by Alex Kings
Chapter 61: Attack
Twenty-eight ships.
Silvery threads lanced into two of them, destroying them before they could even activate their engines.
The rest of the fleet dropped shields together. In twenty-six spots, space rippled and began to open.
Another ship went up, neatly sliced in half by the Tethyans. Kinetics chewed into the hull of another. Its wormhole shuddered and failed. A seconds later, as the wormhole reached full size, a spread of nuclear explosions erupted around another, tearing apart its hull.
The wormhole moved towards the ships.
Another ship fell under Tethyan fire.
At the last moment, a frigate, knocked to the side by the Dauntless's fire, encountered its wormhole off-centre. Its left half went through. Its right half stayed behind. Its torn and ragged edge vomited debris and vapour for a moment before it exploded.
That was the final casualty. The rest of the ships vanished, wormholes closing behind them.
All that remained was wreckage – and the largest station, which had been left behind.
By Hanson's count, eighteen ships had escaped. Mostly the weaker ones. But still too many. He sighed.
“We're getting a hail from the station,” said Miller. She frowned slightly. “It's a surrender.”
“Let them stew in that for the time being,” Hanson said. “Contact the Tethyans.”
“Yes, sir.”
The visual on one of the displays went to a view of empty blue ocean. The voice confirmed it: “We must secure the station as quickly as possible and search for intel,” said the Admiral.
“Agreed,” said Hanson. “I'll send down three teams. That's as many as we can manage.”
“We will match that number,” said the Admiral. “They shall meet your shuttles outside the docks in one minute.”
*
Arka stomped down the corridor, oversized gun in each hand. A smattering of IL staff remained, humans scampering around in a panic like bugs. He didn't swerve to avoid them, and they dodged when he passed.
They were the nonessentials, those left behind or those who had been too slow or too scared. The failures, Arka though bitterly. Like himself, really.
Round the corner, Eulen floated up to him. “Arka!” he said. “What is –”
Without missing a beat, Arka moved one of his guns to his middle hand. Reaching forward, he grabbed Eulen's, twisted the suit so its weapons faced away from him, and slammed it against the wall with a bang.
Eulen was too surprised to try a synthesized voice at that moment.
“You!” snarled Arka. “You didn't kill him! Hanson! He's the one ordering us to surrender!”
“I know,” Eulen said after a moment. “Put me down.”
Arka glared at him for a moment. Gun trained on Eulen, he dropped him. The suit glided down smoothly on its effector fields.
“We are in a difficult situation against a highly effective opponent,” said Eulen, as if this somehow added new information to the conversation. “We need to work together to stop him.”
Arka growled. He didn't like to admit it, but he agreed. “Pierce said he wants the computers destroyed. What do you have in mind?” he said.
“The crew here have already surrendered,” began Eulen. “That's to our advantage. The first step is to appear harmless.”
“A brilliant strategic insight,” growled Arka.
Eulen reached out with a red effector field to grab a technician running past, and dragged the man into the conversation. “Does this station have external weapons?” he asked.
The tech looked between Arka's reptilian face and Eulen's top segment. “I, uh,” he began.
“Weapons!” roared Arka.
The man cowered. “We have anti-meteoroid lasers,” he said at last.
“Good. Internal weapons?” continued Eulen.
“There … there's a weapons locker on deck 3. Oh! Also we have some Blanks in storage. They'll respond to the highest-ranking crew member on-board.” The tech rubbed his hands together nervously. He'd clearly accepted the new hierarchy. “Are we actually fighting?”
“Yes,” grunted Arka.
“You won't be,” said Eulen. “Arka will handle the fighting inside. Get a team of your people to activate the Blanks, put them under Arka's control, and arm them. Get someone else to show me to the laser control station. Set everyone else to destroying the records. Wipe the computers, then physically destroy them. Understood?”
The tech gave a nervous nod.
Eulen turned his upper segment to Arka. “Is that an acceptable plan?”
Arka had to admit, it was.
“Good,” said Eulen. “Now, go, get to work” he told the tech.
The man went running off down the corridor.
*
Arka paced back and forth in the control room, studying a map of the station. In front of him, a platoon of twenty Blanks stood to attention while staff raced back and forth arming them. His rage hadn't subsided so much as he had redirected it. Before he had been an explosion. Now he was a laser. All his passion and power was focussed on making the plan work and killing his opponent.
Elsewhere, computer specialists discussed the best way to completely destroy the records: “A surge through the peripherals should do it.”
“What about the main core?”
“We need that for the time being. Uh, … sir?”
Arka looked up. “What?”
“When you don't need the systems anymore, could you break this?” The technician gestured to a large casing in the centre of the room, surrounded by control panels. “It holds the last of the records.”
“Sure,” Arka grunted. He went back to the map, gestured at the tablet a few times, them summoned the lead technician over. “They come in here, right?”
“Yes.”
“Make everything seem normal when they come in. Fawn over your captors, piss yourselves, whatever you humans do. They'll have to split up here to cover the whole station. Keep an eye on them, and tell me where Hanson's team is. Then I go to kill him.”
