The Titan’s scans showed a turbulent and tortured region of space where the density anomalies from the Demon detonations mixed and merged and caused density ripples in space time, waves and spheres with shard like edges that ripped the oncoming fighters apart.
Admiral Selby on the Eminence looked at the image on the holostage and heard the report from the Titan’s captain.
“The Demon Detonators have left a trail of destruction. The very fabric of space is tearing apart. It’s like a string of tiny black holes.”
The advancing Skarak fleet stopped and began to maneuver around the region of broken space in a desperate maneuver to avoid slamming into the Demon line.
The Admiral saw his opportunity to hit the Skarak.
“Their formation is breaking up. Send three squadrons of corvettes in to target their warships. With the masterships falling behind, their warships are vulnerable. Move right up tight to the Demon line and hit those warships as they move around it.”
The corvettes broke off from the retreat and moved back alongside the Titan. As the Skarak swept around the Demon line, like waves breaking over a seawall, the corvettes fired into the scattered and disorganized Skarak armada.
The squadrons of corvettes moved in close to their targets, fast and maneuverable, they got into the Skarak formation. The tough little ships targeted the midsized warships with every weapon, getting their hits in before the massive masterships could get into the fight.
Combat drones streaked away from the corvettes. A coordinated barrage from one squadron struck at three warships simultaneously. All combat drones detonated within a second of each other, their containment fields deactivating and creating a billowing harsh fire that expanded into huge spherical infernos across the hull of the Skarak ships.
The plasma fires tore into the Skarak hulls, boiling away the strange viscous material in the superhot plasma fire. The three warships broke apart, spilling grey ooze and blue crackle energy out onto space.
The corvettes moved in, evading warships’ return fire. They targeted the warships at close range with spitz guns and lancing high energy lasers. They moved by squadrons, sweeping across the Skarak warships and, with the attack run complete, the corvettes turned and fled leaving a dozen shattered and boiling Skarak warships in their wake.
As the corvettes turned, they came under fire from Skarak fighters. Waves of fighters raced in to attack the corvettes, the blue crackle fire blasting out from the fighter’s forward emitters. The corvettes flew in tight formation and each squadron combined deflection shields to create a defensive energy shell. The defensive shell deflected the Skarak blue crackle fire and each squadron was lit by a mesh of deflected energy beams.
As the corvettes pushed to escape the pursuing fighters, they came into range of the Titan’s spitz gun batteries. Thousands of spitz guns lit up pouring streams of white energy pips across space. With expert targeting the spitz gun fire narrowly missed the retreating corvettes and slammed into the chasing Skarak fighters.
The Skarak wave was reduced in seconds to a few remaining fighters, but even though the attack was doomed, they raced on, firing at the Titan in a reckless and futile attack. Another micro-second long blast of spitz gun fire and the last of the fighters were ripped apart and only their shattered and burning hulls made it to the Titan, their dark Skarak hulls burning up as they struck the carrier’s outer deflection shield.
But the Skarak fighter wave was of little to no concern to the Titan. The first Skarak mastership had cleared the Demon line and was turning its primary weapon on the Titan.
The Admiral clenched his fist as he watched the battle.
“Get out of there.”
The mastership and the carrier opened fire within seconds of each other. It could take only a second to win or lose a battle. A crucial second here or there could mean the difference between victory and defeat. The masterships blue crackle beam was thicker than that delivered by any warship, energy lines woven together to create a heavy beam. It struck out and punched a hole a hundred meters wide in the Titan’s hull.
The Titan returned fire with its mass cannon. The huge multi emitter mass beam punched into the Skarak mastership hull, causing a super dense region that started to collapse under its own weight, dragging matter from the surrounding material. Even as the Titan’s mass beam struck again, the mastership was already tearing itself apart.
A storm of combat drones leapt away from the Titan and the retreating corvettes, all targeting the master ship. The drones came under fire from a fresh wave of Skarak fighters, blue crackle fire snatching the combat drones out of the void before they could strike the mastership.
Skarak warships maneuvered in front of the wave of combat drones, exploding the drone warheads with their own hulls. Still ,several drones managed to danced through the defense and struck the Skarak mastership that was collapsing from the Titan’s mass beam.
The mastership finally tore itself apart, spilling black and grey ooze into space.
The pursuing warships struck out at the Titan as she limped away from battle. Her grav field was fluctuating from the mastership attack. The warships took fire from the Titan’s array of high energy laser as they strayed into range. Red beams sliced through black Skarak hulls. Fighters swept across the Titan, blasting away with their crackle beams.
Then a second mastership came around the Demon line, plowing through the remains of the shattered mastership. It opened fire on the retreating carrier. A single blast punching deep into the Titan’s superstructure, blasting down to its central core, almost as deep as the command center.
The Titan fired every last combat drone, every spitz gun rippling away, lasers flickering over warships. She slowed as her drive systems failed.
More warships broke under the Titan’s laser fire, combat drones slammed into Skarak ships, and lasers boiled away their dark viscous hulls. Spitz gun fire lit up and raked across one warship after another.
Then all guns fell dark as the Titan lost power. And then she erupted, her cores exploding deep inside the huge carrier.
