Megaship Maverick (Conquest of Stars Book 3)

by Sid Kar

  Tollvyk and Kartar walked up to them and the four soldiers stood behind shoulder to shoulder in an arc. All four had been chosen for their height and size and were considerably taller than average. They obscured the view of anyone looking at the corridor’s entrance.

  “Can I help you, officer…” one of the starship guards asked while both of them saluted Tollvyk.

  Tollvyk wasted no time. He punched one of them hard in the gut, making him double over and then Tollvyk whacked him hard on his upper back – lower neck joint making him lose consciousness. Kartar meanwhile had twisted the saluting arm of the second guard and had whacked him on the back putting him to sleep. They quickly rolled over the unconscious guards into a nearby utility closet.

  Tollvyk, Kartar and two soldiers walked down the private hallway to Commodore’s room while the other two soldiers remained outside pretending to be the guards on duty. Tollvyk and Kartar encountered two more starship guards standing outside Segwyk’s room.

  “Colonel…” one of the guards tried to read Tollvyk’s name tag when Tollvyk pulled out his pistol and whacked him across the face sending him to the floor. One soldier jumped on him and put him to sleep with a chokehold. Kartar kneed the other guard in the stomach and yanked him by pulling his hair handing him over to the second soldier who knocked him unconscious with a hard chop of his palm to guard’s back.

  Tollvyk took out the entry card from the guards pocket, scanned it and when the door slid open, him and Kartar jumped in together with their pistols drawn.

  “So glad to see you,” Alvina’s face lit up.

  “Where is Segwyk?” Tollvyk asked and threw an extra pistol he had brought along to Alvina.

  “Not here, I would not have pressed the alarm if he was,” she said.

  The two soldiers rolled the unconscious guards inside the room and arrayed them on Segwyk’s bed in a spontaneous fit of humor.

  “He is going to be mad seeing the guards sleeping on his bed,” Kartar chuckled.

  “I half wish he was here,” Tollvyk said, “would have loved to carry out a threat I made to him a long time ago to break his face with my fists.”

  They rushed out of the room, slid the door close and met up with the two soldiers outside of the corridor. There was no one else there. Tollvyk had an extra pair of sunglasses that he handed to Alvina along with a cap to cover her ponytail. Then they walked back as they had come. Tollvyk and Kartar in front, Alvina in the middle and the four soldiers dressed as guards in the back. They marched as if in a parade and no one paid them heed. Alvina in sunglasses and cap was unrecognizable as a woman from a distance. They took a sigh of relief when they found a hovercraft for ride back to the bay.

  Just as they had gotten out of the hovercraft, alarms started ringing all abroad Masterpiece. The starship guards ran around and started locking down sections but Tollvyk and company kept walking to the bay unimpeded. Even in a lockdown, a command officer’s authority was significant and Tollvyk clicked his fingers at anyone who even looked at him twice.

  They rounded the corner and entered the bay when they saw a team of strike soldiers rolling out a heavy laser cannon from the opposite entrance. Tollvyk, Kartar and Alvina drew their laser pistols and opened fire sending the soldiers running back into the hallway. Then they took off running to their ship.

  But starship guards from the hallway behind them came running shouting ‘Halt’, ‘Halt’. The starship guards entered the bay and took aim.

  They were still a distance from their ship and the four soldiers accompanying them turned around and knelt down with their laser guns. “You go on, we will provide cover,” one of them said.

  The starship guards and the strike soldiers exchanged laser fire. Half dozen starship guards were shot down and the rest retreated back into the hallway but the strike soldiers were in the open without cover and all four were hit and were dead by the time Alvina, Kartar and Tollvyk reached the ship.

  The soldiers from the opposite hallway came out and once again started positioning the laser cannon against the ship. Kartar pointed at the laser cannon with his finger to Agnosis who had already readied the spaceship’s own laser cannon and fired a shot destroying the rival cannon and sending the soldiers flying few feet. Alvina, Kartar and Tollvyk jumped in the ship and Agnosis turned the ship around in a fast spin, opened fire at the bay door smashing it to shards and accelerated right out of the bay into space.

