“No immediate damage detected.”
Leo’s ship wasn’t just a Star-Eater. It was heavily modified by Aloi technology and its shields could stand several salvos with relative ease. Still, the firepower was on their side and sooner or later they would blast both our ships to pieces.
“Anything yet?”
“No, boss. Do you want me to leave the docking bay?”
“Stay inside and keep calling them. We must show them we mean no harm but that we’ll defend ourselves if need be.”
The Tanaree was securely hidden in the Redeemer’s docking bay. I didn’t want them to see all our cards too soon. Another salvo of torpedoes and missiles came in hot, and with Mitto’s help, the Redeemer’s counterfire took out 80% of the incoming projectiles. The rest slammed into the Redeemer’s giant shields.
“Richard,” Leo said as his face appeared on the holodeck. “We’re down to 80% on our shields. We can’t allow them to keep hammering us like this!”
Even the best shields couldn’t stand too much damage before they collapsed. Luckily, the hulls of Star-Eaters were sturdier and it took much longer to bring down the colossal war machines than it took to strip them off their shields.
“Hold it, Leo. Give me more time. Mitto. Status?”
“I’m sorry, boss, but they keep ignoring us.”
I cursed under my breath when the Redeemer shook violently.
“We’re down to 61%. Even if we start firing back now, we’ll be going into the battle with a pretty bad handicap!”
“They’ll respond to my calls. Wait. Mitto call again.”
The ship shook from another salvo. This time the destroyers added their firepower to the mix. I knew what that meant. The shields were almost gone and we hadn’t even started the fight.
“Richard, I won’t let the Redeemer suffer any more damage without firing back!”
“I know,” I said, biting my lip. Cold sweat broke on my brow and my nape. Fars and Arthur stood there staring right at me. As if I didn’t know what was at stake! “Mitto, again!”
“They’re responding!”
“On screen.”
A Takkari lieutenant popped into view. Damn it, I thought, the Imminy would hide for as long as possible.
“Aloi ship, you’re surrounded and outgunned. Prepare to lay down your weapons and be boarded. Do not try to harm any prisoners you’re harboring, or we will destroy your vessel.”
Good, I thought. They still think we have a Ka prisoner on board. I honestly didn’t know how they imagined we’d catch one, but at least in this galaxy, people were prepared for anything.
“My name is Captain Richard Stavos of the FCC, stop your attack immediately. You’re firing on a Federation vessel with critical cargo.”
There, I thought. Chew on that information for a while.
“Richard Stavos?” The Takkari repeated and I saw him blink with one eye which meant he was checking my records.
“You’re dishonorably discharged. Why are you in command of this vessel?”
“Is this how you talk to a superior?” I said, feigning insult. The Takkari seemed confused. On one hand, he saw that I’d been discharged as his eyes roamed the screen in front of him. On the other hand, I suddenly had a new rank and I was commandeering a Star-Eater.
“Can you even begin to comprehend what cargo we have onboard? And why didn’t you answer to our hails? Were you asleep during navy battle procedure lectures? Who gave you this job, you incompetent moron?”
“Sir, I didn’t—”
I was excited like a child when I realized he bit the hook. I came off so strong that the poor lieutenant forgot to ask why a human was suddenly in command of a Star-Eater battleship.
“Sir, the Aloi markings on the ship—we thought that—”
“Aloi markings? Are you reading Aloi markings on a Star-Eater? Where’s your captain? This is a disgrace! Can’t you look out of the window? What do you see, what does this ship look like? Does it look like a fucking pyramid with tentacle shit all over it? Does it? No? Of course not! Now get in range so you can send in your repair bots to fix our hull. I’m not going to spend a single piece of equipment to fix what you did to my ship. Got it? Good, you better, yes, you better do everything you can. Now then, where’s your captain? I want an explanation from him, not you.”
The face of the confused Takkari disappeared as the connection suddenly cut out.
