Books One to Three Omnibus (Armada Wars)

by R. Curtis Venture

  “Don’t make me laugh. Your work was about ending life on a grand scale. That’s all there is to it.”

  “All there is to it,” she said. “If only it were that simple.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Then enlighten me.”

  “No,” she said. “If nobody told you about Site Bravo, then you’re not supposed to know.”

  “We’re at war with the Viskr. Some kind of invasion has begun. A world of the Imperial Combine has crumbled around us in a matter of hours, and I just lost my best friend to keep you safe. We’re a good way past proper clearance, don’t you think?”

  Bel-Ures shook her head. “You have no idea, do you?”

  “I know about Woe Tantalum.”

  Her face froze. “What do you think you know?”

  “The Empire did something to the planet, then wiped it out.”

  “Then you really don’t know.”

  “We’re about to leave the atmosphere,” Eilentes said. Her voice filled the rear compartment, cutting straight through their argument. “Looks like there’s a full-on battle going on up there. Be ready for some sharp manoeuvres.”

  • • •

  “Effective range!”

  Tactical’s shout cut across everyone else on the command deck, and Thande was waiting for it.

  “Lasers on that Viskr cruiser; gauss guns to forward ventral surface. Coordinate fire with Pacifier and Fugue.”

  The battle map was fast becoming a chaotic churn of icons, and Thande struggled to make sense of it. She shrank the view down to display only those ships that would have an effective firing solution on Disputer.

  “Taking fire, three sets of incoming.”

  “Turrets holding.”

  “Dominance is drawing a lot of heat. They’re launching drones.”

  “Launch our own, and have them harry the ships attacking Dominance.”

  “The Brankfall is moving in to assist.”

  “Two enemy corvettes flanking starboard, seventy-one degrees by negative forty.”

  “Pacifier has them.”

  “Captain,” said COMOP. “The Fearless has engaged the dreadship.”

  “Show me.”

  COMOP flipped his holo around, and she looked away from the battle map to see exactly what it was that Kalabi had planned to do.

  Fearless was still on approach to the dreadship Thande had been attacking, but slowing down. For a moment nothing happened, then a disc of crackling light formed in the empty space ahead of the Imperial dreadnought. It darkened, visible now only by the section of Meccrace Prime which it obscured, then began to contract.

  “Is that…?”

  The disc stretched, and then accelerated towards the dreadship, a twisting streamer of energy, the leading edge pulling the rest of it with a fluid elasticity.

  The streamer tore into the dreadship’s hull, disappearing inside the massive vessel. The dreadship showed the signs of the hit at once, tilting to one side and spewing gasses out into the high atmosphere. Fire erupted from the hole in its flank as it began to sink towards the planet.

  “Worlds,” said Thande. “We could have done with that earlier.”

  “It was… it was a free wormhole,” said COMOP. “They fired a wormhole at it.”

  “About time someone came up with that,” said Thande. She smiled grimly.

  “Ma’am, we’re still under fire.”

  “Yes, of course Tactical.”

  Thande turned her attention back to the battle map, assessing the fight.

  “What’s the status of their cruiser?”

  “Their defensive turrets are failing; say fifteen percent available capacity. Offensive weapon systems appear to be erratic.”

  “Excellent. Find us a blind spot in their remaining offensive field, and move us closer. Scramble all pilots to their fighters.”

  • • •

  “Hold on,” Eilentes shouted. “This is going to get rough.”

  She turned the shuttle sharply, and Caden felt his body try to throw itself sideways from his seat. The safety webbing held him in place, and he waited out the crushing sensation.

  He could feel the pull of Meccrace Prime’s gravity weaken as they fled the planet. It would not be long before they entered the fray completely.

  “What’s going on out there?” He shouted.

  For a moment there was no answer, and he wondered if Eilentes could hear him over the comm.

  “It’s… oh my worlds. They’re all around us.”

  “Euryce, what is it?”

  “That dreadship Santani described to you. I think its extended family has turned up.”

  “How many?”

  “Uncertain. Several are pinging our sensors from here. They’re attacking the surface.”

  “What have we got in orbit?”

  “Picking up transponders from the First, Fifth, and Eighth fleets.”

  “Disputer?”

  “Yes, they’re still here.”

  “Stealth plating, and lay in a course.”

  “I hear that.”

  • • •

  “They’re launching fighters of their own.”

  “I see it, Tactical. Barrage fire on those launch bays.”

  “Tracking to target… firing now.”

  Thande watched the points of light that represented the fighters Disputer had disgorged at the injured enemy cruiser. They swarmed around the bigger craft, looping back repeatedly to hit its critical systems. The data overlay on the Viskr ship showed Thande how unproductive its primary weapons had become, and she knew it would not be long before it was dead in space.

  “Ma’am! Barrage failed.”

  “What?”

  “Their turrets responded at the last second,” said Tactical. “Ninety percent capacity.”

  “I don’t understand…?”

  “Their defences aren’t down at all. I think it was a trap.”

