Empire Rising Box Set

by D. J. Holmes

  Bell was sure that whoever was commanding Endeavour’s weapons was getting worn out by Tak’ar’s constant fire orders. Their ship had been assisting almost all of the uprisings with orbital strikes from her flak cannons and even plasma cannon strikes against individual military formations. The Overlord’s military had quickly given up using their own military transports to bring in reinforcements for every time one tried to lift off plasma bolts rained down from the sky and destroyed it.

  Now Tak’ar was here, near the capital, ready to play out the final steps in his revolution. Just several hours ago a number of cities near the capital had erupted in riots and attacks against the local military forces. It was hoped that they would distract the Overlord as Tak’ar moved his forces into position to assault the capital and the palace.

  That is for Major Johnston and Becket to worry about, Bell told herself, time to focus on this Omen.

  With one last look at the marines and Vestarians who were gathered around the landing zone waiting for their mission to begin, Bell jumped into her shuttle and strapped herself in.

  Endeavour’s shuttles were the only ones that had the weapons to fight their way through the defenses of the Omen Installation and the Palace so they would drop off Bell, Scott, Jil’lal and their team before returning and picking up the force that would be assaulting the palace.

  It was only a ten minute flight to their target, when they were three minutes out the shuttle pilot called out, “for anyone who is interested, the fireworks are about to begin.”

  Both Bell and Becket watched in silence but Jil’lal let out a slight gasp. She had seen the images from the other attacks but they didn’t compare to real life. Seemingly out of nowhere a single fireball shot down through the sky and impacted the mountainside about ten kilometers in front of them. A colossal mushroom cloud filled with fire shot into the air and the concussion wave could be seen rolling across the mountains and the valleys.

  “Such power,” Jil’lal said. “Your one ship could force its will on our entire planet.”

  “If we were willing to use it on civilians,” Bell said. “Thankfully all the Earth nations have signed strict agreements limiting the use of orbital bombardment weapons.”

  “Yes, but what if there are other races out there that don’t think as you do? After this is over my people will have to prepare defenses to make sure no one else can ever do this to us.”

  “That would be wise,” Bell agreed.

  “The show’s not over yet,” the pilot called as he dropped the shuttle into a nearby valley and hugged the terrain as they made their final approach.

  As the smoke cloud from the impact broke apart, green plasma bolts rained down around the facility, taking out any defensive installations that hadn’t been damaged by the orbital strike. The Resistance info indicated that the actual Omen facility was deep under the valley floor, thus the orbital strike had just taken out the structures that were above ground. They had mainly consisted of a military barracks and large anti-air cannons.

  “Here we go,” the pilot shouted as he lifted the shuttle’s nose and rocketed through a gap between two mountains. He banked the shuttle hard to the left, diving into the valley that held the complex. Almost as soon as they entered the valley, small interceptor missiles began to rise from a number of surviving anti-air batteries.

  Sensing the target acquisition radar, the shuttle’s computer automatically powered up its ECM and began to launch flares while it powered up its two point defense plasma cannons. The pilot reacted almost as quickly as he threw the shuttle into a number of evasive rolls and turns to throw off the tracking radar.

  More plasma bolts rained down and destroyed the remaining missile batteries that had just given away their position but Bell’s focus was on the incoming missiles. One seemed to lose its track on the shuttle and flew off in another direction. The plasma cannons took out another but a third was still homing in on the shuttle.

  The pilot realized that they weren’t going to be able to dodge it and five seconds out from impact he leveled off the shuttle and gave the missile a clear target. With the flick of a switch he extended the shuttle’s main plasma cannon and fired off a stream of bolts just as the missile leveled off its ascent and prepared to intercept the shuttle. The first two bolts missed but the third and fourth hit the missile and it exploded.

  Everyone was thrown about by the explosion and more than one loud thud echoed through the shuttle as debris bounced off the hull.

  “Whhhooo, that was fun!” the pilot shouted.

  “Shut up,” Bell shouted back as she gave him more than a playful punch on the shoulder, “just get us down safely.”

  As they neared the wreckage of the military facilities a number of alarms went off and a small explosion threw everyone about in their seats.

  “Small arms fire,” the pilot reported. “There are still some Vestarians alive down there, they must have those laser rifles we saw in the construction yard.”

  Without further explaining himself the pilot veered the shuttle skywards away from the ground fire. The second shuttle followed suit and together they turned and dived towards the ground with their main plasma cannons extended.

  Bell could see that the pilot had shifted his view to the infrared sensor screen and as she watched he methodically took out all the heat blips. He must have updated the targeting parameters of the shuttle’s computer for it fired off the shuttle’s ground attack missiles at heat sources not directly in the shuttle’s line of sight.

