by Mars Dorian
“It wasn’t an announcement. It was an order.”
The engineer needed to be in a stabilized seating position in case an enemy projectile hit the hull. Otherwise, he’d bounce off the walls and smash into blood mash.
“eQuip. Tell that man I’m personally going to trash his Tiger and Lily drones if he doesn’t comply.”
“He’s coming.”
Rosco smiled and ignored the warning glance that Ming shot him. She probably didn’t approve of the way he addressed the engineer, but it wasn’t the time for politeness. They were in a hot zone in an unknown, hostile territory.
“What’s the pressure, sir? You’ve dealt with the danger.” Ming said.
“Do you think an alien race that can detect us from a far away planet is going to call it quits with a couple of heat-seekers?”
He concentrated on the big central screen of the inner bridge hull.
“It was probably a warning shot.”
The engineer limped into the bridge with a growl. Rosco didn’t care. “Get back to your pod and strap in. We’re under fire.”
“Tiger and Lily need me.”
“In one piece, I assume. Sit down, Ekström.”
The engineer complied but contorted his face like a boy not getting his treat. His little act of defiance?
Pathetic.
Let’s hope his technical expertise surpassed his infantile personality.
eQuip’s neutral voice rang again. “Sir, I’m picking up multiple ships on an interception course.”
He knew it. No advanced alien race would unleash a couple of heat seekers and be done with it. “How many?”
“Probe is scanning.”
She halted in a moment when humans would have swallowed. Her eyes froze. Rosco craned his neck and looked up. The hesitation was atypical of the Newtype.
“Status?”
“Fifty incoming vessels, sir.”
The crew silenced and only the faint buzzing of the terminal remained audible. Rosco’s eyes fixated on the tactical screen where a formation of unknown craft thrust across the display. Lo-Skova’s foreboding words echoed through the captain’s mind. When you reach the rim…
29
“Looks like the rim doesn’t want us,” Ming said.
The captain shook it off. “I don’t give an Andromedian’s ass about what the rim wants.”
The engineer added his three invaluable words. “Futch the frontier.”
“For once, I agree with you.”
He turned his focus back to eQuip. “Show me a close-up with the schematics of the incoming vessels. I want to know what we’re dealing with.”
“That’s strange,” eQuip said. “There seems to be only one vessel-type.”
Rosco cocked an eyebrow. From a tactical point of view, something about that phrase was wrong. “Fifty units of the same variant?”
“According to my scans, yes.”
That was strange indeed. But the captain had to keep in mind that he wasn’t dealing with humans here. Alien logic was beyond his grasp, for now. He needed to be as adaptable as the pod-seats fitting his spine.
“Any luck with the description, Doctor Brakemoto?”
She ignored the swarm of enemy ships on the big screen and continued her infatuation with her side display. “They appear to be coded symbols for communication purposes.”
“Great. Keep going.”
Back to the battle station. Rosco observed the close-up of the fighters that eQuip’s space probe had recorded. The vessels sported a streamlined design with an intricate pattern running across their surface. Separate hull parts were not discernible—it looked like the fish-shaped ships were made from one piece. A strange color-composition flashed around its surface, reminiscent of the fluorescent symbols they had seen earlier.
“Distance?”
“Approximately two thousand and forty-three kilometers,” eQuip said. “What do you want me to do, sir?”
They weren’t firing yet, but fifty speeding ships on an interception course weren’t a sign of peace, either. Rosco leaned into his pod-seat and intertwined his fingers. First contact with an alien and he needed to mediate with weapons. The mission briefing was already getting challenged.
“Activate all turrets.”
Ming gnarled. “Sir, we’re here on a discovery mission. Our priority is to explore.”
“Well, we did discover a potential danger. And now we’ll deal with the finding in an adequate matter.”
Her eyes narrowed. Frustration flavored her words. “Sir, that’s not how science works.”
“It’s how survival works.”
Pause.
