The Corrupted Star

by Martin HC

  “You may call yourself Mergence but if what you say is true, then you know nothing of our morals, Captain,” Y'Riell scathed.

  Unphased by the rebuke, Hoult answered calmly.

  “But I am Mergence all the same, Admiral,” Hoult told her flatly. “Consider, although we were carrying out the actions, entities from within our own government and higher fleet command have been giving the orders. As I explained, we were ordered to harass and destabilise key Ferren economies closest to our borders, while they've been expanding out in the opposite direction. These actions were intended to have them look our way again, to increase tensions and set about an imbalance which would eventually lead to conflict.”

  She was right, she'd been operating as part of a dark fleet, commissioned by her own government, carrying out their instructions, and they most likely weren't the only ones.

  “Who ordered your fleet into the Darkspace?”

  “I do not know who gave the order. Haithe, our fleet commander was instructed to take us in after the fugitives. We travelled for a while unmolested before picking up a signal, at first we thought it was the Darkspace enemy, but it turned out be something different. We found who we were looking for, along with something much more wondrous Admiral. We found a structure built around a star, I'm uploading the data we have on it.”

  “And the rest of your fleet, was it the stealth ship that destroyed them?”

  “No, we cannot determine whether the enemy followed us by coincidence by this point, or if the stealth ship is working with them,” she answered, her eyes dropping slightly. “It didn't matter, they came all the same, an energy wave shut down every drive, no one could move, then the dying started.”

  “How did you escape?”

  “Our drives were modified to resist the effects of the pulse wave, it had obviously never been tested as only the seven ships here had gotten our drives working again.”

  Y'Riell's display flashed as a message overlaid the captain's image, a priority message from her command team.

  '- Begin - Darkspace signal detected by both the deep space sensor stations and fleet, signal strength and variation indicates a single ship. - End - ' her heart sunk.

  “Captain, we've just detected the Darkspace ship signal, you've brought them out with you, you let them follow you right back to Mergence space,” Y'Riell snapped, her eyes drilling into Hoult.

  “That can't be, they were to follow the satellites,” Hoult answered back in disbelief.

  “Well there's one here now, and what satellites, Captain?”

  Hoult's calm demeanour fell apart at hearing the Admirals words, she deflated, as she appeared to read a message of her own off screen, her eyes dropped and she couldn't find the courage to look back at Y'Riell.

  “I don't expect we will live out the day Admiral, we must fight them here, they can not be allowed to enter our space unrestricted. The final objective for Haithe, if everything else was to fall apart the way it did, was to fire off communications satellites towards the heart of Ferren space.”

  “That... that is horrifying, Captain. This a war crime,” Y'Riell's shock was clear.

  “We only found out of his plans at the last minute, he ordered us to provide cover for him while the fleet was being wiped out, we refused and fled back here instead,” she answered the Admiral, Hoult straightened herself now, an intensity filling her features as she spoke again. “Admiral, I am requesting permission for us to join your fleet, to engage in combat manoeuvres and help destroy the enemy. We will fight at the front, hopefully our memories can be forgiven, if we are the first to die in defence of humanity.”

  Y'Riell never dropped her glare as she considered the other woman's words, most infuriatingly she knew she couldn't take her up on the offer. Hoult knew too much and her ship had a working example of a modified star drive, one that resisted their enemies attempt to disable her, it had to be studied. If the Darkspace terrors were showing themselves again, they would need all the edge they could get.

  “Your request for combat is denied, the modifications to your drives must be studied, made better, you also know too much of background events,” Y'Riell concluded. “You will join the fleet and take up positions to the rear. If you truly wish to atone for your actions Captain, you will survive today to tell me everything you know.”

  “It will be as you command, Admiral,” Hoult braced up and saluted the admiral, then killed the channel.

  Heroes Die

  The wait was intense, the signal grew continuously in strength and as instructed, the rogue hunter ships began moving towards the fleet.

  “What was that?” Y'Riell shouted out across the deck.

  “One of the hunter ships blew, a second just followed.”

  “Have we got any eyes on the enemy?”

  “No ma'am, nothing, we can't even pinpoint the location of the signal source.”

  “Let's begin predicting the location, try to use the destruction of those ships to narrow its direction of travel.”

  The seconds ticked by and three more hunter ships died, the crew's of the sixth and seventh ships decided not to wait and began abandoning their vessels.

  “Ma'am, the last of the hunter ships has just been destroyed, the majority of their crews escaped and the last ejected her core and star drive.”

  “Note the location, we will need to collect them after the fight, it holds a prototype upgrade to help combat the enemies drive inhibitor.”

