by Dalo Lorn
“Stand by; I will consult my superiors.” The transmission ended.
“You never said anything of the sort,” Lanis noted.
“Indeed; but the Petrans do not know that, and a small, harmless lie like that could dampen the effect our abrupt departure could have on relations between our two peoples. Now,” he turned to Zeshaira, “what happened to you?”
“I was...“ She sighed. “Caught in my sleep after the ship was secured,” she finally told them, visibly embarrassed - and more than a little annoyed - by the nature of her incapacitation.
Neither Hatos nor Lanis could resist the urge to smile. “Really?” Hatos commented, pausing, “I’m not sure if you should be infuriated or flattered by the fact that they chose to attack you then of all times; though what you have chosen is clear.”
“The Hippasrus is hailing us again.”
Hatos and Lanis turned away from Zeshaira and back towards the screen. “On screen,” Hatos ordered, and the captain of the Hippasrus appeared yet again - and just as confident and persistent as before.
“The Terran in question attacked several loyal Petran soldiers with the help of one of your crew. Stand down; this is your final warning.”
Lanis couldn’t stand back and listen any longer. “First of all, I’m pretty sure we didn’t kill any of them - though I think we might have broken that first guard’s nose. Secondly, I was tricked. In fact, I was tricked not just by the Xargan impersonating the Tarhedian in question, but also by some of your people. They told me the Tarhedia and its crew were lost; that I was the only survivor,” he paused, “Tell me, Captain Poteran, what would you have done if you were assured that your crew died in an accident, and suddenly one of them came along and told you the others had been captured?”
He seemed to have hit a nerve, as Poteran’s expression grew uneasy. After a few moments, he admitted: “I would probably have done the same thing. Nevertheless, I have my orders. If you do not power down your engines and shields, I will have no choice but to open fire.”
“Honestly,” Lanis told him, “I think that’d be a really bad idea. You might not have seen what this ship’s capable of, but I have; and I’m pretty sure it’d turn any ship in your task force into dust without much trouble.”
“You’re bluffing,” Poteran said, looking towards Hatos.
“I do not know enough about your technology to say for certain, but I cannot deny that it may be possible,” Hatos answered his unspoken thought.
“Look, right now it doesn’t matter whether or not we’re bluffing. What matters is that nobody’s dead or in any way permanently injured yet. That’s a fact. But if you attack, that’s going to change; it’s going to change a lot faster and a lot more drastically than either one of us wants, and odds are you’ll end up in a war not just against the Tarhedians, but against Earth as well.”
The Petran was clearly wavering; he knew what that would mean, but how could he stop this? “I may be allowed to let your ship leave if you and your accomplice turn yourself over to me - but that’s all I can do,” he reluctantly stated.
“I just said it was a Xargan, we killed--“ Lanis sighed. “Are your superiors listening to this? Admirals, the High Council, somebody with enough authority to stop this?”
“Yes, the High Council and Admiral Jelon - my commanding officer - are listening. Why?”
“Great, that means I can say what I have to say to somebody who isn’t more worried about their careers than their lives.” After saying that, Lanis paused. Whether or not this madness was stopped before it was too late depended on him, and it didn’t feel good at all. “This is exactly what they want. Why do you think the Xargans would trick me like this if they didn’t know you’d do this? They’re trying to get us to turn on each other so they can come in and tear us all apart once we’ve softened ourselves up, and you’re playing right into their hands! It’s not too late to end this; we can still prevent an interstellar war that can and will destroy both sides, but the moment somebody dies, that last chance will be gone. I know I’m just a simple pilot, but the only reason I can possibly think of for you to be so eager to stop us is if you’ve completely lost your collective minds or if you’ve been replaced with Xargans too.”
After he said that, the Petrans closed the channel again. The silence that followed seemed like a good sign. Somebody down there had been paying attention. But when that silence had continued for thirty minutes, something had to be wrong. Suddenly, the holoviewer displayed the Hippasrus’ bridge again. “You need to leave,” Poteran hurriedly said, “Now.”
