Resolute Omnibus (The War for Terra)

by James Prosser

  The natives gulped and made a sound that Jakes had identified as laughter. Some of the bigger Karisiens were carrying the bodies of the soldiers and dropping them into the deeper part of the local swamp. Jakes was having a hard time reconciling the business-like way that the aliens were treating the bodies with the gentle methods they had used to heal him. The damage that Heyerdahl had inflicted on Tuxor must have finally pushed the peaceful amphibians over the edge.

  “Connor!” yelled Melaina as she slopped through the swamp. “Are you alright?”

  “I’m fine, Precious,” the captain replied, straightening up despite the pain. “They didn’t touch me. I’m saving myself for you.”

  Melaina stopped just before she reached Jakes, turning up her nose as she inhaled the pungent odors of the swamp where Jakes had been swimming. She had been traveling behind the group and Jakes had insisted that she stay safe while he distracted the invaders. Sergeant Moore had protested putting their safety in his hands, but he had pulled the man aside and asked which of the two of them Moore would have rather seen dead. Moore agreed that Jakes should go and agreed to stay with Melaina and his men while the Karisiens took care of the Ch’Tauk.

  There was a sound of thunder in the distance and the group turned to look towards the horizon. A plume of smoke rose from where they knew another of the landers had settled. Henry Moore came through the swamp, splashing and struggling to move through the thick mud. He had used the transmitter from the ship that they had already captured and re-tuned it to Alliance frequencies. He now held the device to his ear as he came closer to Jakes.

  “It’s the Zeus,” Moore explained. “They sent Vultures down to bomb the Ch’Tauk.”

  “Then we had better get back to the bunker before they come after this one,” suggested Tuxor. “We can signal them after the battle if they are still up there.”

  No one had wanted to voice the thought that the Alliance might not be winning the battle over Karisia. They had ventured out of the bunker after Heyerdahl’s death to find dozens of Ch’Tauk landers all over the swamp. It had been Moore’s suggestion to liberate the closest one and try to signal the ships in orbit. When they could not tune the Alliance in, Jakes had sent a message to the Ch’Tauk dreadnought. He did not know if the bugs had understood him, but it felt good to send the message anyway.

  “I think it might be better if we got this one airborne,” replied Jakes. “We can get it back to where we hid the Gilbert’s Luck and then tried to get off of this mud hole. Sorry, Tuxor.”

  “You are standing in a hole filled with mud, my friend,” replied the alien. “So no insult is taken.”

  “Are you out of your mind,” asked Moore. “They’ll blow us out of the sky as soon as we take off. If the bugs don’t, then our own people certainly will.”

  “We’ll set up a new transponder and signal the Vultures as we take off,” replied Jakes. “I’ve done it before, Sarge.”

  “I’ll bet you have,” said Moore, closing on Jakes and raising his own rifle. “But this ain’t like boosting a yacht. This is a Ch’Tauk invasion lander and I don’t see any Ch’Tauk around to tell us how to fly it.”

  “Actually, Sergeant Moore,” interrupted one of the Karisiens. “We can translate the language and fly the ship if we need to. We are familiar with the design.”

  “I been meanin’ to ask you about that since Harpy Station, Tuxor,” said Jakes. “Just how is it that you all know how to speak bug?”

  “We were taught, Captain Jakes, by the beings the Ch’Tauk call the Engineers,” replied Tuxor, looking at Jakes and rubbing his side. “They were the creatures who designed this ship and all of the others in the Ch’Tauk fleet.”

  “The Engineers,” Jakes asked, stepping away from Moore and closer to Tuxor. “Well ain’t you guys supposed to be engineers?”

  “We are mostly caretakers, Captain Jakes,” responded one of the females. “The Engineers have a knowledge of matter and energy that is beyond most of us.”

  “Well, where are these Engineers?” asked Moore. “Maybe the Alliance can contact them and get some useful knowledge about the enemy fleet.”

  “Your Alliance is already in contact with the Engineers, Sergeant Moore,” replied Tuxor. “They are already on your ships.”

