by T. R. Harris
“I can, even though it’s an older CW system. But at the speed we’re traveling, link time will only be fifteen minutes or so, not the full hour.”
“Riyad, try to contact General Sharp. This squad had to be the one he and Admiral Warner sent. We need to find where they went.”
“I’m on it. Monty, how about a hand? Your comm equipment is pretty archaic.”
It took the two men forty minutes to refine the linking signal and lock in with Earth. Adam had the address to the secure facility where the last conversation had taken place. There was no guarantee Sharp would be there, but it was a direct connection to military command without having to go through civilian operators.
To his surprise, the link was routed directly to both the general and the admiral as soon as Adam mentioned his name. This was more like it.
“Are you okay?” Paul Sharp asked the moment his image resolved.
“Yeah, we’re fine. What’s going on? We just came through the Dysion Void and ran into a group of Human ships. Now they’re gone. Where did you send them? They had Kracion and his Klin ships in their sights.”
“You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“The task force was wiped out, all except two of the ships that escaped in deep gravity-wells.”
“Wiped out? We just left the area and there’s no sign of a battle taking place. Now Kracion is close on our tail. What happened?”
“We don’t know. Seventeen ships simply exploded, and with no corresponding attack from the Klin ships.”
Everyone on the bridge of the Mustang Sally moved to huddle around the screen linking the ship to Earth, even the three mercs who were there at the time. Adam was a professional. He reigned in his emotions.
“You said two escaped. What have they told you?”
“We’re still analyzing the data, but from what we can tell from video and other scans from the survivors, the explosions were internal. The hulls exploded outward, as if from pressure breaches.”
“But from nothing fired from the Klin?”
“Not that we can tell. There’s a possibility the incoming were invisible to our instruments, but I don’t see how, unless it’s something new, something your Aris has come up with.”
Adam’s face was rock hard. “Kracion did say he had secret weapons. We have to assume this is it, whatever it is. What’s next, Paul? Are you getting the people back their off their asses and into the fight?”
“I’ve been in contact with the JCS,” Admiral Warner said from a second insert screen. “He’s looking at the data, plus your previous report. There will be a response. But you have to realize, until we know what we’re up against, we can’t waste assets in a futile effort. Seventeen ships, captain, gone just like that, and without a single enemy casualty. Until we know more, no ships will be committed to a direct confrontation.”
“But he’s heading for the Kidis already. I know where he’s going. You can place units in his path.”
“And get them blown away? Not going to happen, not unless you can tell me how Kracion is able to destroy our ships without batting an eye.”
“I’ll have to think about it,” Adam said. His anger now made him weary.
“Adam,” said the Juirean Tidus. “May I ask a question?”
“Of course.”
“Admiral, at what range were the units when they exploded?”
Warner eyed the pony tailed Juirean Overlord. He wasn’t aware Adam had a Juirean aboard and he was suspicious, as was obvious by his expression.
“And you are?”
“Tidus Ne Landon, formerly of Priority Acquisitions. But is that really important at the moment?”
Warner was taken aback by the Juirean’s rudeness. But he swallowed his pride and answered. “About a hundred thousand miles.” The admiral’s eyes grew wider as a revelation came to him. “Our forces retreated after the first row of ships exploded. Then the Klin followed before the others were destroyed.”
“A limited range weapon,” Tidus stated. “I was asking because Kracion is not far behind. I would not welcome our ship exploding unexpectedly.”
“How far away are you?”
“We’re half-a-light out,” said Copernicus. “That should keep us safe.”
There was visible relief on the bridge of the Sally.
“Hell, Kracion may not even know we’re here,” Adam pointed out. “He’s following the same line I am, toward the Aris space station, but not actually chasing us…I don’t think.”
“Anything you can tell us about the Klin ships?” General Sharp asked. “The initial reports said the signatures were unique and unknown.”
“They’re not like the KFVs, Paul. These are more traditionally shaped, not saucers. But they do operate by gravity-drive. They may just be of a slightly different design. Remember what I said, Kracion gave the technology to the Klin thousands of years ago. He’s surely tweaked things in the meantime.”
“Can you stay ahead of him?”
Adam looked to Copernicus, who had been manning the nav station until he left to watch the conversation.
“Their drive systems don’t seem to be anything special, as far as I can tell. We’re in a muleship and maintaining distance. I think if Kracion was able to get more speed out of the ships he would be doing it.”
“That’s good to know,” said Sharp. “We still need to figure out how he was able to get our ships to explode from the inside out.”
“Were the compartments pressurized at the time?” Coop asked.
“I would assume so?” the general said. “We’ll have to check.”
“Even small explosions can have catastrophic effects within pressurized ships.”
“But how would they get bombs into a ship a hundred thousand miles away?” Admiral Warner asked.
Something was gnawing at the back of Adam’s mind. Movement through space, undetectable, and through barriers. He knew of only one thing that could do that.
“The service modules!” His statement was loud and unexpected.
“What are you talking about?”
Riyad’s eyes grew wide. “Of course!”
“The service modules,” Adam repeated. “They can teleport.”
