Empire Burning (Emerilia Book 11)

by Michael Chatfield

  Dave grinned as he watched the Jukal continue to hit them with missiles and harass them. The Pandoran fleet seemed to be too slow to escape because they were still hiding their real capabilities to confuse the Jukal. As the Jukal and the Pandora fleet neared one another, the Pandora fleet turned around, apparently unable to take the battering anymore. They fired their cannons and missiles while at the same time their engines fired, arresting their motion and carrying them back toward the Jukal.

  One of the destroyers pushed itself into the Jukal fleet’s path, taking most of the fire. It exploded; the Jukal and Pandora fleets intersected one another, with the Jukal continuing out of the system as the Pandora fleet fled in-system.

  As the Pandora fleet used the explosion to go faster in-system, the Jukal had to turn around and try to fight the momentum that they had built up.

  The chase continued, now with the Jukal racing in-system as the Emerilians moved to the planets, looking to hide among them.

  Seeming to be pure happenstance, it also took them closer to the portal that was located deeper in-system.

  The Pandoran and Deq’ual fleets had all evaded the Jukal fleets in their own ways: some hiding in gas planets, others running through asteroid belts—though all of them had been stopped from escaping the Jukal systems by the Jukal fleets. When looking at one of the systems, then it might be possible; however, there were over twenty different systems that the human fleets had attacked.

  However, the Jukal did nothing but follow them, as they now started to move toward the portals in their different locations.

  Dave’s eyes moved from the different alerts and images from the sensor buoys as he looked at the thoroughfare once again.

  Shadows appeared behind Dave before resolving into Malsour.

  “How go the new arks and missile boats?” Dave looked over his shoulder.

  “Well, though the ark shipyards are a lot slower than the new slips that have been attached to Terra, I heard that there is a plan in place to add another five sections to Terra,” Malsour said.

  “Yeah, it’s a back-up plan.”

  Malsour nodded, understanding. “We finally got some more detailed images from the Jukal home world. There are several Deq’ual scout ships in-system, working to give us a better idea of what is going on with them. We’ve been able to pick up a lot of chatter about the different ways the Jukal Empire are playing up the fight. Seems that with Emerilia not being on the air anymore, this is the most watched event in the empire,” Malsour said.

  “Well, soon it’ll be time for them to see a new program.” Dave’s eyes fell on the portal. “Have they been talking about the portals that we used at the moonbase at all?”

  “Seems that Anna was able to mess up the images a bit, make it look like the ships were all coming from the moonbase, and not from the asteroid base and through a portal,” Malsour said.

  “I don’t like it. Still feels like we’re going to get found out.” Dave sighed.

  “Well, after we crush their fleets and take over their portal network, I don’t think that there’s going to be a whole lot that they can do about it,” Malsour said.

  Dave received a message that made him access his interface. He pulled it up as he stood taller. “Seems that some of those scout vessels you were talking about picked up some talk of people who were saying that everything seemed a bit weird with the different human fleets. Seems that it’s gaining traction. The military leaders have said that they want to move ahead with the plan,” Dave said. “Otherwise they think that we might lose the element of surprise.”

  Dave pulled out a Mirror of Communication. Malsour did the same as the two of them connected to a conference room. It was laid out like a command center. Here all the various factions of the humans were grouped together.

  Here, Forsyth and Adams ruled, Sato advised from Deq’ual, and Dave gave the final say.

  “Well, they’re dense but it doesn’t seem like they’re as dense as we were hoping.” Sato looked to Dave and Malsour, who had entered the command center.

  “What are we thinking?” Dave looked to the military commanders. He might be the man with his finger on the button, but he knew he was no master military strategist. That was the job of the people in front of him.

  They looked to one another before Adams waved for Forsyth to talk.

  “Sir, we think that it might be the time to strike. We have four fleets that are complete and we should have another two finished in just a few days. If the Jukal get wind of what’s going on, then they might be able to reverse the changes we make and then everything could come apart. We hit them now when it’s not in the back of their minds—we get the element of surprise and we can tear out the portal network from underneath them,” Forsyth said, not flinching away from Dave’s eyes in the slightest, even as he knew that this moment would determine a number of people’s fates.

  “Okay, well then, it’s time to take over that portal network.” Dave took a deep breath, his eyes falling on the screens behind them. “I’ll let you know as soon as we gain control of it.”

  “Yes, sir,” Forsyth said. The others nodded.

  Dave exited the Mirror of Communication and then teleported and portaled from the asteroid base to Ice City. He teleported into Ela-Dorn’s office.

  “Dave?” Ela-Dorn looked up from her work.

  “Time to take over the portal network.”

  “I’ll gather the team.” Ela-Dorn sent out messages through her interface. In a few minutes, nearly twenty people had gathered in the room, all of them experts on portal technologies and theories.

  Dave teleported them to a portal that took them to Terra. He took them to a portal that was hidden away. All of them looked at it with clear curiosity as they followed Dave and Ela-Dorn through the event horizon and stepped onto the Imperial carrier Datskun.