  “Send our drones their way,” Thande snapped. “Saturation fire on their command deck. Give our fighters any chance you can to pull back.”

  “The Tutelar is well-positioned to assist us, Captain,” said COMOP.

  “Good; request they hit the cruiser with everything they have.”

  “Torpedo boats on our flak curtain perimeter,” Tactical said. “Port forward quarter and aft one-eighty.”

  “Don’t let them get anything through.”

  “Tasking C-MADS.”

  “Fighters?”

  “Wings Alpha and Charlie are returning. Bravo are being chewed up.”

  Thande pressed the back of her hand against her mouth. She should have known better than to be drawn in by the Viskr.

  But then the turncoat fleet should have been a walk in the park. Santani had said.

  “Message Fearless Actual: they’re starting to retreat.”

  “What? Get me the Admiral.”

  “Stand by… connection established.”

  Kalabi appeared on Thande’s holo, her usually calm exterior obviously ruffled. She brushed hair out of her eyes.

  “Captain,” she said. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to pull back from the planet.”

  “Can we assist?”

  “No. The rift system is taking too long to cycle between shots. We can put these ships down, but they will have mobbed us long before we make a dent in their numbers.”

  “If we regroup, there’s a good chance—“

  “There’s no chance. We’ve taken down two, and that was provocation enough. The others are moving to intercept us. Anyway, we have other problems to contend with over here. We can’t fight both battles.”

  “What’s happening?” Thande knew before the admiral answered.

  “Fighting on my own decks,” Kalabi said. “Thank you for the advance warning; you probably saved a great many lives, not to mention helped me keep control of my own ship.”

  “I’m afraid the intel from Santani appears to be wrong,” said Thande. “The enemy ships
out here are fighting smart.”

  “I see.”

  Kalabi looked down, dropping her head slightly, and went quiet for a moment.

  Thande felt a knot tighten in her stomach as the admiral raised her eyes again. She knew exactly what was coming next.

  “We’ve lost the system, Captain.”

  • • •

  Eilentes had reacted immediately when she received the general retreat signal from Fearless. The irony of it did not escape her.

  Turning the shuttle away from the battle, following the projected escape path that Disputer was turning towards, she ramped the engines up to full burn.

  “What’s happening?”

  Caden’s voice crackled across the comm, and she wondered exactly how best to put the news. Sometimes, she thought, the direct approach is the only one that will do.

  “It’s a general retreat. We’ve lost Meccrace.”

  “No,” said Caden. “No, I have to get back down there. As soon as we drop Bel-Ures, I need to get back down to that planet.”

  “It’s no good, Caden. The enemy has taken Meccrace Prime. The fleet is leaving.”

  There was silence over the comm.

  “Caden?”

  “Throam is still down there.”

  For a moment she did not know what to say. Deep inside she knew the counterpart was probably dead.

  Caden must know that too, she thought. He must.

  “We can’t go back,” she said.

  The first tears oozed from her eyes, and threatened to blur her vision as they swelled and clung to her eyelashes. She wiped them away with the back of her hand, and flicked them towards the bulkhead. They bounced against each other in the zero gee, reformed, and the new globules drifted apart.

  “We have to.”

  Eilentes ignored the comm, and kept her eyes fixed on Disputer.

  • • •

  Thande had been silent for several minutes, her palms flat on the desk in front of her. Around her, also seated at the wardroom table, Santani, Caden, and Kalabi were similarly quiet.

  They were all of them stunned.

  “How did this happen?” She asked. “How did they sneak this up on us?”

  Caden looked at the others. Santani was still staring at the desk, and Admiral Kalabi did not appear as if she had anything to contribute.

  He sighed. “Sometimes the light dims so slowly, you don’t notice the darkness until it surrounds you.”

  Thande nodded slowly. “Captain Santani, I owe you an apology. The dreadships are quite spectacularly real.”

  “I can well understand why you were so sceptical, Captain Thande.”

  “I’m very concerned that their support ships were so capable, so tactically aware.”

  “That was not my experience at Woe Tantalum. I can’t explain it.”

  “How many people on Meccrace Prime?” Caden asked.

  “Millions,” said Kalabi.

  “The other planets in the system?”

  “I don’t know. The ships evacuating them reported incursions were starting there too, just as we left Prime.”

  “What do we do now?” Santani said.

  “I will brief Command,” said Kalabi. “By the time we reach the Herses system there should be an armada ready to respond.”

  “But the war with the Viskr—“

  Caden cut Santani off. “At this point, even Command will have to admit that that was a mistake. Sure, they will pin it on someone else, but they won’t be fool enough to keep so many fleets tied up with a pointless conflict.”

  “I hope you’re right,” said Thande. “Because it will take one hell of a fight to win back Meccrace.”

  Caden nodded. Given the forces they would be up against, there was no way they could liberate the system with anything less than a total military commitment.

  But when that day came, he vowed, his boots would be the first to touch the ground.

  I will find you.

  — Epilogue —

  From afar, on the battlement wall of Camp Camillion, the splinters of the newly formed forest had merely appeared immense. Up close, Delanka was forced to revise his assessment: they were gargantuan.

