As long as she was yelling at him, Abhay knew he had a chance. It was with coldness that Margaret showed her worst. He had to tread carefully. He opened his mouth to speak several times, but the arching of her eyebrows told him to keep his mouth shut and words out of it. All he could do was stand there wringing his hands. As his stomach roiled and his jaw clenched, he realized his trials were just beginning. He could not lose Margaret.
Margaret stood on the balls of her feet with fists clenched tightly at her sides. Her full lips pulled together in a slim white line as she held in her rage. Abhay hoped in vain that she would use one of her fists to strike him. For a moment, he thought she might, but then she let out a breath and stormed out of the courtyard leaving Abhay with weak legs that barely allowed him to make it to a seated position. In that moment, he had never felt so hollow.
25
Three days in the ether past blinkpoint brought the Reptilian Alpha ship to the edge of the Kelgar system heliosphere. Sslolg ordered the ship to maintain its energy field at maximum, as the warship hurtled towards the seventh planet just shy of light speed.
“All stations report systems nominal. Reactors one and two are operating at 85% and reactors three and four are on full-power standby,” Gholss announced proudly at the right hand of his Alpha. The two officers stood on the raised center platform at bridge center looking out at the short dashes of stars that moved past the main viewing bulkhead.
Sslolg gave his first officer the honor of locking eyes directly. “Very good, First Officer Gholss. My compliments once again to the crew. What is our arrival time estimate?”
“Under 12 units, Alpha Commander Sslolg,” the First Officer responded in crisp fashion.
“Have my shuttle ready by the time we get there, I want to —” Sslolg began, but his order was clipped by the squeal of an alarm.
“What is that!” shouted Gholss, taking three aggressive strides the operations station.
“I sound the proximity alert, sir. Sensors indicate Insectoid vessel directly ahead at 74 million units and closing.”
“Insectoid?” Sslolg asked, not believing the words.
“Confirm!” Gholss ordered.
“Put the image on the holo pedestal!” Sslolg ordered. “Full data overlay! I want to know everything about that ship as soon as you know it!”
As ordered, the ensign quickly produced an image of the insectoid craft. The young officer tapped his claws at a furious rate at the controls as he ran multiple sensor sweeps while calculating, and recalculating the data.
Gholss took his place over his Alpha’s shoulder again. “No, Sslolg said,” Stand directly beside me. I need you to look at this carefully.”
Gholss obeyed with a measure of pride he could barely conceal. His Alpha wanted him to stand at an equal distance. Gholss was almost dizzy at the amount of honors coming his way.
“What do you see?” Sslolg asked like a professor guiding a student.
Gholss took his time in answering, reading the data with great deliberation. He said, “I see an insectoid vessel, Guardian class. These power readings seem to indicate they are traveling at half-light speed. They are in no rush. Their particle fields indicate passive configuration. They are vulnerable to attack. Their course is steady, so it is not likely they see us.”
“And even if they do see us,” Sslolg said, “They are not likely to assume a defensive posture because they have no reason to believe they are facing a threat.
“So we should attack while we can,” Gholss said.
“I concur,” Sslolg said Turning to the crew, he bellowed, “Take us to blinkpoint! I want us no further than ten million ticks directly ahead of that ship!”
“But Alpha,” the senior helmsman replied, “We are still in the termination shock region. If we go to plus C here, we —”
The first officer turned toward the helmsman, squatted down, then uncoiled his legs. Gholss shot forward like a cannonball and barely slowed when his claws made contact with the hapless ensign. Gholss pinned the ensign to the deck while straddling his chest, then reached back raked his claw across the junior officer’s face.
“You do as your Alpha orders, or you become his next meal! I don’t care who you have to kill to make this order happen! It takes casualties to make casualties, so get to work!”
Gholss stood, dragged the officer to his feet and threw him back into his seat. For good measure, he cuffed the helmsman in the side of his head with an open palm. The crew carried out the order even though the probability was high that the move would lead to death to crew members and damage to the ship.
