She nodded, cursing Admiral Santiago under her breath for being a complete idiot. The destruction of a super-dreadnought might very well be the defining moment of the battle. Perhaps I should send Ga’an to one of those ships as an acting admiral.
“Mr. Jong, patch me to Garrett and Seth actual,” she ordered, picking up the radio again. “Admiral Yun, Admiral David,” she addressed the commanding officers, “Are you still jump capable?”
Both replied affirmatively. The Garrett had stabilizer issues, but with some good plotting and a bit of luck, they would be safe enough to complete the maneuver.
Rebecca told them of the plan and passed the orders for their task forces. “Navigation, I want you to make two consecutive jumps, here and here.” She pointed out two spots on the holographic map. “By the time we complete the second jump, I want this ship to be facing the bottom of that ugly thing.”
“Yes, ma’am!” The cartographers saluted from their navigation terminals and began their calculations.
Rebecca continued her orders, circling the holographic map as she always did, observing the map. “Tactical, after the jump, divert all power to forward banks except life support and shields and fire like there is no tomorrow.”
Ga’an walked beside her, ignoring the occasional bumps from enemy fire. So far, the Baeal fleet’s main focus was the center of Santiago’s spherical formation. They were ignoring the Deviator and everyone on board was thankful for that.
“I hope your plan works, Mr. Ga’an,” Rebecca said, looking at the tactical map, “Or this will be the fastest-resolving battle in recorded history.”
“It will,” Ga’an answered, turning to match eyes with the admiral, “Because this is not the real enemy.”
“What does that mean?”
“They are here to weaken you and cause as much damage as they can before their time expires. No finesse. Just a hard, crude attack to hurt.
“Well,” Rebecca sighed, “one step at a time.” The Ancient spoke the truth; according to the probes’ readings the alien gate near Saturn was still inactive, and Rebecca couldn’t even imagine the horror that would come out of the huge ring. She drew a long breath and ordered the jump.
***
Although seasoned, the admiral disliked the weird feeling of entering into hyperspace, as if her body was being sucked into a sinkhole, but the jump wasn’t the cause of her stomach cramps. Not this time.
“First jump successful,” one of the officers informed. “Beginning the second countdown.”
A few seconds later, the Deviator appeared behind the enemy fleet, directly facing the enemy capital ships’ thrusters.
“Fire!” Rebecca barked the order without hesitation and the huge cannons of the super-dreadnought blasted one after another, creating a mesmerizing and deadly light show. The Garrett appeared about fifty kilometers under the Deviator a moment later and Admiral Yun’s super-dreadnought started its salvo following the jump.
Rebecca cursed when the green dot of Seth’s IFF signal appeared right in the middle of the Baeal capitals. “David, you moron!” The flagship of the fifth banner had miscalculated the jump, landing trapped between two of the enemy capitals’ crossfire.
“Ma’am, shall we hold fire?” Lieutenant Jong asked over his console.
“No, keep firing!” Rebecca said, biting her lips in frustration. “They are on their own now.”
Admiral Yun seemed to have made a similar judgment call onboard the Garrett, continuing artillery fire. The tactical map didn’t reflect the true scale of chaos; for someone inexperienced, it would simply be red and green dots hovering around one another, but to the informed, the main display was a scene of horror.
Rebecca turned to watch carnage. The Seth was turning to port in an attempt to escape the death trap. Flying lasers, plasma beams and flak explosions near the ship hid the maneuvers. It would be an awesome instructional video for cadets back in flight school; huge ships completing maneuver after maneuver to avoid damage. But it wasn’t a video and each explosion meant people dying. Hopefully more Baeal than human.
As Rebecca feared, the unavoidable fate caught the super-dreadnought as the Seth’s deflector shield failed. Moments later, the huge ship’s nose section broke into two with a massive blast, its brightness filling the main display. It was impossible to see them from this distance, but Rebecca tried to put aside images of crewmembers sucked into space or burning alive inside the devastated corridors.
“Focus your fire on Seth’s reactor!” Ga’an roared, pulling her back into the moment.
