We entered the ship through a jagged hull breach and into the engineering section.
An antimatter warhead of our TL sniper cannons had caused this and to see the result close up was sobering, as I noticed the Kermac had crew quarters in this section. The farther we went inside the ship, the more evident it became just how effective an antimatter explosion inside a ship was. We moved as fast as we could, but I did see the burnt-out shells of Kermac battle and space suits, baked and molten in grotesque positions to the charred deck plates. I had no time to reflect on my own handiwork, but I somehow understood why the Kermac risked everything to get their hands on the secret of this weapon. I also remembered the twisted wreck of the Seneca and almost like a ghost of my own making, I remembered the frozen body of the Garbini.
Now my comm system picked up the others, and I could hear Hans’s steady voice. “Solack and Forster, fall back, and keep an eye on the ceiling and watch where you shoot. We just got to hold the fort till the captain comes back. He’d never forgive me if we lost the loot and come back one man short.”
“Hans, I am here. Forget about the loot; get out if you can. The Tigershark is close by. We need to evacuate fast, more Kermac are on their way.”
“Captain, we are facing a highly intelligent life form of silicone, rock basis that is able to teleport and even deflect weapon beams. Shea thinks they use precise gravitation control. The blue egg-like thing broke apart in hundreds of little rock things. They can be destroyed but only if you can hit them.”
“That’s all for later. Get out of here and make sure you decontaminate and scan. I don’t want these things aboard the Tigershark. Any casualties?”
“Yes, we have wounded, and Shea is in stasis. I evacuate now, but they are likely to follow us and try to prevent us from leaving.”
“I will distract them. Are you all suited?”
“Yes, there isn’t any atmosphere left in this ship.”
“Prepare to leave on my signal!”
Har-Hi and I muscled open a heavy airlock and my Dai friend said, “How do you plan on distracting something you know nothing about?”
“I am going to break some rocks!”
Har-Hi sighed as he pointed his gun in the next corridor. “I was afraid you would say that.”
Something the size of a soccer ball, with the form of a large asymmetric pebble, appeared right before Har-Hi’s helmet. Whatever it was forced him hard and fast to his knees, despite the Gilgamesh suit. The deck plates started to dent around him. All that happened in the blink of an eye, but Har-Hi managed to fire. His weapon bolt was not absorbed by a shield but deflected. Two more of these floating blue rocks appeared.
Har-Hi groaned, “I just broke my legs; I am under 1800 tons of pressure.”
I hammered the ax on the first rock, and unlike the weapon beam, the vibrating blade made contact, sparks flew, and I chipped a sizeable piece of the rock.
Now I felt the pressure! It was like being caught in a giant vise.
Hans said, “The rocks all left, and went back inside the ship. Whatever you did, worked!”
Har-Hi began to float and he said, “Captain, I am also free; my Arti-Grav still works.”
I could no longer move; I heard the armor of the Gilgamesh groan. “Har-Hi, get out, take charge and take the Tigershark away. Come back for me if the Kermac are gone, but we have no time right now. Take the ship and hide it somewhere!”
“Captain, Freya… Eric!”
“Get out; that’s an order. I should have listened to you, I know. Narth will know where and how I am. Now go!”
He hesitated for one second and then floated into the other direction. More and more of the blue rocks kept assembling before me. Why they hadn’t crushed me to a pulp, I could not tell, but the boarding ax became too heavy for me to hold and it slipped out of my fingers and was twisted into a twisted pretzel before my eyes.
My suit system reported, “Exceeding 1,700 times standard gravitation. System shutdown imminent. Structural support fields will fail in twelve seconds. It is recommended to leave this gravitation center.”
“Glad you came up with that plan.”
I cursed and called myself a fool. My career so suddenly ended because I once again rushed into a situation without thinking. Who would have thought I’d bite the dust on my very first official mission?
