Ruins of the Galaxy Box Set: Books 1-6

by Chaney, J. N.

  “And I am more than happy to accommodate you in whatever way you need,” Azelon said. “It seems to the Novia Minoosh that your mission is worthy and, if you have searched your own souls and found yourself worthy, that your hearts are thus pure.”

  “That was… very eloquent,” Awen said to Azelon. “Thank you.”

  “You are most welcome, Awen.”

  Awen stared at the bot for a moment longer. Something about that phrase was very familiar. She’d heard it before, or something close to it. It felt noble. And old. She noticed Rohoar staring at the bot too.

  “Eh—what the hell,” Magnus said, breaking Awen’s train of thought. “I’m in too. If we’re gonna pick a fight, might as well do it with you people.”

  Awen clapped her hands. “Magnus, I almost forgot. I have another member for your team.”

  “What d’you got, Awen?”

  “I have a Reptalon.”

  Magnus blanched. “A Reptalon?”

  “A Reptalon?” Rohoar repeated. Suddenly, the Jujari rattled off a stream of curses in his mother tongue as his hackles stood up.

  Awen had forgotten about… that.

  15

  Ricio led Viper Squadron on a steep attack vector, diving on the Jujari carrier from above and behind. So far, the starship’s turrets hadn’t picked up his Talons, as they were too busy fending off multiple attacks from other squadrons that covered Ricio’s approach. His orders were to take out the carrier’s engines and communications array. Two additional squadrons were tasked with taking out the ship’s defenses while three more squadrons engaged the Razorbacks that poured out of the carrier’s sides, fresh from their most recent rearming. It was a risky assault this early in the confrontation, but the reward was too good for command to pass up.

  “Bravo Team, once you’re inside the shields, I want all antiship munitions targeting those engines,” Ricio said over comms. “Don’t hold anything back. We only get one shot at this. Alpha Team, on me. We’ll make a run down the spine for that commutations array. Take out any turrets you can reach as we go, but don’t deviate from my flight path.”

  Ricio’s HUD lit up with green confirmation icons. He pushed his throttle forward, squeezing even more speed out of his Talon. The Jujari carrier’s aft was coming up fast. “Prepare for shield penetration.”

  Ricio looked down onto the ship’s bridge, knowing his pilots would be flattened across it if he didn’t time this maneuver just right. Likewise, if they pulled up too soon, they wouldn’t be close enough to the deck, ensuring that the turrets would quickly eviscerate them.

  A thin film of blue shimmered ahead. It was the shield’s visible barrier and the point of no return for Ricio’s squadron. These shields couldn’t stop physical ordinance, but they’d prevent all energy weapons.

  “Ten seconds to shield penetration,” Ricio noted. His Talon was at max throttle, barreling toward the carrier’s stern. The blocky-looking command module sat atop the superstructure like a mountain of metal freight containers. If he did this correctly, Alpha Team would make the enemy’s bridge crew piss themselves with a danger-close flyby, while Bravo would lay waste to the carrier’s exposed engines.

  “Five seconds.” As soon as they broke the barrier, the Jujari ship’s sensors would alert the turret’s targeting system. They’d have fewer than three seconds to conceal themselves along the carrier’s upper deck.

  “Three… two… one…”

  Ricio’s ship slipped through the blue membrane, as did the rest of Viper Squadron, hurtling toward the bridge. He could already see the turrets turning from their current targets farther toward the bow and preparing to fire on him.

  “Alpha Team, pull up on my mark!” Ricio said, his voice raised. “Bravo, you’ve got the engines!”

  His AI’s vector path analyzer sent him a warning notice, indicating where his Talon was deviating from its precalculated trajectory. One line on the HUD represented the mathematically optimum course, accounting for Repub SOPs—standard operating procedures—and FAF-28 Talon spec tolerances. The other indicated his current flight path. The AI did not like that the two trajectories weren’t lining up, and it told him so with an emergency klaxon and the words IMPACT WARNING flashing in red letters. But Ricio knew his ship, and he knew that the turrets would pick them off if he followed the ship’s AI.

