“I’m on it,” Senaya said before letting out a deep sigh as she relaxed back on the couch and hunched over her control panel.
Brenna paced around the central holographic platform and stared up at the screen.
Kai followed her gaze and took in the scene of devastation before them. The AI’s tags showed the Spearhead spread over a kilometer section of space in approximately three hundred thousand pieces.
The hull fragments coalesced in a rough sphere shape. Small jagged pieces of hull and larger parts of the destroyer’s engines and damaged weaponry tumbled over each other.
“Blackstar, any signs of life out there? Escape pods?” Kai said.
The holographic face lightened as though coming to life from a long-dormant sleep. It looked toward Kai and said, “No life signs detected. The distress signal is coming from a mechanical beacon two thousand kilometers away. Do you want me to mark it on the screen for you?”
“Thanks,” Kai said.
Brenna tapped a finger against her lips as she stared up at the screen. Her gaze followed the field of twisted, charred metal from one side of the bridge to the other.
“Mother?” Kai prompted. “What is it?”
“The amount of detritus out there: that can’t all be just from the Spearhead. Looks like Host ships too. Blackstar, can you determine the different fragments and assign them IDs?”
“I can attempt to match identification through design and livery if you wish.”
“Do it.”
From their current view, the wreckages of various indistinguishable ships were tagged with colored dots. Faint lines connected the dots, showing the relationship between the destroyed vessels. The colors clumped tightly together in some areas and mingled more loosely in others.
“Definitely a battle pattern,” Brenna said, smoothing her clothes and returning to take her seat next to Senaya on the couch. “But the way things are, it doesn’t look like the results of ordinary weaponry to me. If we were talking about torpedoes and nukes, surely the destruction would be much farther spread and not as tightly grouped.”
“That raises a question,” Senaya said, looking up from her control panel.
“Go on,” Kai prompted.
“If there are no survivors here, and both Coalition and Host ships are destroyed utterly, who or what destroyed the remaining last ship—or ships. Or did they subspace jump out of here? And if so, to where?”
Kai smiled. Senaya had a point.
“Blackstar,” Kai said, “can you detect any recent subspace activity in the area?”
The holographic head nodded and dimmed while it computed the necessary check. A moment later it brightened and said, “There are no traces of subspace activity in this area of space at all. And it appears there never has been.”
“That leaves just wormhole tech,” Brenna said. Then, “These poor souls… Hundreds dead. Lopek…”
Kai, Senaya, and Brenna remained silent for a moment to pay their respect to the dead GTU agents and civilians aboard the Spearhead. It was a terrible loss of life. Kai felt it in his guts: a cold dread. He slumped forward, head in hands.
This was down to him.
“I condemned them to this,” Kai said. “My actions led to their deaths. How many more lives lost will I be responsible for?”
“The probability can be calculated to—”
“Shut up,” Senaya said, cutting off the ship’s AI. “Listen, Kai, this is not your fault. If you didn’t do what you did, we’d have lost billions on Capsis Prime—and a lot more besides.”
“She’s right,” Brenna said, scooting across the crouch to place a hand on his shoulder. “Their deaths were inevitable. You made the right decision.”
“It doesn’t feel like it, looking at all this destruction,” Kai said. Even as he said it, he had a vision of more destruction to come. He knew deep within himself that this was just the beginning.
The door to the rear of the bridge that led to the rest of the ship slid open. Bandar and Marella entered, sharing a laugh. When Bandar locked eyes with Kai and then saw the screen, his face returned to the same grizzled old rogue Kai had always known.
“What the hell happened out there?” Bandar said.
Senaya brought him and Marella up to speed on the situation.
“That’s terrible,” Marella said, standing tall behind the couch, resting her hands on the back. The fine fur on her forearms rippled gently as though a breeze flowed through the bridge. “But what else could we have done?”
“She’s right,” Senaya said. “It’s ‘we’, not ‘you’,” Kai. “We’re all responsible, and I’d do it all again if faced with the same situation.”
“It’s war, Kai,” Bandar said. “It’s all shit. You just have to do your best not to let it get in your mind, because if you do that, then you’re really screwed.”
Kai suspected Bandar was talking from experience. He wondered if that was one of the real reasons why he had remained back on Zarunda to observe him. It gave him time away from the military; maybe it gave him time to heal.
Everyone was now staring at Kai with a mix of expressions ranging from sympathy to expectation. Never one to be victimized or receive pity, Kai strode across the bridge to be closer to the screen. He located the signal beacon among the debris and visually plotted a course.
“Senaya, take us in slowly via impulse toward the beacon. Blackstar, find us a direct route through so we don’t have to use course-correction thrusters.”
A moment later a white dotted line flickered across the various available routes until it remained in place and turned yellow.
“Got a route,” Senaya said. “Easing us in.”
“Bandar, take weapons. Mother, target acquisition. Marella, do what you do best: observe and let me know if you notice anything out of the ordinary—well, out of what we know currently as ordinary.”
Everyone affirmed his order and took their respective positions on the circular couch.
Kai paced around the bridge, considering any potential dangers.
