by Mark Wandrey
The weapons systems were all redundant, with the heaviest weapons circling the ball section of the outer hull. The A-PAWS were set in two batteries, forward and aft, obviously designed for ship-to-ship combat. There were also an array of a dozen lasers spaced along the hull, but she knew they would be almost worthless with the amount of particulate junk in the atmosphere. She selected the forward A-PAWs battery and the targeting matrix came alive.
As the system worked to acquire targets she was convinced it was absolutely meant for ship to ship. Everything she did to bring it to bear on the planet was met with electronic resistance. The system was trying to compensate for a vessel’s movement, and the planet’s leisurely spin was causing it fits. “Pip, can you help with the targeting?”
Whatever he did, the enemy units on the planet now looked like little ships and the targeting matrix became less combative. In a moment she'd zoomed in and could see massive transports, assembled from dozens of smaller 'Portal sized' units, moving across the countryside. On them were legions of armored fighting vehicles, vast arrays of combat bots, and thousands of armored T'Chillen warriors. She locked the weapon on the biggest combined transport and stabbed a finger on the pulse button.
A beam of crackling blue actinic light connected the Kaatan and the ground for a millisecond. One moment the titanic transport was lumbering along, the next moment it was a cataclysmic tidal wave of light and fire breaking over the forces around it. At the center of where the transport once was, sat a glowing crater fifty meters across.
“Call that a hit,” Aaron said with a whistle.
The beam blast had been so fast that none of the enemy troops realized they'd been attacked from above. Instantly they began to break formation as mobile beam projectors searched for a target. Minu brought the cross hairs onto one of the immensely expensive beam projectors and turned it into another maelstrom of destruction. It was a little surreal, causing death like this. She swallowed and began to pick targets randomly.
“Easy on the energy,” Pip finally urged. Minu pulled her finger back from the pulse button. She'd consumed enough power to drop their reserves another percent down to five. Many kilometers below, the T'Chillen force struggled to understand what had just happened, and reform their battle lines. “The force has sustained ten percent losses in personnel, and thirty percent losses in equipment,” Pip informed.
“Let’s hope it helps,” said Minu just as the voice of Var'at came over the air.
“We're in the lower atmosphere.”
“Watch her tendency to ride the tail,” Aaron warned him, having flown the shuttle.
“I thank you for the warning,” Var'at replied. “We saw explosions fifty or so kilometers from the nest, is everything okay?”
“Not for a few thousand snakes,” Aaron told him, “Minu was just having some target practice. But be aware, we're critical on power, so don't count on it being there if you need it.”
“Understood, we are turning on final. I must call my nest and convince them not to fire on me. I will update you again shortly.”
The five humans waited in the CIC as a tense minute passed. If the nest’s defenders refused to believe the racing shuttle was friendly and fired on it, Var'at would be forced to abort his mission, and they will have wasted time and precious energy. Perhaps another place could be found to land and evacuate some survivors, but time was their mortal enemy now. Pip told them that radiation saturation in the atmosphere would become lethal on a planetary scale in less than eight hours. The snakes, sealed in their combat armor, would be unaffected, as would the defending warriors. But for untold millions of civilians, most would have nowhere to hide.
“They are allowing us to land!” Var'at announced triumphantly, at long last. They watched on a display as the shuttle swept in low over the nest, what looked like a compact residential settlement, and then landed in a big courtyard. The visual enhancement made those exiting the shuttle look like tiny insects, but you could still make out the way the insects met each other and jumped in celebration.
“Don't take too long,” Minu willed her friend from far overhead. She'd discussed their options with him two days ago. The Kaatan could support thirty more adult Rasa, and as many fertilized eggs as he chose to bring; as long as none of them hatched before reaching Bellatrix, of course. His primary concern would be survival of his species, she knew that, but at the same time she feared a panic situation. What would they do if the shuttle pulled alongside stuffed with hundreds of Rasa, heedless of the risks? Did she have what it took to end their lives as easily as she did her unborn child's life? A single tear traced down her cheek and went unnoticed by all.