  After the first strafing run the shuttles split up and circled the landing site, taking out any stragglers. Once the danger was passed, Bell shifted her attention to the wrecked ground facilities. “Over there,” she said, pointing towards what looked like two large retractable doors built right into the edge of a cliff that lined the valley floor. “Blow us a hole through them, I bet the research facility is under there.”

  “Yes Mam,” the shuttle pilot said as he swung the shuttle towards his new target and fired a stream of plasma bolts into the doors, blowing a massive hole in them.

  “Put us down beside those doors,” Bell ordered.

  The six marines in combat armor were the first out of the shuttle, plasma rifles raised as they searched out targets. Bell and Scott jumped out after them. Only the marines and Lieutenant Becket had their own combat armor onboard Endeavour so they were both wearing military grade battle suits. The suits would give them some protection from projectile rounds but they didn’t have the armor of the marine’s equipment or provide the enhancements to speed and strength that the marines would enjoy.

  Behind Bell and Scott, Jil’lal jumped out of the shuttle followed by ten Resistance fighters. From the other shuttle another twenty resistance fighters disembarked and quickly sprinted over to Jil’lal.

  “Lead on Sergeant,” Bell said to Harkin once their team had assembled.

  Sergeant Harkin took off towards the ruined doors that led into the cliff. Without even looking, the first two marines threw stun grenades through the doors and the rest quickly charged through.

  Bell was close behind them but when she got through the doors she was already too late; the marines had dispatched the four Vestarians who had been guarding the entrance.

  “Where do we go from here?” Harkin asked as he gestured to the back of the large entryway. It seemed as if the retractable doors opened into a large receiving area where goods and materials could be offloaded. Scattered around the room were a number of crates filled with various materials. At the back of the receiving area on opposite ends of the room were two doors that clearly led in different directions.

  “Scott?” Bell asked.

  “Already on it,” the science officer responded as she brought out a case from her backpack. Opening it and setting it on the ground she pulled out her datapad, after a few seconds of tapping on it, the case seemed to come alive as more than a hundred small objects flew into the air and began to buzz around the chamber.

  “These
little critters will map out the rest of the structure,” she said to the amazed Vestarians. With another tap the micro drones shot off towards the two doors and began to explore the rest of the facility.

  “Take cover while we wait for the drones to do their work,” Harkin said as he found a good spot from where he could lay down fire on the two doors. “How long will they take?” he asked.

  “Depends on the size of the facility,” Scott answered. “At least another couple of minutes. Hold on, one of the drones has spotted several Vestarians coming towards the left door.”

  “Heads up everyone,” Harkin called. “Wait for them to clear the doorway.”

  Thirty seconds later eight Vestarians came rushing through the door, carrying laser rifles and wearing impressive looking battle suits of their own. When they saw their fallen comrades in the middle of the chamber they began to get behind cover.

  “Open fire,” Harkin shouted, putting action to his words. His first two plasma bolts caught one of the rearmost defenders in the chest before he could reach cover. Plasma bolts and projectiles from the resistance fighters caught all but one of the other defenders.

  “Keep him pinned down, we’re flanking him,” Jal’tak, the leader of the resistance fighters said over the COM units Harkin had provided them with.

  As Harkin fired a series of plasma bolts into the crate the defender was hiding behind he couldn’t help letting out a whistle at Jal’tak as he sprinted towards the defender, hurdling the last crate in his way he landed right beside the defender and fired a number of rounds from his weapon at point blank range. Harkin could match Jal’tak’s movements with the aid of his combat armor but unaided it was clear the Vestarians would outclass even highly trained marines.

  “It looks like both doors lead to different facilities,” Scott announced once the fighting was over. “They don’t seem to connect except for up here.”

  “Then we split up,” Bell said. “Harkin, you and your marines can search the facility on your right. I want you to take five Vestarians with you too. We’ll leave six here to guard our exit. We’ll take Jal’tak and the rest with us and search the facility through the left door.

  “If you find anything that sheds any light on the Overlord’s advanced technology alert us and I’ll send Scott to you with an escort of Vestarians.”

  “Understood,” Harkin said. “Samuels, you take point,” he called out as he trotted off towards the right door.

  “After you,” Bell said to Jal’tak out of a new found respect for the Vestarian’s combat abilities as she made her way to the left door.

  “Did you detect any more defenders with your drones?” she asked Scott.

  “There are over two hundred more Vestarians within both facilities,” Scott answered. “I have uploaded the information to Harkin’s combat armor so he has the tactical data too.”

  “Good job,” Bell responded.

