by J. N. Chaney
And that was not going to happen.
“Dash, Tybalt says the Swift’s drive is starting to develop a bad harmonic. We’re going to have to back off—”
“Then back off and be safe,” Dash ordered. “Conover, you still with me?”
“So far, yeah.”
Dash checked the range, then queried Sentinel. She confirmed that, at this blistering acceleration, his velocity had already reached almost two percent of light speed and would only go up from here. It left him facing a stark choice. He could either accept a single, extremely high-speed pass sooner or back off to fight a more protracted battle later.
Dash gritted his teeth and cut the drive. It was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. But there really was such a thing as too much speed.
Conover matched his acceleration, and Leira was able to catch up and fall back into formation, so there was that, at least.
Dash glared at the mess of icons swarming around Backwater. He especially focused on the tight knot of blue ones, the embattled Cygnus Realm forces fighting desperately to hold the Backwater gate.
“Hang on, guys, just a little bit longer.”
The Archetype raced into battle like an avenging angel.
He’d charged up the blast-cannon, so the winglike accumulators had unfurled and now flared with coruscating energy. He lined up a Deeper cruiser pounding away at the Sabertooth with an x-ray laser and fired. The colossal blast tore the Deeper ship in two.
A ragged burst of exclamations and even a few cheers flashed across the comm from the crews of the embattled Cygnus Realm ships. Dash ignored them and concentrated, selecting targets, snapping out dark-lance and nova-cannon shots. He rolled the Archetype through a storm of fire, more and more bursts of fire impacting the mech’s shield. The shots included bursts from the Deepers’ skimmer beam, several of which were deployed across their fleet. A brief moment of horrifying what-if? smacked Dash. What if they hadn’t managed to capture and back-engineer one of the skimmer beams? But the answer to that was painfully clear. This battle would have already been long over.
But they had, so the Archetype was able to shrug off the harm as he slashed through the Deeper formation. And then he’d swept right past them, leaving the battle dwindling behind him, his velocity still far too high to start a realistic turn using thrust alone.
It didn’t matter. He didn’t have to. Sentinel had already anticipated his intent. She’d calculated the Archetype’s precise trajectory, falling into Backwater’s gravity well and skimming the top of the atmosphere to aerobrake away some of his ferocious speed. Leira followed him, but Conover had already decelerated hard, slowing the Pulsar and getting his mech’s powerful suite of electronic countermeasures into play.
“Dash, that Deeper attack force,” Leira said, but that was all. She just left silence hanging off the end of her words.
It didn’t matter, though. He knew exactly what she meant. The Deeper force had been enormous. That the Realm was still putting up as stiff a fight as they were, while so badly outnumbered and outgunned, was a testament to their commitment, their courage, and the tenacity of the crews and their ships.
Worse, an already fearsome array of capital ships had been reinforced by several Battle Princes and even a trio of the bizarre and truly disgusting creature-mech hybrid they’d taken to calling mag-mechs. They’d only encountered them directly once before, during their first sortie against the Deepers in the Big Black. Essentially enormous, larva-like creatures the size of destroyers, they’d been embedded and merged with tech, including weapons, drives, and armor. They were, Dash thought with a shudder, one of the most truly disgusting things he’d ever encountered in space—and that included the time he’d woken up on the floor in one of Passage’s most notorious bars, looking up at the underside of one of the tables, where what little cleaning the place got never reached.
Okay, that memory still made him shudder, too.
But Leira wasn’t done.
“Dash, we might have to consider withdrawing.”
“We do that, and we’ve effectively lost the Kingsport and everyone on the other side of the gate.”
“Only until we’re able to capture the gate back—”
“Sure, assuming the Deepers don’t destroy it or switch it to another destination. Oh, say, like one of their bases somewhere else out there in the universe, and start pouring reinforcements through.”
“Dash, I know—”
“No, I know what you’re going to say.” Dash watched as the surface of Backwater blurred past beneath him, just visible through flickering plasma dancing around the mech as it aero-braked. They were now almost exactly on the far side of the planet from the gate, which would rise over Backwater’s limb in a little less than ten minutes.
