by Jamie Sawyer
There was news of incredible acts of coordination between the Krell and the Alliance. Those elements of the Krell Collective that had not been infected by Harbinger acted in concert with Alliance forces whenever and wherever possible. Bio-pods blazed the skies of dying kelp-worlds. The Reef Worlds were defended by a mixture of human and Krell allies, fighting back to back. Blood was spilt, lives were lost. This was true allegiance.
The Aeon played their part too. The six ships were almost silent, sharing their intelligence only with Pariah, but their abilities were unerringly precise when called into action. The Aeon deployed their gate-technology to shuttle ships back and forth across the region, out-manoeuvring the slower human vessels, and lancing the Harbinger virus as they encountered it. Energy weapons arced across the dead of space, from distances of thousands of kilometres. Quantum-missiles skipped in and out of existence, destroying Spiral freighters before they had even realised that they were being targeted. Still, I had the feeling that they were holding back. The Aeon were here for a purpose, and this was not it. That, I knew, was still to come.
Simulant Operations was, as ever, front and foremost in the conflict. No one knew how many personnel had been committed to the conflict, but I’d hazard a guess that there wasn’t anyone left at home. Farm-ships, whose sole function was to store and produce simulants, deployed fresh skins to frontline vessels. The cost in resources was huge, but there was no alternative. This was it: pure and simple. Victory or death. Every hangar in the Defiant was filled with skinned-up operators, ready to drop. When the logistics of taking the fight deeper into the Reef Worlds meant that operators had to be deployed directly into the theatre, Sim Ops went without challenge, without complaint. Such was duty. Every planet captured was hard fought until the very end, and success was measured in blood.
For a time, it looked like Feng might be right. The Black Spiral and their infected allies were being pushed back towards Ithaca Prime, and were caught between the Krell forces and the advancing Alliance fleet.
“I… I’m detecting a significant energy disruption around Cybaris,” said a Navy officer. “Are these results verified?”
Another officer grimaced. “Affirmative.”
Zero braced over the edge of the main display, her face painted green by the tri-D graphics that appeared. P tensed up in anticipation.
“I’m reading something big… really big, on our scanners…” reported one ship. “Is anyone else seeing this?”
“We’re detecting the same,” said an officer from the UAS Valiant, sister ship to the Defiant. “Can Command verify?”
“Command verifies,” said a comms officer.
“Firing on the newcomer,” declared another ship.
A pregnant pause filled the CIC.
The Ceti Dream was on the edge of the battlegroup, anchored around Cybaris. She was a dreadnought-class warship, and had opened up with everything she had. Plasma cannons, rail guns and missiles filled the display; a blizzard of munitions and energy weapons.
“No effect,” said the same ship. “We’re reporting no response.”
A Shard warship filled the display, and it was untouched by the barrage. Most of the weapons-fire was intercepted by a grid of dark matter that protected the machine-ship. Munitions detonated against the defensive network, illuminating the deep of space.
“Wings of Proxima, advance in support,” one of the Defiant’s officers ordered. “Bring all null-shields to portside amplification. Valiant is breaking away to provide additional firepower.”
“They’re firing back—” started the Sweet Justice’s comms officer.
The Shard warship opened fire.
Dark lances of energy whipped from a jagged spire on the ship’s flank. The energy beams punctured the Justice’s null-shield with ease. They did much the same to the ship’s triple-reinforced hull.
To the amazement of the Defiant, and the rest of the Alliance fleet, the Justice broke in two. Less than a second later, a ball of shadow matter—exactly what wasn’t clear, as the ship’s sensors were now blinded—impacted the Justice’s energy core.
“We’re hit!” yelled the vessel’s captain. “Advise that we have suffered—”
The UAS Justice’s energy core erupted. The space the ship had once occupied was now just superheated plasma. The Sweet Justice, and her two thousand crew, had become a white smear of light against the horizon.
“By Gaia…” someone said.
