And then all readings had stopped.
“Battle stations,” the Admiral ordered.
The lights changed on the bridge and the crew on the bottom half of the bridge went to work.
“We can’t pick up anything, Admiral,” the ensign had reported.
“Then go to opticals. All eyes in every direction and have the computers pick up any movement and relay it to us.”
The Admiral sent orders to the Indigo to have its shield ready. The torpedo ship Vega was ordered to link up behind the Indigo and prepare their artillery. All four waves of Jaguars were being scrambled. The Galaxy and its small fleet were preparing for anything.
“Sir. Opticals are picking up something. Unable to determine. It’s coming from the direction of the anomaly numbered twelve.”
The image displayed on his screen. It was impossible to pinpoint what it was he was seeing. The blackness of space was shimmering, but he was unable to pick out any targets.
“Filter everything on the optics into the sensors. Let the optics do the job for us until we can get gravity readings,” the Admiral ordered.
The men were trained for this situation. Using the ship’s computers, they began to feed the visual data directly into the battle sensors feeds. They allowed the algorithms that Alliance military scientists had created to do precisely that: any sensor reading, including optics, would feed the same general information to the battle sensors. On the screens, the computers began to decipher what they were seeing. Thousands of spheres were closing in on them, with several much larger spherical objects behind them.
“How long?” Marcus asked.
“Twelve minutes.”
That meant that these spheres were traveling at incredible speeds.
“Indigo, shield up. Anti-missile spread. Wing commander, divide your waves out to the sides of the Galaxy far enough to avoid this attack. Once they hit the shield, come in behind and find targets. Vega, go behind the Galaxy and ready all the torpedoes. Gentlemen, have all the hooks ready to fire. Take no chances. Assess damages quickly and jump out if you need to. We are going against the unknown here. Godspeed and unleash hell.”
It would be the last time Marcus would give out audible orders. He trusted his two captains completely and was fully confident in the abilities of his Jaguar pilots. He would give commands via TOM throughout the battle as needed.
Marcus had no trepidation about going into battle. His fate was that of a soldier. If his death came today, then that was what would be. He also knew every single man and woman on all of these ships understood that. The only thing making him just a bit nervous was the fact that the battle had come so quickly after reaching the system. Space warfare was usually one of long waits and quick horrific battles. This new enemy moved fast and decisively.
Marcus continued to observe the new enemy as it closed in. The small spheres were now measured, ranging anywhere between three to nine feet in diameter. They were black, nearly invisible in the darkness of space, and were moving in independent flight paths. They were not missiles, but individual crafts. He quickly typed up a message and sent it to his wing commander. The Jaguars might have a role to play after all.
“Target?” Marcus asked.
“Straight at the Galaxy, sir. They appear to be ignoring the Jaguars,” one of the sensor operators answered.
In the pictures they had reviewed, they had seen black lumps stuck to the drones. He sent a command through to have the Jaguars move forward and start attacking the targets along the edges of the cloud of spheres. He advised furthest range possible. The Jaguars weren’t meant to fight against a multitude of much smaller targets, but he needed to gauge their reaction to the Jaguars in order to try to understand their strategy.
“Two minutes until shield impact.”
Marcus pulled up another optical screen. The Indigo had deployed its nano shield. Instead of having a solid shield it could move, it had deployed a particle shield. Within the gravity field, the microscopic particles of ferrium moved in a whirlwind at thousands of miles per hour. Anything coming through the shield would be torn to shreds. Depending on the material the spheres were made out of, that shield could last a good ten minutes.
“One minute.”
The four larger spheres could now easily be seen on the optics behind the cloud of approaching smaller spheres. Each of the spheres had what appeared to be four legs sticking out of their back, or at least away from the Galaxy. They were moving at the same speed as the smaller spheres. Otherwise, they had no features; no lines, markings, windows or anything other than the smooth black surface.
Marcus gave the order and the Vega unleashed twenty-three Corsair torpedoes. These self-guided ship busters took an arched route up and over the Galaxy and the cloud of spheres, heading towards the four larger spheres.
“Sir, this is not the right time to ask, but was it wise to attack? We don’t know their intentions,” TOM asked into the Admiral’s ear.
“There are no good intentions that begin with jamming.”
The Vega dipped down under the Galaxy and moved just under the front tip of the capital ship. From that vantage point it could offer anti-missile protection as well.
“First impact now!” someone shouted out from below. Marcus looked down at his readings and saw visually the nano shield from the Indigo doings its job. The small black spheres were being shredded. And then it stopped. The swarm stopped slamming into the shield and started to pour around it like water over a boulder in a stream. The Indigo began to spread the shield further, but the farther it stretched it, the less effective it became. Some of the spheres began to slip through, coming straight at the Galaxy.
The capital ship wasn’t defenseless on its own, though. The dark space was suddenly filled with bright flashes of anti-missile laser beams. Guided by the Galaxy’s computers, miniature green beams filled the space in front of the Galaxy. Each beam burned through the spheres, sending them careening off in angles. The Vega began shooting its own cloud of flak in front of the Galaxy, but that was far less effective. The black spheres simply flew through it without stopping. There were just too many spheres.
