by Dean M. Cole
This was to be the first fleet-wide battle drill. In preparation for combat exercises, Admiral Tekamah had repositioned both fleets to the far side of the Moon. Ostensibly, the admiral had moved the fleets in order to monitor the live-fire training exercise. However, Jake was dubious about this assertion. Over the last two weeks, they'd completed several battle drills, the last few using their full complement of weapons. On those occasions, Tekamah and Johnston had monitored the exercises from Earth orbit. Jake shook his head. Those decisions were made way above his pay grade.
After checking the time, he activated the EON connection. "In ten seconds we'll begin. When we get to the release point, proceed to your initialization points as briefed. This will be a short flight to the RP. Keep it tight, folks. Watch your wingman, and hit your marks."
In short succession, the rest of Galactic Guardian's complement of fighters filed through the hangar exit. A moment later, Jake's Gunfighter Squadron, along with the rest of 6th Fighter Wing, rocketed away from the fleet. Two other wings followed in his trail.
Jake glanced toward the Helm Warden. Scheduled to start a few minutes later, its fighter wings and battlecruisers sat motionlessly, waiting for their timed release.
Suddenly, the Turtle's drive dropped offline.
"What the hell?" Jake said. He raised both hands from the console and visually searched its curved surface. All of the velocity and position data had frozen. He wasn't coasting: the ship had come to an instant stop. If not for the drive's inertial decoupling, he and Remulkin would have been turned into bug stains smeared across the Turtle's view-wall.
"What did you do?" the liaison asked in English.
Jake ignored him and scanned the tactical display. It showed that all of the fleet's ships had stopped simultaneously.
He tried to open the squadron's EON channel and found it locked out as well.
Within the overhead hologram, hundreds of ships now hovered motionlessly behind the Turtle, their hexagonal collection of diamond-shaped formations still hanging in perfect synchronization. Considering the screaming silence from the battle network, Jake knew the rest of his ships and those of the other squadrons must be experiencing the same communications lockout as well.
Suddenly, the Turtle's interior lights dimmed and shifted to red.
"Oh shit," Jake whispered. He watched the developments through widening eyes. The man had seen the Turtle respond the same way the first time a Zoxyth fleet had appeared in Earth space.
A cold chill ran down Giard's spine.
Without input from Jake, the ship's hologram suddenly zoomed out. As the entire Earth-Moon system filled the image, he took an involuntary backward step.
"Oh fuck."
With a horrified sense of déjà vu, Lieutenant Colonel Jake Giard stared at the pulsing red formation of sixteen enemy icons that now floated between the two planetary bodies.
***
The comforting sound of water droplets splashing against cold stone enhanced Lord Thrakst's meditation. It soothed him, helped the Zoxyth Warlord gather his thoughts while he genuflected before the Altar of the Forebearers. Another drop struck the floor near his feet. The staccato report echoed through the chamber. Thrakst opened his eyes and looked up at the giant sculpture of the Forebearer for which his ship had been named. Glistening in the room's soft light, a swelling droplet hung from one of Tidor's stony talons, just above where the Forebearer gripped the two severed Argonian heads by their hair. Then the droplet lost its battle. Surrendering to the ship's artificial gravity, it fell from the pointed stone talon. The report of its death echoed through the basilica. Closing his eyes, Thrakst tilted his head back. The comforting sound always reminded him of the home world, of a time before Tekamah had taken his wife and son.
Now thoughts of his lost family clouded his mind, threatening to undo him. Thrakst drew in a deep breath. After a moment, he released it in a long exhalation. Opening his eyes again, he glared into the pair of unseeing dead orbs carved into Tidor Drof's visage.
"Soon our revenge will be complete," he said through clenched teeth. His voice reverberated through the massive chamber, returning to him deep and distorted.
Then he heard familiar footfalls; a gait that belonged to the only member of the crew that would deign to intervene on his meditation. "Lord Thrakst," interrupted a voice.
Thrakst stared into the Forebearer's eyes a moment longer. Then he turned to face the back of the basilica. At the end of the long aisle that bisected the curving, concentric rows of pews, Raja Phascyre stood framed in the chamber's massive entrance, bracketed left and right by the headless and bound pair of sacrificial Argonians.
