Stars & Empire: 10 Galactic Tales

by Jay Allan

  The overlord shook his head. “No, like you I also have to struggle to imagine that the galaxy as we once knew it is gone.”

  “Well, at least you saw some of the war.” Ethan turned back to the transpiranium, his eyes glazing over as he looked out the hangar to the starless void of Dark Space beyond. “You witnessed the destruction,” Ethan said distantly. “You know what it is we ran from. I keep thinking that someday my sentence in here is going to end, and I’ll wake up back in my bed to find that this has all just been a bad dream.”

  He imagined that he’d wake up back on Roka IV, lying beside his wife Destra. He had nightmares like that. But then he’d wake up and realize that the dream had been a good one and it was reality which was the nightmare. In those dreams his son Atton would come running in and jump on the bed. He’d tell them that they had to get up or they’d miss it. Miss what? He’d say. The avalanche! Atton would reply. Then Ethan would groan and roll over like he always did. There was an avalanche every other hour on Roka, thanks to the mining in the mountains. Soon as the miners woke up, they started blasting, and then the snow came cascading down from those rigid peaks. Ethan smiled sadly. Then Atton will ask me to take him gliding, and I’ll remind him that he has to be at least 10 before he can go gliding with me.

  Ethan sighed. “I wish I could see Roka again, the way it used to be.” He wasn’t just talking about the cities and the landscape, but the overlord couldn’t know that.

  Ethan felt a hand land heavily on his shoulder, and he turned to see the overlord staring at him intently, his blue eyes shining with suspicious moisture.

  “I know,” Dominic whispered. “Immortals willing, we’ll see it all again someday.”

  “Right,” Ethan nodded. “Someday.” But he was never going to see his son again. Or his wife. There was no someday that could bring them back.

  A few seconds later, they heard a screech of brakes and the swish of doors opening which drew their eyes to the far end of the concourse and the rail car tunnel there. They watched as the first pilots began streaming into the concourse.

  “By the Immortals, I don’t believe my eyes! Is that the overlord?” one of them asked.

  “I think so,” another said.

  “I haven’t seen him in years!”

  “We saw him just yesterday in the holocasts.”

  “I meant in the flesh.”

  The group stopped before the overlord and stood at attention. “Sir!” They saluted as one.

  “At ease,” Dominic said. “How many of you are there?”

  One officer took a step forward and said, “Twenty-three, sir.” The rank insignia on his shoulder marked him as a Lieutenant Commander. A second later, Ethan recognized him as none other than Vance “Scorcher” Rangel. Ethan’s gaze quickly skipped over the group of assembled officers and he found four more familiar faces: Gina, Ithicus, Deck Commander Loba Caldin, and the curly blond-haired pilot named Taz. Ethan frowned. Most of the survivors were nova pilots.

  The overlord appeared to notice that, too. “Nova pilots to my left,” he said, gesturing with his left hand. “Starship crew to my right,” he went on, gesturing with his right. “Engineers and technicians in the middle.”

  Once the assembled officers had been divided, Ethan noticed that there were only two crewmen and one engineer in the entire group.

  The overlord shook his head. “Well, we have a few squadrons of novas here, but not much else.”

  “Let’s wait for the others to arrive,” Ethan said.

  That was when Gina chose to speak up. “Adan, what are you doing up there?” The overlord turned to her. “Sorry, sir, but you should know that he’s a nova pilot, not a command counselor.”

  “I’ll decide what he is and what he isn’t, thank you.” The overlord’s gaze moved on as another rail car arrived and spilled men and women into the concourse. The overlord called out once more as they approached, telling them to divide into nova pilots, engineers, and starship crew. Now there were just over fifty officers assembled, fully twenty of whom were nova pilots.

  Dominic turned to Ethan. “How much time has passed?”

  “Ten minutes, sir.”

  “They have another five, then.”