“You’re going to say that I’m blaming myself for letting this happen, and that’s making me stubborn, even if it means I’m risking everything just because of my ego.”
“Okay . . . that’s a little harsher than I’d planned, but that about sums it up.”
“Do I blame myself? Yes. Is it making me stubborn, making me dig in my heels here? Sure. But is it about my ego? No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Leira, if we withdraw, it’s going to take us weeks, maybe even months, to rebuild enough force to stand a realistic chance of retaking this gate. Seriously, do you really think the Deepers are going to let that happen? What would you do if you were them?”
Leira gave an exasperated sigh. “I’d deactivate the gate. Or even destroy it. Or, if I could, I’d switch it to another destination. Look, I know you’re right, but—”
“But?”
A pause. “I don’t know. It just seems that we’re going all-in here. That if we lose this, we lose it all.”
“That would be because that’s exactly what we’re doing. We’ve pushed all our winnings into the middle of the table, and we’re about to draw our last card.”
“Not a good analogy, Dash. You’re a terrible poker player.”
“I am not!”
“I beat you virtually every game.”
“Yeah, well, I haven’t adjusted to your play style yet. Just gimme time.”
“Dash, you suck at poker. Face it.”
“I might remind you that I won the Slipwing in a game of poker.”
“See? That proves my point!” Leira said, ending on a chuckle. But it died off into silence.
Dash watched the tactical display. Four minutes.
Three.
“Be—just be careful here, Dash. You’re important. To me.”
He paused because he knew she meant it. “Same, and I will, and we’ll pick this up at another time. I’ve got more to say.”
“Good—I do too. Leira out.”
A squadron of Deeper ships rose over the Backwater horizon and immediately opened fire. It hadn’t been hard for the Deepers to predict not only what Dash and Leira intended to do but, thanks to the implacable nature of orbital mechanics, have a good idea where and when they’d reappear. Dash had considered maneuvering while making their brief orbit, but anything fancy would just cost time they couldn’t afford. Every second that went by was another Deeper x-ray laser shot, another missile, another damaged or destroyed Realm ship, more injured or dead crew.
He decided to rely, instead, on the raw power of the mechs. They’d been built for one purpose—to wage war. So that was exactly what he was going to do.
Again, he’d already charged the blast-cannon. He drove through the hurricane of fire the Deepers poured at the mechs, closing to the weapon’s optimum range—the distance where its damage and area of effect were both maximized. The instant he reached it, he fired.
The boosted antimatter charge ripped through the Deeper battle line, engulfing two heavy cruisers and a destroyer. The blast reduced all three ships to glowing wreckage. Another cruiser and a pair of frigates were caught on the margins of the detonation. They staggered under the impact of plasma so energetic it swamped space with
x-rays so intense they made a solar flare seem like a spotlight.
Dash immediately started the blast-cannon cycling again, accumulating another charge. As he did, he lashed out with dark-lances and nova-cannons, gouging hulls open, blasting entire chunks off of Deeper capital ships, and reducing smaller ones to spinning wreckage. Leira stayed tucked in close, her weapons blazing away in rapid fire, Tybalt and Sentinel coordinating their targeting to do the maximum damage as quickly as possible.
The Archetype and Swift were a blazing spear thrusting deep into the enemy’s formation. They seared and smashed ship after ship, and it seemed nothing could stop them.
But Dash knew better. The mechs certainly weren’t remaining untouched themselves. More Deeper ships switched their fire to the Archetype and Swift every passing instant until they were the focus of fire for virtually an entire fleet. Had they not been upgraded with hexacores and Dark Metal Two, the Archetype would be nearing its limits, and the Swift would have already been crippled. Even so, the mechs were by no means invulnerable. The AIs cycled the shields as fast as possible, but every discharge cycle left them briefly exposed to the full fury of the Deeper broadsides. Armor glowed, then boiled to vapor that streamed behind them like the tails of comets. Dash winced, grunting and cursing as the damage piled up. Systems flicked from nominal green to cautionary orange. Sentinel smoothly rerouted power flows and data streams around damaged components, but even she could only work with the resources she had.
