Zero Star

by Chad Huskins

  “You are weapons-free. Fire all torpedoes! Mr. Vosen,” he said, turning to the XO. “Release the wyrms!”

  LORD ISHIMOTO SPAT fire at its invisible enemies in all directions. Snakes of tracer fire arced and waved through the darkness. The ship’s hull took a beating from unseen foes. Holes were ripped through the Sigil of the Republic painted on the hull, and Rescue Foam systems worked overtime to fill those holes. The hammering deluge of autofire didn’t stop for a full minute, and all the while whole squadrons of Ascendancy drones were exploding in hails of gunfire.

  In silence, and from far away, it looked like some kind of celebration going on. Fireworks.

  Lord Ishimoto’s belly opened a second time, and she gave birth to three hatchling-size wyrms, as well as twenty mobile Quinland weapons platforms. Five of them would remain as satellite hunter-killers, and the rest would punch through atmosphere and land on the surface to supply support for the men on the ground.

  Meanwhile, below this frenetic battle, the Novas pierced the atmosphere of Widden. Red-hot blooms bounced off their ablative shields as they belched columns of smoke and made their plunge.

  THEY CAME ROARING out of the sky. Four Novas, one of them breaking up upon entry—too many heat protection tiles had been blown off its starboardside wing, and the shuttle lost insulation. When the shuttle hit atmosphere, the hot gases that were produced upon entry came through the wing and started melting parts of the airframe. It exploded in a white-hot flash, its pieces flying in all directions, flaming body parts tumbling through the air like pieces of paper set on fire.

  The exact same thing happened to the shuttle that Lyokh and his wings were in, only their Nova had been hit hard on its spine, and emergency coolers managed to release enough coolant gel in time to extinguish the heat before it reached critical.

  Lyokh had heard it all happening over radio transmissions between the Nova pilots, the screams and the calls of Mayday. Lyokh heard the other pilots telling the doomed pilot to eject as the fire bloomed in his portside wing. He would not eject, he would not stop fighting to protect the lives of his passengers. He died without a sound.

  It was just luck. Simple luck that Lyokh and his people were on this Nova instead of the one that blew up. No matter how hard you trained, there was still a great deal that came down to luck. That knowledge haunted every soldier.

  The shuttle trembled. They heard the roar of atmo all around them. Emergency lights flared, a siren blared. Right now, they were plunging. A wounded bird plummeting towards the surface, unsure of whether or not it would be able to pull out of this spiral. For the pilot it was a matter of skill, for Lyokh and his people it was a matter of luck again—what kind of pilot they had. It turned out, a damn good one. They felt the Nova fighting back, but the pilot eventually mastered the beast, brought it to heel, and all emergency lights and sirens cut off.

  “Approaching LZ!” the pilot shouted, his voice much tenser than Lyokh had ever heard it. “Ready for drop point! Be rearing to go in thirty seconds! As soon as the last man is off my ramp, I’m dusting off and circling around the vicinity to provide air support while you all secure the area!”

  “Copy that,” Lyokh said, then turned and hollered at his people. “Thirty seconds to touch down!”

  The rattling and shifting and roaring had become their whole world. It was hard for any of them to remember what had come before, or to imagine what would come after. Death? The loss of their battle-brothers and battle-sisters? A successful mission? Wife and kids someday? All of that was lost in a fog, as irrelevant as who their second-grade teacher had been, or the unfairness of what had come of all their homeworlds.

  A red light overhead flashed.

  When thirty seconds was up, they heard a crash. An explosion somewhere nearby. The load moan-whine of a rail gun. People screaming, running for cover.

  The Nova extended its landing gear. It wobbled. The hundred or so soldiers wobbled, too, as the Nova pilot quickly dialed back the shuttle’s arti-grav, matching it with Widden’s own gravity so they wouldn’t be shocked by it when they deployed.

  The red light turned green. The door opened and the ramp fell.

  Once more, they stepped into hell.

