to stop firing altogether until my mark, at which point we will launch a coordinated missile barrage, consisting of thousands of missiles timed to neutralize the Ixan Hellsongs at a range that will minimize our losses. Except, only a quarter of our missiles will actually intercept the enemy’s. The rest will fly past, toward targets all across the Ixan fleet. Our Condors will help take down any Ixan missiles that ours miss, and then, with the rest of our barrage headed for the enemy, we’ll execute the escape course I had Nav calculate. Does everyone understand their orders?”

  The members of his CIC crew with tasks to perform all answered in the affirmative, and then they bent to their work.

  The Ixa didn’t give them long for his orders to be broadcast and understood before deploying their next salvo. For this to work, the allies had to launch their own salvo in rapid response.

  His Coms officer had already put Keyes on a fleetwide channel. Watching the tactical display, he carefully timed his next word: “Mark!”

  Swarms of missiles leapt from every UHF and Gok ship. As Keyes had hoped, at first the Ixan ships didn’t react at all. Evidently, they interpreted Keyes’s move as a panicked overreaction to the novel threat posed by their kinetic-kill clouds.

  But when most of the allied missiles passed by the Ixa’s, the enemy warships began to take notice. Within seconds, most of them were reversing course, with others firing their own missiles to intercept the allies’. Few ships executed both actions simultaneously, which Keyes attributed to the fact that he’d taken them completely by surprise.

  Fesky directed her Condors as efficiently as always in their task of neutralizing the remaining Ixan missiles. She did so even quicker than Keyes had dared to hope, and as the last bombs went down, he turned to his Coms officer. “Give a fleetwide order to embark on the agreed-upon course. Tell the Air Group to return to base immediately. The Providence will take up the rear of the fleet, to deal with any Ixan ships that manage to catch up, and to lend aid to the Roostships should they need it.”

  As the exodus swung into gear, Keyes took satisfaction in watching forty-five Ixan ships go down, having stopped most but not all of the allied missiles. He knew, given their vastly superior numbers, that the Ixa had come out on top of this engagement. But he still allowed himself to take pleasure in watching those warships explode, especially considering his gambit had allowed the allied fleet to retreat without further losses.

  Of course, that’s provided our escape is anything other than temporary.

  They were speeding toward a dead end, and he doubted the Ixa would tire of chasing them.

  Chapter 24

  A Strange Way of Coming in Peace

  “Captain,” Arsenyev said, and he could tell she was struggling to keep her tone even. “Have you ever heard of the Kaithe having defenses of any kind?�
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  He returned her gaze for a long moment. “No,” he said at last. Though I’m not sure how it helps anything to say so.

  They’d been fleeing before the Ixa for the better part of twenty-four hours, with the enemy hot on their heels, despite the allied fleet’s near-constant acceleration.

  True, individual ships did have to ease off the “gas pedal” periodically, given the meticulous coordination it took for a hundreds-strong fleet to transition through each darkgate so quickly. They did so by using the latter half of each system crossing to form up in a long line of two-by-two squares, which were just small enough to pass through a darkgate.

  But overall, the fleet never slowed, and for the most part they piled on more and more speed, which wasn’t doing anything good for their fuel reserves. In fact, it made Keyes worry about their ability to effect a return trip through Pirate’s Path.

  Still, the Ixa’s breath was hot on their backs. The enemy’s warship design had improved in every way, it seemed, including engine power.

  Keyes remained in the CIC for the entire time, even though he was going on thirty-three hours with no sleep. His eyes became grainy, and he rubbed at them to stay awake, refusing to leave even for a coffee. He forced the rest of his crew to rotate, however, and to rest.

  His XO had recently rotated back on, and if she hadn’t, he would have called her in. They were about to transition into the Kaithe’s home system.

  Whereas the Providence had acted as rear guard until now, Keyes had tasked a destroyer with that role as they crossed the penultimate star system. The supercarrier accelerated ahead to the front of the fleet.

  If their fears of the Kaithe betraying humanity proved true, who knew what awaited them on the other side of that darkgate? Whatever it was, as fleet commander, Keyes intended to bear the brunt of it.

  “Transition is imminent, Captain,” Werner said.

  Keyes nodded. “Put up a visual.”

  The sensor operator did so, filling the main viewscreen with the stars seen through the darkgate, mismatched with the stars surrounding it. Less than a minute later, they were through.

  Almost immediately, the Coms officer looked up from her console. “Captain, we’re getting a transmission request from a nearby vessel of Kaithian make.”

  Before Keyes could speak, Werner cut in: “It looks like their ship was just sitting there, doing nothing. As though her captain was expecting us to come through, and was waiting nearby so we could communicate in real-time.”

  That’s odd. But there was no time to puzzle over it. “Accept,” he said.

  A Kaithian appeared, childlike face large on the viewscreen, brow bunched in consternation. Its blue-white tail whipped around behind it. “Captain Keyes. Why have you brought such a sizable fleet?”

  Double-checking the tactical display to confirm that only a handful of allied ships had so far appeared out of the darkgate, Keyes frowned. “How do you know the size of our fleet?”

  “You are in Kaithian space, Captain Keyes, and I am asking the questions.”

  “Fine. We come to you in peace, as we did before, when we met with the one named Aheera, who lent us her aid with a matter of some importance.”

  “You have a strange way of coming in peace, with a hostile Ixan fleet close behind you. It seems what you really bring is conflict and death.”

