Stars & Empire: 10 Galactic Tales

by Jay Allan

  “Exactly. It isn’t because the smaller ball is attracted to the larger ball as if it were magnetic. Now, that’s how the gravimetric engines of a starship work; they create localized gravity distortions that can be used to propel the ship. By changing the nature of the distortion we can change the speed and attitude of the ship at will; it’s like the ship is gliding down a perpetual slope, but we continually change the pitch and direction of the slope.”

  “Then why have such large main engines as well?” Jason asked.

  “Grav-drives are fantastic, but fickle. Their fields can be interrupted by gravimetric projectors, other drive fields, or natural occurrences in space. On something like that cargo hauler we stole, that isn’t a huge deal. But on a ship like this, being left powerless isn’t an option. So Jepsen also fitted her with some of the biggest thrusting motors I’ve ever seen.” Twingo had moved over to lean against the console during his impromptu class. After having a bit more depth of knowledge in the ship’s operations, the rest of Jason’s training time seemed to be much more productive. He got to where he rarely killed them all during simulations and was starting to get the hang of transitioning the ship from void flying to flying in an atmosphere.

  Their last day on the moon, Jason ran them through a specially developed training sim that was as close as he could make to what they would actually face based on Doc’s information. They ran through it three times with no major hang-ups and a successful outcome each session. Jason was especially pleased, and somewhat surprised, at how well the crew was meshing. The personality differences seemed to complement each other rather than be a source of conflict, and each member went about his job without complaint. As they all sat in the galley that evening, Jason allowed himself a small sliver of hope that they would not only take out their target, but live to hoist a beer afterwards.

  After the evening meal, Jason went outside to inspect the hull with Twingo to see where the damage control bots had repaired the impact damage they had sustained fleeing The Vault. As bad as it had initially looked, the damage proved to be mostly superficial and was easily erased by the small automated repair crew. After that, they performed a full checkout on the ship’s power plant, engines, and weaponry; everything was full mission capable, so Jason saw no point in delaying.

  They lifted off from the moon’s surface as the primary star was just setting on the horizon. Jason flew them on a lazy arc out of orbit towards the edge of the system before engaging the slip-drive and sending them hurtling towards their objective. Once safely in slip-space, he left Lucky on the bridge for the nightly watch and went to bed with the rest of the crew; the next couple of days would likely be long and arduous.

  CHAPTER 19

  The gunship emerged into real-space just outside the heliopause of the Kaldsh system approximately fifty-two hours after they left the safety of the moon they’d been camped on. Jason waited for Kage to let him know if they’d damaged anything during the flight; he’d pushed the ship pretty hard to try and make up the time they’d lost sitting on the moon effecting repairs and training. “We’re still FMC, Commander,” Kage said evenly, “you’re clear to begin maneuvering.” FMC stood for Fully Mission Capable, and was an acronym from Jason’s time in the USAF that he used out of habit that the rest of the crew had begun to pick up on and work into their own lexicon.

  “Understood,” Jason said. “Grav-drive coming online and turning on course for the fourth planet.” They were following a commercial shipping lane in-system, so they weren’t concerned about the gravity drive’s signature being detected. Jason was keeping the reactor power down low enough that it wouldn’t raise the suspicion of anyone who happened to be looking. “We’re less than two hours out, team,” he said over the ship’s PA. “Everyone stay loose.”

  The gunship slid through the system unchallenged before achieving a high parking orbit that would be common for a cargo vessel that was waiting on clearance to make landfall. They made three complete orbits around the planet, a green, lush-looking world with lots of surface water, mapping the ground with their sensors on each pass. Kage easily deflected inquiries by the planet’s ground controllers by claiming they were a courier ship that was repairing a flaky drive before attempting a landing.