  “Once again more of ours died fighting our own,” Tollvyk smashed his fist into open palm.

  “Segwyk acknowledged his role in the ambush, hell he was the leader, and he is unrepentant about it, lousy bastard,” Alvina said, “but I am going to ruin him because I will testify against him to House of War and to the Constellation.”

  “We have got starfighters after us,” Agnosis said, “Col. Kartar, I could use your help.”

  Kartar who was catching his breath, jumped in the pilot’s seat as Agnosis maneuvered their spy ship away from Starship Masterpiece at rapid acceleration and at sharp angle.

  “Strap yourself in seat belts,” Agnosis said, “We have fifteen starfighters after us. I am going to dive towards Nestor.”

  “What are you thinking?” Kartar asked, “we can outrun them in space.”

  “They are too close now,” Agnosis said diving the ship towards the planet while laser beams shot past them. “We can use Nestor’s gravity to shield our escape from the other side. By the time we register on any starship’s gravitron scanner we would have put considerable distance between us and them.”

  Their spaceship rapidly descended down into the atmosphere with the starfighters in close pursuit. They were unloading with their laser cannons but Kartar did not want to fire back on his own.

  “For all I know some of these boys are friends of my own pilots,” Kartar shook his head.

  “Don’t worry, I know my planet, I will shake them off,” Agnosis said and turned the spaceship’s vector towards the biggest mountain range on the planet. The mountains got larger and larger in their view by the second.

  “Look out, you are going to crash!” Kartar yelled when Agnosis dived their spaceship into a mountain cliff. Tollvyk and Alvina held on to their seats with their dear life and were frozen in place.

  The starfighters behind them pulled up but Agnosis kept flying and made a sharp turn just before the cliff. There was a hidden gap between the two cliffs and Agnosis flew right through it.

  “Told you, I know my planet well,” Agnosis chuckled. Kartar was holding his breath and he let it out with a deep sigh, “next time inform me in advance.”

  “Why aren’t they firing rockets?” Agnosis asked.

  “I forgot, that’s right, they can’t fire rockets at us,” Kartar said, “Their rockets would detect our spaceship as a fellow Starfirian one, assume the pilot misfired and fly right by. Segwyk has override codes for these mechanisms but they wouldn’t have had time to reconfigure the rockets before launch.”

  “We are gaining ground on them,” Agnosis pulled the spaceship out of the valley as it narrowed and headed straight for the second mountain range.

  “We would still be on their scanners,” Kartar said.

  “Now just trust me for the next ten minutes,” Agnosis said and Kartar had a bad feeling in his stomach. Agnosis was a hotshot pilot but over confident and he hoped they would live ten more minutes.

  The starfighters had assumed position on their tail and occasionally fired laser bursts but Agnosis managed to avoid any hits. Then Kartar saw a dark gap ahead in the second mountain range and Agnosis flew right in. He turned on the ships forward lights and Kartar almost jumped in his seat because the gap on all sides of the plane to the mountain rock was less than 25 feet.

  “Shouldn’t you be slowing down?” Kartar asked when he saw them picking up speed on the flight panel.

  “Just trust,” Agnosis said concentrating intensely on the path ahead.

  An alarm started ringing from the instrument panel and Kartar looked at the di
splay below it, “Goddamn” he yelled, “there is no opening on the other end!”

  Alvina and Tollvyk looked at each other in shock when Agnosis burst in laughter.

  “Trust,” Agnosis said and accelerated even more.

  A few seconds later he started counting down from ten and Kartar sat stunned staring at Agnosis.

  When his count reached one, Agnosis yelled, ‘now’, and banked hard to the left, while turning the plane vertical and flying into a large shadow in the wall that revealed itself to be another gap. Kartar adjusted quickly but Alvina screamed with the feeling of falling out of her seat and Tollvyk cursed violently.

  “I hope you have done this before,” Kartar said.

  “A few times me and some other pilots would sneak out to fly in here,” Agnosis chuckled, “But always unauthorized and never this fast.”

  “Great,” Kartar said.