  “What are you damn frogs talking about,” said Jakes. “I ain’t never seen no Ch’Tauk engineers on any of our ships.”

  “They are not Ch’Tauk,” replied the female Karisien. “They are the ones you have called Elves.”

  The humans standing in the swamp were shocked. Although they had known that the Karisiens had some connection to the Ch’Tauk Empire, they had always assumed that the amphibians had once been subject to the invading species. Melaina stepped closer to Tuxor with an amazed expression on her face. She had been working with the natives longer than any of them.

  “Tuxor,” she said, looking up at the injured alien. “You mean all that time, you weren’t really the one helping me with the engine?”

  “I was helping, Melaina,” replied Tuxor, placing his lower arm on her shoulder. “But the Elves understand the way the universe works at a level that neither of us could possibly imagine.”

  “No wonder you could never get those equations right back in the lab,” she said, shrugging off the flat flipper. “And why you have avoided working with the Alliance on engineering projects. You are a fake, Tuxor.”

  The woman swung her arm around and slapped the moist arm of her long-time friend. She did no damage to the strong amphibian, but she felt better for having done it. Tuxor looked sad as he stared down at Melaina with his big dark eyes. He did not reach out to her again, but looked up to the other humans, his expression pleading for understanding.

  “Look,” said Jakes, still trying to wipe off mud from his arms. “I hate to break up this therapy session, but we really get going before someone decides we’re a target.”

  Melaina walked away from Tuxor and towards the landing craft. She refused to look back at the amphibian as he stood in the swamp. Henry Moore moved to stand between the big alien and Melaina as the other Karisiens began to gather themselves and head towards the ship. Jakes approached Tuxor, a strange expression on his face.

  “You blew it, big guy,” he said. “She’ll forgive you in time, but I would watch my egg sac if I were you.”

  “Mister Jakes,” replied Tuxor. “I am a male, I carry no egg sac.”

  “I’ll explain it to you later,” Jakes said, turning to look at the landing craft. “In the meantime, I gotta ask you. How did the Elves design all these ships for the bugs? I mean, I ain’t never seen more than maybe twenty or so at a time. How many are there?”

  “My friend,” replied Tuxor, waving an upper hand towards one of the other natives. “There are too many to count.”

  The other amphibian joined Tuxor and together, the two Karisiens turned to face each other. As they opened their wide mouths, a sound began to form in the air between them. To Jakes, it sounded like a symphony comprised of deep booming cellos and buzzing electric guitars. The sound began to bloom in the air around them as the volume increased. The other Karisiens approaching the lander stopped and turned, opening their own mouths and joining the song. The air vibrated with the tone of the song, making Jakes feel as if he was sitting on top of an M-space reactor in full power mode.

  As the sound reached a crescendo, Jakes saw a strange sight emerging from the water of the swamp. The little creatures that Melaina had named Elves were rising slowly from the water. They were perfectly white and seemed untouched by the mud and muck that coated Jakes. As their bodies rose above the water, Jakes was amazed at the silence and stillness of their movement. The water did not even seem to ripple as the little creatures seemed to float above the surface. He had never seen any sight that equaled the view he had of hundreds of the creatures bobbed above the water’s surface and began to join in the song.

  The new sound was high, a perfect complement to the deep bass of the Karisiens tune. The harmo
ny seemed to fill every inch of the swamp and through their bodies. The song seemed to give hope to the humans and Karisiens as they stood silently watching the spectacle. Idly, Jakes wondered how they managed to breathe while singing without noses, but the thought drifted away in the song and harmony.

  The noise suddenly stopped, leaving the humans standing in awe of the small creatures. They floated nearer to the Karisiens and began to chitter to the taller creatures. Tuxor responded with a low tone and clicks that seemed to make sense to the Elves. The lead Elf settled to the loamy soil that the Ch’Tauk lander had settled on. The small creature’s eyes turned to Jakes and Moore, still standing outside of the vessel. It made another smaller noise and Tuxor responded.

  “They would like to go with us, Captain Jakes,” said Tuxor, turning to Jakes. “They wish to make right for their mistakes in the past.”