  Doc and Kage spotted the facility fairly quickly thanks to the intel they already had, otherwise it may have been impossible to find. It was a non-descript series of buildings that was on the outskirts of an industrial district outside one of the planet’s smaller cities, but it also had employed a dampening field that hid its power signature from orbital sensors. Doc was able to penetrate the field by knowing the frequency and modulation of the ground emitters. The picture wasn’t very clear, but it was enough for them to get target locks on specific areas of the compound.

  “You still sure about everything down there, Doc?” Jason asked, standing over the doctor’s shoulder and looking at the display. He was acutely aware he was about to launch an unprovoked attack on a civilian target, in a populated area, without any warning or formal declaration of intent.

  “It’s exactly as I left it. I would have assumed once I disappeared they would have begun shutting this place down, or at least started moving everything, but I don’t see any unusual activity down there,” he said, looking back at Jason. “We’re clear to engage, Commander.”

  “Okay,” Jason said, walking back to his seat. “Begin feeding target coordinates to Kage, Doc.” He addressed the rest of the crew over the PA, “It’s almost showtime, boys. Everyone switch coms over to open channel and get ready to commence operations.”

  “Engineering, checking in,” said Twingo.

  “Ground assault, ready to go,” Crusher checked in for himself and Lucky.

  Jason took a couple of slow breaths to steady himself and tried to tamp down the adrenaline spike he felt as the ship crossed the terminator and into daylight. “Ten seconds,” he told his crew. He nodded to Kage who armed the ship’s offensive and defensive systems. This was the point of no return. The power surge of their weapons coming online would easily be spotted by the ground control sensors. The lights on the bridge dimmed and red-light pipes glowed on the floor, illuminating the walkways.

  “TacCon Delta,” Kage reported, telling Jason that the gunship was now in tactical condition “Delta,” meaning all weapons were powered and armed and shields were at full power. Jason could see on his com board that the planet’s ground controllers were trying to hail them; he muted them and ignored the flashing alert. He tensed up and waited for the countdown on his center display to reach zero.

  When the countdown timer disappeared, Jason shoved the nose hard over and dove towards the planet. He crossed through a transfer orbit, narrowly missing an oversized, underpowered cargo hauler that was laboring out of the planet’s well, and pushed on into the upper atmosphere. He leveled out within the mesosphere and banked onto a northerly course that would take them over the target, the waves of gravitational distortion from the engines clearly visible as the ship plowed through the upper layers of the atmosphere.

  “Weapons release in two,” Kage said, never looking up from his displays as his four hands deftly manipulated the ship’s controls. Two seconds later a weapons bay opened in the ship’s belly and six missiles were spit out and sent on their way. Active telemetry began to come in from the missiles to Kage’s terminal as they accelerated to hypersonic velocity and tracked for the target. Jason nudged the DL7 into a pursuit course and followed the missiles down towards the surface, the ship shuddering slightly as it muscled through the increasingly heavy atmosphere.

  “Status,” Jason said.

  “We’re still clean, no surface launches. All missiles tracking,” Kage said. It was eleven seconds later when the missiles slammed straight down into the ground all around the compound, kicking up six impressive plumes of dirt and rock. The missiles had been programmed to penetrate deep into the ground before the warheads detonated; their targets were the extensive underground facilities Doc knew were
there. One missile malfunctioned and only five exploded, but the combined concussive force was sufficient to collapse large sections of the facility. The ground seemed to swallow up whole sections of the complex as if it were built over a sinkhole.

  The gunship screamed over the city, decelerating violently as it came within range of the now smoking compound. The damage from the missiles was impressive, but they were taking no chances. Kage brought the ship’s powerful main guns to bear and let loose a salvo of high-energy plasma that vaporized whole sections of the compound in a frightening display of destructive power. What wasn’t destroyed instantly was flattened as the shockwave of superheated air from the plasma blasts slammed into it. Kage fired the main guns three more times before they overflew the site and Jason wrapped the big ship into a tight, right-hand turn. The ship groaned in protest as vapor poured off the wings from the sudden compression of the humid air during the high ‘G’ maneuver, but the effect on the crew was nullified by the artificial gravity generated by the deck plating. He angled his turn up slightly to gain some altitude and give them a better perspective for their second strafing run.

