"Have you no shame?” I asked in a deliberately threatening tone. "Arite, is a whole cruiser not enough room for you to live? What made you come to my room exactly?"
One of the Princesses suddenly opened her eyes and stood from the bed. I took a step back, thinking to myself that this was a tense situation. I had no weapon on me, so how I could defend myself against this extraterrestrial being was totally unclear. Nonetheless, I continued to follow my line and spoke forcefully:
"If you want to live on my ship, you follow simple rules: never copy me, Astra or her paralyzed sister. The captains and admirals are also off limits. And basically don't get in our way. We have a serious battle ahead of us!"
The Princess suddenly laughed provocatively and began spinning in a dance, showing off her green hair and nude, silver-patterned body. I felt exceptionally stupid: what if the thing in front of me was the actual Princess and not a copy? But I had not been wrong: the dancing Astra dissolved into a white cloud and left the cabin a few seconds later into the main hall, now in the form of an angry old lady from the housekeeping department, and all she was wearing was a bathing cap on her head and a bath towel over her shoulders. On the scalloped, cellulite-laden buttocks of the plant manager, there was a faded tattoo shaped like a colorful butterfly overwritten with a sweeping inscription: "Miss College!"
Despite the strained nature of the situation, I laughed and shook my head. The Arite would have to learn and learn in order not to unmask itself so stupidly in human company.
* * *
In a departure from recent battles, this time, there were no signs of happiness in any crew members. All staff officers and ship captains recognized perfectly how difficult the forthcoming battle in the Lobj system would be.
"Five hundred miles to the enemy. Multiple targets. Three hundred seven Alien ships detected on radar. Eight Behemoths, sixteen Sledgehammers, eleven Chainsaws, twelve Ascetics, and sixteen Hermits. All the rest are Meteors."
I reattached my microphone so it sat more comfortably, and said:
"All ships, attention! This is the Sector Eight Fleet's next serious exam. Our forces are approximately even, so we'll have to really put effort into this to show the whole galaxy that it isn't for nothing that we are known as Alien killers. Use formation number seven. First, jump toward the sun and hold distance from the Behemoths at no less than two hundred fifty miles. Battleships, head away from the enemy. Squeeze your thrusters for all they're worth. Heavies, same speed as the battleships. Antisupport and electros, stay thirty behind the heavy group. Two wings of Pyros will set up receivers on both sides of the enemy at thirty miles’ distance. If the Meteors come out to you, frigates are not to engage in combat. Warp out to our heavies. Tria, you'll be going with the electros for now. Three Safas jump out in front at full speed. You'll go three hundred, six hundred, and nine hundred in front of the fleet."
"Approximately equal forces?" Nicole laughed sadly, looking over the long list of enemy starships shown on the monitor, making sure to draw my attention to the flashing red words that had been brought up on screen by the tactical computer: "Victory impossible! Retreat strongly recommended!"
I turned off my microphone, and said to my assistant:
"Do you think it would be better to tell these people who put their trust in me that your computer thinks we have no chance and are doomed? Turn that automatic victory chance calculation off. I did so long ago. That stupid hunk of metal almost always writes that victory is impossible. If the enemy is just gonna stay passive around the Behemoths, we'll just charge our drives and go out to a spot in a few minutes. If they take any action, some options arise as to how we can pluck these ships' feathers."
“WHY ARE YOU RESISTING? IT IS FUTILE. WE ARE STILL STRONGER.”
Ow! A voice rang out in my head like an alarm bell. I waved it off, calming Nicole, who was looking at me in fear, and called the Truth Seeker.
"Flora, I need mental protection from you right now. These creatures are trying to control my mind. So, the woman in the medical wing isn't crazy. The voices are real."
"I'll try. But it’s basically just a really weird situation, Prince. Miya left excellent protection. They can speak with your Highness, but no one can make you do anything."
"STOP THE FLEET AND RETURN THE CAPTURED SHIP. IF YOU DO SO, WE WILL ALLOW YOUR SHIP TO AVOID DEATH, BUT ONLY YOURS."