If I had my real ax, I would show those rocks! Not some cheap technological imitation of Bereaver, my ax. The pressure became more intense, but no! I know of the Olours! I know you are born of the Cunck. You are ancient and sided with the light! What need do I have of a battlesuit? The pressure still holds this fragile body. Who am I? Why am I in this ridiculous biological form? Why can I not form a clear thought? Oh, yes, but I can form one thought that will bring me what is rightfully mine. With Bereaver in my fist, I will find the rest of me and then woe to all who tricked me!
A thought formed in me, and I raised my hand against the laughable, feeble attempts to restrain me. I yelled, “Bereaver, tear asunder time and space, nothing shall keep vengeance incarnate from me. BEREAVER, TO ME!”
With my left, I grabbed one of the Children of Cunck. “Your kind moves at a glacial pace. You are of the First League, and your age is counted in eons, yet you are but matter and simple life!”
There… my will could sense it… it came! Like a meteor of infinite speed, Bereaver the Ax, Vengeance Incarnate, united with my fist. “DIE!”
I crumbled the Child of the Blue Mountain to dust and my ax, oh my ax, it sang and pulsed with anticipation, as it was made by my own hand in the Crucible of Infinite Fire and heat in the Nexus of All Energy, forged to slay those who call themselves gods and keepers of the rule. What chance had the Children of Cunck? What were the Olours, but dust and dirt beneath my feet?
DIE!
There weren’t enough to kill! There was not enough to quench my thirst for revenge, and still, there was so much of me that was still lost. Who am I? What… What is that? Who is calling me? Who is Eric? Eric, I am Eric.
That call, that voice, it was so familiar, so soothing! Of course, it was Narth! My friend Narth!
Yes, I was foolish to run off half-cocked when my place was on the bridge! Har-Hi was right, but I did not regret it. My friends made it to safety, hopefully outrunning the Kermac. My life was a small price to pay so Shea and Hans and all the others could escape. These strange floating rocks would crush me; the twelve seconds had to be over by now!
Narth voiced again, “Eric, can you sense me?”
“Yes, I can. Everyone made it?”
I opened my eyes and could see none of the rocks. The pressure was gone, and now I could hear the suit system. “Suit integrity breached, emergency forcefield deployed to maintain suit atmosphere. Damages beyond Nanite repair capability.”
The intense pressure must have knocked me out for a moment. As I looked down at myself, I wondered what those rocks did to my suit. It was in tatters. What force could destroy a Gilgamesh battlesuit like that and not kill the wearer? Even in this state, the suit protected me with a contour forcefield. Union tech was almost more impressive when it was damaged and still worked than when it was shiny new. All around me was a layer of bluish dust and small pieces of rock, but there was no life in it. To my pleasant surprise, there was an antique ax on the floor, it looked almost the same as the one I had found in the cave of things and sent home.
Narth was still in my mind, and he said, “The Kermac fleet turned around and is hightailing it out of Free Space. We are momentarily hiding in the atmosphere of the second gas planet. We are on our way to get you now.”
“Great, I have little energy left and not much breathable air.”
“Are you all right?”
“You don’t need to ask something like that. You can feel and see my thoughts. I am not sure what happened to the floating rock things. Maybe they went too far from their moon or something.”
“There were seven minutes and fifty-six seconds I could not sense you at all
.”
“I am not the psionics expert, but maybe it had to do with the rock creature. They could manipulate GalNet trans dim energies and gravionics, maybe they did something.”
I felt reborn after I was rescued and took the time for a three-minute shower and went through the Saresii Auto-Dresser. My female disguise had suffered as much as my suit. I hung the ax as a souvenir over my bed and returned to the bridge.
They all were there and gave me a scolding stare. Shea flew over and hugged and kissed me and said, “Now you can reprimand me for behavior inappropriate, but I had to do it.”
“I can do that later. We still have to check what is on that moon, and I want to know what made the Kermac turn. I’d also like to get a full damage and casualties report. Finally, I need a scientific evaluation of the recent events. I’d still like to know what we fought on that Kermac ship and what happened to those rocks.”
