"Sir, the new contact is moving between the Artemis and us. We'll lose the ability to target the Artemis in less than a minute."
"Fine, let's make that minute count. Focus all weaponry towards the rear of the ship. Aim for their thrusters. Try to make her go critical."
"Targets acquired," Wilson confirmed. "And firing."
Within seconds the dozens of smaller explosions targeting multiple points on the Artemis shifted to the stern. Chunks of armor and debris rocketed away from the ship where the gauss cannons ripped a hole in the armor. Laser crews focused their beams on the large hole the cannon teams had created, boiling the ship from the inside.
Remarkably, the ship was taking the punishment well. Better than any ship had a right. Then all at once, the Artemis' weapon bays ignited in a single combined burst. The Endeavor rocked from the blast. Wellard winced as he heard dozens of secondary explosions down the hall.
"Sir, multiple hull breaches on decks seven, eight, and thirteen. If we don't get things under control, we'll lose the port side."
"Fine," Wellard said, monitoring the damage reports scrolling on his screen. "Flip the ship around. Show them our other side. Maintain fire with the port side weapons until they are out of range then open up with the starboard weapons when they have a clear shot. And while we're at it, have the fighters switch to the new contact. Weapons are the priority."
"Sir," Bremerton said before relaying the commands to the appropriate personnel.
The view on the main screen shifted as the ship made its slow, lumbering turn, exposing their undamaged side to the new threat. They were halfway through the turn when Wellard noticed the large bays on the ship open as the ship unleashed its complement of fighters out into space.
Wellard heard Bremerton issue the orders to the CAG for the fighters to drop their current targets to focus on the enemy fighters instead. He was glad that the commander had taken the initiative and given the order as it showed that he still had a grasp on the situation even after Wellard had taken control after the appearance of the second ship.
"Captain, I have a positive ID of the second ship. It's the NECS Aplin back from the dead."
"The Aplin? The ship that came up missing around the LaTierre gate?"
"The same. If you look closely at the lower decks, you can tell she's been through hell."
"Magnify image," he said, focusing on the screen. The image shifted to a closeup view from the belly of the Aplin. Sure enough, a large portion of the hull had been patched from the inside, a surefire sign the ship hadn't been back to dock since it had come up missing.
The revelation was disturbing as it meant the hijackers only intended on using the ships as long as it took to find a suitable replacement. That meant the attacks at the jump gates would continue for some time as they would need to replace the ships. That or they'd have to get bold and try to take over a space station or supply depot to keep their patchwork fleet running.
All the more reason to destroy every one of the hijacked ships we come across.
"Status of the Aplin's weaponry?" He asked as the view of the ship shifted back to show the Aplin as a whole. Massive explosions at the rear of the vessel tore a large chunk of the ship free. A fine mist floated away from the ship where the atmosphere was exposed to the vacuum of space. Everything looked normal except for a deserving lack of bodies in the wreckage. Were the aliens running the ship with a skeleton crew? If so, how the hell were they making the repairs? The repairs suggested a large crew full of engineers and damage control personnel. Surely some of them would've been killed as the ship ripped apart.
"Captain, we're receiving a transmission from one of the fighter pilots. He's specifically asking for you."
Odd. "Patch it through." He waited a moment for the Midshipman to open the channel before speaking. "Pilot this is the CO. What's the situation out there."
"I noticed something on the Aplin. It looks like the thing we found on the Providence. The anomaly."
Chapter Seven
Thesis Sector
Cockpit, X-71 Fighter
"Bobcat, this is the CAG. You and your squadron are to make a run at the new anomaly. I'm patching its coordinates to your console now. You are to ignore any enemy fighters not in your path unless they present themselves as an easy target. Blue squad will assist you by handling any stray bogeys heading your way."
"Sounds good, Commander. Switching targets now. Bobcat, out." Tegan punched the button on her console to end the connection while opening another with her squad. "New orders boys. It looks like the Aplin has one of those fancy anomalies we disabled on the Providence. The CAG wants us to take a run at it to see if we can take it out."
"You plan to eject at the last second like last time," Switch asked, sounding almost concerned. "Nothing personal, but I'm not up for risking my life this time around. Without our people being on the Aplin and all."
"Negative, Lieutenant. Just one pass to see if we can take it out. If the thing proves to be as resilient as the last one, I'm sure they'll handle it."
"Since when do we question orders, Switch?" Lancer asked over the comm. "If the CAG wants us to wipe her ass, you only need to ask how much paper to use and how rough she likes it."
"Wow, didn't know you were getting that close to the commander," Fireball joked. "You sure she wants you spilling her personal business over the comm?"
"Enough chatter and focus. If the Aplin has an anomaly, there's a chance someone is still alive on the ship." She doubted it but telling the squad that might just settle them down enough to focus on the job at hand. "Lancer and I will take the lead. Fireball and Switch cover our rear. Whatever you do, keep your eyes on the prize. Don't deviate from the path unless you have one bearing down on you. Blue squad is covering our rear and will handle the stragglers."