Despite the booming voice in my head, I started just cracking up. They had used their secret ability, but it turned out they weren't able to make me obey. Well then, to hell with you, forget about us returning trophies and capitulating voluntarily!
"I am ready, Crown Prince. No one but me is now able to communicate with you mentally."
"Thank you, Florianna! I owe you a chocolate! Now we can really get to work!"
The enemy had not budged forward, clearly having learned from previous battles but, all the same, had begun showing signs of activity. All the Behemoths had released hundreds of drones, and the Meteors had gone into action, but for now they were just guarding the battleships. Meanwhile, the Alien cruisers and destroyers started picking up speed and set off to chase my fleet down after a few minutes of sitting still. Ugh, if only we could have a couple Surprises on the battlefield... Oh well, it’s no use crying over spilled milk. According to our calculations, the bombers were going to reach the Lobj system in six minutes.
"Why aren't the Behemoths going in front?" Nicole asked me.
"There's no reason to. They're slow buggers, so they'll never catch us anyway. They're gonna warp out to the quicker ships after they get closer to our fleet."
"And our ships will jump forward to the Safas, bringing the distance back up?" the girl hazarded.
"That's right. We definitely don't want these eight Behemoths getting too close. They'd reduce our fleet to dust in a couple minutes' time. By the way, the enemy's destroyers will enter the combat zone soon. Nicole, assign targets: three of our heavy cruisers and one battleship for every one of their Ascetics. Everyone else should sit it out. There's no way they'll reach us. They are to shoot only in a volley on command. Immediately after firing, all the ships should jump out to Safa-3. Attention, stand by. Fire!"
It did the trick perfectly. Of the twelve Ascetics that had come, only three survived. I involuntarily glanced at Nicole's screen to see the victory chance calculation. Nothing had changed. The computer still thought victory was impossible.
Our distance from the enemy had grown again, but the Alien destroyers were stubbornly working to reduce it back down. Because the Sledgehammers were lagging seriously behind, I ordered antisupport to keep closer to the heavies this time, and also take part in destroying the enemy. My ships launched a volley! Another good haul. The last Ascetics disappeared from the tactical map, as well as a group of twelve Hermits. Let's get the rest of 'em! Frigates, engage!
My mistake. I was rushing. We had just lost eight Pyros and one Flycatcher in the space of a few seconds, because we had negligently allowed some Hermits to get within firing distance. Completely unjustifiable losses. It really was my fault. But the Alien destroyers were also taken out in the quick firefight. Now, our goal was the enemy cruisers. They were gradually catching up to us in a dense group. We would have to split them up somehow.
"Tuki-tuka-de-sa, mission complete. Our losses in the attack of Queen and its escort: five bombers. Our cloakers were revealed on the battlefield."
"Great work, Surprise-1. As a result of your attack and the subsequent series of explosions, over seven thousand Alien ships have been destroyed."
"How many???" the young Chameleon female could not hold back her surprise.
I repeated the estimate of Alien losses and ordered the squad of five Surprises to go to the first receiver and prepare to attack the Behemoths. In parallel, Bionica was translating my order to the general to prepare landing troops for an attack.
"General, there is no reason whatsoever to fully capture the battleships. Your mission is to get through to one of the antimatter
arsenals next to the largest rail turrets and set explosive charges. After that, the landing troops should start the timer and evacuate."
"The enemy Meteors have begun maneuvers!" Nicole said, something I had already noticed myself. After leaving just twenty or so ships near the Behemoths, the rest of my high-speed frigates shot off back toward my fleet. Too bad. I really wanted to smash all that minor stuff at once with a thermonuclear bomb attack. Though the three thousand and change combat drones the Behemoths had released, which were trying to harry the boarding operation, were also a worthy target.
The Meteors went out in front, for some reason not taking a straight course, but a very wide curve. Clearly, the Aliens had learned their lesson in the Kej and Aysar Cluster systems, and as such were trying to stay clear of my bombers. Too bad. I really wanted to try the same trick again. But nothing can stop a battleship attack. I waved the five Surprises off.
