Equilibrium of Terror: Part 1 (Splintered Galaxy Book 3)

by Eddie R. Hicks

  Gavin then pulled up, bringing him back up to the action. A wave of six black triangular ships flew above. As he leveled out, he saw Hijinks engaged in a dog fight with a target while Aura was closing in one that was attempting to help the interceptor dealing with Hijinks.

  “Gladius one, fox three.” A burst of red lit up the inside of Gavin’s cockpit as Aura’s plasma missile exploded furiously against her target’s shields. “Fox three, fox three!” A second missile launched and chased the damaged interceptor, turning it into a fiery explosion spraying flaming metal and debris everywhere.

  “Tango down,” Aura said.

  “Gladius five, fox two!”

  Gavin missed whatever stunt Hijinks pulled, but it resulted in her dance partner being reduced to an interceptor engulfed in flames with one shot.

  “Good kill,” Aura said to Hijinks. “These guys ain’t shit.”

  … … …

  ►► UNE Outpost, Uranus orbit

  ► Sol system

  Chris and the rest of his team returned to the opened airlock they came aboard through. He looked out in the void of space shocked at the dazzling display of explosions and streaks of light charging back and forth across. He then saw the transport as it attempted to maneuver into position to rescue them. Two plasma bolts crashed into the top of it, weakening its shields in the process and throwing its trajectory off course.

  “Oh shit!” Lu screamed. “I’m a sitting duck here!”

  “Don’t risk it Ensign,” Chris said. “Back out, back out!”

  The transport pulled away from the airlock, flying out of sight as several Hashmedai interceptors zipped past Chris’ view from the opened airlock. It caused him to react and jerk his body backwards.

  “Gladius this is EDF lead,” Chris began to transmit. “Our ride back needs to time to link up. Can you keep those fuckers off him?”

  “Ah, negative EDF,” Aura said over his headset. “There’s a lot of flak out here as is, the rest of our birds are still a way out.”

  “They just keep coming. We can’t keep up,” Hijinks said.

  “I got an idea,” Hammer said. “There’s a docking bay on the underside, most of the contacts are on the opposite end. Should be enough to stay safe.”

  “Then we need to move now,” Chris said. “Let’s go!”

  The transport under escort from three fighters traveled down toward the underside of the outpost. As predicted, there weren’t any Hashmedai ships down this low. Like ninja’s in the night, they kept close to the hull of the outpost, closing the distance between them and the docking bay. The EDF team on the inside used their jets once more to navigate through the darkened hallways in a race to get to the docking bay.

  Chris and Sarah kept their sights forward in the off chance that assassin was still lurking while, Tom and Karen faced behind as their jets kept them pushing forward with the group.

  … … …

  ►► ESV Winston Churchill, Uranus orbit

  ► Sol system

  “Got a wave of interceptors coming in now!”

  Xavier watched the tactical hologram show the waves of red dots creeping toward the forward section of the Winston Churchill. “Fire anti-fighter rail guns at will,” Xavier said calmly.

  Quick aiming rail guns acquired the closest target and fired, aided by EVE’s quantum computing power. Well-timed shots ripped gaping holes through any interceptors that got too close. Interceptor shields were no match for the rail guns, however the Winston Churchill’s shields were no match for the combined fire power of all the interceptors once they got in range.

  Thinning out the herd was the best option for them right now outside of straight up fleeing. Xavier would rather die than leave EDF and the Gladius squadron behind. He considered asking Michei to teleport over, but that would have resulted in the Winston Churchill losing their psionic support. Way too risky during a situation like this, even for a few minutes. It was after all Michei’s ESP and telekinetic powers that were allowing the Winston Churchill to perform as well as it was. And if an over shield would be needed or worse, a barrier to patch a hull breach, then Michei would be the one to deal with that provided his mind wasn’t too stressed.

  The Winston Churchill rocked a few times as several fighters swooped down in union bombarding the shields with plasma then escaping to safety before the anti-fighter guns could target them. There were way more interceptors than guns on the Winston Churchill. The Hashmedai were getting smarter.

