A trill alarm at her console redirected her attention as she stared at a breach in the port shield grid. Her fingers flew frantically over the controls as she redirected power to compensate, remodulating the grid and optimizing it for projectile weapon defense just as another missile impact rocked the ship.
Her comm light came on and a voice from the bridge carried to her ears. “Lieutenant, I’m reading gaps in our shield harmonics. I need you to …” His voice trailed off as he apparently realized that Alexis had already addressed the problem. “Er, good work. Bridge out.”
Alexis shrugged and kept up her work. As if she needed someone on the bridge to tell her to patch a gap in the shields.
The sounds of laser fire died away and most of the alarms wailing from various stations on the deck silenced themselves. The shield grid remained steady, not rocked by particle impacts or savage missile explosions. The frenetic activity of the engineering crew gradually faded to a reserved but purposeful pace.
The battle was over.
A voice reverberated throughout the room. “Attention all hands, this is your Captain. Stand down from combat status. The invaders have been driven away.”
A boisterous cheer rang forth from the assembled engineers and technicians and Alexis yelled the loudest of all. She turned to see Ryan, sitting with his muscular arms folded across his thick torso, smiling at her from across the room.
And she smiled just a bit wider in return.
. . . . .
Anastasia scrambled back to her command chair, belatedly realizing that it would do little good. Still numbed by recent events, she had nearly forgotten that her ship had just fired its Subspace Destabilization Unit and, as such, was nearly helpless for the next 90 seconds.
An eternity in space combat.
The Captain studied her tactical console and confirmed that eleven Vr’amil’een ships had arrived in system and now, without even their meager defense fleet to protect them, the planet of New Berkeley was helpless before them.
A few small ships rose from the planet to meet the attackers, but they offered little resistance and were eliminated quickly by the robust Vr’amil’een Cruisers. Several of the swifter enemy ships veered off from their approach to the planet, and began accelerating toward the powerless Inferno.
And Anastasia couldn’t even raise the shields.
A ship suddenly appeared at the top of the viewscreen, speeding past the Inferno and toward the incoming vessels.
“I’ll hold them off as long as I can,” came Dex’s voice over the intercom. “But I don’t know how long that will be.”
“Just give me 30 more seconds,” she replied, jarring herself back to action. “Byron, Victor, get back here right away.” Captain Mason looked back to the viewscreen and at the darting Cerberus, which was trying valiantly to distract the attackers long enough for her ship’s power to come back on-line. But Dex’s ship, an armoured transport, was not much of a combat vessel, a fact borne out by its meager combat designation, ST-709. Dex was managing, however, to harry the attackers without suffering serious damage, and was doing an admirable job of keeping them away from the Inferno.
The welcome hum of power returned to the bridge and a chorus of lights greeted the Captain on her display console. Byron and Victor raced to their seats, buckling themselves in just as Anastasia gave the order to move.
“Get us over there, Cody,” she ordered. “Byron, keep those ships away from the Cerberus.”
“Gladly, Captain,” he replied, targeting the ship nearest to Dex. A salvo of laser fire erupted from the Inferno’s nose and collided with the Vr’amil’een heavy fighter, disabling it and knocking it into a dead spin. The remaining three Vr’amil’een vessels concentrated their attack on the new threat, spinning toward the Inferno and releasing a volley of gunfire that was absorbed by the ship’s heavy shields. A missile streaked forth from one of the forward missile tubes and disabled another fighter, and Byron concentrated the ship’s formidable plasma burst cannon on an advancing Corvette, which endured the barrage with its hardy neutronium armour.
“Evasive maneuvers, Cody,” barked the Captain. “Victor, divert auxiliary power to the forward shields.”
The wounded Corvette steadied itself and launched a blast from its massive nose cannon, which caught the Inferno before Cody was able to turn her away. The impact shook the ship, but a glance at her display showed the Captain that the shields had withstood the attack. Lieutenant Commander Johnson returned fire, overwhelming the crippled ship with a blast from the particle emitters. A quick burst from the wing-mounted Gatling lasers and the remaining heavy fighter exploded into debris.
“You alright, Dex?” Anastasia asked into the intercom, scanning her display for more enemy ships. “How’s your ship holding up?”