  : The Battle of Phanes

  Vastill was a murderground. The bodies of those who had not managed to evacuate lay torn and shredded in macabre designs. Puddles of dark-red blood were spread out, forming slow streams that went downhill, gathering momentum and forming red channels along the cobblestone streets. House pets dashed across the street, escaping where their homes had been gutted or obliterated. Giant birds had escaped an aviary somewhere, and went streaking across a sky swirling with skyrakes and drones and wyrms. The Nova ship that had dropped Gold Wing and its compatriots off was circling the block, its rotary gauss cannons roaring as the crew tried to suppress the enemy enough to give the Republic ground troops time to get situated.

  Thrallyin was up there, being piloted by Artemis of Artemis. The Nova pilot had released the wyrm and now it went snaking in complex maneuvers that the Ascendancy ships could not match. This was why the Republic still used the creatures, still spent time arming and armoring them. When it came to pure lethal speed, wyrms were without peer.

  One of the suns was setting, the other one was due shortly. Twilight was not yet upon the world, but it soon would be. The sky was greenish-blue, with clouds stretched thin like cotton and set ablaze by Tupenda, which was the setting sun. Reta, the smallest sun, still had a good view of the war.

  All across the city, one could hear the thumps, both distant and near, of Republican weapons platforms smacking down against the surface. Mantis railgun platforms came streaking out of the sky, slowing with both parachute and jets, extending their legs to cling to Vastill’s stepped pyramids and skyscrapers. Upon landing, each Mantis began auto-targeting, and commenced a coordinated effort to aid Gold, Fire, and Devastator Wing. Railguns blatted, rending the air with deafening sound as they smashed the turrets that the Ascendancy had also dropped from orbit.

  All across the city, drone turret went up against drone turret.

  Lyokh and his team were on a megablock, near the top level, with a few bridges and overpasses looming over them. They moved cover to cover, their Fell rifles up and looking for work. With the wave of his hand, Lyokh sent waypoints to where he wanted his people to move to next. Another wave, and he commanded each wing’s med bots to keep towards the middle of their mobile force, away from harm and on standby.

  So far, they had encountered only dead civilians, the enemy’s ground forces were nowhere in sight, though they were already getting updates on their HUDs from the sats that Lord Ishimoto had deployed in orbit. Clusters of mechanicae were moving through the streets, pushing for the Dexannonhold miles ahead of them.

  A dozen enemy platoons, looked like.

  Right then, as it stood in that moment, Lyokh and his people were woefully outnumbered. They needed to survive long enough for the rest of the ships to drop the other wings.

  “Assault teams up front!” he called as he moved towards a vehicle of some kind. It looked like it had been a bus, but was now a burning, twisted mass. “All launchers on the frontline! Tactical units to the flanks and rear! Make room for the Ravagers!”

  The two Ravager tanks came down the street, sometimes trundling on their treads, sometimes extending their insectile legs to get over a huge obstacle. While on their treads, the tanks passed over bodies and debris, and they all heard the bone-crunching sound as each corpse was crushed beneath the Ravagers’ huge mass. The tanks appeared supremely unaware of the messes they made, their topside railgun panning slowly left to right, while their three gauss cannons moved jerkily around, searching for work.

  Heeten and the rest of the warhulks moved wordlessly to assume their positions—she was sending instructions to each mech pilot, assigning them to either the assault group or tactical groups. Huge Untamaks went to the front, her own Dagonites at the flanks, and the more agile Aravastars were
support for the two.

  Lyokh peeked over the bus. Dead ahead, rising like a god’s vengeful blade towards the defiant sky, was the Dexannonhold. It was about five klicks away, a twisted, garish hulk of steel, surrounded by stone protrusions in the shape of a flower’s budding petals. He had never seen its like. Zooming in with his visor, he saw striations of color running down its side in rivers, too many banners to count fluttering from its windows and ledges, gargoyles of terrifying countenance screaming silently at the world, and hololithic screens that were trying to show images of the High Priestess, but were flickering on and off due to damage sustained.

  Lyokh could now see why their pilot had not been able to get them any closer. The Dexannonhold was swarming with locusts. A hundred or more Ascendancy starfighter drones were swirling around it, battering it with railguns, missiles, and gauss rounds. But for its compristeel components, it would likely already have fallen.

  “SIGINT, get me some local eyes and ears.”

