by Andy Kasch
Quasar’s pilot came back on.
“Aston, if you’re claiming to represent direct orders from the High General, that’s good enough for us. I think we’re absolved in that case, and you can work out any discrepancies with General Islog8 yourself afterwards. Besides, we really want to see these smart mines in action.”
The other two ships then both consented as well. That was all Brandon needed.
“Thanks, boys. Transmitting coordinated dag time to your ships’ computers now. We’re going in 15 seconds and counting. Good luck.”
The ITF2 crews all gave a final confirmation and then the brief space distortion to arrive at the mine deployment destination commenced. When the yellow lights came on in the cockpit, Brandon engaged the weapons control program and the ship’s automatic pilot took over. Brandon looked out the cockpit window to watch the deployment.
The four ITF2’s all branched out at different angles. The autopilots flew erratically, causing the crafts to make sudden stops and disjointed turns in places. Every now and then, Brandon thought he could see one of the mines deploy from under the hull of one of the other ships. They were dark, so he couldn’t be sure. He only knew the mine targeting screen in his own cockpit showed his battery one-third deployed at this stage.
“Commander, urgent call from General Islog8.”
“Put him on speaker, Borsk7.”
“What in Erob are you doing with my ITF2 fleet, Brandon Foss?” The general’s voice wasn’t as agitated as Brandon expected. “You’re not authorized to lead them in an attack on the enemy satellites. I repeat, you are not authorized to lead an attack on the satellites. Please return to the left flank at once.”
“I’ll send them back in …four minutes, General. Currently engaged in mine deployment.”
“Extat, Earthling, I knew your cooperation was too good to be true. What makes you think you can draw the enemy into your deployment scheme over there?”
“An unused weapon in battle is a useless weapon, General. Request one squadron of ITF1’s to help me harass the enemy satellites in hopes of drawing the enemy into the minefield.”
“Request denied. All ITF2’s are ordered to return to the left flank upon completion of mine deployment. Command out.”
“That could have been worse,” Lut5 said.
“Yes.” Brandon saw that the deployment was now 75% complete. “From Islog8, I interpret that as an approval of our actions.”
The deployment competed as the four ITF2’s came within orbital range of Dirg, near the cluster of attack satellites. Seeing the drones’ space-to-ground ordinance fire from this close of a view was no less frightening than when Brandon tangled with one of these doomsday machines five years ago above Banor. By now several squadrons of Dirg fighters were amongst them, desperately barraging them with missiles, lasers, and other explosives—all to no avail. With this many active satellites firing unrestrained, it was questionable whether there would soon be much left on Dirg to defend.
Brandon sent the other ITF2’s back. He chose not to interpret the general’s instructions as necessarily including his own ship in those orders. Quasar objected and wanted to stay with Aston, but Brandon refused them in an effort to offer Islog8 a reasonable level of subordination. And he didn’t have much more of a plan at this point.
Borsk7 spoke. “Commander, you took one of these satellites out before.”
Brandon smiled. “That was the High General, actually.”
“We know, but it was you who devised the method of attack and did the flying. You want to try that on one of them now?”
“I should have known he’d tell you that,” Brandon said. “I’m concerned that the enemy may have taken measures to amend the REEP blast vulnerability in the primary weapon firing tube, since they’ve also fixed the frequency disturbance vulnerability.”
They all cringed as they watched a satellite’s defense laser take out a Dirg fighter.
“Also, they’ve improved the defense systems significantly on these things. They’re faster-reacting now. To try to time the offensive weapon’s firing will be more difficult, and we’d need the coordination of several fighter squadrons to even attempt it. I don’t see that happening.”
Lut5 was still slowly taking them forward towards the orbiting satellite field. Brandon contemplated the situation and tried not to become unnerved by thinking of what was happening to Dirg.
“So,” he finally said, “I thought we might try something new.”
The two pilots turned and stared at Brandon expectantly.
*
Alan was surprised how easy Kayla was to console. She had snapped out of her panicked confusion as soon as they were incarcerated, and was now thinking and talking like a warrior again. Being assigned a place where they could sit—and being left alone there—helped all three of them gather themselves. A dank prison cell wasn’t comfortable accommodations, but it was preferable to many imaginable alternatives.
“If I had to pick one person in the galaxy leave him with,” she said, “Shaldan would be it right now. Other than Fardo, I mean.” Kayla’s voice grew sullen again at the end of that last sentence. Jumper, sitting with her against the cavern wall, pulled her closer.
“What about my dad and Rupert?” There was just enough playful humor in his voice to let him get away with that.
“No,” Kayla said. “I much prefer Shaldan.”
They all laughed—genuinely this time.
Alan spoke. “If it wasn’t for Casanova disarming the aliens, we might not be alive right now. So I much prefer Shaldan, too.”
Jumper cocked his head. “Disarming?”
More laughter. It felt rejuvenating to Alan as he rubbed his quarner stone necklace.
The force field behind Alan abruptly turned off. Jumper and Kayla stood. Alan spun around and took two steps backward.
“Arrogant faces again,” Jumper said softly. “Remember to keep them up.”
