by Sid Kar
Jarvyk had a hand held scanner to measure distance and when they were under the Senate, Jarvyk signaled to his team and they grabbed the handles built into pipe interior for maintenance crew. They searched for another latch and found one. Two soldiers opened the latch and jumped out with the first gush of water, with laser guns drawn, ready to fire. But they did not have to worry because there was no security all the way down here.
Rest all got out of the water pipe, closed the latch and replaced their water masks with navigation masks that displayed routes on the interior of helmet screens along with providing targeting range and crosshairs linked to their laser guns. They quickly followed the routes up the stairs. Their first encounter with the opposition would be in the basement.
There were eight soldiers of Nestorian Infantry Corps guarding this section of the basement and Jarvyk’s strike soldiers quickly shot them dead with one laser shot each. Earlier in the day, Chancellor Solus had ordered all the senators to stay overnight in the senate, awaiting election results, ostensibly for their own protection, but in actuality detaining them including VC Remus in their personal offices. He had also replaced Commander Krotus and his Senate Guards with his own infantry soldiers.
The infantry troops patrolled each floor of the Senate and Jarvyk realized it was futile to try to make their way stealthily. Jarvyk and his strike soldiers picked a stairway from basement closest to VC Remus’ office and started shooting their way up, blasting any opposition with a massive outpouring of lasers. Alarms rang out across the Senate building and commotion broke out as Nestorian soldiers ran every which way trying to find out the source of laser shots. Starfirians’ sudden, bold move afforded them time and opportunity to make it to VC Remus’ floor.
Six strike soldiers jumped into the corridor and exchanged laser fire with Nestorian troops patrolling the offices.
“Roofus, you know the way to Remus’ office,” Jarvyk said, “You go ahead with my soldiers and bring him to our escape point. I have a task to complete.”
Roofus was flummoxed but before he could ask a question, Jarvyk and five strike soldiers took off in another direction, climbing up the stairs to a different floor.
Roofus knew they were on a clock here and he walked to Remus’ office with his pistol drawn. The strike soldiers had already cleared the hallway for now and were shooting down the stairs on either side and had destroyed the elevator panels with laser shots.
Jarvyk and his smaller team ran over to the floor with Chancellor’s office. They had not informed Roofus of this portion of the plan. He did not know how the Nestorian would have reacted to the idea of an alien, foreign force capturing Nestor’s head of state. He would present it as fait accompli. The soldiers on Chancellor’s floor had heard the firing below but they were under strict orders from Solus to guard his office. Jarvyk and his strike soldiers each chugged two grenades into the hallway with the blast knocking out a majority of the soldiers. Then Jarvyk jumped in front of the rest and shot two dead with his laser pistol before deliberately throwing himself to the floor, giving his soldiers clear shot to the rest.
With the hallway cleared, they kicked down the door to Chancellor Solus’ office where they found him standing behind his desk, already mortified at the running laser fight engulfing the Senate, now frightened with blood evaporating from his face, staring wide eyed at the intruders and frozen in place with shock.
“Chancellor Solus, I am Col. Jarvyk if you don’t know or remember,” Jarvyk aimed his pistol at Solus, “We are not here to harm you, but to present you to our Commodore.”
“I will complain of you, and your Commodore Raptor and whoever the hell…Segwyk, is now out there in space with your fleet,” Solus found his voice, “your government will hear of this…this violation of our treaty.”
“That’s politics and not my concern, my orders are to take you in custody so you have to answer for your devious plot…”
The senate roof blew open in multiple places before Jarvyk could finish his sentence. Then eight new soldiers wearing an unrecognized uniform of Cyan blue shirt, Emerald green pants and Dark Blue oblong shaped helmets and combat boots rapidly descended down into the room, holding a rope with one hand and a laser gun in the other.
Jarvyk shot the one who dropped right in front of him point blank in the face with his pistol and the laser blew through his helmet spattering a blue-green goo of the alien’s brain everywhere including on Jarvyk’s face, hand and pistol. Jarvyk instinctively turned around and jumped back out the door in revulsion.
Five other soldiers plunged down near the Strike Soldiers and a brawl of punches and kicks broke out in the room, there was little room to aim and fire laser long guns and they were used as clubs. Meanwhile the remaining two came down on either side of Solus, locked their hands under each of his shoulders and were rolled up by the rope into an airship that Jarvyk sighted through the holes hovering above the Senate roof.
Jarvyk fired his lasers at the airship, taking careful aim to avoid striking Solus who was just about pulled up through the open side of it. Two soldiers in the airship returned fire at Jarvyk who turned around into the hallway to avoid getting hit by incoming blue lasers.
A loud command was issued from the airship in an inexplicable language and its soldiers grabbed their ropes and were hauled up rapidly.
“Drop back,” Jarvyk instinctively shouted out at his troops in the room. They all rushed to the door. The airship soldiers fired as they were being pulled up and a couple of strike soldiers were shot down. Jarvyk and his men retaliated, shot three off of their ropes crashing them onto the room floor before the rest were pulled up into the airship and an armor plate was swung over its open side and then it darted away at top speed.
