Armageddon's Pall

by S. F. Edwards

  Bridge, Planet Slicer

  With a triumphant air, the Ship Lord turned towards Gondral, the pain of fas freshly knitted flesh evident despite fas self-control. “Lord of All. We have the Dondick Staging Post on sensors.”

  Gondral made a show of turning towards the tactical hologram as it filled in the gaps in the system map their previous probes had delivered. A small, yet powerful Dondick fleet took up orbit around a fuzzy dwarf planet in the distance. Beyond that lay the planet they’d come to destroy, along with its millions of inhabitants. The lack of clarity was a bother however. Gondral focused with fas biological and artificial eyes in turn to see if there were some kind of interference between them. The image didn’t resolve and Gondral turned fas ire on the sensor technician, giving the younger Gorvian a taste of the pain Gondral was still feeling. “What’s wrong with this sensor picture?”

  “Unknown Lord of All. There appears to be some manner of interference around the dwarf planet and the Dondick colony. The electrostatic discharges would indicate a significant dust cloud blocking our attempts at a detailed scan of either world. It is causing interference across the whole of the electromagnetic spectrum.”

  The Ship Lord growled in disapproval. “Your orders, Lord of All?”

  Drawing back in fas command chair Gondral reached out to feel the mood of the troops. They all thirsted for blood, for vengeance, the memory of what the Dondicks and their allies had done to their homeworld fresh in all their minds. “Make full speed for the staging post. Arm anti-matter jets and assault at full speed. We will crush it on the way to our next prize.”

  A low rumble of approval echoed through the bridge at that. It continued throughout the massive ship as its slipstream drives spun up and it surged towards its target. Despite that a lone mind despaired, one on the bridge. Gondral reached out to the mind of the technician in the lower tiers. Without taking control, fae peered into the low Gorvian’s mind. It was a jumble of guilt, and fear. The vision Gondral pulled from its eyes seemed, at first, to be of little concern, but as fae read the context understanding took root. “Where are our fleets?” Gondral asked to no one in particular.

  The tactical officer scrolled through a dozen screens to find the answer. Fae exuded a scent of great despondency, then turned back to Gondral. “We cannot raise any of the undocked fleets, and are now detecting a massive number of Dondick forces exiting hyperspace from both jump points.”

  Bridge, UCSBS Nosh’Tak

  Despite her fleet, and her ship itself, being far closer to the Planet Slicer then she ever wanted to be, Admiral Quin Tosh couldn’t help but let a wicked smile slip through. She had the Planet Slicer right where she’d wanted it, between her fleets and her trap. Her bridge was abuzz with activity as technicians manned their stations and relayed orders throughout the fleet. Turning towards the agitated orbs and Synthetic representative beside her, she put her most serious face on. “Any contacts with the rest of the Gorvian fleet?”

  The Synthetic’s spherical interface shell seemed to rotate about to face her, but it was impossible to tell any such thing about its featureless surface. “There are contacts rising from the Planet Slicer itself, but no other Gorvian ships have exited hyperspace.”

  “Ma’am,” the tactical officer called. “We are receiving reports from the other trap systems, Gorvian and Galactic Federation forces are deploying there.”

  All according to plan, she mused. “So, the jump buoys recoded themselves correctly then?”

  “Yes ma’am. The Mapper’s Guild rep is still furious about it, but it worked. The Planet Slicer is cut off.”

  Quin Tosh turned back to the sphere. “Your readings on the jump point?”

  “Scans indicate that the jump point has collapsed to seventy seven percent of its original size. Analysis concludes that the Gorvians do not possess the energy or systems necessary to allow the Planet Slicer to pass through it again.”

  “Good,” Quin Tosh replied and climbed up onto her four feet. “All ships, Nosh’Tak Actual. Press the attack!”

  Monstero Nach 03

  Long before he’d even taken the controls of his Splicer 1000 at the academy, Blazer had become a pilot in atmospheric stunt planes. He’d loved to soar into the sky above Anul, and lick the upper edges of the atmosphere. The transition to pure spaceborne craft was a transition to be sure, but he’d still always longed to fly beneath a blue sky over a beautiful planet’s landscape again. The sky around him was as black as he’d come to expect. The landscape ahead was by no means beautiful - a great expanse of greys as far as the eye could see, the Planet Slicer.