“Leira, time to bug out!” Dash snapped, pitching the Archetype into a steep climb directly away from Backwater.
“I was wondering if you—ouch! —were ever going to pull back,” Leira shot back, her mech following the Archetype out of the battle.
The Deeper fire started to die, then abruptly cut off entirely. Glancing back, Dash saw the aliens pumping torrents of fire into empty space behind them.
Huh?
“Dash, Conover. Kristin and I have pretty much used up all of our tricks. The Deepers have managed work-arounds and countermeasures a lot faster this time.”
“Thanks anyway for the breather,” Dash replied, taking a moment to just enjoy the lack of incoming fire. “Any idea why they’re so on the ball today, EW-wise?”
“We think it’s one of those Battle Princes. If you look at your, um, five o’clock level, you’ll see it, just starting another run at the Sabertooth.”
Dash glanced along the vector Conover had indicated. Sure enough, he saw the Battle Prince, a big son-of-a-bitch compared to its fellows. It was definitely something different. But Dash didn’t have time to dwell on it. The Battle Prince, followed by two of the mag-mechs, closed on the Sabertooth fast. They took advantage of a blind spot in her defenses opened by battle damage. In horror, Dash watched as the Battle Prince slammed something like a giant hammer into the command cruiser’s bow, crushing an entire section of hull. One of the mag-mechs latched onto the buckled plating, ripping it away and starting to dig inside the Realm ship. The other followed the Battle Prince, repeating the same sort of attack on the heavy cruiser Vespa.
“Leira, Conover, on me, let’s go!”
Dash powered the Archetype through a blistering turn, orienting the mech straight at the Sabertooth. As he raced in, he deployed the power-sword. Leira and Conover covered him, scissoring back-and-forth in his wake, snapping out shots at targets as they zipped by.
Again, the Archetype became the focus for more and more fire. Dash made himself ignore it and just focused on the mag-mech, which had now burrowed a third of itself in the Sabertooth’s hull. He didn’t even want to contemplate what horror the massive creature was wreaking inside the command cruiser. Instead, he risked a point-blank dark-lance volley that ripped across pallid, fleshy matter, spilling globules of something green and viscous. The creature shuddered, its multitude of jointed legs scrabbling on the Sabertooth’s hull as it sought to back out. Dash slammed the Archetype into full reverse thrust, sliding to a near halt relative to the mag-mech and striking out with the power-sword.
The colossal creatures were, it turned out, even more disgusting on the inside. Gelatinous goo oozed from its wounds, blobs of it swirling around the Archetype. Where they splatted against armor, they clung, a potent acidic effect etching even the tough, Dark Metal-infused alloy.
The creature spun around. For an instant, Dash looked straight into clashing mandibles and a multitude of dead, crystalline eyes. Then it lunged forward, clamped its flailing legs around the mech, and grappled it.
Dash flexed the Archetype’s joints, power pouring into the servo-actuators. He was able to push the jointed legs apart, but only barely. As he did, fire again began to slam into both of them, x-ray laser shots smacking into the Archetype’s shield and blasting chunks out of the mag-mech. The Deepers apparently had no qualms about destroying their own foul construct, as long they took out the Archetype at the same time.
Dash struggled to break from the monstrosity grappling him. But the Archetype’s fists just sank into pale, doughy flesh, more sludgy ichor bubbling out of the wounds and engulfing his own mech’s limbs.
“Sentinel, any ideas?”
“One. A creature this large couldn’t exist in a gravity well. It would collapse under its own weight.”
“The distortion cannon?”
“It’s worth a try.”
Dash yanked his attention away from the vile creature that squirmed and writhed right in his face and targeted the distortion cannon at a point just a few klicks away. He spooled the weapon up to full power, ramped it into overcharged mode, and fired.
The mag-mech wobbled obscenely, writhing, as it was suddenly yanked in the direction of the powerful gravitational pulse. An instant later, it exploded.
