by Ivan Kal
“Weapons locked and ready,” His weapons officer reported, their exchange taking place in a single moment.
“Fire,” Quas ordered.
***
Out of the mist of gases and particles that surrounded the pirate base, a silver ship appeared. Before the pirates could even detect its presence, it opened fire with its powerful proton weapons. Beams pummeled into the two converted merchant ships, vaporizing entire sections of their hulls and causing them to explode into pieces.
The first to react was the base. Turrets rose out of the hull and swiveled to target the Empire’s ship, but before they were able, the Erebus’s cyber-warfare system deftly locked the gunners from their turrets, preventing them from firing. The Nauira heavy cruiser reacted by powering its shields and weapons and moved to bring its weapons on the Erebus.
As soon as the Erebus had fired, four assault shuttles left its hangar, accelerating toward the pirate base.
***
Ryaana stood patiently at the head of the soldiers inside the shuttle, and waited as they accelerated toward the base. She glanced behind her at the two inquisitors, and at Vas. The young man had proven surprisingly talented with the Sha, although he didn’t show all that much power—but with time, that could change. He had most certainly improved a lot since they had started training together. It never took him more than one or two attempts to replicate something that she showed him, showing a raw talent that needed only shaping. She hoped that he would get through this safely, as she had taken a liking to him. He didn’t care who she was, and he was not afraid to ask questions.
She turned back and watched the exit, bringing her thoughts back to the mission. She got a ping on her HUD indicating that they would reach their destination soon, and she gripped the safety railings as she waited. Soon enough the shuttle decelerated and then shook as they impacted the hull. A large clank informed her that they had made a hard seal with the hull, and then she heard several short thumps as the breaching charges detonated and the forward section of the shuttle opened, allowing them inside.
Ryaana sprang forward, entering the pirate base, and immediately she activated her suit’s drones, calling forth six small pearl-sized drones to leave their container on her back and fly ahead. The left side of the corridor led back toward the yards, so she turned to the right and started moving forward, the rest following quickly behind.
She watched the drone’s feeds on her HUD, and saw a group of pirates just about to turn a corner and come face to face with her people. She jumped forward, covering the five meters to the corner in a blink as she gathered Sha. As soon as she landed, she raised her arms and pointed them at the unsuspecting pirate that had just turned the corner. A stream of plasma left her palms, incinerating the pirate’s head. She kicked the body as she stepped out of the edge, keeping the stream of plasma going and burning another three that had followed close behind the first.
Two of the pirates were slower, and upon seeing their friends die, they raised their rifles and fired. Unfortunately for them Ryaana already had a shield up, and their opening shots splattered against it, leaving no chance for a follow up. Ryaana lashed out and telekinetically crushed the head of the closest pirate, while she struck out with her mind at the other. With a thought she broke the pirate’s mind. Without even losing a step, she stepped over their corpses.
Her drones had already reached the end of the corridor and found a large room where a dozen or so pirates were waiting for them to arrive. Ryaana and the rest of the platoon quickly reached the end and she stepped into the room, keeping the shield up as her people entered behind her. The pirates unloaded everything they had at her, but they could not pierce her barrier. Her people filled in and started returning fire while she covered them. They then reached the short wall and took cover behind it as they kept picking off the pirates.
Ryaana got down and leaned against the wall, lowering the shield. She took a moment to gather her breath and with a thought activated the turrets on her shoulders. She jumped over the cover and crossed ten meters to land in the middle of the pirates. The mono-blade from her right forearm extended and she swiped to the right, cutting a pirate clean in half. Her turrets started firing, and spheres of blue-white energy scorched through the pathetic armor that the pirates had, killing them instantly. She moved without stopping, her blade singing through the air as her turrets fired all around her.
Another group of pirates filled into the room, and her people moved up as she cleaned up her group. A grenade flew over her head and dropped it in the middle of the new group. A moment later the area was filled with gas, and then a massive flash of light exploded in the area, flash freezing the pirates. Ryaana leveled her turrets at them and together with the soldiers that were now standing beside her, she cut them all down.
“The room is clear, Sentinel,” the Platoon Leader said over the comms, as he gestured and gave other orders to his people.
“Set up a point here, I don’t want anyone coming behind our backs,” she ordered.
One of her drones recorded another group coming their way and Ryaana opened a channel. “Incoming, get ready.” She marked the door through which the enemy was coming on their shared HUD map. They took positions and waited. The two inquisitors and Vas stepped to her side and leveled their rifles at the entrance.
Several grenades shot from the door and Ryaana and the platoon leader grabbed them with telekinesis, the intention being to throw them to the side. As soon as they caught them, however, the grenades detonated and a harsh light exploded, blinding them. Ryaana closed her eyes hard, but she was still stunned. Then, with barely a second’s warning, she felt it.
Immediately she tried to warn the others. “They have a Gat—”
A loud screech filled her mind, dropping her to her to her knees. The soldiers around her dropped down to the floor, spasming in pain. She gathered her mental walls as quickly as possible and pushed the attack out, but the effort cost her, testing her endurance. She stood up and saw a group of pirates moving inside with their weapons ready, and in the middle of their group walked the Gatrey. She raised her hand to fire a plasma bolt—killing him was the only thing that would stop his mental attack. But before she could get off a shot, a bolt of plasma flew from her side of the room, taking the Gatrey’s head clean off.