  A gray light appeared in front of them, fading away to reveal Bob in his wolfkin form. “I’m going to guess this isn’t some simple house call?” Bob asked.

  “No, it’s not. It’s about the portal network. It seems that now is the time to take it over,” Dave said.

  “Okay, let’s do it.” Bob teleported them to a holding area where a portal had its protective cover open and showed its internals. This was a Jukal portal, tied directly into the network. With the Datskun’s codes, the ship was able to pass through portals and command them. It had taken Anna a few years to work through the firewalls but it gave her something to do as Bob built Emerilia and looked over it.

  It was only when the Jukal found out about Emerilia that Bob started to take apart the portals, with him cutting off their remote access to them. The Jukal thought they were destroyed, while instead Bob was using one to gain access into the portal network.

  Being an Imperial carrier, it could not only pass through a portal, it could actually get them to connect to different portals.

  Linked to the network of portals, to the Frankenstein version in front of them, it was all open for the taking. They just had to access all of the portals as fast as possible and input controls that would place them under their control.

  “Okay, everyone, get a station. It’s time to start.” With a flick of Dave’s hands, his armor was changed to simple hemp clothes.

  The gray cloak around Bob dissolved as he stood at a console. Shard’s holographic body appeared among the consoles facing the portals. Anna appeared as Jeeves descended and Jackie came into being.

  Several holographic boxes appeared. These were the AIs of Emerilia, the ones that Bob and Anna had created in order to infiltrate the various systems that controlled and looked after the people of Emerilia.

  Steve appeared in holographic form, making a show of stretching out his hands, a bright smile on his face as he stood with the AIs.

  Dave organized his screens before his gaze passed over the others in the room. When the last one had finished altering their station to how they liked, he let out a cool breath. “Dial up the portals.”

  Bob’s hands
flashed as runic lines appeared on the different AI’s bodies as they used all of their computing power to call up every single portal that the Datskun could, then used all of the information banks of the portals to connect to the portals that they had connected to in the past.

  They didn’t simply have to have the right codes; they had to know the right positions of all these portals to establish a connection with them. As they were connected, Dave and the others broke down the portals by group and they started to make changes to their security measures in order to make sure that they were under their control.

  Within a seeder located deep underneath Cliff-Hill, tens of portals were activating. As they were connected to another portal, machines would toss through soul gem constructs. At the asteroid base, where Terra had been located as well as the ark shipyards and the moonbase, the massive ship-sized portals activated and large soul gem constructs were thrown out.

  The AIs and the engineers worked through reams of data, checking through all of it as they pulled control away from the Jukal Empire over their portal networks faster than they could try to regain control.

  Here and there, portals were shut down and disconnected physically, but the ones that were in the middle of a star system didn’t have anything or anyone around them that could turn off their power sources.

  No one dared to make portals, until Dave had. Now the knowledge that he and the people who had helped in making the portals exceeded that of the people in the Jukal Empire.

  After all, they would need to gather hundreds of different craftsmen in order to understand the parts. Coming to understand the system as a whole had been something that was left up to the AIs and computer programs of the Jukal Empire. It was something that had worked and they didn’t care to change it.

  Across the Jukal Empire, portals flashed with light as they were activated. People looked on with fear, expecting the Jukal armies and their ships to come through and lay waste to those who dared to defy them. However, instead, glowing crystals shot through.

  These crystals floated in the air as the portal’s event horizon disappeared and the lights around the portal stopped glowing. The crystal shot backward and seemed to explode. Four clamps formed and latched onto the portal, weaving into the portal’s circuits.

  People cried out in alarm and shock, unsure of what was happening and not knowing what to do with these events.

  Although the people of the empire were confused, the true Jukal were shocked. Those on the home world, especially those within the emperor’s residence and managed the empire, were filled with a new kind of fear as they found their network descending into chaos as they lost control over portal after portal.

  “Send the fleets!” Dave yelled. His words transmitted to those within the Datskun and the commanders of the human military forces.

  His words turned into movements as the Pandora fleets seemed to disappear from the Jukal fleets’ sensors.

  They used their teleportation magic and shot toward the portals in their systems. Around Emerilia, the fleets there moved toward the moonbase.

  A portal activated in one of the contested systems. The Jukal fleet filled with excitement as the portal opened. Their excitement turned to confusion as from the portal, forty Pandora vessels emerged, moving toward the Jukal fleet.

  The Deq’ual fleet that had been fleeing now turned. Their weapons came off safe as their speed increased. The Jukal watched with wide eyes as the Deq’ual ships and the ark with them had turned into the hunters.

  The Pandora ships disappeared one moment, and then reappeared next to the Deq’ual fleet. Their runic lining flared with power as their missile ports opened and their cannons came to bear.

  The Jukal fleet moved about, in a state of shock and panic; however, there was nothing that they could do.

  Drones and fighters filled the areas between ships. Missiles shot forth from both fleets. Explosions rippled through the void as defenses tried to disrupt missiles and shields flared to life with impacts of rounds and the destructive wrath of their weapons.