“There are more of them incoming,” I said.
Other Shard warships made their presence known. At first, they were no more than sensor-blinds. Dark patches, where scopes could not penetrate. Then came the squall of exotic energies, and the disturbance in the quantum. Shadow tendrils polluted realspace as the ships jumped in-system, throwing off ripples of darkness as they made transition.
“How many?” asked Secretary Lopez, numbly, although he already knew the answer.
“Ten,” said the Defiant’s sensor operator. “Ten ships, all in the Ithaca star system.”
“There may as well be a hundred…” Captain Ving muttered, with real bitterness.
I looked to Director Mendelsohn and remembered the conversation we’d had aboard the Destiny, before Operation Perfect Storm had launched. There, he had told me that there were ten Shard warships. His intelligence had been reliable.
Dark tides threatened Ithaca in every direction. The Alliance’s fragile, crude technology was barely able to comprehend the new arrivals. Sensor-errors and scanner anomalies filled several consoles, as the Shard warships deployed countermeasures. The atmosphere in the CIC soured and morale immediately plummeted.
Rather than appearing as a combined fleet, the Shard were spread across the Ithaca system. But when they attacked, they did so as one mind. Their assault was cripplingly precise.
UAS Valiant, sister ship to the Defiant, went down with all hands, in a repeat of the Justice’s demise.
“The Wings of Proxima has taken a critical hit,” said a tactical watch officer.
The Defiant’s captain—a dour-faced Euro-Cornfed officer—waved a hand to the reporter. “Silence those comms,” he said.
“Aye, sir.”
The bubble of cries for assistance, of panicked screams, that signalled the Proxima’s demise, fell quiet. But there was plenty more where that had come from. Warning chimes sounded across the CIC, and officers began to call in more results.
“The UAS Triton’s Heart is requesting permission to fall back.”
“Queen of Ganymede is no longer broadcasting.”
“… Centaur and Hudson have gone down…”
“… Intrepid is launching her evac-pods…”
The tactical-display illuminated with emergency distress beacons. A wash of mayday broadcasts suddenly filled near-space, and the ignition of energy cores and Q-drives was marked by bright blooms of light in the void. General Draven’s face grew paler and paler as losses were called in, and the reality of the situation hit him.
“This… this isn’t going to plan,” Secretary Lopez murmured. He sounded lost, a little broken.
“Silence all mayday broadcasts,” said the Defiant’s captain.
“Are you sure, sir?” responded an officer. “We may be able to save some of the crew. The Arcturus, for instance, is within jump distance of those pods from the Triton’s Heart—”
“Silence the beacons!” yelled Secretary Lopez. “You heard the damned captain!”
The young officer pursed her lips and nodded.
“Until further notice,” said General Draven, a hand to the officer’s shoulder as though that was some sort of reassurance.
“If we lose here, there will be no point in saving anyone,” said Secretary Lopez, eyes still on the tactical-display. “What are the Spiral doing around the Jagged Moons?”
More enemy ships entered the orbit of the Jagged Moons, a ring of planetoids that harboured many Krell empl
acements.
“The Spiral are deploying an orbital drop,” read an officer. “They… they appear to be launching warheads to the surface.”
One of the Aeon vault-ships was close enough that it fired off a beam weapon at the Black Spiral’s stolen freighter. White light raked the flank of the converted transport, and the vessel was easily destroyed by the superior firepower of the alien ship. At the same time, the vault-ship fired another weapon towards the unnamed moon. Something like a falling star—its energies too complex for the Defiant’s sensor-suite to properly compute—impacted the moon’s surface.
“They… they’re scouring that moon,” said a sensor-officer, reading the Defiant’s scopes. “Christo; the Aeon just cauterised it.”
In one action, the planetoid had been purged of any possible Harbinger taint. It had also been reduced to a smouldering husk. A wave of colour spread from the starfyre impact site, and the planetoid’s surface shifted from a verdant green, through to a dead brown.