“What!” Rebecca turned to confront Ga’an. “Are you out of your mind!”
“Seth is dead, Admiral Conway.” Ga’an’s voice was flat. “Take down the reactor core and make it count for something.”
Rebecca tried to keep herself from trembling. She opened her mouth to counter the tall man’s argument but her words stopped before they were out. Ga’an had a point. The moment they were done with Seth, the spidery enemy ships would turn their interest to the Deviator and the crippled Garrett. Admitting that two against five with damaged ships was a lost cause, Rebecca nodded at Lieutenant Jong to carry out the orders, no matter how much she hated them.
***
“Seth command, this is Echo Five, we lost half the wing!” Captain Carter yelled over the crazy radio chatter. “Requesting fire support!”
“Fighter wing coming in! Break and attack!” the voice of a male pilot echoed instead of the super-dreadnought’s mission command.
The communication frequency was in total disarray. Carter was used to seeing order thrown out the window the moment you pulled the trigger but never on this scale. Half the time, she wasn’t even positive what she was firing at. Hundreds of ships flew around, exchanging lasers, plasmas, projectiles and missiles, and Carter was sure most of the casualties were from friendly fire on both sides.
“Leader One, come in!” she barked again, trying to both follow the missile tailing her on the radar and avoid the random plasma blasts. So far, the fighter’s shields kept her from becoming space dust.
“This is Mammoth leader,” a powerful, baritone male voice responded after her second try. “We will provide fire support.”
“Finally!” Carter rolled her Avenger fighter and deployed what little flares were left. “That’s it, no chaff, no flares. I’m dry!” They had very little knowledge of the alien weaponry and she couldn’t tell if her countermeasures were working against Baeal warheads at all. Still, better safe than sorry.
“We got you, Echo Five.” A gunboat five times the size of her fighter passed right over her, shielding the fighter against the tailing missile. The flak turrets on board the Mammoth made quick work of the rocket, saving Carter’s skin.
“Thank you, Mammoth leader!” Carter gave a sigh of relief and targeted another enemy fighter. “Can you reposition your team to create a flak curtain in grid four? We can lure them to your fire.”
“Roger that, Echo leader,” the man confirmed the call.
“Echo leader?”
“You are the acting wing commander. We lost Echo leader’s signal moments ago.”
“Great.”
Two more gunboats came out of the buzzing cloud of ships, positioning near their leader. Their armor and shields were strong enough to ignore the fighters but they’d learnt the existence of enemy bombers the hard way.
“Two Eyes coming in hot!” another man’s voice echoed over the channel.
“Where…Wait, I see them!” Carter yelled when she spotted the ellipsoid shapes. “Targeting them now. Echo Nine, on me.”
Echo Nine responded to the call, forming on Five’s wing shortly after. Baeal bomber’s eye-like shape made it impossible to say whether it was flying away or toward the pilot without the help of radar. The Eyes were not as agile as the Consortium’s Marauder bombers, but they delivered quite a punch. If the Eyes landed two torpedoes on any one of the gunboats, it was all over.
“There!” the other Echo pilot called
over the radio.
“Gotcha!” Carter confirmed, firing her weapons.
The laser blasts rained on the two approaching bombers, taking one in its tail. The Eye lost its balance, diverted from its course with fire and smoke coming from the hull and Carter watched the thing explode.
The second bomber had fired two torpedoes before the other Avenger managed to take it down and now, the gunboats had a real problem coming on their way; if the warheads reached them in their close formation, it would mean the end of Mammoth wing.
“Mammoth leader, you have two warheads on you!” Carter warned the gunboat captain. “Echo Nine, tail those torpedoes.”
Carter made a sharp engine-kill turn and hit the throttle to full, trying to ignore the counterforce her body faced from the kiting. The warheads were somewhat slower than a fighter missile but still quite fast to catch. She had no choice but to divert all power to the engines and drop her shield. If the Avenger took a hit or two in this chaos—and it would be some miracle if it did not—she would meet her maker.
