by Ryk Brown
“Sure, when I was five. And I didn’t expect to be attacking them.”
“Not them,” Vol corrected as he checked their position. “Just the Dusahn ship orbiting above them.”
“Incoming message from Striker One,” Isa reported from Shenza One’s back seat. “Captain Nash is wondering what took us so long.”
“Tell him we stopped for lunch,” Tariq suggested.
“Settle down people,” Vol instructed. He glanced at his sensor screen, checking that all eight Gunyoki had arrived at the rally point, as planned. “Alright, everyone. Just like we discussed in the mission briefing. We draw their fire, and the Cobras finish them off.”
“How did we get the shit duty?” Tham wondered.
“Don’t worry, Tham, it’ll all be over in a few minutes.”
“Yeah, and then it’s another four hours of jumping to get back home,” Alayna complained.
“Would you rather fight them off on our doorstep?” Vol wondered, glancing at his mission clock. “Twenty seconds, everyone. Two, follow me in, then Three and Four, and then Five through Eight. Fire only at your assigned target points. You ready, Tariq?”
“What do you think?”
“I think we go anyway,” Vol replied as he watched the last few seconds tick away. At zero, he pressed his jump button, and a split second later the Dusahn assault ship was less than five hundred meters away, filling his cockpit windows as it rushed toward him. Without pause, he pressed and held the firing button on his flight control stick, unleashing a barrage of plasma energy at the rapidly approaching side of the ship.
“Targets locked,” Isa announced. “Launching missiles.”
A stream of snub missiles, each assigned their own individual point of impact, leapt from the missile pods on either side of the Gunyoki fighter’s cockpit, rushing toward their targets and spreading out as each honed in on its target. Within seconds, all forty-eight snub missiles had been launched.
Vol watched his targeting screen as he continued firing. Out of his peripheral vision, he could see the assault ship’s gun turrets turning to take aim, but it was too late. Small explosions began appearing all over the side of the Dusahn vessel as the snub missiles began striking their targets. Vol pulled back on his flight control stick, pressing his jump button the moment he had a clear jump line.
“Outta my way, Vol,” Tariq muttered as he jumped in behind Vol. As if on cue, Shenza One pitched up and jumped away, giving Tariq a clear line of fire. Explosions were already lighting up the side of the Dusahn assault ship as Tariq pressed and held his firing button. “Let ‘em have it, Jova!”
“Locking missiles on targets,” Jova reported from Shenza Two’s back seat. “Firing missiles!”
“Damn!” Tariq exclaimed as four dozen missiles streaked away. “That should make them piss themselves!”
“That has got to hurt!” Jova exclaimed as their missiles began striking their targets all across the port side of the enemy ship.
Tariq looked up as two more Gunyoki ships appeared as if from nowhere. “That’s our cue,” he said, pressing his jump button.
“Looks like their port, midship shields have about had it!” Gento reported from the back of Shenza Three.
“Alayna! Their port shields are down, but their guns aren’t!” Tham called over comms. “Corkscrew left, I’ll go right! Light ‘em up!”
“You got it, Tham!” Alayna replied.
Tham pushed his control stick hard right and forward, twisting it to the right as he shoved his throttles to the stops. As soon as he established his corkscrew maneuver, he yanked his throttles back to idle and flipped his engine outward as he held down the firing trigger.
Both Gunyoki fighters corkscrewed downward toward the battered Dusahn assault ship, their engines angled outward, spreading their hail of plasma fire in a spiraling pattern. Their rain of destruction tore through the top of the assault ship’s port side, overloading her shields and ripping open the outer layers of her hull.
Finally, both ships pulled out of their corkscrew dives, angling away, fore and aft, just enough to establish clear escape routes along which they jumped to safety.
On the opposite side of the assault ship, four more Gunyoki fighters appeared, each of them angling to attack different sections of the lone warship. The Dusahn guns spread apart, each of them looking for a different target, but as they opened up, the targets jumped ahead a few meters, repeating the process and skipping ahead of the Dusahn guns before they could get a lock on them.
