by Chris Fox
Eventually the other enemy capital ships would circle around to get a clear shot, but Fizgig had until then to make her escape.
"Khar, I have more work for you. After the next volley, I want you to pierce their shields again. Continue your work with the enemy cannons, this time on the port side of the hull. We'll rotate the fleet around them, using their ship for cover."
The Mendez fired another volley, and the other ships followed suit. They couldn't destroy the juggernaut, but they weakened the shields long enough for Khar's squadron to pierce them. The booster mechs screamed along the hull, picking off cannon after cannon. Now that the enemy's fighters had been dealt with, Khar had free reign to destroy. For the moment at least.
Above, Fizgig could see another spidery capital ship creeping into view, seconds from lining up a kill shot on her ship. Behind it, she spotted two similar vessels, also getting into position to fire.
"Adjust course heading to oh nine five," Fizgig ordered.
The fleet moved, creeping along the length of the giant vessel. They used its massive limbs as cover, breaking line of sight with the enemy capital ships. Their greater maneuverability served them well, but it was merely a stalling tactic. Unless she got them out of there, eventually they'd be surrounded.
Fizgig considered the situation carefully. To escape, they must reach the sun. Their cloaking was effective, but many vessels had suffered damage and couldn't cloak. Their only way out was to run, and pray to the goddess that some of them made it. All she could do was maximize their odds.
"Complete one more revolution along the hull," she ordered. "Slow our progress by twenty percent." Her fleet slowed, and the enemy began to narrow the gap.
She judged their progress, smiling grimly. They'd think they were catching up, and that might make them too eager. The dark vessels swarmed closer. Below them the planet loomed, an angry red-brown sea of rust.
Once the enemy fleet had committed, Fizgig turned to Juliard. "Accelerate to maximum. Order all vessels to make for the Helios Gate."
They rose from the enemy dreadnought, interposing it between them and the enemy fleet, and struggled to get around the behemoth. Missiles and plasma streaked in their direction.
"Starburst pattern."
Her fleet broke away, each vessel getting as far from the others as possible. Since they were all Helios-capable, there was no reason they needed to stay together. Those capable of cloaking did so, shimmering from both visibility and sensors. The rest pushed for the sun at full speed, the frigates quickly outpacing a wounded destroyer.
The enemy fleet began to accelerate as well, but their vessels were ponderously slow. Fizgig's fleet crept toward the sun, while the enemy fell steadily behind.
"Sir, the Tigrana's Grace has lost two engines," Juliard said. "She's now within the enemy's range." Her face had gone ashen, and her eyes were fixed on the viewscreen.
Fizgig forced herself to watch as well.
One of the enemy's main cannons warmed up, and a sharp red beam lanced into the fleet. A frigate was sliced in half, and the beam continued into the wounded Tigrana's Grace.
The destroyer detonated a moment later, killing over two hundred men and women.
A flurry of similar beams lanced out, catching the wounded frigate and one of its companions. Frantic cries came over the comm in fragments, until Juliard quietly shut it off.
The price was bitter, yet the rest of them had nearly reached the sun. The enemy vessels broke off their pursuit, falling back to their world.
Fizgig closed her eyes. She couldn't ever remember being this tired. She'd lost nearly a third of her fleet, without inflicting a single loss on her enemy.
"Make for the Helios Gate. I want a secure connection to President Dryker the moment we emerge."
Chapter 10- Krekon
Takkar's fur had settled to a deep red-black. He paced the length of the dais at the center of his command island, the full majesty of his dreadnought stretching into the distance. Hundreds of islands rotated slowly beneath him, in various sizes and shapes. None were as large or opulent as his cluster, yet today that did nothing to sooth his ire.
Above, the entire hull appeared to lie open to space, thanks to the techsmiths and their illusions. A sea of stars, broken only by the orange-brown glow of the planet below and the white-yellow star in the distance.
The blackness should also contain the enemy fleet, but those who'd survived the fury of his dreadnoughts had somehow vanished from sight.