At a distance of over twelve hundred miles, the series of explosions didn't look like anything too scary. It was just a couple of sparks, and the combat drone markers were all wiped off the map. The time to build on our success had come.
"One hundred Pyros, to the first receiver! Split the Behemoths up and capture them with warp disruptors. A standard carousel. Tria, follow them to the first receiver. General Savasss Jach, begin the assault!"
It was a wonderful and terrifying sight. The landing modules were pouring out of the bowels of Tria into the blackness of space. Ten thousand guided missiles. One hundred thousand Alpha Iseyeks rushing into battle. The landing modules were a bit more than six minutes from the enemy ships. I imagined the G-Force loads these praying mantises must experience in the modules. I even raised my eyebrows in surprise. For a person, such force would mean certain death. But the insects, wearing nothing but special protective masks on their heads and special hermetic bands sealing off their chitin shells, left their modules like nothing was happening and joined the battle immediately, getting plasma torches to work, and setting explosives at break-in points indicated by the general.
"What a crazy picture!" Katerina ton Mesfelle commented. "I'll definitely make a separate report on it. It's just horrifying. The praying mantises really don't mind dying! They just crawl right in to imminent death!"
In fact, the general's assault troops were dying by the hundreds under the defensive system fire, but they just kept crawling forward. It was clear that Savasss Jach's priority here was speed, and not minimizing losses. Either that or the general had decided this was a good opportunity to bring down his ship's food requirements.
Entranced by the Swarm assault, I nearly missed seeing the enemy Meteors, which were getting dangerously close to my fleet. It would, of course, have been possible to engage them in battle and start trading frigates, but I didn't want unnecessary losses, so I gave an order to the fleet to jump out to Safa-1 at nine hundred miles.
"First charge near arsenal set!" the general informed me.
Nevertheless, I did not notice any signs of evacuation from any of the insect-swarmed Behemoths. In fact, the praying mantises were continuing to crawl in to the titans through the many holes in their sides. I called the general and asked why the evacuation was not happening. Bionica translated the centipede’s answer back to me.
"The insects figured out our plans and are trying to interfere in us blowing up the arsenals. Every soldier inside the Behemoth or on its chassis, will distract some of the Alien to help the overall mission get done. There is one minute, twenty-four seconds before the explosion. You'd better get your ships away from the Alien battleships. There's no reason to lose them."
"Attention, fleet! In one minute, seventeen seconds the first Alien battleship will explode. Receivers, increase distance from the Behemoths, and Pyros holding the battleships, go out to the receivers a few seconds before the explosion.
And meanwhile, the enemy Sledgehammers and Chainsaws were entering my battleships' strike zone. The Meteors were relatively far away and did not present a threat. I considered the situation to have turned out quite well, and saw a good chance of taking out a Sledgehammer or two before the enemy ships got within return-fire range. What happened next was all the more surprising. A Behemoth, marked on the tactical map with an explosion countdown timer, suddenly jumped forward and appeared next to its Sledgehammers, fifty miles from Joan the Fatty. One of my frigate captains left too soon, removing his warp disruptor, and allowing the battleship to get through!
In some kind of flash of brilliance, I realized what would happen: one of my cruisers would die, and the basically harmless Meteors that were now far away would get jump coordinates! A second went by, and the heavy assault cruiser Scalp Collector was replaced with a small bright star!
"All ships, warp to Safa-1 immediately!" I yelled with my whole throat, though it was too late.
A whole cloud of small red spots went into the green ball. Disturbing messages came in from some of the ships, saying that they were under warp disruptor, and could not carry out my command to retreat to Safa-1.
"There are three warp disruptors and two stasis webs on Joan the Fatty," reported Oorast Pohl.
"Pyros, hold the rest of the Behemoths! How much time until the explosion?"
"Eleven seconds," Bionica said in a flat tone, not expressing the slightest emotion.
"All ships that can warp, jump out to Safa-1! Turn off the Fatty's thrusters! All power to the forward shields! Hold on! Impact!"
