Alliance

by Bruce S Larson

  He gathered radiation from solar winds and channeled it along the magnetic poles to boost the field that hid and shielded the world of life he guarded. Other forces left by Zaria moved to engage the intruding warship, but Gin’s best hope to stop its assault was still Anguhr. Yet he, like Zaria, was not here.

  On the Sword Wing’s bridge, its crew felt victorious after leaving Anguhr and his horde to their doom. It required the sacrifice of the Nemorosan solar system remade into a hellship-killing weapon by Buran. A tinge of guilt intruded on the sense of victory, as all their loved ones were surely dead. But Buran promised they would now kill Hell. Death for them could wait. Bringing galactic peace was their purpose. Recognizing the destruction they inflicted was long submerged in devotion to the cause.

  “Admiral, I detect multiple energy fields beyond natural radiation and polar fluctuations caused by the planet.” Roelar said at his station. “One, at least, is familiar.”

  The wave patterns replaced an image of Old Jove on the hovering, main projection.

  “Indeed. Good, Commander. I also see similarity in wave patterns from Tectus and other Physic worlds.” Buran said as he analyzed the data. “This could make our attack easier. Enable the—”

  “Incoming ships!” Chelnar shouted.

  In space, a formation of twenty-one manta ray shaped interceptors sailed toward the Sword Wing. The manta ships appeared cast whole from an alloy of silver and steel. Their tails were long contrails of plasma from their engines. Their mouths glowed as if each had swallowed a small sun. They flew from a mass of asteroids gathered in the gravitational wake of the gas giant. Such groups were called Trojan words, simplified over eons to troans in Hell’s spoken code, but with all knowledge of the mythic war long forgotten.

  “It appears to be a small attack force,” Roelar said as he examined the image of the mantas on the main projection.

  “Scan them for Physic energies,” Buran ordered.

  “They are well shielded, admiral.” Chelnar reported. “I detect their drive output, and little else.”

  “Delta formation,” Buran mused as he watched the mantas assemble for attack. “So common among ships and flying creatures. These have a three-dimensional, near conic—”

  Gin’s face replaced the manta ray ships. “I am Gin. You trespass into my space. And, with a warship. Leave in peace.”

  “Gin. I am Admiral Buran of Nemorosa commanding the Sword Wing. It is now the most powerful ship in the galaxy. We are here to expunge all traces of Hell. I am afraid that includes this world. Make peace for yourself and people. Retribution, justice, now orbits your doomed planet.”

  “Boastful, Admiral.” Gin replied. “You feel you can destroy a planet such as this?”

  “I can destroy solar systems.” Buran said flatly.

  “To what end? Ego?” Gin asked in a dark tone.

  “You confuse me with Hell’s minions.” Buran eased back into his command chair. “I have fought and defeated them. Now, if you fight, I will defeat you. The tide and wind have shifted. Your kind is doomed. Peace will—”

  “Yes. It is easy to confuse you with servants of the Dark Urge.” Gin interjected. “You sound much alike. Your goal is destruction, as was theirs. Yet one horde changed and fought the Dark Urge. But you take up the vacuum the rebellion made. You shatter the peace that could have been. You are now the embodiment of war. But if demons can change, you can, also. Simply break orbit and leave.”

  “I will do neither. I am a warrior and a scientist. Thus, I am exacting. I can access Physic machines—”

  “Physic?” Gin queried.

  “The makers of your world, I wager. Or machines, therein. I have become expert in their code. I will probe and access your machines and stop your small fleet, and then destroy the traces of Hell—”

  “You are obviously not as expert as you believe. I am born of your Physic. Remember, I entered your system uninvited. Access can prove binary.”

  All four of Buran’s eyes shot wide open. “Cut communications! Seal and scan ship systems!”

  Gin, now smiling, disappeared.

  “I do not detect a compromise, Admiral.” Roelar said reading from his screen. “I believe—”

  “Gravitation shift!” Chelnar bleated.

  Both Roelar and Buran turned to the main image but were thrust backward along with the bridge crew as the Sword Wing spun to evade two massive energy spears glancing the ship’s force field.

  “Excellent maneuver, Roelar!” Buran shouted.

