by TR Cameron
Dima gave the order, and as they headed again for the safer exit point, four union cruisers swept in to engage those hounding him. He calculated the trajectories and the odds and realized they’d be able to make it from the sector before the enemy could block them again. Under protection of the Union, former enemies and now truly allies, the eight Allied Asian Nations' ships slipped from the sector without further incident.
Chapter Nineteen
Indraat Vray resisted slamming her fist down on the arm of her chair, and instead caught it on the descent and gently set it down, gripping the edge with knuckle whitening force. "They have more lives than any beings deserve," she growled. "I was sure that the destruction of the Citrine Wave as it rammed the human ship would end them both."
"An inspired choice to sacrifice it to our own weapons at that moment, Fleet-Captain," commented her first. She glared at the officer, seeking criticism, but found only open appreciation on her face. Indraat rewarded her with a nod.
"Status of the floating fortress?"
"Significantly damaged, Fleet-Captain. The commander says it’ll require significant time to make repairs before it can protect itself in battle."
"Inform him that he won’t have such time, but should prepare to move to the next part of our plan."
"Affirmative. Shall I inform the rest of the fleet as well?"
"Yes, do."
She leaned back in her chair and rolled her shoulders as the orders went out. The purpose of this battle had been to draw protection away from the human starbases, and they’d accomplished that. The second part of the plan was to pretend to be more damaged than they actually were and appear to flee the field. In reality, the Xroeshyn vessels would join the portion that had been held in reserve and set out immediately to attack their Starbase 4 on the path revealed by the colony's records. While she continued to be uneasy about the theological implications, the hierarch had ordered, and she would obey.
"What have we achieved, Tareel?"
"Less than you’d hoped, Fleet-Captain. We’ve outright destroyed eighteen percent of the human ships. Another thirty percent have taken significant damage and are either partially or wholly compromised. We succeeded in eliminating the flagship with our initial strike. That’s all, however."
Indraat grunted an acknowledgment. She’d hoped for more, had hoped to turn this ill-advised feint into a rout of the humans by sheer will alone.
Inside, she laughed at herself. Hopes and reality so often had no intersection, and to think otherwise was to play the fool.
"Our forces are ready, Fleet-Captain."
"Execute."
She watched the action on the display as her ships marshaled additional attacks against the humans, darting in and launching full salvos with typical aggressiveness. However, the return damage from the human vessels appeared on the surface to be quite substantial, enough to drive them from their attack runs and force them to disengage. One of her ships, piloted by remote and designated for this purpose, made an ill-advised attack run at the flagships and was destroyed by the combined barrage from five human ships. This was the pre-planned signal for the Xroeshyn to "break," and on screen they appeared to do just that.
Each vessel peeled off from its current foe and retreated, running engines at whatever percentage of full accurately represented their supposed damage. They ran for the center of the sector where they could activate their gravity drives and vanish.
"Make our attack run now," Indraat ordered, and the Ruby Rain blurred into motion, headed at top speed for the largest ship left on the human side. As it approached, Indraat launched all of her torpedoes, and fired energy blasts around them to weaken the defenses. The ship and its escorts fired back, and the Ruby Rain was buffeted by the impacts.
"Now," she ordered, and tiny explosions separated chunks of debris that had been hastily attached to the outer skin of the ship in preparation for this maneuver. To an external observer, it would appear that the Ruby Rain was shedding pieces of hull as it turned and ran for its escape.
Indraat stood and faced the main screen, then nodded to her communication officer. Moments later, a tall, dark human appeared wearing a stiff white uniform.
"I’m Fleet-Captain Indraat Vray, commander of the Xroeshyn invasion forces."
"I’m Admiral James Okoye," replied the man on the screen. "Have you decided to surrender?"
Indraat laughed at the man's impertinence. "Don’t believe for an instant that your victory here today is an indication of your eventual success, Admiral. I'll give you credit for bringing more forces than we expected, but I guarantee you, it won’t happen again."
"Is there something you wanted, Fleet-Captain?"
"Only to offer an acknowledgment of your mastery today, Admiral, and to remind you to enjoy it while you can. When we meet again, I very much doubt you’ll find such success."
With a wave behind her back, she instructed the communication officer to kill the channel, then took her seat again.
Her ship drove at full speed into the safety of the gravitic current and washed away to launch the next part of the battle.
Chapter Twenty
The command crew, such as it was, lounged on the bridge—resting and recuperating as the Pandora flew them back up toward human territory. "Do you have a theory on the wakefulness of the being we saw inside the pod, Pandora?"
"Yes, Commander. Based upon the increased defensive posture of the base, I calculate that there’s a three-to-one chance that the being was ascending from stasis, rather than descending into it."
Kate frowned. "That does make sense, I suppose. Can you think of a reason why that might be?"
"Not with any certainty, Commander. However, there is one possibility that must be considered."
Kate thought that if an artificial intelligence could sound tentative, Pandora fit that description well with her last statement. "And that is?"
"It may be that by awakening me, you’ve somehow awakened others as well."