  As soon as he felt the AI attempt to take control, Ricio said, “Disable automatic override. Command override Lima Tango Niner.”

  “Automatic override disabled,” a synthesized voice replied.

  The bridge was so close that Ricio could make out Jujari faces looking up at him through their topside observation windows. In the nanoseconds that elapsed, he imagined what the hyenas must be thinking as they watched a squadron of Repub Talons fly close enough to spit on. This was going to be close.

  “Mark!” Ricio yelled. He pulled back on his control yoke. The force buried him in his seat, making his harness straps go limp. Even with the inertia dampeners, Ricio grunted against the mounting g-forces as all the blood in his head rushed to his feet. The edges of his vision started to fade, forcing him to grunt even louder. Stay awake, Ricio! Stay focused!

  His Talon pulled up with meters to spare, narrowly missing the bridge’s main command window as his fighter continued toward the deck below. He was pretty sure he saw some Jujari duck.

  The warning klaxon in his cockpit continued to blare, signaling his imminent demise. But Ricio trusted the ship’s thrusters and knew what she could take. He knew what his body could take too. Even though he wasn’t as young as he once was, he’d been diligent in meeting all physical training requirements even if his seniority permitted him to skimp on the reporting side. It paid off in times like this.

  Ricio continued to pull back on his controls. The Talon’s frame groaned while the inertia dampeners attempted to protect his body from the high-g maneuver. The carrier’s main deck raced up to meet him. A less talented pilot would have panicked, but Ricio trusted his instincts. He leveled out just before grazing a flat section of the carrier’s upper deck. Any contact at that speed would have vaporized him, but Ricio hadn’t survived this long by accident. He looked in the rear-facing holo-screen camera feed, identifying the remaining ships of Alpha Team. They’d stayed tight on his tail. Hot damn!

  He stabilized the fighter from the near miss and looked at his targeting monitor. His AI illuminated turrets down the spine of the main deck, followed by the communications relay about two kilometers ahead. His squadron would be at the target in seconds.

  “Take out what you can, Vipers!” Ricio ordered.

  He fired a volley of blaster bolts at the nearest turret to starboard. The weapon had just finished its rotation—coming away from firing on Talons toward the bow—when Ricio’s bolts struck the joint where the unit connected to the deck. The turret popped off the carrier like a bottle top. Small electrical fires flared and then fizzled out.

  More Talon blaster fire hammered down the carrier’s deck, pounding its way into turrets. The units exploded in dazzling displays of sparks and short-lived plumes of fire and smoke. A few turrets got some shots off, but the blaster rounds went high, glancing off the very tops of the Talons’ shields.

  Ricio bobbed and weaved, flowing around protrusions in the carrier’s bulwark as smoothly as he might cloud surf back on Capriana. The feeling was exhilarating, and for a moment, he almost forgot he was in battle. Almost.

  “Comms array ahead!” Ricio yelled, his voice somewhere between ecstatic and unnerved. His HUD sent quadruple reticles overlapping on the target, each blinking when it had a lock. “Open fire!”

  Ricio squeezed off a steady stream of fire and watched as the red blaster bolts sailed in slow motion toward their target. They connected in a fireworks display that lit up his entire front window. Orange sparks shone like a star’s face, flooding his cockpit with light. Ricio rolled left, lowered his throttle, and peeled away. He looked to confirm target elimination on his HUD, but to his astonishment, hi
s AI reported that the array was still intact. In fact, it hadn’t taken any damage at all.

  “I need visual damage assessment,” Ricio said, hoping one of the Talons toward the back might have eyes on what had happened.

  “Negative result,” Viper Seven said. “It’s got a shield of some sort.”

  “Dammit,” Ricio said over comms, letting his emotions get the best of him. It was unprofessional, but he didn’t care. His team’s primary target was fortified.

  Ricio continued his wide left turn, flying across the top of the starship from bow to stern, the bridge looming ahead like an ominous mountain peak arrayed in storm clouds and lightning bolts… or in their case, debris and blaster fire.

  “Bravo Team, how are those engines coming?” Ricio asked.

  “Viper One, this is Viper Eight. We have disrupted fifteen percent of the starboard engine configuration. However, they seem to be protected by their own energy-displacement field. Only torpedoes are proving effective.”