  “It was Chelnar, sir.”

  “Good. Now keep us out of the enemy’s salvos! Locate source and return fire!”

  Buran glanced at the main image that showed the careening twirl of the ship as seen from its bow cameras. The image of space was a spinning vortex of stars. A stationary, glaring Anguhr replaced them. Shock silenced the entire crew.

  “How did he—?” Buran stopped his own speech as all four eyes looked at Anguhr’s burning stare. He remade his whole solar system to crush the General’s ship. It should have done so with some with worlds to spare for another. One planet he sacrificed held his family, his civilization. Now Anguhr looked at him, alive and still on the ship that should be shattered pieces among fragments of sentient lives. He thrust away the thought that all his life had failed.

  Roelar also looked at Anguhr with shock, but instinct to duty prevailed. He glanced at his screen and reported from its streaming data. “Communications are, somehow, open, sir. No infiltration is detected.”

  “My survival is what your commander questions.” Anguhr’s voice rumbled through the bridge. “No one has defeated me or my horde in battle. Your shock at my presence is foolish.”

  Buran shook himself and then and shouted in challenge. “Foolish? We act to rid the universe of Hell’s threat!”

  “I have done more to that end than you ever could,” Anguhr replied as the projection of his face beneath his black helmet dominated the bridge. “I stood in rebellion against the Dark Urge, and I am the only General who survived. Triumph is mine.”

  “It was triumph for Hell, no matter its own divisions!” Buran snapped.

  “The Dark Urge is humbled and quiet,” Anguhr’s voice rolled like thunder. “And still darkness is served, but not my horde. You have led attacks on defenseless planets. Here you threaten a bastion of life, Asherah. It is my ally. Leave it in peace and I will permit your return to your own system, one shattered by your acts. But you can turn your skills to rebuilding it. Choose: life or destruction.”

  “This world is allied with Hell. You prove that.” Buran contended.

  “This world threatens no one.” Anguhr growled. “It preserves life and has done so despite Hell’s own assaults against it. Now you seek to destroy that life. Your goals have perverted your acts. You stand on the Sword Wing, yet darkness commands your mind.”

  Anguhr’s words struck a strong blow in Buran’s mind. He felt anger. Rage. The sensations were familiar from the intruder, Octuhr. But these were his own.

  “You merely delay your fate, demon.” Buran squinted all his eyes and bared his teeth just his distant, predator ancestor.

  “Then we fight,” Anguhr said with calm somehow visible in eyes with curling fire. “Recall the fate of all who have stood against me.”

  Anguhr vanished. The twirling images of space returned. Now a thin crescent of Old Jove circled the edges. Roelar switched to tactical graphics with the hellship as a jagged rectangle tracked by targeting circles with Nemorosan numbers rolling on branches sprouted from each one.

  “Sir, the other formation—incoming missiles!”

  The bridge shook from the detonation of Anguhr’s salvo.

  On his own ship, Anguhr watched the shell of plasma blot out the image of the Sword Wing on his main screen. Proxis and Solok hoped to see a flash from the enemy warship exploding. It did not.

  “His shields are remarkable for non-Hell technology, Lord.” Proxis noted.

  “Keep firing.” Anguhr ordered.
“Envelop his ship as we did to Ursuhr.”

  Proxis took a breath before he turned to face Anguhr.

  “Lord, such a sustained launch as the one against Ursuhr's ship will stress our stern decks and main drive links.”

  “Then cease fire and ready main batteries.” Anguhr ended with a sneer at the screen images.

  “Lord--!” Proxis began.

  “Yes, the bow is compromised, too.” Anguhr growled. “But we must fire and destroy them quickly.”

  On screen, the Sword Wing rippled beyond a curtain of heat from the exploded missiles and its own engines. The ship’s stern came into clear focus.

  “Why do they not come about to fire their main batteries?” Solok asked. “Buran shows us her stern. Is he running again?”

  “I detect energy building at the stern,” Proxis noted as he watched his side screens. “But the readings are odd. It is not the drive units alone.”

  “The ship’s configuration is changing.” Solok pointed to the main screen.