Robert glanced at his tactical display as his Cobra gunship came out of its attack jump. As planned, Strikers Two and Three had jumped in at the same time.
He looked out his forward window. Five hundred meters ahead of him, and approaching fast, was the unshielded, port side of the Dusahn assault ship. As expected, her port guns were dormant since she was channeling all of her energy to her starboard side, the direction from which she was currently being attacked.
Robert wasted no time, immediately unleashing a series of plasma torpedoes; firing simultaneous triplets from all four mark-three barrels under his ship’s nose. With all three Cobra gunships doing the same, thirty-six plasma torpedoes struck the doomed warship at the same time, ripping her core apart.
No pilots witnessed the final destruction of the Dusahn gunship over Paradar that day. Not Gunyoki; not Cobra. But each of them knew that the retaliation had only just begun.
* * *
Nathan entered the Aurora’s power generation section, carrying two ration packets. After taking a single step inside the compartment, Cameron’s words echoed in his mind.
The compartment was in chaos. Panels were opened up with wires and testing leads spilling out. There were at least eight techs working, and none of them looked happy. Even the access panels to reactor two were opened, which was a rare occurrence.
Just as Nathan was about to ask one of the passing techs where the chief engineer was, he heard Vladimir’s familiar voice uttering Russian curse words from the next compartment.
Nathan, following the sound of his friend’s voice, found him looking at a large component, most likely pulled from reactor two. The component was charred and partially melted. “Something wrong, Commander?” Nathan asked as he approached.
Vladimir glanced over at him and then returned his attention to the technician holding the component. “We have no choice,” he told the tech. “Run diagnostics on all components downstream of this. Maybe we’ll get lucky and can salvage something of use.”
“Yes, sir,” the tech replied, turning to depart. “Captain,” the tech nodded as he passed Nathan.
“I thought you might be hungry,” Nathan said, tossing one of the ration packs to Vlad.
“I’m always hungry,” he replied as he caught the ration pack.
“Yeah, I know,” Nathan said as he pressed down on the center of the packet with both thumbs, breaking the seal. There was a small snapping sound, and Nathan began shaking his packet with one hand. “I take it things aren’t going well.”
Vladimir sighed as he, too, shook his ration pack. “I am beginning to have serious doubts about our ability to repair reactors two and four,” he admitted.
“Yeah, Cameron expressed her doubts about that, as well,” Nathan said as he tore the cover off his ration pack and broke off the spoon attached to the inside of the lid.
“She did?” Vladimir said, seeming hurt.
“Don’t take it personally, Vlad,” Nathan insisted as he sat down on the edge of one of the toolboxes. “No one expects you to be a miracle worker.”
“Of course they do,” Vladimir argued, taking a seat at the control station. “I’m the Cheng. That’s what I’m supposed to do.”
“Vlad, even I know that you can’t fix those reactors here. You’d have to pull the entire thing…both of them. Hell, fabricating the parts alone would take months. It’s just not feasible.”
“Well, we’ve got to do something,” Vladimir insisted as he took his first bite.
“We need at least twice as much power than we are currently able to produce if you plan to get this ship back in the fight.”
“There’s a lot more wrong with this ship than her failed reactors,” Nathan reminded him.
“Yes, but without enough power, none of that even matters. Besides, propulsion and maneuvering will be fine, and replacing the damaged jump emitters will only take a week, two at the most. Power, Nathan, that is the problem.” Vladimir shoveled the last of his ration pack into his mouth and then added, “If only this had all started six months later.”
“Why?” Nathan wondered.
“The refit,” Vladimir replied. “Ah, but then I would no longer have been on the Aurora, and you’d have to do all of this without me, which you and I both know would be impossible.”
“You were going to leave the Aurora?” Nathan wondered.
“Da.”
“I find that hard to believe. You love this ship.”
“Da, but much was going to be changed. The new systems…I would not have been qualified to be her Cheng any longer. Plus, my sister is always telling me that I need to settle down, get married, have children.”
“You have a sister?”
Vladimir looked crossly at him.
