Void Dragon

by William Kephart

  “We’re taking fire, what happened to the element of surprise?”

  “It would appear we’ve lost it, Major,” Ogun said dryly.

  “Fuck,” Sergeant Toryn said. “I was looking forward to a little free reign before they figured out what we were after.”

  Me too, Sergeant, me too.

  “No change in plans! Move out!”

  He fired a blind burst through the sally port just in case and hit the water at a run. The problem became apparent as soon as he cleared the ship and emerged into the open air. A nearby island that intelligence thought unmanned had a goddamn Enemy listening post!

  “We need to take them out now!”

  Jump jets at the waist propelled him forward and his boots allowed him to ski along the surface, cutting a rough white line into the calm blue of Chengdu’s ocean.

  It looked like some kind of tropical paradise and Zhamisce found himself wondering how people, even rich Ren, had ever been able to afford to live here.

  The natural beauty little availed the Kuei’Tang women when Zhamisce leveled his flechette gun and mowed them down. They were the first to fall.

  “Demo charges on the listening post and be quick about it. We’ve got a date with an iceberg gun five kilometers north by northeast! Let’s hope they didn’t have time to warn anyone.”

  ***

  “Are the marines all unloaded yet?” Wen asked.

  “Almost, Commodore,” replied Lieutenant Guan, a harried-looking Ren man of the awkward variety, and along for the ride as Wen’s first officer aboard the Yellow Wind.

  “Tell them to get a move on; we’re sitting ducks out here!”

  Damn if these kids aren’t green, Wen thought. They hadn’t even bothered to promote most of them, since Lieutenant Guan was doing the job that Nima used to do, a commander in line for a captain’s billet in the old fleet.

  Wen was thankful that Admiral Jiang had the foresight to order some warm up maneuvers, otherwise she was sure they’d have crashed into the water by now. The whole of the command deck was slow to respond to her commands and prone to errors. Wen had to walk them through everything methodically and they were still getting things wrong, but they had been much worse a few hours ago, so that was something.

  “Marines away and all bulkhead hatches sealed,” reported her gunnery officer, a lieutenant junior grade.

  Finally. “Plot a course for five hundred guangbai above the center of Rat Sector and prepare to raise shields. Time for your baptism by fire, people!”

  Wen had half a mind to do it herself but knew she wouldn’t have time to manually plug in coordinates when the shooting started, better to wait for Guan to figure it out.

  He hunched over the astrogation station, long spindly fingers stumbling over the orange relief of his three dimensional massive light control panel. Wen knew most of the work was being done by the Bruzio core’s prismatic computer, but it, like all computers, couldn’t give you what you wanted unless you asked the right question.

  She wanted to tell him to hurry the hell up but knew from her few hours experience that rushing him would only make matters worse. This is the best the Academy has to offer? The war must really have us scraping the bottom of the barrel.

  “Got it, ready to shift, Commodore, Ma’am.”

  Thank the stars. “Make it so, Lieutenant.”

  A field of green energy covered the ship in an eerie glow and plucked them from the very fabric of reality, only to drop them in open space a few seconds later.

  “Shields up, gun rails charged, and send out a sensor pulse,” Wen commanded. “Let’s see what’s out there for us.”

  Wen’s object tracker started to fill in and she was pleased to see the Enemy fleet had yet to offer any apparent reaction to their movements, even with Jiang’s dreadnought line hanging just out of range and taking potshots, plenty of nice fat targets too.

  Got one. “I’ve chosen a target. Astrogation, bring us down on their heads, manually.”

  They moved to obey. “Not you, Guan.”

  Wen thought he actually looked a little hurt. None of that, now.

  “I’ve got a special job for you. Let your staff handle manual piloting; I want you computing coordinates for defensive shifts to get us out of the line of fire. Once we start shooting they’re going to turn their guns on us and I don’t intend to make it easy for them.”

  He smiled at her. “Yes Ma’am!”

