The Dark Star War (Codex Regius Book 3)

by Chris Kennedy

  As Witch ran into the cockpit, the Shaitan threw a lever, and several plasma bursts walked up the cyborg’s chest. The final one struck him in the face. Sergeant Weinert fell backward missing most of his head. The Shaitan threw a similar lever on the left side, and plasma bolts began exploding in the Terrans’ midst. At least one plasma bolt hit a Kuji trooper, removing an arm and about half of its chest.

  “Bastard!” Witch yelled as she leveled her rifle and began firing into the creature. Good Twin and Valkyrie joined in, moving to the left and right to get clear fields of fire into the creature.

  The Shaitan screamed as the bolts hit, and all four eyes turned toward the Terrans. It kicked out behind it, and Good Twin was launched backward into the passageway.

  Witch fired several more times into the creature’s head, and the screaming stopped as the Shaitan collapsed to hang within its harness. The straps coming from the ceiling kept it from falling to the deck, and it blocked access to the other Shaitan.

  Valkyrie dropped her rifle to hang from its sling and reached out to grab the Shaitan. Finding the creature had no tail, she grabbed its leg and pulled as hard as she could, and the corpse spun fractionally on its tether. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to allow her passage, and she squeezed by the corpse to find the pilot still working the controls.

  One of the eyestalks turned to look at her while it continued to work the shuttle’s controls. Through the cockpit glass, Valkyrie could see the shuttle start to rise again.

  Grabbing her rifle, she lifted it to within inches of the Shaitan’s eye that had turned toward her.

  “Set us down!” Valkyrie ordered.

  The creature’s four hands lifted from the controls, and Valkyrie was thrown from her feet again as the shuttle crashed to the ground again. She hit her head on the bulkhead behind her and was knocked unconscious, falling motionless to the deck.

  The Shaitan unsnapped several of its tethers and stooped to pick up Valkyrie’s rifle from where it had fallen.

  “Don’t even be tinkin’ about it, mon,” Witch said from the other side of the cockpit.

  The creature’s eyestalks whipped around toward Witch. Seeing the laser rifle leveled at it, the creature lifted its hands and held them away from the console.

  Witch smiled. “Good beastie. I might not have to kill you after all.”

  Task Force O’Leary, Anti-Kepler-186 ‘e’, December 18, 2021

  O’Leary realized he had been wrong. Although the Sila didn’t appear scared or nervous, they obviously were; several of the locals fired before the majority of the Shaitans entered the killing ground, prematurely alerting their enemies.

  What could have been a nice little ambush blossomed into a massive free-for-all as cowtaurs dodged off the path on both sides, and a knot of eight Shaitans charged head-on at their attackers.

  “Fire!” O’Leary ordered. At least his troops were still behind the locals so they didn’t have to worry about getting a poisoned arrow in the back. All they had to worry about were the Shaitans’ damn plasma weapons.

  It seemed like the Shaitans were everywhere in the confining forest, and the streaks of plasma bolts flickered through the trees like thousands of tiny rainbows of death. Until they hit flesh, at which point they looked less like rainbows and more like hollow-point ammunition hitting home. The charged gas deposited its heat energy like a laser cutter, and the water in the Silas’ flesh flash-boiled.

  Blood exploded from the front rank of the locals in a spray of yellow as the Shaitans burst through their meager defenses, and the smell of charred flesh filled the air. Those Sila that didn’t throw themselves to the side were ridden down, turned into paste under the claws of the cowtaurs.

  As the lead group of Shaitans slowed to turn around for another attack, the Terrans’ laser rifles joined in, blasting chunks from the Shaitans’ bovine bodies in sprays of purple. Several of the Shaitans began their high-pitched keening as the lasers struck home, but most of them fought on, even after being wounded a number of times.

  O’Leary did a quick scan. At least a third of the local forces were killed in the initial assault, and the Shaitans that had originally turned away from the ambush were turning back toward him. This was going south fast.

  A Shaitan wearing a green sash charged at him, and he killed it with an extended blast through the head. The amount of energy required would have killed three Terrans. “Aim for their heads!” O’Leary commed. “Wolf, hit ‘em with everything you’ve got!”

