Rising Star

by Donald Nicklas

  While Tavia, Bill and Dalton were waiting in the Yacht for further developments, the return signal from the freighter finally arrived. The computer on the Invicta decrypted the resistance code and transmitted the results to the bridge speakers.

  “General Golov. This is the freighter Pevek bound for resistance space with four hundred refugees, mostly children. We do not detect any Petrov vessels in this system so assume you are in the large civilian vessel ahead of us. We are on course to your position. Pevek out.”

  Slone listened to the response and said, “Well General Golov, it is as we feared, mostly children. Tom, order the Pevek to reduce speed to one-quarter standard and tell them that the large civilian ship means to destroy them and is not with us. Then send a message to the fleet. Order the Avenging Talon to take position just below the Rising Star. Paul, bring us just above the Rising Star. Tell the destroyers to stay between us and the freighter.”

  “Yes captain,” both Paul McMann and Tom Gardner acknowledged.

  Slone then gave the order everyone awaited, “Sound general quarters throughout the fleet and order all cohorts to prepare for boarding action.”

  As soon as the words were out of Slone’s mouth, the klaxons sounded on all ships, bringing everyone to battle stations. The cohorts on both dreadnoughts started loading into boarding shuttles. All ships maintained invisibility. It took about a half hour of careful maneuvering to bring both dreadnoughts above and below the Rising Star without hitting it. Slone was counting on them maintaining perfect course and speed, since a slow freighter was their target. Once they were in position, Slone looked in the direction of Roger Umgabe at the sensor station. “Roger, shut down their weapons control.”

  “Aye, Captain, their weapons are shut down.”

  “Tom, open the battle channel.”

  “Channel open, captain.” This allowed Slone to speak to all ships and ground forces at the same time.

  “All cohorts deploy. Gunners stand ready to return fire if needed. All ships remain invisible.”

  Ten boarding shuttles left each dreadnought carrying one hundred troops each with support personnel. Surprise was complete. At the same time, a coded message was sent to the Unicorn notifying Tavia of the start of operations.

  While the spies in the Unicorn awaited further instructions, Commander Cavel was waiting to hear about the incursion in the tactical control room. Finally, there was a frantic call monitored on the bridge. Two guards were found in a conduit passageway, both dead. One had been impaled by an unknown device and the other had his head forcefully ripped off his body. They had an intruder and a killer aboard. It was time to notify the captain.

  Captain Howard Meigs had turned in shortly after ordering the Rising Star to break orbit and move towards the freighter. There would be plenty of excitement tomorrow. He had to make sure that no bodies came out of the freighter and the only way to do that was to hit it with a massive amount of cannon and missile fire. He fell asleep thinking of the next day’s task. He had not been asleep for long when his communication station beeped him awake. He pressed the button and said, “This better be good, Cavel.”

  “Captain, we have an intruder aboard who killed two of our guards and incapacitated a third.”

  “On my way,” Meigs replied. The captain got up and quickly dressed. Though this was a ship of war, it was also a cruise ship and everything was done much more casually than in the regular military. He was not happy when he was told his combat troops would be supplied by private contractors, but Sinclair just had enough troops to supply their dreadnoughts, so a ship this size needed to use mercenaries. As he entered the bridge, he could see the crew was tense. The bridge was much smaller than on a military ship, but it was roomy enough for what they needed. It also was located above the plane of the ship so it was like a disk lying on top of the front of the ship, just behind where the bow curved downwards.

  “Ok, Alonso, fill me in.”

  The first officer told the captain everything he knew. When he was finished, Captain Meigs asked, “Are there any ships other than the freighter and us in the system?”

  “No captain,” the sensor tech responded immediately.

  “Then we have an isolated case and if they plan to leave, it will be on their ship, which we will gladly destroy when it leaves without permission. Anyone who requests to leave, make sure they have an alibi for the time of the killings. If not, space them and destroy their ship. In the meantime, double the guards at all levels.”

