Armageddon's Pall

by S. F. Edwards

  Marda reached over and squeezed Blazer’s hand as the fleets closed on the station. “This is not going to be easy.”

  “Certainly won’t be,” Arion replied. “We trained to fight against them for so long. Been taught to hate them. Now we must fight alongside them. How many ships are we going to lose to ‘friendly fire?’”

  “Too many,” Zithe growled. “At least the Admiral is being smart about it. She’s arranged to have the fleets operate in different systems for the most part. We’ll only fight alongside each other when necessary.”

  Blazer just hoped that that would be enough. “Does anyone else notice that they outnumber us?”

  “Not for long,” Gokhead replied, his eyes dancing as he accessed his micomm. “We’re getting reinforced. Zithe - you should appreciate this. It’s the third fleet with the Wolfsbane battlegroup at the lead.”

  Zithe growled in appreciation. “I’ll have to wait here to great her then.”

  Gokhead jerked back a moment later, and jumped to his feet, knocking his chair over.

  “What is it?” Marda asked.

  “Que-Dee was able to get a data feed from the worm we inserted into the Planet Slicer.”

  “It must have dropped out of hyperspace then. Where is it?” Blazer asked, his whole-body tingling.

  “Uh, some dead system back in their territory. But what’s more important, we have a list of worlds they plan to attack.”

  Bridge, UCSBS Wolfsbane

  Captain Sardenon stood on the command parapet of his bridge and looked out over the starscape around his ship. Under any other circumstances the view ahead of his ship was one that he’d crave. Two Galactic Federation fleets on the run from the fleet his battlegroup headed. Even the presence of a Confederation Star base ahead of the fleets wouldn’t deter him - the majority of the reinforced Gorvian Monitoring Fleet surrounded it. They had them boxed in, and together they could destroy them utterly. But that was not to be, not this cycle.

  The mood of the bridge crew told him that they all felt the same. Working alongside the Galactic Federation would be difficult at best. Still, sending their fleet had to keep the Geffers on their toes. Despite the Wolfsbane baring the scars of a century of battle, it had yet to see defeat. It was also well known that it carried more carriers and battleships on its kill board than any ship in any fleet.

  The Lycan ex-bomber pilot adjusted his old leather crew jacket and signaled to the communications officer to open a hailing frequency to the only other Tacit Class Supercarrier in the system. “Robial Actual, Wolfsbane Actual. How are you standing Morth?”

  The Otlian captain of the Wolfsbane’s sister ship coalesced beside Sardenon. His four-armed jacket matched every patch on Sardenon’s except for one, their current commands. “It’s good see you Daro. I stand ready, for anything.”

  “It’s good to see you too old friend. I assume that Admiral Quin Tosh will brief us?”

  The Otlian scoffed. “You bet her Borekian tail she will. Did you notice what ship is leading the Geffers?”

  Sardenon turned towards his tactical officer and a hologram snapped to life a moment later. The Barker Class Carrier at first didn’t appear special in any way. It had updated sensor arrays and the newest weapons mounts, even featured updated engines but then he spotted the name plate. His eyes went wide and he tapped his tactical officer’s shoulder. “Is that right?”

  Captain Rawotin answered in his stead. “Yes, it is. I thought we’d taken down the Koontz eleven annura ago.”

  Captain Sardenon remembered that cycle well. They were flying off the Cralvofte back then, a Drashig Sperchedus Class Carrier. The carrier had all but filled his viewport when he poured his torpedo load out into it. “I saw that beast explode. I put three torpedoes straight into her power core.”

  “It appears that they’ve either rebuilt her or given her name to a new ship then, old friend.”

  “The registry plate reads the same. They must have rebuilt what was left.”

  “It sure looks that way. This is going to be a long campaign.”

  “That it is old friend.”

  Gondral’s Chamber, Planet Slicer, System: CX-129

  The silence of the chamber had been meant to calm Gondral, but reviewing telemetry data from Gondish’s fight with Blazer once again, the air crackled with raw hatred. Of all the video taken or reconstructed, this was the only time where Gondral had seen for certain which Dondick MeG-CE had taken Gondish’s life. The interior security feeds had proved useless for that. The units were identical save for some distinctive dents and patched damage.