The blast of gore splattered the Archetype from head to feet. Some gooey fragments smacked against the armor, but most just plunged into the temporary gravity well. The Archetype followed the gruesome mess in its abrupt fall, then space-time reasserted itself. The gravity well vanished, leaving the mech hanging amid drifting blobs and fragments of ghastly carnage.
“Okay, that was disgusting,” Leira said.
Dash sniffed. “You think it looks bad from out there? Try coming into the freakin’ middle of this mess.”
As he spoke, he applied thrust, flung the Archetype away from what remained of the mag-mech. He spun around, found the second one, mostly buried in the Vespa’s hull. A second distortion cannon shot literally ripped the guts out, leaving nothing but a flabby shell of flesh and mechanical components hanging out of the gaping rent in the cruiser’s hull. He spun again, dumping more power into the shield, giving himself a brief respite as he took in the battlespace.
It wasn’t good. In fact, it was downright awful.
Not a single Realm ship remained undamaged. Several, like the Relentless, were just drifting, lifeless hulks. Their biggest ships, the Sabertooth and the heavy cruisers, weren’t far from the same fate. Their arrival had brought a bit of relief and had reoriented the battle, but Dash’s heart sank as he realized they were only delaying the outcome. Even Benzel’s arrival, expected anytime, might not be enough to change that.
He had to think of something, and fast.
Time. He needed more time—!
“Hey Dash, got room for us to play?”
He instantly recognized the voice. Jexin’s Polaris had just flashed out of the gate, leading a swarm of fighters, Denkillers and Super Makos, led by the N’Teel in their Moonbanes.
Jexin’s AI dumped the tactical situation on the other side of the gate into the Archetype’s display. The Deepers had apparently activated a fail-safe aboard their enormous platform, now nominally in the Realm’s possession. The fact was that there just hadn’t been sufficient time to thoroughly investigate the Deeper facility. The Realm had assumed some risk, proceeding with construction of the Kingsport before the huge alien construct had been fully cleared. But, as Dash had said many times, war is risk.
And, now, that risk had suddenly come back to b
ite them. The Deepers had been able to trigger the fail-safe, a dormant mechanism for reconfiguring sections of the platform’s vast hull into what amounted to missiles. The platform had launched several hundred, all at once, and would have quickly swamped the Realm’s defenses were it not for the vigilant suspicion of the N’Teel. A flight of their fighters patrolling near the platform had seen the missiles in the process of forming and sounded the alarm. The Deeper projectiles had no warheads, doing damage by kinetic impact alone. The N’Teel warning had allowed the ships protecting the Kingsport to take defensive measures, so few actually found their targets. But they had tied up the Realm forces on the other side of the gate, which, Dash thought, had obviously been the point.
The arrival of the Jexin and the fighters swung the tides of battle once more, forcing the Deepers onto the defensive. Dash watched as the nimble little ships wove among the Deepers, snapping out rail gun and blast-cannon shots, loosing missiles, and generally causing mayhem. It took the pressure off the beleaguered Sabertooth and her battered consorts, but Dash knew it wouldn’t last. The fighters had limited endurance and stocks of ordnance and would soon have to withdraw. To where was another question entirely, since the only carrier on this side of the gate, the Relentless, had been reduced to a drifting hulk.
“Jexin, how long until we get some capital ships coming through that gate to help us?” Dash asked.
“Right before I came through, I saw the Dauntless heading for the gate, with three more heavy cruisers behind her. The rest of the task force over there is maneuvering to get in line, but it’s going to take them some time to get sorted out.”
“Roger that, out.”
Dash blew out a frustrated breath. The Dauntless, a Silent Fleet heavy cruiser that had recently been upgraded, would add some badly needed firepower, as would the heavies accompanying her. But now they faced the same problem they had when they’d attacked through the Backwater Gate from this side, except reversed. Thanks to the work Elois and her people had been doing, they’d been able to expand the cross-section of the gate, so two heavy cruisers should be able to pass through together if they were careful. But they’d be exposed to the full weight of fire of at least ten Deeper ships as soon as they tried it.