The tech nodded, then stared at him. “What about everyone else?”
“We let them take us into custody.” Arka laughed. “I'm not scared of death, human. But I'm not suicidal. Fighting the Tethyans isn't winnable. We're just here to kill Hanson and his people. They're the main thorn in Pierce's side.”
“They're here!” said someone else.
Arka stretched, drooped the tablet, and readied his guns.
Chapter 62: Secure the Station
Outside the station's primary docks, six shuttles gathered. Three crystalline blue, narrow-waisted ovoids haloed in effector fields, and beside them three blocky-looking boxes of titanium and sapphiroid.
In one of the latter, Hanson sat on one of the benches, talking to his Tethyan counterpart. “We're assembled and ready to go.”
“As are we. The humans aboard the station are likely to be more pliable if you contact them.”
I rather doubt that, thought Hanson, but he said, “Very well.” He hailed the station and said, “We're ready to dock. Open the bay doors and assemble on the front side with your hands in air. We'll shoot anyone not in position.”
“Yes, of course,” said the voice on the other end.
The bays doors opened, offering a simple flat landing pad, with a pressurised chamber on the front wall. The six shuttled landed side-by-side. The doors closed, the chamber depressurised. And, as ordered, the techs filed out of thee control chamber and stood in front of it, hands raised.
Hanson opened the shuttle's gullwing doors and stepped out. The rest of Team One – Agatha, Srak and Yilva – followed him out. He looked round the dock carefully, carbine raised. Everything seemed to be in order.
The skin of one of the Tethyan shuttles expanded into a blister, which then separated into a sphere of water holding a Tethyan in a floating sphere of water. Another blister followed it immediately.
“We're clear,” Hanson said ov
er the comms.
Team Two followed, headed by Moore, with Vyren and Saito following. Team Three came after.
The Tethyan Marines (if that was a category that made sense in Tethyan ships) collected into three teams also.
Hanson spoke to the whole group. “Secure the station, obtain intel and take the staff into custody.” He called up helmet displays for everyone, showing a map. “Team One, here. Team Two, here. Team Three, here.” He looked to the Tethyans.
“We will take these locations,” said a synthesized voice. He couldn't see to whom it belonged, but three blue routes appeared on his helmet display. Collectively, they could cover the whole station.
“Move out!” he said.
*
“In here,” said the human, pulling open a door for Eulen. “There are the local controls for the lasers.”
Eulen followed him inside. The room was small, filled with banks of ceiling-high computers and control panels. It wasn't the sort of place meant for ordinary usage – just as a backup if there was a problem with centralised control.
“But I'm not sure if I see the point in this,” said the human, activating one of the consoles. “The lasers aren't strong enough to go toe-to-toe with a frigate.”
“We don't have to,” said Eulen. “They're not expecting an attack. If we take our time and aim just right, we might get a killing blow. Do these lasers have links to each other's capacitors?”
“I believe so,” said the human, calling up a schematic.
Eulen studied it for a moment. “Good,” he said. “Connect all the capacitors to discharge into a single laser. It'll burn out the turret, but we only have one shot regardless.”
The human set to work.
“When we're ready, charge the capacitor slowly. They'll detect a fast buildup.”
The human nodded, gesturing at the screen.
Eulen floated back, satisfied. It would take some time for the capacitors to charge.
He called Arka on the comms. “Status?”
“They're here,” growled Arka. “I'm just about to set off. A couple of minutes and I'll be picking Hanson's corpse out of my teeth!” He laughed.
Eulen knew that was a jab at him, at his failure to pull off the assassination. But there was something more urgent to worry about. He let it slide, and signed off with “Good luck.”
“It'll be a couple of minutes before the capacitors have reached full charge,” said the human.
Just as he thought: There might not be enough time. That meant preparing a backup plan. “Stay here,” he told the human. “As soon as it reaches full charge, fire. I'll look for some way to delay them.”
The human looked over his his shoulder at Eulen. He seemed uncertain for a moment, but then went back to the console.
Eulen slipped out of the control room, heard it lock behind him, then headed towards an auxiliary shuttle bay.
Chapter 63: Operations Room
For the secret base of a rogue organisation that wanted to conquer the galaxy, it was all very ordinary, Hanson thought. For the most part, it could have been any Alliance base. They found administrative centres, food storage, kitchens and mess-halls, labs ...
They moved through the station cautiously, carbines raised. When they encountered staff ready to surrender, Srak pulled a think strip of smart matter from his satchel and turned it into handcuffs. The cuffs also served as locator beacons, and would stun their captive if anyone without authorisation attempted to remove them.
They investigated all the nooks and crannies along their route, dead-end corridors and empty storage rooms.
At the first computer terminal, Yilva gestured at the blank screen. When that gave no response, she checked the crystalline innards, all patterned with fractures, and shook her head. “Overloaded,” she said.
The next terminal was the same, and the one after that.
When Hanson asked, the staff confirmed that the terminals had cracked loudly soon after the ships had jumped away. The computer specialists confirmed that a pulse could knock out all the peripheral terminals.