  That any Gorvian warriors had fallen to those antiques was maddening enough. That their complacency had allowed the security feeds to go unwatched, rage inducing. None thought that any could board the mighty Planet Slicer, so security feeds were only checked at the end of the cycle. Gondral had slaughtered the former Security Lord for the oversight.

  Gondral reviewed the security playback once again, this time in a different wavelength and noticed something. Stamped serial numbers were on the back of the MeG-CE’s heads. Turning to the hologram, revealed that Gondish’s camera had never imaged the back of the MeG-CE. That had left only Gondish’s telepathic snooping to reveal the name of fas murderer.

  The feed from the prison began and three MeG-CEs charged the room. They slaughtered the guards with an efficiency Gondral had only seen in the best Gorvian units. Could you be one of these Telshin I have read reports of? The movements of the team were similar, but different from the videos Gondral had viewed of the Telshin warriors that so many Dondicks feared. No. Not Telshin, but Telshin-trained perhaps?

  One MeG-CE went still on the image after the rest entered. A moment later and the emaciated prisoners limped from their cells. That gave Gondral a moment's pleasure, to see the Dondicks in such a state, but it was short-lived. A voice rang out in the Dondick tongue, the language as crude and coarse as their multiple sexes. The thought of that sickened Gondral. That not all beings could carry young seemed unnatural, against all that the Gorvian and the Tre-Tian stood for.

  Gondish had learned many Dondick languages during fas travels throughout Dondick space to the strike corvette fleet. Once returning home, the progeny had taught them to Gondral as well. Is that your voice I hear Vaughnt? Are you the leader? Gondral looked at the sound profile beside the image, the acoustics of the chamber made pinpointing the source impossible.

  A MeG-CE took a knee and a moment later the head pivoted forward and the torso opened to reveal a Dondick within. An Anulian female by the looks of it. She leapt down to the deck and attended to the prisoners. Such a foolish notion. None of these were worth saving, weak and with no useful knowledge. The chefs didn’t even deem them suitable to feed to the lower ranks. Would it hurt you to crush one of your teammates in my hand? Gondral wondered, wrapping fas fleshy hand around the holographic form; six eyes burning with rage.

  Gondral took a small pleasure that the Dondicks had rescued so few prisoners, missed the one that called them completely. Thousands more, alive and dead, waited in scattered pantries across the Planet Slicer. They would feed Gondral’s hungry troops, filling them with a renewed fire for the lives of their enemies. Even more would wait here in this system, and others, where Gondral’s scientists would find a use for them.

  Gondral leaned back in the chair and grabbed a goblet beside it. The thick red fluid within splashed against the sides before fae took a drink. Gondral swished the coppery fluid about for a moment then swallowed, this small pleasure enough for now. A tiny white and red streaked orb bobbed to the surface and Gondral took another slurp. Fae allowed the orb, and more that had sunk to the bottom, to roll across fas gnarled tongue before setting the goblet back.

  Gondral turned to the life support cask, Gondish’s limp form within as machines kept mor alive to incubate mor full-blood sibling. “How could you get so complacent? Was it your ability to intercept their telepathy? Did that make you forget to keep aware of your surroundings?”


  The corpse remained silent, but the growing seed within stirred on the monitors.

  “Yes, Childe. You will learn from your sibling’s mistakes. I will commence your training soon and will imprint all I know upon you.”

  Gondral returned to the holographic feed and studied the moves of the other MeG-CEs. They were all skilled fighters, but their movements weren’t fluid. Their coordination was on par with the best of the Gorvians and had that headstrong young packer not attacked too soon then Gondish might have defeated them. “Old Mind?”

  “Yes, Lord of All,” the old advisor replied; stepping out of the shadows.

  “The one from Gondish’s unit who fired first. Did fae ever birth or seed any heirs?”