“We’re fine, Ana,” he replied, his ship coming into view on the main screen. “But the people of New Berkeley don’t seem to be faring as well.”
Anastasia re-centered the display on the planet and could see that the remaining ships of the assault force had concentrated on the planet itself and were preparing to release devastating orbital barrages at the helpless cities below.
Before Anastasia could give the order to attack, Ariyana spun in her chair to face her. “Captain,” she said, “we have an incoming transmission, on-screen.”
It was a familiar face that appeared on the viewscreen, a face that belonged to Fleet Admiral Joseph Wright, a gaunt, hard-worn man in his nineties. Though Anastasia had little direct experience with the man, he was known for being tough but fair. Anastasia found him abrasive, and was not surprised to learn that, though he was well respected, few people liked him.
“Captain Mason,” he began, “you are to fall back to the Denegar System to shore up the defenses there. You are not to engage the Vr’amil’een at New Berkeley.” The Admiral adjusted his uniform and leveled his icy gaze at Anastasia. “Do you understand?”
“But, sir,” she stammered, unsure if he was aware of the whole situation. “They’re killing them. We have to—”
“That is an order, Captain,” he replied, his somber voice calm and forcefully rigid. “New Berkeley has requested to secede from the Confederation, and, as such, will no longer receive Confederation protection. You are instead to proceed to the Denegar System as instructed.”
“You don’t understand, Admiral—”
“You have your orders, Captain. You have done enough harm there already.” The Admiral adjusted his collar once again. “Admiral Wright out.”
His image disappeared from the viewscreen, and was replaced with the view of the planet. The slaughter of New Berkeley had begun.
. . . . .
Zach guided his ship through the wreckage, scores of twisted fightercraft frames tumbling slowly in the vacuum of space. Every so often a shower of sparks or a bright plume of fire would erupt from one of the lifeless hulls, fed by on-board oxygen tanks or unburned fuel cells. Commander Wallace’s sensors scanned the orbiting graveyard as he surveyed it with his eyes. It was the aspect of being a fighter pilot Zach liked least: the somber scouring of the remnants of battle, such an antithesis to the furious action of a dogfight. What Zach and his sensors were searching for were life signs—Confederation pilots who had survived and could be rescued, and enemy pilots who could still be lurking amidst the rubble. More than once, a ship thought to be disabled had launched a surprise attack after the battle was seemingly over.
“Section Nine-Alpha, clear,” came Halcyon’s voice over the intercom. Wolfpack Squadron, still relatively intact, had been assigned to space-sweeping duty, as pilots were apt to call the unsavory assignment. The incidence of space-sweeping ships being surprised and destroyed by skulking enemies was higher than any pilot would have liked. As such, Zach was patrolling with Raven reassuringly covering his wing.
“All Beta sections clear,” reported Zach, studying his sensor display one last time. “Nothing but rubble here.”
As his fighter banked back toward the carrier, a sudden mo
vement caught Zach’s eye. At first, he thought it was just a reflection off a derelict fighter’s canopy, but as he looked closer, he could see there was indeed something moving inside.
“Raven,” he called, “check out the fighter at 213 mark seven.” Even as he said it, Zach keyed his sensors for a tight-beam scan.
What the sensors read was mostly radiation interference, common on damaged vessels and part of what made space-sweeping such an arduous process. But as Zach focused and calibrated the sensors, he could make out an erratic but definite life-form signature coming from the Confederation fighter.
“We’ve got a live one,” Zach called. “I’m going in.”
Zach thrusted his fighter toward the slowly-spinning fighter hulk, expertly matching its speed and rotation. He moved his fighter to within a couple of meters of the doomed spacecraft. From here, he could plainly see the pilot through the cracked cockpit plasticite, twitching but clearly alive.
“Wait just a second, Wolfman,” Raven cautioned. “The radiation levels from the exposed Duopasqualonium rods are well above lethal. And the engine core is about to go critical. Get the hell out of there—that poor bastard is already dead anyway.”
“Negative, Raven. Retreat to a safe distance and call for an ambulance shuttle.”
“But, sir—”
“That’s an order.”