The Alpha ship bolted ahead with an intensity not even the strongest inertia fields could tolerate. Sslolg had to grip the edge of the holo pedestal to stay upright. It took a full second to enter blinkpoint and exit in front of the Insectoid craft.
“Match enemy vessel speed and prepare mass drivers!” Sslolg ordered.
“Power systems at 47% sir, shunting reactor three to compensate,” replied the operations officer. “Weapons! Mass driver status!”
“Full operation on all ejector bays. I’m showing 85% operation on targeting sensors due to radiation damage.”
Gholss confirmed the readings, turned to his Alpha, said, “At this distance, they won’t be able to avoid our volley.”
“That is precisely the plan,” Sslolg replied, “Damage to the ship was minimal, low casualties. Now we know what the ship can take.”
On the Alpha’s Order, the weapons crew deployed a screen of hard, metal spheres. They ranged in size from several centimeters to a hundred meters. At near-light speed, they would carry the relative force of an entire planet. The insectoid ship was directly in its path.
“Time to impact!” Gholss hissed. Sylvia crested his double rows of small, pointy teeth and dripped down his chin. A forked tongue flicked from his mouth to retrieve it.
“Thirteen divisions, eight ticks,” the operations officer replied, never taking his eyes from the data displays. Gholss could have read the figures himself, but his eyes were blurry with battle lust.
“Begin deceleration sequence and come about in a shallow arc,” Sslolg ordered. “Prepare directed energy weapons for the finishing blow.”
As the moment of impact approach, the bridge crew stilled. All eyes focused on the series of red dots that represented the mass screen. The graphic clearly showed the Insectoid ship closing fast on the deadly wall.
“Enemy ship velocity reduction,” the ops officer announced.
“They detect the attack,” Gholss observed. The move was unexpected, but he calculated that it should not matter.
“Impact immanent,” said ops, and began counting down.
The combat display showed a gray orb that spread out for twenty-thousand kilometers around the point where the Insectoid craft met the screen. A dispersal of energy blacked out sensor readings for a short, but critical time Acquiring the target again would take some time.
“Report!” Gholss ordered.
“Sensors indicate a massive energy release indicative of a critical hit,” ops station reported.
Sslolg watched the symbol representing his ship make a sweeping curve around the screen. He planned to strike the finishing blow from the enemy’s stern. That was, if there was still a ship left to attack. Readings indicated a release of energy large enough to be a reactor breach.
“Get those sensors cleared up!” Gholss screeched. “We need trajectory data!”
“Compensating for sensor damage, Sir,” ops replied, coming dangerously close to insubordination by oblique reference to the move that damaged the sensors.
“Sensors live!” Ops cried triumphantly.
At first, Sslolg did not understand what he saw. It appeared that the mass screen was completely intact. He thought it was sensor shadows from the energy burst, but then he noticed that the dots were not spaced in the tiered matrix pattern that defined a mass screen. The dots demonstrated high velocity and a very specific trajectory. They numbered a
bout two hundred on a direct intercept heading.
“No,” Sslolg said, “This cannot be.”
“Alpha Commander?” Gholss asked with confidence draining from his voice.
“All emitters! Full defense field now!” Sslolg bellowed.
When the defensive fields failed to materialize, Gholss stepped over to the ops station where the smell of fear pheromones both sickened him and made him feel even more violent. When he saw the black symbols on the status board that represented scores of damaged emitters, he grew more ill. Their jump to blinkpoint caused damage that made repelling a counter attack impossible. Sslolg had set them up for offensive moves only.
“Enemy craft proximity alert!” Ops shouted.
As if to punctuate the status, the hull rumbled with impact. The deck dropped a few inches below every reptile’s claws.
“Report!” Sslolg raged. “Don’t wait for me to ask for a report! What is happening!”
“The enemy launched a wave of smaller craft, sir. Some of them made contact at high velocity with our hull. Others are …” the Ops officer trailed off.