He crooked a furry finger, and the Saurian techsmith approached. She wore her grey robes like armor, trying to hide from sight while still performing her duties, and clutched her arcanotome to her chest like a talisman against Ganog rage.
"How long until their ships are too close to the sun for us to pursue?"
"F-fourteen seconds, Clan Leader." The Saurian quivered, giving off the musky reek of fear, powerful enough that Takkar's lower nostrils closed reflexively. "We are unlikely to inflict further casualties, unless we wish to sacrifice vessels to the sun."
"No," he snarled. "Order the fleet to break off." He smashed a fist into one of the pylons bordering the dais, and silver sparks shot into the air. His fur lightened to red, and he felt marginally better. "Get me Krekon. Now."
"Clan Leader, he is hunting on the planet's surface," the Saurian protested.
Takkar merely looked at her, and she wilted.
"At once, Clan Leader." She closed her eyes, and a furious flow of purple pulses moved from her temple to the arcanotome.
The air before them warped and spun, growing hazy and indistinct. Takkar hated the way his eyes slid off the warped space, and forced himself to stare at it. The warping accelerated; the air brightened.
Finally it ceased, coalescing into an irate Ganog.
Krekon's fur faded to a steely grey, and his eyes narrowed. He held a wicked axe loosely in one hand; the end of that axe was caked with ash and a slick black substance Takkar guessed must be blood. His scarlet armor was scored, but only from the storm. No enemy blade had found Krekon.
They rarely did, which was why Takkar valued him so highly.
Krekon glanced around the island, taking in Takkar and the dais. Takkar knew from experience how disorienting warp could be, especially when that warp came as a surprise.
"Why have you ripped me from the hunt?" Krekon demanded, taking a threatening step toward the dais. "I nearly had them. I--"
Takkar's foot lanced out, connecting with Krekon's jaw. The warrior was flung back, sliding across the ivory metal floor. He rose, wiping blood from his face. It matted in his fur, already clotting.
"I grant you much latitude, Krekon. More than any other servant." Takkar took a step as well, looming over the larger Ganog. If it came to a battle, he doubted he could best Krekon. Thankfully, Krekon knew his place. "You are the vassal, and I the lord. Never forget that. Some slights are too great to ignore. You are my best hunter, but if need be I will eat your heart and leave your body in the hot sun for the ka'tok to fight over."
"Apologies, Clan Leader. I was tracking these strange aliens, and I nearly had them." Krekon lowered his eyes. His tone now carried the proper deference, and his fur shifted from deep red to soft brown. "I slew their leader, and most of their soldiers. A handful escaped."
"You will have time to hunt them. Look," Takkar roared, stabbing a clawed finger toward the sun. "Our prey escapes."
"I do not understand." Krekon stared curiously toward the the sun. "I see no ships, but even if I did they'd be flying to their deaths."
"Techsmith." Takkar seized the Saurian by the neck, hoisting her into the air. "Explain to him how they warp."
She struggled, eyes bulging as she gasped out words. "We interrogated one of their leader caste. They utilize something called a Helios Gate to warp between systems. Everything my order knows suggests that's impossible. A sun is simply too dense to be penetrated, yet somehow they utilize it as a power source."
"So they can fly into a sun and su
rvive?" Krekon's tone was skeptical.
"The proof is before us. Our ships have already broken off, yet the few vessels we can even see continue toward the sun. What's more, they emerged from the sun before beginning their assault on the planet." Takkar's fur blackened again. "That isn't why I called you here--their cowardly tactics are. They disabled the Vkash's Fist, then used it as cover to escape."
"They disabled a dreadnought?" Krekon's shock was total. "Nothing can disable a dreadnought, except a planetstrider."
"Yet they managed it. Their tactics were as cowardly as they were infuriating. They used the Vkash's Fist as a shield to block our ships. They are smaller and lighter, and their maneuverability made catching them all but impossible."
"What of our smaller ships? Why didn't we run them down with fighters? You could launch a cloud that would draw the gaze of the Nameless Ones."
