Ep.#9 - I am Justice (The Frontiers Saga - Part 2: Rogue Castes)

by Ryk Brown

  “Cruiser is destroyed!” Lieutenant Commander Kono announced.

  “Switching to the other escort frigate,” Jessica reported.

  “Frigate is jumping!” the lieutenant commander warned.

  “Not so fast, you little bastard,” Jessica cursed.

  “Frigate has jumped,” the lieutenant commander reported.

  “Damn it!” Jessica yelled, pounding her fist on her tactical console.

  “Comms, any word on our missiles?”

  “Negative, sir,” the ensign replied.

  * * *

  “Heavy cruiser over Neramese has been destroyed,” one of the officers in the Reaper’s tactical utility bay reported. “Strikers are dealing with the frigates.”

  “Any word on the targets over Rakuen?” Cameron wondered.

  “Not yet, sir.”

  “All gunships attacking the Gunyoki platform have been destroyed,” the other officer announced. “Gunyoki are still dealing with the octos.”

  “How many Gunyoki have we lost?” Cameron wondered.

  “Fifty-eight,” the officer reported. “All of them without jump drives.”

  “Survivors?”

  “Unknown.”

  “Dispatch a jump comm-drone to update the Aurora,” Cameron ordered. “Tell them they can stay over Rakuen for the time being.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  * * *

  “New message from TAC COM,” Ensign deBanco reported from the Aurora’s communications station. “Heavy cruiser over Neramese has been destroyed. Strikers are dealing with the escort frigates. Gunyoki have suffered heavy losses, but have destroyed all enemy gunships. They are cleaning up the last of the octo fighters now.”

  “Looks like we’ve got the upper hand already,” Jessica surmised.

  “TAC COM is suggesting we remain over Rakuen for now.”

  “Send a comm-drone to TAC COM to acknowledge, and let them know one of the frigates escaped, and its whereabouts are unknown,” Nathan ordered.

  “Aye, sir.”

  “We’ll stay at general quarters until both Neramese and the Gunyoki platform are completely cleared of enemy targets,” he added.

  “You got it,” Jessica replied.

  “Did TAC COM report losses?” Nathan asked his comms officer.

  “Only that fifty-eight Gunyoki were lost,” the ensign replied. “Unknown if any of their flight crews survived.”

  “What about our flatbed gunships?” Jessica wondered.

  “Still on station around the Gunyoki base,” Ensign deBanco reported.

  “Those ships deserve praise,” Jessica decided. “It took guts to stand their ground in converted cargo ships, and only Tobas has combat experience.”

  “I’ll be sure to give them each a pat on the back after this is all over,” Nathan agreed.

  “CONTACT!” Lieutenant Commander Kono reported urgently. “Twenty jump missiles! Three seconds!”

  Nathan’s eyes widened. “All hands! Brace for impact!”

  * * *

  “Gunyoki report the base is secure,” one of Cameron’s officers reported.

  “The second gunship over Neramese has jumped away,” the other officer updated.

  “That makes two frigates unaccounted for,” Cameron stated.

  “Strikers are asking for tasking orders,” the officer added.

  “Tell them to remain over Neramese for now,” Cameron instructed. “Send word to Rogen Defense Command to have the jump-equipped Gunyoki start searching the system for those frigates, just in case.”

  * * *

  “This dance is almost over,” Josh declared as he turned away from Reaper Six’s position, toward Rakuen, for their next recon jump.

  “Thank God,” Loki commented.

  “To be honest, I didn’t expect it to go as well as it did.”

  “We lost fifty-eight Gunyoki,” Loki reminded him. “That’s one hundred and sixteen people. I wouldn’t call that ‘going well’.”

  “You know what I mean, Loki.”

  “Yes, I know,” Loki replied. “But don’t expect the Gunyoki to feel the same way.”

  “Noted,” Josh agreed. “Jumping.”

  The wraparound window screens blinked momentarily, and the planet appeared before them. They could barely make out the Aurora in the distance, against the brilliant topaz waters of Rakuen.