  “Direct hit, too many are getting through!”

  … … …

  ►► Gladius squadron, Uranus orbit

  ► Sol system

  A bombardment of green light radiated away from the Winston Churchill, left in the aftermath of two dozen Hashmedai interceptors adjusting their tactics. The light was bright enough to light up the inside of Aura’s cockpit. And bright enough to make her fist smack the side of her chair.

  “Ah hell!” Aura shouted into her microphone. “Change of plans, Gladius seven through twelve protect the Winston Churchill on your arrival.

  “Copy that.”

  “Gladius three, four and six how much longer?”

  “Still awaiting EDF to board the transport,” Orbital said, the reply was not the one she was hoping for. And one she’ll have to respond to at a later time. Two interceptors locked onto her and began to release its payload of hot plasma.

  “We’re getting overwhelmed here!” Aura shouted back after a succession of slick evasive rolls and turns.

  “Four and six, go and assist,” Hammer said. “I’ll escort the transport, not much going on down here.”

  “Understood, moving to assist.”

  Two more fighters to help in the struggle. It wasn’t much given how quickly the battle field was starting to fill up with interceptors. At this rate, the Winston Churchill would have to withdraw. Aura could see that the blueness of the Winston Churchill's shields was slowly getting dimmer.

  Her fighter took another hit from behind. Focus Jessica the fight is just beginning! She activated a full burn on her fighter’s thrusters, widening the gap between the aggressive interceptor from behind. When the time was right, she flipped the nose of her craft in a sharp one-eighty-degree spin and faced her pursuer.

  “Gladius one, guns, guns, guns!”

  … … …

  ►► UNE Outpost, Uranus orbit

  ► Sol system

  Assuming everyone read the wall maps right, Chris and his team were just two doors away from the station’s docking bay. They maintained their back to back boost through the halls with their jet packs. Sounds in a nearby room prompted Chris to command his suit to stop while he raised his fist high signaling for the rest of his team to do the same. Someone was close by, someone with life in their veins.

  With his back pressed up against the wall, Chris carefully peeked into the room on his left. Someone was wearing a UNE space suit, the lights inside the helmet of the person showed it to be a man. His lips were moving frantically, screaming possibly, he raised his hands in surrender toward someone else. Chris leaned in closer, there were three large bodies in space suits of extraterrestrial origin, all three of them held onto... something, he couldn’t make it out in the darkness. Seconds later what they were holding was revealed, as they lit the room up with a green hue. Plasma swords.

  “Contact!” Chris shouted and aimed his rifle toward them. His weapon roared with fury.

  A secondary source of light appeared, a blue rectangular force field along the side of one of the three targets arms. A Hashmedai guardian shield. And it deflected every one of his bullets along with the bullets fired from the rest of his team as they joined in the fight.

  “We got a survivor in there!” said Chris. He then reestablished radio contact with the transport. “Ensign, standby we’re under attack and found a survivor!”

  “Guys,” Lu said with disappointment in his voice. Chris couldn’t blame him, the situation outside sounded bad. And a paper-thin transport with
weak shields wouldn’t last long in a dog fight, then there was friendly fire. Sure, plasma missiles were programmed to veer away from any UNE or Radiance ship transmitting the proper IFF signals. But rail guns? Once those rounds left the barrel there was nothing stopping them should a friendly unexpectedly move close.

  Sarah faced Tom and Karen and said. “Richards, Park, head to the docking bay, open the door so the transport can board!”

  “Yes ma’am!”

  As ordered, they used their jet backs to launch into the darkness toward the nearby docking bay. Afterwards Sarah moved out of cover and floated directly into the room where the three Hashmedai were and the cowering UNE personnel. Chris had to do a double take. She was in direct line of sight, no cover at all. Sure, the Hashmedai didn’t have any ranged weaponry that he could see, but the guardian was equipped with a standard issue one handed sword with a tractor beam mounted on it. Sarah’s shields should prevent her from getting lassoed, but the tractor beam could also aid in draining her suit’s power as it would have to work harder to resist the pull in. Either situation was bad.