  Got to give you the time you need. Working around her subordinate’s limitations was a skill Wen was only just now beginning learn.

  Wen double-checked everything while they closed with the Enemy. Shields online, main gun acceleration rails online, all systems go.

  Cruising at thirty five guangbai, it was no time at all before they were nearly in range.

  “Get me a firing solution,” she ordered.

  “Already locked in, Commodore,” said the gunnery officer.

  Not bad, at least somebody’s on the ball today.

  “Then fire.”

  The shell bore right down into the Enemy dreadnought’s superstructure, a truly wicked shot that would decapitate the ship even if the round hit nothing else vital, which it did. The ship’s electronic grid was severed from the reactor and the shields lost cohesion, collapsing from front to back and squeezing the ship into scrap like an old tube of toothpaste on its last legs.

  “Good hit, take us to the next one, astrogation.” Only four hundred and ninety nine to go.

  By now most of the frigates were finished unloading ground forces and were popping in everywhere.

  “Keep it manual, no shifting unless we have to. Let’s take advantage of the chaos.”

  And chaos it was. Half the frigates were shifting without the Bruzio core’s light-noise control feature, which would disperse the starburst of energy that followed every successful greenshift jump. As it was, every frigate that joined the party blinded everything and everyone around them for a few seconds.

  “We’ve lost track of our next target, Commodore,” Guan reported.

  Wen sighed. “Just wait, Guan. Those dreadnoughts aren’t going anywhere fast. Be thankful that they’re just as blind as us, and use it to your advantage.”

  Rat Sector was now full of frigates zipping around and striking Enemy dreadnought’s from all angles like piranha in a feeding frenzy. If they could actually get their bearings long enough to shoot at something accurately it would be over in minutes, Wen thought ruefully.

  “Give me something, Guan. There’s hundreds of the bastards out there.”

  “I’m trying! I’m trying!”

  Wen was furiously refreshing her object tracker. This could’ve been prevented, the morons! If everybody shifted quietly like us we’d have them!

  There. “I’ve got one,” Wen said. “Gunnery?”

  “Locked and loaded.”

  “Light em’ up!”

  Wen hovered like a hawk over her screen, waiting for confirmation that never came.

  “Negative, no hit,” said her gunnery officer.

  I suppose I spoke to soon about them being on the ball. “Try again, gunnery.”

  It took another three shots for them to find their range. There was still a trickle of frigates popping in every now and again giving off all kinds of interference and throwing their targeting awry.

  On the fourth try the Yellow Wind struck home with a lethal reactor shot at point blank range. Green and violet xinium plasma flamed out and even stressed the shields a bit.

  “Next time don’t let us get so close, Guan,” Wen said through gritted teeth. That reminded her of an uncomfortably similar mistake she’d made some time ago.

  “Sorry, Commodore, won’t happen again.”

  This is impossible. At this rate we’ll never get them all.

  It was like trying to find a handful of rice scattered in a swimming pool with the wave machine turned on. The light-noise was making the sensors near useless and the problem was getting worse, not better, the longer the b
attle dragged on.

  We’re getting nowhere blind like this. “Send out the fallback signal and prepare to withdraw,” Wen said.

  Even if direct communications were beyond them, Bruzio and Song’s engineers had devised a clever workaround. They’d designed a series of unique particle configurations to be used as signal flags of a kind. If Wen couldn’t issue the command to fall back on conventional channels (and have it be received in an intelligible state by the fleet) she could release a cloud of “fallback particles” that would convey the same message.

  “Fallback signal is dispersed, preparing to shift to the rally point,” Guan reported.

  “Jump as soon as you can, Lieutenant. We’re going to straighten this out as fast as possible then get back in the fight.”

  The rally point was preprogrammed since before the start of the battle so it didn’t take too long to plug in the coordinates and let the core do its job. The Yellow Wind materialized in a barren corner of space at the edge of the system to await the rest of Rat Sector.

  “Take a break, people. It could be a few minutes before everyone has a chance to disengage.”