  “Aurora, Razor,” Loki called over comms, “anything new to report?”

  Josh visually scanned the surface of Rakuen, touching the view screen in front of him with two fingers and spreading them to zoom in. “Man, some of their floating cities really got pounded,” he commented, noting the fires and heavy smoke.

  “Aurora, Razor,” Loki repeated. “How do you copy?”

  “Maybe they don’t want to talk to you,” Josh teased.

  “I’m going to try a different channel,” Loki decided. “They might have lost a comm-dish, or something.”

  Josh adjusted his course slightly, turning to intercept the Aurora as it grew larger in his forward window screen.

  “Aurora, Razor, on one one seven. Do you read?”

  Josh squinted, noticing something askew. He reached forward and touched his forward window screen, zooming in on the Aurora. “Uh-oh.”

  “I’m sure it’s nothing,” Loki said, changing frequencies again.

  “Loki, look.”

  Loki looked up, peering over his console and Josh’s left shoulder to see the forward window screen. “Oh, shit,” he exclaimed, quickly looking back down at his sensor display and making some quick adjustments. “She’s hurt, Josh.”

  “How bad?” Josh asked, his tone uncharacteristically somber.

  “All her reactors are offline. Multiple hull breaches. Secondary explosions in several areas. No shields, and no weapons. Shit, Josh, she’s dead stick and losing altitude.”

  Josh immediately pulled their ship into a tight one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn, gunning his main propulsion in the process.

  “What are you doing?” Loki asked.

  “Getting help,” Josh replied.

  “Aurora, Aurora. This is Razor. We’re getting help.”

  A brilliant blue-white flash suddenly whited out their window screens, lighting up the interior of their cockpit for a split second. Josh instinctively covered his eyes with both hands, lowering them again once the flash had subsided. “What the fuck…” He struggled for a moment, trying to see clearly.

  “JOSH! HARD ABOUT!” Loki yelled.

  Without thinking, Josh grabbed his flight control stick and throttles. He yanked the throttles to zero and spun the ship around, pushing the throttles to full power again. “What the fuck!” he barked.

  “A Dusahn battleship jumped in right in front of us! We’re about to collide! You’ve got to jump!”

  “I can’t!” Josh replied frantically, “Not until we change direction! We’ll jump right into them!”

  “Fifty meters to their shield thresholds!” Loki warned.

  “Why aren’t they firing at us?” Josh wondered.

  “Thirty meters!”

  “We’re not going to make it, Lok!” Josh realized.

  “TWENTY METERS!”

  “SHIT!”

  “TEN!”

  “Sorry, buddy,” Josh said as they were about to collide.

  Their ship shook violently, and Josh felt himself being pushed into his seat with so much force, he thought his back would break. The wraparound window screens blinked repeatedly, then went dark. A moment later, so did everything else. Then, the shaking stopped, and everything was quiet.

  Josh looked around, the only illumination coming from small, battery-powered lights in the top of the coc
kpit canopy, on either side of his head. “What the hell just happened?”

  “I think we passed right through their shields,” Loki surmised.

  “Is that even possible?”

  “Apparently,” Loki replied as he attempted to restart their systems. “If we did, we need to get maneuvering back, quickly, or we’re going to slam into their hull in less than a minute.”

  “Reactor is restarting,” Josh commented as his reactor status screen came back to life.

  “Ten seconds to engine restart,” Loki added.

  “Power levels are rising,” Josh announced as his console flickered, coming back to life. The forward section of his window screens also snapped on. “Whoa!” Josh grabbed his flight control stick, immediately sliding it to the left, but nothing happened. The forward screen was filled with the side of a Dusahn battleship, closer than he ever wanted to see one. He tried his control stick again, but still nothing. “Come on!”

  “Diverting what little power we have to maneuvering,” Loki announced.