  “Vaughan, don’t get drawn in!” Chris said to her.

  “I’m counting on it!”

  “Are you fucking crazy?”

  The guardian aimed his sword at her like it was a rifle of his own. Chris’ HUD showed Sarah’s shields drop to zero, she shut them off completely. Her body was yanked toward them and they all raised their glowing blades in unison like a bunch of hungry wolves, ready to attack their prey. Chris’ HUD updated him just before the blades cleaved toward her, Sarah managed to get her shields back up to full, way beyond full, his HUD reported she was at one hundred and thirty percent, she must have diverted all available power including her rifle’s power cell into her shield generator.

  Chris raised his rifle to assist only for it to be blasted away from him. A powerful detonation erupted from where Sarah and the three Hashmedai were, he wasn’t quite sure what had happened as his back and his tumbling rifle smashed into the wall behind him. As he came to, he saw Sarah’s body launch backwards toward the man in the UNE space suit, while the three Hashmedai spiraled in random directions, all of them had lost their weapons in the blast. Alive? Dead? Who knows but more reason for Chris to focus on grabbing his weapon which was now spinning out of control down the hallway. When he reached it, Sarah and the UNE survivor emerged out of the room, Chris’ HUD read her shields were gone, and her suit’s power down to minimal levels, otherwise she was fine.

  “What the fuck happened?” Chris asked.

  Sarah held a plasma grenade in her hand as she shot him a grin through the visor of her helmet. He quickly pieced together what happened, she used them to pull her closer, boosted her shields to full then set off the explosive while they thought they had a free kill. Clever girl.

  … … …

  Karen and Tom kicked their way into the docking bay. They stopped next to a computer, the only one still with power, a flickering holo screen appeared and they keyed in a command, forcing the docking bay doors located on the floor of bay to slowly swing open. Its thin force field had no power, lucky for them the entire station at this point was already exposed to space and depressurized. Nevertheless, she was still partly expecting to get pulled outside upon seeing the flashing warning that there was no power to the force field.

  As the doors finished opening they saw the transport hovering outside as it pushed upwards inside and opened its doors. Similar to how self irising forces fields work, the transports shields remained active around it and were programmed to allow any humanoid like objects to pass through while everything else would be deflected.

  Tom and Karen floated aboard, they looked back at the door across the docking bay leading back into the hallways they’d just left. There were no signs of Chris or Sarah. Not good considering there was an explosion heard not too long ago.

  “We’re at the evac zone now, where are you two?” Karen transmitted.

  “This is Gladius three,” Hammer said over the radio. “You guys are out of time. Fighters are starting to come through!”

  “Boyd, Vaughan, where are you? We gotta go!”

  After a ten second silence. “Almost there!” Chris said.

  Karen and Tom saw three bodies float in from the hallway, two EDF protect suits, and one UNE space suit, it was them. Chris and Sarah both held hard onto the survivor they’d found as their jet packs thrust them all toward the mouth of the transport. Behind them in the hallways was a faint glow of green light. It got brighter as each second passed by.

  Chris, Sarah, and the survivor boarded, the forward momentum caused by the thrust from their jet packs resulted in them continuing to plow forward and crash into the walls of the transports interior. Neither of them cared at that point as three Hashmedai stormed into the docking bay, a guardian pointed his finger directly at the transport.

  “Punch it!” Chris shouted to Lu as he came aboard.

  The transports doors slammed shut and it descended back into the abyss of space and toward the Winston Churchill under escort from Hammer’s fighter. A wave of interceptors from behind plunged down. They were ready for a chase.

  … … …

  ►► ESV Winston Churchill, Uranus orbit

  ► Sol system

  “EDF plus one survivor is on their way back, Captain.”