  The Shaitans on the other side of the path paused as the force behind them began firing, raking them with focused blasts of laser fire and oversized antimatter grenades.

  Lieutenant O’Leary killed a second Shaitan, then had to dive to the side as one of the others tried to run over the source of laser fire.

  The Shaitan wheeled and turned back toward where O’Leary had landed. As the creature gathered itself to charge, one of its front legs suddenly separated at the knee joint, and the creature collapsed to the ground. The cowtaur struggled to rise, but a katana materialized in the side of the Shaitan’s neck. The katana didn’t completely sever the creature’s neck, but it cut through far enough; the Shaitan dropped to the ground.

  The threat neutralized, O’Leary jumped back up and spun to look for targets.

  The Shaitans were gone.

  “Did we get them all?” he asked.

  “No, damn it. There are too many trees,” Wolf replied. “Some of them got away.”

  “Any idea how many?”

  “At least five…no more than ten.”

  Damn. That was worse than he had hoped for. He surveyed the ambush site. At least half the locals were down. The life signs were zero for several of his troops, too. Stupid locals. He shouldn’t have tried to help them after all. He shook his head. Too late now.

  “Night, O’Leary. Stand by for incoming. Between five and ten got past us.”

  “We’ll be ready for them.”

  Sergeant Hattori ‘Yokaze’ Hanzo materialized and began working the katana out of the cowtaur’s neck.

  “Thanks for the help,” O’Leary said. He looked down at the body of the Shaitan. “Did someone order steak?”

  Ducting, Jotunn Ship Falcon, Kepler-186, December 18, 2021

  “Being a rabbit is not exciting,” Farhome stated. His whiskers twitched. “It’s gross. This is what thousands of years of practice with life ‘bots gets me? Turned into a giant rabbit? Bah. All of us don’t like it.”

  “Oh, cheer up,” Calvin replied, petting the four-foot tall furry creature, who really did look like an over-sized rabbit. “Don’t get your fur in a bunch. Besides, you won’t have to look like this for long.”

  “Couldn’t you just have one of the bugs do this? I’ve discussed it with Max, and we don’t like being vermin.”

  “No, we can’t have the bugs do it,” Calvin said with a sigh. Calvin had been through this three times now, with a couple of Farhome’s selves, but he seemed to have pulled himself together again. Which didn’t mean he liked the idea any better.

  “We can’t let the bugs get caught by the Jotunn,” Calvin continued, “or the giants will come after them. In fact, we want you to do this so the giants think there’s something else beside the bugs chewing up their wiring. We may want to leave, but this is their home, remember?”

  “I thought they wanted to leave too.”

  “They do, but until we can take them off this ship, it remains their home, and I don’t want Jotunn exterminators coming up here to kill off everything in the ducting. That also includes us at the moment, remember?”

  Farhome’s whiskers drooped. “Okay, we’ll do it.”

  “Awesome. You remember what to do?”

  “Just because I’m a rodent doesn’t mean I’m stupid,” Farhome replied. “After you cut the wire, the Jotunn will send a robot. I let it see me and lead it on a chase away from you.”

  “That’s it,” Calvin said. “After a couple of minutes, you can lose it or destroy i
t, and one of the bugs will lead you back here. Nothing could be easier.”

  “Wait a minute,” Farhome said, his head snapping up. “The last robot that came up here was armed. What about that?”

  That was one of the nice things about Farhome’s hyper-focus on being a rabbit; he hadn’t thought the implications of his task all the way through. Until now.

  “Well, maybe this one won’t be,” Calvin said with a shrug. “If it is, my advice would be to run. Fast. And maybe dodge once in a while. I doubt the Jotunn will have loaded it with a combat program that can actually lead you. They won’t be expecting you to be intelligent. Just don’t get shot. If you can get behind it, you can shoot it…just don’t let it see you with a gun.”

  Calvin smiled. “See, I told you it would be exciting. What could be more exciting than having a robot chase you through the ducts of a Jotunn ship in a live game of ‘Cat and Mouse?’”

