by Scott Baron
Almost entirely through the asteroid field, Freya found herself with the clearest view yet of the Ra’az world. Midway through the gap, Marty arrived, poised to lead the rebel-guided Ra’az ships. Then there was Joshua, who had arrived just a little ways outside the asteroids, ready to relay messages and help guide ships through from one stage to the next.
But there was a problem.
“Warp systems are failing!” Freya warned moments after they arrived.
“Switch to conventional power!”
“Already did,” she replied. “Marty, do you copy? Something is sapping the warp drives. Get out and warn the others.”
Marty, however, had already lost power, and Freya’s warning fell on deaf ears.
“Sonofabitch!” Arlo shouted, lunging from his seat and throwing the emergency reserve switches.
“What happened, Arlo?” Marty asked a moment later.
“Something killed the warp drive again. I had to activate the emergency power cells.”
“Glad we installed those after last time.”
“You and me both,” Arlo agreed. “Do we have any comms?”
“Negative. Reserve power isn’t strong enough. The main warp core is at zero. We’re running on fumes.”
A bad feeling twisted in Arlo’s gut.
“What about the Big Gun? Please tell me it’s still––”
“The additional warp cores are both down as well,” Marty informed him, one step ahead.
Joshua also experienced a sudden fall in power, but he had arrived just far enough clear of the asteroid field that whatever was causing the effect had only diminished his systems, but had not entirely drained them. He could fly, but warp was out of the question. So, too, were comms, it seemed.
They were on their own. At least until the first wave arrived, at which point things could get very hairy.
Freya pushed clear of the asteroids, free flying inside the vast protected space surrounding the Ra’az world.
“You see those?” Sarah asked, pointing to a faint ring around the Ra’az planet.
“Hang on,” Freya said, quickly focusing her scanning arrays. “Got ’em. A band of asteroids, parked in place. Satellites hidden among them. And they seem to be emitting––oh, shit!”
“Freya?”
“It’s new tech to me,” she replied.
“What is it?” Daisy asked, unsettled by the mighty AI’s obvious concern.
“It’s emitting a warp-negating field. I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said. “And from what I can tell, it stretches from just outside their atmosphere all the way to a decent bit outside the asteroid field. When we scanned the area before, we just happened to be barely outside its range. It was blind luck.”
“Oh my God,” Sarah gasped. “So any ships that warp in––”
“Can’t warp out,” Freya said. “It’s conventional drives only, and we don’t have any way to warn the fleet.”
As if they heard her, the first of the rebel Ra’az ships flashed into sight just within the asteroid field. Apparently Marty’s transponder had failed, but Freya––running on full secondary power––had a strong signal that they locked onto through the gap in the asteroids.
“They’re following us in, Daze,” Sarah said.
“All of those ships operate on a normal power system,” George pointed out. “The Ra’az ships were retrofitted with a better warp tech, but their core systems should still work fine in here.”
“And the other ships? The human fleet?” Sarah asked.
“Most switched to a primary warp power system when they figured out the tech I showed them,” Freya replied. “But they should still have the original drive systems as auxiliary, though I don’t know how much reserve power they have stored beyond that.”
Behind them, more and more of the first wave of infiltrating vessels appeared within the ring of the asteroid belt. All had lost warp power, but as Sergeant Franklin had pointed out, they had no problems maintaining flight systems or comms.
“Sarah, warn them. Tell them what’s happening in here. We may have to improvise.”
“On it, Daze.”
“Freya, see if you can––”
“Ra’az scout!” Freya blurted as she quickly spun into a roll and headed back toward the asteroid field.
“How the hell did he find us? We should be off-scans.”
“We were backlit by the arriving ships,” she replied, dodging and weaving, keeping the ship from getting a firing solution.
“Can you scramble their comms?” George asked.
“Already on it,” Freya replied. “But if they peel off and head back, I won’t be able to block their signal from a distance.”
