The Shattering: Omnibus

by Van Allen Plexico

  “To just before the cosmic splash,” Torgon said. “I see. Yes.” He paused. “So—it hasn’t happened yet, but we should have enough time to find the cause, and to stop it, then?”

  Solonis gave him a quick, flat smile. “I fervently hope so, Major. I certainly hope so.”

  2

  As vast as it was, the warfleet that dropped hyper just beyond the outermost inhabited world of the Stopholod system represented only a fraction of the former might of the I and III Legions. Many of those legions’ ships had in recent weeks been destroyed in heavy fighting with the alien Rao and with other human empires, particularly the ever-hostile Riyahadi Caliphate. Many others remained in position along the frontiers, supporting planetary actions or escorting troop ships. The fleet that currently sailed along in the wake of the Ascanius represented what had survived and what could be spared—though in truth, given the state of those campaigns, nothing could be spared.

  And so some fifteen mighty starships, a mixture of destroyers, heavy cruisers and carriers, sailed along the path being blazed by the flagship of I Legion, under the overall command of General Ezekial Tamerlane. Each ship was to some degree cylindrical, with a bulging spherical shape somewhere along its length, representing the containment section for the hyperdrive—the inconceivably powerful unit, energized by a tiny, magnetically/gravitically contained black hole, that could rip open a wound in spacetime and thrust the ship through and into the low Above. In that way, the ships were able to take shortcuts from point to point in the real universe, thus allowing for much faster transition times and giving the effect of faster than light travel.

  On the triple-decked bridge level of the Ascanius, General Tamerlane stood facing the broad, curved viewport, his hands clasped behind his back and his demeanor grim. He watched as the normal universe rematerialized around his ship, the black of space and the sparkling stars replacing the hazy, gauzy dimness of the dimension through which they had been traveling.

  “Well done, as always, Captain,” he said over his shoulder to the aged master of the Ascanius, Harras Dequoi. Old Dequoi had served in the Imperial Navy for longer than Tamerlane had been alive, and knew his way around the Empire and associated territories instinctively. Tamerlane doubted a state-of-the-art navigational computer could have dropped the fleet more accurately or with the amazing rapidity that Dequoi had achieved. “Did all the other ships make it through?”

  Dequoi appeared somewhat offended by the question; even the merest hint that he could have lost one of their fleet’s ships in transit hurt his pride. He consulted one of the tactical officers for a moment and then addressed the general in curt tones: “All ships are accounted for, General,” he said, not even looking Tamerlane’s way.

  Tamerlane couldn’t help but smile at this. He admired the old captain and appreciated the man’s pride in his abilities and accomplishments. And, truth be told, it was good to have something to smile about, after weeks of nearly continuous defeats in every theater.

  “Captain,” the general started to say, “I think—”

  “Contact!” cried the nearest tactical officer, nearly jumping out of her seat. “Two ships. Three. Four.”

  “Where?” Dequoi demanded, already signaling for evasive maneuvers via the Aether link.

  “Five,” the tactical officer corrected. “Six. They’re right on top of us, Captain. Seven. They are dropping hyper all around us. Eight. Nine.”

  Dequoi cursed. He spared Tamerlane a quick glance. “Excuse me, General, while I attempt to save all our lives.”

  Gripping the forward railing, Tamerlane gave Dequoi a quick nod. “That would be very much appreciated, Captain.”

  Dequoi didn’t hear the reply. He was already fully immersed within the fleet’s Aether network, mentally issuing commands and carrying out procedures more quickly than he could have ordered someone to do them.

  “Fifteen,” the tactical officer updated, and Tamerlane paled. “Seventeen. Twenty.”

  The tactical holographic cloud-image of their current situation filled the forward area of the bridge, its edge just brushing up against the crimson-uniformed Tamerlane. The general turned and attempted to take it all in visually. What he saw made him extremely uncomfortable. The Ascanius and its support fleet were being advanced upon by a larger force, with new ships dropping in every second or two. There could be no doubt to whom they belonged: They were Imperial ships, like the Ascanius and its fleet—but in the service of the wrong legion. These were II Legion vessels, operated by the fanatical and now rebellious Sons of Terra.