  “Sitting by a fire while listening to Gray Rinehart play the harp?”

  “We don’t have time for this. Are you going to do it or not? I’m sure one of the Ssselipsssiss will do it if you you’re too afraid to.”

  “I will,” Karver stated.

  “Of course, once the Jotunn see him, they’re going to start wondering where he came from and will probably be up here in the ducts looking for more of them.”

  “Now who has his fur ruffled?” Farhome asked. “No, I’ll do it.” A lopsided smile flickered across his face. “Hehe, it may even be fun. Who knows? Besides, I’m also the only one who can take a laser hit or two without dying.”

  “Finally,” Burkuri muttered. Louder, she asked, “Can we get on with it now?”

  “Yes,” Calvin replied. “Hopefully, the Gulf hasn’t jumped back to the other universe yet.” He turned to Paxton who was holding a wire and a pair of molecular cutters. “Go ahead.”

  Without a word, the lizard cut the wire and used one of the blades to trim the insulation from both of the resulting wires. He had obviously done it before, and he was finished in under a minute. “Here you go,” he said, handing the two wire ends to Calvin.

  “Thanks,” Calvin replied. He started tapping the metal ends together.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Bridge, TSS Vella Gulf, Kepler-186 System, December 18, 2021

  “Huh…” the DSO said. “That’s odd,”

  “Didn’t we already have this discussion?” Captain Sheppard asked.

  “The Jotunn ship’s got a problem with its forward shields. They went out for a few seconds, now they are flickering on and off. If we wanted to chase them down, we might be able to time it where we could get some shots in on them.”

  “Do we know what’s causing it?” the CO asked. “Better yet, is there anything we might be able to take advantage of? They’ve got to be pretty far away, though, don’t they?”

  “Well, yes sir, they are.”

  “I don’t see any additional issues with the ship,” Steropes said. “Their engines seem to be producing the same amount of thrust, and I am unable to detect any other abnormalities.”

  “Just the shield failure,” the CO said.

  “Yes, just the shield failure,” Steropes agreed. “It’s odd, though. There must be something wrong with the Jotunn’s power supply after all; the failure seems to be cyclic.”

  “Cyclic?” Captain Sheppard asked. “What do you mean?”

  “The shields come on briefly three times, then three times a little longer, then three times briefly again,” Steropes replied. “After a short pause, the pattern repeats. There must be some difficulty in the power supply where it keeps cycling.”

  “Three shorts, three longs, and three shorts?” Captain Sheppard asked. “Repeated over and over?”

  “Yes sir,” Steropes said with a nod. “That is what my system is telling me, anyway.”

  “That’s Morse code!” the CO exclaimed. “Someone is sending us an S.O.S.!”

  “Why would the Jotunn do that?” the helmsman asked. “Better yet, how do they know Morse code?”

  “It’s easy,” Captain Sheppard replied. “They wouldn’t. And there’s only one person who would. Calvin. I’ve got no idea how he did it, but he’s on that ship, and he’s trying to communicate with us.”

  “You think so sir?” Steropes asked.

  “It’s the only possibility. We transmitted to him, and shortly thereafter the Jotunn’s shields start flashing an S.O.S.? It’s got to be him.”

  “Why wouldn’t he just transmit back to us?”

  “I don’t know,” the CO replied. “Maybe he doesn’t want the Jotunn to know he received the transmission. Maybe he took a blow to the head and doesn’t have the ability to transmit. Who knows?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t want the Jotunn to know he’s there,” Lieutenant Commander Sarah ‘Lights’ Brighton said.

  “Doesn’t want them to know he’s there?” the CO asked. “How could they not know he’s there?”

  “Well, look at the evidence,” Lights said. “If Lieutenant Commander Hobbs is onboard that ship, it’s unlikely he’s there as an honored guest. If he’s there, it’s because he got captured and is a prisoner. In that case, he wouldn’t have free reign of the ship.”

  “Maybe they do know,” Steropes said. “That would explain why the ship was leaving so fast. They may be taking him back to their home world for interrogation.”