  Josh pushed the stick again and got the smallest of response from his starboard translation thrusters. The view before him began to move slowly to the right, but it was still coming at him at a frightening speed. “I need more power, Loki!”

  “I’m trying!”

  Josh held the stick to the left and, finally, the translation thrusters began having a more noticeable effect.

  “Reactor is back online,” Loki announced with relief. “All systems are coming back up.”

  “What about weapons!” Josh barked.

  “They’re up! Why?”

  “We’re inside their shields, Loki. This may be our only chance to do some real damage.”

  “Are you nuts?”

  Josh paid no attention, instead yawing his ship to the right to face the massive passing vessel. “Find me some shield emitters, Loki!”

  “Hold on!” Loki replied, frantically working at his sensors.

  On his forward window screen, small red targeting brackets began appearing in regular patterns, marking the location of the battleship’s shield emitters. Josh immediately opened fire, sending bolts of plasma energy into the targets, one by one. Unprotected by the very shield energy they were emitting, the result was instant, and the emitters began exploding with each weapons impact.

  “How do you like that!” Josh exclaimed.

  “Oh, they’ve noticed us now,” Loki warned. “They’re targeting us.”

  “Will our jump drive work through shields?” Josh wondered.

  “Let’s find out, quickly!” Loki yelled.

  Josh pressed this jump button, mentally cursing himself that he hadn’t checked their jump line to make sure some protrusion from the massive battleship wasn’t going to end their escape jump prematurely, and with tragic results. A split second later, he had his answer.

  “WOO-HOO!” Josh exclaimed at the top of his lungs.

  “Get us to TAC COM!” Loki barked.

  * * *

  Nathan opened his eyes slowly. The first thing he noticed was the smell. Burning, acrid, metallic. It burned his nose and throat with each breath.

  It was dark. He could barely see. Flashes of light, provided by shorted circuits spewing sparks, seemed to be the only source of illumination.

  He quickly took a mental inventory. Head, arms, legs. Everything seemed to work. Some soreness, but nothing more. “Report!” he barked. Oddly enough, he didn’t remember thinking before he spoke.

  There was no response. Nathan realized he was on the floor and raised himself to his hands and knees. To his right was Lieutenant Dinev, with open, lifeless eyes, her pupils dilated and unresponsive to the intermittent flashes of light. He reached out to touch her head, but it fell to the side, limply, her neck most likely shattered.

  “Captain!” a female voice called from behind while fizzles and pops threatened to obscure her cries.

  “I’m okay!” Nathan replied.

  “Weapons and shields are down!” the voice reported.

  It was Jessica. “Are you alright?”

  “I’m fine!” she replied. “My combat suit protected me.”

  Nathan had forgotten he was still wearing the general’s combat gear. He struggled to his feet, using the Ghatazhak assistive undergarment to his advantage. He looked to his left, spotting Ensign Bickle’s legs, his torso smashed by a section of the overhead that had fallen. Judging by the amount of blood pooled under him, he was certain the ensign was also dead. “Kono!” he called.

  “I’m here!” the lieutenant commander replied.

  Nathan moved to his left, stepping over the ensign’s body and the debris that had killed him. On the other side was his sensor officer, bent over Pol Bickle’s head.

  “He’s dead, sir,” she told him.

  “So is Marsi,” Nathan replied. “I need you to see if you can get your sensors working, Layla. I need to know who fired those missiles,” he instructed, reaching out to help her up.

  “Yes, sir,” she replied, taking his hand.

  Nathan helped her up and then turned toward the back of the bridge. “Sergeant!” he barked. When there was no response, he looked to the starboard side and called out again. “Corporal!”

  “Both hatches auto-sealed,” Jessica told him. “If they’re alive, they’re on the other side.”

  “deBanco!”

  Jessica moved to the comms station, stepping over a fallen structural beam to make her way behind the console. She knelt down next to the ensign. “He’s alive but unconscious. He’s bleeding from the head and torso.”

  “Is anyone else alive?” Nathan wondered.

