Declination

by David Derrico

  Zach shook his head violently. But Vr’amil’een don’t retreat, he admonished himself. So what in the hell was going on? He looked back down to his sensor screen, watching in consternation as the fifty or so red specks scattered at top speed away from the area. In fact, he noticed, the only enemy vessel still coming in his direction was the new fighter the computer had tried to warn him about.

  Perplexed, Zach spun his ship to face the incoming vessel, punching up a detailed scan of the new attacker as he did so. By then, however, Zach did not need the computer’s help; the strange vessel was within visual range.

  Zach stared hard at the viewpanel, mouth agape. It was a Lucani Ibron ship.

  A torrent of emotions billowed into Zach’s consciousness, quickly focusing into an intense surge of hate directed squarely at the alien ship. Forgotten were the snub fighters, the SPACERs, even the Vr’amil’een. Forgotten was his crusade against pirate activity and his mission in the present battle. Only one thought smoldered firmly in his mind.

  Revenge.

  “Wolfpack Squadron,” he found himself saying over the intercom, “fall in behind me, attack formation Omega-nine.”

  “Are you serious?” someone asked, though Zach’s attentions were too focused to discern who it was. “You mean you want us to—?”

  “Form behind me or run away,” Zach replied curtly. “I don’t care which. You have fifteen seconds.”

  The Lucani Ibron vessel was still moving deliberately toward the planet, and Zach maneuvered his ship directly into its path. All eight of his remaining squadron-mates quickly thrusted into formation around him.

  “Wolfpack Squadron ready,” Raven’s voice reported. “We’re with you, Zach.”

  The silver alien craft continued its approach, steadfastly ignoring the waiting fighters. As if on cue, the pilots of Wolfpack Squadron abruptly broke formation, blossoming forth like the petals of some deadly flower, spewing beams of laser energy before them as they sped toward the enemy vessel. Though it was hard to make out in the chaos, Zach’s ship, as usual, was in the lead.

  . . . . .

  It had taken a while, in the engineering bay of the Brigadier, for the situation unfolding outside to become clear. Once it had, however, every status monitor on the deck was keyed to the external viewcam feed of the bizarre Lucani Ibron ship.

  “Is this a dream?” someone asked.

  Alexis knew it was no dream. Though the last time she had seen one of the deadly alien ships was over ten years ago, then from the Apocalypse’s engineering bay, the sight of the slowly convolving silver sphere on the monitor brought all her memories of that time rushing back in a torrent of awful clarity.

  Last time, Alexis reminded herself, they had actually defeated the seemingly invincible vessel, earning humanity a ten year reprieve from the Draconian sentencing of the race known to some as the “Ancient Arbiters.” With the technology of the Apocalypse and the genius of Admiral Atgard, a similar Lucani Ibron ship had indeed been destroyed.

  But the Brigadier was not the Apocalypse. And her captain was not Daniel Atgard.

  Suddenly, several bright lances of light streaked across her monitor toward the alien ship, and Alexis hurriedly rechecked her displays to confirm that it was not the Brigadier that had fired. Within a few moments, a swarm of Confederation fightercraft appeared on the display, and, though she could not make out the prominent wolf’s-head design on the fighters’ wings, the ferocity of the attack told her it was headed by none other than Zach Wallace.

  Alexis watched as the fighters determinedly raked the surface of the Lucani Ibron craft with concentrated laser fire, to no visual effect. The ships arced and rolled around the enemy vessel in a dance of chaotic beauty, their white drive trails and blue-white energy weapons forming an incandescent web surrounding the sliver alien craft. The alien ship, incidentally, appeared to be completely ignoring the attack.

  A sudden twinge of alarm forced its way into Alexis’ consciousness as she noticed that the mesmerizing gyration of the ship’s alien hull had begun to accelerate its hypnotic movements. A moment later, a dozen corkscrewing beams of intense energy shot from various points around the unmarked perimeter of the vessel, inconceivably tracking the darting ships and striking each in a furious flash of yellow light. Instantly, the light-web of the fighters’ attacks dissipated, leaving behind nothing but the now-quiescent silver ship and the sputtering corpses of several fighters, fighters formerly of the once-proud Wolfpack Squadron.