Gholss grabbed him by the chest straps of his battle harness, pressed his snout inches from the hapless ensign’s nostrils and shouted, “Speak!”
“Some of them are attaching to the hull.”
Sslolg engaged all his will in the effort to rein in his chaotic thoughts. “Ship wide announcement: all crew members, prepare for boarding. Stand by for deployment locations in a message from Ops.”
The Ensign pushed Gholss away and renewed his effort at his data console. On the combat display, a disturbing portion of graphical space now showed a local schematic of the Alpha Ship’s hull. Enemy vessels clung to the starboard side over half the ship’s length.
“They are cutting through the outer bulkheads,” Gholss said. The nervous Ensign sent silent orders for armed Reptiles to converge on those areas.
“They used small, unarmed craft as missiles. Twenty-five impacts, three critical. We have over a hundred confirmed hull contacts. An unknown number of enemy craft were destroyed.”
“Damage,” Gholss asked with a tone that mixed fear, shame and anger.
“They knew where to hit us. Power is down on decks four through seven on the starboard side. They took out many more particle emitters — having a hard time getting a complete count. We have some damage to the propulsion systems. Sending a crew to assess the damage now. No contact yet from the borders.”
A strange and unfamiliar voice filled the bridge. It spoke synthesized tradespeak in a neutral dialect. “You have no reports of contact because we kill all Reptilians who attack us.”
“They’re in our systems! Security Engineers, lock them out!” Gholss ordered.
“They are only in the Comms,” said an engineering officer, “Already locked out, sir. They managed to splice into our emergency comm system. I encrypted the system. They will not be able to do that again.”
“You have not met enough of them yet,” Sslolg replied calmly. He was in trouble and he knew it. He wondered how things went so bad so quickly.
“Open channel to all Ground Soldiers: secure all critical engineering systems, then converge on these sections,” Gholss said, and pointed at the Ops officer, who quickly relayed information to the Ground Soldiers. “Repel the boarders at all cost. Repeat. Repel all boarders.”
Sslolg added to the order. “Prepare a force for a hull-walk. Destroy the Insectoid craft attached to us.”
“First Officer Gholss,” the head security officer announced to the bridge, “We have significant numbers of Arachnids and Stingers onboard. They appear to be converging on engineering as you deduced, Alpha Commander.”
“Confirm report: Arachnids?” Sslolg asked. He fell into disbelief. Arachnids were not known to travel offworld. Even in the darkest days of the Silicoid wars, their presence on the battlefield was exceedingly rare.
“Arachnids confirmed. They are armed with what appear to be hunting rifles,” Security said.
“Alpha commander!” Ops interjected, “We have multiple hull breaches on decks four through seven.”
“The same decks where they cut power,” Gholss observed.
“They set off explosives, and appear to be leaving the ship through the breaches with …” Ops reported.
“Webs, Sir. They are attaching filament to their ships through the breaches. The Stingers are following suit.”
“But they didn’t get to engineering,” Gholss said.
“It was a ruse,” Sslolg said. “They never intended on getting to engineering. This was a surgical strike.” In all the commotion, he completely lost track of the Insectoid main craft. It didn’t matter. He knew the attacking Insectoid craft would head back to their mothership. Their goal was complete. “The good of this is that they don’t have the capacity to destroy us, or they surely would. Insectoids are mild and peaceful until attacked, then, they usually show no mercy. The fact that we are alive shows us that they can’t kill us.” Turning to Ops, Sslolg asked, “Weapons?”
“Still configuring, Alpha Commander. Rerouting power to functioning emitters.”
“Propulsion and maneuvering status?” Sslolg asked, following through.
“Full function on maneuvering, but the emitter status won’t let us travel above half-light speed.” Ops reported.
The next logical question was slow in coming. It seemed a contest to determine whether the First Officer of the Alpha Commander would be the first to ask for the most painful report. Gholss turned out to be the one to take on the distasteful task.
