Memnon was tempted to wave off his concern but, previously, nobody had taken small Human ships seriously and look where that had gotten them.
The smaller they made their platforms, the deadlier they seemed to be.
“Tactical, ensure each ship in our force is assigned to fire on one of those corvettes. We need to stop that hideous abomination from launching any more small ships but I don’t want our best shot at those stealthy corvettes to slip away on us.”
“Attack patterns set, Lord,” the tactical officer advised.
Memnon raised a hand…
“Come on!” Frank shouted, grabbing Vikram by the arm and shoving him toward the stairs of their house. “This isn’t a drill!”
“How do you know?” Trisha asked, huffing from the run down from the roof. Her eyes were wide.
“Because they always let us know when it’s a drill,” he said. “That way, we’re a lot more amped up when there’s no caveat to the alarm.”
He led the way out into the courtyard and through the tunnel to the street. “See?” he jabbed a thumb at a young couple across the street.
Instead of dragging along treasured family heirlooms, they’d chosen to save their favorite clothing – birthday suits. They at least still had undergarments on. The woman also had a loose blouse but she tore it off so it wouldn’t interfere with the EVA suit module she slapped against her chest as they ran.
Frank’s family had just returned from their fields in the lowlands, so they had their underarmor suits on and the lower half of their armor still deployed.
The powered legs were a godsend after a morning of hard work and they came in handy now as they raced after the young couple.
They rounded the last corner as the first flashes of light heralded a close path exit forming above them.
There was a low rumble as energy waves propagated to the thin fringes of Ragnarok’s atmosphere. The energy converted to heat as it hit the molecules of gas and the resultant expansion formed pressure waves that rattled dust from rooftops and scattered the avians.
The Humans reacted as well, the welter of existing shouts and calls increasing with alarm. Several colonists screamed. This was a real emergency.
Someone was up there.
“Go, go, go!” some panicked idiot was shouting from inside the drop-capsule. He was already inside, after all. He wanted to drop early and ensure his survival.
Frank resisted the urge to kill and kept his family moving. They reached the capsule and took their places.
“What’s taking so damned long?” the man whined. He probably lived much closer to the capsule. As long as he was already aboard, who cared, right?
“It drops ten minutes after the alarm,” Frank told him, “and not a second sooner.”
The whiner looked as if he might respond but, perhaps noticing that he was the only one in favor of abandoning his neighbors, he kept his mouth shut.
The Naidu family arrived with just half a minute left on the counter. Kiara threw herself into Terry’s arms as the pod started its drop.
“Contact!” a fighter pilot declared in a slightly raised voice. “Hells! They’re all around my position!”
“All call-signs, Kuphar,” Fen called, “Weapons free; I say again, weapons free!”
Hennessy swung his fighter around, his wing-man trailing him. He pushed hard on the controls and leapt toward the newly arrived mass of ships.
The first missiles from his squadrons had already been fired. They’d sketched lines of debris and plasma through cruisers and frigates, the slowly drifting patterns looking oddly immobile, given the speed of the weapons that had created them.
The fight was one-sided but not in a way Hennessy would like. The enemy ships, even those that were now broken in two, had fired missiles of their own and all he could do was watch.
Well, not all… He targeted the nearest cruiser and an escorting frigate, pulsing his two missiles straight at them, not bothering to hide his position.
He shifted hard to starboard and ventral, bringing his guns online as his wing-man fired two missiles past him to port. His two targets took critical damage and he veered toward one of the frigates as missiles began impacting his own ships.
The two corvettes would have had the best chance of evading but there were just too many weapons targeted on them. The Scimitar took five solid hits in the first salvo.
The second wave of warheads simply raced through the space where the small Human warship had been. There was nothing big enough left to catch a tracking computer’s interest.
The Cutlass looked almost as if she’d managed to dance out of the way, spitting out her own waves of hyper-velocity warheads as she moved, but one weapon had hit her amidships. She stopped cold.
And then she disappeared in a haze of plasma and parts.
The Kuphar…
She’d never stood a chance. The old freighter had given a good account of herself – her squadrons had torn the meat from the attackers’ bones – but she had no hope of evading missiles at such close ranges.
At least five missiles, most of them from destroyed ships, slammed into her. Hennessy watched in fury as she broke up and fell into the grav-well of the planet she’d died protecting.
Nearly three thousand souls who’d volunteered, most of them retirees from Earth. Fen had nine grandkids he’d never see again. Blackwood’s wife was expecting their second child. If he was still alive, he was probably thinking of her right now.
A shield generator was still protecting the forward third of the ship. It almost looked as if it had a working pitch drive to slow the fall.
It barreled through the ionized atmosphere, a shimmering blue sapphire set in boiling red gold. Some of her crew might survive…
The evac capsule slowed to a halt beneath the mountains. It had to wait for several capsules ahead of it to disembark their passengers.
Vikram looked out the side opposite from where the disembarkation ramps would connect. The walls were of the typically ornate imperial design aesthetic. He’d been reading up on it since he’d seen the young Earth woman who’d modified the designs for Unity.