  The smaller, wing-shaped super structures on the Sword Wing above and beneath the drive’s white maw split at their centers and unfolded into half-cube shaped projectors.

  “Fire starboard salvo!” Anguhr commanded.

  A mass of white shafts fired from the hellship’s secondary gun ports. A wall of missiles followed almost instantly. Near the Sword Wing’s stern, the shafts of particle beams bent like ribbons. The missiles also began to twist as if caught in a time dilation on the horizon of a black hole. The white ribbons and metal arcs collided and annihilated each other.

  “Is that some sort of gravity shield?” Anguhr demanded.

  “Or mass manipulation, Lord!” Proxis replied. “That structure must emit a field altering quantum—”

  “Can he project it forward, as an offensive weapon?” Anguhr barked with notable tension.

  In space, the Sword Wing’s stern aligned with the path of the hellship. An invisible wave rippled the radiance of the main engines.

  “Turn! Sixty degrees and dive!” Anguhr bellowed on his bridge.

  Proxis complied immediately. The hellship turned, but an invisible tsunami struck hard. The stressed warship shook and pitched over as its arcane steel screamed.

  Proxis’ serpentine eyes widened as received a report he had never heard before. “Port missile bays have failed. Internal structural damage.”

  The Sword Wing completed an arc against the background of the gas giant and now brought its more conventional batteries to bear against the hellship. A volley of one-hundred particle beams streaked at the rolling hellship. The beams glanced the aegis, close enough to brighten the fiery bridge.

  Anguhr issued and order, unfazed. “Solok, report conditions. Proxis, focus on piloting the ship.”

  “Understood, Lord!” both replied in near unison.

  “He’s firing his main guns. His gravity weapon must need time to reenergize.” Anguhr noted. “We need that time to maneuver and launch a counter attack.”

  Solok focused on data across the side screens as Proxis veered the ship from another salvo from the Sword Wing. Solok noted the enemy ship’s motion.

  “Lord, if he cannot hit us, he intends to drive us into Old Jove’s atmosphere!”

  “And hope to watch us burn from friction.” Anguhr said. “If he can kill our shields, it is possible. While we have shields, dive into Old Jove.”

  “Lord, the massive lightning storms of the atmosphere—” Solok began.

  “Will not be as powerful as a direct hit from the Sword Wing!” Anguhr roared. “Dive!”

  Anguhr’s warship streaked into the vast Jovian atmosphere. It entered a cleft of bulbous hydrogen and helium clouds that formed a canyon wide enough to swallow worlds. Above it, vast, pale scarlet cirrus clouds bore a gaping hole where the hellship had punched through. Below and ahead of the cloud canyon, an immense whirlpool slowly turned as a celestial Charybdis lit with flashes in its depths as lightning flared across all sides of the cyclone.

  “Welcome, General. And demons.” Gin said as he appeared sized as a demon in his dark-emerald armor. He looked at Proxis with a nod to recognize their former partnership on the same bridge.

  “You enter the ship with no permission,” Solok growled.

  Gin turned to Solok with an uncharacteristically grim stare. “We are allies, Solok. And you have entered my world. I now protect your ship with the force field that seals this entire hemisphere. It is no small act of power.”

  Gigantic lightning flashed outside.

  “You can block his gravity weapon?” Anguhr said and leaned forward.

  “To an extent,” Gin turned and looked up at Anguhr. “I can negate its effects to alter mass with a counter field. Here, now, I can block the waves he emits. But the power drain is great. I can’t hold him off, alone.”

  “We will prevail,” Anguhr said. “But I want a distraction as Buran employs his gravity weapon so I can open fire and destroy it. Those ships that deployed from the troans, have they withdrawn?”

  “Doubtful.” Gin replied. “Like you they seek the right time to engage the Sword Wing. They likely thought you had tactical advantage.”

  “Order them to attack.” Anguhr said, ready to order his own ship to fly out and engage the Sword Wing.

  “I cannot.” Gin sighed. “I can send them data, but they are Zaria’s to command. Without her, they will act as they see fit, including driving themselves into the enemy ship if that proves how to defeat it.”

  “Their pilots might make good demons, with a little more training.” Solok observed.

