Armageddon's Pall: Spiral War Book 4

by S. F. Edwards

  Bridge, UCSBS Nosh-Tak

  “Give me options,” Admiral Quin Tosh ordered as her battle cruiser raced from the docks.

  “We don’t have many,” her tactical officer replied. “The Planet Slicer has Jump Point Three blockaded and the Geffers have half a fleet between us and Jump Point One. It’s Jump Point Two or nothing.”

  The admiral turned to the navigational display. Jump Point Two was small. There should be no way that the Planet Slicer could slip through even with whatever tech they’d used to expand them. The problem was the jump point was off limits. “Navigation. Give me a reading on the jump buoy. Will we have room to maneuver once we’re through?”

  “If we’re crawling,” the Rimdook officer replied a moment later. “Even then, anything larger than a cruiser will run into the jump point on the other side.”

  She turned back to the miserable tactical picture beside her. Barely half the fleet had broken free of the docks. The others continued to take on personnel and many found themselves blockaded or destroyed. The Gorvians and Galactic Federation had planned this to perfection.

  She’d been on the link with Admiral Craine when the first reports of the Gorvian’s arrival and the Galactic Federation’s attack had come in. He’d looked as surprised as she. At first, he tried to deny it. Then three officers burst into the room behind him; security forces in their wake. The Pharad amongst them whispered something into his ear and his face sunk. He’d looked at her one last time, his eyes heavy, and killed the link. She’d come to like the old admiral. Despite the betrayal, she hoped that he’d survive this. From the look on his face however, she doubted it.

  “Order the fleet towards Jump Point Two. Execute a fighting retreat to cover all ships that haven’t undocked and escape craft. Can we slipstream?”

  The navigation officer was reticent to reply. “Negative ma’am. The local gravitational profile is too disrupted with the Planet Slicer so close. We can’t get a good lock on the jump point or plot a safe course through the system. We need to open up the distance or wait for things to stabilize.”

  “Understood. Let’s just hope that the synthetics in Cynial are feeling charitable. Assuming they can even feel such an emotion. And hail the Mercy. I need to speak to a member of Commander Tadeh Qudas’ squadron.”

  UCSB Date 1004.003

  Monstero Nach 03, Flight Deck, UCSBS Mercy, Veglid System

  Blazer awoke with a start, finding himself in his cockpit, the Shinekian maintenance crew swarming the fighter. The last thing he remembered was Marda coming down to check on him after his fighter had landed. He’d refused to leave the cockpit. The fleet was still in full retreat and he needed to provide cover.

  He looked to his right and spotted Fealgud in her cockpit as she popped her neck. “What happened. Where’s Marda?”

  “I’d imagine back in her med bay,” Fealgud replied.

  Blazer’s crew chief floated into view and pointed back at his damaged plaser cannon. They’d had replaced it with a bulky three-barreled mass driver. “Had to make do. You’ve only got about three hundred rounds in the drum,” the old Shinekian commented, his movements slow and exoskeleton rattling.

  “Chief. How long have we been out?”

  “Four hects,” Tadeh Qudas replied as he floated back into the bay towards his fighter. “I had Marda hit you with an anti-stim and sedative blend. Looks like it’s wearing off right on time.”

  Blazer’s blood burned at that announcement. That his wife would drug him, even under Tadeh Qudas’ orders, was unacceptable. “We’re in a full retreat. Wait. What is the status of the retreat?”

  “Still in progress,” Tadeh Qudas announced. “We’re heading out to relieve the Blood Pulse. They got chewed up, but they’re all coming back. They brought in a number of escape shuttles.”

  “What are our orders?” Arion asked from behind Blazer, his voice carrying a note of displeasure.

  “The fleet is closing on the jump point. But we have a few stragglers who managed to sneak off the station while you’ve been out. We need to get them to the Nosh’Tak.”

  “Why the Nosh’Tak and not another ship?” Gavit asked from Blazer’s left.

  “I haven’t been told. But the Gorvians and the Geffers have all but taken the station.”

  The thought of Gorvian and Geffer boots marring the pristine decks of that gorgeous station made Blazer want to puke. In the centuries that the Confederation had been building Cathedral Stations none had been abandoned, and only one had been destroyed due to an accident. A new thought swept over Blazer freezing him to his core and twisted his insides about so bad that they might strangle themselves. “The Jump Codes. Cathedral Stations have a full database of Confed jump codes.”

  “The jump computer has already been scragged,” Tadeh Qudas replied.

  “No good,” Blazer replied. “Jump code computers use multi-write solid-state quantum crystal memory. The database doesn’t just have current codes but all the codes ever uploaded to it. Even shattering the crystal wouldn’t do any good. It has to be destroyed at an atomic level.”

  Gokhead snapped around. “Can they dump it into the hyperbubble somehow?”