  “Copy, doyen,” said Ziir, who released an EyeSpy into the sky. It hovered for just a second, a palm-sized ball bouncing on its repulsors, then it shot above the buildings surrounding them and began feeding them more detailed information. “Lots of radio chatter in the area, doyen,” Ziir called, though Lyokh could see it on his screen. “All of it encrypted, of course.”

  “Send a tightbeam to Ishimoto,” Lyokh said. “Give them our exact coords, so the other ships know where to send their troops to converge, and tell them we’re establishing a perimeter now.”

  “Yes, s—”

  Suddenly, several miles behind them, a blockbuster bomb went off. The explosion was like the wrath of a god, and they could see the giant plume rising high above a row of pyramids. Out from that smoke came an Ascendancy troop carrier, and, fast on its heels, was Thrallyin. Gold Wing cheered and pumped their fists as they heard the wyrm’s war-song, and watched it snag the carrier in its jaws and wrap its body around it. The carrier’s rotary guns blatted at the wyrm, and Thrallyin roared as they both crashed into a pyramid and disappeared around a skyscraper.

  Lyokh took a knee, and called out, “Tsuyoshi! Ahlander! To me!”

  The other wing leaders broke from their overwatch and signaled to others to take up their positions. They hustled and joined Lyokh alongside the burned-out bus.

  “Captains,” he said. “We’re surrounded on all sides by platoons. Our Nova did a good job of landing us someplace away from all the fighting, but eventually Ascendancy troops will catch on that we’re here, it’ll spread to all platoons, and then they’ll converge on us. We’ve got a perimeter to secure, so that we can receive back up. Without that back up, we are lost.”

  They both gave quick nods.

  “Captain Tsuyoshi, take Devastator Wing and fortify that side of the street. Captain Ahlander, you and Fire Wing will take the other side.” Lyokh briefly conferred with his HUD’s field tac screen. “Looks like we’ve got two Mantises in our vicinity, but they’re at our rear. One has already received some damage, according to the EyeSpy, so let’s not count on them too heavily to cover our asses. Pick ten of your best guys, and put them at the far end of the street, between those two pyramids.” He made several chops of his hand, which sent waypoints to each captains’ HUDs. “Set points for overlapping fire there, there, and there. Gold Wing will stay in cover at the center of the street and keep it occupied. Each of your wings have med bots, correct?”

  Tsuyoshi nodded. “The medics have them formed at the center,” he said, throwing a thumb behind him. “Like you said.”

  “Good. Both of you take four med bots each—keep them at the center of your group, so they’re the last to take damage. Copy?”

  “Copy,” said Tsuyoshi.

  “Solid copy,” said Ahlander.

  “Then let’s do it.”

  The captains hustled away in low crouches, and quickly called out on wing-specific channels to rally their groups.

  Overhead, a squadron of ’rakes went screaming overhead, chasing after an Ascendancy troop carrier. But right on the squadron’s ass was a group of sleek, black starfighters that Lyokh had never seen before, either in vids or in Prefect Ruhne’s briefing. The Ascendancy fighters moved nimbly enough, but two of them were quickly picked off by a wyrm missing half its wing. This one was red, so it wasn’t Thrallyin. Lyokh could hear its scream from miles away.

  They all made their movements, Devastator and Fire Wing shooting off to their sides of the street. The Ravagers backed away from one another to opposite ends of the street, so that they didn’t cluster and make so easy a target for a single attack—the enemy would want to take out their big guns for sure.

  Lyokh looked to his right. Just two feet away from where he was huddled, there was a child. Dead. Half her face missing, one eyeball left. The other eye socket was a black void. Something had punched through her chest. Looked like an exit wound, yet it also appeared as though something had retracted from it. Flesh had been pulled back from the entry point. That was a distinct detail for Lyokh, one he recognized as coming from a weapon that had been plunged into a victim, then forcibly ripped clean…

  Meiks sidled up beside Lyokh, nudging him with an elbow. “Remember that show Everlasting Empire?”

  Lyokh peeked over the bus, looking for anything they had missed. “No,” he said.

  “This place reminds me of that city where the baron lived. Remember? With his crazy wife and the two kids that were always plotting to kill—”

  “I said I never saw it.”