“This was why the Shard called the Aeon the ‘Great Destroyer’,” said Zero. “They have weapons that can cleanse worlds.”
The victory—pyrrhic or otherwise—was short lived. In response, the nearest Shard warship fired another of the dark-matter spheres. The weapon snaked through space, breaching the quantum, and found the Aeon vault-ship. The Aeon vessel had no energy shielding, and the Shard weapon was remarkably effective. It punched a hole right through the hull of the other vessel. The Aeon ship faltered for a long moment, pouring liquid or debris from a hole in its hull, then broke into two. Like the surface of the moon it had purged, the xeno vessel’s hull changed colour, marking the ship’s death.
“They die just as easily as us…” Feng said.
“That was the first casualty they’ve suffered,” Zero said. She sounded distressed. “They’re not so invincible after all.”
The Aeon vault-ship didn’t explode or collapse in on itself or do anything else spectacular. It floated there, debris scattering from the open halves of the ship’s hull. Perhaps those were cryo-capsules, other Aeon in deep-stasis. We’d dragged them from their hiding place, and brought them back into this war… I hoped that Wraith wasn’t on the dead ship.
“Where are the rest of the Aeon?” Secretary Lopez asked. He positively raged, his face flushed, spittle flying from his lips as he spoke. “Why are they dying so easily? Tell me that, fish head?”
P’s eyes glowed within its crested head but it did not answer.
The CIC fell eerily quiet, as the miasma of voices and cries—the soundtrack to the Alliance fleet’s demise, to the death of the Maelstrom itself—was silenced. Secretary Lopez descended into the well of the chamber, rubbing a hand through his hair. That was slick with sweat, and his tie hung around his neck awkwardly, his whole demeanour telling of a man on the edge.
The quiet was broken by a chime from the Defiant’s AI.
“We’re receiving an incoming transmission,” said the ship’s comms officer. She was almost reluctant to speak, concerned that to do so might attract Lopez’s ire. “It… it’s an encrypted vid-feed. From the Black Spiral fleet.”
General Draven looked to Lopez. That made perfectly clear to me who was really in control of this war now, and it surely wasn’t the general. Lopez nodded. The comms officer opened the vid-feed.
A holographic figure formed on the tac-display.
The Warlord of the Drift, dressed in his exo-suit and camouflage-cloak. The skull-motif of his helmet grinning back at us; a reminder of imminent death. He reached up, and activated the polarisation controls on his face-plate, exposing the scarred and rictus face beneath.
The CIC waited in silence, collective breath baited.
“Cease all hostilities now, Clade Cooper,” Secretary Lopez started, stepping up to the tac-display, so that he could be seen on the other end of the communication. “We can talk a pardon, possible terms of surrender. Some of your lieutenants could be spared execution, maybe even given prison terms as an alternative…”
“Is this guy serious?” Feng asked me, his voice barely a whisper.
“I hope not.”
Around the CIC, other veteran teams had the same reaction. Sighs and expressions of incredulity filled the chamber.
“Does he even have authority to offer terms like that?” Zero said.
“He is Secretary of Defence,” Novak groaned. “He does whatever he wants. As I said, politics is shit.”
Warlord was utterly still, calm, as the Secretary spoke. Then a crooked, warped smile crept across his face as Lopez finished his diatribe.
Finally, Warlord spoke. “You are pathetic.”
Lopez’s eyes widened. “This is your final chance, Sergeant Cooper—”
“Is using that name supposed to remind me of my former life?” Warlord asked. “Do you expect me to suddenly remember duty, sacrifice and what it meant to fight on your side? It isn’t working.” Warlord coughed, and the sound raked the CIC: caused a tightening in my chest. Dark snakes of nano-tech—Shard Reapers—crawled across his skin, both protecting and imprisoning him. “And who are you to make demands of me? I am exactly where I want to be.”