“Teleport?” Admiral Warner asked. “Like in ‘Beam me up, Scotty?’”
“Exactly,” Adam replied. “I thought it was only over short distances.”
Riyad looked anxiously at Adam. “But you remember when Zee teleported into your escape pod just before the Klin Colony Ship blew up? That had to be several thousand miles. You survived the explosion.”
General Sharp was shaking his head. “Are you saying the Aris have things that can teleport through space and matter? How?”
Adam snorted. “How does any of their shit work? That doesn’t matter, sir. It just does.”
“How does this explain what happened?” Admiral Warner asked.
“I’m not sure, but what if the service modules teleported into the ships and planted the bombs.”
“Would Kracion waste his orbs like that?” Riyad asked. “Does he have that many?”
“You saw he had several when we met him. They came out of the hibernation pod with him, feeding him energy.”
“What are these service modules?” Warner asked, sounding frustrated.
“They’re little floating globes that use dark matter to produce energy. They’re like personal assistants for the Aris. And I see your point, Riyad. He wouldn’t sacrifice them. He gets his food from them.”
“Then he uses them to simply place the bombs and recalls them. They have to be limited in number. He can’t have hundreds of them.”
“Or he uses the same technology to send the bombs over, without the service modules,” Copernicus offered.
“If that was the case, then he could have destroyed the entire task force at once,” Adam said.
Warner was shaking his head. “This is pretty sketchy, and pure supposition. I don’t know if I could send a fleet without proof.”<
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“Send one, and put remote-controlled ships in the first lines,” Adam suggested.
“And depressurize the ships in battle,” Copernicus added. “Minimize the effects of any internal explosions.”
General Sharp gave a wicked grin over the comm link. “C’mon, Jim, this is the best plan we have. Let’s give it a go.”
“We can’t let Kracion get to the Aris world, not with Lila and Panur,” Adam stated for punctuation.
Warner only took a moment to reach a decision.
“Send us Kracion’s course, Captain Cain. We’ll check for intercept points and times; see what units we can move into position.”
“Thank you, sirs. In the meantime, we’ll continue to the Aris station.”
“Good briefing everyone,” Sharp said. He winked through the screen, directing it to Adam. “Now…go to work.”
After giving their course to the two officers the screen went blank.
Monty turned to Adam. “Friggin officers…present company excluded, sir. What do they think we’ve been doing while they’ve been attending social balls and strategy meetings back on Earth?”
123
From their current location, it would take eleven days at max-drive to reach the outer region of the Kidis Frontier where the artificial world of the Aris was located. Adam was surprised he could remember the coordinates; he, Panur, J’nae and the Formilian Trimen O’lac had followed an intermittent gravity signal left from the Aris starship to the location several years ago, not knowing where they were headed or what they would find at the end. That was the only time he’d been there, but still he remembered, possibly a consequence of Adam’s enhanced memory recall. He just wished the ability was more predictable, or reliable. He realized most of this frustration came from his own lack of confidence. He may be smarter, but he didn’t feel that way.
The team stayed in contact with Earth over the next few days as plans were drawn up and intercept points identified. The problem: the galaxy was in a period of relative peace. There weren’t a lot of active military units out patrolling the Union space or the neighboring Kidis Frontier. Most ships of the fleet were operating in smaller groups, on cocktail cruises visiting member worlds and showing the flag, yet with very few beyond the border of the Union, an area of space once referred to as the Far Arm.
The two flag officers did their best to rally the troops, and they were getting a response from Earth Command. These were Human ships that had been destroyed so it wasn’t hard to get a fire lit under the military brass and politicians.
The Expansion was another issue. Although Phoenix Command had sent video and data files on the attack, the Juireans and their lieutenants were reluctant to launch a full-scale assault on either the small Klin fleet or the Dysion Void and the Olypon array. They said they had confidence in the Human’s plan to destroy Kracion before he reached the Aris station, since their theory of teleporting orbs made sense. General Sharp confided in Adam that the Juirean response sounded more facetious than serious. The aliens still hadn’t bought into the whole three-billion-year-old creature thing and his transporting service modules.
But leaders of the Expansion did promise to put their forces on alert in case the Human attack on the twenty-one-ship fleet failed.
Adam was also in contact with Sherri and Arieel aboard the Davion. Once the CW comm cleared after they exited the Core region, he, Copernicus and Riyad were relieved beyond words that they’d survived. The men aboard the Sally enthusiastically told them about Kracion’s attack and the impending intercept by Human forces. They also told them how Juir was aware of the threat and how the news had been relayed to Formil. This should give Arieel ammunition to use against the short-sighted and greedy politicians who were looking to unseat her. They would be on Formil three days after the planned attack on Kracion’s ships.
The attack was to take place as Kracion passed the Andannar system, a red giant near the outer reaches of the Kidis. Adam had never heard of the place and he was frustrated it would take place so close to the Aris station. Admiral Warner apologized, saying it was the best they could do considering the current status of Union forces. It had taken a while to cull together the attack force and to get it into position, in addition to rigging some of them for remote operation. There would only be seventy-one ships of battle class, with a support fleet of eight others, including supply and fuel ships. They hid in the Andannar system before moving into Kracion’s path and going dark.