The CIC was never as alive as it was just then. Pip had dozens of displays flashing images as he analyzed what was going on below them. The images on the screens were changing with dizzying speed and Minu couldn’t understand a tenth of what was there, and somehow Pip was not only understanding but slowly building a detailed, layered map of the war the T'Chillen were waging. “The Rasa have done a remarkable job fighting the snakes,” he told them. “They're made the T’Chillen pay in blood for every meter given. There are the remnants of at least four huge T'Chillen battle groups like that one you burned holes in a few minutes ago, almost completely wiped out.”
“We never doubted the Rasa skills at war,” Minu stated. “They're just overwhelmed.”
“True, but the T'Chillen will be feeling this mauling for some time.” Minu quietly wondered how the snakes had so thoroughly forced a beachhead through a Portal if the Rasa were this good at defense.
“Any sign of how they're delivering those city busters?” Bjorn asked his nephew.
“No, it must be some sort of missile.”
“But the Concordia doesn’t use missiles,” complained Aaron.
Ted nodded his head. “The ones in this ship and that firebase are the first we've seen. Their rocketry isn't more than a few decades beyond what we had on earth. Bjorn and I got a good look at the boosters the aliens used to loft those communications satellites to Romulus and Remus. Nothing very impressive there.”
“HyLox,” Bjorn nodded, “Liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. We could have built them ourselves by now. The ones they used back in Enigma looked like they might have had a gravity drive, like this ship.”
“Their dependence on the Portals is almost complete,” said Minu.
“And we sit in a starship full of technology far in excess of anything we've ever seen, even on Herdhome or Nexus!” Minu glanced at Ted who was punching a fist into his palm as he spoke. “The proof of my theory is flying us around the galaxy at inconceivable super-luminal speeds. The vast Empire we see today is a ghost, a rotting corpse barely able to feed itself, living off the remains of what was once a magical dynasty that could make powerful starships, feed trillions with ease, and move entire worlds. Shit, I think they even made new stars, like on Sunshine.”
“Sing it, brother,” Bjorn chuckled. Pip had no comment, he was in with them when they created their theory, and Minu had to admit that the firebase full of starships and their weaponry seemed to be concrete proof of their beliefs.
“So what happened?” Minu asked them. “We keep circling back to the end of the beginning.”
“Probably war,” was Bjorn's suggestion. This time Pip nodded with Ted.
“Why?” she asked.
“They were too big,” Bjorn continued, “when you span thousands of star systems, no one catastrophe can take you down.”
“Sorry to interrupt,” Pip spoke up, “but the lead elements of the T'Chillen strike force must have seen the shuttle’s approach, they are pushing in to attack immediately.”
Chapter 14
March 14th, 522 AE (subjective)
Orbit, Rasa Leasehold
“Var'at,” Minu called out on the radio link, “incoming snakes! Pip, feed the data to his tablet.”
“They're preparing to evacuate what we can,” Var'at said from the planet’s surface. “The nest mother is work
ing quickly, but will need some time. So we fight.”
“Can we help, Pip?”
“Not without endangering out chances of getting home.”
She fumed as tiny little Rasa soldiers on the display deployed along the edge of the settlement. Pip pulled the view back and the lead element of the T'Chillen assault was coming into view, at least a dozen warriors in their powerful combat suites bristling with weapons. The range was well beyond the weapons carried by the suites, but not for heavy weapons. One of the suites was cut down from massive fixed energy cannon.
One at a time coordinated fire cut down warrior after warrior. By the time the enemy could begin deploying their powerful energy weapons, only three remained. They did very little damage before they joined their comrades as smoking debris.
“We're holding,” Var'at reported, not knowing the battle was being watched from on high. The crew all heard the translated hissing cries of excitement from the Rasa defenders. “The snakes did not expect the nest to be so heavily defended. “The jubilation was short lived as the second wave approached, a dozen heavy transports stopped just before encountering the first destroyed suites and began to disgorge hundreds of soldiers. Minutes crawled by and more transports delivered wave after wave of soldiers. Minu ached to drop just one A-PAWs blast into their midst. The hovering display showing only five percent power remaining held her back. She continued to will Var'at to hurry. On the monitor they could see crates being carried gently into the shuttle, one after another in grueling slow motion.