“What does she look like?”
“Don’t even think about it,” Vladimir warned.
“I’m hurt,” Nathan told him.
“Don’t be,” Vladimir replied. “She is not your type. Plus, she is already married and has three children of her own.”
“What were you planning to do?” Nathan asked.
“About getting married?”
“No, about work.”
“Oh. I was transferring to research and development,” Vladimir explained.
“You would have been bored,” Nathan insisted. “You belong in the thick of things, just like me.”
Vladimir looked at Nathan with one eyebrow raised.
“What?”
“So, you finally admit it.”
“Admit what?” Nathan asked.
“That this is what you were meant to do.”
“What, eat lunch with a grumpy Russian in a busted up power-gen department?”
“You know what I mean,” Vladimir insisted. “When did you finally figure it out?”
“Honestly?” Nathan thought for a moment. “Probably when I was about ten. Our coach was late, so I ran practice for half an hour. I just started telling everyone what to do and they did it. The coach made me team captain after that.”
“And then you spent the rest of your life avoiding leadership responsibilities,” Vladimir stated sarcastically.
“Something like that,” Nathan admitted. “I think when I heard my father had died, something inside me clicked. Like I could hear his voice telling me to step up.”
“I always assumed that had happened when Tug was killed,” Vladimir commented.
“Maybe a little,” Nathan admitted, “but not like this. Now it’s all I think about. It’s what I want. It’s who I am.”
“That is good to hear, my friend,” Vladimir stated. “You were getting dangerously close to being that same whiny, self-absorbed, spoiled, little rich boy you were the first time around. I was afraid I would have to slap you around a bit.”
“Oh, really?”
“It’s what friends are for,” Vladimir shrugged. “Are you going to finish that?” he wondered, pointing to Nathan’s half-eaten ration pack.
“Help yourself,” Nathan said, handing it to him. He watched his friend eat for a moment. “They were planning on refitting this ship with ZPEDs, right?”
“What are you talking about?” Vladimir asked as he scarfed down the rest of Nathan’s ration pack.
“The refit?”
“Oh! Da! Many other things, as well, but mostly the ZPEDs. They were going to install two of them. It would have given us ten times as much power, without all the problems associated with antimatter reactors. That would have given us greater single jump distance, much faster recharge times, more power for weapons and shields…you name it.”
“How complex was it going to be?” Nathan wondered. “Was it really going to take six months?”
“Not for the ZPEDs,” Vladimir insisted. “Those would have only taken a few weeks. It was the propulsion and jump drive upgrades that were going to take so long, along with the structural work and the changes to the weapons systems. The ZPEDs would have been the easy part.”
“Why don’t we just change to ZPEDs, then?” Nathan suggested.
“Because we don’t have any ZPEDs large enough to run this ship,” Vladimir stated as if it were obvious.
“Can’t we build one?” Nathan wondered. “I mean, we fabricate them for shuttles and stuff.”
“The smaller ones, yes. The big ones are a bit trickier,” Vladimir explained.
“What if I could get us some big ZPEDs?” Nathan asked. “Could you make them work?”
Vladimir stared at him for a moment, studying his face. “You’re serious, aren’t you?” Vladimir laughed. “Where are you going to get a class-four, zero-point energy device?”
“I may know a guy,” Nathan replied, smiling.
* * *
Lord Dusahn stood in the center of the combat triad, dressed in traditional Chankarti robes of black and crimson. In front of him was one of his instructors, dressed in similar robes, but of white and gray, and behind him to his right and left were two of the instructor’s assistants, dressed much the same.
A chime sounded, and the instructor nodded to his opponent, who returned the nod before assuming his combat stance. The instructor charged forth a second later, delivering a series of blows with both hands and feet, none of which made it past his lord’s defenses. As soon as Lord Dusahn delivered a return strike, knocking his instructor back a step, the man behind him and to his left also charged.
As if he had eyes in the back of his head, Lord Dusahn leaned to his right while making a sweeping motion up and over the second attacker’s outstretched arm, trapping it against his own body.