  Although badly battered, the facility still had some teeth; three heavy particle beams lanced out from rooftop emplacements and impacted the ship’s shields with spectacular results. Sparks exploded around the outside of the ship and alarms sounded as the shields fought to dissipate the energy from the beams. Jason aborted their run and yanked the ship into a vertical climb and went to full power. Even as the ship thundered into the sky, Kage was already targeting the beam emitters for their next run.

  Jason kicked the ship into a left-handed hammerhead turn and put their nose back on the target. “Targets acquired and locked,” Kage said. Jason accelerated savagely into a descending bank that would allow him to put their guns on target before coming into range of the particle cannons. Kage let loose with a full salvo from all the forward-facing weapons, resulting in an explosion that ripped the remaining buildings off their foundations and sent a massive plume of flame and debris right into their flight path.

  “Shit!” Jason exclaimed, knowing it was too late to avoid it even as the DL7 plunged through the raining debris. Some of the impacts felt quite heavy as it shot out the other side and into the clear.

  “We’ve got a ground car that escaped!” Kage shouted. “Two occupants, heading southwest away from the city.”

  “That’ll be her! We need to stop that car, Commander,” Doc said, speaking for the first time since the attack commenced. Jason fought the controls as he yanked the nose up and tried to bring the ship back around to track the ground vehicle. He actually had to switch flight modes and put the ship into a hover in order to pursue the comparatively slow ground vehicle.

  “Take the road out in front of the car,” Jason told Kage. A split second later the ship spat out an energy bolt that took out three lanes of roadway the car was traveling on. It instantly angled right onto a side street and accelerated away. Jason clumsily turned to pursue, the gunship wallowing in the low-speed maneuvering at the hands of a novice pilot. He swore to himself as the car took another turn and headed for a more populated area. “Disengage weapons, they’re entering a populated area.”

  “We may need to risk it, Commander,” Doc said from his station.

  “You know I won’t do that. Ground assault team, get ready.” Jason goosed the ship ahead of the speeding car and swung back around to face it head-on, no small feat considering the size of the ship and the proximity of the buildings. He continued to descend, intent on forcing the car into stopping or risk running headlong into the mouth of the beast, so to speak.

  His gamble paid off as the car swerved at the last minute and ran up onto a pedestrian walkway, jumping the curb and crashing through a large ground-level window. Jason was thankful that this particular ground car utilized wheels instead of hovering on repulsors; it was completely out of commission. “Crusher, you guys are up,” Jason said as Kage opened the belly hatch that allowed Crusher and Lucky to fall in a controlled descent to the ground within a containment field. He watched on his display in awe as the pair sprinted into the building at incredible speed, both armed to the teeth. He climbed up and away from the street and swung over the building to avoid the risk of damaging the ship with a careless impact.

  “It looks like they’ve escaped, Commander,” Crusher reported. “The vehicle is empty and there’s no sign of them.” Doc slammed a fist onto his console and swore at that. “We’re going to head to the roof of this building and see if we can run into them on the way up.”

  “Copy that, ground team. We’ll move to—” Jason was cut off as the ship dipped and yawed to port.

  “We’re taking fire!” Kage said. “Looks like two law enforcement aircraft approaching to intercept us. Energy weapons only, shields holding.”

  “Damnit! Ground team, we’re going to move away and try to elude our new friends. Try to make your way to the southern edge of this city block and wait for my call.” Jason swung the ship around to the north and accelerated aggressively on a course that would force the intercepting aircraft to radically change direction to try and keep up.

  “Acknowledged, Commander,” Crusher said calmly as the gunship screamed over the city, terrifying the residents. Jason swung around wide over the city as he pushed the ship to supersonic speeds to shake off his pursuers, his course taking him out of the population center and over rolling agricultural fields. He dropped down closer to the ground to mask their sensor signature and banked into a large, sweeping turn that covered miles of ground until he was pointing back to the southern edge of the city.

