by Dean M. Cole
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Nodding, Johnston pointed to TacCom. "Drop the disruptor field in five seconds."
Shifting his gesture to the helmsman, Johnston locked eyes with the woman. Nodding to her in turn, he said, "Ok, Lieutenant Commander."
She moved her hand to the ship's drive controller.
The admiral looked into the holocam. Activating a fleet-wide broadcast, he said, "Parallel-jump in three, two, one, mark!"
***
Sandy gnawed her lips. Signaling their protest, they started throbbing, snapping the Major from her thoughts. She hadn't realized she'd started chewing on them. A coppery dampness told her she'd been doing it for a while.
"Shit," she whispered.
Jake thought it was cute, but Sandy despised the nervous tell, although she supposed she could forgive herself this one. Calling the last few minutes an emotional roller coaster was an incredible understatement. Seeing the enemy wipe out yet another GDF carrier group had crushed her, had made her physically ill. Thank God for diligent nanobots. Then the Admiral had revealed the whole thing had been a feint. Afterward, she'd oscillated between joy for the sudden reversal and anger for the admiral's deception.
Admiral Johnston's face suddenly returned to her EON's virtual hologram.
"Speak of the devil," Sandy muttered. Then fresh pain blossomed from her lips.
He said, "Parallel-jump in three, two, one, mark!"
The moon vanished from her field of view. As if someone had changed the television to a horror channel, the image outside swapped from the moon's pockmarked surface to the waking nightmare of the Zoxyth fleet.
Sandy's new position behind the advancing enemy formation painted a breathtaking panorama. Earth's blue-green sphere hung centered in the forward half of the fighter's spherical display. Eclipsing the central one-third of the planet, the massive Galactic Guardian hovered on the far side of the enemy's formation of sixteen asteroidal ships. Superimposed over the flagship's smooth lines, the rocky protuberances of the Zoxyth ships blotted out much of the Guardian.
Suddenly, every enemy ship seemed to tremor, a shudder passing like a ripple through all sixteen dreadnoughts.
The bastards had just tried to parallel-jump out of the battle!
Sandy grinned. "You're all big and bad when you have that damned weapon, aren't you?"
Her finger hovered over the trigger of her fighter's particle beam. In her mind's eye, she could still see the emptied San Francisco Bay Area. Thinking of the fiery, other-worldly depopulated aftermath of the Zoxyth's unwarranted attack, Sandy had to exert a massive force of will not to fire all of her weapons before Admiral Johnston could issue his ultimatum.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
In silent wonder, Lord Thrakst stared at the Helm Warden's tumbling ships.
After a moment, roaring laughter burst from his razor-sharp lips.
"That's it? That was all you had for me, Tekamah?"
He pointed to another officer. "Where is the Forebearers-damned Galactic Guardian?"
Nervously glancing down at his failed and very dead predecessor, the new sensor console operator consulted his displays, then shook his head. "There's still no sign of it, my Lord."
Thrakst grinned. He'd won this battle. He'd taken out an entire carrier fleet.
"My Lord," said the officer behind the weapons console. "Shall I destroy the empty ships?"
"No," Thrakst said. He pointed toward Earth. "Down there, a few billion Argonians await our attention."
The Lord moved to his cathedra. Standing before his throne, Thrakst looked across the bridge. A toothy grin spread across his face. In anxious anticipation, his pointed black tongue flicked and dabbed at his dripping fangs.
He laughed again. "Reassemble the fleet! I want to find out what happened to Salyth. Have one of the probes investigate the wreckage." Pointing to the officers behind the navigation and tactical consoles, he said, "Let's pick up where Commodore Salyth left off, starting with New York!"
As the ships resumed their four-by-four diamond-shaped formation, Thrakst's smile faltered. He glared at the blue-green planet. Something about the situation had his spine scales oscillating.
The Lord pointed a talon at the helmsman. "Steer the fleet well clear of the enemy ships. Their auto-defense systems may be online."
He turned back to the image of the planet. Is that you down there, Salyth?
He couldn't understand how the commodore could hit so many of his assigned targets and not report back. It appeared he'd only lost one ship.