  Technically, of course, it was Tamerlane and his I Legion—not to mention Agrippa and his III—that were the rebels. The II Legion commander, General Ioan Iapetus, had been named Taiko—military commander of the Empire—by the sole surviving heir of the royal Rahkmanov Dynasty, the child princess, Marens. But scratch a tiny bit deeper, and one would discover that the princess had essentially been kidnapped by Iapetus and taken into his custody, with the little girl forced at gunpoint to name Iapetus her commander-in-chief. Similarly, this explained why she had suddenly declared Tamerlane and Agrippa to be outlaws, stripped of their ranks and any titles and funds.

  All that Tamerlane had left now were the remnants of I and III Legions and this fleet—this squadron of ships that answered directly to him. The men and women of these starships understood the situation, and they had chosen to stick with him. They knew who was legitimate and who was not. They also knew they might not last much longer, either way, in a galaxy overrun by hostile aliens as well as a hostile and largely intact II Legion.

  The main doorway leading onto the bridge level hissed open behind Tamerlane. He glanced back and saw the lady Teluria striding out, her black hair uncovered and her dark red cloak held tightly about her. She started to ask something—likely wanting to know what was happening—but then, to her credit, she simply studied the tactical display and arrived at an understanding for herself.

  “Here they come,” Captain Dequoi growled.

  The II Legion ships, most of them still painted navy blue and not yet converted to the black of Iapetus’s preference, drove in hard against the edge of Tamerlane’s fleet’s formation. Great banks of guns along their sides took aim and fired, shearing away entire sections of the I Legion ships. Particle beams and high-mass/high-impact projectiles ripped holes in hulls and bulkheads, venting engine rooms, command decks, and living quarters to the vacuum of space.

  Tamerlane’s ships fought back, firing every weapon at their disposal, and the narrow void that separated the two groups of combatants became quickly filled with vivid, blinding beams and streaking slugs and warheads. Explosions blossomed silently; energy shields overloaded and evaporated while drive systems imploded, the no-longer-contained singularities within dragging other compartments of their ships down into nothingness.

  “Status!” Tamerlane demanded, knowing the numbers he was seeing on the holographic display were already woefully outdated. “What have we lost?”

  Dequoi was now plugged directly into the ship’s strategic computer via the Aether link. He could almost feel each ship die as it was struck by enemy fire. He struggled to form words as his mind was bombarded by the carnage; at last he gasped, “Seven of our ships destroyed; three of theirs gone.”

  “Totals?” Tamerlane pressed.

  “Eight remaining for us, twenty-four for them.”

  “Withdraw! Get us out of here as quickly as you can.” Tamerlane cursed. This was what came from having the I and III Legions out actually battling on the frontiers for the past few months, while the Sons of Terra clung tightly to their defensive positions on and around the Inner Worlds. He had known at the time that it was a bad arrangement. He had tried to change it. He had failed.

  “I have been attempting to execute a strategic withdrawal from the moment General Iapetus’s ships appeared,” Dequoi barked back at Tamerlane. “I assumed you did not seek a straight-up battle with him in our current state.”

  Tamerlane ign
ored the insubordination that filled the captain’s remark. Frankly he didn’t blame Dequoi. And in the face of Iapteus’s treachery, a bit of impudence from old Harras Dequoi was practically endearing.

  “What’s holding us back from leaving?” Tamerlane asked, circling around the holographic display to study it from every angle. He watched as the blue ships of II Legion almost entirely encircled his own dwindling fleet. “Why can’t we jump?”

  Dequoi motioned and in response one of the blue enemy vessels in the display flashed orange on and off for a few seconds. “That big one there—it’s got a mass-generator,” he said. “They have us locked out of hyper. They’re warping spacetime right around us so that we can’t break through the barriers.”