  . . . . .

  It took the belated alarm tone to break Anastasia from her shock-induced trance. Her eyes fluttered wildly and she was quickly filled with a potent amalgamation of surprise mixed with abject terror.

  “My God,” breathed Byron. “Is it—?”

  “It is,” she replied.

  Somehow Anastasia managed to jolt herself into action, scanning her tactical displays and calling up the weapons inventory. “Bring us into range, Cody. Byron, launch everything we have at that ship right now.”

  “Affirmative, Captain.”

  The ship surged forward and a hailstorm of firepower erupted from its nose. Lasers, plasma bursts, ion streams, and magnetically-propelled projectiles streaked toward the enemy vessel, followed closely by a fusillade of concussion missiles and nuclear warheads. The onslaught pounded into the motionless alien vessel, enveloping it in a cloud of flame that nearly filled the viewscreen. The shock waves from the nuclear explosions buffeted the shielded Inferno, overwhelming the inertial dampeners and rocking the bridge. The explosions subsided quickly in the void of space, but the oval alien ship remained, visibly unscathed.

  “Charge it,” Anastasia ordered, her teeth firmly set. “Charge the Wind of Death.”

  Byron complied without protest, and an unearthly sound filled the bridge. Anastasia’s eyes were locked on the Lucani Ibron vessel, unmoving and seemingly oblivious to the barrage it had just endured. The seconds ticked by, and the noise of the Inferno’s awful weapon quickly became unbearable.

  The word came as no more than a raspy whisper from Anastasia’s parched lips. “Fire.”

  The infernal sound was instantly replaced by one even more diabolical. A tremendous wave of energy coursed toward the enemy ship, deforming all in its wake. Just before impact, the surface of the alien ship solidified, and the horrible wave washed over the vessel, to no effect.

  The alien ship’s skin resumed its pulsations, but a tiny white dot had appeared on its surface.

  “My God,” breathed Anastasia, remembering with a desolate groan that her ship had just fired its terrible Subspace Destabilization Unit.

  Which meant, more or less, that she was completely helpless for the next 90 seconds.

  She seriously doubted that whatever the Lucani Ibron had come here to do would take that long.

  Turning her attention back to the viewscreen, Anastasia watched the deeply enthralling movement of the alien vessel’s silver surface in awe. The ship, seemingly in no hurry to complete its mission, simply hovered uncontested in the space above the undefended planet of Landus.

  “What are we going to do?” asked Cody.

  “What can we do?” replied Byron. “All combat systems are off-line.”

  Anastasia desperately searched her memory of the SDU specifications, trying to remember if any of the systems unaffected by the device would help her now. Yeah, she thought with uncharacteristic sarcasm, perhaps the food replicators can cook up something helpful.

  Within a few moments, however, the exercise became academic.

  A tenuous halo of light formed around the alien ship, rapidly intensifying to great brightness. There was an abrupt discharge, and the viewscreen automatically changed its view to show a bright lance of light that passed into—or, rather, directly through—the planet of Landus.

  Every muscle in Anastasia’s body abruptly seized in terror.

  In a spectacle nearly identical to the destruction of the Indomitable a decade before, a ball of light appeared from the ship and
traveled down the light beam toward the helpless planet. It sped unmolested through the atmosphere, embedding itself soundlessly deep within the planet’s crust.

  Gradually, bright white cracks became visible along the planet’s surface, cracks that expanded and multiplied at a rapid pace. For a long moment, they halted their frenzied expansion and the doomed planet lay very still. Anastasia found, to her horror, that she was completely unable to avert her eyes from the ghastly sight taking place before her.

  Without warning, the planet exploded, an effulgent conflagration rendered by the viewscreen as nothing more than a simple, impenetrable field of white. The alien ship, apparently satisfied, momentarily elongated and then shot briskly away.

  The population of Landus, thought Anastasia involuntarily, had been just under two hundred million.

