Reaper's Crossroad

by Timothy Ellis

  When I took a look around the whole system, I found a bigger problem. Three full battle fleets had just come through the jump point, escorting a dozen transports. They were four or five hours away from the planet which was on the jump point side of its orbit around the sun, but I didn’t think Arthur was going to be done by then. Or more likely would be done by then. Maybe even dead by then. Even if he did win, he was not going to be in any condition to fight what was coming.

  But I did have options. Round Table 2A came through the rift from Haven before any of the crews were back on their ships. I had a quick conversation with Guinevere, and she readily agreed to the plan. Her people were raring to go. Her modified Scimitar could launch all her fighters in one go, and she assured me she could fly the ship like a fighter herself. Her fighters had been upgraded as well.

  RT2A took up a position ready for the rift, Unassailable took a position nearby, and they waited for the rest of us. Ship crews reported ready first, since only a few on each ship were off the ship. The marines took longer, since they were on a beach. But it was less than ten minutes from recall to all being back on board.

  Jane had BigMother backing out while the teams were still at the carbo bay airlock, and the other ships were only minutes behind us. In another five, we'd formed up in a line astern, with the two missile dreadnaughts bringing up the rear.

  The rift opened where I wanted it, in the down jump lane behind the Trixone fleet, as if we'd jumped in after them.

  "Go," I commanded, and RT2A powered through, with Jane taking us after at the minimum safe distance.

  On the other side, I put another rift in front of Guinevere, and she took her ship straight through, coming out behind the Trixone fleet over the planet. The navmap expanded to show the fleet in front of us, and the battle at the planet. Her fighters launched, mosquitoes began picking missiles off Arthur's ships, and the first Trixone ship vanished from hits from her titan turret.

  In front of us, the fleet had not fully formed up yet, but were moving away from us at a good speed for them. We were faster though. Missiles fired from all ships a good five seconds before the first ones started coming back at us. Mosquitoes launched to intercept them.

  Jane tweaked each ship's speed so we formed up into a line abreast while still at a pursuit speed, leaving the missile dreadnoughts behind us. When the line was formed, we went to full cruising speed, and began overtaking the enemy. Space in front of us boiled, and not all our missiles passed through successfully. But enough did so the enemy fleet began taking hits almost immediately.

  The fleet commander knew its stuff. The fleet stopped trying to form up, the right wing went right, the left wing went left, and half each of the center went up and down. They lost distance by doing so, since they didn’t have our ability to change course radically, but it only took seconds to bring most of their guns into play.

  "Break and attack," I said.

  Each ship received a target, the titans fired, the battleship guns fired, torpedoes fired, and all the time capital ship missiles fired. Targets changed. Firing continued.

  The line became ragged as we adapted to the new enemy formations, but by the time we tore through the other side, leaving nothing but debris behind, there was still a basic line, and we came together again quickly.

  We hadn't had it all our own way, with most of the Wayward ships having less than thirty percent shielding left, but none had taken any damage. Jane launched the salvage droids from all ships, sent a Lightning with comnavsats back to the jump point, and we left them behind, forming into a line astern again.

  I'd let the rift drop behind us after we were all through, and now I opened another one to the planet. We dived through and found the battle ended there too. This rift I also let close, before opening a new permanent one back to Redoubt. Jane immediately informed me Bonko was still loading up, but expected to be here very soon.

  Lacey launched, and headed down to provide us with an overview of what was going on down on the planet. His fighters began launching as well, forming up into squadrons, but remaining in space for the moment.

  I spent a moment looking at Arthur's ships. Both round ones were looking the worse for wear, but several of the others were worse. I nodded to Jane, and she sent SR droids across to all of them, carrying repair droids.

  When I looked around to tell the team to saddle up, they were gone, and I hadn't even noticed. Grace was looking at me from the helm chair, and I nodded to her. She rose and raced out. I looked around the bridge, and only Angel was left. She jumped down from the console, and jumped up onto my lap, where she sat and began purring. I idly tickled her, watching the feed from Lacey as his ship went down.

  The comnavsat went live on the other side of the jump point, showing the system clear for several hours out, and so I put another temp rift in front of the two missile dreadnaughts, and they joined us.

  I sat there, and things began to happen. Lacey did a single run across the main continent, showing battles going on around walled cities all across it. After confirming there were none on other land masses, he sent squadrons in so all the cities started getting some air support.

  Ship coms and team coms, hollos and cams, and I listened to rapid discussions as to who needed to go where. Orders were given, dropships dropped, frigates launched, and Bonko kept pleading for them to leave something for him.

  Troops and droids were on the ground by the time Bonko's Club arrived, but before he could join the ground action, he had to stop and pick up a series of shuttles, which docked at every airlock he had, moving equipment from the fabricators to his troops. Once he had them all docked, he didn’t wait to empty them.

  Down on the ground, it was much the same as the last time we'd done this. Only this time, the plants had some sort of armour, and their own version of heavy weapons. But it struck me they didn’t have much in the way of strategy or tactics, just swarming the wall of the city in front of them. In the distance, the defenders on the walls were cheering our arrival, although this seemed to annoy the plants, who attacked again. But our fighters were cutting rings in the attackers by flying continuously around the walls, just far enough away they didn't hit a wall by mistake. This was giving the defenders an easier time of it.

