One more Kkiktchikut vessel might be enough to finally do them in, but then he saw one of the Bug ships explode. Missiles and railgun fire raked across the front of the Independence, stabbing into another Kkiktchikut cruiser and scoring it badly. As the new ship crossed in front of his own, still firing with every gun it had, Dan recognized it. The Satori had arrived.
He couldn’t help it. His heart swelled with hope and fear at the same time, just for seeing that ship.
Hope, because wherever the Satori went, good things seemed to just happen. Even in the most desperate times, she’d borne her crew home again. But fear, too, because Dan knew Beth was inside that ship. They were horribly outmatched here. Even with the timely arrival of another warship, they were still outgunned. He wanted more than anything else in the world to keep her safe, and here Beth was in harm’s way. Again.
Dan shook his head to clear it. His crew needed him. Beth needed him, too. He watched as two Kkiktchikut cruisers flitted through wormholes directly behind the Satori. She jumped into her own wormhole and appeared again at a tangent to their course, blasting them with railgun fire. Dan shook his head again. This sort of fighting was almost impossible to watch. It was unpredictable and uncanny, how the ships would flash out, then appear again somewhere else. Like a game of chess, Beth and the Kkiktchikut crews were trying to predict the responses the other would use and out-think them.
“All guns, support the Satori with our fire. See if we can add a little damage to the mess she’s making out there,” Dan said. The Independence shook again, hard, and Dan heard the screaming of tortured metal twisting. His ears popped. They’d lost pressure someplace. The doors would secure whatever section had been opened to space, to keep the air inside the ship, but that wasn’t going to help if they were turned into swiss cheese.
“Sir, massive energy surge off toward the Naga moon,” De Toro said.
“On screen,” Dan replied.
The main viewer flickered and then showed an image of a massive wormhole opening up. Dan gritted his teeth together. The Bugs could bring an entire fleet through a hole that large. But as he watched, only two massive metal prongs extended from the wormhole. The metal grew longer, turning into something that looked vaguely like the mandibles of an enormous beetle. And still the ship came through, over a mile long, the largest thing Dan had ever seen in space.
“My god,” Dan said.
“There’s another energy buildup on that ship, sir,” De Toro said. “It looks like a wormhole buildup, but it’s not quite the same. I don’t know what to make of it.”
One of the Naga battlecruisers broke off from the fight and closed with the behemoth vessel. Its guns spat useless plasma which simply sparked off the shields around the monstrous ship. The volley of missiles it fired was stopped by uncannily accurate counter-missile lasers. The Naga ship kept on coming, blazing away with everything it had. Still the Kkiktchikut ship hadn’t replied.
“Energy has stopped building,” De Toro said.
“Get out of there, you fools,” Dan whispered.
But it was too late. The Kkiktchikut ship turned slightly so that its bow was facing directly at the Naga ship. Then it spat out a blast of white energy that immolated the battlecruiser completely. Dan blinked. One moment, there was a huge bright light. The next, both the light and the battlecruiser were gone, along with a couple of hundred Naga.
The behemoth continued sailing forward, slowly building speed on a course headed directly toward the Naga homeworld.
“Independence, are you there?”
A radio call - from the Satori. Dan smiled despite the desperate situation. “Always good to hear your voice, Beth.”
“Glad you’re OK,” she replied. “Listen, Naketh says that big ship there is the Kkiktchikut planet-killer. If it gets in range, it’ll fire at the surface.”
“How bad?” Dan asked, wondering who Naketh was.
“Total. One shot, and it’s game over. He said it would liquefy the planet’s surface.”
Dan whistled. That upped the game a little bit. “We’ll do what we can.”
“Us too. Moving to engage. Stay out of the path of that main gun.”
That much hadn’t needed saying. He didn’t want to be anywhere close to the nose of that ship when it fired. But they were going to have their work cut out for them. The behemoth was coming directly at the planet - and the Independence was smack in the middle.