“Let’s target the closest incoming vessel with a selective salvo from our 75mm rapid projectile emitters and see how they react.”
“I don’t like this, sir,” Yeltzin said.
“Noted. eQuip…fire.”
The Beta turret on the left rear spat a burst of shells. They ripped through the dark void at dazzling speeds.
“Impact in T-minus forty seconds.”
Rosco became one with the moment. His body walked the fine wire between fear and comfort. Destiny challenged and he answered with his chest up.
“Impact in T-minus five seconds.”
eQuip’s voice lowered by a few decibels. “Target missed.”
Two words no captain ever wanted to hear, especially not upon first contact with an alien race.
“Missed? I thought you have nano-accurate targeting?”
“I do. But the shells did not impact. They darted through the ships.”
“Darted through?”
“Enemy squadron is spreading out.”
Rosco saw it. The formation broke up like a crowd of panicked people. The distance between each ship increased as they widened their formation. Something was happening on the alien front. Even eQuip couldn’t clarify what exactly. “They are still targeting our components but do not fire.”
Alien tactics; as obscure as their ship designs. Worse, Rosco had no backup or squadron on his side; just a single science ship of the next generation that happened to have armament. Powerful against another single ship, but against a swarm of fifty alien vessels? Fat chance.
Still…something wasn’t right.
Rosco needed to understand their tactic before it was too late.
eQuip’s voice sounded pressing. “Captain?”
Choices never came easy.
“Status update.”
“All fifty ships are on a collision course with the DSS Vanguard.”
Suicidal life forms? Damn this part of the galaxy was twisted.
“Can you communicate them?”
“Negative. No compatible comm technology detected.”
That was just sup-optimal.
“Well, looks like they give us no other choice. eQuip, keep the secondary RPE turrets firing. Let’s give our targets some directed energy love. Use the tactical high-energy laser.”
“Understood.”
It was so much more pleasant to have a single unit taking care of all the ship’s armament. Eased up the communication manifold; Rosco just hope the alien vessel wasn’t beam-resistant.
The Newtype documented every step of the skirmish. “Beta and Gamma turrets firing. Impact in T-minus twenty-three seconds. Laser battery rotating into position.”
Rosco wiped his hands. The target pointers on the tactical screen encircled the nearest dagger-shaped ships. The distance and accuracy rate hovered in semi-transparent letters. The next seconds would determine his life.
“Negative.” eQuip updated.
Pause.
“Negative.”
Pause.
“All shots missed, sir.”
Rosco slammed his fist onto his arm rest. Yeltzin, Ming, and the engineer all looked up at him with flabbergasted faces. He didn’t care, this wasn’t a popularity contest. At least the second most important unit in the crew, eQuip, remained unimpressed by his little outburst. “Negative hits, sir.”
&nb
sp; “All of them?”
“Yes, sir.”
The anger vaporized as fast as it had fired. Curiosity took its place and whirled around Rosco’s brain cells. He was starting to see a pattern here, which engaged the creative part of his membrane. It was almost as if the vessels—
“Sir. Incoming ships are opening fire.”
30
Rosco shouted. “Evasive maneuvers.”
“Roger.”
eQuip corrected the ship's course and activated the sub-thrusters. The screen depicted hundreds of little dots launching from the alien ship squadron.
“What kind of armament?”
“Unidentified projectiles.”
“Can the point-defense take care of them?”
“They can’t get a lock-on.”
“Damn it.”
The captain mentally braced himself for the worst. He watched the T-screen as hundreds of energy stakes impacted the hull, but the damage remained so faint eQuip had to analyze it on the millimeter range.
“Minimal single-digit hull penetration.”
“Weakest fire ever,” Ekström said.
Rosco shrugged. “Let’s not get cocky. Try targeting the ships with the LZR. If the RPE can’t take them out, maybe directed energy can.”
The cannon concentrated its high-frequency beam on the incoming swarm—to no avail. Rosco ground his teeth and wondered what kind of technology could nullify kinetic and energy-based weapons. It was impossible to fight hostile forces with no intel.