Both the pirates and Ryaana were shocked. She turned to the side and saw Vas with his rifle raised. He turned toward her, but she couldn’t see his expression through the helmet. He should’ve been disabled, she thought in disbelief. It takes an incredibly powerful mental shield to block their attacks. She wanted to ask him how he wasn’t affected by the attack, but she had no time. She turned toward the pirates, and the turrets on her shoulders opened fire.
***
Aranis had made a mistake. He knew he had the moment he realized what had happened. He had been so lost in the combat, in seeing her move and use the Sha with such brutality and efficiency, that he had forgotten for a moment who he was supposed to be. When the alien had thrown his mental attack, Aranis was of course not affected. Such a weak attempt had no chance of breaking through his defenses. But he hadn’t noticed its effect on the others—in the moment he had only seen the attack on himself. Aranis had never before been in such a battle, as he had always commanded from afar. Being on the front lines was beneath him. And so, when the alien dared to attack him, he could only think of punishing that arrogance.
Thankfully he had used the weapon in his hands; perhaps some part of his mind still knew that he needed to keep his capabilities a secret. Only when he had killed the alien did he realize that the fact that he was unaffected was a tell in of itself. Ryaana had seen him, he knew. He only wondered how suspicious the fact that he was unaffected made her. She didn’t have the time to question him about it, but even without seeing her face, he could tell that she had noticed and was at the very least intrigued.
She continued fighting, and Vas followed behind as they moved out of the room and into another long corr
idor. He followed Ryaana and watched as she kept dispatching the pirates, never even slowing down. She was exactly what the Enlightened had feared would come to be because of the mistakes of the People. She was the proof that their reasoning was right—that the galaxy could not afford these abominations to live.
Chapter Eighteen
Erebus
Ship Master Quas watched as the Nauira heavy cruiser fired its main weapons at the Erebus, followed by an impressive missile barrage. It wouldn’t be enough, of course. The Nauira ship was moving away from the base, forcing the Erebus to follow. They must’ve realized that nothing that their warship had could take down the Erebus’s shields, at least not fast enough for it to matter. Their only chance was to escape, and to enter the skim they would need to leave the ring. The Nauira missiles burned toward his ship, and Quas shook his head in amazement. It had been a long time since the Empire had used massive sublight missile swarms as weapons systems. There was no need when they had skim-capable missiles, and no missile swarm would be able to take down even a cruiser’s shields—the missiles’ yields were just too small, and the ships too fast. It was technically possible, but to do that there would need to be a coordinated missile swarm attack that didn’t allow the shields time to regenerate.
The shields powered by the Empire’s singularity cores were capable of taking an insane amount of weapons fire. So much so, in fact, that the Erebus had no static point defenses; it did have a dozen defender drones that could be released and used to create a point defense field around the ship if necessary, but there was no need to use them now.
“Lock on ion cannons—take down their shields,” Quas ordered.
“Cannons locked—firing.”
Beams of light blue flashed across the distance, hitting the cruiser amidships. And barely ten seconds later, their shields failed. The Nauira missiles closed the distance and slammed into the Erebus’s shields, illuminating the points of impact but barely making a dent in the shield integrity. The Nauira particle weapons likewise did little to halt the Erebus’s advance.
“Arm and lock s-missiles. Two should be enough,” Quas sent to the weapons officer over the interface.
“Missiles armed and ready. We have a hard lock.”
“Fire.”
The nanite hull of the Erebus shifted and created tubes through which the missiles would exit the core of the ship, and a moment later two missiles launched and were on their way to the cruiser. Mere moments after the missiles left the ship, skim fields formed around them and they crossed the distance in a near instant. The missiles dropped out of the skim right on top of the ship, making sure that they don’t impact the ship with their skim fields active, which would nullify most of their destructive power.
The cruiser’s point defense didn’t even have the time to open fire before the two s-missiles hit, one in the forward section and one in the back. The result was the utter destruction of the Nauira ship.
“Good work. Release the drones to watch over the system—we don’t want any unannounced visitors,” Quas ordered.
***
Ryaana smashed one of the pirates to the ceiling with her telekinesis and kept walking forward, her turrets keeping pressure on the pirates hiding behind cover. One of the soldiers behind her took care of the pirate on the ceiling and she let his corpse drop to the floor. Then she let two of the platoon’s Sha commandos—a Sowir and a Nel—in front of her, allowing her some rest. As their shields blossomed, she dropped hers and moved back. She was both tired and stretched thin. Ever since the Gatrey’s attack, she had been keeping close watch, not wanting to be surprised again, and that meant using her telepathy to scan their surroundings constantly.