“Scott, take us up from the orbital plane a couple of thousand kilometers. I want all guns focusing on the big guy,” Dan said. He keyed the radio to reach Larsen. “I need the remaining fighters on escort duty. Keep the smaller flies off us while we go take out the mothership.”
“You’ve got it, sir,” Larsen replied. On Dan’s screen, the icons of the fighter group formed up around his ship, their fire causing nearby Kkiktchikut vessels to blink away using their wormhole drives.
Dan saw the Satori appear behind the enemy ship, raking the aft area with guns and missiles. The mothership returned fire. That big gun wasn’t the only weapon it had, after all. There were energy batteries like the ones the Kkiktchikut cruisers used all over the hull. Dan watched two of the shots slam into the Satori before she could jump out, and winced. Beth’s ship didn’t have as much armor as his did. Those impacts would hurt.
They’d hurt him, too. As badly wounded as the Independence was, the ship couldn’t take too many full volleys of that many guns. Fortunately the rest of the Naga fleet were turning to engage the Kkiktchikut behemoth as well. Dan checked his screen. Only ten Naga vessels left. A tiny handful compared to the fleet they had once had, and the Kkiktchikut outnumbered them two to one.
“Hit them with everything we have,” Dan said.
There was no elegance to this. There wasn’t any real grace to the battle. It was a dozen tiny flies attempting to stab the heart of a giant bull while avoiding the stings of a swarm of deadly wasps at the same time. They pounded the Kkiktchikut flagship with everything they had. Other Naga vessels formed up around the Independence, seeing that the Earth-made railguns were still passing through the Kkiktchikut shields while their own plasma weapons could not. One Naga vessel exploded, taking a hit that was aimed for the Independence.
Dan blinked at the sacrifice. Not long ago, Naga and Humans had been ready to wipe each other out. But with a common foe they had at last also found common ground. If nothing else came of this fight, that was at least something to be proud of.
Thirty-Four
Beth tapped out coordinates madly on her console. They’d darted in, scored some hits, and dashed back out again. But they didn’t have much time. The Kkiktchikut would be all over them in a few moments. They were following her ship now, three cruisers. More than enough to take down the Satori in a stand-up fight. Which was why she had no intention of giving them the sort of pitched battle they were looking for.
“Sending you coordinates, Foster,” Beth said.
“Got them, ma’am. We’ve got juice for two more jumps, though. Next one is going to have to be far enough outside the battle that we can recover some power before we rejoin,” her pilot replied.
“Understood,” Beth said. The screen flashed with an alert. The Kkiktchikut vessels had arrived and were preparing to fire. “Jump now!”
They opened a wormhole and dove away before the energy beams could slam into the ship. The Satori appeared precisely where she’d calculated the destination. They were directly above the Kkiktchikut behemoth, only a few kilometers away, and facing bow down toward the point where their scans had said the enemy ship discharged its main gun. If the Satori could just take out that weapon, then they’d effectively defang this thing.
“Fire!” Beth said.
The ship rocked as every weapon fired at once, a massive fusillade of missiles and railguns. They rocketed toward the enemy ship, energy weapons scoring hits as they drew closer, firing as rapidly as the guns could reload.
Another energy weapon hit the Satori, and alarms flashed. They
’d been hit bad, this time. Beth could feel it. Something was off about the ship. That beam had stabbed deep enough to do some real damage.
“Port missile bays are disabled,” Ayala said. “They almost took out engineering with that shot. Another hit in the same area…”
He didn’t have to finish the sentence. They all knew what would happen if the Satori lost her drive. Well, they all knew there were two possible answers, neither of them pleasant for the crew of the Satori. Either they’d blow to bits, or they would be stuck floating in space as a powerless piece of debris.
“Hernandez, did we hit it?” Beth asked.
“No, ma’am. Power levels still rising in the Kkiktchikut weapon.”
Shit, and double shit! They were closing with the enemy vessel now, almost ready to crash into it. The right call was to retreat, to jump out and fight another day. Use the last of their juice to wormhole far enough that they could escape. But doing that would give the Kkiktchikut time to blast the Naga homeworld into magma. Running would mean giving up on the Naga.