  Xavier watched the update unfold on the central hologram. “Have all fighters prepare to dock when the transport does.” He then ordered. “Helm lay in an intercept course with the Wilfrid Laurier, with any luck we’ll both meet up with each on the way.”

  “Yes sir!”

  Another barrage of plasma exploded against the Winston Churchill’s shields. The rocking and tumble that followed caused a few people on the bridge to fall out of their seats.

  “Shields down to seventy-seven percent.”

  Benally’s eyes gleamed at the hologram, her finger then pointed toward the large red dot on it. “That carrier is closing in toward us,” she said.

  “Probably going to help lower our shields with its cannons,” Xavier said. “How long until they are in weapons range?”

  “Approximately, three point six minutes, sir,” said EVE.

  “We could nuke them,” Benally said.

  A nuclear strike was a tempting offer. One blast would clear out all the fighters. Two or three nukes might take out the carrier as well, and bring about a whole lot of collateral damage in the aftermath. “Not with our birds and the mining platforms so close,” Xavier said.

  “Captain,” Michei spoke. “My psionic skills should be strong enough to extend the range of the plasma missiles. We could shoot at them now.”

  “Do it.”

  “Loading plasma missiles,” Matsushita reported from his terminal.

  “Allow my mind to have full control,” said Michei, folding his hands together and shutting his eyes. “Oh, and activate your mag boots, I can’t maintain gravity and do this at the same time.”

  “You got it,” Matsushita said as the crew strapped seat belts on and activated their magnetic boots.

  Xavier reached toward the central hologram making it zoom in closer toward the carrier as the Winston Churchill repositioned itself for its plasma missile launchers to aim directly at it.

  “Fire at will!” Xavier said.

  A salvo of plasma missiles left the Winston Churchill’s missile launchers and toward the carrier. Michei’s mind possessed each and every one of them and forced them to zigzag around the interceptors swarming the Winston Churchill. As tempting as it was to smack them down, these missiles were intended for one target and one only. Since the carrier was one light minute away from the Winston Churchill, all battle data they had was effectively one minute old. Michei’s ESP was the only thing that saw what was going on during those minute long data report delays, thus allowing him to guide the missiles toward the real location of the carrier opposed to the estimated one EVE’s processors calculated.

  The fuel propelling the missil
es started to run low as it neared the carrier, not an issue for missiles in the hands of a psionic. Michei’s telekinesis forced the missiles to keep on going, just a few seconds longer. One by one, twenty-seven psionically guided missiles impacted on the forward shields of the carrier, splashing its plasma payload across with explosive results.

  “Direct hit, their shields took it,” Matsushita said.

  Michei chuckled. “Oh, I’m not done yet!”

  Another salvo of missiles launched, as Michei’s mind controlled the missile firing controls at this point. The shields of the carrier slowly started to drop at a faster rate than the Winston Churchill’s shields were. Michei’s mind while still merged with the ships systems, updated the tactical data on the central hologram, tactical data that would have taken another minute to load and tactical data more accurate that EVE’s estimations. The carrier was slowing down. At the rate it was taking damage, it would be destroyed by the time it got into weapons range with the Winston Churchill.

  … … …

  ►► Earth Cube, Geneva, Earth

  ► Sol system

  The Winston Churchill’s QEC continued to provide real-time footage from the battle, everyone watched in anticipation with poker faces masking their emotions.

  “Come on, come on,” Salamanca said finally.

  “It’s amazing what one psionic can do for a battle ship,” Singh said.

  “And to think, they’ll all be ordered to withdraw shortly.” Salamanca glared at Crimei. Her comment made him frown.

  … … …

  ►► Gladius squadron, Uranus orbit

  ► Sol system

  “Two more minutes.” Hammer’s voice echoed over the radio as Gavin shot down another interceptor that was chasing after Hammer and the transport.

  Afterward, Gavin positioned his fighter to get a better look at Hammer as he flew alongside the transport. Only one interceptor remained chasing them. He cocked his head forward to get a better look at it. The interceptor in question had several blood red stripes painted cross its hull.