  Most of the bridge was now covered by hollo screens showing cams, and now I was seeing a tiger and a roo slashing away again, their blades going through the plant's armour. Instead of two mages, teams of ten mages were hurling all sorts of things in front of them. Black, white, and mixed groups were down there, seeming to cover all the mages we had available. Which meant someone had been organizing combat mages into teams without telling me. I raised a finger and drew a one in the air. Another reason why they didn’t need me.

  Bonko landed his ship outside the perimeter of the largest city, and troops began streaming out. And to my surprise, started forming up into platoons. Salvage droids started coming at them from across the continent, and before each platoon deployed, a combat suit joined them.

  I checked a few of the suits, and sure enough, one of them was Aline, and the other sergeants in my team. More were from other teams, and even the SAS sent some of their people to take control. Not all platoons got a combat suit, but those ones followed one who did. Some of them loaded onto sleds, and were taken to the other cities. Jack's voice started giving Bonko orders, and his ship moved to each city in turn.

  By the time the last troops were streaming out of Bonko's Club, the first platoons had joined the fight. Bonko had really packed them in. By my count more than a battalion had deployed. At least a third went to the capital city, and the rest divided up around the other cities.

  I settled down to wait for an outcome.

  Twenty One

  It didn’t take me long to realize I'd messed up again.

  Well, maybe not messed up, but I'd repeated what we'd done last time, after telling myself we hadn't needed to. The people down there obviously had no mages of any sort, given they were defending the wall in a convention
al way, which in itself was odd since the Trixone had space weapons which should have been able to bring down walls with ease. But they appeared to have no artillery. Why not was anyone's guess, and I didn’t even have one.

  I should have thought to ask for mages capable of shielding a city, but I hadn't. Whoever had asked mages to come along hadn't either, or those which had either didn’t do shields, or were having too much fun on the ground.

  Then again, I didn't know what the people on the ground wanted to do. I could go ask them of course, but I needed information first.

  "Thorn? Now would be a good time to talk."

  The only answer I got was Arthur popping up as a hollo on the main console. Behind him I could see battle damage, but he looked fine himself, although somewhat fatigued.

  "Good timing Jon."

  "We need to do something about your coms. It took two days to reach us, and when it did, the marines were all down on a beach having a day off."

  "How long did it take to you to leave?"

  "About ten minutes."

  He laughed.

  "You decided to have coffee first?"

  "Hardly. You look like you took a beating. Sorry."

  "Would have been worse if you hadn't sent that battle carrier this way so fast. You'll have to tell me where you got the specs for our fighters though. I was none too happy seeing them launch, although they did help immensely."

  There was a female laugh across the coms, and Guinevere popped up as another hollo.

  "Pulled your arse out of the fire this time Arthur," she said. "Mordred's too."

  Arthur looked more than surprised.

  "How?" he stammered.

  "Jon saved our arses not long ago, but Round Table Two was pretty well written off. He allowed us to buy a new slightly modified Scimitar. The fighters are all ours. The ship was only just out of the shipyard when the call came, but Jon's people do good work, and we did the shakedown rescuing your sorry arse."

  There was still laughter in her voice. His eyes flashed at me, conveying a 'we'll talk about this when alone' message. I kept my face straight.

  "What's the story here Arthur?"

  "These are the same people you took in as refugees. Although those on the station were from all over, those on the planet are mainly Lufaflufs." He saw my blank look. "The short people with a dog head." I nodded. "My guess is the Trixone are hitting anything which is even vaguely humanoid. They managed to get ground troops down before we got here, and those ships should still be on the ground. We were locked in a slug fest up here, and slowly losing."

  "Who are your friends?"

  "Bhockah. You'd call them a black panther. Cousins to the Keerah, and technically part of them, but they maintain an illusion of independence. From where I entered Keerah space, I had to go through theirs, and being on good terms with them, they agreed to send some of their militia ships with me. We met up with Mordred not far from here on our way in."

  "I take it you all need a shipyard?"

  He looked uncomfortable.

  "Yes, I'm afraid so."

  "You're welcome to go through the rifts to Haven. But warn your panther friends, if they go with you, we'll need to reach an accord with them before they'll be allowed to leave again. I'm not ready for our secrets to reach the Keerah yet."

  "Understood. See you when you return. I'll leave Guinevere here to see to our interests, shall I?"

  "As my ship is undamaged," she put in, "you're damned right I'll be staying here. But I will keep you in the loop."

  "Fine. See you soon."

  I wasn’t sure who he was addressing that to, but I nodded gravely, and he vanished. Guinevere started chuckling again.

  "Sorry. Been a long time since I've been able to be one up on Arthur and Mordred at the same time. Just too good to ignore the opportunities it presents. By the way, this ship is amazing. While it lacks in some areas, it more than makes up in others. Just the handling alone makes this a delight to fly, and fight. Ours are good, but as Arthur said, all he could do here was slug it out. While I could move around so fast, and hit so hard, it was very one sided. We need a party when we get back. None the least as it'll be the first time in years all three ship crews will be together."