Jarvyk was angry at having Solus snatched right from his hands and confused about these new intruders. Both the Infantry Corps and Republican Guard dressed in green and gold – the official colors of Nestorian military – even if with different shades and insignia. And he could clearly see Solus’ infantry corps’ anti-airship cannons’ laser beams being fired at this airship, although they had mostly stopped after they saw their Chancellor Solus being pulled inside. This was a new player. But who? Perhaps a general of battleships? Or perhaps a third army in Nestorian system that they weren’t aware of.
Jarvyk neither had the time to speculate on the possibilities, nor to examine the dead bodies of soldiers whom they had shot down. Jarvyk and the surviving three strike soldiers with him ran to the predetermined escape point. In between the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor’s floors and to the side of the building, was a small side door that led to an isolated rooftop where the top state leaders could relax over drinks and snacks in privacy and discuss politics with candor. Jarvyk had picked this spot precisely because there was no place to aim a laser gun at this roof or any entry to it except through one side door.
Roofus, VC Remus and a few strike soldiers were already there when Jarvyk and his team reached the place. Commander Krotus, the new leader of Republican Guards was also there and he had picked up a laser gun for himself.
“What are you doing here?” Jarvyk asked Krotus while he entered a code in his radio to signal the airship still back on the office building rooftop.
“The infantry corps stormed the Senate in a surprise raid; I was taken into custody,” Krotus said, “rest of my senate guards were shipped off to some prison.”
“Solus has lost his mind, but I can’t support these types of actions,” VC Remus said to Roofus.
“Solus was behind the coup,” Roofus told Remus and Remus’ jaw seemed to hit the floor. Roofus started giving the whole story of his investigation and Remus just listened in ever growing bewilderment.
The two pilots remaining in the airship flew it rapidly, dodging the laser cannons of infantry corps surrounding the Senate and landed on this roof. Their armor had taken a beating but there were no holes in the hull.
“Go, go, everyone inside, now,” Jarvyk yelled, Roofus and Krotus pushed R
emus inside the airship, then most of the strike soldiers jumped in. Jarvyk and a couple other soldiers were firing down into the stairways to prevent Nestorian soldiers from coming in. The airship hovered in the air as Jarvyk and the two soldiers jumped in and it flew off. The Nestorian soldiers ran onto the side roof and fired at the airship. The anti-airship laser cannons also blasted away. Jarvyk played a pre-recorded message over the loudspeakers announcing that they had possession of Chancellor Solus. This confused most of the gunners on the ground who hadn’t seen or heard Solus been taken by a third party and anti-airship firing tapered off. The airship accelerated out of the Senate airspace and charged off to the Starfire Base. Jarvyk counted the survivors. Out of his twenty soldiers, only eleven had made it back alive.
“Vice Chancellor Remus,” Jarvyk said, “Is there another army in Nestorian Republic besides Infantry Corps and Republican Guard?”
“No, the battleships have some guards but only a handful,” Remus replied, “Why do you ask?”
Jarvyk described the intruders who descended down from an airship over Chancellor’s office and took him away. Remus was puzzled but it was Roofus who gasped in horror.
“Those were Mercurian soldiers,” Roofus said and everyone turned to look at him.
“What?” Jarvyk exclaimed.
“Remember, I was captive abroad a Mercurian battleship,” Roofus said, “the blue and the green, that’s Mercurian army uniform.”
Chapter 10: Attack
Romvyk Nyk turned a knob of his spaceship to adjust its location and keep it floating in the rear of the large comet. His Second-In-Command Nanja Panga, a big, hefty Rhinoid alien was working the engine instruments, keeping the fuel flowing, preparing for a sudden acceleration. Five thousand mercenaries of the Dark Star Company sat behind them in eight rows of seats, dressed in their all their black uniform, clutching their laser long guns in their hands in anticipation of the imminent action. Only Romvyk and Nanja had not put on their helmets yet as they were piloting this new spaceship they had recently purchased specifically for this mission.
Romvyk had brought a sleek, no frills spaceship with a long axis but little width or height. The large sum of money transferred to them by Carvyk had allowed him to get the best, fastest and one with the least surface area exposed and visible on the scanners. They had been spending money in galaxy’s smuggler holes and asteroid belts and finally had received a confirmed sighting of Starship Conquistador. Romvyk knew this route, it was one used by the space smugglers and the fact that Commodore Raptor was assigned to the frontier region chasing smugglers meant that he too must know of this route. It went through deep space near the core of the galaxy, but its advantage lay in the presence of several humongous stars along with a multitude of gases, asteroids and comets that made detection of spaceships on gravitron scanners very hard.
“I have a spaceship on our gravitron scanner,” Nanja said to Romvyk, “Its gravitational intensity and signature matches the data supplied by Commander Carvyk.”
“It must be Conquistador,” Romvyk said looking at the mathematical numbers spat out by the gravitron computer. In his years in Starfire Army, he had never known another Starship with such numbers. Conquistador must be a new type, he thought.
