Embers of War (Adventures of the Starship Satori Book 8)

by Kevin McLaughlin

  “Oh, that’s not all he has to tell you,” Beth said, drawling out the words. “You’re gonna love his idea for the colony’s home base, once you hear it.”

  “Oh?” Charline asked, arching an eyebrow at Andy.

  “Well…um…while we have the Satori here for backup, and since we have their troop squad handy, I was hoping we could borrow them and…” Andy said, talking rapidly with more than a little stuttering.

  “Take over the alien nest?” Charline said.

  Andy just blinked like a deer in the proverbial headlights. “Yeah.”

  “Way ahead of you. I’ve requisitioned some gear which ought to help with that,” Charline said. She stood back up and turned toward Beth. “My dear captain, can we borrow your help in a little bug hunt?”

  “It would be my pleasure,” Beth said. She flashed a smile at Charline, but inside she was already shaking at the idea of going up against those killer insects another time. Descending into that nest was going to be a revival of her worst nightmare.

  Ten

  Hyperspace was weird.

  As strange as the experience of flying through the Satori's wormholes had been, Dan had more or less gotten used to it. But the Naga drives didn't open up wormholes. There was no instantaneous transit between locations. Instead, their technology folded space in some manner that he didn't entirely understand. Dan had a hunch that the engineers who'd attempted to explain the system to him didn't understand how it worked either, for all their bluster. They were trying. And they'd made it function.

  For now, that would have to be enough.

  The front view screen of the bridge showed a spiraling pattern of swirling light, flashing and flickering across the panel. It looked oddly similar to the wormholes, which made Dan think the technologies were somehow related. Was it possible that the Naga drive was merely a weaker version of the same technology? If so, had the Naga developed it independently, because there were only so many effective ways to travel between star-systems? Or were they linked in some way?

  There was so much they had yet to learn about the Naga and even more so about the mysterious race which had built the Satori's drive. Was that the same race the Naga were battling now? The evidence seemed to suggest it. Who were they, and how were they involved with the Naga?

  A ping attracted Dan's attention, the alert sounding loud in the otherwise quiet bridge. The Independence was fully staffed now. Five crew sat quietly at their stations on the bridge, and another two hundred souls staffed the rest of the ship. They'd taken on a full complement of twenty fighters, and had enough supplies to operate for weeks of extended deployment if necessary.

  "Sir, something strange on scans," Ensign De Toro called out.

  "Define strange," Dan said, rising from his seat to walk over to the ensign's station.

  "I'm not sure, but it looks like-"

  The ship shook, hard enough to throw Dan to the deck. He landed with a grunt. Lights went red, flashing an alert that the ship was under attack. Like he hadn't figured that out already. There was a shrieking sound like metal screaming against metal, and then the swirling on the view-screen vanished, replaced by a static star-field.

  "Report!" Dan called out, struggling back to his feet.

  "We've been knocked out of hyperspace, sir," De Toro said.

  "By what?" Dan asked. How was that even possible? They should be invisible to sensors while they were in hyper. Essentially the ship was in a pocket universe or something like that. There shouldn't be a way to knock them back into real space. But clearly, someone knew how to do it.

  "Check for nearby encroachments!" Dan called, settling back into his seat. "Scramble fighters."

  He was willing to bet that this was no accident. Something had fired on them with a weapon that was beyond their ability to predict or understand. That meant they were likely hostile, and probably about to make a move while the Independence was still recovering from surprise.

  "Ship noted, coming at us fast from our aft," De Toro said. "Multiple energy signatures detected from the vessel!"

  "Brace for impact! Helm, rotate us so that the impacts aren't all striking the same spot," Dan ordered.

  "Aye sir, rotating," Ensign Scott replied. The star field began to twist around, turning in a lazy spin. But the Independence was no fighter, able to turn swiftly and avoid damage. It was a massive vessel. Heavy armor was its main defense. The Naga had built it to take hard shots, and human engineers had done all they could to increase the thickness of the outer armor. Now it was time to see how well that would hold.

  The ship trembled three times as shots impacted the hull. Dan listened but didn't hear any secondary explosions.

  "Damage report," Dan said. He needed to keep his cool. These people were relying on him to have a steady hand while guiding the ship.

  "Armor held against all three impacts, but it scored pretty deep hits," De Toro replied.

  "Johansson, hit them with the Naga guns. Arm missiles as well. Where are those fighters?" Dan asked.

  "First fighters are leaving now," DeToro replied.

  Dan felt the gentle thrum of the ship reacting to the fighter wing's mass departing. They could only launch four fighters at a time. It would take a few minutes to get the entire compliment into action.

  "Give me a look at what we're facing," Dan said.

  The screen changed, showing a ship of bluish metal, all curved lines and sharp points. It had a shark-like feel to it. Like a predator. But there was a grace implied by the ship's lines that his own starship's blocky appearance lacked. Whoever had built that thing was aiming for beauty as well as effectiveness. Dan could only hope they'd skimped a little on defenses.

  "Take that thing out," Dan said.