And on Dan.
“Fire the wormhole as a weapon,” Beth said. “Target that main gun of theirs.”
Anything the wormhole touched, it destroyed. It ought to tear up the housing around the weapon. If they could stab deeply enough into the enemy ship, maybe they could take the gun out of the picture. But it was the last charge they had. Firing it like this saved nothing for an escape.
“Yes, ma’am,” Foster said. His voice was grim, but it didn’t shake, and he didn’t argue or debate the decision.
A blast of light spat from the Satori’s bow, sending a stream of pure force in front of the ship that tore a hole in the fabric of space. Whatever the far end of the wormhole touched was annihilated, broken into component atoms or converted to energy in the hideous release of force. Plating tore away from the Kkiktchikut ship, setting off secondary explosions beneath the hull. More and more of the ship burned away as the Satori slipped sideways across it, still blazing away with the wormhole drive like it was a laser scalpel.
Then the drive cut off, out of juice. A set of four energy cannons on the behemoth sliced into the Satori’s hull, tearing holes through the ship. Alarms rang and then went silent as the atmosphere evacuated through the new tears rent in the vessel. Beth’s console exploded into flames in front of her, sending shards of glass pinging against the face-plate of her helmet.
The Satori tumbled end over end, venting air giving the ship spin as it fell away from the behemoth vessel. Beth knew in her gut that the Satori was badly injured, perhaps mortally so.
“Ayala, report,” Beth said as calmly as she could muster. Gravity was still working, so the alien drive hadn’t been compromised. How much else was left of the ship remained to be seen.
“We’ve been holed, well, all over. Weapons are out. Minimal engine controls. Crew says they can get the number three railgun back online in a few minutes,” he replied.
Beth turned to Hernandez. “How’s the enemy?”
“We hurt them pretty bad, Captain. But that energy build-up…” He hesitated.
She already knew the answer, from the tone of his voice. “We didn’t kill it, did we?”
“No, ma’am,” he replied. “Ma’am, I have multiple Kkiktchikut cruisers closing on our position.”
They’d made the enemy mad, at least. They were out of the fight, but the Kkiktchikut wanted to make sure her ship was put down permanently. She could respect that. They’d done more than their fair share of damage. Beth wracked her brains, trying to think of something she could do to get them all out of this mess. Nothing came to mind. Without enough power to jump away, without even the energy to use their guns, the Satori was a sitting duck. It was over.
“I’m sorry,” Beth said, making a sweeping gesture with her arm and bowing her head.
“You did it right, Captain. It’s been an honor,” Ayala replied.
She looked up and met his eyes, saw him smile. She gave him a wry grin in return. Funny, that once not long ago the man had tried to take over the ship from her. They’d come a long way in a short time.
It wouldn’t be long now. Beth looked down at the scan display and saw three Kkiktchikut cruisers bearing down on their position. Her helmet chirped, alerting Beth to an incoming call. She recognized the caller signature. It was Naketh.
“Satori, you seem to be worse for wear. Sorry we are late,” Naketh said.
Missiles slammed into the nearest Kkiktchikut cruiser, blasting it apart. The other two darted away through wormholes before the rockets tracking them could lock on and impact. The Satori was in the clear, for the moment at least. Beth exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and sagged against the console. One minute she was sure they were all dead. The next, they had a fighting chance at life again.
“Thanks for the assist. That big ship over there needs to go down,” Beth said.
“I see it. We are moving to engage,” Naketh said.
“We’re a few points ahead of you on the scoreboard. Better catch up,” Beth said.
“I respectfully submit that the big ship counts as more than one,” Naketh replied.
Beth stood from her chair on shaky legs and made her way to Foster’s console. Her own was smashed, and the big view-screen had a massive crack running through it. That would be useless until it was replaced. She hated feeling blind. The scan console might have more information, but she felt more in the middle of things standing near the helm.