"You do not think we tried?" Takkar growled. "We launched a full wing, but they cut through wave after wave whenever we tried to pin them. Their capital ships blew them apart, and I called off the assault. We destroyed vessels as they tried to escape, but nothing larger than a cruiser. Their battleship escaped, with over half the fleet."
"This commander is much more formidable than the last we encountered." Krekon's fur drifted into a dark green. "Is that why you've called me here? You wish me to hunt this commander?"
"No," Takkar countered. He stared at the planet hovering above them. "I called you here because I want his warriors alive. They are to be interrogated."
"But they are less than ka'tok. They are food for my offspring. Warriors, not leaders." Krekon's fur darkened to a disrespectful red-black.
"Take care, hunter. Remember your place. Remember that they do not have castes, not as we do. Their warriors are their leaders."
"Apologies, Clan Leader." Krekon said again. He bowed his head, but his fur only lightened half a shade. "I will identify the leader of the survivors, and I will bring him to you. Yet his warriors will not come willingly, and I cannot spare them all. Some may die."
"As long as the leader survives. Bring him to me. Soon, Krekon, or you will know my displeasure."
Takkar waved at the techsmith. She stared blankly for a moment, but then finally grasped his need. Her eyes closed again, and pulses flowed to the her arcanotome. The air around Krekon warped, and he disappeared with a painful pop, leaving Takkar in blessed silence.
This enemy commander infuriated him. Whoever it was, he was canny, patient, and able to exploit a desperate situation to his own advantage. No species had previously been able to disable a dreadnought, and that meant that this Coalition of Unified Races was indeed formidable. They needed to be enslaved; their might must be added to the Vkash Clan.
It had been long years since he'd been excited about a campaign, but this one drew him like a flame.
"I will make war such as this commander has never seen, and he will beg for death before the end."
Chapter 11- Aluki
Annie awakened by degrees. Her head throbbed in time with her heartbeat, and it was dark. She tried to move, then groggily realized she was still strapped into her mech.
"Must have gone on standby. How long have I been out?"
She keyed the activation code using the right gauntlet, and the reactor rumbled reluctantly to life. Her screen flickered, then lit. A spiderweb of cracks radiated from the bottom corner, turning the graphs there into multicolored mush. The 3D model representing the mech showed red on everything below the waist. That was bad; it meant both legs were non-functional.
"Gonna be awfully difficult to run away without legs."
Something tapped on the cockpit from the outside. Annie blinked, her heartbeat quickening. Maybe the squad had found her? She activated the external camera, focusing on the figure right outside.
The screen showed mostly darkness, and it looked like her mech had fallen on its face. A large piece of metal had pinned her against a girder, but that same sheet of metal might have saved her life when the wave of energy had torn apart the ships she'd been guarding.
The camera finally focused, showing a strange little critter. It was a little taller than a meter, with a stocky body and short, stubby arms. The round head reminded Annie a bit of the animated whale she'd loved as a child. Whatever the thing was, it was wearing the strangest damned suit she'd ever seen. It was milky blue, and covered the thing's entire body. Only the back of the head was uncovered, and Annie could see what appeared to be...a blowhole?
Inside the suit was some sort of fluid, coating the alien's body.
"What in the galaxy are you?" Annie asked, her speakers broadcasting the words.
The creature jumped, scrambling backward as it blinked up at the screen. The critter rattled off a stream of gibberish, pointing frantically at something outside Annie's field of view.
"I'm guessing you want me to come with you. Not sure if that's a good idea, but it's probably smarter than hanging out here waiting for those ape things to show up," Annie muttered. She tapped the exit sequence, and the hydraulics ground as the mech fought to open the cockpit.
The panel finally slid up with a hiss, showing the rusty ground underneath. Annie took a deep breath, then clicked the release on her harness. She tumbled to the ground, landing painfully, and put hand on her lower back as she crawled from under the remains of her mech. "Ugh, I'm gettin' way too old for this combat crap. I need to go back to asteroid mining."
The little whale thing rattled off some more hoots and whistles, tugging on Annie's uniform.
