“We are committed to this course of action. It is the right course and with it, we shall accomplish our objective,” the captain quoted one of the Empire’s old battle manuals. In space combat, second guessing oneself usually led to bad things happening, so the combat fleet trained extensively in choosing the right course early in the process.
No one stopped on a dime in space. Spaceships did not turn quickly. Most combat was done from a single pass, as the War Axe was about to do. Except they outflew their radars and were blind.
“One minute.” Smedley sounded calm. The EI wouldn’t rattle. The bridge was tense. The War Axe and her crew did not have extensive combat experience. The ship was relatively untested.
The seconds seemed to crawl by. The captain busied himself by checking status screens, including video feeds of various areas within the ship. Most people already had their hoods on and were strapped to their workstations.
“Thirty seconds.”
Micky tapped his console. “Hoods,” he ordered for all personnel in the ship. He pulled his over his head and sealed it in place. Within seconds, the console showed green.
Micky ran a finger along the outside of his console. He looked at the main screen and watched the numbers tick down.
“Twenty seconds.”
“For the Bad Company. Long live the War Axe,” Micky said.
“Systems powered. Ready to engage. Counting down,” K’Thrall intoned. “Enemy fighters located. All are attached to the buoy.”
“HOLD FIRE!” Micky ordered at the twelfth second.
K’Thrall’s hand slashed through one of the holo projections surrounding him.
The ship jerked and the crew was slammed to one side of their seats as the pre-programmed maneuver diverted the War Axe five kilometers off trajectory.
The ship was heading straight for the buoy.
“May God have mercy on your souls,” Micky said before the ship’s forward fire control engaged to obliterate the obstruction before the ship.
The War Axe coasted through the remains of the buoy and the fighters that had been attached to it. The ship had taken no incoming fire.
Micky’s heart leapt into his throat. He wasn’t a big fan of fighting an enemy that didn’t fight back.
The automatic fire control kicked in again.
“What are they firing at?” Micky asked quickly.
“Multiple objects dead ahead!” K’Thrall yelled. Neither of them had time to issue the next command.
Brace for impact.
Poddern
“What the hell are you doing down there?” Terry yelled as the two tac teams continued to fight the Podders.
With a deep growl, a Pricolici appeared, vaulted over the people closest to the alien, and landed on its shell. It reacted with lightning speed and pumped shells rapidly into the Were’s chest. Christina staggered backward as four tentacles, each armed with a slug-thrower, weaved and dodged as they continued to fire unerringly.
Marcie opened up with her railgun, splitting the stalk from shell to mouth. The Podder staggered and settled to the ground as its stalk and four tentacles flopped over. Timmons and his crew rushed to help the weretigers and humans each dodging defensively around the alien, refusing to give it a stationary target.
Shonna and Merrit bolted behind the creature, but it had eyes on all sides of its head. Podders couldn’t be surprised.
“Stop!” Joseph called out. “Everyone just STOP!”
Joseph inched forward until he was close to the Podder. He tapped the butt of his short cavalry sword on the ground, beating a rhythm.
He stopped and waited with his eyes closed. Then he pounded again.
“Tell him to drop his weapons,” Terry ordered.
Joseph held up one hand, rapped the ground again, and then waited.
“I’m not fucking around here. He needs to drop his weapons,” Terry reiterated more urgently. He looked from Christina to the Podder, back to Christina. She was bleeding heavily as two warriors dragged her to a nearby fighting hole where Cory waited to help her.
“Neither am I, TH. Trust me when I say that we want to talk with this one. As long as he’s not shooting anyone, does he need to drop his weapons?” Joseph asked.
“Yes, as a sign of trust.”
Joseph tapped, waited, tapped again, and then stood up straight. “He asks you to drop your weapons, as a sign of trust.”
“I believe my initial assessment that the Podders had only a rudimentary intelligence may have been in error,” Terry admitted. He looked from person to person, Were to Were, and back to Joseph. “Everyone put your weapons down. Everyone but me. You can tell him that everyone’s safety is my responsibility.”
Terry moved in front of Joseph to stand before the blue alien. The eyes on its stalk-head followed him. The Jean Dukes Special hung at his side, barrel angled slightly upward. Terry could fire a killing shot within milliseconds, if he needed to.
It was dialed to five, sufficient to blow the Podder into next week.
If he needed to.
The others put their weapons down. The blue alien dropped his tentacles until the slug-throwers rested on his turtle-like shell.
“You said I wanted to talk with this one, so here we go, Joseph. I want to know two things. Where is the Crenellian headquarters, and then where is the Podder headquarters?”
Joseph dropped to a knee and tapped the ground. Terry looked over his shoulder to watch the vampire do his thing.
Several minutes passed before Joseph stood up. “He doesn’t know.”
“All of that and the answer is, he doesn’t know?” Terry kept his eyes on the Podder. The color rose in his cheeks. He was getting angry. Char was too far away to calm him down, but Joseph could see the heat building.
“He said a lot, but understand that they don’t know directions in a way that we would understand. Maybe he does know but I couldn’t understand. They live their lives underground. Despite how many we see up here, the real number is in the Pod.”