  “What mistakes,” Moore asked. “They haven’t done anything to us.”

  “The Little Ones were once part of the Ch’Tauk society,” Tuxor explained. “They served as scientists and engineers for the Ch’Tauk Emperor centuries ago. It was our friends who designed and built all of the Ch’Tauk technology.”

  “But why would they do that,” Jakes asked. “The Ch’Tauk are conquerors and murderers.”

  “Not when the Little Ones arrived,” replied a female Karisien. “They were just farmers and artists when the ones they call Engineers came to Ch’Tauk. They were trying to help the society grow and reach its potential.”

  “Well, they definitely did that,” replied Jakes. “You mean their potential as genocidal cockroaches.”

  “Captain Jakes,” said Tuxor. “The Ch’Tauk changed when the Little Ones had given them technology. The peaceful race of artists became transfixed on the idea of acquiring power and prestige. When the Little Ones saw what they had done, they left the Ch’Tauk home world, hopeful that without their influence, the culture would revert.”

  “It did not,” said the female again. “The Ch’Tauk have great skill in replicating technology, but none in innovating. The few ships that the Little Ones had created were copied and the Ch’Tauk military class became too powerful. Eventually, their Emperor could not contain the Empire. That bloodline has been corrupted by the pursuit of power as well.”

  “Well, be that as it may, Tuxor,” said Melaina, standing at the top of the ramp. “We really need to get going and if the Elves want to come along, they need to get going.”

  “Melaina,” started Tuxor, stepping closer to the ramp.

  “Don’t Tuxor,” she replied, smiling almost imperceptibly at her friend. “I understand. Your people hid them all these years. You protected the most incredible creatures in the galaxy with your own lives.”

  “Yes, my friend,” Tuxor replied. “And now they intend to protect your people from their creations.”

  “Well then,” Jakes said, interrupting the moment. “Let’s get our asses in the air before someone else decides to start shootin’.”

  27

  Alliance Carrier Baal

  Commodore Ronald Chang had been in the service of the Confederation military since he had voluntarily enlisted at the age of sixteen. During his life, he had held almost every position that the service provide for him. He had been considered one of the most able captains ever to walk the decks of a ship. When the Ch’Tauk had attacked, Chang had been away from the bridge of his ship because an admiral did not want to share power with anyone else.

  Now that he had been promoted to the outdated rank of commodore, he had elected to retain command of the carrier Baal, which had been taken from him by the deranged Admiral Hathaway. On the rebuilt bridge of the carrier, Chang watched the battle on his projected view screen and dared to hope that they might win against the forces that had taken Earth.

  He was worried, however, about the captain of the battleship Resolute. The ship had once been under his own command, but the decision had been made to honor the promotion that Lee Pearce had earned before the invasion and give him the ship that needed him so badly. The aging battleship was demonstrating serious maneuvers that Chang would not have advised for a fighter pilot and seemed hell-bent on self-destruction.

  “Matthias,” Chang ordered the man on the communications terminal. “Get me a channel to Resolute. I want to talk to Pearce.”

  “Aye, sir,” responded the man, tapping keys and trying to contact the battleship. The officer was young and inexperienced. Chang had found him among the junior crew of the cruise liner Terran Princess during repairs to the carrier over a year ago. He had been eager to learn and so Chang had taken an interest in training him for the vital communications station.

  “Resolute reports Captain Pearce is unavailable, sir,” replied Matthias. “I’ve got Commander Farthing on the line.”

  “Commander Farthing,” Chang said, remembering his former communications officer and Pearce’s first officer. “What are your intentions with that ship?”

  “Commodore,” replied Farthing from the speakers. “I am trying to keep this ship together and destroy the enemies, sir.”

  “Where is Captain Pearce, Commander?” Chang asked. “Is he injured?”

  “Negative, Commodore,” replied the felinoid. “He is on his way to the hangar to… how did he put it? Kill the bastard bugs that killed her. I assume he meant pilot Bennett.”