  The drones made their advancement into the facility far easier than it would have been. The corridors and rooms appeared to be built into the cliff face along a number of veins in the rock that must have been easier to excavate and so had no logical structure. The drones also alerted them to two ambushes the defenders had set up for them.

  By the time they cleared the fourth large chamber they came to, Bell guessed that they had taken out all the defenders. Every Vestarian in the chamber they were now in had been an unarmed scientist. None of them had been willing to tell them what work they had been involved in and the resistance fighters had tied them up and left them.

  “The next chamber is the largest in either facility,” Scott announced once they were ready to proceed again. “Though my drones haven’t been able to access it, they have been able to map out its exterior. If we’re going to find anything it is likely to be in there.”

  “Let’s keep moving then,” Jil’lal said.

  After carefully passing through another forty meters of twisting corridors they came to a set of automatic doors that wouldn’t open for them. Jil’lal attached one of the portable computers she had brought with her to the door and spent over a minute trying to override its security protocols. “I’m sorry,” she said as she disconnected from the door’s terminal. “I can’t crack it.”

  “Stand back,” Bell said as she reached into her back pack and placed a shaped charge around the door. “Everyone around the corner,” she added.

  After she set the charge she retreated with everyone else. Thirty seconds later an explosion sent a shockwave down the small corridor forcing everyone to their knees. “That should do it,” Jil’lal said.

  Bell was the first one up and through the door. “Oh crap,” she said as she walked through, forgetting to check for any defenders. The object in the middle of the room was unmistakably a space ship. It was more than twice the size of the shuttle they had landed in.

  “What is it?” Jil’lal asked.

  “It’s not Vestarian,” Scott said, “at least it’s like nothing we have seen the Overlord build yet.”

  “That’s valstronium armor,” Bell said, “and those have to be weapon ports. Can it be a Kulrean ship? I thought they were pacifists?”

  Scott had brought out another one of her datapads and was using it to take scans of the ship. “I’m not sure, the satellite didn’t have valstronium armor and I’m reading a very different power signature than anything I got from the satellite.”

  “What are those power cables for?” Jil’lal asked pointing at two large cables that came out from under the ship and led to a large holo projector.

  Bell walked over to the projector and hit a few buttons until it powered up.

  “Greetings,” a pleasant voice said from the projector.

  “Who are you?” it said in a sterner tone. “I am detecting unauthorized Vestarians in this chamber. Beginning emergency protocols.”

  Bolts of electricity danced along the ship’s surface and shot into the chamber. In a couple of seconds all the Vestarians in their group had gone down, knocked unconscious by the lightning bolts.

  “You two are not Vestarian,” the voice said to a stunned Bell and Becket.

  “No,” Bell said, “what are you?”

  “I am the ship’s artificial intelligence. I have been designed to interface with authorized Vestarians. Accessing species datafile,” the voice said.

  “Human,” it shouted in what sounded like anger. “Beginning emergency self-destruct protocol.”

  “Oh crap,” Bell said for the second time in a matter of minutes.

  “I’m detecting an immense energy surge,” Scott shouted. “We need to get out of here now.”

  Bell looked at the unconscious Vestarians. “We can’t leave Jil’lal,” she shouted. “Quick you take one side and I’ll get the other.

  Together they hefted the surprisingly light alien and ran as quickly as they could out of the chamber and along the winding corridors that led out of the facility. As they went Bell activated her COM unit, “Harkin, we triggered some sort of self-destruct mechanism, you need to evac now. We’re on our way out.”

  “Acknowledged,” Harkin replied. “We’re moving now.”

  As they burst into another one of the large chambers they had already cleared, alarms began to go off all around them. “Self-destruct initiated,” a prerecorded Vestarian voice announced. “Please leave the facility now. Self-destruct initiated…” it continued.

  Bell and Scott instinctively picked up speed and tumbled down into a heap on the floor. Scott looked around to see what happened and found one of the scientists they had tied up had managed to trip Bell. Even as Bell shook herself the scientist grabbed her despite the fact that his hands were still tied. Another two scientists shuffled across the floor towards her as well.

  “Untie us,” they shouted. “Don’t leave us here to die.”

  Bell tried to fight them off but even with their hands tied they managed to get a strong grip on her.

  “Ok, ok,” she shouted. “Stop fighting. Scott, get Jil’lal out
of here. I will be right behind you.”

  “I’m not leaving you,” Scott said as she started towards Bell.

  “I said get Jil’lal out,” Bell shouted.

  Scott was taken aback at Bell’s anger. She just wanted to help. Then she remembered something Bell had told her while they were discussing her hopes to captain her own ship someday. Bell had told her that a real leader had to know when to put their own feelings aside and make tough decisions.