“Then slow down and let them get closer,” Daisy instructed.
“I’m sorry, what was that?” Sarah asked.
“If we let them think they have a shot at us, they’ll pursue. Trust me, I’ve been in dogfights with them before. The Ra’az are hyper-aggressive, and that can be used to our advantage.”
As predicted, the Ra’az ship barreled past the arriving Ra’az craft, not noticing they were not operated by Ra’az, but by rebels in their place.
“Ident codes worked,” Sarah noted. “Our ships are clear.”
“Good,” Daisy grunted, trying to manually aim the rail gun. “Now if we can just get this bastard off our tail.”
“Freya, hit him with your cannons,” Sarah ordered.
“Belay that!” Daisy countermanded. “Pulse charges will be picked up by the Ra’az. The rail gun is electromagnetic. It’s following us into the asteroid field. A direct hit will make the explosion read like pilot error crashed it into an asteroid.”
“Clever,” George admired. “Told ya, Daisy. A great tactician.”
“You can tell me that if we survive this,” she replied.
Freya dove and spun, allowing Daisy to track the closing ship, but it was moving too fast.
“Freya, I want you to bank right in five seconds,” Daisy instructed.
“Copy.”
When she counted down to two, Daisy fired the rail gun, her shot leading ahead of the pursuing craft. Freya turned on cue, causing the pursuer to do likewise, right into the path of the oncoming rail gun sabot.
The hypersonic projectile barely missed the ship, but the force of its passing sent the craft careening into an asteroid, where it shattered to pieces.
“Target destroyed,” Freya reported. “Nice shot, Daisy.”
“Thanks,” she said, breathing a sigh of relief. “How are the ships doing? Have they been noticed?”
Freya spun back around and scanned the commandeered ships.
“No reaction from the homeworld. It looks like they’re in the clear.”
“The Ra’az never expected anyone to use their own gear against them,” George observed. “Classic overconfidence error.”
Daisy watched the ships’ commanders fight their adrenaline and instincts, instead remaining calm and casual as they settled their craft into a holding position throughout the existing Ra’az battle stations and fleet.
“They’re in place, Daze,” Sarah said. “Now what?”
“Now we figure out how to warn the second wave,” Daisy replied. “I just hope we can reach them before it’s too late.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Daisy was just beginning to devise the most basic of plans to negate the clusterfuck about to befall their mission when the main fleet warped into place. They were––she was shocked to see––all within the asteroid field.
“How the hell––?”
“Hey, guys,” Joshua called to them over comms. “Glad you’re okay.”
“Joshua, what happened? What are they doing here? The second wave wasn’t supposed to start yet,” Daisy said.
“I know, but I finally managed to get far enough from whatever was draining my warp drive to make a jump back to the fleet and warn them what was going on. The decision was made to step things up and move in after making sure
non-warp drive systems were engaged.”
“But you’re on warp power,” Freya said, obvious concern in her voice.
“I am, but I had the techs hook me up with a whole boatload of charged power cells just in case Murphy paid a visit, which he apparently did. I’d estimate I have a good eight hours before my systems start to fail.”
“What about Marty? Did you see him?”
“He was limping through the asteroid field on reserve power last time I saw him.”
“So they survived. Thank God,” Daisy sighed with relief.
A barrage of pulse fire from their ships flew past her, targeting the Ra’az craft that had come pouring from their docking stations above the hive world.
“The fleet’s engaging with everything they’ve got,” Sarah marveled. “That’s the kitchen sink assault.”
“They only have one shot at capitalizing on the surprise,” Freya said, flying closer to better target the smaller ships attempting to reach their advancing fleet. In short order, she blew three from the sky, their pilots never knowing what hit them as the near-invisible craft carefully avoided any illuminating backlighting.
“Deploy the virus, Freya. Now!” Daisy ordered.
“I can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t?”
“Whatever signal those satellites are putting out, it’s also blocking the transmission spectrum the virus is delivered on.”