  A chill went through Chang’s blood when he realized what the officer had just said. It had been Alice Bennett that had helped save Ronald Chang and the Resolute from Admiral Hathaway. She had shown skill and daring as a fighter pilot and the commodore respected her abilities. He also knew that Lee Pearce had intended to ask her to marry him. Chang had assisted Lee when he bought the ring on Perigee station. Although he had not known the captain for long, he knew that the man was madly in love with the former deck boss.

  “Farthing, lock down those hangar doors, get Pearce back inside now,” Chang ordered. “He no longer has control of his faculties.”

  “I’m afraid I cannot do that, Commodore,” said Farthing. “He has already left the ship. He moves surprisingly fast for a human.”

  Chang looked back at his holographic displays and tried to find the dot that represented Pearce’s heavily modified Silver Eagle fighter ship. As he scanned the area, he noticed one of the Ch’Tauk capital ships suddenly erupting in plasma flames. As he watched, the ship broke in two pieces and tumbled away. A lone fighter ship burst through the debris filed in between the two halves, trailing fire and alien bodies as it raced on. Chang knew that the Silver Eagle was powerful, but the ship had already taken damage from the cruiser Mars before Lee attacked. It was still a ferocious amount of damage, though, by one small fighter.

  A quick count of the battle showed that the Ch’Tauk forces were quickly being beaten down by the Alliance fleet. Chang’s people had only suffered the loss of the destroyer Culloden one of the logistics ships, the Carnegie. The remainder of the fleet had taken damage, but the ships were still battling the Ch’Tauk forces without backing down. Chang had more respect for the commanders of those ships now than he had ever felt before. These ships had endured hardship and battles to get to this point and none of the captains were backing down. It seemed that humanity’s stand was becoming a disaster for the Ch’Tauk.

  “Get Pearce some cover,” ordered Chang. “I’ll be damned if he gets himself killed before I get a chance to court martial him.”

  “Aye sir,” replied Matthias, relaying the orders to their own squadrons. “Wing commanders report that Pearce is corkscrewing around the battlefield, they cannot keep up.”

  “Call the Demons, if you can. Get someone on his back,” Chang said. “I need Captain Pearce alive.”

  Chang watched as the dot on his display executed acrobatic maneuvers that he had never thought possible. He saw the ship turn on a nearly ninety-degree angle to the battle, arcing up and over the top of three pursuing Ch’Tauk ships. As the ship began to angle behind the alien ships, it flipped over, flying backwards and f
iring its forward cannons into the enemy ships. The move was insane, but Chang recognized it as a classic Pearce maneuvers. The three Ch’Tauk fighters disappeared in a bloom of plasma flame and the Eagle continued towards the enemy dreadnought.

  “Ufiki,” said Chang to one of the pilots down in the pit. “Bring us around. I want to give that fighter as much cover as possible.”

  The pilot’s station, one of two on the wide bridge occupied by a bright red alien with horns, acknowledged the order with a tap on the console. The view on the big projection began to shift as the carrier turned towards the alien dreadnought. Although Baal had been nearly restored to its original condition by the little creatures that Pearce had called Elves, some of her systems were still in need of upgrades and repair. By turning the ship full on into the dreadnought, he was positioning the largest series of cannons towards the attacking ship.

  The dreadnought had not been able to fire the enormous forward cannon since the Demon Squadron had strafed the ship. Apparently, Alice had caused enough damage to the ship to render its strongest weapon inert and ineffective. Chang regretted the woman’s loss again as he watched her lover fire plasma bolts at the massive ship. Baal reached firing range and began to pummel the dreadnought with its own weapons, causing the ship to falter and list slightly in space.

  Ch’Tauk fighters were now swarming over the bow of the carrier, trying to do enough damage to stop its attack. Chang ordered several of his gunners to target the small vessels but they were moving with swiftness borne of desperation, now. It looked to Chang as if the entire invasion fleet was beginning to regroup for an escape. Another of their cruisers exploded, shaking the Baal and causing Chang to grip the sides of his chair.

  “This is too much, Ufiki,” Chang said to the pilot. “Back us off and have the fleet spread out. We are too close.”

  “But Captain,” asked Matthias. “The Ch’Tauk will get away.”