The reserve fighters escaped the Titan before she was destroyed and joined the flight of corvettes as they fled back to join the fleet at Supra.
The Admiral looked at the flickering image of the remains of the Titan as a pair of masterships advanced through her shattered remains. On the other side of the Demon line came another four masterships, supported by dozens of warships.
“More Demons,” the Admiral said under his breath. He turned to Agent Crippin. “We need more Demon Detonators. Instruct the Reyes Institute to deliver every last one to the fleet immediately.”
“That was our entire supply, Admiral,” Crippin said. “The Reyes Institute can’t help us now. Maybe the Blue Stars can board the master ships and destroy them from inside.”
“How?” Major Brace said. “The Blue Star marines are the elite, but no one has ever got inside a mastership. The best we have ever achieved is planting a Demon on the surface. It looks like the Skarak are wise to that scheme, even if we had more Demon Detonators we could use, I doubt we could even get them close.”
The image of planet Supra came into view on the holostage. The few ships that Supra’s planetary authorities could muster were in orbit waiting to join the Union fleet. A rag tag bunch of freighters and civilian craft kitted out with bolt on weapons from basic defensive spitz guns to huge asteroid mining cutters.
“Is that the best Supra can bring to the fight?” Major Brace said. “They look like a bunch of Faction ships.”
“The defense platforms on Supra’s moons are more than a match for a Skarak mastership,” Agent Crippin said. “If anything comes within a half million kilometers of the planetary defenses it will soon wish it had not.”
“What’s to stop them from simply going around Supra, staying out of range?” the Admiral asked.
Crippin joined Selby at the holostage.
“They entered the system at this point, Admiral,” Crippin said. “The
y fully intend to approach Supra. If they were only interested in Terra they would have made directly for that planet and entered on a different course. No, Admiral. The Skarak are coming. We will hold them here.”
Selby didn’t feel so sure. “For as long as we can, but as soon as Supra falls, and Supra will fall, we retreat to Terra for our last stand.”
“Or,” Major Brace said, “We could abandon the Scorpio system. Our forefathers arrived here from across the interstellar void. We can go too. Find a new home in a new star system.”
“I didn’t think the marines were the sort to run from a fight.” The Admiral looked Major Brace up and down.
“We are not. But we look for alternatives to fighting, if the battle cannot be won. There is no glory in utter defeat.”
The fleet moved into orbit about Supra, the gas giant. Supra sat just beyond the Belt and was the inner most gas giant. The moons around Supra housed several planetary defense platforms, huge, long range, high energy lasers that drew power directly from the magnetic field of Supra itself. At constant full output, the gravity field would power the lasers for as long as the blue giant at the center of the system had fuel to burn. Designed as a deterrent to ward off Faction pirates, it was now going to be tested against the massive Skarak invasion armada. An armada that was heading directly for it.
The carriers Eminence and Goliath formed up inside the orbit of the moon, Supra Three. The fleet cruisers turned to face the oncoming Skarak, holding within the cover of the planetary defense systems.
“Put me through to Supra defense control,” the Admiral said. He waited for a moment. He waited a moment more before calling out again, looking over the command center to the communications control.
The communication commander looked up at the Admiral, his team of operators working feverishly.
“Yes, Admiral,” the commander said. He tugged at his collar. An operator turned and looked up at the commander. The Admiral could see concern on the young controller’s face.
“Put me through now, commander,” the Admiral said.
“I can’t establish contact, sir,” the communications commander said. He leaned forward, over the operator’s shoulder and began tapping at the console himself.
The Admiral walked up to the holostage.
“Show me the defense platform on Supra Three,” he said.
The holostage image zoomed in on the vast defense platform, a town sized structure with a large central emitter.
The flicker of lights across the array built suddenly to a red fire that ran around the concentric rings of the emitter, growing in intensity.
“Abnormal energy readings from…” the engineering commander called out.
“Back us away from Supra Three,” the Admiral said.
The emitter on Supra Three erupted like a volcano, scattering laser energy in sheets. Then the platform disintegrated and rock from the surface of Supra Three was thrown up and out into space.
“Planetary defense platforms are going offline on all of Supra’s moons.” A panicked call from the surveillance commander echoed across the stunned and silent command center.
“The Blue Stars were supposed to secure those defense platforms,” the Admiral said. “I spoke to the Marine General myself.”
“The Skarak sleepers have won again, Admiral,” Agent Crippin said. “Supra is lost. We must fall back.”
“There are a billion people living around Supra.” The Admiral said.
“Not anymore,” Crippin said as the image showed civilians rioting as sleeper agents ran through the crowds with crackle beam emitters, turning sedate civilians into rioting mindless flesh drones.
“We should have locked down the defense platforms sooner,” the major said. “It was too late by the time we knew we needed to.”
“The Skarak are well prepared,” Crippin said. “They knew where to hit us, and how to knock out any resistance.”
“Well, not on this fleet,” Admiral Selby said defiantly. “We are free of Skarak sleeper agents. We have enough firepower to fight them.”
“But not enough to win,” the major said.