Har-Hi said, “We analyzed some of the computronic files of the Kermac ship. Hans managed to secure, and it gets weirder when you hear what that Kermac fleet intended to do.”
I checked our position and said, “How is the Janus Device?”
Cirruit said, “We need to land somewhere. Narth and I have to replace the fused matter manipulators on the starboard side before we can switch appearance. Right now, we are Kartanian only on one side. Other than that, the ship is undamaged.”
Cateria delivered the casualty report. “All injuries, including the skull fracture Shea suffered, are mended, and the crew is healthy. Even our stubborn captain, as far as my scans can tell.”
I glanced at her. “I see you are no longer the outsider and have joined the rub-it-in club.”
She deactivated her Med Scanner, and her angular, somewhat harsh face suddenly lost all the edge as she smiled. “No, Captain, I am no longer the outsider, and after feeling lost and without a place, I now feel I belong. I am at home aboard this magnificent ship. I have real friends. Something I did not even have while I served the all-queen of Seenia so long ago. I am your CMO and entitled to an opinion.”
I was glad she felt that way and simply nodded at that and then asked. “Har-Hi, can you fill me in on what you found out?”
My XO motioned to the ceiling and said, “Ship, can you start with the drawings you made?”
There on the viewer, an actual drawing appeared. It was a technical drawing with incredible detail and accuracy.
Har-Hi explained, “What you see are not 5,000-meter Kermac ships, but Double T Kermac freight tugs. The freight they are transporting are 5,000-meter Kermac Ion Pulse motors, not even the Devastator has ISAH pods of that size. There are sixty of them and now comes the incredible part. The Kermac planned to attach these sixty Ion Pulse motors to that moon, and slowly accelerate it out of its orbit and take it across the forty-five light years that separates this system from Kermac Space. The computronic data we were able to decipher speaks of Project Cunck and it carries the seal of the Grand Wizard himself. There isn’t much else in terms of detail or why they wanted to move that moon and whatever is on it. From the mind dumps, we know that the project is very important and has been in the works for a long time.”
Shea said, “Ship drew these images as the ships were too far for our visual sensors to make out details, so she used other sensor data and descriptions of the Kermac data files to come up with these.”
“Paint me an Ult, those are pretty good, Ship, looks like my ship’s Omnitronic has a creative streak and is talented to boot.”
Ship managed to sound embarrassed and proud at the same time. “Thank you, Captain, and I was worried about you, too. Just so you know.”
I got up and said, “Guys, one thing I have to say before I call the admiral and deliver this report. I am who I am. I respect you all. I will heed Har-Hi’s advice, and I know he was right, but this is my style. This is me, and I can’t stop getting mixed in the middle of things, and I doubt this will stop. Admiral Stahl does it, Captain Zezzh does it occasionally, and I also decided to forgo calling you mister and all that. You are my friends first and my crew second, and I don’t give a damn about the regulations in that regard.”
Narth, who had his hands buried in the sleeves of his cloak, put one hand on my shoulder. “No, I am certain this is one thing you cannot change about yourself, and it is what makes you what you are.”
I called the admiral and delivered him a detailed report, and Shea added her scientific findings.
McElligott listened without interruption and then said, “The Kermac turned around after Enroe Industries sent a few of their security units in the area. Axel was so kind and helped me out there. The Kermac, of course, didn’t want to be seen and had to return as fast as possible. We are certain that they will come back. After listening to your reports, it seems they invested too much in that project. Whatever it is, it is big and important, and it seems whatever comes from that planet is able to fight Union soldiers in our newest armor and neutralize Fenris robots. So, we cannot afford not to find out everything we can. Therefore, I must ask you to investigate. I am pleased you managed to destroy the Barracuda.
“Cherubim will send you another undercover unit. It will tow the remaining T Cruiser and take whatever specimen and stasis prisoners you have back to Richter base for further analysis. Do your investigation as subtly as you can, of course.”