“Can you modify it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe, but I’d have to re-write the whole thing, and even for me, that will take time.”
“I can help,” Joshua offered.
“Actually, I have an even better idea for you,” Daisy said. “Think you can latch onto that orbiting battle station?”
“Yeah, but I’ve tried tapping into a battle station like that back at Taangaar. I can’t access their drive or weapons systems. They’re too deeply shielded.”
“How about their comms?”
“Their comms? I suppose I could. But what good––oh, nice idea. I’m on it!” Joshua said, then zipped off through the battle, trying to reach the nearest battle station.
“I don’t understand,” George said. “What good do the comms do us out here?”
“We use them to sound a recall of their ships,” she replied. “It’ll present us an easier target, and when they do, our Chithiid rebels will pull a Trojan Horse on them and open fire from the other side. They’ll be caught in a crossfire, leaving the satellites vulnerable to attack.”
“Solid idea,” George said appreciatively. “But we don’t speak Ra’az.”
“No, but we captured transmissions during the battle at Taangaar when they tried to pull back. Pretty sure that’ll do the trick.”
“I’m picking up some new readings, Daisy,” Freya announced.
“What is it?”
“Smaller ships are warping up their crews from the surface to join the fleet.”
“But you said warp was negated.”
“It is. But apparently it still works inside the atmosphere.”
“Ooh, so it’s like a bubble around the planet. And that’s where we need to get a warp orb to function if we want it to detonate.”
“Exactly.”
A small group of attack fighters that had apparently been on the ground within the atmosphere warped at that moment, arriving behind the human fleet.
“You see that, Freya?” Joshua asked.
“Yeah. Hey, guys, there's a handful of Ra’az fighters on your six,” she warned the fleet.
“I’ve got ’em,” Gus called out, engaging several at once, all of his weapons systems firing in a closely linked barrage of hot death.
“Damn, Gus,” Tamara said, impressed.
“Two more coming, Gus,” Shelly said, watching the scans. “You see them?”
“Shelly, those are my scanners you’re monitoring. Of course I see them,” he replied, tucking into a barrel roll, loosing arcs of pulse and sabot fire.
Both enemy ships took multiple hits and disintegrated as they tumbled into the asteroid field.
“Nice,” Tamara said with an appreciative chuckle. “You’re even better than before. Maybe this was a good upgrade after all.”
“Thanks,” he replied. “Now hang on. I’m going to make a loop of the rear to make sure there aren’t any more lurking around back there.”
With the rear of the fleet defended, and the main body of ships fully engaged, Joshua found his stealth craft easily avoided notice as he skirted the engagement and arrived at the battle station at just the right moment to shift the tide.
“Okay, let’s see,” he said to himself as his remora-like ship latched on to the massive Ra’az craft. “Heating system, waste disposal, here we go. Comms.”
He carefully tapped in, making sure not to be detected by the aliens monitoring the systems inside the vessel, then primed his recall message.
“Ready to transmit, Daisy.”
“Copy that. You hear that, Zed?”
“Affirmative. I’ve just sent an encoded burst transmission to the rebel ships. As soon as Joshua transmits, they’ll engage from the rear.”
“Okay. The ball is yours, Joshua. Hit it.”
The brilliant AI flashed the recall message out to the Ra’az ships, telling them to immediately pull back and defend the battle station. It was, he hoped, an urgent enough message to cause a little panic, in the process, which would likely help their forces.
“They’re on the run!” Sarah exclaimed. “It’s working, Daze!”
“I see. Now, any second the rebels will light them up and we’ll have them trapped,” Daisy said. Amazingly, their sneak attack plan was going to work.
Out of nowhere a massive armada of ships, the likes of which they had never seen, warped into the middle of the battle and opened fire on all of the Ra’az craft, rebel and Ra’az alike.
“Who the hell are those guys?” Daisy shouted. “They’re attacking us!”