Narrowing his eyes, Thrakst shifted his gaze to the decapitated body of the failed sensor officer. "The worthless hatchling couldn't even manage three probes …" The Lord faltered. His insides rolled as if he'd swallowed an unsedated drycat lizard. Slowly, he turned from the dead officer to Raja Phascyre.
The old warrior looked … nervous?
Thrakst took the Zox's left elbow with his right hand and pointed a talon at the failed sensor officer with his other. "Raja, what had the hatchling done wrong? What did you do to his console?"
Did his old friend just flinch? Surely not.
"It was nothing, my Lord. He hadn't completed their calibration."
"Calibration of what, Raja?"
"Well, the sensor probes, my Lord."
Phascyre hadn't turned to face him. He still stared forward.
Thrakst's eyes narrowed. "All three probes?"
This time, the Raja did flinch.
"What about the third probe, Raja?!" Lord Thrakst said. The question repeated as his raised voice echoed several times, his barked question ricocheting off the cavernous bridge's rock walls.
Everyone froze, every crewmember casting a wary glance with at least one of their eyes.
Phascyre didn't answer.
The hard and soft tissues of the warrior's elbow creaked and popped as Thrakst's crushing grip elicited their protest.
"Phascyre? What happened to the third probe? The one we sent to check out this planet's moon."
The Raja stood motionlessly.
Finally, he spoke. "I don't know, my Lord."
Raising a scarred arm, the wizened warrior pointed at the dead sensor officer. Phascyre turned his mutilated face toward him. His lone eye burned with anger.
"Why don't you ask him, my Lord?" Phascyre said acerbically. Blatant disdain dripped from the words "my Lord".
Thrakst's head rocked back as if struck. A shocked moment later, he cocked his arm to strike the old Zoxyth warrior, but then white light flooded the bridge, streaming in from every port.
Breaking eye contact, the two Zoxyth warriors looked forward.
Thrakst released the Raja's elbow and shouted, "Report!" But as he said it, he saw the Galactic Guardian resolving from the fading light of its post-jump halo directly in front of the Tidor Drof.
Lord Thrakst knocked Raja Phascyre clear of the cathedra's right armrest. Slamming his fist down, he activated a fleet-wide broadcast. "All ships, fallback now, now, now!"
He pointed to the helmsman. "Parallel jump to the fallback coordinates now!"
The officer nodded vigorously and slammed his fist down on the emergency jump activator.
Nothing happened.
"Make the jump, idiot!"
The officer hit the button again.
Still nothing happened.
"My Lord," another bridge officer said.
Thrakst spun toward him. The officer punched in a few commands and then shook his head grimly. The Lord ground his teeth together. "What?!"
The hatchling twitched but held his ground. "There's a disruptor field over the entire system, my Lord. It just came up."
Thrakst pointed to the helmsman. "Reverse course! Get us out of …"
Looking at the room's scattered monitors, he realized escape wasn't an option. The GDF had surrounded his fleet. And his ultimate weapon was fangless. He'd fired all of them against … against what? A bunch of empty ships?
The Forebearers-damned mammal
s had lured him into it, and he'd taken the bait.
"Lord Thrakst."
"What?" he roared.
"The Galactic Guardian is hailing us."
"Let me hear it, incoming voice only. Do not transmit."
A squeaky voice burned into his ears. They folded flat against his skull, and the voice dropped to a slightly less annoying tenor.
He pointed at the communications officer. "Activate the translator, idiot!"
Mid-sentence, the enemy's rant changed to low-toned Zoxyth.
"…and if you fail to surrender, I will destroy your fleet!" After a pause, the Argonian said, "With extreme prejudice!"
Thrakst pointed to the weapons officer. "Pinpoint the source of that cursed disruptor field. I want to know the precise location of its transmitter!"
The officer nodded. "Yes, my Lord."
Lord Thrakst paused and pointed to the Raja. "Let me know when he has its position."
"My Lord," Phascyre said. "Are you sure this is a wise—?"