  Keyes suppressed an urge to ask how the Kaithian knew about the pursuing Ixa. At least it appears I don’t have to explain much about our situation. “I acknowledge that. Our original aim was to request your help in the war against the Ixa. As you already seem to know, that need has become much more urgent.”

  “Kaithe do not engage in warfare, Captain. We are isolationists. Do you not know that about us?”

  “I do. But unless you have a way of repelling the Ixa, I fear we both will perish. I’m prepared to take a stand, but against a fleet so vast, defeat will be a mere question of time.”

  The Kaithian hesitated for a long moment, its face very cold indeed. Its slim shoulders rose and fell as it looked at Keyes with what could only be described as a glare.

  “Very well, Captain. I am going to give you a specific set of instructions, which, if you follow them to the letter, will keep you alive. Do you have any questions?”

  The alien’s insolence only made Keyes pause for a second. “No. What are your instructions?”

  “Spread out your ships as much as possible in the time you have before the Ixa come through that gate. Continue in the direction you’re headed, aiming directly for the moon over Home.”

  Keyes blinked. He didn’t see how doing that would make survival any likelier. “Very well,” he said. But the Kaithian had already cut off the transmission, and it vanished as Keyes spoke.

  “Captain,” Werner said. “Do you truly plan to give orders to the entire fleet based on what a Kaithian has told you to do? Its directions don’t even make sense.”

  “We have no choice. If the Kaithe want to mislead us or betray us, then we’ll be just as dead as we would have been without their intervention. Our only remaining option involves betting on their ability and willingness to help. Otherwise, the Ixa will tear us apart.” Keyes sighed. “As always, we choose the line of action that assumes victory is possible, no matter how unlikely it seems. What else can we do?”

  And so the fleet dispersed itself across Kaithian space as much as possible on the way to the aliens’ homeworld. As Keyes monitored the operation on the tactical display, he tried to sort out the reason for it.

  Do the Kaithe know about the Ixa’s new missile? This staggered formation certainly made sense from the perspective of dodging the kinetic impactor clouds.

  Even so, evading the enemy ordnance would provide only a temporary reprieve. If the Ixa weren’t dealt with now, the allied fleet could only continue fleeing down Pirate’s Path, burning more fuel and rendering a successful return trip extremely unlikely.

  “Captain,” the sensor operator said. “I…”

  “What is it, Werner?”

  “I…I don’t have the words for this, Captain.”

  “Okay. Put a visual on the viewscreen, then.”

  Werner did, and Keyes could understand his officer’s trouble with describing what was happening. The Kaithian moon was in the process of splitting apart into four concentric sections.

  “Magnify, Werner,” Keyes said, his voice soft.

  With the zoomed-in view, Keyes could see the clouds of dust that drifted upward from the moon’s surface as ravines appeared all along its length, which quickly widened into gaping canyons. Once the gigantic pieces drew far enough apart, they began to rotate toward the allied fleet, until their concave insides faced them.

  “Magnify again.”

  Now Keyes saw the silver sheen of the moon’s inner…“hull” was the word that came to mind. Regularly spaced across it were perfectly circular impressions, which must have been miles across, and between those the hull was ridged like overlapping waves, with vast sections cordoned off by jutting black protrusions.

  If someone had put a gun to Keyes’s head and demanded to know what he was looking at, he would have said that each section of the moon was a cross between a defense platform and a hyper-advanced warship.

  What happened next seemed to confirm that hypothesis. As Ixa charged into the system close behind the allied fleet, the behemoths sprouted a dynamic storm of energy inside each of their circular impressions, and within the space of a few seconds, broad energy beams began lancing out across the entire system, flashing between the allied vessels and incinerating whatever Ixan ships they touched.

  According to the tactical display, just over one hundred Ixan warships had entered the system, and as quickly as they had emerged from the darkgate, they came about and headed back toward it twice as quick.

  The behemoths did not take that as a reason to stop attacking. They continued throwing awesome amounts of energy at the enemy ships, though they avoided hitting the darkgate itself. Fewer than half o
f the Ixan ships made it out of the system.

  When the last enemy ship disintegrated, the four sections slowly revolved toward each other, and once in position, they drifted together until finally locking into place and becoming a moon again.

  Utter silence prevailed inside the CIC.

  With superweapons like that, we’d likely take down any Ixan fleet that cared to confront us.

  “I’ll be in my office,” Keyes said. “Arsenyev, you have the command. Take the fleet the rest of the way.”

  With that, he left the CIC.

  Chapter 25

  Not a Weapon but a Tool

  Keyes leaned forward on his desk, hands clasped, his eyes fixed on Ek’s via the console’s screen.

  “Despite the help the children have already given us,” he said, “which I’ll admit is incredible, I’m afraid I still don’t trust them. The Kaithian who greeted us seemed fairly hostile during our exchange, and it seemed to know the size of our fleet before it even entered the system. What’s more, it knew about the pursuing Ixa.”

  “You already know this,” Ek said, “but it bears repeating: I consider Kaithe much more trustworthy than you consider them.”

  “I accept that. But no matter how trustworthy they are, the last time I sent my people down to that planet, they came back with varying levels of psychological trauma. One of them entered a period of psychosis, and another was shot. I intend to go down to that planet alone.”

  Ek inclined her head slightly. “Normally, I would not recommend you risk yourself, as fleet commander. But I believe that you will be in no danger, and so I will not object.”

  “Well, thanks. I think. Do you want to come? I’ll understand if you don’t. I’m certainly reluctant to give the children the opportunity to mess around inside my head.”