Two armed aliens stepped in front of their cell. One motioned with his weapon down the tunnel in the direction they came. No further communication was necessary. The three of them followed a third horned alien through the corridor. Alan tried to walk proudly.
They were led through several winding tunnels, tight in places which required single-file marching. The aliens’ underground labyrinth was not as well-lit as the Sulien city, nor was it as airy. An unpleasant mustiness hung about.
But then the corridor opened into a marvelously wide cavern, an area even bigger than Belle-ub’s stadium back home. It was brighter, and refreshing to the senses. They were now on a ledge against a far wall. Below them sat a platform with a dozen or more fighter craft, hover trucks, and crews working. The smell of spacecraft fuel was actually a welcome relief.
One of the aliens behind them grumbled something in their own tongue, which Alan interpreted as an order to continue moving. So he resumed. The path along the wall eventually descended to the platform below, but before they reached the bottom they were directed through a side door into a matrix of glass rooms.
In the first room stood several more aliens. These held peculiar foreign instruments that Alan didn’t like the looks of. The place had the feel of a laboratory, with glass walls separating the different departments. The armed escorts now pointed to three large chairs in the room. Alan looked to Jumper for direction on how he should react.
Jumper glanced back and forth between the escorts and the chairs several times with an expression of pure disgust. Who knew he was such a good actor? Finally, Jumper took a seat and crossed his arms. Kayla and Alan followed in like manner.
The escorts stood aside while the aliens with instruments stepped forward. Each of them held a different device. The one before Alan looked him all about before pointing the device at his elbow and pressing a button on it. The jolt of an electric charge shot through Alan’s arm and he witnessed his it move without instructions from his brain. His forearm jerked upward.
The alien scientist repeated the jolts on his ot
her arm and both legs with similar results. He then traded with one of the other horned scientists who examined Alan’s eyes, ears, nose, and took a hair sample from his head. Being probed by these unsightly beasts was disturbing. Alan found it was easy to look annoyed now. He tried to avoid looking into their hollow yellow eyes.
The final switch was made. The last scientist only held his device in front of him. A yellow circle of light appeared a meter in front of Alan’s face. Alan didn’t like it so he moved his head to one side. The yellow light followed. Alan swatted at it. It vanished, but reappeared a moment later. He swatted again with the same result. After several more swipes Alan decided to simply close his eyes.
In a few minutes he heard shuffling in the room. Alan opened his eyes. The scientists were all standing at a workstation of some kind, plugging their devices in and scrutinizing the screen readouts.
A short while later the scientists signaled to one of the escorts, who then motioned for the three of them to stand. Alan watched Jumper before reacting. Jumper took an especially long time to get up, which seemed to irk the escort. The alien grabbed and shoved him. Jumper stopped and glared back at him. The escort motioned with his laser for Jumper to walk back farther into the laboratory. Jumper stood still. Kayla came to his side and joined him in his stance. Alan did the same.
The escort became more agitated and repeatedly pointed where he wanted them to walk. Alan watched Jumper’s response. He sneered in disdain, but finally slowly turned and complied. Kayla and Alan followed.
They went through one of the glass doors and ended up in a conference room. Nothing was in there but a large glass table with plastic chairs. The escort motioned for them to sit. Jumper backed up against one of the walls and stood. Kayla, however, sat down. Alan decided to sit as well. The escort gave up on controlling Jumper and only stood at the door as a guard.
A new company of aliens shortly approached the conference room. Alan noticed one of them had Jumper’s backpack with him, and another held a translator. Those two came inside the room. The others stood with the guard just outside the glass door.
The one with the translator box looked different than the others. His uniformed was cleaner and more prestigious, with decorations in places that the others did not have.
The important-looking alien turned the translator on and placed it in the middle of the table. The other one gave Kayla the backpack. She accepted it nonchalantly and let it drop to the floor without looking inside.
The one who had turned on the translator looked at Jumper and spoke. His speech was garbled and harsh-sounding in his own tongue. But the translator box echoed with understandable words in a reasonably fluent Sulien accent.
“Who are you, and where do you come from?”
Jumper stepped forward, leaned down, and spoke into the translator.
“If you’re going to kill us, please do it now. We prefer to spend as little time as possible in the company of inferior beings.”
Alan wasn’t expecting that, and wasn’t sure how he felt about it. The words translated back in an awful sounding jumble of too many consonants. The two aliens in the room exchanged glances before the speaking alien responded.
“Why would we unnecessarily kill able-bodied workers? From our medical examination, we think you might out-produce the Sulienite natives impressively in the mines.”
Jumper shook his head as he answered. “Orthans do not work for lesser races, especially classist exploiters such as yourselves—whoever you may be. We will not mine for you, or perform any type of demeaning labor. Nor will we venture any further underground.”
The speaking alien stared back at Jumper for an uncomfortably long moment. He seemed to be trying to figure him out. He then stepped over to the other alien and said something in a low enough voice that the translator couldn’t pick it up. The other alien left. The speaker then pointed to the chair before Jumper.
“Please sit down.”
Jumper didn’t move, nor did he have any discernable reaction. The speaker went ahead and sat down anyway.