"Raja!" Thrakst roared. "You got us into this. I am going to get us out of it."
After a moment, the Raja bowed and then walked to stand next to the weapons officer.
Using the controls at his cathedra, Thrakst opened the full link, enabling video and two-way communications.
Two pale Argonian faces filled his main display. He recognized the man on the left. However, the older-looking one on the right was unknown to him.
He nodded to the one he knew. "Admiral Tekamah, I see you're back from the dead."
The admiral nodded and started speaking. The auto-translator quickly morphed his grating high-pitched voice into something intelligible. "Not for a lack of trying on your part, Thrakst."
The Lord gave the mammals a toothy smirk. The unknown Argonian flinched. This pleased Thrakst. So he widened the grin, exposing all of his silver teeth. Unfortunately, the man seemed to collect himself; his apparent fear morphed into anger.
Bristling inwardly, Lord Thrakst held his grin. He nodded to the stranger and said, "I don't believe I've had the pleasure."
***
"Jesus wept," Admiral Johnston whispered as the eight-foot-tall three-dimensional holographic rendering of the enemy commander popped into existence. Reflexively, Bill's right hand went to his hip. Grasping for the absent Colt 1911, his fingers closed on empty air.
The monster towered over them. Every time the beast took a breath, Johnston could see its individual scales undulate. Did the computer really have to portray the bastard as life-sized?
When Thrakst spoke to Tekamah, the EON automatically translated his words into Argonian. The rendered words sounded like an Argonian male. However, underneath it, Johnston could hear the combination of the low tones and high-pitched squeals that constituted the Zox language. The parts he could hear—the frequencies that fell within the audible range of human ears–sounded as if a roaring lion was arguing with a screeching parrot.
The beast bared his teeth.
Johnston flinched in spite of himself.
Was the bastard smiling? He was. The son of a bitch responsible for the loss of unknown millions was fucking smiling!
Johnston found the EON command he'd been searching for since the giant hologram had coalesced.
Thrakst shrunk to half his size. The now four-foot-tall lizard looked almost comical.
Johnston glared at the smiling bastard. For the admiral, seeing the being that had ordered humanity's death elicited unrealized emotions. When the beast asked who he was, a wave of raw emotions broke through the dam of a lifetime's worth of discipline and self-restraint.
With both hands clenched into fists, Johnston stepped to the holographic rendering. Through the EON interface, he adjusted the display settings, levitating the shortened reptile until they stood eye-to-eye.
In Argonian, he said, "The name is Admiral Johnston. I'm the one who's going to wipe that grin off your scaly face, you green-blooded piece of shit!"
The monster flinched. It had been small, barely perceptible, but there nonetheless.
Bill kept going. "You're going to surrender your damned fleet now, Lord," he said, pouring disdain into the bastard's title. He pointed toward Earth. "That's my home. You and your kind attacked it." Johnston lowered his voice and injected a practiced icy edge into his words. Through his own menacing smile, he said, "Feel free to decline, Thrakst. I'd welcome the opportunity to render you and every one of your ships into a boiling lump of molten slag; just like we did to the last Zoxyth that came this way."
***
Thrakst blinked. After a moment, he cut the connection, not deigning to address Johnston's demand or his braggadocious claim. Of course, the Lord had known the fate of Commodore Salyth the instant the Galactic Guardian had shown itself. "You'll pay for that one, Admiral," Thrakst whispered.
A hand grasped his upper arm, and Raja Phascyre whispered into his right ear. "Lord, we should accept his offer."
Stunned, Thrakst turned toward his old friend. After a moment, he knocked the Raja's hand from his arm. "You forget yourself, Raja."
Beyond the old warrior, the sensor officer looked confusedly from the Raja and back to him.
Thrakst pointed at the hatchling. "What?"
"Lord Thrakst, as I told Raja Phascyre, I have a fix on the disruptor's transmitter."
The Lord glowered at Phascyre then turned back to the officer. "Show me!"
The officer nodded and punched a command into his console. The Lord's personal display reactivated and zoomed in on a sensor blister that protruded from a corner of the Galactic Guardian.