“Is there anywhere a terminal might survive?” Hanson asked.
“In the operations room, maybe. And a few of the local networks, if they were isolated.”
“Which ones?”
When he'd got a list, Hanson shared it with the other teams and told them to keep an eye out, then headed onwards.
The operations room was circular with a low dome of a ceiling. In the centre, a wide pillar of a computer was surrounded by console and displays hanging from the ceiling. Other consoles were scattered around the walls, split by six equidistant doors.
And it was empty.
Suspicious, Hanson raised his carbine immediately. Agatha and Srak followed suit. He walked into the room slowly, checking for anywhere an attacker might be lurking.
Yilva hung back in the doorway while the rest of the team completed a circle. When he was certain, Hanson summoned her forward.
Yilva bounded across the room to one of the consoles. Giving it an on gesture, she said, “Let's hope this one doesn't explode.”
The console lit up and started to load.
“Huh,” said Yilva.
“What?” Hanson asked.
“It actually … worked. No weird stuff going on, or anything.”
The doors to the operations room slammed open. All six of them.
“Down!” cried Hanson.
He looked to the closest door, and saw the corridor beyond was empty. For a fraction of a second he thought he'd made a fool of himself. Then gunfire roared.
The attackers must have opened all the doors together to disguise which direction they were coming from. Hanson scanned the periphery of the room.
Blanks stood at two of the doors on opposite sides of the room, carbines ready. In the moment it took Hanson to see this, one had taken aim at him.
There was no cover nearby. The Blank would fire before he could. Still, he swung his carbine round to aim at it, and –
Srak barrelled into him at the same moment the Blank fired. The force of it nearly winded Hanson, but in a matter of moments Srak covered several metres, moving him into cover behind one of the outer consoles.
“Hope you don't mind,” Srak said. In a couple of places, his armour was punctured. Blood ran out from beneath. He barely seemed to notice it.
“Not at all,” Hanson said, scrambling to his feet. He glanced at Srak. “Thanks.”
Together they leaned out and shot down a Blank coming from that corridor.
“Yilva?” Hanson said over the comms.
“I'm fine! Not hurt.”
Another pair of Blanks were trying to come through the corridor. Hanson held them back with suppressive fire. “Good,” he said. Then, switching channels, he said, “This is Team One. We've hit a situation in the operations room. Backup requested immediately.”
A Tethyan voice was first to respond: “Understood. Approaching now.”
Hanson leaned out to fire again, and found the corridor empty. Gunfire seemed to have stooped.
Then: Boot steps from the corridor behind him.
The Blanks were attacking from another direction. “I've got Blanks coming in from corridor two,” he said, jumping up and sprinting for better cover.
“Confirm that,” said Agatha. “And five.”
“Oh crumbs,” said Yilva.
“C'mon,” said Agatha. Hanson caught sight of the two of them running together, changing position.
He dived behind another console as bullets roared behind him. Leaning out, he fired back.
In response, there was a thunderclap. The console folded in on itself under some immense, invisible force.
“Crap, not these things again,” he muttered, running for new cover. Sprays of bullets followed him. “Come on. Now would be great time for backup.”
The Blank holding the Ancient weapon took aim again as its weapon recharged. It settled on Hanson's cover.
Then its head vanished with a boom. It
fell to the ground.
Agatha's laugh came loud and distorted over the comms. “Good shot!”
“I try,” said Srak. Confidently standing out of cover in the way only a Varanid could get away it, he turned his aim on another Blank.
There was another boom. The armour on Srak's shoulder shattered. With a roar of pain, Srak stumbled forward and nearly dropped his gun.
It was followed by a pounding gallop from the corridor behind Srak. There was another shot, which Srak managed to dodge. The bullet tore into the console behind him.
Then Arka came running out. He slammed into Srak, smacking his pistol out of his hand and sending them both of them tumbling towards the centre of the room.
Hanson couldn't intervene. He was still holding off a line of Blanks attacking from the corridor opposite. As he raised his carbine again, he caught sight of a grenade sailing towards him on a perfect arc.
Chapter 64: Crystal Spear
Srak's shoulder lit up in pain. With his back against the central computer, he looked frantically for his gun.
It was out of reach. Arka was bigger than him, unhurt, armed, and about to shoot.
Srak took a moment, pretending to be dazed, but actually bracing himself against the console. Then he lunged forward. The force of him pushing off dented the console. His trajectory took him below Arka's line of fire, and his head rammed into Arka's belly.
Arka fell back with a snarl. He regained his balance quickly and grabbed Srak's neck. With a lower arm he brought his pistol up.
Hanson ran past behind Arka. Then there was a flash of light, and a scouring pain down Srak's side. A close-range grenade-blast.
It took both of them by surprise, but Srak recovered quicker. He twisted out of Arka's grasp and bit down on an upper-forearm as hard as he could. Arka roared in pain.
Jaws still clamped down, Srak grabbed Arka's pistol and twisted out of his hand. He was about to turn it against Arka when a fist swung out of nowhere and hit him in the belly. He fell back, and Arka smacked the gun out of his hand.