  Being a general and not an admiral, Tamerlane understood only the rudiments of that explanation: The enemy was doing something with one of their ships that was preventing Tamerlane’s own fleet from escaping. “All right, then,” he said, “we need to kill that ship.”

  “Sage advice, General,” Dequoi said mockingly. “And I’ve been attempting to do that from the start. They are screening it with smaller vessels and they have it well-shielded.”

  Tamerlane looked to Teluria, who now stood against the low railing to his right. “Is there anything you can do?” he asked her.

  The woman in red frowned as she studied the tactical display. “Doubtful,” she said after a moment. “But if the alternative is being captured by Iapetus again, I will try very hard to think of something.”

  “Good.” Tamerlane turned back to the forward screen. He was about to ask the captain a question when alarms shrieked across the bridge.

  “Contact!” shouted the sensor officer to Tamerlane’s left. “Ships dropping hyper. No—wait. Not ships.” She stared at the data flowing over her screens, puzzled.

  “Not ships?” Tamerlane repeated, moving toward her. “What do you—?”

  A second later, everything became apparent.

  The space all around the two fleets warped and distorted as holes from the Above appeared, ripped open by the approaching objects. They flashed into normal space and immediately streaked toward the Imperial ships. Toward ships of both fleets.

  “What in the name of the gods are those?” Captain Dequoi barked, standing from his center seat and moving forward, staring at the new objects as they emerged one by one out into the universe. “What are—oh...”

  Dequoi’s gasp was echoed by others around the bridge. Tamerlane meanwhile scowled and also stepped closer to the holographic cloud image, as if seeing the objects in greater detail might somehow reveal that they were in fact harmless travel pods or asteroids and not the dreaded vessels they appeared to be.

  Alas, proximity changed nothing. They were what everyone on the bridge of the Ascanius feared they were: blood-red comets. Comets that had traveled through the hyperspace lanes of the Above. Comets that contained the horrific alien Phaedrons and perhaps their footsoldiers, the Skrazzi.

  “Back us out, Captain!” Tamerlane shouted, but Dequoi was already doing just that. As orders disseminated to the other remaining ships of their combined fleet, commanding the ships to immediately disengage from the II Legion’s vessels, the Ascanius herself began to pull away from the melee. The ships of the Sons of Terra, meanwhile, reacted more slowly, remaining in place as though their captains were confused by what was happening and uncertain of how to respond.

  That hesitation was all it took.

  The comets crashed into the edge of the II Legion fleet and instantly annihilated two of Iapetus’s capital ships farthest from the Atlantia. More of the comets dropped from hyperspace every moment, and some actually came to a halt once they had entered realspace—meaning they carried some form of onboard propulsion. That, or else the raw psychic might of the Phaedrons inside them was able to move them and brake them using pure telekinetic force. Those that had stopped split open, disgorging smaller chunks of ice that flew about like fighter ships.

  On the bridge of the Ascanius, Tamerlane watched in revulsion as a thin layer of ice began to form on the floor and the walls of the bridge. Residue of the massive wave of psychic energy being created and directed by the Phaedrons, it signaled their presence and their might. He turned and met Dequoi’s eyes. “Fire everything we have at those comets, Captain!” he ordered. Then he faced the holographic tactical display and studied the rapidly changing layout of the battle.

  “Everything? But—what of Iapetus’s fleet?” Dequoi asked, frowning.

  “Forget about them for now,” Tamerlane responded. “These creatures represent a danger of a completely different magnitude.”

  Almost reluctantly, it seemed to the general, Dequoi began issuing orders vocally and via the Aether link, directing the Ascanius’s firepower and that of the remaining support ships against the comets. The already brightly-lit space surrounding the three antagonists was now spotlighted by coruscating beams of coherent light and streaking missiles and projectiles that tore into the comets and the smaller fighter-pieces.