  By the time the third rail car arrived, all 97 survivors were assembled in the concourse, and six more minutes had elapsed. “That’s it,” the overlord said. And as if to punctuate that pronouncement, a violent explosion rocked the deck beneath their feet and rumbled ominously through the walls around them. Ethan saw the transpiranium wall of the starboard hangar jitter with residual vibrations, momentarily blurring his view of the venture-class cruiser beyond. Everyone turned to look out the empty hangar on the opposite side of the concourse just in time to see a whole squadron of Brondi’s junk fighters begin pouring bright yellow ripper fire into the port hangar’s shields. Lying in wait just beyond those shields were an old beat up troop transport and Brondi’s gleaming black and silver corvette.

  The overlord turned back to his crew. “Looks like we’re out of time. Anyone with even partial experience in bridge control systems, follow me. Nova pilots, head to the hangar aboard the Defiant and get ready to launch. Sentinels, you can either come with us or stay back to slow them down, but I can’t guarantee we’ll be able to come back for you. Engineers to the flight deck with the pilots. Ruh-kah!” Death and glory.

  And with that, the overlord turned to the starboard hangar door controls and passed his wrist over the scanner. The first set of doors opened, followed promptly by the second, and then the entire group rushed into the hangar and on for the waiting cruiser.

  CHAPTER 17

  Ethan Ortane hurriedly peeled out of his hazmat suit, leaving the constituent pieces on the hangar deck aboard the Defiant, and then he rushed into the cockpit of the nearest nova. It was a Mark II, an interceptor, but Ethan didn’t have time to switch to one of the more familiar Mark I’s. At least the speed of the interceptor would come in handy keeping him alive. As the canopy closed, Ethan punched the ignition and the fighter’s reactors spun to life with a soft whirring that quickly rose in volume and pitch. Ethan hadn’t had time to find a flight suit; he just hoped nothing happened to compromise the integrity of his cockpit.

  Display screens flickered to life inside the cockpit, followed by the glowing green of the heads-up display. System reports bubbled up from his displays, and Ethan quickly skipped through them all in order to complete an abbreviated preflight check. His fighter faced out the hangar bay of the cruiser. Through the opening he watched as the half a dozen sentinels in the carrier’s concourse began suiting up in zephyr light assault mechs. One of them had even managed to find a giant, 150-ton Colossus to pilot. Those six sentinels had chosen to stay behind and guard the Valiant. But they didn’t stand a chance. The most they could hope for would be to buy time for the Defiant. Ethan took some comfort in knowing that at least the mechs’ armored exoskeletons would protect the sentinels for a time against Brondi’s thousands of troops.

  Suddenly, the Defiant’s static shields snapped to life, turning Ethan’s view a fuzzy blue. Then came the not-so-distant roar of the Defiant’s thrusters firing, and they were sliding out of the carrier’s massive hangar bay and falling freely toward the ice world of Firea, far below the carrier.

  In the next instant Ethan’s comm system flared to life. It was Lieutenant Commander Vance Rangel. “All right, pilots. I’m sending you your squadron designations now. Most of us are strangers here, so don’t complain about your squad and wing assignments. Guardian Squadron will fly out first, followed by Avenger Squadron. Guardians, you’re flying in the Mark II’s. The Avengers are flying in the Mark I’s. Our primary objective is the troop transport. The Avengers will take it out with their torpedoes while the Guardians keep enemy fighters off their backs. Any questions?”

  Ethan watched as his own wing assignment came in, and he saw that he was designated Guardian Five, and flying beside him would be Marksman Gina Giord, Guardian Six. Great, he thought, ca
sting a quick glance out the side of his cockpit to see Gina already scowling at him from the interceptor adjacent to his.

  Ethan gave her a mock salute and then keyed his comm to ask the squadron leader, “What’s the Defiant going to be targeting with her beam cannons?”

  “Same as the Avengers, if she can,” Vance replied. “We have a shortage of officers with gunnery training aboard, but hopefully the crews will pick it up fast enough.”

  “Roger that.” Ethan watched with a frown as a junk fighter roared past the open hangar of the Defiant, spitting golden ripper fire through the static shields and rattling a few novas in their docking clamps before they even had a chance to takeoff. Fortunately the novas had their shields engaged.

  In the next instant, Ethan heard Vance yelling over the comm. “Defiant, get those hangar bay shields up before they pick us off the deck!”