Terry holstered his pistol and held up his hands to the Podder.
“Thank you, but what do we really know? I need intel, my friend. I need something that will show me a way to end this war,” Terry pleaded.
“Learned a bunch of stuff there, too. The Pod screwed them. The contract was signed and everyone was on board, and then they decided they didn’t want to comply, so they started a rockslide and buried the Crenellians. They killed all of them. It was a massacre.”
Terry squinted as he looked at Joseph. “They did what?”
“They did it, TH. They started this war.” Joseph nodded toward the Podder.
“And I’m back to thinking they are barely above a rudimentary intelligence. Where does that leave us?”
Joseph shrugged. “At least we know that feeling sorry for the Podders isn’t right. They brought this on themselves. And worse than that, they know it. That’s why they’re not trying to kill us.”
“What do you mean they’re not trying to kill? We’ve had the shit kicked out of us!” Terry’s eyes shot to Christina, who was sitting up, her wounds healed. She was back in human form. Her uniform was ruined because of the abuse it had taken.
Char stood nearby. Terry couldn’t read anything in her expression. Timmons and Sue held hands as they walked away. Shonna and Merrit joined them. Petricia stood behind Joseph and rested her hand lightly on his shoulder.
“Can he lead us to his people so we can talk with them more? And from there, we can hunt down the Crenellians,” Terry said.
“I think he will take us underground, if we give him some reassurances, but the Crenellians, they are a different matter in entirety. As you’ve already guessed, they are fighting this battle by Podder rules. They’re down below, and they’re out for revenge.”
“We’re fighting a war where there are no good guys,” Terry said in a low voice. “I’m pretty sure that this could not suck more. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to whip out the big hammer and bea
t both sides into submission, show them the real cost of war. Vengeance won’t bring the Crenellians back. I’m thinking a healthy show of force will do the trick. With a precise application of max firepower, I hope both sides will be sufficiently respectful so I can tell them what they are going to do.”
“Terry Henry, arbitrator to the stars,” Joseph said.
“I think it’s more like a divorce lawyer. You spend a lot of money and in the end, no one is happy.”
“We better hurry. The Pod is putting together an army to cleanse the planet of both us and the Crenellians.”
* * *
Forward fire control kept its volume of fire for the time it took to cover the distance—less than one second. The automated system wasn’t able to destroy all of the objects ahead of the ship.
The explosions said they were manmade, intentionally deposited in space.
Mines.
Forward fire control was replaced by the close-in-weapon system. The cloud of energy and projectiles produced a massive fireball in front of the ship. The War Axe’s speed sent it through the cloud as the explosions were still happening. The ship’s armor and shields protected it from the millions of fragments hitting it at velocities approaching ten thousand kilometers per second.
The War Axe jerked violently. Metal screeched and the ship was through the field. The ship shook with vibrations, like a car driving with a flat tire.
“Helm!” Micky finally called out.
“Thrusters compensating,” Clifton yelled as his hands danced across the screens before him.
The ship’s flight smoothed for a couple seconds, until the War Axe hit the upper atmosphere and started to bounce. This was a critical part of the plan to slow the ship sufficiently to launch the ballistic canister, before reactivating the engines for maximum thrust to slingshot around the planet and head back into space at a speed where the fighters couldn’t catch them.
The captain tapped his screen to activate the ship-wide broadcast. “REPORT!” Micky said loudly and firmly. He was the bedrock of the ship, always on display and never allowed to look rattled.
Oscar was the first to speak. “The can is intact and ready to deploy in twelve, eleven…” The next report cut him off.
“Major damage starboard side forward. We’re crunched like a Coke can up there. Leaking atmosphere on four decks,” Blagun Lagunov reported.
“Two, one, launch,” Oscar stated, oblivious to everything else. The bridge crew couldn’t tell the can had launched. There was too much turbulence, too many red lights blinking on panels.
“Crew in the areas open to space are accounted for and working to seal the breaches,” Mac replied. “No casualties.”
“Engines are at full-power. Engaging…now,” Suresha reported. The crew were thrust back into their seats. They usually wouldn’t feel the acceleration, but the turbulence and damage combined to throw the systems out of sync.
As the War Axe climbed, the bouncing and shaking stopped. The forces on their bodies disappeared. Only flashing red lights and the sound of muffled emergency klaxons remained.
Chapter Ten
Poddern
Terry and Char took point, with Joseph and Petricia by their side. The last Podder they captured walked close behind them. He was unarmed and untethered as he had agreed to come. TH wondered if breaking a promise was something they often did, but Joseph trusted the Podder.
Terry trusted Joseph, and Terry needed to trust the Podder.
The rest of Char’s pack was arrayed behind the blue alien. The platoon was spread out behind them and the mechs were far out on the flanks, two to the right and two to the left.
The company hurried to meet the can drop, although Terry wasn’t sure how much more ammunition they’d need to accomplish their mission. He finally had a way ahead that made sense to him.
Char wasn’t so sure. “These two groups are locked in a life and death struggle. What’s your plan to convince them to lay down arms and play nice?”