  The bulk of the battle lasted less than five minutes. With all of the weapons on the ships of both human fleets firing at highest rate, the relatively small number of Phaedron comets couldn’t long evade. One after another, they exploded as they were hit by particle beams and projectiles coming from the Ascanius, the Atlantia, or one of the increasingly few other ships. In the meantime, however, they succeeded in utterly vaporizing several more of the humans’ ships and seizing control of quite a few others. More than once, seconds after a smaller chunk of ice had collided with a human ship, the ship had turned on its fellows and opened fire, its crew now mentally enthralled by the horrific Phaedrons. On at least three occasions, either the Atlantia or the Ascanius had to open fire on a fellow human ship and destroy it before the psychic control net could be spread any wider. While doing so did kill one of the Phaedrons, it also obviously reduced the number of ships available to Iapetus and Tamerlane with which to fight back. Consequently, the battle ran very close, and for a time it appeared the humans would simply run out of ships before the enemy ran out of comets.

  Fortunately, the gunners and pilots of the Lords of Fire and the Sons of Terra proved up to the task—but just barely.

  As what looked to be the final shard of ice was vaporized halfway between the two flagships, Tamerlane assessed the tactical situation and was shocked to see that only his flagship and that of Iapetus had survived. They were down to just a handful of fighter craft on each side, as well. All of the other capital ships had been destroyed.

  Tamerlane cursed. “All gone,” he snapped. “Everything we had left!” He wanted to weep, to rage, to gnash his teeth in fury at having lost so many fine soldiers and sailors. It infuriated him.

  Dequoi merely appeared sick.

  “It does put you on even standing with Iapetus, however,” Teluria pointed out as she glided nearer. She nodded toward the magnified view of the Atlantia on one of the forward monitors, darker patches of scoring from weapons fire and collisions obvious against its blue and silver hull. “And his ship appears rather extensively damaged,” she noted. “Perhaps if you were to press your advantage against him...”

  Tamerlane pulled himself back from the abyss of despair. He looked at her and then out at the Atlantia. He said nothing for a few seconds, considering. Before he could reply, however, he felt a signal reaching him over the Aether link. He checked the mental display board and saw a black rectangle with a stylized golden eye at its center floating there, spinning slowly. He recognized it immediately, of course—always watching—and was not entirely surprised to see it, given the current state of affairs between them.

  “He’s hailing me now,” he said to Teluria and the captain. “This should be interesting.”

  Neither of them appeared terribly excited by that news.

  Tamerlane mentally “touched” the black icon and it opened out into a two-dimensional view of General Ioan Iapetus, commander of II Legion, standing on the bridge of the Atlantia.
Behind him, officers and technicians swarmed, fighting fires and dealing with the damage wrought during the battle.

  Iapetus looked up, flashed a tight and wholly unconvincing smile, and nodded his head ever so slightly. “Ezekial,” he said. “Well. Our positions appear to have reversed. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, eh?”

  Tamerlane didn’t recognize the quote at first, but the Aether link instantly provided the source and context, and he could only laugh morbidly as he tossed out the next line: “’Or to take arms against a sea of troubles.’” He shook his head. “A vast understatement.”

  “Indeed.” Iapetus said nothing more for several seconds, instead merely staring down at the floor, and Tamerlane began to wonder if he were simply stalling for time, perhaps preparing another attack or some other treacherous action. When he at last looked back up, his expression was unreadable—but not the usual grim arrogance that usually resided there. Clearly the man was uncomfortable; as uncomfortable as Tamerlane had ever seen him. He spoke at last: “I would like to meet with you in person, Ezekial.”

  “Why?”

  “To discuss our current circumstances. It is obvious we will have to change our tactics, given the current strategic conditions. Even the Inner Worlds of the Empire are now besieged. We cannot afford any more of this costly internal strife.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Tamerlane said, keeping his eyes level and locked onto the other man’s. “But a direct meeting is probably not going to happen,” he went on, “because I’m not setting foot aboard your ship, and I doubt you’d be willing to come over here and—”