  It took them less than two minutes to fly out of the gap and into the open. Agnosis straightened the spaceship back to horizontal but he did not increase their altitude.

  “The mountains will hide us from their scanners as long as I fly very low,” Agnosis said. He was flying barely ten feet above the tree line now.

  “Where do we make our exit from this planet?” Kartar asked.

  “From the airspace above the main city,” Agnosis said, “It has the largest concentration of air traffic on our planet and we can hide from pursuers.”

  But they did not have to worry about pursuers. The fifteen starfighters had followed them into the gap but had missed the side gap completely. Their scanners too showed them there was no exit on the other side and they braked hard and hit the emergency brakes and cut their fuel, all at the same time. They barely managed to stop their spacecraft before hitting the mountain. They landed inside a large cavern and started searching for the wreckage of their prey on foot.

  Agnosis flew the spaceship as low as possible into the city where it blended in amongst the thousands of airships flying every which way. But there were massive crowds on the streets and the crowds were on the move.

  “What the hell is going on down there?” Kartar asked.

  Agnosis looked out the window, then turned to the spaceship’s calendar, “what day is it today?”

  The spaceship was showing the Starfire calendar and Kartar changed the display to Nestorian dates.

  “It’s Election Day today,” Agnosis said, “I wish I could vote but I feel responsible to get you all back safely to Conquistador.”

  “An election by gun,” Tollvyk said.

  “What are you talking about?” Agnosis asked.

  “Look out your left window,” Tollvyk said, “on the building.”

  Agnosis saw hundreds of men on the ground shooting it out against other gunmen on the rooftop. Then he looked down carefully at the crowd and realized that riots were underway and smaller groups here and there were engaged in laser gun shootouts.

  “Another coup?” Kartar asked.

  “Segwyk told me something,” Alvina said remembering her conversation, “He said he had evidence Col. Jarvyk had collected that Solus was behind the failed coup attempt.”

  “Solus! Solus!” Agnosis turned around to look at Alvina, “He said that? That’s incredible.”

  “We can stop by at Col. Jarvyk’s base and verify,” Alvina suggested.

  “I don’t think so,” Kartar said, “we have no time and can’t risk it. Cap. Agnosis prepare to clear the atmosphere and then I will take over flight controls.”

  “Yes Colonel,” Agnosis replied. He turned the spaceship’s nose skywards and accelerated rapidly out of the atmosphere leaving all other spaceships behind in the dust. Then Kartar took over flying and he set them on the course to take them outside the solar system. But he didn’t enter the location of their starship because if they were to fall into Segwyk’s hands, his mechanics could retrieve that data from spaceship’s memory storage. Instead, he was going to manually fly it all the way back.

  “Commodore Segwyk, the rogue spaceship has just appeared on our gravitron scanner,” his gravitron officer informed him in the command room. Segwyk had been pacing back and forth after he had received the report of the assumed crash inside the mountain cavern.

  “What? How did it get out of the mountain?” Segwyk was perplexed. Maybe his fighter pilots had made a mistake and concocted a tall tale. He would discipline them when they returned. “How far away?” Segwyk asked the officer.

  “Unfortunately, far enough that our starfighters would run out of fuel before they could catch up to her. She is the newest Mystery class spy ship,” gravitron officer replied, “it appears they used Nestor’s gravity to shield their escape. Our starship might be able to intercept it though.”

  “What? Leave our station and go chase after that,” Segwyk scoffed, “If there is an attack and I am not holding the fort, it will ruin my reputation.”

  “It appears the attack is far away but the enemy is definitely on its way,” the communications officer walked over to him.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Segwyk asked.

  “The Mercurian battleships our long range spy patrols had sighted in that star system Nestorian battleship Avenger had traveled to; are now crossing the outermost planet and entering deep space on a vector headed this way.”

  “I am glad I had sent out our spy ships far ahead of us,” Segwyk said, “But how many do they estimate?”

  “Sixty,”

  “They estimate sixty battleships?” Segwyk’s eyes almost popped out.

  “They count sixty,” communications officer replied.