“I think you sparked some interest there,” Leo said with a smirk. “They are maneuvering their ship parallel to ours. I guess your plan worked.”
“For now. The Imminy will see through this sooner or later, and when it does, we stick to our plan, I’ll give you a sign. Don’t do anything drastic, however. Let’s see how far I can push the overgrown squid.”
It took them a good minute to open a line of communications again, but this time all we got was audio. They were blocking the visuals. It was only natural as the Imminy avoided exposing themselves whenever they could.
“Bloodmancer,” it just said in a rusty voice. “Where is the Ka?”
Straight to the point. Just as expected. The Imminy just told me that he knew I wasn’t a commissioned officer; it knew we were trying to play it and it probably knew what I was up to for the last two years. This was way sooner than expected.
“The Ka is securely onboard this Star-Eater. It is weak and needs assistance that we can’t provide. Does your ship have the ability to help it?”
The Imminy didn’t respond for several long seconds. My heart thumped in my chest and I wiped at the sweat on my brow. I couldn’t help it as all our lives depended on a string of lucky breaks.
“There’s no Ka on your ship or in this entire sector. You must have simulated the signature, human. How interesting. Even more interesting is that a discharged soldier would collude with the wanted terrorist marked as the Hallowed. The only thing I can’t understand is why you haven’t jumped system when you saw us coming?”
It stopped and waited for a response obviously, so I stuck to my lie.
“You have no idea what kind of mistake you’re making.”
“Oh, I do. See, whatever you’re trying to do, it’s futile. You have now come to an impasse and should surrender before we blow you to pieces.”
I turned to my crew. Fars and Arthur were more than ready. Vogron propped himself on a chair but kept his giant head in his hands as if trying not to let it drop from his neck. McGill was standing to my right, waiting for me to get out of the captain’s chair so she could sit in it. I could feel her trembling breath on me. She was scared, and honestly, so was I.
“Your calculations are off, oh Absolute. I hate to say this, but the Ka is definitely on board this ship, and—”
“You die today, traitor!” the Imminy hissed and cut me off before I could finish my lie.
My eyes remained locked on Leo’s screen. He nodded, turned to his men, and said those magic words that caused those magical moments of near-death that kept chipping on the mind of every soldier who dared to try and find some sleep years later.
“Fire!”
The Redeemer opened its cannon hatches, readied the launch pads, and streamed a hellfire broadside salvo of house-sized projectiles at the Federation battleship.
The enemy ship’s shields lit up in a myriad of blue-and-white flashes as explosions littered the mile-long surface of the gargantuan war machine. To return the kindness, the Idolian Wallbreaker fired back with the same fury and the Redeemer was cluttered with explosions that shook Tanaree within its docking bay.
“War!” Fars screamed as his eyes lit up. Alarms flared and I picked up Arthur and Fars and ran into the Tanaree’s arsenal room.
“Stand still!” I said as the three of us looked at the torpedo tubes of the Tanaree. “Let’s hope to whatever gods there are or aren’t, that this works.”
I laid my right hand on Arthur and my left hand on Fars and focused my nanites to create a capsule for both. A stream of nanites formed an egg-shaped shield arou
nd them that was incredibly sturdy, or so I hoped but could adjust to the person’s movement inside the egg.
“Get into the tubes”
Both of them did so and I used the rest of my cell count to make an egg for myself. I had spent a full batch on the three improvised cocoons. I crawled into the torpedo tube and contacted McGill over the INAS.
“We’re ready, Mitto. Hit it!”
I felt the Tanaree’s engines light up and the ship begin to move. It was incredibly hot in the tube surrounded by millions of nanites that created their own heat.
“Be quick, Mitto! We’re burning up in here!”
“On it, boss!”
Within moments the Tanaree left the Redeemer’s bay and entered the death storm of two Star-Eater battleships tearing into each other from a disturbing distance. Ships, and especially monstrosities like these two, were never supposed to come so close to each other. Every attack hit the enemy ship and ate into its shields and hull below. It was a battle of attrition and remained to be seen whose hulls could take a better beating.