“What’s wrong?” Hatos asked.
As if to answer his question, some of the Petran ships, including the Hippasrus, started maneuvering into a defensive formation around the Tarhedia while another Petran task force dropped out of hyperspace, merging with the remainder of the Hippasrus’ group. “It’s the High Council; there’s been a coup. Admiral Jelon and a few of the more militant council members have taken over, and it looks like they’re out for blood,” he explained.
Even if it had not been directly caused by the Xargans, this could not have come at a worse time. “How come you’re on our side?” Lanis asked. Poteran didn’t strike him as the kind of person who would do what he seemed to be doing, and yet... there he was.
“Because I think you’re right,” the Petran officer stated; in the meantime, the Petrans activated an orbital hyperspace disruptor near the first planet - Hemreus - of the five-planet system in which Petra was the fourth world; escape had now become impossible. “You should have listened to me when you had the chance, though. We’re trapped.”
“Not necessarily,” Hatos observed, “but we will have to fight off a considerable force to escape. All allied ships, plot a course towards Hemreus. Fire all weapons - target their engines, hopefully we can disable them with minimal casualties. Use the Tarhedia for cover; its size and powerful shields may be key to minimizing our own casualties. Zeshaira, prepare your fighters for takeoff - we may need them soon, but I do not dare send such vulnerable craft into a battle if the Petrans’ targeting systems are too efficient.”
“I’ll go with them. I haven’t exactly mastered the controls yet, but I’m better than nothing,” Lanis said. “Oh, and you’ll need to configure your hyperdrive to operate according to the specs in the Eagle’s computer; look for ‘Petran Border Hyperspatial Instabilities’, I think that’s the name of the file. If you don’t, the unstable nature of hyperspace there’ll damage the hyperdrive and we’ll be stuck,” he added.
“Very well,” Hatos answered, then turned to the holoviewer, which had now switched to a three-dimensional tactical map of the system; in addition to the obvious hostile forces and stellar bodies, the map displayed the names of all identifiable allied forces - including the Petran defectors, who had linked into the Tarhedia’s tactical network - and any data that could be relevant, including sensor data on enemy and friendly ships alike, weapons fire, and other assorted data - in short, it was a tool capable of sorting and sifting through all the data the ship was capable of gathering and displaying it in an easy-to-view format.
Just what Hatos needed right now. “Hippasrus, Soscut, turn left and right, respectively, fire all weapons at the pursuing fleet, then move to these coordinates on the Tarhedia’s shield at full speed. All other ships, break formation, use your maneuverability to harass the enemy; but do not be overly aggressive. Zeshaira, are your fighters ready?”
“We are ready to launch,” she answered, “but I am uncertain as to whether we will be of any use. I am not entirely sure our neutron cannons have the penetrating power required to breach the Petrans’ armor, and the energy from the explosions should be easily absorbed.”
“Well, I have an idea; but we probably can’t do it on our own,” Lanis said. “Ask Poteran what kind of defenses that disruptor has - we could use our fighters’ speed to hit it early, but that won’t do us any good if they can take us down before we can do any damage.”
He had f
orgotten about the fact that the Petrans were listening. “I don’t think you can - it’s protected by two heavy weapons platforms; they’re not much of a threat to fighters or other small ships, but the shields and armor are impenetrable to anything smaller than what they’re designed to destroy,” Poteran told Lanis.
Meanwhile, the battlecruisers Hippasrus and Soscut - the two most powerful ships in the defecting fleet - were about to ram into the Tarhedia’s shield, which opened up for them moments before impact; both ships emerged on the other side in the same condition they had been when they had entered. The rest of the fleet maneuvered to stay out of the enemy’s weapons range, periodically swooping in to fire at their engines - and the hostile fleet was mostly focusing its fire on the Tarhedia, deliberately staying behind the slow cityship to minimize the amount of weapons it could fire at them at any given time.