  “Moe had seeded two Gorvians, after Lord Gondish accepted mor into the unit,” the Old Mind corrected, the Gorvian pregnant at death. “Both mares have since ended the seeds for the shame of it.”

  “And any that have been birthed?”

  “They exist Lord of All. What would you have done with them?”

  Gondral considered that. “If their other parents be of strong enough lines, then they’ll find themselves in service to my next heir. Otherwise, feed them to the conscious prisoners.”

  Gondral felt the Old Mind’s revulsion to such a fate. There could be no worse punishment.

  UCSB Date 1003.222

  Bridge, GFS Hammer, High Orbit Nash-9, Nashig System

  After a career fighting the Confederation, Captain Sean Lancaster never thought he’d find himself defending a Confederation world. At least Command had given him control of a full task force, but they were a paper tiger compared to what the briefing indicated could come to face them. There was no way that his force of eight cruisers, five escort carriers, twenty-four corvettes, twelve destroyers and associated fighters could stand against this Planet Slicer. In the case that the massive ship came, the dimensions of which he couldn’t wrap his mind around, all they could hope to do would be to contact the joint fleets.

  Therein lay the problem. The intelligence they’d received was just a list of targeted worlds. There wasn’t even an indication of how the Gorvians intended to attack. If a regular Gorvian task force attacked, they might be able to repel it, but from the information the Conts had supplied even a token Gorvian force would cost him several ships. But then why go after this world?

  Captain Lancaster looked down on the once-inhabited world. Nash-9 was a miserable little rock. Had humanity evolved here we probably would have nuked ourselves into extinction too. The landscape as far as he could see was gray, with a few wispy clouds over what remained of the emptied oceans. The atmosphere was thinner than that of Mars before it had been terraformed. Only archeologists ever visited the world now in a vain attempt to discover what had happened to the species which had once inhabited it. Had they destroyed themselves? Or had some natural disaster wiped them all out?

  “Waste of time,” he hissed, drawing his second in command’s attention.

  “Sir?”

  “Studying this rock. Why does anyone care how they died out? Aren’t there more important things going on? Like a war.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Has there been any sign of activity?”

  “Not since we evacuated the archeologists. They thought we were capturing them when we came down.”

  “Someone forgot to tell them that we’re working together now.”

  A motion from the viewport pulled them back into the moment as a Solaar streaked past the high-mounted bridge tower. The approach was close enough to crackle the shields of both ships; a reckless move. The crew in their pits scrambled, calling out to the flight controllers or the fighter itself to identify the pilot. He couldn’t help but crack a smile at their overreactions. Everyone had been so on edge since they’d arrived in-system awaiting any Gorvian assault that the obvious joke had created such an overreaction.

  His smile soon grew into a laugh at the absurdity of it all. Thirty-foot-tall monsters straight out of a nightmare. Was this just come Cont trick to get us to work together on a ruse?

  A spike on the navigator’s screen ended his laughter in an instant. He’d started out as a navigator and had never seen readings like this before. He ran over. The gravitational flux readings were off the scale. He looked up to find the spherical jump point flatten and stretch out. The change was quick and violent, space almost seeming to ripple in response. The ships closest to the jump point, a pair of disk-shaped Raatlers and a Banshee destroyer disappeared into the opening. Hyperspace itself destroyed them before they could raise their hyperspace shields.

  Shock froze Captain Lancaster and his crew in place as the seeming impossible unfolded before their eyes. Then all Hell broke loose. Little more than a sliver at first from this distance, the Planet Slicer side-slipped out of the jump point at half the speed of light. Cannons across its surface blazed as they cleared the breach between universes. Five of the cruisers on picket duty and one of the carriers just ceased to when the weapons came upon them.

  Lancaster found his mouth again and slammed his hand down on his communications key. “All hands! Battle stations! Open fire!”

  It was the last thing the Captain ever said as the Hammer became the Planet Slicer’s next victim. He stood there frozen, unable to react as the bow of the Planet Slicer smashed into his ship; the antimatter cannons there disintegrating it. He didn’t even have time to close his eyes before he disappeared in a cloud of radiation.