"Well, you're an excitable little thing. I guess you might be leadin' me into an ambush, but it looks like I'm all alone out here. Guess I'm going to trust you." Annie reached back into the mech, removing her shotgun from the gear locker. "That don't mean I'm stupid, though. You try anything, and I'll shoot you right between them big doe eyes."
The whale-thing nodded happily, waving Annie toward an alleyway.
Annie gave the wreckage a reluctant look. She could salvage so much--probably even fix her mech, given some time and a wall to lean it against. "Enemy ain't gonna give me time, though. They'll be here like buzzards, picking over the bones."
The whale thing nodded happily again, waddling up the alleyway. Annie rested her shotgun on her shoulder, keeping about ten feet back in case the thing whirled on her. They ducked through a rusted-out freighter frame that was being used to brace a collapsed building.
On the other side lay the most interesting domicile Annie had ever laid eyes on. Rusting starship parts were spaced about ten feet apart like fence posts, with some sort of cloth wrapped between them. It was blue-green, fluttering in the wind like a living thing. "Oh, I get it--water. That's s'posed to be the ocean, ain't it?"
"Mmm, yes. Ocean," the creature answered, its voice higher-pitched than a human's. "Why can I now understand your speech?"
"Oh, that's right. We got a interspecies virus in our part of the galaxy," Annie explained. "It attaches to the brain, and lets you understand other people who've got the same virus. Guess I gave it to you." She shrugged uncomfortably. "Sorry."
"No, no, this is good. I was worried I'd have no way to communicate with you. Please, come inside. The storm is gone and the kill-squads are already coming. Listen." The whale-thing froze, raising a hand to its ear hole.
Annie paused. She heard a high-pitched whine from a few blocks over. "You're right, that's got to be a patrol. But, before I go inside...why are you helping me?"
"Because you fought the Imperium, and my people hate them. I am Aluki."
"Call me Annie. All right, if you're willing to hide me, then I'm happy to cool my heels for a bit."
Chapter 12- Grim Tidings
Fizgig settled wearily atop the cushions in her quarters, sighing heavily as she sank into the satin. She licked the fur behind her paw and cleaned behind her ears. It calmed her, and she needed to be calm before confronting the president.
That concept was new to her, the idea of someone being elected to le
ad--yet in this case she'd approved. Dryker had been a fine candidate, a hero who'd sacrificed more than anyone else in the war with the Void Wraith and their Gorthian masters.
She stopped grooming, heaving a reluctant sigh. "Open a priority channel to Coalition command. Tell Dryker I want to speak to him."
Less than two seconds later, a hologram sprang to life over the emitter in the corner of the room. "Fizgig? It's about damned time. What the hell is going on out there?"
"My news is grim, Dryker. We face an enemy we are ill-prepared to resist. Their technology is poorly maintained, but devastatingly effective. We lost six vessels. The enemy lost no ships, except for fighters." Fizgig explained the failure simply. It did not touch her honor--though it still stung--but she did not like the taste of defeat, and didn't plan to get used to it. "We were able to damage one of their capital ships, and could have taken it down given time and more resources. Unfortunately, they had six of those ships, and a host of smaller ones."
"So, let me see if I'm tracking this." Dryker rose from his desk, stroking a beard that had gone from grey to white since he'd taken office. "The 6th Fleet has been wiped out to a man, and we lost forty percent of the 1st Fleet, but we haven't managed to destroy even a single enemy ship. Is that what you're telling me, Fizgig?"
"Save your anger for another, Dryker," Fizgig snarled. "I may wear this itchy uniform now, but I am still Tigris. I will not allow you to pass blame simply because you long to be back in command." Her leg throbbed, and she needed to bite something. "We are outmatched. If we do not receive a technological miracle from the Birthplace, then these enemies will succeed where the Void Wraith failed. We are simply too few to resist them, even if we achieve a rough technological parity."
"I know." Dryker closed his eyes and began massaging his temples. "The Birthplace doesn't produce miracles. The time dilation allows them to develop and manufacture weapons far more quickly, but they still have to do the engineering. At best, if your combat data is useful, we might have a response in ten weeks."