The hemispherical arrivals hall had been reinforced with gracefully curving columns attached to the stone by a web of carboncrete. He wrinkled his nose.
There was a spot behind two of the pillars where the surface looked rough; fractured rather than scoured smooth by the horde of construction nanites. The webs of carboncrete were also interrupted here.
Like the corner of our town wall, he thought.
The capsule slid forward and the crush of people moved toward the ramp. The restraint fields in the capsule archways deactivated.
Without a conscious decision, he stepped out on the far side and moved toward the anomaly. He deployed his suit from lower-body only to full-body without gauntlets and helmet.
Now he had better access to his suit’s computer and HUD. “Determine the focal point of that spherical section,” he commanded, sketching out the region in his HUD using an index finger.
The system opened a holo-image of the region. A space in the highlands, near the coffee plantings, was indicated as the center. It was about twenty meters beneath the surface.
Beneath where Vikram had been found.
“Project the focal point of the spherical anomaly in the town wall,” he said.
Same place…
Very good, Vikram.
He started, glancing around behind himself. He shook his head.
“Nanites won’t process material within that radius?” He waved off the processor’s request for clarification. He turned to look at the arrivals station.
There was an elevator shaft.
There may not be much more time. I may be destroyed soon. I must see you.
The Kuphar had done all she could, aside from the one squadron still aboard her when the missiles hit.
And now there were just three frigates and a cruiser left to kill. He looked at his status board.
No missil
es.
The Dice had expended theirs on the first wave of ships, who were just a damned decoy. The Gamblers had blown theirs tearing up the main attack and still had four enemies to kill and no carrier to resupply them.
“All callsigns, Gambler Actual. Continue engagement. We’re out of missiles so it’s gunnery from here on in. Focus on the frigates first.”
“Gonna take a hells of a lot of gunnery to take out those ships,” Scratch, the leader of Dice Squadron, said dubiously.
“It’s better than throwing rocks,” Hennessy retorted, “and we got a lot of colonists relying on us. We weren’t sent out here just to look pretty, boys.”
“You sure as hell weren’t,” Scratch told him. “We’re coming in hot!”
A streak out in front of him heralded the arrival of the Loaded Dice. Hennessy swung in, guns blazing on the nearest frigate.
The chances of taking out a cruiser with guns alone, especially guns in the 30mm size range, were especially slim. A ship that big could instantly repair a strafing run as long as the bullets weren’t followed up by missiles.
A frigate had a much higher critical-target to mass ratio. The chances of crippling hits were far better.
He blasted a line along the hull of the nearest ship. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he might have put some damage into the bridge. He couldn’t stick around to find out, not with the frigate’s close-in defensive batteries trying to get revenge.
He came in from aft of the second target. He poured a hail of rounds into her stern, exulting as the blue glow of her engines started dimming.
And then he was empty.
The trace showed only the cruiser as still active. She’d mostly ignored the fight with her escorts, seeming to realize the missiles were used up. She was moving into orbit.
The frigates were disabled, one of them falling toward Ragnarok while the other two drifted in what was probably a decaying orbit. They might be able to get their engines working in time to run.
“Anyone still have rounds?” he called.
Nobody did. He could see it on the board but desperation made him ask anyway.
Just in case the Universe felt like cutting them a break.
“They’re moving to fire on the colony site,” he said, but nobody could stop them. In a few seconds, the cruiser’s mains would be charged up and…
“Oh shit!” he yelled off channel, pushing hard on the control harness. “Stupid bastard!” he berated himself. “Could’ve taken the call at that nice little church in Maine…”
He streaked toward the cruiser. “Lobster dinners, fall leaves…” He wasn’t seeing that, though. In his mind’s eye, that adorable little girl in Unity was tucking a flower behind his ear.
New England hardly even seemed real anymore. That little girl and her family were very real and very much in danger.
Even in the shelter, a lucky hit from a cruiser’s mains could kill them all. He pushed so hard on his controls he risked breaking the link.
He threw himself into the path of the main guns, then pushed in toward the opening in the bow where they were housed. The ship seemed to balloon out like a pufferfish as he raced toward it at maximum speed.
“Here goes nothing,” he muttered. Never was good at timing…
What does timing have to do with anything? Scylla’s voice asked in his head.
“What the hell?” Hennessy blurted. “Are you in my head?”
No. Neither of us are, she said calmly. You have, for the lack of a better metaphor, one foot in the cockpit and one foot in a higher dimension. Time has no meaning here.
“Look I’m a little busy here…”
We always are. Shouldn’t you have hit by now if timing is a thing?
“Well, I…” Damn! The ship seemed motionless.
Careful! she warned. You don’t want to slip away before you finalize a course.
He realized he should be aiming for the center barrel assembly. Any round fired after his fighter had impacted there should vaporize against the debris and put the mains out of commission.
He corrected, his heart nearly bursting out of his chest when the Deathstalker raced closer for an instant.
And now, you can make your move, warrior-cleric. Timing is irrelevant, nothing more than the fourth simplest coordinate in the Universe.