  . . . . .

  Far above the resort planet of Utopia, an incomprehensibly alien vessel advanced through a dissipating field of Vr’amil’een and Confederation warships. Seemingly undamaged and unperturbed by any efforts thus far to stop it, the silver ship appeared singularly unconcerned with the planet’s defenders, one of which was maneuvering directly into its flight path.

  The Lucani Ibron craft halted, less than half a kilometer from the Confederation Battlecruiser before it, showing no sign of apprehension, recognition, or even annoyance. Five-meter-tall letters along the larger ship’s bow read U.C.S. Brigadier, a fact that seemed totally inconsequential to the ship and its ancient inhabitants. The aliens made no move, charged no noticeable weaponry, and made no attempt to communicate with either the Brigadier or the meager assemblage of Confederation warships that silently arrayed themselves behind it. They simply hovered, unreadable, in the void, projecting the unmistakable air of their own invincibility.

  From the bowels of the massive Battlecruiser, Alexis and Ryan watched the display in fascinated horror. There was little they could do at this point, a fact that drove many of the less-experienced crewmembers on the engineering deck nearly insane. Alexis, however, had realized long ago that her role was not that of a bridge officer, and had, through 15 years of experience, learned to cope with the unsettling sense of helplessness that manifested itself at moments such as these. But the arrival of the Lucani Ibron ship nonetheless instilled in her a nearly incontestable desire to rip out large tufts of her own flame-red hair.

  She was helpless.

  Upon the command of Captain Woolslair, the Brigadier’s heavy turrets began spouting deadly beams of laser energy toward the Lucani Ibron ship. Alexis dutifully checked readouts and stabilized power grids from her console, peripherally noting that the attack’s prodigious rate of power consumption could not be sustained for long.

  It didn’t matter.

  The searing energy beams battered the tiny alien craft, making no discernible impact upon its bizarre liquid hull. Alexis conscientiously double-checked the shield harmonics, ensuring that, when the counterattack surely came, her ship would be as prepared as possible to withstand it.

  She looked across the deck to Ryan and a chilling sense of finality crept into her soul. She found herself walking over to him and staring forcefully into his strong, dark eyes.

  He wordlessly took her hand in his.

  . . . . .

  Away from her display, Alexis did not see the thin beam of light shoot forth from the alien vessel, and, although the Brigadier continued its relentless barrage, the beam passed through the mighty vessel and, indeed, the entire planet below. The ball of light that appeared a few seconds later took only a moment to pass, unhindered, through the fully-shielded ship, continuing its inevitable journey toward Utopia.

  By the time it had reached its destination, the skies above the doomed planet showed no trace that the exalted U.C.S. Brigadier had ever even existed.

  By the time the strange silver ship had departed, the same could be said of the resort planet Utopia.

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER 13

  Confederation News Services, 26 Nov 3050, 02:36 Standard Hours.

  The reprieve is over; the Lucani Ibron have returned.

  In a span of only a few minutes, three Confederation planets—Utopia, Landus, and New Berkeley—were destroyed today by between one and possibly up to three Lucani Ibron ships—ships that reintroduced themselves after a ten-year hiatus in much the same way they first made contact with the Confederation: a violent and unimaginably devastating attack on Confederation forces.

  Video satellites orbiting the planets of Utopia and Landus captured near-identical images of ships strongly believed to be of Lucani Ibron origin firing intense light-beam weapons within moments of their arrivals. Both planets, with a combined population of over six billion, have been confirmed as completely destroyed.

  As reported earlier today, Utopia recently became the epicenter of escalated military conflict between the Confederation and attacking Vr’amil’een forces, forces that were still present at the time of the planet’s destruction. Footage obtained by this agency depicts a concerted attack on the alien vessel by Confederation warships, an attack that was apparently unable to damage the intruder or prevent the planet’s destruction. Losses suffered by each side, and the location of remaining warships—if any—are unknown at this time.