  “Fuck me,” Segwyk exclaimed furiously and the command room turned to look at him for a second, “forget that damned spyship and that wench Alvina,” Segwyk said to the gravitron officer, “return to your station.” Then he turned to his communications officer, “prepare an encryption shell for a private message I am going to send to Commander Carvyk.”

  Both the officers returned to their respective stations and Segwyk started pacing back and forth again. Alvina and Conquistador were now Carvyk’s worry and he would let the regional commander deal with them, after all he had a lot more to lose if Alvina went in front of House of War. Segwyk for his part could plead ignorance and claim to have just followed orders. And Carvyk better mobilize the fleet for his reinforcement. This was starting to look more and more like a real space war.

  Chapter 6: Conspirators

  Regional Commander Carvyk Botlar read the private, encrypted message once again on his office computer and blinked his eyes. His Capitan of Palace Guards Jontvyk Tubyt was standing in front of his table in attention and they were alone in Carvyk’s private office in the palace. Carvyk turned off the display and rubbed his eyes.

  “At ease capitan,” he said.

  “Yes commander,” Jontvyk said, “Is everything alright?”

  “It seems nothing is,” Carvyk replied, “Starship Conquistador is hiding from me somewhere out in deep space and a large Mercurian invasion fleet has set sail towards Nestor.”

  “Can’t Commodore Segwyk handle it?” Jontvyk asked.

  “There is sixty of them, sixty,” Carvyk gnashed his teeth, “I am going to have to inform our Starfleet Command.”

  “But if they send a large fleet to Nestor, it would ruin our plans,” Jontvyk said.

  “I know,” Carvyk leaned on his elbow, “But I bet Segwyk will cover himself by sending a similar message to Starfleet Command. If I don’t take any action, I will be held out negligent.”

  “What are you going to do?” Jontvyk asked.

  “The time has come to involve our Jak Partners,” Carvyk said, “We have been doing the heavy lifting, about time the Jaks helped us out. After all, they are going to benefit a lot more than us if our scheme succeeds.”

  “Agreed,” Jontvyk said.

  “First, I am going to send an official request to the Interior Commander and other Regional Commanders for reinforcements, that will establish the fact that I am prepa
ring to bolster Segwyk and our fleet,” Carvyk said, “Meanwhile, I want you to initiate contact with Baron Karjax Jak of Jak Confederacy and Renegade Romvyk of Dark Star Company and set up meetings at our agreed upon places in that order.”

  “Do you really want to involve a wild yahoo like Romvyk and his ruffians in this?” Jontvyk asked.

  “I can’t deal with two problems myself,” Carvyk said, “We have to hunt down Conquistador and stop it from reaching Starfleet Command. But we can’t do it with all the attention that will soon be upon us and all the starships not under my command that will descend here. Romvyk is rough but he will get it done.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  “Then we will have to disappear into deep space,” Carvyk said.

  Jontvyk was disturbed but he maintained his composure. He saluted Carvyk, turned around and walked to the door just when Carvyk called out to him.

  “Cap. Jontvyk, remember to use one-time encryption codes,” Carvyk said, “With war looming, Army Investigations and SPASI will be trying to monitor all signals, especially those that cross borders into foreign nations.”

  “Will do,” Jontvyk replied and walked out.

  A few minutes later Carvyk finished composing and sending out his plea for reinforcements and headed down to his private underground hangar where he kept a very secret spaceship on hand just for these types of journeys.

  Carvyk and Jontvyk traveled with two very trustworthy, loyal and highly paid palace guards who had pilot training in an army spyship towards the edge of Starfirian space. Their destination was the Fico star system which contained one star and seven planets. It also had an eighth planet sometime in the distant cosmic past but had been destroyed into asteroids and the surviving moon of this eighth planet orbited its star at the very edge of the system. It was a black moon that was invisible against the darkness of space. Their spaceplane was headed towards this moon. The asteroid belt nearby obscured any spaceship on gravitron scanners and more importantly Fico star system was the boundary between Starfire Empire and Jak Confederacy. It had been agreed that neither country would colonize any planet of this system or set up a space station to avoid any misunderstandings. It made a perfect hideout or a discreet meeting space.