  "You won't get an argument from my people about a party."

  "Any orders Admiral?"

  "If you want to go with your people, you can. Otherwise, hang tight, and let's see how the ground battle goes."

  "If you don’t mind, some of my people want to go down and join in."

  "Be my guest."

  She grinned, threw me some sort of salute, and her hollo vanished.

  I watched while Arthur's small fleet followed him through the rift. I was taking it on faith Arthur wouldn’t allow his allies to betray us. But just in case, I pinged Susan an order to not let them out again until I was back and had talked to their commander. She pinged back asking if that included Arthur, and I sent her back a chuckle I didn't feel.

  With a sigh, I pulled up Thorn's area of space on the navmap. The comnavsat freighter had completed dropping sats all over his space, and I started looking at what was there. In particular, I was looking at planets with no-one on them. We didn’t have a planet able to take all the people who lived here if they wanted to move, so I was looking for somewhere which could.

  And found not one, but six uninhabited but habitable planets, all in the area of space around Thorn's planet. Which made me wonder why they were habitable but never been colonized. This didn’t include a second planet in Thorn's system, which I found supported life, but it was tidally locked and so inhospitable, it couldn’t support many. When I looked closer, I found several small enclaves.

  "Penal colonies," said Thorn, and I jumped clear out of my seat, Angel squawking loudly at being moved. She landed on her feet. I hit the deck on my left side. I picked myself up, and took my seat again. Angel gave Thorn a withering look, and shot out.

  "Let me guess," I said to him in my pissed off voice. "You've been here the whole time?"

  Twenty Two

  "No, just since you called. Problem?"

  "You know what's going on down below?"

  "Same as Solidario?"

  "Yes. But not human this time, although humanoid."

  "So one head, two eyes, two ears, one nose, one mouth, two arms, and two legs, but otherwise different?"

  "Dog looking head on a dwarf body. No mages as far as I can see, but they look like they know how to defend a wall."

  "And you need me for?"

  "I was thinking shields around the cities, and finding out if they want to stay, or move to a new planet."

  "And you'd be thinking of giving them one of my unused planets then?"

  "Not yet a plan, but along those lines yes."

  "And what about the next time?"

  I sighed. Yes, there was that. We had no idea how many humanoid species were in Trixone space. It could be hundreds, or even thousands. And all I knew of safe unused planets was his six.

  "I'm not thinking about next time. Just right here and now."

  "What do they want to do?"

  "I haven't got that far yet. All I know for now is I figured out we didn’t need to slaughter the Trixone if the locals wanted out. We just shield the cities, and open up rifts to somewhere else. They walk or ride out with whatever they can carry, and we hold the shields for as long as it takes."

  He gave me a sad look.

  "You can't save everyone Jon."

  "I can try."

  But I knew he was right, and trying wasn’t even practical. But we were here, and there had to be a reason for it. Talking of reasons though.

  "Is there a reason why you have six uninhabited planets?"

  "Future expansion." He paused. "Well, future expansion now. Truth is, when I looked for planets to put the warring kingdoms of my people some three thousand years ago, I didn't actually look locally. My intent was putting all the mages as far away from each other as possible, and so I missed all the local ones
. Jen found them when we did a survey of the local systems properly about eighty years ago, and I allocated them for future expansion of my people then."

  I had to wonder if a higher being had been guiding him even back then, ensuring the mages went where they needed to be for when the Darkness turned up. But I didn’t speculate out loud.

  "How far into the future?"

  "Thousand years perhaps?"

  "Ah. So you can spare one of them now?"

  He sighed, and didn’t look too happy about it.

  "I guess so. I suggest we go down and find out if they want to move or not."

  We both rose, I shifted into fatigues being mindful of looking like a military leader, and in a blink, we were standing in what looked like a war room, with a lot of very upset dog-dwarfs making a good deal of noise. The noise died away as they noticed us.

  One of them started walking towards us, but stopped, and started to open his mouth.

  "I'm Admiral Hunter," I cut him off. "I command the fleet in orbit, and the troops fighting the Trixone outside your walls. Might seem a little late, but I came to ask if you needed any help."

  I grinned at them. The one in front frowned. The rest didn’t seem to get the joke at all. Tough crowd.

  "Where is Arthur?" he said.

  "Arthur's ships were all heavily damaged, and they've gone back to my space for repairs. Guinevere is in orbit if you wish to speak to her."

  "I wish. But first, who is your companion?"

  "I am Thorn. I represent a large area of human space."

  "You his boss?"

  Thorn laughed.

  "No. We each lead separate groups of people."

  "I have refugees from this world in my space. When we first encountered Arthur, he had a ship full of them from the station you no longer appear to have."

  "So he managed to get them to safety then?"

  "He did. They live on one of my stations at the moment."

  "Are they prisoners?"

  "Hell no! Free to come and go, although they do tend to stick to their own designated area of the station. Even with the number of species represented, there've been no problems I've heard of."