“I am Colonel Halstov, temporarily in command of this forward base of the Ossurian Empire. This planet has been acquired by us, to be used in our expansion. We are conquerors, descendants of the original pure race, and thus the galaxy’s only rightful heirs. There are none stronger than us. The inhabitants of your so-called Erobian Sphere are all weak fools who will be subjugated or destroyed.”
Jumper laughed convincingly before replying.
“You are not descendants of the pure race. You are mutated monsters. Look at you. The genealogy in our galaxy was spoiled more than 8,000 years ago. It is true that the races in this Erobian Sphere are weak and foolish. Only Orth retains the pure blood of the original race. Do not classify us with the dogs.”
“Where is Orth?” The colonel seemed interested in Jumper’s response.
“Not here.” Jumper swept his arm around him. “Not in this Erobian Sphere. Our world is outside it, near the center of the galaxy, where blood is pure and societies are free of castes.”
“What are you doing here?” Colonel Halstov asked. “How did you arrive? And how did you acquire the Sulienite weapon you had with you?”
“I took it from a native I killed, of course. We’re stranded on this wretched world after escaping from our captors. These captors invaded a colony world which is our home, outside their sphere as well. We were abducted and held prisoner in cryonic preservation chambers for two of their decades. After being resuscitated, we managed to stow away on one of their ships. We hijacked a shuttle when they stopped in this star system, and then crash-landed here. There were more of us, but only we three survived the crash.”
“Who were your captors? Which race abducted you?”
Jumper formed a look of hatred.
“Tora. Capitalist dogs. We were abducted by the despicable Torians.”
*
Lut5’s timing was good, but Brandon didn’t care for his placement.
“I don’t think we need to be this close,” Brandon said. “Stay away from those defense lasers.”
Lut5 responded by moving the ship farther from the satellite they chose to target. It wasn’t one on the outer edge of the cluster, as Brandon didn’t want to get easily caught by any enemy fighters who decided to dag in. But it wasn’t in the center of them, either. Half-star shaped Dirg fighters were all around, doing nothing more than wasting ammunition from all appearances.
“That’s good,” Brandon said. He no sooner spoke the words than the satellite fired a defense laser at them, connecting on their hull. It was weak from this distance and mostly ineffective, but it held on longer than Brandon preferred.
“We might still be too close.” Brandon turned on the mine targeting system. “But this is about as far as we can get and still map the weapon tubes. Wish we had some cover fire.”
“You want me to hail the Dirgs?” Borsk7 asked.
“No. They have their hands full.”
“Ask the command ship for help, then?”
Before Brandon could answer, a Torian ITF1 materialized close to them, facing away from the satellite. The space went wavy just as the satellite fired a defense laser at it. The laser beam was snuffed out in the resulting REEP impact and the satellite could be seen shuddering. The ITF1 then thrust itself out of range before the satellite fired upon it again.
“Excellent,” Brandon said. “That’s the kind of help I was hoping for.”
Two more ITF1’s dagged in and fired upon the satellite using the big lower turret beams, then spread out and streaked away before taking return fire. Six more then appeared nearby and began firing missiles at it.
Lut5 spoke. “Looks like the general granted your request anyway. Think you can zero in on the weapon tube now?”
“Let’s find out. I’m happy to see Islog8 is capable of surprises.” Brandon fiddled with the mine targeting controls until he had the screen on maximum magnification, focused on the satellite’s underbelly.
“Hail that ITF1 squadron and ask for continuing cover fire, Borsk7. Lut5, take us beneath it more, and ease us in slowly when the cover fire resumes. Be ready to clear out as soon as I capture the target data.”
“You got it, Commander.”
Brandon knew his idea was speculative at best. But he had always been lucky with speculative ideas in the past. The dark enemy’s terrible attack satellites had evidently been improved and modified to defend themselves from prior discovered susceptibilities. Those improvements may or may not include new provisions to defend against a perfectly timed magnetic repulsion blast placed at the planetary weapon tube the moment it fired. In any case, Brandon suspected that tactic to have become significantly more difficult to pull off with the satellites’ faster defenses.
But they still had to fire the primary weapon, which must open a portal to the interior. Brandon’s transport ship had the extra supply of smart mines on board. They were paltry in number now, but perhaps enough to stop to a few of these horrible contraptions if his idea worked. The smart mines were capable of reacting to small targets, such as defense weapons mounted on large warships. So the satellites’ main weapons tubes should be targetable. Whether the mines were powerful enough—and fast enough—to penetrate the tube when it fired was another matter.
The planetary weapon itself was the specific radiogenic emission Brandon wanted to capture. If he was successful, he would have to go back to his transport ship, load the remaining mines, and then come all the way back here. But this plan seemed as good as any, especially since it addressed both critical issues of saving Dirg from the satellites and luring enemy fighters into the minefield.
The ITF1 squadrons responded to Borsk7’s call and harassed the satellite with a barrage of missiles and lasers. They didn’t do any visible damage, but were manipulating its reactions. The planetary weapon, however, continued to fire. Brandon actually needed that.