They watched the scanner for a few moments. If Conquistador had noticed them on its own gravitron scanners, it was bound to dispatch a few starfighters to investigate, as was the standard procedure and common sense. But no spacecraft were incoming. The comet had perfectly masked their small spaceship’s gravitational signature behind its own.
“Good,” Romvyk took a deep breath, “Feed the program with Conquistador’s scanners error patterns to our navigational computer.”
“Program running now,” Nanja replied.
“Carvyk better not had screwed us or I will make it my life mission to ruin him,” Romvyk said while breathing heavily.
In theory all the scanners, Gravitron, Magnetic, Electrical, Radio and others, provided a full spherical coverage around a spaceship. But in practice, no scanner reached such level of precision and computer programs filled in the errors and blank spots using statistical calculations. Vastness of space meant the signal dissipated with distance. Scanner machines and parts suffered from inevitable defects and degradation. And the discrete shape of the Starships meant it was not possible to have a full coverage surrounding it.
However, these error patterns were small and random enough that it was not possible to exploit them without knowing both the specifications of scanner machines and the software code that corrected for the errors; and both details were highest level of army secrets not accessible to anyone.
Carvyk had provided just these specs to Dark Star Company.
“Navigational computer has calculated a path to Conquistador utilizing only the error spots of target’s scanners,” Nanja said.
“Launch away,” Romvyk said.
Romvyk and Nanja entered the commands that switched their spaceship to autopilot and it came out from behind the comet and rapidly accelerated to catch up with Conquistador, twisting and turning, swaying here, jumping there, all in attempts to follow the path computer had laid out for it.
Romvyk, Nanja and rest of the mercenaries held their breath in fear. They knew that if they were detected, the Starship could blast them into oblivion with just one rocket or laser strike. Even if they avoided getting hit, their small spaceship had only enough fuel for a single catch up attempt.
There was no launch of starfighters from Conquistador, nor of any rockets and its laser cannons did not turn and aim its way. Their spaceship finally caught up to the army starship and Romvyk took over the flight controls from the computer. They were flying along the Starship’s hull at less than 100 meters and at this close distance the scanners weren’t able to distinguish a distinct spaceship from the protruding structures of its own hull.
Romvyk had the flight computer match the speed of the larger Starship which was traveling a little above 5,000 light speeds. Romvyk turned on the display in front of him which had the blueprint of Conquistador sent to him by Carvyk. He had identified a spot earlier and he flew the spaceship to that particular location. Here he flicked on his internal electromagnetic generator which created a powerful magnetic field that engulfed their spaceship and attached them to the host Starship. Then he slowly lowered his spaceship.
Everyone took a sign of relief after a clunky ‘thud’ from touchdown at the surface.
“Alright,” Romvyk spoke over the intercom radio connected to speakers inside everybody’s helmets, “the most technically difficult part of our mission is successfully completed. Our client did his part for us, now we have to do ours for him. You all are some of the toughest and best laser fighters in the galactic underworld. But we are not going against regular soldiers of any other army. I was a Col. of Strike Soldiers. They can match you man for man in marksmanship and martial arts. And starship guards are not chumps either. You all have the starship blueprints encoded in your helmet computers with your part of objective marked in color. Move fast, move hard and secure the section your team is assigned. The success of our operation depends on our ability to establish the two strategic chokeholds as rapidly as possible.”
“Nanja’s division, go with him, my division stay back in the spaceship.”
“Yes commander,” the mercenaries answered in unison.
“Good Luck,” Nanja said as he got up, picked up his laser gun and put on his helmet.
“You too,” Romvyk replied with a smile, “After this is done, we will be rich beyond our wildest imagination.”
Romvyk had divided Dark Star Company into two different divisions of 2,500 mercenaries each to secure the two locations whose control would allow them to prevent Strike Soldiers’ from coming to the rescue of the rest of the Starship. They had landed on the top of the first location but the second strategic objective was some distance away. Nanja and his mercenaries got out of their spaceship; their suits and boots were also magnetized allowi
ng them to stick to the surface of starship below. They picked out a large plasma drill and a few heavy laser cannons from the supplies compartment near the back and got on their way.
Romvyk disembarked his own mercenaries onto the surface below along with the remaining heavy laser cannons. They also set up the second plasma drill on the spot but didn’t start it yet. The initial assault had to be coordinated with Nanja’s team and had to begin simultaneously.
Romvyk looked up and all around him. It was a gorgeous sight with bright sparkling stars in every direction. They were close to the galactic center and he could make out a few massive stars that looked like colorful, shining balls sprinkled in space. What a great irony it was, Romvyk thought to himself, that it was Starfire Army that had taught him to carry out space assaults on Starships.
There was however one disquieting possibility. Perhaps Commodore Raptor had detected them on his scanners, allowed them to get close and set up a trap. If so they would find out the hard way when hundreds of Strike Soldiers opened up at them with their laser guns.
Romvyk shuddered at the thought.
“Commander Romvyk, we are in position,” Nanja’s voice came over the intercom.
Too late to fret about walking into any ambush now.
“Commence drilling operations,” Romvyk ordered and his soldiers along with Nanja’s fired up their plasma drills.