“We will strike and maneuver, hit them when we can and run before they can retaliate.”
The vanguard of the Skarak armada moved in closer to Supra, the defense platforms remained silent.
“Abandon our position,” the Admiral called out. “All ships break formation and make for Terra. Move to fleet final positions. We will hold them at Terra for as long as possible and then we start our guerrilla war. As long as I have one ship under my command, we will fight the Skarak.”
The fleet began to move off as Skarak fighters swept in close. All Union fleet ships turned to the inner system. They fell into the asteroids of the belt in broken formation, every ship picking its way through the mass of asteroids. The fleet spread out as ships tried to maneuver, slowing the retreat as the fleet was spread out over hundreds of thousands of kilometers.
Skarak fighters attacked isolated ships. The belt lit up with return fire. The Eminence entered the belt just as a group of Skarak warship fired at her from extreme range.
“Hold your fire,” the Admiral said, crestfallen and dejected. “They can’t damage us at that range. All they can hope to do is scorch our tails a bit. At least those masterships will have a hard time picking through the belt. It’ll give us time to regroup.”
“Sir, Admiral,” an enthusiastic weapons commander called out. “My team has come up with a plan to lay space mines and combat drones across our axis of retreat. It will slow the Skarak down, might even make them think twice about crossing the Belt to the inner system.”
The Admiral knew it was a desperate plan, it could only slow the Skarak and would cause some minimal damage to a few warships. But it was his best chance to use some ordinance. He feared by the time he went toe to toe with a mastership he would only have seconds to deploy his full combat drone arsenal.
“Good work, commander. Do it. Notify the Goliath to do the same. Expend fifty percent of combat drones and all space mines.”
The commander looked stunned. “Fifty percent, sir?” It was far more than he had expected the Admiral to assign to the plan.
“Yes, commander. We might as well make it a good punch if we’re going to throw it. No sense in half measures now.”
“Yes, sir. It will be a heavy blow. They will take losses. The plan predicts we will disable or destroy twenty percent of their warship capability.”
“Twenty percent,” the Admiral said quietly. He calculated that the odds against him were reduced but still massively against him.
“Yes, sir, twenty percent,” the young commander said, his enthusiasm failing.
“Good work, commander. Congratulate your team for me.”
The Admiral looked at the holoimage of Terra in the distance. It would be a few hours before the fleet reformed. The Skarak were on their heels, but they could expect little more than a few skirmish attacks from the Skarak fighters, nothing to trouble the fleet, just harass and irritate them, maybe enough that it would cause some ships’ captains to make a mistake and give the Skarak an easy kill.
The Admiral turned his back on the holostage.
“I’ll be in my office. Inform me when we are coming up on Terra.”
The Admiral left. The next time he entered the command center he expected it would be the last.
The destruction of the Union fleet was only a few hours away.
8
Boyd stood at the holostage of the Phantom Zero. The image of the Skarak armada was at the edge of the display while the main image showed the asteroids of the Sphere as the Phantom Zero and the Resolute picked their way between them. The Skarak armada was vast and terrifying and Boyd could not take his eyes off of it. He was mesmerized by its power. Boyd knew only too well the power of one Skarak ship, the devastation it could bring. There were more ships in the armada than Boyd had thought was possible. The Skarak were truly an advanced species with more hardware at their disposal t
han the Union and the Faction combined, but he knew that only by working together could they stand a chance of defeating the Skarak.
The image of the armada was hours old now. They would be closer to the inner system, and maybe they had already engaged the fleet. Maybe the fleet was already gone. He put negative thoughts from his head, he was in command and for the sake of his crew he needed to remain positive.
Boyd tapped the edge of the holostage and cancelled the image of the Skarak armada. He looked to the search data. The Resolute was matching the Zero’s maneuvers, standing off a couple of kilometers off the Zero’s port side. The pair of ships moved through the asteroids of the Sphere sending out a wide beam Faction code signal. If Kitzov was near, he would hear it.
“He’s out here somewhere,” Thresh said stepping up next to Boyd.
“You two, keep apart. I don’t want you two conspiring on my own flight deck,” Kessler called over to them.
Boyd moved around the holostage so he was standing opposite Thresh with the command chair and Kessler to his left.
“Are you sure he will respond to these codes?” Boyd said.
“Just like a Union boy, not to trust a thing we say.” Thresh grinned at him.
He looked over at Thresh on the other side of the holo-display. The display showed the local area, hundreds of asteroids drifting slowly, some tumbling, here a pair locked in an orbit about a shared central point, a pair dancing through space.
The holoimage flickered as the power on the Zero’s flight deck fluctuated. Thresh’s face lit up, and her eyes sparkled as she gave Boyd a wink and a smile.
“There,” Boyd said. He pointed at the sudden appearance of a red dot in the holoimage. A pulsating red dot. “That’s him.” He looked over at Thresh. “That’s Kitzov, right?”
Kessler stepped down from the command chair and walked over to the communication console. He spoke in a hushed voice before looking up at Boyd.
“Kitzov is asking for you, Sergeant Boyd.”
Boyd looked over at Thresh who shrugged and smiled.
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