“I hope they realize we’re the good guys,” Monty Pitts grunted as the Mustang Sally neared the target zone. The area was marked on the screen, although no energy signals were showing.
“Just keep going until we see the first contact indicators,” Adam said to the pilot and ship’s owner. “I’m sure it will be fine.”
“And maybe they’ll be able to knock out some of his Klin ships with the surprise,” the Juirean Tidus said.
The standard crew was on the bridge, manning stations. The five mercenaries were amidships, ready for damage control. Although Adam had no intention of the Sally joining in the fight, he didn’t know what else to do with the aliens, especially the Rigorian, who made him nervous. Damage control was a good excuse to keep them off the bridge.
“Kracion should be contacting the first line in thirty seconds,” Copernicus said from the nav station. “If we’re lucky, this could save all our asses and get the story over in a hurry.”
“As much as I like a good space opera adventure, I’d be okay with that,” Adam replied.
Although Copernicus could be right, there was still the matter of Panur and Lila. If the Human fleet could destroy Kracion’s forces—including his ship—there would still be the difficult task of finding the frozen bodies of the immortal mutants in the wreckage strewn across the vastness of space. It wasn’t an impossible task, just a difficult one. Fortunately, there would be an entire task force devoted to their recovery.
“Here we go….” said Coop’s anxious voice in the quiet of the bridge.
The first line of Human warships—fourteen in all—materialize the moment their weapons were energized. Kracion had been expecting something like this for many light-years, knowing the warning had gone out and his destination was near. The forces of the Milky Way were not about to let him go unmolested upon his way.
Shields were raised a split second later and the ships dropped out of light speed, forming up as they did before to face the enemy vessels. Kracion’s ship remained to the rear, but not too far back. He had to get in range.
The explosive packs were already in the cargo hold, with each service module assigned a section. There were plenty of explosives. The material was nothing exotic and easily supplied by the Olypon. The simplicity of the plan was almost insulting to Kracion’s intelligence yet making it more complicated wasn’t necessary. The Humans had no defense for it, although this particular strategy would not work on a grand scale. He had to be too close to the enemy to make it effective against a massive force. But Kracion had other systems to employ at that time.
For now, he was content to send his service modules to the nearest Human warships. He only had twelve of them, so he would have to rotate them in and out, depending on the size of the force placed against him. The first wave disappeared from the cargo hold, along with their corresponding packages.
Kracion was on the bridge of his flagship, with the mutants again locked away in a nearby room yet monitored at his command station. Somehow they had witnessed the first attack on the small Human task force, immediately realizing what had taken place and how Kracion had pulled off the stunning, one-sided victory. He couldn’t read their concern now for the larger fleet about to be exterminated; he doubted they really had empathy for the Humans as a race. It was more the challenge of the contest between him and them, the immortals against the soon-to-be immortal.
Although Kracion had confidence in his abilities, the continued presence of the mutants were a reminder of his vulnerability. It was unsettling having a p
air of incredibly intelligent super-beings constantly planning your demise. And they were patient, a patience bred from their immortality. If it wasn’t for the fact that Kracion may soon assimilate them, they could take a lifetime—his—to exact their revenge. What he had to do was make sure his lifespan was as long as theirs.
He watched with almost absent-mindedness as the first line of enemy ships exploded. Yet even before the bridge crew noticed, he saw the difference. There were explosions, small ones erupting from the hulls of the warships, but no great secondary eruptions, explosions that blew the ships apart.
They have depressurized their ships, he deduced immediately. He sent a mental signal to his orbs. Where before they simply targeted vulnerable compartments within the ships, relying on the chain-reaction explosions to destroy the vessel, he would now send them to more crucial areas.
The next tiny explosions targeted the engine rooms.
The first line of Human warships began to drift aimlessly before the Klin vessels, their engines dead and generators destroyed. Without power, their weapon systems were useless as well. Kracion ordered his fleet to engage the enemy, moving farther into the larger cloud of warships emerging from dark status. Now he would give them a taste of his other innovations….
“Shit, that didn’t work!” Captain Tim Robertson exclaimed.
“The remotes are all disabled, sir,” a petty officer first class called out from the tac station. “They’re moving toward the manned vessels.”
“It does look like they can only target a limited number of ships at a time. Maintain a safe distance, greater than a hundred-kay out. Weapons, target all enemy vessels, launch when acquired.”
The fleet had a multitude of weapons systems available, including the deadly guided torpedoes. Robertson doubted the Klin could target the tiny missiles with their beamed-in explosives as easily as they could the larger ships. In fact, there were no open voids in the torpedoes, just machinery, electronics, and a shitload of hull-shredding ballistics. Dense pieces of metal had been found to be most-effective against space-born warships. The energy weapons had greater range and could be constantly recharged. But they had to get through energy shields designed specifically to defeat them. Only by overloading panels could the bolts reach hull metal. But ballistics were immune to the diffusion shields. Their only drawback: they had to be close to be effective. The torpedoes were designed to get them in range.