“Casualty report,” Gholss said.
“Seventy-five dead, forty wounded,” Ops replied without hesitation. The numbers were obviously already on his screen.
“Let them go, Sslolg said. They win this time. Next time, we will destroy them.”
***
Neither Fourseven or Cila had to give an order or even a suggestion in response to the Reptilian attack. Leader detected the Reptilians as soon as they left blinkpoint. They thought nothing of it. The appearance of a large craft in the Kelgar system seemed to be just another cargo ship. Leader wasn’t suspicious of its size or bearing.
When the Reptilian ship suddenly entered blinkpoint only to appear directly in line with their trajectory, the Protector instantly ramped up to full alert. The Arachnid Engineers engaged the deceleration sequence and the helm executed a sharp turn. It was still too late for the Protector to avoid the mass screen, but the energy surplus from the throttled-back engines went into a hastily-erected defensive particle field.
Damage was bad, but the field saved them from the worst. Multiple hull breaches showed up as angry yellow shapes every status console, but luckily all the damaged sections were unoccupied. They lost maneuvering repulsors. They had no weapons. To save time back in the home system, Fourseven ordered that the weapons systems be left offline. Even as the ship shuddered, shook and rattled with multiple impacts, Fourseven vowed never to make such a foolish mistake again.
What made both Cila and Fourseven most proud were the actions of Arachnid Rangers and her own Winged Soldiers. Response teams formed spontaneously. In a matter of minutes, 250 shuttles launched with a good number of them operating via remote control.
Arachnid Engineers piloted the unmanned shuttles from the bridge, using them as missiles to breach the enemy ship. Other shuttles attached themselves to the Reptilian vessel, some cutting through the hull, others taking advantage of the improvised missile damage.
Reports coming back from the mission reported limited contact once the joint Arachnid/Winged teams boarded. They got in, did as much damage as they could, then left. When Leader reported back, Fourseven was pleased to learn that the suffered minimal casualties that involved no loss of life and only minimal injury. Cila and Fourseven listened with great interest to Leader as stood before them on the bridge.
“And the explosive devices?” Cila asked expectantly. It was her idea to improvise the explosives and have the arachnids
plant them before leaving.
“Your soldiers managed to plant most of them, if not all,” Leader said, “I am impressed with their work.”
Fourseven was pleased. The restrained compliment from Leader was tantamount to high praise. She walked over to a command console staffed by one of her younger sons.
She addressed him by his Hive number and asked, “Do you have positive contact with the devices?”
When he answered affirmatively, Fourseven ordered him to issue the detonation signal. To the helm officer, she ordered, “Proceed to Kelgar 7 at maximum speed. Engineering, deploy repair crews and ready weapons.”
26
It took more than a day for the commandeered Reptilian combat craft to catch up to Fleetfoot I. In the process, Reggie and Gajrup learned a great deal about it. They reduced its mass by nearly half by detaching the unused cargo modules. Stripped of the containers, the craft took on a skeletal look. Reggie remarked that it resembled an animal skull with a bleached spinal column still attached.
With the supply of smoking material from the hidden contraband compartments on Reggie’s shuttle, the captured Reptiles didn’t complain at all. In fact, many of them grew downright cooperative. Drexler began to worry his plan was going too well. In his experience, intense winning streaks usually produced an equally intense correction.
The shuttle they called Reggie 1 landed in its cargo bay home with fluid grace. Drexler couldn’t get the hatch open fast enough.
“We will forego decontamination protocol,” Drexler called over his shoulder, ducking his head to exit the shuttle before the ramp touched the deck. He hopped down and trotted across the hold. At the ladder, climbing fast, he realized that the gravity field was turned up. “Mumlo,” Drexler muttered through clenched teeth. He reached the bridge in record time. Mumlo stared at him with his giant, black marbles he called eyes and said not a word.
Fleetfoot Interstellar: Fleetfoot Interstellar Series, Book 1 Page 22