  No quarter was given by either side. This was a fight to the death.

  The Jukal ships fired their massive weapons. The smaller human ships got hammered, but their Mana barriers were much stronger, allowing them to absorb the hits and keep moving. The Jukal’s barriers showed signs of weakness and, unlike the human ships, they couldn’t teleport away if they started to take too much damage.

  Grand working barrier busters, that worked on overloading the shields with so much energy that the controllers couldn’t handle it, showed off their prowess. The Jukal shields continued to fluctuate, changing colors and becoming more and more chaotic.

  Spell formations appeared around the Pandora fleet, as the mages within them cast powerful spells that were projected through the runic lining of the hull.

  Plasma cannons formed of Mana roared; artillery spells fired barely contained Mana.

  As the ships got closer, drones and fighters crossed one another. The void was filled with laser beams and rounds, creating a kaleidoscope of destruction that was being vented by both sides.

  ***

  As Dave was watching and taking over the portals within the Jukal Empire, Frank was on the BloodHawk.

  “Teleport!” Nav barked out as the entire fleet teleported away from the chasing Jukal. All of the Pandora fleets appeared in front of the in-system portal.

  It flashed with light, showing another system on the other side. The six ships of the fleet rushed through the portal.

  “Entering event horizon!” Navigation called out, now in their element. Since the Jukal had shown up, they had been toying with them. It was tense work, but they weren’t able to push their ships to their limits.

  Now that they were able to unleash the power of their ships, there was a new fire in all of them. It was time for them to show their teeth and counterattack.

  “All batteries, be ready for immediate action,” Frank called out to his people.

  All missile ports were open and cannon batteries were unlocked. As soon as the system they had been in disappeared and a new system filled their screens, interceptor modules started scans of the new star system without having to be ordered to do so.

  “Receiving telemetry,” Communications said. New maps uploaded, as well as location information of the forces within the system. They continued talking, not even pausing for breath. “The rest of Pandora Fleet One is moving to engage.”

  Frank noticed the event horizon had just disappeared when the portal was already dialing up another location.

  “Nav, let’s go meet up with the rest of the fleet. Teleport is allowed. Once we are assembled, let’s move to assist our Deq’ual allies.” Xiao sounded calm but Frank could see his fists clenched white. They had trained for this for months; now it was time to do away with the simulations and training sessions.

  “Teleporting for link-up,” Nav called out.

  Another Pandora fleet exited the portal as BloodHawk and its accompanying ships flashed into existence within the other half of their true fleet.

  “Ships are moving into position,” Nav called out, adjusting the different commands on her console. The BloodHawk took the lead position as the rest of the fleet moved to follow her as if they had never been separated.

  “Pandora Fleet Three is entering the system. The Deq’ual fleet in-system is turning to face the Jukal,” Communications rattled out.

  “Once we are in formation, we will teleport to support,” Xiao said.

  People went about their work. Frank talked on a private channel to the fire controllers, creating fire plans to rain down on the Jukal. A number of them watched the feeds that were linked by Mirror of Communication to the other fleets that were engaging the Jukal already. From there, they were able to figure out what worked and what didn’t.

  “Looks like we’re going to have to use that Nalheim attack,” Frank murmured.

  They still hadn’t figured out a good firing system for the Nalheim disruption
attacks. They could emulate it, but the power was greatly reduced. So instead of sacrificing power, they had a crew of Nalheim on every ship. They wielded a spear that would communicate the firing procedure to the ship’s magical coding, turning into a disrupting attack.

  It was ridiculous and unorthodox, but it worked.

  “Fleet is ready for teleport!” Navigation called out.

  “Teleport,” Xiao said.

  The plot changed as they crossed thousands of kilometers in a second.

  “Seems we’ve spooked them,” Captain Xiao said.

  “Incoming fire! They’re releasing drones!” Sensors yelled out.

  “Barriers up! Fire control, what are you thinking?” Xiao asked as Mana barriers sprung up around the ships.

  Frank looked at his different options and then what was coming their way. “Hold the drones and fighters on our side; advance full speed.” Frank’s hands moved over the different screens as he passed down orders to his people.

  “Do as the man says,” Xiao said, putting his complete faith in Frank.

  “All ships to full speed!” Communication’s voice rang out throughout the Deq’ual fleet that had originally been in the system, as well as Pandora Fleet One.

  The runic lines of the Pandora fleet ships and the magical circles that covered the Deq’ual ships shone in the darkness as their magical drives applied massive amounts of thrust, moving them forward at alarming speeds.

  “Interceptor modules,” Frank said, as missiles and laser beams shot out at the human fleet.

  The Deq’ual and Pandora defenses lit up the void around the ships, streams of light pouring from them. Spell formations flared into existence as mages within the ships unleashed their rage onto the incoming missiles.

  The interceptors disrupted a number of the laser attacks, creating a backlash on the Jukal ships as their sea of missiles reached out toward the human ships.

  A number of them were destroyed, by spells or grand working rounds and Mana bolts. However, a number of them made it through this fire, to explode against the various Mana barriers.