  In all his missions, they’d approached the Planet Slicer from the dorsal or ventral surface. While that would leave them open to more of the thousands upon thousands of gun turrets it would keep them clear of the massive antimatter geysers that lined the bow. That was not the case this cycle and it set Blazer’s already frayed nerves on edge. Flashes of light began emerging from the geysers and Blazer almost jumped out of his skin. “Arion are those things active?”

  “Sensors say yes,” Arion replied, his voice grim. “The radiation count is jumping like crazy.”

  “Not what I wanted to hear,” Blazer said before he keyed the link. “Lead, Three. We’re reading active anti-matter projectors along the bow, orders?”

  “Keep on mission. Adjust course fifteen kimets vertically and clear those turrets before the bombers and heavies sortie in.”

  “Feels weird to fly a defense suppression mission without Marda and Gokhead,” Arion said.

  Blazer nodded his assent. Marda excelled at so called ‘Feral Ferret’ missions, annihilating sensor and turret emplacements; one of her favorite sorties. “Feels weirder to fly on Tadeh Qudas’ wing since Fealgud’s been discharged and Gokhead’s on that corvette.”

  “Speaking of which. Target assignments coming in.”

  Lock diamonds began pringing up across the bow of the Planet Slicer, highlighting the various defensive emplacements. Unlike the rest of the gargantuan craft, the narrow bow proved minimally shielded. It relied on the antimatter jets to annihilate any incoming matter while it cut through a planet. It did however leave the Planet Slicer open to attack before the geysers had activated. The whole bow seemed covered in red as the corvette that Gokhead had found himself assigned to relayed targeting data to the attack craft. Blazer could see no way through the picket of defensive emplacements and the antimatter geysers. Codes began to fill his HUD next to each lock diamond as the individual attack craft received their target assignments. “Mind cleaning this up Arion?”

  Most of the lock diamonds disappeared in an instant, leaving only those assigned to Blazer and his flight group. “Sorry about that. I forget sometimes how you pilot types do with data overload.”

  Blazer’s one brief experience in the WSO network, as limited as it had been, had proven more than enough to convince him that being a WSO wasn’t for him. The sheer volume of data they needed to absorb and process seemed beyond comprehension, and that didn’t even account for the workload of managing all the fighter’s systems.

  Approaching the maximum range of their shark torpedoes, the first twenty-four lock diamonds shifted and changed color to display their readiness to fire. “All units, Lead. Fire link all torpedoes to mine and prepare for immediate launch.”

  A countdown timer appeared on Blazer’s HUD. It reached zero and his fighter jerked backwards. Both torpedoes exploded from their launch tubes beneath the cockpit and raced ahead, all but disappearing into the silhouette of the approaching Planet Slicer. Blazer didn’t even attempt to track the torpedoes’ courses, the particle duct engines leaving no visible exhaust or trail. In just a few moments however bright flashes lit up the center of each lock diamond before they winked out of existence.

  “The gate’s open. All units. Move in,” Tadeh Qudas ordered.

  Taking a deep breath, Blazer slammed his throttle forward and dove towards the gap in the self-defense coverage their assault had rendered. Ho
lographic markers revealed the gap and the active anti-matter plumes as he approached the surface. He hated these missions. While Marda may have loved them, he couldn’t get behind that. It would leave him questioning her sanity sometimes. Defense suppression required a pilot to get in close to weapon systems that could reduce them to atoms in a single blast. Often it took craft beneath the shields of massive installations when unable to disable the energy barriers.

  The academy had taught them all how to engage in such missions, and preparations in simulation mode at the base had prepared them even more. Highlighted targets filled his HUD as sensor stations illuminated their fighter, giving the anti-sensor missiles a clear target. Thumbing the missile launch cover open, Blazer watched the Probability of Kill numbers rise then slammed his thumb down on the button. A spread of six missiles fired from under his wings and his four missile launchers. The weapons raced ahead, their sooty trail easy to follow before each had found its mark. The warheads shattered the base of the sensor towers, each of which guided a dozen or more turrets and missile emplacements.