  “Yes captain.”

  Meigs decided to remain on the bridge for a bit, since his sleep was now disturbed. After an hour, he was about to return to his quarters when the weapon’s tech suddenly sat up straight and said, “Captain, our weapons just went down and we are locked out of weapon control”

  Meigs sat up straight. “I think we just found out what our intruder was doing. Keep a sharp look out for ships entering the system and get those weapons back on line.”

  This time the sensor tech blurted out, “Captain, boarding shuttles are coming from above and below the ship, a total of twenty.”

  “Where are they launching from?”

  “There are still no ships in the area. They just seem to be appearing above and below us. One group is heading for the aft hangar deck and the other group for the forward hangar deck.”

  There was no time to worry about where they are coming from now. “Sound general quarters and give the order to prepare to repel boarders.”

  “Aye, captain.”

  “Pull up the visual feeds from the hangar decks.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Throughout the lower decks of the ship the klaxon blared and a continuous message came through the loud speakers, “All hands, prepare to repel boarders.”

  Aboard the Unicorn, the tap node in Tavia’s pocket beeped three times. She then looked at those in the living area and said, “The attack has begun. It is our job to take the bridge.”

  As the Romani put on their helmets, Dalton had to ask, “Where is this attack coming from? And how are you going to make it all the way through the length of the ship to the bridge?”

  “The attack is coming from our fleet and we will have plenty of help making it to the bridge,” Tavia stated with certainty.

  Suddenly boarding shuttles began to pull into the hangar bay. Since the floor of the bay was cluttered with private yachts, there was little room to land. Surprise had been complete and so far there was no resistance visible. Dalton watched as the shuttles moved in. They looked like normal boarding shuttles, only they were painted black and had red lettering:

  LEGIONEM COLUBRUM I

  COHORS I

  Below there was a line of symbols Dalton did not recognize. The first shuttle entered and hovered about eight meters above the open area of the deck. Since there was no place to land, Dalton expected to see rappelling ropes drop down to allow the troops to land on the deck. To his great surprise, reptiles leapt down from both sides of the shuttle. They had body shields, and what looked like some kind of short spear, but no armor. After about a hundred dropped down, ten more dropped who were twice the size and bulk of the first group but wore body armor and carried a portable Gatling gun with ammo boxes on both sides. The guns looked almost as large as those turreted on the boarding shuttles did and they would have been much too heavy for even three humans to carry. The large serpents handled them as if they were light as a feather. A few more serpents jumped down carrying various loads. Dalton assumed these were medics and other support personnel. Nine more shuttles came in and discharged the same number of serpents. It now dawned on Dalton that this was an entire serpent unit. They formed up and Tavia opened the side hatch of the Unicorn. Tavia put on her helmet and picked up her shield. Dalton had to admit; young as she was she looked formidable. What happened next was completely unexpected. As soon as the serpents saw Tavia exit the yacht, they fell to one knee and bowed their heads for a few seconds and then stood up at attention. Dalton realized that Tavia had compl
ete control over this unbelievably powerful species. Next Tavia began to speak to the serpents, not in human standard, but in their strange language. There was a quick discussion with the leader of the unit and then Tavia turned to the others.

  “We will follow the cohort to the ramps, and then we’ll split off with a Special Forces unit of 10 serpents and move through the passenger section to reach the bridge.”

  Dalton realized that the responsibility of accomplishing the most difficult task in a boarding action was given to this young woman. That fact alone spoke volumes about the people he was dealing with. They had absolute confidence in their abilities. In addition, she was not in the least bit nervous. As he watched, a communication must have been received, since the cohort went into a combat stance, one hundred across and ten rows deep. This formation would not last in the passageways of the decks. Suddenly several drones took to the air and a slow, deliberate drumbeat began to sound. He would later learn this was the cadence, a way of communicating while demoralizing the enemy. The drum shook a person deep in the marrow of their bones.

