Too fast. I slowed things down even more, looking from ship to ship, aware of shield values, relative positions, targets, pulses, and missiles. I opened rifts as fast as I could do them, moving George once and Miriam twice. All four ships were losing shields steadily, BigMother because she was going through the middle of the enemy formation now. Smaller turrets were firing in all directions now, and suddenly things changed.
The central dozen Ralnor ships launched small craft. I assumed they were troop carriers of some sort. Two of those took torpedoes and exploded just out of the bays, but the rest managed to get clear of their mother ships. Half of those vanished as the ring of my ships around the fleet started to close the noose, now lined up for rapid torpedo fire.
The Ralnor fire was rapid and spread out now as the fleet ceased being a fleet, and each ship now tried to stay alive. But they were still effective, and another fighter blinked out before I could move it. I reached out to move the next one out of the way of a pulse, and it vanished as Syrinx finally caught up and started adding rifts herself. Missiles were also vanishing, and I could feel Tanith moving any getting too close to our remaining fighters.
But I could feel both were struggling. I changed my focus to attack, and rifted George into an attack position on one of the remaining undamaged ships. Miriam found herself rifted into another attack position and took advantage of it. And watching in slow motion, I could now see their different fighting styles. George was firing full twenty battleship gun broadsides, and waiting for all of them to recharge. Miriam was firing hers like a gatling gun. What George fired at tended to explode into debris, while Miriam's targets shredded.
Both had moved too close to the remaining ships, and were now in danger of losing shields. I rifted both of them back towards the planet, and could feel both of them get angry to be out of the fight with no warning. My awareness swept all my remaining fighters, and I drew on Tanith's movement ability, shifting fighters back towards the two carriers if their shields were below ten percent. Another pass, and I moved all the fighters out of torpedoes as well.
Our firepower dropped dramatically, but the battle was almost done. Lacey and 266 were chasing troop transports. Their guns were proving ineffective against their shields, but torpedo strikes were wearing the enemy down. I turned my attention back to finishing the main battle. There were only six ships left to deal with.
Unassailable had pulled out, several ragged holes in her hull. I couldn't find any sign of her Hives.
The rift formed in front of BigMother, and we dived through, coming out well away from the last enemy ships, who were now turning for their jump point. One by one, I moved the remaining fighters to a position near us, and put a rift well ahead. Pilots formed a formation around BigMother, and by the time we hit the rift, all my remaining ships were formed up.
We came out behind the last ship, and it vanished under the combined fire. I let Jane and Grace handle shifting targets, going back to taking fighters out of the fight as their shields stopped coping with the debris and fire still coming from the remaining enemy.
And finally it was over, and I returned to normal awareness.
Syrinx fell out of her chair, twitched once, and passed out. Tanith buckled forward, but was held by his seat belt. The Matriarch was slumped over the console, Angel licking her face.
"Who the FUCK took me out of the battle?" roared Miriam.
I grinned, looked around those still on the bridge, saw the other two magicians out cold on the deck, and passed out myself.
Fifty Seven
I woke up in my own bed, Aline lying there naked beside me.
"Welcome back sunshine."
"How long was I out?"
"All night."
"Night?"
"Thorn said you used your own power too much. Long sleeps after is normal apparently."
"Nice of him to help."
"He did. If you hadn't asked him to deal with debris, we'd have lost more fighters than we did."
She pulled up a hollo, and I could see a mountain of wreckage floating in space. Some of it was from my own ships.
"How many did we lose?"
"I'll let your senior officers fill you in. For now, it's still early. Let's celebrate still being alive."
It was a little more than two hours later before I walked back onto the bridge. Jane was the only one there.
"Thorn's in your ready room."
I nodded, and walked in. He waited for me to settle behind the desk.
"You did well yesterday."
"But not apparently the right way?"
"Not how I'd have done it, but it was effective."
"What did I do wrong?"
"Not really a matter of doing wrong. I had worse problems to start with trying to do things on that scale."
"Differently then?"
"Do you feel the energy around this ship?"
"No."
"What about the power sources themselves?"
"Also no. Should I be?"
"Hard to know. If you can't, maybe that’s the limitation on what you can do."
"What are yours?"
"I've not found any yet. Well, not in terms of power. My limitations are more in the form of age, ethics, and morals. There are some things I don’t do any more."
"Such as?"
He hesitated.
"I'm not sure they're relevant. As I said, this is your time now, and what I can do isn’t relevant to what you can do. Perhaps coming from a non-magical background will actually be an asset for you."
"Asset? How?"
"Your people told me you watch a lot of entertainment."
"True. Less so these days than I used to. It’s a good way to pass the time on long journeys."
"You like superhero entertainment?"
"Sure. Not all of it, but a lot."
"My people tell me I was like a superhero early on, except bordering on god-like powers. It shocked me people started expecting it from me. I did what I had to do at the time, but looking back, I was too quick to judge, much too quick to act, and way too full of righteous anger. After a few years, and a lack of events needing superpowers to resolve, I realized what I had become, started slowing down my reactions, and limiting them."