  “They are their own pilots. Each is a living being. Had you not arrived, I planned to keep the Sword Wing at bay with discharges of radiation trapped by Old Jove.” Gin said. “Indirect but effective. The mantas will attack when it’s opportune.”

  “Can you channel and aim this radiation?” Anguhr asked.

  “Not at the enemy. I cannot directly strike their ship.”

  “Why not?” Solok asked.

  “I cannot kill. My assistance must be oblique. I know our goal is to destroy him, yet I cannot violate that part of my code. Not directly.”

  “You are splitting thorns,” Solok grumbled.

  “Indeed,” Gin nodded. “But this oblique route does not violate my code. It is interpretation of my inner laws, not overt violation.”

  “We need power to defeat his shields, but his previous attack has weakened my ship. Yet it can still make the aegis and that conduct power. That power can amplify our scythe, similar to how we defeated the Nabaton.”

  “I agree, Lord!” Proxis said with demonic glee. “We have never used the scythe to strike outward from a planet, but it can lock on the Sword Wing’s mass the same as a small planet.”

  “His shields and power generation are remarkable.” Gin noted. “This strike may not be enough to destroy the ship.”

  “We can do that once his gravity weapon and shielding are nullified.” Anguhr said. “Even if I must smash his hull with my fists.”

  Gin raised his eyebrows. “Very well, General. I will begin my part. Good luck to you all.”

  Anguhr nodded. Gin vanished.

  “There is one issue to consider, Destroyer.” Solok said.

  Anguhr solicited Solok’s comment by a stare.

  “We must take a static position to link with the planet’s field, Lord. To do so we risk taking fire before the scythe is active.”

  “We win today, or we die.” Anguhr said and inhaled, deeply. “Today, it is time’s edge that cuts, not an energy lance or sword. Gin will send the data to Zaria’s ships. They will strike, or be destroyed in the act.”

  “And we trust them, Destroyer?” Solok asked.

  “They are the creation of a warrior who killed a General in single combat.” Anguhr looked down at Solok with a pointed stare. “I don’t doubt their courage.”

  “Understood, Lord.” Solok bowed his head. “It feels odd to be dependent on an ally. This is new for us.”

&nb
sp; “Victory will not be. Make course and ready to employ the scythe.”

  Roelar lit with excitement as he read new data. On the main image above, a partial sphere with moons and orbiting material flagged by branches and numbers represented Old Jove.

  In space, the southern and northern regions of the huge planet flared bright as immense auroras flashed and rippled while Gin channeled radiation from the solar winds along both poles and toward the planet. The gigantic circuit linked through Anguhr’s currently undetected ship. The energy began to brighten as an enormous arc made from billions of lightning bolts. An oval of radiation around the hellship began to buffet the rolling band of clouds on the planet bellow.

  “Admiral, there is a rapid, extraordinary increase in polar radiation.” Roelar notified.

  “The planet's magnetosphere is amplifying, but the energy is being directed along an arc between the poles and intersecting with the planet’s equatorial plasma disk.” Roelar continued. “There is a focal—sir! I have found the hellship!”

  On the Sword Wing’s bridge projectors, the sphere of Old Jove gained the hellship’s jagged icon within a red disk intersecting a pulsing arc connecting the planets poles.

  “Power the quantum emitters,” Buran ordered. He stiffened his back in his command chair.

  “Sir, our shield strength will be lower.”

  “Yes, Roelar, but destroying the hellship in such close proximity to the planet while it taps the magnetosphere will also devastate this gas giant and whomever, or whatever, Gin is and who he serves. Power the emitters, now.”

  The icon of the hellship expanded as weapons systems locked on target.

  “Missile attack!” Chelnar shouted.

  The Sword Wing rocked from the barrage.

  Roelar looked at the icon of the hellship and his data but saw no launch. “How?”

  “Pre-deployed and cloaked,” Buran answered. “Anguhr is a demon but also a military commander. Another reason to destroy him.”

  “The asteroid squadron has reentered the theater.” Chelnar reported. “Approaching forty-five degrees from planet’s north pole.”

  The graphics projection zoomed back to display a wider field. A cone appeared to signify the manta squadron.