by Lee Guo
“Please, your Majesty,” the Admiral begged.
Vin ignored his pleas. How could he lose if he showed the same determination and willpower he was feeling right now? Let them try to take his ship and him down with it.
“Vin!” A voice broke his reverie. “Vin!” the voice repeated, a bit weaker.
“Maylene?” Vin stood up and looked around him. Nowhere was Maylene in sight. Yet, he had heard it! Was it his delirious thoughts that created it? “Maylene?”
There was silence. He gazed behind him. To his left. His right. All the doors into the bridge were shut.
Vin was only minutely aware that everyone on the bridge stared at him.
Him. They were all here to protect him… because of him. Without his command, they would have fled.
As his attention returned to the battle, he heard it, again, except this time he knew it was in his head. Vin, he heard her say. Vin… LIVE!
It was as if a light switch came on. He returned to reality – the real reality, not the one he imposed on himself because he wouldn’t accept his own defeat.
Then he realized it. It was Maylene’s calm feminine voice which told him that he had to accept the facts – that he had been defeated – that he had to face reality for what it was now… not for the world, not for his dynasty, not even for his composure, image, and dignity, but for her – or rather, his future with her.
I want to see Maylene, again.. I need to see Maylene, again. I want to marry her and make her my wife and the children we’ll make together. It won’t be that bad. We’ll still have ourselves even if the kingdom is gone. We’ll travel to a distant star, away from the Garolans, and settle peacefully on a planet of our choosing. The people will still accept me and Maylene as royalty… the people that survive the annihilation of Earth and all the human worlds, that is. We’ll still have something to work for, a future for humanity to aspire to – there just won’t be that many humans left in the universe, that’s all…
But I want to see her, again. I need to.
He blinked.
Once.
Twice.
“Admiral Hayet,” he commanded using the private line, “get us out of here!”
“Yes, my Majesty!” the Fleet Admiral said with relief. “All ships, head towards location sigma. Evasion protocol has been activated. All ships are to head out of his system. Godspeed, everyone!”
Throneship Predator’s Claw
Bridge
Admiral Vargasithisisagwa’s buzzing laughter finally stopped when he saw the human ships depart the immediate battlefield in a huddled group. For the past five minutes, he had been in heaven, gloriously basking in the stupidity of the human war fleet as it pretended it still had a chance against his. But somehow, the human battle commander had finally accepted that his battle had been lost and admitted it was better to save his mobile units from being foolishly sacrificed.
But… there was one thing he did notice that he could not pull his thoughts away from. And it was the fact that while the human fleet had been in close quarter combat with his own, nearly all of the human ships had thrown themselves in front of only one of their ships – to protect that sole human ship. What was so important about that single human ship? Vargasithisisagwa had asked himself earlier.
His only assumption concluded that the leader of the human fleet had to be on that vessel that was being protected by the rest of the fleet – but if that leader knew the danger of being in the fight was as high as it was, why was it and its fleet still in the fight for that entire time? Vargasithisisagwa couldn’t get his head over it, but obviously someone or something of great importance was in that vessel.
If I destroy it, won’t that be dreadful for the humans? Vargasithisisagwa considered as his mandibles began spiting saliva, “All swarms, head towards enemy vessel designation 409 and fire at it. Destroy anything that comes to its protection. The destruction of their main homeworld can wait. 409 must be destroyed.”
Envy’s Curse
Bridge
“Sir! All – All the enemy warships – they’re heading straight for us, sir! On an intercept path! We’ll never get to FTL transit in time!”
“They’re going to intercept the fleet?” the Fleet Admiral asked, frowning.
“No, just us!”
“Damn…” Hayet said. “I knew it. My caution sealed our fate.” He turned his gaze at Vin. “My Majesty, even if I order a mass dispersion of the fleet at this time, it won’t save us from destruction. Another thing I can think of would be to put other ships in between us and the enemy fleet but it won’t hold them for long. We’re outnumbered in firepower, at this point, by a probably factor of 80 to 1. Shall I order the escape pods to launch? There is a chance – however minute – that they, the enemy, won’t detect some of the escape pods and we’ll be able to get out of their firing arc as well as escape their hunter-scavenging scans long enough that our escape pod reaches the outer parameter of the system’s gravity well. We can get picked up by a friendly vessel and then escape into 0-space.”
“How high is this chance?” Vin asked, trembling.
“I don’t know. Five percent?”
“And you’re sure our ship cannot make it out through our gravitic acceleration alone?”
“I’m sure, my Majesty. That Garolan Armada has ships with higher acceleration than us. The Envy’s Curse is history – before we reach the gravity well parameter and make 0-space translation, we’ll be a debris field.”
Vin froze. How badly did he want to live? How badly did he want to see Maylene? “Not even if every ship within our fleet attempted to block the enemy from stopping our escape?”
The admiral was silent for a moment.
Vin knew what he was thinking. How much of a selfish coward are you?
Finally, the Admiral spoke. “We won’t make it – even then, sir. We’ll just be condemning every ship within our fleet to hopeless death. We’re fodder against the enemy’s superior guns and shields.”