"To the point people have to die because you no longer act?"
The side of his mouth twitched.
"The Ralnor chose their path yesterday. They didn’t have to."
"You mean an admiral chose their path. The vast majority of those who died might have made a different choice."
"You have no way of knowing that."
"True. But you had the power to negate their choice, and send them away rather than risk everyone in a fight."
"But did I have the right to circumvent freewill like that?"
I sighed. Yes, that was the argument, and I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t know if the Ralnor joined the military because they all thought the same, or because they were drafted. In the first instance, their freewill was to fight. In the latter, they had none. I started making notes about questions to ask about the empires I was fighting. I shifted the subject.
"How do I avoid passing out after each time I have to do so much in the future?"
"All I can say is, there are power sources all around you. If one day you recognize something you can use instead of drawing it through you, try it. This may not work for you. I sense no magical ability in you at all. Just the power of the sceptre. And maybe you have limits because I did not."
"Come again?"
"Maybe my excesses have led to those who followed me as bearers, being limited in what they could do."
"And yet, Kali has never changed the limitations of what you can do."
"You think she could? Or would?"
"Could, yes. Would? No idea. But had either of us showed signs of being corrupted by the power, I've no doubt at all she'd take it away from us. The fact she didn’t with you, shows you never crossed the invisible line."
He looked more troubled tha
n relieved.
"Conference room is ready for you Jon," said Jane, over room coms.
I started to rise.
"I'm going home Jon." I sat back down. "I want to spend however many years my wife has left now, with her as much as possible. I'll come if you call me. I'll come if I find a threat you need to answer. I left the location of the other two human societies in your navmap, and I'm satisfied you can get to them on your own. Tanith's people should be expecting you. The other group probably won't be. And they may prove to be a challenge to get through to, so I'll leave it to you if you try or not."
"Are they in plant space?"
"Yes."
"So might actually be in the most need."
"Possibly. We've tried skrying them, but see nothing."
"So maybe they're not there anymore?"
"Possible, but more likely they hide. They did have some mages, and perhaps they don’t want to be found again. I'll leave it to you if you visit them or not."
He rose, held out his hand to shake, and as our hands parted again, he was gone.
Out on the bridge I found Grace in my seat, and motioned her to stay put, while I checked the navmap. It was showing this system and two jump points away from it, and the extended network. I looked at Jane.
"Thorn put in the rifts to join the station here to Redoubt. So we have a full navmap in real time."
And it showed nothing more than civilian traffic. I motioned her to follow me, and headed for the conference room.
There I found Annabelle, Lacey, George, Miriam, Syrinx, and Ainsline. I took my normal seat, with Jane beside me, and looked around them.
"Thank you for your assistance young man," said Ainsline. "The Ralnor have tried to take us many times in the past, but this time it seemed they were very serious about it for the first time. Our magic has always allowed us to hide and protect ourselves, but as your people have suggested, this time they intended wiping us out from space, and sending in troops to make sure."
"Our fault, it seems."
"Perhaps. We have tried to keep ourselves to ourselves over the millennia we've been here, but now seems to be the time to end our isolation. Thorn is a figure of legend for our people, and while many do not want to have anything to do with others, he convinced me it was necessary."
"The link allows us to see what is coming for you in time to react. If you wish it, we will prevent anyone coming through the rift to your station who hasn’t been invited or given leave to cross. All you need is people on our end to control it."
"They are there already. We have sent a delegation to form an embassy. We will talk to your people, and the other embassies, and see where this leads."
"I'll be remaining here with my people for a while," said Syrinx. "I have skills they've lost, and they have others I've not seen before. It won't be easy, but it is necessary."
"The door is always open for you. If you need anything from me, all you need do is ask."
She nodded and rose, stepping back as Ainsline also rose. I did as well.
"We will take our leave," said Ainsline. "A debt we owe you…"
"I think not," I interrupted her. "The skills of your people saved our lives. You or someone in your position sent Syrinx to save us. We've now saved you, so the slate is clean. All else can be negotiated from an equal position."
I gave her a short bow, and she returned it, put a hand on Syrinx's shoulder, and both of them vanished. I sat.
"How many did we lose?" I asked Lacey.
"Nineteen fighters, but no pilots. Between using the suit belts as armbands trick, and the pilots being magically moved to safety after their ship vanished around them, we only had a half dozen wounded. And none of them seriously."
"Armbands?"
"My idea," said Jane. "I figured all the pilots were vulnerable, and issued each with three more belts, all set to cascade hair-trigger. The first fighter we lost took a full big gun pulse, and completely disintegrated. The pilot's suit shredded the moment of the hit, but the first shift was so fast he wasn’t hurt. The second shredded almost as fast, as did the third, leaving him floating in space using the last armband. Before he could run out of air, someone moved him magically to safety."