“Here they come,” Aaron said. On the monitor the T'Chillen line advanced in a coordinated wave, almost like they were moving on a parade ground. As they entered range of the Rasa weapons and started taking fire, the transports behind them launched packets of bots which burst on impact only a hundred meters from the defenders. As soon as the bots activated, they fell quiet, shut down by the PUFF she’d sent down with the Rasa.
“Glad my toy worked out,” Pip said over the ship’s speakers, completely linked with the computer now.
“Better than you can guess,” Minu told him, “saved a lot of lives over the years.”
“I've got an idea for a second generation design we can talk about later.”
The T'Chillen soldiers pressed on, either oblivious to the loss of their bot support or indifferent to the fact. “Fighters incoming,” Pip warned, relaying the information to the ground at the same time. A squadron of five tiny atmospheric fighters rocketed over the advancing T'Chillen and strafed the defenders with hyper velocity slugs. Tiny figures began to fall as the fighters arched up and began a leisurely turn. Exactly at their apogee anti-aircraft fire converged on the lead fighter that burst into a fireball. The pilots of the other four must have been surprised because they quickly executed a scattering maneuver and rocketed off at supersonic speed.
Meanwhile the T'Chillen were now within their own weapons range and were pouring on the fire. Energy beams lanced back and forth like rain, lighting up the battlefield as Rasa and T'Chillen fell. All the T’Chillen troops wore energy shields, but as their shields flashed out, each warrior was cut down.
The unceasing onslaught from the defenders finally began to slow the advance when the T'Chillen reached their disabled bots and realized they had no mechanical support. Var'at, along with his soldiers and nest mates, punished the T'Chillen soldiers for their hesitation. A few more carefully reserved heavy beamcasters opened up, cutting down hundreds of soldiers. Then, even in the face of unrelenting death, the enemy continued to advance once more.
Minu swallowed hard and didn't react. Rasa were dying by the dozens, by the millions on the planet below. She’d never imagined death on this scale. It didn’t seem real.
“Evacuation is complete,” Var'at announced; we're falling back to the shuttle. They all watched with sick hearts as most of the surviving Rasa soldiers covered the rest as they retreated back to the waiting shuttle. Every remaining Rasa soldier manned the defenses, many wielding weapons with an obvious unfamiliarity to buy those leaving a few precious moments. As the others retreated, they spent their lives with wanton abandon knowing that something of them would live on.
“They don't lack for spirit either,” Bjorn said forlornly as defenders were cut down like chaff. Var’at’s team made the shuttle, followed by a few more soldiers and a dozen or so other Rasa, many carrying crates. Minu tried not to count how many scrambled aboard, praying Var'at had controlled the evacuation exactly as they'd planned. The shuttle came alive and clawed into the air, its shield lighting up over and over like fireflies on a cool summer night as the T'Chillen fired energy weapons to stop it.
“Beam projector!” Pip cried out and the main view spun to show it. The massive beamcaster mounted on a hoverfield base broached a hill within view of the nest and quickly settled to the ground, robotic arms crunched down into the soil to stabilize itself as the large rotating base began to bring the weapon to bear. It was instantly obvious the target was not the nest, but the shuttle. The shuttle had shields, but not that powerful. The monstrous artillery piece was designed to siege city shields. The shuttle was a bug facing a fly swatter.
Headless of the power setting Minu slid her fingers across the weapons control. The cross hairs flashed as they locked and she stabbed the pulse button. The beam projector had just stopped moving and was about to fire when it was blasted into a ball of fire.
“Thanks up there,” Var'at said as the shuttle came around, stood on its tail, and rocketed straight into the sky.