Her fighter was gaining on the torpedo but she only had a few seconds left to take it down before it came too close to the gunboats.
“Sorry for the friendly fire, Marauder leader,” Carter said and opened fire, both of the Avenger’s guns firing non-stop at the torpedo. She counted on the powerful shield of the gunboats and risked her projectiles hitting the gunboats more than they did the warhead.
A sudden, bluish flare stunned her but she remembered to pull up just in time to protect the fighter’s cockpit. The shockwave of the blast hit her fighter shortly after the explosion, throwing it away like a fishing boat caught up in the waves of an ocean liner. She tried to stabilize the Avenger and hoped the damage wasn’t too severe. At least, she’d protected the canopy or she’d already be dead. That had to count for something.
Another flash of light in the distance pulled her out of the bleak thoughts. A huge fireball cut into the Baeal capital ships like a hot knife through butter.
“What was that?” she asked out. The radio was full of cheers.
“It was the Seth!” the Mammoth leader said over the radio.
***
The Deviator changed her target from the nearby enemy capital to the anti-matter reactors in the super-dreadnought’s belly and fired all of its forward and upper banks. Seth’s armor held for a few more seconds and then the ship exploded in a ring of fire that reached all the way to the Deviator, violently shaking the ship.
Rebecca covered her eyes from the brightness of the explosion, yelling “Report!” at her officers over and over again.
“M-Ma’am!” Lieutenant Jong babbled finally, “the Seth’s destroyed.” He checked his console. “The signals of the five Baeal ships have disappeared.”
Rebecca walked toward the main screen to confirm it with her own eyes. The core of the enemy crescent looked like a junkyard now, metal husks of dead ships floating around like rocks in a dense asteroid field. The blast had scattered some of the bigger pieces toward the Garrett but their awareness helped them to move the ship enough to avert a collision.
Rebecca turned away from the screen and looked at Ga’an. She was having a hard time deciding if she wanted to kill the man or hug him. The call had been heartless and yet, Ga’an’s tactics had saved them. She found herself nodding in respect, and Ga’an bowed back.
“All right, Mr. Jong.” The battle-worn admiral walked back to the tactical holograph. “Tell the fleet to complete the cleanup and bring our birds back home.” She already felt fifty years older.
***
“This is the Deviator,” a male voice cut all the chatter on the radio. “Report to your carrier group following the cleanup. Seth’s wings will report back to the Deviator.”
So, the Deviator was her new family.
Captain Carter felt a relief, a sign of hope in her heart. She switched the Avenger back to combat mode and fired on the nearest Crab, luring the disarrayed enemy fighters toward the Mammoth wing’s barrage.
Another explosion in the distance made her heart stop but she saw the gunboats were sitting safe shortly after the smokes cleared. “Good work Echo Nine.”
“Echo Nine is down,” the second gunboat’s captain responded instead. “I am sorry, Captain, she intercepted the warhead too close.”
Carter didn’t say anything. She couldn’t say anything, trying to concentrate back on the battle, but numbness filled her. Samantha had been her friend since childhood, more than twenty years, and she cursed the enemy for taking her away. Tears rolled out, and Carter blinked. “I’m starting the maneuver now, Mammoth leader,” was all she said, gripping the flight stick as hard as she could, holding back the furious screams she very much needed to burst out. Samantha was a hero, sacrificing herself to protect others. And Samantha was dead.
Carter couldn’t say for how long she pressed the fire button and she didn’t care.
***
One of the airmen gave Rebecca the report of the latest probe readings from Saturn. The signs on the gate had begun glowing pale white while they were occupied with the battle over Mars, just as the gate symbols had back in Samara’s Star.
“What is our situation, Mr. Jong?” she asked her chief tactical officer.
The slender man touched a few buttons on his screen before speaking. He looked like he would fall down any second now. He needed to rest. We all do. “The enemy forces have been scattered. A few of their fighters limped back to Saturn.”
“Call all the remaining wings back home,” Rebecca ordered. “And lay a course for Earth. I want every available ship, civilian or not, there as soon as possible.”