  There was no time for the luxury of a cheer before the next set of towers lit up his HUD. Blazer eased his rudder to the right, and the fighter turned in kind. The explosions of six more nearby sensor towers flashed at the edge of his vision before Gavit raced past and pulled back into formation with Blazer and Tadeh Qudas. The trio executed three more anti-sensor strikes each, carving a deep, sensor blind scar across the surface of the Planet Slicer before turning back around.

  A forest of defensive towers, with cannons and missile turrets, waited between them and the edge of the Planet Slicer; the drive glows of approaching bombers in the distance. While no longer guided by the destroyed sensor emplacements, the weapons were still dangerous. Networked sensor stations from further afield could guide them towards long-range targets. Some could also still had internal sensors or manual direction.

  Tadeh Qudas took the lead, drawing the first turret’s fire as Blazer and Gavit took up trailing positions - Blazer high and to the right, Gavit low and left. Tadeh Qudas danced his fighter through the hail of plasma fire as Blazer and Gavit poured their own back into the turret. The barrage from three separate vectors was more than the turret’s shields could handle, and in a flash of freed ionized gasses, they failed. Raw plasma shredded the armor beneath, exposing the vital conduits before Blazer landed the killing blow. A burst of his plasma cannons shredded the trunnion, and the Planet Slicer’s gravity tore the turret free, dragging it to the surface.

  The trio of fighters raced past the decimated turret, Tadeh Qudas sliding back to allow Blazer to take the lead while his shields recovered. The approach was a common one, and the trio kept up the assault, trading positions with each decimated defensive emplacement as the bomber force approached. Working in concert in this way they traced an ever-increasing hole in the Planet Slicer’s defenses traced back towards their ingress point before the bombers attacked.

  Torpedoes raced in from the attack craft, unimpeded by defensive fire. The WSOs at the controls didn’t even bother to run evasion courses before the first few slammed into the invisible barriers of the shields. The first torpedoes detonated their reaction warheads upon contact, the ionizing radiation scattering the local shields before the next series of guided warheads dove past the shattered barriers. Each assaulted a different key point, some the antimatter geysers, others shield generators, but many sought out the massive clusters of maneuvering rockets. Similar attacks played out across the Planet Slicer. The attacks would lock the Planet Slicer on its course towards the Staging Post on the dwarf planet ahead.

  Bridge, Planet Slicer

  The pattern of the attacks made no sense. Gondral studied the attacks taking place across the Planet Slicer; but couldn’t formulate the logic behind them. The Dondicks had to know that any attempt to deviate the Planet Slicer’s course away from its target was a futile gesture at best. Yet, it didn’t seem like they were doing even that. Instead the focus of their attacks seemed to concentrate on preserving their course. The only thing making any sense was an intention to keep the Planet Slicer from destroying the colony world once the dwarf planet was no more.

  Turning fas attention back towards the main view Gondral looked at the dwarf planet in the distance. It wouldn’t take long before the dust-engulfed miniature world would meet its end. During that attack however, the Planet Slicer would remain vulnerable despite the fleet they’d undocked upon arrival. The disappearance of the rest of Gondral’s forces was worrisome. The Dondicks had led them into a trap, but to what end? The Planet Slicer, even damaged as it was by the unusual explosion in hyperspace, was still largely invulnerable. There was nothing this force of ships could do stop it. “Communications. Have we raised any more of the fleet?”

  “Lord of All. Communications are being jammed, but we have contacted fleet assets. They’ve all jumped into incorrect systems and are under attack by Dondick forces.”

  “Can they rendezvous here?”

  The technician looked away, fear pheromones wafting into the air. “No Lord of All. The jump buoy signals are being jammed, even we cannot detect the signal from the local jump point.”