  When the cadence began, the cohort moved forward. As they got to the hatches leading to the interior of the ship, they began to meet with resistance. The battle for the Rising Star had begun.

  On the bridge of the Rising Star, Captain Meigs and the day crew were at their battle stations. The stewards had told the passengers who heard the commotion that it was just a routine drill, since they would be attacking a drone in the afternoon. All passengers were requested to remain in their staterooms as their part of the drill. The bridge was secured and guards were posted. All were glued to the monitors showing the forward and aft hangar bays. It had been decided from the start that if boarders were to be repelled it would be in the passageways of the vessel, where numbers didn’t matter and the enemy could be confused. They had expected boarding to be the last part of a gun battle with another ship. However, this was different. There had been no battle. Captain Meigs was glad they decided not to contest in the hangars, since there was little room to maneuver and too many ships behind which to hide.

  The first boarding shuttles began to arrive. Those entering the forward hangar landed and discharged the troops and then took off. That told Meigs these forces were here to win or die; there was no retreat. This was not the usual corporate way. He also noted they wore all black jumpsuits and armor but actually held some kind of shield in front of them. Instead of a gun, they appeared to have a large knife of some kind in their hand. That was odd, to say the least. He now shifted his attention to the aft hangar deck and saw the shuttles arriving there. They had no room to land because of the private yachts there, so they hovered. To Captain Meigs’ surprise, the boarding forces did not rappel to the ground, but rather dropped down, though the shuttles were three decks off the floor. What was even more shocking was what came out of those shuttles. Captain Meigs called his first officer over to him.

  “Alonso, have a look at this monitor. Whoever this enemy is, they are using trained combat animals. Some kind of reptile from the looks of it. They mimic the combat stance of the humans. Send a message to our forces to watch out for animal attacks. No one has used animals in combat since the first corporate war and they didn’t work well at all.”

  When the animals had all formed up, Meigs had to admire the quality of the animal trainers. However, there were no trainers in sight. He soon realized that they had their own commanders. A strange thought then formed in his brain. Could these actually be aliens? The thought passed as quickly as it formed. There were no aliens. After the animals were finished forming up, a yacht opened up and a young couple came out along with another animal and Dalton. Meigs knew Dalton from many cruises, but never suspected him of being a spy. The boarders in both the forward and aft hangar decks now stood still and at attention. The animals did this only after bowing to the young coupled from the yacht. Meigs was thinking how strange this enemy was acting and now regretted allowing them to land unmolested. Something about their level of discipline suggested big trouble to Meigs. Both groups now released drones, which immediately began playing a measured drumbeat that made him uneasy. As soon as the beat began, both boarding groups surged forward to the hatches entering the ship.

  The eighth cohort in the forward hangar divided into two columns to enter the starboard and port passageways. These wide passageways allowed six legionaries abreast. They were met by barricaded defenders and the battle started with guns as the front lines of the cohort moved forward. When they got to the barricade, they saw it consisted of a strong set of metal spikes facing them. They made the Romani double height shield wall with the first row forming the bottom row and the second row forming the top row of shields. This effectively rendered the defenders guns useless and soon they realized this and a stalemate developed. The Romani know how to deal with stalemates. Claudius Pulcher, the primary centurion of the cohort, quickly snapped orders.

  “Top shields down, smoke, flash bangs, fragmentation.” And the legionaries responded immediately. First, they threw smoke grenades over the barricade. These enveloped the defenders in blinding smoke and burned some when they detonated due to how closely packed everyone was in the passageway. Next, the legionaries threw flash bang grenades into the massed defenders. Some were injured by them but others were disoriented by the flash and the loud bang of the grenades. They also added to the smoke and soon the first ten ranks of defenders were effectively blind. This had three effects on them: first, that feeling of panic that starts in the pit of your stomach, slowly works its way up to the back of your throat, and makes you want to vomit began to well up in the defenders. Secondly, they no longer knew which direction to face since the thick smoke totally disoriented them. Lastly, they did not see the real danger coming their way. The legionaries threw their fragmentation grenades over the barricade. The multiple explosions in a tight group of defenders in a narrow passageway were devastating. As the Romani took cover behind their shields, blood and body parts flew in all directions along with fragments of the barricade and sharp chards of fractured passageway walls. The defenders were stunned and the Romani knew it. That was the whole point of the exercise. It was also now necessary to make sure they didn’t recover their senses.