The Raja bowed and said, "It is time, my Lord."
Thrakst nodded. "Yes, it is, old friend."
The Lord walked up the aisle. As he reached the back, he cast a quick, over the shoulder glance at the Altar of the Forebearers and then turned back to Phascyre. "Walk with me, Raja."
The wizened warrior bowed his head again. "Yes, my Lord." Pivoting on a heel, he joined Thrakst as the Lord stepped through the exit. Together they turned and walked quickly down the passageway. The extravagant uniforms of the ceremonial guards posted at either side of the basilica's entrance formed a colorful blur in the Lord's peripheral vision.
As he and the Raja approached the lift that led to the bridge, its doors opened. The two ancient warriors passed from the stone, cavelike corridor into the lift's polished metal confines. A moment later, the opposite doors opened upon the bridge.
They stepped onto the command deck. Raja Phascyre slammed his massive staff into the rock floor. The thick iron of the ceremonial Crozier of the Forebearer rang in the ensuing silence.
All of the bridge crew members stopped moving and bowed their heads.
Thrakst regarded them for a moment and then nodded.
The Raja slammed his staff into the floor again, and the officers returned to their duties.
As he walked across the cavernous room, Thrakst gazed through one of the forward-facing ports, a large window that formed Tidor Drof's left eye. Ahead of his advancing fleet of sixteen ships, Earth's blue-green dot had swelled noticeably since he'd left the bridge. Its colorful orb sat centered in the brilliant sphere of light-speed-compressed stars ahead of the formation of warships. Above the window, a monitor displayed a countdown timer. As the last zyxyns ticked off the clock, Earth's blue globe began to swell, their rapid approach triggering an exponential ramp-up in its apparent size. Then the timer hit zero. The star field streaked from the central orb like falling rain, and the universe welcomed Thrakst's fleet back to real space, quickly wrapping the formation in its cold embrace of distant stars.
Three probes rocketed away from the Tidor Drof. Soon the sensors of the two that had headed toward Earth began to sweep the entire planet, probing for signs of either of the two lost fleets.
As the Lord moved to stand in front of his cathedra, the sensor officer looked up nervously. Thrakst opened his mouth to prompt the idiot to speak, but the hatchling finally found his tongue.
"Lord Thrakst, there's no sign of Commodore Salyth's fleet. The probes have circled the planet and found no ships, Zoxyth or Argonian," said the bridge officer.
Raja Phascyre growled. Batting aside the junior officer, he said, "Let me see that." Holding the hatchling at bay with his staff, the Raja scanned the console. After a moment, he began to tap commands into its interface.
"That's not the right probe, Raja," the sensor officer said. "What are you do—?" The officer's words cut out mid-question as a blur of movement passed between the two Zoxyth. The younger officer's head snapped backward. A trickle of blood ran from the point where the Raja's staff had smacked him.
Silenced, the young officer turned his stupid, confused gaze from Phascyre to Lord Thrakst.
The Lord's impatience boiled over. "Did Salyth hit this planet with a gene weapon?!"
While the device left no visible damage, the passage of its energy wave imparted a telltale quantum s
ignature that the probes could detect.
After a quick scan, the officer looked up excitedly. "Yes, my Lord! It looks like he hit twenty points on the planet, all of them centered on highly developed areas."
"Search the planet's oceans for vessels," Thrakst said through a predatory smile. Perhaps Salyth had sent the emptied GDF fleet into the planet's watery depths.
As the officer went about his duties, the Lord contemplated the possibility. Phascyre had assured him that the Argonian fleet had not been heard from since arriving in Sector 64. But neither had Commodore Salyth. However, now he knew that Salyth had attacked Earth. So where was he?
The bridge officer interrupted his thoughts.
"Lord," he said shakily. "I have signs of one ship. It is …" He paused.
"Out with it!" Thrakst roared.
"There are fragments of a dreadnought in a bay near one the planet's biggest cities."
Thrakst's eyes narrowed. "And what about that city?"