“Alright then, can we beam - it’s a shorthand for teleporting, and it’s a long story - aboard or trick the turrets into shooting the disruptor?” Lanis continued, answering Hatos’ question before the confused Tarhedian could ask what ‘beaming’ meant.
“I’m not sure about the former; I’m transferring all the data I have on it, your scientists may be more capable of giving you the answer to that. As for the latter, I don’t think it’d work.”
“Transporting aboard might be possible, assuming the shield data is still accurate,” Hatos said, “and perhaps it could be disabled from within. Zeshaira, assemble a boarding party as quickly as possible.”
“Maybe some of my crew should accompany them. After all, this is Petran technology you’ll be dealing with.”
“Agreed. Choose two of your men that you think will be most useful, then move inside the Tarhedia’s shield. Once you’re inside, give us their coordinates and lower your shields so that we can... ‘beam’ them aboard; then restart the shield.”
About a minute of semi-chaotic combat later, the Hippasrus performed the operation Hatos described, and a team consisting of Zeshaira, Lanis, a quadrupedal Tarhedian assault drone, and the Petrans - Lt. Commander Benaar Herrun, an experienced soldier, and Dr. Fanra Kaa’nt, one of Petra’s best scientists and engineers - assigned temporarily to the Hippasrus to try and boost its systems; her expertise and equipment would likely prove to be useful with overcoming any structural obstacles they encountered on the disruptor - quickly assembled on the transporter pad, wearing Tarhedian and Petran AEA (Alien Environment Assault - essentially exoskeletal combat spacesuits) suits, respectively.
“Activate your personal shields,” Zeshaira instructed Lanis and the drone, following her own instructions at the same time. “If you two,” she turned towards the Petrans, “do not have personal shield generators, you can take ours.”
“Oh, we have shields, nothing to worry about,” Herrun said.
“But, uh, if yours’ll protect us better, then... well, I’ll take one,” the doctor cautiously added. Clearly, she was here solely for her knowledge, not her combat skills or courage.
“I do not know if it is more powerful, but I suppose it could work alongside your own generator,” Zeshaira answered.
“S,” Kaa’nt said shyly.
Everybody raised an eyebrow (or at least made the equivalent action - as has been mentioned before, Tarhedians have no hair, and therefore no eyebrows to raise; and due to their origin, the Petrans are also hairless). “What?” Lanis asked as Zeshaira picked up a Tarhedian personal shield generator from the nearby gear rack and strapped it to Fanra’s wrist. To her surprise, the mind-controlled generator activated the instant it was attached to the Petran.
“Generators. I’ve got one of mine, too,” she explained. “I always use it when I’m in space - I just don’t feel safe when I’m not on Petra.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine. We’ve got a drone as big as that,” Lanis assured her, pointing at the drone, which was about half as tall and twice as wide as the other members of the boarding party - and just as long as it was wide, “what could possibly go wrong?”
“You’re just saying that to make me feel better, aren’t you?” she asked after a brief pause.
“Is it working?”
“Not quite. I guess we’d better get going, though...”
Once she said that, the transporter activated, and the platform was clear.
Chapter 3
Overprotective
Internally, the hyperspace disruptor looked just like a Petran base. The assault drone could barely fit in the corridors, and if it hadn’t been capable of moving left or right with equal ease as if it were moving forward - in fact, it rotated its turret and the sensors and specialized equipment on it rather than rotating the entire body, so from its perspective it was always moving forward - it would have been stuck, for it could not turn its legs around and completely obstructed the corridor. Fortunately for the team, the Petrans hadn’t expected a boarding party - especially not this early - so they had plenty of time to get their bearings.