“Lo-Skova told me this ship carried a smart hull that could analyze the projectiles it was bombarded with.”
“Yes, sir. But the readings are strange.”
“Give it to me straight.”
“Ninenty-four percent of the incoming fire does not cause any discernible damage to our hull.”
She analyzed every shot’s trajectory and updated the result on the tactical side screen next to the main one. Rosco developed a theory but needed clarification. “Show me the ballistic trajectories causing the most damage in red.”
Forty-nine lines faded, only one became crimson. Even Ming looked up from her display.
“Only one ship delivers damage?”
“I thought so,” Rosco said.
eQuip encircled the one delivering the only damage. It was indistinguishable from the other ships in the armada, which was the point.
“I don’t understand, sir,” Ming said.
The captain explained with pleasure. “We’re not dealing with fifty ships, lads and gents. We’re dealing with only one and forty-nine decoys.”
The A-ha moment befell everyone. Rosco had dealt with decoys before, but none of which looked so real. It appeared the alien preferred manipulative tactics.
“Ships impact in T-minus twenty-four seconds,” eQuip announced.
They were still on a collision course, but Rosco figured out their scheme—or so he hoped. “eQuip, ignore forty-nine targets and channel the LZR on that one.”
No need to waste valuable resources on those decoy projections.
“Are you sure, sir?” eQuip said.
“Don’t question me. Do as I say.”
“Ay, ay. Target vessel collision in T-minus eleven seconds.”
Pause.
“Target within beam range. Charging LZR.”
The beam focused on the single ship in the swarm. The tactical screen colored the invisible laser in a bright blue beam so the crew could see what was happening.
“Impact in T-minus five seconds.”
Yeltzin looked up with a serene face. “Even if we die, it has been a pleasure serving under you, sir. The whole seventy-five minutes.”
“No one’s going to die here.”
I hope, Rosco added in his mind.
He didn’t want to sound unsure around his crew. If the captain doubted his orders, team morale tanked faster than a cruiser after a direct torpedo hit.
“Impact,” eQuip said.
She almost squealed. All target pointers on the tactical screen vanished, just like the forty-nine other vessels. eQuip seemed to stutter when she mouthed the next statement.
“Enemy presence has vanished. Threat eliminated.”
Silence danced through the bridge. Ming threw the captain a bewildered glance, Yeltzin sighed with a smile; even the engineer clapped, but probably for different reasons. Rosco shot up and rocketed his right arm toward the bridge’s round ceiling. “Burn bright thanks to Tellride.”
He crafted that line before he had entered TemCom. A warm, sizzling sensation overtook his body.
“I can’t believe you were right, sir,” Ming said.
“What do you mean you can’t believe it?”
“I mean—we’re dealing with an unknown life form and you managed to identify its tactic in a matter of minutes. Do you have some special augmentations that I’m unaware of?”
“No upgrades required, Doctor. Only practice to the umpteenth power.”
To be accurate, years on the front lines of space. Rosco had been imprisoned, beaten, fired, stealth-surprised, ambushed, sniped, rocketed, EMP'd, and electrocuted. He didn’t win every battle, but even the misfires taught him valuable lessons that shaped his tactical mind. There were only so many methods to conduct effective warfare in space, and Rosco believed he had witnessed them all.
“Distance to planet Grisaille?”
“Approximately nine hundred thousand kilometers.”
The gray world quadrupled in size.
The adrenaline subsided in Rosco’s veins as curiosity took back control. Despite his winning strategy, he really had hoped for a peaceful first contact that didn’t involve fighters, decoys, and heat-seeking projectiles. But that was the reason he was hired for this job—to safely transport his crew to the planet. He hoped the battle on the surface wouldn’t escalate. Rosco was next to useless on the ground, which meant Lieutenant Yeltzin was the only line of defense.