  “Understood, Viper Eight. All fighters, let’s use up our torpedoes on these targets. Blaster seems ineffective. Alpha Team, as soon as we take another pass on this comms array, link up with Bravo Team and use your remaining ordnance on the engines.”

  Ricio steered back along the deck, vectoring toward the command bridge. He’d need all this distance and then some to obtain torpedo lock on the comms array with so many obstructions. The alternative would be to pop up above the carrier’s irregular surface and get a clear shot at the array, but doing so would expose them to the turrets—and enemy fighters. So far, they hadn’t drawn any Razorbacks, but he feared that was a temporary respite.

  “Circle up at the bridge’s base,” Ricio ordered Alpha Team over comms. “I want us stacked up in a line on this next approach. Acquire lock, but do not fire until the previous Talon’s torpedoes have detonated. Fire if the target remains. We need to conserve as many missiles as possible for when we rejoin Bravo Team.”

  Confirmation icons lit up his HUD.

  Ricio took point as he came about in the bridge’s shadow. Small antennas, pipes, and hatch panels were so close to his port window that he could almost reach out and touch them. His wings skimmed the carrier’s surface, threatening to catch the slightest rise and cartwheel the Talon into a somersault. But Ricio was an expert pilot and knew what he was doing.

  His fighter’s nose came around and lined up on comms array for a second time. He still had all three of his torpedoes, and he planned to fire only one. Not only did he suspect that one was all he needed, but it was also the most conservative approach if he wanted to optimize shot-per-fighter ratios when engaging the engines.

  A flick of his eyes armed the centermost torpedo under his Talon’s belly, activating its target-acquisition sensors. A torpedo-target reticule appeared in his window. The ship’s AI placed it on the comms array, instantly comparing the Talon’s relative position with the target coordinates. Ricio watched as the distance-to-target value rapidly decreased. He swerved to avoid a small tower then bobbed back the other way to miss a domed protrusion of some sort.

  “Fire,” his AI’s smooth voice said.

  But Ricio held his trigger finger. He wanted to be closer. He pushed his throttle lever forward and heard the drive cores whine. The force pressed him back in his seat.

  “Fire,” the AI repeated.

  Still, Ricio held his trigger. Enemy turret fire whizzed meters over his head, brilliant blue-and-green light reflecting off his cockpit’s rounded window. Just a little bit closer, he told himself.

  “Optimum engagement window closing,” the AI said. Ricio squeezed the trigger and let the torpedo loose. The missile streaked across the carrier’s deck. Ricio rolled to the left again, cut throttle, and pulled back, sending his Talon into a tight turn. Though he was blind to the impact, the torpedo’s explosion peppered his Talon’s shields with debris and sent a shudder through the fuselage, jarring Ricio against his restraints.

  So I was a little close.

  Then, over comms he heard, “Target eliminated!” It was Viper Six. “All fighters, hold torpedoes. Target eliminated.”

  That was easier than he thought it would be. Apparently, the Jujari hadn’t planned on anything but enemy blaster fire making attempts on their communications system—turrets could pick off torpedoes kilometers away. But a torpedo fired danger close along their deck? Yeah, didn’t plan on that, did ya?

  “Alpha Team, join Bravo Team on engine assault.”

  His fighters confirmed and peeled off. Ricio backtracked along the deck for the second time then pulled up and over the bridge—but not before sending a volley of blaster fire into the command structure. It wouldn’t do a tremendous amount of damage, but it might shake them up a bit.

  Ricio flew out into empty space, seeing Bravo Team set up for another pass on the engines. Already, Viper Five and Seven were joining them, lending their unspent torpedoes to the attack. The carrier had slowed, pulling away from the main group. Ricio had no sooner lined up to join Bravo Team than he noticed something unusual—far to the rear of the armada was a single Jujari destroyer. While every other ship in the system was engaged in open battle, this one was…

  What is it doing? Ricio grew curious enough that after he’d fired his remaining two torpedoes and engaged a defending Razorback in a short dogfight, he peeled away from the main conflict to investigate.