The third man charged a moment after the second, and Lord Dusahn avoided him by throwing his feet up and to his right, and walking up the face of the approaching man. The Dusahn leader pivoted over the second attacker’s still-trapped arm, landing on his feet on the second attacker’s opposite side.
With a sweeping motion of his leg, Lord Dusahn brought the second attacker to the mat, releasing his arm as the man went down. A perfectly timed sidestep to his left avoided the third attacker’s continued charge, and a roundhouse kick to the back of the man’s head as he passed ensured that he would not be attacking again, anytime soon. A quick stomp onto the face of the second attacker as he attempted to rise meant Lord Dusahn now only had one attacker to deal with.
His instructor charged again, calmly delivering a barrage of combinations: left hand, right hand, left elbow, a spin-kick, and finally a knee-rise to the chin. None of them connected well enough to faze his leader.
The overly confident instructor put too much momentum into his spinning attempt to strike his student on the side of the head. It was when his instructor over-committed himself that Lord Dusahn spotted his opportunity. He leaned to his left and ducked slightly, allowing his master’s foot to clear his head by centimeters. At the same time, he swept his master’s other leg, which was still airborne, out from under him, causing the elderly instructor to descend out of balance, landing on his side.
Lord Dusahn stomped forward, driving his heel into his master’s abdomen. He quickly raised his foot and delivered a second blow to the old man’s face, bloodying his nose and stunning him enough for the referee to call the match in favor of his lord.
Lord Dusahn returned to the center of the triad, waiting for his opponents as they struggled back to their feet, tired and beaten. Once each man had returned to their points on the triad, Lord Dusahn nodded respectfully to each man in turn. It was the only time the leader of the Dusahn Empire bowed to any man.
With his daily practice completed, Lord Dusahn strolled over to the side of the room and picked up his towel and the crystal tumbler of ice-cold water. He wiped himself off and then downed the entire contents of the tumbler. “Those who lurk in shadow either carry bad news or are the harbingers of doom,” he declared as he poured another tumbler full of water. “Which are you, old man?”
General Hesson stepped out from the shadowed doorway. “I was merely admiring your prowess on the triad, my lord. Time has not dulled the edge of your sword.”
“One must keep their edge sharp,” Lord Dusahn replied, “especially when one leads an empire.” He took another long drink of water before continuing. “For one never knows when his sword will be needed.”
“Portensus?”
“His third writings.” Lord Dusahn set down the tumbler and turned to the general. “What word do you bring?”
General Hesson paused, waiting for the others to leave the triad chamber before continuing. “Two days running, they challenge us,” he began. “Yesterday at Paradar, today at Ursoot.”
Lord Dusahn eyed the general.
“Damaged, but still operable,” the general assured his lord. “These hit-and-run tactics are an effective strategy, especially while we are trying to cover more territory than we should. It requires a constant state of readiness, which is hard on our ships and crews.”
“Abandon the outer worlds, and send those ships to finish off the Aurora,” Lord Dusahn stated calmly. “Make sure their captains know that their lord will not accept failure. They must return with news of the Aurora’s destruction, or they do not return at all.”
“Might I suggest an alternate strategy, my lord?”
Lord Dusahn looked annoyed. “Speak.”
“Abandon the outer worlds, and bring our ships and crews back to the cluster. Those worlds were nothing more than a ruse to lure the Aurora out of her nest, which failed.”
“Careful, old man,” Lord Dusahn warned, raising a finger.
“My job is to speak the truth, my lord. The Pentaurus cluster is all we need to grow our forces. The industrial capacity of the Rogen system pales in comparison. They can never surpass us, as long as we maintain control of the cluster. The Aurora cannot leave her nest for fear of us striking while she is away. It takes her three days to reach us, just as it does for us to reach her. We can task a few of our frigates and gunships to hide out within single jump range of the Rogen system and use them to harass the Karuzari in the same way they are now attempting to harass us. With every raid, we will acquire more intelligence on the Aurora’s condition. With any luck, we will discover a way to destroy her.”