* * *
I was brought back to consciousness by pain. I had clearly broken something. Everything around was dark and, for some reason, I couldn't see. My hearing was returning gradually though.
"...the admiral is severely wounded; I will take command of the fleet!" I recognized the voice of space lieutenant Nicole Savoia, but her words reached me as if from under water. "Admiral Kheraisss Vej, we have lost our translator. Take command of the Iseyek ships yourself. We need to return the Legashes and take down the last two Sledgehammers all together. I've marked the priority target. Master of Tesse, Bride of Chaos, respond to headquarters!"
I tried to lift myself up, but it turned out to be very hard. My arm was in a great deal of pain. I had probably started moaning in pain, as I heard Popori de Cacha scream in joy:
"The Crown Prince is alive!!!"
Literally a few moments later, the stand that was pressing down on me was dragged off, and I finally saw the light. My right eye couldn't see at all, and my palm that had been pressed to it was covered with blood. My right arm was hanging limply, clearly broken, but I felt nothing. And a couple ribs on the right were also broken.
The Chameleon helped me up, and I took a look around. It was a complete disaster. Only the emergency lights were on, flashing. There was debris covering everything in the room. Where my work station had been, there was a solid mess of twisted metal and cables. It looked like the explosion had sent me flying into the wall, then made the stand fall over on top of me, which was what saved me. If I had stayed where I was, I definitely would have died. I noticed some kind of movement, and looked with my only working eye and realized what I was seeing: it was Deimos' arm, twitching in its death throes, his chitin shell having been crushed by a falling ceiling beam.
"Bride of Chaos, Master of Tesse, respond to fleet headquarters!" Nicole Savoia was trying to restore command of the fleet with the only working monitor.
The space lieutenant saw my face, and shuddered in horror before staggering back. Yes, I had already figured out that something was wrong with my face. Crown Prince Georg royl Inoky ton Mesfelle couldn't have even been called handsome in his best years, but now he looked like a zombie just risen from the grave.
"Crown Prince, I'm calling a doctor for you now," my assistant promised me, but I just waved it off.
"Later. How's the fleet? How many enemies made it out? Where are the remaining Behemoths? And, most importantly, have you figured out who that cowardly frigate captain was that fled the battle early and let the Alien battleship escape?! I swear to God that
I will rip out all his appendages myself!"
"I will absolutely find out that coward's identity. He will receive the most severe punishment possible. Prince, we have lost eight heavy cruisers, and no less than ten light ones. Small ship losses I do not yet know. Neither of our battleships are responding to messages, but there is definitely some activity on board. There are two Alien Sledgehammers next to us, but it isn't clear what condition they are in. General Savasss Jach said a few things on the radio, but I couldn't understand. That's the situation."
The captain's first assistant appeared in my field of view with a first aid kit in hand. After seeing me, without saying a word, he walked up and started bandaging my head. Phobos appeared behind him, carrying Admiral Kiro Sabuto in his arms, and set him down next to me. The admiral opened one eye, looked at me and said with a slight smile:
"In ancient times it was said that men wear scars the way women wear jewelry. In the distant past, your Highness would have been considered a very fetching man indeed."
I smiled, and but then saw something that made the smile leave my face. From under a metal column, I could see an unnaturally contorted woman's arm with a familiar medallion on the end of a golden chain. Bionica! I stood with difficulty and took a step forward. The android girl was dead. There was no doubt about it. You can't survive having your body ripped in half. But just then, Phobos and Popori de Cacha leaned over the body and did something strange: they cut off the robot's head!
"What happened to Astra?" I said, the realization coming to me like a jolt of electricity.
"If she, as usual, was in the dormitory wing, we won’t be able to go there. Corridor 2A has lost pressure," the captain's assistant answered my question. "Oorast Pohl and the technicians put on space suits and will try to restore the elevator to operation. If they are successful, we will be able to get to the dormitory wing."
Beyond Death (Perimeter Defense Book #2) Page 20