"Jane?"
"Jon?"
"You want my job?"
"Hell no!"
The others chuckled quietly. I looked back at Lacey.
"What shape are the rest in?"
"617 had the only losses. Most of the rest, including my Gunbus lost shields at some point, and took debris or shrapnel damage, but nothing which isn’t fixable. The Excaliburs did take some full hits and survived, but there are a lot of pilots with a lot of their gung-ho missing at the moment. You were right, most of us were wrong. Our fighters are not up to a proper battle without being shielded by something bigger."
"We'll review it when we get home. Jane and I started designing a new fighter."
"She showed it to me yesterday. Unassailable is building a prototype as we speak."
"Good. Keep me in the loop."
"Aye sir."
I looked at George and Miriam. She looked like she wanted to say something, but was stopping herself.
"I moved you," I said to her. "Both of you almost bought it. If a battle takes longer because we have to pull out to recharge shields, that’s what we're going to do."
Unless by doing so, we doomed someone else to dying, but I wasn’t going to say that here.
"We need more ships," said George. "Four wasn’t enough to be safe."
"We'll have more. Soon. The dreadnaughts, when upgraded, will make a big difference. The big thing though is shielding, and we still don’t have enough. Until we make a proper breakthrough, we need to fight clever, not gung-ho."
George nodded. If anyone knew his gung-ho level, he did. Miriam also nodded, but didn’t seem too happy.
"What do we do with the prisoners?" asked Annabelle.
"What prisoners?"
"We captured about half the Ralnor troop transports."
"Last I saw of them, they were headed towards the two carriers, after I rifted them back towards the planet. 266 was chasing them."
"We took out the rear ones," said Lacey, "and fire from Scimitar took out the first five. The rest surrendered."
"Where are they now?"
"Still on their troopships, half on each carrier."
"I took the liberty," added Jane, "of having some combat droids seal their airlocks shut."
"Good. Everyone ready to go home?"
There was a chorus of yes, and we all rose to leave. Outside the door, Tanith waited. His hand came down on Miriam's shoulder, and they vanished. A few moments later, and he was back, and he and George vanished. The rest of us headed to the bridge, where the rest of the team were waiting. I took my seat, scooping Angel out of it first, and putting her on my lap after. I waited for Jane to take her seat.
"Home James."
Fifty Eight
"Will you look at that!" exclaimed Grace.
The deployment about the jump point had moved and changed. The titans were in a line above the jump point. The rest of the ships were gone. But it was Redoubt which claimed our attention.
The station was positioned normally now for a station in a frontier system, not in line with the down jump lane, but off to a side, and still close enough for quick docking after jumping in. With a combined role of a base for the ships doing system defense, and customs for any civilian ships coming through. There were no civilians, but the assumption seemed to be there would be sometime.
But position wasn’t what drew the eye. The eight battleship turrets on the top were gone. Instead, the same four barrel titan turret as BigMother had was now using most of the space on top of the station. Not only that, but the opposite end had one as well, with both aimed at the jump point.
"That's a shit load of firepower," said Lacey, and I brought up a screen, and zoomed it in.
Each of the large ship docking pylons now ended in a four barrel battle
ship ball turret, with missile launchers on top. At both ends. I shook my head in wonder. I’d left a station which doubled as a very big battleship, and come back to find a fully functional battlestation instead. Bob had been busy it seemed.
"Redoubt, Mark Three," said Jane.
"Indeed. Can I assume the missing ships are all at the shipyard?"
"You can."
BigMother's heading caught my eye.
"Are we docking with Redoubt?"
"We are. The fastest way of getting everyone back to Haven is through the front airlock now."
"I would have said that was the slowest."
"And last week you would have been right. This week, we have travel cars going the length of each level, meeting with the access shafts. So while you could no doubt rift us over now, we have marines on deck zero, and pilots down in the pilot's barracks and mess. So unless you want to do rifts for everyone, using the travel cars to the airlock is quicker for everyone else."
Another upgrade I hadn't noticed. We used to use trolleys to go down the cargo deck to the airlock. The way Jane drove, somewhat terrifying at times, but they got you there. I guess travel cars made more sense though, especially since we were used to them on the stations now.
Jane docked huge ship to huge station, and shortly after, both the Scimitars were docked as well, balancing the station load.
"General channel to all ships in this system Jane."
"Confirmed."
"All ship captains and crews can stand down. Captains keep an eye on the navmap, and be prepared to return to ships if anything jumps in next door. But until it happens, get some down time. Hunter out."
I looked around the bridge.
"That applies to you lot as well, once the prisoners are settled."
Annabelle nodded, but was the only one who wasn’t already on the way out. We'd discussed what to do with the Roos, but we needed a better solution than setting aside a tower on Haven as a prison. I was thinking about one of the barely habitable planets, but was holding off until I knew for sure there could be no peace.
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