“ETA to beacon, fifteen minutes on three-quarter impulse,” Senaya said. “Don’t want to risk going any faster than that due to collision issues.”
“I can divert subsystem resources to collision-detection processes,” the AI said.
“No,” Kai said. “Let’s just take it easy. I want all systems fully operational until we know what we’re dealing with.”
“As you wish,” the AI said.
Kai was starting to get used to dealing with the AI. The mistrust and concern he had with it before was softening, but he couldn’t tell exactly why. Maybe it was something in his subconscious; something amongst all that inaccessible knowledge floating to the surface.
Either way, he was happier without the nagging feeling of tension. He could focus on being the best captain he could be. The magnitude of the situation required him to step up and be the leader he had apparently been groomed for.
The crew remained quiet as Senaya piloted the ship with care and purpose.
Kai knew the AI would have done a perfectly adequate job of piloting the ship, but he preferred knowing Senaya was at the controls. It gave her purpose and kept her mind sharp. It was the same for the others, too. Although the Blackstar’s computer would manage the weapons and target acquisition without issue, he still trusted people more, even if they might not be as effective in all situations.
After a few minutes, they had passed the bulk of the Spearhead’s remains. Kai thought he saw bodies floating among the debris but couldn’t be entirely sure. He resisted the temptation to look closer.
What good would that do? They would have perished within minutes. Any chance to save anyone was long gone. There were no other distress signals or attempts to hail them. Kai had to face it: everyone was dead.
All they could do now was find the beacon, retrieve whatever intelligence had been left, and find a way home to honor their lives.
“There’s something moving over there,” Marella said
.
Kai turned to face her. She was pointing past him, about thirty degrees to the port side. He followed the direction of where she was pointing and squinted. He too could see it now; a shifting shadow among a large section of a ship’s hull.
“Blackstar, can you enlarge that area?” Kai asked, drawing an imaginary square over the screen. “And does this ship have strong enough lights to illuminate it?”
“We’ll need to be within a few hundred meters,” the AI said. “Enlarging the view by two hundred percent.”
“Sen, can you alter the vector to come at that segment of hull more directly?” Kai said.
Senaya moved her small agile hands deftly across the control panel. “Yeah,” she said. “It’ll add time to get to the beacon, but we’re not going so fast that I can’t use the thrusters to alter our approach.”
“Do it,” Kai said.
The screen shifted a moment later as the thrusters dampened their current trajectory. The main engines pulsed to set the Blackstar on its new route, bringing them centrally toward the area of movement.
A distance countdown appeared on the screen.
The closer they got, the more obvious it was that something was moving around on the hull segment. When they were within a few hundred meters, the AI switched on the Blackstar’s external lights, bathing the area in cool, white light.
“What the hell is that?” Bandar said, leaning forward over his control panel. “Marella, you ever seen anything like that before?”
“Never.”
To Kai, it looked like one of the giant tree spiders that lived deep in the Zarundan jungle. Only this one wasn’t biological, at least not from the outside. The thing was mechanical. It had tethered itself to a section of Spearhead’s hull and was using various probe-like instruments from its triangular head to cut and shape the fragment of detritus.
Sparks bloomed from the point where its instruments struck the surface.
“Looks like it’s salvaging parts,” Senaya said. “Maybe a drone of some sort?”
“No,” Brenna said. “Not a drone… look, there’s more of them farther in the wreckage.”
“Blackstar, identify the machines and their number,” Kai ordered.
The holographic face seemed to Kai to display a stern expression as it carried out the order, then said, with what he thought was a slight hint of anger in its voice, “They’re the Koldax. I’m identifying nine of the machines.”
The AI tagged their locations on the screen with red triangles.
“Crap,” Kai said, returning to his position on the crash couch and strapping himself in. “Everyone strap in. Blackstar, full shields.”
“They’ve seen us,” Marella said as she clipped in the safety harness around her body. “Four of them coming right at us.”
“Shields won’t help against the Koldax,” the AI said. “They don’t have ordnance of any kind. They attack more directly. The shields work on frequencies, such as laser and light beam weapons. They won’t help against a plasma torch, drill, or saw blade.”
“They’ll cut us apart,” Senaya said. “Just like they did with the Spearhead and other ships.”
“There must have been thousands of them,” Marella said.
The image gave Kai pause. Were there still that many out there, beyond the Blackstar AI’s reach, waiting to swarm? He banished the thought and focused on the job at hand.
There were nine of them. That felt doable to him. Although where he got that confidence from, he couldn’t tell, having never faced these things before.
How bad could nine small machines be to something so advanced as the Blackstar?
“They’re almost on us,” Senaya said.
Kai watched them grow larger on the screen. Their metallic shells were matt black with no other markings or signage. Each machine had half a dozen limbs, each one appearing to be armed with a multitude of weapons and tools.
They featured a flat, triangular head and a narrow body that Kai assumed housed its propulsion system. Given how small they were compared to the Blackstar, Kai wondered what kind of advanced technology they had to enable them to move so swiftly with no apparent fuel capacity.