Vin took a long time to think.
Time seemed to pass so fast. Before long, his helmet chronometer read 2 minutes had passed.
“Hurry, sir,” the Admiral urged. “Time is of essence in this plan.”
“Okay,” Vin finally answered. “Let’s eject the escape pods and get out of here in them.”
“Yes, sir,” Hayet replied, then on the public channel, “All ships are to disperse immediately. Get as far away from the Envy’s Curse as possible. I repeat, all ships are to get as far away from the flagship as possible. There is no need for more lives to be sacrificed. Anyone that makes it out of here should proceed towards the rendezvous point in the Gamma Epsilon Sector. Good luck. The Envy’s Curse is ejecting escape pods and several ships will be designated as escape pod retrievers in the event not all the escape pods are destroyed.”
Earth Orbit
Battlespace
The human fleet expanded from one cohesive unit into four hundred individual units all going in separate directions. The Garolan fleet made no attempt to chase any of these individual units except the one they designated 409 – because they were aware of the difficulty in chasing a dispersed fleet. Instead, they accelerated straight for 409, which they designated as the human fleet’s flagship, and they were correct.
The Envy’s Curse had not yet ejected its escape pods.
Envy’s Curse
Bridge
“Hurry, your Majesty!”
Vin bolted right up and was led towards one of the entrances. It took him a minute to cross the room – that was how big the room was – and then he exited the bridge.
He and the Fleet Admiral behind him ran in solid armor through several corridors. It took ten minutes – this long because the bridge was at the dead center of the star ship – until they reached Escape Pod One. The entrance to the escape pod looked like any other door – 2 meters tall by 1 and a half meter wide.
When Vin walked in, he was impressed by the equipment inside. EP1 had a lot of computer inte
rfaces – almost like a miniature auxiliary bridge. Obviously, it had been designed to be able to take command of the fleet even if it was ejected from the main flagship.
Vin sat down in one of the least prominent pads and was instantaneously strapped into the surface by autonanites that attached to his armor.
Then, he watched as the rest of the bridge crew strapped themselves in as well. Finally, the door closed behind the last man.
“Ready,” the feminine sounding Pod AI said. “All bridge members have arrived and have been secured.”
“Then eject,” Hayet ordered as he lay strapped beside Vin.
“Ejecting pod in 3… 2… 1…”
There was no feeling of acceleration or change in gravities.
“Bringing online the main holomap,” the AI said.
The central holomap turned on and now, Vin could see all the pods as they ejected from the flagship in random order. Escape Pod One was highlighted in green, and it moved according to the path one of the helm officers set it to – a direct course towards Sol’s translation boundary. All the pods virtually went in that direction, although there were differences in angle. The units in red were the Garolan fleetships – all 1800 of them.
“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” Hayet’s voice called out in the public line. “All escape pods of the flagship, disperse! Stop heading in the same direction!”
“Yes, sir!” came the replies on the net.
“From now on, maintain communication silence,” Hayet instructed.
Vin gulped. He gazed at the enemy units. The closest ones were less than minutes away.
“Here they come!” Hayet whispered on the private line. “Let’s hope the enemy passes us.”
As the minutes passed, Vin sadly watched as the Garolans pummeled the computer controlled flagship Envy’s Vain through overwhelming force. The Envy’s Vain’s singularity shields fared well briefly but soon the entire vessel exploded into a plasma field and was no more. And then the enemy fleet began scanning and chasing the escape pods.
There was crying and screaming on the net. People yelled to no avail when their escape pod was detected and they were forced to meet their quick doom.
For the moment, Vin felt relief that Escape Pod One had not been targeted – one of the nearest Garolan warships passed through the area completely neglecting EP1 -- but this relief suddenly dissipated and turned into anguish when that same enemy warship suddenly scanned in Vin’s direction and then turned – heading their way!
Vin’s fear turned into panic and he knew he was dead.
I’m dead.
He eyed the holomap and saw the enemy ship inch closer. The enemy’s weapons were more than powerful enough to destroy the little escape pod’s armor. Vin had no chance.
No! No! I’m never going to see Maylene, again. Maylene… I’m afraid through my stupidity that I broke my promise. I could have saved myself much earlier but I mismanaged my thoughts. Good bye…
Closer, the enemy came.
Closer…
Closer…
“Admiral Hayet,” Vin said.
“My Majesty,” answered the armored suit next to him.
“Thank you for what you’ve done. You did your best and you followed my orders exactly. No one can punish you for that. The only thing I wished you did was to have not followed my orders when I told the fleet to not escape. I guess I can’t ask for forgiveness… there’s no point, now. I hope we meet again in the afterlife, Admiral, wherever we’re going.”
Then the Fleet Admiral did something blatantly awkward. He popped off his helmet.
Now, Vin could see the Admiral’s face – and – he was smiling!
Why was he smiling?
“Why are you smiling?” Vin asked.
The Admiral didn’t say anything, but all Vin could see was the big toothy grin and suddenly he felt very confused. The situation was still deadly, no hope of that ever stopping. He was still going to die very, very soon. He returned his gaze at the holomap. The enemy ship was almost within firing range.