“We’re getting hit!”
“Damage?” Marcus shouted out. He couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing on his screen.
“None, sir. No damage,” was the reply.
“TOM?” the Admiral asked.
There was a brief pause.
“Sir. Hacking. Same attack pattern. Every new sphere is a new point of attack.”
There was a bit of static coming into his ear.
“TOM?” Marcus called out.
“Admiral, we’re getting readings of systems going offline all over the ship!” someone shouted out.
“Hook is down!” someone else shouted, which was followed by, “correction, it’s back online.”
TOM was in a battle of his own. The Vega was being hit and had lost control of their torpedoes. Alarms blared as the Galaxy detected six torpedoes fired against her from the Vega. The beams took the torpedoes out quickly. The two corvettes didn’t have the luxury of TOM on board to defend them from this level of hacking. He gave the order for the two smaller ships to jump out, but got no reply.
Marcus looked at the optics and saw the Indigo floating slowly towards the Galaxy. She was covered in the black spots where the spheres had latched onto her. He was about to look away to find the Vega, when he saw four Jaguars swoop in and start hitting the black spheres on the Indigo. Lightning flashes erupted all over the corvette. For every sphere that was hit, several more came loose. He wondered how long until this enemy adapted and tried to take out the smaller fighter craft. Up until now, he had not seen nor heard any reports of the Jaguars being attacked by the spheres.
Warning alarms blared again as seventy three torpedoes were launched. This time, though, they flew off away from the Galaxy. Jayne was doing her part to cause no more damage to the Galaxy. He had the order to jump put on a loop, hoping the two corvettes would get it. Even i
f they didn’t get the message, he hoped they weren’t loyal or proud enough not to jump on their own. As much as either of them would give their lives for the Alliance, he knew full well that each of the captains understood the utter importance of returning alive in order to give a full explanation of this unknown enemy.
“One of the larger spheres was hit by torpedoes,” a female voice shouted out.
The Admiral quickly brought up the video. The initial salvo of torpedoes fired by the Vega had struck one of the spheres. It was nearly impossible to see if it had been damaged, but it had clearly slowed down considerably. He watched as the other three turned around and brought forward their protrusions.
“Slugs in the air!”
The three spheres were firing salvoes of metal rounds at them. Marcus was shocked at first. It had seemed that they had wanted to take this ship intact. It was then that it dawned on them. He looked at the readings and made the quick calculation. They weren’t targeting the Galaxy.
“Jayne. Move. Now!” he shouted into the coms. He was unsure if she could hear him.
The two inch slugs came in silently and invisibly, and began tearing into the small corvette. The damage was instant, and metal began shearing off of the Vega. The spheres had been hit by the Vega’s torpedoes and had determined the small ship a threat. The small warship began venting gas. Marcus watched in abated horror as the line of slugs moved up the ship, tearing it to shreds. It reached the halfway mark on the Vega when it stopped.
The Indigo swooped in and had formed a solid shield in between the Vega and the three spheres.
“Tow the Vega in now!”
The Galaxy extended its own gravity field towards the remains of the Vega and began drawing them in to the side of the capital ship. Meanwhile, the Galaxy continued to fire its beams while the front side of the ship began to be covered by the black spheres that made it through. Marcus had yet to hear from TOM and could only hope the AI was doing all he could to keep them alive.
The three spheres stopped firing and began moving in closer. The main cloud of spheres had passed through and had either been destroyed or had attached to the Galaxy and its smaller ships. But a whole new wave was coming out of the three rapidly closing spheres.
“Sir. I have contained the threat. But I will not be able to contain many more,” TOM suddenly replied.
“Good to hear from you, TOM,” Marcus thought out loud.
The Admiral watched as a new cloud of small black spheres approached the crippled fleet and knew it was time to go.
“Get us out now!”
“The hook has been compromised. The system is corrupt,” engineering reported.
The Jaguars continued to attack the cloud, seemingly without reprisal, but they weren’t making a dent.
“What do they want?” Marcus asked TOM.
“The Galaxy.”
Marcus shook his head. His own creation was under his control, and thus it would have to remain. He sat down in his chair and began typing the self-destruct code. He typed in his code and then sent in the verification when something caught his eye on one of his display screens. The entire bridge filled with gasps as they saw the same thing he did.
It was a giant snake.
Marcus rubbed his eyes to make sure he was seeing clearly. Directly in front of the Galaxy, a new ship had appeared. It moved like a snake, somehow. It was long, and flat, like a deep ocean eel, and it looked like it was swimming through water. It was two, if not three, times larger than the Galaxy. It was a deep brown color, almost organic.
Marcus had rarely been surprised in battle. He had been defeated before. He had been out-done strategically, and tactically. He had seen many twists and turns in battle. He had cheered before at reinforcements as they arrived to turn the stem of a battle. But this was the first time he was speechless. He truly had no way to explain what the images in front of him were showing.