  “If he were their prisoner, though, how would he have access to the shields? Wouldn’t he be in some sort of confinement facility? The Jotunn must have some kind of brig, wouldn’t you think?”

  “Well, yes, I doubt he’d be given access to the ship if he were a prisoner.”

  “Also, the Jotunn have to know their shields are malfunctioning, right?” Lights looked at Steropes.

  “It does stand to reason the Jotunn would know that,” the Psiclops agreed.

  “Okay, so if Calvin is the person causing the shields to malfunction, he isn’t under Jotunn control because they would stop him immediately.”

  “That makes sense,” the CO said.

  “So, if the Jotunn knew he was there, and he wasn’t under their control, why wouldn’t he just transmit back to us that he’s aboard?”

  “Maybe they removed his implants or disabled them,” the CO replied.

  “If they did that, though, he wouldn’t have heard our transmission in the first place, and he wouldn’t know to try to communicate with us.”

  “Maybe he just got lucky with the timing.”

  “I guess that’s possible, but it seems pretty unlikely that he started transmitting right after we tried to reach him.”

  “So why do you think the Jotunn don’t know he’s aboard?”

  “Well, just assume he snuck aboard the ship somehow and is in hiding. All of a sudden, he picks up the transmission we sent. He knows we’re here and looking for him, and he knows he has to reply to us, or we’ll leave and never know where to look for him. Still…the Jotunn don’t know he’s there, and he doesn’t want to alert them to his presence, so he can’t reply to our transmission directly. If he does, the giants will find him and capture him, and then he’s screwed. So he uses the only means of communication available to him—he cuts a wire to the shield and starts tapping out Morse code on it. Voila! Problem solved. He can communicate with us without the Jotunn realizing he’s doing it. Maybe they won’t even know he’s sending a message; maybe they’ll just think they have some weird sort of failure.” She sat back in her seat. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “There are numerous flaws in that hypothesis,” Steropes countered. “If he has done as you suggest, the Jotunn will know they have a problem and will immediately begin tracking down the nature of their shield malfunction. He would have to know that, too.”

  Lights shrugged. “I don’t know how he thinks he can get away with it, but you’re right, he would have to know that too. Either he thought the risk worth taking or he has some other plan. I don’t know which it is, but I stand by my opinion.�
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  “If you are right,” the CO said, “he won’t have much time before the Jotunn come looking for their malfunction and find him. We’ve got to contact him now. Communications officer, send out a burst message to him. Tell him to send out five long transmissions if he is aboard the Jotunn vessel.”

  “Sending, sir.”

  Steropes looked up from his sensor. “I believe Lieutenant Commander Brighton is correct. I just received five of the longer transmissions. The shield has gone back out now.”

  “I saw it too,” the DSO confirmed. “There were definitely five pulses.”

  “Holy shit…” the helmsman muttered. “How the hell did he do that?”

  “I don’t know,” the CO answered, “but it looks like he did. Comms, tell him we know he’s there and we’re coming for him. Ask for three long pulses if he receives us.”

  “Transmitting…”

  “Sir! The Shaitans are firing!” the DSO exclaimed.

  “Where?” the CO asked. “At us?”

  “All over the place,” the DSO replied. “Generally in our direction, but all over the place. They must have picked up our transmission. It looks like they have a general idea where we are.”

  “Understood,” the CO said. “Duty engineer, stand by to jump to the other universe. We need to go pick up our troops so we can pursue the Jotunn ship. Steropes, did we get confirmation that Lieutenant Commander Hobbs received our transmission?”

  “No sir, the Jotunn ship’s shields have remained down since they went out.”

  Captain Sheppard turned to Lights. “What do you suppose that means?”

  “No idea sir,” she replied. “Hopefully, he hasn’t been bagged…”

  Shaitan Shuttle, Anti-Kepler-186 ‘e’, December 18, 2021

  The ramp to the Shaitan shuttle came back down. It almost reached the ground, but the shuttle’s left skid had crumpled in the second crash, and the craft leaned heavily to port, leaving a gap of about two feet.

  Valkyrie marched a Shaitan down the ramp, followed by Witch and Good Twin. The Jamaican helped the bigger soldier down the ramp.