  News satellites in the sparsely-populated Landus system were too far from the planet at the time of the attack to positively confirm the identity of the planet’s attacker, but they do show an uncontested ship arrive in-system, destroy the planet with a phenomenal light weapon, and depart in an unknown direction moments later. Though Landus was home to only 200 million permanent residents—all believed dead—it was home to a major Confederation shipbuilding facility, destroyed in the attack.

  Though the SPACER’s satellite ban in the Pacifica system prevented direct observation, unconfirmed reports claim that Captain Anastasia Mason, sent as part of a diplomatic envoy whose mission was to negotiate with SPACER leaders, was orbiting the planet at the time of New Berkeley’s destruction. Sources from within the SPACER organization claim that no Lucani Ibron ship arrived at New Berkeley, and that it was Mason’s ship—the Inferno—that returned to New Berkeley after destroying their planetary defense force just a few days ago. In that incident, which Confederation sources have classified as “an unfortunate accident,” Captain Mason’s ship discharged a powerful and terrifying new weapon, which killed all aboard the ships while leaving the vessels themselves undamaged. Though Captain Mason has claimed that the weapon fired as the result of an alleged saboteur, the incident occurred just minutes after Mason prematurely terminated negotiations on the planet. One source, who claims to have been present at the negotiations just before escaping the doomed planet, characterized Mason’s demeanor during the talks as “unyielding and antagonistic,” adding that Mason vowed to “make the SPACERs pay” just before talks were aborted.

  Sources at Confederation Command could not be reached for comment, and would neither confirm nor deny Captain Mason’s involvement in the destruction of New Berkeley. ConFedIntel officially classifies the incidents as “under investigation.”

  Further information will be reported on this frequency as it becomes available.

  . . . . .

  A throbbing pain coursed through Anastasia’s temples, and an anguished sigh escaped her lips. Her entire body felt physically sore and exhausted, though she had not been able to lift a finger to stop the Lucani Ibron massacre. She felt cold and emotionally numb—unable to deal with the torrent of horrors that had befallen her in the past few hours.

  She unconsciously fingered the datapad in her hands. Highlighted on the display of ships lost in the attack at Utopia was the entry U. C. S. Brigadier.

  Anastasia felt a single tear fall, burning an icy stripe down her cheek.

  The bridge was silent, much as it had been for the past hour. Lieutenant Romano scratched unconsciously at her console, looking through the viewscreen into empty space.

  A short tone from the console broke the deathly silenc
e. “Captain,” Ariyana reported, “incoming message from ConFedCom.”

  Captain Mason exhaled heavily. She felt wholly unable to face Fleet Admiral Wright, having so plainly failed him once again. She took a deep breath, wiping her face with her palm. “On screen.”

  The elderly visage of Joseph Wright quickly filled the viewscreen. The lines on his face seemed deeper, somehow, and the man looked as weary as the Captain felt.

  “We were counting on you, Anastasia,” he sighed. “We thought you were our best hope.”

  The Admiral slowly shook his sallow head.

  “I assume you have heard,” he continued, not waiting for a response, “Utopia, New Berkeley—also destroyed. Over six billion dead. Riots on every major planet in the Sector. The SPACERs—who have blamed you for the destruction of New Berkeley—have convinced several planets to begin proceedings to secede from the Confederation in the hope that they will be spared. Crews have mutinied and entire battle groups have been lost. The Vr’amil’een are still advancing, but every available ship is being used for the evacuations. In short,” he concluded, “the entire Sector is in a state of chaos and the Confederation itself is on the verge of anarchy, civil war, and outright collapse.”

  “Abandon all hope,” Anastasia muttered, “ye who enter here.”

  “Perhaps if things had not gone so badly at Landus and New Berkeley,” Wright retorted, his shoulders sagging dispassionately, “there would still be hope.”

  “I don’t think you understand, Admiral—”

  “I don’t think you understand, Captain,” he countered, his voice finally gaining some measure of strength. “You failed us in your negotiations, you failed to control your own ship, and you failed to prevent the destruction of a Confederation planet. The harbingers of annihilation are upon us and you are our last, best hope for survival.” The Admiral frowned. “I suppose we all knew this day would come.”