The idiot stared blankly. After a moment, he said, "Its New York, my Lord."
Thrakst shook his head and growled. "Is its population of Forebearers-damned Argonians still walking about?!"
The officer swallowed hard and then nodded.
Thrakst roared. In one giant step, he crossed to him and batted the hatchling's head from his shoulders, a solitary, open-handed blow from his massive hand decapitating the idiot mid-nod.
***
"Admiral, the Zoxyth flagship and its fleet just jumped into the system," reported the Helm Warden's sensor officer.
"Thrakst," the admiral growled under his breath. That sealed it. The spy was real. There truly was a traitor in the game.
Glaring at the pulsing red hologram of the enemy's sixteen dreadnoughts, Tekamah said, "Tactical, have they detected us?"
"Not as far as I can tell, sir. I haven't detected the quantum signature of a transplanetary scanner. It looks like the planet's moon is shielding us from their sensors."
Tekamah nodded. He had worried that the Zoxyth's recent advances in technology might have afforded them the same scanning ability as the GDF.
Within the holographic display, three points of light streamed from the enemy formation. Two headed toward Earth. The curving path of the third brought it toward the Moon.
Tekamah pointed at them. "What are those?"
The man consulted his console. "Probes, sir. They're unarmed."
Captain Trent, the Commander of Tekamah's flagship, stepped forward. "Send a single ship to intercept and destroy that thing before it rounds the moon." Looking to the admiral, the captain said, "Better they wonder if they stumbled on a patrol ship than know two fleets lie in wait."
Tekamah didn't say anything. Instead, he watched the accelerating probe. Suddenly, it winked out of existence.
Blinking, not believing what he'd seen could be true, he turned to the sensor officer. "Did our ship already fire on the probe?"
He shook his head. "No, sir. The Kentrock just broke formation. Why… Wait, where'd it go?"
Tekamah pointed to the officer's console. "I don't know, Lieutenant. Why don't you tell me?"
"Yes, sir," the officer said, a red hue creeping up from his collar.
After a moment, he looked up, confusion displacing his embarrassment. "It's gone, sir." He shook his head. "It blew up, nothing left but a small, expanding cloud of debris, Admiral."
Tekamah narrowed his eyes. After a slight hesitation, he nodded. "Recall the Kentwood."
Pointing to the communications officer, he said, "Order our fighters to hold." Turning to the helmsman, he pointed into the hologram. "Prepare to move the Helm Warden to block their advance. I want us between the bastards and the planet."
The officer nodded.
As the Helm Warden prepared for the micro-jump, Tekamah summoned the captains of his seven remaining battlecruisers. A moment later, the modeled enemy fleet dissolved and holographic renderings of all seven commanders stood before him.
Tekamah nodded to them. "Ladies and gentlemen, on my mark we will execute the planned micro-jump and surround the enemy fleet. Remember to maintain your assigned spacing. With the enemy's current formation, it will keep you out of the range of that godsdamned gene weapon. Our battle plan won't work if any one of you are out of position."
The officers nodded.
"Good luck, commanders. Dismissed."
All seven gave the GDF salute. Admiral Tekamah returned it, and the officers' holograms evaporated.
Tekamah cast a wary glance at the planet's moon hovering below the fleet. The jump would take them straight through its core. Aside from the ships traveling within it, parallel-space contained no ordinary matter. However, if the Helm Warden dropped back into real space during the transit through the moon, this would be the shortest counter-attack in military history.
He turned a meaningful look to the helmsman. "Coordinates in and confirmed?"
The officer gave an understanding nod. "Yes, sir."
Using his EON, Tekamah activated the Helm Warden's heavy-ship network. "Helm Warden fleet, move to intercept in three, two, one …"
***
As Thrakst stood over the crumpled body of the dead bridge officer, a series of flashes flooded through the Forebearer's eyeports. The Lord looked up. When he saw the source of the lights, a toothy grin spread across his face.
Centered on the primary display, the magnified image of the Helm Warden hovered over Earth's blue and white surface. On the bridge's other monitors, he watched as the rest of the GDF flagship's armada joined the party. A final flash signaled the arrival of its last battlecruiser.