  Wen loosened her uniform collar and pinched the bridge of her nose. This wasn’t how she envisioned the big battle going at all. It was always supposed to be her ship and her crew tearing the Enemy fleet apart in their soft underbelly, not like this, on a ship that still smelled new crewed by a bunch of amateurs she met the same day. Wen sighed. We can’t always get what we want.

  “About half the sector squadron is at the rally point, Commodore,” her gunnery officer said.

  That’s enough. “Patch me though, gunnery. Rat Leader to squadron: be advised, many of you are shifting too noisily. It’s interfering with the other ships’ ability to orient themselves. The Bruzio core has a quiet mode that can disperse the excess energy and light-noise over a wide enough grid as to be undetectable. You are to make sure this mode is engaged and return to your sector. One ship is instructed to remain at the rally point and relay this order to stragglers. Rat Leader out.”

  “Which ship is to remain, Commodore?” Guan asked.

  “Let them work it out for themselves, we’ve wasted too much time as it is. Shift us back, Lieutenant,” Wen ordered sharply.

  They returned abruptly, sensors clear and spoiled for targets.

  “That’s more like it. Prepare for an attack run on the Enemy battle line. It looks like they’re giving our dreads hell and we need to take the pressure off.”

  It was true. The Enemy was arrayed for battle and had closed with Jiang’s line. Without the frigates the Admiral wouldn’t last long.

  “Gunnery, fire at will.”

  They surged under the Enemy, tearing into them with accurate volleys targeted amidships for maximum effect, and scored several kills before they provoked a reaction.

  “They’re turning,” Guan said nervously.

  “You have a defensive shift preprogrammed?” Wen asked. She was reasonably concerned that he forgot.

  “I—yes, Commodore!”

  “Wait till the last moment. Wait. Wait. Now!”

  They executed a quick jump to the other side of the line and used the same game plan as before.

  “Keep firing, we’re bleeding them,” Wen said.

  By then rat squadron was back in force and attacking from every angle. It was pretty useless for the Enemy to chase them when they’d only be bearing their neck to another. Wen’s ships were making short, quick work of their sector and she was already thinking about reinforcing Ox.

  Now this was what she came here for. The Kuei’tang had no answer to their swarm!

  Just as they were about to take another Enemy dreadnought in the flank something clipped them.

  “Damage report! What the hell was that?” Wen asked.

  “Glancing blow, Commodore,” Guan replied. “But I don’t see how. The Enemy dreadnought line is focused away from us. We’re getting some strange readings as well, looks like...yes, distress particles.”

  Distress particles? “Astrogation, take evasive action while we figure out what’s going on.”

  “Aye aye, Ma’am.”

  Wen racked her brain for what the problem could be. They were winning. And where did that shot come from?

  “Gunnery, send out a directional scan. Have more Enemy dreadnoughts joined the battle?”

  Her gunnery officer looked puzzled for a moment before replying. “Negative. It looks like the same amount of Enemy dreadnoughts as before. They still have hundreds...but it looks like our frigate count has dropped by about five percent in the last minute. Could they have fallen back again?”

  The Yellow Wind narrowly evaded another incoming shot and Wen immediately knew what was wrong.

  “The iceberg guns are firing!”

  ***

  “Enemy formation holding steady at two hundred guangbai.”

  “They shooting back?” Admiral Jiang asked.

  “Yes Ma’am, but at this range it’s pretty ineffective. Looks like they don’t want to leave the relative safety of orbit.”

  Yes, definitely looks like that, Jiang thought. “Maintain our position and keep taking pot shots until the situation changes. The frigates doing any appreciable damage?”

  “Hard to tell at this range, Admiral, but we’re getting less light-noise than we were. They’re definitely attacking.”

  “Good, good. I’m afraid we don’t have much choice other than to sit here and let them do the work. I’m not risking our own dreadnoughts against their planetary guns, not until the Marshal and his marines have had a good long while to reduce them.”