Chapter 8: Blue Mountain
This was our third day in this star system called Auriga Xi. Somehow, I’d pictured the start of our pirate career a little differently. Right after our call to the admiral, we landed on the first planet of the system. A hot, unfriendly world with temperatures hovering around 800 degrees, with lakes of liquid lead and molten sulfur, between cracked rocks and fine dust. Cirruit, his engineers, and Narth were outside fixing the Janus System. Shea and a team were also outside, happy as can be, surveying the surface of this small planet. Krabbel had baptized it Little Hell and since the planet was unnamed in the catalogs, Ship entered it as the official name in the Union Celestial Registry. Cirruit was confident they could repair the device but since it was perhaps one of the most complicated and unique systems it was not easy and could not be done fast.
Krabbel manned the sensors as Three-Four also was outside helping.
I maintained yellow alert, in case we had to leave fast, but so far there wasn’t much traffic, and only occasionally a ship would speed by the outmost sensor horizon toward Brhama Port. No wonder the Kermac had risked operating in this system. It was outside all traffic routes and this area of space still had a sparse star population. Toward galactic southeast, approximately seventy-eight light years was the previously uncharted Ballard Nebula Expanse. Of course, it soon would become Union territory as the Mini-Terrans claimed that nebula as their home and, small ships or not, they had the means to defend it.
Nearby, in the same direction and only a few light years more, was the Golden Bazaar, still in unclaimed space, and I wondered if Wurgus engineers would stabilize its position and how much of that space would be Union due to the membership of the Golden.
Many thousands of years ago, some Terran astronomers divided the galaxy into the same celestial directions as they had on Earth, namely north, south, east, and west. They used an imaginary axis toward Andromeda as north and added a Z-axis calling it Galactic Up and Galactic Down.
It was more common to use the terms upward, spinward, coreward, and downward to divide the galaxy into four equal segments, but the old way of describing directions in an environment that had no directions was easy to understand to most human minds and still used.
Almost straight ahead, or in the direction of galactic north and seventy-five light years farther, began the territory of the Fruidan; according to Sobody, they were a species of intelligent dragonfly-like beings with a very primitive civilization that joined the Kermac-led Galactic Council and became a Thrall species to the white-skinned psionic bastards after being independent Free Spacers. Over 120 light years from our current position to the galactic west was a
region of Union Space that was often called the Fringes. Only a few thinly populated colonies and a few outposts basically there to claim this area for the Union.
Everything east was Free Space and Togar space beyond that.
While I was musing about all this, staring at a tactical map of the region, I wondered if the Fruidan actually had a choice. The efforts of the Kermac and their plan to accelerate a moon to trans-light speed in order to move it into their territory would require to accelerate it very slowly, using vast forcefields to protect the moon and to keep it together. It would require tremendous amounts of fuel and energies that would be detectable for many light years. So, they could not move it very far.
The Narth moved their entire solar system, and the Saresii had rearranged the planets in their own solar system. The Klack had battle moons of similar size, so it was possible, and the Wurgus Planetary and Solar engineers offered to move planets as part of their services. Still, it was a tremendous undertaking and required a level of engineering I simply didn’t think the Kermac were capable of. It would not surprise me if it was done by one of their Thrall species, but so far everything indicated that it was the Kermac themselves.
The petite Yeoman with the flaming red hair moved gracefully next to my seat and handed me my coffee and a plate of tuna sandwiches. I took it and thanked her. “Ms. O’Connell, how thoughtful. I was just about to get up and get me some.”
“Captain, it is the hallmark of a good Yeoman to know when her captain wants coffee even before she does.”
“I say you achieved that hallmark.”
“I am not as good as Gwenn or the Oldest when it comes to changing my appearance, but if you need me in my true form. I will, of course, serve you as well!”
“Let’s hope I don’t. I would have a hard time explaining the existence of demons to the others.”
Eric Olafson Series Boxed Set: Books 1 - 7 Page 90