Zach unfastened his restraint harness and double-checked his flight suit’s vacuum seals and oxygen levels. He grabbed the plasma cutter from under the seat and popped the ZF-575’s canopy.
There was a violent hiss as the air rushed out of the cockpit, and Zach pushed off from his chair and sent himself drifting toward the derelict spacecraft. He used a few short bursts from the suit’s thrust system to get him to the disabled ship’s cockpit. He flicked on his plasma cutter and began to burn through the cracked plasticite.
From this distance, Zach could see the spasmodic figure quite clearly, and could see that his face, sealed within his flight helmet, had already been thoroughly radiation-burned. Zach winced as he realized that he could no longer make out the dying pilot’s identity.
Zach moved aside as the plasma cutter finished its work and a section of the plasticite exploded away from the pressurized cockpit. A cloud of steam shot forth through the opening, and Zach could feel the intense heat coming from the ship’s deteriorating engine core. The ship shook as a jet of flame arced out from the rear of the vessel and the Commander realized that the core had already gone critical.
And that didn’t leave him much time.
Zach braced one arm on the ship’s hull, reaching in with the other and pulling the twitching body out through the cockpit dome’s opening. Unconscious and weightless in zero-g, the body complied, and Zach kicked himself away from the doomed fighter as soon as the pilot was clear.
Using the maneuvering jets was tricky with the extra mass, but Zach grabbed onto his ship’s open canopy and stuffed himself in, pulling the pilot down on top of him. The body was uncomfortably warm, and, as the cockpit sealed, Commander Wallace realized that his tiny cockpit was not meant for two.
The cockpit re-pressurized with a hiss and Zach poked at the control lever, mostly blocked by the rescued pilot. He was jerked back as the ship accelerated, but, though he could not fasten his restraint harness, there was nowhere for him to go in the cramped space.
“Computer—autopilot,” Zach called, unable to steer the vessel, now moving rather swiftly through the debris field. “Return to launch point.” A bright flash reflected off the canopy and a muffled explosion shock wave let him know that the pilot’s ship had finally exploded. The now-rigid stillness of the pilot himself let Zach know that he was already dead.
. . . . .
Admiral Wright’s image disappeared from the Cerberus’ viewscreen, and was replaced by a view of Vr’amil’een ships bombarding the planet of New Berkeley from orbit. Four blocky landing craft had disembarked from twin fighter carriers and had begun their slow descent into the clouded New Berkeley atmosphere. Dex knew that the four landing craft held enough Vr’amil’een soldiers to easily overrun whatever meager defenses were still available on the planet, which, ironically, was now all but helpless without protection from the very Confederation the SPACERs had demanded removed from the system.
The viewscreen changed once again, and this time it was Captain Mason’s face that filled the screen. Her eyes had narrowed and she wore a look of grim determination that seemed out of place, shrouding as it was her beauty and delicate features. Dex knew the decision she had just made.
“I need your help on this one, Dex,” she said, almost pleading. “I can’t stop the fleet and those landers by myself.”
Dex hesitated—just for a moment—as the thought of disobeying Confederation Command played uncomfortably in his mind. But his instinctual sense of duty left him little choice.
“I’m on the landers,” he found himself saying, even before he thought he had really made up his mind. “They won’t get far.”
Anastasia could not hide the sense of relief that washed over her face. “You do realize, Dex, that—”
“Understood, Captain,” he replied. “Rutcliffe out.”
Zip and Retro looked to the Commander in silence. “Plot an intercept course,” he ordered, settling into his chair. “All available speed.”
Retro looked to Zip for a moment, as if waiting for him to possibly countermand the order. But Zip stared back at him unblinkingly, and, out of the corner of his eye, Dex saw him give an almost imperceptible nod. “Aye, Commander,” the pilot finally replied. “Atmospheric entry in fifteen seconds.”
Dex turned to Zip, who had busied himself with his tactical console. Though he was trying to look comfortable, his knuckles were white against his armrests.
The viewscreen now showed the Inferno as the ship loosed salvo after salvo of lasers and missiles at the Vr’amil’een fleet, horribly outnumbered and possibly even outgunned. Dex’s vantage point was still from some distance away, as the infinitely slower Cerberus had been laughably unable to keep up with the Inferno as Anastasia had rushed into battle.