“eQuip, have you recorded the recent battle?”
“Down to the micro-frame.”
“Good. Send the details to Lo-Skova and tell me if she’s changing the mission parameters.”
“I already did.”
Rosco squeezed his eyes. “Without my order?”
“Sir, you are in charge of the crew, I am in control of the ship. It is perfect delegation.”
Actually, the captain was also in charge of the ship, but then again, he had never worked with a single entity that was XO, pilot, and navigator at the same time. He wished Lo-Skova would have given him more time to get used to this new environment. Being onboard on the Vanguard was so different from leading an ICED ship's crew.
“Captain?” eQuip said.
She carried that pressing tone from before, which triggered Rosco’s warning bells. “Spit it out.”
“We’re getting pulled in.”
31
In space, Murphy’s Law reigned supreme.
Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. Every single frigging time.
Rosco’s adrenaline should have been happy—it wasn’t going to get unemployed anytime soon. “What is it this time?”
eQuip updated him. “Remember Grisaille’s stats, sir? Its gravity is almost twice as strong as Earth. And our ship is already getting pulled toward its surface.”
“Good timing,” Rosco said, “we’re planning to land anyway. Prepare for atmospheric entry and counter-balance the pull-in.”
“Where do you want to me to land?”
He could feel the reverse thrust kicking in as it tried to fight the gravity. Rosco had never been on Earth, but he knew that its gravitational pull was the strongest of all colonized planets.
“Find an adequate landing field approximately a hundred kilometers away from the coordinates Lo-Skova has given us.”
He looked at Yeltzin and shot him a left thumb up. “Your elite soldier training might finally come in handy.”
“I’ll act responsibly, sir.”
Still riding the peaceful route. Rosco hoped
the soldier actually knew how to fire a gun—and preferably in the right direction. But a CEO of Lo-Skova’s caliber would have never assigned a useless unit to his crew. After all, the company’s reputation and millions, if not billions, of credits were on the line.
eQuip commented on her course correction. “Possible landing site detected, approximately one hundred and three kilometers south-west of our target zone. Entering planet Grisaille’s sub-orbit. It might get a bit bumpy, so make sure you are stabilized in your pod-seats.”
“Team?” Rosco said.
Yeltzin nodded, the engineer snapped his fingers, and Ming finally averted her glance from her side display. She put up a faint smile which looked lost on her doll-like face. “Ready for the ground operation, sir.”
Finally. A reasonable statement from her side. Rosco prepared for the increasing g’s. He and his crew were going to hit three soon, before accelerating to four and even higher. Despite the pressure, he managed to crank out the widest of smiles.
Whatever this planet was going to throw at him, he’d overcome it. Not just Rosco’s MAME education, but also his sharpened will and his desire to dominate were going to be the deciding factors of the operation’s success. He’d show every imbecile on the ICED High Command how capable he was when dealing with unknown dangers and hyper pressure situations. He kept his eyes trained at the main screen, which depicted the Vanguard’s descend into the exoplanet’s atmosphere. During the observation, the one and only special someone hollowed back to his mind.
I’ll make you proud, M, Rosco thought.
Thanks to you, I’ll master this mission.
32
Many billions of kilometers away from the rim’s hot zone, the majestic Daystellar flagship floated. A massive tungsten-steeled fortress that competitors jokingly called a dwarf-planet, it rivaled small asteroid stations. Inside the upper decks of the giant vessel sat the investors, upper management, and the one person who represented them all…
Lo-Skova.
Beep beep.
A priority message from eQuip arrived on her encrypted channel updating her on the team's first encounter. The second Lo-Skova finished watching the audio-visual report, she noticed an unpleasant VIP call pestering her. Dasai Dent, one of the prime investors of Daystellar, had also received a copy of the message since he was heavily invested in Project Vanguard. A miniature avatar projection appeared on the front of Lo-Skova's desk in the form of Dent's chiseled face. He sounded aggravated, but Lo-Skova already expected that.