“Correction,” Zed replied. “They are only attacking Ra’az and Chithiid ships.”
Daisy realized he was right.
“Celeste, are these your people?”
“Negative, Daisy. No idea who they are, but Zed’s right. They’re targeting our rebel forces.”
“Shit, they’re ruining everything. Engage them. Draw them away from our people if you can.”
Chaos ensued as the carefully planned formations scattered in a free-for-all of pulse fire.
“They seem to be attempting to target the Ra’az planet as well,” Joshua noted. “I think it’s fair to assume they’re enemies of the Ra’az.”
“So how do we get them to stop attacking the good guys?” Daisy asked, her frustration growing by the second.
“They’re not answering any of my comms attempts,” he replied. “There’s no way to tell them to stand down against the friendly ships.”
“It seems pretty obvious this is friendly fire,” George said. “Hate that fucking term. Friendly fire. Nothing friendly about being shot at.”
“But what can we do to stop them?”
“They obviously don’t know some of those Ra’az and Chithiid ships have been commandeered. So we need to tell them, somehow,” he replied.
“I’m open to suggestions, here,” she said, spinning the comms frequencies to no avail.
“Daisy, have all of the rebel ships transmit a relay of our signal.”
“What do you have in mind, Sarah?”
“Freya, cue up the images of the Ra’az defeat on Earth. Show images of dead Ra’az, and the humans helping retrofit their ships.”
“I’ve loaded them up and alerted the rebel fleet.”
“Wait,” Daisy said. “Do you have images of us taking Taangaar as well?”
“Added to the feed,” Freya affirmed.
“Have them transmit, but tell them not to shoot back. Just perform evasive maneuvers and divert power to their shields.”
“Transmitting now.”
It was painful to no
t engage the aggressive ships, holding back, watching and waiting, hoping the new attackers were monitoring the video signal traveling on all bands.
Finally, their fire lessened as they examined the data. During the lull, the rebel ships took the opportunity to make a run for the safety of the main fleet. At least as a mass, they were well-defended. Separated and under attack by not one but two enemies, they didn’t stand a chance.
The mysterious assailants resumed their pulse fire a minute later, but now only targeting the retreating Ra’az ships that had not been broadcasting Freya’s message.
The larger ships pulled back toward their homeworld, while a few dozen smaller ones pushed forward into the human and Chithiid fleet, continuing their attack from within, but with just one opponent to worry about.
“It worked. They figured out which vessels are on our side,” Sarah exclaimed. “Unfortunately, the Ra’az now know too.”
“Incoming message on all bands,” Freya announced.
Her screen filled with the image of a strange alien, possessing a long face, broad forehead, and what appeared to be a pair of fleshy tentacles dangling from their chin.
The alien spoke to the screen, gesturing for the viewer to reply.
Celeste came on split-screen, her face red with anger.
“Daaamn, she looks pissed,” Tamara noted as Gus shifted his defensive positioning. “Not that anyone would blame her.”
“This is Commander Celeste Harkaway. Who are you, and why have you attacked us?”
The alien looked at a device in its hand a moment, then depressed a small band on its neck.
“Aah, Earth-speak. You are humans?” it said in what appeared to be a feminine voice.
“Yes, we’re humans,” Celeste replied. “Humans allied with the Chithiid against the Ra’az.”
“We, too, fight the Ra’az. While we have managed to keep them at bay and stop their attempts to conquer our world, they have nevertheless remained our enemy for many, many cycles.”
“Then why did you attack our people?”
“Your people were in Ra’az vessels. It was an honest mistake. You see, we, too, fight the Ra’az. A message from a monitoring drone reached our people, informing us that the Ra’az had been forced from Earth and were now facing attack at their own homeworld. You can imagine our surprise! We came as soon as we could. To strike while the iron is hot! We had not been able to penetrate the asteroid field before, however. But today we succeeded. We followed the path so clearly left by your ships.”