  The destroyer hung in low orbit, engines at idle. Ricio couldn’t be sure, but he thought he detected vapor trails farther down in Oorajee’s atmosphere—evidence of recent shuttle activity. He initiated a sensor sweep, and sure enough, his AI indicated a Jujari shuttle landing on the surface far below.

  Ricio selected SFC with a flick of his eyes over his HUD. “Command,” he said over a private channel, hailing Captain Seaman. “This is Viper One.”

  “We read you, Viper One,” Seaman said. “Go ahead.”

  “I’m looking at a destroyer-class starship on the far side of Oorajee behind the armada, ship designation Shining Bright Star of Mwadim Furlank over a Thousand Generations. Are you able to confirm?”

  There was a momentary pause as Captain Seaman reviewed Ricio’s sensor data. “Confirmed, Viper One. That ship was reported as having already left the system. You are cleared to investigate at your discretion.”

  “Copy, Command. Viper One, out.”

  “Command, out.”

  Ricio reviewed the damage assessment on the carrier and saw that the vessel’s engines were below fifty percent and falling. This massive starship would be crippled within a half hour. “Mission accomplished,” he muttered to himself. It was time for the next one. The Jujari destroyer was about fifteen minutes out. Ricio rolled to starboard and headed toward the stray vessel. “Viper Squadron, on me.”

  16

  Abimbola had barely been on the ground ten minutes when Rohoar pinged him over comms.

  “Abimbola,” came the Jujari’s raspy voice.

  “Go ahead.”

  “I will not go ahead. I will remain standing still.”

  Abimbola winced. He tended to forget the Jujari’s propensity for all things literal. “Speak, Tawnhack.”

  Abimbola knew that forthright behavior would seem insolent by human standards, but for Miblimbians and Jujari alike, it was close to normal. Maybe that was why he liked being around the beasts—in some strange way, they reminded him of his home, Limbia Centrella. Perhaps, when this is all over, I will go to you again, Centrella.

  But now was not the time to reminisce. Now was the time to gather resources. To train. To prepare for battle.

  “Sensors are detecting an incoming squadron of enemy fighters.”

  “Enemy fighters? You mean, Repub Talons?”

  “Yes. Repub Talons.”

  Horhish. This wasn’t good. He and Rohoar had hoped to make it in and out of the system undetected. When he’d flipped for the odds, he’d gotten tail side on his poker chip—a bad omen. He’d shrugged it off. But he knew better than to ignore bad o
mens. He should have guessed that something would go wrong.

  “How far out?”

  “We have ten minutes to get back to the ship.”

  “Well, I have got a dozen Marauders who are willing to come with us. The rest want to stay, and I cannot say I blame them. My explanation was not exactly sane.”

  “I have eight.”

  “Okay, then. That makes an even twenty. I think we can do some damage with that number.”

  “We can also kill a lot of enemies.”

  Abimbola grinned. “Yes, and that.”

  “I will be at your location with the shuttle in…” It sounded like Rohoar was tapping a screen with a nail-tipped finger. “Three minutes.”

  “We’ll be ready.”

  * * *

  The trip into orbit was relatively uneventful, save for the jeering remarks made between species. The shuttle stank of wet fur and body odor.

  Abimbola stood behind Rohoar as the former mwadim prepared to enter the Bright Sun’s docking bay. In the distance, he noticed a dozen or so bright spots converging toward them—the attack fighters. Behind them, nearly hidden by the planet’s horizon, were the combined Republic and Jujari fleets, engaged in full-out war.

  “How long before they’re in weapons range?” Abimbola asked Rohoar.

  “Ninety seconds.”

  Abimbola gauged the distance to the docking bay. They’d be secure in another minute, he figured. “We are gonna be cutting this close.”

  Rohoar winced. “I do not plan on cutting anything or doing so closely.”

  “I mean, we’re not going to have a lot of time to jump.”

  “You are correct—we won’t. My warriors will take up battle stations.”

  “How can we back you up?”

  “Back me up? Into what?”

  Abimbola cursed under his breath. “Where can my Marauders help you?”

  “Will not our ship’s systems be too complex for your people to understand?”