The Tanaree rocketed out of the bay and immediately came under fire by the other frigates and fighters. I knew Mitto could hold his own against the other ships with greater firepower, maneuverability, and speed, but it wasn’t the Tanaree I was worried about, it was Leo and his crew. I didn’t realize how quickly these ships would devastate each other from this distance. The battle was incredibly brutal. It was like two Jareet beating down on each other in a 3x3 square without an inch of space to dodge.
“Gun’s ready boss, we’re in a position to fire.”
“Leo, concentrate all your fire at these coordinates.”
I relayed to him where we’d be entering the other ship, and just before we launched, my INAS showed me an impact of several missiles and torpedoes where we’d asked for them. The Idolian Wallbreaker’s flank shuddered, weakening and shredding part of the hull that protected the thirteenth and fourteenth decks. It was as close as you could get to a Star-Eater bridge from outside since it was securely nestled in the center of the battleship.
“Fire the particle beam!”
A wave of heat spread across the Tanaree as our main cannon fired up its detrium-loaded shell. The beam blasted into the weakened spot on the battleship’s hull and penetrated not only the thirteenth and fourteenth deck, but went three decks farther, opening the tenth and ninth deck to the vacuum of space.
I knew we had but a minute or two before the emergency blast doors would seal off that part of the ship, so I did what any self-respecting pirate would do.
“Mitto! Fire!”
Three nano-coated shells shot out toward the hole. It wasn’t a complicated strategy, nor was it particularly intelligent, but we had the brute force and will to execute it.
“Good luck, Stavos,” McGill said, calling me by my real name for the first time.
Even in this absolute chaos of a moment, I felt a smile growing on my lips. Don’t, I told myself, not now, not with her. It seemed as though the world could be falling apart but the moment a pretty girl said a nice word, I would get giddy like a high schooler and forget all about the devil walking the Earth.
As she said those words, McGill fired the three of us from our torpedo bays and into the enemy Star-Eater battleship. I felt my guts press down into my back as the shells exploded outward. The nanite shields absorbed the brunt of the velocity, and after a moment of extreme nausea and pain, the strain lessened. I still felt as if I was going to be crushed into a fistful of blood and gore as we flew through the vacuum of space, but it had finally started. And everything that had a start also had an end, so it would be over one way or another.
My INAS was going haywire trying to figure out what all the input meant. It was showing air loss, crushing damage to the capsule, incoming enemy fire, incoming Templars, freezing temperatures and frostbite, and a dozen more screaming red warnings that I couldn’t even catch because I was trying to steer my little nanite capsule toward the ninth deck as much as physics would allow.
It took us only several seconds to get there, but I think those were some of the longest seconds of my life. I felt a very strong need to puke, pass out, and eventually die as this launch hadn’t been anything like dropping onto Detera, it was infinitely worse.
We came in with a crash. And I meant a real crash because not only did we hit the ninth deck like I thought we would, we breached the walls of the ninth deck with such force that we ripped through the thinner walls, opened three massive holes in the ninth deck, and smashed into the eighth deck to everyone’s surprise there.
For several seconds I didn’t know where, who, or what I even was. I could feel the blood in my mouth and big black spots in my line of sight as the capsule had disappeared from overhead. This was too much, I thought. My plan would end before it even began.
Something smacked me across the face and shook me awake as gunfire erupted from all around. I tried to duck, but I was already down on the floor.
“Get up, Richard Stavos! Let us have a war!” Fars roared as he pulled me to my feet.
I got up, shaking off the burned nanites from my armor. They’ve been damaged beyond reuse after impacting the walls, but several chunks were still alive. But that’s what I expected of them anyway. I drew on what still worked and covered myself in them.
“You’ve got a heading?” I asked, still trying to come to my senses.
“Just behind this blast door that Arthur is trying to rip open.”
“What? How long was I out?”