  She wasn't even certain if they would make it through the battle alive, they were now about to face off against one of the dreaded Darkspace nightmares. She could see fear in the eyes of her team, she felt the same fear and knew it would be rife throughout the fleet.

  “Estimate sixty seconds, six, zero seconds until we come under fire,” a strong and loud voice called out.

  “Open a fleet-wide channel,” Y'Riell commanded.

  “Channel open.”

  “People of the fleet, soldiers and spacers, we are about to engage in fleet action against a Darkspace enemy, we must fight back this threat, even if it means our own lives. If that ship makes it past us, then it's the billions of innocent civilians that will suffer, we serve to protect those people, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters, we sacrifice so that they may live, and we will not fail them.”

  Her team all turned to hear her speak, the fear was still there but something else pushed through, purpose, the passion to protect and they would do their duties, all of them.

  The first ships died as the invisible enemy began to penetrate in towards the centre of their fleet. Every battlegroup spread out to extreme ranges from one another, in an attempt to scatter themselves as they hunted for the ship that was killing them. Four cruisers had fallen and no one had so much as fired a return shot.

  “There ma'am, it's making its way through between battlegroups four and seven.”

  “What are they doing now?”

  “Bombardment protocols have begun and the remaining battlegroups are repositioning to more effective supporting positions, both battlegroups four and seven are moving to engage the supposed enemy position.”

  “That will put them into the bombardment zones, what are they thinking?”

  Ship after ship from battlegroup four died faster than she'd known possible, battlegroup two was now moving to support and eventually replace their dying comrades.

  This was the part she hated most, the battlegroup commanders would run the fight and their individual battlegroups, all under the supervision of her flagship's captain, Hilden. He had ultimate tactical and fleet authority during any form of military action.

  Although she was a fleet admiral, in combat she was a passenger for the most part. Hilden's rank of captain was purely customary in title, he actually held the rank of an admiral but in fleet the rank of captain was always given to a ship's commander. So customarily he would adopt the title of captain, while still holding the entire authority of a tactical command admiral.

  She w
atched as more ships died, battlegroup four had almost been wiped out and seven were taking losses now too.

  Battlegroup three began to move, adopting a role similar to two as they worked to pinpoint their enemy.

  It was an easy tactic to understand, as barbaric as it was, send in ship after ship to keep it in a single location until they could find it, but then something else happened, something she hadn't expected, a new star was born where the remaining ships of four were fighting to their last.

  “That was an antimatter detonation,” her tactical informed her. “The remainder of battlegroup four is gone and the blast took half of seven too.”

  “We can see the enemy now,” she was informed by another member of her tactical team.

  “What happened?” she shouted, rage seeping its way through her voice. “Was that an enemy weapon?”

  The new star began to fade now, its energy falling away.

  “No ma'am, it was Starfyre four. We're searching through the sensor logs, it looks like she ejected her core and dropped the containments,” another said, answering her question before summarising slowly, with disbelief. “They killed themselves.”

  “Starfyre four, you're telling me battlegroup four's command vessel intentionally blew itself up, taking some of seven's with it?”

  “Yes ma'am.”

  “What do we have on the enemy?” she asked, taking time to consider what happened.

  “The antimatter detonation has definitely damaged it, the remainder of seven has opened up with their pulse cannons. Battlegroup two is in lance range but the ship is so fast they're struggling to hit it, it will take them another thirty seconds at least to reach their own pulse cannon range.”

  The tactical map now highlighted the visible target, tracking as it changed direction, now moving towards the targets closest to it, battlegroup seven.

  Seven's pulse cannons beat against a flaring shield, lighting it up brighter and brighter, they had it she thought, almost climbing out of her seat as the target disappeared again.

  “Did we get it? has it been destroyed?”

  “Confirming,” there was a tense few seconds before the operator told them all the devastating news. “She's not dead, the signal is still there, her stealth is back up.”

  “Dammit,” she shouted at no one.

  This time the anger wasn't just seeping out, if it was made of water then she'd be sat in a pool, all the more so when seven started taking losses again.

  “Get me Captain Hilden,” she ordered.

  There was no confirmation, the captains face merely appeared on a display at her side, he looked at her, irritation in his eyes.

  “Admiral?”

  “What happened to Starfyre four? Was it suicide? That ship took half a battlegroup with it,” her eyes were as hard as his.

  “I understand your anger, it hurts us all but that sacrifice damaged the enemy and exposed a weakness in their stealth. Battlegroup two will be in pulse range of seven in a few seconds now, they are at full strength, this will be over soon.”

  “Pulse range? Full strength? You can't seriously intend to sacrifice another battlegroup, Captain?”

  “We are too few to fight back this enemy, it is invisible to us, faster than us, has a much more powerful weapon than we do and is shielded, there is no choice.”