“Where is Naketh’s ship?” Beth asked. Maybe she could help guide him in so that he could hit the enemy in the same spot her ship had already scored.
“He’s done a gravity-assisted dive around the planet, ma’am,” Foster said. “That’s what took him so long to get here. His ship has an incredible velocity built up.”
Beth saw it now, the ship racing across the scan display like it was a missile. Naketh was headed almost directly at the monstrous ship. He’d only have seconds to target and hit it as the ships passed each other. Then she looked at the course again and understood. Naketh wasn’t doing a fly-by.
“Naketh! Stop - there has to be another way to kill that thing,” Beth said into her radio.
“You were the one who told me their shields were weak against kinetic weapons, correct?” Naketh said. “What better kinetic strike than a ship at full speed? I recommend you try to get clear. This is likely going to make a big bang.”
“Naketh…”
“It has been an honor to fight alongside you, Captain.”
The Kkiktchikut had figured out what the Naga ship was up to. The big ship was turning, trying to bring its main gun into alignment to take Naketh out. But Beth could already see it wasn’t going to make the turn in time. It was too big, going too fast. He was coming in from an oblique enough angle that the Kkiktchikut simply didn’t have time.
That didn’t stop them from hammering him with every other weapon at their disposal. Energy beams tore into Naketh’s ship, ripping apart deck plating, tearing through armor. Every beam weapon in the Kkiktchikut fleet seemed focused on his battlecruiser for those last few moments.
“Get us out of here, Foster,” Beth said.
“Yes ma’am,” he replied. The Satori banked in an ungainly manner and sped away at the best acceleration they could manage. Beth watched the distance between her ship and the Kkiktchikut behemoth grow, hoping it would be enough.
Then Naketh’s ship slammed home.
There was a burst of light like a new sun was being born as the two ships collided. The Naga ship impacted close enough to the Kkiktchikut main gun that it destroyed their energy containment. All the energy they’d been storing up to throw at the surface of the planet ignited right there in the prow of their ship. The secondary explosions were cataclysmic and almost instantaneous. There was no time for anything. The largest ship Beth had ever seen turned into a slowly growing fireball and was gone.
And along with it, the first Naga Beth had ever met who had shown her tha
t aliens to could understand nobility, honor, and even…humor.
All around her, other traces began vanishing off the radar. One after another the Kkiktchikut vessels were flickering away, using wormholes to depart the field of battle. They still outnumbered the defenders, but without the big ship perhaps they had no way to finish the planet off? Whatever the reason, they all acted almost in unison. A scant five seconds after the mothership blew up, the last remaining Kkiktchikut cruiser used a wormhole to vanish. The battle for the Naga homeworld was over.
Thirty-Five
“I will miss you,” Dan said. It felt strange to say those words.
Garul barked a laugh. “And I, you. Strange that we met as foes twice, and now part as allies.”
They were standing in the landing bay of the Independence. Garul and the other Naga prisoners were boarding a Naga shuttle, preparing to return to their people. There was no longer any question of trying to recover the ship from Dan. Apparently their fighting in defense of the Naga homeworld was payment enough, as far as the aliens were concerned.
“There will be more fighting before this is over,” Dan said.
“For certain. We are already laying the keels for a new fleet, armed with the electromagnetic weapons you suggested,” Garul replied. “With some Naga improvements, of course.”
“Of course,” Dan said with a smile.
The enemy had retreated, but there was no telling how long they would be gone before they struck again. Both Human and Naga were vulnerable. The Kkiktchikut had enough strength to take down either of them. But maybe…just maybe…not both together.
The worst of it was not knowing where the Kkiktchikut came from. The Naga had no idea what star system they were operating out of, or even if they had already spread to many worlds. The enemy could be almost anywhere. They could strike out at any time. No one knew the size of their fleet, or what their next plans might be. Only that they had fled once the world-killing ship was destroyed, and there’d been no sign of them in the days since.
Embers of War (Adventures of the Starship Satori Book 8) Page 16