  It was absurd. The pride of their fleet, the Gongyue dreadnought line, was acting as bait while the small ships did all the fighting. Admiral Jiang had seen plenty of strange things in her day, but none topped this.

  “Admiral, I’m getting something. It looks like the frigates are pulling back.”

  Strange. “Perhaps they’re regrouping again, as they did a few minutes ago.”

  “Unknown. I could send one of ours to check in at the rally point.”

  “I don’t believe that will be necessary, Commander. Anything else?”

  “Yes, actually. It looks like the iceberg guns are finally firing. We can’t tell whether they can hit the frigates, but they’re definitely trying.”

  Worrying. “Steady on, Commander.”

  ***

  “Wave!”

  This was a nightmare!

  Every time one of the damned guns fired they set off a tidal wave in every direction. The Enemy soldiers used the waves as cover to get close. Those waves were disorienting enough, but just as soon as you managed to figure out which was was up you had the Enemy up, down, and all around!

  Major Zhamisce was beginning to realize that they had perhaps configured the suits incorrectly. The thing was they could fight well above the water or below, but the transition wasn’t anywhere near as smooth as what the Enemy suits were capable of. Skimming the surface was fine, but that last wave had caught him by surprise and sent him tumbling down ten meters or more and the Enemy forces were swimming towards them in great underwater formations. He managed to scatter them with a flechette volley and right himself above the water but it’d been a close run thing.

  It was better to go up and over the waves. They weren’t quite so swift on the surface and easier to see coming, even from underwater.

  “Engineers!”

  The press was thick here, with the Enemy coming at them not in squads, but in schools. They’d managed to take out a few guns but paid dearly for it.

  “There aren’t any engineers! We lost them on the last gun when the charges were hit and went off prematurely!” yelled a marine in passing, no time to tell which.

  Zhamisce didn’t recognize a lot of the new faces anyway. They were counter invested, taking fire from the gun’s crew (whom they’d surrounded) and the Enemy on the outside, and marines were firing in every direction and struggling just to hold their ground, or w
ater, in this case.

  Just great. “We still have charges?”

  Ogun offered up a detonator in his off hand. Ah, old faithful Captain Ogun.

  “Looks like we’ve got no choice. Cover me, I’m going down!”

  Zhamisce clipped the charge to his belt. It was only a little thing, but you didn’t need a lot of depleted xinium to make a big boom. He switched on his underwater jump jets and dived.

  Chengdu really was beautiful. The water wasn’t too deep here, and with the enhanced viewing mode on his visor he could even see the bottom. There were forests of seaweed and coral in every color, no fish though. It seemed the ordinary inhabitants of this area knew to stay out of sight.

  The iceberg gun had thin massive light chains anchoring it to the ocean floor and a targeting mechanism that looked like a giant non-euclidean gyroscope made out of green water that somehow stayed separate from the ocean around it. He couldn’t even begin to understand how that worked, but it wasn’t his job to understand it; it was his job to destroy it.

  Ogun had dropped a few sonic charges that were supposed to disorient the Enemy before he dived, and it seemed they were working. He made it to the base of the gun without taking a flechette in the back, at any rate.

  Come on, come on.

  It’d been a long time since demolitions training and Zhamisce was used to having people who could do this for him.

  After fumbling a bit he managed to make the damned thing stick to where it was supposed to, arm it, and kick off into the open water. In sixty seconds they’d add one more gun to their tally.

  That was when the Enemy decided to strike.

  Petty bastards every time, I swear. It’s like they only ever attack me when I’m already making my getaway!

  Zhamisce was pushing his jump jets to the limit and zipping around randomly like a fighter pilot with a death wish, all while blind firing in every direction to keep them at bay.

  It wasn’t working. They’d lost too many people on their first few dives and Zhamisce was alone against hundreds, maybe thousands. He was only alive because they were more concerned with hitting each other than finishing him off.

  Already they were boxing him in, driving him deeper in the water and further away from his friends on the surface. There were so many above him they were blocking out the light of the sun.