“Engagement imminent,” Senaya said. “They’re in range.”
Chapter 15
MOTHER, TARGET LOCK THESE DAMNED THINGS,” Kai said. “Bandar, fire the PDCs when ready. Blackstar, Marella—keep an eye on the other five.”
“I’m watching them. Don’t worry,” Marella said.
The AI set the five other Koldax out of range with yellow triangles on the screen to distinguish them from the ones in immediate range. Those the AI showed on the holocube in three dimensions for more accurate combat planning.
The four machines in range started to spread out, threatening the Blackstar’s flanks.
“Firing disruptors,” Bandar said.
Brenna highlighted the two outer machines for target acquisition as Bandar instructed the ship to unleash a volley of disruption cannon fire from the port and starboard side arrays.
The entire ship thrummed with energy for a couple of seconds.
On screen, the tight beam of disruption energy was invisible to the naked eye, but the results weren’t. The machine on the port side wobbled at first. Its limbs gyrated then became stiff. A moment later strips of ribboned metal peeled off the narrow body, then the triangular head.
Yet it still came at them.
“Fire again,” Kai said. “Widen the beam for the starboard target.”
Brenna adjusted the targeting and nodded to Bandar to fire again. The grizzled solider sneered as he gestured across his control panel.
The Blackstar’s hull vibrated with a low octave note again as it fired the beam of disruption particles.
This time, the small Koldax machine couldn’t resist. It burst apart in a black cloud of parts. The machine on their starboard side likewise broke apart into hundreds of pieces and floated away into the void of space, beyond the reach of their lights.
“Target the two coming right at us,” Kai said. “Use the gravity distortion array to alter their course, and finish them with rockets—assuming we have rockets.”
The AI appeared on the holocube above the battle view. “The ship is equipped with twenty-five short-range nuclear-tipped missiles. I am more than capable of operating full battle modes if you wish.”
“Fine,” Kai said. “Show us what you’ve got. Bandar, prepare for manual control if it doesn’t work out. One other thing, Blackstar—can we give you a different name to differentiate you from the ship?”
“My name,” the AI said with a hint of pride in its voice, “Is Eesoh, pronounced Ee-sow.”
“Why didn’t you tell us before?” Senaya said.
“No one asked.”
Kai sensed Eesoh wanted to say something else, but its visual representation remained impassive. He returned his attention to the battle at hand despite oddly feeling bad for not having asked the AI its name earlier.
Within a few seconds, Eesoh had targeted the two machines directly in front of them.
A pulse from the GDA altered the gravity around them, sending them swirling around each other in a tight cluster, their mechanical limbs tangling together. The holoscreen indicated the firing of three rockets while the ship engaged full reverse thrusters, presumably to avoid the resulting explosion.
As the Blackstar’s reverse thrusters first slowed their approach and then sent them flying backward away from their target, Kai was forced forward, only the safety harness stopping him from hurtling across the bridge.
Marella let out a surprised scream.
Bandar grunted his displeasure.
Kai composed himself in time to see two of the rockets slam into one of the swirling Koldax machines. The twin explosions destroyed it instantly, sending its partner spinning off into space. The third rocket matched its trajectory and struck true, turning the second machine into nothing more than metal filings.
“Nicely done,” Senaya said, a wide gri
n on her face.
“What about the other five?” Brenna said.
Two of the other group had broken away and were now far off to the starboard side. Another one had gone high while the remaining two had gone low, their combined vectors culminating in a cone around the Blackstar.
The Koldax had them surrounded, and they were closing in—fast.
“Um, Eesoh, you might want to fire more of those handy rockets,” Senaya said.
“Enemies are exceeding the targeting capabilities.”
“Then use the PDC,” Kai said. “Or the gravity distortion array.”
“The machines have already learned and adapted. Their positions and velocity are such that the chances of a hit are barely in the positive range.”
“So we just sit here like a lame animal and wait to die?” Bandar said. “Screw that. There’s got to be more that we can do.”
The Koldax machines were even faster than the Host’s Arrows. They were within close range already. Brenna’s hands moved quickly over her control panel, trying to acquire the targets to no avail.
“I’ve got an idea,” Kai said. “Eesoh, bring up the shields, and before you say it, I know they’re not effective. Just do it.”
“As you wish.” The screen confirmed that the shields were up and at near one hundred percent capacity.
“What are you thinking of doing?” Senaya said. “Because whatever it is, it’s got to be fast. They’re…” She tailed off and looked up at the screen. Eesoh changed the video feed to show the hull of the ship.
Attached to it like metallic tumors, the five Koldax set about cutting and drilling into the hull.
“This is not good,” Marella said. “We really need to do something right now.”
“I’m going out there,” Bandar said, reaching for his harness. “The damned things won’t like a combat rifle up close and personal.”
“Sit down,” Kai snapped. “No one’s doing anything stupid.”
“Then what do you propose?” his mother said, arching an eyebrow at him like she used to do when he was a young boy planning on doing something reckless.
Magnitude: A Space Opera Adventure (Blackstar Command Book 2) Page 11