  Gondral resisted the urge to scratch the new flesh on fas chin, the skin still too thin for such contact. The Dondick trap was a clever one, but it would only slow the inevitable. Gondral would lead the Gorvian onto eventual glory and mastery of the whole galaxy, even if they’d fallen out of favor with one of their creators. The rogue that had detonated that star bomb must have been a heretic. Their masters created the Gorvian to rule, such was the will of the Tre-Tian upon their departure from the galaxy. Gondral would see that done.

  Monstero Nach 03, Rearm and Refurb Area Six

  Aching muscles in Blazer’s arms and legs called out for relief as his fighter floated in open space, far from the main engagement area. Blazer did his best to massage the overworked muscles, but rubbing them with his own hands just drew more protests. He looked about at the improvised repair depot. Refueling tugs and skiffs loaded down with armaments flitted about under the guidance of the Fershing technicians at the controls.

  The Monstero Nach hung, gathered in space, around one such tug as the crocodilian technicians swarmed their fighters. The blackened remains of Blazer’s starboard plaser drifted into his view and he turned towards it in time to watch a technician grab the weapon and haul it away. Behind him, two more attached a fresh, unpainted, bare carbon nano-tube armored unit into place. It served as a bleak contrast to the rest of the fighter, even the blackened hull around it. The weapon’s cooling systems had failed on their last attack run. Only Arion’s quick thinking to vent the plasma cell had kept the weapon from exploding and taking their wing with it.

  The battle continued to rage in the distance and Blazer returned his attention to it. Only a few light cents away, the Planet Slicer took up a fraction of the sky above, the dwarf little more than a speck ahead of its arched hull. The cloud of dust surrounding the dwarf had begun to thin, drawn in by the Planet Slicer’s gravity. The death throes of ships on both sides of the battle flashed across the Planet Slicer’s hull and in the space around it. “Any word on the battle?”

  “Only the little bit they’re releasing over the command battle weave. We’ve been trying to stitch our way in over the WSO link. Without Gokhead we’re having trouble accessing any more. Bichard managed to get a partial link, but they locked him out a few cents later. Hold on, speak a demon’s name. Bichard got something.”

  “Link me in.”

  The data wasn’t much, just an update to the list of destroyed ships. Gorvian losses were well greater than those of the Confederation fleet, but there were few ship names from either side. Gorvian ships were designated by hull type and codes; most of those were corvette and cruiser class vessels. While a handful of Confed ship names and hull numbers jumped out at him, corvettes primarily, the majority of the losses to their side were fighters and bombers. “Not seeing anything on Gorvian fighter loss
es; surprised we haven’t lost more big ships.”

  “Hold on. Dosher and Ribtin managed to get something, vid feed from another WSO on their way out here.”

  A holographic screen appeared before Blazer in response with gun camera footage from the Narfic cannon of a brown-skinned Splicer 3000. Even with image stabilization, the picture was jumpy, but it told the story of the Confederation’s new attack pattern. Fighters and bombers swarmed a Gorvian cruiser; stripping it of its turrets, sensors, communications antennae, shield projectors and any other external features they could find. Space flashed past as the attack craft rolled about before the cruiser sprang back into view. Atmosphere streamed out of the multiple hull breaches before three heavy corvettes appeared in the distance. The Manglers slashed at the cruiser with their beam cannons, hacking away chunks of hull and the engines. The fighter’s wing blocked the view for a moment, as the corvettes reversed course to strip away more of the Gorvian’s battered hull before a frigate hove into view to finish it off.

  “Damn. That was like watching a ballet.”

  The flat image disappeared, replaced by a smaller wireframe display filled with tiny blips. Two similar engagements appeared to be taking place before him. “I’m getting these through the WSO net. Attacks like this are going on all over the place. Most groups are using the bombers to draw fire while the smaller craft pick off the weapons.”

  A sudden knocking at the canopy above set Blazer into action. His hands flew to his controls as he looked around for incoming hostiles. No Gorvian craft appeared on his short-range sensors. Instead, he looked up at the toothy grin of a long snouted reptilian Fershing. Shaking his head, he met the wide eyes so filled with wonder that they reminded him of his baby waiting light annura away. It was such a contrasting picture; the feral toothy grin and those childlike eyes that it left him momentarily speechless.