  They loomed above him, reaching up into the night as though they aimed to pierce the firmament and bleed the heavens dry. They rose and rose above the layer of white fog that rolled sluggishly about their bases, towering over everything around them.

  He estimated them as being a good kilometre in height. Having witnessed them falling to the surface, he knew that each splinter had buried about a half of its total length in the ground. Two klicks a piece.

  What are you? He thought.

  His helmet was complaining about the mist. Firstly it was not happy with the composition, and he could hear the respirator whirring as it cycled hurriedly. The visor display reported no known pathogens, but it insisted there was a possible organic threat of some kind. All things considered, he should have made the time back at the camp to find a suit with a self-contained air supply. The respirator might not be capable of full filtration.

  The second problem was more immediately relevant. Whatever else there was floating about in the thick mist, his visor reported heat. About the temperature of a human body. There was no way he would find Suster just by using the infra-red detectors. Here, at this distance, it was not so much of a problem; the bulk of the mist was crawling around his knees and no higher. But the ground was gradually dropping away, down into a depression which the splinters’ collective impacts had probably pressed into the ground. Once he went farther in, the fog would engulf him. Suster could be standing a few metres away, and Delanka would never know.

  He didn’t have much choice.

  He walked on, into the drifting pall, and it was not long before he was surrounded by it. He became disoriented quickly, even with his visor assuring him that he was walking in a straight line. All around him was a shroud, lit softly by the faint glow of the rising moons and the shoulder lights on his armour. It was difficult to know exactly where in front of him the whiteness really was. The light faded out rapidly, and there was nothing in sight that would allow him to judge depth.

  He took the journey one step at a time, one foot then the other, avoiding the rocks that had been strewn outwards by the violent landing of the splinters.

  Ten minutes passed before he heard the first noise.

  The helmet visor placed a pointer in his view, indicating its best guess for the direction, and he stopped dead. Turning slowly, he switched off his lights and unclipped his side-arm from its mag-tag. With his elbows close to his chest, he aimed the weapon steadily in that direction.

  A pause, then it came again: the skitter of stones being knocked aside.

  He almost soiled himself when a faint figure emerged partially from the mist, lumbering across his view.

  From the size of the figure, the logical, calm part of his brain immediately solved the depth problem by estimating that if it were an average human, then it was about four metres away.

  The less rational part of his brain screamed out that he should run away.

  Another sound, this time behind him, and he whirled on the spot. Just visible through the vapour, he saw another figure ambling in silence.

  They were heading for the splinters, in the same direction he had been walking. They also seemed to be unaware of him.

  He waited for a few minutes until he was sure they were well ahead of him, then carried on, more cautiously this time.

  When the first splinter began to melt through the veil, rising up endlessly above him like a dark tower, he slowed almost to a stop. He craned his neck to look at it, bending back until he was peering almost straight up. The splinter was difficult to see, but the surface, whatever it was made from, was bizarre.

  There was another small noise directly ahead, and he snapped his attention back to the ground, stopping dead. Ahead of him, at intervals of a few metres, he saw a chain of motionless silhouettes.

  Slowly, carefully,
he dropped to one knee.

  It’s a perimeter, the military part of his mind yelled. The figures are standing around the splinters, in a Deep-damned defensive perimeter!

  There was no way to approach farther without being seen. He had no way of getting near the splinters without passing between the figures, and even if he came close enough to recognise Suster then they would have seen him already.

  Fool! He need not have come so close in the first place; he had a link. He tried to recall if Suster had been wearing his own device the last time Delanka saw him, and could not for the life of him remember.

  Why did I not try this earlier? He asked himself. Well, curiosity as much as anything. You knew damned well you’d be coming to take a look at these splinters the moment you saw the first one hit the ground.

  He activated his link, and despite the airtight cocoon of his helmet he whispered the word “Suster.”

  The link tried to open a channel. He heard the familiar blip of the channel opening, then there was only silence.

  “Suster?” He asked.

  He had not believed that it would work, and when it came the reply made his body jerk in an involuntary spasm.

  “I am here.”

  “I can’t see you. Where are you?”

  “I am here.”

  “You’re going to have to be more specific than that, Staff. Everything looks the same. Where are you?”

  “I am here. The world that was made.”

  Delanka paused, trying to decide if he had heard what he thought he had heard.

  “What… what do you mean?”

  “Harmony fills the silence,” Suster said, “and eternity will dance in celebration. The song is unbroken.”

  “You have completely lost me,” Delanka muttered.

  “I am here. I am.”

  “Fuck this.” Delanka closed the channel.

  He was up and running the second he saw the nearest figures coming for him.

  Delanka ran hard, his breathing ragged and fitful in the confines of his suddenly too-small helmet. He was acutely aware of the sound of the respirator, whirring at top speed to clear the moisture as well as feeding him clean air. He stumbled several times on rocks and in small pits and crevices, never quite going down, always bounding forward and managing to keep running.