Minu looked around the CIC. Everyone there was looking at her, even Pip. There was no blame, only resignation. Power had settled down to four percent. “ETA to shuttle arrival ten minutes,” Pip said without emotion.
An alarm chattered, catching everyone off guard. Most of the systems had long since begun responding in English, and they'd never heard an alarm before. The ship’s version of an attention getting buzzer spoke of a monkey scared shitless. “What the fuck is going on, Pip?” Minu yelled over the racket.
“Another ship has entered our threat bubble!”
“What?” said everyone else on the bridge. All heads turned to the main display as it flashed to a new view, the shuttle’s ascent moving to the side. On the display was the curve of the planet behind where the Kaatan sat. There at the edge of the globe, was something moving into view. A factory in space was Minu's first impression, a flying factory complete with pipes, buildings, and everything. The display zoomed in closer and more ship-like features began to become visible. And as they watched a bright white ball of light dropped away from the ship and fell into the atmosphere. It left a streaked glowing trail all the way down, until another city lit up in the now familiar actinic flashing fireball of death.
“It's massive,” Aaron said, and it was clear he was right. The Kaatan could fly right alongside and be lost like a blade of grass in the forest.
“So much for the Concordia abandoning starships,” Pip said. “It’s orbiting towards us, distance seventy thousand kilometers.”
“Does it know we're here?” Minu asked. A spot on the other ship sparkled and an A-PAWs beam lanced out, striking the Kaatan's shields which flashed blue-white. “Never mind,” she said. “Aaron, get us moving a bit to make a harder target. Ted, how are the shields holding up?” Aaron was already working on the controls as was Ted.
“The shields are okay, but this is not easy,” said Ted. “The ship has twenty shield capacitors, and they are not connected. It's like trying to stay dry outside with twenty little umbrellas.” Another A-PAWs slammed into the shields, this time the ship shuddered slightly.
“Damage,” Cherise spoke up. “Impact to section three, deck two. Armor absorbed it.”
“Ted?” Minu asked again.
“I'm trying!” He was starting to sweat.
“Pip, give me a ship killer!”
“On line,” he said as a new display came alive in front of her. The incoming ship was already highlighted with a line of Concordia script. She took th
e barest fraction of a second to be sure it was what they'd been looking at, the pressed the 'launch' button. From somewhere aft a door opened and a missile like they'd seen on Enigma lanced out, accelerating away almost faster than the eye could follow to cross the distance between the two ships. Only unlike the shuttle in that system, this ship was not a soft target. A second before the missile would have detonated a pair of lasers lanced out and the missile flashed into a harmless plasma ball.
“Damn it,” she cursed as two A-PAWs hit this time. One was stopped by the shields, one almost went clean through.
“Solid hit, section four, decks three and four!” Cherise called out as the ship shuddered. “Minor hull breach, I'm dealing with it.”
“I have a full spread of missiles ready,” Pip said without being asked. Minu nodded and turned to the controls. To her dismay, each missile had its own target screen. As quickly as she could she assigned targets and launched. She was still targeting the fifth missile as the first arrived on target and was shot down just like the other. She stopped and watched the next three also be turned into little blossoms of light. Minu never launched the fifth missile; it was obviously a waste of time.
Another A-PAWs blast stuck them, on a shield this time. At least Ted was having more luck with the defenses. “Can't you dodge some of these?” he asked Aaron.
“I'm trying; the damn impulse drive is not very powerful.” He sent them into a corkscrew maneuver and the next shot went wide, still grazing one of the shields. “If we climbed out of orbit-”
“No,” Minu snapped, “not until the shuttle is aboard.”
“Two more ships,” Pip barked and two new monitors came alive. The huge open ball of the CIC was making sense now as more and more space was taken up by displays. The new ships shared the same seemingly haphazard design, but obviously smaller. For some reason that worried Minu. “The computer has automatically assigned them a higher threat in the bubble,” Pip warned them, confirming her fears. The first ship was massive and lumbering, probably what the T'Chillen used to bomb the cities and maybe deliver troops and assets. These were war ships, smaller and more nimble.