It was a helpless feeling for Dex, not yet in range, and, even if he were, unable to do much against the well-armoured Vr’amil’een warships. He doubted his transport would be the match of a single Vr’amil’een Corvette.
How the Cerberus would fare against the landing craft that had disembarked from the fighter carriers, however, was a different matter altogether.
Dex braced himself as the clouded New Berkeley skies rushed nearer on the viewscreen. His transport was not designed for high-speed atmospheric entry. In fact, ideally, the Cerberus would never enter the unstable atmosphere at all, instead releasing its dropshuttle from orbit. The Cerberus performed pitifully in an atmosphere, where its angular construction made it handle like a brick.
The transport slammed into the wall of air, and flames immediately began their frenzied dance along the hull. Even with inertial dampeners at maximum, the ship rocked fiercely as it was buffeted by atmospheric forces. Nothing but fire could be seen through the front viewscreen, and the tactical scans showed little more, unable to target within the aerial inferno.
The flames began to dissipate, and Retro slowed the ship as they entered the lower atmosphere. Immediately, four blocky Vr’amil’een landing craft could be seen, each descending toward the capital city of Pax. Dex targeted the nearest ship and launched his meager complement of missiles, which tracked the falling vessel and impacted against its armoured hull. The landing craft wavered, and thick clouds of black smoke trailed behind the wounded vessel, but it continued its descent to the surface.
“Bring us in closer,” Dex commanded. “We’ll take him out with the guns.”
Retro brought the Cerberus in behind the crippled lander, which began to return fire with its dorsal turret. A series of shots raked across the Cerberus’ bow, but the shields absorbed the minor barrage. Dark smoke obscured most of the Commander’s view, yet Dex targeted the s
moking vessel with precision, firing a long burst with his forward laser turret. The lasers found their marks, and the rear half of the shuttle exploded into a fiery ball, leaving the lander to plummet to the ground below.
Dex could feel the ship slowing and he looked to the viewscreen to find the ground rushing up at a precipitous pace. Retro yanked back on the controls and the Cerberus fired its landing rockets, making a rough but successful landing in a large, grassy savanna that stretched to the horizon. A distant explosion resounded throughout the shuttle, and a thin wisp of smoke snaked into the air to mark where the crippled lander had crashed. Through the viewscreen, however, Dex could see that the remaining three ships had landed safely, and a horde of Vr’amil’een soldiers and ground assault vehicles had already begun swarming out and dispersing as they headed for Pax.
“Alright, team,” Dex ordered, unstrapping himself and heading for the exit hangar. “Let’s move out.”
His team’s reply came quickly over the intercom, and Zip rushed from his seat to equip himself for battle. Dex followed him down the smooth corridor to the hangar, while Retro remained aboard to watch the Cerberus.
Zip and Dex burst forth into the holding area, and Dex wasted no time in getting to the L-PAS huddled in the corner, its hunched, sagging shape giving no outward impression of its awesome potency. He climbed the short ladder and lowered himself into the suit, powering up from standby mode and sealing the unit around him. He fastened himself into the combat suit’s cockpit, and looked through the dark plasticite of the machine’s head. In front of him were the remaining 11 members of his team, and even those who had seen the suit in action before stared unblinkingly at Dex as he thudded the L-PAS forward. Dex thumbed the suit’s comm system, and his voice boomed across the enclosed space. “Pop the hatch and let’s go.”
“My God,” gasped a young soldier, looking to the Commander in awe. What he saw was an ominous, pitch-black, full-body combat suit that sported four massive, forward-facing turrets, one over each shoulder and one under each arm. The exhaust vents from the jet thruster pack on its back were visible around its armoured legs, and the suit’s helmet was fronted with a dark plate of directionally transparent plasticite. The suit, which was so heavy it required hydraulic servos for movement, made the Commander appear at least triple his actual size. In fact, had the young soldier not just heard Dex’s voice coming from the metallic beast, he probably would have thought he was staring at some sort of automated battlefield robot and not the most powerful combat suit known to man.
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