“Alright, I think the control room’s that way,” Dr. Kaa’nt said, pointing forward into the corridor the drone had completely obstructed, “in which case we may be able to get to several key systems if we go down that corridor,” she pointed to her left, “that corridor,“ she now pointed to her right, “or through the wall behind us. On the other hand, if I’m wrong, then opening that wall’s a really bad idea.”
“Why? What’d be behind it?” Lanis asked.
“Let’s just say I’m more afraid of what wouldn’t be behind it.”
“Oh. Can’t you scan the area, see where we are?”
“Right. Sorry.” She took out a scanner, and after fiddling with it for a few seconds, she embarrassedly said: “Oh boy.”
“What’s wrong?” Zeshaira asked her. She sensed a few Petrans, but they did not yet appear to know of their presence.
“I... uhh... I may have...” She trailed off, while Herrun snatched the scanner out of her hand.
“There’s no battery in this thing!” he exclaimed. “Wasn’t she supposed to be brilliant…?”
“This’d almost be funny if it wasn’t dangerous,” Lanis commented, pressing a few buttons on the suit’s left wrist.
“Actually, I kind of forgot to put them in all of my stuff. I was working on boosting the power output when this whole thing started, and... too many things happened at once and I just lost track of it. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is we couldn’t vent ourselves into space even if we wanted to, because none of my tools’ll work.”
“Can we not ask Captain Poteran to send the power cells to the Tarhedia so they can transport them to us?” Zeshaira suggested. As she said that, the station’s alarm went on - they had been detected!
“I was trying to, but it looks like the guards have turned on some kind of jamming device; I can’t get through!” Lanis said. He sighed. “Alright, let’s try the control room… if that’s the control room...”
It should be worth noting that although the formal definition of a laser hadn’t changed in the 730 years since it was published on Earth - or the 1200 or so years since the Petrans wrote up a definition - the term ‘laser’ was now commonly used (in conjunction with several other terms, such as ‘blaster’ for smaller weapons) to describe any directed energy weapon which fulfilled either of the following criteria:
1. Impact is not instantaneous; the weapon fires bullet-like ‘bolts’, like all of the non-Tarhedian personal energy weapons described up to this point, as well as a sizable portion of Terran and Petran ship-based energy weapons. A certain amount of kinetic energy is also imparted upon the target, though large objects such as structures or ships may ignore the push entirely, depending on the circumstances. (Most notably, if it’s just a small handheld weapon.)
2. Impact may or may not be instantaneous, the weapon emits beams of light (actual lasers) or, more commonly, beams of light-enveloped plasma.
While most of the Tarhedian weapons loosely fulfilled these criteria, their wrist weapons operated using principles
which were considerably different from those of the weapons usually described as lasers, harnessing their considerable mental abilities to generate their destructive power; and all of their ship-based weapons mentioned to this point either fired actual projectiles enveloped by highly explosive energy shells, streams of superheated plasma (as opposed to beams of light-enveloped hot plasma), and/or were not entirely understood even by the Tarhedians.
This long overdue explanation of energy weapons as used by the inhabitants of this universe had finally become indispensable as Lanis got hit in the face by a bright blue bolt from a Petran laser pistol, and was - despite his shield generator - thrown to the ground as multiple Petran guards and light combat drones opened fire from the control room(?) corridor at our somewhat confused boarding party, which each acted as they saw fit - Zeshaira and Herrun simply returned fire, Lanis got up and started firing at them, the apparently nameless assault drone ejected a pair of plasma cannons out of the sides of its turret and projected a one-way shield to cover the team, while Fanra panicked and ran into the corridor to the left; she quickly returned, running into the other corridor, followed by more weapons fire - and returned again as more guards fired at her.
“They’re everywhere!” she screamed, hiding next to Lanis.
“We know!” Herrun annoyedly yelled, trying to make himself audible through all the shooting - and firing several more shots from his blaster rifle.
“Doctor, what’d it take you to fix your... wall opener?” Lanis asked.
“My what?” she asked back. “I didn’t quite catch that!”
“Your wall opener!”