  The two pursuing ships were not fooled by the move. They were soon joined by two more aircraft and moved to cut them off. Jason calculated the odds and decided to take the risk, pushing their velocity up as high as he dared as he raced back to his two crewmates he had left behind. “Get ready to open the hatch and grab them,” he said to Kage.

  “Already on it. It’s going to be close though,” was the tense reply.

  “I know. Can’t be helped.”

  “We’re in position, Commander,” Crusher said over the open channel. “We’re on the roof of the tallest building on the southern edge of the city block we inserted at.” Kage quickly used their com signal to pinpoint their location and send a waypoint to Jason’s display, allowing him to fly directly to them.

  “Heads up, guys, we’ll be coming in hot,” Jason warned them. He came in as close as he dared before pulling the nose up and flaring, bleeding off speed and bringing the ship to a rough hover over the roof. Kage activated the containment field to pull them off the rooftop and into the ship as soon as Jason edged over into position.

  “We’ve got them, securing hatch and bringing the ventral shields back up,” Kage said. Jason hammered down on the controls and the ship surged forward just as the first shots from their pursuers began bouncing off the aft shields. The ship streaked through the sky and overflew the original target, now a smoking crater, one last time.

  “Take a sensor sweep of the target, we’ll analyze it later,” he said as he climbed up and out of the city. As soon as they overflew the site, Jason didn’t try to be creative in their escape; he pointed the nose of the gunship straight up and slammed the grav-drive to full power. It was only as they transitioned from the thermosphere into the exosphere that Jason began to unclench his muscles. There was no sign of pursuit from the surface and they hadn’t detected any space-based defensive capability on the way in. For the moment it appeared they were safe.

  Jason accepted the first waypoint from Kage’s station and engaged the slip-drive while they were still in-system. Once the canopy darkened and the weapons were powered down, Jason could feel the tension in his neck and shoulders and the sweat that caused his shirt to cling to him. He looked around at his bridge crew, “Well, that didn’t go exactly as planned.”

  “No, it didn’t,” Doc agreed, obviously frustrated as the rest of the crew made their way onto the
bridge, including Twingo. “I’d feel better knowing we got her, but taking that facility out is a huge blow to their operation.”

  “And also painted a huge target on our backs,” Twingo said.

  “I’d say that was a given after The Vault—” Jason began, but was interrupted by an alert on his com panel. A slip-space communication was coming through, and it was specifically coming through to the ship’s transponder code. Whoever it was knew exactly what ship they were contacting. With a feeling of dread, Jason activated the link and sent it to the main canopy display. He instantly regretted it as Bondrass’ face appeared, larger than life, on the enormous display. The crime boss was enraged beyond description as his skin kept shifting colors and his eyes threatened to bulge from his head.

  “YOU! Did you think you could steal from me and hide?!” Bondrass was screaming with barely contained fury. “You’ve sealed your fate! Where is Deetz?!” Jason looked at the others in confusion. Apparently Bondrass was behind on his intel.

  “He’s currently unavailable,” Jason said blandly. “Would you like me to give him a message?” Bondrass screamed in wordless fury and lashed out at the display with his claws. While he was still spouting gibberish and baring his teeth, someone slipped him a tablet display with something written on it. The boss read it and paled instantly to a light green. He looked up at the camera with a look of shock and horror written on his face.

  “What have you done? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!” Bondrass screamed. He pointed at Doc, “Do you understand what you’ve done?!”

  “Completely,” Doc said unflappably, walking into the video frame.

  “I’m going to make you regret this,” Bondrass hissed, focusing on him. “I’ll keep you alive for decades so I can torture you slowly. I’ll—” Lines of video interference ran through the feed as Bondrass and his aide seemed to sway on their feet. “What was that?”