  Blazer considered that. “Not easily. No one ever considered the idea of a Cathedral getting captured.”

  Matt floated over on the way to his fighter. “Did anyone else notice where we’re heading?”

  “Jump Point Two,” Tadeh Qudas replied, matter of fact. “What of it?”

  Matt looked over at Fealgud. “That jump point is in extreme close proximity to the prime jump point into the Cynial System.”

  If a feather could fall in the null gravity flight deck everyone would have heard it in the silence that followed. No biological sentient had dared creep even a centimetra into Synthetic-controlled space in over six centuries, not since the signing of the Cynial Accords. Other than Que-Dee, Blazer hadn’t heard of the synthetics departing their borders either. He looked over at Fealgud as well. he asked over the micomm link so that no one outside the team could overhear.

 

  Nodding, Blazer turned back towards the front of the ship. The thought message trailed off and everyone looked away. The image of Mikle and Acknit’s fighter in Blazer’s gunsights played through his mind again. It was a haunting reminder that while he’d ended the life of the traitorous Mikle, he’d been too late to save Acknit. Worse, the thought that they’d had a traitor in their midst all this time ate at him and he replayed every moment he’d shared with the man. He still couldn’t see the warning signs. The only thing which came to mind was his overeager camera use. That at least made sense now. His parents had been relaying images back to the Galactic Federation. Who knew what all he’d managed to reveal.

  His roommates looked even more troubled. Zithe, Rudjick, and Gokhead had bunked with Mikle and Acknit ever since the academy. Never once had they shown any suspicion of where his true loyalties lay. Before they’d even landed last cycle, they’d received word that their quarters were under security lockdown. They’d remain inaccessible until security had time to determine what all Mikle had revealed. That they weren’t all grounded and weren’t all cooling their heels in the brig spoke volumes of either Tadeh Qudas’ vouching for the rest of them. That or the desperation the fleet had for pilots.

  Tadeh Qudas slapped the side of Fealgud’s fighter and everyone looked back towards him. “Do not dwell on it. We will all be questioned once this evacuation is over. I’ll take command of
Flight Three, filling our empty slot. Get ready to launch.”

  Monstero Nach 08, Escape Ship Rendezvous Point

  “Shuttle Es Tee One One Zero Seven, Monstero Nach Zero One. We have you on scanners,” Tadeh Qudas called out over the link. “We show unknown contacts in pursuit. Time to intercept One Five Pulses. We will make contact with you in One Zero pulses.”

  “Copy that Nach One. They’ve already scragged two of our group. Where were you?”

  “The fleet is in full retreat One One Zero Seven. We dispatched the moment we were informed of your escape. What kind of craft attacked you?”

  “Unknown. They looked like scaled-down versions of Gorvian interceptors. I don’t know if Geffers are flying them or what. Transmitting telemetry.”

  Bichard pored over the telemetry package the moment it arrived. The frightened pilot had been right. They did look like scaled-down Gorvian interceptors. Their side-mounted cockpits laid across the engine module from a massive beam cannon. Thermal vanes stuck out across the whole of the craft liked flattened out wicked antennae. What piloted them he couldn’t tell. Something else in the telemetry intrigued him even more though.

 

  Gokhead asked in response.

  Gavit and Matt both asked. The Explosions were escorting a separate group of escape shuttles.

  Bichard highlighted the sequence in the telemetry. When the Planet Slicer had arrived, and before they’d moved out of visual range, it had been level with the local ecliptic. Now, some twelve hects later, it had rotated. Bichard tried to make sense of why. Whenever he’d seen the Planet Slicer before it had been in line with the equator of the world it attacked. He thought back to their original insertion onto the massive ship. They’d come in with only passive sensors and hadn’t even laid eyes on the massive ship until its gravity had captured them, but then why spin?

  Gokhead replied.

  Arion added.

  A WSO Bichard didn’t recognize cut into the conversation over the WSO net. Her ID showed that she belonged to ICer squadron off the Wolfsbane.

  That made sense to Bichard. When in combat near the Planet Slicer his focus had always been on the objectives and the immediate space.

  “My Bichard. We’re closing on the shuttles. Are we ready to revert out of slipstream?” Chris asked.

  Nodding, Bichard set back to his normal duties. He pinged the local contacts and highlighted their shuttle to escort as well as the enemy fighters on attack vectors. The shuttles had been flying on their primary plasma drives instead of their slipstream drives after they’d failed during their escape. It left them vulnerable to attackers like those closing on them now. “You know that we haven’t done a slipstream tow of anything this large since the academy.”

  “It will be fine My Bichard. You always aced the tests.”