"You think we'll be able to destroy this thing?" Switch asked. "I mean, it's worth a shot and all, but the last one wasn't exactly easy to take down."
"Not our problem, Switch. The CAG wants us to try, so that's what we'll do." The words came out harsher than she intended, so she decided she better amend the statement. "But no, I doubt it. The last one was damn near impenetrable. I have no reason to believe this one won't be either."
She let the statement stand at that. He didn't need to know how serious she was about destroying the anomaly on this ship. Her brother and sister's ship. She had to do everything in her power to give those people a chance if only to have some closure about their fate. Two months ago she'd written them both off as casualties of this new war, but now she wasn't so sure.
Tegan pulled back on her controls, flipping her ship around to bring it in line with the anomaly. Bringing her ship close to the Aplin for cover, she blitzed past weapons embankments firing the occasional shot as they flew.
"Three drones moving to engage, spread between ten and two," Lancer chirped over the comm. "Should we engage?"
"Affirmative, Lancer. One pass only. If they are still alive when they pass, they belong to blue squadron, am I clear?"
"Clear as mud," Fireball said.
"Mud isn't…"
"Damn it. Focus." Switch was getting on her nerves. Sure, the consistent loss of pilots was unnerving to the entire squadron, but there was time for everyone to cope with it in their own way. Him playing games on the comm would only get someone killed. She made a mental note to confront him after the battle, with the CAG present if she had to. Whatever was going on, it needed to end.
Tegan pulled off from the Aplin, putting the lead drone into her sights. She lined up her shot and unleashed a volley before pulling right on the controls to avoid the return fire. Her shots caught the lead ship dead on, ripping the cockpit open like a can and forcing the viewport to rip free as it flew past. The shot would've been deadly had she been dealing with a flesh-and-blood pilot, but against the drones, it was merely an inconvenience. A weakness another pilot could exploit later, given a lucky shot.
Lancer's blast fared better, ripping the fighte
r in two before the ship could return the favor.
The remaining ship fired off a blast at Tegan that missed as it failed to compensate for her attempt to evade the first ship.
Tegan and Lancer returned to their previous course as the two remaining fighters buzzed by, each failing to get another round of fire as they did. Switch and Fireball would get a volley themselves before they too were out of the fight.
"Suck on this," Switch said, sending a round of fire at the drone Tegan damaged before. The shots peppered the cockpit, further damaging the interior but failed to do significant damage.
Fireball's shots fared better, shearing off the wing of the undamaged ship before he pulled the ship into a twist to avoid the expanding debris cloud. Unable to compensate for the lack of a thruster on one side, the drone spun out of control, slamming into the Aplin in a burst of fire that was extinguished by space.
Tegan glanced at her console, making sure her squad pulled through in one piece. As she did one of their blips faded from the screen, followed by another. She slammed her fist against the console, hoping against everything that the issue was a computer error. When her comm beeped, her chest sank.
"We lost Fireball and Switch," Lancer said, voice struggling to hold it together. She'd known the guy long enough to know when he was about to lose it. Usually, the man was a rock, able to take anything dished his way, but the loss of two squadmates was proving too much. Shit, it was taking every ounce of will Tegan had left to keep from breaking down into tears herself. This wasn't the time to grieve. It was the time for action.
She took a deep breath before forcing the words to leave her mouth. "Let's finish this. For them."
"For them," Lancer agreed.
Tegan pushed her thrusters as fast as they could go while Lancer did the same. It was as much to get to the anomaly as quickly as possible as it was to run away from the loss of her friends. Moments later the shimmering field of the anomaly was in view. As she closed in, she didn't bother trying to have her systems manually target the thing. She was going to unleash everything she had into the damned thing, her ship included if that is what it took. For a split second, she wondered if Lancer was ready to do the same.
No, damn it. You need to focus too. Tegan drew in one final breath before lining up her shot. Once the shimmering field was in her sights, she pressed every weapon release button on her ship at once and held it while releasing her two torpedoes and a barrage of laser fire into it.
As she flew close, her mind settled on the reality that she had wasted her time. She knew what it took to destroy the last one and had no doubts this one would be any different. She was about to turn her craft into the anomaly when a giant fireball filled her viewport as the anomaly exploded. Her comm burst into cheers, but the only thing she could think about was the loss of Switch and Fireball.
"Nice shooting, boss," Fireball said.
Tegan laughed. "You two are alive? Thought we lost you for a second."
"Nah. Must've gotten too close to the anomaly. Probably fried your sensors or some shit."
"Guess so," she agreed. "Form up. Let's knock out some more of those drones."
Chapter Eight
Thesis Sector
Bridge, NECS Endeavor
Within seconds of the anomaly's destruction, Commander Bremerton's console lit up as a flurry of incoming messages and attempts at communication flooded his screen. He tried to handle the transmissions manually but found it impossible to keep up with as they came in faster than he could respond.
"Wilson and Richards, I'm rerouting the incoming transmissions to your station. Try to make sense of them and answer them as you can."
"Holy shit, there are survivors?" Wilson asked, beaming.