Kate sat up in growing alarm. "Do you mean that particular base, Pandora?"
"The fact that this is the only installation we’ve visited does argue for the possibility, Commander. However, I find it unlikely. The defenses were already active as we arrived. That suggests the awakening began prior to our presence in the system."
"Wait," Claire Martin said with her own note of rising apprehension. "Are you saying that when Kate escaped the planet in you, it was… like a wake-up alarm for the entire species?"
The question hung in the air long enough to make everyone uncomfortable before Pandora answered, "Succinctly put, Lieutenant Commander."
The bridge was silent as the humans absorbed that information.
"Well," Kate said, "I’d say, in that case, this foray was a definite failure. Aside from discovering that we may now have yet another alien race to deal with, we’ve accomplished nothing that’ll help us against the Xroeshyn."
She tossed the tablet she’d been absently tapping across the room in frustration.
"That isn’t entirely accurate, Commander. Or, at least, it need not be."
"Explain."
"With a slight adjustment to our course, we’ll be able to reach a storage location with a loss of only one day. It may be worth the diversion."
"A storage location? Storing what?" Claire asked.
"Ships, Lieutenant Commander."
Kate straightened in her chair and turned to face the projection of Pandora where she stood at the front of the bridge. "Ships?"
"Yes, Commander. When one of us is too damaged to continue, or has been judged obsolete, we’re routed to storage until such time as the components are needed to create new vessels. Given that no new vessels were created after the end of the last war, it’s probable there are vessels remaining at the storage location awaiting the need for them."
"But they’re most likely wrecks, correct?" asked Claire.
"Wrecks or not," Kate said, "they may provide useful knowledge. And what qualifies as a wr
eck to the Domeki doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing to us." She looked around her officers. "I am for this. Any counter arguments to consider?"
Trey Winstel shrugged. "Only the time issue, but I don't suppose that a day will decide the outcome of the war while we're away." No one else offered an argument.
"Agreed." She turned back to Pandora. "Take us there."
Shortly thereafter, the Pandora caught a different gravity wave and headed toward her new destination.
When they reverted to real space, Kate was at the controls and immediately set about reacquainting herself with the ship, rolling and looping through a series of maneuvers. Ahead, she saw a huge asteroid field, oblong in shape, and populated by a wide variety of floating debris. The rocks were in constant motion, crashing into one another, splintering, deflecting, and generally looking like a navigational nightmare.
"Let me guess, our destination is in the middle of that mess."
"Slightly off center from the precise center, Commander, but essentially you’re correct."
"Active defenses?"
"Undetected, but the asteroid field prohibits many signals from escaping. That’s one of the things that made it such a useful design for our storage locations."
"Design?" Claire Martin was at the tactical station for this run, so that Diaz could pay closer attention to the sensors, and surprise was evident in her tone. "This isn’t a naturally occurring field?"
"Correct, Lieutenant Commander. This was originally a small planet. We destroyed it with a gravity device that reshaped the debris into our desired arrangement."
"Was it inhabited?" Kate asked with a frown.
Moments passed before Pandora answered, "A search of my records suggests not, Commander."
"Well, that's something anyway," she replied. "Everybody ready?"
Her officers answered in the affirmative, and Kate kicked the Pandora into high speed, rocketing for the boundary of the field.
As they entered, they were assaulted by energy blasts from all sides. "Cannon emplacements on some of the asteroids," reported Claire. "No clear signs as to which ones have them and which don't."
"Damage?"
"Negative, Commander," responded Pandora. "On their own, the cannons cannot penetrate our defenses."
"There's something about the 'on their own' part of that that seems ominous," Kate began, before Claire cut her off. "Fighters, 273, thirty high. She looked up in that direction and saw a trio of tiny needles flying at her ship and sending energy blasts and projectiles toward her. She dipped under a nearby asteroid and chose a new course well out of their line of sight and came up at an oblique angle to them. A quick blast with her weapons, and the fighters were destroyed.
"Okay, two surprises, no problems," Kate said. "Keep your eyes open."
"I think we have something that will qualify as a problem, Commander," said Diaz. On the screen, several asteroids glowed with a faint golden outline. "Pandora categorizes those as explosive, so you'll want to stay away from them."
Kate dove in a spiral away from the marked asteroids. There seemed to be some in every direction she turned, and it became a constant battle to avoid the danger while still making progress toward their goal. "It's a bloody labyrinth," she complained as she was forced to get too close to one. Its explosion shook the ship.
"Fighters incoming," warned Claire, just before their energy blasts peppered the aft shields. "Unfair," growled Kate, then looped back and over a nearby asteroid to come up behind her enemy and pummel them with energy until they disintegrated.
"I presume these are automated defenses, Pandora?"
"Affirmative, Commander."
"Can you turn them off?"
"Negative, Commander. I’ve been attempting to negotiate with the base, but it refuses to step down or deactivate its defenses. I have control over the access door, so when we get close, we should be able to enter."
"How did you manage that?"
"Maintenance subroutine. Outside the main defensive scope."
"Clever."
"Thank you, Commander."