  Chris’ words helped ease Bichard’s fears, but the maneuver was even riskier than when they’d towed Gavit and Matt home earlier in the conflict. Docking the fighter with the shuttle using the magnetic latches in the landing gear was the easy part. Extending the influence of slipstream drive around the shuttle to wrap them in a common bubble of dark energy was more challenging. The fighters were designed to do so together, the shuttles weren’t. There was no guarantee that they could even slave the shuttle’s controls to their own, if they couldn’t it would be next to impossible to coordinate the thrust between the two. First though, they had to deal with the pursuing fighters.

  “All units, Lead. Protect the shuttles. Nach Eight. Get a close scan of those fighters.”

  “Copy that Lead,” Chris replied. “What do you think My Bichard? Can you get a good scan on those things?”

  “Get us in close to one and try not to kill it immediately. I’ll need half a pulse to get a detailed scan. I’ll do as much as I can during the close.”

  “Copy that,” Chris replied and keyed the link. “Lead, One Zero, this is Eight. Will need cover to get our scan. Half a pulse should do it.”

  Double clicks were the only response Chris received, but over the WSO net Rudjick and even Tadeh Qudas’ virtual WSO responded in the affirmative. Bichard pulled back from his close in POV of the shuttle to gaze upon the whole of the battlespace. Data from every friendly fighter within a light pulse combined and coalesced before him. It painted a picture of unprecedented clarity for him to assess the situation. While Tadeh Qudas had tasked them with scanning one of the fighters their primary mission was still to protect the shuttles.

  Lines of sensor contact filled the 3-D image connecting each shuttle and fighter with those targeting them. The shuttle Chris and Bichard were to protect had three fighters with active scanners on it but one had a more powerful and focused beam, indicating an active lock. Bichard set that as their target and plotted Chris an intercept course as they dropped out of slipstream. The fighters all became aware of their presence in that moment; scanner lines reaching out to illuminate them. Then Bichard noticed something curious. One by one, the lines began to converge on a single target; Blazer’s fighter.

  Blazer’s fighter highlighted as Arion’s heart rates sped up in response to the pings.

  Lines of sensor contact from areas outside of their battle space began to converge on them. Bichard reached out to touch the sensors of the ICer squadron and saw that even the fighters they were after had begun to shift their focus away from their targets.

  Que-Dee’s electronic voice cut in.

  Arion replied.

  The Virtual Intelligence’s status bar indicated that it had to ask Tadeh Qudas’ permission first. As soon as the IFF shifted the targeting lines did as Arion predicted and split; half now locked onto Tadeh Qudas.

  “All units, Lead. Three and I will try and herd them away from the shuttles. You get them before they can get us.”

  G-forces pressed Bichard back into his seat as Chris vectored towards one of the fighters in pursuit of their squadron commander. Narrowing his focus back to the immediate battle, he tracked their sensors onto the fighter. The power output of the craft was insane. Radiation across all bands streamed out of the twin power cores. There was no way that the pilot could hope to survive more than a few sorties in such a craft. Bichard ignored that and traced his scanners over every surface of the interceptor. The pilot’s pod seemed to carry only enough mass to either supply the pilot with controls and life support or shielding from the radiation, not both. Bichard could guess which the Gorvians had chosen to invest in.

  An energy spike from the weapons pod all but blinded the sensors before a plasma beam lanc
ed out towards Tadeh Qudas. The Telshin jinked, but the beam burned away half of the shields on contact. Bichard’s pincers clacked together in annoyance, his antennae scratching at his helmet but he remained focused. The fighter’s acceleration slowed. The fusion bulbs powering it had to shunt more plasma into the beam cannon for a second volley. That would give Tadeh Qudas some time to breathe, if it hadn’t been for the next fighter that fired on him. Bichard cursed and checked the status of his scan. A single solid hit from the beam cannon would kill any of them. The shuttles stood no chance without escort. The radiation spiked again scrambling Bichard’s sensors but a clear sensor ghost of the fighter assembled itself. He had the data he needed. “Chris. Kill that thing now.”

  Chris needed no more coaxing and fired, dropping a pair of missiles into the fighter just as its beam cannon lanced out again. Tadeh Qudas juked his fighter to the side and right into the beam of another pursuer. The Gorvian fighter exploded, blinding Bichard’s view before he pulled back to check on Tadeh Qudas. His shields were gone, his right wing shattered, engine sputtering to maintain thrust. Another of the Gorvian fighters exploded, then another as the rest of the squadron hammered the targets. Tadeh Qudas’ IFF changed back to his own and the last fighter in pursuit broke off. Chris already had it in her sights however.

  She destroyed the craft in short order, an expanding field of debris marking its passage along with those of the other Mini-Gorvians. That Tadeh Qudas took such a hit however was hard for Bichard to see. Something more disturbing came through before he could check on the craft’s status: a distress beacon.

  The Virtual Intelligence WSO reported Tadeh Qudas’ injury and incapacitation. He hadn’t ordered it to change the IFF, it had followed its self-preservation protocols in order to save the pilot. The old Telshin would never have given up so easily. Bichard reached out to the shuttles.