  Jets of plasma streamed from the Naga guns still mounted on the Independence. They shot across toward the enemy vessel, slamming home with a burst of explosive energy. But the enemy vessel simply passed through the blast like it wasn't even there.

  "Did we do anything to them at all?" Dan asked.

  "Unclear, sir," De Toro replied. "There's some sort of energy field around the ship which protected them from the plasma."

  "They have shields, eh?" Dan said, raising his eyebrows. That might make this battle even more one-sided than it had seemed before. But the Naga relied on energy weapons far more than missiles. If this ship had been designed to battle the Naga, perhaps he could spring a surprise on them. "Fire missiles. All tubes, maximum rate of fire."

  Pillars of fire streaked away from the Independence as six missiles fired from their launch tubes. The enemy ship saw them as well, twisting to change course. The rockets altered their trajectory to continue the pursuit.

  "Got them nervous enough to try to dodge, anyway," Dan said.

  Then a bolt of energy shot out from the other ship, blasting one of the missiles apart. It fired again, and a third time, taking out two more missiles. The other three managed to impact. Explosions briefly obscured view of the ship. The Independence shuddered again as a second volley of missiles launched.

  "Keep them coming," Dan said, observing as the blasts cleared. The enemy ship was scorched, and bleeding air from at least one spot. "If we can hurt you, then we can kill you. Order fighters to engage at long range with missiles and rail-guns. Their shields don't seem as effective against physical objects.

  The Independence fired a third volley of missiles while the enemy ship was still trying to destroy or dodge the second set. Meanwhile, Dan's console was showing eight more missiles streaking in at their foe from the fighters. Their rail-gun rounds began impacting on the enemy ship as well. The shields on the ship had to be holding back some of the damage, or it would have been torn apart already. But even with the shields, it was still taking hits.

  Then all at once the ship accelerated, and a brilliant flash of light that Dan knew very well appeared directly in front of its nose. The alien ship soared into the wormhole it had opened and vanished.

  The bridge crew gave a cheer. Dan smile
d, allowing them the moment of exuberance, but he didn't join in. The evidence was mounting that this 'Death' menace the Naga faced was none other than the ancient aliens who'd built the Satori, and who'd once lived in cities on the world they called Dust. Something had happened to them, some war millennia ago. The Naga believed them to have been completely defeated, but apparently not all of them were gone.

  That was going to complicate things. An enemy that had wormhole tech, cloaking devices, and weapons that would tear a ship right out of hyperspace was going to be a problem. Whether they'd attacked the Independence because it looked something like a Naga warship, or because it was just their nature to attack first, Dan didn't know. But either way, the first blows had been struck between their races. He had a hunch it might not be the last.

  "Recall the fighters, and let's get back underway," Dan said. The sooner they got to Naga space, the better he would feel. Which was something he'd never imagined he would think, before today. At least the Naga were the devils that he knew. This other race was something else entirely.

  Eleven

  Beth wasn’t anywhere near the front of the heavily armed column descending into the ground, but that wasn’t enough to keep the sweat from breaking out on her brow. Some of that could be attributed to the ever-present heat of the world they called Dust, but a lot of it was because of where they were going.

  The Satori had settled down not far from the entrance to the cave complex. The plan wasn’t all that elaborate. Charline had arranged to acquire a case of the Naga rifles. Beth had modified all of them to fire the highly concentrated shots that would punch through the alien insects’ carapace. Andy had one of the weapons, Charline another, Ayala a third. Beth carried one, too. The other two had been handed out to sharpshooters from the Satori’s security team.

  Six rifles that were sure to punch through the targets’ armor. Beth had to hope it would be enough. The other dozen troops with them had been armed with grenade launchers, each one using grenades that carried a SABOT style projectile in their core. Those had proven to be pretty effective against the aliens as well. They were armed for bear - or for giant, man-eating insect, anyway.

  That didn’t make the descent into their lair any easier. The passage began in an opening on the surface. From the looks of it, the place had once been some sort of building. Weather and wear over the centuries of disuse had turned it into more of a cave, but Beth could still see the signs that this place had been shaped by intelligent hands, not just made by nature. The floor was too smooth, the grade of the spiral passage as it descended too precise.

  The cool interior of the tunnel didn’t dampen her perspiration. If anything Beth found herself sweating more as they proceeded down into the ground. The passage was like a spiral staircase without the stairs. She already knew what they were going to find at the bottom. It was a massive open space, filled with stalactites and stalagmites formed as water seeped through the rock over the ages the place had been abandoned.

  And in the pools of water dotting the floor? The young of the insects she’d battled more than once. Deeper in the cave, in the patches of darkness? That was where the bigger insects would be hiding.

  She’d been through all of this before. It was a terrifying experience the first time. The battle against these bugs on the lunar base had been even worse. Yet there she was, heading into another fight with them again. She could have remained behind on the ship. No one held a gun to her head and forced her to come. But her pride wouldn’t let Beth step aside.

  Even when going meant facing the worst of her demons.

  “We’ve reached the bottom of the tunnel,” Andy said, his voice relayed over their radios. He was about fifteen feet ahead of her. “Fan out, but stay close enough to cover each other.”