“I will order every asset in this star system, human and alien, to decimate your fleet,” Lopez said. “I have the Aeon.”
Warlord’s smile broadened. “I have your daughter, Secretary Lopez.”
Words caught in Lopez’s throat. His mouth cycled, but nothing came out. My own blood froze, and I could sense the Jackals felt exactly the same way.
“Call off your attack,” Warlord said. “Or this necropolis will be monument to not only the Krell, but to Gabriella Lopez too. More than anyone, Secretary, you know what I am capable of.”
Secretary Lopez shook. “Leave her out of this, Cooper.”
“What is one more life, when so many have already been lost? I am going to bring about Dominion. I have brought the Shard here, to the Maelstrom.”
“I do not negotiate with terrorists,” Lopez started.
Which is exactly what you were just trying to do, I thought to myself. Maybe Novak had the right idea about politics after all.
Warlord waved a hand dismissively. “Do not follow me. Call off your attack.” He bowed his head. “Dominion come, thy will be done.”
The transmission ended. The CIC was filled with noise, as the gathered officers discussed what had just occurred. Secretary Lopez glared at the space where Warlord had been. Almost imperceptibly, his shoulders were shaking.
“Cease fire,” General Draven said. “Order all ships to await further orders.”
“Aye, sir,” came a reply.
“This wasn’t how it was supposed to be,” Secretary Lopez said, sounding distant.
More detonations filtered across the tac-display. The fleet’s numbers were dwindling at such a rate that none of this felt real. Dark splashes of shadow advanced through the void, throwing lance-beams at enemy vessels. Only the Defiant, as flagship of the fleet, had received Warlord’s transmission, but the consequences of the communication were everywhere. Other ships were querying orders, requesting confirmation, or asking why their firing solutions had been locked out. The assault was effectively frozen.
Very gingerly, the Defiant’s captain cleared his throat.
“What are your orders, sir?” he asked of General Draven, although his eyes flitted to Secretary Lopez. He appeared unsure of where the true power laid. “Do we proceed with the attack, or should… should I issue the abort code?”
“We proceed,” the Secretary answered, definitively.
“Even if it costs Lopez’s life?” Zero said. The words spilt out of her mouth, and as she said them, I could tell that she regretted speaking.
“I said that the attack is to proceed,” Secretary Lopez said. He ground the words out, with real anger. “If we don’t get that anti-viral to Ithaca Prime then nothing will matter. Gabriella will be lost, like the rest of the universe.”
“You sound like this Warlord,” Novak said.
“And I’m supposed to take advice from a lifer now?” Secretary Lopez roared.
Zero made a little noise at the back of her throat, surprised by the sudden causticity of the response.
“Perhaps Sergeant Campbell has a point, sir,” I said. “We could consider another approach. Perhaps an exfiltration mission could be arranged.”
“Are you questioning my orders?” Lopez said.
Of course I was. Rodrigo Lopez was consigning his own daughter to a death sentence. I detected the shift in Novak’s posture beside me, the change that suggested he would attack if given the order. A glance around the CIC told me that although there were many here who agreed with me, there were just as many who still supported the Secretary. Sim Ops or not, this would be the wrong kind of suicide.
Secretary Lopez snarled, “We’re in this very position because you allowed my daughter to be captured, Lieutenant.”
“We can put it right,” I said.
“I should never have been put into this position,” said Secretary Lopez. “Get out of here. Get all of them out of here.”
“He can give orders now?” Novak said, under his breath.
No, Lopez couldn’t. Or at least, he shouldn’t—not if the chain of command still meant something.
“I’ll see to it, sir,” said Captain Ving.
“Of course, it would have to be you—” Feng said.
“Shut up, Directorate,” said Ving.
He jostled me with the muzzle of his shock-rifle.
“Just go with him,” said General Draven. “Captain Heinrich, take the pariah-form to the Science Deck.”
There was a momentary pause before Captain Heinrich responded, his blond moustache quivering.