The presence of a Gatrey was extremely troubling—as it was almost unheard of for any of that species to act outside of the Erasi. They were after all a founding and ruling member, and every Gatrey was a powerful telepath. It was the first real piece of evidence that the Empire had that the Erasi were in fact behind the pirates. Now she only needed to find something that undisputedly proved the connection—a single Erasi was not going to be enough for the alliance to condemn the Erasi publicly.
A chime informed her about an incoming comm request from one of the Platoon Leaders at the yards. With a thought, she answered, “Tell me.”
“We have a problem, Sentinel. A group of pirates, led by several Gatrey and other Erasi races, broke our lines and pushed to one of the closed yards. They boarded the ship there.”
“Can you take the ship?”
“Negative, they have already broken free of the yard’s tethers.”
“Then it’s the Erebus’s concern. Did you recognize the ship type?”
“Sentinel… It’s most definitely an Erasi cruiser. And if I am not mistaken, it is one of their latest generation.”
Ryaana froze. That was her proof. An Erasi military warship of the latest generation in a pirate yard, operated by Gatrey and other Erasi races… The problem was that this was a ship a class larger than the Erebus—and likely more powerful.
“Start moving deeper into the base. I’ll inform the Ship Master,” Ryaana said, and opened a link with the Erebus, routing the comm through the shuttles.
“Ship Master, we have a problem.”
“What is it, Sentinel?”
“We found an Erasi cruiser in one of the yards. Its crew managed to board it and are going to be leaving the yard soon.”
“Very well, Sentinel. We have drifted away from the base, but are on our way back. We’ll deal with it soon.”
Ryaana winced. “It’s a modern cruiser, Ship Master.”
The line was silent for a moment. “Damn,” the Ship Master said.
“It looks like you are about to test our newest ship against the Erasi best.”
“I’m sure that the Erebus will end up on top.”
“Good luck, Ship Master,” Ryaana said and closed the comm. Almost immediately, one of the platoon’s Squad Leaders commed her.
“We have found the control center, Sentinel.”
“I’m on my way,” Ryaana said, and she started running in the direction marked on her HUD. She reached her group and walked over to the inquisitors and Vas, as they stood a way back from large double doors. Three soldiers were in the process of planting breaching charges.
“Hacking failed?” Ryaana asked them.
“They destroyed the panels, locking themselves in. We offered to accept surrender, and they refused,” Inquisitor Jok answered. It didn’t surprise her in the least—the sentence for piracy ranged from life in prison to execution depending on the severity of their crimes.
She glanced at Vas, studying him intently. She opened her mind and looked at him, and she found that there was nothing out of ordinary, that he was the same as always. She wanted to ask him about the Gatrey attack, but this was not the time nor the place. He turned to look at her and she wished he wasn’t wearing a helmet so that she could see his face…to try and discern something.
The Platoon Leader interrupted her.
“We are ready to breach the doors, Sentinel.”
“Good,” Ryaana said and took cover behind a small portable shield that the soldiers set up in front of the doors to protect them from the blast. “When you are ready.”
A soldier kneeling in front of her pressed the button on the detonator and the corridor was suddenly filled with light as the blast hit the shield. Immediately, she shut down the shield with her imp and jumped forward into the smoke, followed closely by her soldiers.
She entered the room and, keeping her mind open, she felt the Gatrey immediately and smashed her mind against the Gatrey’s defenses before he could use his power, dropping him to the floor. Her HUD lit up with targets as her suit’s sensors detected the pirates, and her turrets fired. The soldiers entered behind her and cleaned up the rest.
Chapter Nineteen
Erebus
“Good luck, Ship Master,” the Sentinel said and closed the link.
Quas looked aro
und at his crew, then immediately started giving out orders.
“Get us back to the base, full stealth. We have an Erasi heavy cruiser to deal with.”
As integrated into the system as he was, he more felt than heard his crew’s response. Trepidation, eagerness, even fear. Quas nodded to himself—it was good for them to be afraid. They were about to go against an opponent that was more than capable of killing them. The Erasi military made for a much more formidable adversary than the pirates, and their ships were technologically comparable to the Empire’s.
Erebus moved slowly toward the pirate base. Quas considered trying to get there faster to attack the ship before it left the yard, but then decided against it. They would most certainly inflict damage to the base—and more importantly, kill their own people. For a moment he contemplated releasing the defender drones, but realized that there would be no point. The distance between the two ships and the nature of the ring would prevent them from getting a lock on the Erasi skim capable missiles in time.
Instead he watched as the Erasi cruiser exited the yard. He cursed silently as the sensors got a clearer picture of it. It was saucer shaped, as all Erasi ships were, and fifteen hundred meters in diameter. Almost three times the mass of the Erebus. Yes, this was going to be a hard fight. Erebus had an advantage with its stealth and cyber-warfare suites, but those had never been tested against modern Erasi systems. Now it was going to be trial by fire. The Erasi ship was obviously looking for them, and Quas was not going to allow them time to penetrate the Erebus’s stealth.
“Target all ion cannons and proton beams and arm a load of s-missiles. Target the center of mass.” Quas gave the order faster than normal speech would allow—their connection and reaction speeds would be an important edge against the Erasi cruiser.
Mere moments later, his crew informed him that all was ready.