As the large space eel ‘swam’ towards the three spheres, the black cloud clearly changed course. The smaller spheres began crashing into it. They weren’t trying to attach themselves to this new ship like they had to their ships. They were trying to damage it. The three larger spheres started firing on the ship. Even from the distance the Galaxy was from the action, they could see damage being done to the eel ship.
The swarm continued to smash into the new ship. A new swarm appeared as the spheres that had attached themselves to the Galaxy, the Indigo and Vega began flying back. The threat was clear. Marcus watched, entranced, at this new ship as it approached. He could make out that it was an artificial ship. He could see plates and joints, seamless as they were. But there was something fluid about it, practically organic. The ship continued to slither until it reached the three spheres. The black spheres fired directly into the eel ship as it wound itself in between the three spheres.
Then the ship went dark.
***
Jorg knew an EMP, an electro-magnetic pulse, the moment it happened. It was an incredibly powerful one as well. Thankfully, the Jaguars were built to resist it, but as he called back into the Galaxy, he saw that they had been hit. They would reboot, but currently, they were in the dark.
The Jaguar’s gravity bubble had burst so for the next twelve seconds, Jorg was floating still in space, held in place by the Hausen reactor’s natural gravity well. His sensors remained on, though. Jorg, while attacking the black spheres, had been overjoyed at their discovery. He realized that they were trying to take over the Galaxy. God was trying to speak to them. He was trying to use their vessel to make contact. It was the only explanation.
Then the new ship had arrived. It had come out of nowhere. He hadn’t had any sensor readings and he thought for sure he would have seen something that big in his optics. And yet, there it had appeared, slithering through towards his god. It had wrapped itself around the three larger spheres. Jorg had watched as a blue wave emanated from the ship and the EMP had come a split second after. The cloud of smaller spheres had stopped moving and the larger spheres had stopped firing.
The ship then moved away from the spheres, bumping into them as it moved past them, sending them off randomly into space. It had come towards the Galaxy. He watched as the snake ship settled on top of the Galaxy. It opened its stomach and expanded over the capital ship and everything else around her, including most of the Jaguars. The beast looked swollen.
Jorg watched for nearly ten minutes as this took place. He was terrified of this creature and had powered down his craft completely. He hoped he was too far away to be eaten up as well. He would rather take his chances with the black spheres. He watched out of his physical optics as the large ship slithered off into space until it became a speck in his optics. He recorded the direction and took bearings on the constellations in this system. It was only once it had gone completely off his optics that he dared to power the Jaguar back up.
He was alone. There were two destroyed Jaguars, along with the remains of half of the Vega, and the floating debris of the black spheres. His small craft had no hook capabilities. He needed to find a way back to his Crusader brothers and tell them of his discoveries. He had been the first man to be near god, and had also seen the devil in the form of a snake. He had to get back to warn his brethren.
He pointed the Jaguar at the fourth sphere. It was further behind the rest. Maybe it had survived the EMP blast. And if it had, he would find out if it had the capability to jump. He had enough food and water for seven days on his Jaguar and more than enough navigational equipment.
As the Jaguar flew towards the sphere, Jorg’s heart began to race. He was indeed getting nearer to his god.
Part 2
2214 – Orbit of Earth, multi-solar asteroid Wohali
It was the last shuttle docked on the giant asteroid. This mothership had been one of hundreds hollowed out for the single purpose of transporting thousands of human beings off of their native planet and through the newly discovered threaded space to far-flung systems in search of new homelands. By this point,
hundreds had already left the planet and the surface had been torn asunder by a war that would devastate the remaining population. It would take nearly another hundred years for calm to return and a new beacon of humanity to be reborn.
The people now living in this asteroid were those directly affected by the tribulations down below. Their survival depended on this asteroid.
As the last shuttle docked against the tiny hangar door against the large asteroid, the doors opened and three men in full hazard suits walked out with a stretcher. On the stretcher lay an old man. His long gray hair spilled over the side of the stretcher and his right arm, long and slender and riddled with the lines of old age, draped over the side just under a white sheet. The men walked him in and then set him down on a makeshift stand. They were greeted by a little boy. He was just seven years old.
The men looked around for someone else. The little boy could barely see their shapes from within the large masks.
“Where is everyone else?” one of them asked the boy.
The boy looked up calmly. He had long, black hair, braided to the side.
“I'm the only one that doesn’t get sick,” he said. His voice was high-pitched and clear.
The men looked at each other and back down at the child. They shrugged their shoulders and began to exit back to the shuttle. The child reached out to hold the old man’s hand and watched them go. At the very last moment one of the men turned around to look at the child.
“Good luck to you all,” he said.
“We lost our luck a long time ago,” came the ragged voice of the man on the stretcher.
There was a small window at the hangar. It was the only window on the entire asteroid. The old man turned over and looked out of the window. He called the child to his side. He reached and pointed out of the window. The blue, green and white glow of his planet radiated into the room. As the asteroid rolled, the window was filled with the entire Earth. Directly below them was the land they had once called home.
The Lost Tribe (Sentinel Series Book 2) Page 15