The enemy fleet had popped out of parallel-space in a formation that enveloped his sixteen dreadnoughts. Thrakst's eyes narrowed, and he growled with frustration. Every one of the Helm Warden's ships hovered just beyond the range of his fleet's gene weapons.
Tekamah obviously knew their effective range.
"Curse these fools!"
"Deploy the disruptor field. I don't want them jumping back out."
Raja Phascyre leaned close. "My Lord, are you sure you want to do that? Remember how well your micro-jump attack worked against them in the Chuvarti system?"
"They escaped me that time. I'm not going to let Tekamah slip between my talons again."
"But, Lord, if you micro-jump all sixteen ships like this …" He paused and brought up a hologram of the battlefield. A few commands later, each rendered dreadnought disappeared and instantly re-emerged closer to the enemy ships. They formed two concentric rings, one inside the surrounding enemy ships, the other outside it.
Phascyre pointed to the new formation. "If all of our ships detonate their weapons the moment we exit parallel-space, we'll hit all the ships simultaneously, regardless of which way they try to egress."
Thrakst studied the Raja's plan. Shaking his head, he said, "That will leave us close to their ships with no gene weapons in reserve. What of their fighters? They could exit the carrier any zyxyn now. If they've figured out a way to shield themselves from the weapon's effect, we'll be sitting drycats."
Looking through the Forebearer's left eyeport, Thrakst glared at the distant Helm Warden. He felt something gnawing at the back of his mind, something from a discussion with one of the weapon's key scientists. Then it came to him.
"Yes!" he roared triumphantly.
Spinning around, he pointed at another bridge officer and shouted, "Order all ships to weapons hold status!" His voice came back to him as it echoed off the bridge's damp stone walls.
"Yes, my Lord," replied the officer.
Pushing past Raja Phascyre, Thrakst ran to another console, his talons a blur as he entered data.
"I need another scan of surrounding space. Are there any other ships in this system? Where is the Forebearers-damned Galactic Guardian fleet?"
The Raja moved to the tactical console. "No, my Lord. There's nothing. Commodore Salyth must have succeeded. By now the unguided ships of Guardian fleet could have drifted well out of s
canner range."
"Excellent!" Thrakst roared. He toggled the data on his console. "Order the fleet to micro-jump to these new coordinates. I want them spaced at the precise intervals I've indicated."
The Raja studied the hologram. "My Lord, that will place the enemy even farther outside of the weapon's range."
"Do it!" Thrakst said. "And remind all dreadnoughts to maintain weapons hold until I say otherwise. I will have the head of every crewmember of any ship that fires without my order!"
***
Wide-eyed, Jake stared at the red holographic rendering of the Zoxyth fleet and the surrounding green octagonal formation of the Helm Warden and its seven battlecruisers. Suddenly, the image began to dissolve, its pixels flying apart. The swirling mass color-shifted and reformed into a familiar human face. Then it spoke.
"This is Admiral Johnston aboard the Galactic Guardian. We've detected a fleet of Zoxyth dreadnoughts. I've frozen all assets. Standby for orders."
Admiral Johnston looked off-camera, and then his visage faded. The holographic rendering of the fleet returned to the display.
Jake's heart raced. Adrenaline dumped into his system. As it had a couple of times in Afghanistan, the sudden shift from training mode to combat operations focused him. Narrowing his eyes, Giard reached into the hologram and zoomed out. The entirety of the ships amassed behind the moon slid into view.
"What the hell?" Jake whispered.
Remulkin ignored him. The scientist was busily tapping commands across the surface of the Turtle's console.
"This doesn't make any sense?" Jake said.
The Galactic Guardian still hovered over its fleet of fighters like a protective hen. However, where the Helm Warden had been, its entire complement of fighters still sat motionlessly. Apparently, all of its fighter wings had cleared its hangar just before the enemy's arrival. But they had remained behind the Moon when the carrier and its battlecruisers jumped away. Even now, they still hung motionlessly adjacent to the Galactic Guardian's fleet.