  “Got canceled after just a few episodes. It was ahead of its time—”

  “Meiks, take five guys to that position over there,” he pointed to a collapsed building surrounded by corpses, “and get out of my face.”

  “Copy that, doyen,” Meiks said with a smile, and moved away from cover. “It’s a good show, though. I’ll send you the vids when we get back.” Meiks made hand motions in the air, running through the squad lists until he picked the five he liked, then summoned them with only chimes in their helmets. They followed him over to the building, stepping over the mauled and charred corpses of dozens of Vastillians.

  “ ’Vanen, hoy up,” Lyokh said.

  “Yes, doyen?” Takirovanen was suddenly by his side, seemingly materializing out of nowhere. Lyokh almost jumped in surprise.

  “Take your best snipers, and you guys climb up there,” he said, pointing at a large, green stepped pyramid that overlooked most of the street.

  “Yes, doyen.” He retreated as quietly as he had appeared.

  Lyokh glanced over at Heeten. She stood a hundred yards away, standing in front of one of the Ravagers and providing cover for ten Gold Wingers that were there to protect the tank. He thought about their night together. Probably had been ill advised, or maybe it was just what they needed. After all, what matter was casual sex at the Fall of Man? Even so…

  “Sir, we’ve got incoming!” called Ziir.

  A second later, Lyokh saw it on the tac feed from the EyeSpy. A group of Ascendancy mechanicae. Almost a thousand of them. Along with some type of large assault vehicles that LOG could not identify.

  “Hoy up, ladies and gentlemen!” Lyokh said. “It’s about to get bloody!”

  “A-HOO!”

  AT THE FRINGES of the Phanes System, two Dagger-class corvettes flanked a Katana-class man-of-war. The contingent had been left just within the cover of the system’s own Oort cloud—that mass of asteroids, comets, protoplanets, and space dust that was left over from the system’s creation. Here, they deployed a hundred sensor probes in all directions, their captains fully aware that the Ascendancy most likely had ships equally hidden in this colossal cloud. They used infrared to track every rock big enough to hide a starship behind it.

  Vaultimyr, the huge man-of-war that led Task Force Three, doubled as a dragonship. It had been outfitted with all the necessary cables, nodes, and clawholds for Nyphere, its 500-foot greatwyrm, to attach itself to. Vaultimyr’s internal Tamer teams networked with the
Tamers currently mounted on the greatwyrm’s back. The latest sensory feeds were transmitted to Nyphere by electrical impulses, which caused waves of rippling color to cascade down the greatwyrm’s scaly body.

  Inside Vaultimyr’s CIC, Captain Oblavsky received data on four separate holopanes. One of them suddenly superimposed over all the others, demanding his attention. It was an alarm coming from one of the probes. One light-minute out, just outside of the Oort cloud, two Ascendancy ships had dropped out of their FTL bubbles.

  Oblavsky was a concise and terse man. He listened to his XO repeat what he was already seeing on the screen, and said, “Sensor room, conn. Go active with sensors, give me a wider scan of the area around our two new bogeys, check for any smaller support vessels, and filter out CMB.” He was referring to the cosmic microwave background, radiation that could greatly interfere with their sensor readings.

  “Conn, sensor room. Aye, sir.” A few seconds later, “Captain, we’ve got confirmation on trajectory. They’re moving in-system, on a collision course with us.”

  “XO, alert all commands. And give us some scales.”

  “Aye, sir,” said the exeutive officer. He sent the word to the Tamers, who sent the electrical impulse to the greatwyrm coiled around their ship.

  Nyphere responded by first quivering, then expanding its massive wings. Being a greatwyrm, it had a dozen sets of wings, some larger and some smaller, which ran down the length of its body, flapping slowly in solar winds, the wings looking more like fish fins than anything else. Its primary wings, those near its head, were complemented with Agile-7 thrusters, like those near the end of its tail. Down the length of its neck, pods of Tamer teams hung like tumorous growths, some of them commanding turrets, others working the sensor suites. On its massive head, Nyphere wore a massive helm of plate armor and sensor equipment. The helm also housed the main computers of Nyphere’s own imtech, which fed it a spectrum of tactical data.