“Seconds, why?”
I didn’t answer so they wouldn’t get any ideas, but I was incredibly impressed by how easily those two shook off this epic entrance. It only went to show when your body was bred for war, that your tolerance for anything, but mostly pain, was much higher than with us fragile humans.
Arthur and Fars managed to open the already damaged blast doors using their weapons like crowbars. I knew there would be resistance on the other side, so I activated my Blade Shield and prepared to go hard as soon as the door opened.
“When you got it open, move back. I got a little surprise for the enemy.”
I readied two discs and compressed as many nanites as I could into them, then formed circular blades that started rotating. Within mere seconds, they were going so fast that I had a hard time holding on to them.
The door finally gave in to Arthur’s and Fars’ efforts. A huge space opened before us—it was the canteen—and as soon as my INAS detected the first enemy, I sent in the two discs which spread like a wave across the room, tearing at the walls, tables, chairs, equipment, armors, and bodies. Screams reverberated from within, which was like music to my ears. We jumped in there, weapons and nanites blazing.
My INAS flashed red as it showed something approaching, and it was all I could do to hurl myself into Arthur as a massive nanite spike struck where I’d been standing. The spike struck the wall behind me, leaving a head-sized hole in the process. I propped myself back up only to see what I feared most as a Technomancer: another Technomancer. And a human at that.
He stood floating on a disc of his nanites with a Blade Shield swirling around his Fyre Armor. Long red hair came over his shoulders and his face seemed to be fury incarnate. Fars and Arthur looked at me.
“Stavos, do you want us to handle this?”
“No, get to the next deck.”
The Technomancer stared me down like a judge would a serial killer: with utmost certainty regarding his sentence and with divine fury regarding his execution.
“You had potential, Stavos,” Captain Rice said and spat onto the floor. “Too bad you’ve gone rogue.”
21
We circled each other like wild beasts as the stressed hull of the Idolian Wallbreaker wept under the barrage of Leo’s Redeemer. Screams, gunshots, and explosions echoed throughout the entire ship.
Fars and Arthur were making their way through legions of Federation soldiers, cutting through them with ease. That’s as far as I could see
until they rounded a corner and disappeared from sight.
“Still fighting the good fight for the Federation,” I said, moving around him step-by-step. I was in a slightly hunched position, ready to take him on at a moment’s notice.
“What happened to you, Stavos? What happened that you would betray your own race? You were shooting through the ranks; everyone talked about you in the Guild—they still do—but here you are in tow with a wanted terrorist, an Aloi.”
Rice’s face was sincere. Perhaps there was anger, perhaps there was a disappointment in there somewhere, but most prominently there was a deep confusion set on his face.
“Winters happened, Captain. He sold me to slavers and threw me into the Partak Sector after Detera. He couldn’t stand someone being more useful than his useless ass.”
Rice shot a weak stream of nanites at one of the tables, picked it up, and slung it toward me. I sidestepped the throw with ease and felt the wind brush my face as the piece of metal flew past me, breaking against the wall.
“I didn’t expect you to explain yourself as that only makes it worse. That means you are feeling guilty.”
He was right, I was feeling the guilt, but not for abandoning the Federation. The reason was rather simple. I felt guilty for not seeing the truth earlier.
“Why, Stavos? Why would you turn on us? Do you see this?”
He pointed at the insignia in the middle of his chest: a black hand on a white background. The fingers separated into dozens of cubes representing the marriage of nanite and human within the core of every Technomancer.
“Would you have come running like a good dog if you’d been in my place, Captain?” I asked as I readied some of my nanites to attack.
He shrugged and stopped for a second.
“You’ve been cast out of the Guild, you know? Does that mean anything to you?”
It did mean a lot to me. Getting into the Guild and becoming a Technomancer was one of the proudest moments of my life. But so many things happened in the meantime that the memories felt like those of someone else’s life.
Redeemer: A Military Space Opera Series (War Undying Book 2) Page 23