  There were a few affirmative murmurs, but no one cracked jokes. There hadn’t been one off-color comment about ‘another bug hunt’ during the entire planning or execution of the operation. Most of the people headed down on this mission had already faced off against these things at least once. The ones who hadn’t were well aware they were replacements for people who’d died fighting the alien insects in the battle for Earth’s moon.

  Nobody was in a joking mood.

  Beth took another step and found herself on flat ground. She was out of the passage. Her helmet had a light affixed to it, shining a steady beam that let her see where she was going. Ahead of her, Beth could see the lights from other members of the team crisscrossing as they spread out to sweep the floor.

  “Got movement,” one soldier said. There was the sharp report of a rifle firing a grenade. “Just a small one, it’s dead now.”

  “Careful. They’re protective of the young,” Beth said. “Watch for contact.”

  But nothing rushed out of the dark at them. No slavering fangs or scimitar claws tore at her people. As they continued to sweep the cave, Beth allowed herself to hope that perhaps there were none of the big ones left. That all they would find were the small, juvenile insect larvae.

  She knew that couldn’t be the case, though. Where there were young, there had to be older ones as well. At least one. Maybe more. There had been six of the things working in concert on the moon, so she knew they could cooperate as a nest if they wanted to.

  Two more gunshots from off to her left. She looked that way, her light stabbing through the darkness. She saw the flash as a third grenade fired, saw the impact and the little splash as it tore into a small target.

  “Just the larvae down here,” Ayala said over the radio. “Where are the big ones?”

  If we keep killing the smaller ones, they’re going to come after us, Beth wanted to say. They were out there. She could almost feel their malevolent stares, glaring at her out of the shadows. They would strike. It would be soon, and sudden. But where were they?

  She reached a pool of water. Soldiers had already cleared it. She could see the body of a young insect floating on the surface of the pool, its shattered shell mute testimony to the effectiveness of their weapons - against the little ones, at least. Beth waded out into the pool a bit, the water quickly growing ankle deep, and then it was up to her knees, the icy liquid filling her boots and freezing her feet. It seemed impossible that the water was so cold down here when on the surface the temperature would evaporate these pools in a matter of hours.

  Beth shone her beam along the bottom of the pool. There was nothing hiding in there, though. The water was too shallow for one of the big ones to conceal itself, and the larvae had either died or fled. She looked back around at the team.

  They’d spread out even more. She could still make out the point, where Andy, Ayala, and Charline stood close together. But the other soldiers had spread out, sticking together in teams of two or three as they examined one pool after another. In two places she could see where their lights reflected off stone walls. They’d cleared most of the space, then. Only ahead, where Andy’s little crew led the way into the deepest dark, was there still the unknown waiting to be discovered.

  Two more gunshots flashed from the right. But the shots were not accompanied by yells or alerts, which probably meant they were just more juvenile insects. Beth glanced their way. No one was running or screaming, which was a good sign that they hadn’t run into any of the big ones yet.

  “Andy, we should regroup,” Beth said. “We’re getting very spread out.”

  He stopped. Beth could see his light swing back and forth as he surveyed the soldiers. “You’re right. Let’s rally in the middle. We’ll start placing lights down here. Give us more area that we know is clear, and then continue checking out the rest of the complex. It seems to keep going back here, don’t know how far.”

  “Sounds like a plan. I’ll call to the Satori, have them send down a team with portable lights,” Beth said.

  Inwardly, she heaved a sigh of relief. It would be better if they were closer together. They’d appear a much more dangerous target. Maybe threatening enough that it would convince the insects to back off. Cert
ainly, their weapons were strong enough to face down one of the things if it did rush them. It was the attack from the shadows, the one they didn’t see coming, that would be the most dangerous.

  Something plopped into the water next to her. At first she thought it was merely another drop of water, falling from the ceiling to slowly refill the pool. But then something else fell from above - a small rock. It pinged off her helmet before settling into the pool with a plopping sound.

  Beth looked up, the beam of light from her helmet flashing across a ceiling that was writhing with movement.

  Twelve

  The beam of her light didn't reveal much of the vaulted ceiling above Beth's head. Just enough to see shining carapace, gleaming talons, and one enormous insect body writhing against another. There were a lot of the things. How many, she couldn't be sure. Four? Ten? A hundred? There was no way to know.

  "Enemy is up!" Beth shouted. She raised her rifle even as she was yelling the warning. As soon as her muzzle was in line with the twisting mass of insects over her head, she fired.

  The rifle was a Naga design. It fired a pellet of energy, with a variety of settings. On the lowest setting, the weapon acted like a bean-bag gun, shooting a relatively soft ball of force about the size of a grapefruit. At higher settings it was like a regular ballistic rifle. But these guns had been modified, honing the ball of energy down to a dot the size of a pinhead. The same kinetic energy focused to a much narrower space.

  Beth’s shot hit something. She could tell because it was like the entire ceiling dropped down on her. The monstrous thing she'd fired at crashed into the pool around her. Something knocked her from her feet, and then she was underwater, liquid filling her mouth as she tried to take a breath.