How are you here at Ragnarok? he asked her, realizing that time wasn’t the limiting factor he’d thought.
I’m not. We’re not having this conversation at any three-dimensional place in particular. Go now, while your resolve is strong.
He went, slipping into place behind the Deathstalker’s weapons officer an instant before his fighter impacted the bow. The Quailu was opening his mouth to shout a warning at the rating pressing the firing button.
Hennessy drove his knife in through his enemy’s occipital plate, severing his motor control but leaving his tele-cerebral lobes active. Horror radiated, sadness followed.
“Aces and Eights!” Hennessy bellowed his squadron’s war cry. “Who else wants breakfast?”
They all looked – saw the Human pull a knife out of the weapons officer’s head. The fear flowed strong as the deck rumbled with gut wrenching harmonics.
The outbound rounds, destined for Unity, tumbled from the bits of wreckage scattered into the rails from Hennessy’s fighter. Already at ninety percent of full velocity, they formed cones of vapor, tearing out a large chunk of the ship’s bow, roughly equivalent to the effect of an imperial-standard nuclear warhead.
Everyone on the bridge grabbed for support as the deck beneath them was slammed backwards a few strides.
Hennessy wasn’t there. He reappeared on the other side of the bridge, aiming a thrust at the helmsman who was still frantically trying to correct the constant imbalance that threatened to crash the ship.
The Deathstalker rolled as Hennessy aimed a thrust at the Quailu’s chest. His arm swung up and dragged to the left, accidentally severing the creature’s TC-1 artery.
Left alive but now cut off from the flow of its species’ emotions, the helmsman fell backwards, one hand clasped to his neck. He mewled in terror at the utter loneliness of feeling as if he were the last of his kind in the entire Universe.
His crewmates, seeing one of their kind but feeling nothing more from him than they would a corpse, recoiled with a horror he couldn’t even sense anymore.
They saw, in him, a fate even worse than death. Already keyed up to a fever pitch by the battle and a subsequent incursion from a supernatural enemy, they fled the bridge.
Hennessy saw the one officer still screaming at the crew to stand to their posts. Memnon!
The officer staggered under the ferocity of his name being thrown at his mind like a challenge. Hennessy was in his mind, making his rage known, demanding satisfaction. He turned to look at the demon unleashed on his ship.
Hennessy removed himself from the helm station and reappeared halfway toward his foe. He wanted Memnon to see his doom approaching. A quick death was too good for anyone who’d bombard the innocent citizens of Unity.
Memnon stood rooted to the deck, his mouth opening and closing in shock. He shook his head as the demon appeared closer, toying with him.
His body swayed as the ship rolled again. Suddenly Ereshkigal was there, grabbing his shoulder and shoving him toward an exit hatch.
The spell broken, Memnon ran as if Nergal himself were behind him. Fool! he berated himself. The creature could simply appear in front of me.
Not that he stopped running. Give the gods what entertainment you can and maybe they’ll grant you a different fate...
And Then It All Went Bad
The Deathstalker, falling to Ragnarok
Gabriella tugged on the restraint straps for probably the thirtieth time, at least. She’d planned on riding out the battle in this pod but hadn’t planned on being so damned scared.
There had been a few strafing runs on the Deathstalker that must have come quite close to her hiding spot. The rumble of destructiv
e forces had been enough to rattle her bones as she cowered in her escape trunk, desperately wishing she could be out there in a fighter, in control of her own destiny.
Only a few weeks’ training and I think I’m some hotshot fighter jock, she berated herself. How much good am I even doing by taking out one cruiser?
There was too much that she didn’t know. How many ships has Memnon brought? Where, even, did he bring them in the first place? Babilim? Ragnarok? She put her hand over her heart, scratching her hand on the harness release clasp. Earth?
All is in motion now, a voice told her mind. You will come close. So very close...
Gabriella shivered. “What the hell?” she said aloud in English. She’d had Scylla speak to her mind a few times and this didn’t feel like her. Who could be...
She was suddenly weightless followed by a general trend to fall against her harness. Her arms were dragged up above her head, her hair streamed up past her face.
There was a strong, sudden rotational motion, slamming her right ankle against the emergency survival kit in the middle of the pod’s floor.
She winced in pain but exulted at the sound of an alarm klaxon. She’d been through their SOP’s. Something was going very wrong for a Quailu crew to risk sounding an alarm.
If she had her aunt’s abilities, she’d probably be able to feel the rush of terror that would be building now, fed by the sound. Someone on the bridge was definitely having a brown pants moment and she was pretty sure it was mostly her doing… Probably...
The Quailu only resorted to alarms when things were really bad.
Gabriella knew she was making the right call. There was no guarantee it would make enough of a difference but it was all she could do at the moment. Killing that first crewman had been on reflex but she understood that it had been necessary.
Barfing in his face might not have been the right move, she thought wryly, giving the restraints another tug and searching for the eject button.
Killing the second crewman had been deliberate and she’d even tried to preserve his suit but time hadn’t been on her side. Her most deliberate act of all was now at hand.
Ragnarok: Colonization, intrigue and betrayal. Page 23