  “I think we’re it, Nathan,” Jessica replied. “At least on the bridge.”

  Emergency lighting suddenly snapped on, offering steady, albeit barely adequate, lighting.

  Nathan tapped his comm-set. “Vlad! You still with us?”

  “Yes, Nathan!” Vladimir replied. “I am here!”

  “How bad?” Nathan asked.

  “Two reactors are damaged. Not badly, but more than I can fix now. I’m trying to restart reactor three now.”

  “What about propulsion and maneuvering?” Nathan asked.

  “I do not know,” Vladimir replied. “Once I get number three working, I will know more. Give me a few minutes.”

  “We may not have a few minutes, my friend,” Nathan replied. “Whoever fired those missiles will be on us any second. Can you at least get me shields?”

  “Without any power, I can do nothing,” Vladimir replied. “Now please, let me work. I will give you shields as soon as I can.”

  The bridge shook.

  “What was that?” Lieutenant Commander Kono wondered.

  “It sounded like something struck the hull,” Nathan said, “hard.”

  The bridge shook again, and again.

  “Bridge! Medical!”

  “Go ahead!” Nathan replied after tapping his comm-set again.

  “Med-tech Bates here, sir. There are Dusahn troops in the corridor outside of the surgical ward! They are moving forward!”

  “Lockdown procedures,” Nathan ordered.

  “Aye, sir!”

  “Eagle Squad, Nash,” Jessica called over her comm-set. “We’ve been boarded. Prepare to defend the bridge.”

  “Nash, Penwell. Hinistrosa and Hoca are trapped in the port airlock, and the doors are jammed. It’s just me and Penton, and I can’t raise First Platoon on comms.”

  “I’ll try to reach them and get you some backup,” Jessica promised. “Meanwhile, be ready. We have no idea how many intruders we have on board or from how many points they have entered.”

  “They won’t get past us without a hell of a fight, sir,” the corporal promised.

>   “I managed to get one of the forward cameras working, sir,” Lieutenant Commander Kono announced.

  One small section in the center of the Aurora’s spherical view screen came to life, and an image appeared. Despite the distortion, Nathan had his answer. “I should have waited,” he said, cursing himself.

  “Is that a…”

  “A fucking Dusahn battleship,” Jessica swore.

  “They must’ve jumped in only a few light minutes out, at the most,” Nathan said. “Just close enough to plot our course and launch, but far enough out to do so before being detected.” Nathan shook his head. “That’s exactly what I would have done.”

  “Why haven’t they finished us off?” the lieutenant commander wondered.

  “Because they want this ship,” Nathan replied. “More importantly, they want me so they can publicly execute me in front of the entire Pentaurus sector, after destroying this entire system.” Nathan turned around to look at Jessica. “That’s the only thing in our favor right now.”

  “That’s not much,” Jessica remarked.

  “No, but it’s better than nothing,” Nathan said, tapping his comm-set again. “Vlad, as soon as you get reactor three working, I need you to figure out how to force the containment fields on one and two to fail on command.”

  “Are you joking?” Vladimir replied. “I’m surprised they haven’t already failed.”

  “Good, then it should be easy.”

  “TAC COM, Razor!” Loki called urgently over comms. “The Aurora is dead stick! No power! No weapons! No shields! She’s losing altitude, and a Dusahn battleship just jumped in only a click away from her!”

  Cameron sprang into action. “Flash traffic to all forces,” she ordered. “Converge on Rakuen and defend the Aurora! Razor, Taylor! Were you able to raise anyone onboard?”

  “Negative!” Loki replied. “But we may have found a way to get inside the battleship’s shields!”

  “What?”

  “They jumped in no more than fifty meters from us,” Loki explained. “We tried to come about and make a run for it, but we collided with their shields, tail first! I think it had something to do with this ship’s gravitational drive. When we passed through, everything shut down. We managed to get everything restarted and jump away, but Josh managed to take out quite a few emitters on the battleship’s starboard side, first! If we could get back in there and do some more damage…”