  A second burst of light lit up space, a second sun as big and bright as the first erupted into being.

  “Report,” Hilden barked.

  She couldn't see the spacer who answered but could hear him all the same.

  “Starfyre seven just detonated her core, the blast is subsiding now and telemetry is coming in,” came the answer to his order, it took a few agonising seconds for the man to speak again. “Telemetry confirms complete destruction of Starfyre seven, also caught in the blast were three cruisers and a battleship from two. Enemy stealth is down and they are reporting eyes on target, engaging with pulse cannons, battlegroup three is in lance range, battlegroup six is moving now to replace two.”

  “Six is moving to replace two?” she asked quietly, “you intend to keep sacrificing them?”

  Hilden looked back to Y'Riell, there was a pain in her eyes as she stared back at him in disbelief. She never in her life thought fleet losses could be measured in terms of entire battlegroups, speaking as if they were individual ships. He spoke softly to her now, calmly and quietly.

  “Admiral..., Nielsis,” he said, using her first name. “This is how it has to be, this was their plan and they understand what they're doing, they are making the sacrifices necessary for us to win.”

  She only nodded in solemn reply, then cut the channel.

  One Problem After Another

  “Tira can we go any faster?” Haydn asked her. “We have to get there, now.”

  “I'm trying,” she bit back. “If I had my carrier I could just short hop it, but I don't, cause someone just loves pressing flashing buttons.”

  “Oh come on, you can't still be holding that against me.”

  “Carrier?” Jill asked.

  “I'll tell you later,” Haydn replied. “Will we get there in time?”

  “Maybe, I don't know.”

  They were watching the fleet battle. It wasn't the true battle, but a computer generated simulation based on what Tira was seeing, a very realistic and detailed simulation.

  The sacrifices being made by the Mergence fleet were astounding, Tira explained to Haydn and Jill what they were doing, and why. In all the time since his journey began with Tira, he'd never witnessed such powerful acts of bravery and sacrifice, they were dying in swathes to give the others something to target, and despite their impending deaths none of Y'Riell's captains broke formation.

  What they weren't aware of, was the six new enemy closing in on them, arriving with the capacity to tear their ability to manoeuvre away, and with that particular ability gone, there was little chance of anything more than dying gracefully.

  “Incoming transmission, it's the Ophelia.”

  “Damon is calling us, now?” Jill Asked.

  “Answer it,” Haydn told Tira.

  “Really, should I, I was thinking of just leaving him on hold for eternity.”

  “Really, what is with yo...” Haydn was cut short on his rebuke as a face filled the display in front, only it wasn't Damon's.

  “Well now, it is nice seeing the three of you again,” Feissa told the surprised faces, a wily fox like grin spreading across her flawless features.

  “Feissa! what are you doing there?” Tira snapped at her. “Where's Damon and the others?”

  “Damon is otherwise engaged at the moment, and I'm here in this tiny cupboard of a room, to speak with you,” her eyes wandered around the edges of her tiny cubicle as she answered. “Honestly, why would you build an instantaneous communications array, fit one single dial out button and install it into a space so small?”

  “There's only two of them, one's here and the other's there hence the single button, as for the size, that's how Tira built it, she's not gotten around to making it bigger.”

  “Yes sure no problem, it's my fault it's too small, nothing to do with your lack of instructions.”

  Haydn looked at Tira, she was in a mood, he was absolutely certain of it now, but couldn't for the life of him figure out what he'd done wrong. The stale air between them was also noticed by Feissa, who just couldn't help herself.

  “Oh, things are looking a little glum, I can feel the tension between you two from here.”

  “The tension between us is just fine as it is and if anything has happened to anyone on the Ophelia, I swear when I catch up to you, which I will, you'll feel much worse than our tension,” Tira told her, her eyes dark and tone low. “What do you want?”

  “Oh my sweet, I can assure you I haven't harmed any of your friends and have no intent to do so. Rambling old fools and mutes are not my style,” she answered, before her foxlike smile faded. “That's not to say they're safe.”

  “What do you mean, expl
ain?” Tira demanded.

  “My elder sisters want back the weapon that you took. and so I having lost it, was given two paths. To die, or to find you and recover it. However, I'm fully aware of the power you possess and how little prepared we all are against it. To fight you would be suicide, but my sisters have turned on me, which is why I choose to take my own path instead, one that helps us all.”

  “And the others, what has happened to them?”

  “I came to meet the Ophelia, bringing only the engineer as leverage to gain entry, one sister watches my every move, the other has the mute. A Ferren fleet waits for our return, commanded by a beast of a man named Babaidou who wants you captured, it's the same fleet that attacked the Mergence.”