Ga’an approached Rebecca and took the data pad from her hands, inspecting the readings.
“Mr. Ga’an?” Rebecca raised a brow. “What is it?”
“They are coming.”
“Ma’am!” Lieutenant Jong interrupted their dialogue, calling to the Admiral. “The enemy gate’s active!” He left his station and rushed to the main screen, linking the probe image from his console to the huge display.
Rebecca moved closer, Ga’an following. A blurry image appeared and after a minute—that passed agonizingly slowly for the commanding duo—Lieutenant Jong managed to clean the visuals.
Rebecca didn’t remember stepping back to lean on the tactical holograph desk or holding the shoulder of a terrified lieutenant to encourage him. All she felt were the shivers running down her spine. If the spiders were frightening, the monster before them was the definition of a nightmare.
A huge, wormlike ship came out of the ring lazily, with a size that dwarfed the arachnids. A dark gray fog travelled with the alien ship, surrounding the beast with a black aura. The ship undulated like a water snake, drifting through the darkness surrounding Saturn. Its drab scales reflected the rays of distant Sol, their independent movement creating a bleak light show.
Rebecca thought the exit of the enemy’s titan through the gate would last forever; the enemy mother ship looked hundreds of kilometers long, perhaps bigger than the Italian Peninsula. Soon after it appeared in the enemy gate, the mist surrounding the dark shape became so dense, the probes were no longer able to get a clear visual of the big ring.
A sudden, deafening static echoed through the ship’s speakers and stopped as abruptly as it came. What followed next made Rebecca wish she was deaf.
WE. ARE. HOME.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
YRRHA
“I thought you were on board with Mr. Harris,” Captain Samir said.
“Admiral Conway told me of your mission. She asked me to join and I wanted to lend a hand, anyway.”
“You any good with weapons?”
“I’ve security training. Close quarters combat and firearms.”
“Welcome then, Ms. Davis.”
“Just Sarah, Samir. We’ve been through enough already.”
Captain Samir smiled, nodding. He’d worn Colonel Pats’ dog tags since their encounter with Baeal on Pendar. He was at the
end of the line, following his men. The transport had dropped them several kilometers away from the target zone to avoid detection.
“So, you asked to lead the team?” Sarah asked Samir.
“Yes. I think I owe it to Pats. He would have wanted to see this through. I intend to complete the mission, no matter what.”
“I never thought it would be this hot.”
“Never been to South America?”
“Don’t like Earth much. Most of our time would be near London or Berlin when we were docked. I prefer the colonies. Too many people.”
“Welcome to Yucatán, then. This is Mexico. Reverend Marcus said his research ended up here.”
“Where are we, exactly?” Sarah avoided talking about Reverend Marcus. She was still trying to swallow the news about the Cavils.
“Some fifty clicks south of the famous El Castillo pyramid that dominated the Chichén Itzá archeological site. The Arinar is somewhere nearby.”
“Well, remind me to buy a drink for that transport pilot of yours. That was one hell of a ride, passing through all those fireworks.”
“He’s good.”
“Everybody down!” Sergeant Walters dropped, signaling them to do the same as the band arrived at the base of a small hill. “You got to give it to the old man,” he smiled, making a cross for the dead Reverend Marcus’ soul. They had heard the news over coms after leaving for Yrrha. Captain Samir crouched next to him, and Walters spat out his gum and said, “Reverend Marcus was right. There.” The sergeant gave his binoculars to the captain, pointing.
The area was filled with bushes and rocks with occasional farms scattered along the horizon, giving the special ops team a good view. Except for the three touched-down transports in the distance, the place was desolate and away from prying eyes.
“They’re human,” Sarah noticed, crawling near the duo with binoculars of her own.
“Yes,” the sergeant nodded. “The ships are unmarked. And I’ve no idea whose uniforms those are. Perhaps they’re like Matthews?”
“I don’t know, maybe.” Samir crawled back from the hill. “I prefer fighting with something I understand. If they’re human, they bleed and die like the rest of us.”
Shadows Bear No Names (The Blackened Prophecy Book 1) Page 32