As they plunged closer to the center, the asteroid field thinned out and the smaller rocks gave way to larger bodies. As they flew by a pair, they started to move. Kate felt a drag on her controls.
"Pandora?"
"They’ve latched on with gravity attractors, Commander. The asteroids are being pulled toward us and are slowing our travel as a result. If we fail to escape them, they’ll ram into us with enough force to damage or destroy the ship."
"Let's do something about that." She dialed up her aft armaments and launched a set of specialized torpedoes that Pandora had explained were her most destructive. They ejected from the back of the ship and inserted themselves into the gravity waves from the asteroids. As they flew, they fired laser blasts from the front and began to rotate. As they neared the rock, their nose cones jettisoned to reveal large drills. They penetrated into the asteroid for several meters before exploding, sending jagged fractures across its surface. While not nearly damaging enough to reduce it to rubble, it sufficed to damage the gravity projection devices and allowed the Pandora to escape.
Kate rolled and dove toward the base. As she was about to set the ship on its final approach, her eye was caught by a twin pair of vessels rising from behind the center sphere. They looked identical to the Pandora.
"Urr," she said, unable to finish the sentence. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Diaz, take over weapons control."
"Affirmative, I have it."
"Claire, hot hand on the shields and countermeasures," Kate ordered.
"Aye."
She leaned forward against the gravity holding her to her chair and wriggled to get comfortable.
"Pandora, please tell me those are on some sort of automatic control."
"Yes, Commander, but they’re almost certainly an exponentially higher level of sophistication than what you’ve faced thus far."
"I can work with that," Kate growled and rammed the Pandora to full speed.
The other ships responded, arranging themselves at two points of a triangle made up of the three of them. They fired at Kate, who jinked up and down to dodge the incoming blasts. Torpedoes erupted from the enemies' tubes, and she flew to the left, increasing the travel time for one group while decreasing that of the other. The Pandora thrummed as countermeasures deployed, and the near set of missiles was removed from the board.
"It's not working, Commander," Claire said. "They’re apparently too smart to trick into blocking one another."
"Dammit," Kate answered, turning the Pandora on her tail and rocketing up, the second group of torpedoes still after her. She did the calculations in an instant and gave a grim smile. She turned the Pandora head on to one of the enemy ships and raced toward it.
"Energy barrage ahead, keep it up, I want that bastard distracted." She hit several buttons on her control panel, and a countdown clock appeared on her display measuring the time left until impact of the torpedoes.
"Come on baby," she whispered, "I know you're fast enough."
Clearly unacquainted with human unpredictability, the automated ship came on, seemingly content to end the battle by ramming the Pandora. At the last second, Kate fired her ventral thrusters, popping up just enough to get past the enemy. The torpedoes that had nearly caught her did not make the leap and instead pounded into the front of the Domeki defense vessel. Kate immediately ducked and slewed the Pandora, yelling, "Fire!"
The torpedoes in the front and Kate's barrage from the rear destroyed the enemy. As she wrestled the controls to get back underway, she was rocked by an assault from the other ship.
"Rear shields down, Commander," reported Claire.
"Seventy-three seconds until they’re operative again," added Pandora.
Kate cursed and threw the ship into a spin, then acquired her enemy and charged. The two ships traded blasts, neither able to penetrate the other's defenses. Finally, Claire announced that the rear shields were funct
ional again.
"All right," Kate breathed. "Here's what we’re going to do."
A moment later, the Pandora fled from the defender, launching itself around the curve of the storage depot and hopefully disappearing from its sensors. Kate piloted her carefully, using technology and intuition in equal measure to tuck the Pandora into a crevice of a large tumbling asteroid just before the defending ship cleared the sensor obstruction. Pandora had applied camouflage and killed her emissions as she landed. Everyone went still in the hope the defending ship wouldn’t sense them.
It slowed, then began to search with computer-controlled precision, a clear spiral that allowed it to analyze in three dimensions as it advanced. When it passed them, everyone held their breath. Soon it was far enough away that the curve of the station again protected them from notice. Kate blasted them from their hiding place, raced forward, and fired everything they had at the rear of the defender. The element of surprise was theirs, and the third energy barrage dropped the shields just before the torpedoes hit and eliminated the ship.
There was a collective sigh of relief as they reoriented, and Pandora opened the hatch to the facility. The opening was roughly twice their size, and Kate could hardly imagine how big it must be inside. The Pandora coasted into the darkness, and the entrance closed behind her and shut out the minimal light from the starfield.
"Standby," said Pandora, and a slow glow emanated through the space, both from Pandora and from the outer shell of the facility.
"Oh my," whispered Claire, seconds before Kate's own, "Holy cow."
The gigantic installation was filled with ships, dozens upon dozens, from some smaller than the Pandora to one that looked like a flagship.
"We just hit the jackpot," said Claire with a smile.
"I think I love you, Pandora," beamed Kate with heartfelt enthusiasm.
"I know, Commander," the ship replied, setting off a round of relieved laughter from her human crew.
Chapter Twenty-One