"Looks like it. Try to assure them we are doing everything in our power to save them, but we can't do it alone. Have them form into groups to take control back from the Klyptons on their own. We will send an away party as soon as feasible."
"Commander, I think it would be prudent for me to hack into the ship. With the anomaly out of play, I might be able to take control of the ship remotely. At worst, I should be able to disable their weapons long enough to give our damage control teams a break."
"Make it happen," Wellard said. "Midshipman Ritter can help with the communications in the meantime. She can monitor which areas of the ship the calls are coming from so we know where to search first."
"I think it would be easier to tell you where they aren't coming from," she said. "The bridge is abnormally silent for a ship of her size."
"Impossible," Bremerton said, disbelieving. "They have to be issuing commands from the bridge."
"Not necessarily," Richards said. "They could be doing what I'm planning on doing already. Odds are they have the ship wired to handle all operations from the bridge. Honestly, there's no reason you couldn't handle everything outside damage control and reloading ordinance from the bridge now."
"Would make sense if most of the ship is under alien control," Bremerton agreed.
"In any case, we should find out if we can control them from over here instead."
While they hadn't made any ground in their attempt to control the Aplin, without the anomaly its rate of fire had decreased significantly. Not only that, but a good portion of the drones were now flying erratically, if they were flying at all, allowing the remaining pilots to pick them off with ease.
"Sir sounds like there are just over two hundred humans onboard. Most were there when the ship was attacked two months ago and have been forced to stay while the aliens used the ship as they pleased."
"Condition of the survivors?" Wellard asked.
"Other than being malnourished and dehydrated, most are doing well. The ones that were hurt in the initial attack have mostly died off, but those who made it through those initial few days are still alive."
"Can you pinpoint a location for the survivors? Or areas where the highest concentration of them can be found?"
"They are too spread out," she replied. "From the handful of messages I've already decoded, the aliens are keeping them separated to prevent them from massing together to retake the ship."
"Can't call them dumb," Bremerton added. "We saw much of the same on the Providence. The few survivors that were left out on their own were either plants or were immediately compliant. We have to expect it's the same over there." The thing is, with the reports of two hundred alive, it didn't sound much like the Providence at all. If the reports were true why had so many been killed on the Providence if so many were left alive on the Aplin? Something was going on with that ship. He hoped they could figure out what it was before it was too late.
"Captain. I have something you may want to see," Richards said from his chair in the back. "Should I patch it up to the main screen?"
"Make it happen," Wellard said.
Bremerton turned from his console to watch the screen himself. Richards was the best computer hacker they had on the ship. If he said he had something worth looking at, then by God he was going to see what it was about.
The image shifted from the battle to the view of the bridge of the Aplin. Most of the chairs were empty though the ones that were occupied were filled by a mix of human and Klypton occupants. Nearly equal as far as he could tell, though to be fair the image was static, not allowing them to shift the view to look around.
On the floor in the center of the shot was what looked to be a large circular blood stain not far from where the captain's chair was. Bremerton wondered if that meant they'd taken this ship by force, or if something else had come into play. He supposed it didn't matter. Now that the Klyptons had control of the ship, all that mattered was getting them to relinquish that control.
Then he noticed something odd at the lower corner of the screen. "Is there any way you can enlarge the image, focus on the bottom left quadrant?"
"I'm afraid not," Richards replied. "Still just have basic control of ship functions. It will be a few more minutes before I can manipulate anything on
their end."
"What did you see, Commander?"
"I don't want to speculate, but I thought I saw something different on the bridge." Bremerton sighed before continuing. "It was hard to make out, but it almost looked like they had a Xandar onboard."
"Why would they have a Xandar onboard? As far as we know, they still refuse to get involved in our affairs."
"Your guess is as good as mine, Captain, but if you watch, you can see it for yourself."
Just then the object he was referring to moved back into view, this time taking a few steps forward presenting all the evidence Bremerton needed to prove his case. The being in the lower half of the screen was clearly Xandar, and from the looks, it was the thing in charge.
The image held on the back of the Xandar's head for a moment before it turned, giving them the perfect image of its face. Its near-black skin and underlying crimson tattoos identifying him as one of the Xandar without a shadow of a doubt. Before the image resolved on the screen, the image went black. Then the image shifted back to the view of the Aplin in time for it to explode.
Chapter Nine
Thesis Sector
Bridge, NECS Endeavor
"What the hell was that?" Wellard jumped to his feet, his fist balling up on his sides. He paced the deck while the bridge crew worked out the problem. Mad as he was, there wasn't much to report. The Aplin self-destructed much like the other hijacked ships they'd run into the previous few weeks. Whoever was responsible wanted to keep whatever was happening inside a secret, and for a good reason now that he knew the Klyptons were capable of some form of FTL travel outside of the warp gates.
"Looks like they initiated the self-destruct sequence as we've come to expect. I'd hoped to disable that function first, but they beat me to the punch." Richards slumped back in his chair, his hands moving to cover his face.
Infamy (The Mythrar War Book 2) Page 3