  Claudius Pulcher pressed a button on his armor that connected to a transmitter controlling the cadence. The drones now increased the cadence to let the legionaries know it was time to advance in force. The front three rows of the Romani, who had thrown their grenades, moved back to the end of the line and fresh troops moved forward in the normal rotation the Romani used in combat to make certain there were always fresh troops in the front. They went back to the following support personnel who replenished their grenades. The rest of the force now surged forward and hit the barricade with shields out and they pushed with the force of hundreds, each pushing with their shields against the backs of those in front with the front line pushing against a temporary barricade. There was no question where this would go, the barricade began to move and soon it was like a ram pushing into the still disoriented defenders. This was too much and they broke. The Romani stopped and pulled the barricade apart and continued moving deeper into the ship. As they reached cross-passageways, they carefully probed them to make sure no enemies were left in their rear. The cadence had returned to its slower, steady beat. A similar scene had played out in the starboard passageway with the other half of the cohort. The defenders on the forward hangar deck level were being driven back, but after initial successes, resistance increased and progress into the lower levels of the ship was slow and not without casualties. Since the hangar decks were above the cannon decks, the majority of the enemy forces were lower in the ship. It was going to be a long slog.

  One of the problems in trying to take a ship intact was the fact that none of the defenders had been decreased by ship-to-ship combat. It was therefore critical that engineering was captured, for therein lies the real control of a ship. A ship the size of a starliner had two engineering areas, the actua
l engines, in the rear and generators with life support in the rear and the forward part of the ship. Once the boarding party controlled engineering, they controlled life support and that ended the combat. It was the equivalent of capturing the flag. The final place that needed to be taken out was, command and control. In a ship, that meant the bridge. As long as the bridge was not taken, self-destruct mechanisms could be set in motion. That was one reason it was preferable to take the bridge before engineering.

  The serpent cohort left the yacht hangar, which had two ramps leading into the vessel. One went down and was wide enough to allow 10 serpents abreast. All but one century went this way, since the engine room was down. The remaining century stayed to guard the hanger against retreating enemies. The ten unit Special Forces detached from the cohort and came under Centurion Marshal’s command. This was a serpent Special Forces group designed for speed. They did not take their shields and they would rapidly move through the passenger section of the ship to the bridge at the very top of the bow. They also did not use weapons so they would not slow them down. Their only weapon was the metal tip on the tail to allow them to increase their range of penetration. They felt honored to be led by both Centurion Marshal and the Lady Tavia. As the bulk of the cohort went down the ramp to the deeper parts of the ship, Tavia turned to Dalton and said, “You coming with us or going to wait here ‘till it’s over?”

  “I’ll come along with you.”

  “Ok, bring your gun and keep up.”

  Centurion Marshal then ordered his Special Forces to follow up the ramp. What fascinated Dalton the most was the fact that both Bill and Tavia conversed with these frightening aliens in their own language. Their language was entirely unintelligible to him. Bill, Tavia and the serpents went up the ramp so fast; it was all Dalton could do to keep up with them. When they reached the top of the ramp, they could hear combat coming from below them, where the main part of the first serpent cohort went. At the top of the ramp, the Special Forces group found themselves in the large reception area where incoming passengers were assigned their rooms and where the information desk was located. It was still the middle of the night cycle and everything was deserted. Tavia also imagined the passengers were told to stay in their rooms with some concocted story. From the reception area there was an old fashioned, winding stairway made of artificial wood that had landings on all of the five decks above the one on which they were.