  Bridge, Planet Slicer

  “Why are there Dondick warships here?” Gondral demanded as the explosive deaths of numerous ships lit up fas sky.

  “Unknown Lord of All,” the new Ship Lord replied, the rotund furry countenance of the six-limbed creature belying the ruthlessness that had garnered mor the post. “I will instruct the gunners to leave at least one ship intact enough for inspection to find out.”

  “Don’t bother. The Dondicks will respond soon,” Gondral replied and looked at the world beyond. The Nashig homeworld was as bleak and lifeless as Gondral had remembered. Soon it would be no more than a bitter memory. “Soon enough we’ll destroy the world of our masters’ greatest enemy. What a glory that will be.”

  “Truly Lord of All. Shall I order the new beam fighters to launch? Let them bloody their claws?”

  Gondral smiled at the thought. Gondish had envisioned the design, handing it off to the Gorvian’s top engineers to realize. The craft featured a beam cannon emplacement that made up over half of its mass. The asymmetric design was so Gorvian in aspect that each unit seemed almost unique. They would shred any fighter or bomber they came across with ease. “Yes. Launch the beam fighters. Let us see what they can do. In fact, instruct our gunners to cease fire. Let the new fighters and gunships prove their worth.”

  “It shall be done Lord of All.”

  The Planet Slicer’s guns went silent in response as thousands of fighters and bulbous gunships disembarked from the massive ship. Like a swarm of insects, they descended on the few remaining ships and fighters. To call it a slaughter was a mild word. In mere moments, nothing remained of the Dondick task force but drifting atoms.

  A light at the sensor officer’s console drew the attention of Gondral and the Ship Lord as the crablike Gorvian poured over the data. “Lords. Multiple contacts incoming. Closing speed; decimal nine nine light, slipstream torpedoes, dozens of them and a larger contact.”

  Gondral didn’t even have time to react before the slipstream torpedoes began raining down upon a single sector of the ship aft of the bridge. Even without warheads the kinetic energy of the rounds gave them an explosive impact greater than a gigaton explosive device. The bridge’s decks actually shook under the impacts, but the shields held.

  Depleted and fluctuating wildly, the deflectors protecting the main engine bank only just withstood the assault. Gondral returned focus back to the sensors. “Where’s the larger contact? What is it?”

  “Brekhov Class Destroyer. Power readings indicate that all of it
s Razer cannons are a full charge.”

  For the first time, dread twisted Gondral’s three stomachs. Even without the overcharged cannons and power core; at that speed, the ship would hit with over a petaton of force. “All gunners…”

  But it was too late. Not even a blur, the destroyer shed its dark energy cloak and crashed into the Planet Slicer. The shields and dark energy field protecting the Planet Slicer buckled under the combined assault of the strike before the high energy weapons exploded. The Planet Slicer shook under the impact. Hull plating disintegrated under the impact, cleaving a hole over 1300 kilometra in diameter out of the world destroyer. Hull plates buckled around the impact crater in all directions, exposing the interior to space. Rapid decompression threatened the surviving crew in the affected sectors as pressure doors sealed and shattered plasma conduits blackened the pristine white corridors.

  Bridge crew tumbled from their seats as power fluctuated. Alerts exploded across the bridge, as for the first time, the shields of the mighty Planet Slicer breached. Then the impossible, the Planet Slicer stopped accelerating under its own power. Gondral turned towards the engineering station. “STATUS!!!”

  The amorphous blob that was the engineer burbled to faeself for a moment as fae tried to interpret the screens. “Lord of All,” fae began in a gurgling voice. “The ship has brought our shields down. We have armor loss across Q sector and the solar core has breached. We have lost containment and feeds to the main engines. We still have maneuvering thrust and momentum to attack the Nashig homeworld, but it will be some time before we will have full thrust.”

  It took all Gondral’s will not to tear into the engineer. Someone would have to be made an example of. “I want teams working nonstop until we’re repaired. Do we still have power to the defensive emplacements?”

  “Yes, Lord of All. Only the main engines are affected. Shields are down in that sector though. We’ll make that our highest priority.”