And then suddenly the world around him exploded. Not in the sense that the Escape Pod blew up, but that instead, on the holomap, numerous – thousands – of objects appeared in every direction. New objects – new ships – appeared hovering everywhere around the debris field that was the Envy’s Vain and its escape pods.
The first thing Vin could think of were cloakers! But whose were they? Certainly, they were not human, because humanity had barely begun investing resources into cloaking fields – he as king was the one who would know all about that. So if they weren’t human, then they had to be alien. Then which faction? Were they Garolan?
And the answer to that was an immediate no, because immediately the new ships began firing at the Garolan armada from every direction. Spatial charges opened up in every direction. Singularity blasts exploded on singularity shields, both friendly and foe. Gigatons of new raw energy pounded Garolan fleetships from all sides and the Garolans began firing back at their new sudden assailants – completely forgetting or at least ignoring the escape pods.
Garolan singularity shields tried to prevent the raw explosions from seeping into their alien armor, but this was to no avail – the power of the new ones’ singularity blasts overwhelmed the Garolan’s singularity shields and raw energy slammed into the enemy ships – crashing through enemy armor and slashing through enemy inner hull compartments – in all areas of the battlefield. The Garolan juggernaut that was their 1800 strong armada suddenly found itself on the back foot as now it was being assaulted by an even vaster and fully fresh armada of alien ships with apparently superior technology to boot. This new alien armada damaged and destroyed the Garolan Armada’s ships by the dozen every minute, and before long, hundreds of Garolan ships had exploded into debris and plasma.
Worse, as the Garolans tried to retreat and regroup from their devastating loss and their new enemy’s devastating attack – and find some way to return to cohesion and unity after having dispersed in order to chase the runaway human escape pods – they were ambushed by more devastating attacks to their rears and side shields.
The Garolans died. Their ships mauled over. Their numbers dwindled.
Vin could not help but feel a hurricane of surprise enamored with glee and relief. Who were the newcomers? If they were in fact allies, why hadn’t he been notified of their coming? Vin witnessed all of this happen in the first twenty minutes of battle between the new aliens and the old.
And after thirty minutes had passed, nearly all of the human warships had also returned back onto the immediate battlefield to help the new aliens, as per Hayet’s orders.
Still, the question lingered. Who were they?
The battle raged. Vin saw Hayet coordinate attacks with the alien allies using the remaining human ships he had left.
Before long, the enemy – battered and beaten – began a hasty and desperate retreat. And – if Vin wasn’t out of his mind – it seemed the alien commander experienced something that Vin had experienced not an hour earlier, the inability to admit defeat.
The Garolan forces lingered on the battlefield far longer than was apparent that they could not win.
However, finally, they withdrew.
Vin watched the enemy speed away, trying to lick its wounds, and he heard the cries of unbelievable victory within the crews of his escape capsule as well as throughout the human fleet.
The battle of Earth had been won. The enemy had been repelled – not through any human doing, but by friendly alien intervention.
Who were they?
Whoever they were, Vin owed the survival of his dynasty – no, the survival of the human race – to them.
And, as the remnants of the enemy fleet escaped into 0-space, Vin could not hide his anxiety in meeting the new aliens who had won the day.
Chapter 15
2 hours later…
Escape Pod One
Sol
It took two hours for all the escape pods to be rescued.
&nbs
p; As a result, Escape Pod One sat within the hangar deck of a massive alien warship, whose name Vin still did not know. The door to the outside hangar deck was about to be opened.
“Opening the escape pod door,” an ensign said. “Everyone keep your helmets on. I detect no atmosphere outside.”
The door opened.
A whoosh of gas escaped from the chamber where Vin and the Fleet Admiral sat. The oxygen from inside the escape pod vanished.
Several junior bridge crew members were the first to walk outside, followed by the Fleet Admiral, then by Vin.
When Vin exited the pod, the first thing he saw was blue. Everything around him was blue and there was so much room. It was truly a massive hangar deck. Then he saw an alien crewmember walk up to him. They were… robots!
This is a Quoran ship. We’ve been helped by Quorans!
“Hello,” the robot greeted in plain English on an emergency frequency.
“Hello,” Vin replied through the emergency net.
“Please follow me,” the Robot said. “I will lead you to our bridge. Everything will be explained.”
Vin nodded. “The rest of you stay here,” he instructed the flagship’s bridge crew. “Admiral Hayet and I will go to their bridge.”
He walked through corridors of airless bluish ship space until the alien robot finally arrived at the alien ship’s bridge. When he entered, he was surprised by the amount of light – or rather, the lack thereof. The bridge of the robot warship had no holograms or information displays. All the bridge crewmen seemed to be asleep, their informatics feed tied into the ship’s computer. Then Vin saw someone he never expected to see. “Kal?”
“Hello, my Majesty,” the hologram of the palace AI greeted, as he stood at the center of the alien bridge.
“What are you doing on board this ship?” Vin asked.
“I have been collaborating with the Quorans all this time, my Majesty. We’ve been planning Earth’s rescue in discrete.”