  Another voice came on a moment later, “Sorry about that.” It was the supreme overlord. “Shields are up now. The launch tubes are energized. You can takeoff whenever you’re ready.”

  “Roger that, Command. Send the launch codes. We’re ready.”

  Ethan’s fighter beeped at him and the nav began flashing with a message saying, autopilot engaged, which was repeated by a female computer voice that sounded just beside his ears.

  “You heard the overlord!” squadron leader Vance Rangel said. “Get ready! Guardians will be the first ones out the launch tubes. Remember to keep those enemy fighters busy!”

  Ethan watched as the foremost pair of nova interceptors in his squadron began rising on their grav lifts. They ignited their ternary thrusters in a starburst flare of blue ion emissions, sending them jetting toward the glowing red launch tubes in the side wall of the hangar. Ethan watched out the side of his canopy as the interceptors disappeared into those launch tubes with a brilliant flash, and then the pair of fighters directly ahead of him began rising on their grav lifts. He and Gina were up next. Ethan’s comm flashed with an incoming message from his wingmate, and her voice filled his cockpit. “Don’t frek this up, Adan. I’m counting on you.”

  “Likewise,” he commed back.

  And then they were both automatically rising on their grav lifts and jetting toward the glowing red launch tubes. Ethan saw the opening of his launch tube rushing toward him, looking impossibly tiny for his interceptor, and he had a sudden, visceral vision of his nova missing by a narrow margin and exploding on the rim.

  But the autopilot didn’t miss, and he glided straight in. A second later the glowing red tube flashed brightly with a release of energy, and he was pinned against his flight chair as his nova rocketed out the back of the Defiant and into space. A quick glance at his HUD showed he’d already reached his interceptor’s top acceleration of 185 KAPS. Ethan’s targeting computer flagged half a dozen red bracket pairs for him straight away—six junk fighters flying toward him in a staggered line formation.

  “Incoming enemy fighters!” Gina screamed.

  They watched as the first two Guardians cruised through the enemy fighter formation, roaring at them with a stream of red dymium pulse lasers. Guardian Two attracted too much attention to herself and the enemy fighters zeroed in on her with their ripper cannons. Streams of golden projectiles converged on her.

  “Get clear Two!” her wingmate, Vance Rangel, yelled over the comm. A second later, Ethan watched her fighter explode in a brilliant orange fireball, and he heard her dying scream echo through his cockpit.

  Seeing that outcome, Three and Four quickly peeled off from their head-to-head with the enemy formation, leaving Guardian One alone behind enemy lines.

  “Form up, Six,” Ethan said to Gina. “We’re going to rescue Lead. Switch to Hailfires. These junkers have strong hulls, but they’re not fast enough or maneuverable enough to evade tracking weapons.”

  “Switching now…”

  Ethan followed his own advice and began acquiring a missile lock on the nearest junk fighter. It was flying toward him at a pitiful 68 KAPS, and at 3.5 kilometers away, it was just out of laser and ripper range. Abruptly Ethan’s targeting computer gave the solid tone of a missile lock, and his targeting reticle turned red. Ethan pulled the trigger and let fly two Hailfires. He watched them jet out on cold blue contrails, and then in his periphery he saw another two launched by Gina. The missiles quickly dwindled into darkness as their primary thrusters burned out. Just moments later, bright sparks flew as those four missiles burst into sixteen smaller warheads and their thrusters engaged, each of them locking onto and tracking a separate enemy target. Almost immediately following that came a blinding pair of explosions as two of the enemy fighters flew apart. Their shrapnel caught a third, sending it careening off toward the planet below.

  “Ruh-kah, kakard!” Ethan whooped.

  “Nice work, Guardians,” Vance replied. “Two and Three, you’re with me now, form up.”

  Ethan watched on his scopes as the two fighters which had peeled off earlier arced back into the fray just above his and Gina’s position. The three remaining enemy fighters turned and ran, and a moment later they began firing a steady stream of ripper fire at Guardian One.

  Vance came back on the comm, sounding tense. “A little help here?”

  “On our way,” Ethan commed back. “Fire your afterburners, Six.”