“Fear,” Terry replied with a wry smile. “They have to fear us more than they fear each other. I don’t want to make a show of force, but if they demand that I kill a bunch of them, then that’s what I’ll do. In the end, it will save lives. Until then, it’ll suck for everyone.”
Joseph nodded. “I don’t think anyone expects anything less, TH.”
“Is this what we signed up for, Terry?” Petricia asked. Joseph’s wife usually remained quiet. She had been forced against her will to become a vampire those years ago, and she struggled with it. Marrying Joseph had helped, but she still hadn’t found a place where she was most comfortable.
She had come along because they both owed Terry Henry their lives. She would stay as long as the debt remained. Joseph said they could leave at any time, but they had no idea where they would go.
“That’s a good question,” Terry started before taking a deep breath. “No, we didn’t, and yes, we did. Wars are messy business. Always. Maybe the Empress thought that we could make them less messy, finish the fight before the people nuked each other into non-existence. I see that as our higher mission. Help expand the Federation, not through conquest, but by getting people to the table.
“Some people only understand force, and we get to pick which side we take. What we’re seeing on Poddern is representative of any war I’ve ever seen or read about. There is no army of the righteous. Only an army. The ones who fight the war are average people who bought into someone else’s vision of what had to be done and that violence was the answer.”
Terry sighed and looked at the Podder. “You understand me, don’t you? You just want to go home to your family.”
“I think the same could be said for most of us,” Petricia replied. Terry heard the sadness in her voice. With an unintentional glance, Terry confirmed that his children and their spouses were nearby. He didn’t have family waiting and wondering. His grandchildren were back on Earth. He missed them, but his closest family was right there.
Family included the vampires, the Were, the warriors. Terry didn’t know what to say to Petricia. She didn’t expect a reply. Joseph took her hand as they continued toward the canister landing zone.
They’d turned the second Podder loose after Joseph talked with him, apologizing for ripping off two of its tentacles. The Podder seemed unconcerned and said they would grow back.
A streak of fire scarred the heavens. As one, the group on the ground looked up.
“Is that the ship or our can?” Char asked.
“I think that’s the War Axe,” Terry said, squinting into the light. He couldn’t make out the ship, only the sign of its passing. A smaller streak appeared behind the ship and raced away from them. “There’s our canister. It will loop around on its way here. We better hurry.”
The War Axe
“Sensors. Don’t tell me we’re blind,” Micky cautioned.
“Okay. I will not tell you,” K’Thrall deadpanned. The captain saw the humor, but only shook his head. He’d rather see what was ahead of his ship than have a good laugh.
“Smedley?” the captain asked. “Please display full systems status and projected flight path on the main screen.”
The EI complied without responding. Every system on the ship required his presence. He could be everywhere at once, but there was a point where his processes would slow down. He didn’t want to risk missing something and have that cost a crewman’s life.
The captain unstrapped himself and climbed down from his chair. The War Axe was flying true, at least it felt that way. Thrusters were compensating for the damage to the ship’s structural integrity.
“Sensors coming back online,” K’Thrall noted.
The captain exhaled heavily and watched the screen to see if anything appeared in their flight path. He mumbled to himself. Maybe some thought it was a prayer. Others could have thought it was cheering for the ship and its crew, wishing for the best of luck.
“Flight profile shows clear. We have departed Tissikinnon Four’s gravity
field. Acceleration is constant. We are on course for Tissikinnon Five,” Clifton reported from the helm. He threw his hands up in celebration.
The captain slapped him on the back before making a quick pass around the bridge and thanking everyone. He returned to the captain’s chair and activated the ship-wide comm.
“Commander Lagunov, I will meet you forward for an onsite damage assessment. All hands stand down from general quarters and prepare to assist with structural repairs as required. Captain, out.”
The captain pulled his hood back and took a deep breath as was his ritual. He stopped, alarm seizing his features. “Smedley, is there a fire somewhere?”
Poddern
“I don’t see it,” Terry said. He and Char squinted at the horizon.
It’s on its way. Low at eleven o’clock, Kaeden told them. His mech suit had superior optics, beyond the eyes of the merely nanocyte enhanced.
They adjusted where they were looking. “Still don’t see it.”
Terry’s hand rested gently on Char’s hip while hers was draped over his shoulder. Joseph and Petricia watched from next to the Podder. Joseph tapped on the alien’s shell.
“Is he using Morse code or something like that?” Terry asked.
Petricia stepped up. “He tried to explain that the tapping helps resonate the words that he forms in his mind. He said it was like using a carrier wave, but I don’t know what that means.”
Terry almost started to explain it, but didn’t want to come across as demeaning. Petricia was born after the World’s Worst Day Ever, after the fall of mankind. She had been raised in a destroyed world where the only thing that mattered was survival.
“As long as Joseph understands it. I can’t thank him enough for helping us to communicate with the locals,” Terry replied with a smile.
She looked down shyly.
“And you, too, Petricia. If you hadn’t come with us, he would not have either. You are helping to save lives. That may come across as weak since we’ve already killed so many Podders, but we know that we can do something different now, maybe head off future battles,” Terry said softly.
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