Thrakst opened a fleet-wide channel. "All ships! On my mark, engage your nearest enemy ship, and then shift fire to this target."
He transmitted the coordinates and then reached for the controls on the arm of his cathedra, intent on reopening the GDF communications channel.
Raja Phascyre's hand shot out.
"My Lord, this is not—"
"Phascyre," Thrakst said through a low growl. Using his superior size and strength, he ripped the Raja's hand away from his forearm. As he held the warrior's hand in a crushing grip, Thrakst whispered into the Raja's ear. "The Forebearers may forgive you, but if you question my command again, I will free your shoulders from the burden of carrying your head."
Thrakst watched myriad emotions cross the Raja's sole eye. Finally, he bowed his head and retreated a step.
Shaking his head, Thrakst opened the communications channel.
The faces of the two Argonian commanders returned to his display.
"Well, Admiral Johnston," Thrakst said, pouring as much disdain into the title as had Johnston. "Since you asked so nicely, here's my answer."
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Sandy stared at the surreal Mexican stand-off painted across her fighter's immersive display. Almost two minutes had ticked by—an eternity when hanging on the precipice of battle. However, no one had fired yet. She toggled her radio. "Six, this is Seven. What do you—?"
Suddenly, the entire universe slid sideways, every visible point of reference jumping fractionally right. A brilliant beam of light visible as a white line outside the auto-darkened spherical display burned through the space that, a millisecond earlier, had been occupied by her fighter. If not for the drive's inertial dampening, the speed of the short, lateral leap would have turned Sandy into a red lump spread across the concave surface of the ship's interior.
In the brief moment that it took for Sandy to register the event, hundreds of additional white threads leaped from the enemy formation. Like spokes of a wheel, they radiated out from the dreadnoughts, trying to impale the encircling ring of GDF ships on their burning spears.
However, every warship in the haloing formation of vessels easily evaded its assigned beam. Their virtually inertialess leaps kept them just out of the Zoxyth line of fire.
Sandy knew that the combination of superior weapons and drive technology afforded commanders of the Galactic Defense Forces the option of asking questions
first and firing later.
However, the enemy apparently wasn't in a question-answering mood.
That was fine with Major Fitzpatrick. She smiled and fired all of her weapons.
***
"Looks like they aren't in a surrendering mood," Jake said.
Remulkin grinned menacingly. "Good."
"Gunfighter Squadron, on me," Colonel Giard ordered across the unit's EON channel.
Turning the Turtle toward their assigned target, Jake rocketed the fat ship at a Zoxyth dreadnought near one corner of the enemy's diamond formation.
As he led the squadron inbound on their first strafing run, a beam reached for the Turtle. Instantly, the ship leaped out of the line of fire. Then a brilliant light on Jake's left made his heart skip a beat. He feared that the aliens had fired another gene weapon. Looking in that direction, he saw a blindingly bright ball of fire. However, it wasn't growing; its size remained unchanged for the brief moment that he could stand to look directly at it. The intensity faded for a millisecond, and Jake saw the Galactic Guardian at the center of the glowing sphere.
He breathed a sigh of relief. The light hadn't been a gene weapon. It appeared that every enemy dreadnought had directed a portion of its firepower into the carrier. Under intense enemy attack, the Guardian's shields glowed so brightly that it looked like a miniature sun had taken up orbit around the planet.
Sandy opened their direct EON link. "I guess the assholes figured out which ship is generating the disruptor field," she said.
Jake heard something in her voice: a tone he normally associated with their intimate moments. She's actually enjoying this, he thought. Subvocalizing, Jake said, "You're right; they're hammering the Guardian, but don't worry about them. Concentrate on yourself."
"Yes, Colonel," she said with the same excited tone and then cut the connection.
Giard grinned. Even his heart raced in response to the adrenaline pumping into his system. The imagery beyond the view-wall eclipsed anything he'd seen in the first battle. Brilliant plasma beams interlaced with flickering lightning bolts backlit by bursting nuclear bunker busters painted a mural of horrifying energies. No science fiction special effects artist had ever captured this level of intensity.