  Gina clicked her comm to acknowledge, and then Ethan fired his afterburners to catch up to the enemy fighters. He heard his thrusters roar suddenly louder, and he felt his nova begin to shudder and shake. The acceleration pinned him against his seat, since the inertial management system was set to 90%. The exhilaration of it was a palpable force rising up in Ethan’s chest. He’d been born for this. He felt at once powerful, free, and incredibly vulnerable—surrounded by deep space, not even clothed in the protective layers of a flight suit. All that separated him from the abyss was a thin bubble of transpiranium and his skill in the cockpit. One sustained burst of ripper fire to his canopy and his fighter would crack open, spilling him into space. In minutes his blood would boil and his body would freeze as stiff as a duranium sheet.

  Ethan gave an involuntary shiver and grinned. What a thrill!

  The comm crackled. “I can’t … keep this … up…” Vance said.

  That brought Ethan back to the moment. He found Guardian One on his scopes. Vance was juking and jinking desperately in order to evade the converging torrents of ripper fire from three enemy fighters at once.

  Ethan’s range to the nearest of the three ticked down to five kilometers. “Hold on, Lead. We’re almost there,” Ethan commed back.

  A few seconds later, the range dropped from five klicks to four, and Ethan began hearing a missile lock tone beep-beep-beeping from his targeting computer. He released the afterburner switch in order to steady his aim, and as soon as the computer gave him solid tone, Ethan let fly two more Hailfires. He watched the bright orange glow of their thrusters dwindle into the distance, holding his breath and chewing his lip as he saw Guardian One taking fire. They’ll make it, Ethan thought as the Hailfires reached 500 meters to target. They have to make it.

  And then Guardian One exploded in an angry red fireball.

  CHAPTER 18

  “I’m trying to call for reinforcements, sir, but the comm relays are down.”

  “Again?”

  “Yes , sir.”

  Supreme Overlord Dominic glared out the Defiant’s forward viewports at the roiling fireballs of fighters which were exploding all around them—both enemy junkers and imperial novas. He paced up to the captain’s table and studied the holographic displays there. He saw a 3D projection of the Defiant in the center, with clouds of angry red junkers swarming around her while a small compliment of green novas flitted through those, spitting red pulse lasers and streaking Hailfire missiles. Even as the overlord watched, one of those green novas exploded as three enemy fighters converged on it from behind. That was Guardian One. Dominic grimaced and shook his head. Here he could see the battle from a bird’s eye view, and already, at j
ust five minutes in, it wasn’t looking good. There were six junkers to every nova, and half of the novas had instructions to ignore enemy fighters and line up for torpedo runs on the enemy troop transports, which meant the 12 interceptors of Guardian Squadron were facing down 12 whole squadrons of junkers all by themselves. Twelve to one. No nova pilot was good enough to survive those odds for long.

  The overlord saw the enemy troop ships—a corvette and an old gallant-class hovering in the near-distance off the Defiant’s bow. They were perfectly within beam range, but the gunners were still below decks getting their training from the solitary officer who actually had any, and it would be a few more minutes before they could open fire.

  Dominic watched a whole squadron of junkers lining up on the Defiant and he had a bad feeling crawl into the pit of his stomach. “Comms, get the Guardians on missile defense, now! We have an enemy squadron, bearing 9-7-11 coming about on a torpedo run.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  The overlord watched for a few tense minutes as the enemy fighters grew closer and closer to their port side. The Guardians came about and closed to within missile range of the enemy fighters, but before they could do anything, the enemy squadron dropped a volley of twelve torpedoes on the Defiant’s tail. The Guardians were too far away to shoot those warheads down.

  “Deploy EM flares!” Dominic yelled. A sparkling cloud of flares shot out behind the ship, but it only caught five of the twelve torpedoes. The other seven were still racing toward the Defiant’s thruster banks. “Brace for impact!”

  Suddenly the Defiant rocked with an explosion and Dominic saw the aft shields turn red. A damage report came up, warning that the port thruster was damaged and now operating at 56% efficiency. The enemy squadron roared out over the bridge, causing everyone on deck to reflexively duck. “Engineering, equalize those shields before they line up for another pass!” Dominic said as he watched the bright orange wave of the enemy fighters’ thruster trails diminishing into the distance.